JOSEPHINE BALSAMO BORN IN 1788
Cagliostro! The astonishing man who puzzled all Europe and so
thoroughly upset the Court of France in the reign of Louis XVI! The
Queen’s necklace ... Cardinal de Rohan ... Marie Antoinette ... some of
the most obscure episodes in history!
A strange man, and enigmatic, dowered with a veritable genius for
intrigue. A man who exercised a genuine power of domination. A man on
whom full light has not yet been thrown. Impostor? Who knows? Have we
the right to deny that certain beings of more delicate sensibilities
than ourselves can peer into the world of the living and the dead in
a fashion which is forbidden to us? Is one to treat as charlatan or
fool the man in whose mind rise the memories of past existences, who,
recalling what he has seen, reaps the harvest of acquisitions in the
past, of lost secrets, and forgotten knowledge, and exploits a power
which we call supernatural, but which is merely putting into action,
hesitating perhaps and stumbling action, forces of which we are, it may
be, on the point of becoming masters?
If Ralph d’Andresy, from the bottom of his post of observation,
remained sceptical, if he laughed in his heart, not perhaps without
certain reservations, at the fashion in which events were shaping
themselves, it seemed that those taking part in them were accepting on
the instant and without question, as realities beyond all discussing,
the most extravagant assertions.
Had they then proofs and an understanding of this matter peculiar to
themselves? Had they found in her who, according to them, laid claim
to be the daughter of Cagliostro, gifts of clairvoyance and divination
which, in days gone by, the world attributed to that celebrated worker
of wonders, and by reason of them treated him as magician and sorcerer?
Godfrey d’Etigues, who was the only one of them standing, bent towards
the young woman and said:
“Your name really is Cagliostro, isn’t it?”
She pondered. One would have said that, taking thought how best to
defend herself, she was seeking the best counter-stroke; that she
wished, before definitely plunging into the struggle, to know what
weapons the enemy had at his command. Then she answered quietly:
“Nothing compels me to give you an answer, since you have no right
whatever to question me. However, why should I deny that on my birth
certificate is the name Josephine Pellegrini and that it is my whim to
call myself Josephine Balsamo, Countess of Cagliostro? The two names
Cagliostro and Pellegrini complete the personality of Joseph Balsamo, a
personality in which I have always taken the greatest interest.”
“Then it follows that, contrary to certain declarations you used to
make, you are not his direct descendant. Is that what you wish to
imply?” said the Baron.
She shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. Was it prudence? Was it
disdain? Or was it a protest against such an absurdity?
“I do not care to consider this silence either an avowal or a denial,”
said Godfrey d’Etigues, turning towards his friends. “What this woman
says is of no importance; and it is a waste of time to refute her
statements. We’re here to make our decisions, most important decisions,
in a matter which we all know in its entirety, but of which certain
details are unknown to the majority of us. It is then necessary to run
over the main facts. They are set forth as shortly as possible in the
memorandum which I am going to read to you, and to which I beg you to
give your most earnest attention.”
And he read quietly a document which--at least Ralph had no doubt about
it--must have been drawn up by Beaumagnan. It ran:
At the beginning of March, 1870, that is to say, four months before
the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, among the crowd of strangers
who, as was usual every spring, descended on Paris, none excited
greater interest than the Countess Cagliostro. Beautiful, charming,
lavish of her money, generally alone, but sometimes accompanied by a
young man, whom she introduced to people as her brother, everywhere
she went, in every house into which she was welcomed, she was the
object of the most lively curiosity.
First of all her mere name excited people’s interest, then the
truly impressive fashion in which she emphasized her relationship
to the famous Cagliostro by her mysterious bearing, by certain
miraculous cures she effected, and by the answers she gave to those
who consulted her concerning their past or their future. The novel
of Alexander Dumas had made Joseph Balsamo, that is to say the Count
of Cagliostro, the fashion. Employing the same methods, even more
boldly, she boasted that she was Cagliostro’s daughter, declared that
she knew the secret of eternal youth, and with a smile spoke of this
and that meeting, of this and that event which had befallen her in
the days of Napoleon I.
Such was her prestige that she forced open for herself the doors of
the Tuileries and appeared at the Court of Napoleon III. People even
talked of private séances at which the Empress Eugenie gathered round
the beautiful Countess her most faithful intimates. A secret number
of that satirical journal, the _Charivari_, which was instantly
suppressed, tells the story of one of the séances in which an
occasional collaborator took part. I quote this passage from it:
She is truly a wonderful woman, with something of La Joconde about
her. Her expression changes very little but it is very difficult to
describe. It is quite as caressing and ingenuous as perverse and
cruel. There is a wealth of experience in her gaze and a bitterness
in her unchanging smile--such a wealth of experience, indeed, that
one is willing to allow her the eighty years she allots to herself.
Now and again she draws from her pocket a small golden mirror,
lets fall on it two drops from a tiny flask, dries it, and looks
at herself in it. And once more she is Youth in its most adorable
perfection.
When we questioned her about it, she replied:
“This mirror belonged to Cagliostro. For those who look at themselves
in it with assured confidence, time stands still. Look: the date is
engraved on the back, 1783, and it is followed by four lines which
are the list of the four great enigmas. These enigmas which he had
set himself the task of solving, he had from the lips of Queen Marie
Antoinette herself; and he was wont to say, so at least they told me,
that the man who found the key to them would be a King of Kings.”[A]
“May one hear them?” somebody asked.
“Why not? To know them is not to solve them; and Cagliostro himself
hadn’t the time to do so. I can only give you their titles. They are:
“In Robore Fortuna.
“The Flag-stone of the Bohemian Kings.
“The Fortunes of the Kings of France.
“The Candlestick with Seven Branches.”
Afterwards she talked to all of us in turn; and to each she made
astonishing revelations.
But that was only the prelude; and the Empress, though she refused
to put the most trivial question about matters which concerned her
personally, asked her to throw some light on the future.
“Would your Majesty be so good as to breathe lightly on this,” said
the Countess, holding out the mirror.
And forthwith, after examining the mist that the Queen’s breath had
spread over its surface she murmured:
“I see many excellent things.... In the summer a great war....
Victory.... The return of the troops under the Arc de Triomphe....
They are cheering the Emperor.... The Prince Imperial....”
Godfrey d’Etigues folded the paper and went on:
“Such is the document which has been communicated to us. It is a
disconcerting document since it was published several weeks before
the war it foretold. What was this woman? Who was this adventuress
whose dangerous predictions, acting on the somewhat feeble mind of
our unfortunate sovereign, played their part in bringing about the
catastrophe of 1870? Someone--you will find it in the same number of
the _Charivari_, said to her one day:
“‘Granted that you are the daughter of Cagliostro, who was your mother?’
“‘For my mother,’ she replied, ‘you must look high among the
contemporaries of Cagliostro ... higher still.... Yes: that’s right
... Josephine de Beauharnais, the future wife of Bonaparte, Empress
that was to be.’
“The police of Napoleon III could not remain inactive. At the end of
June they sent in a report the facts of which were established after a
difficult inquiry by one of their best agents. I’ll read it. It runs:
The Signorina’s Italian passport, while making reservations about the
date of her birth, describes her as Josephine Pellegrini-Balsamo,
Countess of Cagliostro, born at Palermo on the 29th of July, 1788.
Having gone to Palermo, I succeeded in discovering the old registers
of the Parish of Mortarana; and in one of them, under the date of
the 29th of July, 1788, I found the entry of the birth of Josephine
Balsamo, daughter of Joseph Balsamo and Josephine de la P., subject
of the King of France.
Was it Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, the maiden name of the young
wife who was separated from the Vicomte de Beauharnais, and of the
future wife of General Bonaparte? I made investigations from this
point of view. They required considerable patience; but at the end
of them I learnt from the manuscript letters of a Lieutenant de
la prévôté, of Paris, that in 1788 they had been on the point of
arresting the Count of Cagliostro, who, though he had been expelled
from France after the affair of the Queen’s Necklace, was living in
a little house at Fontainebleau under the name of Pellegrini; and at
that house he was visited every day by a tall and slender lady. Now
Josephine de Beauharnais was at this time living at Fontainebleau.
She was tall and slender. On the eve of the day fixed for his arrest
Cagliostro disappeared. His departure was the very next day followed
by the departure of Josephine de Beauharnais.[B] A month later the
child was born at Palermo.
These coincidences cannot fail to be impressive. But how much greater
is the weight of them, when one considers them in the light of
these two additional facts--ten years later the Empress Josephine
brought to La Malmaison a young girl whom she declared to be her
god-daughter. This child won the heart of the Emperor to such a
degree that he took the greatest pleasure in playing with her. What
was her name? Josephine, or rather Josine. Secondly, on the fall of
the Empire, the Czar Alexander II received this Josine at his Court.
What title does she take? That of the Countess de Cagliostro.”
The Baron d’Etigues laid great stress on these last words. They had
listened to him with the deepest attention. Ralph, taken aback by this
incredible story, tried to catch a shade of emotion or of some feeling
on the face of the Countess. But she remained impassive, her beautiful
eyes always faintly smiling.
The Baron continued: “This report and probably the dangerous influence
which the Countess was beginning to acquire at the Tuileries, were to
cut short her brilliant career. A decree for her expulsion was signed
and for the expulsion of her brother. Her brother went away to Germany,
she to Italy. One morning she arrived at Modena, whither she had been
conducted by a young officer. He bowed, saluted her, and left her. This
officer was the Prince of Arcola. He it was who was able to procure
these two documents, the suppressed number of the _Charivari_ and the
secret report, the original of which is actually in his possession,
with the official seals and signatures. Lastly it is he who a little
while ago assured you of the indubitable identity of the woman he left
that morning at Modena with the woman he sees here to-day.”
The Prince of Arcola rose and said gravely:
“I am no believer in miracles; nevertheless what I say is the
affirmation of a miracle. But the truth compels me to declare on my
honor as a soldier that this is the woman whom I saluted and left at
the railway station at Modena two and twenty years ago.”
“Whom you saluted and left without anything in the nature of a polite
farewell?” said Josephine Balsamo. She had turned towards the Prince
and asked the question in a tone of mocking irony.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that a young French officer is too courteous to take his leave
of a pretty woman with just a formal salute.”
“Which implies?”
“Which implies that you must have uttered some words.”
“Perhaps. I no longer remember,” said the Prince of Arcola with a touch
of embarrassment.
“You bent down towards the exile, Monsieur. You kissed her hand rather
longer than was necessary; and you said to her: ‘I hope, Madam,
that the hours I have had the pleasure of passing near you will not
be without a to-morrow. For my part, I can never forget them.’ And
you repeated, emphasizing by your accent your gallant meaning: ‘You
understand, Madam? Never.’”
The Prince of Arcola appeared to be a man of admirable manners.
However, at this exact revival of a moment that had passed a quarter of
a century earlier, he was so upset that he muttered:
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
But, recovering himself on the instant, he took the offensive, and in a
bitter voice he said: “Madam, I have forgotten. If the memory of that
meeting was pleasant, the memory of the second occasion on which I saw
you has blotted it out.”
“And this second occasion, Monsieur?”
“It was at the beginning of the following year, at Versailles, whither
I accompanied the French plenipotentiaries entrusted with the task of
negotiating the peace of the defeat. I saw you in a café, sitting at
a table, drinking and laughing with some German officers, one of whom
was an officer of Bismarck’s staff. That day I understood the part you
played at the Tuileries and on whose errand you came.”
All these revelations of the vicissitudes of a life which seemed
fabulous, were set forth in less than ten minutes. There was no
structure of reasoning. No attempt, either logical or rhetorical, to
impose this incredible thesis on those who were listening. Nothing but
the facts, nothing but the bare proofs, violent, driven home like the
blows of a fist, and all the more terrifying that they evoked against a
quite young woman memories some of which went back more than a century!
Ralph d’Andresy was almost amazed. The scene appeared to him to savor
of romance, or rather to belong to some fantastic and gloomy melodrama.
These conspirators, who accepted these fables as if they had been
indisputable facts, seemed to him the creatures of a dream. Truly he
was quite alive to the poorness of the intelligence of these country
bumpkins, relics of an epoch that had passed away. But all the same how
on earth could they bring themselves to ignore the very data of the
problem presented by the age they attributed to this woman? However
credulous they might be, had they not eyes to see?
Again the attitude of the Countess to them appeared even more strange.
Why this silence which, when all was said and done, was an acceptance
of their theory, practically, at times, a confession? Was she refusing
to demolish a legend of eternal youth which was pleasing to her and
helpful to the execution of her plans? Or was it that, ignorant of
the terrible danger hanging over her head, she looked upon all this
theatrical display as merely a practical joke?
“Such is this woman’s past,” continued the Baron d’Etigues solemnly.
“I shall not dwell on the intermediate episodes which link that past
with to-day. Always keeping behind the scenes, Josephine Balsamo,
the Countess of Cagliostro, played a part in the tragi-comedy of
Boulangism, in the sordid drama of Panama. One finds her hand in every
event which is disastrous to our country. But in these matters we have
only indications of the secret part she played. We have no direct
proof. Let us leave them and come to this actual epoch. One word before
we do so, however. Have you no observations to make about any of these
matters, Madam?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Let us have them.”
“Well,” said the young woman, with the same note of mocking irony in
her delightful voice, “I should like to know, since I appear to be
on my trial and you to have formed yourselves into a really mediæval
tribunal--of the German brand, of course--whether you attach any real
importance to the charges you have heaped up against me. If you do you
may as well condemn me to be burnt alive on the spot, as a witch, a
spy, and a renegade--all crimes which the Inquisition never pardoned.”
“No,” replied Godfrey d’Etigues. “I have only narrated these different
adventures of yours in order to paint, in a few strokes, as vivid a
picture of you as possible.”
“You think you have painted as vivid a picture of me as possible?”
“Yes; from the point of view that concerns us.”
“You are certainly easily satisfied,” she said in a faintly
contemptuous tone. “And what are the links you think you see between
these different adventures?”
“I see three kinds of links,” said the Baron with some heat. “First
there is the evidence of all the people who have recognized you, thanks
to whom we can go back, step by step, to the end of the eighteenth
century. Next your own avowal of your claims.”
“What avowal?”
“You have repeated to the Prince of Arcola the very terms of a
conversation which took place between the two of you in the station at
Modena.”
“So I did!” she said. “And then?”
“And then I have here three portraits, all three of which are portraits
of you. Are they not?”
She looked at them and said: “Yes. They are portraits of me.”
“Well,” said Godfrey d’Etigues in a tone of triumph, “the first
is a miniature, painted at Moscow in 1816, of Josine, Countess of
Cagliostro. The second is this photograph taken in the year 1870. This
is the last, taken recently in Paris. The miniature has your signature
on the back, after the words presenting it to Prince Serge Dolgorouki;
the two photographs have your signature across the face. All the three
signatures are letter for letter the same with the same flourish.”
“What does that prove?” she asked in the same mocking, ironical accents.
“That proves that the same woman retains in 1892 her face of 1816 and
of 1870.”
“Then to the stake with her!” she cried and laughed a silvery, rippling
laugh.
“Do not laugh, Madam. You know that between you and us a laugh is an
abominable blasphemy!” cried the Baron sternly.
She struck the arm of the bench with an impatient hand.
“Look here, Monsieur: we’ve had enough of this nonsense!” she
exclaimed, frowning at the Baron. “What is it exactly that you have
against me? What am I here for?”
“You’re here, Madam, to pay the penalty of the crimes you have
committed.”
“What crimes?”
“My friends and I were twelve, twelve men who were seeking the same
end. Now we are only nine. The three others are dead. You murdered
them!”
* * * * *
A shadow, perhaps--at least Ralph d’Andresy thought that he saw
one--veiled for a moment, like a cloud, the smile of the Giaconda. Then
on the instant her beautiful face resumed its usual expression as if
nothing could ruffle its serenity, not even this frightful accusation
launched at her with so violent a virulence. You might very well have
said that the ordinary feelings of humanity were unknown to her, or
that at any rate they did not betray themselves by those symptoms
of indignation, revolt, and horror with which all human beings are
overwhelmed. What an anomaly she was! Guilty or not, any other woman
would have risen in revolt. She said never a word. It might have been
cynicism; it might have been innocence. There was no saying.
The friends of the Baron remained motionless, their brows knitted,
their faces stern. Behind those who hid him almost entirely from the
eyes of Josephine Balsamo, Ralph perceived Beaumagnan. His arms still
resting on the back of the chair in front of him, he kept his face
buried in his hands. But his eyes, gleaming between his parted fingers,
never left the face of his enemy.
In a complete silence Godfrey d’Etigues proceeded to develop his
indictment, or rather his three terrible indictments. He did so coldly,
without raising his voice. It was as if a clerk were reading an
indictment in which he had no personal interest.
“Eighteen months ago,” he began, “Denis Saint-Hébert, the youngest of
us, was out shooting on his estate in the neighborhood of Le Havre. At
the end of the afternoon, he left his bailiff and his keeper and went
off, with his gun over his shoulder, to look at the sunset over the
sea, from the top of the cliff. He did not turn up that night. Next day
they found his body among the rocks uncovered by the ebbing tide.
“Suicide? Denis Saint-Hébert was rich, in the best of health, and of a
happy disposition. Why should he have killed himself? A crime. No one
dreamt of such a thing. An accident, then.
“In the following June we were again plunged into mourning under
analogous conditions. George d’Isneauval, while shooting gulls in the
early morning, slipped on the seaweed in such a disastrous fashion
that he struck his head against a rock and fractured his skull. Some
hours later two fishermen found him. He was dead. He left a widow and
two little children.
“Again an accident, I suppose. Yes: an accident for his widow, his
children and his family.... But for us? Was it possible that Chance
should for the second time have attacked the little group we had
formed? Twelve friends form a league to discover a great secret, to
attain an end of considerable importance. Two of them are struck down.
Are we not compelled to presume the existence of a criminal conspiracy
which, in attacking them, at the same time attacks their enterprise?
“It was the Prince of Arcola who opened our eyes and set us on the
right path. He knew that we were not the only persons to know of the
existence of this great secret. He knew that, in the course of a séance
in the suite of rooms of the Empress Eugenie at the Tuileries, someone
had revived the list of the four enigmas handed down to his descendants
by Cagliostro, and that one of them was called by the very name of the
enigma in which we are interested--the enigma of the Candlestick with
Seven Branches. Must we not therefore seek among those to whom the
legend could have been handed down?
“Thanks to the excellent means of investigation which we had at our
disposal, our inquiry bore fruit in barely a fortnight. In a private
hotel in a quiet street in Paris was living a lady of the name of
Pellegrini. Apparently she was leading an almost secluded life and
often disappeared for months at a time. Of uncommon beauty, her
behavior was discreetness itself. Indeed it appeared to be her main
effort not to attract attention. Under the name of the Countess of
Cagliostro she frequented certain circles which busied themselves with
magic, the occult, and the black mass.
“We managed to get a photograph of her--this one. We sent it to
the Prince of Arcola, who was traveling in Spain. He was amazed to
recognize the woman he had formerly known.
“We made inquiries about her movements. On the day of Saint-Hébert’s
death, in the neighborhood of Le Havre, she was staying at Le Havre.
She was staying at Dieppe when George d’Isneauval met his death at the
foot of the Dieppe cliffs!
“I questioned the dead men’s families. The widow of George d’Isneauval
confided to me that her husband, towards the end of his life, had had
an affair with a woman who caused him, according to her, an infinite
amount of suffering. In the other quarter a written confession of
Saint-Hébert, and up to then kept secret by his mother, informed us
that he had been so foolish as to jot down our twelve names and some
facts about the Candlestick with the Seven Branches on one of the
leaves of his pocket-book and that pocket-book had been stolen from him
by a woman.
“After that everything was clear. Mistress of a part of our secrets,
and desirous of knowing more, the woman who had been loved by
Saint-Hébert had thrown herself across the path of George d’Isneauval
and been loved by him. Then, having wormed their secrets out of them,
in her fear of their denouncing her to their friends, she murdered
them. That woman is here before us.”
Godfrey d’Etigues paused again. The silence once more became
oppressive, so heavy that the judges seemed to be paralyzed in that
burdensome atmosphere so loaded with anguish. Only the Countess of
Cagliostro maintained her air of aloofness, as if no single word had
concerned her.
Always stretched at full length in his post of observation, Ralph
admired the young woman’s delightful and voluptuous beauty; at the same
time he could not help feeling some distress at perceiving such a mass
of evidence being piled up against her. The indictment gripped her
tighter and tighter. From every quarter facts thronged to the assault;
and Ralph suspected that she was threatened by a yet more direct attack.
“Am I to tell you about the third crime?” said the Baron.
She replied in weary accents:
“If you like. Everything you have been saying is quite unintelligible.
You have been talking about people whose very names I never heard
before. So a crime more or less----”
“You didn’t know Saint-Hébert and George d’Isneauval?”
She shrugged her shoulders and did not answer.
Godfrey d’Etigues bent closer to her and in a lower voice he said:
“And Beaumagnan?”
She raised limpid eyes to his face:
“Beaumagnan?”
“Yes--the third of our friends you murdered. And only a little while
ago.... A few weeks.... He died poisoned.... You did not know him?”