Pour l’amour de Dieu, l’an 1399.
The second of these evidences was upon the Marivaux door of the Church of Saint Jacques-la-Boucherie, where on the left side at entering was the figure of Flamel, kneeling at the feet of St James, with a Gothic N. upon the pedestal. The figure of Perrenelle was represented on the opposite side, kneeling at the feet of St John, the pedestal bearing a Gothic P.
The third evidence was in the street of Notre Dame, at the portal of Genevieve of Arden. There Flamel’s statue was to be seen in a niche, kneeling with a desk at his side, looking towards St James. There was a Gothic N. F. below and the inscription, “This portal was built in 1402, by the alms of many.” Flamel is supposed to have concealed in this manner that he was the principal donor, but the figure may have been erected to his memory.
The fourth and final evidence was in the street of the cemetery of St Nicholas of the Fields, where there was the wall of an unfinished hospital with figures engraven on the stone and the initials of Flamel.
After the death of Perrenelle the bereaved adept is supposed to have prepared for posterity several works on the supreme science which had enriched him:—Le Livre des Figures Hieroglyphiques; Le Sommaire Philosophique, written in verse after the manner of the Roman de la Rose; Trois Traités de la Transformation Metallique, also in rhymed verse; Le Desir Désiré, ou Trésor de Philosophie; Le Grand Eclaircissement de la Pierre Philosophale pour la Transmutation de tous Métaux; La Musique Chimique; Annotationes in D. Zacharmin, &c.
Approaching near the end of his life, and having no children, he chose his burial place in the parish church of St Jacques-la-Boucherie, before the crucifix. To this end he made a contract with the wardens of the church, which is mentioned in his testament. He then disposed of his property and goods to the church and to the poor, as may be seen in his will, which is lodged in the archives of St Jacques. It is dated the 22nd November 1416, and begins thus:—“To all those to whom these present letters shall come, I, Annegny du Castel, chevalier, counsellor chambellan of the King, our Sire, Keeper of the 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, was established personally, Nicholas Flamel, scrivener, sound in body and mind, speaking clearly, with good and true understanding,” &c. It fills four sheets of parchment, which are sewed one to the end of the other, like the rolls of ancient writing. It contains thirty-four articles; in the twentieth he bequeaths to his relations the sum of forty livres. He lived three years after making this will, dying about 1419.
Hostile criticism has endeavoured to destroy the testimony which the history of Flamel affords to the reality of transmutation, and has adopted various means. It has attempted to disprove his wealth by reducing his munificence, representing him simply as an honest bourgeois, who, thanks to his economy and his assiduity, acquired a comfortable competence, which a childless condition enabled him to devote to works of benevolence, and to the erection of public buildings on a moderate scale. The alchemical testaments and treatises attributed to him are condemned one and all as absolutely spurious. The chief expositor of this view is the Abbé L. Vilain in his Essai sur une Histoire de Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, published in duodecimo at Paris, in 1758, and again in a Histoire Critique de Nicolas Flamel et de Pernel sa Femme, Paris, 1782, &c.
It must be granted out of hand that all the alchemical compositions which have passed under the name of Flamel are open to more or less suspicion, and some are undoubtedly forgeries. The work on metallic transmutation, which is the earliest traceable treatise, was unheard of till a hundred and forty-three years after the death of its accredited author. It was published in the year 1561 by Jacques Goharry. Le Grand Eclaircissement first saw the light in 1628, when the editor, who apparently abounded in Flamel manuscripts, promised the publication in addition of La Joie Parfaite de Moi, Nicolas Flamel, et de Pernelle, ma Femme, which has not, however, appeared.
On the other hand, there are strong arguments for the genuineness of the Trésor de Philosophie. “There exists in the Bibliothèque du Roi” says M. Auguste Vallet, “a small manuscript book, grossement relié, according to all appearance belonging to the end of the fourteenth century, and which treats of alchemical operations. It commences with these words:—