“Be thou faithful unto death.”—REVELATION ii. 10.
“THE number of my years hath given me courage to tell you that, a short
time since, I was considering the colour of my beard, which caused me to
reflect on the few days which remain to me before my course shall end:
and that has led me to admire the lilies and the corn, and many kinds of
plants, whose green colours are changed into white when they are ready to
yield their fruits. Thus, also, certain trees become hoary when they
feel their natural vegetative power is about to cease. A like
consideration has reminded me that it is written, ‘Better is the fool who
hides his folly, than the wise man who conceals his wisdom.’” We are
peeping over Palissy’s shoulder as he bends his silvery locks over his
writing-desk, and commences the dedication of his last volume of
“Admirable Discourses.” Its superscription is as follows:—“To the very
high and very powerful lord, the sire Antoine de Pons, knight of the
order of the king, captain of a hundred gentlemen, and his majesty’s very
faithful counsellor.” It is to his ancient patron he pays this tribute
of loving respect. The good old sire was probably still more aged than
himself, but his friendship had stood the test of years, and their
intercourse had been renewed “in these later days,” with mutual pleasure
and edification; their conversation having often turned on “divers
sciences; to wit, philosophy, astrology, and other arts drawn from
mathematics,” in which, “without any flattery,” Bernard declares himself
convinced of the venerable knight’s marvellous ability, which “length of
years had but augmented, instead of diminishing therefrom.”
It is pleasant to find Bernard thus steadfastly retaining the friendship
of earlier years, but far more satisfactory to perceive that he had
preserved his religion pure, and that the source whence his activity in
the pursuit of knowledge was derived remained the same. At the close of
a pious and laborious life, he remembered there was still something left
which he might do. He had learned the wonderful secrets of nature to the
glory of Him who had given him the hearing ear, and the seeing and
observing eye; and now, recurring to the ruling motive of his life—that
solemn idea of responsibility—he says, “It is a just and reasonable thing
that the talents a man has received from God, he should endeavour to
multiply, following his commandment. For which reason I have studied to
bring unto the light the things of which it has pleased God to give me
understanding. Having seen how many pernicious errors have been set
abroad, I have betaken me to scratch in the earth for the space of forty
years, and search into the entrails of the same, in order to understand
the things which she produces in herself; and by such means I have found
grace before God, who has caused me to understand secrets which have
hitherto been unknown even to the learned.”
The book, thus dedicated and prefaced, contained the mature fruit of his
studies as a naturalist. It is a collection of short treatises upon
waters and fountains, metals, salts, stones, and earths, fire, enamels,
and many other things, besides a treatise on marl, “very useful and
necessary for those concerned in agriculture.” It was published at Paris
in the year 1580, when its author was more than seventy years of age.
Four years later he was still lecturing in his museum, wandering out, now
and then, to the river side and elsewhere to find an illustration of some
lesson he was teaching. Thus, one winter’s day, he was seen standing
beside the Seine, opposite the Tuileries, surrounded by a throng of
listeners and objectors, among whom were several of the boatmen, who
persisted in maintaining what Palissy was combatting: namely, that the
floating masses of ice upon the river came from the bottom of the water.
Among those who listened with interest and discernment to his instruction
was the Sieur de la Croix Dumaine, who afterwards, in a volume published
in 1584, described Palissy as “a natural philosopher, and a man of
remarkably acute and ready wit, flourishing in Paris, and giving lessons
in his science and profession.”
His was a vigorous old age, and he looked so much younger than he really
was, that the Sieur supposed him little more than sixty. He might, in
all probability, have continued thus to lecture and discourse about the
wonders of the earth and waters some years longer; yet, even a few months
later we should have vainly sought him in his beloved museum, or on his
pleasant rambles around the environs of Paris. He was no longer there,
but immured within the walls of yon grim fortress—
“That shame to manhood, and opprobrious more
To France, than all her losses and defeats
Old, or of later date; by sea or land;
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old
Which God avenged on Pharaoh—the Bastile.”
Although in his lectures and in his book he had abstained from all
allusion to the struggles of the times, he was well-known for a staunch
Huguenot, a man whom nothing could induce to change or to conceal his
religion. They were indeed “evil days” in which his lot was cast. It
had been sorrow and trouble enough to live in Paris then, and behold the
vice, frivolity, and riot which prevailed. True, most true it is, that
“between the excesses of depravity, and those of bigotry, there exist
remarkable and intimate affinities.” Nowhere was this more strikingly
exemplified than in the French court and capital during the rule of the
house of Valois. The religious ideas of a court in which fanatical
intolerance reigned, give sufficient proof of this. The vilest and most
sanguinary passions were excited by the ceremonies of religion. The
sermons of “the League” preachers were like torches, which set the
kingdom in a blaze. The most impious and revolting spectacles were
presented to the eyes of the mob. Thus, at Chartres, after the day of
barricades, a Capuchin monk in the presence of Henry III., represented
the Saviour ascending Mount Calvary. This wretched priest had drops of
blood apparently trickling from his crown of thorns, and seemed with
difficulty to drag the cross of painted card-board which he bore; while,
ever and anon, he uttered piercing cries and fell beneath the load. The
king himself, utterly steeped in the vicious pleasures of the court,
became a member of the brotherhood of Flagellants, and, in a solemn
procession, king, queen, and cardinal, headed the white, black, and blue
friars, as they traversed the city barefoot, with heads uncovered,
chaplets of skulls around their waists, and flogging their backs with
cords till the blood flowed. The atrocities committed within many of the
churches by the soldiers of “the League,” it is impossible here to
relate. Since the massacre of St. Bartholomew the mobs of Paris had
become familiar with blood, and a spirit of increased ferocity prevailed.
Assassinations, tortures, and executions were frequent, and the extreme
Roman Catholic party, to which the city had, from that time, been
heartily attached, was pledged to exterminate the Huguenots.
At the head of “the League” was the Duke of Guise, the hero of the
violent among the Roman Catholics, whom they desired to make king,
instead of the worthless and despised Henry. At length, in the year
1585, the king, finding no other way of saving himself from the imminent
peril which threatened him, made peace with the duke at the expense of
the Reformers, and issued a decree, prohibiting the future exercise of
the Reformed worship, and commanding all its adherents to abjure, or
emigrate immediately, on pain of death and confiscation. This was no
miserable court quarrel; it affected the interests of all, and touched
the liberty, faith, fortune, and life of every man. So rigorously was
the edict carried out, that the petition of a few poor women, who begged
permission to dwell with their children in any remote corner of the
kingdom, was refused. The most they could obtain was a safe conduct to
England. Flight was out of the question for Palissy; and he remained at
the mercy of men who respected neither age, virtue, nor misfortune. That
he had friends who would gladly have protected him was known; nay, the
king himself would willingly have sheltered one who had so long and
skilfully served his mother. But the protection of the court was now
unavailing; and the venerable man was sent to the Bastile.
Four years of life yet remained to Bernard; all spent within the walls of
his prison-house. There, in communion with God and his own soul, he
passed the residue of his days, shut out from the eye of man, within that
gloomy fabric, the very thought of which inspires one’s soul with
shrinking horror. Profound secrecy and mystery were among the most
prominent features in the management of the Bastile, and he who was
retained there to waste away life within its damp and dismal cells, was
sedulously kept from all knowledge of what was passing in the busy world
without, while no tidings of him were ever permitted to reach the ears of
his kindred and former companions.
Debarred from the enjoyment of the beautiful sights of nature, the
treasures of intellect, and the delights of social converse, fearful,
indeed, was the lot of such a prisoner, unless sustained by divine
consolations. We know not in what words our beloved Palissy would have
clothed his thoughts, could he have spoken to us from his living tomb;
but the following passage, contained in the narrative of one who was for
some months a prisoner there, affords a pleasing example how, even in
such circumstances, the soul has been sustained in hope. “I recollect,”
says the narrator, “with humble gratitude, the first idea of comfort that
shot across this gloom. It was the idea that neither massive walls, nor
tremendous bolts, nor all the vigilance of suspicious keepers, could
conceal me from the sight of God. This thought I fondly cherished, and
it gave me infinite consolation in the course of my imprisonment, and
principally contributed to enable me to support it with a degree of
fortitude and resignation that I have since wondered at: I no longer felt
myself alone.” So true it is,
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in myself am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.”
And Palissy was a true Christian. He was free with the freedom wherewith
Jesus Christ makes his people free. Therefore, as an old and faithful
servant of the Lord, he was willing, for the testimony of Christ, to
suffer affliction, even unto bonds; nay, he counted not his life dear
unto him, so that he might win Christ, and be found in him.
One glimpse we have within his dungeon. Its doors are, for once,
unbarred, and we are permitted to look, for the last time, at him whose
history we have lovingly retraced.
Sentence of death, executed upon many who had remained staunch in their
refusal to obey the royal edict, had been deferred, in the case of
Palissy, only by the artifice of friends in power. But now, at length,
the formidable Council of Sixteen became urgent for the public execution
(already too long deferred) of so obstinate a heretic.
The king was loath to yield to these barbarous and bloodthirsty counsels,
and determined to try what a personal interview might effect in bringing
the recusant to a more pliant mood.
He went, accompanied by some of his gay courtiers, to visit and
remonstrate with Bernard, whom he found not solitary, for his captivity
was shared by two young girls, the daughters of Jacques Foucand, the
attorney to the parliament, condemned, as he was, for the firm faith and
resolute tenacity with which they refused to yield to the threats of
their persecutors.
[Picture: The King visiting Palissy in his dungeon]
“My good man,” said the king, addressing himself to Bernard, “for many
years you have been in the service of our family, and we have suffered
you to retain your religion amidst fires and massacres; but at present I
find myself so pressed by the Guises and my own people, that I am
compelled to give you into the hands of my enemies. These two poor
women, whom I see with you, are to be burned to-morrow; and so will you,
unless you be converted.” “Sire,” replied Bernard, “I am ready to yield
up my life for the glory of God. You say you feel pity for me. It is
rather I that should pity you, who utter such words as these, ‘I am
compelled.’ This is not the language of a king, and neither yourself nor
the Guises, with all your people, shall compel _me_; for I know how to
die.” “What an impudent rascal!” said one of the courtiers, who
afterwards recorded the scene he had witnessed; “one might have supposed
that he knew that line of Seneca, ‘Qui mori scit, cogi nescit.’” {169}
Two months later there were fagots blazing in the Place de Grève, and
monks gesticulated around the fires which were consuming to ashes the
“two poor women” of whom the king had spoken, and who had found grace to
continue steadfast to the end.
But Palissy still lived. Some powerful arm had sheltered him, and he was
saved from the fiery trial. A few months longer he remained captive in
the bonds of his prison-house, and then the message came for him also,
Thou hast been faithful unto death, “I will give thee a crown of life.”
He died in the Bastile, in the year 1589.
* * * * *
THE END.
NOTES.
{4} “A true Recipe, whereby all the inhabitants of France may learn to
multiply and augment their possessions.”
{58} They occupy forty-five plates in volume vi. of the “Musée des
Monuments Français.”
{60} By the body of his countrymen in his own day, his teaching was
disregarded, and his writings passed, after a time, into unmerited
oblivion. There were, however, a few who made practical use of his
suggestions; and of the application of his theory on springs a most
remarkable instance is on record.
Coulange la Vineuse, in Burgundy, was a place in which there was much
wine and little water. In fact, the town was entirely destitute of that
necessary element. Thrice had it fallen a prey to alarming
conflagrations, and great efforts had been made, though with fruitless
labour and expense, to supply its natural deficiency. At length the
domain of the town having come into the possession of the chancellor
d’Aguesseau, he invited M. Couplet, a distinguished mathematician and
hydraulist, to consider the case, in September, 1705, the dry month of an
unusually dry year. M. Couplet had studied the theory of springs as
contained in the writings of Palissy, and to such good purpose did this
shrewd pupil apply the knowledge he had derived from the pages of Master
Bernard, that he was enabled to point out to his employer, not only on
what spots to dig, but at what depth he would find water. In three
months his prophecies having been fulfilled, a plenteous supply of water
was brought into the town. The joy exceeded that of the most profitable
vintage time; men, women, and children ran to drink; and the judge of the
town, a blind man, travelled out, incredulous, to wave the waters through
his hands, as a miser fingers gold. The grateful inhabitants testifiod
their feelings by a device representing Moses bringing water from a rock
encircled with vines, with the words, _Utile dulci_, and a laudatory
inscription.
Mr. Morley, in his Life of Palissy (after quoting this anecdote from the
quarto edition of his works), says, “Palissy has a statue somewhere I
think. This, among other pictures, would look well upon its pedestal.”
{77} “Die Asche will nicht lassen ab,
Sie staübt in alle Landen.
Hie hilft kein Bach, noch Loch, noch Grab.”
{82} The pottery made by Palissy (of which, under the name of Palissy
Ware, exquisite specimens are still existing) was very characteristic of
himself. He was a naturalist, and had a keen, innate love of the
beautiful. To reproduce, in his works, the bright colours and elegant
forms of the plants and animals on which he had so long and so often
gazed in the woods and fields was his delight, and he founded his
reputation on what he called rustic pieces. The title which he took for
himself was, Ouvrier de Terre, et Inventeur de Rusticities
Figulines—Worker in Earth, and Inventor of Rustic Figulines (_i.e._,
small modellings). These were, in fact, accurate models from life of
wild animals, reptiles, plants, and other productions of nature,
tastefully introduced as ornaments upon a vase or plate. His rich fancy
covered his works with elaborate adornment; but all these designs were so
accurately copied from nature, in form and colour, that the species of
each can be readily recognized, and there is hardly found a fancy leaf,
and not one lizard, butterfly, or beetle, which does not belong to the
rocks, woods, fields, rivers, and seas of France.
{93} Radiata.
{95} Sixty-three years after this time, these opinions of Palissy
concerning stones were propounded, in a public disputation by three
savants (one of them an inhabitant of Saintes). The faculty of theology
at Paris protested against their doctrines as unscriptural. The
treatises were destroyed, and the authors banished from Paris, and
forbidden to live in towns or enter places of public resort. It was only
the contemptuous neglect in which Palissy was held, that saved him from a
similar fate.
{126} “Francis the First has plainly foretold,
That they of the household of Guise
Would clothe their children in purple and gold,
But the poor folk only in frieze.”
{127} “Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni
Mente quatit solidâ, . . . ”
{142} The master-pieces of Palissy adorn the private collections of the
wealthy and noble continental amateurs. Mr. Marryat, in his history of
pottery, says, the most extensive and complete collection of his Fayence
crockery exists in the Musée Royale, in the Louvre, and in the Hôtel de
Cluny; purchased since the death of its late proprietor, M. de Sommerard,
by the French government. “These magnificent specimens,” he says, “have
been eagerly bought up, from a just appreciation of the merits of their
talented and much persecuted countryman.” Mr. M. gives the following
description of the Fayence of Palissy. “It is characterized by a
peculiar style and many singular qualities. The forms of his figures are
generally chaste. The ornaments, the historical, mythological, and
allegorical subjects, are in relief and coloured. The colours are
generally bright, but not much varied, being usually confined to yellows,
blues, and grays, though sometimes extending to green, violet, and brown.
The enamel is hard, but the glaze is not so good as that of Delft, and he
never succeeded in attaining the purity of the white enamel of Luca della
Robbia.” “At a sale at Phillip’s, of Palissy ware, belonging to M.
Roussel, of Paris,” it is added, “an extraordinary large vase, enriched
with boys in relief, supporting flowers and fruit in festoons, with
masked heads, on a fine blue ground, and snake handles, sold for £57 15s.
A very curious candlestick, with perforated work and heads in relief sold
for £20; equal to $100.”
{145} Coligny, who had been wounded by the dagger of an assassin only
two days before.
{152} Afterwards first physician to Henry IV.
{153} It is worthy of note, that a work of great pretensions, published
by French naturalists, (“The New Dictionary of Natural History,
1816–1830,”) two hundred and fifty years after Palissy’s demonstrations,
gives an incorrect theory on this subject.
{169} “He who knows how to die cannot be compelled.”