endeavoured, in 1630, to introduce the Rosicrucian philosophy into
Holland. He applied to the States-General to grant him a public
audience, that he might explain the tenets of the sect, and disclose
a plan for rendering Holland the happiest and richest country on the
earth, by means of the philosopher's' stone and the service of the
elementary spirits. The States-General wisely resolved to have nothing
to do with him. He thereupon determined to shame them by printing his
book, which he did at Leyden the same year. It was entitled "The Book
of the most Hidden Secrets of Nature," and was divided into three
parts; the first treating of "perpetual motion," the second of the
"transmutation of metals," and the third of the "universal medicine."
He also published some German works upon the Rosicrucian philosophy, at
Frankfort, in 1617.
Poetry and Romance are deeply indebted to the Rosicrucians for many
a graceful creation. The literature of England, France, and Germany
contains hundreds of sweet fictions, whose machinery has been borrowed
from their day-dreams. The "delicate Ariel" of Shakspeare stands
pre-eminent among the number. From the same source Pope drew the airy
tenants of Belinda's dressing-room, in his charming "Rape of the Lock;"
and La Motte Fouque, the beautiful and capricious water-nymph, Undine,
around whom he has thrown more grace and loveliness, and for whose
imaginary woes he has excited more sympathy, than ever were bestowed on
a supernatural being. Sir Walter Scott also endowed the White Lady of
Avenel with many of the attributes of the undines, or water-sprites.
German romance and lyrical poetry teem with allusions to sylphs,
gnomes, undines, and salamanders; and the French have not been behind in
substituting them, in works of fiction, for the more cumbrous mythology
of Greece and Rome. The sylphs, more especially, have been the
favourites of the bards, and have become so familiar to the popular mind
as to be, in a manner, confounded with that other race of ideal beings,
the fairies, who can boast of an antiquity much more venerable in the
annals of superstition. Having these obligations to the Rosicrucians, no
lover of poetry can wish, however absurd they were, that such a sect of
philosophers had never existed.
BORRI.
Just at the time that Michael Mayer was making known to the world the
existence of such a body as the Rosicrucians, there was born in Italy a
man who was afterwards destined to become the most conspicuous member of
the fraternity. The alchymic mania never called forth the ingenuity of
a more consummate or more successful impostor than Joseph Francis Borri.
He was born in 1616 according to some authorities, and in 1627 according
to others, at Milan; where his father, the Signor Branda Borri,
practised as a physician. At the age of sixteen, Joseph was sent
to finish his education at the Jesuits' College in Rome, where he
distinguished himself by his extraordinary memory. He learned everything
to which he applied himself with the utmost ease. In the most voluminous
works no fact was too minute for his retention, and no study was so
abstruse but that he could master it; but any advantages he might
have derived from this facility, were neutralized by his ungovernable
passions and his love of turmoil and debauchery. He was involved in
continual difficulty, as well with the heads of the college as with the
police of Rome, and acquired so bad a character that years could
not remove it. By the aid of his friends he established himself as
a physician in Rome, and also obtained some situation in the Pope's
household. In one of his fits of studiousness he grew enamoured of
alchymy, and determined to devote his energies to the discovery of
the philosopher's stone. Of unfortunate propensities he had quite
sufficient, besides this, to bring him to poverty. His pleasures were
as expensive as his studies, and both were of a nature to destroy his
health and ruin his fair fame. At the age of thirty-seven he found that
he could not live by the practice of medicine, and began to look about
for some other employment. He became, in 1653, private secretary to
the Marquis di Mirogli, the minister of the Archduke of Innspruk at the
court of Rome. He continued in this capacity for two years; leading,
however, the same abandoned life as heretofore, frequenting the
society of gamesters, debauchees, and loose women, involving himself
in disgraceful street quarrels, and alienating the patrons who were
desirous to befriend him.
All at once a sudden change was observed in his conduct. The abandoned
rake put on the outward sedateness of a philosopher; the scoffing
sinner proclaimed that he had forsaken his evil ways, and would live
thenceforth a model of virtue. To his friends this reformation was as
pleasing as it was unexpected; and Borri gave obscure hints that it had
been brought about by some miraculous manifestation of a superior power.
He pretended that he held converse with beneficent spirits; that the
secrets of God and nature were revealed to him; and that he had obtained
possession of the philosopher's stone. Like his predecessor, Jacob
Bohmen, he mixed up religious questions with his philosophical jargon,
and took measures for declaring himself the founder of a new sect. This,
at Rome itself, and in the very palace of the Pope, was a hazardous
proceeding; and Borri just awoke to a sense of it in time to save
himself from the dungeons of the Castle of St. Angelo. He fled to
Innspruck, where he remained about a year, and then returned to his
native city of Milan.
The reputation of his great sanctity had gone before him; and he found
many persons ready to attach themselves to his fortunes. All who were
desirous of entering into the new communion took an oath of poverty, and
relinquished their possessions for the general good of the fraternity.
Borri told them that he had received from the archangel Michael a
heavenly sword, upon the hilt of which were engraven the names of the
seven celestial Intelligences. "Whoever shall refuse," said he, "to
enter into my new sheepfold, shall be destroyed by the papal armies, of
whom God has predestined me to be the chief. To those who follow me, all
joy shall be granted. I shall soon bring my chemical studies to a happy
conclusion by the discovery of the philosopher's stone, and by this
means we shall all have as much gold as we desire. I am assured of
the aid of the angelic hosts, and more especially of the archangel
Michael's. When I began to walk in the way of the spirit, I had a vision
of the night, and was assured by an angelic voice that I should become a
prophet. In sign of it I saw a palm-tree, surrounded with all the glory
of Paradise. The angels come to me whenever I call, and reveal to me all
the secrets of the universe. The sylphs and elementary spirits obey me,
and fly to the uttermost ends of the world to serve me, and those whom
I delight to honour." By force of continually repeating such stories
as these, Borri soon found himself at the head of a very considerable
number of adherents. As he figures in these pages as an alchymist,
and not as a religious sectarian, it will be unnecessary to repeat
the doctrines which he taught with regard to some of the dogmas of the
Church of Rome, and which exposed him to the fierce resentment of
the papal authority. They were to the full as ridiculous as his
philosophical pretensions. As the number of his followers increased, he
appears to have cherished the idea of becoming one day a new Mahomet,
and of founding, in his native city of Milan, a monarchy and religion of
which he should be the king and the prophet. He had taken measures, in
the year 1658, for seizing the guards at all the gates of that city,
and formally declaring himself the monarch of the Milanese. Just as he
thought the plan ripe for execution, it was discovered. Twenty of
his followers were arrested, and he himself managed, with the utmost
difficulty, to escape to the neutral territory of Switzerland, where the
papal displeasure could not reach him.
The trial of his followers commenced forthwith, and the whole of them
were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Borri's trial proceeded
in his absence, and lasted for upwards of two years. He was condemned
to death as a heretic and sorcerer in 1661, and was burned in effigy in
Rome by the common hangman.
Borri, in the mean time, lived quietly in Switzerland, indulging himself
in railing at the Inquisition and its proceedings. He afterwards went to
Strasbourg, intending to fix his residence in that town. He was received
with great cordiality, as a man persecuted for his religious opinions,
and withal a great alchymist. He found that sphere too narrow for his
aspiring genius, and retired in the same year to the more wealthy
city of Amsterdam. He there hired a magnificent house, established an
equipage which eclipsed in brilliancy those of the richest merchants,
and assumed the title of Excellency. Where he got the money to live in
this expensive style was long a secret: the adepts in alchymy easily
explained it, after their fashion. Sensible people were of opinion that
he had come by it in a less wonderful manner; for it was remembered
that, among his unfortunate disciples in Milan, there were many rich
men, who, in conformity with one of the fundamental rules of the sect,
had given up all their earthly wealth into the hands of their founder.
In whatever manner the money was obtained, Borri spent it in Holland
with an unsparing hand, and was looked up to by the people with no
little respect and veneration. He performed several able cures, and
increased his reputation so much that he was vaunted as a prodigy.
He continued diligently the operations of alchymy, and was in daily
expectation that he should succeed in turning the inferior metals into
gold. This hope never abandoned him, even in the worst extremity of
his fortunes; and in his prosperity it led him into the most foolish
expenses: but he could not long continue to live so magnificently upon
the funds he had brought from Italy; and the philosopher's stone, though
it promised all for the wants of the morrow, never brought anything for
the necessities of to-day. He was obliged in a few months to
retrench, by giving up his large house, his gilded coach, and valuable
blood-horses, his liveried domestics, and his luxurious entertainments.
With this diminution of splendour came a diminution of renown. His cures
did not appear so miraculous, when he went out on foot to perform them,
as they had seemed when "his Excellency" had driven to a poor man's door
in his carriage with six horses. He sank from a prodigy into an ordinary
man. His great friends showed him the cold shoulder, and his humble
flatterers carried their incense to some other shrine. Borri now thought
it high time to change his quarters. With this view he borrowed money
wherever he could get it, and succeeded in obtaining two hundred
thousand florins from a merchant, named De Meer, to aid, as he said, in
discovering the water of life. He also obtained six diamonds, of great
value, on pretence that he could remove the flaws from them without
diminishing their weight. With this booty he stole away secretly by
night, and proceeded to Hamburgh.
On his arrival in that city, he found the celebrated Christina, the
ex-Queen of Sweden. He procured an introduction to her, and requested
her patronage in his endeavour to discover the philosopher's stone. She
gave him some encouragement; but Borri, fearing that the merchants
of Amsterdam, who had connexions in Hamburgh, might expose his
delinquencies if he remained in the latter city, passed over to
Copenhagen, and sought the protection of Frederic III, the King of
Denmark.
This Prince was a firm believer in the transmutation of metals. Being in
want of money, he readily listened to the plans of an adventurer who had
both eloquence and ability to recommend him. He provided Borri with the
means to make experiments, and took a great interest in the progress of
his operations. He expected every month to possess riches that would buy
Peru; and, when he was disappointed, accepted patiently the excuses
of Borri who, upon every failure, was always ready with some plausible
explanation. He became, in time, much attached to him; and defended him
from the jealous attacks of his courtiers, and the indignation of those
who were grieved to see their monarch the easy dupe of a charlatan.
Borri endeavoured, by every means in his power, to find aliment for
this good opinion. His knowledge of medicine was useful to him in this
respect, and often stood between him and disgrace. He lived six years in
this manner at the court of Frederic; but that monarch dying in 1670, he
was left without a protector.
As he had made more enemies than friends in Copenhagen, and had nothing
to hope from the succeeding sovereign, he sought an asylum in another
country. He went first to Saxony; but met so little encouragement, and
encountered so much danger from the emissaries of the Inquisition,
that he did not remain there many months. Anticipating nothing but
persecution in every country that acknowledged the spiritual authority
of the Pope, he appears to have taken the resolution to dwell in Turkey,
and turn Mussulman. On his arrival at the Hungarian frontier, on his way
to Constantinople, he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in
the conspiracy of the Counts Nadasdi and Frangipani, which had just been
discovered. In vain he protested his innocence, and divulged his real
name and profession. He was detained in prison, and a letter despatched
to the Emperor Leopold to know what should be done with him. The star
of his fortunes was on the decline. The letter reached Leopold at an
unlucky moment. The Pope's Nuncio was closeted with his Majesty; and he
no sooner heard the name of Joseph Francis Borri, than he demanded him
as a prisoner of the Holy See. The request was complied with; and Borri,
closely manacled, was sent under an escort of soldiers to the prison
of the Inquisition at Rome. He was too much of an impostor to be
deeply tinged with fanaticism, and was not unwilling to make a public
recantation of his heresies if he could thereby save his life. When
the proposition was made to him, he accepted it with eagerness. His
punishment was to be commuted into the hardly less severe one of
perpetual imprisonment; but he was too happy to escape the clutch of the
executioner at any price, and he made the amende honorable in face of
the assembled multitudes of Rome on the 27th of October 1672. He was
then transferred to the prisons of the Castle of St. Angelo, where he
remained till his death, twenty-three years afterwards. It is said that,
towards the close of his life, considerable indulgence was granted him;
that he was allowed to have a laboratory, and to cheer the solitude of
his dungeon by searching for the philosopher's stone. Queen Christina,
during her residence at Rome, frequently visited the old man, to
converse with him upon chemistry and the doctrines of the Rosicrucians.
She even obtained permission that he should leave his prison
occasionally for a day or two, and reside in her palace, she being
responsible for his return to captivity. She encouraged him to search
for the great secret of the alchymists, and provided him with money for
the purpose. It may well be supposed that Borri benefited most by this
acquaintance, and that Christina got nothing but experience. It is
not sure that she gained even that; for, until her dying day, she was
convinced of the possibility of finding the philosopher's stone, and
ready to assist any adventurer either zealous or impudent enough to
pretend to it.
After Borri had been about eleven years in confinement, a small volume
was published at Cologne, entitled "The Key of the Cabinet of the
Chevalier Joseph Francis Borri; in which are contained many curious
Letters upon Chemistry and other Sciences, written by him; together with
a Memoir of his Life." This book contained a complete exposition of the
Rosicrucian philosophy, and afforded materials to the Abbe de Villars
for his interesting "Count de Gabalis," which excited so much attention
at the close of the seventeenth century.
Borri lingered in the prison of St. Angelo till 1695, when he died in
his eightieth year. Besides "The Key of the Cabinet," written originally
in Copenhagen, in 1666, for the edification of King Frederic III, he
published a work upon alchymy and the secret sciences, under the title
of "The Mission of Romulus to the Romans."
INFERIOR ALCHYMISTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Besides the pretenders to the philosopher's stone whose lives have been
already narrated, this and the preceding century produced a great number
of writers, who inundated literature with their books upon the subject.
In fact, most of the learned men of that age had some faith in it. Van
Helmont, Borrichius, Kirchen, Boerhaave, and a score of others, though
not professed alchymists, were fond of the science, and countenanced its
professors. Helvetius, the grandfather of the celebrated philosopher of
the same name, asserts that he saw an inferior metal turned into gold by
a stranger, at the Hague, in 1666. He says that, sitting one day in his
study, a man, who was dressed as a respectable burgher of North Holland,
and very modest and simple in his appearance, called upon him, with the
intention of dispelling his doubts relative to the philosopher's stone.
He asked Helvetius if he thought he should know that rare gem if he
saw it. To which Helvetius replied, that he certainly should not. The
burgher immediately drew from his pocket a small ivory box, containing
three pieces of metal, of the colour of brimstone, and extremely heavy;
and assured Helvetius, that of them he could make as much as twenty tons
of gold. Helvetius informs us, that he examined them very attentively;
and seeing that they were very brittle, he took the opportunity to
scrape off a very small portion with his thumb-nail. He then returned
them to the stranger, with an entreaty that he would perform the process
of transmutation before him. The stranger replied, that he was not
allowed to do so, and went away. After his departure, Helvetius procured
a crucible and a portion of lead, into which, when in a state of
fusion, he threw the stolen grain from the philosopher's stone. He was
disappointed to find that the grain evaporated altogether, leaving the
lead in its original state.
Some weeks afterwards, when he had almost forgotten the subject, he
received another visit from the stranger. He again entreated him to
explain the processes by which he pretended to transmute lead. The
stranger at last consented, and informed him, that one grain was
sufficient; but that it was necessary to envelope it in a ball of wax
before throwing it on the molten metal; otherwise its extreme volatility
would cause it to go off in vapour. They tried the experiment, and
succeeded to their heart's content. Helvetius repeated the experiment
alone, and converted six ounces of lead into very pure gold.
The fame of this event spread all over the Hague, and all the notable
persons of the town flocked to the study of Helvetius to convince
themselves of the fact. Helvetius performed the experiment again, in the
presence of the Prince of Orange, and several times afterwards, until
he exhausted the whole of the powder he had received from the stranger,
from whom, it is necessary to state, he never received another visit;
nor did he ever discover his name or condition. In the following year
Helvetius published his "Golden Calf," ["Vitulus Aureus quem Mundus
adorat et orat, in quo tractatur de naturae miraculo transmutandi
metalla."--Hagae, 1667.] in which he detailed the above circumstances.
About the same time, the celebrated Father Kircher published his
"Subterranean World," in which he called the alchymists a congregation
of knaves and impostors, and their science a delusion. He admitted that
he had himself been a diligent labourer in the field, and had only come
to this conclusion after mature consideration and repeated fruitless
experiments. All the alchymists were in arms immediately, to refute
this formidable antagonist. One Solomon de Blauenstein was the first
to grapple with him, and attempted to convict him of wilful
misrepresentation, by recalling to his memory the transmutations
by Sendivogius, before the Emperor Frederic III. and the Elector of
Mayence; all performed within a recent period. Zwelfer and Glauber also
entered into the dispute, and attributed the enmity of Father Kircher
to spite and jealousy against adepts who had been more successful than
himself.
It was also pretended that Gustavus Adolphus transmuted a quantity of
quicksilver into pure gold. The learned Borrichius relates, that he saw
coins which had been struck of this gold; and Lenglet du Fresnoy deposes
to the same circumstance. In the Travels of Monconis the story is told
in the following manner:--"A merchant of Lubeck, who carried on but
little trade, but who knew how to change lead into very good gold, gave
the King of Sweden a lingot which he had made, weighing, at least, one
hundred pounds. The King immediately caused it to be coined into ducats;
and because he knew positively that its origin was such as had been
stated to him, he had his own arms graven upon the one side, and
emblematical figures of Mercury and Venus on the other." "I," continued
Monconis, "have one of these ducats in my possession; and was credibly
informed, that, after the death of the Lubeck merchant, who had never
appeared very rich, a sum of no less than one million seven hundred
thousand crowns was found in his coffers." [Voyages de Monconis, tome
ii. p. 379.]
Such stories as these, confidently related by men high in station,
tended to keep up the infatuation of the alchymists in every country of
Europe. It is astonishing to see the number of works which were written
upon the subject during the seventeenth century alone, and the number
of clever men who sacrificed themselves to the delusion. Gabriel de
Castaigne, a monk of the order of St. Francis, attracted so much
notice in the reign of Louis XIII, that that monarch secured him in
his household, and made him his Grand Almoner. He pretended to find the
elixir of life; and Louis expected, by his means, to have enjoyed the
crown for a century. Van Helmont also pretended to have once performed
with success the process of transmuting quicksilver; and was, in
consequence, invited by the Emperor Rudolph II. to fix his residence at
the court of Vienna. Glauber, the inventor of the salts which still bear
his name, and who practised as a physician at Amsterdam about the middle
of the seventeenth century, established a public school in that city for
the study of alchymy, and gave lectures himself upon the science. John
Joachim Becher, of Spire, acquired great reputation at the same period;
and was convinced that much gold might be made out of flint stones by
a peculiar process, and the aid of that grand and incomprehensible
substance, the philosopher's stone. He made a proposition to the Emperor
Leopold of Austria, to aid him in these experiments; but the hope of
success was too remote, and the present expense too great to tempt that
monarch; and he therefore gave Becher much of his praise, but none of
his money. Becher afterwards tried the States-General of Holland, with
no better success.
With regard to the innumerable tricks by which impostors persuaded
the world that they had succeeded in making gold, and of which so many
stories were current about this period, a very satisfactory report was
read by M. Geoffroy, the elder, at the sitting of the Royal Academy
of Sciences, at Paris, on the 15th of April, 1722. As it relates
principally to the alchymic cheats of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the following abridgment of it may not be out of place in
this portion of our history:--The instances of successful transmutation
were so numerous, and apparently so well authenticated, that nothing
short of so able an exposure as that of M. Geoffroy could disabuse the
public mind. The trick to which they oftenest had recourse, was to use a
double-bottomed crucible, the under surface being of iron or copper, and
the upper one of wax, painted to resemble the same metal. Between the
two they placed as much gold or silver dust as was necessary for their
purpose. They then put in their lead, quicksilver, or other ingredients,
and placed their pot upon the fire. Of course, when the experiment was
concluded, they never failed to find a lump of gold at the bottom. The
same result was produced in many other ways. Some of them used a hollow
wand, filled with gold or silver dust, and stopped at the ends with wax
or butter. With this they stirred the boiling metal in their crucibles,
taking care to accompany the operation with many ceremonies, to divert
attention from the real purpose of the manoeuvre. They also drilled
holes in lumps of lead, into which they poured molten gold, and
carefully closed the aperture with the original metal. Sometimes they
washed a piece of gold with quicksilver. When in this state they found
no difficulty in palming it off upon the uninitiated as an inferior
metal, and very easily transmuted it into fine sonorous gold again, with
the aid of a little aquafortis.
Others imposed by means of nails, half iron and half gold or silver.
They pretended that they really transmuted the precious half from iron,
by dipping it in a strong alcohol. M. Geoffroy produced several of these
nails to the Academy of Sciences, and showed how nicely the two parts
were soldered together. The golden or silver half was painted black to
resemble iron, and the colour immediately disappeared when the nail was
dipped into aquafortis. A nail of this description was, for a long
time, in the cabinet of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Such also, said
M. Geoffroy, was the knife presented by a monk to Queen Elizabeth of
England; the blade of which was half gold and half steel. Nothing at one
time was more common than to see coins, half gold and half silver, which
had been operated upon by alchymists, for the same purposes of trickery.
In fact, says M. Geoffroy, in concluding his long report, there is every
reason to believe that all the famous histories which have been handed
down to us, about the transmutation of metals into gold or silver, by
means of the powder of projection, or philosophical elixirs, are
founded upon some successful deception of the kind above narrated. These
pretended philosophers invariably disappeared after the first or second
experiment, or their powders or elixirs have failed to produce their
effect, either because attention being excited they have found no
opportunity to renew the trick without being discovered, or because they
have not had sufficient gold dust for more than one trial.
The disinterestedness of these would-be philosopher looked, at first
sight, extremely imposing. Instances were not rare, in which they
generously abandoned all the profits of their transmutations--even the
honour of the discovery! But this apparent disinterestedness was one of
the most cunning of their manoeuvres. It served to keep up the popular
expectation; it showed the possibility of discovering the philosopher's
stone, and provided the means of future advantages, which they were
never slow to lay hold of--such as entrances into royal households,
maintenance at the public expense, and gifts from ambitious potentates,
too greedy after the gold they so easily promised.
It now only remains to trace the progress of the delusion from the
commencement of the eighteenth century until the present day. It will be
seen, that until a very recent period, there were but slight signs of a
return to reason.
JEAN DELISLE.
In the year 1705, there was much talk in France of a blacksmith, named
Delisle, who had discovered the philosopher's stone, and who went about
the country turning lead into gold. He was a native of Provence, from
which place his fame soon spread to the capital. His early life
is involved in obscurity; but Longlet du Fresnoy has industriously
collected some particulars of his later career, which possess
considerable interest. He was a man without any education, and had been
servant in his youth to an alchymist, from whom he learned many of
the tricks of the fraternity. The name of his master has never been
discovered; but it is pretended that he rendered himself in some
manner obnoxious to the government of Louis XIV, and was obliged, in
consequence, to take refuge in Switzerland. Delisle accompanied him
as far as Savoy, and there, it is said, set upon him in a solitary
mountain-pass, and murdered and robbed him. He then disguised himself
as a pilgrim, and returned to France. At a lonely inn, by the road-side,
where he stopped for the night, he became acquainted with a woman, named
Aluys; and so sudden a passion was enkindled betwixt them, that she
consented to leave all, follow him, and share his good or evil fortune
wherever he went. They lived together for five or six years in Provence,
without exciting any attention, apparently possessed of a decent
independence. At last, in 1706, it was given out that he was the
possessor of the philosopher's stone; and people, from far and near,
came flocking to his residence, at the Chateau de la Palu, at Sylanez,
near Barjaumont, to witness the wealth he could make out of pumps and
fire shovels. The following account of his operations is given in a
letter addressed by M. de Cerisy, the Prior of Chateauneuf, in the
Diocese of Riez, in Provence, to the Vicar of St. Jacques du Hautpas,
at Paris, and dated the 18th of November 1706:--
"I have something to relate to you, my dear cousin, which will be
interesting to you and your friends. The philosopher's stone, which so
many persons have looked upon as a chimera, is at last found. It is a
man named Delisle, of the parish of Sylanez, and residing within a
quarter of a league of me, that has discovered this great secret. He
turns lead into gold, and iron into silver, by merely heating these
metals red hot, and pouring upon them, in that state, some oil and
powder he is possessed of; so that it would not be impossible for any
man to make a million a day, if he had sufficient of this wondrous
mixture. Some of the pale gold which he had made in this manner, he sent
to the jewellers of Lyons, to have their opinion on its quality. He also
sold twenty pounds weight of it to a merchant of Digne, named Taxis. All
the jewellers say they never saw such fine gold in their lives. He makes
nails, part gold, part iron, and part silver. He promised to give me one
of them, in a long conversation which I had with him the other day, by
order of the Bishop of Sends, who saw his operations with his own eyes,
and detailed all the circumstances to me.
"The Baron and Baroness de Rheinwald showed me a lingot of gold made out
of pewter before their eyes by M. Delisle. My brother-in-law Sauveur,
who has wasted fifty years of his life in this great study, brought me
the other day a nail which he had seen changed into gold by Delisle, and
fully convinced me that all his previous experiments were founded on an
erroneous principle. This excellent workman received, a short time ago,
a very kind letter from the superintendent of the royal household,
which I read. He offered to use all his influence with the ministers to
prevent any attempts upon his liberty, which has twice been attacked by
the agents of government. It is believed that the oil he makes use of,
is gold or silver reduced to that state. He leaves it for a long time
exposed to the rays of the sun. He told me that it generally took him
six months to make all his preparations. I told him that, apparently,
the King wanted to see him. He replied that he could not exercise his
art in every place, as a certain climate and temperature were absolutely
necessary to his success. The truth is, that this man appears to have
no ambition. He only keeps two horses and two men-servants. Besides, he
loves his liberty, has no politeness, and speaks very bad French;
but his judgment seems to be solid. He was formerly no more than a
blacksmith, but excelled in that trade without having been taught it.
All the great lords and seigneurs from far and near come to visit
him, and pay such court to him, that it seems more like idolatry than
anything else. Happy would France be if this man would discover his
secret to the King, to whom the superintendent has already sent some
lingots! But the happiness is too great to be hoped for; for I fear that
the workman and his secret will expire together. There is no doubt
that this discovery will make a great noise in the kingdom, unless the
character of the man, which I have just depicted to you, prevent it. At
all events, posterity will hear of him."
In another letter to the same person, dated the 27th of January 1707, M.
de Cerisy says, "My dear cousin, I spoke to you in my last letter of the
famous alchymist of Provence, M. Delisle. A good deal of that was only
hearsay, but now I am enabled to speak from my own experience. I have
in my possession a nail, half iron and half silver, which I made myself.
That great and admirable workman also bestowed a still greater privilege
upon me--he allowed me to turn a piece of lead which I had brought with
me into pure gold, by means of his wonderful oil and powder. All the
country have their eyes upon this gentleman: some deny loudly, others
are incredulous; but those who have seen acknowledge the truth. I have
read the passport that has been sent to him from Court, with orders that
he should present himself at Paris early in the spring. He told me that
he would go willingly, and that it was himself who fixed the spring for
his departure; as he wanted to collect his materials, in order that,
immediately on his introduction to the King, he might make an experiment
worthy of his Majesty, by converting a large quantity of lead into the
finest gold. I sincerely hope that he will not allow his secret to die
with him, but that he will communicate it to the King. As I had the
honour to dine with him on Thursday last, the 20th of this month, being
seated at his side, I told him in a whisper that he could, if he liked,
humble all the enemies of France. He did not deny it, but began to
smile. In fact, this man is the miracle of art. Sometimes he employs
the oil and powder mixed, sometimes the powder only, but in so small a
quantity that, when the lingot which I made was rubbed all over with it,
it did not show at all."
This soft-headed priest was by no means the only person in the
neighbourhood who lost his wits in hopes of the boundless wealth held
out by this clever impostor. Another priest, named De Lions, a chanter
in the cathedral of Grenoble, writing on the 30th January 1707,
says,--"M. Mesnard, the curate of Montier, has written to me, stating
that there is a man, about thirty-five years of age, named Delisle, who
turns lead and iron into gold and silver; and that this transmutation is
so veritable and so true, that the goldsmiths affirm that his gold and
silver are the purest and finest they ever saw. For five years, this
man was looked upon as a madman or a cheat; but the public mind is now
disabused with respect to him. He now resides with M. de la Palu, at
the chateau of the same name. M. de la Palu is not very easy in his
circumstances, and wants money to portion his daughters, who have
remained single till middle age, no man being willing to take them
without a dowry. M. Delisle has promised to make them the richest girls
in the province before he goes to Court, having been sent for by the
King. He has asked for a little time before his departure, in order that
he may collect powder enough to make several quintals of gold before the
eyes of his Majesty, to whom he intends to present them. The principal
matter of his wonderful powder is composed of simples, principally the
herbs Lunaria major and minor. There is a good deal of the first
planted by him in the gardens of La Palu; and he gets the other from the
mountains, that stretch about two leagues from Montier. What I tell
you now is not a mere story invented for your diversion: M. Mesnard can
bring forward many witnesses to its truth; among others, the Bishop of
Senes, who saw these surprising operations performed; and M. de Cerisy,
whom you know well. Delisle transmutes his metals in public. He rubs the
lead or iron with his powder, and puts it over burning charcoal. In a
short time it changes colour; the lead becomes yellow, and is found to
be converted into excellent gold: the iron becomes white, and is found
to be pure silver. Delisle is altogether an illiterate person. M. de St.
Auban endeavoured to teach him to read and write, but he profited very
little by his lessons. He is unpolite, fantastic, and a dreamer, and
acts by fits and starts."
Delisle, it would appear, was afraid of venturing to Paris. He knew that
his sleight of hand would be too narrowly watched in the royal presence;
and upon some pretence or other, he delayed the journey for more than
two years. Desmarets, the Minister of Finance to Louis XIV, thinking the
"philosopher" dreaded foul play, twice sent him a safe conduct under the
King's seal; but Delisle still refused. Upon this, Desmarets wrote
to the Bishop of Sends for his real opinion as to these famous
transmutations. The following was the answer of that prelate:--
"Copy of a report addressed to M. Desmarets, Comptroller-General of the
Finances to His Majesty Louis XIV, by the Bishop of Senes, dated March
1709.
"SIR,
"A twelvemonth ago, or a little more, I expressed to you my joy at
hearing of your elevation to the ministry; I have now the honour to
write you my opinion of the Sieur Delisle, who has been working at
the transmutation of metals in my diocese. I have, during the last
two years, spoken of him several times to the Count de Pontchartrain,
because he asked me; but I have not written to you, sir, or to M. de
Chamillart, because you neither of you requested my opinion upon the
subject. Now, however, that you have given me to understand that you
wish to know my sentiments on the matter, I will unfold myself to you
in all sincerity, for the interests of the King and the glory of your
ministry.
"There are two things about the Sieur Delisle which, in my opinion,
should be examined without prejudice: the one relates to his secret;
the other, to his person; that is to say, whether his transmutations are
real, and whether his conduct has been regular. As regards the secret
of the philosopher's stone, I deemed it impossible, for a long time; and
for more than three years, I was more mistrustful of the pretensions
of this Sieur Delisle than of any other person. During this period
I afforded him no countenance; I even aided a person, who was highly
recommended to me by an influential family of this province, to
prosecute Delisle for some offence or other which it was alleged he had
committed. But this person, in his anger against him, having told me
that he had himself been several times the bearer of gold and silver to
the goldsmiths of Nice, Aix, and Avignon, which had been transmuted by
Delisle from lead and iron, I began to waver a little in my opinions
respecting him. I afterwards met Delisle at the house of one of my
friends. To please me, the family asked Delisle to operate before me, to
which he immediately consented. I offered him some iron nails, which he
changed into silver in the chimney-place before six or seven credible
witnesses. I took the nails thus transmuted, and sent them by my almoner
to Irabert, the jeweller of Aix, who, having subjected them to the
necessary trial, returned them to me, saying they were very good silver.
Still, however, I was not quite satisfied. M. de Pontchartrain having
hinted to me, two years previously, that I should do a thing agreeable
to his Majesty if I examined into this business of Delisle, I resolved
to do so now. I therefore summoned the alchymist to come to me at
Castellane. He came; and I had him escorted by eight or ten vigilant
men, to whom I had given notice to watch his hands strictly. Before all
of us he changed two pieces of lead into gold and silver. I sent them
both to M. de Pontchartrain; and he afterwards informed me by a letter,
now lying before me, that he had shown them to the most experienced
goldsmiths of Paris, who unanimously pronounced them to be gold and
silver of the very purest quality, and without alloy. My former bad
opinion of Delisle was now indeed shaken. It was much more so when he
performed transmutation five or six times before me at Senes, and
made me perform it myself before him without his putting his hand to
anything. You have seen, sir, the letter of my nephew, the Pere Berard,
of the Oratoire at Paris, on the experiment that he performed at
Castellane, and the truth of which I hereby attest. Another nephew of
mine, the Sieur Bourget, who was here three weeks ago, performed the
same experiment in my presence, and will detail all the circumstances
to you personally at Paris. A hundred persons in my diocese have been
witnesses of these things. I confess to you, sir, that, after the
testimony of so many spectators and so many goldsmiths, and after
the repeatedly successful experiments that I saw performed, all my
prejudices vanished. My reason was convinced by my eyes; and the
phantoms of impossibility which I had conjured up were dissipated by the
work of my own hands.
"It now only remains for me to speak to you on the subject of his person
and conduct. Three suspicions have been excited against him: the first,
That he was implicated in some criminal proceeding at Cisteron, and that
he falsified the coin of the realm; the second, That the King sent him
two safe-conducts without effect; and the third, That he still delays
going to court to operate before the King. You may see, sir, that I do
not hide or avoid anything. As regards the business at Cisteron, the
Sieur Delisle has repeatedly assured me that there was nothing against
him which could reasonably draw him within the pale of justice, and that
he had never carried on any calling injurious to the King's service. It
was true that, six or seven years ago, he had been to Cisteron to gather
herbs necessary for his powder, and that he had lodged at the house
of one Pelouse, whom he thought an honest man. Pelouse was accused of
clipping Louis d'ors; and as he had lodged with him, he was suspected of
being his accomplice. This mere suspicion, without any proof whatever,
had caused him to be condemned for contumacy; a common case enough
with judges, who always proceed with much rigour against those who are
absent. During my own sojourn at Aix, it was well known that a man,
named Andre Aluys, had spread about reports injurious to the character
of Delisle, because he hoped thereby to avoid paying him a sum of forty
Louis that he owed him. But permit me, sir, to go further, and to add
that, even if there were well-founded suspicions against Delisle, we
should look with some little indulgence on the faults of a man
who possesses a secret so useful to the state. As regards the two
safe-conducts sent him by the King, I think I can answer certainly that
it was through no fault of his that he paid so little attention to them.
His year, strictly speaking, consists only of the four summer months;
and when by any means he is prevented from making the proper use of
them, he loses a whole year. Thus the first safe-conduct became useless
by the irruption of the Duke of Savoy in 1707; and the second had
hardly been obtained, at the end of June 1708, when the said Delisle was
insulted by a party of armed men, pretending to act under the authority
of the Count de Grignan, to whom he wrote several letters of complaint,
without receiving any answer, or promise that his safety would be
attended to. What I have now told you, sir, removes the third objection,
and is the reason why, at the present time, he cannot go to Paris to
the King, in fulfilment of his promises made two years ago. Two, or even
three, summers have been lost to him, owing to the continual inquietude
he has laboured under. He has, in consequence, been unable to work,
and has not collected a sufficient quantity of his oil and powder, or
brought what he has got to the necessary degree of perfection. For
this reason also he could not give the Sieur de Bourget the portion he
promised him for your inspection. If the other day he changed some lead
into gold with a few grains of his powder, they were assuredly all he
had; for he told me that such was the fact long before he knew my nephew
was coming. Even if he had preserved this small quantity to operate
before the King, I am sure that, on second thoughts, he would never have
adventured with so little; because the slightest obstacles in the
metals (their being too hard or too soft, which is only discovered in
operating) would have caused him to be looked upon as an impostor,
if, in case his first powder had proved ineffectual, he had not been
possessed of more to renew the experiment and surmount the difficulty.
"Permit me, sir, in conclusion, to repeat that such an artist as this
should not be driven to the last extremity, nor forced to seek an asylum
offered to him in other countries, but which he has despised, as much
from his own inclinations as from the advice I have given him. You risk
nothing in giving him a little time, and in hurrying him you may lose a
great deal. The genuineness of his gold can no longer be doubted, after
the testimony of so many jewellers of Aix, Lyons, and Paris in its
favour. As it is not his fault that the previous safe-conducts sent to
him have been of no service, it will be necessary to send him another;
for the success of which I will be answerable, if you will confide the
matter to me, and trust to my zeal for the service of his Majesty, to
whom I pray you to communicate this letter, that I may be spared the
just reproaches he might one day heap upon me if he remained ignorant of
the facts I have now written to you. Assure him, if you please, that,
if you send me such a safe-conduct, I will oblige the Sieur Delisle to
depose with me such precious pledges of his fidelity, as shall enable
me to be responsible myself to the King. These are my sentiments, and I
submit them to your superior knowledge; and have the honour to remain,
with much respect, &c.
"JOHN, Bishop of Senes."
"To M. Desmarets, Minister of State, and
"Comptroller-General of the Finances, at Paris."
That Delisle was no ordinary impostor, but a man of consummate cunning
and address, is very evident from this letter. The Bishop was fairly
taken in by his clever legerdemain, and when once his first distrust was
conquered, appeared as anxious to deceive himself as even Delisle could
have wished. His faith was so abundant that he made the case of his
protege his own, and would not suffer the breath of suspicion to be
directed against him. Both Louis and his minister appear to have been
dazzled by the brilliant hopes he had excited, and a third pass, or
safe-conduct, was immediately sent to the alchymist, with a command from
the King that he should forthwith present himself at Versailles, and
make public trial of his oil and powder. But this did not suit the
plans of Delisle: in the provinces he was regarded as a man of no small
importance; the servile flattery that awaited him wherever he went was
so grateful to his mind that he could not willingly relinquish it and
run upon certain detection at the court of the Monarch. Upon one
pretext or another he delayed his journey, notwithstanding the earnest
solicitations of his good friend the Bishop. The latter had given
his word to the minister, and pledged his honour that he would induce
Delisle to go, and he began to be alarmed when he found he could not
subdue the obstinacy of that individual. For more than two years he
continued to remonstrate with him, and was always met by some excuse,
that there was not sufficient powder, or that it had not been long
enough exposed to the rays of the sun. At last his patience was
exhausted; and fearful that he might suffer in the royal estimation by
longer delay, he wrote to the King for a lettre de cachet, in virtue of
which the alchymist was seized at the castle of La Palu, in the month of
June 1711, and carried off to be imprisoned in the Bastille.
The gendarmes were aware that their prisoner was supposed to be the
lucky possessor of the philosopher's stone, and on the road they
conspired to rob and murder him. One of them pretended to be touched
with pity for the misfortunes of the philosopher, and offered to give
him an opportunity of escape whenever he could divert the attention of
his companions. Delisle was profuse in his thanks, little dreaming of
the snare that was laid for him. His treacherous friend gave notice
of the success of the stratagem so far; and it was agreed that Delisle
should be allowed to struggle with and overthrow one of them while the
rest were at some distance. They were then to pursue him and shoot him
through the heart; and after robbing the corpse of the philosopher's
stone, convey it to Paris on a cart, and tell M. Desmarets that the
prisoner had attempted to escape, and would have succeeded, if they had
not fired after him and shot him through the body. At a convenient place
the scheme was executed. At a given signal from the friendly gendarme
Delisle fled, while another gendarme took aim and shot him through the
thigh. Some peasants arriving at the instant, they were prevented from
killing him as they intended; and he was transported to Paris, maimed
and bleeding. He was thrown into a dungeon in the Bastille, and
obstinately tore away the bandages which the surgeons applied to his
wound. He never afterwards rose from his bed.
The Bishop of Senes visited him in prison, and promised him his liberty
if he would transmute a certain quantity of lead into gold before
the King. The unhappy man had no longer the means of carrying on the
deception; he had no gold, and no double-bottomed crucible or hollow
wand to conceal it in, even if he had. He would not, however, confess
that he was an impostor; but merely said he did not know how to make
the powder of projection, but had received a quantity from an Italian
philosopher, and had used it all in his various transmutations in
Provence. He lingered for seven or eight months in the Bastille, and
died from the effects of his wound, in the forty-first year of his age.
ALBERT ALUYS.
This pretender to the philosopher's stone, was the son, by a former
husband, of the woman Aluys, with whom Delisle became acquainted at the
commencement of his career, in the cabaret by the road side, and whom he
afterwards married. Delisle performed the part of a father towards
him, and thought he could show no stronger proof of his regard, than by
giving him the necessary instructions to carry on the deception which
had raised himself to such a pitch of greatness. The young Aluys was
an apt scholar, and soon mastered all the jargon of the alchymists. He
discoursed learnedly upon projections, cimentations, sublimations, the
elixir of life, and the universal alkahest; and on the death of Delisle
gave out that the secret of that great adept had been communicated to
him, and to him only. His mother aided in the fraud, with the hope they
might both fasten themselves, in the true alchymical fashion, upon some
rich dupe, who would entertain them magnificently while the operation
was in progress. The fate of Delisle was no inducement for them to stop
in France. The Provencals, it is true, entertained as high an opinion
as ever of his skill, and were well inclined to believe the tales of
the young adept on whom his mantle had fallen; but the dungeons of the
Bastille were yawning for their prey, and Aluys and his mother decamped
with all convenient expedition. They travelled about the Continent
for several years, sponging upon credulous rich men, and now and then
performing successful transmutations by the aid of double-bottomed
crucibles and the like. In the year 1726, Aluys, without his mother, who
appears to have died in the interval, was at Vienna, where he introduced
himself to the Duke de Richelieu, at that time ambassador from the court
of France. He completely deceived this nobleman; he turned lead into
gold (apparently) on several occasions, and even made the ambassador
himself turn an iron nail into a silver one. The Duke afterwards boasted
to Lenglet du Fresnoy of his achievements as an alchymist, and regretted
that he had not been able to discover the secret of the precious powder
by which he performed them.
Aluys soon found that, although he might make a dupe of the Duke de
Richelieu, he could not get any money from him. On the contrary, the
Duke expected all his pokers and fire shovels to be made silver, and all
his pewter utensils gold; and thought the honour of his acquaintance
was reward sufficient for a roturier, who could not want wealth since he
possessed so invaluable a secret. Aluys seeing that so much was
expected of him, bade adieu to his Excellency, and proceeded to Bohemia,
accompanied by a pupil, and by a young girl who had fallen in love
with him in Vienna. Some noblemen in Bohemia received him kindly, and
entertained him at their houses for months at a time. It was his usual
practice to pretend that he possessed only a few grains of his powder,
with which he would operate in any house where he intended to fix his
quarters for the season. He would make the proprietor a present of the
piece of gold thus transmuted, and promise him millions, if he could
only be provided with leisure to gather his lunaria major and minor on
their mountain tops, and board, lodging, and loose cash for himself, his
wife, and his pupil in the interval.
He exhausted in this manner the patience of some dozen of people, when,
thinking that there was less danger for him in France, under the young
king Louis XV, than under his old and morose predecessor, he returned to
Provence. On his arrival at Aix, he presented himself before M. le Bret,
the President of the province, a gentleman who was much attached to the
pursuits of alchymy, and had great hopes of being himself able to
find the philosopher's stone. M. le Bret, contrary to his expectation,
received him very coolly, in consequence of some rumours that were
spread abroad respecting him; and told him to call upon him on the
morrow. Aluys did not like the tone of the voice, or the expression of
the eye of the learned President, as that functionary looked down upon
him. Suspecting that all was not right, he left Aix secretly the same
evening, and proceeded to Marseilles. But the police were on the watch
for him; and he had not been there four-and-twenty hours, before he was
arrested on a charge of coining, and thrown into prison.
As the proofs against him were too convincing to leave him much hope of
an acquittal, he planned an escape from durance. It so happened that
the gaoler had a pretty daughter, and Aluys soon discovered that she was
tender-hearted. He endeavoured to gain her in his favour, and succeeded.
The damsel, unaware that he was a married man, conceived and encouraged
a passion for him, and generously provided him with the means of escape.
After he had been nearly a year in prison he succeeded in getting free,
leaving the poor girl behind, to learn that he was already married,
and to lament in solitude that she had given her heart to an ungrateful
vagabond.
When he left Marseilles, he had not a shoe to his foot, or a decent
garment to his back, but was provided with some money and clothes by his
wife in a neighbouring town. They then found their way to Brussels, and
by dint of excessive impudence, brought themselves into notice. He took
a house, fitted up a splendid laboratory, and gave out that he knew the
secret of transmutation. In vain did M. Percel, the brother-in-law of
Lenglet du Fresnoy, who resided in that city, expose his pretensions,
and hold him up to contempt as an ignorant impostor: the world believed
him not. They took the alchymist at his word, and besieged his doors, to
see and wonder at the clever legerdemain by which he turned iron nails
into gold and silver. A rich greffier paid him a large sum of money that
he might be instructed in the art, and Aluys gave him several lessons on
the most common principles of chemistry. The greffier studied hard for
a twelvemonth, and then discovered that his master was a quack. He
demanded his money back again; but Aluys was not inclined to give
it him, and the affair was brought before the civil tribunal of the
province. In the mean time, however, the greffier died suddenly;
poisoned, according to the popular rumour, by his debtor, to avoid
repayment. So great an outcry arose in the city, that Aluys, who may
have been innocent of the crime, was nevertheless afraid to remain and
brave it. He withdrew secretly in the night, and retired to Paris. Here
all trace of him is lost. He was never heard of again; but Lenglet du
Fresnoy conjectures, that he ended his days in some obscure dungeon,
into which he was cast for coining, or other malpractices.
THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN
This adventurer was of a higher grade than the last, and played a
distinguished part at the court of Louis XV. He pretended to have
discovered the elixir of life, by means of which he could make any one
live for centuries; and allowed it to be believed that his own age was
upwards of two thousand years. He entertained many of the opinions
of the Rosicrucians; boasted of his intercourse with sylphs and
salamanders; and of his power of drawing diamonds from the earth, and
pearls from the sea, by the force of his incantations. He did not lay
claim to the merit of having discovered the philosopher's stone; but
devoted so much of his time to the operations of alchymy, that it was
very generally believed, that, if such a thing as the philosopher's
stone had ever existed, or could be called into existence, he was the
man to succeed in finding it.
It has never yet been discovered what was his real name, or in what
country he was born. Some believed, from the Jewish cast of his handsome
countenance, that he was the "wandering Jew;" others asserted, that
he was the issue of an Arabian princess, and that his father was a
salamander; while others, more reasonable, affirmed him to be the son
of a Portuguese Jew, established at Bourdeaux. He first carried on his
imposture in Germany, where he made considerable sums by selling an
elixir to arrest the progress of old age. The Marechal de Belle-Isle
purchased a dose of it; and was so captivated with the wit, learning,
and good manners of the charlatan, and so convinced of the justice
of his most preposterous pretensions, that he induced him to fix his
residence in Paris. Under the Marshal's patronage, he first appeared
in the gay circles of that capital. Every one was delighted with the
mysterious stranger; who, at this period of his life, appears to have
been about seventy years of age, but did not look more than forty-five.
His easy assurance imposed upon most people. His reading was extensive,
and his memory extraordinarily tenacious of the slightest circumstances.
His pretension to have lived for so many centuries naturally exposed him
to some puzzling questions, as to the appearance, life, and conversation
of the great men of former days; but he was never at a loss for an
answer. Many who questioned him for the purpose of scoffing at him,
refrained in perplexity, quite bewildered by his presence of mind, his
ready replies, and his astonishing accuracy on every point mentioned
in history. To increase the mystery by which he was surrounded, he
permitted no person to know how he lived. He dressed in a style of the
greatest magnificence; sported valuable diamonds in his hat, on his
fingers, and in his shoe-buckles; and sometimes made the most costly
presents to the ladies of the court. It was suspected by many that he
was a spy, in the pay of the English ministry; but there never was a
tittle of evidence to support the charge. The King looked upon him with
marked favour, was often closeted with him for hours together, and would
not suffer anybody to speak disparagingly of him. Voltaire constantly
turned him into ridicule; and, in one of his letters to the King of
Prussia, mentions him as "un comte pour fire;" and states, that he
pretended to have dined with the holy fathers, at the Council of Trent!
In the "Memoirs of Madame du Hausset," chamber-woman to Madame du
Pompadour, there are some amusing anecdotes of this personage. Very soon
after his arrival in Paris, he had the entree of her dressing-room; a
favour only granted to the most powerful lords at the court of her royal
lover. Madame was fond of conversing with him; and, in her presence,
he thought fit to lower his pretensions very considerably: but he often
allowed her to believe that he had lived two or three hundred years,
at least. "One day," says Madame du Hausset, "Madame said to him, in my
presence, 'What was the personal appearance of Francis I? He was a King
I should have liked.' 'He was, indeed, very captivating,' replied St.
Germain; and he proceeded to describe his face and person, as that of a
man whom he had accurately observed. 'It is a pity he was too ardent. I
could have given him some good advice, which would have saved him from
all his misfortunes: but he would not have followed it; for it seems as
if a fatality attended princes, forcing them to shut their ears to the
wisest counsel.' 'Was his court very brilliant?' inquired Madame du
Pompadour. 'Very,' replied the Count; 'but those of his grandsons
surpassed it. In the time of Mary Stuart and Margaret of Valois, it
was a land of enchantment--a temple sacred to pleasures of every kind.'
Madame said, laughing, 'You seem to have seen all this.' 'I have an
excellent memory,' said he, 'and have read the history of France with
great care. I sometimes amuse myself, not by making, but by letting, it
be believed that I lived in old times.'
"'But you do not tell us your age,' said Madame du Pompadour to him on
another occasion; 'and yet you pretend you are very old. The Countess de
Gergy, who was, I believe, ambassadress at Vienna some fifty years ago,
says she saw you there, exactly the same as you now appear.'
"'It is true, Madam,' replied St. Germain; 'I knew Madame de Gergy many
years ago.'
"'But, according to her account, you must be more than a hundred years
old?'
"'That is not impossible,' said he, laughing; 'but it is much more
possible that the good lady is in her dotage.'
"'You gave her an elixir, surprising for the effects it produced;
for she says, that during a length of time, she only appeared to be
eighty-four; the age at which she took it. Why don't you give it to the
King?'
"'O Madam!' he exclaimed, 'the physicians would have me broken on the
wheel, were I to think of drugging his Majesty.'"
When the world begins to believe extraordinary things of an individual,
there is no telling where its extravagance will stop. People, when once
they have taken the start, vie with each other who shall believe most.
At this period all Paris resounded with the wonderful adventures of
the Count de St. Germain; and a company of waggish young men tried the
following experiment upon its credulity:-A clever mimic, who, on account
of the amusement he afforded, was admitted into good society, was taken
by them, dressed as the Count de St. Germain, into several houses in
the Rue du Marais. He imitated the Count's peculiarities admirably, and
found his auditors open-mouthed to believe any absurdity he chose to
utter. NO fiction was too monstrous for their all-devouring credulity.
He spoke of the Saviour of the world in terms of the greatest
familiarity; said he had supped with him at the marriage in Canaan of
Galilee, where the water was miraculously turned into wine. In fact, he
said he was an intimate friend of his, and had often warned him to be
less romantic and imprudent, or he would finish his career miserably.
This infamous blasphemy, strange to say, found believers; and, ere three
days had elapsed, it was currently reported that St. Germain was born
soon after the deluge, and that he would never die!
St. Germain himself was too much a man of the world to assert anything
so monstrous; but he took no pains to contradict the story. In all his
conversations with persons of rank and education, he advanced his claims
modestly, and as if by mere inadvertency; and seldom pretended to a
longevity beyond three hundred years; except when he found he was in
company with persons who would believe anything. He often spoke of Henry
VIII, as if he had known him intimately; and of the Emperor Charles
V, as if that monarch had delighted in his society. He would describe
conversations which took place with such an apparent truthfulness, and
be so exceedingly minute and particular as to the dress and appearance
of the individuals, and even the weather at the time, and the furniture
of the room, that three persons out of four were generally inclined
to credit him. He had constant applications from rich old women for an
elixir to make them young again; and, it would appear, gained large sums
in this manner. To those whom he was pleased to call his friends, he
said, his mode of living and plan of diet were far superior to any
elixir; and that anybody might attain a patriarchal age, by refraining
from drinking at meals, and very sparingly at any other time. The Baron
de Gleichen followed this system, and took great quantities of senna
leaves, expecting to live for two hundred years. He died, however, at
seventy-three. The Duchess de Choiseul was desirous of following the
same system; but the Duke her husband, in much wrath, forbade her to
follow any system prescribed by a man who had so equivocal a reputation
as M. de St. Germain.
Madame du Hausset says, she saw St. Germain, and conversed with him
several times. He appeared to her to be about fifty years of age, was of
the middle size, and had fine expressive features. His dress was always
simple, but displayed much taste. He usually wore diamond rings of great
value; and his watch and snuff-box were ornamented with a profusion of
precious stones. One day, at Madame du Pompadour's apartments, where the
principal courtiers were assembled, St. Germain made his appearance in
diamond knee and shoe buckles, of so fine a water, that Madame said, she
did not think the King had any equal to them. He was entreated to pass
into the antechamber, and undo them; which he did, and brought them
to Madame, for closer inspection. M. de Gontant, who was present, said
their value could not be less than two hundred thousand livres, or
upwards of eight thousand pounds sterling. The Baron de Gleichen, in his
"Memoirs," relates, that the Count one day showed him so many diamonds,
that he thought he saw before him all the treasures of Aladdin's lamp;
and adds, that he had had great experience in precious stones, and was
convinced that all those possessed by the Count were genuine. On another
occasion, St. Germain showed Madame du Pompadour a small box, containing
topazes, emeralds, and diamonds, worth half a million of livres. He
affected to despise all this wealth, to make the world more easily
believe that he could, like the Rosicrucians, draw precious stones out
of the earth by the magic of his song. He gave away a great number of
these jewels to the ladies of the court; and Madame du Pompadour was
so charmed with his generosity, that she gave him a richly-enamelled
snuff-box, as a token of her regard; on the lid of which was beautifully
painted a portrait of Socrates, or some other Greek sage, to whom she
compared him. He was not only lavish to the mistresses, but to the
maids. Madame du Hausset says,--"The Count came to see Madame du
Pompadour, who was very ill, and lay on the sofa. He showed her diamonds
enough to furnish a king's treasury. Madame sent for me to see all
those beautiful things. I looked at them with an air of the utmost
astonishment; but I made signs to her, that I thought them all false.
The Count felt for something in a pocket-book about twice as large as
a spectacle-case; and, at length, drew out two or three little paper
packets, which he unfolded, and exhibited a superb ruby. He threw on
the table, with a contumptuous air, a little cross of green and white
stones. I looked at it, and said it was not to be despised. I then
put it on, and admired it greatly. The Count begged me to accept it. I
refused. He urged me to take it. At length, he pressed so warmly, that
Madame, seeing it could not be worth more than a thousand livres, made
me a sign to accept it. I took the cross, much pleased with the Count's
politeness."
How the adventurer obtained his wealth remains a secret. He could not
have made it all by the sale of his elixir vitae in Germany; though,
no doubt, some portion of it was derived from that source. Voltaire
positively says, he was in the pay of foreign governments; and in his
letter to the King of Prussia, dated the 5th of April 1758, says, that
he was initiated in all the secrets of Choiseul, Kaunitz, and Pitt.
Of what use he could be to any of those ministers, and to Choiseul
especially, is a mystery of mysteries.
There appears no doubt that he possessed the secret of removing spots
from diamonds; and, in all probability, he gained considerable sums by
buying, at inferior prices, such as had flaws in them, and afterwards
disposing of them at a profit of cent. per cent. Madame du Hausset
relates the following anecdote on this particular:--"The King," says
she, "ordered a middling-sized diamond, which had a flaw in it, to be
brought to him. After having it weighed, his Majesty said to the Count,
'The value of this diamond, as it is, and with the flaw in it, is six
thousand livres; without the flaw, it would be worth, at least, ten
thousand. Will you undertake to make me a gainer of four thousand
livres?' St. Germain examined it very attentively, and said, 'It is
possible; it may be done. I will bring it you again in a month.' At the
time appointed, the Count brought back the diamond, without a spot, and
gave it to the King. It was wrapped in a cloth of amianthos, which he
took off. The King had it weighed immediately, and found it very little
diminished. His Majesty then sent it to his jeweller, by M. de Gonrant,
without telling him of anything that had passed. The jeweller gave nine
thousand six hundred livres for it. The King, however, sent for the
diamond back again, and said he would keep it as a curiosity. He could
not overcome his surprise; and said M. de St. Germain must be worth
millions; especially if he possessed the secret of making large diamonds
out of small ones. The Count neither said that he could, or could not;
but positively asserted, that he knew how to make pearls grow, and give
them the finest water. The King paid him great attention, and so did
Madame du Pompadour. M. du Quesnoy once said, that St. Germain was
a quack; but the King reprimanded him. In fact, his Majesty appears
infatuated by him; and sometimes talks of him as if his descent were
illustrious."
St. Germain had a most amusing vagabond for a servant, to whom he would
often appeal for corroboration, when relating some wonderful event that
happened centuries before. The fellow, who was not without ability,
generally corroborated him in a most satisfactory manner. Upon one
occasion, his master was telling a party of ladies and gentlemen, at
dinner, some conversation he had had in Palestine, with King Richard I.
of England, whom he described as a very particular friend of his.
Signs of astonishment and incredulity were visible on the faces of the
company; upon which St. Germain very coolly turned to his servant, who
stood behind his chair, and asked him if he had not spoken truth? "I
really cannot say," replied the man, without moving a muscle; "you
forget, sir, I have only been five hundred years in your service!" "Ah!
true," said his master; "I remember now; it was a little before your
time!" Occasionally, when with men whom he could not so easily dupe,
he gave utterance to the contempt with which he could scarcely avoid
regarding such gaping credulity. "These fools of Parisians," said he,
to the Baron de Gleichen, "believe me to be more than five hundred years
old; and, since they will have it so, I confirm them in their idea. Not
but that I really am much older than I appear."
Many other stories are related of this strange impostor; but enough have
been quoted to show his character and pretensions. It appears that
he endeavoured to find the philosopher's stone; but never boasted of
possessing it. The Prince of Hesse Cassel, whom he had known years
before, in Germany, wrote urgent letters to him, entreating him to
quit Paris, and reside with him. St. Germain at last consented. Nothing
further is known of his career. There were no gossipping memoir-writers
at the court of Hesse Cassel to chronicle his sayings and doings. He
died at Sleswig, under the roof of his friend the Prince, in the year
1784.
CAGLIOSTRO,
This famous charlatan, the friend and successor of St. Germain, ran a
career still more extraordinary. He was the arch-quack of his age, the
last of the great pretenders to the philosopher's stone and the water
of life, and during his brief season of prosperity one of the most
conspicuous characters of Europe.
His real name was Joseph Balsamo. He was born at Palermo about the year
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 show 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
show 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
vitae; 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 vitae 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 everybody 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 pawnbrokers 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 anybody but himself. He offered, however, if they would discharge
the actions, and return the powder and the manuscripts, he would 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 Courier 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 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 Bordeaux 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 Bordeaux.
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.
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. [See the Abbe Fiard, and "Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis XVI."
p. 400.] "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 Cesar, 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. ["Biographie des Contemporains," article "Cagliostro." See also
"Histoire de la Magie en France," par M. Jules Garinet, p. 284.]
He had not been long at Paris before he became involved in the
celebrated affair of the Queen's necklace. His friend, the Cardinal de
Rohan, enamoured of the charms of Marie Antoinette, was in sore distress
at her coldness, and the displeasure she had so often manifested against
him. There was at that time a lady, named La Motte, in the service of
the Queen, of whom the Cardinal was foolish enough to make a confidant.
Madame de la Motte, in return, endeavoured to make a tool of the
Cardinal, and succeeded but too well in her projects. In her capacity
of chamber-woman, or lady of honour to the Queen, she was present at
an interview between her Majesty and M. Boehmer, a wealthy jeweller of
Paris, when the latter offered for sale a magnificent diamond necklace,
valued at 1,600,000 francs, or about 64,000 pounds sterling. The Queen
admired it greatly, but dismissed the jeweller, with the expression
of her regret that she was too poor to purchase it. Madame de la Motte
formed a plan to get this costly ornament into her own possession, and
determined to make the Cardinal de Rohan the instrument by which to
effect it. She therefore sought an interview with him, and pretending to
sympathise in his grief for the Queen's displeasure, told him she knew
a way by which he might be restored to favour. She then mentioned the
necklace, and the sorrow of the Queen that she could not afford to buy
it. The Cardinal, who was as wealthy as he was foolish, immediately
offered to purchase the necklace, and make a present of it to the Queen.
Madame de la Motte told him by no means to do so, as he would thereby
offend her Majesty. His plan would be to induce the jeweller to give
her Majesty credit, and accept her promissory note for the amount at a
certain date, to be hereafter agreed upon. The Cardinal readily agreed
to the proposal, and instructed the jeweller to draw up an agreement,
and he would procure the Queen's signature. He placed this in the hands
of Madame de la Motte, who returned it shortly afterwards, with the
words, "Bon, bon--approuve--Marie Antoinette," written in the margin.
She told him at the same time that the Queen was highly pleased with
his conduct in the matter, and would appoint a meeting with him in the
gardens of Versailles, when she would present him with a flower, as
a token of her regard. The Cardinal showed the forged document to the
jeweller, obtained the necklace, and delivered it into the hands of
Madame de la Motte. So far all was well. Her next object was to satisfy
the Cardinal, who awaited impatiently the promised interview with his
royal mistress. There was at that time in Paris a young woman named
D'Oliva, noted for her resemblance to the Queen; and Madame de la Motte,
on the promise of a handsome reward, found no difficulty in persuading
her to personate Marie Antoinette, and meet the Cardinal de Rohan at the
evening twilight in the gardens of Versailles. The meeting took place
accordingly. The Cardinal was deceived by the uncertain light, the great
resemblance of the counterfeit, and his own hopes; and having received
the flower from Mademoiselle D'Oliva, went home with a lighter
heart than had beat in his bosom for many a day. [The enemies of
the unfortunate Queen of France, when the progress of the Revolution
embittered their animosity against her, maintained that she was really
a party in this transaction; that she, and not Mademoiselle D'Oliva, met
the Cardinal and rewarded him with the flower; and that the story above
related was merely concocted between her, La Motte, and others to cheat
the jeweller of his 1,600,000 francs.]
In the course of time the forgery of the Queen's signature was
discovered. Boehmer the jeweller immediately named the Cardinal de Rohan
and Madame de la Motte as the persons with whom he had negotiated,
and they were both arrested and thrown into the Bastille. La Motte
was subjected to a rigorous examination, and the disclosures she made
implicating Cagliostro, he was seized, along with his wife, and also
sent to the Bastille, A story involving so much scandal necessarily
excited great curiosity. Nothing was to be heard of in Paris but the
Queen's necklace, with surmises of the guilt or innocence of the
several parties implicated. The husband of Madame de la Motte escaped
to England, and in the opinion of many took the necklace with him, and
there disposed of it to different jewellers in small quantities at
a time. But Madame de la Motte insisted that she had entrusted it
to Cagliostro, who had seized and taken it to pieces, to "swell the
treasures of his immense unequalled fortune." She spoke of him as "an
empiric, a mean alchymist, a dreamer on the philosopher's stone, a
false prophet, a profaner of the true worship, the self-dubbed Count
Cagliostro!" She further said that he originally conceived the project
of ruining the Cardinal de Rohan; that he persuaded her, by the exercise
of some magic influence over her mind, to aid and abet the scheme; and
that he was a robber, a swindler, and a sorcerer!
After all the accused parties had remained for upwards of six months
in the Bastille, the trial commenced. The depositions of the witnesses
having been heard, Cagliostro, as the principal culprit, was first
called upon for his defence. He was listened to with the most breathless
attention. He put himself into a theatrical attitude, and thus
began:--"I am oppressed!--I am accused!--I am calumniated! Have I
deserved this fate? I descend into my conscience, and I there find the
peace that men refuse me! I have travelled a great deal--I am known over
all Europe, and a great part of Asia and Africa. I have everywhere shown
myself the friend of my fellow-creatures. My knowledge, my time, my
fortune have ever been employed in the relief of distress! I have
studied and practised medicine, but I have never degraded that most
noble and most consoling of arts by mercenary speculations of any
kind. Though always giving, and never receiving, I have preserved my
independence. I have even carried my delicacy so far as to refuse the
favours of kings. I have given gratuitously my remedies and my advice to
the rich: the poor have received from me both remedies and money. I have
never contracted any debts, and my manners are pure and uncorrupted."
After much more self-laudation of the same kind, he went on to complain
of the great hardships he had endured in being separated for so many
months from his innocent and loving wife, who, as he was given to
understand, had been detained in the Bastille, and perhaps chained in an
unwholesome dungeon. He denied unequivocally that he had the necklace,
or that he had ever seen it; and to silence the rumours and accusations
against him, which his own secrecy with regard to the events of his
life had perhaps originated, he expressed himself ready to satisfy the
curiosity of the public, and to give a plain and full account of his
career. He then told a romantic and incredible tale, which imposed upon
no one. He said he neither knew the place of his birth nor the name of
his parents, but that he spent his infancy in Medina in Arabia, and
was brought up under the name of Acharat. He lived in the palace of the
Great Muphti in that city, and always had three servants to wait upon
him, besides his preceptor, named Althotas. This Althotas was very fond
of him, and told him that his father and mother, who were Christians and
nobles, died when he was three months old, and left him in the care of
the Muphti. He could never, he said, ascertain their names, for whenever
he asked Althotas the question, he was told that it would be dangerous
for him to know. Some incautious expressions dropped by his preceptor
gave him reason to think they were from Malta. At the age of twelve he
began his travels, and learned the various languages of the East. He
remained three years in Mecca, where the Cherif, or governor, showed him
so much kindness, and spoke to him so tenderly and affectionately, that
he sometimes thought that personage was his father. He quitted this good
man with tears in his eyes, and never saw him afterwards; but he was
convinced that he was, even at that moment, indebted to his care for all
the advantages he enjoyed. Whenever he arrived in any city, either of
Europe or Asia, he found an account opened for him at the principal
bankers' or merchants'. He could draw upon them to the amount of
thousands and hundreds of thousands; and no questions were ever asked
beyond his name. He had only to mention the word Acharat, and all his
wants were supplied. He firmly believed that the Cherif of Mecca was the
friend to whom all was owing. This was the secret of his wealth, and
he had no occasion to resort to swindling for a livelihood. It was not
worth his while to steal a diamond necklace when he had wealth enough to
purchase as many as he pleased, and more magnificent ones than had ever
been worn by a Queen of France. As to the other charges brought against
him by Madame de la Motte, he had but a short answer to give. She had
called him an empiric. He was not unfamiliar with the word. If it meant
a man who, without being a physician, had some knowledge of medicine,
and took no fees--who cured both rich and poor, and took no money from
either, he confessed that he was such a man, that he was an empiric. She
had also called him a mean alchymist. Whether he were an alchymist or
not, the epithet mean could only be applied to those who begged and
cringed, and he had never done either. As regarded his being a dreamer
about the philosopher's stone, whatever his opinions upon that subject
might be, he had been silent, and had never troubled the public with his
dreams. Then, as to his being a false prophet, he had not always been
so; for he had prophesied to the Cardinal de Rohan that Madame de la
Motte would prove a dangerous woman, and the result had verified the
prediction. He denied that he was a profaner of the true worship,
or that he had ever striven to bring religion into contempt; on the
contrary, he respected every man's religion, and never meddled with it.
He also denied that he was a Rosicrucian, or that he had ever pretended
to be three hundred years of age, or to have had one man in his service
for a hundred and fifty years. In conclusion, he said every statement
that Madame de la Motte had made regarding him was false, and that she
was mentiris impudentissime, which two words he begged her counsel to
translate for her, as it was not polite to tell her so in French.
Such was the substance of his extraordinary answer to the charges
against him; an answer which convinced those who were before doubtful
that he was one of the most impudent impostors that had ever run the
career of deception. Counsel were then heard on behalf of the Cardinal
de Rohan and Madame de la Motte. It appearing clearly that the Cardinal
was himself the dupe of a vile conspiracy; and there being no evidence
against Cagliostro, they were both acquitted. Madame de la Motte was
found guilty, and sentenced to be publicly whipped, and branded with a
hot iron on the back.
Cagliostro and his wife were then discharged from custody. On applying
to the officers of the Bastille for the papers and effects which
had been seized at his lodgings, he found that many of them had been
abstracted. He thereupon brought an action against them for the recovery
of his MSS. and a small portion of the powder of transmutation. Before
the affair could be decided, he received orders to quit Paris within
four-and-twenty hours. Fearing that if he were once more inclosed in the
dungeons of the Bastille he should never see daylight again, he took his
departure immediately and proceeded to England. On his arrival in
London he made the acquaintance of the notorious Lord George Gordon, who
espoused his cause warmly, and inserted a letter in the public papers,
animadverting upon the conduct of the Queen of France in the affair of
the necklace, and asserting that she was really the guilty party. For
this letter Lord George was exposed to a prosecution at the instance of
the French Ambassador--found guilty of libel, and sentenced to fine and
a long imprisonment.
Cagliostro and the Countess afterwards travelled in Italy, where they
were arrested by the Papal Government in 1789, and condemned to death.
The charges against him were, that he was a freemason, a heretic, and a
sorcerer. This unjustifiable sentence was afterwards commuted into one
of perpetual imprisonment in the Castle of St. Angelo. His wife was
allowed to escape severer punishment by immuring herself in a nunnery.
Cagliostro did not long survive. The loss of liberty preyed upon his
mind--accumulated misfortunes had injured his health and broken his
spirit, and he died early in 1790. His fate may have been no better than
he deserved, but it is impossible not to feel that his sentence for
the crimes assigned was utterly disgraceful to the government that
pronounced it.
PRESENT STATE OF ALCHYMY.
We have now finished the list of the persons who have most distinguished
themselves in this foolish and unprofitable pursuit. Among them are men
of all ranks, characters, and conditions; the truthseeking, but erring
philosopher; the ambitious prince and the needy noble, who have believed
in it; as well as the designing charlatan, who has not believed in
it, but has merely made the pretension to it the means of cheating
his fellows, and living upon their credulity. One or more of all these
classes will be found in the foregoing pages. It will be seen, from the
record of their lives, that the delusion, humiliating as it was to human
intellect, was not altogether without its uses. Men, in striving to gain
too much, do not always overreach themselves: if they cannot arrive at
the inaccessible mountain-top, they may, perhaps, get half way towards
it, and pick up some scraps of wisdom and knowledge on the road. The
useful science of chemistry is not a little indebted to its spurious
brother of alchymy. Many valuable discoveries have been made in that
search for the impossible, which might otherwise have been hidden for
centuries yet to come. Roger Bacon, in searching for the philosopher's
stone, discovered gunpowder, a still more extraordinary substance. Van
Helmont, in the same pursuit, discovered the properties of gas;
Geber made discoveries in chemistry which were equally important; and
Paracelsus, amidst his perpetual visions of the transmutation of
metals, found that mercury was a remedy for one of the most odious and
excruciating of all the diseases that afflict humanity.
In our day, no mention is made in Europe of any new devotees of the
science. The belief in witchcraft, which is scarcely more absurd, still
lingers in the popular mind: but none are so credulous as to believe
that any elixir could make man live for centuries, or turn all our
iron and pewter into gold. Alchymy, in Europe, may be said to be wholly
exploded; but in the East it still flourishes in as great repute as
ever. Recent travellers make constant mention of it, especially in
China, Hindostan, Persia, Tartary, Egypt, and Arabia.