Palissy the Huguenot Potter

“The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.”

    – Psalm cxi. 2.

Palissy had not exaggerated when he said that the influence of the Reformed church in Saintes was changing the whole aspect of the town. Though but of short duration, its period of prosperity was bright and happy, and he was prominent among its firm and peaceable supporters. The picture he has drawn of it is a lovely one. “You would have seen in those days,” he says, “fellow-tradesmen, on a Sunday, rambling through the fields, groves, and other places, singing in company psalms, canticles, and spiritual songs – reading and instructing one another. You would also have seen the daughters and maidens, seated by troops, in the gardens and other places, who, in like way, delighted themselves in singing of all holy things. The teachers had so well instructed the young, and affairs had so much prospered, that people had changed their old manners, even to their very countenances.”

Nor was this merely a question of psalm-singing and prayers, he assures us. The Reformation was practical and earnest. Quarrels, dissensions, and hatreds were reconciled; unseemly conduct and debauchery suppressed; and this had been carried so far that “even the magistrates had assumed the control of many evil things which depended on their authority.” Innkeepers were forbidden to have gaming in their houses, and to entertain the householders, whose duty it was to abide with their own families, not eating and drinking their substance elsewhere. Even the enemies of the church were constrained, to their very great regret, to speak well of the ministers, and especially of M. de la Boissière, who seems to have won general respect and esteem by his judicious and manly piety, as well as his pastoral instructions. Thus were the opponents of the gospel fairly silenced, and recourse was had to a system of counteraction, in the shape of a reformation on the part of the Roman Catholics. This went to such a point that Palissy says, “certain of the priests began to take part in the assemblies, and to study and take counsel about the church.” In fact, it was time they should be on the alert, for the monks and ecclesiastics were blamed in common talk; that is, by those who cared nothing for religion, but who were ready enough to throw a stone at these idle shepherds. “Why do you not exhort your people, and pray, as these ministers do?” they asked; “you are paid salaries for preaching.” These taunts reaching the ears of Monsieur, the theologian of the chapter, measures were taken accordingly, and the shrewdest and most subtle monks engaged for the service of the cathedral church. “Thus it happened that, in these days, there was prayer in the town of Saintes every day, from one side or the other.” But the thing which worried the priests more than any other, and which seemed to them very strange, was, that several poor villagers refused to pay tithes, unless they were supplied with ministers. It was certainly a strange thing to see, as Palissy says, when certain farmers, who were no friends to the religion, finding these things so, actually went to the ministers, praying them to exhort the people of the districts they farmed, in order that they might get paid their tithes; the labourers having refused to supply them with corn and fruits on any other conditions. In short, the efforts of the little church had so well prospered, that they had constrained the wicked to become good – at all events, to seem so.

How delightful to think of Bernard now! at his ease, rejoicing in the peace and happiness around him, and in the religious aspect of his town; frequently journeying abroad, to Écouen and elsewhere, to and fro, as his business required, and coming home again, to wander, thoughtfully and tranquilly, among the rocks and fields in which he took such delight. He was now so well supplied with patronage that he might have been growing rich, had he not, with his own ardent zeal and restless energy, been ever expending time, and toil, and money, on new efforts to improve his art. Now, too, he had leisure to pursue those inquiries which, in his character of a naturalist, so deeply interested him. With surprising and marvellous sagacity he penetrated some of the problems which have puzzled the most skilful investigators, and there was always mingled with his love of nature a spirit of glowing and unaffected piety. The bright gladness of his pious soul was as a beaming light that shone upon his path and made it ever radiant.

How skilfully he turned to use all the modes of acquiring knowledge, and what good account he made of his own sharp wits, we see in a little incident he has recorded. It chanced one day, he received a visit from the Dame de la Pons, for whom he was executing a commission, in which the lady felt, naturally, a woman’s interest. She had ordered a complete set of dishes, to be adorned with his favourite “rustic figulines;” the work was progressing favourably; there remained only a few pieces to be completed; and she had come to see and to criticise. “This dish is charming,” said the lady; “the bottom covered with sea weeds and corals, while the fish, with open fins, seem darting across the water. Really, one can fancy the slight tremor of the tail, so like the helm of the living ship. The cray-fish, too, the spider of the waters, stretches his long claws as if to grip the rock, and shrink into its crevices.” “And see this one, mamma,” said her daughter, who had accompanied her, “this is for the fresh water fish. Look at the edges, fringed with the dank mosses, and the sides covered with the broad leaves of the plants. It is the subaqueous world of waters, with all the leaves, stems, and flags of the marsh, and its aquatic animals, transferred to clay, as true in form, and as brilliant in colours, as if a housemaid had dipped one of her plates in the stream, and drawn it out, filled to the brim, with the plants, shells, and animals of the brook.” “It is admirable,” said her mother. Palissy’s eyes sparkled, for praise is sweet; and what son of Adam is there to whom it does not come doubly welcome from the lips of a woman?

“What a curious shell is this!” exclaimed Madame, taking up one, from which Palissy was modelling. “That comes from the shores of Oléron,” said the artist; “there are numbers more on yonder table,” and he pointed to one, covered with a multitude of similar ones. “I engaged a score of women and children to search for them on the rocks. And now, lady, I must tell you something curious about those shells. Only a day or two after they were brought to me, I chanced to call on M. Babaret, the advocate, who, you know, is a man famous for his love of letters and the arts. We fell into some discussion upon a point in natural history, and he showed me two shells exactly similar to these – urchin shells;[6 - Radiata.] but which were quite massive; and he maintained that the said shells had been carved by the hand of the workman, and was quite astonished when I maintained, against him, that they were natural. Since that time, I have collected a number of these shells converted into stones.” “You surprise me,” said his attentive hearer; “I was indeed greatly puzzled myself, some years since, when I chanced to find certain stones embedded in rock, made in the fashion of a ram’s horn, though not so long nor so crooked, but commonly arched, and about half a foot long. I could not imagine, nor have I ever known how they could have been formed.” “Your description, madame, much interests me; for, it so happens that I have also seen, nay, possess, a stone of the kind you describe, which was brought to me one day by Pierre Guoy, citizen and sheriff of the town of Saintes. He found, in his farm, one of these very stones, which was half-open, and had certain indentations, that fitted admirably, one into the other. Well knowing how curious I am about such things, he made me a present of it, which I was greatly rejoiced at; for I had seen, as I walked along the rocks in this neighbourhood, some similar stones, which had awakened my curiosity; and from that time I understand that these stones had formerly been the shells of a fish, which fish we see no more at the present day.” He then showed his visitors the picture of a rock, in the Ardennes, near the village of Sedan, in which were paintings of all the species of shells that it contained.

“The inhabitants of that place,” said he, “daily hew the stone from that mountain to build; and in doing so, the said shells are found at the lowest, as well as at the highest part; that is, inclosed in the densest stones. I am certain that I saw one kind which was sixteen inches in diameter. From this I infer that the rock, which is full of many kinds of shells, has formerly been a marine bed, producing fishes.” “You speak as if stones grew, or were made, in process of time,” said the lady; “while we know that from the beginning, God made heaven and earth. He made also the stones; and from that time there have been none made, for all things have been finished from the commencement of the world.”[7 - 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.]

“It is indeed, madame, written in the book of Genesis that God created all things in six days, and that he rested on the seventh. But yet, for all that, God did not make these things to leave them idle. Therefore, each performs its duty according to the commandment it received from him. The stars and planets are not idle. The sea wanders from one place to another, and labours to bring forth profitable things. The earth likewise is never idle; that which decays naturally within her, she forms over again; if not in one shape she will reproduce it in another. It is certain that if, since the creation of the world, no stones had grown within the earth, it would be difficult to find any number of them, for they are constantly being dissolved and pulverized by the effects of frosts, and an infinite number of other accidents, which daily spoil, consume, and reduce stone to earth.” “You tell us startling things; very hard to be understood, Master Bernard,” said the Dame de la Pons, “yet full of deep interest to one who loves to note the wonderful works of creation, and would fain learn to see them with discernment as well as admiration.” Palissy paused from his work, (he had continued to sketch while he conversed,) and opening a cabinet with drawers which stood near him, he showed the ladies several specimens of fossils and minerals, which in his enthusiastic researches he had collected; for, with the acuteness of a philosophic observer, he had perceived the importance of a detailed study of fossil forms to the discovery of geological truths; and it may be truly said that the first who pursued this study (on which undoubtedly modern geology and all its grandest results are founded) was Palissy, the self-educated potter, who had taught himself in the school of nature. “I have been anxious,” said he, “to represent by pictures, the shells and fishes which I have found lapidified, to distinguish between them and the sorts now in common use; but because my time would not permit me to put my design in execution, I have, for some years, sought, according to my power, for petrifactions, until at length I have found more fishes and shells in that form petrified upon the earth than there are modern kinds inhabiting the ocean.” He then showed them a small specimen which he begged them carefully to observe. “What can it be?” they inquired; “it resembles wood more nearly than anything else.” “You will think it very strange when I assure you that it is indeed wood, converted into stone. It came into my possession through the kindness of the Seigneur de la Mothe, the secretary to the king of Navarre, a man very curious and a lover of virtú. He was once at court in company with the late king of Navarre, when there was brought to that prince a piece of wood changed into stone. It was thought so great a curiosity that the king commanded one of his attendants to lock it up, among his other treasures.

“Taking occasion to speak with the gentleman who had received this charge, Monsieur de la Mothe begged that he would give him a little morsel of it, which he did; and some time after, passing through Saintes, be brought the treasure to me, and seeing how much pleasure and interest I took in examining it, he gave it me. I have since made inquiry, and find that it was brought from the forest of Fayan, which is a swampy place. It appears to me, indeed I am persuaded, that in the same manner as the shells are converted into stone, so is the wood also transmuted, and being petrified it preserves the form and appearance of wood, precisely like the shells. By these things you see how nature no sooner suffers destruction by one principle, than she at once resumes working with another; and this is what I have already said – to wit, that the earth and the other elements are never idle.” “Where can you have learned all this?” asked the young lady, with girlish wonder; “I would fain know to what school you have been, where you have learned all that you are telling us.” “In truth, Mademoiselle,” said Palissy smiling, “I have had no other teacher than the heavens and the earth which are given to all, to be known and read. Having read therein, I have reflected on terrestrial matters, because I have had no opportunity in studying astrology to contemplate the stars.”

CHAPTER X

“The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.”

    – Psalm xii. 8.

Thus happily occupied with the pursuits he loved, but taking no share in the turmoils of the time, Palissy prospered and cheerfully pursued his way. He could not, indeed, be an unconcerned observer of the events that were transpiring around. Having eyes, he doubtless saw the clouds that were gathering over his country, and from time to time, heard the thunders that threatened before long to burst in a terrific storm. For a season, however, the evil day was deferred, and the hymns of the rejoicing Huguenots continued to gladden his heart. We have already had sufficient evidence that he did not spare his remonstrances against those who, while they enjoyed the revenues of the church, neglected the performance of its duties. Nor did he stop there, and as his censures extended from the highest to the lowest matters, his shafts were often pointed against those who could ill endure the test of common sense, which he unceremoniously applied to them. His criticisms on the follies and vices of his neighbours had too much the character of home-thrusts not to be felt. In his lively way he relates that, on one occasion, he remonstrated with a certain high dame upon the absurdities and improprieties of feminine attire; but “after I had made her this remonstrance,” he quietly adds, “the silly woman, instead of thanking me, called me Huguenot, seeing which – I left her.” At another time, he relates that, being on a visit to the neighbouring town of Rochelle, he earnestly remonstrated with a tradesman, of whom he inquired what he had put into his pepper which enabled him, though buying it in that place at thirty-five sols the pound, to make a great profit by selling it again, at the fair of Niord, at seventeen sols, in consequence of the adulteration of the article. In reply to the man’s excuse of poverty, Bernard replied, that, by such criminal acts he was heaping up to himself fearful punishments, “and surely,” said he, “you can better afford to be poor than be damned.” Strong, though faithful language, which was wholly ineffectual upon this “poor insensate, who declared he would not be poor, follow what might.” Plain speaking of this sort was evidently very characteristic of Palissy, who uttered his remonstrances without reckoning on the consequences. The same originality and force of intellect which procured him patrons in his art, undoubtedly, when applied in a different direction, served to multiply enemies around him, and their time was not long in coming.

Happily and swiftly flew the years of prosperity, but (as we have already seen) the clouds were gathering in the horizon, and soon the cruel hounds of war were let slip, and most frightful were the results. Two great parties had involved in their disputes the passions of the whole French nation. One, which included all the Huguenots, was headed by the high old French nobility; while the leaders of the others, embracing all the Roman Catholics, were the Guises. These opposing factions, with their strong deep passions, rapidly precipitated themselves into a fierce and bloody contest. One of the young sons of Catherine de Medici had died, after a few months of nominal rule, and a child no more than ten years old, called Charles IX. had succeeded to the throne. The queen mother, who, as regent for her son, assumed the government of affairs, was anxious, as far as possible, to offend neither of the contending parties, but to hold them so well balanced, as to preserve the power in her own hands. For a short time, there was a cessation of disputes, and efforts at conciliation. The policy of Catherine was the maintenance of peace, and she spoke fair to the Huguenots, feigning so well and so successfully that she was even accused by those of the Roman Catholic party, of being in heart one with the new sect. The Reformers took courage, and were full of fervour and hope; the enthusiasm spreading throughout the provinces and awakening everywhere the hope that the triumph of the Reformed faith was at hand. It was but a passing gleam, presently followed by a darker gloom, which finally deepened into the thick night of the Black Bartholomew. In vain did the queen and the chancellor, De l’Hôpital, labour to secure peace by colloquies and edicts of toleration. The Guises fiercely stirred the fires of contention, and employed themselves in active preparations for a struggle. At length, the first signal for the outbreak of the civil war was given.

There was in Champagne, a small fortified town, called Vassy, containing about three thousand inhabitants, a third of whom, not reckoning the surrounding villages, professed the Reformed religion. It happened, on the 28th of February, 1562, that the Duke of Guise, journeying on his way to Paris, accompanied by his cousin, the cardinal of Lorraine, with an escort of gentlemen, followed by some two hundred horsemen, visited the château de Joinville, which was situated in the neighbourhood, on an estate belonging to the Lorraines.

The mistress of the castle was a very old lady, the dowager Duchess of Guise, whose bigoted attachment to the faith of her ancestors made the very name of Huguenot an offence to her. Sorely indignant was she at the audacity of the inhabitants of Vassy, who had no right, she declared, as vassals of her granddaughter, Mary Stuart, to adopt a new religion without her permission. Often had she threatened vengeance upon them, and the time was now come to inflict it. And the aged woman urged her son, the fierce Duke Francis, to make a striking example of these insolent peasants. As he listened to her angry words, he swore a deep oath, and bit his beard, which was his custom, when his wrath waxed strong.

The next morning, resuming his march, he arrived at a village not far from the obnoxious town; and the morning breeze, as it came sweeping up the hills, brought to his ears the sound of church bells. “What means that noise?” he asked of one of his attendants. “It is the morning service of the Huguenots,” was the reply. It was, in fact, the sabbath day, and the Reformers, assembled to the number of some hundreds, were performing their worship in a barn, under the protection of a recent edict of toleration. Unsuspicious of danger, there was not a man among them armed, with the exception of some ten strangers, probably gentlemen, who wore swords.

Suddenly, a band of the duke’s soldiers approached the place, and began shouting – “Heretic dogs! Huguenot rebels! Kill, kill!” The first person whom they laid hands on was a poor hawker of wine. “In whom do you believe?” they cried. “I believe in Jesus Christ,” was the answer; and with one thrust of the pike he was laid low. Two more were killed at the door, and instantly the tumult raged. The duke, hastening up at the sound of arms, was struck by a stone, which drew blood from his cheek. Instantly the rage of his followers redoubled, and his own fury knew no bounds. A horrible butchery followed; men, women, and children were attacked indiscriminately, and sixty were slain in the barn or in the street, while more than two hundred were grievously wounded.

The pastor, Leonard Morel, at the first sound of alarm, kneeled down in the pulpit and implored the divine aid. He was fired at; and then endeavoured to escape, but, as he approached the door, he stumbled over a dead body, and received two sabre cuts on the right shoulder and on his head. Believing himself to be mortally wounded, he exclaimed, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit, O Lord; for thou hast redeemed me.” He was captured, and carried, being unable to walk, into the presence of the duke. “Minister, come this way,” he said, “what emboldens thee to seduce this people?” “I am no seducer,” said Morel, “but I have faithfully preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.” “Does the gospel teach sedition, sirrah?” said M. de Guise, with his usual blasphemous oath; “thou hast caused the death of all these people; and thou shalt thyself be hanged immediately. Here, Provôt, make ready a gallows for him on the spot!” But even among that fierce crew none seemed willing to obey the savage mandate, and no one came forward to enact the part of hangman. This delay saved the life of the captive, who was removed under good guard, but eventually escaped.

The following year, as the blood-thirsty duke lay on his death-bed, mortally wounded by the hand of an assassin, he protested that he had neither premeditated nor commanded the massacre of Vassy. This may be true; but his consent at the moment of its perpetration is beyond question.

An extraordinary effect was produced throughout the whole kingdom, by the tidings of this cruel slaughter. Among the Reformed party it created a universal feeling of indignant horror and alarm. It was like the war-whoop of the Indians, which precedes the rush to battle. Each party flew to arms, after putting forth manifestoes, asserting the merits of their respective causes. The Prince of Condé hastened to Orleans, which he succeeded in occupying, and there the army of the Huguenots established their headquarters. In that town the Calvinist lords assembled, on the 11th of April, 1562, and after partaking the Lord’s supper together, bound themselves in an alliance, to maintain the Edicts, and to punish those who had broken them. They took a solemn oath to repress blasphemy, violence, and whatever was forbidden by the law of God, and to set up good and faithful ministers to instruct the people; and lastly, they promised, by their hope of heaven, to fulfil their duty in this cause.

And thus the fearful work began, and tumult, massacre, battle, and siege prevailed. Every town in France was filled with the riot of contending factions. “It was a grand and frightful struggle of province against province, city with city, quarter with quarter, house with house, man with man,” says a recent historian. “Fanaticism had reduced France to a land of cannibals; and the gloomiest imagination would fail to conceive of all the varieties of horrors which were then practised.”

We have to do with the town of Saintes. There were few places in which the Huguenots were so numerous, and had multiplied so rapidly, as in Saintonge. Passions were nowhere stronger; no place was more trampled by combatants; it was the scene of many of the maddest contests during the days of the religious warfare. At the invitation of the Duke de La Rochefoucault, all the Protestant leaders of the district gathered themselves together at Angoulême, and betook themselves, under his guidance, to Orleans, in order to join the Prince of Condé, who was his brother-in-law. After the departure of these forces, the various towns in that neighbourhood, Angoulême, Saintes, Pons, and others, remained indeed in the possession of the Huguenots, but without defence, nearly all the Reformers of the district, capable of bearing arms, having followed the march of De La Rochefoucault, “especially” we are told, “those of Saintes.” Consequently, the town, deprived of its soldiers, presented an easy prey to the enemy, and in a short time, fell into the hands of a hostile leader, named Nogeret, who treated with harsh severity all that remained in the place, in execution of a decree from Bordeaux, by which the Reformers were abandoned, without appeal, to the mercy of any royal judge.

Among those thus given over to the power of these miscreants, was Palissy. In few but emphatic words he has recorded the terrors of that fearful time. “Deeds so wretched were then done,” he said afterward, “that I have horror in the mere remembrance. To avoid those dreadful and execrable sights, I withdrew into the secret recesses of my house, and there, by the space of two months, I had warning that hell was broke loose, and that all the spirits of the devils had come into this town of Saintes. For where, a short time before, I had heard psalms, and holy songs, and all good words of edification, now mine ears were assailed only with blasphemies, blows, menaces, and tumults, all miserable words, and lewd and detestable songs. Those of the Reformed religion had all disappeared, and our enemies went from house to house, to siege, sack, gluttonize, and laugh; jesting and making merry with all dissolute deeds and blasphemous words against God and man.”

Very terrible is this truth-breathing description of the miseries of a city given over to the license of an unbridled soldiery; but the most affecting picture is that which he draws when closing his short narrative of those “evil days.” “I had nothing at that time but reports of those frightful crimes that, from day to day, were committed; and of all those things, that which grieved me most within myself was, that certain little children of the town, who came daily to assemble in an open space near the spot where I was hidden (always exerting myself to produce some work of my art), dividing themselves into two parties, fought and cast stones one side against another, while they swore and blasphemed in the most execrable language that ever man could utter, so that I have, as it were, horror in recalling it. Now, that lasted a long time, while neither fathers nor mothers exercised any rule over them. Often I was seized with a desire to risk my life by going out to punish them; but I said in my heart the 79th Psalm, which begins, ‘O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance.’”

CHAPTER XI

“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

    – Proverbs xvii. 17.

The Seigneur de Burie had not spoken without sufficient cause when he warned Palissy that he had made himself enemies of certain high church dignitaries in Saintes. Those admonitions he had uttered were not forgotten by the Romish ecclesiastics, who bestirred themselves so zealously, that after the city had been in the power of the Roman Catholic party for a few weeks, violent hands were laid upon the unsuspecting potter. He had believed himself secure from actual assault within his own premises, and not without cause, since he was under the protection of a safeguard, given him by the Duke de Montmorency, which expressly forbade the authorities undertaking anything against him or his house. It was also well known by both parties that the building in which he worked for the constable had been partly erected at the expense of that nobleman, and that, on occasion of an outbreak in the city which had occurred some time before, the leaders of the Roman Catholic party had expressly forbidden any interference with Palissy or his work, through respect to his employer.

But matters had now reached a strange height, and there seemed to be a favourable season for malice and bigotry to work their will. Palissy was arrested and imprisoned; and, as soon as he was taken into custody, his workshop was broken into, and part of it laid open to the intrusion of the public. The magistrates, at their town meeting, actually came to a resolution to pull down the building, and would infallibly have carried their purpose into effect, had not the Seigneur de Pons and his lady immediately interfered. These tried friends of Bernard lost no time in personally remonstrating with the magistrates, from whom they, with some difficulty, obtained the promise to defer carrying out their design. To deliver him from the clutches of his enemies was not so easy a matter. His prosecutors were, in fact, no other than the dean and chapter, who, he says, were his cruel foes, and would have delivered him to death for no other cause than his free speech in the matter of their neglect of duty.

The Sire de Pons, as king’s lieutenant in Saintonge, had power to control the justices of Saintes; and, consequently, the hands of his judges were tied. They were all, indeed, “one body, one soul, and one single will” with the reverend prosecutors of their prisoner, and without a shadow of doubt, had they been able to work their pleasure, he would have been put to death before appeal could have been made to the constable.

“An awkward business is this,” said the dean to one of his brethren, as they discussed the matter of the interposition of the Sire de Pons. “Plainly, we cannot carry out our intentions here; but once at Bordeaux this obstinate heretic would be given up into the hands of the parliament there, and then the interference of the king alone could save him.” “There will be no satisfaction till he is silenced,” was the reply; “and, without doubt, he has done ample mischief. Only think of the labourers on our farms beginning to murmur at paying tithes to those who they, forsooth, say do not deserve them. This comes of his unbridled tongue. And shall we thus be defied and brow-beaten by an insolent mechanic?” “Nay, there is no need to urge me on. If he were but in our power;.. but the question is, how to manage the affair, and get him safely out of the jurisdiction of these people, who will certainly never be brought to consent to his condemnation. There are so many wealthy men in this neighbourhood by whom the knave is employed in decorative works, besides the buildings at Écouen, and his skill in pottery-ware has made him so much thought of, that he is safe as long as he remains within this district.” “To Bordeaux, then, let him go, and that without delay. Why not this very night? In the daytime the matter would get bruited abroad, and his friends might contrive to send to the rescue; but by night, and across by-roads, he can be carried off silently and safely; and once at Bordeaux – ”.. “You say well. Measures shall be taken immediately.”

Little did our captive imagine what were the devices of those that hated him. He might easily have contrived to escape beyond their reach, had he not reckoned himself so safe that his arrest came upon him wholly unawares. It had fared ill with him at this juncture but for the watchful and affectionate care of his old friend, Victor. Through the interposition of those from whom he had learned the particulars of Hamelin’s last hours, he obtained admission into the prison where Palissy was confined, and ministered to him with the solicitude of a brother. By his means, communication was carried on between the prisoner and his patrons, the Seigneurs de Burie and de Jarnac, as well as the king’s lieutenant. All these gentlemen took much trouble, and made interposition with the dean and chapter, to whom they repeatedly urged that no man but Palissy could complete M. de Montmorency’s work, and that the displeasure of his highness would be incurred if a person under his especial patronage were injured. We have seen that their interference did but hasten on the catastrophe, and make his doom more certain.

Victor’s heart misgave him that evil was designed against his friend. He had seen the fearful end of the two pastors of Allevert and Gimosac, and the more recent fate of Hamelin; and the most cruel forebodings oppressed him. He was incessantly on the watch, and when obliged to leave the prison, and compelled to abandon Palissy to solitude, he could not go to his own home and rest there, but remained, pacing to and fro, in the neighbourhood of the jail; and, while thus restless and agitated, he poured out his soul in earnest entreaties for help from on high. Oh, the blessing of a true friend in the hour of adversity! How sweet a thing is heavenly charity – the brotherhood of love in Christ Jesus! It was a true word, spoken by the great lawyer, Gerbellius – “There is nothing the devil hates so cordially as sincere friendship;” and what marvel, since, as an old divine says, “it makes men so unlike his ill-natured self.” But, as long as we enjoy prosperous days, and sail before a favouring wind, there is no test by which we can prove the strength and value of this principle. The time to know who truly loves us is the season when troubles assail us. All sorts of affliction and misery test this, and show what friendship is genuine and hearty. This is one of “the uses of adversity,” as friendship is one of its sweetest alleviations.

On the afternoon of the day when Palissy’s abstraction from Saintes was plotted, Victor was at his customary post beside his friend, who remained quite composed and free from anxiety on his own account. “Be not so anxious,” he said, endeavouring to soothe the fears he did not share; “I am, at all events, secure from further harm, since the power is not in the hands of these judges. No thanks, indeed, to them; they fear to lose some morsel of benefice which they possess, and consequently go hand in hand with my sanguinary enemies. It is certain I can but take the blame of what has befallen me to my own account. Jesus Christ has left us a counsel, written in the 7th chapter of St. Matthew, by which he forbids us to scatter pearls before the swine, lest, turning upon us, they rend us. If I had obeyed this injunction, I should not now have been suffering, and at the mercy of those who, though they want the power, have undoubtedly the will to bring me to destruction as a malefactor.”

Just at that moment the jailer entered, desiring a man who followed him to bring in a box, which they placed in a corner of the room. “You must be going soon,” said he, addressing Victor; “I have some business in hand, and must lock up doors early to-night. Your friend can stay, however,” he added, casting a glance at Palissy, which seemed to the ever observant Victor to have a shade of compassion in it, “for half an hour longer if you wish it.” So saying he retired, turning the key, which grated heavily and with a harsh sound in the lock. Victor would have spoken of his suspicion that something was wrong, and that mischief was designed; but Bernard interrupted him with a gesture of impatience, and presently began talking on a theme which appears to have formed the solace of his prison-house, and by which he whiled away the hours, which else had seemed so tedious to his free and active nature. He had for some time had it in his intention to publish a little book containing his observations and opinions on various matters – in short, the experience of his past years. He now recurred to this subject. “I have resolved,” said he, “that my book shall treat on four subjects; to wit, agriculture, natural history, the plan of a delectable garden (to which I will append a history of the troubles in Saintonge), and lastly, the plan of a fortified town, which might serve as a city of refuge in these perilous times. Of the two former I have sketched the plan in my imagination, and the matter of the garden now fills my thought. You know well the delight I have in so great a recreation, and how I have been minded to make me such a pleasant retreat, as a place of refuge, whither I might flee from the iniquity and malice of the world to serve God with pure freedom.” “Would to heaven, my beloved friend, you were safe sheltered there,” said Victor, “but oh! methinks, this is but a pleasant dream.” “Often, in my sleep, I have seemed to be occupied about it,” said Bernard, “and it happened to me only last night, that, as I lay slumbering on my bed, my garden seemed to be already made, and I already began to eat its fruits and recreate myself therein; and it came to pass, in my night vision, that, while considering the marvellous deeds which our Sovereign Lord has commanded nature to perform, I fell upon my face, to worship and adore the Living of the living, who has made such things for man’s service and use. That also gave me occasion to consider our miserable ingratitude and perverse wickedness; and the more I entered into the contemplation of these things, the more was I disposed to value the art of agriculture, and I said in myself, that men were very foolish so to despise rural places and the labours of the field, which is a thing just before God, and which our ancient fathers, men of might and prophets, were content themselves to exercise, and even to watch the flocks; and being in such ravishment of spirit – ”

The sentence was broken short by the return of the jailer, who announced that the time he had allowed was now expired. Victor reluctantly took his leave of Palissy, and, with a heavy heart, turned to go from him. No sooner had he reached the open street than, again recurring, in his own thoughts, to what had transpired, he felt convinced that something was wrong. That compassionate glance of the stern jailer intimated, as it seemed to him, the cause of the favour he had granted, in allowing the two friends a longer interval before they were parted. “Parted!” cried Victor, his heart filled with dismay as his lips unconsciously uttered the ominous word – “parted! can it be that we are parted for ever? Lord!” he exclaimed, in a burst of feeling, “be thou his guard and his defence, as a wall of fire to keep thy servant; and in this hour of trial show that thine arm is not shortened, that it cannot save.” After a short interval, he repeated, in a low tone, this verse of a hymn composed by the Protestant Gondinel, and often sung by the little persecuted church of Saintes: —

“The time is dark, we faint with woe,
Our foes are mightier far than we;
They say, ‘Their God forsakes them now,
And who shall their deliverer be?’
Lord, show thy presence – prove thy power,
And save us at the latest hour.”

Continuing to pace to and fro, he remained within sight of the prison until the darkness gathered around, and the bright stars, one by one, came shining in brilliant beauty overhead. The sight of them, as he raised his prayerful eyes upwards, calmed his spirit, and he whispered gently, “He calleth them all by their names.” It was a thought calculated to inspire confidence in Him who has promised to his children that they shall be graven on the palms of his hands, and who has said, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee,” and the spirit of Victor was cheered as he pleaded the exceeding great and precious promises of divine love.

At length the hour of midnight approached, and still all around remained hushed in repose. There was nothing to justify his prognostications, nor to awaken alarm, and he had just resolved to retire, when the sound of horses tramping at a distance, caught his ear. Presently, from a side street emerged a small troop of horsemen, who moved cautiously along, and kept, as much as possible, within the deep shadows of the walls. They proceeded down the street, and drew up before the gate of the prison-house. Victor, who had hastily retired beneath an archway, watched their movements with strained eyes, and dimly saw, by the starlight, the outline of their figures as they filed along. The gate was unbarred to them without summons, and the next instant a muffled form was led out between two men, and hastily lifted on to the crupper of one of the horses behind the stalwart form of a trooper. There was not a moment to lose, for the party were evidently about to resume their march, and Victor, with ready wit, emerging from his hiding-place, reeled forward, in the manner of a drunken man, and began to sing a carol. Just as the horse with its double freight passed him, he shouted the words, “Save us at the latest hour.” His stratagem succeeded, for a shrill whistle was instantly heard mingling with the ringing sound of the horses’ hoofs on the stones, as they passed along the street. “It is he!” cried Victor, and, with the speed of a greyhound he darted down the nearest passage.

He knew that his errand admitted not of delay. There was but one chance that Palissy might be saved. It was an intercession with the king; and possibly the Sire de Pons, on receiving immediate information of the secret Victor had thus learned, might take timely measures to frustrate the deadly designs of Barnard’s enemies.

CHAPTER XII

“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.