Shadows of My Father

by Christoph Werner

  “Halt,” the elector called out, “and let me say myself what you certainly have in mind. And if I talk reasonably, you will see that you have found a worthy adept. So, if I can in my laboratory shorten this thousand-year process, I should come to similar results.”

  “That is so, Your Grace,” I replied, “but perhaps somehow more complex than Your Grace deigns to assume. There are quite a number of accompanying conditions that have to be regarded in the shortened reproduction of the process.”

  “I know,” the elector interposed. “Your predecessors have always maintained the importance of the stars for gold making.”

  “And there they were not wrong,” I continued. “Above all, the sun, the moon, and Mercury have to be taken into consideration, and their positions in relation to each other and to our earth.”

  “This means,” said the elector, “our undertaking can only succeed at certain times of the year, and to calculate these is the task of astrology.”

  “That is so,” I answered, and went on: “We must take the most fundamental, impartible source material, similar or, if possible, equal to the primeval matter of Aristotle, and strip it of its present character in order to be able to invest it with new forms, properties, and structures. So we will obtain a nobler, more refined material and, at the end of our not-simple processes, the noblest, purest, most invulnerable, most valuable matter on earth.”

  “Gold!” cried the elector enthusiastically. “And what,” he asked, “is this source substance in your opinion?”

  “Quicksilver or mercurium or Argentum vivum.”

  “And where,” asked His Grace, “do you think you will find the necessary amount of quicksilver?”

  “Cinnabar, or dragon’s blood, from which the name stems, is present in nature in large amounts. It is heated, and the quicksilver escapes as waft or spirit and is caught, cooled in glass tubes, and thus recovered. Then, of course, it must be rectified carefully, because smallest additions can falsify our result.”

  “You have,” the elector said, “made no mention of the Lapis philosophorum, the philosopher’s stone, which is, according to all gold makers, indispensable.”

  “Your Grace has, in your wisdom, hit upon the essence of the whole procedure.”

  He looked quite cheerful, and I congratulated myself on my choice of words.

  “It is correct,” I continued, “that for this process of purification, transmutation, and perfection a decisive medium is needed, and this was given the name by the ancient scholars that Your Grace has just used. That means that even if I can create the right conditions in my laboratory and find the right moment with the help of astrology, my success depends on finding the Lapis. And here, I believe, I am on the right way.”

  “So you have this Lapis?” asked the elector.

  “Yes and no,” I replied. “Different from what most adepts believe, this Lapis is, in my opinion, no material substance but a concept, an idea, a spiritual influence. And these I look for, not in nature, but rather in the firm belief that through deduction and inspiration, transmutation can be accomplished. The search for the philosopher’s stone, as it has been pursued by people for so long, is therefore in vain.

  “The alchemist can here be compared to the physician. The latter heals the sick, first of all, by causing them to believe in their recovery. The optimistic attitude of the doctor, his prudent and understandable encouragement, his apparent and continuing efforts for his patient, his altruistic attitude (I wish it were so) help the prescriptions to take effect. So it can happen that substances that seem to have no influence on the body and seem to pass through it apparently unchanged still have a healing effect as long as the doctor can make the patient believe so. Just as the doctor starts the chemical processes in the body by his spiritual influence, nature works in the same way outside the human body.”

  Here the elector bade me to stop. Obviously, my disclosures affected him strongly, and he felt the need to calm down. And really, as I asked him for his wrist and felt his pulse, it seemed quickened. The sovereign stood up, went to the window, and looked out on the Elbe River. He beckoned me to his side. The mighty river, the main artery of the city and the country, flowed broad, powerful, and yet calm.

  “Look at the river,” the elector said. “It will with certainty reach the ocean, and I wish that we with the same certainty reach our goal. Go on.”

  “I want to say that the transmutation from the less noble to the noble can take place only when the alchemist concentrates his mind and directs it to the desired result in the same way as the doctor does with his patient. And this whole process is the long-sought-for philosopher’s stone. As I said, the primeval substance of our laboratory work will be quicksilver and the decisive force mercury, the speediest planet in the vault of heaven.

  “Its day is the dies mercurii, Wednesday, which we must not forget. It is then important to find the day of mercury’s highest efficacy for our tests. Wednesday received its name from Woden, as the Old English called the god Odin. It is the day of the skilled magician and wanderer and represents as well the ability to change. It is also the day of wisdom and self-sacrifice. Overcoming death, Woden is transmuted into a new world, from something less noble to something more noble.

  “Gold, now, whose celestial body is the sun, we add in small amounts to quicksilver, and it is taken in by the latter inseparably; it shares its nobleness with it so that in the end this basic element transmutes to gold.

  “Now we must succeed in designing our process in such a way that quicksilver, keeping in mind all the accompanying circumstances already mentioned, incorporates gold in smaller and smaller amounts, forming itself into a growing percentage, and in the end is completely transmuted to gold.”

  “And for this,” said the elector, “we have ordered a well-equipped laboratory to be built in the basement of our residence, in which we, you and I, will try our best.”

  “Your Grace,” I said, “I must ask you for the strictest secrecy concerning our chemical experiments and recipes as well as of all test conditions. Therefore, only the three of us, Your Grace, my assistant, and I, will be involved in the work.”

  The elector did not mind that I made him a worker in the laboratory because he was so happy about the idea that he would soon be abundantly provided with gold. He dismissed me in his most gracious mood.

  I left the castle, crossed the great bridge, and walked downriver on the towpath in the direction of Meissen. My feelings, my conscience, were in a turmoil, which I hoped to calm by a long walk.

  I had deceived the elector. It was correct that I, despite occasional doubts, believed in the art of gold making. But my foggy remarks about the philosopher’s stone were what they were: foggy. I had found it necessary to make the process for successful gold making sound as difficult as possible, requiring extended periods of time as well as the propitious circumstances.

  The processes in the laboratory, the heat, additives, instruments, etc., and first of all the position of the stars cannot be put in question for long and can be checked without difficulty by alert masters such as the elector and his controllers.

  But the spiritual influence, called by me the Lapis philosophorum, is more difficult to grasp. Here, should a test fail, I could more easily say that this influence was simply not yet strong enough or wrongly directed or the like. Because instead of what I told the elector, I believed in the Lapis as a substance, a matter, and to find it seemed to me the most important step toward gold making. I was already thinking of such a substance, which till now had never been mentioned by an alchemist and never been described in a book. To find this substance, which was a celestial one, I now considered my most important task.

  I had several reasons for deceiving the elector. First, I wanted to keep the secret to myself in order to make, at the given time, gold for my private purposes. The time was not yet ripe; I did not have enough capital and independence for an adequate laboratory.

  Second, I knew that the elector would, lik
e every sovereign in the empire, use the gold to increase his power and strengthen his divine right, not foremost for the well-being of his country. With the help of the gold, he would try to put himself above the law to the detriment of those who seek their right before court.

  And third, I was certain the secret of gold making would not stay a secret for long, having a guard or not. It would come out, gold would be produced in big amounts, and its price would sink.

  I looked at the river, saw the boats as they were towed upstream, saw the fishermen on the banks and the silhouette of the city. The scaffolding on the castle was visible because tearing down, rebuilding, and extending were once again in progress. As long as I was in Dresden, work on the castle and the resulting changes never stopped. People on the other side of the river seemed to me unimportant and small, and the plans of the elector void and empty and partly sinful, my deceiving him therefore partly excusable. My conscience was calmed, and I started on my way home.

  Chapter 25

  . . . is about religious strife and human weakness.

  Anno Domini 1572 winter arrived early, and already in November ice formed at the banks of the Elbe River. My wife ordered the rooms to be heated unsparingly, since we did not have to be thrifty with firewood and hard coal from Zwickau, which was delivered to our house as part of my archiator’s remuneration.

  One evening there was a knock on the door, and a messenger of the electoral chancellor Georg Cracow delivered a letter for me.

  I went into my study, in which a tile stove, fired from the hall, spread a cozy warmth. There I sat on the stove bench and broke the seal.

  It was a short letter that invited me to visit the chancellor next day in the early morning when there were few people on the streets. I was to see him not in the residence but in his house on the Old Market. And would I please burn the letter at once and tell nobody about its content.

  One can imagine that I hardly closed an eye during the night. Almost every hour I heard the voice of the night watchman, who demanded that the people watch their fireplaces.

  I got up about five of the clock the next morning and started on my way, without having had breakfast. It was dark, though some snow had fallen so that I could recognize my way. An icy mist rose from the river and lay heavily over the town. The first fires in the hearths were lit, and their smoke mixed with the icy haze from the river and made breathing difficult. I took a detour and went along the Elbe pathway before I turned right to the Old Market. Possible observers should not see where I was headed.

  On the market I looked around and could see the first lightened windows in the large houses of stone which that had been erected by the rich citizens. Since the great fire of 1491, by order of the town council and the elector, most of the houses had to be built of stone. Almost half the buildings of the inner city had been destroyed by that fire.

  I passed the big trough in the northeastern corner of the market and reached the house of the chancellor, in whose room on the second floor I could see light.

  A maid opened the door. With a lantern, she went ahead up the stairs that led to the study of the chancellor.

  Chancellor Georg Cracow welcomed me with a serious face. I put coat and hat on a chair beside the door and sat down, as he indicated, at the big wooden table in the middle of the room. He sat opposite me. A candlestick with a burning tallow candle stood on the table. That did not so much lighten the room as give it a conspiratorial atmosphere.

  I owed the chancellor thanks because he, among others, had recommended me for the position of archiator of the Saxon elector. He had married the daughter of Johannes Bugenhagen, friend and helper of my father’s, so I knew him well. His lectures as a professor on Roman law in Wittenberg had attracted many students, and I had also attended some of them. Cracow had been close to my honored teacher, Magister Melanchthon, and shared his theological views; in some instances he even went further and approached the doctrines of Calvin.

  “Dr. Luther,” the chancellor began straightaway and in a serious voice, “you have certainly heard about the bloodshed on St. Bartholomew’s Day in Paris.”

  I nodded.

  The news of the bloody night in Paris on the 24th of August of that year, 1572, had spread like wildfire over Europe. Thousands of Huguenots, the followers of the reformer Calvin in France, had been slaughtered during the night before the Day of St. Bartholomew and on the following days in Paris and other places in France. People also called this massacre the Paris Blood Wedding, because only a few days before, Henry III of Navarre, later Henry IV of France, had married Margaret of Valois, the sister of what were to become three French kings. Despite this relationship, Henry barely escaped the fate of the other Huguenots in Paris.

  Georg Cracow said, “The religious and above all the political ambitions of the Huguenots in France are not favorably regarded by our elector. He is not only our elector and, as such, responsible for the political unity of our country; he is also bishop of the Lutheran Regional Church in Saxony and thus responsible for the religious unity of the land. I have tried to convince him that the Calvinists’ interests are purely theological, especially with regard to the Eucharist and baptism, and that they in no case strive to conquer part or all of the stately power in the country, as the Huguenots in France do. Moreover, he is still not sure of his electorship. He is afraid we Calvinists might become stronger and help the Ernestine branch of the House of Wettin to regain the electorship.”

  When the chancellor said “we Calvinists,” I was not surprised. His convictions were not secret, and their effects were felt everywhere. He was the elector’s Most Trusted Chamberlain and favorite and had proved to be indispensable in the talks during the conquest, or rather surrendering, of Gotha. Here he had fought unrelentingly for the interests of his prince. So it seemed for a while. He used his favored position for the spread of Calvinism in Saxony.

  “Why, Your Excellency,” I asked, “do you trust me with this talk about these important political matters?”

  “Because,” replied the chancellor, “yesterday I met in the Privy Council with a new quite unexpected coldness, even hostility, on the part of my master, who so far had been well disposed toward me. He did not allow my remarks to be included in the minutes and also did not so much as look at me. My Lutheran opponents in the council were, in contrast, allowed to do all the talking. This, Dr. Luther, will end badly. And because I know that you have good connections to Magister Philippus, who in the end was quite open to the doctrines of Calvin, I would like to warn you. Though there will probably be no Blood Night in Dresden, some of us will be in great danger.”

  “Can Your Excellency,” I asked now, “advise me how to behave so that I and my family don’t come to harm?”

  Thereupon Georg Cracow regarded my sadly. “This question,” he said, “no one can answer except yourself. In fact, only your conscience can answer this question.”

  The next day but one, Chancellor Georg Cracow, Most Trusted Chamberlain of the Elector, reformer of the law in Saxony by his cooperation on the Constitutions of Elector Augustus, which helped to renew the legal system on the basis of Roman law, professor and rector of Wittenberg University, participant in famous imperial diets and religious disputes, was arrested on his estate, Schönfeld, near Dresden, was taken to Pleißenburg Castle, and was subjected to torture.

  As a consequence of this, he died in 1575. Some say he took his own life. A deadly sin. But who dares condemn here, when the poor delinquent is threatened with repeated torture and unspeakable agony? It is also said that shortly before his suicide he was heard to pray and ask God for forgiveness for his imminent sin in his dungeon.

  It became known that the elector felt greatly deceived because the chancellor had advised him wrongly and had not represented his interests adequately.

  A further arrest was that of Caspar Peucer, mathematician, astronomer, and medicus and my predecessor as electoral archiator. In 1552 he had acquired the title of Licentiate of Medicine under the guida
nce of Milich in Wittenberg and was therefore well known to me. In Dresden he was regarded as the leader of the Philippists and was denounced as a Cryptocalvinist. What made things worse for him was that beside his eruditeness, he was equipped with the ability to injure people with his sharp tongue.

  And here I am coming to a second reason for the arrests. A mockery about the gynocracy, or female rule of the electoress, was found at the court, which gave the elector enormous offense and accelerated his change from the Philippists to the Lutheran hardliners. The Philippists allegedly had contributed to this lampoon. And it also became known that Caspar Peucer had written somewhere, “Let us first get Mother Anna; then it will not take long to win over the prince.” With that he meant they would entice the electoress away from the Lutherans.

  Peucer was detained until 1586, most of the time at Pleißenburg Castle, where he had ample time to practice his art of writing. He composed a chronology of his experiences in the dungeon, which was printed later as Historia carcerum et liberatonis divinae.

  Fear and terror ruled thenceforth at court and in the city. People asked themselves who would be the next to be struck by the elector’s wrath. Some out of fear even left the country. To celebrate their victory, the Lutheran zealots had a medal coined with the inscription: “In memory of the victory of the true faith over reason.” All that is left for a comparatively reasonable person after reading such a sentence is continued speechlessness.

  The reader should put themselves into my situation.

  I kept quiet and did not attend court until the elector summoned me. It proved to be advantageous that I had occupied myself during this time in the laboratory in the castle cellar with making gold.