even render them almost immortal--for at that epoch the philosopher's
stone passed not only for an agent in the transmutation of base metals,
such as tin, lead, copper, into noble metals like silver and gold, but
also for a panacea curing all ailments and prolonging life, without
infirmities, beyond the limits formerly assigned to the patriarchs.

"Singular science," ruminated Durtal, raising the fender of his
fireplace and warming his feet, "in spite of the railleries of this
time, which, in the matter of discoveries but exhumes lost things, the
hermetic philosophy was not wholly vain.

"The master of contemporary science, Dumas, recognizes, under the name
of isomery, the theories of the alchemists, and Berthelot declares, 'No
one can affirm _a priori_ that the fabrication of bodies reputed to be
simple is impossible.' Then there have been verified and certified
achievements. Besides Nicolas Flamel, who really seems to have succeeded
in the 'great work,' the chemist Van Helmont, in the eighteenth century,
received from an unknown man a quarter of a grain of philosopher's stone
and with it transformed eight ounces of mercury into gold.

"At the same epoch, Helvetius, who combated the dogma of the spagyrics,
received from another unknown a powder of projection with which he
converted an ingot of lead into gold. Helvetius was not precisely a
charlatan, neither was Spinoza, who verified the experiment, a credulous
simpleton.

"And what is to be thought of that mysterious man Alexander Sethon who,
under the name of the Cosmopolite, went all over Europe, operating
before princes, in public, transforming all metals into gold? This
alchemist, who seems to have had a sincere disdain for riches, as he