De Lisle
(circa. 1710). French Alchemist. A considerable amount of matter concerning this French alchemist is contained in Langlet de Fresnoy's invaluable book, Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique, while Figuier writes at some length on the subject; but neither of these writers furnishes de Lisle's Christian name, and neither gives the exact date of his birth. The place where the event occurred is likewise unknown, although it is commonly held that the alchemist was a Provençal; while his position in the social hierarchy is likewise a matter of conjecture, the tradition that he sprang from humble peasant stock being practically vitiated by the particule in his name. True that this is usually spelt Delisle, but one may be fairly certain that that is a mere perversion, and that originally the two syllables were written separately.
De Lisle is known to have been active during the first decade of the eighteenth century, so it may be assumed that he was born towards the close of le grand siècle; while it would seem that, at an early age, he entered the service of a scientist whose name is unrecorded, but who is supposed to have been a pupil of Lascaris. This nameless scientist, it appears, got into trouble of some sort, the likelihood being that he was persecuted on account of his hermetic predilections; and accordingly he left Provence and set out for Switzerland, taking with him his young henchman, de Lisle. En route the latter murdered his patron and employer, thereafter appropriating all his alchemistic property, notably some precious transmuting powder; and then, about the year 1708, he returned to his native France, where he soon attracted attention by changing masses of lead and iron into silver and gold. Noble and influential people now began to court his society and his scientific services, and betimes he found himself safely and comfortably housed in the castle of La Palud, where he received many visitors from day to day, demonstrating his skill before them. Anon, however, he grew weary of this life; and, having contracted a liaison with a Madame Alnys, he commenced wandering with her from place to place, a son being eventually born to the pair. At this time Madame Alnys' husband was still living, but that did not prevent de Lisle from continuing to elicit patronage and favour from the rich and great, and in 1710, at the Chateau de St. Auban, he performed a curious experiment in the presence of one St. Maurice, then president of the royal mint. Going into the grounds of the château one evening, de Lisle showed St. Maurice a basket sunk in the ground, and bade him bring it into the salle-a-manger where it was duly opened, its contents transpiring to be merely some earth of a blackish hue. No very precious material! thought St. Maurice, accustomed to handling ingots and nuggets; but de Lisle, after distilling a yellow liquid from the earth, projected this on hot quicksilver, and speedily produced in fusion three ounces of gold, while subsequently he succeeded in concocting a tolerable quan- Demonology tity of silver. Some of the gold was afterwards sent to Paris, where it was put through a refining process, and three medals were struck from it, one of which, bearing the inscription Aurum Arte Factum, was deposited in the cabinet of his most Christian majesty. Thereupon de Lisle was invited to come to Paris himself, and visit the court; but he declined the offer, giving as his reason that the southern climate he chiefly lived in was necessary to the success of his experiments, the preparations he worked with being purely vegetable. The probability is that, having been signally triumphant in duping his clientèle so far, he felt the advisability of refraining from endeavours which might prove futile, and vitiate his reputation. We hear nothing of de Lisle later than 1760, so presumably he died about that time; but his son by Madame Alnys seems to have inherited some part of his father's predilections, together with a fair quota of his skill. Wandering for many years through Italy and Germany, he affected transmutations successfully before various petty nobles; while at Vienna he succeeded in bringing himself under the notice of the Duc de Richelieu, who was acting then as French ambassador to the Viennese court, and Richelieu afterwards assured the Abbé Langlet that he not only saw the operation of gold-making performed, but did it himself by carrying out instructions given him by Alnys. The latter gradually acquired great wealth, but, falling under suspicion, he was imprisoned for a space at Marseilles, whence he ultimately escaped to Brussels. Here he continued, not altogether unsuccessfully, to engage in alchemy; while here too he became acquainted with Percell, the brother of Langlet du Fresnoy, to whom he is supposed to have confided some valuable scientific secrets. Eventually, however, the mysterious death of one Grefier, known to have been working in Alnys' laboratory, made the Brussels authorities suspicious about the latter's character, so he left the town stealthily, never to be heard of again.