The Baroness de Beausoleil
Leopold created him Director-in-Chief of the Trentin and Tyrolean mines, and the Dukes of Bavaria, Nieubourg, and Cleves conferred upon him similar offices in their territories; lastly, a brevet of like nature was given him by the Pope for the States of the Church. In 1600, at the recommendation of Pierre de Beringhen, Controller-General of the French mines, the Baron came to France.
Ten years after he married Martine de Bertereau, who thenceforth became his companion in all his travels, his fellow-labourer in the same field of science, and who even surpassed him in ability and skill in detecting the indications of ore. The couple examined together the German, Italian, and Swedish mines. She then crossed the Atlantic to investigate those of the New World. She next applied herself to the study of chemistry, geometry, hydraulics, and mechanics, and became accomplished in each of these sciences. She was able to speak fluently Italian, German, English, Spanish, French, and was a Latin and Hebrew scholar. In 1626, Cinq-Mars, then superintendent of the mines, gave the Baron a commission to traverse several of the provinces, and open mines wherever he found indications of ore. Whilst thus engaged, the Baron published a volume on The True Philosophy concerning the First Matter of Minerals, a work of no great value, as it is overloaded with the absurd theories of the metamorphosis of metals then in vogue.
The course of his investigations led him and his
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