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THE HUGUENOTS IN FEANCE 59 



on manfully. Worst of all the sufferings I had to endure 

 were the mockeries of my own household. For years my 

 furnaces were without covering, and I have been for nights 

 at the mercy of the wind and rain. My house proved no 

 refuge for me, I found in my chamber a second persecu- 

 tion worse than the first." Still he went on, and it was success at 

 sixteen years before he reached success and would call 

 himself potter. Ever after till death he proceeded 

 from one improvement to another, aiming at perfec- 

 tion. 



Fame and means were now his, but another suffering 

 he had to endure. He was bitterly persecuted because he 

 was a Protestant. As he was fearless of speech, Palissy 

 was pronounced a dangerous heretic by the priests ; his Persecuted as 

 workshop was smashed by the rabble, and he was even 

 condemned to be burned. From this fate he was saved 

 by a powerful noble — not because the nobleman cared for 

 the potter or his religion, but because no other artist 

 living was able to execute the enamelled pavement which 

 the nobleman had ordered for his magnificent chateau 

 then in course of erection near Paris. Thus Palissy's 

 art, which cost him so much, saved his life literally. The saved by his 

 King also was greatly interested in his work. 



The persecutors could not let him alone. When an old 

 man of seventy-eight, owing to his open warfare against 

 astrology, witchcraft and other impostures, he was again 

 arrested as a heretic, and imprisoned in the Bastille. He 

 was threatened with death unless he recanted, but proved 

 as persistent in holding to his religion as he was in hunt- The King's 

 ing out the secret of the enamel. King Henry IV went 

 to see him in prison, to use his personal influence to 

 induce the old artist to recant. 



" 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 that I 

 am constrained to leave you in the hands of your ene- 



