On the other hand, there are strong arguments for the genuineness of the _Trésor de Philosophie_. “There exists in the _Bibliothèque du Roi_” says M. Auguste Vallet, “a small manuscript book, _grossement relié_, according to all appearance belonging to the end of the fourteenth century, and which treats of alchemical operations. It commences with these words:-- “‘Excipit the True Practice of the Noble Science of Alchemy, the desired desire, and the prize unappraisable, compiled from all the philosophers, and drawn out of ancient works.’ “It teaches the manner of accomplishing the _Magnum Opus_ by the aid of successive operations, which are termed _Lavures_ in this treatise. On the last leaf of the manuscript is the following inscription written by the same hand as the rest of the text:--‘The present book is of and belonging to Nicolas Flamel, of the Parish Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, who has written and illuminated it with his own hand.’” With regard to the extent of the scrivener’s resources, the genuine testament of Pernelle, dated 1399, and the endowments of hospitals and churches which undoubtedly took place on a scale of great munificence, are a sufficient evidence that he was an exceedingly wealthy man. Other critics, including Louis Figuier, admit the fact of his riches, but enlarge upon the remunerative nature of a scrivener’s occupation previous to the invention of printing, and upon the careful frugality of the supposed alchemist; but in the teeth of their own theory they are obliged to admit that Flamel did become a student of alchemy, that the hieroglyphics, figures, and emblems in the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents are evidence of this fact; that, unlike most followers of Hermes, he was not impoverished by his experiments; and that he fostered the report that his wealth was in the main a result of his possession of the mysterious book of Abraham, by which he had been able to compose the philosophical stone. Gabriel Naudé, who detested magic, and seems to have despised alchemy, vilifying the possessors of both of these sciences alike, accounts for the riches of Flamel by asserting that he managed affairs for the Jews, and upon their banishment from the kingdom of France, and the confiscation of their property for the king, “he, knowing the sums due by several individuals, compromised, by receiving a part, which they paid him to prevent his giving information which would oblige them to surrender it entirely.”