by Charles Mackay
The story of this alchemist, as handed down by tradition, and
enshrined in the pages of Lenglet du Fresnoy, is not a little
marvelous. He was born at Pontoise of a poor but respectable family,
at the end of the thirteenth, or beginning of the fourteenth, century.
Having no patrimony, he set out for Paris at an early age, to try his
fortune as a public scribe. He had received a good education, was well
skilled in the learned languages, and was an excellent penman. He soon
procured occupation as a letter-writer and copyist, and used to sit at
the corner of the Rue de Marivaux, and practice his calling: but he
hardly made profits enough to keep body and soul together. To mend his
fortunes he tried poetry; but this was a more wretched occupation
still. As a transcriber he had at least gained bread and cheese; but
his rhymes were not worth a crust. He then tried painting with as
little success; and as a last resource, began to search for the
philosopher's stone, and tell fortunes. This was a happier idea; he
soon increased in substance, and had wherewithal to live comfortably.
He, therefore, took unto himself his wife Petronella, and began to
save money; but continued to all outward appearance as poor and
miserable as before. In the course of a few years, he became
desperately addicted to the study of alchemy, and thought of nothing
but the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, and the universal
alkahest. In the year 1257, he bought by chance an old book for two
florins, which soon became the sole study and object of his life. It
was written with a steel instrument upon the bark of trees, and
contained twenty-one, or as he himself always expressed it, three
times seven, leaves. The writing was very elegant and in the Latin
language. Each seventh leaf contained a picture and no writing. On the
first of these was a serpent swallowing rods; on the second, a cross
with a serpent crucified; and on the third, the representation of a
desert, in the midst of which was a fountain with serpents crawling
from side to side. It purported to be written by no less a personage
than "Abraham, patriarch, Jew, prince, philosopher, priest, Levite,
and astrologer;" and invoked curses upon any one who should cast eyes
upon it, without being a sacrificer or a scribe. Nicholas Flamel never
thought it extraordinary that Abraham should have known Latin, and was
convinced that the characters on his book had been traced by the hands
of that great patriarch himself. He was at first afraid to read it,
after he became aware of the curse it contained; but he got over that
difficulty by recollecting that, although he was not a sacrificer, he
had practiced as a scribe. As he read he was filled with admiration,
and found that it was a perfect treatise upon the transmutation of
metals. All the process was clearly explained; the vessels, the
retorts, the mixtures, and the proper times and seasons for the
experiment. But as ill-luck would have it, the possession of the
philosopher's stone or prime agent in the work was presupposed. This
was a difficulty which was not to be got over. It was like telling a
starving man how to cook a beefsteak, instead of giving him the money
to buy one. But Nicholas did not despair; and set about studying the
hieroglyphics and allegorical representations with which the book
abounded. He soon convinced himself that it had been one of the sacred
books of the Jews, and that it was taken from the temple of Jerusalem
on its destruction by Titus. The process of reasoning by which he
arrived at this conclusion is not stated.
From some expression in the treatise, he learned that the
allegorical drawings on the fourth and fifth leaves, enshrined the
secret of the philosopher's stone, without which all the fine Latin of
the directions was utterly unavailing. He invited all the alchemists
and learned men of Paris to come and examine them, but they all
departed as wise as they came. Nobody could make anything either of
Nicholas or his pictures; and some even went so far as to say that his
invaluable book was not worth a farthing. This was not to be borne;
and Nicholas resolved to discover the great secret by himself, without
troubling the philosophers. He found on the first page, of the fourth
leaf, the picture of Mercury, attacked by an old man resembling Saturn
or Time. The latter had an hourglass on his head, and in his hand a
scythe, with which he aimed a blow at Mercury's feet. The reverse of
the leaf represented a flower growing on a mountain top, shaken rudely
by the wind, with a blue stalk, red and white blossoms, and leaves of
pure gold. Around it were a great number of dragons and griffins. On
the first page of the fifth leaf was a fine garden, in the midst of
which was a rose tree in full bloom, supported against the trunk of a
gigantic oak. At the foot of this there bubbled up a fountain of
milk-white water, which forming a small stream, flowed through the
garden, and was afterwards lost in the sands. On the second page was a
King, with a sword in his hand, superintending a number of soldiers,
who, in execution of his orders, were killing a great multitude of
young children, spurning the prayers and tears of their mothers, who
tried to save them from destruction. The blood of the children was
carefully collected by another party of soldiers, and put into a large
vessel, in which two allegorical figures of the Sun and Moon were
bathing themselves.
For twenty-one years poor Nicholas wearied himself with the study
of these pictures, but still he could make nothing of them. His wife
Petronella at last persuaded him to find out some learned Rabbi; but
there was no Rabbi in Paris learned enough to be of any service to
him. The Jews met but small encouragement to fix their abode in
France, and all the chiefs of that people were located in Spain. To
Spain accordingly Nicholas Flamel repaired. He left his book in Paris
for fear, perhaps, that he might be robbed of it on the road; and
telling his neighbors that he was going on a pilgrimage to the shrine
of St. James of Compostello, he trudged on foot towards Madrid in
search of a Rabbi. He was absent two years in that country, and made
himself known to a great number of Jews, descendants of those who had
been expelled from France in the reign of Philip Augustus. The
believers in the philosopher's stone give the following account of his
adventures: -- They say that at Leon he made the acquaintance of a
converted Jew, named Cauches, a very learned physician, to whom he
explained the title and the nature of his little book. The Doctor was
transported with joy as soon as he heard it named, and immediately
resolved to accompany Nicholas to Paris, that he might have a sight of
it. The two set out together; the Doctor on the way entertaining his
companion with the history of his book, which, if the genuine book he
thought it to be, from the description he had heard of it, was in the
handwriting of Abraham himself, and had been in the possession of
personages no less distinguished than Moses, Joshua, Solomon, and
Esdras. It contained all the secrets of alchemy and of many other
sciences, and was the most valuable book that had ever existed in this
world. The Doctor was himself no mean adept, and Nicholas profited
greatly by his discourse, as in the garb of poor pilgrims they wended
their way to Paris, convinced of their power to turn every old shovel
in that capital into pure gold. But, unfortunately, when they reached
Orleans, the Doctor was taken dangerously ill. Nicholas watched by his
bedside, and acted the double part of a physician and nurse to him;
but he died after a few days, lamenting with his last breath that he
had not lived long enough to see the precious volume. Nicholas
rendered the last honors to his body; and with a sorrowful heart, and
not one sous in his pocket, proceeded home to his wife Petronella. He
immediately recommenced the study of his pictures; but for two whole
years he was as far from understanding them as ever. At last, in the
third year, a glimmer of light stole over his understanding. He
recalled some expression of his friend, the Doctor, which had hitherto
escaped his memory, and he found that all his previous experiments had
been conducted on a wrong basis. He recommenced them now with renewed
energy, and at the end of the year had the satisfaction to see all his
toils rewarded. On the 13th January 1382, says Lenglet, he made a
projection on mercury, and had some very excellent silver. On the 25th
April following, he converted a large quantity of mercury into gold,
and the great secret was his.
Nicholas was now about eighty years of age, and still a hale and
stout old man. His friends say that, by the simultaneous discovery of
the elixir of life, he found means to keep death at a distance for
another quarter of a century; and that he died in 1415, at the age of
116. In this interval he had made immense quantities of gold, though
to all outward appearance he was as poor as a mouse. At an early
period of his changed fortune, he had, like a worthy man, taken
counsel with his old wife Petronella, as to the best use he could make
of his wealth. Petronella replied, that as unfortunately they had no
children, the best thing he could do, was to build hospitals and endow
churches. Nicholas thought so too, especially when he began to find
that his elixir could not keep off death, and that the grim foe was
making rapid advances upon him. He richly endowed the church of St.
Jacques de la Boucherie, near the Rue de Marivaux, where he had all
his life resided, besides seven others in different parts of the
kingdom. He also endowed fourteen hospitals, and built three chapels.
The fame of his great wealth and his munificent benefactions soon
spread over all the country, and he was visited, among others, by the
celebrated Doctors of that day, Jean Gerson, Jean de Courtecuisse, and
Pierre d'Ailli. They found him in his humble apartment, meanly clad,
and eating porridge out of an earthen vessel; and with regard to his
secret, as impenetrable as all his predecessors in alchemy. His fame
reached the ears of the King, Charles VI, who sent M. de Cramoisi, the
Master of Requests, to find out whether Nicholas had indeed discovered
the philosopher's stone. But M. de Cramoisi took nothing by his visit;
all his attempts to sound the alchemist were unavailing, and he
returned to his royal master no wiser than he came. It was in this
year, 1414, that he lost his faithful Petronella. He did not long
survive her; but died in the following year, and was buried with great
pomp by the grateful priests of St. Jacques de la Boucherie.
The great wealth of Nicholas Flamel is undoubted, as the records
of several churches and hospitals in France can testify. That he
practiced alchemy is equally certain, as he left behind several works
upon the subject.
Those who knew him well, and who were incredulous about the
philosopher's stone, give a very satisfactory solution of the secret
of his wealth. They say that he was always a miser and a usurer; that
his journey to Spain was undertaken with very different motives from
those pretended by the alchemists; that, in fact, he went to collect
debts due from Jews in that country to their brethren in Paris, and
that he charged a commission of fully cent. per cent. in consideration
of the difficulty of collecting and the dangers of the road; that when
he possessed thousands, he lived upon almost nothing; and was the
general money-lender, at enormous profits, of all the dissipated young
men at the French court.
Among the works written by Nicholas Flamel on the subject of
alchemy, is "The Philosophic Summary," a poem, reprinted in 1735, as
an appendix to the third volume of the "Roman de la Rose." He also
wrote three treatises upon natural philosophy, and an alchemic
allegory, entitled "Le Desir desire." Specimens of his writing, and a
fac-simile of the drawings in his book of Abraham, may be seen in
Salmon's "Bibliotheque des Philosophes Chimiques." The writer of the
article, "Flamel," in the "Biographie Universelle," says that, for a
hundred years after the death of Flamel, many of the adepts believed
that he was still alive, and that he would live for upwards of six
hundred years. The house he formerly occupied, at the corner of the
Rue de Marivaux, has been often taken by credulous speculators, and
ransacked from top to bottom, in the hopes that gold might be found. A
report was current in Paris, not long previous to the year 1816, that
some lodgers had found in the cellars several jars filled with a
dark-colored ponderous matter. Upon the strength of the rumor, a
believer in all the wondrous tales told of Nicholas Flamel bought the
house, and nearly pulled it to pieces in ransacking the walls and
wainscoting for hidden gold. He got nothing for his pains, however,
and had a heavy bill to pay to restore his dilapidations.
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