pass, wherein, remembering this so vast good,
I will not, on my bare knees, if the place will
permit it, or otherwise in my heart, with all
the entireness of my affections, render thanks
to this my most good and gracious God.

After the deaths of my parents, I, Nicholas
Flamel, got my living by the art of writing,
engrossing inventories, making up accounts,
keeping of books, and the like.

In the course of living there fell by chance
into my hands a gilded book, very old and
large, which cost me only two florins. It was
not made of paper or parchment, but of
admirable rinds (as it seemed to me) of young
trees. The cover of it was of copper; it was
well bound and graven all over with a
strange kind of letters, which I take to be
Greek characters or some other ancient
Ianguage. All I know is that I could not read
them, and they were neither Latin nor French.
As to the inside, the leaves of bark were
engraved upon, and with great industry
written all over as with a point of iron, in clear
and beautiful Latin letters of divers colours,
It contains three times seven leaves, the
seventh being always left without writing,
but instead there was painting. Upon the
first seventh there was painted a virgin, and
serpents swallowing her up. Upon the
second seventh there was a cross with a
serpent nailed thereon. Upon the last seventh
there was represented a desert or wilderness,
in the midst of which were several beautiful
fountains, with serpents coming out of them,
and running about hither and thither. In
the first page was written in large gilt
letters,—"Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest,
Levite, Astrologer and Philosopher to the
people of the Jews by the wrath of God
amongst the Gauls—greeting." He who
sold me this book knew its value as little as
I, who bought it. I fancied that he had either
stolen it from some of the miserable Jews, or
found it concealed in some of their old dwellings.
In the second leaf of this book he consoled
his nation. Upon the third and all the
following ones, written to enable his captive
nation to pay their tribute to the Koman
emperors, also to do another thing, which I will
not utter; he taught them in plain words the
art of the transmutation of metals. He
painted the vessels upon the margin of the
leaves, and described all the colours as they
would appear in the progress of the work,
He told everything except the first agent, the
prima materia of which he told not one word,
only he declared that, upon the fourth and fifth
leaves he had minutely painted it. (This prima
materia it should be observed, was the heart
of the great secret which no adept would tell.
Each had to work to discover it for himself.)
These fourth and fifth leaves were without
any writing, but covered with fair figures
very bright and shining, as it were, illuminated.
The workmanship was most exquisite.
There was first a young man with
wings to his ankles, having in his hand
a rod with two serpents twining round it;
and with this he appeared to be striking the
helmet which covered his own head. In my
poor opinion this seemed to be Mercury.
Against him came flying a great old man
with an hour-glass upon his head and a
scythe—like Death—in his hands, with which
he would cut off the head of Mercury, On the
other side of the page was seen a fair flower
upon the top of a high mountain, shaken by
the north wind. Its foot-stalk was blue, its
flowers white and red, and its leaves shining
like fine gold; round about it the dragons
and griffins of the north made their nests and
habitations. Upon the fifth leaf there was
seen a rose-tree in full flower growing beside
a hollow oak-tree, at the foot of which there
bubbled up a fountain of very white water
which fell headlong into an abyss below,
running through the hands of a crowd of people
who were busily seeking for it by digging
into the ground, but who, by reason of their
blindness, could not discern it, except a few
who considered its weight. On the other side
of the fifth leaf there was a king, with a
great faulchion in his hand, causing his
soldiers to kill before him a multitude of
infants, the mothers weeping at their feet,
The blood of these slain children was then
gathered up by other soldiers and put into a
great vessel wherein the sun and the moon
came to bathe.

All this was painted upon the five leaves,
but as for what was written upon the rest of
the book, in good and intelligible Latin, I dare
not say a word, lest God should punish me.
Having then got possession of this fine book
I did nothing but study it night and day; for,
though I understood perfectly the mode of
conducting the operations, I did not know
with what substance I was to begin the work,
which caused me great sadness, kept me in
solitude, and caused me to sigh incessantly.
My wife, Perronelle, whom I loved like myself,
and whom I had but lately married, was
much concerned to see me thus, and
endeavoured to console me, asking with all her
heart if she could do nothing towards delivering
me from this torment. I could not refrain
any longer, but told her everything, and
showed her my beautiful book, which she had
no sooner beheld than she became as much
enchanted with it as myself; but she understood
the signification as little as I did myself.
Nevertheless, it was an unspeakable comfort
to converse with her and consult what we
must do to find out the meaning.

Flamel goes on to tell the various consultations
he had with the most learned men
and scholars of Paris. Setting about it with
great discretion, for he neither parted with
his precious book out of his hand, nor allowed
any one so much as to look upon it, only he
copied exactly all the figures and
hieroglyphics

At length he met with a student named
Anselm, who set up a plausible theory of an