proceeded to Venice, where some of his English creditors seem to have
disturbed his serenity, and prompted him in consequence to retire
through Germany into Holstein, where he is supposed to have visited the
renowned Count de St Germain.
According to the _Mémoires Authentiques pour servir à l’Histoire du
Comte de Cagliostro_, published in 1785, he demanded an audience
with this man of inscrutable mystery, in order that he might
prostrate himself before the _dieu des croyants_. With characteristic
eccentricity the Count de St Germain appointed two in the morning
as the hour for the interview, which moment being arrived, say the
“Memoirs,” Cagliostro and his wife, clothed in white garments, clasped
about the waist with girdles of rose-colour, presented themselves at
the castellated temple of mystery, which was the abode of the dubious
divinity whom they desired to adore. The drawbridge was lowered, a
man six feet in height, clothed in a long grey robe, led them into
a dimly-lighted chamber. Therein some folding doors sprang suddenly
open, and they beheld a temple illuminated by a thousand wax lights,
with the Count de Saint-Germain enthroned upon the altar; at his
feet two acolytes swung golden thuribles, which diffused sweet and
unobtrusive perfumes. The divinity bore upon his breast a diamond
pentagram of almost intolerable radiance. A majestic statue, white and
diaphanous, upheld on the steps of the altar a vase inscribed, “Elixir
of Immortality,” while a vast mirror was on the wall, and before it
a living being, majestic as the statue, walked to and fro. Above the
mirror were these singular words--“Store House of Wandering Souls.” The
most solemn silence prevailed in this sacred retreat, but at length a
voice, which seemed hardly a voice, pronounced these words--“Who are
you? Whence come you? What would you?” Then the Count and Countess
Cagliostro prostrated themselves, and the former answered after a long
pause, “I come to invoke the God of the faithful, the Son of Nature,
the sire of truth. I come to demand of him one of the fourteen thousand
seven hundred secrets which are treasured in his breast, I come to
proclaim myself his slave, his apostle, his martyr.”
The divinity did not respond, but after a long silence, the same voice
asked:--“What does the partner of thy long wanderings intend?”
“To obey and to serve,” answered Lorenza.
Simultaneously with her words, profound darkness succeeded the glare of
light, uproar followed on tranquillity, terror on trust, and a sharp
and menacing voice cried loudly:--“Woe to those who cannot stand the
tests!”
Husband and wife were immediately separated to undergo their respective
trials, which they endured with exemplary fortitude, and which are
detailed in the text of the memoirs. When the romantic mummery was
over, the two postulants were led back into the temple, with the
promise of admission to the divine mysteries. There a man mysteriously
draped in a long mantle cried out to them:--“Know ye that the arcanum
of our great art is the government of mankind, and that the one means
to rule them is never to tell them the truth. Do not foolishly
regulate your actions according to the rules of common sense; rather
outrage reason and courageously maintain every unbelievable absurdity.
Remember that reproduction is the palmary active power in nature,
politics, and society alike; that it is a mania with mortals to be
immortal, to know the future without understanding the present, and to
be spiritual while all that surrounds them is material.”
After this harangue the orator genuflected devoutly before the divinity
of the temple and retired. At the same moment a man of gigantic stature
led the countess to the feet of the immortal Count de Saint-German, who
thus spoke:--
“Elected from my tenderest youth to the things of greatness, I
employed myself in ascertaining the nature of veritable glory.
Politics appeared to me nothing but the science of deception, tactics
the art of assassination, philosophy the ambitious imbecility of
complete irrationality; physics fine fancies about Nature and the
continual mistakes of persons suddenly transplanted into a country
which is utterly unknown to them; theology the science of the misery
which results from human pride; history the melancholy spectacle of
perpetual perfidy and blundering. Thence I concluded that the statesman
was a skilful liar, the hero an illustrious idiot, the philosopher
an eccentric creature, the physician a pitiable and blind man, the
theologian a fanatical pedagogue, and the historian a word-monger.
Then did I hear of the divinity of this temple. I cast my cares upon
him, with my incertitudes and aspirations. When he took possession of
my soul he caused me to perceive all objects in a new light; I began
to read futurity. This universe so limited, so narrow, so desert, was
now enlarged. I abode not only with those who are, but with those who
were. He united me to the loveliest women of antiquity. I found it
eminently delectable to know all without studying anything, to dispose
of the treasures of the earth without the solicitation of monarchs,
to rule the elements rather than men. Heaven made me liberal; I have
sufficient to satisfy my taste; all that surrounds me is rich, loving,
predestinated.”
When the service was finished the costume of ordinary life was resumed.
A superb repast terminated the ceremony. During the course of the
banquet the two guests were informed that the Elixir of Immortality was
merely Tokay coloured green or red according to the necessities of the
case. Several essential precepts were enjoined upon them, among others
that they must detest, avoid, and calumniate men of understanding, but
flatter, foster, and blind fools, that they must spread abroad with
much mystery the intelligence that the Count de Saint-Germain was five
hundred years old, that they must make gold, but dupes before all.
The truth of this singular episode is not attested by any sober
biographer. If it occurred as narrated, it doubtless served to confirm
Cagliostro in his ambitious projects. The change which had taken place
in the adventurer since his second visit to England is well described
by Figuier. “His language, his mien, his manners, all are transformed.
His conversation turns only on his travels in Egypt, to Mecca, and in
other remote places, on the sciences into which he was initiated at the
foot of the Pyramids, on the arcana of Nature which his ingenuity has
discovered. At the same time, he talks little, more often enveloping
himself in mysterious silence. When interrogated with reiterated
entreaties, he deigns at the most to draw his symbol--a serpent with
an apple in its mouth and pierced by a dart, meaning that human wisdom
should be silent on the mysteries which it has unravelled.... Lorenza
was transfigured at the same time with her husband. Her ambitions and
deportment became worthy of the new projects of Cagliostro. She aimed,
like himself, at the glory of colossal successes.”
The initiates of the Count de Saint-Germain passed into Courland,
where they established Masonic lodges, according to the sublime rite
of Egyptian Freemasonry. The countess was an excellent preacher to
captivate hearts and enchant imaginations, her beauty fascinated a
large number of Courlandaise nobility. At Mittau, Cagliostro attracted
the attention of persons of high rank, who were led by his reputation
to regard him as an extraordinary person. By means of his Freemasonry
he began to obtain an ascendency over the minds of the nobles, some of
whom, discontented with the reigning duke, are actually said to have
offered him the sovereignty of the country, as to a divine man and
messenger from above. The Italian biography represents him plotting
with this end in view. “He pretends,” say the documents of the Holy
Inquisition, “that he had virtue enough to resist the temptation, and
that he refused the proffered boon from the respect due to sovereigns.
His wife has assured us that his refusal was produced by the reflection
that his impostures would soon be discovered.” He collected, however, a
prodigious number of presents in gold, silver, and money, and repaired
to St Petersburg, provided with regular passports. But the prophet soon
found that a sufficiently brilliant reputation had not preceded him,
and he, therefore, simply announced himself as a physician and chemist,
by his retired life and air of mystery soon attracting attention.
His assumption of the _rôle_ of physician leads to a brief
consideration of the miraculous cures which have been attributed
to him. They are generally referred to a broad application of the
principles and methods of Mesmer, his contemporary. They were performed
without passes, iron rods, or any of the cumbrous paraphernalia of his
rival in the healing art; he trusted simply to the laying on of hands.
Moreover, he did not despoil his patients, but rather dispensed his
wealth, which now appeared unlimited, among the poor, who flocked to
him in great numbers as his reputation increased. The source of this
wealth is not accurately known, but it is supposed to have been derived
from the Masonic initiates, whose apostle and propagandist he was.
Many of the miraculous cures which Cagliostro performed in Germany
spread widely, and in Russia he was soon surrounded by the curious.
Lorenza played her own part admirably; she answered discreetly and
naturally, making the most outrageous statements with apparently
complete unconsciousness. The physician-chemist, besides his healing
powers, had his reputation as an alchemist and adept of the arcane
sciences. The supposed restoration in a miraculous manner of the infant
child of an illustrious nobleman to health exalted him to the pinnacle
of celebrity, and his extravagant pretensions, assisted, as they
powerfully were, by the naïve beauty of his wife, were beginning to be
taken seriously, but the combined result of an amour between Lorenza
and Prince Poternki, Prime Minister and favourite of the Czarina,
Catherine, and the discovery that the nobleman’s child had been
apparently changed, caused them to depart hastily with immense spoils
towards the German frontier.
They tarried at Warsaw for a time, and there the Italian biographer
tells us that Cagliostro made use of all his artifices to deceive a
prince to whom he was introduced, and who was exceedingly anxious
to obtain, with the help of the pretended magician, the permanent
command of a devil. Cagliostro puffed him up for a long time with the
expectation of gratifying this preposterous ambition, and actually
procured presents from him to the amount of several thousand crowns.
The prince at length perceiving that there was no hope of retaining one
of the infernal spirits in his service, wished to make himself master
of the earthly affections of the countess, but in this too he was
disappointed, the lady positively refusing to comply with his desires.
Finding himself thus balked in both his attempts, he abandoned every
sentiment but revenge, and intimidated our adventurer and his wife so
much by his menaces that they were obliged to restore his presents.
The veracity of this account is not, however, beyond suspicion, and
other of his biographers represent Cagliostro proceeding directly
to Francfurt and thence to Strasbourg, into which, more wealthy and
successful than ever, he made a triumphal entry. The distinguished
visitor, the Rosicrucian, the alchemist, the physician, the sublime
count, had been expected since early morning by the bourgeois of the
old town, and the following extraordinary account in the _Dictionnaire
des Sciences Occultes_ has been given by an anonymous biographer.
“On the 19th of September 1780, in a public-house just outside
Strasburg, surrounded by a group of humble tipplers, who stared from
the little window at the vast crowd collected below them, there might
have been remarked the countenance of a bald and wrinkled man, some
eighty years of age, and evidently of southern origin; this was the
goldsmith Marano. Successive failures, and debts which he did not
see fit to liquidate, had forced him to leave Palermo, and he had
established himself in his former trade at Strasbourg. Like the rest
of the townsfolk he had come out to behold the phenomenal personage
whose arrival was expected, and who made a greater sensation than
many a powerful monarch. He had come by way of Germany from Varsovia,
where he had amassed immense riches, said popular rumour, by the
transmutation of base metals into gold, for he was possessed of the
secret of the philosophic stone, and had all the incalculable talents
of an alchemist.”
“By my faith,” said a hatter, “I am indeed happy since I am destined to
behold this illustrious mortal, if indeed he be a mortal.”
“’Tis asserted,” added a druggist, “that he is a son of the Princess of
Trebizond, and that he has withal the fine eyes of his mother.”
“Also that he is a lineal descendant of Charles Martel,” said a town
clerk.
“He dates still further back,” put in a rope-maker, “for he took part
in the marriage feast of Cana.”
“Beyond doubt then, he is the wandering Jew!” exclaimed Marano.
“Still better, some credible persons assert that he was born before the
deluge.”
“What hardihood! Yet suppose he is the devil.”
These notions here reproduced with fidelity, and which were adorned
by the most extravagant commentaries, were actually at that period in
general circulation among the crowd. Some regarded the mysterious Count
Cagliostro as an inspired saint, a performer of miracles, a phenomenal
personage outside the order of Nature. The cures attributed to him were
equally innumerable and unexplainable. Others regarded him merely as
an adroit charlatan. Cagliostro himself boldly asserted that all his
prodigies were performed under the special favour and help of heaven.
He added that the Supreme Being had deigned to accord him the beatific
vision, that it was his mission to convert unbelievers and reinstate
catholicism, but in spite of this exalted vocation he told fortunes,
taught the art of winning at lotteries, interpreted dreams, and held
séances of transcendental phantasmagoria.
“But,” contended the rope-maker with much animation, “a man who
converses with angels is never the devil.”
“Is he in communication with angels?” cried Marano, struck by the
circumstances. “In that case I must see him at all costs. How old is
he?”
“Bah!” said the druggist, “as if such a being could have an age! He
looks about thirty-six.”
“Oh!” muttered the goldsmith. “What if he were my rascal? My rascal
should now be thirty-seven.”
As the hoary Sicilian ruminated over his lamentable past, he was
roused by a tumult of voices. The supernal being had arrived, and he
passed presently in the road, surrounded by a numerous cortege of
couriers, lacqueys, valets, &c., all in magnificent liveries. By his
side, in the open carriage, sat Lorenza or Seraphina Feliciani, his
wife, who seconded with all her ability the intrigues of her husband,
whom reasonable people regarded as a wandering member and emissary of
the masonic templars, his opulence insured by contributions from the
different lodges of the order.
A great shout rose up when Count Cagliostro passed before the inn.
Marano had recognised his man, and flying out had contrived to stop the
carriage, shouting as he did so--“Joseph Balsamo! It is Joseph! Coquin,
where are my sixty ounces of gold?”
Cagliostro scarcely deigned to glance at the furious goldsmith; but
in the middle of the profound silence which the incident occasioned
among the crowd, a voice, apparently in the clouds, uttered with
great distinctness the following words: “Remove this lunatic, who is
possessed by infernal spirits!”
Some of the spectators fell on their knees, others seized the
unfortunate goldsmith, and the brilliant cortege passed on.
Entering Strasburg in triumph, Cagliostro paused in front of a large
hall, where the equerries who had preceded him had already collected
a considerable concourse of the sick. The famous empiric entered and
cured them all, some simply by touch, others apparently by words or
by a gratuity in money, the rest by his universal panacea; but the
historian who records these things asserts that the sick persons thus
variously treated had been carefully selected, the physician preferring
to treat the more serious cases at the homes of the patients.
Cagliostro issued from the hall amidst universal acclamations, and was
accompanied by the immense crowd to the doors of the magificent lodging
which had been prepared against his arrival. The élite of Strasburg
society was invited to a sumptuous repast, which was followed by a
séance of transcendental magnetism, when he produced some extraordinary
manifestations by the mediation of clairvoyant children of either sex,
and whom he denominated his doves or pupils. The unspotted virginity
and innocence of these children were an indispensable condition
of success. They were chosen by himself, and received a mystical
consecration at his hands. Then he pronounced over a crystal vessel,
filled with water, the magical formulæ for the evocation of angelic
intelligences as they are written in the celestial rituals. Supernal
spirits became visible in the depths of the water, and responded to
questions occasionally in an intelligible voice, but more often in
characters which appeared on the surface of the water, and were visible
to the pupils alone, who interpreted them to the public.
Contemporary testimony establishes that these manifestations, as
a whole, were genuine, and there is little doubt of the mesmeric
abilities of Cagliostro, who had probably become acquainted in the East
with the phenomena of virginal lucidity, especially in boys, and had
supplemented the oriental methods by the discoveries of Puséygur, which
were at that time sufficiently notorious.
For three years Cagliostro remained at Strasburg and was fêted
continually. Here he obtained a complete ascendency over the mind
of the famous cardinal-archbishop, the Prince de Rohan. His first
care, on taking up his abode in the town, was to prove his respect
for the clergy by his generosity and zeal. He visited the sick in the
hospitals, deferentially participated in the duties of the regular
doctors, proposed his new remedies with prudence, did not condemn the
old methods, but sought to unite new science with the science which was
based on experience. He obtained the reputation of a bold experimenter
in chemistry, of a sagacious physician, and a really enlightened
innovator. The inhabitants of the crowded quarters regarded him as a
man sent from God, operating miraculous cures, and dispensing riches
from an inexhaustible source with which he was alone acquainted.
Unheard-of cures were cited, and alchemical operations which surpassed
even the supposed possibilities of the transmutatory art.
Anything which savoured of the marvellous was an attraction for the
cardinal-archbishop, and he longed to see Cagliostro. An anonymous
writer states that he sought an interview with him again and again
unsuccessfully; for the cardinal-prince of trickery divined even
at a distance the character of the prince-cardinal, and enveloped
himself in a reserve which, to the imagination of his dupe, was like
the loadstone to the magnet. Others represent him, however, courting
the favour of the great ecclesiastic’s secretary, and so obtaining
an introduction. At the first interview he showed some reserve, but
permitted certain dazzling ideas to be glimpsed through the more
ordinary tenour of his discourse. After a judicious period he admitted
that he possessed a receipt for the manufacture of gold and diamonds. A
supposed transmutation completed his conquest of the cardinal, and the
Italian historian confesses that he accordingly lavished immense sums
upon the virtuous pair, and to complete his folly, agreed to erect a
small edifice, in which he was to experience a physical regeneration by
means of the supernal and auriferous elixir of Cagliostro. The sum of
twenty thousand francs was actually paid the adept to accomplish this
operation.
Doubtless during his sojourn at Strasburg he propagated with zeal
the mysteries of his Egyptian Freemasonry, and at length, laden with
spoils, he repaired to Bordeaux, where he continued his healing in
public, and then proceeded to Lyons, where for the space of three
months he occupied himself with the foundation of a mother-lodge,
and, according to the Italian biographer, here as elsewhere, in less
creditable pursuits. At length he arrived at Paris, where, says the
same authority, he soon became the object of general conversation,
regard, and esteem. His curative powers were now but little exercised,
for Paris abounded with mesmerists and healers, and the prodigies
of simple magnetism were stale and unprofitable in consequence. He
assumed now the _rôle_ of a practical magician, and astonished the
city by the evocation of phantoms, which he caused to appear, at the
wish of the inquirer, either in a mirror or in a vase of clear water.
These phantoms equally represented dead and living beings, and as
occasionally collusion appears to have been well-nigh impossible,
and as the theory of coincidence is preposterous, there is reason to
suppose that he produced results which must sometimes have astonished
himself. All Paris at any rate was set wondering at his enchantments
and prodigies, and it is seriously stated that Louis XVI. was so
infatuated with _le divin Cagliostro_, that he declared anyone who
injured him should be considered guilty of treason. At Versailles, and
in the presence of several distinguished nobles, he is said to have
caused the apparition in mirrors, vases, &c., not merely of the spectra
of absent or deceased persons, but animated and moving beings of a
phantasmal description, including many dead men and women selected by
the astonished spectators.
The mystery which surrounded him abroad was deepened even when he
received visitors at home. He had lived in the Rue Saint Claude,
an isolated house surrounded by gardens and sheltered from the
inconvenient curiosity of neighbours. There he established his
laboratory, which no one might enter. He received in a vast and
sumptuous apartment on the first floor. Lorenza lived a retired life,
only being visible at certain hours before a select company, and in
a diaphanous and glamourous costume. The report of her beauty spread
through the city; she passed for a paragon of perfection, and duels
took place on her account. Cagliostro was now no longer young, and
Lorenza was in the flower of her charms. He is said for the first time
to have experienced the pangs of jealousy on account of a certain
Chevalier d’Oisemont, with whom she had several assignations. Private
vexations did not, however, interfere with professional thaumaturgy,
and the evocation of the illustrious dead was a common occurrence at
certain magical suppers which became celebrated through all Paris.
These were undoubtedly exaggerated by report, but as they all occurred
within the doubtful precincts of his own house of mystery, they were
in all probability fraudulent, for it must be distinctly remembered
that in his normal character he was an unparalleled trickster, that
the genuine phenomena which he occasionally produced were simply
supplements to charlatanry, and not that his deceptions were aids to
normally genuine phenomena.