Alchemy : the fireplace of Château de Terre-Neuve.

The fireplace of Château de Terre-Neuve: alchemy, symbols, secrets, and Fulcanelli’s legacy

In 1930, Fulcanelli (a pseudonym) published Les Demeures Philosophales in near total indifference. This work has since become a classic of alchemical literature. The author catalogues places and works where alchemists of various eras left their mark, using symbols to transmit their craft. For nearly a century now, a number of these singular "witnesses" have vanished for various reasons, particularly under the bombings of the Second World War. Those that remain are not always accessible, as many belong to private owners. Thus, in the few articles we plan to devote to these unusual places, we will limit ourselves to sites and works we have personally seen and photographed. Such is the case with the Château de Terre-Neuve (in Fontenay-le-Comte, Vendée). The château itself, built in 1584, is well worth a visit. Its museum and the rooms open to the public on the ground floor (the current owners live upstairs) contain many objects of great interest. Simenon lived there between 1940 and 1942 and wrote several novels during his stay (his typewriter is on display). The monumental fireplace did not originate from this château. It was purchased in 1884 (along with a superb ceiling) from the Coulonges-sur-l’Autize castle and reassembled at Terre-Neuve. The dismantling of the Château de Coulonges is thoroughly detailed in Fulcanelli’s book. Now, dear reader, you may well be wondering (and rightly so): why write an article about this fireplace if everything has already been commented upon in Les Demeures Philosophales? For two reasons. The first one is that we were able to photograph it in minute detail. The second one is that our interpretation of the symbols sometimes differs from Fulcanelli's. We would not presume to be more learned than the renowned alchemist, but this fireplace is so bizarre, so baroque, that its interpretation remains largely open. Some historians have dismissed it as the whim of a fanciful sculptor, others as a mere collection of Masonic symbols.

For those familiar with alchemy, it seems difficult to doubt that this fireplace refers to it, so numerous are the symbols it displays.

On this first panel, for instance, one finds a rose at the center, the emblem of the Work. It is flanked by two shells in the form of holy-water stoups. These stoups, commonly found at the entrance of churches, sometimes take the shape of the seashell after which they are named, such as at the church of Laboissière-en-Santerre. In alchemy, they signify a very particular holy water, one that acts upon the prima materia inside the sealed vessel; in this case, not a water, but rather an acid, often identified as sulfuric acid.

At the bottom of the panel appears the grimacing head of an old man. The old man is the name given to the raw, primitive matter, as found in nature, the one upon which the alchemist must work in the laboratory. At the top, the face of a child symbolizes the outcome of the process, in other words, the transformation of the old man into a newborn.

The opposite panel of the fireplace displays, at its center, a scaly vessel (the prima materia is scaly as well) and the fruits of the alchemist’s labor, depicted as a sheaf of grain. All of this is encircled by the famous feu de roue (fire-wheel), which a lion, the symbol of the Great Work, holds firmly between its jaws.

The central panel is the most enigmatic one. The two monstrous gnomes that tightly hold the fire-wheel represent the two substances whose conjunction makes it possible to obtain the philosopher’s stone. They can be distinguished by their Phrygian-like caps, one scaly (representing the prima materia), the other striated (symbolizing the active matter, or the acid previously mentioned).

On a central escutcheon appear several more difficult-to-interpret symbols. The three stars most likely refer to the three stages of alchemical cooking and their resulting colors. The letters I and M may be the initials of the mineral substances required (M for magnesia, perhaps?). As for the number four, so frequently found in alchemical treatises, it stands for the universality of the alchemical quest, just as it does in the Bible (Apocalypse).

There would be much more to say about the other elements of this fireplace, fascinating in so many ways, particularly the caryatids.

For those fascinated by lost knowledge, secret codes, and alchemical history, this fireplace is remarkable. It invites us to decipher its mysteries, a hermetic riddle carved in stone.

Further Reading

Discover more about alchemy’s psychological and human dimension in L’Œuvre au rouge, our novel exploring fire’s dual nature as a source of life and destruction in a post-apocalyptic world.

The original article (in French).