The alchemical secret of François de Chazal de la Genesté and its origin
Around 1755-1757 François de Chazal de la Genesté visiting Paris at the home of the rue de Sorbonne of his brother Pierre meets a mysterious gentleman can also be in the field of relations of Pierre who initiated him as a member of the Societas Rosae Crucis (The dates that Sigismund Bacstrom gives us are false is it an error or a desire to hide the details of this story?). Pierre de Chazal was in the third chamber of the court of the "aydes", whose jurisdiction was to judge the tax affairs thus the fiscal privileges and the validity of the titles of nobilities which gave him a certain power and the entry in circles to be able to. It is difficult to say more at the moment. Anecdotally a close colleague and friend of Pierre whose name recalls a famous writer and alchemist lived in the vicinity of Knight Denis de Molinier rue de Lyon. The most famous testimony on the occult face of François de Chazal is that of his disciple Sigismond Bacstrom Alchemist known for his translations of texts so appreciated by the modern alchemical environment. An important detail seems to have gone unnoticed in the eyes of the researchers is that Dr. Petit Radel who introduced Sigismund Bacstrom speak English with him, he had even lived three years in an English counter in eastern India, and that same Sigismund Bacstrom speak English with François de Chazal and it seems that this is one of the reasons for the quick initiation of this disciple. François de Chazal, according to his disciple, succeeds the Philosopher's Stone two years after his arrival at Port Saint-Louis from the first attempt on the year 1762, and he states that he had found great assistance in the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum of Elias Ashmole (which shows that everything is not explained in the Aphorisms and the process given by the Count ...) which it defines as a work in "Middle English" ever translated into French. Sigismund Bacstrom in a letter to Alexander Tilloch says this: "Every authors in the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum by Ashmole had ANIMAL STONE, except Ripley, who had the mineral and ANIMAL and wrote of all of them. ALI PULI has the animal stone, as you well know, and so Count de Chazal and you and I have seen something true in this”. But what was this Animal Stone, in the aphorisms of the Societas Rosae Crucis of the Count we are thus called: "Our magnet that attracts it (the anima mundi) (although any subject in nature is magnetic) is the man, and chiefly (Hadamah, the dust, the red earth of man), which in the months of March, April, and May, the Sun in Aries and Taurus is abundantly found in the blood of a healthy man " (The Aphorisms and processes of the Rose Crosses by Sigismond Bacstrom can be found easily on several sites on the internet) The count therefore used the human blood as raw material, the use of substances taken from the human body in the alchemy Rose-Croix du The 17th century was relatively common, although many of the classic books of alchemy proscribe materials other than those of the mineral kingdom. Here is one of the rare texts showing the same process as the aphorisms of the Count of Chazal, it is an extract of the Alchemist's Key-Third Treatise containing the Animal Stone of the alchemist Samuel Norton back-to-back - son of Thomas Norton, alchemist and English poet particularly known for his text "The Ordinall of Alchemy" besides being part of the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum and designated by some as a disciple of George Ripley: "The method is complete and easy it is found in Ripley at once in the 12 gates, as well as in her Medulla in the treatise of the animal stone, while touching the matter, she is noted to be in the man, and it is associated with him the little world, and showing the choice of the matter he wanted to have from a man of Mars, who is of a cholera complexion, because the state of the body of the man would be of a healthy and healthy man, with regard to the time and the season of the year, in March, to have proof of a work of this kind. (Note) The work of the blood of man. Take (he says) the blood of a healthy vein (of a man) and removing or taking the superfluous moisture from there put it in a fixed egg sealed to putrefy in the first degree fire where it is allowed to rest a long season until it becomes black. That done, take it out and put it in the ashes, where it dries until it makes bubbles, in which bubbles it will show and appear countless colors until it becomes white. Then, in a strong fire for 30 days make it turn red, because if the red work, it is then a sulfur of nature: and excelling in all other things or sulfur: about it sparkling in a great wonderment. he says: O Wonder more marvelous than all the wonders because it has the character of the perfect sulfur, which makes that the Elixir soaks this sulfur with the vegetable mercury until it is fixed and fluent and give it its ferment of (Sun) in the 4th proportion; fix them under fire which can be multiplied like vegetable or mineral, And it is then the great Elixir, by this way of working up to white sulfur. Hear, hear what Ripley says: Take this thing, this hidden stone, putrify it. Wash it in its own broth until it turns white; That done, you see it ferment nicely. Of all they work then here is the whole and its parts. On this path, therefore, it appears that the stone may be made of the blood of man, which for that reason, that it comes from man; this is said to be the animal; So far, I have shown that I saw him black and besides I am not yet able to say for this quarter of year that I did not see him with this way of working, I  have finished the animal touching the blood of the man.” In this text, similar to the process of Count de Chazal, we see the reference to George Ripley, the most famous of the English alchemists, notably to his "The 12 gates of alchemy" found in Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum and his "Medulla Alchymiae". or Ripley's "The Rope of Alchemy" which is the inspiration for this path as these excerpts can show it: "The only thing that, because it is more excellent than all the rest, the philosophers have taken it for the most close; because of the singular perfection which God had given to the Microcosmos or small World, in which are not only the ideas of the Races and effects of the planets, stars and asterisms but also complexions, moods, spirits and natural virtues of the elements. "But understand that this present division, should not be a manual division (but in power and effect), that is why, that this one thing that all men have (its flooding Phlegmatic property being somewhat evacuated) it is placed in Kemia or in suitable vessels, which sealed philosophically; let it be purified in a wet fire a long season, in a black thickness.” Excerpts from "Medulla Alchymiae or The Marrow of Alchemy" by George Ripley Chapter LXXI of the Animal Stone
 "In the beginning God created all things of nothing, in a confused mass containing in itself all things indifferently, of which, he made a clear distinction in six days. But it must be so in our Magisterium, because it has its source in one thing; so the Philosophers call it little world, one and triple, Magnesia, Sulfur and Mercury, proportioned by Nature. "Remember that the man who is elsewhere called the male, is the most perfect earthly creature that God has created; to which there is a neutrality of the four Elements proportioned by Nature, which does not cost anything at all, which is carried out out of its mining by Art. “Excerpts George Ripley's "Twelve Gates of Alchemy"
 George Ripley suggests that he got his master's knowledge of his nine-year journey to Italy, the Italy’s sanctuary of hermetic knowledge. Egypt and the East. It seems obvious to me that this method of the animal stone is specifically English inspired by the interpretation of the books of George Ripley, so there is a strong chance that also the initiator of François de Chazal was of Anglo-Saxon culture. or English by birth. To conclude many wonders what the library of François de Chazal de la Genesté becomes after his death. François de Chazal of Genesis had initiated Societe Rosae Crucis several close friends science lovers some of whom were members like him of the same reverend Lodge Twenty One to the Orient of Port Louis. Some inhabitants of Mauritius own some books and objects (I was even told about a portrait) that seems to have belonged to the Count, which lets me say that there was a sharing programmed by François de Chazal de la Genesté among his friends of his Rose-Cross circle.
Frédéric Garnier © janvier 2016 article except to the book : « L’Héritage de Christian Rosenkreutz » ARQA edition
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Kiesewetter, descendant of the last imperator of the Society of the Rose-Cross in one of his articles writes: "From the papers of my great-grandfather it follows that [...] the last true Rosicrucians shut themselves up in a contemplative peace, living in an enthusiastic Christian theosophy. It seems that the intrusion of illuminated and Masonic elements had disjoined the previous structure of the Order; this is why, as a memorandum from my great-grandfather is still learning, it was decided in 1792 to relieve the brothers of the oath (Juramenti and Silenti) and to cancel the library and archives. "

As just pointed out; with the "Orden der Gold- und Rosenkeuzer", its nine degrees and its neo-Masonic tendency we are before a degeneration announcing the dissolution of the hermetic current due to the materialism of the Enlightenment. The original course was defined by the teaching from master to disciple, and the status of Rose-Croix was obtained only by the knowledge of the modus operandi, and the obtaining of the philosopher's stone. The Count of Chazal, little known in France, and made famous in the Anglo-Saxon world by two works by A. E. Waite on the history of the Rosicrucian movements, was undoubtedly a member of one of the last filiations resulting from this original current. I hope that soon will be revealed part of the documents and correspondence of the Count of Chazal currently held in private archives, thus clarifying the history of this French filiation.

The famous alchemist Fulcanelli in a note from his book The Philosophical Mansions designates the Count of Chazal as adept that is to say, possessor of the philosopher's stone, as well as the initiator of Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom.

Fulcanelli seems to have had less information than the brilliant surrealist writer Malcom de Chazal, descendant of the adept, who gives us some of his research on his ancestor in his admirable book Pétrusmok, even if the assertions of René Guénon on a filiation with the Count of St. Germain are without foundation. Most of the documents we have on the Comte de Chazal come from the origin of his disciple; doctor, naturalist, traveler, painter and alchemist, Sigismund Bacstrom, whose biography has not yet been made and whose life is very poorly known, while he was one of the most active alchemists of his time and probably a 18th century translators of the most prolific alchemical texts in English.

Despite some inaccurate dates, and the use of the name of Louis de Chazal or Chazel that seems to be the errors of copyists or can be a means to divert attention from the real Chazal, copies of Bacstrom documents have their validity. Like the great Fulcanelli, it seems that "the state of adeptat" makes historically elusive, the biographical.

It was Frederick Hockley, an occultist and owner of a rich library of many rare manuscripts and books, who acquired the original text of Bacstrom's admission to the Society of the Rosicrucians; we find in this respect an entry in the list of books Frederick Hockley (1887); 1833 Diary of a Rosicrusian Philosopher ... [as 1829], [and] Admission copy of Dr. Bacstrom in the Society of the Rose Cross by Count de Chazal in Mauritius 1794.

In a letter dated August 12, 1874 to his friend Irwin, he also wrote the manuscript Anecdotes on the Count of Chazal FRC. These original documents were unfortunately destroyed at the end of the 19th century during a fire at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society, but we still have copies.

Dr. Bacstrom tells us in the manuscript "Anecdotes on the Count of Chazal FRC" the circumstances of his meeting with the count. It is through the doctor Philippe Petit-Radel, French surgeon famous author of the time, fleeing the revolution, born in Paris in 1749, died in 1815, that it is presented in 1793 in Mauritius in François de Chazal de la Genesté (August 25, 1731 in Montbrison - died at Long Mountain on October 13, 1795).

After having conversed many times of the theory of the Great Work, in view of the hermetic knowledge of Bacstrom the count initiates, and receives it in the society of the Rosicrucian September 12, 1794 and means that he was himself received in Paris. François de Chazal demonstrates his status as a follower of Bacstrom by making his laboratory demonstration of its power of transmutation; at first it produces 30 carats of excessively brittle gold, twenty-four carats of even more resplendent and ductile gold, gold of an even more radiant color somewhat heavier than the last. In a letter dated March 16, 1804 to his disciple Alexander Tilloch, Bacstrom reveals that the library of Chazal included more than a thousand volumes, in all languages ​​and the adept also had a laboratory and a set of devices, including instruments of astronomy and mathematics.
 
In a work published by the family of Chazal including the correspondence of the main members of this family, are the instructions of the widow of Régis de Chazal to his children, March 15, 1787 it gives them the command not to forget the books, the news, and all that will be curious and extraordinary in the new discoveries of science, chemistry, magnetism, & c. for their uncle François. In another letter he subscribes to the commission of a series of works by the alchemist and cartomancer Aliette, but also he seeks travel stories, books of naturalism, botany, mineralogy ... At these readings, you feel a man who is curious about everything, universal in his quest for knowledge, using his knowledge for the benefit of the community, he also introduces useful plants on his island, and changes agriculture. Bacstrom confirms that he kept track of his magical experiences and the care he had achieved through animal magnetism, electricity, galvanism, ... all things that were confirmed by the most respectable people of the island. He was admitted to the Superior Council of the Isle of France, Mayor and Elector of Port Louis. In 1772 he is second counselor.
 
In 1789 he received from the king a certificate of honorary councilor. His name is inscribed on the column raised by Mr. Lienard in the Garden of Pamplemousse, as a benefactor of the colony. Bacstrom lends him the power to observe events from a distance (with the eye of the mind), the Count kept in a diary a record of everything that was going on in Paris at the time of the French Revolution, even though all physical communication was interrupted between Mauritius and France at that time. It is said that he educated a hundred orphans and gave them a sum of one million piastres, and his other less visible charitable acts were also numerous. His family's correspondence shows a loving, generous and protective parent. He does not use his position to enrich himself to the detriment of the community, Adrien d'Epinay in his book "Information to serve the history of the Ile de France (1890)" says in speaking of François de Chazal; "Monsieur de Chazal is one of the few advisers who has remained outside the financial coteries of his time. He leaves to the colonial archives the purest name.” He seems to follow the ideal of the ancient Rosicrucians to help the most vulnerable, notified in the rules transcribed in the certificate of admission of the order; "I will devote a large part of my fortune (obtained by the great work) to private charitable works, to old and needy people, to children and above all to all who love God and act honestly. “
 
This man was undoubtedly one of the last Brother of the Rose-Cross, the eighteenth century saw the last true filiations of this order. François de Chazal was not an "adventurer" in the manner of a Saint-Germain or a Cagliostro, but a sincere and honest man humbly seeking the secrets of nature, seeking a way to God, using his knowledge to to evolve society, saving one's neighbor from the pitfalls of fate.
Frédéric Garnier © juillet 2008
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