He had mastered his profession, and the town in Perigord was somewhat too small for him. He must see something of that outer world where many others were making works of art. His skill as a painter of glass, as a draughtsman, and land-measurer, would earn him a living wherever he might go. So he set forth on his travels, as many young scholars and artisans were used to do in those days, working here and there, collecting new ideas, talking with many men of different minds, and gaining a first-hand knowledge of the world that lay about him. He visited the chief provinces of France, saw something of Burgundy and Flanders, and stayed for a time on the banks of the Rhine. His love of acquiring knowledge grew as he traveled, and he studied natural history, geology and chemistry. Where churches were being built he painted glass, where towns or nobles needed measurers or surveyors of their lands he worked for them. When he had seen as much of the world as he wished, he went to the town of Saintes, married, and settled there as a man of several trades. It was in 1539 that Palissy became a citizen of Saintes, and several years later that chance sent his way a beautiful cup of enameled pottery. Some have said that the cup came from Italy, and some from Nuremberg, but it was of a new pattern to Palissy, and the more he looked at it and handled it the more he wanted to learn the secret of its making, and duplicate it or improve on it. He had the artist’s wish to create something beautiful, and with it was the belief that he could provide well for his wife and children, and raise the potter’s art to a new height if he could learn the secret of this enamel. That thought became his lodestone, and he left all his other work to accomplish it. Much as he knew about glass, he knew nothing about enamel. He had no notion of the materials he should need, nor how he was to combine them. He started to make earthen vessels without knowing how other men had made them. He knew that he should need a furnace, and so he built one, although he had never seen a furnace fired. The attempt seemed foolhardy from the start. What he had saved he spent in his attempts to find the right materials. Soon his savings were gone, and he had to look about for a new means of living. A survey and plan of the great salt-marshes of Saintonge was wanted in 1543, and Palissy obtained the work. He finished it, was paid the stipulated sum, and immediately spent it in fresh experiments to find the coveted enamel. But he could not find it. One experiment after another ended in rebuff. He labored day and night, and the result of all his labors was the same. But the desire to find that enamel had possessed Palissy’s mind, and it was not a mind to veer or change.