JEAN DE MEUNG.
Poet, alchemist, and astrologer, a man of some fortune, and issued from an ancient family, Jean de Meung was one of the chief figures at the Court of King Philippe le Bel. He was born, according to the latest authorities, about the middle of the thirteenth century, and his continuation of the Roman de la Rose, which Guillaume de Lorris had begun some time before the year 1260, was undertaken not in his nineteenth year, as generally stated, but about or a little before the age of thirty, and at the instance of the French King.
The Romance of the Rose, “that epic of ancient France,” as Éliphas Lévi calls it, has been generally considered by alchemists a poetic and allegorical presentation of the secrets of the magnum opus. It professes, at any rate, the principles of Hermetic Philosophy, and Jean de Meung was also the author of “Nature’s Remonstrances to the Alchemist” and “The Alchemist’s Answer to Nature.” Hermetic commentaries have been written upon the romance-poem, and tradition has ascribed to the author the accomplishment of great transmutations. The sermon of Genius, chaplain and confessor to Dame Nature, in the Romance, is an exhibition of the principles of chemistry, as well as a satire on the bombastic and unintelligible preaching which was in vogue at that period. From verse 16,914 to verse 16,997 there is much chemical information.
The year 1216 is the probable period of the poet’s death. The story told of his testament has only a foundation in legend, but it is worth repeating as evidence of the general belief in his skill as an alchemist.
He chose by his will, says the story, to be buried in the Church of the Jacobins, and, as an acknowledgment, left them a coffer that appeared, at least by its weight, to be filled with things precious, probably with the best gold which could be manufactured by the skill of the Hermetists. He ordered, however, that this coffer should not be opened till after his funeral, when, touched with the piety of the deceased, the monks assembled in great numbers to be present at its opening, and to offer up thanks to God. They found to their great disappointment that the coffer was filled with large pieces of slates beautifully engraved with figures of geometry and arithmetic. The indignation of the fathers was excited by the posthumous imposture, and they proposed to eject the body of Jean de Meung from their consecrated precincts; but the Parliament being informed of this inhumanity, obliged the Jacobins, by a decree, to leave the deceased undisturbed in the honourable sepulchre of their conventual cloisters.
In “Nature’s Remonstrance to the Alchemist,” who is described as a foolish and sophistical souffleur, making use of nothing but mechanical arts, the complainant bitterly abuses the fanatical student who diffuses over her beautiful domain the rank odours of sulphur, which he tortures in vain over his furnaces, for by such a method he will assuredly attain nothing. The alchemist in his “Reply” figures as a repentant being, convinced of his errors, which he ascribes to the barbarous allegories, parabolic sentences, and delusive precepts contained in the writings of the adepts.