Yet it is also evident that this industry--one of a sufficiently elevated kind--nearly disappeared about the period of the invasions and wars amidst the tumult of which French monarchy had its birth; and there remained but the simple art that provided for ordinary requirements an assemblage of articles rude and devoid of character. It must be remembered, however, that the ceramic art which had flourished in the West merely migrated, instead of becoming extinct; and it found, like so many other arts, a new country in that Byzantium destined to be the sanctuary of ancient magnificence. Whatever may be the reason, ceramic art disappeared from the soil of France during a long period; and it is still a question what was the real origin of its revival. Did it revive of itself, or was it under the influence of example? Did it owe its resuscitation to any immigration of artisans, or to the importation of some process of manufacture? These questions still remain unanswered. [Illustration: Fig. 33.--Vases of ancient shape, represented in the decorative sculpture of the Church of St. Benoît, Paris. (Twelfth Century.)] The ceramic art, which perhaps we somewhat wrongly style modern, is characterized by the use of enamel, or overlaying articles with a glaze having a metallic basis; this the fire of the oven vitrifies; it is a process of which the ancients were entirely ignorant. But, in searching the tombs that belonged to the ancient abbey of Jumièges (in Normandy), and which date from the year 1120, there have been found fragments of pottery of a fine but porous clay, covered with a glazing somewhat similar to that now used. Moreover, we read in a chronicle of the ancient province of Alsace, that in the year 1283 “died a potter of Schelestadt, who was the first to cover earthen vessels with glass.” But we also know that at the time when these isolated attempts were being carried out in France, the Persians and Armenians had long before discovered the art of making magnificent enamelled ware for covering the exterior of their monuments; and that the Arabs settled in Spain produced wonderful examples of painted and enamelled earthenware, with which they decorated and furnished those palaces whose grand ruins are still to us like the fairy visions of a dream or of enchantment. The vases of the Alhambra, types of an art as original as it was singularly ingenious, claim, and doubtless will always claim, the admiration of minds that can appreciate the beautiful in whatever form it may present itself. [Illustration: Fig. 34.--Vases of ancient form, represented in the decorative sculptures of the Church of St. Benoît, Paris. (Twelfth Century.)]