, and he had leisure to write down the
thoughts and plans that had come to him long ago as a boy in his
wanderings, or lately, in his lonely hours in prison. His children could
be well provided for, and he need have no more anxiety about them. As to
his wife, she appears to have been already dead when fortune at last
visited him, and, indeed, she played but a small part in his life.

Now his first book was composed, and in it we can read about the gardens
that Palissy hoped to lay out if his rich friends, Montmorency, or
Montpensier, or Conde, or even the queen herself, would help him to
carry out his designs.

The garden of Palissy's thoughts was to be very large, and certainly
would cost a great deal of money. It was to be situated under a hill, so
that the flowers and fruits might be protected from the winds, and many
streams were to flow through it. Broad alleys would cross the garden,
ending in arbours, some made of trees, trained or cut into different
shapes, and filled with statues; others of different coloured stones,
with lizards and vipers climbing upon the walls, while on the floor
texts would be picked out in pebbles. Plants and flowers would hang from
the roofs of the grottos, and beside them the rivulets would broaden
into basins where real frogs and fish would gaze with surprise at their
stone companions on the brink. Here and there the stream would be dammed
up into a lake covered with tiny islands, and filled with forget-me-nots
and water-lilies and pretty yellow irises, and at the next turn of the
path the visitor would be delighted by a beautiful statue half hidden by
a grove of trees. Catching sight of an inscription in the left hand of
the figure, he would not resist stepping aside to read it, and as he was
stooping to see what was written a jar of water in the figure's right
hand would empty itself on his head.

[Illustration: A jar of water in the figure's right hands emptied itself
on his head.]

Wet and cross, the visitor would pursue his way, taking care not to go
near another statue standing alone in a wide grassy space, with a ring
dangling from its finger. The children or pages waiting on the lady of
the house would, however, think that the flat lawn would be a splendid
place in which to play at 'tilting at the ring,' and here was a ring
just set up for the purpose. Hastily fetching their toy weapons, they
would choose a starting-place and, holding their lances well back, run
swiftly tow