“I was much concerned for a long time lest Perrenelle, by reason of extreme joy, should not hide her felicity, which I measured by my own, and lest she should let fall some words among her relations concerning the great treasure we possessed. For an extremity of joy takes away the understanding as well as an extremity of grief and sorrow. But the goodness of the most great God had not only given and filled me with this blessing, to give me a chaste and sober wife, but she was also a wise and prudent woman, not only capable of reason but also to do what was reasonable, and was more discreet and secret than ordinarily other women are. Above all, she was exceedingly religious and devout: and therefore seeing herself without hope of children, and now well stricken in years, she made it her business, as I did, to think of God, and to give ourselves to the works of charity and mercy. “Before the time wherein I wrote this discourse, which was at the latter end of the year of our Lord 1413, after the death of my faithful companion, whose loss I cannot but lament all the days of my life, she and I had already founded, and endowed with revenues, fourteen hospitals, three chapels, and seven churches, in the city of Paris, all which we had new built from the ground, and enriched with great gifts and revenues, with many reparations in their churchyards. We also have done at Boulogne about as much as we have done at Paris, not to speak of the charitable acts which we both did to particular poor people, principally to widows and orphans, whose names should I divulge, with the largeness of the charity, and the way and manner of doing it, as my reward would then be only in this world, so neither could it be pleasing to the persons to whom we did it. “Building, therefore, these hospitals, chapels, churches, and churchyards in the city, I caused to be depicted under the said fourth arch the most true and essential marks or signs of this art, yet under veils, types, and hieroglyphic covertures, in imitation of those things which are contained in the gilded book of Abraham the Jew; demonstrating to the wise, and men of understanding, the direct and perfect way of operation, and lineary work of the philosophers’ stone. Which being perfected by any one, takes away from him the root of all sin and evil, which is covetousness, changing his evil into good, and making him liberal, courteous, religious, devout, and fearing God, however wicked he was before. For from thenceforward he is continually ravished with the goodness of God, and with His grace and mercy, which he has obtained from the fountain of Eternal Goodness, with the profoundness of His divine and adorable power, and with the consideration of His admirable works.”