Denis Zachaire

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Denis Zachaire was a 16th century alchemist who spent his life (and family fortune) in futile search for the Philosopher's Stone and the elusive Elixir of Life. Born in 1510 to a noble and ancient family of Guienne, Denis was sent to school at a young age in Bordeaux under the care of a tutor hired by the family. Unfortunately the tutor was so obsessed with alchymie and the Magnum Opus, Denis quickly found himself caught up in the hysteria and began pouring vast amounts of his parents' money into the mystic crucible. Labouring tirelessly in unhealthy smoke-filled chambers which he described as hotter "than the Arsenal of Venice" Denis and his tutor spent 200 crowns in less than a year at which point the tutor died of heat stroke and his parents reduced his allowance. After returning home to mortgage his inheritance. Denis takes up with a "Philosopher"-- a term used rather loosely in this day-- and later with a monk, both of whom help him burn up whatever gold he has left. Strangely, if his autobiography is an attempt at cautioning others from falling down the same downward spiral, why then does he claim, at the end, to have been successful. Some suggest that he was lying to save his reputation, others think that this passage was added postmortem, and still some hold onto the belief that he did manage to produce an elixir of eternal youth and still lives in the south of France to this very day.