all that was possible to obtain his pardon; when that proved
hopeless, the potter arranged a plan of escape for the prisoner, but
Hamelin declined to fly, and was hanged at Bordeaux in 1557.

The new religion had changed life outwardly as well as inwardly at
Saintes, as Palissy himself tells us. 'Games, dances, songs, banquets,
smart clothes, were all things of the past. Ladies were forbidden by
Calvin, whose word was law, even to wear ribbons; the wine shops were
empty, for the young men passed their spare hours in the fields; girls
sat singing hymns on the banks of the streams, and boys abandoned their
games, and were as grave as their fathers.' The new faith spread rapidly
in this district, but the converts did not all behave in the peaceable
manner described by Palissy. As the party grew stronger it also grew
more violent, and it was plain to him and to everyone else that civil
war must shortly follow. Cruelty on one side was answered by cruelty on
the other, and Palissy had thrown in his lot with the Huguenots, and by
his writings as well as his words urged them to take arms against the
Catholics. Perhaps the artist in him may have grieved to hear of the
destruction in the beautiful churches of the carved images of the saints
that were broken by axes and hammers; of the pictures that were burned,
or the old illuminated manuscripts that were torn in pieces; but
outwardly he gave his approval, and when things went against the
Huguenots, even Palissy's powerful friends who admired his works could
no longer shut their eyes. He was warned to change his ways, and as he
did not the duke of Montpensier, then governor of the rebellious
provinces, thought he would keep Palissy from greater mischief by
putting him into prison. From Saintes he was sent to Bordeaux, where the
magistrates, irritated at his having given the use of a tower which they
had granted him for a studio as a meeting-place for Huguenots, ordered
him into stricter confinement, while they debated whether the studio
should be destroyed. But the constable of France, Anne de Montmorency,
hearing of this proposal, hastened to the queen dowager, Catherine de
Medicis, who came to the rescue by appointing him potter to the royal
household. In this manner Palissy and his studio both escaped, and soon
afterwards the Treaty of Amboise (1563) gave peace to both parties.

After this the happiest period of Palissy's life began. He was free, he
was on the way to grow rich