“A good man shall be satisfied from himself.”—PROVERBS xiv. 14.
PALISSY was now immured within the walls of the Bordeaux prison. While
he lies there, bereft of the consolation he had hitherto enjoyed in the
society of Victor, we must betake ourselves to a very different scene.
In consequence of the information he received from the Sire de Pons, the
constable Montmorency determined, as the only means of averting the fate
which threatened his ingenious workman, to apply himself, in person, to
the queen mother, through whose influence the court might be induced to
protect him. In fact, Catherine was herself virtually monarch, and a
word from her would suffice. The sole redeeming quality of this woman of
evil renown was, an enlightened taste for literature and the fine arts, a
taste which seems to have been hereditary in her family. She enriched
the royal library with many precious manuscripts of Greece and Italy, and
presented to it half the volumes which her great ancestor Lorenzo de
Medici had purchased of the Turks, after the taking of Constantinople.
Especially she excelled in her love of the fine arts, and her taste and
genius were displayed in the erection of many châteaux in various
provinces, remarkable for the exactness of their proportions and their
style, at a period when the French had scarcely a notion of the
principles of architecture. At the present time she had just conceived
the purpose of constructing a new residence for herself; and Montmorency
found her, in one of the apartments assigned to her use, in the palace of
the Louvre, busily engaged in looking over some manuscript plans. As the
constable was announced, she raised her eyes from the table on which
these designs were placed, and after receiving his salutations, begged
him to be seated beside her, and pointing with her hand (the most
beautiful one ever beheld, according to a contemporary historian), she
smilingly requested his assistance in her choice. “Allow me, monsieur,”
she said, “to appeal to your judgment, for in the matter now under
consideration, I could not have an adviser whose opinion I should more
highly value. You are aware that the château des Tournelles has been
destined to demolition, and I have, therefore, determined to build me a
new palace, the site of which I am anxious to fix upon. The plan now
before his majesty”—and she glanced at her son, the poor young boy king,
who sat opposite her—“appears to me to present no small advantages.” The
paper to which the queen referred was the plan of a plot of ground close
to the trenches of the Louvre, situated, at that time, out of Paris, and
which had been purchased, some half century before, by king Francis I.,
as a present to his mother, Marie Louise, of Savoy. It had been
originally occupied by tuileries (_i.e._, tile-kilns), and in the old
drawings which Catherine was inspecting, the spots where formerly stood
the wood-yards and baking-houses used in making the bricks and tiles,
were marked out. “Its situation by the river, and the large space
suitable for garden ground attached to it, seem much in its favour,
madame,” said the constable. “And its neighbourhood to the royal
dwelling also,” said the queen, at the same time she unrolled another
map, which she proceeded to examine, with the assistance of Montmorency.
Whilst they are thus engaged we will take the opportunity to say
something of the two royal personages present. Charles IX. was not yet
fourteen years old, tall in stature, strongly but not gracefully built,
and with a countenance of energetic expression, but fierce and unrefined.
The poor lad, invested at so early an age with unbounded authority,
appears to have been naturally of a violent temper, with high animal
spirits. His great passion was the chase, and he also showed
considerable taste for letters. But, kept in subjection to the will of
his mother, and tutored by her to suspect and dissimulate, his natural
character was vitiated, and he suffered himself to continue, to the time
of his death, the passive instrument of her ambition and cruelty. A
remarkable anecdote is told of him, which seems to prove that better
things might have been expected of him, had his education been in
different hands. When but a youth, having perceived that after drinking
wine he was no longer master of himself, he swore never to use it again;
and he kept his oath. What might not have been expected from a prince
gifted with such powers of self-control, had he been judiciously trained?
At the time of which we are speaking, the queen mother was in the decline
of her beauty, though she still retained some remnants of those charms
which adorned her in youth. She was clad in the black robes of her
widowhood, which it was her fancy to persist in wearing long after the
usual period; her hair was completely hidden beneath the angular white
cap we see in the pictures of that day, and her strongly marked features
were softened by the shade of a grey gauze veil. Her eyebrows were dark,
and her eyes, large and brilliant, had a restless severity in their
expression which inspired fear and distrust. Her complexion was olive,
and her figure tall and large, her movements full of grace and majesty,
while an air of command was visible in every gesture.
As she spoke now, the tones of her voice were soft and musical, for it
was her wish to please; but, when angry passions agitated her bosom, they
became dissonant, harsh, and startling.
“I think,” she said, in answer to an observation made by Montmorency,
“the balance of advantages lies much in the favour of the first design,
to which I shall, therefore, give the preference, and will immediately
give directions for digging the foundations of the new palace, and it
shall be named, from the site on which it is built, the Palace of the
Tuileries.” “Well, madam,” said the constable, “your majesty has
admirably chosen, and skilfully selected, an appropriate name for the
intended royal abode.” “It occurred to my recollection,” said Catherine,
“that one of the finest quarters of ancient Athens was called the
Ceramic, because it occupied ground once held by extra-mural potteries.”
“Speaking of potteries reminds me, madam,” said Montmorency, “of the
principal object I had in seeking an interview with your majesty. Among
the workmen I have employed at Écouen, there is a mechanic who evinces a
surprising genius in the art of painting on glass, and who has invented
an enamelled earthenware of great beauty. I know of none equal to him in
skill, and, in fact, I cannot supply his place should he be sacrificed.”
“You should not allow so great a treasure to slip through your hands.
What danger threatens him?” “He is a Huguenot, madam,” was the reply.
“No matter,” said the queen, laughing, “his heresy won’t alter the hues
of his glass or pottery-ware.” “Nay; but he has fallen into the hands of
Nogeret, one of the royalist leaders in Saintonge, and will infallibly be
hanged or burned, and serve him right, as I should say, for a heretic
knave, but that my work is incomplete, and that Master Palissy is a rare
workman. Such skill, too, as he shows in designing, and in the adorning
of gardens! In short, he is precisely the man whom your majesty would
find invaluable in the works you have now in prospect.”
Queen Catherine was by no means unwilling, in so trifling a matter, to
oblige the great constable; besides that, she had a taste for the
patronage of clever artists, and knew too well the difficulty of
procuring such a one as had been described, to turn a deaf ear to the
hint thrown out by Montmorency. “Let an edict be issued, in the king’s
name,” she said, “appointing this Palissy ‘workman in earth to his
majesty.’ He will then, as a servant of the king, be removed from the
jurisdiction of Bordeaux, and his cause can come under no other
cognizance than that of the grand council.” Montmorency expressed his
gratitude, and rose to depart, when the Queen carelessly remarked, “That
was a blundering affair of M. de Guise at Vassy; it drove the Protestants
to such extreme measures that the game of moderation was at an end.” The
constable made no reply, save to shrug his shoulders; but the young king
tittered the following impromptu, which history has preserved:
“François premier, prédit ce point,
Que ceux de la maison de Guise
Mettraient ses enfants en pourpoint
Et son pauvre peuple en chemise.” {126}
Catherine looked disconcerted at this unexpected _jeu-de-mot_ of her son,
and rising somewhat hastily, stepped across the room, and taking the arm
of Charles, bowed gracefully to the constable and withdrew.
The result of this colloquy was that, in as short a time as the royal
post could convey the letter of M. de Montmorency to Bordeaux, Palissy
was released from the power of his enemies, and being thoroughly
protected from the hostilities of the belligerents on either side,
returned to Saintes, and resumed his place in the dilapidated workshop,
whose broken doors bore sorrowful witness to the ravages of civil strife.
Alas! it was now a very different home, for the town was half
depopulated; the best of the inhabitants had fled or been slaughtered in
the streets, churches had been battered, and rude hands had wrought
destruction everywhere. But nothing seems to have shaken the equilibrium
of his spirit, and he could say, with St. Paul, “I have learned, in
whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” It is evident that he
had attained to that fortitude and equanimity, that happy confidence of
spirit, which so substantially realizes the truth of the divine
promise—“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on
thee, because he trusteth in thee;” the solid reality, this, of what the
ancient sages did but dream about, and of which they sweetly sang, as in
the famous ode of Horace—
“The man of strong resolve and just design
When, for bad ends, infuriate mobs combine,
Or gleams the terror of the monarch’s frown
Firm in his rock-based worth, on both looks down.” {127}
Bernard was now at leisure to renew the past, and he availed himself of
the opportunity to complete his little book, which we have seen so busily
absorbing his thoughts when he was captive within the walls of his
prison. He bethought him again of the beautiful garden, and he tells
how, one day (when peace was for a season restored), as he was walking
through the meadows of the town, near to the river Charente,
contemplating the horrible dangers from which God had delivered him in
the past time of tumult and trouble, he heard once more the sounds which
had so delighted him before those evil days. “It was the voice of
certain maidens, who were seated under the shade of the trees, and sang
together the 104th Psalm; and, because their voice was soft, and
exceedingly harmonious, it caused me to forget my first thought, and
having stopped to listen, I passed through the pleasure of the voices,
and entered into consideration of the sense of the said psalm; and having
noted the points thereof, I was filled with admiration of the wisdom of
the royal prophet, and said, ‘Oh divine and admirable bounty of God! I
would that we all held the works of God’s hands in such reverence as he
teaches us in this psalm;’ and then I thought I would figure in some
large picture the beautiful landscapes which are therein described; but,
by-and-by, considering that pictures are of short duration, I turned my
thoughts to the building of a garden, according to the design, ornament,
and excellent beauty, or part thereof, which the Psalmist has depicted;
and having already figured in my mind the said garden, I found that I
could, in accordance with my plan, build, near thereto, a palace, or
amphitheatre of refuge, that might be a holy delectation and an
honourable occupation for mind and body.”