Curious Explanation of the Enigmas and Physical Hieroglyphic Figures on the Great Portal of the Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Notre-Dame in Paris

Curious Explanation of the Enigmas and Physical Hieroglyphic Figures on the Great Portal of the Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Notre-Dame in Paris.



The coats of arms of the House of Montluisant.




The Royal Themis here contains the effects of divine justice, humanity and morality and the administration of the Court of Parliament of Metz, and the acrostics of the names of the seigneurs of the Court of Esprit, Sieur de Montluisant.




Esprit Gobineau de Montluisant

On Wednesday, May 20th, 1640, the eve of the glorious Ascension of our Savior Jesus Christ, after praying to God and His Most Holy Virgin Mother in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, I left this beautiful and grand church and, carefully considering its rich and magnificent portal, with such exquisite structure, from the foundation to the summit of its two tall and marvelous towers, I made the notes that I am about to explain.

I begin by observing that this portal is tripartite, forming three main entrances into this superb temple, in a single construction body, and announcing the Trinity of persons in one God, under whom, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, His Word was incarnated for the salvation of the world in the womb of the Holy Virgin; a symbol of the three celestial principles in unity, which are the three main keys that open the principles and all the doors, paths, and entrances of sublunary nature, that is, of the universal sap and all the bodies it forms and produces, preserves, or regenerates.

1. The figure placed in the first circle of the portal, facing the Hôtel-Dieu, represents at the top God the Father, creator of the universe, who extends His arms and holds, in each of His hands, a figure of a man in the form of an angel.
This is meant to represent that Almighty God, at the moment of the creation of all things, which He made from nothing, separating light from darkness, molded these noble creatures which the wise call the Catholic soul, the universal spirit, or the indestructible vital sulfur and mercury of life—i.e., the general radical moisture, the two principles of which are represented by these two angels.

God the Father holds them in His two hands to distinguish between vital sulfur, or the oil of life, called the soul, and mercury of life, or the primordial moisture, called the spirit, even though these terms are synonymous, but only to show that this soul and this spirit draw their origin and principle from the celestial and archetypal world, where the seat and throne full of glory of the Most High are found. From this, He emanates supernaturally and imperceptibly to communicate Himself, as the first root, the first moving soul, and the source of life for all beings in general and for all sublunary creatures, of which man is the beloved.

2. In the circle beneath the celestial and archetypal world, there is the firmamental or astral heaven, in which two angels appear with their heads reclined, but covered and enveloped.
The inclination of these two angels, with their heads down, suggests to us that the universal soul or Catholic spirit, or, more precisely, the breath of God’s virtue, that is, the spiritual influences of the archetypal heaven, descend from it to the astral heaven, which is the second world, equally celestial, called etypical. Here dwell and reign the planets and stars, which have their course, strength, and virtue for the fulfillment of their duty and destiny, according to the decree of Providence, which has thus arranged and subordinated them to the end of operating, through their ministry and influence, the birth and generation of all spiritual beings and all sublunary things that participate in the universal spirit and soul.

Through the two angels, with their heads down and dressed, it is indicated that the universal and spiritual Catholic seed does not ascend at all, but always descends. And the covering with which it is veiled in bodies teaches us that this celestial seed is concealed, that it is not shown naked but is carefully hidden from the eyes of the ignorant and the sophists, without being known by the common people.

3. Above the firmament, there is the third heaven or the element of air, in which three children appear surrounded by clouds. These three children represent the three primary principles of all things, which the sages call the "beginning principles," from which the three lower principles—salt, sulfur, and mercury—derive their origin. These are called "principles begun" to distinguish them from the "beginning principles," although all of them descend together from the archetypal heaven and originate from the hands of God, who, by His fertility, fills all of nature.
But all spiritual and celestial influences, before they unite with any sensible body, seem to emanate from the first two heavens, which causes every spiritual emanation of the first heaven, or archetypal heaven, to be called the soul, and that of the second heaven, or the firmament, to be called the spirit.

Thus, there are the soul and the spirit, invisible and purely spiritual, that fill the third heaven with their active and living virtues. This heaven is called the elemental or typical heaven because it is the abode of the elements. These elements, ordered and subordinated by the two superior worlds, in turn act, through commotion and movement—descending, ascending, progressing, and circulating—on all inferior beings and all sublunary creatures composed of their mixed qualities, which are called the four temperaments.

Now, the soul emanated in the elemental world, which fills it with its life-giving light, is called sulfur, and the spirit emanated from the firmamental world or heaven, which is originally the radical moisture of all things, to which this sulfur, or luminous heat, is attached and adheres as its first and ultimate nourishment, is called mercury or primordial moisture. It is the radical moisture of everything and, consequently, is indivisible from sulfur or the ethereal soul, which, being a celestial luminous and warm fire, cannot, in turn, subsist without the intimate and indissoluble union with this spirit, its radical moisture. But this is beyond the comprehension of the foolish.

This soul and this spirit, united as one and the same essence, originating from the same principle and being, as it were, a single entity—since they are only divisible through the spirit—cannot be seen or touched, but only conceived and understood by the wise investigators of the science of God and nature. This soul and this spirit only become sensible to us through the indivisible bond that connects them to each other. This bond, called salt, is the effect of their union and mutual love, and it is a spiritual body that hides and envelops them in its bosom, making of three one single entity. This is something that the prejudiced masses will never understand or comprehend.

This salt is that of wisdom, meaning the union and bond of fire and water, of warmth and moisture, in perfect homogeneity, and it is the third principle. It does not become visible or tangible in the air we breathe, in which it is subtle and fluid, and it only manifests its visible body through its presence and residue deposited in the mixtures and compounds of elements, which it fixes and freezes, intimately mixing with sulfur, mercury, and salt—natural principles strongly analogous to it and constituting sublunary creatures.

The celestial salt is the "beginning principle," which proceeds from the soul and the spirit, that is, from their action, or more precisely, from the ethereal sulfur and mercury. It is the means and mediator that unites them in their action, translating into fluid form in the sulfur, mercury, and salt of nature, with a visible and tangible body, which the sages call by various names: alkali salt, ammoniac salt, philosophers' saltpeter, and sometimes with a thousand other symbolic nicknames, referring to its origin, descent, or its bodily essence, to prove that, being the soul, spirit, and universal body of nature, it is susceptible to all kinds of determinations that nature or the artist may wish to assign it according to art and wisdom.

However, it must not be overlooked that it is from the supracelestial world that the source of life of all things takes its origin, and that this life is called soul or sulfur; that from the celestial or firmamental world proceeds the light called spirit, or otherwise moisture or mercury; that this soul and this spirit fill the third world, called the elemental, with their fecund and vivifying power, and that their energetic and elastic action, perpetually circular, brings and produces the divine and analogical fire of warmth and radical moisture, but in an imperceptible and invisible manner, neither vulgar nor crude. Through it, as the fire of life in its nourishing, restorative, and preservative essence—not destructive—things become palpable and of bodily solidity.

From this, one must conclude that these three celestial substances—sulfur, mercury, and universal salt—are the true beginning principles of the generation of all things, and that these three natural and sublunary substances, into which the first three are infused and corporealized, are the authentic created principles, constituting the generation of bodies through freezing and fixation, which they impart to the elemental qualities proper to the temperature of individuals, according to the decrees of Providence.

This is what led the sages to say that the spiritual salt which serves as the covering and bond of celestial sulfur and mercury was the sole and unique matter from which the philosopher's stone is made. And since these three substances, identified by their union, constitute only one single thing, the stone was not at all made of multiple things, but of a single composite thing, triple in essence, unique in principle, and quadrangular for the four elemental qualities. Nevertheless, from a certain perspective, this must be understood to mean that such things may fall simultaneously under both the intelligence of the spirit and that of the senses. That is to say, one should not imagine that the matter of the philosopher's triangular and quadrangular stone should be or can be taken in its fluid, airy, and invisible state, but rather understand that it is necessary to seek and find this same matter, in its fluid, airy form, infused and corporealized in the virgin earth of the children of nature, who are the most richly endowed, most highly and abundantly favored, and in whom the first and second agents possess the most dignity, excellence, and virtue.

For the root of the sages' sulfur, their mercury, and their salt is a celestial, spiritual, and supernatural spirit, which, through the vehicle of the subtle air, is transported and condensed into thickened air or vapor, and constitutes the universal and unique matter of all procreation.

4. Below these three children, placed in the element of air, there are the globes of water and earth, upon which animals graze, such as a ram, a bull, etc.
The globes of water and earth represent the lower elements, such as water and earth, in which the celestial fire and the finest radical moisture, through the air, penetrate to the depths and, by their virtue, circulate incessantly in the form of an invisible supercelestial spirit of life. According to David (Psalms XVIII, 6, 7, 8), this spirit has its tabernacle in the sun; from there, through its energetic virtue, like a bridegroom rising from his bed, it launches itself to travel through the way of the elements, like a proud giant measuring its strength and force in the vast expanse of air. Its exit is from the deepest heavens. From there, it proceeds, penetrating everywhere and leaving nothing devoid of the warmth of its vivifying presence, according to Solomon’s expression in Ecclesiastes (I, 5, 6). This is the same divine spirit that illuminates the immensity of the universe, which, pushing and repelling itself through energetic and elastic virtue in a circular motion, from the center to the periphery, in the expanse of everything, returns without ceasing and perpetually in the circles it describes with its eternal and universal movement and course.
Thus, this universal spirit, through fire and moisture, nourishes the fish in the water, the animals on the earth, the insects in the soil, causes plants to grow, and produces minerals and metals in the center and depths of the earth. Because its circulating influence, as vital fire united with radical moisture through the salt of wisdom, is the universal seed that freezes, and whose vapor condenses at the center of all things. This natural seed works in different matrices according to their disposition, nature, kind, species, and particular form, to produce all generations, imbuing them with movement and life.

As for the two grazing animals, the ram and the bull, they tell us that with the return of spring and its first two months, March and April, during which these two animals dominate as signs of the zodiac, the universal, creative, and recreative matter, being more enamored of the celestial virtue that richly infuses its vital properties, becomes more abundant, virtuous, and exalted, and, consequently, more qualified than at other times.

5. Below these two animals, there is a body that appears to be asleep, lying on its back, upon which two vials descend from the air, their necks facing downward, one directed toward the brain and the other toward the heart of this sleeping man.

This body, depicted in this manner, is nothing other than the radical and seminal salt of all things, which, by its magnetic virtue, attracts to itself the soul and spirit of the universe, which are homogeneous to it, and which constantly insinuate and corporify within the salt. This is represented by the two vials, containing the natural and radical heat and moisture. And this salt, having thus attracted and corporified these two substances, and having acquired through their spiritual union a prodigious degree of strength, pushes and penetrates the central point of individuals, and, from universal salt as it was, it particularizes itself, corporifies, determines, and becomes a rose in the rosebush, gold in mineral quicksilver, gold in gold, a plant in the vegetable, dew in the dew, man in man; in this, the brain represents the lunar radical moisture, and the heart signifies the natural solar heat, conveyed by the former as its matrix.

6. On the right side of the three children, slightly lower than the air element, there is a ladder upon which a man ascends on his knees, with his hands joined and raised to the air, from which an ampoule or vial descends. Above the ladder, there is a table covered by a carpet, with a cup upon it.

The ladder teaches us that one must elevate themselves to God, pray to Him on their knees, with heart, spirit, and soul, to receive this gift, which is the wisdom of the sages—a truly great gift from God, a singular grace of His goodness. One must not be in low places to take the universal primal matter that contains the general and vegetal form of the world. The ampoule descending from the air signifies the liquor or celestial dew, which initially springs from the supercelestial influence, then mixes with the properties of the stars. From this blending, it forms a third element between the earthly and the celestial. This is how the seed and principle of all things are formed.

The cup on the table represents the vessel with which the celestial liquor must be received.

7. On the left side of the same door of this great portal, there are four large figures of human size, each bearing a symbol on their feet.
The first, closest to the door, has a flying dragon on its feet that is devouring its own tail. The second has a lion on its feet, with its head turned toward the sky, which makes it perform a neck contortion. The third has a jester's figure beneath its feet, laughing and mocking the figures it observes, which seem to present themselves to it. The fourth has a dog and a bitch biting each other vigorously, seemingly intent on devouring one another.

The flying dragon devouring its own tail represents the philosopher's stone, composed of two substances, or mercuries, from the same root and extracted from the same material. One of these is the etheric, moist, and volatile spirit, and the other is the sulfur or salt of nature, corporal, dry, and fixed. By its internal dryness, it devours its own slippery tail, meaning it dries out the moisture and converts it into stone, aided by the constant fire within the concavity of the moist etheric spirit, the seat of the universal soul.

The lion bending toward the sky symbolizes the body, or salt, animated, which eagerly desires to reclaim its soul and spirit.

The figure of the jester represents the false philosophers and ignorant sophists who amuse themselves by working on heterogeneous materials and find nothing good, mocking Hermetic science and declaring it not true, but purely illusory. In doing so, they offend the divine truth, which has placed its richest treasures in the subject.

The dog and the bitch biting each other, known by the sages as the Armenian dog and the dog of Chorescene, signify nothing other than the battle between the two substances of a single root of the stone. Because the moist, acting against the dry, dissolves, and afterward, the dry, acting against the moist (which had previously devoured it), swallows it and reduces it to dry water. This is called the dissolution of bodies and the freezing of the spirit, which is the entire work of the Hermetic art.

8. Below these large figures, in a pillar near the portal, there is the figure of a bishop wearing his mitre and holding his cross, in a meditative pose.

This bishop represents Gulliemus Parisiensis, that is, the one who had this magnificent portal constructed and who placed the enigmas within it.

9. In the pillar that is in the middle and separates the two doors of this portal, there is another figure of a bishop, who places his cross into the throat of a dragon beneath his feet, which seems to emerge from a swirling bath. Among the waves, the head of a king with a triple crown appears, as if drowning in the waves and then emerging again.
This bishop represents the wise alchemical artist, who, through his art, causes the volatile substance of the mercurial dragon to freeze. The dragon, desiring to fly, attempts to escape from the vessel that contains it in the form of a swirling water, excited by an external gentle heat. The crowned king represents the sulfur of nature, which is created by the physical and eccentric union of the three substances—homogeneous but separated by the artist—of the first Catholic matter. These three substances are the mercurial ethereal spirit, the sulfurous or nitrous salt, and the alkali or fixed salt, which retains its name of salt among the three beginning principles and the three completed principles. All three were contained in the wet chaos, where the king seems to be drowning, asking for help that he does not receive. The alchemical artist, after dissolving the dragon in the solvent of its own substance, similar to it, will eventually satisfy the king's request. The king, after being consumed and turned into water by his own water, will solidify through his internal heat, excited by his salt or his own earth.

This simple, natural, and unblended operation completes the work of the sages, which is none other than dissolving the body and solidifying the spirit, after placing the proper weight of both substances—both triple and single—into the crystalline egg. Because the entire process of the work is to ascend and then descend, which is called ascension and descension, until the four opposing elementary qualities are harmonized and transformed into three constitutive and ordering principles. From these three, fire and water, dry and wet, will emerge, and from these two, a single perfect one will be made, petrified into salt, containing everything—heaven and earth—purified and cooked, to eliminate the heterogeneous.

10. On the right side of the portal, the twelve signs of the zodiac are shown, divided into two parts, in order according to the science of God and nature. In the first part, on the right side, there are the signs of Aquarius and Pisces, which are outside the work, and this must be noted and remarked upon.

Then, within the work, there are Aries, Taurus, and Gemini, one above the other. Above Gemini is the sign of Leo, even though it is not its rightful place, as Cancer should be there, but this should be considered a mystery.

The signs of Aquarius and Pisces are placed outside the work to explicitly indicate that during the months of January and February, one cannot gather or possess the universal matter.

As for Aries, Taurus, and Gemini, which are inside the work, one above the other, and which rule the months of March, April, and May, they teach that it is during this time that the wise alchemist must meet the matter and gather it at the moment when it descends from the sky and the airy fluid, where it only kisses the lips of the mixtures and passes over the bellies of the plant buds and leaves that are subject to it. It enters triumphantly under its three universal principles into bodies, through their golden doors, to become the seed of the celestial rose; this should be understood symbolically.

Then, its love makes tears flow, which are nothing but light, whose father is the sun, clothed in a moisture whose mother is the moon, and which the eastern wind carries in its belly. In this state, you will have your matter in its universal and undetermined state, especially if you took it before it was attracted by the magnets of the specified individuals in which it later becomes specific.

Regarding the sign of Leo, placed above Gemini, instead of Cancer, its presence suggests that, in the manual and physical work of the stone, there is some change and alteration of the seasons, and that it is not appropriate to receive and take the matter during the time when Aries, Taurus, and Gemini rule. Because in summer, during the great heat, the ardor and magnificence of the sun, for its substance and maintenance, exhausts much of the radical moisture, leading to a great loss and dissipation of the spirits. Most of the matter that increases and nourishes the bodies is converted into aerial spirituality. Therefore, it can only be gathered through the physical and philosophical magnet that is homogeneous to it, meaning through a temperature seasoned with moisture, which is its magnet and envelope.

11. Below, just above Aquarius and facing Pisces, is a flying dragon that seems to gaze solely and intently at Aries, Taurus, and Gemini, the three signs of spring. This flying dragon, representing the universal spirit, and its fixed gaze on these three signs, seems to affirm that these three months are the only time during which the celestial matter, called the light of life, can be gathered fruitfully. This light is extracted from the rays of the sun and the moon, through the cooperation of nature, with a remarkable method and industrious art, yet simple and natural.

12. Nearby and behind this flying dragon is depicted a jester, and behind the jester is a dog lying on its back, with a bird perched upon it. The jester represents a mocker of hermetic science, a scornful derider of the operations of true sages and philosophers, and all their followers, whom he considers senseless. He is blinded by the error of the common folk.

The image of the dog lying on its back, with a bird perched upon it, suggests that the dog represents the body or sun of the universal matter, faithful to the artist who knows how to work with it. Meanwhile, the bird resting upon it symbolizes the spirit of the same matter. This matter is commonly known by the names of sulfur and mercury, with salt included as the third, the bond or connection that is indivisible from the two, which are the body and the spirit.

13. In the second part of this portal, to the left and at the top, is the sign of Cancer, which replaces Leo, found on the opposite high side of the same portal. Along the same line as Cancer, there are Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio, all present in the work. Following them are Sagittarius and Capricorn, placed outside the work. With Cancer placed so high, it is indicated that the lunar matter was abundant, but that this abundance has decreased because the Pleiades, which are moist constellations, are moving away.

The signs of Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio represent the final stages of heat for the philosophical work's cooking process. In these autumn months, the ripening of fruits reaches its perfection through Sagittarius and Scorpio, which are outside the work. This shows their coldness and dryness, and how these qualities, conceived by the intelligent spirit, remain externally invisible in the matter of our magisterium.

14. To the right and left of these twelve zodiac signs, which represent the course of the year, there are four figures symbolizing the four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Through these four seasons, it is implied that the philosophical compound must be kept in the athanor, or the furnace of cooking, for a year or more, equivalent to ten philosophical months. The heat should begin gently and proportionally, and then, towards the end, become slightly stronger but still steady, as though to color and ripen the fruits harvested during three of these seasons—spring, summer, and autumn. Through this process, the artist acquires the medicina al bianco, symbol of the Virgin Mother and Easter, with which they can stop at the citron-colored stage and obtain the perfect universal lunar medicine, or continue uninterruptedly, progressing to the perfect red, reaching the solar universal medicine, which is perfect at the time of its birth and is held in solemn regard by the wise.

15. Above the eight large figures of the same portal, arranged below with four on each side, the true operations to make and perfect the universal medicine are illustrated. These operations, which the curious apprentice of this divine work may decipher or have explained to them, must never be written down or exposed in writing.

16. On the central portal

On the right side, six figures are depicted. The first is an eagle. The second is a caduceus with two serpents entwined around it. The third is a phoenix burning. The fourth is a ram. The fifth is a man holding a chalice in which he receives something from the air. The sixth is a cross or square line, where on one side, along the transverse line, there is a tear, and on the same line, on the other side, there is a chalice depicted in this way:



These six figures are, so to speak, merely a repetition of what has already been said many times, through different images and in various terms, which are inexhaustible despite the simplicity of the work and the humble nature of the material. Yet, this material reveals itself only to true philosophers, not to ignorant sophists, no matter what inquiries they make, for their intentions are wicked and proud. Indeed, this divine gift is granted only to the simple and humble of heart, despised by the rest of the world, which, unfortunate and senseless in its blindness, feeds only on transient fables.

1 – The eagle, for example, signifies nothing other than the universal spirit of the world, and it is the bird of Hermes, representing the perpetual movement of the sages.

2 – The caduceus with the two serpents intertwined teaches that the stone is composed of two substances, though extracted from the same root. These two substances, however, appear to be opposed to each other, one being moist and the other dry, one volatile and the other fixed. Yet, in their effects and essence, they are similar, for they are two natures that come from the same principle, and thus, in reality, they are only one.

3 – The phoenix that burns itself and is reborn from its own ashes teaches us that these two substances, which are in reality one, after being placed in the philosophical egg and put into the athanor, act against each other for a long time and naturally, engaging in fierce battles before finally embracing and uniting. For the war is long before receiving the kiss of peace, and the waves of the philosophical sea are stirred by ebb and flow for a long time before calm and tranquility can take over and eventually reign. Indeed, the work is very great before these two substances are reduced to powder or incombustible sulfur, because this can only happen after the mercurial moisture has been consolidated or, rather, dried out by the great activity of the heat and dryness within the bodily substance of the salt of nature, and when the entire compound has become homogeneous. It is after these philosophical burnings or calcinations that this powder—the true phoenix of the sages, for there is no other phoenix in the world—is once again dissolved in its virgin milk, reborn from itself and its own ashes, and continues to be reborn and die as many times as the skilled artist desires.

4 – The ram always signifies the beginning of the season in which one must gather the materia, as during this time of effervescence, the fiery moisture of the universal spirit begins to rise from the earth to the sky and descend from the sky to the earth more copiously and with greater virtue than in any other season, especially in the mines where the sun has completed at least thirty revolutions but no more than thirty-five, and where the mineral nature begins to retreat, tending toward its corruption and decline.

5 – The man holding a chalice from which he receives something from the air shows that one must understand what the magnet made by man is, one who has the power to attract from the sky, the sun, and the moon, through his magnetic virtue, the invisible catholic spirit, cloaked in the pure ethereal moist substance, quintessence of influence, to create a third substance that participates individually in the two others. Each of these contains in itself indivisibly the universal salt, sulfur, and mercury, all of which freeze and unite at the center of all things.

6 – As for the cross, on whose horizontal lines, on the sides, are placed a tear and a chalice, it conveys that it is nothing other than the elemental nature, represented by the four elements crossing in the four lines of the cross. Indeed, it is through the four elements that the celestial virtues and energies descend and continuously insinuate themselves into all visible and sublunar bodies.

The two vertical lines represent celestial fire and earth, and the two horizontal lines signify air and water. The tear, representing the moisture of the air full of vital fire, placed on the line of air and water, must be collected in the chalice, which represents the vessel. This should not be done in low valleys, although it is everywhere, but in places that extend into the air, where it will not be gathered in quantity by those who do not possess the knowledge of the physical and philosophical magnet.

7 – Near the door on the right, there are, on one side, five wise virgins holding their chalices or cups up towards the sky, receiving what is poured from above by a hand emerging from a cloud. Below, one can see and observe the various alchemical and philosophical operations. These five virgins represent the true Hermetic philosophers, friends of nature, who, possessing knowledge of the unique matter that nature uses to work in the magnesia of the three kingdoms—animal, mineral, and vegetal—receive from the heavens this same unique matter into appropriate vessels. By following the operations of nature, they work physically, and after creating the mercurial or catholic dissolvent, or the salt of nature containing its sulfur, they unite them in the required proportions, cook them in the athanor, and, in the end, make the Arabic elixir.

8 – On the other side of the left portal, there are another five virgins, but these are foolish, as they hold their cups turned upside down towards the ground. Thus, they cannot nor do they want to receive the Lunaria that nature presents to them, which is so abundant that, after fully satisfying the entire universe, the remaining portion is even more than what has been used. It is produced universally and distributed at all times, constantly, because such has been decreed, willed, and continues to be willed by the Most High, to whom immortal and ineffable glory is rendered on earth and in the heavens.

The foolish virgins with their upside-down cups represent the almost incalculable multitude of false operations by the sophists, chemists, the ignorant and the desperate, as well as the ruthless blowers and charlatans.

These five foolish virgins represent those false philosophers who seek only sophistic torments (such as rubifications, dealbations, coobations, amalgamations, etc.), who despise the study of good authors and, for this reason, cannot know the true matter, even though it is correct to say that they always carry it with them, inside them, on them, around them, under their feet, and even breathe it continuously. But their excessively presumptuous pride causes them to despise meditation and research, and they foolishly imagine, in their crude sophistications and false prejudices, that they can find it without knowing the beautiful and pure nature, the interpreter of divine mysteries.

In truth, this matter is so common and of such a low price that the poorest has as much as the rich, and yet it is so precious that everyone needs it and cannot do without it. For without it, one cannot be, live, or act.

Everything I have highlighted in this triple portal is, in truth, beautiful and enchanting, but it consists of tightly sealed letters, enigmas, and hieroglyphs full of mysteries for the ignorant and of mystical things for the wise; for the latter, I have given this explanation, which they, as curious seekers, must meditate on precisely, removing the veils that conceal the entrance to the secret chamber of the sacred Hermetic Diana.

I have not searched through the ancient records of Paris or those of this cathedral to learn the name of the one who was the founder of this marvelous portal, but I nonetheless believe that the one who provided these Hermetic riddles, these mystical symbols and hieroglyphs of our religion, was that great learned and pious figure, William, the Bishop of Paris, whose profound knowledge has always been rightly admired by the wisest Hermetic philosophers of antiquity, particularly by the good Bernard, Count of Treviso, a wise adept, Hermetic philosopher. It is certain that this bishop created and perfected the work of the sages.

Now, since divine providence has pleased to grant me some light and knowledge of physical and Hermetic philosophy, I have worked in such a way that, after a long time, many efforts, readings of good books, and after completing many fine and good operations, I have finally found the triple key through its very essence to open the sanctuary of the sages or, rather, of wise nature. Thus, I am able to faithfully explain the parabolic and enigmatic writings of ancient and modern philosophers, just as I have sufficiently clarified the riddles, parables, and hieroglyphs of this tripartite portal. I have done this willingly, to please the wise lovers of this divine art and to arouse the curiosity of new candidates aspiring to the knowledge of natural and Hermetic science, to which God be praised and exalted forever. So be it.