64

PAYING THE POTTER.

nothing left but to pay the potter and discharge him. To meet this debt, there was no other alternative left to poor Bernard, but to give him a portion of his own scanty wardrobe. He could not afford to keep the man longer, and was again obliged to work alone at the most difficult and arduous part of the undertaking. A new furnace had to be built, and Bernard had neither money nor credit with which to procure new materials. He was, therefore, forced to take down the old furnace, "built after the manner of the glass-workers," to make use of the old bricks and stone. "Then," he tells us, "because the said furnace had been so strongly heated"-with palings, tables and floorings-"for six days and nights, the mortar and bricks were liquefied and vitrified in such a manner, that in loosening the masonry I had my fingers bruised and cut in so many places, that I was obliged to eat my pottage with my fingers wrapped in rags!"

Wounded and bleeding, Palissy had again to be his own mason, fetching stone and mortar without help and without rest. Still, with unconquerable energy, he continued his work, somewhat encouraged that the first baking of his beautiful vessels was entirely successful. His earthen dishes and vases had but to be covered with enamel to become costly and beautiful works of art. By borrowing from a trusting neighbour, and by other means, the materials for making the enamel were purchased, and Bernard proceeded to grind them and

THE STRENGTH OF NECESSITY.

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prepare them for the furnace. Several days were passed in vain, in attempting to bring them to the right consistency; and Palissy tells us "that there followed a labour which, for me, appeared to baffle all my wits." He was forced at last, without any aid, to grind the materials in a hand-mill, "which it usually required two strong men to turn." Certainly, with his wounded hands, this must have appeared almost an impossibility; and we can easily believe the honest potter when he tells us, "that the desire which I had to succeed in my enterprise made me do things which I should have esteemed impossible." Hope, too, cheered him on. Hitherto this last six months' labours had produced good results. The designs of his vessels were graceful and original; the pots had been well made and succeeded in the first baking. Palissy had glazed them well, giving a due proportion to each, and until he perceived some sign of the enamel being melted was unremitting in feeding his furnace.

It was, indeed, more than ever a matter of importance that Bernard should be successful this time. With the utmost self-denial during the last eight months, he had still been obliged to borrow money, not only to supply food for his family, but also to enable him to continue his work. His creditors had been held in check by the hope that his present success would bring him some three or four hundred francs; and, therefore, it was not as uninterested spectators, that they crowded round

F

66

PALISSY'S FIRST BATCH.

him on the eventful morning on which he was to draw forth his first batch.

Nor were Palissy's calculations in fault; his furnace, his drugs, the heat employed were all right. And yet, when he came to draw forth his work, "his sorrows and distresses were so abundantly augmented that he lost all countenance!" There they were the graceful evidences of his skill as an artist-perfect in design and form-and yet they were not successful!

An accident had occurred, which it was perfectly impossible Palissy could have foreseen, and which was simply the result of his want of experience. The mortar prepared by himself, for which his bleeding hands had drawn the water with so much pain, had been full of small flints.

The heat employed to melt the enamels had caused the mortar to burst in several places. "Then," says poor Bernard, "because the splinters of the flint struck against my work, the enamel, which was already liquefied and converted into a glutinous matter, retained the said flints, and held them attached on all sides of my vessels and medallions, which, except for that, would have been beautiful! I received," he continues, "nothing but shame and confusion; because my pieces were all bestrewn with little morsels of flint, that were attached so firmly to each vessel, that when one passed the hand over it, the said flint cut like razors."

Still, it was impossible not to admire the beau