nd left France with a large sum of
money, part of which, it was alleged, was secretly paid him by Charles out
of the produce of his confiscated estates. He retired to Cyprus, where he
died about 1460, the richest and most conspicuous personage of the island.

The writers upon alchymy all claim Jacques Coeur as a member of their
fraternity, and treat as false and libellous the more rational explanation
of his wealth which the records of his trial afford. Pierre Borel, in his
_Antiquites Gauloises_, maintains the opinion that Jacques was an honest
man, and that he made his gold out of lead and copper by means of the
philosopher's stone. The alchymic adepts in general were of the same
opinion; but they found it difficult to persuade even his contemporaries
of the fact. Posterity is still less likely to believe it.

INFERIOR ADEPTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.

Many other pretenders to the secrets of the philosopher's stone appeared
in every country in Europe, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The possibility of transmutation was so generally admitted, that every
chemist was more or less an alchymist. Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain,
Poland, France, and England produced thousands of obscure adepts, who
supported themselves, in the pursuit of their chimera, by the more
profitable resources of astrology and divination. The monarchs of Europe
were no less persuaded than their subjects of the possibility of
discovering the philosopher's stone. Henry VI. and Edward IV. of England
encouraged alchymy. In Germany, the Emperors Maximilian, Rudolph, and
Frederic II. devoted much of their attention to it; and every inferior
potentate within their dominions imitated their example. It was a common
practice in Germany, among the nobles and petty sovereigns, to invite an
alchymist to take up his residence among them, that they might confine him
in a dungeon till he made gold enough to pay millions for his ransom. Many
poor wretches suffered perpetual imprisonment in consequence. A similar
fate appears to have been intended by Edward II. for Raymond Lulli, who,
upon the pretence that he was thereby honoured, was accommodated with
apartments in the Tower of London. He found out in time the trick that was
about to be played him, and managed to make his escape; some of his
biographers say, by jumping into the Thames, and swimming to a vessel that
lay waiting to receive him. In the sixteenth century, the same system