Traité de l’Eau de Vie, or treatise on Water of Life by Jean Brouaut. Much more than an essay on common brandy. Spiritus Vini Lulliani three centuries after.
It took me a while to decide which category, hermetic authors or ancient chemistry, put Jean Brouaut Traité de l’Eau de Vie, Paris 1746. Alchemy and the chemical superstitions of the time are sometimes intermingled here, so it is difficult to unravel the tangle.
Thus we don’t have to underestimate the difficulty of this essay reading since here, two waters of life seem to mix things up. In fact, according to the author, all is double.
In one of the two letters introducing the book, Jean Chartrier writes: ” Brouaut talks of the alliance of Water and Fire“. When it comes to Fire’s definition in Alchemy, we cannot take it as a mere state of matter but as our ultimate goal: Life. This treatise is officially about brandy so we can imagine some operations involving this matter. But is this Water of Fire-Life, or eau de vie in French, the standard distillation product from the wine we know? Or is there something different? Brouaut’s book greatly contributes to trying to unveil the mystery of Spiritus Vini Lulliani.
My translation of the most outstanding parts of Traité de l’Eau de Vie ou Anatomie theorique et pratique du Vin, or Treatise of the Water of Life or theoretical and practical anatomy of wine, by Johannes Brevotius, as his latin AKA, chemist, and physician, from original french with some comments to help.
“Preface.
Strangely, doctors and chemists do not have deepened on standard brandy we call “Eau de Vie”, or Water of Life. Even they, who know everything about our health, removed the” of Life” attribute and replaced it with “of Death”. Even more, I regret that being hit by this bad reputation is not only wine but its most valuable part.
Ancient Greeks didn’t know it, neither Hippocrates nor Galen. These ancient and brilliant physicians denied using the most spiritual essences, where the virtue dwells, rather than the corporeal masses, which are only peeling. This oblivion did start with the ancient Egyptians, who neglected the hard work of coal and furnaces. Has Aristotle, who I trust to be a more profound scholar of nature, ever tried to work with salt?
We have known this Water of Life for two or three hundred years. Arnaldus Villanovensis dared to call it Golden Water, trusting it to be the real Or Potable, or potable gold. Raimundo Lull said he had known perhaps just a man who knew it. Lull also stated that ancient Greeks didn’t know it because of their lack of knowledge of the art of fire, so they have never anatomized the bodies, separating their spirits employing fire cutting, which is the only master and craftsman. They content themselves with infusions. At the same time, every curious mind should spend their leisure time in the distillation art.
First Book. First Chapter. Title: Why the Water of Life takes this name, and why there is double water of life and death.
All the foods that nature offers are good and bad: the first to feed the lamp of our fire, the other to turn it off and break it. The first is subtle, light, and clear as heavenly, and the second is heavy, dark, coarse, and terrestrial. The first is our keeping up, and the other is our death. It is interesting to know that our Spirit of Life is liquid and subtle and that keeping its force is similar. It is suitable that this keeper is a similar liquor to tie with food and Spirit of Life.”
This paragraph entirely lies in the medieval alchemical concept of a Spirit of life as a substance too subtle to be used pure. Consequently, a bond with a similar texture molecular means, or keeper, is necessary. To make it simple: the recipient is a molecular substance, while the Spirit of Life is, although liquid, hardly seen as a molecular substance. Remember that liquid, for an alchemist, is synonymous with flowing. As we see further down, the alchemical Spirit of Life is nothing more than our Secret Fire coming from stars and suns and still dwelling in bodies. We will also see that the extraction methods of this essence are pretty similar to those of common spirit but for some unreasonable repetitions. “The liquor must be of the same nature as fire to keep up with that of the Spirit, which is an ethereal glowing. All that is for the liquor, like an oil holding the flame in a lamp, to be poured into vessels that flame the spirit, repairing the light’s weakening and decline. “
What does Brouaut mean for Light and its weakening and decline of it? Elements can roughly be defined as states of matter. But let’s go step by step: Our alchemical Secret Fire has the nature of Fire, of course, by definition. We have learned that Secret Fire needs a vessel, a keeper, to be carried out. Another nature of fire, in a chemical or molecular sense, is our water brandy.
Nevertheless, not as a water element but better as fire, so an oily substance may be involved here. It was a common belief in ancient chemistry that a combustible matter was always greasy, as from their experiences. At the same time, watery substances were known to be against ignition. So the oily fire condition of the vessel matter is reputed to keep the flame of Secret Fire alive, namely its vegetative, cooking, and glowing virtues. Brouaut uses the term lightly when intending these virtues: back in the seventeenth century, the idea of Alchemy as an art bound to be perfected was very common.
“I said oily because if it were not of this nature, it would be impossible to be drunk and sucked by the living ardently Spirit. We have to slightly adjust the laws of nature in the field of the nomination of things by philosophic authority, and so this must-have liquor texture, form, and transparency of very clear water, so it will not seem unfair that we give to it the name of water.”
Brouaut, like many others of his age, cannot separate chemical and alchemical phenomena for the simple reason they have a rather bizarre idea of chemistry. A water-like substance able to ignite was above their comprehension as it is beyond our modern comprehension to admit the existence of a flowing and ineffable substance coming from stars and giving us life.
“For this reason, we recognize double water, one of life, the other of death. The water of life, which is into acorns, is this kind of vapor or spiritual liquor hidden inside in small quantities. This vapor comes from the radical humid (humid radical) born together with the seeds of everything and increases by the action of solar heat, which wakes the inner heat of said seeds, to make them grow.
The water of death is composed of phlegm and excrement, which plants have sucked from the earth. This part is much more than the previous water, which, like a delicate guest, loves to stay separate in the higher parts, never going back to mix with the vulgar part. Nevertheless, everything created by God has some to keep all the duration of their predestination. The water of Death is the phlegms and saps sucked by plants, which are considerably more than the previous water of Life. But a little amount of the latter is always available within every body.”
Brouaut uses the term radical humid. it is enough to have our Secret Fire now well-defined and the alliance of water and fire.
To be continued at Brouaut and the Alliance of Water and Fire part 2 .