Lives of the Adepts

...to speak of the charitable acts which we both did to particular poor people, principally to poor widows and orphans; whose names should I divulge, with the largeness of the charity, and the way and manner of doing it, as my reward would then be only in this world, so neither could it be pleasing to the persons to whom we did it.

Building therefore these hospitals, chapels, churches, and church-yards in this city, I caused to be depicted under the said fourth arch, the most true and essential marks or signs of this art, yet under veils, types, and hieroglyphic covertures, in imitation of those things which are contained in the gilded book of Abraham the Jew a legendary Jewish sage and alchemist: Demonstrating to the wise, and men of understanding, the direct and perfect way of operation, and lineary work of the philosophers' stone the legendary substance capable of transmuting base metals and granting long life. Which being perfected by any one, takes away from him the root of all sin and evil, which is covetousness, changing his evil into good, and making him liberal, courteous, religious, devout, and fearing God, however wicked he was before. For from thenceforward he is continually ravished with the goodness of God, and with his grace and mercy, which he has obtained from the fountain of Eternal Goodness; with the profoundness of his divine and adorable power, and with the consideration of his admirable works.”

The evidence of these things remained in 1742, according to the testimony of Langlet du Fresnoy: first in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, where he built an arch on the side of St. Denis-street. Here were to be seen the hieroglyphic figures, on which he wrote a commentary, or explanation. Without the arch at the side of the cemetery, in the two niches, were the statues of St. James and St. John; and below that of St. John was the figure of Flamel, reading in a book, with a Gothic N. F. to mark his name; but the progression of the colors, in the order of the process, which he represented on the wall, was then effaced.

In the same cemetery, appeared a charnel-house, or vaulted arch, as a receptacle for the skulls or bones thrown up in digging new graves. Upon one of the pillars of this charnel, there was a Gothic N. F. with this inscription:

original French: "Ce charnier fut fait & donné a l’Eglise, Pour l’amour de Dieu, l’an. 1399."

The second of these evidences, was upon the Marivaux door, of the church of St. James, at the Boucherie, where the figure of Flamel, was on the left side in entering, kneeling at the feet of St. Jacques; and beneath was a Gothic N. The figure of Perrenelle was at the other side, kneeling at the feet of St. John, with a Gothic P. On the middle was an image of The Virgin.

Flamel.

The third was in the street of Notre Dame, at the portal of Genevieve, of Arden; called in Flamel’s testament Little Genevieve. There his statue was kneeling in a niche, with a desk at his side, looking towards St. James, and a Gothic N. F. below, at the right. At the foot was written: “This Portal built in 1402, by the alms of many.” By which inscription Flamel concealed that he was the principal donor.

The fourth remains of antiquity, was in the street of the Cemetery of St. Nicholas of the Fields, near St. Martin’s-street; where, from both sides, there was a wall of cut stone, which was unfinished on the left side. It was intended for an hospital. There were many figures engraven in the stone, with a Gothic N. F. on each side. The right side is dated 1407.

Flamel, thus piously employed in building churches, with the great treasures which he so legitimately possessed, thought he had not done enough, without leaving to posterity, the means of acquiring the same. He first wrote his Summary of Philosophy, in French verse, after the example of the Romance of the Rose, which was then much in vogue. Four years after, in 1413, he wrote the Comment on the Hieroglyphics, which he had erected, in an arch in the public street, at the church-yard of the Innocents.

Approaching near the end of his life, and having no children, he chose his burial-place in his parish church of St. James of the Boucherie, before the crucifix; by a contract that he made with the wardens of this church, of which he makes mention in his testament. He then disposed of his property and goods to the church and the poor; as may be seen in his will, which is lodged in the archives of St. James of the Boucherie. It is dated the 22d November, 1416, and begins thus:

“To all those to whom present letters shall come, I, Annegny du Castel, knight original: "chevalier", counselor chamberlain original: "chambellan" of the King, our Lord original: "Sire", keeper of the provostry original: "prevot" of Paris, greeting; Know ye, that before Hugues de la Barre, and Jean de la Noe, notary clerks of the king, at the Chatelet a judicial building and prison in Paris, was established personally, Nicholas Flamel, scrivener, sound in body and mind, speaking clearly, with good and true understanding,” etc.

It is four sheets of parchment, which are sewed, one to the end of the other, like the rolls or volumes of ancient writing. It contains thirty-four articles; in the twentieth, he bequeaths to his relations the sum of forty livres. He lived but three years after making this will. The preface to his book on the Hieroglyphics, is the last of his writings, and is dated 1419.

Flamel made projection the final stage of the alchemical process where a base metal is transformed into gold in the presence of Perrenelle, in 1382; but there is a document of a transaction which passed between Perrenelle, her sister Isabella, and Flamel, dated 11th January, 1397, which is lodged in the archives of St. James of the Boucherie, by which the date of Perrenelle’s death is so far ascertained, that it is fixed between that year, and the date of...