1743, of humble parentage. He had the misfortune to lose his father during
his infancy, and his education was left in consequence to some relatives
of his mother, the latter being too poor to afford him any instruction
beyond mere reading and writing. He was sent in his fifteenth year to a
monastery, to be taught the elements of chemistry and physic; but his
temper was so impetuous, his indolence so invincible, and his vicious
habits so deeply rooted, that he made no progress. After remaining some
years, he left it with the character of an uninformed and dissipated young
man, with good natural talents but a bad disposition. When he became of
age, he abandoned himself to a life of riot and debauchery, and entered
himself, in fact, into that celebrated fraternity, known in France and
Italy as the "Knights of Industry," and in England as the "Swell Mob." He
was far from being an idle or unwilling member of the corps. The first way
in which he distinguished himself was by forging orders of admission to
the theatres. He afterwards robbed his uncle, and counterfeited a will.
For acts like these, he paid frequent compulsory visits to the prisons of
Palermo. Somehow or other he acquired the character of a sorcerer--of a
man who had failed in discovering the secrets of alchymy, and had sold his
soul to the devil for the gold which he was not able to make by means of
transmutation. He took no pains to disabuse the popular mind on this
particular, but rather encouraged the belief than otherwise. He at last
made use of it to cheat a silversmith named Marano, of about sixty ounces
of gold, and was in consequence obliged to leave Palermo. He persuaded
this man that he could shew him a treasure hidden in a cave, for which
service he was to receive the sixty ounces of gold, while the silversmith
was to have all the treasure for the mere trouble of digging it up. They
went together at midnight to an excavation in the vicinity of Palermo,
where Balsamo drew a magic circle, and invoked the devil to shew his
treasures. Suddenly there appeared half a dozen fellows, the accomplices
of the swindler, dressed to represent devils, with horns on their heads,
claws to their fingers, and vomiting apparently red and blue flame. They
were armed with pitchforks, with which they belaboured poor Marano till he
was almost dead, and robbed him of his sixty ounces of gold and all the
valuables he carried about his person. They then made off, accompanied by
Balsamo, leaving the unlucky silversmith to recover or die at his leisure.
Nature chose the former course; and soon after daylight he was restored to
his senses, smarting in body from his blows and in spirit for the
deception of which he had been the victim. His first impulse was to
denounce Balsamo to the magistrates of the town; but on further reflection
he was afraid of the ridicule that a full exposure of all the
circumstances would draw upon him; he therefore took the truly Italian
resolution of being revenged on Balsamo, by murdering him at the first
convenient opportunity. Having given utterance to this threat in the
hearing of a friend of Balsamo, it was reported to the latter, who
immediately packed up his valuables and quitted Europe.
He chose Medina, in Arabia, for his future dwelling-place, and there
became acquainted with a Greek named Altotas, a man exceedingly well
versed in all the languages of the East, and an indefatigable student of
alchymy. He possessed an invaluable collection of Arabian manuscripts on
his favourite science, and studied them with such unremitting industry
that he found he had not sufficient time to attend to his crucibles and
furnaces without neglecting his books. He was looking about for an
assistant when Balsamo opportunely presented himself, and made so
favourable an impression that he was at once engaged in that capacity. But
the relation of master and servant did not long subsist between them;
Balsamo was too ambitious and too clever to play a secondary part, and
within fifteen days of their first acquaintance they were bound together
as friends and partners. Altotas, in the course of a long life devoted to
alchymy, had stumbled upon some valuable discoveries in chemistry, one of
which was an ingredient for improving the manufacture of flax, and
imparting to goods of that material a gloss and softness almost equal to
silk. Balsamo gave him the good advice to leave the philosopher's stone
for the present undiscovered, and make gold out of their flax. The advice
was taken, and they proceeded together to Alexandria to trade, with a
large stock of that article. They stayed forty days in Alexandria, and
gained a considerable sum by their venture. They afterwards visited other
cities in Egypt, and were equally successful. They also visited Turkey,
where they sold drugs and amulets. On their return to Europe, they were
driven by stress of weather into Malta, and were hospitably received by
Pinto, the Grand Master of the Knights, and a famous alchymist. They
worked in his laboratory for some months, and tried hard to change a
pewter platter into a silver one. Balsamo, having less faith than his
companions, was sooner wearied; and obtaining from his host many letters
of introduction to Rome and Naples, he left him and Altotas to find the
philosopher's stone and transmute the pewter platter without him.
He had long since dropped the name of Balsamo on account of the many ugly
associations that clung to it; and during his travels had assumed at least
half a score others, with titles annexed to them. He called himself
sometimes the Chevalier de Fischio, the Marquis de Melissa, the Baron de
Belmonte, de Pelligrini, d'Anna, de Fenix, de Harat, but most commonly the
Count de Cagliostro. Under the latter title he entered Rome, and never
afterwards changed it. In this city he gave himself out as the restorer of
the Rosicrucian philosophy; said he could transmute all metals into gold;
that he could render himself invisible, cure all diseases, and administer
an elixir against old age and decay. His letters from the Grand Master
Pinto procured him an introduction into the best families. He made money
rapidly by the sale of his _elixir vitæ_; and, like other quacks,
performed many remarkable cures by inspiring his patients with the most
complete faith and reliance upon his powers; an advantage which the most
impudent charlatans often possess over the regular practitioner.
While thus in a fair way of making his fortune he became acquainted with
the beautiful Lorenza Feliciana, a young lady of noble birth, but without
fortune. Cagliostro soon discovered that she possessed accomplishments
that were invaluable. Besides her ravishing beauty, she had the readiest
wit, the most engaging manners, the most fertile imagination, and the
least principle of any of the maidens of Rome. She was just the wife for
Cagliostro, who proposed himself to her, and was accepted. After their
marriage, he instructed his fair Lorenza in all the secrets of his
calling--taught her pretty lips to invoke angels, and genii, sylphs,
salamanders, and undines, and, when need required, devils and evil
spirits. Lorenza was an apt scholar; she soon learned all the jargon of
the alchymists and all the spells of the enchanters; and thus accomplished
the hopeful pair set out on their travels, to levy contributions on the
superstitious and the credulous.
They first went to Sleswig on a visit to the Count de St. Germain, their
great predecessor in the art of making dupes, and were received by him in
the most magnificent manner. They no doubt fortified their minds for the
career they had chosen by the sage discourse of that worshipful gentleman;
for immediately after they left him, they began their operations. They
travelled for three or four years in Russia, Poland, and Germany,
transmuting metals, telling fortunes, raising spirits, and selling the
_elixir vitæ_ wherever they went; but there is no record of their doings
from whence to draw a more particular detail. It was not until they made
their appearance in England in 1776, that the names of the Count and
Countess di Cagliostro began to acquire a European reputation. They
arrived in London in the July of that year, possessed of property, in
plate, jewels, and specie, to the amount of about three thousand pounds.
They hired apartments in Whitcombe Street, and lived for some months
quietly. In the same house there lodged a Portuguese woman, named Blavary,
who, being in necessitous circumstances, was engaged by the count as
interpreter. She was constantly admitted into his laboratory, where he
spent much of his time in search of the philosopher's stone. She spread
abroad the fame of her entertainer in return for his hospitality, and
laboured hard to impress every body with as full a belief in his
extraordinary powers as she felt herself; but as a female interpreter of
the rank and appearance of Madame Blavary did not exactly correspond with
the count's notions either of dignity or decorum, he hired a person named
Vitellini, a teacher of languages, to act in that capacity. Vitellini was
a desperate gambler, a man who had tried almost every resource to repair
his ruined fortunes, including among the rest the search for the
philosopher's stone. Immediately that he saw the count's operations, he
was convinced that the great secret was his, and that the golden gates of
the palace of fortune were open to let him in. With still more enthusiasm
than Madame Blavary, he held forth to his acquaintance, and in all public
places, that the count was an extraordinary man, a true adept, whose
fortune was immense, and who could transmute into pure and solid gold as
much lead, iron, and copper as he pleased. The consequence was, that the
house of Cagliostro was besieged by crowds of the idle, the credulous, and
the avaricious, all eager to obtain a sight of the "philosopher," or to
share in the boundless wealth which he could call into existence.
Unfortunately for Cagliostro, he had fallen into evil hands. Instead of
duping the people of England, as he might have done, he became himself the
victim of a gang of swindlers, who, with the fullest reliance on his
occult powers, only sought to make money of him. Vitellini introduced to
him a ruined gambler like himself, named Scot, whom he represented as a
Scottish nobleman, attracted to London solely by his desire to see and
converse with the extraordinary man whose fame had spread to the distant
mountains of the north. Cagliostro received him with great kindness and
cordiality; and "Lord" Scot thereupon introduced a woman named Fry as Lady
Scot, who was to act as chaperone to the Countess di Cagliostro, and make
her acquainted with all the noble families of Britain. Thus things went
swimmingly. "His lordship," whose effects had not arrived from Scotland,
and who had no banker in London, borrowed two hundred pounds of the count.
They were lent without scruple, so flattered was Cagliostro by the
attentions they paid him, the respect, nay veneration they pretended to
feel for him, and the complete deference with which they listened to every
word that fell from his lips.
Superstitious like all desperate gamesters, Scot had often tried magical
and cabalistic numbers, in the hope of discovering lucky numbers in the
lottery or at the roulette-tables. He had in his possession a cabalistic
manuscript, containing various arithmetical combinations of the kind,
which he submitted to Cagliostro, with an urgent request that he would
select a number. Cagliostro took the manuscript and studied it, but, as he
himself informs us, with no confidence in its truth. He, however,
predicted twenty as the successful number for the 6th of November
following. Scot ventured a small sum upon this number out of the two
hundred pounds he had borrowed, and won. Cagliostro, incited by this
success, prognosticated number twenty-five for the next drawing. Scot
tried again, and won a hundred guineas. The numbers fifty-five and
fifty-seven were announced with equal success for the 18th of the same
month, to the no small astonishment and delight of Cagliostro, who
thereupon resolved to try fortune for himself, and not for others. To all
the entreaties of Scot and his lady that he would predict more numbers for
them, he turned a deaf ear, even while he still thought him a lord and a
man of honour; but when he discovered that he was a mere swindler, and the
pretended Lady Scot an artful woman of the town, he closed his door upon
them and on all their gang.
Having complete faith in the supernatural powers of the count, they were
in the deepest distress at having lost his countenance. They tried by
every means their ingenuity could suggest to propitiate him again. They
implored, they threatened, and endeavoured to bribe him; but all was vain.
Cagliostro would neither see nor correspond with them. In the mean time
they lived extravagantly, and in the hope of future, exhausted all their
present gains. They were reduced to the last extremity, when Miss Fry
obtained access to the countess, and received a guinea from her on the
representation that she was starving. Miss Fry, not contented with this,
begged her to intercede with her husband, that for the last time he would
point out a lucky number in the lottery. The countess promised to exert
her influence; and Cagliostro, thus entreated, named the number eight, at
the same time reiterating his determination to have no more to do with any
of them. By an extraordinary hazard, which filled Cagliostro with surprise
and pleasure, number eight was the greatest prize in the lottery. Miss Fry
and her associates cleared fifteen hundred guineas by the adventure, and
became more than ever convinced of the occult powers of Cagliostro, and
strengthened in their determination never to quit him until they had made
their fortunes. Out of the proceeds Miss Fry bought a handsome necklace at
a pawnbroker's for ninety guineas. She then ordered a richly-chased gold
box, having two compartments, to be made at a jeweller's, and putting the
necklace in the one, filled the other with a fine aromatic snuff. She then
sought another interview with Madame di Cagliostro, and urged her to
accept the box as a small token of her esteem and gratitude, without
mentioning the valuable necklace that was concealed in it. Madame di
Cagliostro accepted the present, and was from that hour exposed to the
most incessant persecution from all the confederates--Blavary, Vitellini,
and the pretended Lord and Lady Scot. They flattered themselves they had
regained their lost footing in the house, and came day after day to know
lucky numbers in the lottery, sometimes forcing themselves up the stairs,
and into the count's laboratory, in spite of the efforts of the servants
to prevent them. Cagliostro, exasperated at their pertinacity, threatened
to call in the assistance of the magistrates, and taking Miss Fry by the
shoulders, pushed her into the street.
From that time may be dated the misfortunes of Cagliostro. Miss Fry, at
the instigation of her paramour, determined on vengeance. Her first act
was to swear a debt of two hundred pounds against Cagliostro, and to cause
him to be arrested for that sum. While he was in custody in a
sponging-house, Scot, accompanied by a low attorney, broke into his
laboratory, and carried off a small box, containing, as they believed, the
powder of transmutation, and a number of cabalistic manuscripts and
treatises upon alchymy. They also brought an action against him for the
recovery of the necklace; and Miss Fry accused both him and his countess
of sorcery and witchcraft, and of foretelling numbers in the lottery by
the aid of the Devil. This latter charge was actually heard before Mr.
Justice Miller. The action of trover for the necklace was tried before the
Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who recommended the parties to
submit to arbitration. In the mean time Cagliostro remained in prison for
several weeks, till having procured bail, he was liberated. He was soon
after waited upon by an attorney named Reynolds, also deep in the plot,
who offered to compromise all the actions upon certain conditions. Scot,
who had accompanied him, concealed himself behind the door, and suddenly
rushing out, presented a pistol at the heart of Cagliostro, swearing he
would shoot him instantly, if he would not tell him truly the art of
predicting lucky numbers and of transmuting metals. Reynolds pretending to
be very angry, disarmed his accomplice, and entreated the count to satisfy
them by fair means, and disclose his secrets, promising that if he would
do so, they would discharge all the actions, and offer him no further
molestation. Cagliostro replied, that threats and entreaties were alike
useless; that he knew no secrets; and that the powder of transmutation of
which they had robbed him, was of no value to any body but himself. He
offered, however, if they would discharge the actions, and return the
powder and the manuscripts, to forgive them all the money they had
swindled him out of. These conditions were refused; and Scot and Reynolds
departed, swearing vengeance against him.
Cagliostro appears to have been quite ignorant of the forms of law in
England, and to have been without a friend to advise him as to the best
course he should pursue. While he was conversing with his countess on the
difficulties that beset them, one of his bail called, and invited him to
ride in a hackney coach to the house of a person who would see him
righted. Cagliostro consented, and was driven to the King's Bench prison,
where his friend left him. He did not discover for several hours that he
was a prisoner, or, in fact, understand the process of being surrendered
by one's bail.
He regained his liberty in a few weeks; and the arbitrators between him
and Miss Fry made their award against him. He was ordered to pay the two
hundred pounds she had sworn against him, and to restore the necklace and
gold box which had been presented to the countess. Cagliostro was so
disgusted, that he determined to quit England. His pretensions, besides,
had been unmercifully exposed by a Frenchman, named Morande, the editor of
the _Courrier de l'Europe_, published in London. To add to his distress,
he was recognised in Westminster Hall as Joseph Balsamo, the swindler of
Palermo. Such a complication of disgrace was not to be borne. He and his
countess packed up their small effects, and left England with no more than
fifty pounds, out of the three thousand they had brought with them.
They first proceeded to Brussels, where fortune was more auspicious. They
sold considerable quantities of the elixir of life, performed many cures,
and recruited their finances. They then took their course through Germany
to Russia, and always with the same success. Gold flowed into their
coffers faster than they could count it. They quite forgot all the woes
they had endured in England, and learned to be more circumspect in the
choice of their acquaintance.
In the year 1780, they made their appearance in Strasbourg. Their fame had
reached that city before them. They took a magnificent hotel, and invited
all the principal persons of the place to their table. Their wealth
appeared to be boundless, and their hospitality equal to it. Both the
count and countess acted as physicians, and gave money, advice, and
medicine to all the necessitous and suffering of the town. Many of the
cures they performed astonished those regular practitioners who did not
make sufficient allowance for the wonderful influence of imagination in
certain cases. The countess, who at this time was not more than
five-and-twenty, and all radiant with grace, beauty, and cheerfulness,
spoke openly of her eldest son as a fine young man of eight-and-twenty,
who had been for some years a captain in the Dutch service. The trick
succeeded to admiration. All the ugly old women in Strasbourg, and for
miles around, thronged the saloon of the countess to purchase the liquid
which was to make them as blooming as their daughters; the young women
came in equal abundance, that they might preserve their charms, and when
twice as old as Ninon de l'Enclos, be more captivating than she; while men
were not wanting who were fools enough to imagine that they might keep off
the inevitable stroke of the grim foe by a few drops of the same
incomparable elixir. The countess, sooth to say, looked like an
incarnation of immortal loveliness, a very goddess of youth and beauty;
and it is possible that the crowds of young men and old, who at all
convenient seasons haunted the perfumed chambers of this enchantress, were
attracted less by their belief in her occult powers than from admiration
of her languishing bright eyes and sparkling conversation. But amid all
the incense that was offered at her shrine, Madame di Cagliostro was ever
faithful to her spouse. She encouraged hopes, it is true, but she never
realised them; she excited admiration, yet kept it within bounds; and made
men her slaves, without ever granting a favour of which the vainest might
boast.
In this city they made the acquaintance of many eminent persons, and,
among others, of the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, who was destined afterwards
to exercise so untoward an influence over their fate. The cardinal, who
seems to have had great faith in him as a philosopher, persuaded him to
visit Paris in his company, which he did, but remained only thirteen days.
He preferred the society of Strasbourg, and returned thither with the
intention of fixing his residence far from the capital. But he soon found
that the first excitement of his arrival had passed away. People began to
reason with themselves, and to be ashamed of their own admiration. The
populace, among whom he had lavished his charity with a bountiful hand,
accused him of being the Antichrist, the Wandering Jew, the man of
fourteen hundred years of age, a demon in human shape, sent to lure the
ignorant to their destruction; while the more opulent and better informed
called him a spy in the pay of foreign governments, an agent of the
police, a swindler, and a man of evil life. The outcry grew at last so
strong, that he deemed it prudent to try his fortune elsewhere.
He went first to Naples, but that city was too near Palermo; he dreaded
recognition from some of his early friends, and, after a short stay,
returned to France. He chose Bourdeaux as his next dwelling-place, and
created as great a sensation there as he had done in Strasbourg. He
announced himself as the founder of a new school of medicine and
philosophy, boasted of his ability to cure all diseases, and invited the
poor and suffering to visit him, and he would relieve the distress of the
one class, and cure the ailings of the other. All day long the street
opposite his magnificent hotel was crowded by the populace; the halt and
the blind, women with sick babes in their arms, and persons suffering
under every species of human infirmity, flocked to this wonderful doctor.
The relief he afforded in money more than counterbalanced the failure of
his nostrums; and the affluence of people from all the surrounding country
became so great, that the _jurats_ of the city granted him a military
guard, to be stationed day and night before his door, to keep order. The
anticipations of Cagliostro were realised. The rich were struck with
admiration of his charity and benevolence, and impressed with a full
conviction of his marvellous powers. The sale of the elixir went on
admirably. His saloons were thronged with wealthy dupes who came to
purchase immortality. Beauty, that would endure for centuries, was the
attraction for the fair sex; health and strength for the same period were
the baits held out to the other. His charming countess, in the meantime,
brought grist to the mill by telling fortunes and casting nativities, or
granting attendant sylphs to any ladies who would pay sufficiently for
their services. What was still better, as tending to keep up the credit of
her husband, she gave the most magnificent parties in Bourdeaux.
But as at Strasbourg, the popular delusion lasted for a few months only,
and burned itself out; Cagliostro forgot, in the intoxication of success,
that there was a limit to quackery which once passed inspired distrust.
When he pretended to call spirits from the tomb, people became
incredulous. He was accused of being an enemy to religion, of denying
Christ, and of being the Wandering Jew. He despised these rumours as long
as they were confined to a few; but when they spread over the town, when
he received no more fees, when his parties were abandoned, and his
acquaintance turned away when they met him in the street, he thought it
high time to shift his quarters.
[Illustration: HOUSE OF CAGLIOSTRO, PARIS.]
He was by this time wearied of the provinces, and turned his thoughts to
the capital. On his arrival he announced himself as the restorer of
Egyptian Freemasonry, and the founder of a new philosophy. He immediately
made his way into the best society by means of his friend the Cardinal de
Rohan. His success as a magician was quite extraordinary: the most
considerable persons of the time visited him. He boasted of being able,
like the Rosicrucians, to converse with the elementary spirits; to invoke
the mighty dead from the grave, to transmute metals, and to discover
occult things by means of the special protection of God towards him. Like
Dr. Dee, he summoned the angels to reveal the future; and they appeared
and conversed with him in crystals and under glass bells.[48] "There was
hardly," says the _Biographie des Contemporains_, "a fine lady in Paris
who would not sup with the shade of Lucretius in the apartments of
Cagliostro; a military officer who would not discuss the art of war with
Cæsar, Hannibal, or Alexander; or an advocate or counsellor who would not
argue legal points with the ghost of Cicero." These interviews with the
departed were very expensive; for, as Cagliostro said, the dead would not
rise for nothing. The countess, as usual, exercised all her ingenuity to
support her husband's credit. She was a great favourite with her own sex,
to many a delighted and wondering auditory of whom she detailed the
marvellous powers of Cagliostro. She said he could render himself
invisible, traverse the world with the rapidity of thought, and be in
several places at the same time.[49]
[48] See the Abbé Fiard, and _Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis
XVI_. p. 400.
[49] _Biographie des Contemporains_, article "Cagliostro." See
also _Histoire de la Magie en France_, par M. Jules Garinet,
p. 284.