Cagliostro : the splendour and misery of a master of magic

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CAGLIOSTRO

tAGLI0STg4'

THE SPLENDOUR AND Af/^i?^i^' '3
OF A MASTER OF MAGIC^f^''^'*'^^'^ ,, ■

By

w. R. h/trowbridge'

AUTHOR OF
SEVEN SPLENDID SINNERS," "A BEAU SABREUR," ETC.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS ^^.^.^^ T'^'^^'"^'^;^^:.

in^CfUs,

LONDON

CHAPMAN AND HALL, Ltd.
1910

Richard Clay & Soks, Limited,
bread street hill, b.c., and
bungay, suffolk.

PREFACE

Though much has been written about Cagliostro,
most of it is confined to articles in encyclopedias and
magazines, or to descriptive paragraphs in works
dealing with magic, freemasonry and the period in
which he lived.^ This material may be described as a
footnote which has been raised to the dignity of a
page of history. It is based on contemporary records
inspired by envy, hatred and contempt in an age
notoriously passionate, revengeful and unscrupulous.
It is, moreover, extremely superficial, being merely a
repetition of information obtained second-hand by
compilers apparently too ignorant or too lazy to make
their own investigations. Even M. Funck-Brentano,
whose brilliant historical monographs have earned him
a deservedly high reputation, is not to be relied upon.
In the sequel ^ to his entertaining account of the affair
of the Diamond Necklace, the brief chapter he devotes
to Cagliostro contains so many inaccuracies as to
suggest that, like the majority of his predecessors, he
was content to impart his Information without pre-
viously taking the trouble to examine the sources from
which it was derived.

It has been said that every book on Cagliostro

^ Prior to the present volume no complete biography of Cagliostro
has been published in English.

2 La Mort de la Reine : Les suites de V affaire du collier. Translated
into English under the title of Cagliostro and Company.

V

Preface

must be a book against him. With this opinion I
totally disagree. In choosing Cagliostro as the
subject of an historical memoir I was guided at first, I
admit, by the belief that he was the arch-impostor he
is popularly supposed to be. With his mystery,
magic, and highly sensational career he seemed just
the sort of picturesque personality I was in search of.
The moment, however, I began to make my researches
1 was astonished to find how little foundation there
was in point oi fact for the popular conception. The
deeper I went into the subject — how deep this has
been the reader may gather from the Bibliography,
which contains but a portion of the material I have
sifted — the more convinced I became of the fallacy
of this conception. Under such circumstances there
seemed but two alternatives open to me : either to
abandon the subject altogether as unsuited for the
purpose I had in view, or to follow the line of least
resistance and, dishonestly adhering to the old method,
which from custom had almost become de rigueur, help
to perpetuate an impression I believed to be unfounded
and unjust.

On reflection I have adopted neither course.
Irritation caused by the ignorance and carelessness
of the so-called "authorities" awoke a fresh and
unexpected interest in their victim ; and I decided to
stick to the subject I had chosen and treat it for the
first time honesdy. As Baron de Gleichen says in
his Souvenirs, '* Enough ill has been said of Cagliostro.
I intend to speak well of him, because I think this is
always preferable providing one can, and at least I
shall not bore the reader by repeating what he !has
already heard."

vi

Preface

Such a statement made in connection with such a
character as Cagliostro is popularly supposed to be
will, no doubt, expose me to the charge of having
*' whitewashed " him. This, however, I emphatically
deny. "Whitewashing," as I understand this term,
is a plausible attempt to portray base or detestable
characters as worthy of esteem by palliating their vices
and attributing noble motives to their crimes. This
manner of treating historical figures is certainly not
one of which I can be accused, as those who may have
read previous biographical books of mine will admit.
Whatever sympathy for Cagliostro my researches may
have evoked it has always been exceeded by contempt
of those who, combining an unreasoning prejudice with
a slovenly system of compilation, have repeated the
old charges against him with parrot-like stupidity.
The object of this book is not so much an attempt
to vindicate Cagliostro as to correct and revise, if
possible, what I believe to be a false judgment of
history.

W. R. H. Trowbridge

London^ August 1910.

vu

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The books and documents relating to Cagliostro are
very numerous. Their value, however, is so question-
able that in making a critical choice it is extremely
difficult to avoid including many that are worthless.

In the French Archives :

A dossier entitled Documents a Vaide desquels la police de Paris a
cherche a etablir^ lors du proch du Collier^ que Cagliostro n'etait autre
qu'un aventurier nomme Joseph Balsamo^ qui avail deja sejourne a
Paris en i'J'/2 :

Lettre adressee par un anonyme au commissaire Fontaine, remise
de Palerme, le 2 Nov., 1786.

Plainte adressee a M. de Sartine par J. Balsamo centre sa femme.

Ordre de M. de Sartine au commissaire Fontaine de dresser
procbs-verbal de la capture de la dame Balsamo, 23 Janvier, 1773.

Proces-verbal de capture de la dame Balsamo, i Fevrier, 1773.

Interrogatoire de la dame Balsamo, 20 Fevrier, 1773.

Rapport au Ministre.

The above have also been printed in full in Emile
Campardon's Marie Antoinette et le Proces du Collier.

The following documents are unprinted :

Proces-verbal de capture des sieur et dame Cagliostro.
Proces-verbal de perquisition fait par le commissaire Chesnon le
23 Aout, 1785, chez le sieur Cagliostro.

Interrogatoire de Cagliostro le 30 Janvier, 1786.

ix

Bibliography

In the French Archives (continued) :

Minute des confrontations des t^moins de Cagliostro.

Procbs-verbal de la remise faite a Cagliostro, lors de sa mise en
liberty, des effets saisis a son domicile le jour de sa mise en etat
d'arrestation.

Journal du libraire Hardy.

Copie d'une lettre e'crite de Londres par un officier fran^ais remise
d Paris le 19 Juillet 1786.

Lettre au peuple franQais.

Published Works :

Vie de Joseph Balsamo, connu sous le nom de Comte Cagliostro ;
extraite de la procedure instruite contre lui a Rome, en 1790,
traduite d'apr^s Toriginal italien, imprime a la Chambre Apostolique.

Courier de I'Europe, gazette anglo-frangaise, September, October,
November, 1786; also Gazette de HoUande, Gazette d' Utrecht,
Gazette de Leyde, Gazette de Florence, Courier du Bas-Rhin,
Journal de Berlin, Public Advertizer, Feuille Villageoise, and
Moniteur Universel.

Cagliostro d^masqu^ k Varsovie en 1780.

Nachricht von des beriichtigten Cagliostro aufenthalte in Mitau,
im jahre 1779 (Countess Elisa von der Recke).

Lettres sur la Suisse en 1781 (J. B. de Laborde).

Geschichten, geheime und rathselhafte Menschen (F. Bulau) ; or
the French translation by William Duckett Fersonnages Anigmatiques.

Souvenirs de Baron de Gleichen.

Souvenirs de la Marquise de Cr^quy.

Correspondance litt^raire (Grimm).

M^moires rdcrdatifs, scientifiques, et anecdotiques du physicien —
a^ronaute G. E. Roberson.

M^moires authentiques de Comte Cagliostro (spurious, by the
Marquis de Luchet).

M^moires de Brissot, Abb^ Georgel, Baronne d'Oberkirch, Madame
du Hausset, Grosley, Bachaumont, Mdtra, Casanova, Comte Beugnot,
and Baron de Besenval.

Reflexions de P. J. J. N. Motus

Cagliostro : La Franc-Ma^onnerie et I'Occultisme au XVIII*
si^cle (Henri d'Almdras).

1

Bibliography

Othodoxie Ma^onnique (Ragon).

La Franc-Magonne, ou Rev^ations des Mysteres des Francs-
Magons.

Annales de I'origine du Grand Orient en France.

Acta Latomorum (Thory).

Memoires pour servir a I'histoire du Jacobinisme (Abbe Barruel).

Histoire du Merveilleux (Figuier).

Histoire de la Franc-Magonnerie (Clavel).

Histoire philosophique de la Magonnerie (Kauftmann et Cherpin).

Les Sectes et les societes secretes (Comte Le Couteulx de
Canteleu).

Schlosser's History of the Eighteenth Century.

Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise : Les Revolutionnaires
Mystiques (Louis Blanc).

Histoire de France : XVHI^ siecle (Henri Martin).

Histoire de France : L' Affaire du Collier (Michelet).

Recueil de toutes les pieces (31) qui ont paru dans Taffaire de
M. le Cardinal de Rohan.

Marie Antoinette et le Proces du Collier (Emile Campardon).

L' Affaire du Collier (Funck-Brentano).

The Diamond Necklace (Henry Vizetelly).

Marie Antoinette et le Proces du Collier (Chaix d'Est-Ange).

La Derniere Piece du fameux Collier.

Memoire du Sieur Sacchi.

Lettre de Labarthe a I'archdologue Seguier.

Lettre d'un Garde du Roi (Manuel).

Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau h . . . sur Cagliostro et Lavater.

Requete au Parlement par le Comte de Cagliostro.

Memoire pour le Comte de Cagliostro, demandeur, contre
M. Chesnon le fils et le sieur de Launay.

Lettre au Peuple Anglais par le Comte de Cagliostro.

Theveneau de Morande (Paul Robiquet).

Liber Memorialis de Caleostro dum esset Roboretti.

Alessandro di Cagliostro. Impostor or Martyr ? (Charles Sotheran) .

Count Cagliostro (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays ; Carlyle).

Vieux papiers, vieilles maisons (G. Lenotre).

Italianische Reise (Goethe).

CONTENTS

Chap,

PART I
I The Power of Prejudice
II Giuseppe Balsamo .

Page
I

19

PART II
I Cagliostro in London .
II Eighteenth Century Occultism

III Masked and Unmasked .

IV The Conquest of the Cardinal
V Cagliostro in Paris

VI The Diamond Necklace Affair
VII Cagliostro Returns to London
VIII " Nature's Unfortunate Child "
Index

49

74

III

155
180
214

253
283

309

Xlll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

To face J>afe

Count Cagliostro Frontispiece

Cardinal de Rohan 8

Countess Cagliostro 14

Mesmer 76

Emmanuel Swedenborg 90

Adam Weishaupt 104

Countess Elisa von der Recke 128

Lavater . . . 170

Saverne 182

Houdon's Bust of Cagliostro 194

Countess de Lamotte 214

Marie Antoinette 224

Lord George Gordon 258

Theveneau de Morande 266

I A Masonic Anecdote 277

Philip James de Loutherbourg 280

San Leo .......... 304

XV

i

CAGLIOSTRO

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE POWER OF PREJUDICE
I

The mention of Cagliostro always suggests the
marvellous, the mysterious, the unknown. There is
something cabalistic in the very sound of the name
that, considering the occult phenomena performed by
the strange personality who assumed it, is curiously
appropriate. As an incognito it is, perhaps, the most
suitable ever invented. The name fits the man like
a glove ; and, recalling the mystery in which his
career was wrapped, one involuntarily wonders if it has
ever been cleared up. In a word, what was Cagliostro
really ? Charlatan, adventurer, swindler, whose im-
postures were finally exposed by the ever-memorable
Necklace Affair in which he was implicated ? Or
" friend of humanity," as he claimed, whose benefac-
tions excited the enmity of the envious, who took
advantage of his misfortunes to calumniate and ruin
him ? Knave, or martyr — which ?

This question is more easily answered by saying
what Cagliostro was not than what he was. It has
been stated by competent judges — and all who have

B

Cagliostro

studied the subject will agree with them — that there is,
perhaps, no other equally celebrated figure in modern
history whose character is so baffling to the biographer.
Documents and books relating to him abound, but they
possess little or no value. The most interesting are
frequently the most unreliable. The fact that material
so questionable should provide as many reasons for
rejecting its evidence — which is, by the way, almost
entirely hostile — as for accepting it, has induced
theosophists, spiritualists, occultists, and all who are
sympathetically drawn to the mysterious to become
his apologists. By these amiable visionaries Cagliostro
is regarded as one of the princes of occultism whose
mystical touch has revealed the arcana of the spiritual
world to the initiated, and illumined the path along
which the speculative scientist proceeds on entering
the labyrinth of the supernatural. To them the strik-
ing contrasts with which his agitated existence was
chequered are unimpeachable witnesses in his favour,
and they stubbornly refuse to accept the unsatisfactory
and contemptuous explanation of his miracles given
by those who regard him as an impostor.

Unfortunately, greater weight is attached to police
reports than to theosophlcal eulogies ; and something
more substantial than the enthusiasm of the occultists
is required to support their contention. However, those
who take this extravagant (I had almost said ridiculous)
view of Cagliostro may obtain what consolation they
can from the fact — which cannot be stated too emphatic-
ally—that though it is utterly impossible to grant
their prophet the halo they would accord him, it is
equally Impossible to accept the verdict of his enemies.

In reality, it is by the evil that has been said and

The Power of Prejudice

written of him that he is best known. In his own day,
with very few exceptions, those whom he charmed or
duped — as you will — by acts that in any case should
have inspired gratitude rather than contempt observed
a profound silence. When the Necklace Affair opened
its flood-gates of ridicule and calumny, his former
admirers saw him washed away with indifference. To
defend him was to risk being compromised along with
him ; and, no doubt, as happens in our own times, the
pleasure of trailing in the mud one who has fallen
was too delightful to be neglected. It is from this
epoch — 1785 — when people were engaged in blighting
his character rather than in trying to judge it, that
nearly all the material relating to Cagliostro dates.
With only such documents, then, to hand as have
been inspired by hate, envy, or simply a love of
detraction, the difficulty of forming a correct opinion
of him is apparent.

The portrait Carlyle has drawn of Cagliostro is the
one most familiar to English readers. Now, though
Carlyle's judgments have in the main been upheld by
the latest historians (who have had the advantage of
information to which he was denied access), neverthe-
less, like everybody else, he made mistakes. In his case,
however, these mistakes were inexcusable, for they
were due, not to the lack of data, but to the strong
prejudices by which he suffered himself to be swayed
to the exclusion of that honesty and fairness he deemed
so essential to the historian. He approached Cagliostro
with a mind already biassed against him. Distasteful
at the start, the subject on closer acquaintance became
positively repugnant to him. The flagrant mendacity
of the documentary evidence — which, discount it as he

B2 3

Cagliostro

might, still left the truth in doubt— only served to
strengthen his prejudice. It could surely be no inno-
cent victim of injustice who aroused contempt so
malevolent, hatred so universal. The mystery in
which he masqueraded was alone sufficient to excite
suspicion. And yet, whispered the conscience of the
historian enraged at the mendacity of the witnesses he
consulted, what noble ideals, what lofty aspirations
misjudged, misunderstood, exposed to ridicule, pelted
with calumny, may not have sought shelter under that
mantle of mystery ?

''Looking at thy so attractively decorated private
theatre, wherein thou actedst and livedst," he exclaims,
•* what hand but itches to draw aside thy curtain ;
overhaul thy paste-boards, paint-pots, paper-mantles,
stage-lamps ; and turning the whole inside out, find
thee in the middle thereof! "

And suiting the action to the word, he clutches with
an indignant hand at that metaphorical curtain ; but
in the very act of drawing it aside his old ingrained
prejudice asserts itself. Bah ! what else but a fraud
can a Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry be ? Can
a Madame von der Recke, a Baroness d'Oberkirch,
whose opinions at least are above suspicion, be other
than right } The man is a shameless liar ; and if he
has been so shamelessly lied about in turn, he has only
got what he deserved. And exasperated that such
a creature should have been permitted even for a
moment to cross the threshold of history, Carlyle
dropped the curtain his fingers '' itched to draw aside"
and proceeded to empty all the vials of his wrath
on Cagliostro.

In his brilliant essay, in the Diamond Necklace^ in the

4

The Power of Prejudice

French Revolution — wherever he meets him — he brands
him as a " King of Liars," a '' Prince of Scoundrels,"
an "Arch-Quack," ''Count Front of Brass-Pinch-
beckostrum," " Bubby-jock," "a babbling, bubbling
Turkey-cock," et cetera. But such violence defeats its
intention. When on every page the historian's con-
science is smitten with doubts that prejudice cannot
succeed in stilling, the critical and inquisitive reader
comes to the conclusion he knows less about the real
Cagliostro at the end than he did at the beginning.
He has merely seen Carlyle in one of his fine literary
rages ; it is all very interesting and memorable, but
by no means what he wanted. As a matter of fact, in
this instance Carlyle's judgment is absolutely at sea ;
and the modern biographers of Cagliostro do not even
refer to it.

Nevertheless, these writers have come pretty much
to the same conclusion. M. Henri d'Almeras, whose
book on Cagliostro is the best, speaking of the
questionable evidence that so incensed Carlyle,
declares "the historian, even in handling it with care,
finds himself willy-nilly adopting the old prejudice.
That is to say, every book written on Cagliostro, even
under the pretext of rehabilitating him, can only be
a book against him." But while holding to the old
conventional opinion, he considers that " a rogue so
picturesque disarms anger, and deserves to be treated
with indulgence." D'Almeras pictures Cagliostro as
a sort of clown, which is certainly the most curious
view ever taken of the " Front of Brass," and even
more unjustifiable than Carlyle's.

" What a good-natured, amusing, original rascal ! "
he exclaims. " The Figaro of Alchogiy, more intelli-

5 S' \u^ -^'^^

F f ^l ^

Cagliostro

gent than Diafoirus, and more cunning than Scapln.
And with what imperturbable serenity did he lie in
five or six languages, as well as in a gibberish that
had no meaning at all. To lie like that gives one a
great superiority over the majority of one's fellow-men.
He did not lie because he was afraid to speak the
truth, but because, as in the case of many another,
falsehood was in him an excessive development of the
imagination. He was himself, moreover, the first
victim of his lies. By the familiar phenomenon of
auto-suggestion, he ended by believing what he said
from force of saying it. If he was successful, in a
certain sense, he deserved to be."

From all of which it may be gathered that whether
Cagliostro is depicted as an Apostle of Light by his
friends the occultists, or a rank impostor by his enemies,
of whom Carlyle is the most implacable and d'Almeras
the most charitably inclined, the real man has been as
effectually hidden from view by prejudice as by the
mystery in which he wrapped himself. But heavy
though the curtain is that conceals him, it is perhaps
possible for the hand that ''itches" to draw it aside.
As a matter of fact, no really honest attempt has ever
been made to do so. It is true it is only a fleeting,
somewhat nebulous, glimpse that can be obtained of
this singular personality. There is, moreover, one
condition to be observed. Before this glimpse can be
obtained it is essential that some attempt should be
made to discover, if possible, who Cagliostro was.

The Power of Prejudice

II

Considering- that one has only to turn to the
biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias to find it
definitely asserted that ''Count Cagliostro " was the
best known of many aliases assumed by Giuseppe
Balsamo, a Sicilian adventurer born in Palermo in
1743 or 1748, the above statement would appear to
be directly contrary to recorded fact. For though
biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias are
notoriously superficial and frequently misleading, they
are perhaps in this instance accurate enough for the
purpose of casual inquiry, which is after all what they
are compiled for. Indeed, this Balsamo legend is so
plausible an explanation of the mystery of Cagliostro's
origin that, for lack of any other, it has satisfied all
who are entitled to be regarded as authorities. The
evidence, however, on which they have based their
belief is circumstantial rather than positive.

Now circumstantial evidence, as everybody knows,
is not always to be trusted. There are many cases on
record of persons having been condemned on the
strength of it who were afterwards found to be inno-
cent. In this particular case, moreover, doubts do
exist, and all "authorities" have admitted the fact.
Those prejudiced against Cagliostro have agreed to
attach no importance to them, those prejudiced in his
favour the greatest. To the occultists they are the
rock on which their faith in him is founded. Their
opinion, however, may be ruled aside as untenable,
for the doubts are entirely of a negative character, and
suggest no counter-theory of identity whatever.

7

Cagliostro

Nevertheless, since they exist they are worth
examining — not so much for the purpose of questioning
the accuracy of the ''authorities" as to show how the
Balsamo legend, which plays so important a part in the
history of Cagliostro, originated.

It was not till Cardinal Rohan entangled him in the
Diamond Necklace Affair that the name of Cagliostro
hitherto familiar only to a limited number of people
who, as the case might be, had derived benefit or
suffered misfortune from a personal experience of his
fabulous powers, acquired European notoriety.

The excitement caused by this cause cdlebre, as is well
known, was intense and universal. The arrest of the
Cardinal in the Oeil-de-Boeuf at Versailles, in the
presence of the Court and a great concourse of people
from Paris, as he was about to celebrate mass in the
Royal Chapel on Assumption Day, on the charge of
having purchased a necklace for 1,600,000 livres for
the Queen, who denied all knowledge of the trans-
action ; the subsequent disappearance of the jewel
and the suspicion of intent to swindle the jeweller
which attached itself to both Queen and Cardinal ; the
further implication of the Countess de Lamotte, with
her strangely romantic history ; of Cagliostro, with his
mystery and magic; and of a host of other shady
persons — these were elements sensational enough to
strike the dullest imagination, fire the wildest curiosity,
and rivet the attention of all Europe upon the actors
in so unparalleled a drama.

After the Cardinal, whose position as Grand
Almoner of France (a sort of French Archbishop of
Canterbury, so to speak) made him the protagonist of
this drama, the self-styled Count Cagliostro was the

8

ty-^.

CARDINAL DE ROHAN
{P'rom an old French print)

[To face page S

The Power of Prejudice

figure in whom the pubHc were most interested. The
prodigies he was said to have performed, magnified by
rumour, and his strange undecipherable personality-
gave him an importance out of all proportion to the
small part he played in the famous Affair of the
Necklace. Speculation as to his origin was naturally
rife. But neither the police nor the lawyers could
throw any light on his past. The evidence of the
Countess de Lamotte, who in open court denounced
him as an impostor formerly known as Don Tiscio, a
name under which she declared he had fleeced many
people in various parts of Spain, was too palpably
untrustworthy and ridiculous to be treated seriously.
Cagliostro himself did, indeed, attempt to satisfy
curiosity, but the fantastic account he gave of his
career only served — as perhaps he intended — to deepen
its mystery.

The more it was baffled, the keener became the
curiosity to discover a secret so cleverly guarded.
The " noble traveller," as he described himself with
ridiculous pomposity on his examination, confessed
that Cagliostro was only one of the several names
he had assumed in the course of his life. An alias
— he had termed it incognito — is always suspicious.
Coupled, as it was in his case, with alchemical experi-
ments, prognostications, spiritualist stances, and quack
medicines, it suggested rascality. From ridicule to
calumny is but a step, and for every voice raised in
defence of his honesty there were a dozen to decry
him.

On the day he was set at liberty — for he had no
difficulty in proving his innocence — eight or ten
thousand people came en masse to offer him their

9

Cagliostro

congratulations. The court-yard, the staircase, the
very rooms of his house In the Rue St. Claude were
filled with them. But this ovation, flattering though It
was to his vanity, was Intended less as a mark of
respect to him than as an Insult to the Queen, who was
known to regard the verdict as a stigma on her honour,
and whose waning popularity the hatred engendered
by this scandalous affair had completely obliterated.
Banished the following day by the Government,
which sought to repair the prestige of the throne
by persecuting and calumniating those who might be
deemed instrumental In shattering It, Cagliostro lost
what little credit the trial had left him. WAoever
he was, the world had made up Its mind w/za^ he
was, and Its opinion was wholly unfavourable to the
** noble traveller."

From France, which he left on June 21, 1786,
Cagliostro went to England. It was here, in the
following September, that the assertion was made for
the first time by the Courier de I' Europe, a French
paper published in London, that he was Giuseppe
Balsamo. This announcement, made with every
assurance of its accuracy, was at once repeated by
other journals throughout Europe. It would be
interesting, though not particularly important, to know
how the Courier de V Europe obtained its information.
It is permissible, however, to conjecture that the
Anglo-French journal had been informed of the
rumour current in Palermo at the time of Cagllostro's
imprisonment in the Bastille that he was a native of
that city, and on investigating the matter decided
there were sufficient grounds for identifying him with
Balsamo.

10

The Power of Prejudice

Be this as it may, it is the manner in which the
statement made by the Courier de FEtirope appears
to be confirmed that gives the whole theory its

weight.

On December 2, 1876 — dates are important factors
in the evidence — Fontaine, the chief of the Paris
poHce, received a very curious anonymous letter
from Palermo. The writer began by saying that he
had read in the Gazette de Leyde of September 25 an
article taken from the Courier de r Europe stating that
the '' famous Cagliostro was called Balsamo," from
which he gathered that the Balsamo referred to was
the same who in 1773 had caused his wife to be shut
up in Sainte Pelagie at Paris for having deserted
him, and who had afterwards applied to the courts
for her release. To confirm Fontaine in this opinion,
he gave him in detail the history of this Balsamo's
career, which had been imparted to him on June 2
by the said Balsamo's uncle, Antonio Braconieri,
who was firmly convinced that his nephew, of whom
he had heard nothing for some years, was none other
than Cagliostro. As he learnt this the day after
Cagliostro's acquittal and release from the Bastille,
the newS' of which could not have reached Palermo
in less than a week, it proves that Braconieri's con-
viction was formed long before the Press began to
maintain it.

In fact the anonymous writer stated that this
conviction was prevalent in Palermo as far back as
the previous year, when the news arrived there of the
arrest of Cagliostro in connection with the Diamond
Necklace Affair.

He went on to say that he had personally ridiculed

1 1

Cagliostro

the report at the time, but having reflected on the
grounds that Braconieri had given him for believing
it '*he had come to the conclusion that Count
Cagliostro was Giuseppe Balsamo of Palermo or that
Antonio Braconieri, his uncle, was a scoundrel worthy
of being the uncle of M. le Comte de Cagliostro."
As it was not till November 2 that this some-
what ingenuous person sent anonymously to Fontaine
the information he had received on June 2 from
Braconieri, his reflections on the veracity of the
latter, one suspects, were scarcely complimentary.
However, such doubts as he might still have cherished
were finally set at rest on October 31, when
Antonio Braconieri met him in one of the chief
thoroughfares of Palermo and showed him a Gazette
de Florence which confirmed everything Braconieri
had told him more than four months before. Here-
upon, the anonymous individual, convinced at last
beyond the shadow of a doubt that the '' soi-disant
Count Cagliostro was really Giuseppe Balsamo of
Palermo," decided to inform the chief of the Paris
police of his discovery.

Such is the history of the proofs in favour of the
Balsamo legend. Now to examine the proofs.

As the late M. fimile Campardon was the first
to unearth this anonymous letter together with the
official report upon it in the National Archives, and as
his opinion is the one commonly accepted, it will be
sufficient to quote what he has to say on the subject.

"The adventures," he asks, '* of Giuseppe Balsamo
and those of Alessandro Cagliostro— do they belong
to the history of the same career ? Was the individual
who had his wife shut up in Sainte Pelagie in 1773

12

The Power of Prejudice

the same who In 1786 protested so vehemently against
the imprisonment of his wife ? ^

'' Everything goes to prove it. The Countess
CagHostro was born in Rome ; Balsamo's wife was
likewise a Roman. The maiden name of both was
Feliciani.

'' Madame Balsamo was married at fourteen ; the
Countess CagHostro at the time of her marriage was
still a child.

'* CagHostro stated at his trial that his wife did not
know how to write ; Madame Balsamo at kerlndX also
declared she could not write.

" Her husband at any rate could. At the time of
his petition against his wife Balsamo signed two
documents which are still to be seen in the Archives.
By comparing — as Fontaine had done — these two
signatures with a letter written whilst in the Bastille
by CagHostro the experts declared the writing of
Balsamo and that of CagHostro to be identically the
same.

''Furthermore, according to the statement of Antonio
Braconieri, Balsamo had frequently written him under
the name of Count CagHostro. Nor had he invented
the name, for Giuseppe CagHostro of Messina, steward
of the Prince of Villafranca, was Braconieri's uncle, and
consequently Giuseppe Balsamo's great-uncle.

** If to these probabilities one adds certain minor
resemblances — such as Cagliostro's declaration that
Cardinal Orsini and the Duke of Alba could vouch for
the truth of the account he gave of himself, who were

1 On hearing that his wife had been arrested as well as himself in
connection with the Necklace Affair, CagHostro manifested the wildest
grief.

13

Cagliostro

personages by whom Balsamo was known to have been
employed ; the fact that Cagliostro spoke the Sicilian
dialect, and that Balsamo had employed magic in his
swindling operations — it is scarcely credible that lives
and characters so identical could belong to two
different beings."

The arguments in favour of this hypothesis are very
plausible and apparently as convincing as such circum-
stantial evidence usually is. It is possible, however,
as stated above, to question the accuracy of the
conclusion thus reached for the following reasons.

(i) The basis of the supposition that the Countess
Cagliostro and Madame Balsamo were the same rests
entirely on coincidence.

Granted that both happened to be Romans, that
the maiden name of both was Feliciani, that both were
married extremely young, and that neither could write.
The fact that both were Romans is no argument at
all. Though their maiden name was Feliciani, it was
a comparatively common one — there were several
families of Feliciani in Rome, and for that matter all
over Italy. Madame Balsamo's father came from
Calabria. Her Christian name was Lorenza. The
statement that the Countess Cagliostro w^as likewise
called Lorenza and changed her name to Seraphina, by
which she was known, is based entirely on supposition.
That both were married very young and that neither
knew how to write, scarcely calls for comment. Italian
women usually married in early girlhood, and very few,
if any, of the class to which Seraphina Cagliostro
and Lorenza Balsamo belonged could write.

(2) The testimony of the experts as to the remark-
able similarity between the writing of Balsamo and

14

The Power of Prejudice

Cagliostro requires something more than an official
statement to that effect to be convincing. At the time
the experts made their report, the French Government
were trying to silence the calumnies with which Marie
Antoinette was being attacked by making the character
of Cagliostro and others connected with the Necklace
Affair appear as bad as possible. The Parisian
police in the interest of the Monarchy, jumped at the
opportunity of identifying the mysterious Cagliostro
with the infamous Balsamo. The experts' evidence is,
to say the least, questionable.

(3) The fact that Giuseppe Balsamo had an uncle
called Giuseppe Cagliostro is the strongest argument
in favour of the identification theory. There is no
reason to doubt Antonio Braconieri's statement that he
had received letters from his nephew signed " Count
Cagliostro." However, the writer of the anonymous
letter declared that, desiring to prove Braconieri's word
as to the existence of Giuseppe Cagliostro of Messina,
he discovered that there were two families of the name
in that city. The prefix Cagli, moreover, is not
unusual in Sicilian, Calabrian and Neapolitan names.
The selection of it by Cagliostro as an incognito may
have been accidental, or invented because of its peculiar
cabalistic suggestion as suitable for the occult career
on which he embarked, or it may have been suggested
to him by some one of the name he had met when
wandering about southern Italy. As his identifica-
tion with Balsamo is based principally on coincidence,
it is surely equally permissible to employ a coincidence
as the basis of one of the many arguments in an
attempt at refutation.

(4) As to the minor points of resemblance between

15

Cagllostro

Cagliostro and Balsamo given as "probabilities" for
supposing them identical : in considering that Cagliostro
used as references the names of Cardinal Orsini and
the Duke of Alba, by whom Balsamo was known to
have been employed at one time, the fantastic account
he gave of himself at his trial should be remembered.
One of the principal reasons for disbelieving him was
the fact that these personages were dead and so unable
to verify or deny his statement. Again, though the
Sicilian dialect was undoubtedly Balsamo's mother-
tongue, no one could ever make out to what patois
Cagliostro's extraordinary abracadabra of accent be-
longed. But nothing can be weaker than to advance
their use of magic and alchemy as a reason for identify-
ing them. Magic and alchemy were the common
stock-in-trade of every adventurer in Europe in the
eighteenth century.

So much for criticism of the " official " proof.

There is, however, another reason for doubting the
identity of the two men. It is the most powerful of
all, and has hitherto apparently escaped the attention
of those who have taken this singular theory of
identification for granted.

Nobody that had known Balsamo ever saw
Cagliostro.

The description of Balsamo's features given by
Antonio Braconieri resembles that which others have
given of Cagliostro's personal appearance as far as it
goes. Unfortunately, it merely proves that both were
short, had dark complexions, and peculiarly bright
eyes. As for their noses, Braconieri described
Balsamo's as being dcrasd ; it is a much more forcible
and unflattering term than has ever been applied to

i6

The Power of Prejudice

the by no means uncommon shape of Cagliostro 's
nasal organ. There were many pictures of Cagliostro
scattered over Europe at the time of the Necklace
Affair. In Palermo, where the interest taken in him
was great, few printsellers' windows, one would
imagine, but would have contained his portrait.
Braconieri certainly is likely to have seen it ; and
had the resemblance to Balsamo been undeniable, he
would surely have attached the greatest importance
to it as a proof of the identity he desired to establish.
As a matter of fact, he barely mentions it.

Again, one wonders why nobody who had known
Balsamo ever made the least attempt to identify
Cagliostro with him either at the time of the trial or
when the articles in the Courier de r Europe brought
him a second time prominently before the public.
Now Balsamo was known to have lived in London in
1 771, when his conduct was so suspicious to the police
that he deemed it advisable to leave the country. He
and his wife accordingly went to Paris, and it was here
that, in 1773, the events occurred which brought both
prominently under the notice of the authorities. Six
years after Balsamo's disappearance from London,
Count Cagliostro appeared in that city, and becoming
involved with a set of swindlers in a manner that made
him appear a fool rather than a knave, spent four months
in the King's Bench jail. How is it, one asks, that
the London police, who "wanted" Giuseppe Balsamo,
utterly failed to recognize him in the notorious
Cagliostro ?

Now granting that the police, as well as the
persons whom Balsamo fleeced in London in 1771,
had forgotten him in 1777, and that all who could
c 17

Cagliostro

have recognized him as Cagliostro in 1786, when
the Courier de r Europe exposed him, were dead,
is it probable that the same coincidences would repeat
themselves in Paris ? If the Parisian police, who were
doing their best to discover traces of Cagliostro's
antecedents in 1785 and 1786 had quite forgotten the
Balsamo who brought the curious action against his
wife in 1773, is it at all likely that the various people
the Balsamos had known in their two-years' residence
in Paris would all have died in the meantime ?
People are always to be found to identify criminals
and suspicious characters to whom the attention of the
police is prominently drawn. But before the sort of
Sherlock Holmes process of identification employed
by the Courier de H Europe and the Parisian police, not
a soul was ever heard to declare that Cagliostro and
Balsamo were the same.

To the reader who, knowing little or nothing of
Cagliostro, takes up this book with an unbiassed
mind, the above objections to the Balsamo legend may
seem proof conclusive of its falsity. This would,
however, be to go further than I, who attach much
greater importance to these doubts than historians are
inclined to do, care to admit. They merely show that
it is neither right nor excusable to treat as a conviction
what is purely a conjecture.

If this conclusion, wrapping as it does the origin
and early life of Cagliostro once more in a veil of
mystery, be accepted, it will go far to remove the
prejudice which has hitherto made the answer to
that other and more important question *' What
was Cagliostro ? " so unsatisfactory.

18

CHAPTER II

GIUSEPPE BALSAMO
I

There could be no better illustration of the perplexi-
ties that confront the biographer of Cagliostro at every
stage of his mysterious career than the uncertainty that
prevails regarding the career of Giuseppe Balsamo
himself. For rightly or wrongly, their identity has so
long been taken for granted that the history of one has
become indissolubly linked to that of the other.

Now, not only is it extremely difficult, when not
altogether impossible, to verify the information we
have concerning Balsamo, but the very integrity of
those from whom the information is derived, is
questionable. These tainted sources, so to speak,
from which there meanders a confused and maze-
like stream of contradictory details and unverifiable
episodes, are (i) Balsamo's wife, Lorenza, (2) the
Editor of the Courier de r Europe, and (3) the
Inquisition-biographer of Cagliostro.

Lorenza's statement is mainly the itinerary of the
wanderings of herself cind husband about Europe
from their marriage to her imprisonment in Paris in
^11 Z' Such facts as it purports to give as to the
character of their wanderings are very meagre, and
coloured so as to depict her in a favourable light. The
dossier containing the particulars of her arrest is in
c 2 19

Cagliostro

the Archives of Paris, where it was discovered by the
French Government in 1786, and where it is still to be
seen. Query : considering the suspicious circumstances
that led to its discovery, is the dossier a forgery ?

Opposed to the evidence of the Courier de I' Europe
are the character, secret motives, and avowed enmity
of the Editor.

As to the life of Balsamo,^ published anonymously
in Rome in 1791, under the auspices of the Inquisition,
into whose power Cagliostro had fallen, the tone of
hostility in which it is written, excessive even from an
ultra-Catholic point of view, its lack of precision, and
the absence of dates which makes it impossible to verify
its statements, have caused critics of every shade
of opinion, to consider it partially, if not wholly,
unauthenticated.

It purports to be the confession of Cagliostro,
extracted either by torture or the fear of torture, during
his trial by the Inquisition. That Cagliostro did
indeed " confess " is quite likely. But what sort of
value could such a confession possibly have? The
manner in which the Inquisition conducted its trials
has rendered its verdicts suspect the world over. His
condemnation was decided on from the very start, as
the charge on which he was arrested proves — as will
be shown in due course — and to escape torture, perhaps
also in the hope of acquittal, Cagliostro was ready
enough to oblige his terrible judges and ** confess"
whatever they wished.

] This book is now very rare. The French version is the more
available. It is entitled : Vie de ^ foseph Balsamo connu sous le noni de
Comte Cagliostro, extraite de la procedure instruite contre lui h Rome
en jy^; traduite d'aprh Voriginal italien, imprime a la Chambre
Apostolique.

20

Giuseppe Balsamo

It is, moreover, a question whether the adventures
related in the Vie de Joseph Balsamo are those of one or
of several persons. As it is quite inconceivable that the
Cagliostro of the Necklace Affair could ever have been
the very ordinary adventurer here depicted, it has been
suggested — and there is much to support the view —
that Giuseppe Balsamo, as known to history, is a sort of
composite individual manufactured out of all the rogues
of whom the Inquisition- writer had any knowledge.

One thing, however, may be confidently asserted :
whether the exploits of Giuseppe Balsamo were partially
or wholly his, imaginary or real, they are at any rate
typical of the adventurer of the age.

Like Cagliostro, he boasted a noble origin, and
never failed on the various occasions of changing his
name to give himself a title. There is, however, no
reason to suppose that he was in any way related to, or
even aware of the existence of the aristocratic family
of the same name who derived their title from the
little town of Balsamo near Monza in the Milanese.
As a matter of fact the name was a fairly common
one in Italy, and the Balsamos of Palermo were of
no consequence whatever. Nothing is known of
Giuseppe's father, beyond the fact that he was a
petty tradesman who became bankrupt, and died at
the age of forty-five, a few months after the birth
of his son. Pietro Balsamo was thought to be of
mixed Jewish and Moorish extraction, which would
account for his obscurity and the slight esteem in
which his name was held in Palermo, where the
Levantines were the scum of the population.

Such scant consideration as the family may have
enjoyed was due entirely to Giuseppe's mother, who

21

Cagliostro

though of humble birth was of good, honest Sicilian
stock. Through her he could at least claim to have
had a great-grandfather, one Matteo Martello, whom
it has been supposed Cagliostro had in mind when in
his fantastic account of himself at the time of the
Necklace Affair he claimed to be descended from
Charles Martel, the founder of the Carlovingian
dynasty. This Matteo Martello had two daughters,
the youngest of whom Vincenza married Giuseppe
Cagliostro of Messina, whose name and relationship
to Giuseppe Balsamo is the chief argument in the
attempt to prove the identity of the latter with Cagli-
ostro. Vincenza's elder sister married Giuseppe
Braconieri and had three children, Felice, Matteo, and
Antonio Braconieri. The former was Giuseppe's mother.
He had also a sister older than himself, Maria, who
became the wife of Giovanni Capitummino. On the
death of her husband she returned with her children
to live with her mother, all of whom Goethe met when
in Palermo in 1787.

The poverty in which Pietro Balsamo died obliged
his widow to appeal to her brother for assistance.
Fortunately they were in a position and willing to come
to her relief. Matteo, the elder, was chief clerk in
the post-office at Palermo ; while Antonio was book-
keeper in the firm of J. F. Aubert & Co. Both
brothers, as well as their sister, appear to have been
deeply religious, and it is not unlikely that the severity
and repression to which Giuseppe was continually sub-
jected may have fostered the spirit of rebellion, already
latent in him, which was to turn him into the black-
guard he became. •

It manifested itself at an early age. From the

22

Giuseppe Balsamo

Seminary of San Rocco, where he received his first
schooling, he ran away several times. As the rod,
which appears to have played an important part in the
curriculum of the seminary, failed to produce the bene-
ficial results that are supposed to ensue from its fre-
quent application, his uncles, anxious to get rid of so
troublesome a charge, decided to confide the difficult
task of coaxing or licking him into shape to the Ben-
fratelli of Cartegirone. Giuseppe was accordingly en-
rolled as a novice in this brotherhood, whose existence
was consecrated to the healing of the sick, and placed
under the supervision of the Convent-Apothecary.
He was at the time thirteen.

According to the Inquisition-biographer, it was in
the laboratory of the convent that Cagliostro learnt
"the principles of chemistry and medicine" which he
afterwards practised with such astonishing results. If
so, he must have been gifted with remarkable aptitude,
which both his conduct and brief sojourn at Cartegirone
belie. For whatever hopes his mother and uncles may
have founded on the effect of this pious environment
were soon dispelled. He had not been long in the
convent before he manifested his utter distaste for the
life of a Brother of Mercy. Naturally insubordinate
and bold he determined to escape ; but as experience
had taught him at the Seminary of San Rocco that
running away merely resulted in being thrashed and
sent back, and as he had neither the means nor the
desire to go anywhere save home to Palermo, he
cunningly cast about in his mind to obtain his release
from the Brothers themselves. This was not easy to
accomplish, but in spite of the severe punishment his
wilfully idle and refractory conduct entailed he was

Cagliostro

persistent and finally succeeded in wearing out the
patience of the long-suffering monks.

From the manner in which he attained his object
Carlyle detects in him a "touch of grim humour — or
deep world-irony, as the Germans call it — the surest
sign, as is often said, of a character naturally great."
It was a universal custom in all religious associations
that one of their number during meals should read
aloud to the others passages from the Lives of the
Saints. This dull and unpopular task having one day
been allotted to Giuseppe — probably as a punishment
— he straightway proceeded, careless of the conse-
quences, to read out whatever came into his head,
substituting for the names of the Saints those of the
most notable courtezans of Palermo. The effect of
this daring sacrilege was dire and immediate. With
fist and foot the scandalized monks instantly fell upon
the boy and having belaboured him, as the saying is,
within an inch of his life, indignantly packed him back
to Palermo as hopelessly incorrigible and utterly un-
worthy of ever becoming a Benfratello.

No fatted calf, needless to say, was killed to cele-
brate the return of the prodigal. But Giuseppe having
gained his object, took whatever chastisement he re-
ceived from his mother and uncles philosophically, and
left them to swallow their mortification as best they
could. However, sorely tried though they were, they
did not even now wash their hands of him. Somehow
— ^just how it would be difficult to say — one forms a
vague idea he was never without a plausible excuse for
his conduct. Adventurers, even the lowest, more or
less understand the art of pleasing ; and many little
things seem to indicate that with all his viciousness his

24

Giuseppe Balsamo

disposition was not unattractive. On the contrary
there is much in the character of his early villainies to
suggest his powers of persuasion were considerable.

Thus, after his expulsion from Cartegirone the
Inquisition-biographer tells us that he took lessons in
drawing for which, no doubt, he must have given some
proof of talent and inclination. Far, however, from
showing any disposition to conform to the wishes of
his uncles, who for his mother's sake, if not for his
own, continued to take an interest in him, the boy
rapidly went from bad to worse. As neither reproof
nor restraint produced any effect on his headstrong
and rebellious nature he appears to have been per-
mitted to run wild, perhaps because he had reached an
age when it was no longer possible to control his
actions. Nor were the acquaintances he formed of
the sort to counteract a natural tendency to vicious-
ness. He was soon hand in glove with all the worst
characters of the town.

'' There was no fight or street brawl,'' says the in-
dignant Inquisition-biographer, " in which he was not
involved, no theft of which he was not suspected.
The band of young desperadoes to which he belonged
frequently came into collision with the night-watch,
whose prisoners, if any, they would attempt to set free.
Even the murder of a canon was attributed to him by
the gossips of the town."

In a word Giuseppe Balsamo became a veritable
'' Apache " destined seemingly sooner or later for the
galleys or the gallows. Such a character, it goes with-
out saying, could not fail to attract the notice of the
police. He more than once saw the inside of the
Palermo jail ; but from lack of sufficient proof, or from

25

Cagliostro

the nature of the charge against him, or owing to the
intercession of his estimable uncles, as often as he was
arrested he was let off again.

Even his drawing-lessons, while they lasted, were
perverted to the most ignoble ends. To obtain the
money he needed he began, like all thieves, with petty
thefts from his relations. One of his uncles was his
first victim. In a similar way he derived profit from
a love-affair between his sister and a cousin. As their
parents put obstacles in the way of their meeting
Giuseppe offered to act as go-between. In a rash
moment they accepted his aid, and he profited by the
occasion to substitute forged letters in the place of
those he undertook to deliver, by means of which he
got possession of the presents the unsuspecting lovers
were induced to exchange. Encouraged by the skill
he displayed in imitating hand-writing and copying
signatures — which seems to have been the extent of
his talent for drawing — he turned it to account in other
and more profitable ways. Somehow — perhaps by
hints dropped by himself in the right quarter — his
proficiency in this respect, and his readiness to give
others the benefit of it for a consideration, got known.
From forging tickets to the theatre for his companions,
he was employed to forge leave-of-absence passes for
monks, and even to forge a will in favour of a certain
Marquis Maurigi, by which a religious institution was
defrauded of a large legacy.

There is another version of this affair which the
Inquisition-writer has naturally ignored, and from which
it would appear that it was the marquis who was de-
frauded of the legacy by the religious institution. But
be this trifling detail as it may, the fact remains that

26

Giuseppe Balsamo

the forgery was so successfully effected that it was not
discovered till several years later, when some attempt
was made to bring Balsamo to justice, which the im-
possibility of ascertaining whether he was alive or
dead, rendered abortive.

Such sums of money, however, as he obtained in
this way must of necessity have been small. It could
only have been in copper that his '' Apache " friends
and the monks paid him for the theatre-tickets and
convent-passes he forged for them. Nor was the notary
by whom he was employed to forge the will, and who,
we are told, was a relation, likely to be much more
liberal. In Palermo then, as to-day, scoresof just such
youths as Giuseppe Balsamo were to be found ready
to perform any villainy for a fifty centime piece. He
accordingly sought other means of procuring the money
he needed and as none, thanks to his compatriots'
notorious credulity, was likely to prove so remunerative
as an appeal to their love of the marvellous, he had
recourse to what was known as *' sorcery."

It is to the questionable significance attached to
this word that the prejudice against Cagliostro, whose
wonders were attributed to magic, has been very largely
due. For it is only of comparatively recent date that
'* sorcery " so-called has ceased to be anathema, owing
to the belated investigations of science, which is always,
and perhaps with reason, suspicious of occult pheno-
mena, by which the indubitable existence of certain
powers — as yet only partially explained — active in
some, passive in others, and perhaps latent in all
human beings, has been revealed. And even still,
so great is the force of tradition, many judging from
the frauds frequently perpetrated by persons claim-

27

Cagliostro

ing to possess these secret powers, regard with suspicion,
if not with downright contempt, all that is popularly
designated as sorcery, magic, or witchcraft.

But this is not the place to* discuss the methods
by which those who work miracles obtain their results.
Suffice it to say, there has been from time immemorial
a belief in the ability of certain persons to control the
forces of nature. Nowhere is this belief stronger than
in Sicily. There the '' sorcerer " is as common as the
priest ; not a village but boasts some sibyl, seer, or
wonder-worker. That all are not equally efficient,
goes without saying. Some possess remarkable
powers, which they themselves would probably be
unable to explain. Others, like Giuseppe Balsamo,
are only able to deceive very simple or foolish people
easy to deceive.

From the single instance cited of Giuseppe's skill
in this direction one infers his magical gifts were of
the crystal-gazing, sand-divination kind — the ordinary
kind with which everybody is more or less familiar,
if only by name. According to the Inquisition-
biographer, **one day whilst he and his companions
were idling away the time together the conversation
having turned upon a certain girl whom they all knew,
one of the number wondered what she was doing at
that moment, whereupon Giuseppe immediately offered
to gratify him. Marking a square on the ground he
made some passes with his hands above it, after which
the figure of the girl was seen in the square playing
at tressette with three of her friends." So great was
the effect of this exhibition of clairvoyance, thought-
transference, hypnotic suggestion, what you will, upon
the amazed Apaches that they went at once to look

28

Giuseppe Balsamo

for the girl and '* found her in the same attitude
playing the very game and with the very persons that
Balsamo had shown them."

The fact that such phenomena are of quite common
occurrence and to be witnessed any day in large cities
and summer-resorts on payment of fees, varying
according to the renown of the performer, has robbed
them if not of their attraction at least of their wonder.
One has come to take them for granted. Whatever
may be the scientific explanation of such occult — the
word must serve for want of a better — power as
Giuseppe possessed, he himself, we may be sure,
would only have been able to account for it as " sorcery."
He was not likely to be a whit less superstitious than
the people with whom he associated. Indeed, his
faith in the efficacy of the magic properties attributed
by vulgar superstition to sacred things would appear
to have been greater than his faith in his own
supernatural powers.

It is reported of him on one occasion that ** under
pretext of curing his sister, who he said was possessed
of a devil, he obtained from a priest in the country a
little cotton dipped in holy oil," to which, doubtless,
he attached great importance as the means of success-
fully performing some wonder he had no confidence in
his own powers to effect. Such cryptic attributes as
he had been endowed with must have been very
slight, or undeveloped, for there is no reference what-
ever to the marvellous in the swindles of his sub-
sequent history in which one would expect him to
have employed it. Very probably whatever magnetic,
hypnotic, or telepathic faculty he possessed was first
discovered by the apothecary under whom he was

29

Cagliostro

placed in the laboratory at Cartegirone, who, like all
of his kind, no doubt, experimented in alchemy and
kindred sciences. If so, he certainly did not stay long
enough with the Benfratelli to turn his mysterious
talent to account or to obtain more than the merest
glimpse of the ''sorcery," of which, though banned by
the Church, the monasteries were the secret nursery.

Be this as it may, needless to say those who had
witnessed Giuseppe's strange phenomenon required
no further proof of his marvellous power, which
rapidly noised abroad and exaggerated by rumour
gave the young ''sorcerer" a reputation he only
wanted an opportunity of exploiting for all it
was worth. How long he waited for this opportunity
is not stated, but he was still in his teens when it
eventually turned up in the person of a " certain ninny
of a goldsmith named Marano," whose superstition,
avarice, and gullibility made him an easy dupe.

One day in conversation with this man, who had
been previously nursed to the proper pitch of cupidity,
as one nurses a constituency before an election,
Giuseppe informed him under pledge of the strictest
secrecy that he knew of a certain cave not far from
Palermo, in which a great treasure was buried.
According to a superstition prevalent in Sicily, where
belief in such treasure was common, it was supposed
to be guarded by demons, and as it would be necessary
to hire a priest to exorcize them, Giuseppe offered to
take Marano to the spot and assist him in lifting the
hidden wealth for the consideration of " sixty ounces
of gold." 1

Whatever objection Marano might have had to

30

Giuseppe Balsamo

part with such a sum was overcome by the thought ot
gaining probably a hundred times as much. He
accordingly paid the money and set out one night
with Giuseppe, the priest, and another man who was
in the secret. On arriving at the cave, preparatory
to the ceremony of exorcism, the priest proceeded to
evoke the demons, which was done with due solemnity
by means of magic circles and symbols drawn upon
the ground, incantations in Latin, et cetera. Suddenly
hideous noises were heard, there was a flash and
splutter of blue fire, and the air was filled with sulphur.
Marano, who was waiting in the greatest terror for
the materialization of the powers of darkness, in which
he firmly believed, and who, he had been told, on
such occasions sometimes got beyond the control of
the exorcist, was commanded to dig where he stood.
But scarcely had his spade struck the ground when
the demons themselves appeared with shrieks and
yells — some goat-herds hired for the occasion, as
horrible as paint, burnt cork, and Marano's terrified
imagination could paint them — and fell upon the
wretched man. Whereupon Giuseppe and his con-
federates took to their heels, leaving their dupe in a
fit on the ground.

Fool that he was, it did not take the goldsmith on
recovering his senses long to discover that he had been
victimized. Indifferent to the ridicule to which he
exposed himself he lost no time in bringing an action
against Giuseppe for the recovery of the money of
which he had been defrauded, swearing at the same
time to have the life of the swindler as well. Under
such circumstances Palermo was no longer a safe place
for the sorcerer, and taking time by the forelock he fled.

31

Cagliostro

II

At this stage in Balsamo's career even the In-
quisition-biographer ceases to vouch for the accuracy
of what he relates.

"Henceforth," he confesses, ** we are obliged to
accept Cagliostro's own assertions "—wrung from him
in the torture chamber of the Castle of St. Angelo, be
it remembered — " without the means of verifying them,
as no further trace of his doings is to be found
elsewhere."

Considering that accuracy, to which no importance
has been attached in all previous books on Cagliostro,
is the main object of this, after such a statement the
continuation of Balsamo's history would appear to be
superfluous. Apart, however, from their romantic
interest, Balsamo's subsequent adventures are really
an aid to accuracy. For the character of the man as
revealed by them will be found to be so dissimilar to
Cagliostro's as to serve more forcibly than any argu-
ment to prove how slight are the grounds for identifying
the two.

By relating what befell Balsamo on fleeing from
Palermo one may judge, from the very start, of the
sort of faith to be placed in his Inquisition-biographer.
In Cagliostro's own account of his life — which will be
<3uly reported in its proper place — his statements in
regard to the '' noble Althotas," that remarkable
magician by whom he avowed he was brought up,
were regarded as absolutely ridiculous. Nevertheless
for the sole purpose apparently of proving Cagliostro's
identity with Balsamo the Inquisition-biographer drags

32

Giuseppe Balsamo

this individual whose very existence is open to doubt
into the life of the latter, and unblushingly plunges the
two into those fabulous and ludicrous adventures, of
which the description caused so much mirth at the
time of the Necklace Affair.

Thus the imaginative Inquisition-biographer de-
clares it was at Messina, whither he went on leaving
Palermo, that Balsamo met the " noble Althotas,"
whose power " to dematerialize himself '' was, to judge
from the last occasion on which he was reported to
have been seen in the flesh at Malta, only another way
of saying that he was clever in evading the police.
But as Balsamo after having " overrun the whole
earth " with Althotas emerges once more into some-
thing like reality at Naples, in the company of the
renegade priest who had assisted in the fleecing of
Marano, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this
city and not Messina was his immediate destination
on leaving Palermo.

He did not stay long, however, at Naples. Owing
either to a quarrel with the priest over their ill-gotten
funds, or to a hint from the police whose suspicions his
conduct aroused, he went to Rome. The statement
that on his arrival he presented a letter of introduction

' from the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta — one
of his adventures with Althotas — to the Baron de

; Bretteville, the envoy from Malta to the Holy See, by
whom in turn he was introduced to Cardinals York
and Orsini, is scarcely worth refuting. For if the
Palermo Apache ever entered the salon of a Roman
noble it could of course only have been via the escalier
de service.

The Inquisition-biographer, however, quickly re-

Cagliostro

duces him to a situation much more in keeping with
his character and condition. "Not long," he says,
"after his arrival in Rome, Balsamo was sentenced to
three days in jail for quarrelling with one of the
waiters at the sign of the Sun, where he lodged."
On his release, he was, as is highly probable forced to
live by his wits, and instead of consorting with
Cardinals and diplomatists turned his attention to
drawing. But as his talent in this respect appears
to have been as limited as his knowledge of the
occult, it is not surprising that the revenue he
derived from the sketches he copied, or from old
prints, freshened up and passed off as originals, was
precarious.

Love, however, is the great consoler of poverty.
About this time Balsamo conceived a violent passion
for Lorenza FellcianI, the fourteen-year-old daughter
of a ''smelter of copper " who lived in an alley close to
the Church of the Trinlta de' Pellegrini — one of the
poorest quarters of Rome. Marriage followed the
love-making, and Lorenza, in spite of her tender years,
in due course became his wife. This event — which is
one of the few authenticated ones In Balsamo's career —
took place in "April 1769 in the Church of San
Salvatore in Campo."

As the sale of her husband's pen-and-ink sketches,
which in Lorenza's estimation at least were " superb,"
was not remunerative at the best of times, the young
couple made their home at first with the bride's parents.
And now for perhaps the only time in his life a decent
and comfortable existence was open to Balsamo. He
had a young and, according to all accounts, a beautiful
wife, whom he loved and by whom he was loved ; he

34

Giuseppe Balsamo

had a home, and the chance of adopting his father-in-
law's more lucrative, if less congenial, trade — of settling
down, in a word, and turning over a new leaf. But
he was a born blackguard and under the circumstances
it is not surprising that he should have had the
7tostalgie de la boue. In other words his Apache
nature asserted itself, and he had no sooner married
than he proceeded with revolting cynicism to turn
his wife's charms to account.

But Lorenza, being at this stage of her career as
innocent as she was ignorant, very naturally objected
to his odious proposal. By dint, however, of persuasion
and argument he finally succeeded in indoctrinating her
with his views, to the great indignation of her parents,
who, scandalized by such conduct, after frequent
altercations finally turned the couple out of the house.
Whereupon Lorenza decided to abandon any remain-
ing scruples she had and assist her husband to the
best of her ability.

Among the acquaintances they made in this way
were two Sicilians of the worst character, Ottavio
Nicastro, who finished on the gallows, and a self-
styled Marquis Agliata. The latter being an accom-
plished forger was not long in discovering a similar
talent in the husband of Lorenza, by whose charms he
had been smitten. He accordingly proposed to take
him into partnership, a proposition which Balsamo
was ready enough to accept. Nicastro, however, feel-
ing himself slighted by the close intimacy between the
two, from which he was excluded, informed the police
of their doings ; but as he was foolish enough to
quarrel with them beforehand, they suspected his
intention, and defeated it by a hurried flight.

^^ 35

Cagliostro

If Lorenza is to be believed, their intention was to
go to Germany, and it was perhaps with this end in
view that Agliata had, as the Inquisition-biographer
asserts, previously forged the brevet of a Prussian
colonelcy for Balsamo. At any rate, once out of the
Papal States they proceeded very leisurely, swindling
right and left as they went. At Loretto they obtained
"fifty sequins " from the governor of the town by means
of a forged letter of introduction from Cardinal Orsini.
In this way they got as far as Bergamo, where the
crafty Agliata decided to adopt different tactics. He
accordingly gave out that he was a recruiting agent of
the King of Prussia ; but by some chance the suspicions
of the authorities were aroused, whereupon Agliata,
having somehow got wind of the fact, without more
ado decamped, leaving the Balsamos to shift for them-
selves. Scarcely had he gone when the sbirri arrived
to arrest him. Not finding him, they seized the
Balsamos as his accomplices ; they, however, suc-
ceeded in clearing themselves, and on being released
were ordered to leave the town. As Agliata had gone
off with all the money, they were obliged to sell their
effects to obey this injunction ; and not daring to
return to Rome, they proceeded to Milan, where they
arrived almost destitute.

Beggary was now their only means of existence, but
even beggary may be profitable providing one knows
how to beg. According to the Countess de Lamotte,
who spoke from experience, there was ** only one way of
asking alms, and that was in a carriage." In fine, ** to
get on " as a beggar, as in every profession, requires
ability. It is the kind of ability with which Balsamo
was abundandy gifted. Aware that the pilgrims he

36

Giuseppe Balsamo

saw wandering about Italy from shrine to shrine
subsisted on wayside charity, he conceived the ingeni-
ous expedient of imitating them. As the objective
of this expiatory vagabondage he selected St.
James of Compostella, one of the most popular
shrines at the time in Christendom, and consequently
one to which a pilgrimage might most easily be
exploited.

So setting out from Milan, staff in hand, mumbling
paternosters, fumbling their beads, begging their way
from village to village, from presbytery to presbytery,
and constantly on the alert for any chance of improving
their condition, the couple took the road to Spain.
Of this tour along the Riviera to Barcelona, where
the "pilgrimage" ended, Lorenza, on being arrested
three years later in Paris, gave an account which the
Inquisition-biographer has embellished, and which in
one particular at least has been verified by no less a
person than Casanova.

As It happened, this prince of adventurers — who
in obedience to a time-honoured convention is never
mentioned In print, by English writers bien entendu,
without condemnation, though In private conversation
people wax eloquent enough over him — was himself
wandering about the South of France at the time.
Arriving In Aix-en- Provence in 1770, he actually
stopped In the same Inn as the Balsamos, who excited
his curiosity by their lavish distribution of alms to
the poor of the town. Being a man who never missed
a single opportunity of Improving any acquaintance that
chance might throw In his way, he called upon the
couple, and recorded his Impression in those fascina-
ting Memoirs of his, of which the authenticity Is now

Cagliostro

fully established and, what is more to the point, of
which all the details have been verified. ^

" I found the female pilgrim," he says, ''seated in a
chair looking like a person exhausted with fatigue,
and interesting by reason of her youth and beauty,
singularly heightened by a touch of melancholy and
by a crucifix of yellow metal six inches long which
she held in her hand. Her companion, who was
arranging shells on his coat of black baize, made no
movement — he appeared to intimate by the looks he
cast at his wife I was to attend to her alone."

From the manner in which Lorenza conducted
herself on this occasion she appears to have had
remarkable aptitude for acting the role her husband
had given her.

" We are going on foot," she said in answer to
Casanova's questions, " living on charity the better to
obtain the mercy of God, whom I have so often
offended. Though I ask only a sou in charity, people
always give me pieces of silver and gold " — a hint
Casanova did not take — '*so that arriving at a town
we have to distribute to the poor all that remains to
us, in order not to commit the sin of losing confidence
in the Eternal Providence."

Whatever doubts Casanova may have had as to
her veracity, the Inquisition-biographer most certainly
had none. He declares that the '' silver and gold " of
which she and her husband were so lavish at Aix was

^ To infer from this, however, as many writers have done, that
Casanova's evidence proves Cagliostro and Balsamo to be the
same is absurd. He never met the Cagliostros in his Hfe. In stating
that they were the Balsamos whom he had met in 1770 he merely
repeats what he had read in the papers. His Memoirs were not
written till many years later.

38

Giuseppe Balsamo

a shameful quid pro quo obtained from some officers at
Antibes whom she had fascinated.

Unfortunately there is no Casanova at Antibes to
verify him or to follow them to London via Barcelona,
Madrid, and Lisbon. Lorenza is very explicit as to
where they went on leaving Aix, and as to the time
they remained in the various places they visited. The
Inquisition-biographer, faute de vtieux, is obliged to
confirm her itinerary, but he has his revenge by either
denying everything else she says, or by putting the
worst construction upon it. At all events, between
them one gets the impression that the pilgrims, for
some reason or other, abandoned their pilgrimage
before reaching the shrine of St. James of Com-
postella ; that Lorenza was probably more truthful
than she meant to be when she says they left Lisbon
''because the climate was too hot for her " ; and that
however great the quantity of '' silver and gold " she
was possessed of at Aix, she and her husband had
divested themselves of most of it by the time they
reached London.

As to the character of their adventures by the way,
it bears too close a resemblance to those already related
to be worth describing.

Ill

The Editor of the Courier de I' Europe — which
journal, as previously stated, was published in London
— is the authority for the information concerning the
Balsamos in England. He ferreted out or concocted
this information fourteen years later ; and, as quite
apart from his motives, no one of the people he refers

39

Cagliostro

to as having known the Balsamos in 1772 came forward
to corroborate what he said or to identify them with
the CagHostros, it is impossible to verify his evidence.
From the fact, however, that it was commonly accepted
at the time, and is still regarded as substantially trust-
worthy, entirely because Cagliostro absolutely denied any
knowledge of the Balsamos, the reader may judge at
once of the bitterness of the prejudice against Cagli-
ostro as well as of the value to be attached to such
''proof."

According to the Courier de I Europe, Balsamo and
his wife arrived in London from Lisbon in 1771, and
after living for a while in Leadenhall Street moved
to New Compton Street, Soho. They were, we are
told, in extreme poverty, which Lorenza — to whom vice
had long ceased to be repugnant — endeavoured to
alleviate by the most despicable expedients. As she
had but indifferent success, Balsamo, having quarrelled
with a painter and decorator by name of Pergolezzi, by
whom he had for a few days been employed, assisted
her in the infamous role of blackmailer.

Their most profitable victim appears to have been
"a Quaker," who, in spite of the rigorous standard of
morality prescribed by the sect to which he belonged,
occasionally deigned to make some secret concession
to the weakness of human nature. Decoyed by
Lorenza, this individual was discovered by her husband
in so compromising a situation that nothing short of
the payment of one hundred pounds could mollify
Balsamo's feigned indignation and avert the disgrace
with which he threatened the erring and terrified
disciple of William Penn.

Their ill-gotten gains, however, did not last long ;

40

Giuseppe Balsamo

and while Lorenza promenaded the streets in the vain
quest for others victims, Balsamo was once more
obliged to have recourse to his artistic talents. But
Fortune remained hostile, and even went out of her way
to vent her spite on the couple. For a certain Dr.
Moses Benamore, described as " the envoy of the King
of Barbary," was induced to purchase some of Balsamo's
drawings, payment of which the artist was obliged to
seek in the courts. The case, however, was decided
against him, and since, after paying the costs to which
he was condemned, he was unable to pay his rent,
his landlord promptly had him arrested for debt.

To extricate him from this predicament, Lorenza
adopted tactics which, according to the Inquisition-
biographer, had proved effective under similar circum-
stances in Barcelona. Instead of endeavouring to
excite admiration in the streets, she now sought to stir
the compassion of the devout. Every day she was to
be seen on her knees in some church or other, with a
weather-eye open for some gullible dupe whilst she
piously mumbled her prayers. In this way she
managed to attract the attention of the charitable Sir
Edward Hales, or as she calls him ** Sir Dehels," who
not only procured Balsamo's release from jail, but on
the strength of his pen-and-ink sketches employed him
to decorate the ceilings of some rooms at his country-
seat near Canterbury — a task for which he had not the
least qualification. Four months later, after ruining
his ceilings, '' Sir Dehels " caught his rascally protdgd
making love to his daughter, whereupon the Balsamos
deemed it advisable to seek another country to
exploit.

41

Cagliostro

IV

Fortune, like Nature, is non-moral. If proof of
so palpable a fact where required no more suitable
example could be cited than the good luck that
came to the Balsamos at the very moment they least
deserved it.

Leaving England as poor as when they entered it,
they found whilst crossing the Channel between Dover
and Calais, if not exactly a fortune, what was to prove
no mean equivalent in the person of a certain M.
Duplessis de la Radotte. This gentleman, formerly
an official in India, had on its evacuation by the French
found an equally lucrative post in his native country as
agent of the Marquis de Prie. Very susceptible to
beauty, as Lorenza was quick to detect, he no sooner
beheld her on the deck of the Dover packet than
he sought her acquaintance. Lorenza, one imagines,
must have been not only particularly attractive and
skilled by considerable practice in the art of attraction,
but a very good sailor ; for in the short space of the
Channel crossing she so far succeeded in captivating
Duplessis that on reaching Calais he offered her a seat
in his carriage to Paris. Needless to say, it was not
the sort of offer she was likely to refuse ; and while
her husband trotted behind on horseback she turned
her opportunity to such account that Duplessis was
induced to invite both the husband and wife to be his
guests in Paris.

But to cut a long story short : as the result of the
acceptance of this invitation Duplessis after a time
quarrelled with Balsamo and persuaded Lorenza to

42

Giuseppe Balsamo

leave her husband and live under his '' protection." This
was not at all to Balsamo's taste, and he appealed to
the courts for redress. He won his case, and Lorenza,
according to the law in such matters, was arrested and
imprisoned in Sainte Pelagie, the most famous — or
infamous — penitentiary for women in France during
the eighteenth century.

This event occurred in 1773, if the dossier dis-
covered in the French Archives in 1783, which
contains the statement Lorenza made at the time, is to
be reofarded as authentic. That none of the numerous
people referred to in the dossier with whom the
Balsamos were very closely connected should have
come forward during the Necklace Affair and identi-
fied Cagliostro, lays the genuineness of this celebrated
document open to doubt. Is it likely that all these
people had died in the fourteen years that elapsed ? If
not, why did not those who still lived attempt to
satisfy the boundless curiosity that the mysterious
Cao^liostro excited '^. He could not have changred out
of all recognition during this period, for according to
Goethe, in Palermo those who remembered Balsamo
discovered, or thought they discovered, a likeness to him
in the published portraits of Cagliostro. In any case,
however much Cagliostro's appearance may have
changed, his wife's most certainly had not. At thirty
the Countess Cagliostro possessed the freshness of a girl
of twenty. Had she been Lorenza Balsamo, she would
have been very quickly recognized.

But from these doubts which shake one's faith, not
only in the dossier to which so much importance has

43

Cagliostro

been attached, but in the Balsamo legend itself, let us
return to the still more unauthenticated doings of our
adventurers.

It was not long before Balsamo* repented of his ven-
geance. On his intercession his wife was released, and
shortly afterwards, to avoid arrest on his own score,
the couple disappeared. The Inquisition-biographer
states vaguely that they went to '* Brussels and
Germany." But it is not a matter of any importance.
A few months later, however, Giuseppe Balsamo most
unquestionably reappeared in his native city, where he
astonished all his kindred, to whom alone he made
himself known, by the splendour in which he
returned.

Somewhere in the interval between his flight from
Paris and his arrival in Palermo he had metamor-
phosed himself into a Marchese Pellegrini, and by the
aid of Lorenza picked up a prince. Never before had
they been so flush. The Marchese Pellegrini had his
carriage and valet, one '* Laroca/' a Neapolitan barber,
who afterwards started business on his own account as an
adventurer. The '' Marchesa " had her prince and his
purse, and what was to prove of even greater value,
his influence to draw upon. For a while, indeed, so
great was his luck, Balsamo even had thoughts of
settling down and living on the fortune Lorenza had
plucked from her prince. He actually hired a house
on the outskirts of Palermo with this intention. But
he counted without Marano, that ** ninny of a gold-
smith," from whose vengeance he had fled years
before. For Marano was still living, and no sooner
did he become aware that the boy who had made such
a fool of him in the old treasure-digging business was

44

Giuseppe Balsamo

once more In Palermo than he had him seized and
clapt into prison.

The matter, no doubt, must have had very serious
consequences for the Marchese Pellegrini had it not
been for the powerful interest of Lorenza's prince. As
this episode in Balsamo's career is one of the very
few concerning which the information is authentic, it is
worth while describing.

'* The manner of his escape," says Goethe, who was
told what he relates by eye-witnesses, '* deserves to be
described. The son of one of the first Sicilian
princes and great landed proprietors, who had, more-
over, filled important posts at the Neapolitan Court,
was a person that united with a strong body and
ungovernable temper all the tyrannical caprice which
the rich and great, without cultivation, think them-
selves entitled to exhibit.

'' Donna Lorenza had contrived to gain this man,
and on him the fictitious Marchese Pellegrini founded
his security. The prince had testified openly that he
was the protector of this strange pair, and his fury
may be imagined when Giuseppe Balsamo, at the
instance of the man he had cheated, was cast into
prison. He tried various means to deliver him, and
as these would not prosper, he publicly, in the
President's ante-chamber, threatened Marano's lawyer
with the frightfullest misusage if the suit were not
dropped and Balsamo forthwith set at liberty. As
the lawyer declined such a proposal he clutched him,
beat him, threw him on the floor, trampled him with
his feet, and could hardly be restrained from still
further outrages, when the President himself came
running out at the tumult and commanded peace.

45

Cagliostro

**This latter, a weak, dependent man, made no
attempt to punish the injurer ; Marano and his
lawyer grew fainthearted, and Balsamo was let go.
There was not so much as a registration in the court
books specifying his dismissal, who occasioned it, or
how it took place.

'' The Marchese Pellegrini," Goethe adds, '' quickly
thereafter left Palermo, and performed various travels,
whereof I could obtain no clear information."

Nor apparently could anybody else, for on leaving
Palermo this time the Balsamos vanished as com-
pletely as if they had ceased to exist. The Courier de
[Europe and the Inquisition-biographer, however, were
not to be dismayed by any such trifling gap in the
chain of evidence they set themselves to string
together. Unable to discover the least trace of
Balsamo, they seized upon two or three other
swindlers, who may or may not have been the creations
of their distracted imagination, and boldly labelled
them Balsamo.

Lorenza's honest copper-smelting father and
brother are dragged from Rome to join in the
swindling operations of herself and husband. The
brother is whisked off with them to Malta and Spain,
where he is abandoned as an incubus, apparently
because he objected to exploit his good looks after the
manner of his sister. Then, as it is necessary in some
way to account for Cagliostro's occult powers, Balsamo
suddenly takes up the study of alchemy, and in the
moments he snatches from the preparation of " beauty
salves " and *' longevity pills," picks an occasional
pocket.

But the most bare-faced of all these problematic

46

Giuseppe Balsamo

Balsamos is the Don Tiscio one, for whose existence
*' Dr." Sacchi is responsible. Of Sacchi, be it said,
nothing is known to his credit. Having some know-
ledge of surgery, and being in very low water, he
appealed for assistance to Cagliostro, who found some
work for him in his private hospital at Strasburg. But
within a week he was dismissed for misconduct.
Hereupon Sacchi published a book, or was said to
have done so — for no one apparently but the Countess
de Lamotte's counsel in the Necklace Trial ever saw
it — in which he denounced Cagliostro as a swindler by
name of Don Tiscio who had adorned the pillory in
Spain, and suffered other punishments of a kind Sacchi
preferred not to mention. Notwithstanding, though
no credence was attached to this statement when cited
by the Countess de Lamotte, it was raked up again
by the Courier de l^Europe with the addition that
Balsamo now becomes Sacchi's Don Tiscio.

Thus, after having been forger, swindler, black-
mailer, souteneur, quack, pickpocket — all of the com-
monest type — Balsamo, on the word of a disreputable
Sacchi, supported by a few singular coincidences, is
saved without rhyme or reason from the gallows in
Cadiz, on which he very probably perished, in order to
be brought back to London as Count Cagliostro, a
highly accomplished charlatan and past-master in
wonder-working. An improbability that even the
Inquisition-biographer is unable to pass over in
silence.

'* How," he exclaims in amazement, " could such a
man without either physical or intellectual qualities,
devoid of education, connections, or even the appear-
ance of respectability, whose very language was a

47

Cagliostro

barbarous dialect — how could he have succeeded as
he did ? "

How, indeed ! The transformation is obviously
so improbable that the puzzled reader will very likely
come to the conclusion that, whoever Cagliostro may
have been, he could certainly never have been Giuseppe
Balsamo.

But enough of speculation ; let us now turn our
belated attention to the man whose career under the
impenetrable incognito of Count Cagliostro is the
subject of this book.

!

48

PART II

CHAPTER I

CAGLIOSTRO IN LONDON
I

Some time in July 1776 — the exact date is
unascertainable — two foreigners of unmistakable re-
spectability, to judge by their appearance, if not of
distinction, arrived in London and engaged a suite of
furnished apartments in Whitcombe Street, Leicester
Fields. They called themselves Count and Countess
Cagliostro ; and their landlady, who lost no time in
letting everybody in the house, as well as her neigh-
bours, know she had people of title as lodgers, added
that she believed they were Italian, though so far as
she could understand from the Count's very broken
English they had last come from Portugal. A day or
two later she was able to inform her gossips, which no
doubt she did with even greater satisfaction, that her
foreign lodgers were not only titled but undoubtedly
rich, for the Countess had very fine jewels and the
Count was engaged in turning one of the rooms he
had rented into a laboratory, as he intended to devote
himself to the study of physics and chemistry, subjects,
it seemed, in which he was keenly interested.

Their first visitor was a Madame Blevary, a lady
in reduced circumstances who lodged in the same
E 49

Cagliostro

house. Hearing they had come from Portugal, and
being herself a native of that country, she sought their
acquaintance in the hope of deriving some personal
benefit from it. In this she was not disappointed ;
for the Countess, who knew no English, required a
companion, and as Madame Blevary was conversant
with several languages and had the manners of a
gentlewoman, she readily obtained the post on the
recommendation of the landlady.

Among the acquaintances Madame Blevary in-
formed of her good fortune, which she was no doubt
induced to dilate upon, was a certain Vitellini, an
ex-Jesuit and professor of languages. Like her, he
too had fallen on hard times ; but in his case the love
of gambling had been his ruin. He was also, as it
happened, almost equally devoted to the study of
chemistry, on a knowledge of which he particularly
piqued himself. No sooner, therefore, did he learn
that Count Cagliostro had a similar hobby, and a
laboratory into the bargain, than he persuaded Madame
Blevary to introduce him to the Count, in the hope
that he too might profit by the acquaintance as she
had done. As a result of this introduction, Vitellini
succeeded in ingratiating himself into the favour of
Cagliostro, who employed him in the laboratory as an
assistant.

Stinginess was a quality of which neither the
Count nor his wife was ever accused. On the
contrary, as even those most prejudiced against them
have been obliged to admit, they were exceedingly
generous. With them, however, generosity was one
of those amiable weaknesses that are as pernicious in
their effect as a vice. There were few who experienced

50

li

jiii

Cagliostro in London

it but abused it in some way. It was so in this
instance.

Vitellini, who was at bottom more of a fool than a
knave, in the first flush of excitement over the sudden
turn of tide in his fortunes which had long been at the
lowest ebb, began to brag to his acquaintances in the
gambling-dens and coffee-houses he frequented of his
connection with Cagliostro, whom he described as ''an
extraordinary man, a true adept, whose fortune was
immense, and who possessed the secret of transmuting
metals."

Such praise naturally excited the curiosity of
Vitellini's acquaintances, who in their turn were eager
to meet the benevolent foreigner. Thus by the in-
discretion of Vitellini, Cagliostro was soon besieged
by a crowd of shady people whose intentions were
so apparent that he was obliged in the end to refuse
to receive them when they called. But this only
exasperated them ; and one in particular, Pergolezzi —
the painter and decorator by whom the reader will
recall Balsamo was for a time employed — "threatened
to blast the reputation of the Count by circulating a
report throughout London that he was ignorant and
necessitous, of obscure birth, and had once before
resided in England."^

Vitellini, needless to say, perceiving the effect of

1 Cagliostro, however, ignored this threat, which one can scarcely
believe he would have done had he had any reason to fear it. Nor
did Pergolezzi put it into effect ; and it was not till ten years later,
when Cagliostro returned to London thoroughly discredited, that the
Editor of the Courier de V Europe got wind of it in some way and
twisted it into his Balsamo theory of accounting for the mysterious
Cagliostro. Whether Pergolezzi was living at the time is unknown ;
in any case the threat which Cagliostro now ignored contained 710
mention of Balsamo.

K2 51

Cagliostro

his folly, now hastened to put a curb on his tongue lest
he too should be shown the door. But as the sequel
will prove, discretion came to him" too late to benefit
him. For Madame Blevary, who also entertained in
secret a similar opinion of her patron's wealth and
knowledge, was one of those whose cupidity had been
excited by Vitellini's gossip. She at least had the
advantage of being on the inner side of the Count's
door, and she determined while she had the chance
to profit by it.

To this effect she bethought herself of **one Scott,
a man of ambiguous character, and the pliability of
whose principles was such that he was ever ready to
convert them to the interest of the present moment."
It was accordingly arranged between them that Scott
should impersonate a Scotch nobleman, in which guise
it was hoped the Cagliostros would be effectually
deceived as to his intentions. A severe illness, how-
ever, with which she was suddenly seized, and during
which the Cagliostros " supplied her with every
necessary comfort," prevented Madame Blevary from
personally introducing her confederate. Nevertheless
she did not abandon the idea she had conceived, and
ill though she was, she sent word to Cagliostro that
•* Lord Scott, of whom she had often spoken to him,
had arrived in town and proposed to himself the
honour of introduction that afternoon."

Entirely unsuspicious of the treachery of a woman
who owed so much to their generosity, the Count and
Countess received " Lord Scott " on his arrival. His
appearance, it seems, did not exactly tally with such
notions as Cagliostro had formed either of the man or
his rank. But Scott succeeded in dispelling his dis-

52

Cagliostro in London

appointment, and swindling him into the bargain, by-
way of gentle beginning, out of ^12 in Portuguese
money which he undertook to get exchanged for its
English equivalent, afterwards declaring with well-
feigned mortification *' he had lost it through a hole
in his pocket."

A Giuseppe Balsamo, one imagines, would have
been the last person in the world to be taken in by such
a story. Cagliostro, however, swallowed it without
hesitation; and begging Scott, who confusedly regretted
he was in no position to make good the loss, to think no
more about it, invited him to come todinner the next day.

Whether Madame Blevary got a share of these or
subsequent spoils is not known, for at this point she
disappears from the scene altogether. Perhaps she
died of that severe illness in which she received from
the Cagliostros while betraying them so many '' proofs
of their generosity and humanity." In any case, her
place was most completely filled by *' Lady Scott," who
was at this period presented by Scott to the Cagliostros,
and from whom in an incredibly short time she
managed to borrow on her simple note of hand ;^200.

II

Owing to the prejudice against Cagliostro, a con-
struction wholly unfavourable to him has been placed
upon the extraordinary series of events that now ensued.
This construction, however, cannot be allowed to pass
unchallenged. For it is based solely on the accusations
of the Editor of the Courier de r Europe, who was the
bitter enemy of Cagliostro. Now though it may be

53

Cagliostro

the custom in France for the accused to be considered
guilty till he proves his innocence, the contrary is the
custom in England, where fortunately it requires
something more than the mere word of a single and
professedly hostile witness to condemn a man. The
Editor of the Courier de r Europe declared that
"upwards of twenty persons" would confirm his
statements. None, however, offered to do so. Under
such circumstances, as we are reduced to dealing with
prejudices, I shall in this particular instance confess
to one in favour of an ancient English principle of
justice, and give Cagliostro the benefit of the doubt.
His word at least is as much entitled to respect as that
of the Editor of the Courier de r Europe, There is,
moreover, much in his spirited defence even worthy of
credence.

Having found him so easy to dupe, the crew by
whom he was surrounded naturally devoted their
attention to increasing the friendship they had formed
with him and his wife. Not a day passed but " Lord "
Scott and his lady paid the Count and Countess a visit,
and as it was their habit to drop in just before dinner
or supper they soon managed to obtain their meals at
the expense of the hospitable foreigners.

On one of these occasions the conversation having
turned on a lottery in which his guests were interested,
Cagliostro was reminded of" a manuscript he had found
in the course of his travels which contained many
curious cabalistic operations by aid of which the author
set forth the possibilities of calculating winning
numbers." But since the matter was not one in which
he had hitherto taken any particular interest, he was

54

Cagliostro in London

unwilling to express an opinion as to the value of these
calculations, '' having long contracted the habit of
suspending his judgment on subjects he had not
investigated." On being urged, however, he con-
sented to consult the manuscript ; whereupon, to test
its system, Scott " risked a trifle " and won upwards of a
hundred pounds.

But whatever opinion Cagliostro may now have
formed as to the value to be attached to these '' cabal-
istic operations," he refused to put them to further test.
Gambling would appear to have had no attraction for
him. Not only, if we are to believe him, did he risk
nothing himself, or benefit in any way by the winning
numbers he predicted on this occasion, but never after-
wards is there to be found any allusion to gambling
in the records that relate to his career. His aversion,
however, which others — notably Mirabeau — have also
shared, is not necessarily to be regarded as a virtue.
There are many who, without objecting to gambling
on moral grounds, are unable to find any pleasure
in it.

Apart from all other considerations, Cagliostro
had a strong personal motive for his refusal to
make a business of predicting winning numbers
for Scott. He was too completely absorbed in his
alchemical experiments to find an interest in any-
thing else. Of what value was the most perfect
betting system in the world compared with the secret
of transmuting metals, making diamonds, and pro-
longing life ? To the man who is wrapped up in such
things, lotteries and the means of winning them are
beneath contempt. He has not only got something
more profitable to do than waste his time in calculating

55

Cagliostro

lucky numbers, but he is on a plane above the ordinary
gambler.

This, however, was a distinction that Scott, who
was merely a vulgar sharper, was incapable of either
making himself or appreciating when made. After
his success in testing the system he believed it to be
infallible. To be refused so simple a means of making
a fortune was intolerable. In his exasperation he
dropped the role of Scotch nobleman altogether and
appeared in his real character as the common rogue he
was, whereupon Cagliostro promptly showed him the
door and refused to have any further intercourse with him.

** Lady " Scott, however, a few days later forced
herself upon the Countess, and endeavoured to excite
her compassion with the relation of a pitiful story, in
which she declared that Scott, by whom she had been
betrayed, had decamped with the profit arising from
the lottery, leaving her and three children entirely
destitute. The Countess, touched by this imaginary
tale, generously interceded in her behalf with the
Count, who sent her " a guinea and a number for the
following day." Miss Fry, to give her her real name,
no sooner obtained this number than she and Scott
risked every penny they could raise upon it. Fortune
once more favoured them and they won on this
occasion the sum of fifteen hundred guineas.

In the first moment of exultation Miss Fry at once
rushed off to the Cagliostros with the whole of her
winnings, which she offered to the Count as a token
of her gratitude and confidence in him. But Cagliostro
was not to be caught in this cunningly laid snare. He
received her very coldly and refused to concern himself
in her affairs.

56

Cagliostro in London

*' If you will take my advice," he said, *' you will go
into the country with your three children and live on
the interest of your money. If I have obliged you, the
only return I desire is that you will never more re-enter
my doors."

But Miss Fry was not to be got rid of in this
fashion. Dazzled by the golden shower the Count's
predictions had caused to rain upon her, she sighed
for more numbers, and to obtain them she had re-
course to Vitellini, in the hope that as he was still
employed by the Count he might succeed in getting
them for her. So eager was she to procure them that
she gave Vitellini twenty guineas in advance as an
earnest of her sincerity and to increase his zeal in the
matter.

But though Vitellini was, needless to say, only too
eager to oblige her, Cagliostro was not to be persuaded
to gratify him. Hereupon, Miss Fry, repenting of her
liberality, made a debt of her gift, and had Vitellini,
who was unable to repay her, imprisoned. Cagliostro,
however, generously came to the rescue, and obtained
his release. This action awoke a belated sense of
gratitude in the fellow, which he afterwards ineffectually
attempted to prove.

But to return to Miss Fry. Having failed to turn
Vitellini to account, she determined to approach the
Countess and lay her, if possible, under an obligation.
After considering various schemes by which this was
to be effected, she " purchased of a pawnbroker a
diamond necklace for which she paid ;^94." She then
procured a box with two compartments, in one of
which she placed the necklace, and in the other some
snuff of a rare quality that she knew the Countess

57

Cagliostro

liked, and watching for an opportunity of finding her
alone, managed to get access to her.

In the hands of a Miss Fry, the Countess, who was
the most amiable, pliable, and insignificant of creatures,
was like wax. Cleverly turning the conversation so as
to suit her purpose, Miss Fry casually produced the
box and opening the compartment containing the snuff
prevailed upon the Countess to take a pinch. After
this it was an easy matter to persuade her to keep the
box. Two days later the Countess discovered the
necklace. As she had been forbidden to receive any
presents from Miss Fry, she at once reported the
matter to her husband. He was for returning the
necklace at once, but as the Countess, who doubtless
had no desire to part with it, suggested that to do so
after having had it so long in her possession would
appear ''indelicate," Cagliostro fooHshly consented to
let her keep it. As to retain the gift without acknow-
ledging it would have been still more indelicate, Miss
Fry was accordingly once more permitted to resume
her visits.

Fully alive to the fact that she was only received
on sufferance, she was naturally very careful not to
jeopardize the position she had recovered with so
much difficulty by any indiscretion. She by no means,
however, lost sight of the object she had in view.
Hearing that the Cagliostros were moving to Suffolk
Street, she hired a room in the same house where
it was impossible to avoid her. As she had told
Cagliostro that she intended to follow his advice and
live in the country with her three children — a fiction
to which she still adhered— he naturally inquired the
reason of her continued residence in London. She

58

Cagliostro in London

gave a lack of the necessary funds as her excuse, and
hinted, as he had broached the subject, that he should
'* extricate her from her embarrassment by giving her
numbers for the French lottery."

The Count ignored the hint. But in consideration
of the necklace she had given the Countess, and with
the hope of being entirely rid of her, he gave her ^50
to defray the expense of her journey into the country.
This was, however, not at all to Miss Fry's taste. She
wanted numbers for the French lottery, and meant to
have them too, or know the reason why, as the saying
is. Accordingly, the next day she trumped up some
fresh story of debts and absconding creditors, and,
appealing to the compassion of the Countess, implored
her to intercede with the Count to give her the
numbers she wanted.

Cagliostro was now thoroughly annoyed. To
setde the matter once for all, he told her that ''he
believed the success of the system was due more to
chance than to calculation ; but whether it was effected
by the one or the other he was resolved to have no
further concern in anything of that nature." The
manner in which these words were uttered was too
emphatic to permit Miss Fry to continue to cherish
the least hope of ever being able to induce Cagliostro
to change his mind. Still, even now she refused to
accept defeat. The numbers had become to her like
morphia to a 7norphineuse ; and precisely as the latter
to obtain the drug she craves will resort to the most
desperate stratagems, so Miss Fry determined to
execute a scheme she had long premeditated by
which Cagliostro was to be coinpelled to give her the
numbers.

59

Cagliostro

III

This scheme, described by an ardent defender of
Cagliostro against the violent denunciations of the
Editor of the Courier de T Europe as *' the most diabolic
that ever entered into the heart of ingratitude," was
nothing more nor less than a sort of muscular black-
mail. Taking advantage of his ignorance of English,
Cagliostro was to be arrested on a false charge and
simultaneously robbed of the precious manuscript by
which he predicted the numbers.

To assist in the execution of her plan Miss Fry,
who was the life and soul of the conspiracy, had the
help of a barrister named Reynolds, '* who, notwith-
standing his expertness in the pettifogging finesse of the
low law, could not preserve himself from an ignominious
exhibition in the pillory "; a rough known as Broad ;
and, of course, Scott.

When everything was arranged. Miss Fry brought

an action against Cagliostro to recover £\^o, the writ

for which was served by Reynolds, apparently by

bribing the sheriff's officer. Thus armed, he proceeded

to Cagliostro s house accompanied by the others, and

while he explained to the amazed Count, who had

never seen him before, the object of his visit and the

authority for what he did, Scott and Broad broke into

the laboratory, where they found and took possession

of the manuscript and the note-of-hand for the two

hundred pounds the Count had lent Miss Fry, who

during these highly criminal proceedings had the

shrewdness to " wait on the stairs " without. Reynolds

then conducted Cagliostro to a sponging-house, from

60

Cagliostro in London

which he was released the following day by depositing
with Saunders, the sheriff's officer, "jewels worth three or
four hundred pounds."

The conspirators, however, baffled by the release
of Cagliostro, from whom they had obtained nothing
but the note-of-hand and the manuscript, of which they
could make neither head nor tail, at once renewed
their persecution. This time they procured a warrant
for the arrest of both himself and his wife on the
charge of practising witchcraft. The fact that it was
possible to obtain a warrant on so ridiculous a charge,
which both those who made it, as well as the official
by whom the warrant was granted, were perfectly aware
would be dismissed with contempt the moment it was
investigated, explains how easy it was, under the
corrupt and chaotic state of the legal system of the
period, to convert the protection of the law into a
persecution. Indeed, unauthenticated though they
are, none of the legal proceedings in which Cagliostro
was now involved are improbable. On the contrary
their probability is so great as almost to guarantee
their credibility.

By a bribe — for it can scarcely be termed bail —
Cagliostro and his wife escaped the inconvenience of
being taken to jail before the investigation of the
charge on which they were apprehended. Seeing
that their victim was not to be terrified, his perse-
cutors tried other tactics. Reynolds was deputed
to persuade him. If possible, to explain the system
by which he predicted the winning numbers.
But Cagliostro indignantly refused to gratify him
when he called, whereupon Scott, who had remained
without the door, his ear glued to the key-hole,

6i

Cagliostro

perceiving that the eloquence of Reynolds failed to
produce the desired effect, suddenly burst into the room,
and " presenting a pistol to the breast of the Count,
threatened to discharge it that instant unless he consented
to reveal the secrets they demanded."

This species of bluff, however, was equally futile.
Cagliostro regarded the bully and his pistol with
contemptuous composure — particularly as he did not
discharge it. He assured him that nothing was to be
accomplished by solicitations or threats, but as he desired
to be left in peace he was ready '' to think no more of
the note-of-hand they had robbed him of, and would
even let them have the effects he had deposited
with Saunders, the sheriffs officer, on condition the
proceedings against him were dropped and the
manuscript returned."

Seeing there was no better alternative, Reynolds
and Scott decided to accept the proposition, and
immediately went with Cagliostro to Saunders' house
to settle the matter. But Saunders, realizing that
Cagliostro's troubles were due to his gullibility, ignor-
ance of English, and apparent fortune, was tempted to
reserve the plucking of so fat a bird for himself. He
accordingly advised the Count not to compromise
the matter, but to bring in his turn an action for
robbery against the crew of sharpers into whose power
he had fallen. Cagliostro was easily induced to accept
this advice, and with the aid of Saunders procured
four warrants for the arrest of Scott, Reynolds, Broad,
and Miss Fry. The last, however, aware that the
charge against her could not be substantiated, as
she had not personally been present at the time of
the robbery, made no attempt to escape, and was

62

Cagliostro in London

taken into custody — from which, as she had fore-
seen, she soon freed herself. As for the other three,
perceiving that the game was up, they took time by
the forelock and disappeared while they had the chance.

But Cagliostro had yet to realize what a vindictive
fury he had to deal with in Miss Fry. The two
actions she had instituted against him had not been
quashed, as she took care daily to let him know in
ways studiously calculated to render the reminder
particularly harassing. Saunders, with whom he had
now become intimate, was *'much concerned at this
persecution, and repeatedly advised him to take an
apartment in his house."

Now little as Cagliostro was acquainted with English
customs, he was not so ignorant, as he himself confesses,
as not to understand that such a proposition was
" singular " ; but as Saunders had been kind to him,
*' kept his carriage," and appeared in every way worthy
of respect, the Count, being desirous of purchasing
tranquillity, without hesitation accepted the invitation.

Because no Englishman would have done so, and
it appears absurd to picture even a foreigner passing
six weeks of his own accord in a sponging-house, the
visit Cagliostro now paid to Saunders is generally
regarded as anything but voluntary. But how much
more absurd is the assertion of the Editor of the
Courier de H Europe — the only other source of informa-
tion beside Cagliostro in regard to these proceedings —
that the Count was '' constrained from poverty " to
reside with Saunders! Even if foreigners in distress
would be likely to seek refuge in a sponging-house,
is it at all likely that they would be admitted just
because of \ki^\x poverty ?

63

Cagliostro

** I occupied," says Cagliostro, '' the finest apartment
in the house. There was always a seat at my table for
a chance comer. I defrayed the expenses of the poor
prisoners confined there, and even paid the debts of
some, who thus obtained their freedom." Of these,
one ** Shannon, a chemist," is quoted by him as being
ready to testify to the truth of the statement. Be this
as it may, after six weeks Cagliostro once more returned
to his rooms in Suffolk Street to the " sensible regret
of Saunders."

But scarcely had he arrived when he was served
for the third time with a writ issued at the instigation
of Miss Fry for "a debt of ;^200." At the instance of
Saunders, an Italian merchant named Badioli was
induced to be his surety. Saunders, wl^ose interest
in his affairs was inspired by the profit he calculated on
deriving from them, also recommended him to engage
as counsel to defend him a certain Priddle whom
Cagliostro had met in the sponging-house. Thus
supported, and conscious of innocence, he awaited his
trial with comparative composure.

The case came on in due course at the King's
Bench, but Priddle, discovering that it was to be tried
by Lord^^Mansfield, whom he dared not face, backed
out of it altogether. Left without counsel at the last
moment, Cagliostro was driven in desperation to defend
his cause himself. As his knowledge of English was
very imperfect, he was obliged to have an interpreter,
and, none other apparently being available, he employed
Vitellini. But as Vitellini, either owing to excitement
caused by the responsibility he was suddenly called
upon to assume, or to an equally imperfect knowledge
of English, could not make himself understood, Lord

64

Cagliostro in London

Mansfield, to avoid further confusion, and perceiving
from the charge of witchcraft that the case was trivial,
suggested a compromise and recommended a Mr.
Howarth as arbitrator. To this proposal Cagliostro
was compelled, and Miss Fry was only too glad, to
consent.

The first thing Howarth had to decide was Miss
Fry's first claim to ^190, which she alleged she had
lent the Count. As she had no proof whatever
to advance in support of her claim, it was at once
set aside. The charge of witchcraft was also with
similar expedition dismissed as "frivolous."

In her attempt to substantiate her other claim to
;^200, Miss Fry and her witness Broad very nearly
perjured themselves. They both asserted that the
money had been expended " in purchasing sequins "
for Cagliostro. Questioned by Howarth as to how
he had obtained the sequins, Broad replied that he
had "bought them of a merchant whose name he
could not recollect." At this Howarth, whose
suspicions were naturally aroused by such a reply,
observed that " it must have been a very large amount
of sequins to represent ;^2oo, and he did not believe
any merchant would have such a quantity on hand."
Broad hereupon declared he had not bought them
of one merchant, " but of about fourscore ^ But on
being pressed by Howarth he could not remember
the names or places of abode of any of them.

Nor could Miss Fry assist him to disentangle
himself. She stated that *' a Jew of whose name she
was ignorant had brought the sequins to her." After
this there was nothing for Howarth to do but dismiss
the charge, which he did with " a severe reprimand."

F 65

Cagliostro

Miss Fry, however, was not to be beaten without a
further effort. She demanded that the necklace should
be returned to her, which she declared she had only
lent to the Countess. To this Cagliostro saw fit to
protest, but as Vitellini failed to express his reasons
intelligibly, Howarth came to the conclusion that the
necklace at least belonged to Miss Fry. He therefore
ordered the Count to return it to her, and pay the costs
of the arbitration into the bargain.

This decision, however, by no means put an end to
the troubles of Cagliostro.

Whether at his own request, or by order of Howarth,
he seems to have been given a few days in which to
conform to the ruling of the arbitrator. But Badioli,
his surety, no sooner learnt the result of the case than,
dreading lest Cagliostro should decamp and leave him
to pay the costs and compensate Miss Fry, he resolved
to release himself from his obligations by surrendering
the Count. Keeping his intention a profound secret,
he paid a friendly visit to Cagliostro, and at the close
carried him off for a drive in the park. '' On their way,"
says an anonymous author of the only contemporary
book in defence of Cagliostro, ''they alighted at
a judge's chambers, where Mr. Badioli said he had
business to settle. They then again entered the coach,
which in a short time stopped before an edifice of
which the Count was ignorant. However, his com-
panion entering, he followed his example ; when Mr.
Badioli, making a slight apology, desired him to wait
there a few minutes, saying which he left him.

" Minutes and hours elapsed, but no Mr. Badioli
appeared. The Count then endeavoured to return
through the door at which they had entered, but found

66

Cagliostro in London

himself repulsed, though he was ignorant of the
cause. He remained till evening in the greatest
agitation of mind, roving from place to place, when
he attracted the observation of a foreigner, who
having heard his story, and made the necessary
inquiries, informed him that he was a prisoner in
the King's Bench.

*' Two days had elapsed before the Countess was
able to obtain any information concerning him."

IV

The conduct of Badioli, who had taken so
treacherous an advantage of his ignorance of the
English language and law, was to Cagliostro the
unkindest cut of all. After such convincing proofs
of its hostility, to continue to struggle against
adversity seemed no doubt futile. He accepted the
situation apathetically. More than a month elapsed
before he apparently took steps to procure his release —
even then the proceedings which resulted in his
liberation from the King's Bench prison do not
appear to have been instituted by himself, but by a
certain O'Reilly. Now as this good Samaritan was
previously unknown to him, there is reason to suppose
that he was delegated by the Esperance Lodge of
Freemasons, of which the Count was a member, to
assist him. For O'Reilly was the proprietor of the
" King's Head in Gerard Street where the Esperance
Lodge assembled."^

^ Were all the suppositions on which the general opinion of
Cagliostro is based as reasonable as the present, there would be no
cause for complaint on that score.

F 2 67

Cagliostro

Through the instrumentality of O'Reilly, for whose
kindness on this occasion Cagliostro was ever after
grateful, fresh bail was procured. But as the summer
vacation had commenced. Miss Fry had the right —
which she was only too glad to avail herself of — to
refuse to accept the bail offered till the end of the
vacation. O'Reilly, however, was not a Saunders ;
his interest in the Count was not mercenary, and
being fully conversant with the intricate workings
of the law, he applied directly to Lord Mansfield,
who at once ordered Miss Fry's attorney to accept
the bail.

Considering the evidences Cagliostro had had of
this woman's fury, it was not surprising that he should
have attributed the extraordinary circumstances that
now occurred to her vindictive ingenuity. As he was
preparing to leave the King's Bench, *' Mr. Crisp, the
under-marshal of the prison, informed him that one
Aylett had lodged a detainer against him by name of
Melisa Cagliostro, otherwise Joseph Balsamo, for a
debt of ;^30." The Count demanded with the
utmost surprise the meaning of this new intrigue.
Crisp replied that Aylett declared the sum specified
was due to him as his fee, with interest added,
from " one Joseph Balsamo, by whom he had been
employed in the year 1772 to recover a debt of a
Dr. Benamore."

It mattered not in the least that Cagliostro
protested "he had never seen Aylett, and did not
believe Aylett had ever seen him," or that Aylett
himself did not appear in person. As the law then
stood. Crisp's statement was sufficient to detain the
unfortunate Count, whom he in his turn was anxious

68

Cagliostro in London

to bleed while he had the chance. Accordingly,
while admitting that without Aylett's consent he
was not empowered to accept the bail which Cagli-
ostro eagerly offered him, Crisp was only ready to
let him go ''if he could deposit in his hand thirty
pounds to indemnify him."

To this proposition Cagliostro consented, but as
he had not the cash upon him he asked Crisp if he
would accept its equivalent In plate, promising to
redeem it the next day. His request was granted,
and Cagliostro remained in King's Bench while
O'Reilly went to the Countess for the plate in
question, which consisted of " two soup-ladles, two
candlesticks, two salt-cellars, two pepper-castors, six
forks, six table-spoons, nine knife-handles with blades,
a pair of snuffers and stand, all of silver."

The next day, true to his promise, the Count paid
Crisp thirty pounds. Crisp, however, instead of
giving back the plate, declared that Aylett had been
to him in the meantime, and on learning that he
had freed the prisoner was highly exasperated and
demanded the plate, which had consequently been
given him. As Aylett, on the other hand, when
questioned, declared that Crisp ''was a liar," " it was
impossible," says Cagliostro, " for me to ascertain by
whom I was plundered."

Of all the incidents in this series of " injustices,"
as he termed it, of which he was the victim the most
curious is undoubtedly the unexpected advent of
Aylett upon the scene in a role totally unconnected
with the development, so to speak, of the plot of
the play. Considering that he w^as the first person
on record to state that Cagliostro was Giuseppe

69

Cagliostro

Balsamo, it is worth while inquiring into his reason
for doing so and the value to be attached to it.

Aylett's reputation, to begin with, was such as
to render the truth of any statement he might make
extremely doubtful, if not to invalidate it altogether.
Like Reynolds and Priddle, he was a rascally attorney
who had been ''convicted of perjury and exposed
in the pillory." Granting that he had defended
Balsamo in his action against Dr. Benamore, and
was sufficiently struck by the resemblance of
Cagliostro to his old client as to believe them to
be the same person, his conduct on the present
occasion was decidedly ambiguous. According to his
statement, "happening one day in 1777 to be in
Westminster Hall, he perceived a person that he
immediately recognized as Balsamo, whom he had
not seen since 1772." Instead of accosting him then
and there, he decided to find out where he lived ; and
after much difficulty learnt that the person he had seen
and believed to be Balsamo was in the King's Bench
prison and that his name was Cagliostro ; whereupon,
without taking the least step to ascertain whether he
was right or not in his surmise, he laid a detainer
against him for the money Balsamo owed him. No
record of any kind exists as to what passed between
Aylett and Cagliostro when they finally met, or in fact
whether they met at all.

That Aylett would, after having received
Cagliostro s plate or money from Crisp, have admitted
he had made a mistake is, judging from the man's
character, not to be credited. But what renders this
singular matter still more questionable is the fact that
the Editor of the Courier de r Europe nine years later,

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Cagliostro in London

when publishing his "incontestable proofs" of the
identity of Balsamo with Cagliostro, should have
accepted the statement of Aylett and ignored
that of Dr. Benamore, who was also living at the
time and whose position as representative in England
for thirty years of the various Barbary States would,
to say the least, have given the weight of respect-
ability to his word. Now as there is no doubt at all
that the Editor of the Courier de r Europe passionately
desired that his proofs should really be '* incontest-
able," there is only one explanation of his conduct
in this matter possible : Dr. Benamore must have
refused to make the statement requested of him.

On the other hand, Cagliostro — and his word, even
prejudice must admit, is to be trusted quite as much
as that of an Aylett or the Editor of the Courier de
r Europe — asserts in the most emphatic language that
Dr. Benamore was ready to testify in his behalf to a
total ignorance of the very name of Balsamo.

As it is impossible to verify either one or the other
of these statements, the reader must be left to form
his own conclusions.

Having once more regained his liberty, Cagliostro
very wisely sought safety from further molestation by
taking up his abode with his wife '' in O'Reilly's
hotel," where he resided during the remainder of his
stay in London. On the recommendation of his friend
he employed a lawyer by the name of James, through
whom he succeeded in recovering the jewels which, it
will be remembered, he had deposited with Saunders
as bail in the first suit brought against him by Miss
Fry. As he could, no doubt, have managed to decamp
without returning the necklace or paying the costs of

71

Cagliostro

his trial as ordered by the arbitrator — the date named
for the settlement was still some weeks off— it is,
under the circumstances and considering all that has
been said against him, decidedly to his credit that he
remained and fulfilled his obligations.

He states — and there is no reason to disbelieve
him — that O'Reilly and James, after the final settle-
ment of his case, tried hard to persuade him '' to
commence an action against Aylett for perjury,
another against Crisp for swindling, and one of black-
mail against Fry, Scott, Reynolds and Broad." He
was, however, not to be beguiled into any such costly
and uncertain undertakings.

" The injustices," he says, ** I had experienced
rendered me unjust to myself, and attributing to the
whole nation the faults of a few individuals I deter-
mined to leave a place in which I had found neither
laws, justice, nor hospitality."

Accordingly, having given O'Reilly, with whom
he continued in close communication, a power of
attorney to use in case of need, he left for Brussels
"with no more than fifty pounds in cash and some
jewels."

He afterwards asserted that during the eighteen
months he had resided in London he had been
defrauded of 3000 guineas.

In this a hostile writer — with sheep-like fidelity to
popular prejudice — sees ** the native excellence of
English talent, when the most accomplished swindler
of the swindling eighteenth century was so hobbled,
duped, and despoiled by the aid of the masterly fictions
of English law."

It is possible, however, to draw another and more

72

Cagliostro in London

sensible inference from this legal escroquerie of which
Cagliostro was the dupe, than one based on mere
prejudice. As his fame, needless to say, lies not in
proved charges of embezzlement, but in the secrets of
the crucible and the mysteries of Egyptian Masonry,
it is clearly by his adventures in the laboratory and
the lodge rather than by those which led him to the
King's Bench and the Bastille that he is to be judged.
Since it is a question of swindling, it is perhaps just as
well to bear in mind the character of these accomplished
impostures to which so much obloquy has been
attached. Accordingly, before attempting to draw
aside the figurative curtain which conceals him, as
Carlyle's '' hand itched " to do, it is essential to examine
the fabric, so to speak, of the curtain itself — in other
words, to get some idea of what was understood by
the Occult in Cagliostro's day.

As I have no intention of entering this labyrinth of
perpetual darkness which none but an adept is capable
of treading, I shall merely stand on the threshold.
There, at any rate, it is light enough for the reader to
see as much as is necessary for the present purpose.

73

CHAPTER II

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY OCCULTISM

I

Man, at once instinctively mistrusting his own
power, and inspired by the love of the marvellous
which is inherent in human nature, has from the
beginning invoked, or invented, as you will, the
invisible powers of an inaccessible sphere. History
is filled with the phenomena arising from this innate
tendency to believe in the supernatural, which while
varying in form according to epochs, places, and
customs are at bottom identical. Belief in the super-
natural is, indeed, the basic principle of primitive
man's first conception of community of interest, the
germ from which religion, social order, civilization
have developed.

In the beginning religion and magic were one.
All the priests of Egypt and the East were invested
with supernatural and mysterious powers of which
they long possessed the monopoly. These powers
were precisely the same as those of the mediums of
the present day ; but the effects they produced no
doubt appeared infinitely greater owing to the bound-
less credulity, simplicity, and ignorance of those who
witnessed them.

By degrees, as civilization after civilization perished,
knowledge became more diffused. Magic passed from
the sanctuary to the street. The Pagan world was

74

Eighteenth Century Occultism

filled with astrologers, sorcerers, sibyls, sooth-sayers,
wonder-workers of all descriptions. In the Middle
Ages, when Christianity finally superseded Paganism,
the supernatural once more took up its abode in
religion. Demonology, which had survived all the
revolutions of antiquity, and which still exists without
much fundamental difference under other forms all
over the world, assimilated itself to the dogmas of the
Church. The Popes affirmed the popular belief in
sorcery, magic and diabolic possession. But the
supernatural phenomena associated with the belief in
these things were regarded as the work of the devil,
in whose existence the Christian world believed as
implicitly as in the existence of God ; so while the
Church sanctioned this belief as one of the mysteries
of religion it waged a merciless war againt all persons
suspected of having commerce with demons. From
its terrible ban the mystical visionaries alone were
exempt. These persons, ascetics all, the sanctity
of whose reputations was unquestioned and whose
hallucinations were due to hysteria, epilepsy, or
neuroticism, were canonized.

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, with
the revival of a tolerant and enlightened philosophy,
the devil had grown old and accusations of sorcery
were rare. But the belief in the supernatural still
continued to thrive ; and in the century of universal
scepticism, the century of Voltaire and the Ency-
clopedists, when faith in everything till then venerated
was exploded, that in the marvellous alone survived.
"The more civilization advances," wrote Voltaire,
"the more noise does superstition make."

On the eve of the French Revolution, Mesmer

75

Cagliostro

electrified the world with his animal magnetism.
With this discovery the belief in the supernatural
entered a new and more wonderful phase. The
marvellous had passed from a grossly material to
a purely spiritual plane. The magnetism of Mesmer
was followed by the hypnotism of the Marquis de
Puys^gur, with its attendant train of table-turn-
ing and telepathy, clairvoyance and clairaudience,
spiritualism, theosophy, and Christian science. To-
day the whole system of the hermetic philosophy of the
Egyptians and Hindus has been re-discovered, re-
deciphered, and restored with the most astonishing
results and the most conspicuous success to the
amazement of the world.

Never has the belief in the supernatural been more
flourishing and more invincible than at the present.
Side by side with the positivism of modern science
marches the mysticism of the occult, equally confident
and undaunted, and equally victorious. Not a link
in the chain that connects the phenomena of the
mediums and adepts of to-day with those of the
Chaldaeans has been broken. Madame Blavatsky
and Mrs. Eddy are the latest descendants of Hermes
Trismegistus, who whether regarded as man, god,
or the personification of all the knowledge of his
remote times, is the parent of all the wonder-workers,
scientific as well as unscientific, of the world. The
prodigies of these priestesses of theosophy and
Christian science, which are the last and most
popular manifestations of the marvellous, are no
less significant, and much more wonderful because
more inexplicable, than those of a Ramsay or a Curie.

As to the future of this faith in the supernatural,

76

A. MESMEH I

^Aftcr Tujot)

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Eighteenth Century Occultism

one thing may reasonably be taken for granted ; the
marvellous will never cease to appeal to the imagina-
tion of mankind till the riddle of the universe is solved.
To deride it is ridiculous. Occultism is not a menace to
progress, but a spur. Its secrets are not to be ridiculed,
but to be explained. That is its challenge to modern
science, which is at once its offspring and its servant.

The desire to prolong life, the desire to enjoy life,
and the desire to look beyond life are inherent in
human nature, and man has sought from time imme-
morial to realize them. To-day it is to science that
we look for the realization of the first two of these
great desires of which it is the outcome ; while it is
only with the third that the marvellous, or what is
understood by occultism, is now associated.

Formerly, however, the search for remedies for
the irremediable was conducted exclusively in the
sphere of the supernatural. The love of life gave rise
to the quest for the Fountain of Youth, which still
continues under innumerable other forms and names
that will occur to every one. The latest, perhaps, is
the Menshikov Sour Milk Cure. From the love of
ease sprang the search for the ''philosopher's stone,"
which was to create wealth by the transmutation of
metals into gold. This quest which long captivated
the imagination of men is now entirely abandoned,
though its object,, needless to say, is more furiously
desired than ever. While to the curiosity as to the
future we owe the pseudo-sciences of astrology,
palmistry, fortune-telling, divination, etc.

Cagliostro

Those who devoted their lives to these things
were divided into three classes — alchemists, astrologers,
and the motley tribe of quacks and charlatans, who
may be summed up for sake of convenience under the
name of sorcerers. These divisions, however, were
by no means hard and fast. United by a common
idea each class dabbled in the affairs of the others.
Thus astrologers and sorcerers were often alchemists,
and alchemists seldom confined their attention solely
to the search for the elixir vitae and the philosopher's
stone.

As the alchemists, owing to their superior know-
ledge, and the results they obtained, were more
considered than the astrologers and sorcerers, alchemy
developed into a science at an early date. The
obscurity in which its origin is involved is a sign
of its antiquity. Some enthusiasts believe it to be
coeval with the creation of man. Vincent de Beauvais
was of the opinion that all the antediluvians must have
had some knowledge of alchemy, and cites Noah as
having been acquainted with the elixir vitae, " other-
wise he could not have lived to so prodigious an age
and begotten children when upwards of five hundred."
Others have traced it to the Egyptians, from whom
Moses was believed to have learnt it. Martini, on the
other hand, affirms that alchemy was practised by
the Chinese two thousand five hundred years before
the birth of Christ. But though a belief in the trans-
mutation of metals was general in the Roman Empire,
the practice of alchemy does not appear to have
received much consideration before the eighth century.
At this period the discoveries of Gebir, an Arabian
alchemist, gave so great a stimulus to the quest of

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Eighteenth Century Occultism

the philosopher's stone and the ehxir of life that he
is generally regarded as the creator of these picturesque
delusions, which for a thousand years had so great
a hold on the popular imagination.

Banned and fostered in turn, and often at the same
time, by the Church ; practised in all classes of society
and by all sorts and conditions of people ; regarded
with admiration and contempt ; alchemy has played
too vast and important a role in the history of
humanity to be despised, wild and romantic though
this role has been. Nothing could be more unjust
and absurd than to judge it by the charlatans who
exploited it. The alchemists whom history still
remembers were in reality the pioneers of civilization,
who, venturing ahead of the race befogged in dense
forests of ignorance and superstition, cut a road
through to the light, along which mankind travelled
slowly in their wake. Not only were these fantastic
spirits of light the parents of modern science and
physics, but they have helped to adorn literature and
art. Some idea of their importance may be gathered
from the many words in common use that they have
given to the language, such as : crucible, amalgam,
alcohol, potash, laudanum, precipitate^ saturation, dis-
tillation, quintessence, affinity, etc.

The alchemists often stumbled upon discoveries
they did not seek. Science is thus indebted to Gebir
for the first suggestion of corrosive sublimate, the red
oxide of mercury, nitric acid, and nitrate of silver ;
to Roger Bacon for the telescope, the magic lantern,
and gunpowder; to Van Helmont for the properties
of gas ; to Paracelsus, the most extraordinary of them
all, for laudanum. It is to him also that medicine

79

Cagliostro

owes the idea of the clinic. As in chemistry so in
other sciences the most important discoveries were
made by men who had a marked taste for alchemic
theories. Kepler was guided in his investigations by
cabalistic considerations.

The search for gold and youth, however, were
only one phase of alchemy. It was too closely allied
to what was known as "magic" not to be confounded
with it. In the popular estimation the alchemists were
all magicians. Most, perhaps all, of the so-called
occult phenomena so familiar to us to-day were
performed by them. Long before such things as
animal magnetism, hypnotism, telepathy, ventriloquism,
autosuggestion, etc., had a name, the alchemists had
discovered them, though they themselves were as
unable to explain or account for the wonders they
performed as the ignorant world that witnessed them.

Albertus Magnus had the power to delude whole
crowds, precisely as Indian necromancers do at the
present. Cornelius Agrippa "at the request of
Erasmus and other learned men called up from the
grave many of the great philosophers of antiquity,
among others Cicero, whom he caused to re-deliver
his celebrated oration for Roscius." He also showed
Lord Surrey, when on the continent, "the resemblance
in a glass " of his mistress, the fair Geraldine. " She
was represented on a couch weeping for her lover.
Lord Surrey made a note of the exact time at which
he saw this vision and afterwards ascertained that his
mistress was so employed at the very minute." The
famous Dr. Dee, whose whole life was devoted to the
search for the philosopher's stone, was an accomplished
crystal -gazer and spirit-rapper.

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Eighteenth Century Occultism

It was, without doubt, the strong and crude
element of magic in alchemy that prepared the way
for the great change that came over the science at
the beginning of the seventeenth century. With the
revival of learning that followed the Renaissance,
there arose a mysterious sect in Germany known as
the Rosicruclans, who were destined to revolutionize
the belief in the supernatural. They claimed to derive
their name from a certain Christian Rosencreutz who,
in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, had been initiated
into the mysteries of the wisdom of the East. The
tenets of the Rosicrucians, as well as their existence,
were first made known to the world at the beginning
of the seventeenth century in an anonymous German
work said to have been found in the tomb of Rosen-
creutz, who had died one hundred and twenty years
previously.

The absurd legends concerning him have led many
to deny that such a person as Rosencreutz ever
existed. Such writers attribute the origin of the
society to the theories of Paracelsus and Dr. Dee,
who unconsciously became the real though unrecog-
nized founders of the Rosicrucians. Be this as it may,
no sooner were their doctrines generally known than
all the alchemists and believers in the marvellous
hastened to accept them. The influence thus acquired
by the "Society of the Rose-Cross" was as beneficial
as it was far-reaching. Its character was a sort of
Protestant mysticism, and its chief aim the gratuitous
healing of the sick. Hitherto alchemy and the belief
in the supernatural had been grossly materialistic.
The Rosicrucians refined the one and spiritualized the
other. They claimed that by strictly conforming to
G 8i

Cagliostro

the rules of their philosophy, of which chastity was
the most rigorous and important, they could ignore
hunger or thirst, enjoy perfect health, and prolong
their lives indefinitely. Of the occult knowledge they
possessed, that of transmuting metals into gold was
stripped of its old significance. The philosopher's
stone was no longer to be regarded as merely the
means of acquiring riches, but the instrument by which
mankind could command the service of the spirits of
the invisible world.

They denied that these were the horrible and
terrifying demons with which the monks had peopled
the unseen, but mild, beautiful, and beneficent sprites,
anxious to be of service to men. In the Rosicrucian
imagination there existed in each element a race of
spirits peculiar to it. Thus the air was inhabited by
Sylphs, the water by Undines, the earth by Gnomes,
and the fire by Salamanders. It was by them that all
that was marvellous was done. In the course of their
development the mystical tendencies of the Rosi-
crucians became more and more pronounced. Thus
they finally came to regard the philosopher's stone as
signifying contentment, the secret of which was com-
pared in the mystical phraseology they adopted to
'* a spirit that lived within an emerald and converted
everything near it to the highest perfection it was
capable of."

In fine, Rosicruclanism may be described as the
bridge over which the belief in the supernatural passed
from sorcery, witchcraft, and the grossest superstition
to the highly spiritualized form in which it is mani-
fested at the present. The transit, however, was not
effected without interruption. Towards the beginning

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Eighteenth Century Occultism

of the eighteenth century the bridge, undermined by
the mockery and scepticism of the age, collapsed.
About fifty years later it was reconstructed by Sweden-
borg on a new and spiritualistic system. In the mean-
time, as will be seen, superstition adrift on the ocean
of unbelief, clutched credulously at every straw that
floated by.

II

The old belief in alchemy as a magical science did
not survive the seventeenth century. It is true the
credulous and ignorant, deluded by swindlers and
impostors, long continued to regard alchemy as super-
natural ; but the bona-fide alchemists themselves, who
were able and intelligent men, had begun to under-
stand the nature of their discoveries. The symbolic
interpretation of the philosopher's stone led to a new
conception of the uses of the crucible. The alchemists
of the eighteenth century, during which the name
was still in common use, though its original signi-
fication had become obsolete, were really amateur
chemists. From pseudo-science modern science was
beginning to be evolved.

The great changes, however, that upset the convic-
tions and disintegrated the whole fabric of society of
the eighteenth century, were favourable to the increase
and spread of superstition. The amazing recrudes-
cence of the belief in the supernatural, which was one
of the most conspicuous features of the age, was the
direct result of the prevailing infidelity and indiffer-
ence. Persecuted, banned, anathematized, but never
exterminated, it crept from the hiding-places In which
it had lurked for centuries, and in the age of unbelief

83

Cagliostro

emerged boldly into the light of day. The forms it
assumed were many and various.

In 1729 Jansenism — a sort of evangelical move-
ment in the Church of Rome — which in its war with
Jesuitism in the previous century had been crushed,
but not exterminated, took advantage of the apathy of
the time to reassert itself. To do this with success
it was necessary to make a powerful appeal to the
popular imagination, and as no means are as sure of
producing effect as supernatural ones, the world was
startled by a series of miracles performed at the grave
of Deacon Paris, a famous martyr in the cause of
Jansenism. These miracles, which at first took the
form of cures such as at the present day are to be
seen at Lourdes, soon acquired fame. All sorts of
people, whom the doctors were unable to restore to
health, began to flock to the Jansenist Cemetery of St.
Medard, where it was discovered that other graves
beside that of Deacon Paris, and finally the whole
cemetery shared the healing properties of his ashes.
The hitherto simple character of the cures was
changed. They were accompanied by extraordinary
convulsions, considered more divine than the cures
themselves, in which the bones cracked, the body was
scorched with fever, or parched with cold, and the
invalid fell into a prophetic transport.

The noise of these pathological phenomena attracted
immense crowds to the Cemetery of St. Medard,
where the spectators, who were drawn out of mere idle
curiosity, as well as those who came to be cured, were
seized or pretended to be seized with the convulsive
frenzy. The popularity of St. Medard induced the
Jansenists to attach similar virtues to other cemeteries.

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Eighteenth Century Occultism

Convulsions became epidemic ; the contagion spread
to the provinces which, jealous of Paris, determined to
have their share of the Jansenlst deacon's favours.
Similar scenes to those at St. Medard were enacted in
several towns all over France, notably at Troyes and
Corbeil. The miracles now gave rise to scandalous
scenes. Women convulsionnaires ran through the
streets "searching for the prophet Elijah." Some
believing they had found him in a handsome priest
named Valllant, a visionary who had persuaded him-
self that he was the reincarnation of Elijah, testified
their adoration for him in a manner that indicated
their convulsions were caused by erotic hysteria rather
than by the miraculous properties of the bones of
Deacon Paris. Others stretched themselves at full
length on the ground of the cemetery, and Invited the
spectators to beat them and otherwise maltreat them,
only declaring themselves satisfied when ten or twelve
men fell upon them at once.

The cure of a girl who had a frightful collection of
Infirmities, "swellings in the legs, hernia, paralysis,
fistula, etc.," was the signal for a general St. Vitus'
dance, led by the Abbe Becherand, an ecclesiastic with
one foot shorter than the other. "He executed daily
on the tomb of the sainted deacon," says Figuier,
" with a talent not to be matched, his favourite /<3;j-, the
famous 'carp jump,' which the spectators were never
tired of admiring."

But by this time the miracles had become a public
scandal, and the government hastened to suppress the
''ballet de St. Medard" and close the cemetery. The
Jansenlsts to escape ridicule, which would have killed
them more surely than the Jesuits, were obliged to

85

Cagliostro

disassociate themselves from the convulsionnaires, who
formed themselves into a sect, v^rhich existed down to
the Revolution.

To-day medical science has stripped the convul-
sionnaires of St. Mddard of the last rag of the
supernatural, but in the eighteenth century only the
sane intelligence of the philosophers divested them of
all claims to wonder. Their fame spread throughout
Europe and helped in its way to emphasize the trend
of public opinion in which the boundless credulity and
ignorance of the many advanced side by side through
the century with the scepticism and enlightenment of
the few.

So strong was the passion for the marvellous that
the least mystification acquired a supernatural signifi-
cance. In Catholic Germany a cur6 named Gassner
who exorcised people possessed of devils and cured the
sick by a touch had over a million adherents. In
England, ** Dr." Graham with his ** celestial bed," his
elixirs of generation, and his mud-baths, acquired
an immense reputation. In Switzerland, Lavater, an
orthodox Lutheran pastor, read character and told the
future by the physiognomy with astonishing success.

At Leipsic, Schropfer, the proprietor of a cafe,
flattered credulity so cleverly that belief in his ability
to communicate with the invisible world survived even
his exposure as an impostor. His history is not without
dramatic interest. Gifted with a temperament strongly
inclined to mysticism he became so infatuated with the
study of the supernatural that he abandoned his
profession of cafetier as beneath him and turned his
caf6 into a masonic lodge where he evoked the souls
of the dead, damned and saved alike. Some of those

86

Eighteenth Century Occultism

who witnessed these apparitions believing they
recognized relations or friends, went mad, a fate that
was not long in overtaking Schropfer himself.
Intoxicated by the immense vogue he obtained, he
next turned his lodge into a private hotel in which he
received only persons of rank, assuming himself that of
a colonel in the French army to which he declared
he was entitled as *' a bastard of the Prince de Conti."
Unfortunately at Dresden, whither he had gone to
evoke the shade of a King of Poland for the benefit
of the Duke of Courland, his imposture was exposed.
Schropfer hereupon returned to Leipsic and after
giving a grand supper to some of his most faithful
adherents blew out his brains. Nevertheless, this
did not prevent many from continuing to believe in his
evocations. A report that he had predicted he would
himself appear after his death to his followers at a
given hour in the Rosenthal at Leipsic, caused a
vast concourse of people to assemble In that promenade
on the day specified in the expectation of beholding
his shade.

Still more remarkable than the credulity that clung
to imposture after Its exposure, was the credulity that
discovered supernatural powers in persons who did
not even pretend to possess them. The curiosity that
scented the marvellous in the impenetrable mystery in
which it pleased the self-styled Count de Saint-Germain
to wrap himself, induced him to amuse himself at the
expense of the credulous. With the aid of his valet,
who entered into the jest, he contrived to wrap his
very existence in mystery. He had only to speak of
persons who had been dead for centuries to convince
people he had known them. Many believed he had

87

Cagliostro

witnessed the Crucifixion, merely because by a sigh or
a hint he conveyed that impression when the subject
was mentioned. No absurdity was too extravagant to
relate of him that was not credited. Even his servant
was supposed to have moistened his lips at the
Fountain of Youth.

As the century advanced the folly increased.
Rumours began to be current that agitated the
popular mind — rumours of secret societies bound by
terrible oaths and consecrated to shady designs,
rumours of the impending fulfilment of old and awful
prophecies ; rumours of vampires and witches ; of
strange coincidences and strange disappearances —
rumours in which one may trace the origin of the
haunting suspicion to which the Reign of Terror was
due. All the superstitions regarding the unseen world
had their vogue. In Protestant countries interpreters
of the Apocalypse were rife. Everywhere the dead
came back to affright the living, led by the " White
Lady," Death's messenger to the Hohenzollerns.

In such an atmosphere it was not surprising that
the baquet divinatoire of Mesmer should have seemed
more wonderful than the scientific discoveries of
Newton and Lavoisier. Cagliostro had only to appear
to be welcomed, only to provide credulity with fresh
occult novelties to win a niche in the temple of fame.

Ill

Occultism, however, like human nature of which it
is the mystical replica, has its spiritual as well as its
material side, and from the depths of gross supersti-
tion is capable of mounting to the heights of pure

Eighteenth Century Occultism

mysticism. In the boundless credulity of the age,
symptom of death though it was, the germ of a new
life was latent.

The uneasy and forbidding ghosts of dead faiths
that haunted Europe awoke aspirations in ardent and
passionate souls which sought their realization in the
fantastic reign of dreams. From the chaos of super-
stition the need to believe gradually emerged. In the
process the marvellous became mystical. On the ruins
of Rosicrucianism, Emmanuel Swedenborg erected a
new supernatural belief.

This man whose influence in the latter half of the
eighteenth century, especially in the years immediately
preceding the Revolution was more subtle than the
philosophers who derided him had any conception, is
Occultism's Copernicus ; the spiritual Abraham from
whom all the Blavatskys and Eddys of the present
are descended.

He was born at Stockholm in 1688 and throughout
his long life — he died in London in 1772 at the age of
eighty-four — Fortune was uniformly and exceptionally
kind to him. Possessed of brains, sharpened and
cultivated by an excellent education, of an attractive
personal appearance and influential friends, he began
at an early date to make his mark, as the saying
is. At twenty-one he started on the " grand tour,"
which it was customary in those days for young men of
wealth and position to make. But young Swedenborg
was not one of those who merely wandered luxuriously
about Europe pursuing pleasure. Avid of knowledge
he devoted the time others spent in dissipation to
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, mathematics, science and
philosophy. At the end of five years he returned to

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Cagliostro

Sweden with the intention of giving himself up entirely
to science. He published a scientific review and
gained some reputation as an inventor. At the age of
twenty-eight Charles XII appointed him assessor of
mines ; and three years later Queen Ulrica raised him
to the rank of nobility, by which his name was changed
from Swedberg, as his family was originally called, to
the more euphonious and aristocratic Swedenborg.

Being of an exceedingly inquiring and philosophical
mind and having plenty of leisure he naturally widened
the area of his investigations. For many years he
sought to find the scientific explanation of the universe.
This quest and the intensity with which he pursued
it insensibly led him to seek to discover the connection
between the soul and the body, the relation of the finite
to the infinite. From this stage, to which he had been
led no doubt by the force of heredity — his father, a
Lutheran bishop and professor of theology believed
himself in constant intercourse with angels — it was but
a step to the supernatural. The scientist, however,
takes a long time in turning into the mystic. Sweden-
borg was fifty-seven before the transformation was
accomplished.

This event occurred in London in 1745.

"I was dining," he says, *' one day very late at my
hotel in London, and I ate with great appetite, when
at the end of my repast I perceived a sort of fog which
obstructed my view, and the floor was covered with ,
hideous reptiles. They disappeared, the darkness was \
dispersed, and I plainly saw in the midst of a bright
light, a man sitting in the corner of the room, who said
in a terrible voice. Do not eat so much ! "

From the character of this vision, " Do not

90

J

EMMANUEL SWEDENBORG \To face page ^o

Eighteenth Century Occultism

drink so much " would appear to have been the more
sensible advice. Be this as it may, Swedenborg was so
frightened that he resolved to do as he had been bidden.
His diet henceforth was of the simplest, and it is
possible that the sudden change from one extreme to
the other at an age when the system has lost its
elasticity may not be unconnected with the continuation
of his visions.

The next night *'the same man, resplendent with
light," appeared to him again. This time while
Swedenborg gazed upon the spectre, which was perhaps
a thought visualized by the intensity of its fascination,
it said, *' I am God the Lord, the Creator and
Redeemer of the world. I have chosen thee to explain
the meaning of the Holy Scripture. I will dictate to
thee what thou shalt write."

Whatever cause Swedenborg may have assigned to
the previous vision, he did not doubt for a moment
now that the Most High had actually revealed Himself
to him. This conviction was so reassuring that the
strange things he beheld in his visions ceased to have
any terror for him. If he ever asked himself why he
should have been selected by the Almighty above the
rest of mankind for so great an honour, the frequency
of the divine appearances no doubt speedily satisfied
his curiosity, for not a day passed during the rest of his
life but God descended from Paradise — or if too busy,
*' sent an angel or saint in His place " — to converse
with this remarkably privileged Swede and explain to
him the mysteries of Heaven and Hell.

In the visions of St. Francis and St. Theresa, the
Virgin, Jesus and the Almighty appeared according to
the Roman Catholic conception of them. The faith of

91

Cagliostro

Swedenborg's heavenly visitor was Lutheran — a faith
be it said, to which Swedenborg adhered as devotedly
as Saints Francis and Theresa did to theirs — and when
he appeared he dressed accordingly, wearing neither
the Stigmata nor the Crown of Thorns without which
no good Catholic would have recognized him. He
spoke a mystical jargon which was often so absurd as
to be unintelligible.

The Unseen World, as revealed to Swedenborg was
the exact counterpart of the seen. It was inhabited by
spirits of both sexes — the good ones dwelt in Heaven
and the bad ones in Hell. They had the same occu-
pations as people on the earth. They married and
begot children, among other things ; and Swedenborg
was present at one of these celestial weddings. They
also had *' schools for infant angels ; universities for
the learned ; and fairs for such as were commercially in-
clined— particularly for the English and Dutch angels ! "
For the spirits of the Unseen had all lived in the seen.

According to Swedenborg, man never dies. The
day he experiences what he calls death is the day of his
eternal resurrection. Christ was the ruler of both these
worlds. He was the one and only God. All human
desire would be consummated when the two worlds
should become one, as they had been in the beginning,
before the Fall. On this day the New Jerusalem
would be established on earth. To hasten this events
it was necessary to seek the '' lost word " or ** primitive
innocence." This was Swedenborg's idea of the
philosopher's stone, which he declared was to be found
in the doctrines he taught. Should any person be
tempted to seek it elsewhere, he was advised to go in
quest of it in Asia, '' among the Tartars " !

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Eighteenth Century Occultism

It was some time, however, before he became at
home in the spiritual world. Time ceased to have any
significance to him. He would lie for days in a trance
from which he would awake at night '' to wrestle with
evil spirits " to the terror of his household. Sometimes
his soul would escape altogether from his body and
** borne on the wings of the Infinite, journey through
Immensity from planet to planet." To these travels,
the most marvellous that imagination has ever taken,
we owe the Arcana Coelestia and The New Jerusalem.
These books translated from the Latin in which they
had been dictated to him by the Almighty had a
prodigious success. In Protestant countries — which
he personally canvassed — especially in Sweden and
England where he made the most converts, they were
regarded as the gospel of a new religion, the Bible of
the Church of the New Jerusalem.

*' Show me four persons," said Fontenelle, " who
swear it is midnight when it is noon, and I will show
you ten thousand to believe them."

Firmly convinced that he was in daily intercourse
with the Almighty, Swedenborg soon convinced others.
For his was the faith which removes mountains. He
had, moreover, a majestic appearance and a magnetic
personality which rendered ridicule silent in his pre-
sence, and inspired the confidence and love of all who
came in contact with him. Three extraordinary
instances of his power to communicate with the un-
seen world are cited by his followers. Even Kant,
the philosopher, was struck by them, though he con-
fesses that on inquiry he dismissed them as having
no foundation but report. Nevertheless there were
thousands who did not doubt, least of all Queen Ulrica.

93

Cagliostro |B

Had Swedenborg not related to her the contents of a
letter known only to herself and her brother who had
been dead for years ?

That the sentimental Lutheranized Gnosticism he
preached should have been received with enthusiasm
in Protestant Europe is not surprising. The peoples
of the North are naturally mystical. Nothing that
appears to them in the guise of religion is too fantastic
to be refused a hearing. In England the more fantastic
the more certain is it of success. Swedenborgianism
was to the ''illuminized Jerusalemites " of Manchester,
where alone they numbered twenty thousand, merely
a very delicious rechauffde of a diet to which their
imagination was specially addicted. The eagerness
with which it was accepted in England was due
entirely to appetite.

Much more remarkable was the influence of
Swedenborg in the Catholic world. Naturally it
manifested itself differently in different nations, as-
suming the character peculiar to each. Thus, whilst
in England supernaturalism under the influence of
Swedenborg became a religious craze, in France it
grafted itself upon philosophy, and in Germany infected
the secret societies in which the theories of the French
philosophers found active political expression.

The secret of this universal appeal is not far to
seek. It was one of the articles of faith with the old
Rosicrucians that by them ** the triple diadem of the
pope should be reduced to dust." The theosophy of
Swedenborg /r^^/^;;/^^ the liberty, equality, and fratern-
ity of mankind. It was at once the spiritual negation
and defiance of the arrogant supremacy of both Church
and State. Occultism, which has ever proclaimed the

94

Eighteenth Century Occultism

spiritual rebellion of the soul against any kind of
tyranny, was in the eighteenth century of necessity
revolutionary. Of the forces of disintegration to
which the ancien regime succumbed, it was the only
one that worked systematically towards a definite
object.

In the previous century, when the social system that
deprived the soul of its liberty seemed irrefragable, the
Rosicrucians had resignedly considered contentment to
be the philosopher's stone. But now when the whole
structure was toppling, it was necessary to interpret
afresh, and in terms more in accordance with occult
principles, the secret of perfection. To the mystics of
the eighteenth century the ''philosophical ^gg'' by
means of which the tyranny of throne and altar was
to be transmuted into the gold of absolute liberty was
the Revolution.

And the crass credulity and superstition of the age
was the crucible in which they sought it.

IV

Nothing is more curious than to note the manner
in which these descendants of the old alchemists,
pioneers at one and the same time of modern Occultism
and modern Socialism, while engaged in shadowing, so
to speak, the unbelief of their century, conspired to put
an end to the old regime.

In spite of the disasters that dimmed the glory of
the last years of Louis XIV's long reign, the immense
prestige that France had acquired in le grand siecle
remained unchallenged. Intellectually the influence

95 ,

fh ;p-=^i '^

Cagliostro

of France under his successors was so supreme that
the decay of French civiHzation in the eighteenth
century may be regarded as a sort of mirror in which
the process of the disintegration of European society
generally is reflected. Already as early as 1 704, eleven
years before the death of Louis XIV, when author-
ity still seemed to be everywhere dominant, Leibnitz
detected ''all the signs of the general Revolution with
which Europe is menaced." With the passing of Louis
XIV respect, the chief stronghold of feudalism, sur-
rendered to the cynicism of the Regency. In that
insane Saturnalia chains were snapped, traditions
shattered, old and worn-out conventions trampled
under-foot. The Regency was but the Revolution in
miniature.

The orgy of licence passed in its turn, as the gloomy
and bigoted hypocrisy of which it was the natural reac-
tion, had passed before it. But the calm of the exquisite
refinement that took its place was only superficial.
Freedom conceived in the revels of the Regency
yearned to be born. To assist at this accoucheme7it
was the aim of all the philosophical midwifery of the
age. In 1734 Voltaire, physician-in-ordinary to the
century, declared " action to be the chief object of
mankind." But as freedom of action is impossible with-
out freedom of thought Vauvenargues next demanded
in clarion tones that '* God should be freed." The idea
of " freeing God " in order to free man was an inspira-
tion, and Vauvenargues' magnificent phrase became
the tocsin of the philosophers.

But the chief effect of the Regency upon France,
and thus indirectly upon Europe, had been to "free
unbelief." Authority, which had feared faith when

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Eighteenth Century Occultism

alive and despised it when dead, crawled into the
shell from which the snail of belief had departed and
displayed the same predatory and brutal instincts as
the intolerant religion in whose iron carapace it
dwelt. To dislodge it was the first step towards
" freeing God " ; and all sorts and conditions of
athletes entered the arena to battle with prejudice and
injustice. In France, where the contest was destined
to be decided, the Bastille or banishment was the
punishment that brute authority awarded those who
dared to defy it. But to crush the rebellion of intelli-
gence against stupidity was impossible. The efforts of
the philosophers were reinforced by sovereigns imbued
with the spirit of the century. With Frederick the
Great a race of benevolent despots sprang into exist-
ence, who dazzled by the refulgence of the philosophical
light they so much admired did not perceive till too late
that in igniting their torches at its flame they were
helping to kindle a conflagration destined to destroy
the system that would deprive them of the absolute
freedom they enjoyed, and to a limited share of which
they were willing to admit the nations they ruled.

Nor for that matter did the philosophers them-
selves. To them as well as to their princely disciples
*' to free God " was another name for religious
toleration. That was the revolution for which the
Encyclopedists worked, and which Frederick the Great
and the sovereigns who shared his enlightened opinions
desired. Nothing was further from their intention
than that it should take the form in which it eventually
came. It is impossible to believe that the Revolution
which demanded the heads of a Lavoisier and a
Bailly would have spared those of a Voltaire or a
H 97

Cagliostro

Rousseau. Least of all would the stupid mob that
watched the victims doomed to the guillotine ** spit
into the basket," as it termed in ferocious jest the fall
of the heads beneath the axe, have made any dis-
tinction between the virtuous and innocent Louis XVI
and Joseph II, or the Empress Catherine, had it
been possible to arraign them likewise at the bar of
the Revolutionary Tribunal. The gratitude of the
people is even less to be depended on than that of
princes. But God was not to be '' freed " in a day.
Seventy-five years elapsed between Freedom's con-
ception in the Regency and birth in the Revolution.

During this long pregnancy the century which was
to die in child-bed developed an extraordinary appetite
for the supernatural. To the materialistic philosophy
that analyzed and sought to control the process of
decay which by the middle of the century had become
visible, even to one so indifferent to ** signs of the
times " as Louis XV, the cult of the supernatural
was an element unworthy of serious consideration.
But though long ignored the time was to come when
it obtained from the torch-bearers of reason a ques-
tionable and dangerous patronage. It was on the eve
of the birth of Freedom that " the century of Voltaire,"
as Henri Martin expresses it, "extended its hand to
the occultists of the middle ages."

Between Voltaire and cabalistic evocations, between
the scepticism of the Encyclopedists and the mysticism
of Swedenborg who would believe there could be any
affiliation ? Yet the transition was natural enough.
The philosophers in their abuse of analysis had too
persistently sacrificed sentiment to reason. Imagina-
tion, which Louis Blanc has called the intoxication

98

4

Eighteenth Century Occultism

of intelligence, had begun to doubt everything by
the middle of the century. Reaction was inevitable
The sneers of Voltaire were succeeded by the tears
of Rousseau. The age of sensibility followed the age
of unbelief. This was the hour for which a despised
occultism had waited. It alone had a clear and
definite conception of the Revolution. Patronized by
philosophy, which vacillated between sentiment and
reason, it imbued it finally with its own revolutionary
ideas. The extent of their ascendency may be gauged
by the declaration of Condorcet, " that volcano covered
with snow," as he has been called, *' that society must
have as its object the amelioration, physical, intel-
lectual and moral of the most numerous and poorest
class." In his desire to escape from materialism the
philosopher trained in the school of Voltaire had but
taken the road to perfection along which the mystics
were leading France and Europe.

Strange to relate, the leader of the mystical move-
ment in France to which philosophy was destined
to attach itself, was himself the mildest and least
revolutionary of men.

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin might be described
as the reincarnation of St. Francis of Assisi in the
eighteenth century. Had he lived four hundred years
earlier he would have passed his gentle flower-like life
in the seclusion of some cloister, had beatific visions
of the Saviour of the world, communed with the
Virgin and Saints, worked miracles, founded a
monastic order, and at his death been canonized by
the Church, of whose faith he would have been the
champion and of its tenderness the exemplar. Pure
and meditative by nature he had been greatly
H 2 99

Cagliostro

influenced when a boy by an ascetic book, The Art
of Knowing Oneself, that he chanced to read. As
his father, to whom he was deeply attached, intended
him for the Bar he devoted himself to the study of
law, and though he had no taste for the profession
passed his examinations. But after practising six
months he declared himself incapable of distinguishing
in any suit between the claims of the defendant and
the plaintiff, and requested to be allowed to exchange
the legal profession for the military — not because he
had any liking for the career of arms, but in order
that he might "have leisure to continue the study
of religion and philosophy."

To oblige his father the Due de Choiseul, then
Prime Minister, gave him a lieutenancy in the
Regiment de Foix, then in garrison at Bordeaux.
Here he met one of those strange characters so
common in this century, who, either charlatans of
genius or dreamers by temperament, supplied with
arms from the arsenal of the supernatural boldly
asserted the supremacy of the occult and attacked
science and philosophy alike. This particular indi-
vidual was called Martinez Pasqualis, but as like so
many of his kind he enveloped himself in mystery it is
impossible to discover who or what he was, or where
he came from. He was supposed to be a Christianized
Jew from one of the Portuguese colonies in the East,
which would account perhaps for his skill in the
practice of the occult. At any rate, the strange
secrecy he maintained in regard to himself was
sufficient in the eighteenth century to credit him
with supernatural powers.

When Saint-Martin met him in Bordeaux he had

lOO

Eighteenth Century Occultism

for ten years held a sort of school of theurgy. At
Avignon, Toulouse, and other Southern cities his
pupils or disciples formed themselves into a sect,
known as Martinists after their master, for the practice
of his doctrines, which though but vaguely understood
were attractive from the hopes they held out of
communicating with the invisible world. Saint-
Martin was the first to grasp their meaning. He
joined the Martinists, whose existence till then was
scarcely known, and became their chief when the
dissensions to which the private life of Pasqualis had
given rise were healed by his sudden and singular
departure for Haiti, where he died of yellow fever
shortly after his arrival.

Drawn from obscurity by the personal charm and
high social position of its new leader, Martinism
rapidly attracted attention. In a strange little book,
Des Erreurs et de la V^ritd par un philosophe inconnu^
Saint- Martin endeavoured to detach himself and his
adherents from the magic in which' Pasqualis — who
practised it openly — had involved this sect. But
though he gave up the quest of supernatural
phenomena as unnecessary to an acquaintance with
the unseen, and wandered deeper and deeper into
pure mysticism, he never wholly succeeded in escaping
from the grosser influence of his first initiation in the
occult. From the fact, however, that he called himself
the '* Robinson Crusoe of spiritualism," some idea
may be gained of the distance that separated him
from those who also claimed connection with the
invisible world. He did not count on being under-
stood. Of one of his books he said, ''it is too far
from ordinary human ideas to be successful. I have

lOI

Cagliostro

often felt in writing it as if I were playing valses on
my violin in the cemetery of Montmartre, where for
all the magic of my bow, the dead will neither hear
nor dance."

Nevertheless, though philosophy failed to follow
him to the remote regions of speculation to which he
withdrew, it grasped enough of his meaning to apply
it. And the Revolution, which before its arrival he
had regarded as the " lost word " by which the
regeneration of mankind was to be effected, and when
it actually came as " the miniature of the last judg-
ment," adopted his sacred ternary " Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity " — the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of
Martinism — as its device. Saint- Martin was one of
the few who strove to inaugurate it whom it did not
devour. He passed through it unmolested, dying as
he had lived gently. His only regret in passing from
the visible to the invisible was that he had left
''the mystery of numbers unsolved."

The influence of Saint- Martin, however, was
passive rather than active. Though philosophy con-
fusedly and unconsciously imbibed the Socialistic
theories of mysticism, the French being at once a
practical and an excitable people were not to be
kindled by speculations of the intellect, however
daring, original, and attractive they might be. The
palpable prodigies of Mesmer appealed more power-
fully to them than the vague abstractions of Saint-
Martin.

It was in Germany that revolutionary mysticism

I02

Eighteenth Century Occultism

found its motive power. Whilst Saint- Martin, pro-
claiming in occult language that " all men were kings,"
sought to efface himself at the feet of sovereigns,
Adam Weishaupt was shaking their thrones. It would
be impossible to find two men more unlike. Weishaupt
was the very antithesis of Saint-Martin. He was not
a mystic at all, and furthermore always professed the
greatest contempt for *' supernatural tricks." But con-
sumed with an implacable hatred of despotism and
with a genius for conspiracy he perceived in the wide-
spread attraction and revolutionary tendency of the
supernatural the engine of destruction he required.

Born of Catholic parents at Ingolstadt in Bavaria,
Weishaupt had been sent as a boy to the Jesuit
seminary in that town, but conceiving a great dislike
for the method of instruction employed there he left
it for the university. On the temporary abolition of
the Order of the Jesuits, having taken his degree, he
was appointed to the professorship of jurisprudence
till then held by a Jesuit. Though deprived of their
functions the members of the suppressed Order still
remained in the country, and posing as martyrs con-
tinued to exercise in secret their malign influence as
powerfully as ever. Weishaupt naturally found in
them bitter enemies ; and to fight them conceived the
idea of founding a secret society, which the great
popularity he enjoyed among the students enabled
him to realize.

Perceiving the immense success that Gassner was
having at this time by his cures, and fully alive to the
powerful hold the passion for the supernatural had
obtained on the popular imagination, he decided to
give his society a mystic character as a means of

103

Cagliostro

recruiting followers. As Weishaupt's object was to
convert them into blind instruments of his supreme
will, he modelled his organization after that of the
Jesuits, adopting in particular their system of espionage,
their practice of passive obedience, and their maxim
that the end justifies the means. From mysticism he
borrowed the name of the society : Illumines. From
freemasonry, the classes and grades into which they were
subdivided, the purpose of which was to measure the
progress of the adept in assimilating the doctrine of
the absolute equality of man and to excite his imagina-
tion by making him hope for the communication of some
wonderful mystic secret when he reached the highest
grade. Those who enjoyed the confidence of Weis-
haupt were known as areopagites. To them alone was
he visible, and as he deemed that too many precautions
could not be observed in concealing the existence of a
society sworn to the abolition of the Christian religion
and the overthrow of the established social system, he
and his accomplices adopted names by which alone
they were known to the others.

Comprised at first of a few students at the Univer-
sity of Ingolstadt, the Illumines gradually increased
their numbers and sought recruits in other places,
special attention being given to the enlistment of
young men of wealth and position. In this way, the
real objects of Illuminism being artfully concealed, the
society extended within the course of four or five years
all over Germany. Its adepts even had a hand in
affairs of State and gained the ear of many of those
petty and picturesque sovereigns of the Empire who,
catching the fever of philosophy from Frederick the
Great and Joseph II, amused themselves in trying to

104

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{After Mansiiigvr) [ / o/ncc J>ag c 1 04

Eighteenth Century Occultism

blend despotism, philanthropy, and the occult. As
the Illumines were utterly unscrupulous, they did not
hesitate to seek recruits in the Church of Rome itself,
of which they were the secret and deadly enemy, in
order by taking sides in the theological quarrels of the
day to increase dissensions arid weaken the power of
the Pope.

However, cleverly organized though they were, the
Illumines, composed of very young and passionate men
carefully chosen — Weishaupt himself was scarcely
twenty-eight when he founded the sect in 1776 — did
not make much progress, till Baron von Knigge joined
them in 1780. He possessed the one faculty that
Weishaupt lacked — imagination. Young, monstrously
licentious, irreligious and intelligent, he was consumed
with an insatiable curiosity for fresh experiences. He
had written a number of novels which had attracted
some attention and certain pamphlets on morals that
had been put on the Index. He had been admitted
to most of the secret societies of the day, particularly
that of the Freemasons. He had experimented in
alchemy and studied every phase of occultism from the
philosophy of the Gnostics to that of Swedenborg.
Everything that savoured of the supernatural had a
profound attraction for him ; even sleight of hand
tricks, it is said, had engaged his attention. At thirty
he had seen, studied and analyzed everything, and still
his imagination remained as untired and inquisitive as
ever. An ally at once more invaluable and more
dangerous it would have been impossible for Weishaupt
to have procured.

Admitted to the confidence of Weishaupt this
young Hanoverian nobleman rapidly gained an

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Cagliostro

ascendency over him. It was owing to the advice
of Knigge that Weishaupt divided the Illumines into
grades after the manner of the Freemasons, and
adopted the method of initiation of which the mysteri-
ous and terrifying rites were well calculated to impress
the proselyte. With a Knigge to invent and a Weis-
haupt to organize, the Illumines rapidly increased their
numbers and activities. Overrunning Germany they
crossed the frontiers preaching, proselytizing, and
spreading the gospel of the Revolution everywhere.
But this rapid development was not without its dangers.
Conscious that the existence of such a society if it
became known would inevitably lead to its suppression,
Knigge, who was nothing if not resourceful, conceived
the idea of grafting it on to Freemasonry, which by
reason of its powerful connections and vast proportions
would, he trusted, give to Illuminism both protection
and the means of spreading more widely and rapidly.

The origin of this association, the oldest known to
the world, composed of men of all countries, ranks,
and creeds sworn to secrecy, bound together by
strange symbols and signs, whose real mystic meaning
has long been forgotten, and to-day devoted to the
practice of philanthropy on an extensive scale — has
been the subject of much speculation. The theory,
most generally accepted, is that which supposes it to
have been founded at the time and for the purpose of
building the Temple of Solomon. But whatever its
early history. Freemasonry in its present form first
came into prominence in the seventeenth century in
England, whence it spread to France and Germany.
It was introduced into the former country by the
Jacobites early in the eighteenth century with the

1 06

Eighteenth Century Occultism

object of furthering the cause of the Stuarts. On the
extinction of their hopes, however, it reverted to its
original ideals of equality and fraternity, and in spite
of these democratic principles obtained a strong hold
upon the aristocracy. Indeed, in France it was from
the first a decidedly royalist institution and this
character it preserved, outwardly at least, down to the
Revolution, numbering nobles and clergy alike among
its members, and always having a prince of the blood
as Grand Master.

In Germany, on the contrary, where since the
Thirty Years' War popular aspirations and discontent
had expressed themselves inarticulately in a multitude
of secret societies, the principles of Freemasonry had
a political rather than a social significance

The importance it acquired from the number of its
members, its international character, and its superior
organization could not fail to excite the hostility of the
Church of Rome, which will not tolerate within it the
existence of secret and independent associations. The
Jesuits had sworn allegiance to the Pope and in their
ambition to control the Papacy were its staunchest
defenders. But the Freemasons refused to admit the
Papal authority, and treated all creeds with equal
respect. War between the Church of Rome and
Freemasonry was thus inevitable — a war that the
Church in such a century as the eighteenth, permeated
with scepticism and the desire for individual liberty,
was most ill-advised to wage. For it was a war in
which extermination was impossible and the victories
of Rome indecisive.

Anathematized by Clement XII, persecuted in
Spain by the Inquisition, penalized in Catholic

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Cagliostro

Germany by the law, and its members decreed
worthy of eternal damnation by the Sorbonne in
France, Freemasonry nevertheless managed to find
powerful champions. Entrenched behind the thrones
of Protestant Europe, particularly that of Frederick
the Great, and encouraged by the philosophers who
saw in it something more than a Protestant challenge
to the Church of Rome, it became the rallying ground
of all the forces of discontent and disaffection of the
century, the arsenal of all its hopes and ideals, the
nursery of the Revolution.

To render it, if possible, suspect even to its patrons
Rome denied the humanity of its aims and the boasted
antiquity of its origin. According to the stories
circulated by the priests, which excited by their
fears existed solely in their imagination, the Freemasons
were the successors of the old Knights Templars sworn
to avenge the abolition of that order by the bull of
Pope Clement V and the death of its Grand Master,
Jacques Molay, burnt alive by King Philip the Fair in
the fourteenth century. But their vengeance was not
to be limited to the destruction of the Papacy and the
French monarchy ; it included that of all altars and
all thrones.^

This tradition, however, continually repeated and
rendered more and more mysterious and alarming by
rumour, merely helped to articulate the hatred of the
enemies of the old rdgime who had flocked to Free-
masonry as to a camp. As this association had at this
period of its history no homogeneity, it was possible for

^ One of the symbols of the Masons was a cross on which were
the letters L.P.D. which were interpreted by the priests to mean
Lilia Pedibus Destrue, Trample the Lilies under-foot.

1 08

Eighteenth Century Occultism

anybody with a few followers to form a lodge,
and for each lodge to be a distinct society united
to Freemasonry by the community of signs and
symbols. It thus became a vast confederation of
independent lodges representing all sorts of opinions,
often hostile to one another, and possessing each
its own '* rite " or constitution. Philosophy and
occultism alike both found a shelter in it. Even
Saint-Martin left his mystic solitude to found lodges
which observed the '' Swedenborg rite."

To attach themselves to the Freemasons was
therefore for the Illumines as easy as it was natural.
Lodges of Illuminism were founded all over Germany.
The number and variety of sects, however, that had
found an asylum in Freemasonry by the diversity of
their aims tended to weaken rather than strengthen
the association. At length, the discovery that
impostors, like Schropfer, Rosicrucians and even
Jesuits had founded lodges led to a general council
of Freemasons for the purpose of giving the society
the homogeneity it lacked. With this object a
convention of Masons was held at Wilhelmsbad in
1782 to which deputies were sent from all parts of
Europe. Knigge and Weishaupt attended and, per-
ceiving the vast possibilities of the consolidation of
the sects, they endeavoured to capture the whole
machinery of the organization for the Illumines, much
as the Socialists of to-day have endeavoured to capture
the Trades Unions.

The intrigue, however, not only failed, but led to
a misunderstanding between the chiefs of Illuminism.
Knigge definitely withdrew from the society, the
existence and revolutionary aims of which were

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Cagliostro

betrayed two years later, in 1 784, by a member who
had reached the highest grade, only to discover that
the mystic secrets by which he had been attracted to
the Illumines did not exist. This information conveyed
to the Bavarian government was confirmed by
domiciliary visits of the police who seized many
incriminating papers. Weishaupt fled to Gotha,
where he found a protector in the occultist Duke,
whose friendship he had nursed for years in view of
just such a contingency.

But though the society he had formed was broken
up, it was too late to stamp out the fire it had kindled.
The subterranean rumblings of the Revolution could
already be heard. Mysticism which had made use of
philosophy in France to sap tyranny was in its turn in
Germany turned to political account. From the seeds
sown by the Illumines sprang that amazing crop of
ideals of which a few years later Napoleon was to reap
the benefit.

Such, then, was the "curtain" of Cagliostro;
woven, so to speak, on the loom of the love-of-the-
marvellous out of mystical masonic principles and
Schropfer-Mesmer phenomena.

And now let us turn once more to the personality
of the man behind it.

no

I

CHAPTER III

MASKED AND UNMASKED
I

Before leaving England, during an interlude in
the persecution to which he had been subjected,
Cagliostro had become a Freemason. This event,
innocent enough in itself, though destined years later
to have such terrible consequences for him, occurred
on April 12, 1777. The lodge he joined was the
Esperance, which met in a room of the King's Head
in Gerard Street, Soho.

According to the Editor of the Courier de r Europe,
who professed to have obtained the particulars of his
admission and initiation from an eye-witness, the
Count on this occasion described himself as '' Joseph
Cagliostro, Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Branden-
burg."^ Three other members were received at the
same time : Pierre Boileau, a valet ; Count Ricciarelli,
"musician and alchemist, aged seventy-six"; and the
Countess Cagliostro.

There was a full attendance of members, ^'Brother "
Hardivilliers, an upholsterer, presiding. Out of

1 This statement rests solely on the word of the Editor of the
Courier de V Europe, who cited it as one of his reasons for identifying
Cagliostro with Balsamo. The latter, it may be recalled, had passed
as a colonel in the Prussian service during the time he was connected
with the forger Agliata.

Ill

Cagliostro

courtesy to her sex the Countess was received first.
Her Initiation consisted in taking the prescribed oath,
after which *'she was given a garter on which the
device of the lodge, Union, Silence, Virtue, was
embroidered, and ordered to wear it on going to bed
that night."

The ceremony, however, of making the *' Colonel
of the 3rd Regiment of Brandenburg " a Freemason
was characterized by the horseplay usual on such
occasions. By means of a rope attached to the ceiling
the ** Colonel" was hoisted into the air, and allowed
to drop suddenly to the floor — an idiotic species of
buffoonery that entailed unintentionally a slight injury
to his hand. His eyes were then bandaged, and a
loaded pistol having been given him, he was ordered
by " Brother " Hardivilliers to blow out his brains.
As he not unnaturally manifested a lively repugnance
to pull the trigger he was assailed with cries of
" coward " by the assembly. " To give him courage "
the president made him take the oath. It was as
follows —

''I, Joseph Cagliostro, in presence of the great
Architect of the Universe and my superiors In this
respectable assembly, promise to do all that I am
ordered, and bind myself under penalties known only
to my superiors to obey them blindly without question-
ing their motives or seeking to discover the secret of
the mysteries In which I shall be initiated either by
word, sign, or writing."

The pistol — an unloaded one this time — was again
put into his hand. Reassured, but still trembling, he
placed the muzzle to his temple and pulled the trigger.
At the same time he heard the report of another pistol,

112

Masked and Unmasked

received a blow on the head, and tearing the bandage
from his eyes found himself — a Freemason ! ^

To make these perfectly harmless particulars,
which were published by the Editor of the Courier de
rEurope with the express purpose of damaging
Cagliostro, appear detrimental, their malignant author
cites the menial occupations of the members of the
Esperance Lodge, who were chiefly petty tradesmen
and servants of foreign birth, as indicative of the low
origin and questionable status of the self-styled Count.
Such a reproach from its manifest absurdity is scarcely
worth repeating. If any inference is to be drawn
from Cagliostro's association with the hairdressers
and upholsterers, the valets and shoemakers, of whom
the Esperance Lodge chiefly consisted, it is to be
drawn from the character of his lodge, and certainly not
from the occupations of his brother masons.

The Order of Strict Observance, to which the
Esperance Lodge was affiliated, was one of the many
secret societies grafted on to Freemasonry in the
eighteenth century. It had been founded in the
middle of the century in Germany by a Baron von
Hundt with the object of reviving the Order of the
Knights Templar, who were regarded by the seditious
as classic victims of papal and monarchical tyranny.^
Hundt's Order of Strict Observance, however, at the
beginning at any rate, was the very opposite of a

^ His diploma, for which he paid five guineas, was formerly in
the celebrated collection of autographs belonging to the Marquis de
Chateaugiron.

2 As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Order of the
Knights Templar was suppressed in the fourteenth century by Pope
Clement V, Jacques Molay, the Grand Master, being burnt alive by
King Philip the Fair of France.

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Cagliostro

revolutionary character; though to the Church of
Rome, aware that it perpetuated the tradition of the
Templars, it was none the less anathema. To this
fact the stories may be traced which caused Free-
masonry as a whole to be suspected of conspiring to
*' trample the lilies under- foot."

In England the Order of Strict Observance was
purely philanthropic and social, though there, as else-
where, it was steeped in occultism — a fact which of
itself is quite sufficient to explain why Cagliostro
joined the Esperance Lodge. The importance, more-
over, acquired by this masonic order, whose lodges
were scattered all over Europe, also explains the
comparative ease with which he afterwards exploited
the curiosity his remarkable faculties aroused.

The precise manner, however, in which he laid
the foundations of his fame can only be conjectured.
Between November 1777, when Cagliostro left
England unknown and • impoverished, and March
1779, when he arrived in Courland to be received
into the highest society, his movements are wrapped
in mystery.

** My fifty guineas," he says, "which was all that
I possessed on leaving London, took me as far as
Brussels, where I found Providence waiting to
replenish my purse."

As he did not deign to enlighten the public as to
the guise in which Providence met him, his Inquisi-
tion-biographer, who is always prejudiced and
generally unreliable, was of the opinion that it was
highly discreditable. This authority states that he pro-
cured money from a credulous man whom he duped
into believing he could predict the winning number in a

114

Masked and Unmasked

lottery, and that without waiting to learn the result
of his prediction — which, on this occasion, in spite of
his previous uniform success in London, was a failure —
fled to the Hague.

Whilst here, so it was rumoured years later, he
was admitted as a Freemason into a lodge of the
Order of Strict Observance, to the members of which
he made a speech on Egyptian Masonry. As a result
of the interest he aroused, a lodge was founded in
accordance with the Egyptian Rite, open to both
sexes, and of which the Countess was appointed
Grand Mistress.

The Inquisition-biographer professes to discover
him next in Venice, *'from which he fled after swindling
a merchant out of one thousand sequins." But as he
is described as calling himself at the time Marquis
Pellegrini — one of the aliases under which Giuseppe
Balsamo had masqueraded some years previously, he
may be acquitted of the charge. If Cagliostro was
really Balsamo it is inconceivable that he would have
returned to Italy under a name he had rendered so
notorious. The incident, if it has any foundation in
fact, must have occurred several years before this date.
Moreover, if Cagliostro and Balsamo are the same,
Freemasonry must have wrought a most remarkable
and unprecedented spiritual reformation in the character
of the Sicilian crook, for under the name of Count
Cagliostro he most certainly ceased to descend to the
vulgar villainies formerly habitual to him.

Much more in keeping with Cagllostro's character

is the following adventure reported to have befallen

him at Nuremburg, whither rumour next traces him.

Being asked his name by a Freemason who was

12 115

Cagliostro

staying at the same hotel, and to whom he had
communicated the fact that he was also a member of
the same fraternity by one of the secret signs
familiar to the initiated, he replied by drawing on a
sheet of paper a serpent biting its tail. This cryptic
response, coupled with the air of mystery Cagliostro
habitually gave to his smallest action, deeply impressed
the inquisitive stranger, who with the characteristic
superstition of the century at once jumped to the
conclusion that he was in the presence of the chief of
one of the secret societies attached to Freemasonry
who, fleeing from persecution, was obliged to conceal
his identity. Accordingly, with a sentimental benevo-
lence— from which it may be inferred he was both a
Mason and a German — '* he drew from his hand a
diamond ring, and pressing it upon Cagliostro with
every mark of respect, expressed the hope that it
might enable him more easily to elude his enemies."

From Nuremburg rumour follows the Count to
Berlin, where the interpretation the unsentimental
police of Frederick the Great put upon the mystery
in which he enveloped himself was so hostile that
he hastened to Leipsic. In this town, veritable home
of occultism and stage on which Schropfer a few years
before had persuaded his audience to believe in him in
spite of his impostures, any mysterious person was
sure of a welcome. The voice of rumour, hitherto
reduced to a whisper, now becomes audible. The
Freemasons of the Order of Strict Observance are
said to have given a banquet in Cagliostro's honour
"at which three plates, three bottles, and three glasses
were set before each guest in commemoration of the
Holy Trinity."

ii6

Masked and Unmasked

After the repast the Count made a speech, to the
eloquence of which and its effect on his hearers the
mystic triad of bottles would appear to have contributed.
As at the Hague, he discoursed on Egyptian Masonry ;
praised the superiority of its ideals and rites to those
of the lodge of which he was the guest ; and carried
away by bibulous enthusiasm, which caused him to
ignore the rules of politeness and good breeding, he
turned impressively to the head of the lodge — one
Scieffort — and in impassioned accents informed him
that if he did not adopt the Egyptian Rite " he would
feel the weight of the hand of God before the
expiration of the month."

The fact that Scieffort^ committed suicide a few
days later was regarded as a fulfilment of this
prophecy, which from the strange manner and
appearance of the mysterious person who uttered it
produced a deep impression. At once all Leipsic
began to ring with the name of Count Cagliostro and
his gift of prophecy. It was his first step on the road
to fame. "On leaving the city," says the Inquisition-
biographer, *' not only did his admirers pay his hotel
bill, but they presented him with a considerable sum
of money."

Henceforth, wherever he went he was sure of a
cordial reception in the lodges of the Order of Strict
Observance. By the Freemasons of Dantzic and
Konigsberg he appears to have been treated as a
person of great distinction. As the lodges of the

1 Schropfer's name is generally associated with this prediction. As
he died, however, in 1774, nearly five years before — a date easily
ascertainable — some idea may be gathered of the slight importance
most writers on Cagliostro have attached to accuracy.

117

Cagliostro

Order in these cities were wholly given up to the
practice and study of occult phenomena he must, no
doubt, have furnished them with some proof of his
possession of *' supernatural" faculties.

In this way, recommended from lodge to lodge, he
reached Mittau, the capital of the Duchy of Courland,
in March 1779. Here the cloud of uncertainty in
which he had been enveloped since leaving England
was completely dispelled.

II

Now one does not go to Courland without a reason,
and a powerful one. Marshal Saxe, the only other
celebrity one recalls in connection with this bleak,
marshland duchy of Germanized Letts on the Baltic,
was lured thither by its crown. Cagliostro too had his
reason — which was not Saxes ; though the ridiculous
Inquisition-biographer, remembering that the crown
of Courland had been worn by more than one
adventurer within the memory of the generation
then living, declares that there was a project to
depose the reigning duke and put Cagliostro in his
place.

As a matter of fact, Cagliostro went to Courland
to further his great scheme of founding the Order of
Egyptian Masonry. This was the thought uppermost
in his mind from the time he left England, or at least
the one most frequently expressed.

The idea of Egyptian Masonry is said to have
been suggested to him by some unpublished manu-
scripts that he purchased while in London. He
himself, on the contrary, professed to have conceived

118

i^

Masked and Unmasked

it in Egypt during his travels in the East, of which he
gave such an amazing account at his trial in the
Diamond Necklace Affair. It is the spirit, however,
in which the idea was conceived that is of chief
importance, and this seems to have been wholly-
creditable to him.

For in spite of the vanity and ostentation he
exhibited when his star was in the ascendant
Cagliostro, whose ''bump of benevolence " was highly
developed, was inspired with a genuine enthusiasm for
the cause of humanity. Egyptian Masonry had for
its aim the moral regeneration of mankind. As the
revelations made to men by the Creator (of whom he
never failed to speak with the profoundest respect)
had, in his opinion, been altered to subserve their own
purposes by the prophets, apostles, and fathers of the
Church, the regeneration of mankind was only to be
accomplished by restoring the knowledge of God in all
its purity. This Cagliostro professed was only to be
effected by Egyptian Masonry, which he declared had
been founded by the patriarchs, whom he regarded as
the last and sole depositaries of the truth, as the means
of communicating with the invisible world.

That he really believed it was his mission to
re-establish this communication there can be no doubt.
Even Carlyle's conception of him as a '' king of
liars " only serves to emphasize this. For since it is
generally admitted that the habitual liar is in the end
persuaded of the truth of what he says, there is no
reason why the '* king " of the tribe should be an
exception. Had Cagliostro, therefore, in the beginning
known that the religion he preached was a lie — of
which I can find no evidence whatever — he was most

119

Cagliostro

certainly convinced of its truth in the end. In France,
where his following was most numerous, the delegates
of the French lodges, after hearing him, declared in
their report that they had seen in him **a promise
of truth which none of the great masters had so
completely developed before."

If it be true that a man's works are the key to
his character, nothing reveals that of Cagliostro more
clearly than his system of Egyptian Masonry. Never
did the welfare of humanity, sublimest of ideals, find
more ridiculous expression. But to describe in
detail the astonishing galimathias of this system for
the regeneration of mankind would be as tedious as
it is unnecessary, and the following rough outline
must serve to illustrate the constitution and ceremonies
of the Egyptian Rite.

Both sexes were alike eligible for admission to the
Egyptian Rite, the sole conditions being belief in the
immortality of the soul and — as regards men — previous
admission to some Masonic Lodge. There were, as in
ordinary Freemasonry, three grades : apprentice, com-
panion, and master Egyptian. The master Egyptians
were called by the names of the Hebrew prophets, while
the women of the same grade took those of sibyls.

Cagliostro himself assumed the title of Grand
Cophta, which he declared to be that of Enoch, the
first Grand Master of Egyptian Masonry. His wife,
as Grand Mistress, was known as the Queen of
Sheba.

The initiations of the neophytes consisted of being
" breathed upon " by the Grand Master or Grand
Mistress, according to their sex. This proceeding was
accompanied by the swinging of censers and a species of

I20

Masked and Unmasked

exorcism that served as a preparation for moral
regeneration. The Grand Cophta then made a short
speech, which he also addressed to the members on
their promotion from one grade to the other, ending
with the words '' Helios, Mene, Tetragammaton."

Concerning the apparent gibberish of these words,
the Marquis de Luchet, a clever writer of the day
who never hesitated to sacrifice truth to effect, and
found in Cagliostro a splendid target for his wit,
pretends that '' the Grand Cophta borrowed them
from a conjurer, who in his turn had been taught them
by a spirit, which spirit was no other than the soul of
a cabalistic Jew who had murdered his own father."
As a matter of fact they are often employed in Free-
masonry and signify the Sun, the Moon, and the four
letters by which God is designated in Hebrew.

The ceremony of initiation concluded with a sort
of spiritualistic stance, for which a very young boy or
girl, known respectively as a pupille or colombe was
chosen as the medium, whom the Grand Cophta
rendered clairvoyant by '' breathing on its face from
the brow to the chin."

The same rites were observed for both sexes. At
the initiation of women, however, the Veni Creator
and Miserere mei Deus were chanted. On these
occasions the Grand Mistress drank ''a draught of
immortality," and *' the shade of Moses was evoked."
Moses, however, persistently refused to be evoked,
because — so the Countess is reported to have con-
fessed to the Inquisitors — *' Cagliostro considered him
a thief for having carried off the treasures of the
Egyptians."

As the promise of spiritual health was not of itself

121

Cagliostro

sufficient to ensure the success of Egyptian Masonry,
Cagliostro in the course of time found it expedient to
heighten its attraction by holding" out hopes of bodily
health, and infinite wealth as well. It was by his
ability to cure the sick that the majority of his
followers were recruited ; and as he gave to his marvel-
lous cures the same mysterious and absurd character as
he gave to all his actions, his enemies — of whom he had
many — unable to explain or deny them, endeavoured
to turn the "physical regeneration" that Egyptian
Masonry was said to effect into ridicule.

According to a curious and satirical prospectus
entitled *' The Secret of Regeneration or Physical Per-
fection by which one can attain to the spirituality of 5557
years (Insurance Office of the Great Cagliostro)," he
who aspired to such a state " must withdraw every
fifty years in the month of May at the full of the moon
into the country with a friend, and there shutting him-
self in a room conform for forty days to the most
rigorous diet."

The medical treatment was no less heroic. On
the seventeenth day after being bled the patient was
given a phial of some ** white liquid, or primitive
matter, created by God to render man immortal," of
which he was to take a certain number of drops up to
the thirty-second day. The candidate for physical
regeneration was then bled again and put to bed
wrapped in a blanket, when — if he had the courage to
continue with the treatment — he would " lose his hair,
skin, and teeth," but would recover them and find him-
self in possession of youth and health on the fortieth
day — " after which he need not, unless he liked, shuffle
ofTthe mortal coil for 5557 years,"

122

Masked and Unmasked

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the boundless
credulity which characterized the period immediately
preceding the French Revolution than the belief
that this report, intended as a conte pour rire by
the Marquis de Luchet, its author, obtained. As
Cagliostro and his followers were very likely aware
that any attempt to deny such a statement would but
serve to provide their enemies with fresh weapons of
attack, they endured the ridicule to which this malicious
invention subjected them in silence. This attitude,
however, was not only misunderstood by the public,
but has even misled historians of a later date, very few
of whom, like Figuier in his Histoire du Merveilleux,
have had the wit to see the humour of the lampoon
which they have been too careless or too prejudiced
to explain.

As a matter of fact, the mumbo-jumbo of the
Egyptian Rite was no more grotesque than the
Swedenborgian, Rosicrucian, or any other of the
numerous rites that were grafted on to Freemasonry in
the eighteenth century. If the Baron von Gleichen,
whose integrity was as irreproachable as his experi-
ence was wide, is to be credited, '' CagHostro's Egyptian
Masonry was worth the lot of them, for he tried to
render it, not only more wonderful, but more honourable
than any other Masonic order in Europe."

Considered as the key to CagHostro's character,
Egyptian Masonry so far fits the lock, so to speak.
To turn the key, it is necessary to explain the means
he employed to realize the sublime ideal he expressed
so ridiculously.

It is characteristic of the tyranny of ideals to
demand their realization of the enthusiast, if need be

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Cagliostro

at the cost of life, honour, or happiness. All reformers
magnetic enough to attract any notice have been
obliged to face this lion-like temptation at some time
in their careers. The perfervid ones almost always
yield to it, and may count themselves lucky if the
sacrifice of their happiness is all that is asked of them.
The nature of the surrender is governed entirely by
circumstances. Cagliostro paid for his attempt to
regenerate mankind with his honour. It was an
excessive price, and — considering the result obtained —
useless.

As he did not hesitate to recruit his followers by
imposture when without it he would have failed to
attract them, many writers — and they are the most
hostile — have denied that he ever had a lofty ideal
at all. To them Egyptian Masonry is merely a device
of Cagliostro to obtain money. Such an opinion,
however, is as untenable as it is intentionally unjust.

There is not a single authenticated instance in which
he derived personal profit by imposture.

Had he succeeded, like Swedenborg — who had a
precisely similar ideal, and also had recourse to im-
posture when it suited his purpose — his reputation,
like the Swede's, would have survived the calum.ny
that assailed it.^ For though Cagliostro debased his
ideal to realize it, his impostures did not make him an
impostor, any more than Mirabeau can be said to

1 The stories told of Swedenborg are quite as fantastic as any
concerning Cagliostro. " He was walking," says Brittan in The
Shekinah, "one day along Cheapside with a friend, a person of great
worth and credit (who afterwards related the incident), when he was
suddenly seen to bow very low to the ground. To his companion's
question as to what he was about, Swedenborg replied by asking him
if he had not seen Moses pass by, and that he was bowing to him."

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Masked and Unmasked

have been bought by the bribes he accepted from
the Court.

His impostures consisted (i) in exhibiting his
occult powers — which in the beginning he had not
developed — on occasions and under conditions he
knew to be opposed to their operation, whereby to
obtain results he was obliged to forge them, and (2)
in attributing to a supernatural cause all the wonders
he performed as well as the "mysteries" of the
Egyptian Rite, in which mesmerism, magnetism and
ordinary conjuring tricks were undoubtedly employed.

As the establishment of Egyptian Masonry was
the object he had in view, he no doubt believed with
his century that the end justifies the means. But to
those who shape their conduct according to this
passionate maxim it becomes a two-edged sword that
seldom fails to wound him who handles it. The end
that is justified by the means becomes of necessity of
secondary importance, and eventually, perhaps, of no
importance at all. This was the case with Cagliostro s
ideal. In rendering it subservient to the magic which
it was originally part of its object to suppress, the
latter gained and kept the upper hand. The means
by which his ideal was to be realized became thus,
as justifying means are capable of becoming, ignoble ;
and by robbing their end of its sublimity made that
end appear equally questionable. That Cagliostro
perceived the danger of this, and struggled hard to
avert it, is abundantly proved by his conduct on
numerous occasions.

At the start, indeed, imposture was the very last
thing he contemplated. His strong objection to pre-
dicting winning numbers in lotteries was the cause of

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Cagliostro

all his trouble in London. From the Hague to Mittau
— wherever a glimpse of him is to be had — there is a
reference to the ''eloquence with which he denounced
the magic and satanism to which the German lodges
were addicted." It was not till he arrived in Courland
that his repugnance for the supercheries of supernatural-
ism succumbed to the stronger forces of vanity and
ambition.

Ill

If "Providence waited for Cagliostro at Brussels,"
it was certainly Luck that met him on his arrival at
Mittau.

As hitherto the cause of Egyptian Masonry does
not appear to have derived any material benefit from
the great interest he is said to have excited in Leipsic
and other places, it seems reasonable to infer that the
lodges he frequented were composed of bourgeois or
uninfluential persons. At Mittau, however, the lodge
to which he was admitted, addicted like the others to
the study of the occult, consisted of people of the
highest distinction who, advised in advance of the
coming of the mysterious Count, were waiting to
receive him with open arms.

The great family of von Medem in particular
treated him with the greatest consideration, and in
them he found at once congenial and influential
friends. Marshal von Medem was the head of the
Masonic lodge in Mittau, and from boyhood had
made a special study of magic and alchemy, as had
his brother Count von Medem. This latter had
two very beautiful and accomplished daughters, the
youngest of whom was married to the reigning Duke

126

Masked and Unmasked

of Courland — a fact that could not fail to impress a
regenerator of mankind in quest of powerful disciples.

It was, however, her sister Elisa, Count von
Medem's eldest daughter, who became the point
dappui of Cagliostro's hopes.

The mystical tendencies of Elisa were entirely due
to environment. She had grown up in an atmosphere
in which magic, alchemy, and the dreams of Sweden-
borg were the principal topics of conversation.
Familiarity, however, as the saying is, bred contempt.
In her childhood she declared that the wonders of the
supernatural which she heard continually discussed
around her, ** made less impression on her than the
tale of Blue Beard, while a concert was worth all the
ghosts in the world." Nevertheless, the occult was
not without a subtle effect on her mind. As a girl she
had a decided preference for books of a mystic or
religious character, her favourites being ''Young's
Night Thoughts and the works of Lavater."

Gifted with an exceptionally brilliant intellect, of
which she afterwards gave unmistakable proof, she also
possessed a most enthusiastic and affectionate nature —
qualities that her husband, a Count von der Recke,
alone appears to have neither recognized nor appreci-
ated. Their union was of short duration : after six
years of wedlock the Countess von der Recke, who
had married at seventeen to please her father, obtained
a divorce. She was amply compensated for what she
had suffered by the affection she obtained from her
family. Father, uncles, aunts, cousins seemed only to
exist to study her wishes. Her sister, the Duchess
of Courland, constantly sought her advice in political
matters, and regarded her always as her dearest friend.

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Cagliostro

But It was to her young brother to whom she was
most deeply attached. Nor was he less devoted to
her. Nearly of the same age,»and possessing the
same temperament and talents, the sympathy between
them was such that '' one was but the echo of the other."
They differed only in one respect. Equally serious
and reflective, each longed to solve the '* problems of
existence " ; but while the Countess von der Recke
was led to seek their solution in the Bible, in the gospel
according to Swedenborg, or in the correspondence
she formed with Lavater, her brother thought they
were to be found '* in Plato and Pythagoras." Death,
however, prematurely interrupted his quest, carrying
with him to the grave the ambition of his father and
the heart of his sister.

It was at this moment, when she was over-
whelmed with grief, that Count Cagliostro arrived in
Mittau, with the reputation of being able to transmute
metals, predict the future, and communicate with the
unseen world. Might he not also evoke the spirits
of the dead ? In any case, such a man was not to be
ignored. Mittau was a dead-and-alive place at the
best of times, the broken-hearted Countess was only
twenty-five, the ''problems of existence" might still
be solved — and workers of wonders, be they impostors
or not, are not met every day. So the Countess von
der Recke was determined to meet the '' Spanish "
Count, and — what is more to the point — to believe in
him.

As usual, on his arrival in Mittau, Cagliostro had
denounced the excessive rage for magic and alchemy
that the Freemasons of Courland, as elsewhere, dis-
played. But though he found a sympathetic listener

128

■jCAr^ JeiJioM f>

COUNTESS EI.ISA VON DER REC'vE {To face page i.S

(.After Seibold )

Masked and Unmasked

in the Countess von der Recke while he discoursed
mystically on the moral regeneration of mankind and
the '* Eternal Source of all Good," her father and uncle,
who were devoted to magic and manifestations of the
occult, demanded practical proofs of the power he was
said to possess. As he was relying on their powerful
patronage to overcome the opposition unexpectedly
raised to the foundation of an Egyptian Lodge at
Mittau by some persons whose suspicions were excited
by the mystery he affected, he did not dare disoblige
them.

One day, after conversing on magic and necro-
mancy with the von Medems, he gave them and a
certain Herr von Howen a proof of his occult powers.
Apart from his ** miraculous " cures, nearly all the
prodigies performed by Cagliostro were of a clair-
voyant nature. As previously stated, in these exhibi-
tions he always worked through a medium, known as
dipupille or colombe, according to the sex — xh&pupilles
being males and the colombes females. From the fact
that they were invariably very young children, he
probably found that they responded more readily to
hypnotic suggestion than adults. Though these
exhibitions were often impostures (that is, arranged
beforehand with the medium) they were as often un-
doubtedly genuine (that is, not previously arranged, and
baffling explanation). In every case they were accom-
panied by strange rites designed to startle the imagina-
tion of the onlooker and prepare it to receive a deep
and durable impression of mystery.

On this occasion, according to the Countess von
der Recke, Cagliostro selected as pupille the little son
of Marshal von Medem, ** a child of five." '' Having
K 129

Cagliostro

anointed the head and left hand of the child with the
'oil of wisdom,' he inscribed some mystic letters on
the anointed hand and bade the pupille to look at it
steadily. Hymns and prayers then followed, till little
von Medem became greatly agitated and perspired
profusely. Cagliostro then inquired in a stage whisper
of the Marshal what he desired his son to see. Not to
frighten him, his father requested he might see his
sister. Hereupon the child, still gazing steadfastly at
his hand, declared he saw her.

" Questioned as to what she was doing, he
described her as placing her hand on her heart, as if
in pain. A moment later he exclaimed, ' now she is
kissing my brother, who has just come home.' On the
Marshal declaring this to be impossible, as this brother
was leagues away, Cagliostro terminated the stance,
and with an air of the greatest confidence ordered
the doubting parent ' to verify the vision.' This the
Marshal immediately proceeded to do ; and learnt that
his son, whom he believed so far away, had unexpect-
edly returned home, and that shortly before her
brother's arrival his daughter had had an attack of
palpitation of the heart."

After proof so conclusive Cagliostro's triumph was
assured. Those who mistrusted him were completely
silenced, and all further opposition to the foundation of
his lodge ceased.

But the appetite of the von Medem brothers only
grew by what it fed upon. They insisted on more
wonders, and to oblige them '' the representative of the
Grand Cophta " — later he found it simpler to assume in
person the title and prerogatives of the successor of
Enoch — held another stance. Aware that he had to

130

Masked and Unmasked

please people over whose minds the visions of Sweden-
borg had gained such an ascendency that everything
that was fantastic appeared supernatural to them, he
had recourse to the cheap devices of magic and the
abracadabra of black art.

At a meeting of the lodge he declared that " he had
been informed by his chiefs of a place where most im-
portant magical manuscripts and instruments, as well
as a treasure of gold and silver, had been buried
hundreds of years before by a great wizard." Ques-
tioned as to the locality of this place, he indicated a
certain heath on the Marshal's estate at Wilzen where-
on he had been wont to play as a boy, and which — extra-
ordinary coincidence ! — he remembered the peasants of
the neighbourhood used to say contained a buried
treasure guarded by ghosts. The Marshal and his
brother were so astonished at Cagliostro's description
of a place which it seemed improbable he could have
heard of, and certainly had never seen, that they set
out at once for Wilzen with some friends and relatives
to find the treasure with the occult assistance of their
mysterious guest.

Now the Countess's interest in the occult was of
quite a different character from that of her father and
uncle. Deeply religious, she had turned in her grief
to mysticism for consolation. From the commencement
of her acquaintance with Cagliostro, she had been im-
pressed as much by the nobility of the aims he attri-
buted to his Egyptian Masonry, of which he spoke "in
high-flown, picturesque language," as by his miraculous
gifts. While others conversed with him on magic and
necromancy, which she regarded as ''devilish," she
talked of the " union of the physical and spiritual
K2 131

Cagliostro

worlds, the power of prayer, and the miracles of the
early Christians." She told him how the death of
her brother had robbed her life of happiness, and that
in the hope of seeing him once more she had often spent
a long time in prayer and meditation beside his grave
at night. And she also gave the Grand Cophta to
understand that she counted on him to gratify this

desire.

As to confess his utter inability to oblige her would
have been to rob him at one fell swoop of the belief in
his powers on which he counted to establish a lodge
of Egyptian Masonry at Mittau, Cagliostro evaded the
request. His great gifts, he explained, were only to be
exercised for the good of the world, and if he used
them merely for the gratification of idle curiosity, he
ran the risk of losing them altogether, or of being
destroyed by evil spirits who were on the watch to
take advantage of the weakness of such as he.

But as the exhibitions he had given her father and
uncle of his powers were purely for the benefit of idle
curiosity, the Countess had not unnaturally reproached
him with having exposed himself to the snares of the
evil spirits he was so afraid of Whereupon the
unfortunate Grand Cophta, in his desire to reform
Freemasonry and to spread his gospel of regeneration,
having left the straight and narrow path of denunciation
for the broad road of compromise, sought to avoid the
quagmire to which it led by taking the by-path of
double-dealing.

Conscious that his success at Mittau depended on
keeping the Countess's esteem, he assumed an air of
mystery and superiority when talking of the occult
calculated to impress her with the utter insignificance

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Masked and Unmasked

of her views in matters of which, as she admitted, she
was ignorant. Having made her feel as small as possible,
he endeavoured to reconcile her to the phenomena he
performed for the benefit of her relations by holding
out to her a hope that by similar means it might be
possible to evoke the shade of the brother she so
yearned to see. When next she met him, he assured
her that ** Hanachiel," as he called his "chief" in the
spiritual world to whom he owed his marvellous gifts,
"had informed him that her intention was good in
wishing to communicate with her brother, and that this
was only to be accomplished by the study of the occult
sciences, in which she might make rapid progress if
she would follow his directions unquestioningly."

In this way, like another Jason steering his Argos-
ship of Egyptian Masonry clear of the rocks and
quicksands, he sought to round the cape of suspicion
and come to a safe anchorage in port. But though he
handled the helm with consummate skill, as the Countess
herself afterwards acknowledged, it was a perilous sea
on which he sailed. Unquestioning obedience, the
Countess declared, she could not promise him.

" God Himself," she said, " could not induce me
to act against what my conscience tells me is right and
wrong."

" Then you condemn Abraham for offering up his
son ? " was Cagliostro's curious rejoinder. "In his
place, what would you have done ? "

" I would have said," replied the Countess : " * O
God, kill Thou my son with a flash of Thy lightning if
Thou requirest his life ; but ask me not to slay my
child, whom I do not think guilty of death.'"

With such a woman, what is a Cagliostro to do?

133

Cagliostro

Prevented, so to speak, by this flaw in the wind from
coming to anchor in the harbour of her unquestioning
faith in him, he sought to reach port by keeping up
her hopes. To reconcile her to the magical operations
he was obliged to perform in order to retain his
influence upon the von Medems, he finally promised
her a " magic dream " in which her brother would
appear to her.

From the manner in which Cagliostro proceeded to
perform this phenomenon, one may obtain an idea of
the nature and extent of his marvellous powers. As
heretofore his effects had been produced by hypnotic
suggestion, accompanied by every accessory calculated
to assist it, so now he proceeded on similar lines.
That the thoughts of others besides himself should be
concentrated on the ''magic dream," the relations of
the Countess, as well as herself, were duly agitated by
its expectation. With an air of great mystery, which
Cagliostro could make so impressive, he delivered to
Count von Medem a sealed envelope containing, he
said, a question, which he hoped by the dream to have
answered. At night, before the Countess retired, he
broke the silence which he had imposed on her and her
relations during the day to refer once more to the
dream, with the object of still further exciting the
imagination of all concerned, whose thoughts were
fixed upon the coming apparition of the dead, until
the prophecy, like many another, worked its own
fulfilment.

But this cunningly contrived artifice, familiar to
magicians in all ages, and frequently crowned with
success, was defeated on the present occasion by the
health of the Countess, whose nerves were so excited

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Masked and Unmasked

by the glimpse she expected to have of her dearly
beloved brother as to prevent her sleeping at all.

This eventuality, however — which Cagliostro had
no doubt allowed for — far from complicating his
difficulties, was easily turned to advantage. For,
upbraiding the Countess for her weakness and lack of
self-control, he declared she need not any longer count
on seeing her brother. Nevertheless, he dared not
deprive her of all hope. In response to her pleading,
and urged by her father and uncle, he was emboldened
to promise her the dream for the ensuing night, trust-
ing that in the condition of body and mind to which he
perceived she was reduced by the overwrought state of her
nerves she might even imagine she had seen her brother.

But though the slippery road along which, impelled
by vanity and ambition, he travelled was beset with
danger, Cagliostro proceeded undaunted. When his
second attempt to evoke the dead failed like the first,
he boldly asserted that he himself had prevented the
apparition, " being warned by Hanachiel that the vision
of her brother would endanger the Countess's life in her
excitable state." And to render this explanation the
more convincing he gave the von Medems, who were
plainly disappointed by the failure of the *' magic
dream," one of those curious exhibitions of second
sight which he was in the habit of knocking off — no
other word expresses it — so frequently and successfully
for their benefit.

Though aware that the Countess at the moment
was ill in bed, he declared that, if a messenger were
sent to her house at a certain hour, he would find her
seated at her writing-table in perfect health. This
prediction was verified in every particular.

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Cagliostro

Such was the state of affairs when Cagliostro
accompanied the von Medems to Wilzen to prove the
existence of the buried treasure he had so craftily
located. In spite of his great confidence in himself, he
must have realized that the task he had so rashly
undertaken at Wilzen was one that would require
exceptional cunning to shirk. For the chance of
finding a treasure said to have been buried hundreds
of years before was even smaller than that on which
he counted of evoking the spirit of the Countess's
brother. But in this case, strange to say, it was not
his failure to produce the treasure, but the " magic " he
successfully employed to conceal his failure that was to
cause him the most concern.

IV

Conscious that the Countess's faith in him was
shaken by his failure to give her the consolation she so
greatly desired, Cagliostro requested they should travel
in the same carriage in order that he might have the
opportunity to clear himself of her suspicions as to his
sincerity. The very boldness of such a request was
sufficient to disarm her. She herself has confessed, in
the book from which these details have been drawn,
that **his conversation was such as to create in her
a great reverence for his moral character, whilst his
subtle observations on mankind in general astonished
her as greatly as his magical operations."

From the manner, however, in which he faced the
difficulty, he does not appear to have been in the least
apprehensive of the consequences of failing to surmount
it. The Countess was once more his ardent disciple ;

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Masked and Unmasked

the von Medems' belief in magic was proof against
unsuccessful experiments ; and Hanachiel — invaluable
Hanachiel — was always on hand to explain his failures
as well as his successes.

On arriving at Alt-Auz, as the von Medem estate
at Wilzen was named, Cagliostro produced from his
pocket '*a little red book, and read aloud in an un-
known tongue." The Countess, who believed him to
be praying, ventured to interrupt him as they drove
through the haunted forest in which the treasure was
said to be buried. Hereupon he cried out in wild
zeal, " Oh, Great Architect of the Universe, help me
to accomplish this work." A bit of theatricality that
much impressed his companion, and which was all the
more effective for being natural to him.

The von Medems were eager to begin digging for
the treasure as soon as they alighted. Cagliostro,
however, '* after withdrawing to commune in solitude
with Hanachiel," declared that the treasure was
guarded by very powerful demons whom it was
dangerous to oppose without taking due precautions.
" To prevent them from spiriting it away without his
knowledge " he performed a little incantation which
was supposed to bind Hanachiel to keep an eye on
them. The next day, to break the fall, so to speak,
of the high hopes the von Medems had built on the
buried treasure, he held a seance in which the infant
medium was again the chief actor. The child — '' hold-
ing a large iron nail," and with only a screen between
it and the other members of the party, having pre-
sumably been hypnotized^ by Cagliostro — described

1 The "magic" nail held by the child has a strong family
resemblance to Mesmer's baquet divinatoire. The famous discovery

Cagliostro

the site of the buried treasure, the demon that guarded
it, the treasure itself, and ** seven angels in long
white robes who helped Hanachiel keep an eye on
the guardian of the treasure." At the command of
Cagliostro the child kissed, and was kissed by, these
angels. And to the amazement of those in the room,
with only the screen between them and the child, the
sound of the kisses, says the Countess von der Recke,
could be distinctly heard.

Similar seances took place every day during the
eight days the von Medem party stayed at Alt-Auz.
At one the Countess herself was induced to enter the
" magic circle holding a magic watch in her hand,"
while the little medium, assisted by the representative
of the Grand Cophta, in his turn assisted by Hanachiel,
read her thoughts.

But, unlike her father and uncle, while the im-
pression these phenomena made upon her mind was
profound, it was also unfavourable. Though curiosity
caused her to witness these stances, the Countess von
der Recke strongly disapproved of them on '' religious
grounds." Like many another, what she could not
explain, she regarded as evil. The phenomena she
witnessed appeared so uncanny that she believed
them to be directly inspired by the powers of darkness.
At first, in her admiration of Cagliostro, she prayed
that he might escape temptation and be preserved
from the demons with which it was but too evident to
her he was surrounded. When at last he declared
that he was informed by the ever-attendant Hanachiel

of Mesmer, it is scarcely needless to say, was merely an attempt to
explain scientifically powers the uses of which had been known to
alchemists from time immemorial.

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Masked and Unmasked

that the demon who guarded the buried treasure was
not to be propitiated without much difficulty and
delay, it did not occur to her to doubt him. The
wonders he had been performing daily had convinced
her, as well as the others, of his occult powers. But
from regarding him with reverence, she now regarded
him with dread.

Cagliostro, who never lost sight of the aims of
Egyptian Masonry in the deceptions to which the
desire to proselytize led him, was in the habit, '* before
each of his seances, of delivering lectures that were a
strange mixture of sublimity and frivolity." It was by
these lectures that he unconsciously lost the respect
of the Countess he strove so hard to preserve. One
day, while expatiating on the times when the sons
of God loved the daughters of men, as described in
the Bible — which, he predicted, would return when
mankind was morally regenerate — carried away by his
subject he declared that, *' not only the demi-Gods of
Greece, and Christ of Nazareth, but he himself were
the fruit of such unions."

Such a statement inexpressibly shocked the Coun-
tess ; and considering that the evil spirits from whom
she prayed he might be preserved had completely
taken possession of him, she resolved to have no more
to do with him. At her father's entreaty, however,
she was persuaded to attend another seance, but as
Cagliostro, not suspecting her defection, prefaced his
phenomena by a discourse on " love-potions," the
Countess was only confirmed in her resolution.

Nevertheless, he was not the man to lose so in-
fluential an adherent without a protest. On returning
to Mittau he managed to a certain extent to regain

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Cagliostro

her confidence in his sincerity. He perceived, however,
that the interest he excited was on the wane, and
wisely took advantage of what he knew to be the right
moment to depart.

Hoping by the aristocratic connections he had
made in Mittau to gain access to the highest circles in
Russia, he decided to go to St. Petersburg. His
intention was received with dismay by those whom
his magical phenomena had so astonished. The von
Medems heaped presents on him. *' From one he
received a gift of 800 ducats, from the other a very
valuable diamond ring." Even the Countess von der
Recke herself, though she made no attempt to detain
him, proved that she at least believed him to be a man
of honour.

A day or two before his departure, being at some
Court function, *'he recognized old friends in some
large and fine pearls the Duchess of Courland was
wearing," which, he said, reminded him of some pearls
of his wife's that he had increased in size by a process
known to himself and sold for the benefit of a bank-
rupt friend in Holland. The Countess von der Recke
hereupon desired him to do the same with hers.
Cagliostro, however, " refused, as he was going away,
and the operation would take too long." Nor would
he take them with him to Russia, as the Countess
urged, and return them when the process was com-
plete. A striking instance of his integrity, from an
authentic source, that his prejudiced biographers have
always seen fit to ignore.

If the above is characteristic of Cagliostro's honesty,
the following episode, also related by the Countess, is
equally characteristic of his vanity. Informing him

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Masked and Unmasked

once that she was writing to Lavater and wished to
give him the details of a certain conversation, he
objected.

" Wait twelve months," said he, ** and when you
write call me only Count C. Lavater will ask you, ' Is
not this the Great Cagliostro ? ' and you will then be
able to reply, ' It is.'

J ))

As the unfavourable opinion the Countess von der
Recke subsequently formed of Cagliostro, whose path
never crossed hers again, has, on account of her
deservedly high reputation, been largely responsible
for the hostility with which history has regarded him,
it is but fair to explain how she came to reverse the
favourable opinion she had previously entertained.

The value of her evidence, indeed, rests not so
much on her word, which nobody would dream of
questioning, but on the manner in which she obtained
her evidence. It was not till 1784 — five years after
Cagliostro had left Mittau — that the Countess von der
Recke came to regard him as an impostor. To this
opinion she was converted by one Bode whom she
met in Weimar and who, she says, gave her **the
fullest information concerning Cagliostro."

Bode was a Freemason of the Order of Strict
Observance who had joined the Illumines and was
intimately acquainted with Weishaupt, the founder of
the sect. As it is generally assumed that Cagliostro
was also an Illumine, Bode no doubt had excellent
means of observing him. The value of his opinion,
however, is considerably lowered by the fact that
Cagliostro afterwards withdrew from the Illumines
when he had succeeded in turning his connection with

141

Cagliostro

them to the account of Egyptian Masonry. Under
the circumstances Bode, who afterwards became the
leader of the Illumines, would not be likely to view
Cagliostro in a favourable light.

The fact, moreover, that it took the Countess von
der Recke five years to make up her mind that her
" apostle of light " was an impostor, was perhaps due
less to any absolute faith in Bode than to the changes
that had taken place in herself during this period.

On recovering her health she became as pronounced
a rationalist as she had formerly been a mystic. As
this change occurred about, the period of her meeting
with Bode, it may possibly account for the change in
her opinion of Cagliostro.

But if the manner in which the Countess came to
regard Cagliostro as an impostor somewhat detracts
from the importance to be attached to her opinion,
the manner in which she made her opinion public was
unworthy of a woman to whose character this opinion
owes the importance attributed to it. For this '' born
fair saint " as Carlyle calls her, waited till the Diamond
Necklace Affair, when Cagliostro was thoroughly
discredited, before venturing to " expose " him.

V

Very curious to relate, all that is known of
Cagliostro's visit to St. Petersburg is based on a few
contradictory rumours of the most questionable authen-
ticity. This is all the more remarkable considering, as
the Countess von der Recke herself states, that he left
Mittau in a blaze of glory, regretted, honoured, and

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Masked and Unmasked

recommended to some of the greatest personages in
Russia by the flower of the nobility of Courland.^

According to report, Cagliostro s first act in St.
Petersburg, as everywhere else he went, was to gain
admission to one of the lodges of Strict Observance
and endeavour to convert the members to the
Egyptian Rite. As experience had taught him the
futility of attempting to recruit adherents merely by
expounding his lofty ideal of the regeneration of man-
kind, he had recourse to the methods he had adopted
with such success in Mittau ; but with the most
humiliating result. For, being apparently unable to
procure a suitable medium, he was forced to resort to
an expedient which was discreditable in itself and
unworthy of his remarkable faculties.

On this occasion his medium was a colombe, " the
niece of an actress " in whose house the stance was
held. There was the usual mumbo-jumbo, sword-
waving passes, stamping of the feet, et cetera. The
medium behind a screen gazed into a carafe of water
and astonished the assembled company with what she
saw there. But later in the evening while Cagliostro,
covered with congratulations, was discoursing on the
virtue of Egyptian Masonry and dreaming of fresh
triumphs, the medium suddenly declared that she had
seen nothing and that her role had been prepared
beforehand by the Grand Cophta !

Cagliostro, as has been seen, was bold and

1 As all the above-mentioned rumours — which, be it understood,
were voiceless till the Diamond Necklace Affair — are hostile, it may
be inferred that Cagliostro's visit to St. Petersburg was, to say the
least, a failure. This impression is confirmed by the fact that on
the publication of the Countess von der Recke's book, the Empress
Catherine caused it to be translated into Russian.

143

Cagliostro

resourceful when his situation seemed utterly untenable.
That he would have seen his prestige destroyed in
this way without attempting to save it is far from
likely, and though the fact that St. Petersburg is the
only city in which Cagliostro failed to establish a lodge
of Egyptian Masonry may be regarded as proof of
the futility of his efforts, the nature of other rumours
concerning him leads one to suppose that he strove
hard to regain the ground he had lost.

It was, no doubt, with this object that he turned
his knowledge of medicine and chemistry to account.
It is in St. Petersburg that he is heard of for the first
time as a '* healer." According, however, to the
vague and hostile rumours purporting to emanate
from Russia at the time of the Diamond Necklace
Affair he was a quack devoid of knowledge or
skill.

"A bald major," says the Inquisition-biographer,
** entrusted his head to his care, but he could not
make a single hair grow. A blind gentleman who
consulted him remained blind ; while a deaf Italian,
into whose ears he dropped some liquid, became still
more deaf."

As a few months later Cagliostro was performing
the most marvellous cures at Strasburg, and was for
years visited by invalids from all over Europe, may
we not assume that in this instance malice only
published his failures and suppressed his successes ?

These rumours, however, were by no means
damaging enough to please the Marquis de Luchet,
who had no scruples about inventing what he con-
sidered ** characteristic" anecdotes. The following
story drawn from his spurious Mdmoires Authentiques
is worth repeating, less as an illustration of his

144

Masked and Unmasked

inventive powers than for the sake of nailing a popular
lie.

"Death," he writes, ''threatened to deprive a
Russian lady of an idolized infant aged two. She
promised Cagliostro 5000 louis if he saved its life.
He undertook to restore it to health in a week if she
would suffer him to remove the babe to his house. The
distressed mother joyfully accepted the proposal. On
the fifth day he informed her there was a marked
improvement, and at the end of the week declared that
his patient was cured. Three weeks elapsed, however,
before he would restore the child to its mother. All
St. Petersburg rang with the news of this marvellous
cure, and talked of the mysterious man who was able
to cheat death of its prey. But soon it was rumoured
that the child which was returned to the mother was
not the one which had been taken away. The authori-
ties looked into the matter, and Cagliostro was obliged
to confess that the babe he restored was substituted
for the real one, which had died. Justice demanded the
body of the latter, but Cagliostro could not produce it.
He had burnt it, he said, * to test the theory of
reincarnation.' Ordered to repay the 5000 louis he had
received, he offered bills of exchange on a Prussian
banker. As he professed to be a colonel in the service
of the King of Prussia,^ the bills were accepted, but on
being presented for payment were dishonoured. The
matter was therefore brought to the notice of Count
von Goertz, the Prussian Envoy at St. Petersburg,
who obtained an order for his arrest. This is the true
explanation of his sudden departure."

^ This seems to have been suggested to de Luchet by the Courier
de r Europe^ which stated that Cagliostro, on becoming a Freemason,
described himself as "Colonel of the Brandenburg regiment."

^ 145

Cagliostro

Rumour, however, differed widely from de Luchet.
For at the same time that de Luchet declared
Cagliostro to be posing as a Prussian colonel he
is also said to have donned the uniform of a colonel
in the Spanish service, and assumed the title of
Prince de Santa Cruce. But far from being treated
with the respect usually paid to any high-sounding
title and uniform in Russia, this prince-colonel doctor
excited the suspicions of M. de Normandez, the
Spanish charg^ d'affaires at the Russian Court, who
demanded his passport as proof of his identity. To
forge one would have been easy for Giuseppe Balsamo,
who had a talent in that line, one would think.
As he failed, however, to adopt this very simple ex-
pedient, M. d'Almeras, his latest and least preju-
diced biographer, is forced to the conclusion that
*'he had long given up the profession of forger" —
Freemasonry being responsible for his renunciation !
The conception of Cagliostro as Balsamo reformed by
Freemasonry is the most singular and unconvincing
explanation ever offered of this strange man.

At any rate, the Prince de Santa Cruce could
neither produce a passport nor forge one, and, hearing
that a warrant was about to be issued for his arrest, he
made haste to disappear. That such an adventurer
was actually in St. Petersburg when Cagliostro was
there is highly probable, and no doubt accounts for
rumour confounding them several years later. But that
Cagliostro, bearing letters of introduction from the
greatest families in Courland, should have adopted any
other name than that which he bore in Mittau is
inconceivable.

Still more absurd is the rumour that the Empress

146

Masked and Unmasked

Catherine, jealous of the attention that her favourite
the great Potemkin — "a train-oil prince," as Carlyle
contemptuously styles him — paid to the Countess
Cagliostro, offered her 20,000 roubles to quit the
country. Catherine would certainly never have paid
any one to leave her dominions ; she had a much
rougher way of handling those whose presence offended
her. The Cagllostros, moreover, who went to Warsaw
from St. Petersburg, arrived there in anything but an
opulent condition.

There is yet another rumour, which is at least
probable, to the effect that Cagliostro was forced to
leave Russia by the intrigues of Catherine's Scotch
doctors, Rogerson and Mouncey, who were *'so en-
raged that a stranger, and a pretended pupil of the
school of Hermes Trismegistus to boot, should poach
upon their preserves, that they contemplated a printed
exposure of his quackery." It was not the last time, as
will be seen, that Cagliostro excited the active hostility
of the medical faculty.

Strange to say, the Countess von der Recke, who,
if any one, would have known the truth concerning his
visit to St. Petersburg, fails to give any particulars.
Perhaps there were none, after all, to give. She
merely says : '* On his way from St. Petersburg to
Warsaw, Cagliostro passed through Mittau, but did
not stop. He was seen by a servant of Marshal von
Medem, to whom he sent his greeting."

VI

In any case, the disgrace In which Cagliostro is
supposed to have left St. Petersburg by no means
L2 147

Cagliostro

injured him in the opinion of his former admirers in
Courland, who, from their high position and close con-
nection with the Russian official world, would have
been well informed of all that befell him. For by
one of them, as we are told on the best authority,
he was furnished with introductions to Prince Adam
Poninski and Count Moczinski, which he presented on
his arrival in Warsaw.

Now Warsaw society, like that of Mittau,was on the
most intimate terms with the great world of St. Peters-
burg. Had Cagliostro masqueraded in Russia as a
bogus Prince de Santa Cruce or a swindling Prussian
colonel, or had his wife excited the jealousy of the
Empress Catherine, the fact would have been known
in Warsaw — if not before he arrived there, certainly
before he left. Of one thing we may be absolutely
sure, the anonymous author of Cagliostro ddmasqud a
Varsovie would not have failed to mention a scandal
so much to the point. As a matter of fact, while
denouncing Cagliostro as an impostor, this hostile
witness even speaks of the "marvels he performed in
Russia."

Nothing could have been more flattering to
Cagliostro than the welcome he received on his arrival
in Warsaw in May 1780. Poland, like Courland, was
one of the strongholds of Freemasonry and occultism.
Prince Poninski, who was as great a devotee to magic
and alchemy as the von Medems, insisted on the
wonder-worker and his wife staying at his house.
Finding the soil so admirably adapted to the seed he
had to sow, Cagliostro began at once to preach the
gospel he had so much at heart. The conversion of
Poninski to Egyptian Masonry was followed by that of

148

Masked and Unmasked

the greater part of Polish society. Within a month of
his arrival he had established at Warsaw a Masonic
lodge in which the Egyptian Rite was observed.

It was not, however, by Cagliostro's ideals that
PoninskI and his friends were attracted, but by his
power to gratify their craving for sensation. No specula-
tions in pure mysticism a la Saint- Martin for them :
they were occult materialists, and demanded of the
supernatural practical, tangible manifestations.

As under similar circumstances at Mittau, Cagllostro
had found it convenient to encourage the abuses he
had professed to denounce, he had no compunction
about following the same course at Warsaw. But it
evidently did not come easy to him to prostitute his
ideal, judging from the awkwardness with which he
adapted himself to the conditions it entailed.

At first, apart from certain remarkable faculties he
possessed and a sort of dilettante knowledge of magic
and alchemy, he lacked both skill and experience. In
Mittau, where his career as a wonder-worker may first
fairly be said to begin, he failed as often as he suc-
ceeded. That the phenomena he faked were not
detected at the time was due to luck, which, to judge
from rumour, appears almost entirely to have deserted
him in St. Petersburg.

In Warsaw, too, he was still far from expert. Here,
in spite of the precautions he took, he found himself
called upon to pass an examination in alchemy, a
subject for which he was unprepared, and failed
miserably.

In the opinion of the indignant Pole who caught
him " cribbing," so to speak, "if he knew a little more
of optics, acoustics, mechanics, and physics generally ;

149

Cagliostro

if he had studied a little the tricks of Comus and
Philadelphus, what success might he not have with his
reputed skill in counterfeiting writing! It is only
necessary for him to go into partnership with a ven-
triloquist in order to play a much more important part
than he has hitherto done. He should add to the
trifling secrets he possesses by reading some good book
on chemistry."

But it is by failure that one gains experience. As
Cagliostro was quick and intelligent, and had a ''fore-
head of brass that nothing could abash," by the time
he had reached Strasburg he was a past- master of the
occult, having brought his powers to a high state of
perfection, as well as being able, on occasion, to fake a
phenomenon with consummate skill.

There are two accounts of his adventures in
Warsaw — one favourable, the other unfavourable. The
latter, it is scarcely necessary to say, is the one by
which he has been judged. It dates, as usual, from the
period of the Necklace Affair — that is, six years after
the events it describes. It is by an anonymous writer,
who obtained his information second-hand from an
** eye-witness, one Count M." Even Carlyle refuses
to damn his ** Arch-Quack " on such evidence. This
vial of vitriol, flung by an unknown and hostile hand
at the Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry in his hour
of adversity, is called Cagliostro ddmasqud a Varsovie,

Nevertheless, contemptible and questionable though
it is, the impression it conveys, if not the actual
account, is confirmed by Madame Bohmer, wife of the
jeweller in the Necklace Affair. Madame Bohmer's
testimony is the more valuable in that it was given
before the anonymous writer flung his vitriol.

150

I

Masked and Unmasked

One night in '' April 1785 " — Cagliostro then at the
height of his fame — at a dinner-party at Madame
Bohmer's, the conversation turned on mesmerism. The
Countess de Lamotte, who was present, declared
she believed in it — an opinion that her hostess did not
share.

''Such people," said Madame Bohmer, ''only wish
to attract attention, like Cagliostro, who has been
driven out of every country in which he has tried to
make gold. The last was Poland. A person who has
just come from there told me that he was admitted to
Court on the strength of his knowledge of the occult,
particularly of the philosopher's stone. There were
some, however, who were not to be convinced without
actual proof. Accordingly, a day was set for the
operation, and one of the incredulous courtiers, know-
ing that he had as an assistant a young girl, bribed
her. I do not say this was the Countess Cagliostro,
because I am informed that he had several [mediums]
who travelled with him. ' Keep your eye,' said the
girl to the courtier, ' on his thumb, which he holds in
the hollow of his hand to conceal the piece of gold
he will slip into the crucible.' All attention, the
courtier heard the gold and, immediately seizing
Cagliostro's hand, exclaimed to the King, ' Sire, didn't
you hear ? ' The crucible was searched, and a small
lump of gold was found, whereupon Cagliostro was
instantly and very roughly, as I was told, flung out of
the palace."

The anonymous writer's "eye-witness. Count M.,"
described in detail the particulars of Cagliostro's quest
for the philosopher's stone. According to this authority,
he made his debut at Prince Poninski's with some

151

Cagliostro

magical seances similar to those at Mittau, adding
sleight-of-hand tricks to his predictions and *'divina-j
tions by colombes^

Unfortunately, the occultists of Warsaw were prin-
cipally interested in the supernatural properties of the
crucible. They were crazy on the subject of alchemy,
and the pursuit of the secret of the transmutation of
base metals into gold. Having bent the knee to magic,
in which at least, by virtue of his own occult gifts, he
could appear to advantage, Cagliostro rashly — com-
pelled by necessity, perhaps, rather than vanity in
this instance — assumed a knowledge of which he was
ignorant, relying on making gold by sleight-of-hand.

Alas ! '' Count M." had devoted his life to the sub-
ject, of which it did not take him long to discover
Cagliostro knew next to nothing. Indignant that one
who had not even learnt the alphabet of alchemy
should undertake to instruct him of all people, he laid
the trap described by Madame Bohmer. It was not,
however, at the Royal Palace that the exposure took
place that caused Cagliostro to leave Poland, but at a
country seat near Warsaw. Moreover, if we are to
believe ** Count M.," Cagliostro did not wait to be
exposed, but suspecting what was a- foot, ''decamped
during the night."

Now, on the strength of Madame Bohmer's evi-
dence— not given by her in person, by the way, but
quoted by the Countess de Lamotte in her defence at
the Necklace trial — while there seems to be litde doubt
that the statement of the anonymous '' Count M." is

152

Masked and Unmasked

substantially correct, there is, nevertheless, another —
and a favourable — account of Cagliostro in Poland. It
has the advantage of being neither anonymous nor
dated, like the Countess von der Recke's book, years
after the events it relates. It is from a letter written
by Laborde, the Farmer-General, who happened to be
in Warsaw when Cagliostro was there. The letter
bears the date of 1781, which was that of the year
after the following episodes occurred.

"Cagliostro," writes Laborde, *'was some time at
Warsaw, and several times had had the honour of
meeting Stanislas Augustus. One day, as this monarch
was expressing his great admiration for his powers,
which appeared to him supernatural, a young lady of the
Court who had listened attentively to him began to
laugh, declaring that Cagliostro was nothing but an
impostor. She said she was so certain of it that she
would defy him to tell her certain things that had
happened to her.

'' The next day the King informed the Count of
this challenge, who replied coldly that if the lady would
meet him in the presence of His Majesty, he would
cause her the greatest surprise she had ever known in
her life. The proposal was accepted, and the Count
told the lady all that she thought it impossible for him
to know. The surprise this occasioned her caused her
to pass so rapidly from incredulity to admiration that
she had a burning desire to know what was to happen
to her in the future.

'* At first he refused to tell her, but yielding to her
entreaty, and perhaps to gratify the curiosity of the
King, he said —

"You will soon make a long journey, in course of

153

Cagliostro

which your carriage will meet with an accident, and,
whilst you are waiting for the repairs to be made, the
manner in which you are dressed will excite such
merriment in the crowd that you will be pelted with
apples. You will go from there to some famous water-
ing-place, where you will meet a man of high birth, to
whom you will shortly afterwards be wedded. There
will be an attempt to prevent your marriage, which will
cause you to be foolish enough to make over to him
your fortune. You will be married in a city in which I
shall be, and, in spite of your efforts to see me, you will
not succeed. You are threatened with great misfor-
tunes, but here is a talisman by which you may avoid
them, so long as you keep it. But if you are prevented
from making over your fortune to your husband in
your marriage contract you will immediately lose the
talisman, and, the moment you cease to have it, it will
return to my pocket wherever I may be.'

" I do not know," continues Laborde, *' what confi-
dence the King and the lady placed in these pre-
dictions, but I know that they were all fulfilled. I have
had this on the authority of several persons, as well
as the lady herself ; also from Cagliostro, who described
it in precisely the same words. I do not guarantee
either its truth or its falsity, and, as I do not pretend to
be an exact historian, I shall not Indulge in the smallest
reflection."

154

CHAPTER IV

THE CONQUEST OF THE CARDINAL

Of the difficulties that perpetually beset the bio-
grapher of Cagliostro, those caused by his frequent
disappearances from sight are the most perplexing. It
is possible to combat prejudice — to materialize, so to
speak, rumour, to manipulate conflicting evidence, and
even to throw light on that which Is mysterious in his
character. But when it is a question of filling up the
gaps, of bridging the chasms in his career, one can
only proceed by assumption.

Such a chasm, and one of the deepest, occurs
between June 26, 1780, when Cagliostro suddenly fled
from Warsaw, and September 19, when he arrived in
Strasburg. Even rumour lost track of him during
this interval. The Inquisition-biographer pretends
to discover him for a moment at Frankfort-on-
the-Main as a secret agent of the Illumines, and, as
an assumption, the statement is at once plausible and
probable.

Cagliostro, as stated in a previous chapter, has
always been supposed, on grounds that all but amount
to proof, to have been at some period in his mysterious
career connected with one of the revolutionary secret
societies of Germany. This society has always been

155

Cagliostro

assumed to be the Illumines.^ If this assumption be
true — and without it his mode of life in Strasburg is
utterly inexplicable — his initiation could only have
taken place at this period and, probably, at Frankfort,
where Knigge, one of the leaders of the Illumines, had
his head-quarters.

As Knigge was a member of the Order of Strict
Observance, in the lodges of which throughout Ger-
many Cagliostro's reputation as a wonder-worker stood
high, he had undoubtedly heard of him, if he was not
personally acquainted with him. Knigge, moreover,
was just the man to appreciate the possibilities of such
a reputation in obtaining recruits for Illuminism.
Nothing is more reasonable, then, than to assume that
certain members of the Illumines made overtures at
Frankfort to Cagliostro, who, one can imagine, would
have readily accepted them as the means of recovering
the influence and prestige he had lost in Poland.

His initiation, according to the Inquisition-bio-
grapher, took place in a grotto a short distance from
the city. In the centre, on a table, was an iron chest,
from which Knigge or his deputy took a manuscript.
On the first page Cagliostro perceived the words " We,
the Grand Masters of the Templars T Then followed
the formula of an oath written in blood, to which
eleven signatures were appended, and which signified
that Illuminism was a conspiracy against thrones. The
first blow was to be struck in France, and, after the

^ As an agent of the Illumines, Cagliostro would have been quite
free to found lodges of Egyptian Masonry. Many Egyptian
Masons were also Illumines, notably Sarazin of Bale, the banker of
both societies. In joining the Illumines, therefore, Cagliostro would
not only have furthered their interests, but have received every
assistance from them in return.

156

I

The Conquest of the Cardinal

fall of the monarchy, Rome was to be attacked.
Cagliostro, moreover, learnt that the society had rami-
fications everywhere, and possessed immense sums in
banks in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London, Genoa, and
Venice. This money was furnished by an annual sub-
scription of twenty-five livres paid by each member.

On taking the oath, which included a vow of
secrecy, Cagliostro is presumed to have received a
large sum, destined to defray the expenses of propa-
ganda, and to have proceeded immediately, in
accordance with instructions, to Strasburg, where he
arrived on September 19, 1780.

II

From the nature of his entry into the capital of
Alsace, it is certain that great pains had been taken in
advance to excite public interest in him. The fabulous
Palladium could not have been welcomed with greater
demonstrations of joy. From early morning crowds of
people waited on the Pont de Koehl and on both banks
of the Rhine for the arrival of a mysterious personage
who was reported to go from city to city healing the
sick, working miracles, and distributing alms. In the
crowd speculations were rife as to his mysterious origin,
his mysterious travels in strange and remote countries,
and of the mysterious source of his immense wealth.
Some regarded him as one inspired, a saint or a
prophet possessed of the gift of miracles. To others,
the cures attributed to him were the natural result of
his great learning and occult powers. Yet another
group saw in him an evil genius, a devil sent into the
world on some diabolic mission. Among these, how-

157

Cagliostro

ever — and they were not the least numerous — there
were some more favourable to Cagliostro, and who,
considering that after all he only did good, inferred
logically that, if supernatural, he must be a good, rather
than an evil, genius.

Suddenly, speculation was silenced by the approach
of the being who had excited it. The rumbling of
wheels, the clatter of hoofs, the cracking of whips was
heard, and out of a cloud of dust appeared a carriage
drawn by six horses, and accompanied by lacqueys and
outriders in magnificent liveries. Within rode the
Grand Cophta, the High Priest of Mystery, with his
''hair in a net," and wearing a blue coat covered with
gold braid and precious stones. Bizarre though he was
with his circus-rider's splendour, the manner in which
he acknowledged the vivats of the crowd ^ through
which he passed was not without dignity. His wife,
who sat beside him, sparkling with youth, beauty, and
diamonds, shared the curiosity he excited. It was a
veritable triumphal progress.

The advantage to which such an ovation could be
turned was not to be neglected. Fond of luxury and
aristocratic society though he was, Cagliostro was
not the man to despise popularity in any form that it
presented itself. Having lost the influence of the
great, by means of whom he had counted to establish
Egyptian Masonry, he was anxious to secure that of
the masses. So great was the importance he attached
to the interest he had aroused, he even took up his

1 The story that it was interrupted by the sudden appearance of
Marano, furiously demanding of Cagliostro the sixty ounces of gold
that Giuseppe Balsamo had defrauded him of years before in Palermo,
is a pure invention of the Marquis de Luchet.

158

The Conquest of the Cardinal

abode among them, ''living first over a retail tobacco-
nist's named Quere, whose shop was in one of the
most squalid quarters of the town, and later lodging
with the caretaker of the canon of St. Plerre-le-Vieux."

According to all reports, from the very day of his
arrival in Strasburg he seemed to busy himself solely
in doing good, regardless of cost or personal Incon-
venience. No one, providing he was poor and unfor-
tunate, appealed to him in vain. Hearing that an
Italian was In prison for a debt of two hundred livres,
Cagllostro obtained his release by paying the money
for him, and clothed him into the bargain. Baron von
Gleichen, who knew him well, states that he saw him,
on being summoned to the bed-side of a sick person,
*' run through a downpour in a very fine coat without
stopping to take an umbrella."

Every day he sought out the poor and infirm,
whose distress he endeavoured to relieve not only with
money and medicine, but '* with manifestations of
sympathy that went to the hearts of the sufferers, and
doubled the value of the action." Though his enemies
did not hesitate to charge him with the most mercenary
motives in administering his charities, they were
obliged to admit the fact of them. Meiners, who
thoroughly disliked him and considered him both a
quack and a charlatan, was honest enough to acknow-
ledge that he gave his services gratis, and even refused
to make a profit on the sale of his remedies.

*' For some time," says this hostile witness, *'It was
believed that he shared with his apothecary the profits
on the remedies he prescribed to his patients. But as
soon as Cagllostro learnt that such suspicions were
entertained, he not only changed his apothecary, but

159

Cagliostro

obliged the one he chose in his place, as I have been
informed by several people, to sell his remedies at so
low a price that the fellow made scarcely anything by
the sale of them.

"He would take, moreover, neither payment nor
present for his labour. If a present was offered him of
a sort impossible to refuse without offence, he imme-
diately made a counter present of equal or even of
higher value. Indeed, he not only took nothing from
his patients, but if they were very poor he supported
them for months ; at times even lodging them in his
own house and feeding them from his own table."

Ill

At first, only the poor received attention from
Cagliostro. If a rich invalid desired his attendance he
referred him to the regular doctors. Though such an
attitude was well calculated to attract attention, it was
not, as his enemies have declared, altogether prompted
by selfish considerations. In the disdain he affected
for the rich there was much real resentment. Through
the rich and powerful, he had gained nothing but mor-
tification and disgrace. The circumstances under which
he was forced to flee from Warsaw must have wounded
to the quick a nature in which inordinate vanity and
generosity were so curiously blended. Of a certainty
it was not alone the hope of turning Illuminism to the
advantage of Egyptian Masonry that prompted him
to join the Illumines in his hour of humiliation. In
Illuminism, whose aim, revolutionary though it was,
like that of Egyptian Masonry, was also inspired with
the love of humanity, Cagliostro had seen both a

1 60

The Conquest of the Cardinal

means of rehabilitation and revenge. Of studied ven-
geance, however, he was incapable ; the disdain with
which he treated the rich was the extent of his revenge.
Indeed, susceptible as he was to flattery, it was not
long before his resentment was altogether appeased.
But though, in spite of his bitter experience, he was
even once more tempted to court the favour of the
great, he did so in quite a different manner. Hence-
forth, in pandering to their love of sensation, he took
care to give them what he saw fit, and not, as before,
what they demanded.

Particularly was this the case in the exhibitions he
gave of his occult powers. If, as on previous occasions,
he had recourse to artifice to obtain the effect he
desired, it was not detected. It is evident that his
unfortunate experiences in Warsaw had taught him the
wisdom of confining himself solely to phenomena
within his scope. No longer does one hear of stances
arranged beforehand with the medium ; of failures,
exposures, and humiliations.

If from some of his prodigies the alchemists of the
period saw in him a successor of the clever ventrilo-
quist and prestidigitator Lascaris, from many others the
mediums of the present day in Europe and America
might have recognized in him their predecessor and
even their master in table-turning, spirit-rapping, clair-
voyance, and evocations. In a word, he was no longer
an apprentice in magic, but an expert.

As the manifestations of the occult of which
Cagliostro, so to speak, made a speciality were of a
clairvoyant character, some idea of the manner in
which he had developed his powers may be gathered
from the following account by a contemporary of a
M i6i

Cagliostro

sdance he held in Strasburg with the customary colombe
and carafe. #

''Cagliostro," says this witness, ** having announced
that he was ready to answer any question put to him, a
lady wished to know the age of her husband. To this
the colombe made no reply, which elicited great applause
when the lady confessed she had no husband. Another
lady demanded an answer to a question written in a
sealed letter she held in her hand. The medium at
once read in the carafe these words : * You shall not
obtain it.' The letter was opened, the purport of the
question being whether the commission in the army
which the lady solicited for her son would be accorded
her. As the reply was at least indicative of the
question, it was received with applause.

" A judge, however, who suspected that Cagliostro's
answers were the result of some trick, secretly sent his
son to his house to find out what his wife was doing at
the time. When he had departed the father put this
question to the Grand Cophta. The medium read
nothing in the carafe, but a voice announced that the
lady was playing cards with two of her neighbours.
This mysterious voice, which was produced by no
visible organ, terrified the company ; and when the
son of the judge returned and confirmed the response
of the oracle, several ladies were so frightened that
they withdrew."

At Strasburg he also told fortunes, and read the
future as well as the past with an accuracy that
astonished even the sceptical Madame d'Oberkirch.
One of the most extraordinary instances he gave of his
psychic power was in predicting the death of the
Empress Maria Theresa.

162

The Conquest of the Cardinal

** He even foretold the hour at which she would
expire," relates Madame d'Oberkirch. '' M. de Rohan
told it to me in the evening, and it was five days after
that the news arrived."

IV

It was, however, as a healer of the sick that
Cagliostro was chiefly known in Strasburg. Sudden
cures of illnesses, thought to be mortal or incurable,
carried his name from mouth to mouth. The number
of his patients increased daily. On certain days it was
estimated that upwards of five hundred persons
besieged the house in which he lodged, pressing one
another to get in. From the collection of sticks and
crutches left as a mark of gratitude by those who,
thanks to his skill, no longer had need of them, it
seemed as if all the cripples in Strasburg had flocked
to consult him.

The Farmer-General Laborde declares that
Cagliostro attended over fifteen thousand ^ sick people
during the three years he stayed in Strasburg, of
whom only three died.

One of his most remarkable cures was that of the
secretary of the Marquis de Lasalle, the Commiandant
of Strasburg. '* He was dying," says Gleichen, "of
gangrene of the leg, and had been given up by the
doctors, but Cagliostro saved him."

On another occasion he procured a belated pater-
nity for Sarazin, the banker of Bale, who afterwards
became one of his most devoted adherents. No illness

^ Motus, another contemporary, gives the number as " over fifteen
hundred."

M 2 163

Cagliostro

appeared to baffle him. The graver the malady the
more resourceful he became. A woman about to be
confined, having been given up by the midwives, who
doubted even their ability to save her child, sent for
him in her extremity. He answered the summons
immediately, as was his custom, and after a slight
examination guaranteed her a successful accouchement.
What is more to the point, he kept his word.

This case is worthy of note as being the only
one on record concerning which Cagliostro gave an
explanation of his success.

" He afterwards confessed to me," says Gleichen,
" that his promise was rash. But convinced that the
child was in perfect health by the pulse of the umbilical
cord, and perceiving that the mother only lacked the
strength requisite to bring her babe into the world,
he had relied on the virtue of a singularly soothing
remedy with which he was acquainted. The result, he
considered, had been due to luck rather than skill."

The most famous of all his cures was that of the
Prince de Soubise, a cousin of Cardinal de Rohan. In
this case, however, it was the rank of the patient, even
more than the illness of which he was cured, that set
the seal to Cagliostro's reputation. The prince, it
seems, had been ill for some weeks, and the doctors,
after differing widely as to the cause of his malady,
had finally pronounced his condition to be desperate.
Thereupon the Cardinal, who had boundless confidence
in Cagliostro's medical skill, immediately carried him
off in his carriage to Paris to attend his cousin, simply
stating, on arriving at the H6tel de Soubise, that he
had brought " a doctor," without mentioning his name,
lest the family, influenced by the regular physicians,

164

The Conquest of the Cardinal

who regarded him as a quack, should refuse his
services. It was, perhaps, a useless precaution, for, as
the patient had just been given up by the doctors, the
family were willing enough to suffer even a quack to
do what he could.

Cagliostro at once requested all who were in the
sick-room to leave it. What he did when he found him-
self alone with the prince was never known, but, after
an hour, he called the Cardinal and said to him —

"If my prescription is followed, in two days
Monseigneur will leave his bed and walk about the
room. Within a week he will be able to take a drive,
and within three to go to Court."

When one has consulted an oracle, one can do no
better than obey it. The family accordingly confided
the prince completely to the care of the unknown
doctor, who on the same day paid his patient a second
visit. On this occasion he took with him a small vial
containing a liquid, ten drops of which he administered
to the sick man.

On leaving, he said to the Cardinal : '' To-morrow I
will give the prince five drops, the day after two, and
you will see that he will sit up the same evening."

The result more than fulfilled the prediction.
The second day after this visit the Prince de Soubise
was in a condition to receive some friends. In
the evening he got up and walked about the room. He
was in good spirits, and even had sufficient appetite to
ask for the wing of a chicken. But, in spite of his
insistence, it was necessary to refuse him what he so
much desired, since an absolute abstention from solid
food was one of the prescriptions of the '' doctor."

On the fourth day the patient was convalescent, but

165

Cagliostro

it was not till the evening of the fifth that he was per-
mitted to have his wing of a chicken. ** No one," says
Figuier, ''in the Hotel de Soubise had the least idea
that Cagliostro was the doctor who attended the
prince. His identity was only disclosed after the cure,
when his name, already famous, ceased to be regarded
any longer as that of a charlatan."

V

The secret of these astonishing cures, by far the
most wonderful of Cagllostro's prodigies, has given
rise to a great deal of futile discussion. For he never
cured in public, like Mesmer ; nor would he consent
to give any explanation of his method to the doctors
and learned academicians, who treated him with con-
tempt born of envy — as the pioneers of science, with
rare exceptions, have always been treated.

From the fact that he became celebrated at about
the same time as Mesmer, many have regarded them
as rivals, and declared that the prestige of both is to
be traced to the same source. According to this point
of view, Cagliostro, being more encyclopedic than
Mesmer, though less scientific in manipulating the
agent common to both, had in some way generalized
magnetism, so to speak. His cures, however, were
far more astonishing than Mesmer's, for they were
performed without passes or the use of magnets and
magnetic wands. Neither did he heal merely by
touchingy like Gassner, nor by prayers, exorcisms, and
the religious machinery by which faith is made active ;
though very probably the greater part of his success
was due, like Mrs. Eddy's, to the confident tone in

1 66

The Conquest of the Cardinal -

which he assured his patients of the certainty of their
recovery.

CagHostro's contemporaries, on the other hand, to
whom the mechanism of Christian Science and the
attributes of hypnotism — since so well tested by Dr.
Charcot — were unknown, sought a material explana-
tion of his cures in the quack medicines he concocted.
The old popular belief in medicinal stones and magical
herbs was still prevalent. One writer of the period
pretended to know that CagHostro's " Elixir Vitse "
was composed of '' magical herbs and gold in solution."
Another declared it to be the same as the elixir of
Arnauld de Villeneuve, a famous alchemist of the
Middle Ages, whose prescription consisted of "a mix-
ture of pearls, sapphires, hyacinths, emeralds, rubies,
topazes and diamonds, to which was added the scraping
of the bones of a stag's heart."

Equally fantastic were the properties attributed to
these panaceas by those who owed their restoration
to health to Cagliostro. The following story, repeated
everywhere — and believed, too, by many — gave the
notoriety of a popular modern advertisement to the
'• Wine of Egypt."

A great lady, who was also, unfortunately for her,
an old one, and was unable to resign herself to the
fact, was reported to have consulted Cagliostro, who
gave her a vial of the precious liquid with the strictest
injunction to take two drops when the moon entered
its last quarter. Whilst waiting for this period to
arrive the lady who desired to be rejuvenated shut up
the vial in her wardrobe, and the better to insure its
preservation informed her maid that it was a remedy
for the colic. Fatal precaution ! By some mischance

167

Cagliostro

on the following night, the maid was seized witl
the very malady of which her mistress had spoken.
Remembering the remedy so fortuitously at hand she
got up, opened the wardrobe, and emptied the vial at
a draught.

The next morning she went as usual to wait on her
mistress, who looked at her in surprise and asked her
what she wailfed. Thinking the old lady had had a
stroke in the night, she said —

" Ah, madame, don't you know me ? I am your
maid."

" My maid is a woman of fifty," was the reply,
"and you "

But she did not finish the sentence. The woman
had caught a glimpse of her face in a mirror.
The Wine of Egypt had rejuvenated her thirty
years !

In an age unfamiliar with the cunning devices of
the art of advertising and the universality of the
pretensions of quack remedies, such encomiums lavished
on "an extract of Saturn," a " Wine of Egypt," or an
"Elixir Vitse," were calculated to damage the reputation
of their inventor in the opinion of serious people even
more than the bitter denunciations to which they were
exposed. One of the charges of imposture on which
the case against Cagliostro rests is that of manufacturing
his remedies with the object of defrauding the public
by attributing to them fabulous properties which he
knew they did not possess. If this be admitted, then a
similar accusation must be made against every maker
of patent medicines to-day, which, in view of the law
of libel and the fact that many persons have been
restored to health by the concoctions of quacks whom

1 68

The Conquest of the Cardinal

the skilled physician has been powerless to heal, would
be incredibly foolish.

To regard these remedies of Cagliostro with their
ridiculous names and quixotic pretensions with the old
prejudice is preposterous. Judged by the number and
variety of his cures — and it is the only reasonable
standard to judge them by — they were, to say the
least, remarkable.

In the present day, it is no longer the custom to
deride the knowledge of the old alchemists. The
world has come to acknowledge that, in spite of the
fantastic jargon in which they expressed themselves,
they fully understood the uses of the plants and
minerals of which they composed their drugs. Stripped
of the atmosphere of magic and mystery in which they
delighted to wrap their knowledge — and which,
ridiculous as it may seem to-day, had just as much
effect on the imagination in their benighted age as the
more scientific mode of '' suggestion " employed by
the doctors of our own enlightened era — the remedies
of a Borri or a Paracelsus are still deserving of respect,
and still employed. Cagliostro is known to have
made a serious study of alchemy, and it is very
probable that his magic balsams and powders were
prepared after receipts he discovered in old books of
alchemy. Perhaps too, like all quacks — it is impossible
to accord a more dignified title to one who had not
the diploma of a properly qualified practitioner — he
made the most of old wives' remedies picked up
haphazard in the course of his travels.

Without doubt the unparalleled credulity and
superstition of the age contributed greatly to his
success. Miracles can only succeed in an atmosphere

169

Cagliostro

favourable to the miraculous. In Europe, as the
reader has seen — particularly in France — the soil had
been well prepared for seed of the sort that Cagliostro
sowed.

VI

The cure of the Prince de Soubise gave Cagliostro
an immense prestige. ** It would be impossible," says
the Baroness d'Oberkirch, ''to give an idea of the
passion, the madness with which people pursued him.
It would appear incredible to any one who had not
seen it." On returning to Strasburg, '' he was followed
by a dozen ladies of rank and two actresses " who
desired to have the benefit of his treatment. People
came from far and wide to consult him ; and many
out of sheer curiosity. To these, whom he regarded
as spies sent by his enemies, he was either inaccessible
or positively rude.

Lavater, who came from Zurich, was treated with
very scant courtesy. ** If," said Cagliostro, ''your
science [that of reading character by the features, by
which he had acquired a European reputation] is
greater than mine, you have no need of my acquaintance;
and if mine is the greater, I have no need of yours."

Lavater, however, was not to be repulsed by the
inference to be drawn from such a remark. The
following day he wrote Cagliostro a long letter in
which, among other things, he asked him " how he had
acquired his knowledge, and in what it consisted." In
reply Cagliostro limited himself to these words : In
verbis, in herbisy in lapidibus, by which, as M. d'Alm^ras
observes, he probably indicated correctly the nature
and extent of his medical and occult lore.

170

LAVATER [To /ace Jia^-i- 170

{A/tcr the eiigraving by Williaiit Blake)

The Conquest of the Cardinal

But Lavater, as credulous as he was inquisitive,
impressed by the mystery in which CagHostro enveloped
his least action, read into his words quite another
meaning. Believing firmly in the Devil — about whom
he had written a book — the Swiss pastor returned home
convinced that the Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry
was ** a supernatural being with a diabolic mission."

In nobody were the curiosity and admiration that
he inspired greater than in the notorious Cardinal de
Rohan. His Eminence was one of the darlings of
Fortune, whose choicest favours had been showered on
him with a lavish hand. Of the most illustrious birth,
exceptionally handsome, enormously rich, and un-
deniably fascinating, no younger son ever started life
under more brilliant auspices. The Church seemed to
exist solely for the purpose of providing him with
honours. Bishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of
France, Cardinal, Prince of the Empire, Landgrave of
Alsace — his titles were as numerous as the beads of a
rosary. Nor were they merely high-sounding and
empty dignities. From the Abbey of St. Waast, the
richest in France, of which he was the Abbot, he
drew 300,000 livres a year, and from all these
various sources combined his revenue was estimated
at 1,200,000 livres.

Nature had endowed him no less bounteously than
Fortune. To the honours which he owed to the
accident of birth, his intellect had won him another
still more coveted. At twenty-seven he had been
elected to the Academie Fran^aise, where, as he was
particularly brilliant in conversation, it is not surprising
that the Immortals should have " declared themselves
charmed with his company."

^i i¥\M .5

Cagliostro

He possessed all the conspicuous qualities and de-
fects which in the eighteenth century were characteristic
of the aristocrat. High ecclesiastic that he was, he
had nothing of the ascetic about him. Like so many
of the great dignitaries of the Church under the ancien
regime, he was worldly to the last degree. As he was
not a hypocrite, he did not hesitate to live as he
pleased. Appointed Ambassador to Vienna, he had
scandalized the strait-laced Maria Theresa by his
reckless extravagance and dissipation. The Emperor,
to her disgust, " loved conversing with him to enjoy
his flippant gossip and wicked stories." '' Our
women," she wrote to her Ambassador at Versailles,
*' young and old, beautiful and ugly, are bewitched by
him. He is their idol."

His character was a mosaic of vice and virtue.
With him manners took the place of morals. "He
possessed," says Madame d'Oberkirch, *' the gallantry
and politeness of a grand seigneur such as I have
rarely met in any one." Madame de Genlis con-
sidered that, "if he was nothing that he ought to be,
he was as amiable as it was possible to be." In him
vice lost all its grossness and levity acquired dignity.
Anxious to please, he was also susceptible to flattery.
" By my lording him," says Manuel, who disliked
him, " one can get from him whatever one desires."
At the same time he was obliged to confess that the
Cardinal "had a really good heart."

It was to his excessive good-nature that he owed
most of his misfortunes. The entire absence of in-
tolerance in his character caused him to be regarded as
an atheist, but his unbelief, like his vices, was greatly
exaggerated. Men in his position never escape detrac-

172

1

The Conquest of the Cardinal

i tion, but in the case of the Cardinal he deliberately
invited it. Gracious to all, he was generous to a fault.
He dispensed favour and charity alike without dis-
cernment, giving to the poor as readily and as bounti-
fully as to his mistresses. Of these he had had many ;
the memoirs of the period contain strange, and often
untranslatable, stories of his private life. For some
years he was followed wherever he went by the beauti-
ful Marquise de Marigny dressed as a page.

Besides his weakness for a pretty face, this splendid
tare had a fondness amounting to passion for pomp
and alchemy. ** On state occasions at Versailles," says
Madame d'Oberkirch, he wore an alb of lace en point
h r aiguille of such beauty that the assistants were
almost afraid to touch it." It was embroidered with
his arms and device — the famous device of the Rohans,
Roy ne puis, prince ne daigne, Rohan je suis. It was
said to be worth a million livres.

In gratifying his taste for luxury, the cost was the
last thing he considered. On going to Vienna as
Ambassador he took with him two gala coaches worth
40,000 livres each ; fifty horses, two equerries, two
piqueurs, seven pages drawn from the nobility of
Brittany and Alsace with their governors and tutors,
two gentlemen-in-waiting, six footmen, whose scarlet
and gold liveries cost him 4000 livres apiece, etc.

In France his style of living was still more extrava-
gant. He spent vast sums on pictures, sculptures, and
artistic treasures generally. Collecting illuminated
missals was his speciality. At his episcopal palace at
Saverne, near Strasburg, which he rebuilt after it was
destroyed by fire in 1779 at a cost of between two and
three million livres, he had a magnificent library. As

^7Z

Cagliostro

printed books, according to Madame d'Oberkirch, were
beneath his notice, his Hbrary was noted for its beauti-
ful bindings, and above all for the missals ornamented
with miniatures worth their weight in gold.

His principal pastime, however, was alchemy. At
Saverne, besides his library, he had one of the finest
laboratories in Europe. He was almost mad on the
subject of the philosopher's stone. The mention of
the occult sciences at once arrested his attention ; then,
and only then, did the brilliant, frivolous Cardinal
become serious.

Naturally, such a man could not fail to be im-
pressed by the mysterious physician whose cures were
the talk of Strasburg.

Shortly after Cagliostro's arrival, Baron de
Millinens, the Cardinal's master of the hounds, called
to inform him that his Eminence desired to make his
acquaintance. But Cagliostro knowing, as he stated
at his trial in the Necklace Affair, that the prince
''only desired to see him from curiosity, refused to
gratify him." The answer he returned is famous, and
thoroughly characteristic of him.

''If the Cardinal is ill," he is reported to have said,
"let him come to me and I will cure him ; but if he is
well, he has no need of me nor I of him."

This message, far from affronting the Cardinal, only
increased his curiosity. After having attempted in
vain to gain admittance to the sanctuary of the new
Esculapius, his Eminence had, or feigned, an attack
of asthma, "of which," says Cagliostro, "he sent to
inform me, whereupon I went at once to attend him."

The visit, though short, was long enough to inspire
the Cardinal with a desire for a closer acquaintance.

174

The Conquest of the Cardinal

But Cagliostro's disdainful reserve was not easily
broken down. The advances of the Cardinal, how-
ever, were none the less flattering. At last, captivated
by the persistency of the fascinating prelate, he
declared in his grandiose way, to Rohan's immense
joy, that ''the prince's soul was worthy of his, and that
he would confide to him all his secrets."

The relation thus formed, whatever the motives that
prompted it, soon ripened into intimacy. Needless to
say, they had long, frequent, and secret confabulations
in the Cardinal's well-equipped laboratory. Cagliostro,
with his wife, eventually even went to live at Saverne
at the Cardinal's request. He was bidden to consider
the palace as his own, and the servants were ordered
to announce him when he entered a room as ** His
Excellency M. le Comte de Cagliostro."

The Baroness d'Oberkirch, on visiting Saverne
while he was there, ''was stunned by the pomp with
which he was treated." She was one of the few great
ladies of Strasburg who refused to believe in him.
To her he was merely an adventurer. On the
occasions of her visit to Saverne the Cardinal, who
had great respect for her, endeavoured to bring her
round to his opinion. " As I resisted," she said, ** he
became impatient."

"Really, madame," said he, "you are hard to
convince. Do you see this ? "

He showed me a large diamond that he wore on
his little finger, and on which the Rohan arms were
engraved. This ring was worth at least twenty
thousand francs.

"It is a beautiful gem, monseigneur," I said, '* I
have been admiring it."

175

Cagliostro

*' Well," he exclaimed, '* it is Cagliostro who made
it : he made it out of nothing. I was present during
the whole operation with my eyes fixed on the crucible.
Is not that science, Baroness ? People should not
say that he is duping me, or taking advantage of me.
I have had this ring valued by a jeweller and an en-
graver, and they have estimated it at twenty-five
thousand livres. You must admit that he would be a
strange kind of cheat who would make such presents."

I acknowledge I was stunned. M. de Rohan per-
ceived it, and continued —

'' This is not all — he can make gold ! He has made
in this very palace, in my presence, five or six thousand
livres. He will make me the richest prince in Europe !
These are no mere vagaries of the imagination,
madame, but positive facts. Think of all his pre-
dictions that have been realized, of all the miraculous
cures that he has effected ! I repeat he is a most
extraordinary, a most sublime man, whose knowledge
is only equalled by his goodness. What alms he
gives ! What good he does ! It exceeds all power of
imagination. / can assure you he has never asked or
received anything from meT

But Cagliostro did not confine himself solely to
seeking the philosopher's stone for the Cardinal. For
the benefit of his splendid host he displayed the whole
series of his magical phenomena.

One day, according to Roberson — who professed to
have obtained his information from " an eye-witness
very worthy of credence " — he promised to evoke for
the Cardinal the shade of a woman he had loved. He
had made the attempt two or three times before with-
out success. Death seemed to hesitate to come to the

176

The Conquest of the Cardinal

rendez-vous. The moon, perhaps, had not been
propitious, or some great crime committed at the
moment of evocation may have had an unfavourable
effect. But on this occasion all the conditions on
which success depended were united.

"The performance," says Roberson, **took place
in a small darkened room in the presence of four or
five spectators who were seated far enough apart to
prevent them from secretly communicating with one
another. Wand in hand, Cagliostro stood in the
middle of the room. The silence which he had com-
manded was so profound that even the hearts of those
present seemed to stop beating. All at once the
wand, as if drawn by a magnet, pointed to a spot on
the wall where a vague, indefinite form was visible for
a moment. The Cardinal uttered a cry. He had
recognized — or believed he had, which amounted to
the same thing — the woman he had loved."

So great was the confidence that Rohan placed in
Cagliostro that he treated him as an oracle. He con-
stantly consulted him, and suffered himself to be guided
entirely by his advice. As the consequences of this
infatuation were in the end disastrous, it is customary
to regard the Cardinal as the dupe of Cagliostro.
Many, blinded by prejudice, have supposed that
Cagliostro, having previously informed himself of the
tastes, character, and vast wealth of the prince, came
to Strasburg for the express purpose of victimizing
him. It is even asserted that the Countess had her
share in the subjugation of the Cardinal, and that

N 177

Cagliostro

while Cagliostro attacked his understanding, she laid
siege to his heart.

The disdainful, almost hostile, attitude that Caglios-
tro adopted towards his patron at the beginning of
their acquaintance was so well calculated to inflame
Rohan's curiosity that it is a matter of course to
attribute it to design. The Abbd Georgel, who as a
Jesuit thoroughly disliked the Grand Cophta ot
Egyptian Masonry, asserts that ** he sought, without
having the air of seeking it, the most intimate con-
fidence of his Eminence and the greatest ascendency
over his will."

But this very plausible statement is not only un-
supported by any fact, but is actually contrary to fact.
The Cardinal was not Cagliostro s banker, as has so
often been stated. At his trial in the Necklace Affair
Rohan denied this most emphatically. Moreover, it
would have been utterly impossible for him, had he
wished, to have supplied Cagliostro with the sums he
spent so lavishly. In spite of his vast income, he had
for years been head over ears in debt. If there were
any benefits conferred, it was the Cardinal who received
them.

" Cagliostro," says Madame d'Oberkirch, "treated-^
him, as well as the rest of his aristocratic admirers, as
if they v/ere under infinite obligation to him and he
under none to them." '

This statement is the secret of the real nature of
Cagliostro's so-called conquest. It was not cupidity,
but colossal vanity, that lured him into the glittering
friendship that ruined him. The Cardinal, with his
great name and position, his influence, and his un-
deniable charm, dazzled Cagliostro quite as much as

178

The Conquest of the Cardinal

he, with his miracles, his magic, and his mystery,
appealed to the imagination of the Cardinal. Each
had for the other the fascination of a flame for a moth.
Each fluttered round the other like a moth ; and each
met with the proverbial moth's fate. But the Caglios-
tro-flame only scorched the wings of his Eminence.
It was in the flame of the Cardinal that Cagliostro
perished.

N 2

179

CHAPTER V

CAGLIOSTRO IN PARIS

Notwithstanding the immense vogue that Cagli-
ostro enjoyed throughout the three years he passed in
Strasburg, his Hfe was by no means one of unalloyed
pleasure. Many a discordant note mingled in the
chorus of blessing and praise that greeted his ears.
In the memoir he published at the time of the Diamond
Necklace Affair, he speaks vaguely of certain ''perse-
cutions " to which he was constantly subjected.

" His good fortune, or his knowledge of medicine,"
says Gleichen, "excited the hatred and jealousy of the
doctors, who when they persecute are as dangerous
as the priests. They were his implacable enemies in
France, as well as in Poland and Russia."

His marvellous cures wounded the a^nour propre
of the doctors as much as they damaged their reputa-
tion. Everything that malice and envy could devise
was done to decry him. They accused him of treating
only such persons as suffered from slight or imaginary
ailments, questioned the permanency of his cures,
denied that he saved lives they had given up, and
attributed every death to him. He was charged with
exacting in secret the fees he refused in public. His
liberality to the poor was ascribed to a desire to attract
attention, his philanthropy was ridiculed, and the

1 80

Cagliostro in Paris

luxury In which he lived at Cagliostrano, as he called
the fine villa he rented on the outskirts of the town —
attached to which was a private hospital or '* nursing-
home," where his poor patients were treated free of
charge — was called ostentation.

Unable to penetrate the mystery in which he
wrapped his origin, his fortune, and his remarkable
powers, they attacked his character. As it was known
that he frequently stayed at Saverne when the Cardinal
was absent, attempts were made to poison the mind of
the prince by informing him that his guest gave costly
banquets at his expense when '* Tokay flowed like
water." ^ But the Cardinal only laughed.

''Indeed!" he exclaimed, when Georgel reported
to him what he himself had only heard. " Well, I
have given him the right to abuse my hospitality if
he chooses."

As the confidence of the Cardinal in his mysterious
friend was not to be shaken by the slanders of the
doctors, he also was assailed. Old stories of his
Eminence's private life were revived and new ones
added to them. His friendship for Cagliostro was de-
clared to be merely a cloak to hide a passion for his
wife. The Countess was said, and believed by many,
to be his mistress. It was consequently regarded as a

^ This charge is cited by Carlyle as an instance of the baseness
of Cagliostro's character. But as a matter of fact, the charge, like
most of the others made against him, proves on investigation to be
without any foundation. It was the Baron de Planta, one of the
Cardinal's secretaries, who gave the much-talked-of midnight suppers
at Saverne, " when the Tokay flowed like water." It is extremely
doubtful whether Cagliostro even tasted the Tokay ; his contempor-
aries frequently mention with ridicule his abstemiousness. Referring
to his ascetic habits, Madame d'Oberkirch says contemptuously
that " he slept in an arm-chair and lived on cheese."

i8i

Cagliostro

matter of course that it was the Cardinals money
which the Count spent so lavishly.

But far from plundering the infatuated prince as
his enemies asserted, Cagliostro did not so much as
appeal to him for protection. Fortunately the Cardinal
did not require to be reminded of the claims of friend-
ship. Fully aware of the hostility to Cagliostro, he
endeavoured to silence it by procuring for him from
three members of the Government letters to the chief
civil authority in which his protdg^ was recommended
in the highest terms. To Cagliostro these letters, to
which at any time he would have attached an exag-
gerated importance, had a special significance from the
fact that *' he neither solicited them directly nor indi-
rectly." He counted them among his most valuable
possessions.

The tranquillity, however, which they procured him
was only transient. Ever employing fresh weapons
and methods in attacking him, his enemies eventually
found his Achilles'-heel — the impulsive sympathy of a
naturally kind heart.

One day, while he was showing an important
government official over his hospital, a man whom he
had never seen before, and who appeared to have
fallen on evil times, appealed to him for assistance.
He asked to be taken into his service, and offered to
wear his livery. He said that his name was Sacchi,
that he came of a good family in Amsterdam, and had
some knowledge of chemistry. Touched by his evi-
dent distress, Cagliostro yielded as usual to his charit-
able impulses. He found employment for Sacchi in his
hospital, and paid him liberally.

'* I was even persuaded," he said afterwards, "to

182

Cagliostro in Paris

give him the receipt of certain medicaments, among
others that of an elixir, which he has since sold in
London as my balsam, though there is not the least
resemblance between them."

A week later a man, whose wife and daughter had
been cured of a dangerous illness by Cagliostro, called
to inform him that Sacchi was a spy of his enemies the
doctors, and that he was seeking to damage him by
extorting fees from his patients. Horrified at the
ingratitude and treachery of which he was the victim,
Cagliostro forthwith turned ** the reptile he had har-
boured " out of doors. Destitute of honour, rage now
deprived Sacchi of common sense. Having been rash
enough to threaten the life of the person who had ex-
posed him, he was expelled from the city by the
Marquis de Lasalle, the Commandant of Strasburg, who
had been cured of a dangerous illness by Cagliostro.

But this action only served to increase the ex-
asperation of the doctors, whose agent Sacchi was.
Instigated by them he wrote to Cagliostro an insolent
letter in which he demanded one hundred and fifty
louis for the week he had passed in his service,
threatening, if it were not instantly paid, to libel him.
Cagliostro treated the threat with contemptuous
silence, whereupon Sacchi proceeded to publish his
libel, which he composed with the aid of a French
lawyer who had escaped from the galleys. In it he
declared the mysterious Count to be the son of a
Neapolitan coachman, formerly known as Don Tiscio,
a name under which he, Sacchi, had seen him exposed
in the pillory at Alicante in Spain. ^

1 This libel attracted considerable attention, and great use was
made of it in Cagliostro's lifetime by his enemies. Republished

183

Cagliostro

As sensitive to abuse as he was susceptible to
flattery, Cagliostro was unable to endure such treat-
ment, and convinced from his previous experience in
Russia that there would be no limit to the vindictive
malevolence of the doctors, he determined, he says, to
leave Strasburg, where, in spite of the Cardinal's pro-
tection and his ministerial letters, he could find neither
tranquillity nor security. A letter received about this
time informing him that the Chevalier d' Aquino, ot
Naples, a friend of his mysterious past, was danger-
ously ill, and desired to see him, confirmed him in his
resolution. Accordingly, in spite of the entreaties of
the Cardinal, he shook the dust of Strasburg from his
feet, and departed in all haste for Naples, where,
however, he states, he arrived too late to save his
friend.

II

On leaving Strasburg, as previously on leaving
London and Warsaw, Cagliostro once more plunged
into the obscurity in which so much of his career was
passed that it might almost be described as his native
element, to emerge again three months later as before
on the crest of the wave of fortune in Bordeaux. As
rumour, however, followed him it is possible to surmise
with some degree of probability what became of him.

The imaginative Inquisition-biographer, though
unable to give any account of Cagliostro's journey
from Strasburg to Naples, his residence in that city,

during the Necklace Affair, the Parliament of Paris ordered its sup-
pression as " injurious and calumnious." The editor of the Courier
de r Europe afterwards quoted it in his bitter denunciation of Cagli-
ostro, and advanced it as proof of his identity with Giuseppe Balsamo.
It has since generally been admitted to be a malicious invention.

184

Cagliostro in Paris

or subsequent journey to Bordeaux — a singular tour !
— nevertheless unconsciously throws something like
light on the subject. He declares that the Countess
Cagliostro, who accompanied her husband, ''confessed"
at her trial before the Apostolic Court in Rome that
"he left Naples owing to his failure to establish a
lodge of Egyptian Masonry." Questionable as the
source is from which this statement emanates, it is
nevertheless a clue.

Whatever difference of opinion there may be as
to the honesty of Cagliostro's motives in propagating
Egyptian Masonry, there is none as to his pertinacity.
Within three weeks of his arrival in Strasburg he had
founded a lodge for the observance of the Egyptian
Rite. The mysterious and hurried visits he paid from
time to time to Bale, Geneva, and other places in
Switzerland during his three years' residence in Alsace
were apparently of a Masonic nature. It is, moreover,
curious to note that his hurried departure for Naples
occurred immediately after the Neapolitan govern-
ment removed its ban against Freemasonry. As the
Neapolitan government would not have taken this
step had there been the least likelihood of Free-
masonry obtaining a hold over the masses, it is highly
probable that Cagliostro left Naples for the reason
given by the Inquisition-biographer.

This probability is still further strengthened by his
subsequent movements, which, erratic though they may
appear, had a well-defined purpose. From the time he
left London, be it said, till his last fatal journey to
Rome, Cagliostro never went anywhere without having
a definite and preconceived purpose.

It was certainly with a very definite object that he

•85

Cagliostro

went to Bordeaux, where he is next heard of, and
whither he travelled, as he himself says, through the
cities of Southern France. Now the cities of Southern
France were permeated with supernaturalism. It was
at Bordeaux, that Martinez Pasqualis had held his
celebrated school of magic and mystical theurgy, the
most distinguished of whose pupils was Saint- Martin,
the founder of the Martinists. No place was better
adapted for gaining recruits to Egyptian or any other
kind of Freemasonry.

It was here that Mesmer found the noisiest and
most ardent of his admirers in Pere Hervier, an
Augustinian monk who by his eloquence had made
a great reputation as a popular preacher. Summoned
to Bordeaux by the municipality to preach during Lent
at the Church of St. Andrew, Hervier preached not
only the gospel according to Christ but that according
to the Messiah of animal magnetism, with the result
that he made both the clergy and the doctors his
enemies.

This church, one of the finest Gothic monuments
in Europe, was the stage on which he displayed his
talents both as an orator and as a mesmerist. He was
preaching one day on eternal damnation. His flash-
ing eyes, commanding gestures, and alluring voice,
which had from the start prepared the church from
the holy water stoup to the candles on the altar, never
once lost their hold upon the imagination. The con-
gregation, consisting of the richest, youngest, and most
frivolous women of Bordeaux, was in complete accord
with the preacher. Suddenly when the monk began
to picture the horrors of hell a young girl fell into a
fit. Such an incident happening at such a moment

i86

Cagliostro in Paris

created a panic, and those in the immediate neighbour-
hood of the unfortunate girl fled from the spot in terror.
Suspending his sermon Pere Hervier descended from
the pulpit with the sublime gravity of an apostle, and
going up to the young girl, magnetized her after the
manner of Mesmer. Immediately her convulsions
began to cease. The congregation fell on its knees.
The face of the priest seemed illumined with a divine
light. As he passed the women kissed his feet, and
were with difficulty prevented from worshipping
him.

Perceiving that the moment was, so to speak,
psychological, Pere Hervier remounted the pulpit,
and taking as his text the miracle he had just per-
formed, discoursed with all the eloquence for which he
was noted on charity and Christ healing the sick ;
finally bringing his sermon to a close with a passion-
ate denunciation of the doctors and clergy of Bordeaux
who did not believe in magnetism and desired nothing
better than to persecute a poor monk who did.

Such a stage was too well adapted to Egyptian
Masonry not to have attracted Cagliostro. On the
night of his arrival in Bordeaux he and his wife went
to the play, and on being recognized received an
ovation. The next day the concourse of people who
flocked to consult him was so great that the magistrates
were obliged to give him a guard of soldiers to preserve
order in the street.

He had resolved, he says, on leaving Strasburg to
give up the practice of medicine in order to avoid
exposing himself again to the envy of the doctors.
However, as the number of persons of all stations who
sought his assistance was so great he was induced to

187

Cagliostro

change his mind, and resume the. gratuitous "miracles"
which had rendered him so celebrated in Strasburg.
In coming to this decision he afterwards declared
that he counted on the protection of the Comte de
Vergennes, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
and one of the three Cabinet Ministers who had
previously recommended him to the Pretor of Stras-
burg. It was, he said, at Vergennes' special request
that he returned to France. As the Comte de
Vergennes failed to deny this statement, which he
could easily have done when it was made by Cagliostro
at his trial in the Necklace Affair, there seems no
reason to doubt it.

In Bordeaux, as at Strasburg, his cures and his
charities attracted general attention and procured him
a large and enthusiastic following. Many of the most
influential men of the city sought admittance to the
lodge he founded. But, as before, Egyptian Masonry
flourished at the expense of the tranquillity and security
of the Grand Cophta. The influence of Vergennes and
other powerful patrons was powerless to protect him
from the ingenious malevolence of the envious doctors.
Even Pere Hervier, instead of joining forces with
him, entered the lists against him. Mere *' clerk of
Mesmer," he had the folly to engage Cagliostro in a
public discussion, in which he received so humiliating '|
a chastisement that he was laughed out of Bordeaux.
But in spite of his triumphs life was made such a
burden to Cagliostro that after being continually baited
for eleven months he could endure the torment no
longer, and departed for Lyons.

This city was a veritable stronghold of Free-
masonry. Lodges of all descriptions flourished here,

1 88

Cagliostro in Paris

notably those founded by Saint- Martin, the most
mystical of occultists, in which the Swedenborgian
Rite was observed. It was here that Cagliostro found
his most ardent and loyal supporters. Their enthusiasm
was such that they built a ** temple " expressly for the
observance of the Egyptian Rite. It enjoyed the
dignity of being the Mother Lodge of Egyptian
Masonry, the lodges at Strasburg, Bale, Bordeaux,
Paris, and other places being affiliated to it. As it was
the custom for the mother lodges of every order of
Freemasonry to be named after some virtue, this
one received the title of Sagesse Triomphante. It
was the only lodge specially erected by Cagliostro's
followers, all the others being held in rooms rented for
their needs.

It would have been well for Cagliostro had he been
content to remain in Lyons. He would have enjoyed
the "tranquillity and security " he so much desired ;
and history, perhaps, would have forgotten him, for it
is owing to his misfortunes that his achievements are
chiefly remembered.

But destiny lured him to destruction and an igno-
minious renown. Inordinately vain and self-conscious,
he was enticed to Paris by the Cardinal, who was then
residing there, and with whom he had been in constant
correspondence ever since he left Strasburg. So
insistent was his Eminence that he sent Raymond de
Carbonnieres, one of his secretaries, and an enthusiastic
admirer of Cagliostro, to Lyons on purpose to fetch
him. Paris, too, Mecca of every celebrity, called him
with no uncertain voice. Magic-struck she craved the
excitement of fresh mysteries and the spell of a new
idol. Mesmer s tempestuous vogue was over ; adored

189

Cagliostro

and ridiculed in turn he had departed with 340,000
livres, a very practical proof of his success.

So having appointed a Grand Master to represent
him, and delegated his seal — a serpent pierced with an
arrow — to two '' venerables," Cagliostro left Lyons for
Paris. If he made enemies in Lyons they did not
molest him. It was the only place in which he does
not complain of being persecuted.

Ill

On arriving in Paris, Cagliostro declares that he
" took the greatest precaution to avoid causing ill-will.
As the majority of contemporary documents concur in
describing his life in Paris as '* dignified and reserved,"
there is no reason to doubt the truth of his statement.
But one cannot escape one's fate, and in spite of his
efforts not to attract attention, he was condemned to an
extraordinary notoriety.

His arrival was no sooner known than, as at Stras-
burg, Bordeaux, and Lyons, his house was beset with
cripples and invalids of all walks of life. As usual he
refused to accept payment for his services or even for
his remedies.

" No one," says Grimm, *' ever succeeded in making
him accept the least mark of gratitude."

"What is singular about Cagliostro," says the
Baron de Besenval, ** is that in spite of possessing the
characteristics that one associates with a charlatan, he
never behaved as such all the time he was at Strasburg
or at Paris. On the contrary, he never took a sou
from a person, lived honourably, always paid with the

190

1

Cagliostro in Paris

greatest exactitude what he owed, and was very
charitable."

Needless to say, it was not long before his name
became the chief topic of conversation in the capital.
In the enthusiasm his successes excited his failures
were ignored. Rumour multiplied the number of his
cures and magnified their importance. His fame was
thus reflected on the invalids themselves. To be
"healed" by the Grand Cophta became the rage. In
1785 Paris swarmed with men and women who
professed to have been cured by Cagliostro.

Naturally this infatuation infuriated his inveterate
enemies the doctors. It is said that they obtained an
order from the King compelling him, if he wished to
remain in Paris, to refrain from practising medicine.
If so, they had not the courage to enforce it, for he
counted among his partisans men of the very highest
rank, such as the Prince de Luxembourg, who was
Grand Master of the Lodge at Lyons, as well as those
distinguished for their learning like the naturalist
Ramon. All the same the doctors did not leave
him entirely unmolested.

Urged by their masters, who from a sense of
dignity or prudence dared not encounter him in
person, two medical students resolved to play a
practical joke upon the ** healer." It was a species
of amusement very popular at the period ; in this
instance it was regarded also as a duty. The students
accordingly called on Cagliostro, and on being admitted
one of them complained of a mysterious malady of
which the symptoms seemed to him extraordinary. In
attempting, however, to describe them, he used certain
scientific terms, which at once caused Cagliostro to

191

Cagliostro

suspect that his visitor was an emissary of the doctors.
Restraining his indignation he turned to the other and
said with the greatest gravity —

"Your friend must remain here under my care for
sixteen days. The treatment to which I shall subject
him is very simple, but to effect his cure it will be
absolutely necessary for him to eat but once a day,
and then only an ounce of nourishment."

Alarmed at the prospect of so drastic a diet the
mock-invalid began to protest, and asked if it was not
possible to indicate exactly what it was he suffered
from.

'' Nothing simpler," replied Cagliostro. ** Super-
fluity of bile in the medical faculty."

The two students, finding themselves caught in the
trap they had set for him, stammered their apologies
as best they could. Whereupon Cagliostro, perceiving
their discomfiture, good-naturedly set them at ease and
invited them to breakfast, with the result that they
were converted into ardent admirers.

He did not desire, however, to be known only as a
healer of the sick.

In the exhibitions he gave of his tx:cult or psychic
powers, he soon eclipsed every other contemporary
celebrity from the number and variety of the phenomena
he performed. Everybody wished to witness these
wonders, and those who were denied the privilege were
never tired of describing them in detail as if they had
seen them, or of listening in turn to their recital.
The memoirs of the period are filled with the marvels
of his stances at which he read — by means of colombes
and pupilles — the future and the past, in mirrors,
carafes, and crystals ; of his predictions, his cures, and

192

Cagliostro in Paris

his evocations of the dead, who appeared at his command
to rejoice or to terrify, as the case might be, those in
compliance with whose wishes he had summoned them
from the grave.

Every day some new and fantastic story was
circulated about him.

It was related, for example, that one day after a
dinner-party at Chaillot, at which the company con-
sisted chiefly of ladies, he was asked by his hostess to
procure partners for her friends who had expressed the
desire to dance.

" M. de Cagliostro," she said half- seriously, half-
play fully, " you have only to employ your supernatural
powers to fetch us some officers from the Ecole
Militaire."

''True," he replied, going to a window from which
this institution could be seen in the distance, ** it only
requires an invisible bridge between them and us."

A burst of ironical laughter greeted his words.
Indignant, he extended his arm in the direction of the
Hotel des Invalides, which could also be seen from
the window. A few minutes later eighteen veterans
with cork-legs arrived at the house !

On another occasion it was reported that Cagliostro,
having invited six noblemen to dine with him, had the
table laid for thirteen. On the arrival of his guests he
requested them to name any illustrious shades they
desired to occupy the vacant seats. Straightway, as
their names were mentioned, the spectres of the Due
de Choiseul, the Abbe de Voisenon, Montesquieu,
Diderot, d'Alembert, and Voltaire appeared, and
taking the places assigned them conversed with their
hosts in a manner so incredibly stupid, which had it
o 193

Cagliostro

been characteristic of them in the flesh would have
robbed them of all claim to distinction.

This anecdote, one of the gems of the Marquis de
Luchet's lively imagination, who related it with much
spirit, was devoid of the least particle of truth. Never-
theless the C^nacle de Treize or Banquet of the Dead,
as it was called, acquired an immense notoriety. All
Paris talked of it ; and even at Versailles it had the
honour for some minutes of being the subject of royal
conversation.

Constantly fired by such stories, the admiration
and curiosity that Cagliostro aroused in all classes of
society reached a degree of infatuation little short
of idolatry. By his followers he was addressed as
** revered father" or ''august master." They spent
whole hours censing him with a flattery almost profane,
believing themselves purified by being near him.
Some more impassioned and ridiculous than others
averred that ''he could tell Atheists and Blasphemers
by their smell which threw him into epileptic fits."

Houdon, the most celebrated sculptor of the day,
executed his bust. Replicas in bronze, marble, and
plaster, bearing the words, Le Divin Cagliostro on
the pedestal, were to be found in salons, boudoirs, and
offices. Rings, brooches, fans, and snuff-boxes were
adorned with his portrait. Prints of him by Bartolozzi
and others were scattered broadcast over Europe, with
the following flattering inscription —

De Fami des humains reconnaissez les traits;

Tous ses jours sont marques par de nouveaux bienfaits,

II prolonge la vie, il secourt I'indigence,

Le plaisir d'etre utile est seul sa recompense.

Figuier's statement, however, that " bills were even

194

\To face page 194
HOUDON's bust of CAGLIOSTRO
Reproduced by the courtesy of Messrs. Hachette et Cie.

%

Cagliostro in Paris

posted on the walls to the effect that Louis XVI had
declared that any one who injured him was guilty of
lese-majesty '' is extremely doubtful. He was never
received at Versailles. Marie Antoinette, who had
protected Mesmer, could not be induced to take the
least interest in Cagliostro.

IV

The interest displayed in the prodigies he was said
to perform was augmented by the profound secrecy he
observed in regard to his parentage, his nationality,
and his past in general. In the hectic years imme-
diately preceding the Revolution, when credulity,
curiosity, and the passion for sensation had reached a
stage bordering almost on madness, it required no
effort of the imagination to make this secrecy itself
supernatural ; indeed, in the end the interest taken in
the mystery in which Cagliostro wrapped himself
surpassed that in all his wonders combined.

People speculated on the source of his wealth
without being able to arrive at any conclusion. ** No
one," says Georgel, "could discover the nature of his
resources, he had no letter of credit, and apparently
no banker, nevertheless he lived in the greatest
affluence, giving much to the needy, and seeking
no favours whatever from the rich." In Strasburg,
according to Meiners, ** at the very lowest estimate
his annual expenditure was not less than 20,000
livres." In Paris he was reputed to live at the rate of
100,000 livres a year. The splendid footing on which
his establishment was maintained was, however,
probably greatly exaggerated. He himself says that
02 195

Cagliostro

the fine house in the Rue St. Claude, which he
rented from the Marquise d'OrvilHers, was *' furnished
by degrees." »

Some, as previously stated, attributed his splendour
to the Cardinal. It was attested during the Necklace
Affair that proof of this was found among the
Cardinal's papers. Rohan, however, at his trial
denied the charge most emphatically, and Cagliostro
himself declared that the Cardinal's munificence never
went beyond ** birthday gifts to the Countess, the
whole of which consisted of a dove, his (Cagliostro's)
portrait set in diamonds, with a small watch and
chain also set with brilliants." ^

Others declared that his wealth was derived from
" the mines of Lima, of which his father was said to
be director." By others, again, it was said that " the
Jesuits supplied him with funds, or that having
persuaded some Asiatic prince to send his son to
travel in Europe, he had murdered the youth and
taken possession of his treasures." Cagliostro himself
was always very mysterious on this subject.

" But your manner of living," he was questioned
at his trial in the Necklace Affair, ** is expensive ; you
give away much, and accept of nothing in return ; you
pay everybody ; how do you contrive to get money ? "

**This question," he replied, ''has no kind ot

relation to the case in point. What difference does

1 To doubt these statements on the score of a popular prejudice
in favour of regarding Cagliostro as a liar who never by any chance
spoke the truth is quite ridiculous. Not only is there no proof on
which to base this assertion, but there is not even the least suggestion
that Cagliostro was ever considered a liar by his contemporaries
before the Editor of the Courier de V Europe — himself the biggest of
liars and knaves — took advantage of the passions let loose by the
Diamond Necklace Affair to brand him as such.

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Cagliostro in Paris

it make whether I am the son of a monarch or a
beggar, or by what means I procure the money I
want, as long as I regard religion and the laws and
pay every one his due ? I have always taken a
pleasure in refusing to gratify the public curiosity
on this score. Nevertheless I will condescend to
tell you that which I have never revealed to any one
before. The principal resource I have to boast of is
that as soon as I set foot in any country I find there
a banker who supplies me with everything I want.
For instance, M. Sarazin, of Bale, would give me up
his whole fortune were I to ask it. So would M.
Sancotar at Lyons." ^

Equally various were the nationalities attributed
to him. ** Some thought him a Spaniard, others a
Jew, an Italian, a Ragusan, or even an Arab." All
attempts to discover his nationality by his language
failed. Baron Grimm was '* certain that he had a
Spanish accent," others were equally certain that he
talked "the patois of Sicily or of the lazzaroni of Naples."
His enemies declared that he spoke no known language
at all, but a mysterious jargon mixed with cabalistic
words.

One day being pressed by the Comtesse de Brienne
to explain the origin of a life so surprising and
mysterious, he replied, with a laugh, that ''he was
born in the Red Sea and brought up in the shadow of
the Pyramids by a good old man who had taken care
of him when he was abandoned by his parents, and

^ A cryptic reference to the Secret Societies, which were the real
source of his wealth. The great success of Egyptian Masonry, of
which the above-mentioned gentlemen were the bankers, more than
compensated him for what he lost by the < suppression of the
Illumines in 1784, the year before he came to Paris.

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Cagliostro

from whom he had learnt all he knew." But Mirabeau
states that *' M. de Nordberg, who had travelled much
in the East, once addressed him some words in Arabic
of which he did not understand one word."

The mystery in which he purposely enveloped
himself, and which became the deeper the more it was
probed, coupled with the wonders he performed,
recalled the famous Count de Saint- Germain, who
had created a similar sensation some twenty years
before. Of the life, family or country of this
mysterious individual nothing was ever known. Of
many suppositions the most popular was that he was
the son of a xoydl femme galante — Marie de Neubourg,
widow of the last King of Spain of the House of
Austria — and a Jewish banker of Bordeaux. Louis XV,
who had a particular predilection for men of his stamp
and was probably perfectly acquainted with his history,
employed him for a time on secret diplomatic missions
and gave him apartments at Chambord. His fasci-
nating manners, good looks, lavish expenditure and
mysterious antecedents attracted attention wherever
he went.

In London, where he lived for a couple of years,
he excited great curiosity. '* He was called," says
Walpole, ''an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole, a nobody
that married a great fortune in Mexico and ran away
with her jewels to Constantinople."

These jewels were the admiration of all who
beheld them. Madame de Hausset, the companion of
Madame de Pompadour, to whom he showed them
once, believed them to be false. Gleichen, however,
who was a connoisseur of precious stones, '' could
discern no reason to doubt their genuineness." Like

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Cagliostro in Paris

Cagliostro, who gave a diamond valued at 20,000
livres to Cardinal de Rohan, Saint-Germain made a
present of one to Louis XV worth 10,000 livres.

The secrecy he observed in regard to his origin
appears in the beginning to have been due less to
any intention to mystify the public than to a strong
sense of humour. In an age when a supernatural
significance was attached to anything that appeared
mysterious, he was at once credited with occult powers
which he never claimed to possess. Urged by a
whim to see how far he could play upon the credulity
of the public, he found the role of wonder-man so
congenial that he never attempted to adopt another.

A particular talent for romancing, aided by a
wonderful memory, enabled him to doctor up the
marvellous to suit the taste of his hearers. He
described people and places of the distant past with a
minuteness of detail that produced the impression that
he had been personally acquainted with them. As
many were foolish enough to take him literally, all
sorts of fabulous stories were circulated about him.

** I amuse myself," he once confessed to Gleichen,
who reproved him for encouraging the belief that he
had lived from time immemorial, '* not by making
people believe what I wish, but by letting them believe
what they wish. These fools of Parisians declare that
I am five hundred, and I confirm them in the idea
since it pleases them."

The least credulous believed him to be at least a
hundred. Madame de Pompadour said to him once
that old Madame de Gergy remembered having met
him fifty years before in Venice when he passed for
a man of sixty.

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Cagliostro

** I never like to contradict a lady," he replied,
**but it is just possible that Madame de Gergy is in'
her dotage."

Even his valet was supposed to have discovered
the secret of immortality. This fellow, a veritable
Scapin, assisted him admirably in mystifying the
credulous.

"Your master," said a sceptic one day, seizing him
by the collar, **is a rogue who is taking us all in.
Tell me, is it true that he was present at the marriage
of Cana.?"

**You forget, sir," was the reply, ** I have only
been in his service a century."

Many of the most amazing stories circulated about
Cagliostro were merely a repetition of those related
twenty years before of Saint-Germain. The recollec-
tion of Saint-Germain's reputed longevity led to the
bestowal of a similar attribute to his successor. Thus
it was reported that Cagliostro stopped one day before
a ** Descent from the Cross " in the Louvre and began
to talk of the Crucifixion as if he had witnessed it.
Though the story was devoid of foundation it was
not without effect, and many declared, and believed
too, that the Grand Cophta had lived hundreds,
and even thousands of years. Cagliostro, it is
but fair to add, complained bitterly of this at his
trial.

On the strength of the close resemblance in the
mystery and the stories concerning Saint-Germain and
Cagliostro, as well as their alchemical knowledge —
for Saint-Germain, needless to say, was credited with
having discovered the philosopher's stone — Grimm
believed Cagliostro to have been the valet alluded

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Cagliostro in Paris

to above. There is, however, not the least evidence
that the paths of the two men ever crossed ^

Great though the influence that an impenetrable
mystery and so-called supernatural phenomena always
exercise over the human mind, their appeal, even when
credulity reaches the pitch it did in 1785, will never
alone provoke interest so extraordinary as that taken
in Cagliostro. It is only a very powerful and magnetic
personality that is able to fix such curiosity and to
excite such admiration. It is, moreover, equally
certain, that had he been such a man as Carlyle has
painted him, history would never have heard of him,
much less remembered him.

Speaking of Cagliostro's physiognomy, he describes
it as " a most portentous face of scoundrelism ; a fat
snub, abominable face ; dew-lapped, flat-nosed, greasy,
full of greediness, sensuality, ox-like obstinacy ; the
most perfect quack-face produced by the eighteenth
century."

It is the ignorance of his subject, be it said,
rather than the violence of his prejudice, which
such statements as this reveal that have deprived
Carlyle's opinion of Cagliostro of any value in the
estimation of modern writers.^ There is plenty of
reliable information, to which Carlyle had access, to

1 De Luchet's fantastic account of the visit paid by Cagliostro
and his wife to Saint-Germain in Germany, and their subsequent
initiation by him into the sect of the Rosicrucians, of which he was
supposed to be the chief, is devoid of all authenticity.

2 D'Almdras and Funck-Brentano — the latter extremely careless
when writing of Cagliostro — never so much as mention Carlyle.

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Cagliostro

prove that Cagliostro's appearance was anything but
repulsive.

Beugnot, who has described him with more mockery
than any of his contemporaries, says *'he was of
medium height, rather stout, with an olive complexion,
a short neck, round face, a broad turned-up nose, and
two large eyes." From all accounts his eyes were
remarkable. '* I cannot describe his physiognomy,"
says the Marquise de Crequy, *'for he had twelve or
fifteen at his disposal. But no two eyes like his were
ever seen ; and his teeth were superb." Laborde
speaks of *' his eyes of fire which pierced to the
bottom of the soul." Another writer declares that
''his glance was like a gimlet."

All the contemporary documents that speak of
him — and they are hostile with very few exceptions —
refer to the powerful fascination that he exercised on
all who approached him. The impression he produced
upon the intellectual Countess von der Recke has
already been referred to. Like her, Laborde, Motus,
and others considered that his countenance ''indicated
genius."

Cardinal de Rohan told Georgel that on seeing
him for the first time "he discovered in his physiog-
nomy a dignity so imposing that he felt penetrated
with awe."

"He was not, strictly speaking, handsome," says
Madame d'Oberkirch, who certainly was not one of
his admirers, " but never have I seen a more remark-
able face. His glance was so penetrating that one
might be almost tempted to call it supernatural. I
could not describe the expression of his eyes — it was,
so to speak, a mixture of flame and ice. It attracted

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4

Cagliostro in Paris

and repelled at the same time, and inspired, whilst it
terrified, an insurmountable curiosity. I cannot deny-
that Cagliostro possessed an almost demoniacal power,
and it was with difficulty that I tore myself from
a fascination I could not comprehend, but whose
influence I could not deny."

Lavater, whose unfavourable opinion seems to be
due to the contemptuous way in which Cagliostro
received him, nevertheless thought him **a man such
as few are."

Beugnot, after ridiculing him as " moulded for
the express purpose of playing the part of a clown,"
confesses that ''his face, his attire — the whole man, in
fact, impressed him in spite of himself."

If, as Meiners and other hostile contemporaries
assert, '' he spoke badly all the languages he pro-
fessed to know," there is not the least reason to infer,
like Carlyle, that ''he was wholly intelligible to no
mortal," or that "what thought, what resemblance of
thought he had, could not deliver itself, except in
gasps, blustering gushes, spasmodic refluences which
made bad worse."

Michelet — Carlyle's brilliant and equally learned
contemporary — regarded him as " a veritable sorcerer
possessed of great eloquence." Even the bitter In-
quisition-biographer confessed that he was " marvel-
lously eloquent." Motus declared that "his eloquence
fascinated and subjugated one, even in the languages
he spoke least well." "If gibberish can be sublime,"
says Beugnot, " Cagliostro was sublime. When he
began any subject he seemed carried away with
it, and spoke impressively in a ringing, sonorous
voice."

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Cagliostro

The beauty of the Countess Cagliostro was also an
important element in the success of her husband.
She was like a sylph with her fluffy straw-coloured
hair, which she wore unpowdered, her large, deep, soft
blue eyes, her small and delicately chiselled nose, her
full rose-red lips, and a dazzlingly white skin.

*' She is an angel in human form," said Maitre
Polverit, by whom she was defended when she was im-
prisoned in the Bastille on the charge of being impli-
cated in the Necklace Affair, *'who has been sent on
earth to share and soften the days of the Man of
Marvels. Beautiful with a beauty that never belonged
to any woman, she cannot be called a model of tender-
ness, sweetness and resignation — no ! for she does not
even suspect the existence of any other qualities."
And the judges evidently agreed, for they ordered her
release without a trial.

Motus describes her as ** a beautiful and modest
person and as charitable as her husband." She was
fond of dress, and her diamonds were the talk of Paris.
The Countess de Lamotte at her trial declared that
" Madame de Cagliostro's display of jewelry scandal-
ized respectable women, as well as those who were not."
It is scarcely necessary, however, to observe that
Madame de Lamotte saw the Countess through her
hatred of Cagliostro. To make a display of jewelry
at that period did not cause the least scandal. The
Countess, moreover, was a fine horsewoman, and
mounted on her black mare Djerid attracted attention
quite apart from the fact that she was the wife of
Cagliostro.

Uneducated — she could not write ; though from
mixing in the best society she had acquired the

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A

Cagliostro in Paris

manners of a lady — she was one of those women who
always remain a child. In the over-civilized, cynical,
and hysterical age in which she lived, her ingenuous
chatter passed for a new type of spirituality, and her
ignorance for candour. That was the secret of her
charm. As all the world lacked it, candour was a
novelty.

*' The admiration she excited," says one writer,
'' was most ardent among those who had never seen
her. There were duels over her, duels proposed and
accepted as to the colour of her eyes, which neither of
the adversaries knew, or as to whether a dimple was
on her right cheek or on her left."

Needless to say, scandal did not fail to attack her
reputation. The enemies of Cagliostro were quick to
accuse her of light conduct, and her husband of en-
couraging it. The Cardinal was popularly supposed
to be her lover. The Countess de Lamotte asserted
that she specially distinguished a Chevalier d'Oisemont
among a crowd of admirers. But, as Gleichen says in
reference to her supposed infidelity, ''why suppose
without proof?" Of Cagliostro's devotion to her at
least there is no doubt. So little is known of her
character that it is impossible to speak of it with any
certainty ; but considering the admiration that all agree
she inspired and the numerous temptations she had to
desert him when fortune turned against him, the fact
that she stuck to him to the end is a pretty strong
argument in favour of both her fidelity and affection.

Owing to her girlish appearance, the age of the
lovely Countess was a subject of considerable specula-
tion. It is said, though with what truth cannot be
stated, that " she occasionally spoke of a son who was a

205

Cagliostro

captain in the service of the Dutch government." As
this made her at least forty when she did not appear to
be twenty, a credulous public was ready to see in her
a living witness to the efficacy of her husband's
rejuvenating powders and elixir of life. De Luchet,
who is responsible for the story, asserts that she added
to her age expressly to advertise Cagliostro's quack-
medicines.^

Like Saint-Germain's valet, she was also credited
with a share of her husband's supernatural endowments.
According to certain unauthenticated information, she
was the Grand Mistress of the I sis lodge for women,
which among other conditions of membership included
a subscription of one hundred louis. This lodge is
said to have been composed of thirty-six ladies of rank,
who joined it for the purpose of being taught magic by
the wife of Cagliostro. The report widely circulated
by de Luchet, of the obscene character of the
"evocations," is devoid of the least authenticity. It is
doubtful, indeed, whether such a lodge ever existed at
all. Madame de Genlis, who figures in de Luchet's

* If it be true that the Count and Countess Cagliostro were
really Giuseppe and Lorenza Balsam o, surely the remarkable change
in the appearance^ not to speak of the character, of both, must be
regarded as the most astonishing of all Cagliostro's prodigies. The
impression he produced from the accounts given above was totally
different from that which Balsamo was said to have produced. As
for his wife, it is preposterous to expect any one to believe that the
pretty demirep Lorenza would have looked as girlish and fresh as the
Countess Seraphina after fifteen years of the sort of life she led with
Giuseppe. As vice and hardship have never yet been regarded as
aids to beauty, those who persist in pinning their faith to the Balsamo
legend will perhaps assent to the suggestion that Cagliostro's remedies
possessed virtues hitherto denied them.

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Cagliostro in Paris

list of members, never so much as mentions the
Cagliostros in her memoirs.

VI

Needless to say, Cagliostro did not fail to turn the
prodigious furore he created to the account of Egyptian
Masonry. Not long after his arrival in Paris a lodge
Was established at the residence of one of his followers
in a room specially set apart for the purpose and
furnished, says the Inquisition-biographer, *' with
unparalleled magnificence." Here from time to time
the " seven angels of the Egyptian Paradise, who
stand round the throne of God — Anael, Michael,
Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Zobriachel, and Hanachiel
(with whom the Grand Cophta was a special favourite)
** condescended to appear to the faithful."

Cagliostro also opened another lodge in his own
house, when the angels came at the bidding of other
members besides the Grand Cophta. It was not long
before similar phenomena were witnessed in all the
Egyptian lodges. In a remarkable letter of an adept
of the lodge at Lyons found in Cagliostro's papers at
the time of his arrest in Rome, the writer, in describing
a ceremony held there, said that ''the first philosopher
of the New Testament appeared without being called,
and gave the entire assembly, prostrate before the blue
cloud in which he appeared, his lessing. Moreover "
(adds the writer), " two great prophets and the legislator
of Israel have given us similar convincing signs of
their good-will."

It is from Cagliostro's ability " to transmit his
powers," as it was termed, that the singular phenomena

207

Cagliostro

of modern spiritualism were developed. In reality it
was nothing more or less than the discovery of the
'' psychic " — the word must serve for want of a better
— properties latent in every human being, and which
in many are capable of a very high degree of develop-
ment. This discovery, till then unimagined, was the
secret of the veneration in which Cagliostro was
regarded by his followers.

Notwithstanding the very high development to
which Cagliostro's own " psychic " powers had now
attained, one gathers the impression from his own
utterances that he never completely understood them.
A link between the old conception of magic and the
new theosophical theories, there are many indica-
tions that he regarded the phenomena he performed
as direct manifestations of divine power. In an
age of unbelief he always spoke of God with the
greatest respect, even in circles in which it was the
fashion to decry the goodness as well as the exist-
ence of the Supreme Being. Like all the mystics of
the eighteenth century, he was deistic. *'A11 duty,
according to him," says Georgel, " was based on the
principle : Never do to others what you would not
wish them to do to you." One of the first things seen
on entering his house in Paris was a slab of black
marble on which was engraved in gold letters Pope's
Universal Prayer.

Historians who have been inclined to treat him
leniently as the loyal agent of a revolutionary sect are
horrified that he ** should have effaced the dignity of the
enthusiast behind the trickeries of the necromancer."
Louis Blanc, who preached a perpetual crusade against
thrones and altars, and despised occultism, declares

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Cagliostro in Paris

that Cagllostro's phenomena '* cast suspicion on his
own ideals, and were a veritable crime against the
cause he proclaimed to be holy, and which there was
no necessity to associate with shameful falsehoods."

The charge is a very just one. The bitterness
with which Cagliostro has been regarded for a hundred
years is due less to the calumnies with which he was
assailed in his life — and which till the present no one
has dreamt of investigating — than to the belief that he
debased his ideals. As his " psychic " powers developed
it cannot be denied that he attached a significance to
them that, in the opinion of thoughtful people, was
calculated to render his motives suspect. His real
imposture was not in cheating people of their money
or faking miracles, but in encouraging the belief that
he was a supernatural being — ** I am that I am," as
he is said to have described himself profanely on one
occasion. Intoxicated by his amazing success, he lost
all sense of proportion. The means which he had
begun to employ in MIttau to justify his end all but
effaced the end itself in Paris.

To attract followers he was no longer content to
gratify the passion for the marvellous, but sought to
stimulate it. To enhance the effect of his phenomena
he had recourse to artifices worthy of a mountebank.

The room In which his stances were held contained
statuettes of Isis, Anubis, and the ox Apis. The walls
were covered with hieroglyphics, and two lacqueys,
" clothed like Egyptian slaves as they are represented
on the monuments at Thebes," were in attendance to
arrange the screen behind which xh^ pupilles or colombes
sat, the carafe or mirror Into which they gazed, or to
perform any other service that was required,
p 209

Cagliostro

To complete the mise en scene, Cagliostro wore a
robe of black silk on which hieroglyphics were em-
broidered in red. His head was covered with an Arab
turban of cloth of gold ornamented with jewels. A
chain of emeralds hung en sautoir upon his breast, to
which scarabs and cabalistic symbols of all colours in
metal were attached. A sword with a handle shaped
like a cross was suspended from a belt of red silk.

•' In this costume," says Figuier, '' the Grand
Cophta looked so imposing that the whole assembly
felt a sort of terror when he appeared."

The manner in which Cagliostro dressed and con-
ducted himself in public was equally designed to attract
attention, though it was scarcely of the sort he desired.
A writer who saw him walking one day followed by an
admiring band of street-arabs says ''he was wearing a
coat of blue silk braided along the seams ; his hair in
powdered knots was gathered up in a net ; his shoes
a la d'Artois were fastened with jewelled buckles, his
stockings studded with gold buttons ; rubies and
diamonds sparkled on his fingers, and on the frill of
his shirt ; from his watch-chain hung a diamond drop,
a gold key adorned with diamonds, and an agate seal
— all of which, in conjunction with his flowered waist-
coat and musketeer hat with a white plume, produced
an instantaneous effect."

The Marquise de Cr^quy, Beugnot, and nearly all
his contemporaries allude to the fantastic manner in
which he dressed as well as to his colossal vanity,
which, inflated by success, rendered him not only
ridiculous to those whom he failed to fascinate, but
even insufferable. Pompous in Mittau, he became
arrogant, domineering, and choleric in Paris. Flattery,

2IO

Cagliostro in Paris

to which he had always been peculiarly susceptible,
at last became to him like some drug by which he
was enslaved. He could not tolerate criticism or
contradiction. '' The Chevalier de Montbruel," says
Beugnot, '' a veteran of the green-room, and ready to
affirm anything, was always at hand to bear witness to
Cagliostro's cures, offering himself as an example
cured of I do not know how many maladies with
names enough to frighten one."

However, Cagliostro was never so spoilt by
success, never so compromised by the tricks and
devices to which he stooped to perform his wonders,
as to lose sight of his ideal. Had he been the vulgar
cheat, the sordid impostor it is customary to depict him,
he would have contented himself with the subscrip-
tions paid by the members of the lodges he founded
and have ceased to insist on the ethical character
of Egyptian Masonry. In 1785 a religious element
was calculated to repel rather than to attract. It was
the wonder-man, and not the idealist, in whom Paris
was interested. But instead of taking the line of least
resistance, so to speak, Cagliostro deliberately adopted
a course that could not fail to make enemies rather
than friends.

Far from dropping the religious and moral character
of the Egyptian Rite, he laid greater stress on it than
ever, and claimed for his sect a superiority over all the
others of Freemasonry, on the ground that it was
based on the mysteries of Isis and Anubis which he
had brought from the East. As no one ever ventured
to regard him as a fool as well as a knave, it is impos-
sible to question his sincerity in the matter. At once
the seventy-two Masonic lodges of Paris rose in arms
p 2 211

Cagliostro

against him. He managed, however, to triumph over
all opposition. At a meeting held for the purpose of
expounding the dogmas of Egyptian Masonry *'his
eloquence was so persuasive," says Figuier, *' that he
completely converted to his views the large and
distinguished audience he addressed."

From the respect that Cagliostro thus exacted
and obtained, Egyptian Masonry acquired an im-
portance in France not unlike that of the Illumines
in Germany. Nothing proves this so well as the
Congress of Philaletes, or the Seekers of Truth.

This Masonic body was composed of members of
Swedenborgian and Martinist lodges affiliated to
Illuminism. Its character was at once occult and
political. On the detection and suppression of the
Illumines, in 1784, the Philaletes, organized by
Savalette de Langes, a revolutionary mystic, sought
to finish in France the work which Weishaupt had
begun in Germany. As an old Illuming Savalette de
Langes was well acquainted with Cagliostro, and the
importance he attached to him was so great that he
desired to incorporate the sect of Egyptian Masonry
in that of the Philaletes. He accordingly summoned
a congress of Philaletes to which Cagliostro was invited
to explain his doctrine.

The ambitions and aspirations of the Grand
Cophta had kept pace with the steadily rising fortunes
of Egyptian Masonry. He was quick to perceive the
immense advantage to be derived from a union of the
organization of which he was the head with that of the
Philaletes, who were one of the most numerous and in-
fluential of the Masonic sects. But he had no inten-
tion of playing second fiddle to them, and in replying

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Cagliostro in Paris

to their invitation he assumed that they were prepared
to acknowledge the superiority of the Egyptian Rite.
So with pompous condescension, which was as astute as
it was bizarre, he informed them that '' having deigned
to extend to them his hand and consented to cast a
ray of light upon the darkness of their Temple, he
requested them as a sign of their submission to the
truths of Egyptian Masonry to burn their archives."

Though taken aback by such an answer, the Phila-
letes did not abandon the hope of coming to some
satisfactory arrangement. But Cagliostro proved too
clever for them, and in the series of interviews and
negotiations which followed they were completely over-
awed and over-reached. For a moment it seemed as
if Freemasonry in general was to be restored to '' its
original Egyptian character," and that Cagliostro would
realize his sublime ideal, perform the greatest of all
his prodigies, and '' evoke " the Revolution, which the
noblest minds in Europe had dreamt of for a hundred
years.

But life has her great ironies as well as her little
ones. Suddenly, to the rapt enthusiast on the Pisgah-
peak of his ambition the shadow of the Revolution did
indeed appear. Not the benign genius it was fondly
imagined to be before 1789 : herald of freedom and the
golden age ; but the monstrous demon of calumny,
hatred and terror : the shadow of the Revolution as it
was to be, claiming its victims in advance.

Before the Philaletes and the Egyptian Masons
could effect their union, the Diamond Necklace Affair
was to destroy all Cagliostro's dreams and projects.

213

CHAPTER VI

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE AFFAIR
I

Few subjects have been more written about, more
discussed than the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
The defences alone of those involved in this cause
cdlebre fill two big volumes. All the memoirs of the
period contain more or less detailed accounts of it ;
in every history of France it occupies a chapter to
itself; and as it suggests romance even more than
history, novelists and dramatists alike have often
exercised their imagination upon its entanglements.

To re-tell in detail this romance, to rehearse this
drama in which the happiness and reputations of all
who figure in it were destroyed, does not come within
the scope of this book. For the chief interest it
excites is focussed on the star — the Comtesse de
Lamotte-Valois — who dominates the scene from first
to last. It is only in the last act that Cagliostro
appears. Nevertheless, the part he played was so
important that a brief rhumd of the action preceding
his appearance is necessary to enable the reader to I
understand how he came to be involved in the *
imbroglio.

Nature had specially cast Madame de Lamotte for
the part she played in this drama. Descended from
the Valois through a natural son of Henry II, her
family had sunk into a state of abject poverty. At her

214

•OUNTESS DK l.AM(3TTE
{After Robinet)

I To/uc.'MK'

The Diamond Necklace Affair

birth her father was reduced to poaching for a livelihood
on his former ancestral estate. He eventually died in
the Hotel Dieu, the famous hospital for the indigent
founded by Madame de Pompadour. Madame de
Lamotte herself as a child was a barefoot beggar on
the highway. It was in this condition that she first
attracted the attention of the Marquise de Boulain-
villiers, who out of pity gave her a home, educated her
as well as her brother and sister, and afterwards
obtained a small pension for them from Louis XVI.

Being naturally extremely precocious and intelligent,
Jeanne de Saint-Remy, as she was called, did not
neglect her opportunities. It was her misfortune,
however, to derive but small profit from them.
Having flirted with the wrong people — her bene-
factress's husband and a bishop — she married the
wrong man. Lamotte was good-looking, of a
respectable family, and crippled with debt. Unable
to support himself and his wife on his pay as a
subaltern in the army, he resigned his commission,
adopted the title of Count — to which he had a shadowy
claim — added Valois to his name, and went to Paris to
seek fortune, where the Countess made the most of
her wits and her looks.

The expedient to which she most frequently
resorted was to pester well-known people with petitions,
in which she sought to have the claim she had set up
to the lands of her ancestors recognized. As by some
extraordinary coincidence the Crown had recently
acquired these lands, she had, she hoped, only to find
the right person to take up her cause to triumph in the
end. Among those to whom she appealed was
Cardinal de Rohan. His Eminence, who was both

Cagliostro

sympathetic and susceptible, manifested the greatest
pity for the young and charming Countess whose
condition was in such a contrast to her illustrious birth.
He was amazed that the Court should so neglect a
descendant of Henri H, and promised readily to
support her claim. A few days later in his capacity as
Grand Almoner of France, he sent his interesting
protdgde 2,400 livres as an earnest of his intention.
As gratitude and necessity caused the suppliant to
renew her visits frequently, the impression she
produced on the Cardinal deepened. His pride as
well as his sensuality urged him to protect a woman
as fascinating and distinguished as she was unfortunate.
He entered into her views, gave her advice ; and even
confided to her his own grievances and desires.

With all his splendour his Eminence was what Is
known as a disappointed man. It was his ambition
to play a conspicuous part in affairs of state. To
flatter him the sycophants who surrounded him were
in the habit of comparing his abilities to those of
Richelieu, Mazarin, and Fleury, the three great
Cardinals who had governed France. It was more
than his right, it was his duty, they told him, to become
First Minister. In reality he was utterly unfitted for
such a position, though not more so than Calonne and
Lomenie de Brienne, the last two ministers to govern
the state under the ancien rdgime. Rohan, however,
intoxicated by flattery, believed what he was told ; and
his desire for power developed into a passion, a fixed
idea.

One obstacle alone stood between him and the
pursuit of his ambition — Marie Antoinette ; a fasci-
nating and dazzling obstacle to this consecrated

216

1

The Diamond Necklace Affair

voluptuary, so dazzling that it became confused in his
mind with the summit from which it kept him. He
did not bear the Queen the slightest resentment for
her animosity to him. He was aware that it had
been imparted to her by her mother Maria Theresa,
at whose instance he had been recalled from Vienna
twelve years before. He felt certain that if he could
but meet her, get into communication with her, he could
win her esteem. Unfortunately Marie Antoinette's
contempt extended to Louis XVI. Versailles was
thus closed to the Cardinal. He was never seen there
but once a year, on Assumption Day, in his role of
Grand Almoner, when he celebrated mass in the
Royal Chapel.

The confidences of her protector gave the
Countess de Lamotte more than an insight into his
character. In the vanity and credulity they revealed,
her alert and cunning mind saw a Golconda of
possibilities which not only her necessity but her
genius for intrigue urged her to exploit.^ By
circulating rumours of her friendship with the Queen,
to which her frequent journeys to Versailles in search
of some influential person to present her petition to
the King gave weight, she had obtained credit from
tradespeople. To cause this rumour to glide to the
ears of his Eminence was easy. And as people
generally believe what flatters them, when Madame
de Lamotte spoke of the interest that the Queen took
in him, an interest that circumstances compelled her

^ It is the custom to brand the Countess de Lamotte as infamous,
and judged by moral standards she certainly was. The amazing
spirit and inventions she displayed, however, give a finish to her
infamy that suggest the artist as well as the mere adventuress.

217

Cagliostro

to conceal, the dissipated, amorous Cardinal, too vain
to dream any one would deceive him, listened and
believed all he was told.

Thus began the famous series of violet-tinted
letters which during May, June, and July, 1784, passed
between Marie Antoinette and Rohan. This corre-
spondence of which the Queen, needless to say, had
not the least inkling, becoming as it proceeded less
and less cold and reserved, inflamed all the desires that
fermented in the heart of the Cardinal. In this way it
was the simplest thing in the world for the Countess
de Lamotte to induce him to send the Queen through
her '* 60,000 livres out of the Almonry funds for a poor
family in whom her Majesty was interested."

As Marie Antoinette continued to be " short of
cash," Rohan, who was himself heavily in debt and
had misappropriated into the bargain the funds of
various institutions of which he was the trustee, was
obliged to borrow the money the Queen was supposed
to be in need of from the Jews. His Eminence, how-
ever, at length became restive under these incessant
demands for money. He even began to suspect that
the Queen might be playing him false, and in spite of
all the Countess's explanations demanded some visible
proof of the interest she professed to manifest in him.

It was at this juncture, when it seemed as if the
game was up, that Lamotte, walking in the garden of
the Palais Royal, met by accident an unfortunate female
whose face bore a perfect resemblance to that of the
Queen.^ To such an intrigante as the Countess, this

1 All contemporaries are agreed on this point. " Same figure,
same complexion, same hair, a resemblance of physiognomy of the
most striking kind," says Target, who defended the Cardinal at his trial,

218

The Diamond Necklace Affair

resemblance was sufficient material out of which to
forge a fresh chain for the Cardinal. On August ii,
1784, between ten and eleven at night, "the un-
fortunate female " — Mile. Leguay, Baroness d'Olivaor
whatever she called herself — having been carefully-
trained and paid to represent Marie Antoinette, gave
the Cardinal," disguised as a mousquetaire," a meeting
in the park of Versailles, a meeting which the Coun-
tess de Lamotte was careful to interrupt ere it began,
giving his Eminence barely time to kiss the hand of
the supposed Queen, who as she was hurried away
flung the kneeling prelate a rose as a token of her
affection and esteem.

To Rohan that fleeting vision of the Queen of
France served as the proof he had demanded. Hence-
forth the dream of his diseased fancy enveloped him
as in a veil. Obsessed by a single idea, he became the
blind instrument of the consummate enchantress by
whom he was bewitched. After his romantic rendez-
vous in the park of Versailles, he advanced confidently
and triumphantly to the abyss into which he was
destined to plunge, without looking to the right or to
the left, and seeing nothing but his vision of the Queen
as she had dropped the rose at his feet.

So complete was his thraldom, that later in the
depth of his abasement, when he lay in the terrible
solitude of the Bastille, charged with swindling a
jeweller of a necklace, it was with difficulty that Rohan
could bring himself to believe, not that he had been
basely betrayed by the Queen, but duped by Madame
de Lamotte. '' I was completely blinded by the
immense desire I had to regain the favour of the
Queen," he said at his trial, in reply to the observations

219

Cagliostro

of the judges how a man so cultivated, so intelligent,
and even so able, as he unquestionably was — his
embassy in Vienna had been a brilliant success —
should have become the plaything of the Countess de
Lamotte.

'' His incredible credulity," says the Due de Levis,
''was really the knot of the whole affair." However,
it is not so incredible as it seems. The very fact of his
intelligence partially explains it. As Suzanne says to
Figaro in the Barber of Seville, '* intellectual men are
fools," particularly when there is a woman in the case,
and Madame de Lamotte was clever and fascinating
enough to have turned the head of the Devil himself.

As a result of this strategy the Countess managed
to mulct the Cardinal of 150,000 livres. The figure
that she cut on this money confirmed the rumours of
her intimacy with the Queen, a circumstance she did
not fail to turn to account. By paying those whom she
owed she obtained from them and others still greater
credit, whereby the foundations of the vast structure
of deceit in which she lived were still further strength-
ened and extended. She had no longer to ask for
credit, it was offered to her, and people even came to
implore her to use her boasted influence at Court in
their behalf. Some silk merchants of Lyons, who
desired the patronage of the Queen, sent her a case of
superb stuffs valued at 10,000 livres.

It was in this way that she became acquainted with
Bohmer, the maker of the famous necklace.

Except the Cardinal, it would be impossible to
imagine a more ridiculous monomaniac than this Saxon
Jew. For over ten years he had locked up his whole
fortune in a ** matchless jewel " for which he was

220

The Diamond Necklace Affair

unable to find a purchaser. Marie Antoinette, in
particular, had been pestered to buy it, till her patience
being exhausted she ordered Bohmer never to mention
it to her again.^ He obeyed her, but none the less
continued to hope she would change her mind. In the
course of ten years this hope became a fixed idea,
which he sought to realize by hook or crook. Thus
hearing that Madame de Lamotte had great influence
with the Queen, Bohmer came, like the silk merchants of
Lyons and others, to purchase it if possible.

It did not take the wily Countess long to gauge
the credulity of her visitor, or to make up her mind
that it was worth her while to exploit it. Needless to
say, a woman clever enough to persuade the Grand
Almoner of France that a fille de joie of the Palais
Royal from whom he had received a rose in the park
of Versailles was Marie Antoinette, would have no
difficulty in getting possession of Bohmer's necklace.

The Cardinal, who had been marking time, so to
speak, at Saverne ever since his adventure, was hastily
summoned to Paris to perform a service for her
Majesty concerning which she enjoined the strictest
secrecy. When Rohan, who had travelled post in a
blizzard, discovered what the service was he was
staggered. No wonder. The Queen, he was informed,
wished him to be her security for the purchase of the

^ Marie Antoinette is said to have told Bohmer she could not
afford to buy it, but with her well-known extravagance and passion
for diamonds one cannot help thinking she would have found the
means had the necklace really appealed to her. The fact that
Bohmer could find no purchaser suggests that he had as Uttle taste
as brains. The Cardinal, who like the Queen knew a beautiful
object when he saw it, thought the necklace anything but a beautiful
ornament, and when told that the Queen wanted it, wondered what
she could see in it.

221

Cagliostro

necklace, for which she had agreed to pay 1,600,000
Hvres (^64,000) in four instalments of equal amounts
at intervals of six months. Madame de Lamotte,
however, succeeded in persuading him to affix his
signature to the necessary documents — and in
due course Bohmer's '' matchless jewel " was in her
possession.

It did not take her long '' to break it up," as Marie
Antoinette had advised Bohmer to do years before.
Her manner of disposing of the diamonds, which she
** picked from the setting with a knife," was itself a
romance. But it is impossible in so hurried a rdsumd
of this imbroglio to enter into any particulars that
have no connection whatever with Cagliostro.

The ddnouement arrived six months later when the
first instalment of 400,000 livres became due. Madame
de Lamotte awaited it with perfect indifference. She
had involved the Cardinal too deeply to have any
fears for herself. The very peril to which he was
exposed was her safety. At all costs Rohan would be
obliged to pay for the necklace to prevent a scandal.

She made a mistake, however, in not informing
him in time that the Queen was not in a position to
pay the instalment, whereby as her security the
liability devolved on him. For never dreaming that
such a contingency was possible, he was utterly unpre-
pared for it when it came. Crippled with debt, he was
unable to put his hand on 400,000 livres at a moment's
notice. The difficulty he found in raising the sum
made Bohmer so nervous that he consulted Madame
Campan, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. She
informed the jeweller that he was mad if he imagined
the Queen had bought his necklace. Hereupon

222

I

The Diamond Necklace Affair

Bohmer in great agitation rushed off to Madame de
Lamotte, who coolly informed him she suspected he
was being victimized.

*' But," she added reassuringly, '' the Cardinal is,
as you know, very rich ; he will pay. Go to him."

This was a master-stroke ; for the Countess had as
much reason to believe that Bohmer would take her
advice as that the Cardinal, to avoid a scandal which
meant his ruin, would assume the entire responsibility
of the purchase of the necklace. Unfortunately, the
distracted jeweller instead of going to the Cardinal
tottered off to the King !

By a dramatic coincidence it was Assumption
Day, the one day in the year on which the Cardinal
was entitled to appear at Versailles, when as Grand
Almoner he celebrated mass to which the Royal
Family always went in state. He and the Court were
waiting in the Oeil-de-Boeuf for the King and Queen
to appear in order to accompany them to the Chapel
of St. Louis, when a door opened and a chamberlain
summoned his Eminence to the sovereign. Every-
body knows what followed. Bohmer, having obtained
an audience of Louis XVI, had related to that amazed
monarch all the details of the transaction by which the
necklace had been bought for the Queen. This story,
repeated in the presence of Marie Antoinette, whose
honesty and virtue it alike impugned, stung her to
fury. Exasperated though she was by Bohmer's
assertion that she had purchased his necklace, which
for ten years she had refused to do, she might never-
theless have excused him on the ground of his insanity.
But when he charged her with having employed
Rohan, whom she hated, to purchase the necklace

223

Cagliostro

through a confidante of whom she had never heard,
she was transported with indignation. Forgetting
that she was a Queen, which she did too often, she
remembered only that she was a woman, and without
thinking of the consequences, insisted that the Cardinal
should be arrested and her reputation publicly vindi-
cated. Louis XVI, whose misfortune it was to be
guided by her when he shouldn't, and never when he
should — a misfortune that in the end was to cost him
crown and life — at once ordered the arrest of the
Grand Almoner, who, attired in his pontifical robes,
was carried off then and there to the Bastille like a
common criminal before the eyes of the entire Court.

The arrest of the Cardinal ^ was in due course
followed by that of the Countess de Lamotte,
Cagliostro and his wife, the '' Baroness d'Oliva," who
had acted the part of the Queen in the park of
Versailles, R^teaux de Vilette, who had forged the
Queen's letters to Rohan, and several others on whom
suspicion had fallen. " The Bastille," as Carlyle says,
" opened its iron bosom to them all."^

Such in brief is the story of the rape of the
Diamond Necklace.

The trial that followed has been justly described as
the prologue of the Revolution. To the calumnies it
gave birth may be traced the hatred which engendered
the Reign of Terror.

1 The Cardinal was arrested on the 15th, and Cagliostro on the
23rd August, 1785.

2 Lamotte alone succeeded in escaping.

224

{From a Frciuh />>

The Diamond Necklace Affair

''Calumny," says M. Chaix d'Est-Ange in his
brilliant monograph on the Necklace Affair, " is
common to all ages, but it has not always the same force
and success. In times when public opinion is indiffer-
ent or feeble it is despised and powerless. At other
periods more favourable to it, borne on the wings of
passion it soars aloft strong, confident, and triumphant.
If ever it was a power it was in the eighteenth
century."

''It was everywhere," says de Goncourt, "under
the roofs of courtiers and blackmailers alike, in the
bureaux of the police themselves, and even at the side
of the Queen."

Given such a state of society Marie Antoinette
could have done nothing so calculated to injure herself
as to cause the arrest of the Cardinal. If he deserved
the Bastille it was not necessary to send him there.
Though she may be excused for regarding him as a
"vulgar swindler who stole diamonds to pay his
debts," she should have remembered that he was also
the head of one of the greatest houses in France.
As soon as the news of his arrest was known there was
but a single opinion in the salons of the nobility :
" What, arrest the Grand Almoner of France in full
pontificals before the whole Court for a bit of chiffon !
Send a Rohan and the chief of the clergy to the
Bastille ! Cest trop ! "

The malcontents of the Court recognized in this
shameful disgrace the hand of the unpopular minister
Breteuil, who was known to be the bitter enemy of the
Cardinal.

" M. de Breteuil," wrote Rivarol with truth, "has
taken the Cardinal from the hands of Madame de

Q 225

Cagliostro

Lamotte and crushed him on the forehead of the
Queen, which will retain the marks."

It was by his advice, indeed, that Louis XVI
had been persuaded to gratify the rage of his reckless
consort. The opportunity of ruining his enemy had
been too great for Breteuil to resist. The weak-
ness of the King, the unpopularity of the Queen and
the faults of a blundering minister were thus alike
accentuated.

''When a king has absolute power," says Chaix
d'Est-Ange, **it is without doubt at such a time as this
that he should use it to stifle scandal." The arrest of
the Cardinal could only have been justified by his
conviction. It was a question of his honour or the
Queen's. Thirty years before it would have been an
easy matter to find him guilty, but the spirit of dis-
respect for a tyrannized and stupid authority which was
beginning to assert itself everywhere made Rohan's
conviction extremely difficult, if not altogether impos-
sible. For Louis XVI, from a mistaken sense of equity
which was interpreted as weakness, allowed the Parlia-
ment to try him.

This was the height of folly. For sixty years
there had been war between the Court and the Parlia-
ment. In the truce which had taken place on the
accession of Louis XVI, the members had resumed
their deliberations more imbued than ever with the
spirit of resistance ; embittered by a long exile they
regarded their recall as a victory. Thus to give the
Parliament the power of determining the guilt or
innocence of the Cardinal, which was in reality that of
the Queen herself, was to take an acknowledged
enemy for a judge.

226

The Diamond Necklace Affair

When the news of the Cardinal's arrest reached the
Parliament, one of the most popular members — he after-
wards perished on the guillotine like most of them —
cried out, rubbing his hands, " Grand and joyful busi-
ness ! A Cardinal in a swindle ! The Queen impli-
cated in a forgery ! Filth on the crook and on the
sceptre ! What a triumph for ideas of liberty ! How
important for the Parliament ! "

In such circumstances it is not surprising that the
trial of the Cardinal and his co-accuses should become,
as Mirabeau wrote, '* the most serious affair in the
kingdom."

The great family of Rohan left no stone unturned
to save the honour of their name. To assist them —
but inspired by quite other motives — they had all the
enemies of the Queen and the Ministry, as well as the
people who considered the Cardinal the victim of
despotism. Women in particular were all for la Belle
Eminence. It was the fashion to wear ribbons half red
and half yellow, the former representing the Cardinal,
the latter the straw on which he was supposed to lie in
the Bastille. Cardinal sur la paille was the name of
the ribbon, which was worn even in the palace of
Versailles itself.

To save the honour of the throne the Government
was obliged to descend into the arena and fight the
forces arrayed against it. The attention of the
civilized world was thus riveted on the trial, which lasted
nine months. No detail was kept secret, accounts
were published daily in which the slightest incident
was recorded. France and Europe were inundated
with libels and calumnies in which the reputations of
all concerned were torn to shreds.
Q 2 227

Cagliostro

Throw enough mud and some of it is sure to stick.
It took more than half a century to cleanse the honour
of Marie Antoinette of all suspicion of connivance in
the theft of the necklace.

The mistrust that mystery and magic always
inspire made Cagliostro with his fantastic personality
an easy target for calumny. After having been riddled
with abuse till he was unrecognizable, prejudice, the
foster-child of calumny, proceeded to lynch him, so to
speak. For over one hundred years his character has
dangled on the gibbet of infamy, upon which the
sbirri of tradition have inscribed a curse on any one
who shall attempt to cut him down.

His fate has been his fame. He is remembered in
history, not so much for anything he did, as for what
was done to him. The Diamond Necklace Affair, in
which the old rdgime and the new met in their duel to
the death, was Cagliostro's damnation. In judging
him to-day, it is absolutely essential to bear in mind
the unparalleled lack of scruple with which the Govern-
ment and its enemies contested this trial.

II

Implicated in her swindle by the Countess de
Lamotte, to whose accusations his close intimacy with
the Cardinal gave weight, Cagliostro was arrested
at seven in the morning by Inspector Brugniere,
accompanied by Commissary Chesnon and eight
policemen.

"He desired me, "says Cagliostro, who has described
his arrest in detail, '* to deliver up my keys, and com-
pelled me to open my bureau, which I did. There

228

The Diamond Necklace Affair

were in it several of my remedies, amongst the rest six
bottles of a precious cordial. Brugniere seized on
whatever he took a fancy to, and the catchpoles he
had brought with him followed his example. The
only favour I asked was that I might be permitted to
go in my own carriage to the place of my destination.
This was refused. I then requested to be allowed the
use of a cab ; this also was denied. Proud of making
a show of his prey to the thronging multitude, Brugniere
insisted on my walking part of the way; and although
J was perfectly submissive and did not make the least
shadow of resistance he laid hold of me by the collar.
In this way, closely surrounded by four sbirri, I was
dragged along the Boulevards as far as the Rue
Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, where a cab appearing, I
was mercifully thrust into it and driven the rest of the
way to the Bastille."

The admiration amounting almost to veneration
that Cagliostro inspired was shared only by his followers
— of whom, however, he could count several thousands,
it is said, in Paris. On the other hand, the curiosity
which he had excited was general and anything but
reverent. The exaggerated enthusiasm of his fol-
lowers, the incredible stories related of him, and the
extreme seriousness with which he took himself made
him ridiculous. If he was the chief subject of conver-
sation in all classes in Paris, it was as a subject of
mirth. In the drama of the Necklace Affair it was to
him that the public looked to supply the comic relief.
He was by common consent the clown, the funny man
of the play, so to speak. He had but to appear on
the scene to raise a laugh, his slightest gesture pro-
duced a roar, when he spoke he convulsed the house.

229

Cagliostro

But to Cagliostro his r61e was very far from comic.
The consciousness of innocence is not necessarily a
consolation in adversity. It poisons as often as it
stimulates — according to the temperament. Cagliostro
was utterly crushed by the blow that had fallen on
him. The gloom of the Bastille, which the popular
imagination haunted by old legends made deeper than
it was, seemed to chill his very soul. He who had
faced with '' a front of brass " all the previous dangers
and humiliations of his agitated existence was for the
first time cowed. Illuminlst, Egyptian Mason, Mystic
Regenerator of Mankind — Revolutionist, in a word —
he had no confidence in the justice of the power into
whose hands he had fallen. He believed that he
would be forgotten In his dungeon like so many
others.

The severity with which he was treated was
calculated to justify his fears.

** Were I left to choose," he says, ** between an
ignominious death, and six months in the Bastille, I
would say without hesitation, ' Lead me on to the
scaffold.' "

For five months he was not only in ignorance, but
purposely misinformed, as to what was transpiring
without his prison. During this time the beautiful
Countess, less rigorously guarded, was confined near
him without his knowledge. As soon as Brugnlere
had carried off her husband, Chesnon and the police,
who had remained behind after searching for incrim-
inating documents which they did not find, attached
seals to the house and carried her off too, ''half dead
with fear," to the Bastille. In response to Cagliostro's
repeated Inquiries as to whether she shared his

230

i

The Diamond Necklace Affair

captivity, as he feared, his jailers ''swore by their
honour and God that she was not in the Bastille."

This deception was even carried to the length of
permitting him to write letters to her which never
reached her, and to receive replies which she never
wrote, " in which she assured him that she was taking
steps to restore him to freedom." As the Countess
Cagliostro could not write, a friend was supposed to
write the letters for her. In the same way if he
wanted clothes or linen he would dispatch a line to
his wife, and an official would go to his house and
fetch what he required, bringing back a letter from
the Countess calculated to make him believe that they
had been sent by her.

At the same time the Cardinal was living in almost
as much comfort as if he had been in his own palace.
He occupied a spacious apartment, had three of his
servants to wait on him, and saw as many people as
he wished. The number of his visitors was so ereat
that the drawbridge of the Bastille was kept lowered
throughout the day. On one occasion he even " gave
a dinner of twenty covers."

As money — and Cagliostro had plenty of it — like
rank, was able to purchase equal consideration in the
Bastille, the contrast in the treatment of the two
prisoners almost warrants the supposition that the
jailers derived no little amusement from making sport
of the sufferings of one who was alleged to be immune
from those ills to which mere clay is prone. There
are many people to whom a weeping Pierrot is as
funny as a laughing one.

It was not till his despondency, on discovering as
he eventually did that his wife was a prisoner like

231

Cagliostro

himself, threatened to affect his reason that the severity
of his confinement was relaxed. To prevent him from
committing suicide, Thiroux de Crosne, the minister
who had issued the warrant for his arrest, advised de
Launay, the Governor of the Bastille, ''to choose a
warder, Hkely to be sympathetic, to sleep in his cell."
He was also permitted, like the other prisoners, to
have exercise and to select a lawyer to defend him.

The first use he made of this privilege was to
petition the Parliament — ''to release his wife from a
dungeon, where a man himself had occasion for all his
strength, all his fortitude, and all his resignation to
struggle against despair."

The Bastille was too massive a cage for so delicate
a bird. Implicated without the shadow of a reason in
the Necklace Affair the Countess Cagliostro began to
imagine herself ill. She pined for her fine house, her
admirers, her diamonds, her black mare Djerid, and the
companionship of the man to whom she owed all that
spelt happiness in her inoffensive, doll-like existence.
Moved to pity less by the petition of Cagliostro than
by the pleading of her lawyer, Polverit, and the elo-
quence of d'Epremenil, the most brilliant member of
the Parliament, that body was finally persuaded to set
her free without a trial after having been imprisoned
seven months in the Bastille.

The release of the Countess Cagliostro, to which
the Court was bitterly opposed, was the first reverse
of the Government in the duel to which it had so
foolishly challenged public opinion.

No sooner was the news known than friends and
strangers alike came to congratulate her. For more
than a week nearly three hundred people came daily

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The Diamond Necklace Affair

to inscribe their names in the visitors' book kept by
the concierge.

*' It is the perfection of good style," says one of the
newswriters of the period, " to have made a call on the
Countess Seraphina."

'' Even the ' nymphs ' of the Palais Royal," says
d'Almeras, " discreetly manifested their sympathy with
the victim of arbitrary power on recognizing her as
she walked one day in the gardens."

Ill

Madame de Lamotte in the meantime, utterly
undaunted by her imprisonment, was energetically
preparing for the trial, which, in spite of all her efforts,
was to end in her conviction. Her defence was a
tissue of lies from beginning to end. She contradicted
herself with brazen effrontery, accused Cagliostro, the
Cardinal, and at last the Queen, of swindling Bohmer
of the necklace. She did not hesitate to defame her-
self by declaring that she had been the mistress of the
Cardinal — which was as false as the rest of her evi-
dence— and, as each lie became untenable, took refuge
in another, even admitting that she was lying " to
shelter an exalted personage." In only one thing was
she consistent ; to the end she asserted her complete
innocence. Her object was to confuse the issue and
so wriggle herself free.

In the first of her memoires pistificatifs, which
were printed and sold in accordance with the legal
custom of the day, she boldly charged Cagliostro with
the robbery of the necklace. He was represented as
an impostor to make him the more easily appear a

Cagliostro

swindler. To penetrate the mystery in which he had
wrapped his origin she invented for him a low and
shameful past, which the editor of the Courier de
r Europe and the Inquisition-biographer afterwards
merged into Giuseppe Balsamo's. She ridiculed his
cures, and cited the Medical Faculty as witnesses of
the deaths he had caused. She declared his dis-
interestedness and his generosity to be a fraud, and
accused him of practising in private the vices he
denounced in public. Having stripped him of the
last stitch of respectability she proceeded to expose
the woman who passed as his wife, and whose liaisons
with the Cardinal and others she declared he en-
couraged. As for the wonders he was said to perform
they were not even worthy of the name of tricks ; only
fools were taken in by them. In fine, to Madame
de Lamotte, the Grand Cophta was nothing but '*an
arch empiric, a mean alchemist, a dreamer on the
philosopher's stone, a false prophet, and a Jew who
had taken to pieces the necklace which he had
beguiled the Cardinal, over whom he had gained an
incredible influence, to entrust to him, in order to
swell a fortune unheard of before."

This mdmoire — the first of many which the various
persons implicated in the Affair rained upon the public
— was to an impatient world the signal that the battle
had begun. Excitement, already at fever heat, was
intensified by the boldness, directness and violence of
Madame de Lamotte's denunciation. It was felt that
to justify himself Cagliostro would be obliged to clear
up the mystery of his past. Never before had the
"Grand Coffer," as he was called by a police official
who unwittingly confounded the title and the fortune

234

d

The Diamond Necklace Affair

of the restorer of Egyptian Masonry, roused curiosity
to so high a pitch. The recollection of his reputed
prodigies gave to his expected self-revelation the
character of an evocation, so to speak ; and the public,
as ready to mock as it had formerly been to respect
him, awaited his defence as a sort of magic seance at
which all the tricks of necromancy were to be explained.

Cagliostro employed to defend him Thilorier, one
of the youngest and most promising advocates of the
Parisian bar. Perhaps no cause c^lebre in history has
ever called forth a more brilliant display of legal talent
than the Diamond Necklace Affair. Of all the mdmoires
or statements that were published by the advocates
engaged in the case that of Thilorier created the
greatest sensation.

Warned by the tumult occasioned by the rush of
purchasers who had besieged the house of Madame de
Lamotte's advocate on the publication of her m'emoire,
Thilorier took the precaution to secure eight soldiers
of the watch to guard his door. Within a few hours
tens of thousands of copies were scattered over Paris,
and large editions were dispatched to the principal
cities of Europe. It was regarded as a romance after
the style of the Arabian Nights rather than the serious
defence of a man whose liberty and very life were at
stake. Everywhere people read it with a sort of
amused bewilderment, and '* Thilorier himself," says
Beugnot, *'who was a man of infinite wit, was the
first to laugh at it."

As a masterpiece of irony, clearness, dignity, and
wit it was equalled only by Blondel's defence of the
" Baroness d'Oliva." But its chief merit lay not so
much in the piquancy of its literary style as in its

235

Cagliostro

portrayal of Cagliostro. Those who read this fantastic
document felt that they not only saw the man but
could hear him speak. Thilorier had drawn his hero
to the life.

Beginning with a high-flown and egotistical re-
capitulation of his sufferings and virtues Cagliostro
proceeded to refute " those imputations (as to his
origin) which in any other circumstance he would
have treated with contempt" by relating ''with
candour " the history of his life. As a specimen of his
grandiloquence it is worth quoting at some length.

'' I cannot," he says, *' speak positively as to the
place of my nativity, nor to the parents who gave me
birth. All my inquiries have ended only in giving
me some great notions, it is true, but altogether vague
and uncertain, concerning my family.

** I spent the years of my childhood in the city of
Medina in Arabia. There I was brought up under
the name of Acharat, which I preserved during my
progress through Africa and Asia. I had my apart-
ments in the palace of the Muphti Salahaym. It is
needless to add that the Muphti is the chief of the
Mahometan religion, and that his constant residence
is at Medina.

'' I recollect perfecdy that I had then four persons
attached to my service : a governor, between fifty-five
and sixty years of age, whose name was Althotas,^

1 The existence of Althotas is now generally conceded. A
plausible attempt has been made to identify him with a certain
Kolmer from whom Weishaupt received lessons in magic, and who
was said to be a Jutland merchant who had lived some years in
Memphis and afterwards travelled through Europe pretending to
initiate adepts in the ancient Egyptian Mysteries. He was known
to have visited Malta in the time of the Grand Master Pinto.

236

i

The Diamond Necklace Affair

and three servants, a white one who attended me as
valet de chainbre and two blacks, one of whom was
constantly about me night and day.

<< My governor always told me that I had been
left an orphan when only about three months old,
that my parents were Christians and nobly born ; but
he left me absolutely In the dark about their names
and the place of my nativity. Some words, however,
which he let fall by chance have induced me to suspect
that I was born at Malta. Althotas, whose name I
cannot speak without the tenderest emotion, treated
me with great care and all the attention of a father.
He thought to develop the talent I displayed for the
sciences. I may truly say that he knew them all,
from the most abstruse down to those of mere amuse-
ment. My greatest aptitude was for the study of
botany and chemistry.

'' By him I was taught to worship God, to love and
assist my neighbours, and to respect everywhere reli-
gion and the laws. We both dressed like Mahometans
and conformed outwardly to the worship of Islam ;
but the true religion was imprinted in our hearts.

'* The Muphti, who often visited me, always treated
me with great goodness and seemed to entertain the
highest regard for my governor. The latter instructed
me in most of the Eastern languages. He would often
converse with me on the pyramids of Egypt, on those
vast subterraneous caves dug out by the ancient
Egyptians, to be the repository of human knowledge
and to shelter the precious trust from the injuries
of time.

"The desire of travelling and of beholding the
wonders of which he spoke grew so strong upon me,

237

Cagliostro

that Medina and my youthful sports there lost all the
allurements I had found in them before. At last, when
I was in my twelfth year, Althotas informed me one
day that we were going to commence our travels. A
caravan was prepared and we set out, after having
taken our leave of the Muphti, who was pleased to
express his concern at our departure in the most
obliging manner.

" On our arrival at Mecca we alighted at the
palace of the Cherif Here Althotas provided me with
sumptuous apparel and presented me to the Cherif,
who honoured me with the most endearing caresses.
At sight of this prince my senses experienced a sudden
emotion, which it is not in the power of words to
express, and my eyes dropped the most delicious tears
I have ever shed in my life. His, I perceived, he
could hardly contain.

" I remained at Mecca for the space of three years;
not a day passed without my being admitted to the
sovereign's presence, and every hour increased his
attachment and added to my gratitude. I sometimes
surprised his gaze riveted upon me, and turned to
heaven with every expression of pity and commisera-
tion. Thoughtful, I would go from him a prey to an
ever-fruitless curiosity. I dared not question Althotas,
who always rebuked me with great severity, as if it had
been a crime in me to wish for some information con-
cerning my parents and the place where I was born.
I attempted in vain to get the secret from the negro
who slept in my apartment. If I chanced to talk of
my parents he would turn a deaf ear to my questions.
But one night when I was more pressing than usual,
he told me that if ever I should leave Mecca I was

238

The Diamond Necklace Affair

threatened with the greatest misfortunes, and bid me,
above all, beware of the city of Trebizond.

" My inclination, however, got the better of his fore-
bodings— I was tired of the uniformity of life I led at
the Cherifs court. One day when I was alone the
prince entered my apartment ; he strained me to his
bosom with more than usual tenderness, bid me never
cease to adore the Almighty, and added, bedewing my
cheeks with his tears : ' Nature s unfortunate child,
adieu ! '

** This was our last interview. The caravan waited
only for me and I set off, leaving Mecca, never to
re-enter it more.

'' I directed my course first to Egypt, where I in-
spected those celebrated pyramids which to the eye of
the superficial observer only appear an enormous mass
of marble and granite. I also got acquainted with the
priests of the various temples, who had the com-
placence to introduce me into such places as no
ordinary traveller ever entered before. The next
three years of my progress were spent in the principal
kingdoms of Africa and Asia. Accompanied by
Althotas, and the three attendants who continued in
my service, I arrived in 1766 at the island of Rhodes,
and there embarked on a French ship bound to
Malta.

'* Notwithstanding the general rule by which all
vessels coming from the Levant are obliged to enter
quarantine, I obtained on the second day leave to go
ashore. Pinto, the Grand Master of the Knights of
Malta, gave us apartments in his palace, and I perfectly
recollect that mine were near the laboratory.

'' The first thing the Grand Master was pleased to

239

Cagliostro

do, was to request the Chevalier d'Aquino, of the
princely house of Caramanica, to bear me company
and do me the honours of the island. It was here that
I first assumed European dress and with it the name
of Count Cagliostro ; nor was it a small matter of
surprise to me to see Althotas appear in a clerical dress
with the insignia of the Order of Malta.

" I have every reason to believe that the Grand
Master Pinto was acquainted with my real origin. He
often spoke to me of the Cherif and mentioned the
city of Trebizond, but never would consent to enter
into further particulars on the subject. Meanwhile he
treated me with the utmost distinction, and assured me
of very rapid preferment if I would consent to take
the cross. But my taste for travelling and the pre-
dominant desire of practising medicine, induced me
to decline an offer that was as generous as it was
honourable.

"It was in the island of Malta that I had the mis-
fortune of losing my best friend and master, the wisest
as well as the most learned of men, the venerable
Althotas. Some minutes before he expired, pressing
my hand, he said in a feeble voice, ' My son, keep for
ever before your eyes the fear of God and the love of
your fellow-creatures ; you will soon be convinced by
experience of what you have been taught by me.'

'' The spot where I had parted for ever from the
friend who had been as a father to me, soon became;
odious. I begged leave of the Grand Master to quit
the island in order to travel over Europe ; he con-
sented reluctantly, and the Chevalier d'Aquino was so
obliging as to accompany me. Our first trip was to
Sicily, from thence we went to the different islands

240

m

The Diamond Necklace Affair

of the Greek Archipelago, and returning, arrived at
Naples, the birthplace of my companion.

"The Chevalier, owing to his own private affairs,
being obliged to undertake a private journey, I pro-
ceeded alone to Rome, provided with a letter of credit
on the banking house of Signor Bellone. In the
capital of the Christian world I resolved upon keeping
the strictest incognito. One morning, as I was shut
up in my apartment, endeavouring to improve myself
in the Italian language, vay valet de chambre introduced
to my presence the secretary of Cardinal Orsini, who
requested me to wait on his Eminence. I repaired at
once to his palace and was received with the most
flattering civility. The Cardinal often invited me to
is table and procured me the acquaintance of several
irdinals and Romap princes, amongst others,
cardinals York and Ganganelli, who was afterwards
Pope Clement XIV. Pope Rezzonico, who then
filled the papal chair, having expressed a desire of
seeing me, I had the honour of frequent private
interviews with his Holiness.

"I was then (1770) in my twenty-second year,
when by chance I met a young lady of quality,
Seraphina Feliciani, whose budding charms kindled
in my bosom a flame which sixteen years of marriage
have only served to strengthen. It is that unfortunate
woman, whom neither her virtues, her innocence, nor
her quality of stranger could save from the hardships
of a captivity as cruel as it is unmerited."

From this stage of his Odyssey, beyond citing as

references certain persons by whom he was known

in the various countries through which he passed,

Cagliostro was very reticent as to his doings. From

R 241

Cagliostro

Rome he arrived at Strasburg at a bound, whence he
proceeded to his imprisonment in the Bastille with
almost equal speed. His confession, rendering as it
did his country and parentage more mysterious than
ever, was received with derision. The credulous
public, which had swallowed so easily all the ex-
travagant stories concerning his supernatural powers
refused to believe in this fantastic account of a
mysterious childhood passed in Mecca and Medina,
of caravans and pyramids, of tolerant Muphtis and
benignant Grand Masters of Malta. It was not that
the credulity of the eighteenth century had its limit
but that calumny had mesmerized it, so to speak.
Cagliostro's prestige had been submerged in the
Necklace Affair ; the blight of the Bastille had fallen
on the fame of the Grand Cophta and all his works.

As the manner in which he stated his ignorance
of his birth seemed to leave it to be inferred that he
knew more than he wished to say, it was determined
to give him a father. While his enemies agreed with
the Countess de Lamotte that he was the son of a
Neapolitan coachman, his friends declared him to be
the offspring of the illicit loves of the Grand Master
Pinto and a princess of Trebizond. To account for
the meeting of this singular pair it was gravely asserted
that a Maltese galley had captured a Turkish pleasure-
boat with several young ladies of distinction on board,
one of whom had exchanged hearts with Pinto, who,
prevented by his vow of celibacy from making her his
wife, had sent her back to her disconsolate parents,
and that to frustrate their rage at the condition in
which she had returned she had caused her child
as soon as it was born to be spirited away to Arabia,

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The Diamond Necklace Affair

which accounted for the mysterious warning Acharat had
received from the black slave '' to beware of Trebizond."
Ridicule, however, soon disposed of this agreeable
fable, and substituted instead the popular Balsamo
legend in which just as much as it has pleased sub-
sequent biographers to accept of Cagliostro s confession
has been included. As to whether he spoke the truth
wholly or partly or not at all, the present writer,
confronted with his mysterious and fantastic character
on the one hand and the assertions based on the
prejudice of a century on the other, is unable to express
any opinion. It seems, however, hard to believe that
any man placed in so serious a situation as Cagliostro,
and one which, moreover, had thoroughly shaken his
courage, would have ventured to invent a story
calculated to increase the suspicion it was his object
to allay. To the present generation, accustomed
by the press to infinitely greater improbabilities,
Cagliostros adventures in Mecca and Medina have
at least lost the air of incredibility.

IV

As may be surmised from the cursory account of
the Diamond Necklace Affair already given, Cagliostro
had no difficulty in proving his innocence. The mere
comparison of the dates of the various incidents of the
imbroglio with his own whereabouts at the time was
sufficient to vindicate him.

Throughout the whole of 1784, while the Cardinal
was corresponding, as he supposed, with the Queen,
meeting her in the park of Versailles, and purchasing
the necklace, Cagliostro was in Bordeaux and Lyons.
He did not arrive in Paris till January 30, 1785 ;
R2 243

Cagliostro

it was on February i that the Cardinal gave the
necklace to Madame de Lamotte to hand to the
Queen. Accordingly, if Cagliostro had ever even
seen the necklace, it could only have been between
January 30 and February i when Bohmer had already
obtained the Cardinal's guarantee in exchange for
his precious jewel. This, however, he denied. *' It
was not," he said, ''till a fortnight before the Cardinal
was arrested that he informed me for the first time of
the transaction about the necklace."

But Cagliostro was not content with merely
establishing his innocence. Madame de Lamotte's
attack on his character had deeply wounded him in his
most sensitive spot — his vanity — and pride would not
suffer him to ignore her gibes.

She had described him as ''an arch empiric, a
mean alchemist, a dreamer on the philosopher's stone,
a false prophet, and a profaner of the true religion."

" Empiric," he said, refuting each epithet In turn,
not without a certain dignity ; " this word I have often
heard without knowing exactly what it meant. If it
means one who without being a doctor has some
knowledge of medicine and takes no fee, who attends
to rich and poor alike and receives no money from
either, then I confess I am an empiric.

" Mean alchemist. Alchemist or not, the epithet
mean is applicable only to those who beg or cringe,
and it is well known whether Count Cagliostro ever
asked a favour of any one.

" Dreamer on the philosopher's stone. Whatever
my opinion may be concerning the philosopher's stone,
I have kept it to myself and never troubled the public
with my dreams.

244

The Diamond Necklace Affair

*' False prophet. Not always so. Had the
Cardinal taken my advice he would not be in the
position in which he now finds himself. I told him
more than once that the Countess de Lamotte was a
deceitful, intriguing woman, and to beware of her.

*' Profaner of the true religion. This is more
serious. I have respected religion at all times. My
life and my outward conduct I freely submit to the
inquiries of the law. As to what passes inwardly God
alone has a right to call me to account."

Cagliostro also took advantage of the occasion to
deny the oft-repeated assertion that he was a Jew.

*' My education," he said, *'as I have already
declared, was that of a child born of Christian parents.
I never was a Jew or a Mahometan. These two
religions leave on their sectaries an outward and
indelible mark. The truth, therefore, of what I here
advance may be ascertained ; and rather than let any
doubt remain on this affair, I am ready, if required, to
yield to a verification more shameful for him who
exacts it than for the person who submits to it."^

When he was confronted with Madame de Lamotte
the scene in court was in the highest degree comic.
The Countess, who had an unbounded contempt for
the occult in general, covered the stances of Cagliostro
with ridicule. She described one at which she had
been present as a swindle, and reproached him with
having exploited the credulity of the Cardinal by the
most vulgar methods and for the most sordid motives.
His Eminence, she asserted, was so bewitched that he

^ Henry Swinburne, in his Memoirs of the Courts of Europe
describing his meeting with Cagliostro, declares that there was
"nothing Jewish" about him.

245

Cagliostro

consulted Cagliostro on "the pricking of a thumb,"
which made her ** regret she did not live in those
blessed times when a charge of sorcery would have led
him to the stake."

But while she attempted to overwhelm the un-
fortunate creature she had chosen to saddle with her
own guilt, he dexterously turned the tables upon her.
Assuming that her calumnies were inspired by the
desire to clear herself rather than hatred, " he forgave
her the tears of bitterness she had caused him to
shed."

*' Do not imagine," he said, with the air of sublime
bombast that was characteristic of him, *' that my
moderation is a piece of mere affectation. From the
bottom of the abyss into which you have plunged me
I shall raise* my voice to implore in your behalf the
clemency of the laws ; and if, after my innocence and
that of my wife is acknowledged, the best |of kings
should think an unfortunate stranger who had settled
in France on the faith of his royal word, of the laws of
hospitality, and of the common rights of nations is
entitled to some indemnity, the only satisfaction I shall
require will be that his Majesty may be pleased, at my
request, to pardon and set at liberty the unfortunate
Countess de Lamotte. However guilty she may be
supposed, she is already sufficiently punished. Alas !
as I have been taught by sad experience, there is no
crime ever so great but may be atoned for by six
months in the Bastille!"

Blague or conviction, at such a moment, it would
be churlish to inquire. When one is fighting for life
and liberty one readily avails oneself of any weapon
that comes to hand. At least so thought Madame de

246

The Diamond Necklace Affair

Lamotte. Failing further abuse of which she had been
deprived by a riposte as unexpected as it was subtle, she
picked up a candlestick. Hurled at the head of her
adversary, it ''hit him in the stomach," to the amuse-
ment of the court, the judges and Madame de Lamotte
herself, who remarked to her counsel that " if he
wished to render the scene still more amusing he had
but to give her a broomstick."

But neither abusive epithets nor candlesticks are
arguments. Finding herself on the wrong road, the
Countess made haste to leave it for another. It was
iio longer Cagliostro who had stolen the necklace, but
the Cardinal.

At last, after more than nine months, the famous
affair came to an end. On May 30, 1786, all the
accused were summoned before the Parliament. When
Cagliostro arrived, tricked out as usual like a mounte-
bank in a coat of green silk embroidered with gold,
and his hair falling in little tails on his shoulders, the
whole assemblage burst into a laugh. But to him it
was anything but an occasion for merriment ; he was
serious to the point of solemnity.

" Who are you ? " asked the president.

** An illustrious traveller," was the reply. Then
with imperturbable gravity he began in his loud,
metallic voice, which Madame d'Oberkirch compared
to a ''trumpet veiled in crape," to repeat the story of
his life.

At the mention of Trebizond the laughter re-
doubled. This made him nervous, and either uncon-
sciously from old habit, or in the hope of exciting an
interest favourable to his cause, he related his adven-
tures in a jargon composed, says Beugnot, " of all

247

Cagliostro

known languages as well as those which never existed."
The gibberish he employed rendered him and his
story still more fantastic. The laughter in the court
was so loud that at times the voice of the speaker was
drowned. Even the judges were convulsed. At the
finish the president seemed to be on the point of
complimenting '' Nature's unfortunate child." It was
evident that Cagliostro had won the sympathy of those
on whom his fate depended. Of the verdict of the
mob there was no doubt. He took the cheers with
which he was greeted on being driven back to the
Bastille as a premonition of his acquittal. One writer
says he displayed the joy he felt *' by throwing his hat
into the air."

On the following day (May 31) the Parliament
pronounced the verdict. The Cardinal and Cagliostro
were unanimously acquitted — the innocence of the
latter had been acknowledged by all implicated in the
trial, even in the end by the Countess de Lamotte
herself.^

The verdict was immensely popular. " I don't
know what would have befallen the Parliament," said

^ One, de Soudak, in an interesting review of M. Funck-Brentano's
V Affaire du Collier^ in the Paris Temps^ April i, 1902, is the only
modern writer who has ventured to question this verdict. The value
of his opinion may be judged from an article by him in the Revue
Bleue, 1899, ^^ which he attempts to identify a mysterious French-
woman who died in the Crimea in 1825 with the Countess de
Lamotte, who died in London 1791, after escaping from the
Salpetriere, to which she had been condemned for life. Her sen-
tence— the judges were unanimous in finding her guilty — also
included being " whipped naked by the executioner, branded on the
shoulders with the letter V. (voleuse), and the confiscation of all her
property." The sentences of the others implicated in this affair need
not concern us here.

248

The Diamond Necklace Affair

Mirabeau, **had they pronounced otherwise." The
fish-wives — the same who later were the Furies of the
Revolution — forcibly embraced the judges and crowned
them with flowers. In the street the name of the
Cardinal was cheered to the echo. The ovation he
received, however, was inspired less from any desire
of the populace to acclaim him personally than to
affront the Queen.

It was also to the violent hatred of the Court .that
Cagliostro owed the reception accorded him. His
account of the scenes that took place on his deliverance
from captivity would do credit to the lachrymose
romances of the '' age of sensibility."

'* I quitted the Bastille," he says, *' about half-past
eleven in the evening. The night was dark, the
quarter in which I resided but little frequented. What
was my surprise, then, to hear myself acclaimed by
eight or ten thousand persons. My door was forced
open ; the courtyard, the staircase, the rooms were
crowded with people. I was carried straight to the
arms of my wife. At such a moment my heart could
not contain all the feelings which strove for mastery
in it. My knees gave way beneath me. I fell on the
floor unconscious. With a shriek my wife sank into
a swoon. Our friends pressed around us, uncertain
whether the most beautiful moment of our life would
not be the last. The anxiety spread from one
to the other, the noise of the drums was no longer
heard. A sad silence followed the delirious joy. I
recovered. A torrent of tears streamed from my
eyes, and I was able at last, without dying, to press to
my heart ... I will say no more. Oh, you privileged
beings to whom heaven has made the rare and fatal

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Cagliostro

gift of an ardent soul and a sensitive heart, you who
have experienced the deHghts of a first love, you
alone will understand me, you alone will appreciate
what after ten months of torture the first moment of
bliss is like ! "

Both Cagliostro and the Cardinal were obliged to
show themselves at the windows of their respective
houses before the crowds, which were cheering them
and hissing the name of the Queen, could be induced
to disperse.

To Marie Antoinette, whose popularity was for
ever blasted by the trial, the verdict of the Parliament
was an insult — as it was meant to be — which intoler-
able though it was, she would have been wise to have
borne in silence. But it was her fate to the last to
hold the honour of the woman higher than the majesty
of the Queen. Having made the blunder of arresting
the Cardinal and suffering the Parliament to try him,
the King, advised by her, now committed the folly of
showing his resentment of the verdict, which had after
all, in the eye of the law, cleared his consort of com-
plicity in the swindle. On June 2, the day after his
release from the Bastille, Rohan was stripped of all
his Court dignities and functions, and exiled to one of
his abbeys in Auvergne. At the same time, Cagliostro
was also ordered to leave Paris with his wife within a
week, and France within three.

The news no sooner became known than an
immense concourse of people flocked to manifest their
disapproval in front of the house of the Grand Cophta.
But if he mistook their demonstration of hatred of the
Queen as a sign of sympathy for himself, popularity
under such conditions was too fraught with danger for

250

The Diamond Necklace Affair

him to take any pleasure in it. Terrified lest the
Government should seize the opportunity of thrusting
him back into the Bastille, he came out on the balcony
of his house and entreated the mob to withdraw
quietly, and then hurriedly left Paris.

He went first to Passy, whither he was followed by
a small band of his most faithful adherents, who during
the few days he remained there mounted guard in the
house in which he had taken shelter. A fortnight
later he embarked from Boulogne with his wife for
England. Upwards of five thousand people are said
to have witnessed his departure, many of whom
demanded and received his farewell blessing on their
knees. France, on a page of whose history he had
indelibly printed his name, never saw him more.

There is an old and uncorroborated report that he
who had always been so punctilious in the discharge
of his liabilities left Paris without paying his rent. It
appears to have arisen from the action that he after-
wards brought against the magistrate Chesnon and
de Launay, the governor of the Bastille, to recover
property valued at 100,000 livres which he declared
had been stolen from his house during his imprison-
ment and for which he sought to hold them responsible.
His failure to substantiate the charge gave it the
appearance of having been trumped up. Whether it
had any basis in fact it is impossible to say, but
there can be no doubt from the manner in which the
police turned his house upside down at the time he
and his wife were arrested, as well as from the
carelessness with which the official seals were affixed,
that many valuable articles might easily have been

251

Cagliostro

spirited away in the confusion by unscrupulous servants
and even by the police themselves.

If Cagliostro, however, failed to pay his rent the
proprietor of the house certainly took the matter very
lightly. '* His house," says Lenotre, " remained
closed till the Revolution. In 1805 the doors were
opened for the first time in eighteen years when the
owner sold the Grand Cophta's furniture by auction."
Surely a very long time to wait to indemnify oneself
for unpaid rent ?

A curious interest attaches to this house, which is
still standing, though long since shorn of its splendour
in the days when the Cardinal and the aristocracy of
the old regime came to assist at Cagliostro's magic
seances. Yet in the meantime it has not been
without a history. In 1855 the doors of the gateway
were removed during some process of repair and
replaced by doors which had formerly done service
at the Temple where the Royal Family were
incarcerated after the fall of the monarchy. They
may be still seen with their heavy bolts and huge
locks.

What a fatality — the doors of Marie Antoinette's
prison closing Cagliostro's house! History has her
irony as well as her romance.

252

CHAPTER VII

CAGLIOSTRO RETURNS TO LONDON
I

If ever a man had cause to be embittered and to
nurse a grievance it was Cagliostro. He had been
cast suddenly headlong, through no fault of his own,
from the pinnacle of good fortune into the Bastille ;
accused of another's crime ; arrested with the utmost
brutality and treated with outrageous severity ; kept
in uncertainty of the fate of his wife, who for six
months, unknown to him, was confined within fifteen
feet of him ; he had been an object of ridicule and
mockery within, of calumny and detraction without his
prison, of which the name alone was sufficient to
reduce him to despair ; then — crowning injustice —
after being acquitted on every count in a manner that
could leave no doubt of his innocence, he had been
arbitrarily banished within twenty-four hours of the
recovery of his liberty.

Under such circumstances resentment is perfectly
natural and justifiable. To '' take it lying down," as
the saying is, at all times a doubtful virtue, becomes
frequently a downright folly.

Had Cagliostro been silent in the present instance
with the protecting arm of the sea between him and a
corrupt and blundering despotism he would have been
utterly undeserving of pity. In " getting even,"
however, to his credit be it said, he did not adopt the

253

Cagliostro

methods of the Rohanists, as all the enemies of the
Government were called, and launch, like Calonne,
Madame de Lamotte and so many others, libel after
libel at the honour of the defenceless and unpopular
Queen — the low and contemptible revenge of low and
contemptible natures. On the contrary, he held the
Baron de Breteuil, as the head of the Government,
directly responsible for his sufferings and attacked him
once and once only, in his famous Letter to the French
People}

This letter, written the day after his arrival in
England, to a friend in Paris, was immediately
published in pamphlet form, and even translated into
several languages. Scattered broadcast over Paris
and all France it created an immense sensation.
Directed against Breteuil, whose unpopularity, already
great, it increased, it assailed more or less openly the
monarchical principle itself. Of all the pamphlets
which from the Necklace Affair to the fall of the
Bastille attacked the royal authority none are so
dignified or so eloquent. The longing for freedom,
which was latent in the bosom of every man and
which the philosophers and the secret societies had
been doing their best to fan into a flame, was revealed
in every line. It was not unreasonably regarded as
the confession of faith of an Illumine. The Inquisition-
biographer declares that it was conceived in a spirit so
calculated to excite a revolt that '' it was with difficulty
a printer could be found in England to print it."

1 The Lettre au peuple f ran fats was dated the 20th June 1786.
As stated in the previous chapter, Breteuil was the deadly enemy of
Cardinal de Rohan, and encouraged Marie Antoinette in demanding
his arrest of the King.

254

Cagliostro Returns to London

Cagllostro himself admits that it was written with ''a
freedom rather republican." ^

This letter gave great offence to the French
Government and particularly to the Baron de Breteuil
who dominated it, and whose conduct in the Necklace
Affair sufficiently proves his unfitness for the post he
filled. Under ordinary circumstances he would no
doubt have ignored the attack upon himself. His
pride, the pride of an aristocrat — he was the personifi-
cation of reaction — would have scorned to notice the
insult of one so far beneath him as Cagliostro. But
the prestige of the Government and the majesty of the
throne damaged by the unspeakable calumnies of the
Necklace Affair had to be considered. Might not the
sensation caused by the inflammatory Letter to the
French People encourage the author to follow it up by
other and still more seditious pamphlets .-* There was
but one way to prevent this contingency — to kidnap him.
For not only would it be impossible to persuade the
English Government to give him up, but futile to attempt
to purchase silence from one who had a grievance and
made it his boast that he never took payment for the
favours he conferred.

Before the days of extradition, kidnapping was a

^ Nearly all who have written on Cagliostro have erred in stating
that the letter contained the " predictions that the Bastille would be
destroyed, its site become a public promenade, and that a king
would reign in France who would abolish lettres de cachet and
convoke the States General " — all of which actually occurred three
years later in 1789. The predictions are the invention of the
Inquisition-biographer to whose short-comings, to put it mildly,
attention has frequently been called. CagHostro merely says that if
in the future he was permitted to return to France he would only do so
''^provided the Bastille was destroyed and its site turned into a public
promenade." A copy of this letter, now become very rare, is to be
seen in the French National Archives.

255

Cagliostro

practice more or less common to all governments.
Eighteenth century history, particularly that of France,
is full of such instances.^ Breteuil was, therefore,
merely following precedent when he ordered Bar-
th^lemy, the French Ambassador in London, to inform
Cagliostro that ''His Most Christian Majesty gave
him permission to return to his dominions."

This permission, was, accordingly, duly conveyed
to Cagliostro, with the request that he would call at a
certain hour on the following day at the Embassy when
the ambassador would give him any further information
on the subject he desired. It is exceedingly unlikely
that Barthelemy intended to forcibly detain him when
he called, but rather to gull him by false pretences — a
not difficult proceeding in the case of one so notoriously
vain as Cagliostro — into returning to France. Be this
as it may, on calling on the ambassador at the
appointed hour he prudently invited Lord George
Gordon and one Bergeret de Frouville, an admirer
who had followed him from France, to accompany him.
This they not only did, but insisted in being present
throughout the interview.

Nettled by this veiled suggestion of treachery,
Barthelemy received his visitor in a manner which
served to confirm this impression. Producing a letter

» Many attempts were made at this very time to kidnap the Count
de Lamotte, who alone of all "wanted" in the Necklace Affair
succeeded in escaping. On one occasion his murder was even
attempted. The Countess de Lamotte herself, who escaped from
the Salpetriere to London and published the vilest of all the calumnies
against Marie Antoinette perished in jumping out of a window to
elude capture. Numerous instances of the kidnapping of French
subjects in England by the French police are cited by Brissot in his
Memoirs.

256

Cagliostro Returns to London

from the Baron de Breteuil he informed Cagliostro
that he was authorized to give him permission to return
to France. But CagHostro, having taken no steps to
obtain this permission was naturally suspicious of the
source from which it emanated.

'■How is it possible," he asked, "that a simple
letter of the Baron de Breteuil should be able to revoke
the lettre de cachet signed by the King himself, by
which I was exiled ? I tell you, sir, I can recognize
neither M. de Breteuil nor his orders."

He then begged Barthelemy to let him have the
letter or a copy of it. The ambassador, however, for
some inexplicable reason saw fit to refuse the request,
whereupon the interview ended.

There was certainly nothing unreasonable in the
request.

"Without having some proof of my permission to
return to France," says Cagliostro in the letter he
subsequently wrote to the Public Advertiser, "how
could I have answered the Governor of Boulogne or
Calais when I was asked by what authority I returned?
I should at once have been made a prisoner."

The next day Lord George Gordon publicly con-
stituted himself the champion of Cagliostro in a letter
to the Public Advertiser, in which he made an out-
rageous and utterly unjustifiable attack on Marie
Antoinette. No better illustration could be given of
the spirit in which the established authorities sought
to crush the revolutionary tendency of the times,
which had begun to manifest itself, than the price
that Lord George was made to pay for his libel.
Exasperated by the insults and calumnies that were
now continually directed against his unpopular consort,
s 257

Cagliostro

Louis XVI ordered his ambassador in London to
bring an action against Gordon.

Under ordinary circumstances Gordon, relying on
the resentment that England cherished against France
for the part she had taken in the American War of
Independence, would have had nothing to fear. But
he was a rabid demagogue with a bad record. A few
years before he had accepted the presidency of the
Protestant Association formed to secure the repeal of
the act by which the Catholic disabilities imposed in
the time of William and Mary had been removed. It
was this association which had fomented the famous
Gordon riots, as they were called, when London had
been on the point of being pillaged. Gordon, it is
true, had disclaimed all responsibility for the conduct
of the mob, which, however, acknowledged him as its
leader, and though tried for high treason had been
acquitted. But this experience had not sobered his
fanaticism. He was the soul of sedition in his own
country, and one of the most notorious and violent
revolutionists in Europe at this period. The British
Government was only too glad of the opportunity
afforded it by the French to reduce him to silence.

Gordon, accordingly, fled to Holland, but learning
that the Dutch Government was preparing to send
him back, he returned secretly to England. Soon
afterwards he was betrayed by a Jew, whose religion
he had adopted and with whom he had taken shelter.
The action of the French Government having in the
meantime been decided against him, he was sentenced
to five years imprisonment and to pay a heavy fine.
This was the end of Lord George Gordon. For at
the expiration of his term of confinement, being unable

258

^^Mp^^^m^^^Mal

H^^m^i

^^Hlokd George gokbon. |^H

I^^IH

(From an old print) 1 7'^'/«£-^ Mge 258

Cagliostro Returns to London

to pay the fine, he remained a prisoner, and eventually
died in Newgate.

Compromised by the dangerous manner in which
Gordon had taken up his cause, Cagliostro hastened
to disclaim all connection with him. In his letter to
the Public Advertiser, in which he described his inter-
view with Barth^lemy, he referred to the ambassador,
the Baron de Breteuil, and the King of France in
terms of the greatest respect. Breteuil, however, did
not forget him. A month later Barthdemy called in
person upon him with a warrant signed by the King's
own hand, permitting him to return to France.

Cagliostro received it with profuse thanks, but
he did not dare to avail himself of the privilege it
accorded him.

''It is but natural," he said, "for a man who has
been nine months in the Bastille without cause, and
on his discharge receives for damages an order of
exile, to startle at shadows and to perceive a snare in
everything that surrounds him."

So suspicious did he become that when a friend,
who was showing him the sights of London, suggested
'*an excursion down the Thames as far as Greenwich,"
he at once scented danger.

" I did not know who to trust," he says, " and I
remembered the history of a certain Marquis de
Pelleport and a certain Dame Drogard." ^

Needless to say, he was careful not to write any
more letters or pamphlets "with a freedom rather
republican." Nevertheless he was a marked man,
and Fate was getting ready her net to catch him.

1 Both of whom had recently been decoyed to France, where
they had at once been imprisoned.
S2 259

Cagliostro
II

Had Cagliostro come to England before his fame
had been tarnished by the Necklace Affair, he would
in all probability have been lionized by the best society
as he was In France. But the unsavoury notoriety he
had acquired, the hundred and one reports that were
circulated to his discredit and believed, for people
always listen more readily to the evil that Is said of
one than to the good, closed the doors of the aris-
tocracy to him. Instead of floating on the crest of
the wave he was caught In the under-current. With
few exceptions the acquaintances he made were more
calculated to lower him still further In the esteem of
respectable society, than to clear him of the suspicion
that attached to him. The mere association of his
name with Lord George Gordon's would alone have
excited mistrust. But the injury he received from
the questionable manner in which Gordon sought to
befriend him was trifling compared with the interest
that the Editor of the Courier de I' Europe took in him.

Theveneau de Morande, to give this individual a

name, was one of the greatest blackguards of his time

— the last quarter of the eighteenth century produced

many who equalled him in infamy but none who

surpassed him. The son of a lawyer at Arnay-le-Duc

in Burgundy, where he was born in 1741, Theveneau

de Morande *' was," as M. Paul Robiquet truly says

in his brilliant study of him, ''from the day of his

birth to the day of his death utterly without scruple." ^

1 Theveneau de Morande: Etude sur le XVIII^' Sihle par
Paul Robiquet. By his contemporaries the name of Morande was
never mentioned without an abusive epithet. Brissot, meeting him
for the first time in a restaurant in London, " shuddered instinctively
at his approach."

260

Cagliostro Returns to London

When a boy he was arrested for theft in a house of
ill-fame. Compelled to enlist or be sent to prison he
chose the former alternative, but did not serve long.
In response to his entreaties his father obtained his
discharge on condition that he would reform. Instead,
however, of returning home as he promised, Morande
went to Paris, where his dissolute life led him to the
prison of For-l'Eveque. Hereupon his father solicited
the favour of a lettre de cachet by means of which he
was confined in a convent at Armentieres.

On being released two years later at the age of
four-and-twenty, having been imprudent enough to
lampoon one of the principal members of the Govern-
ment, Morande fled the country. After tramping
about Belgium he arrived in London in a condition
of absolute want. But he was not long without means
of subsistence. The ease with which he extorted
money by threatening to inform the police of the
equivocal lives of such acquaintances as chance threw
in his way suggested the system of blackmail which
he afterwards developed into a fine art.

Gifted with a talent for writing he ventured to
attack notabilities. From fear of his mordant, cynical
pen many were induced to purchase his silence. In
Le Gazetier Cuirass^, ou Anecdotes scandaleuses sur la
cour de France, all who had refused to purchase
exemption had been represented by him in the worst
possible light. For this work, which Brissot describes
as "one of those infamous productions the very name
of which one blushes to mention," he is said to have
received i,ooo guineas.

Emboldened by the fright he inspired he redoubled
his attacks, but they did not always meet with the

261

Cagliostro

same success. He thought to extort a ransom from
Voltaire, but the aged philosopher of Ferney had
lived through too much to be frightened for so little.
He published Morande's letter, accompanied with
commentaries of the sort he knew so well how to
make effective. The Comte de Lauraguais replied
even more effectively than Voltaire. Not only did
he obstinately refuse to pay the tribute demanded of
him, but, being in London at the time, gave the black-
mailer a horsewhipping, and compelled him to publish
an abject apology in the press into the bargain.

Morande, however, was not discouraged, and pre-
pared to reap the most fruitful of all his harvests.
For the object he had in view Madame du Barry was
a gold mine. The famous favourite of Louis XV was
notoriously sensitive on the subject of her reputation,
and dreaded nothing so much as a libel. Morande,
accordingly, wrote to inform her that he had in
preparation a work in four volumes, to be entitled the
Mdmoires cfune femme publique, in which she would
figure as the heroine, unless she preferred to pay a
handsome sum for its suppression. To assist her to
come to the latter decision a scenario of the work was
sent her. *' Le Gazetier Cuirass^" says Bachaumont,
who saw it, *'was rose-water in comparison with this
new chef-cCoeuvre''

Alarmed and enraged, the poor creature communi-
cated her fears and anger to the King, who applied
to George HI for Morande's extradition. The attitude
of the British Government was characteristic of the
political morality of the age. The laws and customs
of England rendering the extradition of a foreign
refugee out of the question, the French Court was

262

Cagliostro Returns to London

informed that failing an action for libel — which under
the circumstances was clearly impossible — the only
alternative was to kidnap the libellist. The British
Government even offered its assistance, providing that
Morande's ''removal was done with the greatest secrecy
and in such a manner as not to wound the national
susceptibilities."

The French Government accordingly sent a
brigade of police to London, but Morande was on the
alert. Warned from Paris of his danger, he exposed
the contemplated attack upon him in the Press, giving
himself out as ''a political exile and an avenger of
public morality " — poses, needless to say, which are
always applauded in England. Public sympathy was
thus excited in his favour to such a pitch that the
French police were obliged to return to France empty-
handed, after having narrowly escaped being thrown
into the Thames by an infuriated crowd.

Morande, enchanted at having got the better ot
the French Government, redoubled his threats. He
wrote again to Madame du Barry to inform her that
6,000 copies of his scandalous work were already
printed and ready for circulation. Louis XV, who
had no more fear of a libel than Voltaire, would have
let him do his worst, but to please his mistress he
decided to come to terms. As this had now become
a delicate matter, Beaumarchais was entrusted with
the negotiation on account of his superior cunning.
The celebrated author who had everything to gain by
earning the gratitude of Madame du Barry went to
London under the name of Ronac, and in a very short
time succeeded in gaining the confidence of the libellist,
whose silence was purchased for the sum of 32,000

263

Cagliostro

livres in cash and a pension of 4,000 llvres, to be paid
to Morande s wife in the event of her surviving him.

It was about this time that Morande, without
altogether abandoning his career of blackmail, adopted
the more profitable one of spy. Instead of attacking
authority, he now offered to serve it. Having been
taught his value by experience, the French Govern-
ment gladly accepted the offer. He began by
" watching " the French colony in London, which
was composed chiefly of escaped criminals and
political refugees, and ended as Editor of the Courier
de r Europe.

This paper had been started by a refugee, Serres
de Latour, with ^the object of instructing the French
public in the internal affairs of England, particularly
as regards her foreign policy. The money to finance
the scheme had been supplied by a Scotchman by
name of Swinton, who was granted every facility by
the Comte de Vergennes, the French Minister for
Foreign Affairs, that would assist the enterprise.

Thus protected, the Courier de l Europe was a
success from the start. In a short time it had 5,000
subscribers — an enormous number for those days —
and a revenue of 25,000 livres. Brissot, the leader
of the Girondins in the Revolution, who was con-
nected with it for a time as a young man, estimated
its readers at over a million. "There was not," he
says, *'a corner of Europe in which it was not read."

Such a widely circulated journal naturally had
great influence. ' During the American War of
Independence its ever-increasing success alarmed the
English Cabinet, which, instead of suppressing it,
foolishly endeavoured to circumvent the laws respect-

264

Cagliostro Returns to London

ing the liberty of the Press by placing an embargo on
the bales of the paper destined for export. But
Swinton parried this blow by causing it to be printed
simultaneously at Boulogne. "Whereupon," says
Brissot, '' the English Government resigned itself to
the inevitable and suffered the Courier de r Europe to
continue to injure England under the protection of
English law itself." Throughout the war which ended
so humiliatingly for England, as Vergennes expressed
it, '' the gazette of Latour was worth a hundred spies "
to France.

Under the editorship of Morande, who succeeded
Serres de Latour, the journal, as may be imagined,
more than maintained its reputation. "In it," says
Brissot, "he tore to pieces. the most estimable people,
spied on all the French who lived in or visited London,
and manufactured, or caused to be manufactured,
articles to ruin any one he feared."

Such was the man, and such the weapon, that the
Court of Versailles, which had frequently utilized both
before, now employed to destroy Cagliostro.^

Morande, who had now become the chief of the
brigade of police spies, which when he himself had
been their quarry he had so loudly denounced in the
English press, opened fire, in obedience to his
orders, on September i, 1786. For three months he
bombarded Cagliostro unceasingly in a long series of
articles that befouled, calumniated, and ridiculed him
with a devilish cleverness. Like the Countess de

1 Morande had one redeeming quality. Royalist to the core,
he served the French Court loyally till the fall of the rnonarchy.
Imprisoned during the Revolution, he escaped the guillotine by an
accident, and having returned to his native town, retired into a
respectable obscurity.

265

Cagliostro

Lamotte, he did not hesitate to deny his own state-
ments when others could be made more serviceable.
Thus, after affirming ** Nature's unfortunate child " to
be the son of a coachman of the Neapolitan Duke of
Castropignani, he declared him to be the valet of the
alchemist Gracci, known as the Cosmopolite, from
whom he had stolen all his secrets, which he had
afterwards exploited in Spain, Italy, and Russia under
various titles : sometimes a count, at others a marquis,
here a Spanish colonel, there a Prussian — but always
and everywhere an impostor.

In this way rambling from article to article, from
calumny to calumny, without knowing where he was
going, so to speak, Morande finally arrived at Giuseppe
Balsamo — as described at the beginning of the book.
The discovery of Balsamo was a veritable trouvaille.
It enabled Morande to tack on to the variegated
career of the Sicilian scoundrel all that he had hitherto
affirmed of Cagliostro's past life without appearing
to contradict himself. Once on Balsamo's track, he
never lost scent of him. He ferreted out or invented
all the stories concerning the Balsamos : their marriage,
the manner in which they had lived, their forgeries,
blackmail, poverty, licentiousness, imprisonment —
everything, in fact, that could damage Cagliostro and
his wife. He found people, moreover, to swear to the
truth of all he said, or rather he asserted it, and on the
strength of their accusations caused Cagliostro to be
sued for debts incurred in the name of Balsamo years
before. He collected all the hostile reports of the
enemies the Grand Cophta had made in his travels
through Europe and afterwards in the Necklace Affair,
and re-edited them with the precision of an historian

266

THP:VENEAU DE MORANDE \To face page ^tb

Cagliostro Returns to London

and the malice of a personal enemy. Then, after
having done him all the injury he could and given the
French Government full value for its money, Morande
with brazen effrontery proposed to Cagliostro that he
should purchase the silence of the Courier \

But Cagliostro was not the man — to his credit, be
it said — to ignore the feigned indignation of the
libellist who had been hired to ruin him. Aided by
Thilorier,^ his brilliant counsel in the Necklace Affair,
who happened to be in England, the wonder-worker
published a Letter to the English People, in which he
flung in the face of the blackmailer all the atrocious acts
of his own past. Morande, however, aware that any
effort on his part to clear himself of these accusations
would be useless, sought to distract attention from the
subject by daring Cagliostro to disprove the charges
made in the Courier. At the same time he thought to
stab him to silence by covering with ridicule a state-
ment which he asserted Cagliostro had made to the
effect that ''the lions and tigers in the forests of
Medina were poisoned by the Arabians by devouring
hogs fattened on arsenic for the purpose."

The laughter which this reply aroused evidently
stung Cagliostro to the quick, and to refute Morande's
implied accusation of charlatanism, he wrote the
following letter to the Public Advertiser, in which,
after some preliminary sarcasms, he said —

'*0f all the fine stories that you have invented
about me, the best is undoubtedly that of the pig
fattened on arsenic which poisoned the lions, the tigers,

1 Whether Thilorier had come to England at the request of
Cagliostro or not is uncertain, but it is now known that he wrote
Cagliostro's replies to Morande's charges.

267

Cagliostro

and the leopards in the forest of Medina. I am now
going, sir jester, to have a joke at your expense. In
physics and chemistry, arguments avail little, persiflage
nothing ; it is experiment alone that counts. Permit
me, then, to propose to you a little experiment which
will divert the public either at your expense or
mine. I invite you to lunch with me on November 9
(1786). You shall supply the wine and all the
accessories, I on the other hand will provide but a
single dish — a little pig fattened according to my plan.
Two hours before the lunch you shall see it alive, and
healthy, and I will not come near it till it is served on
the table. You shall cut it in four parts, and, having;
chosen the portion that you prefer, you shall give me
what you think proper. The next day one of four
things will occur : either we shall both be dead, or we
shall neither of us be dead ; or I shall be dead and
you will not ; or you will be dead and I shall not. Of
these four chances I give you three, and I will bet you
5,000 guineas that the day after the lunch you are
dead and that I am alive and well."

Whether or no Morande's perception had beeni
blunted by over-taxing his imagination in the attempt to
discredit his enemy, he interpreted Cagliostro's sarcasm
literally. Afraid to accept the challenge, but tempted
by the 5,000 guineas, he suggested ''that the test
should take place in public, and that some other car-
nivorous animal should be substituted for the pig
fattened on arsenic." But this suggestion, which
revealed his cowardice by reducing the culinary duel
to a farce, gave his adversary an opportunity he was
quick to seize.

** You refuse to come yourself to the lunch to

268

Cagliostro Returns to London

which I invite you," wrote Cagliostro in 3.] letter to the
Public Advertiser which recalls one of Voltaire's,
" and suggest as a substitute some other carnivorous
animal ? But that was not my proposal. Such a
guest would only very imperfectly represent you.
Where would you find a carnivorous animal which
amongst its own species is what you are amongst
men ? It is not your representative, but yourself, with
whom I wish to treat. The custom of combat by
champions has long gone out of fashion, and even if I
allowed you to restore it, honour would forbid me to
contend with the champion you offer. A champion
should not have to be dragged into the arena, but
enter it willingly; and however little you may know
of animals, you must be aware that you cannot find
one flesh-eating or grass-eating that would be your
champion."

To this letter the unscrupulous agent of the French
Court dared not reply. The man he had been hired to
defame with his venomous pen had the laugh on his
side. The public, moreover, were beginning to detect
the mercenary hireling in the detractor, and as the
gallery had ceased to be amused Morande, to avoid
losing what reputation he possessed, suddenly ceased
his attacks, apologizing to his readers for *' having
entertained them so long with so futile a subject."

Nevertheless, though the victory remained with
Cagliostro, he had received a mortal wound. The
poisoned pigs of the Arabians were not more destructive
than the poisoned pen of Theveneau de Morande. The
persistency of his attacks, the ingenuity of his detrac-
tion, were more effective than the most irrefutable
proof. His articles, in spite of their too evident

269

Cagliostro

hostility, their contradictions, their statements either
unverifiable or based on the testimony of persons
whose reputations alone made it worthless, created a
general feeling that the man whom they denounced
was an impostor. The importance of the paper in
which they appeared, quoted by other papers, all of
Europe, served to confirm this impression. Thus the
world, whose conclusions are formed by instinct rather
than reason, forgetting that it had ridiculed as improb-
able Cagliostro's own story of his life, accepted the
amazing and still more improbable past that Morande
*' unmasked " without reservation. Nor did the Court
of Versailles and its friends, nor all the forces of
law and order which, threatened everywhere, made
common cause with the threatened French monarchy,
fail to circulate and confirm by every means in their
power the statements of Morande. As if the stigma
which the Countess de Lamotte and the Parliament,
for two totally different reasons, had cast upon the
reputation of Marie Antoinette was to be obliterated
by blighting Cagliostro's !

The deeper an impression, the more ineradicable
it becomes. Within a quarter of a century the man
whom Morande had called a cheat, an impostor, and a
scoundrel had become on the page of history on which
his memory is imprisoned the *' Arch-quack of the
eighteenth century," '* a liar of the first magnitude,"
**an unparalleled impostor."

But in the curious mass of coincidence and circum-
stantial evidence on which the popular conception of
Cagliostro has been based, ingenious and plausible
though it is, there is one little fact which history has
overlooked and which Morande was careful to ignore.

270

Cagliostro Returns to London

In turning Cagliostro into Giuseppe Balsamo, the
fantastic idealist-enthusiast into the vagabond forger,
" the charlatan," as Queen's friend Besenval describes
him, *'who never took a sou from a soul, but lived
honourably and paid scrupulously what he owed," into
the vulgar souteneur, Morande, by no trick of the
imagination, with all the cunning calumnies of the
French Court, and the so-called " confession " wrung
from its victim by the Inquisition, to aid him, could
not succeed in making the two rese7nble one another.
Yet it is on the word of this journalist-bravo, hired by
the French Ministry to defame an innocent man whose
unanimous acquittal of a crime in which he had been
unjustly implicated was believed by Marie Antoinette
to be tantamount to her own conviction, that Cagliostro
has been branded as one of the most contemptible
blackguards in history.

Surely it is time to challenge an opinion so fraudu-
lently supported and so arbitrarily expressed ? The
age of calumny is past. The frenzied hatreds and
passions that, like monstrous maggots, so to speak,
infested the dying carcass of the old rdgime are extinct,
or at least have lost their force. We can understand
the emotions they once stirred so powerfully without
feeling them. In taking the sting from the old hate
Time has given new scales to justice. We no longer
weigh reputations by the effects of detraction, but by
its cause.

The evidence on which Morande's diabolically
ingenious theories are based has already been examined
in the early chapters of this book. It requires no effort
of the imagination to surmise what the effect would be
on a jury to-day if their decision depended upon the

271

Cagliostro

evidence of a witness who, as Brissot says, *' regarded
calumny as a trade, and moral assassination as a sport."

Ill

The campaign against Cagliostro was by no means
confined to defamation. Morande assailed not only
his character, but his person.

On the first shot fired by the Courier de V Europe,
as if it were the signal for a preconcerted attack, a
swarm of blackmailers, decoys, and spurious creditors
descended upon the unfortunate Grand Cophta.
Warned by the noise that the daring, but unsuccessful,
attempts of the secret agents of the French police to
kidnap the Count de Lamotte had created, Morande
adopted methods less likely to scandalize the British
public in his efforts to trepan Cagliostro. While
apparently confining himself to the congenial task of
'* unmasking " his victim daily in the columns of his
widely-read journal, he was a party to, if he did not
actually organize, the series of persecutions that em-
bittered the existence of the now broken and discredited
wonder-worker.

If, as he declared, in his efforts to convince the
public that Cagliostro was Giuseppe Balsamo, the
perjured Aylett and the restaurant-keeper Pergolezzi
were prepared to corroborate his statement, then given
his notorious character, unconcealed motive, and the
money with which he was supplied by the French
Government, the presumption that these questionable
witnesses were bought is at least well founded. In the
Letter to the English People in which Cagliostro, with

272

Cagliostro Returns to London

the aid of Thilorier, sought to defend himself from the
charges of the Courier de /^Europe, he states, as "a fact
well known in London," that Morande went about
purse in hand, purchasing the information, witnesses,
and accomplices he required.

He offered one hundred guineas to O'Reilly, to
whose good offices Cagliostro owed his release from
the King's Bench jail in 1777, to swear that he had
left England without paying his debts. But though
O'Reilly refused to be bought, Swinton, Morande's
intimate friend and the proprietor of the Courier de
r Europe, proceeding on different lines, succeeded in
making mischief between O'Reilly and Cagliostro, by
which the latter was deprived of a valuable friend
when he had most need of him.

According to Brissot, who knew him thoroughly,
and whose testimony is above dispute, Swinton was
every bit as unprincipled as his editor. A Scotchman
by birth, he had lived the greater part of his life,
married, and made his fortune in France. On settling
in London he had drifted naturally into the French
colony, in which, by reason of his sympathies, connec-
tions and interests he had acquired great influence,
which he turned to account on every possible occasion.
One of his many profitable enterprises was a *'home'*
for young Frenchmen employed in London. " He also
ran a druggist's shop," says Brissot, "in the name of
one of his clerks, and a restaurant in the name of
another." ^ And when Cagliostro arrived in London
with a letter of introduction to him, Swinton, who was
as full of schemes as he was devoid of principle,
thought to run him, too, for his own profit. The

1 Perhaps Pergolezzi ?
T 273

Cagliostro

wonder-worker with his elixirs, his balsams, and his
magical phenomena was, if properly handled, a mine
of gold.

Taking advantage of Cagliostro's ignorance of the
language and customs of the country in which he had
sought refuge, Swinton, who was assiduous in his
attentions, rented him a house in Sloane Street, for
which he desired a tenant, induced him to pay the cost
of repairing it, and provided him with the furniture he
needed at double its value. To prevent any one else
from interfering with the agreeable task of plucking so
fat a bird, and at the same time the better to conceal
his duplicity, Swinton endeavoured to preclude all
approach to his prey. It was to this end that he made
trouble between Cagliostro and O'Reilly. Having
succeeded thus far in his design he redoubled his
attentions, and urged Cagliostro to give a public
exhibition of his healing powers, as he had done at
Strasburg. But warned by previous experience of the
danger of exciting afresh the hostility of the doctors,
Cagliostro firmly refused. Swinton then proposed to
become his apothecary, and to push the sale of the
Grand Cophta's various medicaments, of which his
druggist's shop should have the monopoly, in the
Courier de ^Europe.

To this, however, Cagliostro also objected, pre-
ferring, apparently, not to disclose the secret of their j
preparation — if not to share with the apothecary, as
Morande afterwards declared, the exorbitant profit to
be derived from their sale. Perceiving that he was
not to be persuaded by fair means, Swinton inju-
diciously tried to put on the screw. But his threats,
far from accomplishing their purpose, only served to

274

Cagliostro Returns to London

betray his designs, and so disgusted Cagliostro that
he ceased to have any further communication with
him. Swinton, however, was not to be got rid of in
any such fashion. Living next door to his enemy, his
house became the rendezvous of the various baiHffs
and decoys hired by Morande to seize or waylay his
unfortunate adversary.

Among numerous schemes of Swinton and Morande
to capture Cagliostro were two attempts to obtain his
arrest by inducing persons to take out writs against
him for imaginary debts — a proceeding which the
custom of merely swearing to a debt to procure a writ
rendered easy. In this way Priddle, who had behaved
so scurvily in Cagliostro's arbitration suit with Miss
Fry in 1777, was induced to take out a writ for sixty
pounds, due, as he pretended, for legal business trans-
acted nine years before. Warned, however, that the
bailiffs were hiding in Swinton's house to serve the writ
the moment he should appear, Cagliostro was able to
defeat their intention by procuring bail before they
could accomplish their purpose. In the end it was
Priddle who went to Newgate. But instead of the
former demand for sixty pounds, Cagliostro, by means
of one of the various legal subterfuges in the practice
of which the eighteenth century lawyer excelled, was
obliged to pay one hundred and eighty pounds and
costs.

Immediately after this dearly-bought victory, the
baited victim of ministerial tyranny and corruption was
similarly attacked from another quarter in a manner
which proves how great was the exasperation of his
enemies. Sacchi, the blackmailer, who had published
a libellous pamphlet against Cagliostro — quoted by

T2 275

Cagliostro

Madame de Lamotte at her trial, when it was generally
regarded as worthless, and its suppression ordered by
the Parliament of Paris — appeared in London and
obtained a writ for one hundred and fifty pounds,
which, he claimed, Cagliostro owed him for the week
passed in his service in Strasburg in 1781. The
impudence of this claim on examination was, of course,
sufficient to disprove it ; but Morande, who had
brought Sacchi to England and assisted him to procure
the writ, all but succeeded in having Cagliostro igno-
miniously dragged to Newgate on the strength of it.
The proximity, however, of Swinton's house — in which
the bailiffs had secreted themselves pending an oppor-
tunity of seizing their prey, as on the former occasion —
helped to betray their presence, and once again
Cagliostro managed to forestall them by giving the
necessary bail in due time.

Such an existence was enough to give the most
fearless nature cause for alarm, and the Bastille had
effectually damped the courage of the Grand Cophta.
'' Startling at shadows " the pertinacity of his enemies
left him not a moment's peace. The fate of Lord
George Gordon was ever in his thoughts. If the
French Government was powerful enough to effect
the imprisonment of an Englishman who had offended
it in his own country, what chance had he of escaping ?

His Masonic experiences in England, moreover,
were not of a nature to encourage the hopes he had
entertained of making converts to the sect he had
founded. At first it seemed as if Egyptian Masonry
might prosper on English soil. Assisted by a number
of adepts from Paris and Lyons, whose zeal had
induced them to follow their master to London,

276

Cagliostro Returns to London

Cagliostro had sought to found a lodge for the ob-
servance of the Egyptian Rite. To this end he had
held stances which many people of distinction attended.
These were so successful that to encourage some of
the more promising of his clientele he ''transmitted
to them, as a mark of exceptional favour, the power
to obtain manifestations in his absence." Unfortu-
nately, instead of the angels they expected to evoke,
devils appeared.^ The effect produced upon these
inexperienced occultists was deplorable ; combined
with the attacks of the Courier de r Europe it effectu-
ally killed Egyptian Masonry in England.

The Freemasons, who had welcomed him to their
lodges with open arms, as the victim of a degenerate
and despicable despotism, influenced by the scathing
attacks of Morande, who was himself a Mason, now
gave him the cold shoulder. At a convivial gathering
at the Lodge of Antiquity which he attended about
this time, instead of the sympathy he expected he
was so ridiculed by one " Brother Mash, an optician,"
who gave a burlesque imitation of the Grand Cophta
of Egyptian Masonry as a quack-doctor vending a
spurious balsam to cure every malady, that the victim
of his ridicule was compelled to withdraw.

The mortification which this incident occasioned

^ Cagliostro's pretended transmission of his supernatural powers,
as previously stated, was nothing more than the discovery that the
so-called " psychic " faculty, instead of being confined to a few excep-
tional people, as was till then generally believed, existed in a more
or less developed state in everybody. Before his time, and in fact till
many years after, the " psychic " faculty was so little understood that
the above phenomenon, familiar enough to spirit-rappers and plan-
chette-writers of the present day, was believed to be the work of the
powers of darkness whose manifestations inspired terror, of which
familiarity has apparently robbed them now-a-days.

277

Cagliostro

Cagllostro was further intensified by the wide notoriety
that it was given by Gillray in a caricature entitled
" A Masonic Anecdote," to which the following lines
were attached in English and French : —

"EXTRACT OF THE ARABIAN COUNT'S MEMOIRS

" Born, God knows where, supported, God knows how,
From whom descended — difficult to know;
Lord Crop adopts him as a bosom friend.
And madly dares his character defend.
This self-dubb'd Count some few years since became
A Brother Mason in a borrow'd name;
For names like Semple numerous he bears,
And Proteus-like in fifty forms appears.
* Behold in me (he says) Dame Nature's child
Of Soul benevolent and Manners mild.
In me the guiltless Acharat behold.
Who knows the mystery of making Gold ;
A feeling heart I boast, a conscience pure,
I boast a Balsam every ill to cure.
My Pills and Powders all disease remove.
Renew your vigour and your health improve.'
This cunning part the arch-impostor acts
And thus the weak and credulous attracts.
But now his history is render'd clear
The arrant hypocrite and knave appear;
First as Balsamo he to paint essay'd.
But only daubing he renounc'd the trade ;
Then as a Mountebank abroad he stroll'd;
And many a name on Death's black list enroU'd.
Three times he visited the British shore,
And ev'ry time a different name he bore ;
The brave Alsatians he with ease cajol'd
By boasting of Egyptian forms of old.
The self-same trick he practis'd at Bourdeaux,
At Strasburg, Lyons and at Paris too. H

But fate for Brother Mash reserv'd the task
To strip the vile impostor of his mask.
May all true Masons his plain tale attend !
And Satire's laugh to fraud shall put an end."

To recover the prestige he had lost in the Masonic
world Cagliostro seems for a moment to have sought

278

Cagliostro Returns to London

affiliation with the Swedenborgians, whose extravagant
form of spiritualism was not unlike that of the Egyptian
Rite. It was undoubtedly with this object in view
that he inserted a notice in the Morning Herald in
which he invited **all true Masons in the name of
Jehovah to assemble at O'Reilly s Hotel to form a plan
for the reconstruction of the New Temple of Jeru-
salem." The Swedenborgians, however, failed to
respond to the invitation.

Smitten thus hip and thigh, England became
impossible to Cagliostro ; and having made the
necessary preparations he set out with great secrecy
and alone for Switzerland some time in May 1787.
But Morande even now did not cease persecuting him.
Not content with boasting that '' he had succeeded in
hunting his dear Don Joseph out of England," he
circulated the report that "" the charlatan had gone off
with the diamonds of his wife, who in revenge now
admitted that her husband was indeed Giuseppe
Balsamo and that all the Courier de I Europe had
written about him was true."

This report is another instance of the vindictive
rumours on which so much of the prejudice against
Cagliostro is based. It was devoid of the least particle
of truth, and was deliberately fabricated and circulated
solely for the purpose of injuring the man it slandered.

As a matter of fact, in travelling without his wife for
the first and only time in his career, Cagliostro did so
from necessity. Beset with spies who, as he was in-
formed, suspecting his intention of leaving England
had planned to capture him en route} he had need of

^ One of his followers, de Vismes, was induced to come to
London from Paris on purpose to act as a decoy.

279

Cagliostro

observing the greatest caution in his movements. The
Countess Cagliostro, far from being left in " great
distress," as Morande asserted, had ample means at
her disposal as well as valuable friends in the Royal
Academician de Loutherbourg and his wife, with whom
she lived till her own departure for Switzerland.

Philip James de Loutherbourg was a painter of
considerable note in his day. An Alsatian by birth,
he had studied art under Vanloo in Paris, but meeting
with little success in France, migrated to England,
where fortune proved more propitious. His battle-
pieces and landscapes in the Salvator Rosa style were
very popular with the great public of his day. En-
gaged by Garrick to paint scenery for Drury Lane
Theatre, the innovations that he introduced completely
revolutionized the mounting of the stage. He was
also the originator of the panorama. His " Eido-
phusicon," as he called it, in which, by the aid of
mechanical contrivances, painted scenes acquired the
appearance of reality, when exhibited in London excited
the unbounded admiration of Gainsborough.

Of a decidedly visionary temperament, de Louther-
bourg " went in " for alchemy, till his wife, who was
equally visionary and more spiritually inclined, smashed
his crucible in a fit of religious exaltation. Converted
in this violent fashion to a less material though no less
absurd form of supernaturalism, the popular Royal
Academician, whose pictures at least had nothing
mystical about them, became assiduous in attending
Baptist chapels, revivalist meetings, and Sweden-
borgian services. After associating with the en-
thusiast Brothers, who called himself '*the nephew
of the Almighty " and was more fitted for a lunatic

280

'■■ ;°if$;,.>^j;'<»^. ji :.^y

I'HILIP JAMES DE LOUTHERBOUKG [Vo/ace /age 2S0

Cagliostro Returns to London

asylum than the prison to which his antics led him,
de Loutherbourg turned faith-healer. At the same
time his wife also acquired the power to heal.

Beside the cures the de Loutherbourgs are re-
ported to have performed those of Cagliostro pale into
insignificance. Even Mrs. Eddy, of Christian science
fame, with her ''absent treatment," has only imitated
them. Unlike her, the de Loutherbourgs healed free
of charge.

Sometimes the sufferer they treated would be in
another room or even in another house. On one
occasion, if "A Lover of the Lamb of God " is to be
believed, they cured "a boy suffering from scrofula
who had been discharged from St. Bart s as incurable
in five days without seeing him."

Naturally their fame soon spread, and as they pro-
fessed to be able to cure all diseases, people suffering
from all sorts of infirmities flocked to consult them.
Horace Walpole declares that de Loutherbourg had
as many as three thousand patients. Certain days in
each week were appointed for their treatment, which
were regularly advertised. On one occasion all the
three thousand, apparently owing to some error in the
announcement, are said to have surrounded the house
at once, so that it was with the greatest difficulty one
could either enter or leave it.

" A Lover of the Lamb of God " was so impressed
by the miracles the de Loutherbourgs performed as to
call upon the Archbishop of Canterbury " to compile a
form of prayer to be used in all churches and chapels
that nothing may impede their inestimable gift having
free course." Their practice, however, was brought
to an abrupt close by some indignant patients whom

281

Cagliostro

they had failed to cure, and who, accompanied by a
mob, attacked the house and very nearly lynched the
faith-healers.

De Loutherbourg's mystical tendencies, however,
do not appear to have injured him in the least in the
opinion of the general public. On resuming his career
as painter he found the same encouragement as before,
and was highly respected by all who knew him. As
contrasted with the enmity of so notorious a black-
guard as Morande, the friendship of so estimable a man
as de Loutherbourg speaks volumes for Cagliostro's
own probity.

The charity of the de Loutherbourgs, on which
Morande, Swinton and Company declared that the
Countess Cagliostro lived after her husband's escape
from their clutches, consisted entirely in defeating
their attempts to take advantage of her defenceless
state. Receiving information that a writ was to be
issued by which Cagliostro's furniture was to be seized,
de Loutherbourg advised the Countess to sell it and
take up her abode in his house until her husband sent
for her, when to ensure her travelling without molest-
ation he and Mrs. de Loutherbourg accompanied her
to Switzerland.

The first thing that she did on arriving at Bienne
was to go before a magistrate and make an affidavit to
the effect that her reported corroboration of the charges
made against her husband in the Courier de [Europe
was a lie. The fact that the Countess Cagliostro did
this with the knowledge of the de Loutherbourgs is
sufficient to prove the truth of her words.

282

CHAPTER VIII
nature's unfortunate child

On leaving England in 1786 Cagliostro was
doomed to resume the vagabond existence of his
earlier years ; with the difference, however, that
whereas previously his star, though often obscured by
clouds, was constantly rising, it was now steadily on
the decline.

At first its descent was so imperceptible as to
appear to have been checked. After the manner in
which he had been harried in London the tranquillity
and admiration he found in Bale must have been
balm to his tortured spirit. At Bale he had followers
who were still loyal, particularly the rich banker
Sarazin, on whom he had '' conferred the blessing of a
belated paternity," and whose devotion to him, as
Cagliostro declared in his extravagant way at his trial
in Paris, was so great that '' he would give him the
whole of his fortune were he to ask for it."

It was at Bale, moreover, that the dying flame of
Egyptian Masonry flickered up for the last before expir-
ing altogether. Under the auspices of Sarazin a lodge
was founded on which the Grand Cophta conferred
the high-sounding dignity of the '' Mother Lodge of
the Helvetic States." The funds, however, did not
run to a ''temple" as at Lyons, but the room in which
the faithful met was arranged to resemble as closely as

283

Cagliostro

possible the interior of that edifice. Both sexes were
admitted to this lodge, and Cagliostro again trans-
mitted his powers to certain of the members who,
having been selected for the favour apparently with
more care on this occasion than in London, performed
with the greatest success.

It was, however, in the little town of Bienne that
Cagliostro seems to have resided chiefly while in
Switzerland. According to rumours that reached
London and Paris " he lived there for several months
on a pension allowed him by Sarazin." Why he left
this quiet retreat, or when, is unknown. He is next
heard of vaguely at Aix-les- Bains, where the Countess
is said to have taken the cure. Rumour follows him
thence to Turin, '* but," says the Inquisition-biographer,
" he had no sooner set foot in the town than he was
ordered to leave it instantly."

Henceforth fortune definitely deserted him. Against
the poison in which Morande had dipped his barbed
pen there was no antidote. It destroyed him by slow
degrees, drying up the springs of his fabulous fortune,
exhausting the resources of his fertile brain, withering
his confidence, his ambition, and his heart. But
though the game was played, he still struggled desper-
ately to recover all he had lost, till he went to Rome,
into which he crawled like a beast wounded to the
death that has just enough strength to reach its lair.

The luxury and flattery so dear to him were gone
for ever. His journeys from place to place were no
longer triumphal processions but flights. Dishonoured,
discredited, disillusioned, the once superb High Priest
of the Egyptian Mysteries, the ** divine Cagliostro,"
accustomed to be courted by the greatest personages,

284

^Nature's Unfortunate Child'

acclaimed by the crowd, and worshipped by his ad-
herents, was now shadowed by the police, shunned
wherever he was recognized, hunted from pillar to
post. All towns in which he was likely to be known
were carefully avoided ; into such as seemed to offer
a chance of concealment he crept stealthily. He dared
not show his face anywhere, it was as if the whole
world, so to speak, had been turned by some accident
of his magic into the Trebizond that the black slave
of the Arabian days had warned him to beware of.

If this existence was terrible to him, it was equally
so to his delicate wife. The poverty and hardship
through which Lorenza Balsamo passed so carelessly,
left their mark on the Countess Seraphina. Under the
pinch of want her charms and her jewels began alike
to vanish. At Vicenza necessity " obliged her to pawn
a diamond of some value."

Rumour, following in their track, mumbles vaguely
of petty impostures, small sums gulled from the credu-
lous, and of shady devices to make two ends meet,
but gives no details, makes no definite charge. If the
rumour be true, it is not surprising that one so bank-
rupt in reputation, in purse, and in friends as Cagliostro
had now become, should have lost his self-respect.
In the pursuit of his ideal, having formed the habit of
regarding the means as justifying the end, what wonder
when the end had changed to hunger that any means
of satisfying it should have appeared to him justifiable?

At Rovoredo, an obscure litde town in the Austrian
Tyrol, where he found a temporary refuge, he did not
scruple to make capital out of his knowledge of both
magic and medicine. Here he managed to interest
several persons in the mysteries of Egyptian Masonry

285

Cagliostro

to the extent of being invited to give an exhibition of
his powers. He even succeeded in founding a lodge
at Rovoredo, which he affiHated with the lodge at
Lyons, the members of which still believed in him.
At the same time, followers being few and subscrip-
tions small, he resumed the practice of medicine,
making a moderate charge for his attendance and his
medicaments.

But in spite of all his precautions to avoid exciting
ill-will or curiosity, it was not long before his identity
was discovered. Some one, perhaps the author of
a stinging satire^ which from its biblical style was
known as the ''Gospel according to St. Cagliostro,"
notified the authorities. The " quack " was obliged
to discontinue the exercise of his medical knowledge
in any shape or form ; and the matter coming to the
ears of the Emperor Joseph II, that sovereign signed
an order expelling him from the town altogether.

Cagliostro then went to Trent, where there
reigned a prince-bishop as devoted to alchemy and
magic as Rohan himself. This little potentate was
no sooner informed of the arrival of the pariah than
instead of following the example of his Imperial
suzerain, he invited him to the episcopal palace. It
was an invitation, needless to say, that was gladly
accepted ; for a moment, protected by his new
friend, it seemed as if he might succeed in mending
his broken fortunes. But while the prince-bishop
was willing enough to turn his guest's occult know-
ledge to account he was not inclined to countenance
Egyptian or any other form of Freemasonry.

^ Liber memorialis de Caleostro dum esset Roberetti contains an
account of Cagliostro's doings in Rovoredo.

286

^ Nature's Unfortunate Child '

Accordingly to allay suspicion Cagliostro foreswore
his faith in Masonic observances, sought a confessor
to whom he declared that he repented of his
connection with Freemasonry, and manifested a desire
to be received back into the bosom of the Church.

The prince-bishop, in his turn, pretended to believe
in this feigned repentance, boasted of the convert he
had made, and, assisted by the reformed wonder-
worker, resumed his quest of the philosopher's
stone and any other secret his crucible might be
induced to divulge. The little world of Trent,
however, which had palpitated like the rest of Europe
over the revelations of the Diamond Necklace Affair
and Morande, was profoundly scandalized. Certain
persons felt it their duty to inform the Emperor how
the prince-bishop was behaving. The free-thinking,
liberty-affecting Joseph II could be arbitrary enough
when he chose. Severely reprimanding his episcopal
vassal for harbouring so infamous an impostor, he
commanded him to banish the wretch instandy from
his estates.

Judging from the itinerary of his wanderings in
northern Italy and the Tyrol, Cagliostro seems to
have intended to go to Germany, hoping, no doubt, to
find an asylum, like Saint-Germain, Weishaupt, Knigge
and many other, at the Court of some Protestant
prince, most of whom were Rosicrucians, alchemists.
Freemasons, and revolutionary enthusiasts. But
whatever hopes he may have had in this direction
were effectually dashed by the hostility of the
Emperor. Expelled from Trent in such a fashion he
dared not enter Germany.

To turn back was equally perilous. In Italy,

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Cagliostro

where the Church, brutalized out of all semblance
to Christianity by centuries of undisputed authority,
regarded the least attempt to investigate the secrets
of nature as a reflection on its own ignorance, a
certain and terrible doom awaited any one who
excited its suspicions. But to Cagliostro, with fate's
blood-hounds on his track, an Imperial dungeon
seemed a more present danger than an Inquisition
torture-chamber. It was no "Count Front of Brass,"
as Carlyle jeeringly stigmatized him, that was brought
to bay at Trent. His courage was completely broken.
Spent in this struggle against destiny, he was no
longer able to devise new schemes and contrivances
as of old. Retracing his steps with a sort of defiant
despair, as if driven by some irresistible force to his
doom, he took the road to Rome, where he and his
wife arrived at the end of May 1789.

According to the Inquisition-biographer it was to
please his wife, who desired to be reconciled to her
parents, that Cagliostro went to Rome. If, indeed,
the parents of the Countess Seraphina, or Lorenza
Balsamo, as you will, were still living or even resident
in Rome, they were apparently unwilling or afraid
to recognize the relationship, for nothing further is
heard of them. It is much more likely that Cagliostro
chose Rome on account of its size, as being the one
place in Italy which offered him the most likely chance
of escaping observation. In so large a city his poverty
was itself a safe-guard.

Cagliostro's first efforts to drive the wolf from the
door were confined to the surreptitious practice of
medicine. On such patients as he managed to
procure he enjoined the strictest silence. But in

288

'Nature's Unfortunate Child'

losing his confidence in himself he had lost the art
of healing. The Inquisition-biographer cites several
instances of his failure to effect the cures he attempted
to perform. After ''undertaking to cure a foreic^n
lady of an ulcer in her leg by applying a plaster that
very nearly brought on gangrene," he had the prudence
to abandon altogether a practice that exposed him to
so much danger.

The risk he ran in exploiting his psychic gifts in
Rome was even greater than the peril connected with
the illicit practice of medicine. On leaving Trent
he seems to have resolved to renounce Egyptian
Masonry altogether, and he wrote to such of his
followers as he still corresponded with, imploring
them to avoid all reference to it in their letters
to him. But the occult was now his only resource,
and whether he wished it or not, he was obliged to
turn to it for a living.

In spite of all the efforts of the Church to stamp
out Freemasonry in Italy it still beat a feeble wing.
For two years the Lodge of the Vrais Amis had existed
in secret in the heart of Rome itself. This lodge,
which had received its patent from the Grand Orient
in Paris and was in correspondence with all the prin-
cipal lodges in France, was really a revolutionary club
of foreign origin. It had been founded by " five
Frenchmen, one Pole, and one American," who, to
judge from the character of the ceremonies they
observed at the initiation of a member, were Illumines.
As a Freemason and an Illuming himself Cagliostro
must have known of the existence of this lodge
before coming to Rome.

His fear of the Inquisition was so great that before
u 289

Cagliostro

making himself known to the Vrals Amis he contem-
plated leaving Rome altogether. The fall of the Bas-
tille, which occurred about this time, having inaugurated
the Revolution in France, he petitioned the States
General for permission to return there, as " one who
had taken so great an interest in liberty." At the same
time not being in the position to take advantage of the
privilege were it granted, he wrote urgent appeals for
money to former friends in Paris. But in the rapidity
with which the Revolution marched, Cagliostro had
ceased to have the least importance, even as a missile
to hurl at the hated Queen. Whether the petition or
the letters ever reached their destination is unknown ;
in neither case, however, did he obtain a reply.^

With all hope of retreat cut off and starvation staring
him in the face, the wretched man timorously proceeded
to seek the acquaintance of the Vrals Amis. The
difficulties and dangers they encountered in obtaining
recruits won for the discredited Grand Cophta a cordial
welcome. Notwithstanding, he refused to seek admis-
sion to their lodge, and contented himself with begging
a meal or a small loan of the members with whom he
fraternized.

Even Morande, who had himself experienced the
horrors of abject poverty in his early struggle for
existence in London, must have pitied the victim of
his remorseless persecution had he seen him now. In
his miserable lodging near the Piazza Farnese every-
thing— save such furniture as was the property of the
landlord — on which he could raise the least money had

^ The Moniteur^ however, was subsequently informed by its
Roman correspondent that he had received bills of exchange from
both London and Paris.

290

' Nature's Unfortunate Child '

been pawned. Not a stone of the diamonds that had
so dazzled, or scandaHzed, as Madame de Lamotte
maliciously declared, the high-born ladies of Paris and
Strasburg, was left his once lovely, and stilled loved,
Countess. Faded, pinched with hunger, she still clung
to this man, himself now broken and aged by so
many calumnies, persecutions and misfortunes, whose
enemies had falsely accused him of treating her brut-
ally, as she had clung to him for fifteen years — the
first and the last of his countless admirers and followers.

To one of his vain and grandiose temperament the
abasement of his soul must have been terrible as he
who had been as good as master of the splendid
palace of Saverne cowered day after day in that bare
attic with hunger and terror, like sullen lacqueys in con-
stant attendance, and thought of all the past — of the
fascinating Cardinal whose friendship had brought him
to this pass and who had now forsaken him; of Sarazin,
the rich banker *' who would give me the whole of his
fortune were I to ask for it," dead now, or as good as
dead ; of de Loutherbourg, the Good Samaritan ; of the
reverent disciples to whom he had been ihe/^ere adord,
the *' master"; of the Croesus' fortune which he had
lavished so ostentatiously and generously ; of the
gaudeamus with which the sympathetic crowds had
greeted him on his release from the Bastille ; of the
miracles of which he had lost the trick ; and last but
not least of his fantastic scheme for the regeneration of
mankind which he had promulgated with such enthus-
iasm and success.

One day at a dinner to which some of his Masonic
acquaintances invited him when the memory of the
past was perhaps more vivid, more insistent than usual,
u 2 291

Cagliostro

influenced by the festal atmosphere of the occasion,
Cagliostro was persuaded to discourse on Egyptian
Masonry. But alas ! instead of exciting interest as in
former times his eloquence was without effect. The
ice, however, was broken, and necessity becoming
stronger than his fears he endeavoured to procure
recruits in the hope of maintaining himself and his
wife on their subscriptions.

According to the Inquisition-biographer two men
whom he approached resolved to have a practical joke
at his expense. They manifested a lively desire to be
instructed in the Egyptian Rite, and Cagliostro, de-
ceived into the belief that he had to do with men of
means, *'by a false diamond, which he took to be real,
on the hand of one," decided to gratify them. After
having explained to them the aims and character of
Egyptian Masonry he proceeded to initiate them in
conformity with the usual ridiculous rites, passing them,
as Grand Master, by the wave of a sword through
the three Masonic grades of apprentice, companion
and master at once. But to his mingled terror and
mortification when it came to the payment of the fifty
crowns that he demanded as their subscription fees,
they excused themselves in a manner which showed
him only too plainly he was their dupe.

Alarmed lest they intended to inform against him,
he thought to avoid the consequences of detection by
confessing to a priest as he had done at Trent. It
was the last effort of a beast at bay. In accordance
with the monstrous principle that the means justify
the end confessors have been known on occasion to
betray the secrets confided to them in the confessional.
In this instance, however, there is no proof that the

292

'Nature's Unfortunate Child'

Church profaned the sanctity of the sacrament to
which it attaches so much importance. It is much
more likely that the Inquisition had discovered Cag-
liostro's presence in Rome, and that the men by whom
he had been duped were spies of the Holy Office.
On the evening of December 27, 1789, he and his
wife were arrested by the Papal police and imprisoned
in the Castle of St. Angelo.

Cagliostro, it is said, had been warned of his
danger anonymously by some unknown well-wisher.
But where could he flee without money ? The con-
solations of the confessional, moreover, seemed to
have allayed his fears to such an extent that he did
not even take the precaution to destroy any letters or
documents that might compromise him.

On the same day that Cagliostro was seized the
sbirri of the Inquisition made a raid on the Lodge
of the Vrais Amis. But the members, who had also
received warning, better advised or better supplied
with funds than the ex-Grand Cophta, had taken time
by the forelock and fled.

II

The manner in which the Papal government tried
those accused of heresy and sedition is too notorious
to require explanation. In all countries, in all languages,
the very name of the Inquisition has become a by- word
for religious tyranny of the cruelest and most despic-
able description. If ever this terrible stigma was
justified it was in the eighteenth century, particularly
in the Church's struggle with the Revolution for
which clerical intolerance was more direcdy responsible

293

Cagliostro

than any other factor of inhumanity and stupidity that
led to the overthrow of the ancien regime.

In the case of CagHostro, who was one of the last
to be tried by the ApostoHc Court, the Inquisition
lived up to its reputation. Threatened and execrated
everywhere by the invincible spirit of freedom which
the fall of the Bastille had released, the Jesuits, who
controlled the machinery of the Papal government,^
strove without scruple to crush the enemies which
their arrogant intrigues had created for the Church.
To them Freemasonry was a comprehensive name for
everything and everybody opposed to them and their
pretensions. In a certain sense they were right, and
in France at any rate where the lodges and secret
societies no longer took the trouble to conceal their
aims there was no mistaking the revolutionary character
of the Freemasons. So great, therefore, was the fear
and hatred that Freemasonry inspired in the Church
that in seizing Cagliostro the Inquisition never dreamt
of charging him with any other crime. Beside it his
occult practices or the crimes of which, on the assump-
tion that he was Giuseppe Balsamo he might have
been condemned, paled into insignificance.

The fact that the Inquisition-biographer seeks to
excuse the Apostolic Court for its failure to charge
him with these offences, on the ground that *'all who
could testify against him were dead " proves how
slight was the importance his judges attached to them.
Had they desired to bring him to the gallows for the
forgeries of Balsamo, the judges of the Inquisition

^ The abolition of their Order was but temporary. It had been
forced upon the Pope by sovereigns whose power in an atheistical
age had increased as his declined. The Jesuits continued to exist in
secret, and to inspire and control the Papacy.

294

'Nature's Unfortunate Child'

would have found the necessary witnesses. As a
matter of fact they never so much as attempted to
identify him with Balsamo, as they could easily have
done by bringing some of the relations of the latter
from Palermo.^

The news that Cagliostro had been arrested as a
revolutionary agent caused great excitement. As the
Papal government took care to foster the belief that
he was connected with all the events that were
occurring in France, the unfortunate Grand Cophta
of Egyptian Masonry suddenly acquired a political
^importance he had never possessed. " Arrested,"
says the Moniteur, "he evoked as much interest in
Rome as he had formerly done in Paris." In all
classes of society he became once more the chief topic
of conversation.

It was reported that before his arrest he had written
a circular letter to his followers, of whom he was
popularly supposed to have many in Rome itself,
calling upon them to succour him in case he should
fall into the hands of the Inquisition, and if necessary
to set fire to the Castle of St. Angelo or any other
prison in which he might be confined. Even from
his dungeon, •' which was the same as the one that the
alchemist Borri had died in a century earlier," he was
said to have found the means to communicate with
his accomplices without. According to the Moniteur
'' a letter from him to a priest had been intercepted
which had led to the detection of a conspiracy to over-
throw the Papal monarchy."

1 To justify the attitude they adopted the Inquisition-biographer
was accordingly obliged to blacken the character of Cagliostro by
attributing to him the infamous reputation of Balsamo as a means
of emphasizing the odious lives of Freemasons in general. ^

295

Cagliostro

Whether the report was true or not, the Papal
government, which had probably circulated it, made it
the excuse to arrest numerous persons it suspected.
These mysterious arrests caused a general feeling of
uneasiness, which was increased by rumours of more
to follow. Fearing, or affecting to fear, a rising the
Papal government doubled the guards at the Vatican,
closed the Arsenal, which was usually open to the
public, and surrounded St. Angelo with troops.
There was even talk of exiling all the French in
Rome.

It required no gift of prophecy to foretell the fate
of the unhappy creature who was the cause of all this
excitement. From the first it was recognized that he
had not the ghost of a chance. Two papal bulls
decreed that Freemasonry was a crime punishable by
death. To convict him, moreover, the Inquisition had
no lack of proof. Laubardemont, Cardinal Richelieu's
famous police-spy, deemed a single compromising line
sufficient to hang a man. In Cagliostro's case, thanks to
his singular lack of prudence in not destroying his
papers, the documents seized on his arrest were a
formidable dossier. Nevertheless, before dispatching
their luckless victim the '* Holy " Inquisition played
with him, like a cat with a mouse, for over a year.

As usual at all Inquisition trials the forms of
justice were observed. Permission was granted
Cagliostro to choose two lawyers to defend him.
This privilege, however, was a mockery, for his choice
was in reality limited to certain officials especially
appointed by the Apostolic Court to take charge of
such cases as his. They were not free to acquit ; at
most their defence could only be a plea for mercy. In

296

'Nature's Unfortunate Child'

the present instance, if not actually prejudiced against
their client, they certainly took no interest whatever
in him. Aware that he was utterly incapable of pay-
ing them for their services, they grudged the time they
were obliged to devote to him. Their defence con-
sisted in advising him to acknowledge his guilt and
throw himself on the mercy of his judges.

Nor were the witnesses he was likewise permitted
to summon in his defence to be depended on. At
Inquisition trials all witnesses, fearing lest they should
themselves be transformed into prisoners, turned
accusers. Before the terrible judges of the Holy
Office, whose court resembled a torture-chamber
rather than a court of justice, even his wife testified
against him.^ But though surrounded with indiffer-
ence, contempt or hate, and threatened with death,
Cagliostro did not abandon hope. His spirit was not
yet wholly broken. The terror in which he had lived
so long gave place to rage. Caught in the gin of the
Inquisition he defended himself with the fury born of
despair, and something of his old cunning.

According to the Inquisition-biographer, when he
was examined for the first time four months after his
arrest " he burst into invectives against the Court of
France to which he attributed all the misfortunes he
had experienced since the Bastille." He accused the
witnesses of being his enemies, and on being told that
his wife had ''confessed " he denounced her as a trait-
ress. But the next moment, as if realizing what she
must have been made to suffer, *'he burst into tears,
testified the liveliest tenderness for her, and implored

1 The Roman correspondent of the Moniteur states that at each
examination of CagUostro and his wife, the rack was displayed.

297

Cagliostro

the favour of having her as a companion in his
cell."

" One may well imagine," reports the Inquisition-
biographer, ** that this request was not granted."
One may indeed ! According to the Moniteur he also
asked to be bled, placed in a larger cell, allowed fresh
linen, ^ a fire and a blanket. The first and the last
alone were granted him, for the Inquisition had no
desire to have him die before they had finished trying
him. As, however, his judges professed to be deeply
concerned for the health of his soul, when to the above
request, he added one for ''some good book," no
objection was made to satisfy him. He was, therefore,
given three folio volumes on '* the defence of the
Roman Pontificate and the Catholic Church." ^

Cagliostro took the cynical hint, and after read-
ing the book manifested the deepest contrition,
admitted that Freemasonry was a veritable crime, and
the Egyptian Rite contrary to the Catholic religion.
"No one, however," says the Inquisition-biographer,
" believed him, and if he flattered himself on recovering
his liberty by this means he was mistaken." Per-
ceiving that this act of repentance, far from being of
any avail, only served to furnish his enemies with fresh
weapons, he declared that "• everything he had done
in his life had been done with the consent of the
Almighty, and that he had always been faithful to the
Pope and the Church."

Unhappily for him, however, he had to deal with

1 In the Bastille he also asked for fresh linen, which was given
him. If he dressed like a mountebank, he was at least always
scrupulously clean.

2 Difesa del Fontificato romano e della Chiesa catholica, by P. N. M.
Pallavicino, Rome 1686.

298

{From a very rare French /irint)

[To /ace page 14

'Nature's Unfortunate Child'

men of a very different type to those who composed the
Parliament of Paris. Nothing he could say would
satisfy them. *' I will confess whatever you wish me
to," he said. Told that the Inquisition only desired
the '' truth," he declared that all he had said was true.
He demanded to be brought before the Pope himself.
" If his Holiness would but hear me," he said, ** I
prophesy I should be set at liberty this very night ! "

And who shall gainsay him ? With Cardinals and
Prince-Bishops steeped in alchemy and the occult,
perhaps even the Pope might have been tempted to
exploit the extraordinary knowledge and faculties of
his famous, mysterious prisoner. It would not have
been the first time that the philosopher's stone and the
elixir of life had been sought by a Papal sovereign.
At any rate Cagliostro's request to be brought before
Pius VI was not granted. The judges of the Inquisition
were taking no risks calculated to cheat them of their

prey.

But to give all the details of this trial as related by
the Inquisition-biographer, who was evidently himself
one of the judges, would be tedious. Suffice it to
say, Cagliostro ** confessed," retracted, and ** con-
fessed " again, " drowning the truth In a flood of words."
One day he would acknowledge that Egyptian Masonry
was a huge system of imposture which had as its object
the destruction of throne and altar. The next he
declared that it was a means of spreading the Catholic
religion, and as such had been recognized and en-
couraged by Cardinal de Rohan, the head of the Church
in France.

As regards his own religious convictions, which, by
catechizing him on the cardinal virtues and the differ-

299

Cagliostro

encc between venial and mortal sins, the Inquisition-
biographer asserts to be the chief object of the trial,
they were those of the enlightened men of his cen-
tury. " Questioned," he declared he believed all
religions to be equal, and that "providing one believed
in the existence of a Creator and the immortality of
the soul, it mattered not whether one was Catholic,
Lutheran, Calvinist, or Jew." As to his political
opinions, he confessed to a '* hatred of tyranny, especi-
ally of all forms of religious intolerance."

At length, on March 21, 1791, the Inquisition
judges brought their gloomy farce to an end. As an
instance of the hatred of the Papal government for
secret societies and especially for Freemasonry, Cagli-
ostro's sentence is worth quoting in full —

''Giuseppe Balsamo, attainted and convicted of
many crimes, and of having incurred the censures and
penalties pronounced against heretics, dogmatics,
heresiarchs, and propagators of magic and superstition,
has been found guilty and condemned to the said cen-
sures and penalties as decreed by the Apostolic laws
of Clement XII and Benedict XIV, against all persons
who in any manner whatever favour or form societies
and conventicles of Freemasonry, as well as by the
edict of the Council of State against all persons con-
victed of this crime in Rome or in any other place in
the dominions of the Pope.

" Notwithstanding, by special grace and favour, the
sentence of death by which this crime is expiated is
hereby commuted into perpetual imprisonment in a
fortress, where the culprit is to be strictly guarded
without any hope of pardon whatever. Furthermore,
after he shall have abjured his offences as a heretic in

.^00

' Nature's Unfortunate Child '

the place of his imprisonment he shall receive absolu-
tion, and certain salutary penances will then be
prescribed for him to which he is hereby ordered to
submit.

'* Likewise, the manuscript book which has for its
title Egyptian Masonry is solemnly condemned as
containing rites, propositions, doctrines, and a system
which being superstitious, impious, heretical, and
altogether blasphemous, open a road to sedition and
the destruction of the Christian religion. This book,
therefore, shall be burnt by the executioner, together
with all the other documents relating to this sect.

** By a new Apostolic law we shall confirm and
renew not only the laws of the preceding pontiffs
which prohibit the societies and conventicles of Free-
masonry, making particular mention of the Egyptian
sect and of another vulgarly known as the Illumines,
and we shall decree that the most grievous corporal
punishments reserved for heretics shall be inflicted on
all who shall associate, hold communion with, or
protect these societies."

Throughout Europe, which was everywhere im-
pregnated with the doctrines of the Revolution, such
a sentence for such a crime at such a time created a
revulsion of feeling in Cagliostro's favour. His fate,
however, evoked less sympathy for him than
indignation against Rome. An article in the Feuille
Villageoise best expresses the general opinion.

'' The Pope," says the writer, '' ought to have
abandoned Cagliostro to the effects of his bad
reputation. Instead he has had him shut up and
tried by charlatans far more dangerous to society
than himself. His sentence is cruel and ridiculous.

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Cagliostro

If all who make dupes of the crowd were punished
in this fashion, precedence on the scaffold should
certainly be granted to the Roman Inquisitors."

That the trial of Cagliostro was really intended
by the Papal government as a proof of its deter-
mination to show no quarter in its war against
the Freemasons may be gathered from the Inquisition-
biographer's Vie de Joseph Balsamo, which is less a
life of Balsamo or Cagliostro, as it purports to be, than
a furious attack on Freemasonry, which is depicted in
the blackest and most odious colours. Its publication
exasperated the secret societies in Lombardy and they
were emboldened by the progress of the Revolution
to publish a reply. ** This pamphlet," says the
Moniteur, ** appeared under the auspices of the Swiss
government and produced such a sensation throughout
Italy, and particularly in Rome, that the Conclave,
terrified at the revolutionary fury it had awakened,
instructed its agents to buy up every copy they could
find."

The Conclave would have been better advised to
suppress the work of the Inquisition-biographer. The
account it contains of Cagliostro's trial completely
justifies the popular belief in the bigotry, cruelty,
tyranny, and total lack of the Christian spirit that
characterized the proceedings of the Holy Inqui-
sition.

Ill

For some time after his trial the public continued
to manifest great interest in Cagliostro. The recol-
lection of his extraordinary career gave to his sentence

302

' Nature's Unfortunate Child '

a dramatic character, which made a deep impression
on the imagination. Speculation was rife as to his
fate, which the Papal government foolishly saw fit
to shroud in mystery that only served to keep his
memory alive.

All sorts of rumours were current about him. One
day it would be said that he had attempted to commit
suicide ; the next that he was chained to his cell a
raving maniac. Again it was rumoured that he had
predicted the fall of the Papacy and was impatiently
awaiting the Roman populace to march on St. Angelo
and deliver him. The Moniteurs correspondent relates
that in a terrific storm '' in which Rome was stricken
with a great fear as if the end of the world was at
hand, Cagliostro mistook the thunder for the cannon of
the insurgents and was heard shouting in his dungeon.
Me void ! a moi ! me void I "

Knowing, as he did from his Masonic connection,
how widespread was the revolutionary movement, and
what hopes were raised in Italy by the stirring march
of events in France, it is not unlikely that he may
have counted on some popular rising to set him free.
That he despaired of such a deliverance, however,
and contemplated recovering his liberty by his own
efforts seems much more probable.

According to Prince Bernard of Saxe- Weimar who
guaranteed the accuracy of the story, Cagliostro did,
indeed, make a bold attempt to escape from St. Angelo.
"Manifesting deep contrition," says the Prince, ''he
demanded penance for his sins and a confessor. A
Capucin was sent him. After his confession, Cagliostro
entreated the priest to give him the * discipline ' with
the cord he wore as a belt, to which the latter willingly

303

Cagliostro

consented. But scarcely had he received the first blow
when he seized the cord, flung himself on the Capucin,
and did his best to strangle him. His intention was
to escape in the priest's cloak, and had he been in his
vigour and his opponent a weak man he might have
succeeded. But Cagliostro was lean and wasted from
long imprisonment and the Capucin was strong and
muscular. In the struggle with his penitent he had
time to call for help."

What followed on the arrival of the jailers is not
known, but it is not likely that the prisoner was
handled with gloves.

As a sequel to that frantic struggle for life and
liberty, Cagliostro was secretly sent '' in the middle of
the night " to the Castle of San Leo, near Montefeltro.
The situation of this stronghold is one of the most
singular in Europe. The enormous rock, whose summit
it crowns, rising on three sides precipitously from an
almost desert plain, is like a monument commemorative
of some primeval convulsion of nature. In early times
it had been the site of a temple of Jupiter, the ruins
of which after its destruction by the barbarians became
the abode of a Christian hermit, whose ascetic virtues
were canonized, and who bequeathed his name to it.
In the Middle Ages the holy ruins gave place to an
almost impregnable fortress, which at a still later
period was converted into a Papal prison, compared to
which the Bastille was a paradise.^

In the eighteenth century the condition of the
surroundings rendered it well-nigh inaccessible. The
roads leading to San Leo were only practicable for
horses in fine weather ; in winter it was only approached
on foot. To accentuate still further this isolation, the
* San Leo is now a well-conducted Italian state prison.
304

'Nature's Unfortunate Child'

Papal government had taken care that those convicted
of sedition or heretical doctrines, should find there an
everlasting seclusion. An official, commissioned by
Napoleon to visit and examine the Italian prisons,
gives an account of the cells, which were partly in the
old casde of San Leo itself and partly excavated out
of the rock on which it stands.

''The galleries," he reports, ''which have been cut
out of the solid rock, were divided into cells, and old
dried-up cisterns had been converted into dungeons
for the worst criminals, and further surrounded by
high walls, so that the only possible egress, if escape
was attempted, would be by a staircase cut in the rock
and guarded night and day by sentinels.

"It was in one of these cisterns that the celebrated
Cagliostro was interred in 179 1. In recommending
the Pope to commute the sentence of death, which the
Inquisition had passed upon him, into perpetual
imprisonment, the Holy Tribunal took care that the
commutation should be equivalent to the death penalty.
His only communication with mankind was when his
jailers raised the trap to let food down to him. Here
he languished for three years without air, movement,
or intercourse with his fellow-creatures. During the
last months of his life his condition excited the pity
of the governor, who had him removed from this
dungeon to a cell on the level with the ground, where
the curious, who obtain permission to visit the prison,
may read on the walls various inscriptions and
sentences traced there by the unhappy alchemist.
The last bears the date of the 6th of March, i795-" ^

1 "These facts," says Schlosser in his History of the Eighteerith
Ce?itury, ''were unknown to Goethe." The same statement may
also be applied to Carlyle.

Cagliostro

This is the last definite trace of Cagliostro.

On the 6th October, 1795, the Moniteur states
** it is reported in Rome that the famous Cagli-
ostro is dead." But when he died, or how, is abso-
lutely unknown. "That his end was tragic," says
d'Alm^ras, ** one can well suppose, and his jailers, to
make sure that he should not escape, may have put
him out of his misery." The Moniteur speaks of the
probability of such an end as being a topic of conversa-
tion in Rome. In any case, it seems impossible to
believe that he could long have survived so terrible a
doom, which, whatever his offence, was utterly dis-
graceful to the government that pronounced it.

This mysterious end, so in keeping with Cagli-
ostro's mysterious origin and personality, appeals to
the imagination. Nothing excites curiosity like a
mystery. Since his death there have been as many
attempts to lift the veil in which his end is shrouded
as were made in his lifetime to discover the secret
of his birth. Of these specimens of sheer futility,
Madame Blavatsky's is the most interesting, the most
unlikely, and the most popular among the believers in
the supernatural who have allowed their imaginations
to run riot on Cagliostro generally.

According to the equally extraordinary High
Priestess of the Theosophists, Cagliostro escaped from
San Leo, and long after his supposed death in 1795
was met by various people in Russia, even residing
for some time in the house of Madame Blavatsky's
father, where **in the midst of winter he produced by
magical power a plate full of fresh strawberries for a
sick person who was craving it."

Had Cagliostro survived his terrible sufferings in

306

' Nature's Unfortunate Child '

San Leo till 1797, when the French invaded the
Papal States, he certainly would have been set at
liberty. San Leo, to which the Pope's troops had
retired, was taken by the famous Polish legion under
General Dombrowski. The first thing the officers did
on entering the fortress was to inquire anxiously if
Cagliostro, whom they regarded as a martyr in the
cause of freedom, was living.

"They thought to rescue him," says Figuier, "and
perhaps even to give him an ovation similar to that
which he had received in Paris after his acquittal by
the Parliament. But they arrived too late. Cagliostro,
they were told, had just died."

According to another version, they demanded to
be shown his grave, and having opened it, filled the
skull with wine, which they drank to the honour of
the Revolution !

The fate of the inoffensive and colourless Countess
Cagliostro was quite as mysterious, though less cruel,
perhaps, than her husband's. The Inquisition sentenced
her, too, to imprisonment for life. She was confined
in the convent of St. Appolonia, a penitentiary for
women in Rome, where it was rumoured she had died
in 1794.

307

INDEX

Agliata, Marquis, 35, 36

Agrippa, Cornelius, 80

Alba, Duke of, 13, 16

Albertus Magnus, 80

d'Alembert, 193

Almeras, Henri d', 5, 146, 170, 201

note, 233, 306
Althotas, 32, 33, 236-240
Aquino, Chevalier d', 184, 240, 241
Aubert & Co., J. F., 22
Aylett, 68-72, 272

Bachaumont, 262

Bacon, Roger, 79

Badioli, 64, 66, 67

Bailly, 97

Balsamo, Giuseppe, 7, 10-47, 68, 266,

270, 271, 300

, Joseph. See Giuseppe Balsamo

, Lorenza, 13, 19, 34-47

, Maria, 22

, Pietro, 21, 22

Barthelemy, 256, 259

Beaumarchais, 263

Beauvais, Vincent de, 78

Becherand, Abbe, 85

Benamore, Dr. Moses, 41, 68, 70, 71

Benedict XIV, 300

Bergeret de Frouville, 256

Besenval, Baron de, 190, 271

Beugnot, Count, 202, 203, 210, 211

Blanc, Louis, 98, 208

Blavatsky, Madame, 76, 306, 307

Blevary, Madame, 49, 50, 52, 53

Blondel, 235

Bode, 141, 142

Bohmer, 220, 221, 232, 233, 244

, Madame, 150, 151, 152

Boileau, Pierre, ill

Borri, 169, 295

Boulainvilliers, Marquise de, 215

Braconieri, Antonio, ii, 12, 13, 15, 16,

17, 22

, Felice. See Maria Balsamo

, Giuseppe, 22

, Matteo, 22

Breteuil, Baron de, 225, 226, 2^4 note^

25s. 256, 257, 259
Bretteville, Baron de, 33
Brienne, Comtesse de, 197
Brissot, 256 tiole, 260 note, 264, 265,

274
Broad, 60, 62, 65, 72
Brugniere, Inspector, 228, 229, 230, 235

Cagliostro, Count —

prejudice against, 2 ; Carlyle's portrait
of, 3-5 ; the Balsamo legend, 1 1-18 ;
troubles in London, 49-73 ; becomes
a Freemason, iii ; in Leipsic, 117;
character of Egyptian Masonry,
1 19-125 ; reception in Courland, 126 ;
magic seances in Courland, 129-
140 ; Countess von der Recke's
opinion of, 141, 142 ; in St. Peters-
burg, 143-147 ; visits Warsaw, 148-
154; joins the Illumines, 156;
arrival in Strasburg, 157 : his bene-
volence, 163 ; cur^s Prince de
Soubise, 164-166 ; nature of his
cures, 167-169 ; visited by Lavater,
170; Mme. d'Oberkirch's opinion of,
175 ; admiration of Cardinal de
Rohan, 176-179 ; Sacchi's libel,
183 ; visits Naples, 184 ; at Bordeaux,
187 ; success in Lyons, 189 ; arrives
in Paris, 190 ; infatuation of
Parisians, 192-194 ; mystery of his
origin and wealth, 195-197 ; appear-
ance, 201-203 ; character of his
seances, 209, 210; success of
Egyptian Masonry, 211-213 ; im-
plicated in the Diamond Necklace
Affair, 224 ; arrest, 228 ; in the
Bastille, 230 ; accused by Countess
de Lamotte, 233 ; his story of his
life, 236-242 ; refutes Countess de
Lamotte, 244-246; acquittal, 248;
receives a public ovation, 249 ;
banished, 250 ; returns to London,
251 ; Letter to the French people, 254 ;
hostility of French Court, 257 ; de-

309

Index

nounced by Morande, 266 ; defends
himself, 267-269 ; attempts to kidnap
him, 272, 273 ; ridiculed by Free-
masons, 277 ; leaves England, 279 ;
friendship of de Loutherbourg, 280-
282 ; seeks asylum in Switzerland,
283 ; at Rovoredo, 285 ; expelled
from Trent, 287 ; arrival in Rome,
288 ; his poverty, 290 ; arrested by
Papal police, 293 ; before the In-
quisition, 299 ; his sentence, 300 ;
attempt to escape, 303 ; at San Leo ;
304> 305 ; mysterious end, 306

Cagliostro, Countess, 13, 14, 19, 49,
50, 54, 56, 57, 58. 59,111,112, 115,
120, 151, 177, 181, 185, 204, 205,
224, 230, 231, 232, 233, 241, 280,
282, 285, 288, 297, 307

, Giuseppe, 13, 15, 22

Campan, Madame, 222

Campardon, Emile, 12

Capitummino, Giovanni, 22

Carbonnieres, Raymond de, 189

Carlyle, 3, 4, 5, 6, 24, 201, 203, 224,
305 note

Cartegirone, Benfratelli of, 23, 25, 30

Casanova, 37, 38, 39

Castropignani, Duke of, 266

Catherine, Empress, 143, 147, 148

Chaix d'Est-Ange, 225, 226

Charles XII, 90

Chateaugiron, Marquis de, 113 note

Chesnon, 228, 230, 251

Choiseul, Due de, 100, 193

Clement V, 108, 113 note

, XII, 109, 300

, XIV, 241

Condorcet, 99

Convulsionnaires, The, 85, 86

Courier de t Europe, lo, ii, 17, 18, 20,
39, 40, 46, 47, 53, 54, 63, 71, III,
113, 184 note^ 196 note^ 234, 264,
272, 273, 274, 277, 279, 282

, Editor of. See Theveneau de

Morande

Courland, Duchess of, 127, 140

, Duke of, 127

Crequy, Marquis de, 202, 210

Crisp, 68, 69, 70, 72

Dee, Dr., 80, 81

Diamond Necklace Affair, 119, 142,

214-252
Diderot, 193

Dombrowski, General, 307
Du Barry, Madame, 262, 263
Duplessis de la Radotte, 42

Egyptian Masonry, 115, 11 7- 126, 131,
132, 139, 142, 143, 144, 149. 156,
160, 185, 188, 189, 197 note, 207,
211, 212, 213, 276, 277, 292, 298,
299, 301

d'Epreminil, 232

Erasmus, 80

Esperance Lodge, 67, in, 113, 114

Feliciani, Lorenza. See Lorenza

Balsamo
, Seraphina. See Countess

Cagliostro
Feuille Villageoise, 301
Figuier, 85, 123, 166, 194, 210, 212
Fontenelle, 93

Frederick the Great, 97, 104, 108
Freemasons, The, 105, 107, 108, 109,

116, 117, 121, 185, 296
Fry, Miss, 53-68, 71, 72
Funck-Brentano, 201 note, 248 note

Ganganelli. See Clement XIV

Gassner, 86, 103, 166

Gazette de Florence, 12

Gazette de Leyde, 1 1

Gebir, 78, 79

Genlis, Madame de, 172, 206

Georgel, Abbe, 178, 181, 202, 208

Gergy, Madame de, 199, 200

Gillray, 278

Gleichen, Baron de, 123, 159, 163,

164, 180, 198, 199, 205
Goertz, Baron von, 145
Goethe, 43, 45, 46, 305 note
Goncourt, 225
Gordon, Lord George, 256, 257, 258,

276
Gotha, Duke of, no
Gracei, 266
Graham, Dr., 86
Grand Cophta,

Cagliostro
Grimm, Baron, 190, 197, 200

The. See Count

Eddy, Mrs., 76, 166, 281

Hales, Sir Edward, 41
Hardivilliers, in, 112
du Hausset, Madame, 198
Hermes Trismegistus, 76
Hervier, Pere, 186, 187, 188
Houdon, 194
Howarth, 65, 66
Howen, Herr von, 129
Hundt, Baron von, 113

Illumines, The, 104, 105, 106, no, 141,
155, 156, 160, 197 note, 289, 301

Inquisition, The, 20, 107, 289, 293,
294, 295

310

Index

Inquisition-biographer, The, 19, 20, 23,
24, 25, 32, 33, 41, 44, 46, 47, 114,
115, 117, 118, 184, 203, 234, 254,
284, 289, 292, 293, 294, 298, 299

James, 71, 72

Jansenists, The, 84, 85

Jesuits, The, 85, 103, 107, 109, 196,

294
Joseph II, 104, 286, 287

Kant, 94

Kepler, 80

Knigge, Baron von, 105, 106, 109, 156,

287
Knights Templars, The Order of, 108,

113 note
Kolmer, 236 note

Laborde, 153, 154, 163, 202
Lamotte, Count de, 216, 224, 256 note,

272
, Countess de, 8, 9, 36, 47,

151, 204, 205, 214, 215, 218-228,

233. 234, 235, 242, 244-248, 254,

256 note
Laroca, 44

Lasalle, Marquis de, 163, 183
Lascaris, 161
de Launay, 232, 251
Lavater, 86, 140, 170, 171, 203
Lavoisier, 88, 97
Leguay, Mile., 219, 224, 235
Leibnitz, 96
Len6tre, 252

Lette?- to the English People ^ 267, 272
Letter to the French People, 254, 255
Levis, Due de, 220
Lodge of Antiquity, The, 277
Lodge of Vrais Amis, 289, 290, 293
Louis XIV, 96

XV, 198, 199, 262, 263

XVI, 19s, 215, 217, 223, 224,

226, 258, 259
Loutherbourg, Mrs. de, 280, 281, 282

, Philip James, 280, 281, 282

Luchet, Marquis de, 120, 123, 144,

145, 146, 158, 194, 206
Luxembourg, Prince de, 191

Mansfield, Lord, 64, 65, 68

Manuel, 172

Marano, 30, 31, 33, 44, 45, 46, 158

note
Maria Theresa, Empress, 162, 172, 217
Marie Antoinette, Queen, 8, 10, 15,

195, 216, 228, 233, 249, 250, 252,

254, 270
Marigny, Marquise de, 173

-, Vincenza, 22
Martin, Henri, 98
Martini, 78
Mash, 277

Maurigi, Manjuis, 26
Medem, Count von, 126, 127, 129, 130

131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140

> Marshal von, 126, 127, 129

,130, 134, 135, 136, 137, 147

Memers, 159, 195, 203

Mesmer, 75, 76, 88, 102, 166, 186, 189,

195
Michelet, 203
Millinens, Baron de, 174
Mirabeau, 55, 124, 198, 227, 249
Moczinski, Count, 148, 150, 151, 152
Molay, Jacques, 108, 113 note
Mojiiteur, The, 290 note, 295, 297 note,

298, 302, 303, 306
Montbruel, Chevalier de, 211
Montesquieu, 193
Mother Lodge of the Helvetic State*,

283
Motus, 163, 202, 203
Mouncey, Dr., 147

Napoleon, 305
Neubourg, Marie de, 198
Newton, Sir Isaac, 88
Nicastro, Ottavio, 35
Nordberg, M. de, 198
Normandez, M. de, 146

Oberkirch, Baroness d', 4, 162, 163,
170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178,
. 181 note, 202, 247
Oisemont, Chevalier d', 205
Oliva, Baroness d'. See Mile. Leguay
O'Reilly, 67, 68, 69, 72, 273, 275
Orsini, Cardinal, 13, 16, 33, 241
Orvilliers, Marquise d', 196

Paracelsus, 79, 81, 169
Paris, Deacon, 84, 85
Pasqualis, Martinez, 100, 186
Pellegrini, Marchesa. See Lorenza Bal-

samo
, Marchese. See Giuseppe Bal-

samo
Pergolezzi, 40, 51, 272, 273 note
Philaletes, The, 212, 213
Philip the Fair, King, 108, 113 note
Pinto, Grand Master, 236 note, 239,

240, 242
Pius VI, 299

Planta, Baron de, 181 note
Poland, King of. See Stanislas Augustus
Polish Legion, The, 307

311

Index

Polverit, Mattre, 204, 232
Pompadour, Madame de, 19S, 199, 215
Poninskf, Prince, 148, 149, 151
Potemkin, Prince, 147
Priddle, 64, 70, 275
Prie, Marquis de, 42
Puys^gur, Marquis de, 76

Quere, 159

Ramon, 191

Recke, Count von der, 127

, Countess Elisa von der, 4, 127-

147, 202
R6teaux de Vilette, 224
Reynolds, 60, 61, 62, 70, 72
Ricciarelli, Count, 11 1
Rivarol, 225
Roberson, 176, 177
Rogerson, Dr., 147
Rohan, Cardinal de, 8, 163, 164, 165,

171-179, 181, 182, 184, 189, 196, 199,

205, 215-227, 233, 244,247, 248, 249,

250, 254 note^ 299
Rosencreutz, Christian, 81
Rosicrucians, The, 81, 82, 94, 95, 109,

201
Rousseau, 97

Sacchi, 47, 182, 183, 275, 276
Sagesse Triomphante Lodge, The, 189
Saint Angelo, Castle of, 32, 293, 296,

303
Saint-Germain, Count de, 87,198, 199,

200, 287
Saint James of Compostella, 37, 39
Saint-Martin, Louis Claude de, 99, loi,

102, 109, 186
Saint-Medard, Cemetery of, 84, 85
Saint-Remy, Jeanne de. See Countess

de Lamotte
Sancotar, 197

San Leo, Prison of, 304, 305, 306, 307
San Rocco, Seminary of, 23
Santa Cruce, Prince of, 146
Sarazin, 156, 163, 197, 283, 284
Saunders, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68

Savalette, de Langes, 212

Saverne, Palace of, 173, 174, 175, 181,

221
Saxe, Marshal, 118
Saxe- Weimar, Prince Bernard of, 300

303
Schropfer, 86, 87, 109, 117 note
Scieffort, 117
Scott, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62,

72

" Lady." See Miss Fry

Serres de Latour, 264, 265
Shannon, 64

Soubise, Prince de, 164, 165, 170
Stanilas Augustus, 151, 153, 154
Strict Observance, Order of, 113, 114,

"5

Surrey, Lord, 80
Swedberg. See Swedenborg
Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 89, 90, 91, 92,

93, 94, 124 and note
Swinton, 264, 265, 274, 275, 276

Theveneau de Morande, 261-282

Thilorier, 235, 267, 273

Thiroux de Crosne, 232

Tiscio, Don. See Giuseppe Balsamo

Trent, Prince- Bishop of, 286, 287

Ulrica, Queen, 90, 93

Vaillant, 85

Van Helmont, 79

Vauvenargues, 96

Vergennes, Comte de, 188, 264, 265

Villafranca, Prince of, 13

Villeneuve, Arnauld de, 167

de Vismes, 279 note

Vitellini, 50, 51, 52, 57, 66

Voisenon, Abbe de, 193

Voltaire, 96, 193, 262

Walpole, Plorace, 198, 281
Weishaupt, Adam, 103, 104, 105, 106
109, 110, 141, 287

York, Cardinal, 33, 241

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