Among those who assisted in this great work no name is more eminent than that of Bernard Palissy (Fig. 227). We have already characterized his life as the great romance in the history of ceramics, and certainly it reads more like a romance than sober fact. Let us look at it a little in detail. His father was a humble artisan, and the honor of his birthplace is ascribed to La Chapelle Biron, between the years 1506 and 1510. His education was of the most limited kind, including merely reading and writing; and at an early age he began professional life as a worker in glass, a combination of the glazier and painter. His artistic instincts were thus kindled; and besides acquainting himself with drawing, painting, modelling, and geometry, he studied the Italian masters, copied their works, and devoted part of his time to literature. Thereafter, to add to his stock of knowledge and widen his experience, he began to travel, and visited Germany, Flanders, and the several provinces of his native country. As he travelled, he worked as surveyor and glass-painter, and studied chemistry and natural history. It is with some astonishment that we find this man, unknown to the world at large except as a potter, investigating the subjects upon which the noble science of geology was afterward built, and theorizing upon the elasticity and power of steam. [Illustration: Fig. 227.--Bernard Palissy. (From a Painting in the Hôtel Cluny, Paris.)] He finished his travels in 1539, settled at Saintes, married, and devoted himself to his original profession and to land-measuring. A few years later he saw the beautiful enamelled earthen cup--whether Oriental, German, or white Ferrarese need not concern us--which turned the entire course of his life. He wished to imitate the enamel without knowing anything of its composition, and embarked upon the long series of experiments which led him, through numberless trials, to eminence and fame. He presents at this period one of the most curious figures possibly in all history, that of a man apparently bent upon shutting out all benefit that might have been derived from the experience of others, literally “groping in the dark,” as he says of himself, and determined to make up for lack of technical knowledge by assiduous experiment. He ground, built furnaces and fired them, tried the potter’s oven of Chapelle-des-pots--all to no purpose. Having accepted a surveying mission he returned with treasury replenished and ardor unabated.