Self Help

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But Luca, notwithstanding all his application and industry, did not
succeed in earning enough money by sculpture to enable him to live
by the art, and the idea occurred to him that he might nevertheless
be able to pursue his modelling in some material more facile and
less dear than marble. Hence it was that he began to make his
models in clay, and to endeavour by experiment so to coat and bake
the clay as to render those models durable. After many trials he
at length discovered a method of covering the clay with a material,
which, when exposed to the intense heat of a furnace, became
converted into an almost imperishable enamel. He afterwards made
the further discovery of a method of imparting colour to the
enamel, thus greatly adding to its beauty.

The fame of Luca's work extended throughout Europe, and specimens
of his art became widely diffused. Many of them were sent into
France and Spain, where they were greatly prized. At that time
coarse brown jars and pipkins were almost the only articles of
earthenware produced in France; and this continued to be the case,
with comparatively small improvement, until the time of Palissy--a
man who toiled and fought against stupendous difficulties with a
heroism that sheds a glow almost of romance over the events of his
chequered life.

Bernard Palissy is supposed to have been born in the south of
France, in the diocese of Agen, about the year 1510. His father
was probably a worker in glass, to which trade Bernard was brought
up. His parents were poor people--too poor to give him the benefit
of any school education. "I had no other books," said he
afterwards, "than heaven and earth, which are open to all." He
learnt, however, the art of glass-painting, to which he added that
of drawing, and afterwards reading and writing.

When about eighteen years old, the glass trade becoming decayed,
Palissy left his father's house, with his wallet on his back, and
went out into the world to search whether there was any place in it
for him. He first travelled towards Gascony, working at his trade
where he could find employment, and occasionally occupying part of
his time in land-measuring. Then he travelled northwards,
sojourning for various periods at different places in France,
Flanders, and Lower Germany.

Thus Palissy occupied about ten more years of his life, after which
he married, and ceased from his wanderings, settling down to
practise glass-painting and land-measuring at the small town of
Saintes, in the Lower Charente. There children were born to him;
and not only his responsibilities but his expenses increased,
while, do what he could, his earnings remained too small for his
needs. It was therefore necessary for him to bestir himself.
Probably he felt capable of better things than drudging in an
employment so precarious as glass-painting; and hence he was
induced to turn his attention to the kindred art of painting and
enamelling earthenware. Yet on this subject he was wholly
ignorant; for he had never seen earth baked before he began his
operations. He had therefore everything to learn by himself,
without any helper. But he was full of hope, eager to learn, of
unbounded perseverance and inexhaustible patience.

It was the sight of an elegant cup of Italian manufacture--most
probably one of Luca della Robbia's make--which first set Palissy
a-thinking about the new art. A circumstance so apparently
insignificant would have produced no effect upon an ordinary mind,
or even upon Palissy himself at an ordinary time; but occurring as
it did when he was meditating a change of calling, he at once
became inflamed with the desire of imitating it. The sight of this
cup disturbed his whole existence; and the determination to
discover the enamel with which it was glazed thenceforward
possessed him like a passion. Had he been a single man he might
have travelled into Italy in search of the secret; but he was bound
to his wife and his children, and could not leave them; so he
remained by their side groping in the dark in the hope of finding
out the process of making and enamelling earthenware.

At first he could merely guess the materials of which the enamel
was composed; and he proceeded to try all manner of experiments to
ascertain what they really were. He pounded all the substances
which he supposed were likely to produce it. Then he bought common
earthen pots, broke them into pieces, and, spreading his compounds
over them, subjected them to the heat of a furnace which he erected
for the purpose of baking them. His experiments failed; and the
results were broken pots and a waste of fuel, drugs, time, and
labour. Women do not readily sympathise with experiments whose
only tangible effect is to dissipate the means of buying clothes
and food for their children; and Palissy's wife, however dutiful in
other respects, could not be reconciled to the purchase of more
earthen pots, which seemed to her to be bought only to be broken.
Yet she must needs submit; for Palissy had become thoroughly
possessed by the determination to master the secret of the enamel,
and would not leave it alone.

For many successive months and years Palissy pursued his
experiments. The first furnace having proved a failure, he
proceeded to erect another out of doors. There he burnt more wood,
spoiled more drugs and pots, and lost more time, until poverty
stared him and his family in the face. "Thus," said he, "I fooled
away several years, with sorrow and sighs, because I could not at
all arrive at my intention." In the intervals of his experiments
he occasionally worked at his former callings, painting on glass,
drawing portraits, and measuring land; but his earnings from these
sources were very small. At length he was no longer able to carry
on his experiments in his own furnace because of the heavy cost of
fuel; but he bought more potsherds, broke them up as before into
three or four hundred pieces, and, covering them with chemicals,
carried them to a tile-work a league and a half distant from
Saintes, there to be baked in an ordinary furnace. After the
operation he went to see the pieces taken out; and, to his dismay,
the whole of the experiments were failures. But though
disappointed, he was not yet defeated; for he determined on the
very spot to "begin afresh."

His business as a land-measurer called him away for a brief season
from the pursuit of his experiments. In conformity with an edict
of the State, it became necessary to survey the salt-marshes in the
neighbourhood of Saintes for the purpose of levying the land-tax.
Palissy was employed to make this survey, and prepare the requisite
map. The work occupied him some time, and he was doubtless well
paid for it; but no sooner was it completed than he proceeded, with
redoubled zeal, to follow up his old investigations "in the track
of the enamels." He began by breaking three dozen new earthen
pots, the pieces of which he covered with different materials which
he had compounded, and then took them to a neighbouring glass-
furnace to be baked. The results gave him a glimmer of hope. The
greater heat of the glass-furnace had melted some of the compounds;
but though Palissy searched diligently for the white enamel he
could find none.

For two more years he went on experimenting without any
satisfactory result, until the proceeds of his survey of the salt-
marshes having become nearly spent, he was reduced to poverty
again. But he resolved to make a last great effort; and he began
by breaking more pots than ever. More than three hundred pieces of
pottery covered with his compounds were sent to the glass-furnace;
and thither he himself went to watch the results of the baking.
Four hours passed, during which he watched; and then the furnace
was opened. The material on ONE only of the three hundred pieces
of potsherd had melted, and it was taken out to cool. As it
hardened, it grew white-white and polished! The piece of potsherd
was covered with white enamel, described by Palissy as "singularly
beautiful!" And beautiful it must no doubt have been in his eyes
after all his weary waiting. He ran home with it to his wife,
feeling himself, as he expressed it, quite a new creature. But the
prize was not yet won--far from it. The partial success of this
intended last effort merely had the effect of luring him on to a
succession of further experiments and failures.

In order that he might complete the invention, which he now
believed to be at hand, he resolved to build for himself a glass-
furnace near his dwelling, where he might carry on his operations
in secret. He proceeded to build the furnace with his own hands,
carrying the bricks from the brick-field upon his back. He was
bricklayer, labourer, and all. From seven to eight more months
passed. At last the furnace was built and ready for use. Palissy
had in the mean time fashioned a number of vessels of clay in
readiness for the laying on of the enamel. After being subjected
to a preliminary process of baking, they were covered with the
enamel compound, and again placed in the furnace for the grand
crucial experiment. Although his means were nearly exhausted,
Palissy had been for some time accumulating a great store of fuel
for the final effort; and he thought it was enough. At last the
fire was lit, and the operation proceeded. All day he sat by the
furnace, feeding it with fuel. He sat there watching and feeding
all through the long night. But the enamel did not melt. The sun
rose upon his labours. His wife brought him a portion of the
scanty morning meal,--for he would not stir from the furnace, into
which he continued from time to time to heave more fuel. The
second day passed, and still the enamel did not melt. The sun set,
and another night passed. The pale, haggard, unshorn, baffled yet
not beaten Palissy sat by his furnace eagerly looking for the
melting of the enamel. A third day and night passed--a fourth, a
fifth, and even a sixth,--yes, for six long days and nights did the
unconquerable Palissy watch and toil, fighting against hope; and
still the enamel would not melt.

It then occurred to him that there might be some defect in the
materials for the enamel--perhaps something wanting in the flux; so
he set to work to pound and compound fresh materials for a new
experiment. Thus two or three more weeks passed. But how to buy
more pots?--for those which he had made with his own hands for the
purposes of the first experiment were by long baking irretrievably
spoilt for the purposes of a second. His money was now all spent;
but he could borrow. His character was still good, though his wife
and the neighbours thought him foolishly wasting his means in
futile experiments. Nevertheless he succeeded. He borrowed
sufficient from a friend to enable him to buy more fuel and more
pots, and he was again ready for a further experiment. The pots
were covered with the new compound, placed in the furnace, and the
fire was again lit.

It was the last and most desperate experiment of the whole. The
fire blazed up; the heat became intense; but still the enamel did
not melt. The fuel began to run short! How to keep up the fire?
There were the garden palings: these would burn. They must be
sacrificed rather than that the great experiment should fail. The
garden palings were pulled up and cast into the furnace. They were
burnt in vain! The enamel had not yet melted. Ten minutes more
heat might do it. Fuel must be had at whatever cost. There
remained the household furniture and shelving. A crashing noise
was heard in the house; and amidst the screams of his wife and
children, who now feared Palissy's reason was giving way, the
tables were seized, broken up, and heaved into the furnace. The
enamel had not melted yet! There remained the shelving. Another
noise of the wrenching of timber was heard within the house; and
the shelves were torn down and hurled after the furniture into the
fire. Wife and children then rushed from the house, and went
frantically through the town, calling out that poor Palissy had
gone mad, and was breaking up his very furniture for firewood! {10}

For an entire month his shirt had not been off his back, and he was
utterly worn out--wasted with toil, anxiety, watching, and want of
food. He was in debt, and seemed on the verge of ruin. But he had
at length mastered the secret; for the last great burst of heat had
melted the enamel. The common brown household jars, when taken out
of the furnace after it had become cool, were found covered with a
white glaze! For this he could endure reproach, contumely, and
scorn, and wait patiently for the opportunity of putting his
discovery into practice as better days came round.

Palissy next hired a potter to make some earthen vessels after
designs which he furnished; while he himself proceeded to model
some medallions in clay for the purpose of enamelling them. But
how to maintain himself and his family until the wares were made
and ready for sale? Fortunately there remained one man in Saintes
who still believed in the integrity, if not in the judgment, of
Palissy--an inn-keeper, who agreed to feed and lodge him for six
months, while he went on with his manufacture. As for the working
potter whom he had hired, Palissy soon found that he could not pay
him the stipulated wages. Having already stripped his dwelling, he
could but strip himself; and he accordingly parted with some of his
clothes to the potter, in part payment of the wages which he owed
him.

Palissy next erected an improved furnace, but he was so unfortunate
as to build part of the inside with flints. When it was heated,
these flints cracked and burst, and the spiculae were scattered
over the pieces of pottery, sticking to them. Though the enamel
came out right, the work was irretrievably spoilt, and thus six
more months' labour was lost. Persons were found willing to buy
the articles at a low price, notwithstanding the injury they had
sustained; but Palissy would not sell them, considering that to
have done so would be to "decry and abate his honour;" and so he
broke in pieces the entire batch. "Nevertheless," says he, "hope
continued to inspire me, and I held on manfully; sometimes, when
visitors called, I entertained them with pleasantry, while I was
really sad at heart. . . . Worst of all the sufferings I had to
endure, were the mockeries and persecutions of those of my own
household, who were so unreasonable as to expect me to execute work
without the means of doing so. For years my furnaces were without
any covering or protection, and while attending them I have been
for nights at the mercy of the wind and the rain, without help or
consolation, save it might be the wailing of cats on the one side
and the howling of dogs on the other. Sometimes the tempest would
beat so furiously against the furnaces that I was compelled to
leave them and seek shelter within doors. Drenched by rain, and in
no better plight than if I had been dragged through mire, I have
gone to lie down at midnight or at daybreak, stumbling into the
house without a light, and reeling from one side to another as if I
had been drunken, but really weary with watching and filled with
sorrow at the loss of my labour after such long toiling. But alas!
my home proved no refuge; for, drenched and besmeared as I was, I
found in my chamber a second persecution worse than the first,
which makes me even now marvel that I was not utterly consumed by
my many sorrows."

At this stage of his affairs, Palissy became melancholy and almost
hopeless, and seems to have all but broken down. He wandered
gloomily about the fields near Saintes, his clothes hanging in
tatters, and himself worn to a skeleton. In a curious passage in
his writings he describes how that the calves of his legs had
disappeared and were no longer able with the help of garters to
hold up his stockings, which fell about his heels when he walked.
{11} The family continued to reproach him for his recklessness,
and his neighbours cried shame upon him for his obstinate folly.
So he returned for a time to his former calling; and after about a
year's diligent labour, during which he earned bread for his
household and somewhat recovered his character among his
neighbours, he again resumed his darling enterprise. But though he
had already spent about ten years in the search for the enamel, it
cost him nearly eight more years of experimental plodding before he
perfected his invention. He gradually learnt dexterity and
certainty of result by experience, gathering practical knowledge
out of many failures. Every mishap was a fresh lesson to him,
teaching him something new about the nature of enamels, the
qualities of argillaceous earths, the tempering of clays, and the
construction and management of furnaces.

At last, after about sixteen years' labour, Palissy took heart and
called himself Potter. These sixteen years had been his term of
apprenticeship to the art; during which he had wholly to teach
himself, beginning at the very beginning. He was now able to sell
his wares and thereby maintain his family in comfort. But he never
rested satisfied with what he had accomplished. He proceeded from
one step of improvement to another; always aiming at the greatest
perfection possible. He studied natural objects for patterns, and
with such success that the great Buffon spoke of him as "so great a
naturalist as Nature only can produce." His ornamental pieces are
now regarded as rare gems in the cabinets of virtuosi, and sell at
almost fabulous prices. {12} The ornaments on them are for the
most part accurate models from life, of wild animals, lizards, and
plants, found in the fields about Saintes, and tastefully combined
as ornaments into the texture of a plate or vase. When Palissy had
reached the height of his art he styled himself "Ouvrier de Terre
et Inventeur des Rustics Figulines."

We have not, however, come to an end of the sufferings of Palissy,
respecting which a few words remain to be said. Being a
Protestant, at a time when religious persecution waxed hot in the
south of France, and expressing his views without fear, he was
regarded as a dangerous heretic. His enemies having informed
against him, his house at Saintes was entered by the officers of
"justice," and his workshop was thrown open to the rabble, who
entered and smashed his pottery, while he himself was hurried off
by night and cast into a dungeon at Bordeaux, to wait his turn at
the stake or the scaffold. He was condemned to be burnt; but a
powerful noble, the Constable de Montmorency, interposed to save
his life--not because he had any special regard for Palissy or his
religion, but because no other artist could be found capable of
executing the enamelled pavement for his magnificent chateau then
in course of erection at Ecouen, about four leagues from Paris. By
his influence an edict was issued appointing Palissy Inventor of
Rustic Figulines to the King and to the Constable, which had the
effect of immediately removing him from the jurisdiction of
Bourdeaux. He was accordingly liberated, and returned to his home
at Saintes only to find it devastated and broken up. His workshop
was open to the sky, and his works lay in ruins. Shaking the dust
of Saintes from his feet he left the place never to return to it,
and removed to Paris to carry on the works ordered of him by the
Constable and the Queen Mother, being lodged in the Tuileries {13}
while so occupied.

Besides carrying on the manufacture of pottery, with the aid of his
two sons, Palissy, during the latter part of his life, wrote and
published several books on the potter's art, with a view to the
instruction of his countrymen, and in order that they might avoid
the many mistakes which he himself had made. He also wrote on
agriculture, on fortification, and natural history, on which latter
subject he even delivered lectures to a limited number of persons.
He waged war against astrology, alchemy, witchcraft, and like
impostures. This stirred up against him many enemies, who pointed
the finger at him as a heretic, and he was again arrested for his
religion and imprisoned in the Bastille. He was now an old man of
seventy-eight, trembling on the verge of the grave, but his spirit
was as brave as ever. He was threatened with death unless he
recanted; but he was as obstinate in holding to his religion as he
had been in hunting out the secret of the enamel. The king, Henry
III., even went to see him in prison to induce him to abjure his
faith. "My good man," said the King, "you have now served my
mother and myself for forty-five years. We have put up with your
adhering to your religion amidst fires and massacres: now I am so
pressed by the Guise party as well as by my own people, that I am
constrained to leave you in the hands of your enemies, and to-
morrow you will be burnt unless you become converted." "Sire,"
answered the unconquerable old man, "I am ready to give my life for
the glory of God. You have said many times that you have pity on
me; and now I have pity on you, who have pronounced the words _I_
AM CONSTRAINED! It is not spoken like a king, sire; it is what
you, and those who constrain you, the Guisards and all your people,
can never effect upon me, for I know how to die." {14} Palissy did
indeed die shortly after, a martyr, though not at the stake. He
died in the Bastille, after enduring about a year's imprisonment,--
there peacefully terminating a life distinguished for heroic
labour, extraordinary endurance, inflexible rectitude, and the
exhibition of many rare and noble virtues. {15}

The life of John Frederick Bottgher, the inventor of hard
porcelain, presents a remarkable contrast to that of Palissy;
though it also contains many points of singular and almost romantic
interest. Bottgher was born at Schleiz, in the Voightland, in
1685, and at twelve years of age was placed apprentice with an
apothecary at Berlin. He seems to have been early fascinated by
chemistry, and occupied most of his leisure in making experiments.
These for the most part tended in one direction--the art of
converting common on metals into gold. At the end of several
years, Bottgher pretended to have discovered the universal solvent
of the alchemists, and professed that he had made gold by its
means. He exhibited its powers before his master, the apothecary
Zorn, and by some trick or other succeeded in making him and
several other witnesses believe that he had actually converted
copper into gold.

The news spread abroad that the apothecary's apprentice had
discovered the grand secret, and crowds collected about the shop to
get a sight of the wonderful young "gold-cook." The king himself
expressed a wish to see and converse with him, and when Frederick
I. was presented with a piece of the gold pretended to have been
converted from copper, he was so dazzled with the prospect of
securing an infinite quantity of it--Prussia being then in great
straits for money--that he determined to secure Bottgher and employ
him to make gold for him within the strong fortress of Spandau.
But the young apothecary, suspecting the king's intention, and
probably fearing detection, at once resolved on flight, and he
succeeded in getting across the frontier into Saxony.

A reward of a thousand thalers was offered for Bottgher's
apprehension, but in vain. He arrived at Wittenberg, and appealed
for protection to the Elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus I.
(King of Poland), surnamed "the Strong." Frederick was himself
very much in want of money at the time, and he was overjoyed at the
prospect of obtaining gold in any quantity by the aid of the young
alchemist. Bottgher was accordingly conveyed in secret to Dresden,
accompanied by a royal escort. He had scarcely left Wittenberg
when a battalion of Prussian grenadiers appeared before the gates
demanding the gold-maker's extradition. But it was too late:
Bottgher had already arrived in Dresden, where he was lodged in the
Golden House, and treated with every consideration, though strictly
watched and kept under guard.

The Elector, however, must needs leave him there for a time, having
to depart forthwith to Poland, then almost in a state of anarchy.
But, impatient for gold, he wrote Bottgher from Warsaw, urging him
to communicate the secret, so that he himself might practise the
art of commutation. The young "gold-cook," thus pressed, forwarded
to Frederick a small phial containing "a reddish fluid," which, it
was asserted, changed all metals, when in a molten state, into
gold. This important phial was taken in charge by the Prince Furst
von Furstenburg, who, accompanied by a regiment of Guards, hurried
with it to Warsaw. Arrived there, it was determined to make
immediate trial of the process. The King and the Prince locked
themselves up in a secret chamber of the palace, girt themselves
about with leather aprons, and like true "gold-cooks" set to work
melting copper in a crucible and afterwards applying to it the red
fluid of Bottgher. But the result was unsatisfactory; for
notwithstanding all that they could do, the copper obstinately
remained copper. On referring to the alchemist's instructions,
however, the King found that, to succeed with the process, it was
necessary that the fluid should be used "in great purity of heart;"
and as his Majesty was conscious of having spent the evening in
very bad company he attributed the failure of the experiment to
that cause. A second trial was followed by no better results, and
then the King became furious; for he had confessed and received
absolution before beginning the second experiment.

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