Chapter I: Abbas Beati Martini

Dom Claude’s fame had spread far and wide. It procured for him,
at about the epoch when he refused to see Madame de Beaujeu, a
visit which he long remembered.

It was in the evening. He had just retired, after the office, to
his canon’s cell in the cloister of Notre-Dame. This cell, with
the exception, possibly, of some glass phials, relegated to a
corner, and filled with a decidedly equivocal powder, which
strongly resembled the alchemist’s “powder of projection,”
presented nothing strange or mysterious. There were, indeed, here
and there, some inscriptions on the walls, but they were pure
sentences of learning and piety, extracted from good authors. The
archdeacon had just seated himself, by the light of a
three-jetted copper lamp, before a vast coffer crammed with
manuscripts. He had rested his elbow upon the open volume of
Honorius d’Autun, _De predestinatione et libero arbitrio_, and he
was turning over, in deep meditation, the leaves of a printed
folio which he had just brought, the sole product of the press
which his cell contained. In the midst of his revery there came a
knock at his door. “Who’s there?” cried the learned man, in the
gracious tone of a famished dog, disturbed over his bone.

A voice without replied, “Your friend, Jacques Coictier.” He went
to open the door.

It was, in fact, the king’s physician; a person about fifty years
of age, whose harsh physiognomy was modified only by a crafty
eye. Another man accompanied him. Both wore long slate-colored
robes, furred with minever, girded and closed, with caps of the
same stuff and hue. Their hands were concealed by their sleeves,
their feet by their robes, their eyes by their caps.

“God help me, messieurs!” said the archdeacon, showing them in;
“I was not expecting distinguished visitors at such an hour.” And
while speaking in this courteous fashion he cast an uneasy and
scrutinizing glance from the physician to his companion.

“’Tis never too late to come and pay a visit to so considerable a
learned man as Dom Claude Frollo de Tirechappe,” replied Doctor
Coictier, whose Franche-Comté accent made all his phrases drag
along with the majesty of a train-robe.

There then ensued between the physician and the archdeacon one of
those congratulatory prologues which, in accordance with custom,
at that epoch preceded all conversations between learned men, and
which did not prevent them from detesting each other in the most
cordial manner in the world. However, it is the same nowadays;
every wise man’s mouth complimenting another wise man is a vase
of honeyed gall.

Claude Frollo’s felicitations to Jacques Coictier bore reference
principally to the temporal advantages which the worthy physician
had found means to extract, in the course of his much envied
career, from each malady of the king, an operation of alchemy
much better and more certain than the pursuit of the
philosopher’s stone.

“In truth, Monsieur le Docteur Coictier, I felt great joy on
learning of the bishopric given your nephew, my reverend seigneur
Pierre Versé. Is he not Bishop of Amiens?”

“Yes, monsieur Archdeacon; it is a grace and mercy of God.”

“Do you know that you made a great figure on Christmas Day at the
head of your company of the chamber of accounts, Monsieur
President?”

“Vice-President, Dom Claude. Alas! nothing more.”

“How is your superb house in the Rue Saint-André des Arcs coming
on? ’Tis a Louvre. I love greatly the apricot tree which is
carved on the door, with this play of words: ‘A
L’ABRI-COTIER—Sheltered from reefs.’”

“Alas! Master Claude, all that masonry costeth me dear. In
proportion as the house is erected, I am ruined.”

“Ho! have you not your revenues from the jail, and the bailiwick
of the Palais, and the rents of all the houses, sheds, stalls,
and booths of the enclosure? ’Tis a fine breast to suck.”

“My castellany of Poissy has brought me in nothing this year.”

“But your tolls of Triel, of Saint-James, of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye are always good.”

“Six score livres, and not even Parisian livres at that.”

“You have your office of counsellor to the king. That is fixed.”

“Yes, brother Claude; but that accursed seigneury of Poligny,
which people make so much noise about, is worth not sixty gold
crowns, year out and year in.”

In the compliments which Dom Claude addressed to Jacques
Coictier, there was that sardonical, biting, and covertly mocking
accent, and the sad cruel smile of a superior and unhappy man who
toys for a moment, by way of distraction, with the dense
prosperity of a vulgar man. The other did not perceive it.

“Upon my soul,” said Claude at length, pressing his hand, “I am
glad to see you and in such good health.”

“Thanks, Master Claude.”

“By the way,” exclaimed Dom Claude, “how is your royal patient?”

“He payeth not sufficiently his physician,” replied the doctor,
casting a side glance at his companion.

“Think you so, Gossip Coictier,” said the latter.

These words, uttered in a tone of surprise and reproach, drew
upon this unknown personage the attention of the archdeacon
which, to tell the truth, had not been diverted from him a single
moment since the stranger had set foot across the threshold of
his cell. It had even required all the thousand reasons which he
had for handling tenderly Doctor Jacques Coictier, the
all-powerful physician of King Louis XI., to induce him to
receive the latter thus accompanied. Hence, there was nothing
very cordial in his manner when Jacques Coictier said to him,—

“By the way, Dom Claude, I bring you a colleague who has desired
to see you on account of your reputation.”

“Monsieur belongs to science?” asked the archdeacon, fixing his
piercing eye upon Coictier’s companion. He found beneath the
brows of the stranger a glance no less piercing or less
distrustful than his own.

He was, so far as the feeble light of the lamp permitted one to
judge, an old man about sixty years of age and of medium stature,
who appeared somewhat sickly and broken in health. His profile,
although of a very ordinary outline, had something powerful and
severe about it; his eyes sparkled beneath a very deep
superciliary arch, like a light in the depths of a cave; and
beneath his cap which was well drawn down and fell upon his nose,
one recognized the broad expanse of a brow of genius.

He took it upon himself to reply to the archdeacon’s question,—

“Reverend master,” he said in a grave tone, “your renown has
reached my ears, and I wish to consult you. I am but a poor
provincial gentleman, who removeth his shoes before entering the
dwellings of the learned. You must know my name. I am called
Gossip Tourangeau.”

“Strange name for a gentleman,” said the archdeacon to himself.

Nevertheless, he had a feeling that he was in the presence of a
strong and earnest character. The instinct of his own lofty
intellect made him recognize an intellect no less lofty under
Gossip Tourangeau’s furred cap, and as he gazed at the solemn
face, the ironical smile which Jacques Coictier’s presence called
forth on his gloomy face, gradually disappeared as twilight fades
on the horizon of night. Stern and silent, he had resumed his
seat in his great armchair; his elbow rested as usual, on the
table, and his brow on his hand. After a few moments of
reflection, he motioned his visitors to be seated, and, turning
to Gossip Tourangeau he said,—

“You come to consult me, master, and upon what science?”

“Your reverence,” replied Tourangeau, “I am ill, very ill. You
are said to be great Æsculapius, and I am come to ask your advice
in medicine.”

“Medicine!” said the archdeacon, tossing his head. He seemed to
meditate for a moment, and then resumed: “Gossip Tourangeau,
since that is your name, turn your head, you will find my reply
already written on the wall.”

Gossip Tourangeau obeyed, and read this inscription engraved
above his head: “_Medicine is the daughter of
dreams_.—JAMBLIQUE.”

Meanwhile, Doctor Jacques Coictier had heard his companion’s
question with a displeasure which Dom Claude’s response had but
redoubled. He bent down to the ear of Gossip Tourangeau, and said
to him, softly enough not to be heard by the archdeacon: “I
warned you that he was mad. You insisted on seeing him.”

“’Tis very possible that he is right, madman as he is, Doctor
Jacques,” replied his comrade in the same low tone, and with a
bitter smile.

“As you please,” replied Coictier dryly. Then, addressing the
archdeacon: “You are clever at your trade, Dom Claude, and you
are no more at a loss over Hippocrates than a monkey is over a
nut. Medicine a dream! I suspect that the pharmacopolists and the
master physicians would insist upon stoning you if they were
here. So you deny the influence of philtres upon the blood, and
unguents on the skin! You deny that eternal pharmacy of flowers
and metals, which is called the world, made expressly for that
eternal invalid called man!”

“I deny,” said Dom Claude coldly, “neither pharmacy nor the
invalid. I reject the physician.”

“Then it is not true,” resumed Coictier hotly, “that gout is an
internal eruption; that a wound caused by artillery is to be
cured by the application of a young mouse roasted; that young
blood, properly injected, restores youth to aged veins; it is not
true that two and two make four, and that emprostathonos follows
opistathonos.”

The archdeacon replied without perturbation: “There are certain
things of which I think in a certain fashion.”

Coictier became crimson with anger.

“There, there, my good Coictier, let us not get angry,” said
Gossip Tourangeau. “Monsieur the archdeacon is our friend.”

Coictier calmed down, muttering in a low tone,—

“After all, he’s mad.”

“_Pasque-dieu_, Master Claude,” resumed Gossip Tourangeau, after
a silence, “You embarrass me greatly. I had two things to consult
you upon, one touching my health and the other touching my star.”

“Monsieur,” returned the archdeacon, “if that be your motive, you
would have done as well not to put yourself out of breath
climbing my staircase. I do not believe in Medicine. I do not
believe in Astrology.”

“Indeed!” said the man, with surprise.

Coictier gave a forced laugh.

“You see that he is mad,” he said, in a low tone, to Gossip
Tourangeau. “He does not believe in astrology.”

“The idea of imagining,” pursued Dom Claude, “that every ray of a
star is a thread which is fastened to the head of a man!”

“And what then, do you believe in?” exclaimed Gossip Tourangeau.

The archdeacon hesitated for a moment, then he allowed a gloomy
smile to escape, which seemed to give the lie to his response:
“_Credo in Deum_.”

“_Dominum nostrum_,” added Gossip Tourangeau, making the sign of
the cross.

“Amen,” said Coictier.

“Reverend master,” resumed Tourangeau, “I am charmed in soul to
see you in such a religious frame of mind. But have you reached
the point, great savant as you are, of no longer believing in
science?”

“No,” said the archdeacon, grasping the arm of Gossip Tourangeau,
and a ray of enthusiasm lighted up his gloomy eyes, “no, I do not
reject science. I have not crawled so long, flat on my belly,
with my nails in the earth, through the innumerable ramifications
of its caverns, without perceiving far in front of me, at the end
of the obscure gallery, a light, a flame, a something, the
reflection, no doubt, of the dazzling central laboratory where
the patient and the wise have found out God.”

“And in short,” interrupted Tourangeau, “what do you hold to be
true and certain?”

“Alchemy.”

Coictier exclaimed, “Pardieu, Dom Claude, alchemy has its use, no
doubt, but why blaspheme medicine and astrology?”

“Naught is your science of man, naught is your science of the
stars,” said the archdeacon, commandingly.

“That’s driving Epidaurus and Chaldea very fast,” replied the
physician with a grin.

“Listen, Messire Jacques. This is said in good faith. I am not
the king’s physician, and his majesty has not given me the Garden
of Dædalus in which to observe the constellations. Don’t get
angry, but listen to me. What truth have you deduced, I will not
say from medicine, which is too foolish a thing, but from
astrology? Cite to me the virtues of the vertical boustrophedon,
the treasures of the number ziruph and those of the number
zephirod!”

“Will you deny,” said Coictier, “the sympathetic force of the
collar bone, and the cabalistics which are derived from it?”

“An error, Messire Jacques! None of your formulas end in reality.
Alchemy on the other hand has its discoveries. Will you contest
results like this? Ice confined beneath the earth for a thousand
years is transformed into rock crystals. Lead is the ancestor of
all metals. For gold is not a metal, gold is light. Lead requires
only four periods of two hundred years each, to pass in
succession from the state of lead, to the state of red arsenic,
from red arsenic to tin, from tin to silver. Are not these facts?
But to believe in the collar bone, in the full line and in the
stars, is as ridiculous as to believe with the inhabitants of
Grand-Cathay that the golden oriole turns into a mole, and that
grains of wheat turn into fish of the carp species.”

“I have studied hermetic science!” exclaimed Coictier, “and I
affirm—”

The fiery archdeacon did not allow him to finish: “And I have
studied medicine, astrology, and hermetics. Here alone is the
truth.” (As he spoke thus, he took from the top of the coffer a
phial filled with the powder which we have mentioned above),
“here alone is light! Hippocrates is a dream; Urania is a dream;
Hermes, a thought. Gold is the sun; to make gold is to be God.
Herein lies the one and only science. I have sounded the depths
of medicine and astrology, I tell you! Naught, nothingness! The
human body, shadows! the planets, shadows!”

And he fell back in his armchair in a commanding and inspired
attitude. Gossip Touraugeau watched him in silence. Coictier
tried to grin, shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly, and repeated
in a low voice,—

“A madman!”

“And,” said Tourangeau suddenly, “the wondrous result,—have you
attained it, have you made gold?”

“If I had made it,” replied the archdeacon, articulating his
words slowly, like a man who is reflecting, “the king of France
would be named Claude and not Louis.”

The stranger frowned.

“What am I saying?” resumed Dom Claude, with a smile of disdain.
“What would the throne of France be to me when I could rebuild
the empire of the Orient?”

“Very good!” said the stranger.

“Oh, the poor fool!” murmured Coictier.

The archdeacon went on, appearing to reply now only to his
thoughts,—

“But no, I am still crawling; I am scratching my face and knees
against the pebbles of the subterranean pathway. I catch a
glimpse, I do not contemplate! I do not read, I spell out!”

“And when you know how to read!” demanded the stranger, “will you
make gold?”

“Who doubts it?” said the archdeacon.

“In that case Our Lady knows that I am greatly in need of money,
and I should much desire to read in your books. Tell me, reverend
master, is your science inimical or displeasing to Our Lady?”

“Whose archdeacon I am?” Dom Claude contented himself with
replying, with tranquil hauteur.

“That is true, my master. Well! will it please you to initiate
me? Let me spell with you.”

Claude assumed the majestic and pontifical attitude of a Samuel.

“Old man, it requires longer years than remain to you, to
undertake this voyage across mysterious things. Your head is very
gray! One comes forth from the cavern only with white hair, but
only those with dark hair enter it. Science alone knows well how
to hollow, wither, and dry up human faces; she needs not to have
old age bring her faces already furrowed. Nevertheless, if the
desire possesses you of putting yourself under discipline at your
age, and of deciphering the formidable alphabet of the sages,
come to me; ’tis well, I will make the effort. I will not tell
you, poor old man, to go and visit the sepulchral chambers of the
pyramids, of which ancient Herodotus speaks, nor the brick tower
of Babylon, nor the immense white marble sanctuary of the Indian
temple of Eklinga. I, no more than yourself, have seen the
Chaldean masonry works constructed according to the sacred form
of the Sikra, nor the temple of Solomon, which is destroyed, nor
the stone doors of the sepulchre of the kings of Israel, which
are broken. We will content ourselves with the fragments of the
book of Hermes which we have here. I will explain to you the
statue of Saint Christopher, the symbol of the sower, and that of
the two angels which are on the front of the Sainte-Chapelle, and
one of which holds in his hands a vase, the other, a cloud—”

Here Jacques Coictier, who had been unhorsed by the archdeacon’s
impetuous replies, regained his saddle, and interrupted him with
the triumphant tone of one learned man correcting
another,—“_Erras amice Claudi_. The symbol is not the number. You
take Orpheus for Hermes.”

“’Tis you who are in error,” replied the archdeacon, gravely.
“Dædalus is the base; Orpheus is the wall; Hermes is the
edifice,—that is all. You shall come when you will,” he
continued, turning to Tourangeau, “I will show you the little
parcels of gold which remained at the bottom of Nicholas Flamel’s
alembic, and you shall compare them with the gold of Guillaume de
Paris. I will teach you the secret virtues of the Greek word,
_peristera_. But, first of all, I will make you read, one after
the other, the marble letters of the alphabet, the granite pages
of the book. We shall go to the portal of Bishop Guillaume and of
Saint-Jean le Rond at the Sainte-Chapelle, then to the house of
Nicholas Flamel, Rue Manvault, to his tomb, which is at the
Saints-Innocents, to his two hospitals, Rue de Montmorency. I
will make you read the hieroglyphics which cover the four great
iron cramps on the portal of the hospital Saint-Gervais, and of
the Rue de la Ferronnerie. We will spell out in company, also,
the façade of Saint-Côme, of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Ardents, of
Saint Martin, of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie—.”

For a long time, Gossip Tourangeau, intelligent as was his
glance, had appeared not to understand Dom Claude. He
interrupted.

“_Pasque-dieu_! what are your books, then?”

“Here is one of them,” said the archdeacon.

And opening the window of his cell he pointed out with his finger
the immense church of Notre-Dame, which, outlining against the
starry sky the black silhouette of its two towers, its stone
flanks, its monstrous haunches, seemed an enormous two-headed
sphinx, seated in the middle of the city.

The archdeacon gazed at the gigantic edifice for some time in
silence, then extending his right hand, with a sigh, towards the
printed book which lay open on the table, and his left towards
Notre-Dame, and turning a sad glance from the book to the
church,—“Alas,” he said, “this will kill that.”

Coictier, who had eagerly approached the book, could not repress
an exclamation. “Hé, but now, what is there so formidable in
this: ‘GLOSSA IN EPISTOLAS D. PAULI, _Norimbergæ, Antonius
Koburger_, 1474.’ This is not new. ’Tis a book of Pierre Lombard,
the Master of Sentences. Is it because it is printed?”

“You have said it,” replied Claude, who seemed absorbed in a
profound meditation, and stood resting, his forefinger bent
backward on the folio which had come from the famous press of
Nuremberg. Then he added these mysterious words: “Alas! alas!
small things come at the end of great things; a tooth triumphs
over a mass. The Nile rat kills the crocodile, the swordfish
kills the whale, the book will kill the edifice.”

The curfew of the cloister sounded at the moment when Master
Jacques was repeating to his companion in low tones, his eternal
refrain, “_He is mad!_” To which his companion this time replied,
“I believe that he is.”

It was the hour when no stranger could remain in the cloister.
The two visitors withdrew. “Master,” said Gossip Tourangeau, as
he took leave of the archdeacon, “I love wise men and great
minds, and I hold you in singular esteem. Come to-morrow to the
Palace des Tournelles, and inquire for the Abbé de Sainte-Martin,
of Tours.”

The archdeacon returned to his chamber dumbfounded, comprehending
at last who Gossip Tourangeau was, and recalling that passage of
the register of Sainte-Martin, of Tours:—_Abbas beati Martini,
SCILICET REX FRANCIÆ, est canonicus de consuetudine et habet
parvam præbendam quam habet sanctus Venantius, et debet sedere in
sede thesaurarii_.

It is asserted that after that epoch the archdeacon had frequent
conferences with Louis XI., when his majesty came to Paris, and
that Dom Claude’s influence quite overshadowed that of Olivier le
Daim and Jacques Coictier, who, as was his habit, rudely took the
king to task on that account.