As a completion to the history of Flamel, it may be entertaining to quote an extraordinary account which is seriously narrated by Paul Lucas in his “Journey through Asia Minor.”
“I was at Bronosa, in Natolia, and going to take the air with a person of distinction, came to a little mosque, which was adorned with gardens and fountains for a public walk; we were quickly introduced into a cloister, where we found four dervishes, who received us with all imaginable civility, and desired us to partake of what they were eating. We were told, what we soon found to be true, that they were all persons of the greatest worth and learning; one of them, who said he was of Usbec Tartary, appeared to be more accomplished than the rest, and I believe verily he spoke all the principal languages of the world. After we had conversed in Turkish, he asked me if I could speak Latin, Spanish, or Italian. I told him, if he pleased, to speak to me in Italian; but he soon discovered by my accent that it was not my mother-tongue, and asked me frankly what country I came from? As soon as he knew that I was a native of France, he spoke to me in as good French as if he had been brought up at Paris. ‘How long, sir,’ said I, ‘did you stay in France?’ He replied he had never been there, but that he had a great inclination to undertake the journey.
“I did all in my power to strengthen that resolution, and to convince him that France was the nursery of the learned, and its king a patron of the sciences, who defrayed the expense of my travels for collecting notices of antiquities, drawings of monuments, correcting maps, and making a collection of ancient coins, manuscripts, &c., all of which he seemed to approve civilly. Our conversation being ended, the dervishes brought us to their house, at the foot of the mountain, where, having drank coffee, I took my leave, but with a promise, however, that I would shortly come and see them again.
“On the 10th, the dervish whom I took for an Usbec came to pay me a visit. I shewed him all the manuscripts I had bought, and he assured me they were very valuable, and written by great authors. He was a man every way extraordinary in learning; and in external appearance he seemed to be about thirty years old, but from his discourse I was persuaded he had lived a century.
“He told me he was one of seven friends, who travelled to perfect their studies, and, every twenty years, met in a place previously appointed. I perceived that Bronosa was the place of their present meeting, and that four of them had arrived. Religion and natural philosophy took up our thoughts by turns; and at last we fell upon chemistry, alchemy, and the Cabala. I told him all these, and especially the philosophers’ stone, were regarded by most men of sense as mere fictions.
“‘That,’ replied he, ‘should not surprise you; the sage hears the ignorant without being shocked, but does not for that reason sink his understanding to the same level. When I speak of a sage, I mean one who sees all things die and revive without concern: he has more riches in his power than the greatest king, but lives temperately, above the power of events.’
“Here I stopped him:—‘With all these fine maxims, the sage dies as well as other people.’ ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘I perceive you are unacquainted with sublime science. Such a one as I describe dies indeed, for death is inevitable, but he does not die before the utmost limits of his mortal existence. Hereditary disease and weakness reduce the life of man, but the sage, by the use of the true medicine, can ward off whatever may hinder or impair the animal functions for a thousand years.’
“Surprised at all I heard, ‘And would you persuade me,’ said I, ‘that all who possessed the philosophers’ stone have lived a thousand years?’ He replied gravely:—‘Without doubt every one might; it depends entirely on themselves.’ At last I took the liberty of naming the celebrated Flamel, who, it was said, possessed the philosophers’ stone, yet was certainly dead. He smiled at my simplicity, and asked with an air of mirth:—‘Do you really believe this? No, no, my friend, Flamel is still living; neither he nor his wife are dead. It is not above three years since I left both the one and the other in the Indies; he is one of my best friends.’ Whereupon he told me the history of Flamel, as he heard it from himself, the same as I had read in his book, until at last when Charles VI., who was then upon the throne, sent M. Cramoisi, a magistrate, and his master of requests, to enquire from Flamel the origin of his riches, when the latter at once saw the danger he was in. Having sent her into Switzerland to await his coming, he spread a report of his wife’s death, had her funeral celebrated, and in a few years ordered his own coffin to be interred. Since that time they have both lived a philosophic life, sometimes in one country, sometimes in another. This is the true history, and not that which is believed at Paris, where there are very few who ever had the least glimpse of true wisdom.’”
According to the “Treasure of Philosophy,” alchemy as a science consists in the knowledge of the four elements of philosophers, which are not to be identified with the vulgar so-called elements, and which are convertible one into another. The true prima materia is mercury, prepared and congealed in the bowels of the earth by the mediation of the heat of sulphur. This is the sperm and semen of all metals, which, like other created things, are capable of a growth and multiplication that may be continued even to infinity. The first step in transmutation is the reduction of the metals worked upon into their first mercurial matter, and this reduction is the subject of the whole treatise.