Читать книгу Palissy the Huguenot Potter - Brightwell Cecilia Lucy - Страница 5

Shortly before the events recorded in the preceding chapter, there had been no small excitement among Palissy’s poor neighbours and acquaintance, with reference to his proceedings. Day after day little knots of gossips might be seen, lounging about the neighbourhood of his garden and work-shed, expressing in various ways, their surprise and indignation at his conduct, and exclaiming, in no measured terms, against his obstinate and mad folly. This indignation reached its height when, one day, the report spread, far and wide, that the poor man was actually insane, and had torn up the palings of his garden, and the planks of his dwelling-house, and that his unhappy wife, half-crazed with his conduct, had herself rushed out of the house accompanied by her children, and taken refuge with a neighbour.

In order to account for all this, it is necessary to retrace our steps, and relate in what manner our artist has been spending the two years that have intervened since his marsh-surveying.

Undaunted by the failure of his early efforts, and relieved, for a time, from anxiety on the score of domestic wants, Palissy, giving the money he had received for the execution of his task into the hands of his wife, resumed his “affection for pursuing in the track of the enamels.”

Two years of unremitting and zealous labour followed, productive of no practical results, although there had once been a partial melting of some of his compounds, which gave him sufficient encouragement to persist. During those two long years, he tells us, he did nothing but come and go between his dwelling and the adjacent glass-houses, where the furnaces being much hotter than those of the potteries, were more likely to be successful in melting his materials.

Was it any marvel if poverty and sorrow invaded his household; if his wife grew moody and sad, and if the neighbours, pitying the hapless woman and innocent children, pronounced hard judgment upon a man who consumed his time in buying pots and breaking them, in grinding drugs and burning them, and in going to and fro upon his bootless errand? Death, too, had once and again entered his doors, bearing away the two sickly infants we saw clinging to their mother, while in their place, two others had been born, inheriting, alas! their malady. Of late, Lisette, full of gloomy thoughts, had taken to complaining, and remonstrating with her husband. Her temper had been soured by disappointment and trouble; and hope, so long deferred, ceased to buoy up her spirit. She could not understand the course Bernard was pursuing. She did not partake in his glowing visions of future fame and prosperity, and the instinct of power and the energy of will that nerved and inspired him were all unknown to and unshared by her. Poor suffering woman! She felt as any other common-sense wife and mother would have felt in her circumstances; and bewailing his obstinate persistence in such profitless labour, she embittered his home by her lamentations and reproaches.

In this strait Palissy began to give way: he faltered, and at length made a compromise with his anxious helpmate. One more last trial he pleaded for; and then – if it failed, he would abandon the search for ever! He must have felt that the happiness as well as the fortune of his life, depended on the cast. Rather, we learn from his own touching account of what ensued, that he looked for counsel and help from above. In all his ways did this good man acknowledge his heavenly Father’s hand, and seek his blessing. What befell, in this crisis, he thus tells us: “God willed that, when I had begun to lose my courage, and was gone for the last time to a glass furnace, having a man with me carrying more than 300 kinds of trial pieces, there was one among them which was melted within four hours after it had been placed in the furnace, which turned out white and polished, in a way that caused me to feel such joy as made me think I was become a new creature.”

With winged feet he flew home, bearing his treasure, which he pronounced “exceedingly beautiful,” and, almost beside himself with delight, he rushed into the chamber, where his poor wife lay in her sick bed, and holding up the shining white fragment exclaimed, “I have found it!” Lisette caught the infection of his gladness, and hailed the first ray of returning prosperity. Poor woman, she little knew how long she must wait before she could warm herself in its sunshine.

But Palissy was convinced that he had now discovered the full perfection of the white enamel; and his delight was in proportion to all the toil and struggle the discovery had cost him. No more any idea, now, of giving over, and returning to his old calling. Illustrious results must soon follow, he was sure, and from henceforth it was necessary he should work privately, and construct for his own use a furnace like that of the glass-workers. Already in imagination stretching out his hand to grasp the prize, he eagerly betook himself to moulding vessels of clay, shaped after his own designs, which, covered with the exquisite white enamel he had discovered, he purposed to adorn with lovely paintings. He saw them doubtless, in his mind’s eye, beautiful, as those he actually produced in after years – those perfect master-pieces of porcelain in relief, and dishes ornamented with figures, beasts, reptiles, insects, beetles, and flowers: treasures of art, full of grace, beauty, and simplicity, which were eagerly purchased by the rich seigneurs of that day, to adorn their cabinets and beautify their châteaux, and which now sell for their weight in gold.

But though his fancy saw them, as his taste, so exquisite and refined, had already designed them, still it was with the rough clay his hands were actually at work, and he had, unfortunately for his present need, “never understood earths.”

Some seven or eight months more were expended in making these vessels, and then he began to erect the furnace. With incredible difficulty and labour – for he had none to assist him in the work, not even so much as to draw water, and fetch bricks from the kiln – the indefatigable man wrought till he had completed the furnace, and the preliminary baking of his vessels. And then, instead of reposing after all this toil, by the space of more than a month, he worked, night and day, grinding and compounding the materials of which he had made the white enamel. At length his task was completed, and the vessels, coated with the mixture, were arranged within the furnace.

Look at him now! – he has kindled his furnace fire, and is feeding it through its two mouths. He does not spare the fuel; he diligently throws it in, all day; he suffers it not to slacken all night. Yet the enamel does not melt. The sun rises, bright and glowing, and Nicole, now a sturdy boy of eleven or twelve years old, brings his father a basin of pottage for breakfast; a poor and scanty meal, ill-fitted to recruit his over-taxed powers, but eagerly devoured by the hungry artisan, who pauses for a few moments in order to swallow it. How pale and thin and haggard he looks! What a strained expression does his countenance wear; but all indomitable and calmly hopeful ’mid his toil!