isfied with the dull
routine of his daily life. He felt that he ought to do more than make a
living for his wife and children. There were two babies now to be cared
for as well as his wife, and he could not shoulder his wallet, as in
the careless days of his boyhood, and wander away in search of
knowledge or fortune.

About this time an event happened which changed his whole life. He was
shown a beautiful cup of Italian manufacture. I give in his own words a
description of the cup, and the effect the sight of it had on him. "An
earthen cup," he says, "turned and enameled with so much beauty, that
from that time I entered into controversy with my own thoughts,
recalling to mind several suggestions that some people had made to me
in fun, when I was painting portraits. Then, seeing that these were
falling out of request in the country where I dwelt, and that glass
painting was also little patronized, I began to think that if I should
discover how to make enamels, I could make earthen vessels and other
things very prettily, because God has gifted me with some knowledge of
drawing."

His ambition was fired at once. A definite purpose formed itself in his
mind. He knew nothing whatever of pottery. No man in France knew the
secret of enameling, which made the Italian cup so beautiful, and
Palissy had not the means to go to Italy, where he probably could have
learned it. He resolved to study the nature and properties of clays,
and not to rest until he had discovered the secret of the white enamel.
Delightful visions filled his imagination. He thought within himself
that he would become the prince of potters, and would provide his wife
and children with all the luxuries that money could buy. "Thereafter,"
he wrote, "regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I
began to seek for the enamels as a man gropes in the dark."

Palissy was a young man when he began his search for the enamel; he was
past middle life when his labors were finally rewarded. Groping like a
man in the dark, as he himself said, he experimented for years with
clays and chemicals, but with small success. He built with his own
hands a furnace at the back of his little cottage in which to carry on
his experiments. At first his enthusiasm inspired his wife and
neighbors with the belief that he would succeed in his efforts. But
time went on, and as one experiment after another failed or was only
partially successful, one and all lost faith in him. H