Magic and witchcraft are believed in by the vast majority of mankind,

and by immense numbers even in Christian countries. They have always

been believed in, so far as I know. In following up the thread of

history, we always find conjuring or witch work of some kind, just as

long as the narrative has space enough to include it. Already, in the

early dawn of time, the business was a recognized and long established

one. And its history is as unbroken from that day down to this, as the

history of the race.

In the narrow space at my command at present, I shall only gather as

many of the more interesting stories about these humbugs, as I can make

room for. Reasoning about the subject, or full details of it, are at

present out of the question. A whole library of books exists about it.

It is a curious fact that throughout the middle ages, the Roman poet

Virgil was commonly believed to have been a great magician. Traditions

were recorded by monastic chroniclers about him, that he made a brass

fly and mounted it over one of the gates of Naples, having instilled

into this metallic insect such potent magical qualities that as long as

it kept guard over the gate, no musquitos, or flies, or cockroach, or

other troublesome insects could exist in the city. What would have

become of the celebrated Bug Powder man in those days? The story is

told about Virgil as well as about Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and

other magicians, that he made a brazen head which could prophesy. He

also made some statues of the gods of the various nations subject to

Rome, so enchanted that if one of those nations was preparing to rebel,

the statue of its god rung a bell and pointed a finger toward the

nation. The same set of stories tells how poor Virgil came to an

untimely end in consequence of trying to live forever. He had become an

old man, it appears, and wishing to be young again, he used some

appropriate incantations, and prepared a secret cavern. In this he

caused a confidential disciple to cut him up like a hog and pack him

away in a barrel of pickle, out of which he was to emerge in his new

magic youth after a certain time. But by that special bad luck which

seems to attend such cases, some malapropos traveller somehow made his

way into the cavern, where he found the magic pork-barrel standing

silently all alone in the middle of the place, and an ever-burning lamp

illuminating the room, and slowly distilling a magic oil upon the salted

sorcerer who was cooking below. The traveller rudely jarred the barrel,

the light went out, as the torches flared upon it; and suddenly there

appeared to the eyes of the astounded man, close at one side of the

barrel, a little naked child, which ran thrice around the barrel,

uttering deep curses upon him who had thus destroyed the charm, and

vanished. The frightened traveller made off as fast as he could, and

poor old Virgil, for what I know, is in pickle yet.

Cornelius Agrippa was one of the most celebrated magicians of the

middle ages. He lived from the year 1486 (six years before the discovery

of America) until 1534, and was a native of Cologne, Agrippa is said to

have had a magic glass in which he showed to his customers such dead or

absent persons as they might wish to see. Thus he would call up the

beautiful Helen of Troy, or Cicero in the midst of an oration; or to a

pining lover, the figure of his absent lady, as she was employed at the

moment--a dangerous exhibition! For who knows, whether the consolation

sought by the fair one, will always be such as her lover will approve?

Agrippa, they say, had an attendant devil in the form of a huge black

dog, whom on his death-bed the magician dismissed with curses. The dog

ran away, plunged into the river Saone and was seen no more. We are of

course to suppose that his Satanic Majesty got possession of the

conjuror's soul however, as per agreement. There is a story about

Agrippa, which shows conclusively how "a little learning" may be "a

dangerous thing." When Agrippa was absent on a short journey, his

student in magic slipped into the study and began to read spells out of

a great book. After a little there was a knock at the door, but the

young man paid no attention to it. In another moment there was another

louder one, which startled him, but still he read on. In a moment the

door opened, and in came a fine large devil who angrily asked, "What do

you call me for?" The frightened youth answered very much like those

naughty boys who say "I didn't do nothing!" But it will not do to fool

with devils. The angry demon caught him by the throat and strangled him.

Shortly, when Agrippa returned, lo and behold, a strong squad of evil

spirits were kicking up their heels and playing tag all over the house,

and crowding his study particularly full. Like a schoolmaster among

mischievous boys, the great enchanter sent all the little fellows home,

catechised the big one, and finding the situation unpleasant, made him

reanimate the corpse of the student and walk it about town all the

afternoon. The malignant demon however, was free at sunset, and let the

corpse drop dead in the middle of the market place. The people

recognized it, found the claw-marks and traces of strangling, suspected

the fact, and Agrippa had to abscond very suddenly.

Another student of Agrippa's came very near an equally bad end. The

magician was in the habit of enchanting a broomstick into a servant to

do his housework, and when it was done, turning it back to a broomstick

again and putting it behind the door. This young student had overheard

the charm which made the servant, and one day in his master's absence,

wanting a pail of water he said over the incantation and told the

servant "Bring some water." The evil spirit promptly obeyed; flew to the

river, brought a pailful and emptied it, instantly brought a second,

instantly a third; and the student, startled, cried out, "that's

enough!" But this was not the "return charm," and the ill tempered

demon, rejoicing in doing mischief within the letter of his obligation,

now flew backward and forward like lightning, so that he even began to

flood the room about the rash student's feet. Desperate, he seized an

axe and hewed this diabolical serving-man in two. _Two_ serving-men

jumped up, with two water-pails, grinning in devilish glee, and both

went to work harder than ever. The poor student gave himself up for

lost, when luckily the master came home, dismissed the over-officious

water carrier with a word, and saved the student's life.

How thoroughly false all these absurd fictions are, and yet how

ingeniously based on some fact, appears by the case of Agrippa's black

dog. Wierus, a writer of good authority, and a personal friend of

Agrippa's, reports that he knew very well all about the dog; that it was

not a superhuman dog at all, but (if the term be admissible) a mere

human dog--an animal which he, Wierus, had often led about by a string,

and only a domestic pet of Agrippa.

Another eminent magician of those days was Doctor Faustus, about whom

Goethe wrote "Faust," Bailey wrote "Festus," and whose story, mingled of

human love and of the devilish tricks of Mephistopheles, is known so

very widely. The truth about Faust seems to be, that he was simply a

successful juggler of the sixteenth century. Yet the wonderful stories

about him were very implicitly and extensively believed. It was the time

of the Protestant Reformation, and even Melanchthon and Luther seem to

have entirely believed that Faustus could make the forms of the dead

appear, could carry people invisibly through the air, and play all the

legendary tricks of the enchanters. So strong a hold does humbug often

obtain even upon the noblest and clearest and wisest minds!

Faustus, according to the traditions, had a pretty keen eye for a joke.

He once sold a splendid horse to a horse-jockey at a fair. The fellow

shortly rode his fine horse to water. When he got into the water, lo and

behold, the horse vanished, and the humbugged jockey found himself

sitting up to his neck in the river on a straw saddle. There is

something quite satisfactory in the idea of playing such a trick on one

of that sharp generation, and Faust felt so comfortable over it that he

entered his hotel and went quietly to sleep--or pretended to. Shortly in

came the angry jockey; he shouted and bawled, but could not awaken the

doctor, and in his anger he seized his foot and gave it a good pull.

Foot and leg came off in his hand. Faustus screamed out as if in

horrible agony, and the terrified jockey ran away as fast as he could,

and never troubled his very loose-jointed customer for the money.

A magician named Ziito, resident at the court of Wenceslaus of Bohemia

(A. D. 1368 to 1419,) appears to great advantage in the annals of these

humbugs. He was a homely, crooked creature, with an immense mouth. He

had a collision once in public on a question of skill with a brother

conjuror, and becoming a little excited, opened his big mouth and

swallowed the other magician, all to his shoes, which as he observed

were dirty. Then he stepped into a closet, got his rival out of him

somehow, and calmly led him back to the company. A story is told about

Ziito and some hogs, just like that about Faust and the horse.

In all these stories about magicians, their power is derived from the

devil. It was long believed that the ancient university of Salamanca in

Spain, founded A. D. 1240, was the chief school of magic, and had

regular professors and classes in it. The devil was supposed to be the

special patron of this department, and he had a curious fee for his

trouble, which he collected every commencement day. The last exercise of

the graduating class on that day was, to run across a certain cavern

under the University. The devil was always on hand at this time, and had

the privilege of grabbing at the last man of the crowd. If he caught

him, as he commonly did, the soul of the unhappy student became the

property of his captor. Hence arose the phrase "Devil take the

hindmost." Sometime it happened that some very brisk fellow was left

last by some accident. If he were brisk enough to dodge the devil's

grab, that personage only caught his shadow. In this case it was well

understood that this particular enchanter never had any shadow

afterwards, and he always became very eminent in his art.

CHAPTER. XXXVII.

WITCHCRAFT.--NEW YORK WITCHES.--THE WITCH MANIA.--HOW FAST THEY BURNED

THEM.--THE MODE OF TRIAL.--WITCHES TO DAY IN EUROPE.

Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of

all the humbugs. And it is not a dead humbug either; it is alive, busily

exercised by knaves and believed by fools all over the world. Witches

and wizards operate and prosper among the Hottentots and negroes and

barbarous Indians, among the Siberians and Kirgishes and Lapps, of

course. Everybody knows _that_--they are poor ignorant creatures! Yes:

but are the French and Germans and English and Americans poor ignorant

creatures too? They are, if the belief and practice of witchcraft among

them is any test; for in all those countries there are witches. I take

up one of the New York City dailies of this very morning, and find in it

the advertisements of seven Witches. In 1858, there were in full blast

in New York and Brooklyn sixteen witches and two wizards. One of these

wizards was a black man; a very proper style of person to deal with the

black art.

Witch means, a woman who practices sorcery under an agreement with the

devil, who helps her. Before the Christian era, the Jewish witch was a

mere diviner or at most a raiser of the dead, and the Gentile witch was

a poisoner, a maker of philtres or love potions, and a vulgar sort of

magician. The devil part of the business did not begin until a good

while after Christ. During the last century or so, again, while

witchcraft has been extensively believed in, the witch has degenerated

into a very vulgar and poverty stricken sort of conjuring woman. Take

our New York city witches, for instance. They live in cheap and dirty

streets that smell bad; their houses are in the same style, infected

with a strong odor of cabbage, onions, washing-day, old dinners, and

other merely sublunary smells. Their rooms are very ill furnished, and

often beset with wash-tubs, swill-pails, mops and soiled clothes; their

personal appearance is commonly unclean, homely, vulgar, coarse, and

ignorant, and often rummy. Their fee is a quarter or half of a dollar.

Sometimes a dollar. Their divination is worked by cutting and dealing

cards or studying the palm of your hand. And the things which they tell

you are the most silly and shallow babble in the world; a mess of

phrases worn out over and over again. Here is a specimen, as gabbled to

the customer over a pack of cards laid out on the table; anybody can do

the like: "You face a misfortune. I think it will come upon you within

three weeks, but it may not. A dark complexioned man faces your

life-card. He is plotting against you, and you must beware of him. Your

marriage-card faces two young women, one fair and the other dark. One

you will have, and the other you will not. I think you will have the

fair one. She favors the dark complexioned man, which means trouble. You

face money, but you must earn it. There is a good deal, but you may not

get much of it" etc., etc. These words are exactly the sort of stuff

that is sold by the witches of to-day. But the greatest witch humbug of

all the witchcraft of history, is that of Christendom for about three

hundred years, beginning about the time of the discovery of America. To

that period belonged the Salem witchcraft of New England, the

witch-finding of Matthew Hopkins in Old England, the Scotch witch

trials, and the Swedish and German and French witch mania.

The peculiar traits of the witchcraft of this period are among the most

mysterious of all humbugs. The most usual points in a case of witchcraft

were, that the witch had sold herself to the devil for all eternity, in

order to get the power during a few years of earthly life, to inflict a

few pains on the persons of those she disliked, or to cause them to lose

part of their property. This was almost always the whole story, except

the mere details of the witch baptism and witch sabbath, parodies on the

ceremonies of the Christian religion. And the mystery is, how anybody

could believe that to accomplish such very small results, seldom equal

even to the death of an enemy, one would agree to accept eternal

damnation in the next world, almost certain poverty, misery, persecution

and torment in this, besides having for an amusement performances more

dirty, obscene and vulgar than I can even hint at.

But such a belief was universal, and hundreds of the witches themselves

confessed as much as I have described, and more, with numerous details,

and they were burnt alive for their trouble. The extent of wholesale

murdering perpetrated under forms of law, on charges of witchcraft, is

astonishing. A magistrate named Remigius, published a book in which he

told how much he thought of himself for having condemned and burned nine

hundred witches in sixteen years, in Lorraine. And the one thing that he

blamed himself for was this: that out of regard for the wishes of a

colleague, he had only caused certain children to be whipped naked three

times round the market place where their parents had been burned,

instead of burning them. At Bamberg, six hundred persons were burned in

five years, at Wurzburg nine hundred in two years. Sprenger, a German

inquisitor-general, and author of a celebrated book on detecting and

punishing witchcraft, called _Malleus Maleficarum_, or "The Mallet of

Malefactors," burned more than five hundred in one year. In Geneva, five

hundred persons were burned during 1515 and 1516. In the district of

Como in Italy, a thousand persons were burned as witches in the single

year 1524, besides over a hundred a year for several years afterwards.

_Seventeen thousand_ persons were executed for witchcraft in Scotland

during thirty-nine years, ending with 1603. _Forty thousand_ were

executed in England from 1600 to 1680. Bodinus, another of the witch

killing judges, gravely announced that there were undoubtedly not less

than three hundred thousand witches in France.

The way in which the witch murderers reasoned, and their modes of

conducting trials and procuring confessions, were truly infernal. The

chief rule was that witchcraft being an "exceptional crime," no regard

need be had to the ordinary forms of justice. All manner of tortures

were freely applied to force confessions. In Scotland "the boot" was

used, being an iron case in which the legs are locked up to the knees,

and an iron wedge then driven in until sometimes the bones were crushed

and the marrow spouted out. Pin sticking, drowning, starving, the rack,

were too common to need details. Sometimes the prisoner was hung up by

the thumbs, and whipped by one person, while another held lighted

candles to the feet and other parts of the body. At Arras, while the

prisoners were being torn on the rack, the executioner stood by, sword

in hand, promising to cut off at once the heads of those who did not

confess. At Offenburg, when the prisoners had been tortured until

beyond the power of speaking aloud, they silently assented to abominable

confessions read to them out of a book. Many were cheated into

confession by the promise of pardon and release, and then burned. A poor

woman in Germany was tricked by the hangman, who dressed himself up as a

devil and went into her cell. Overpowered by pain, fear and

superstition, she begged him to help her out; her beseeching was taken

for confession, she was burned, and a ballad which treated the trick as

a jolly and comical device, was long popular in the country. Several of

the judges in witch cases tell us how victims, utterly weary of their

tormented lives, confessed whatever was required, merely as the shortest

way to death, and an escape out of their misery. All who dared to argue

against the current of popular and judicial delusion were instantly

refuted very effectively by being attacked for witchcraft themselves;

and once accused, there was little hope of escape. The Jesuit Delrio, in

a book published in 1599, states the witch killers' side of the

discussion very neatly indeed; for in one and the same chapter he defies

any opponents to disprove the existence of witchcraft, and then shows

that a denial of witchcraft is the worst of all heresies, and must be

punished with death. Quite a number of excellent and sensible people

were actually burnt on just this principle.

I do not undertake to give details of any witch trials; this sketch of

the way in which they operated is all I can make room for, and

sufficiently delineates this cruel and bloody humbug.

I have already referred to the fact that we have right here among us in

this city a very fair supply of a vulgar, dowdy kind of witchcraft.

Other countries are favored in like manner. I have not just now the most

recent information, but in the year 1857 and 1858, for instance, mobbing

and prosecutions growing out of a popular belief in witchcraft were

quite plentiful enough in various parts of Europe. No less than eight

cases of the kind in England alone were reported during those two years.

Among them was the actual murder of a woman as a witch by a mob in

Shropshire; and an attack by another mob in Essex, upon a perfectly

inoffensive person, on suspicion of having "bewitched" a scolding

ill-conditioned girl, from which attack the mob was diverted with much

difficulty, and thinking itself very unjustly treated. Some others of

those cases show a singular quantity of credulity among people of

respectability.

While therefore some of us may perhaps be justly thankful for safety

from such horrible follies as these, still we can not properly feel very

proud of the progress of humanity, since after not less than six

thousand years of existence and eighteen hundred of revelation, so many

believers in witchcraft still exist among the most civilized nations.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.--HOW CATO CURED SPRAINS.--THE SECRET NAME OF

GOD.--SECRET NAMES OF CITIES.--ABRACADABRA.--CURES FOR CRAMP.--MR.

WRIGHT'S SIGIL.--WHISKERIFUSTICUS.--WITCHES' HORSES.--THEIR CURSES.--HOW

TO RAISE THE DEVIL.

It is worth while to print in plain English for my readers a good

selection of the very words which have been believed, or are still

believed, to possess magic power. Then any who choose, may operate by

themselves or may put some bold friend up in a corner, and blaze away at

him or her until they are wholly satisfied about the power of magic.

The Roman Cato, so famous for his grumness and virtue, believed that if

he were ill, it would much help him, and that it would cure sprains in

others, to say over these words: "Daries, dardaries, astaris, ista,

pista, sista," or, as another account has it, "motas, daries, dardaries,

astaries;" or, as still another account says, "Huat, huat, huat; ista,

pista, sista; domiabo, damnaustra." And sure enough, nothing is truer,

as any physician will tell you, that if the old censor only believed

hard enough, it would almost certainly help him; not by the force of the

words, but by the force of his own ancient Roman imagination. Here are

some Greek words of no less virtue: "_Aski, Kataski, Tetrax._" When the

Greek priests let out of their doors those who had been completely

initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, they said to them last of all the

awful and powerful words, "_Konx, ompax_." If you want to know what the

usual result was, just say them to somebody, and you will see,

instantly. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a secret name of

God, usually thought to be inexpressible, and only to be represented by

a mystic figure kept in the Temple, and that if any one could learn it,

and repeat it, he could rule the intelligent and unintelligent creation

at his will. It is supposed by some, that Jehovah is the word which

stands for this secret name; and some Hebraists think that the word

"Yahveh" is much more nearly the right one. The Mohammedans, who have

received many notions from the Jews, believe the same story about the

secret name of God, and they think it was engraved on Solomon's signet,

as all readers of the Arabian Nights will very well remember. The Jews

believed that if you pronounced the word "Satan" any evil spirit that

happened to be by could in consequence instantly pop into you if he

wished, and possess you, as the devils in the New Testament possessed

people.

Some ancient cities had a secret name, and it was believed that if their

enemies could find this out, they could conjure with it so as to destroy

such cities. Thus, the secret name of Rome was Valentia, and the word

was very carefully kept, with the intention that none should know it

except one or two of the chief pontiffs. Mr. Borrow, in one of his

books, tells about a charm which a gipsy woman knew, and which she used

to repeat to herself as a means of obtaining supernatural aid when she

happened to want it. This was, "Saboca enrecar maria ereria." He induced

her after much effort to repeat the words to him, but she always wished

she had not, with an evident conviction that some harm would result. He

explained to her that they consisted of a very simple phrase, but it

made no difference.

An ancient physician named Serenus Sammonicus, used to be quite sure of

curing fevers, by means of what he called Abracadabra, which was a sort

of inscription to be written on something and worn on the patient's

person. It was as follows:

ABRACADABRA

BRACADABR

RACADAB

ACADA

CAD

A.

Another gentleman of the same school used to cure sore eyes by hanging

round the patient's neck an inscription made up of only two letters, A

and Z; but how he mixed them we unfortunately do not know.

By the way, many of the German peasantry in the more ignorant districts

still believe that to write Abracadabra on a slip of paper and keep it

with you, will protect you from wounds, and that if your house is on

fire, to throw this strip into it will put the fire out.

Many charms or incantations call on God, Christ or some saints, just as

the heathen ones call on a spirit. Here is one for epilepsy that seems

to appeal to both religions, as if with a queer proviso against any

possible mistake about either. Taking the epileptic by the hand, you

whisper in his ear "I adjure thee by the sun and the moon and the gospel

of to-day, that thou arise and no more fall to the ground; in the name

of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost."

A charm for the cramp found in vogue in some rustic regions is this:

"The devil is tying a knot in my leg,

Mark, Luke and John, unloose it, I beg,

Crosses three we make to ease us--

Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus."

Here is another, often used in Ireland, which in the same spirit of

superstition and ignorant irreverence uses the name of the Savior for a

slight human occasion. It is to cure the toothache, and requires the

repeating of the following string of words:

"St. Peter sitting on a marble stone, our Savior passing by, asked him

what was the matter. 'Oh Lord, a toothache!' Stand up, Peter, and follow

me; and whoever keeps these words in memory of me, shall never be

troubled with a toothache, Amen."

The English astrologer Lilly, after the death of his wife, formerly

a Mrs. Wright, found in a scarlet bag which she wore under her arm a

pure gold "sigil" or round plate worth about ten dollars in gold,

which the former husband of the defunct had used to exorcise a

spirit that plagued him. In case any of my readers can afford

bullion enough, and would like to drive away any such visitor, let

them get such a plate and have engraved round the edge of one side,

"Vicit Leo de tribus Judae tetragrammaton [cross]." Inside this

engrave a "holy lamb." Round the edge of the other side engrave

"Annaphel" and three crosses, thus: [cross] [cross] [cross]; and in

the middle, "Sanctus Petrus Alpha et Omega."

The witches have always had incantations, which they have used to make a

broom-stick into a horse, to kill or to sicken animals and persons, etc.

Most of these are sufficiently stupid, and not half so wonderful as one

I know, which may be found in a certain mysterious volume called "The

Girl's Own Book," and which, as I can depose, has often power to tickle

children. It is this:

"Bandy-legged Borachio Mustachio Whiskerifusticus, the bald and brave

Bombardino of Bagdad, helped Abomilique Bluebeard Bashaw of Babelmandel

beat down an abominable bumblebee at Balsora."

But to the other witches. Their charms were repeated sometimes in their

own language and sometimes in gibberish. When the Scotch witches wanted

to fly away to their "Witches' Sabbath," they straddled a broom-handle,

a corn stalk, a straw, or a rush, and cried out "Horse and hattock, in

the Devil's name!" and immediately away they flew, "forty times as high

as the moon," if they wished. Some English witches in Somersetshire used

instead to say, "Thout, tout, throughout and about;" and when they

wished to return from their meeting they said "Rentum, tormentum!" If

this form of the charm does not manufacture a horse, not even a

saw-horse, then I recommend another version of it, thus:

"Horse and pattock, horse and go!

Horse and pellats, ho, ho, ho!"

German witches said (in High Dutch:)

"Up and away!

Hi! Up aloft, and nowhere stay!"

Scotch witches had modes of working destruction to the persons or

property of those to whom they meant evil, which were strikingly like

the negro obeah or mandinga. One of these was, to make a hash of the

flesh of an unbaptised child, with that of dogs and sheep, and to put

this goodly dish in the house of the victim, reciting the following

rhyme:

"We put this untill this hame

In our Lord the Devil's name;

The first hands that handle thee.

Burned and scalded may they be!

We will destroy houses and hald,

With the sheep and nolt (_i. e._ cattle) into the fauld;

And little shall come to the fore (_i. e._ remain,)

Of all the rest of the little store."

Another, used to destroy the sons of a certain gentleman named Gordon

was, to make images for the boys, of clay and paste, and put them in a

fire, saying:

"We put this water among this meal

For long pining and ill heal,

We put it into the fire

To burn them up stock and stour (_i. e._ stack and band.)

That they be burned with our will,

Like any stikkle (stubble) in a kiln."

In case any lady reader finds herself changed into a hare, let her

remember how the witch Isobel Gowdie changed herself from hare back to

woman. It was by repeating:

"Hare, hare, God send thee care!

I am in a hare's likeness now;

But I shall be woman even now--

Hare, hare, God send thee care!"

About the year 1600 there was both hanged and burned at Amsterdam a poor

demented Dutch girl, who alleged that she could make cattle sterile, and

bewitch pigs and poultry by saying to them "Turius und Shurius

Inturius." I recommend to say this first to an old hen, and if found

useful it might then be tried on a pig.

Not far from the same time a woman was executed as a witch at Bamberg,

having, as was often the case, been forced by torture to make a

confession. She said that the devil had given her power to send diseases

upon those she hated, by saying complimentary things about them, as

"What a strong man!" "what a beautiful woman!" "what a sweet child!" It

is my own impression that this species of cursing may safely be tried

where it does not include a falsehood.

Here are two charms which the German witches used to repeat to raise the

devil with in the form of a he goat:

"Lalle, Bachea, Magotte, Baphia, Dajam,

Vagoth Heneche Ammi Nagaz, Adomator

Raphael Immanuel Christus, Tetragrammaton

Agra Jod Loi. Konig! Konig!"

The two last words to be screamed out quickly. This second one, it must

be remembered, is to be read backward except the two last words. It was

supposed to be the strongest of all, and was used if the first one

failed:

"Anion, Lalle, Sabolos, Sado, Poter, Aziel,

Adonai Sado Vagoth Agra, Jod,

Baphra! Komm! Komm!"

In case the devil staid too long, he could be made to take himself off

by addressing to him the following statement, repeated backward:

"Zellianelle Heotti Bonus Vagotha

Plisos sother osech unicus Beelzebub

Dax! Komm! Komm!"

Which would evidently make almost anybody go away.

A German charm to improve one's finances was perhaps no worse than

gambling in gold. It ran thus:

"As God be welcomed, gentle moon--

Make thou my money more and soon!"

To get rid of a fever in the German manner, go and tie up a bough of a

tree, saying, "Twig, I bind thee; fever, now leave me!" To give your

ague to a willow tree, tie three knots in a branch of it early in the

morning, and say, "Good morning, old one! I give thee the cold; good

morning, old one!" and turn and run away as fast as you can without

looking back.

Enough of this nonsense. It is pure mummery. Yet it is worth while to

know exactly what the means were which in ancient times were relied on

for such purposes, and it is not useless to put this matter on record;

for just such formulas are believed in now by many people. Even in this

city there are "witches" who humbug the more foolish part of the

community out of their money by means just as foolish as these.

VIII. ADVENTURERS.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE PRINCESS CARIBOO; OR, THE QUEEN OF THE ISLES.

Bristol was, in 1812, the second commercial city of Great Britain,

having in particular an extensive East India trade. Among its

inhabitants were merchants, reckoned remarkably shrewd, and many of them

very wealthy; and quite a number of aristocratic families, who were

looked up to with the abject toad-eating kind of civility that follows

"the nobility." On the whole, Bristol was a very fashionable, rich,

cultivated, and intelligent place--considering.

One fine evening in the winter of 1812-13, the White Lion hotel, a

leading inn at Bristol, was thrown into a wonderful flutter by the

announcement that a very beautiful and fabulously wealthy lady, the

Princess Cariboo, had just arrived by ship from an oriental port. Her

agent, a swarthy and wizened little Asiatic, who spoke imperfect

English, gave this information, and ordered the most sumptuous suite of

rooms in the house. Of course, there was great activity in all manner of

preparations; and the mysterious character of this lovely but high-born

stranger caused a wonderful flutter of excitement, which grew and grew

until the fair stranger at length deigned to arrive. She came at about

ten o'clock, in great state, and with two or three coaches packed with

servants and luggage--the former of singularly dingy complexion and

fantastic vestments, and the latter of the most curious forms and

material imaginable. The eager anticipations of hosts and guests alike

were not only fully justified but even exceeded by the rare beauty of

the unknown, the oriental style and magnificence of her attire and that

of her attendants, and the enormous bulk of her baggage--a circumstance

that has no less weight at an English inn than any where else. The

stranger, too, was most liberal with her fees to the servants, which

were always in gold.

It was quickly discovered that her ladyship spoke not one word of

English, and even her agent--a dark, wild, queer little fellow,--got

along with it but indifferently, preferring all his requests in very

"broken China" indeed. The landlord thought it a splendid opportunity to

create a long bill, and got up rooms and a dinner in flaring style, with

wax candles, a mob of waiters, ringing of bells, and immense ceremony.

But the lady, like a real princess, while well enough pleased and very

gracious, took all this as a matter of course, and preferred her own

cook, a flat-faced, pug-nosed, yellow-breeched and almond-eyed Oriental,

with a pigtail dangling from his scalp, which was shaved clean,

excepting at the back of the head. This gentleman ran about in the

kitchen-yard with queer little brass utensils, wherein he concocted

sundry diabolical preparations--as they seemed to the English servants

to be,--of herbs, rice, curry powder, etc., etc., for the repast of his

mistress. For the next three or four days, the White Lion was in a

state bordering upon frenzy, at the singular deportment of the

"Princess" and her numerous attendants. The former arrayed herself in

the most astonishing combinations of apparel that had ever been seen by

the good gossips of Bristol, and the latter indulged in gymnastic antics

and vocal chantings that almost deafened the neighborhood. There was a

peculiar nasal ballad in which they were fond of indulging, that

commenced about midnight and kept up until well nigh morning, that drove

the neighbors almost beside themselves. It sounded like a concert by a

committee of infuriated cats, and wound up with protracted whining

notes, commencing in a whimper, and then with a sudden jerk, bursting

into a loud, monotonous howl. Yet, withal, these attendants, who slept

on mats, in the rooms adjacent to that of their mistress, and fed upon

the preparations of her own cuisine, were, in the main, very civil and

inoffensive, and seemed to look upon the Princess with the utmost awe.

The "agent," or "secretary," or "prime-minister," or whatever he might

be called, was very mysterious as to the objects, purposes, history, and

antecedents of her Highness, and the quidnuncs were in despair until,

one morning, the "Bristol Mirror," then a leading paper, came out with a

flaring announcement, expressing the pleasure it felt in acquainting the

public with the fact, that a very eminent and interesting foreign

personage had arrived from her home in the remotest East to proffer His

Majesty, George III, the unobstructed commerce and friendship of her

realm, which was as remarkable for its untold wealth as for its

marvelous beauty. The lady was described as a befitting representative

of the loveliness and opulence of this new Golconda and Ophir in one,

since her matchless wealth and munificence were approached only by her

ravishing personal charms. The other papers took up the topic, and were

even more extravagant. "Felix Farley's Journal" gave a long narrative of

her wanderings and extraordinary adventures in the uttermost East, as

gleaned, of course, from her garrulous agent. The island of her chief

residence was described as being of vast extent and fertility, immensely

rich and populous, and possessing many rare and beautiful arts unknown

to the nations of Europe. The princess had become desperately enamored

of a certain young Englishman of high rank, who had been shipwrecked on

her coast, but had afterward escaped, and as she learned, safely reached

a port in China, and thence departed for Europe. The Princess had

hereupon set out upon her journeyings over the world in search of him.

In order to facilitate her enterprise, and softened by the deep

affection she felt for the son of Albion, she had determined to break

through the usages of her country, and form an alliance with that of her

beloved.

Such were the statements everywhere put in circulation; and when the

Longbows of the place got full hold of it, Gulliver, Peter Wilkins, and

Sinbad the Sailor were completely eclipsed. Diamonds as big as hen's

eggs, and pearls the size of hazelnuts, were said to be the commonest

buttons and ornaments the Princess wore, and her silks and shawls were

set beyond all price.

The announcement of this romantic and mysterious history, this boundless

wealth, this interesting mission from majesty to majesty in person and

the reality which every one could see of so much grace and beauty,

supplied all that was wanting to set the upper-tendom of the place in a

blaze. It was hardly etiquette for a royal visitor to receive much

company before having been presented at Court; but as this princely lady

came from a point so far outside of the pale of Christendom, and all its

formalities, it was deemed not out of place, to show her befitting

attentions; and the ice once broken, there was no arresting the flood.

The aristocracy of Bristol vied with each other in seeing who should be

first and most extravagant in their demonstrations. The street in front

of the "White Lion" was day after day blocked up, with elegant

equipages, and her reception-rooms thronged with "fair women and brave

men." Milliners and mantuamakers pressed upon the lovely and mysterious

Princess Cariboo the most exquisite hats, dresses, and laces, just to

acquaint her with the fashionable style and solicit her distinguished

patronage; dry-goodsmen sent her rare patterns of their costliest and

richest stuffs, perfumers their most exquisite toilet-cases, filled with

odors sweet; jewellers, their most superb sets of gems; and florists and

visitors nearly suffocated her with the scarcest and most delicate

exotics. Pictures, sketches, and engravings, oil-paintings, and

portraits on ivory of her rapturous admirers, poured in from all sides,

and her own fine form and features were reproduced by a score of

artists. Daily she was feted, and nightly serenaded, until the Princess

Cariboo became the furore of the United Kingdom. Magnificent

entertainments were given her in private mansions; and at length, to cap

the climax, Mr. Worrall, the Recorder of Bristol, managed, by his

influence, to bring about for her a grand municipal reception in the

town-hall, and people from far and near thronged to it in thousands.

In the meantime the papers were gravely trying to make out whether the

Cariboo country meant some remote portion of Japan, or the Island of

Borneo, or some comparatively unfamiliar archipelago in the remotest

East, and the "Mirror" was publishing type expressly cut for the purpose

of representing the characters of the language in which the Princess

spoke and wrote. They were certainly very uncouth, and pretended sages,

who knew very well that there was no one to contradict them, declared

that they were "ancient Coptic!"

Upon reading the sequel of the story, one is irresistibly reminded of

the ancient Roman inscription discovered by one of Dickens' characters,

which some irreverent rogue subsequently declared to be nothing more nor

less than "Bil Stumps His Mark."

All this went on for about a fortnight, until the whole town and a good

deal of the surrounding country had made complete fools of themselves,

and only the "naughty little boys" in the streets held out against the

prevailing mania, probably because they were not admitted to the sport.

Their salutations took the form of an inharmonious thoroughfare-ballad,

the chorus of which terminated with:

"Boo! hoo! hoo!

And who's the Princess Cariboo?"

yelled out at the top of their voices.

At length one day, the luggage of her Highness was embarked upon a small

vessel to be taken round by water to London, while she announced,

through her "agent," her intention to reach the capital by

post-coaching.

Of course, the most superb traveling-carriages and teams were placed at

her disposal; but, courteously declining all these offers, she set out

in the night-time with a hired establishment, attended by her retinue.

Days and weeks rolled on, and yet no announcement came of the arrival of

her Highness at London or at any of the intervening cities after the

first two or three towns eastward of Bristol. Inquiry began to be made,

and, after long and patient but unavailing search, it became apparent to

divers and sundry dignitaries in the old town that somebody had been

very particularly "sold."

The landlord at the "White Lion" who had accepted the agent's order for

L1,000 on a Calcutta firm in London; poor Mr. Worrall, who had been

Master of Ceremonies at the town hall affair, and had spent large sums

of money; and the tradespeople and others who sent their finest goods,

all felt that they had "heard something drop." The Princess Cariboo had

disappeared as mysteriously as she came.

For years, the people of Bristol were unmercifully ridiculed throughout

the entire Kingdom on account of this affair, and burlesque songs and

plays immortalized its incidents for successive seasons.

One of these insisted that the Princess was no other than an actress of

more notoriety than note, humbly born in the immediate vicinity of the

old city, where she practiced this gigantic hoax, and that she had been

assisted in it by a set of dissolute young noblemen and actors, who

furnished the money she had spent, got up the oriental dresses,

published the fibs, and fomented the excitement. At all events, the net

profit to her and her confederates in the affair must have been some

L10,000.

Within a few months, and since the first publication of the above

paragraphs, the English newspapers have recorded the death of the

"Princess Cariboo," who it appears afterward married in her own rank in

life and spent a considerable number of years of usefulness in the leech

trade--an occupation not without a metaphorical likeness to her early

and more ambitious exploit.

CHAPTER XL.

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO, ALIAS JOSEPH BALSAMO, KNOWN ALSO AS "CURSED JOE."

One of the most striking, amusing, and instructive pages in the history

of humbug is the life of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, whose real name

was Joseph or Giuseppe Balsamo. He was born at Palermo, in 1743, and

very early began to manifest his brilliant talents for roguery.

He ran away from his first boarding-school, at the age of eleven or

twelve, getting up a masquerade of goblins, by the aid of some scampish

schoolfellows, which frightened the monkish watchmen of the gates away

from their posts, nearly dead with terror. He had gained little at this

school, except the pleasant surname of Beppo Maldetto (or cursed Joe.)

At the age of thirteen he was a second time expelled from the convent of

Cartegirone, belonging to the order of Benfratelli, the good fathers

having in vain endeavored to train him up in the way he should go.

While in this convent, the boy was in charge of the apothecary, and

probably picked up more or less of the smattering of chemistry and

physics which he afterwards used. His final offence was a ridiculous and

characteristic one. He was a greedy and thievish fellow, and was by way

of penalty set to read aloud about the ancient martyrs, those dry though

pious old gentlemen, while the monks ate dinner. Thus put to what he

liked least, and deprived of what he liked best, he impudently

extemporized, instead of the stories of holy agonies, all the indecorous

scandal he could think of about the more notorious disreputable women of

Palermo, putting their names instead of those of the martyrs.

After this, Master Joe proceeded to distinguish himself by forging

opera-tickets, and even documents of various kinds, indiscriminate

pilfering and swindling, interpreting visions, conjuring, and finally,

it is declared, a touch of genuine assassination.

Pretty soon he made a foolish, greedy goldsmith, one Marano, believe

that there was a treasure hidden in the sand on the sea-shore near

Palermo, and induced the silly man to go one night to dig it up. Having

reached the spot, the dupe was made to strip himself to his shirt and

drawers, a magic circle was drawn round him with all sorts of raw-head

and bloody-bones ceremonies, and Beppo, exhorting him not to leave the

ring, lest the spirits should kill him, stepped out of sight to make the

incantations to raise them. Almost instantly, six devils, horned,

hoofed, tailed, and clawed, breathing fire and smoke, leaped from among

the rocks and beat the wretched goldsmith senseless, and almost to

death. They were of course Cursed Joe and some confederates; and taking

Marano's money and valuables, they left him. He got home in wretched

plight, but had sense enough left to suspect Master Joe, whom he shortly

promised, after the Sicilian manner, to assassinate. So Joe ran away

from Palermo, and went to Messina. Here he said he fell in with a

venerable humbug, named Athlotas, an "Armenian Sage," who united his

talents with Beppo's own, in making a peculiar preparation of flax and

hemp and passing it off upon the people of Alexandria, in Egypt, as a

new kind of silk. This feat made not only a sensation but plenty of

money; and the two swindlers now traversed Greece, Turkey, and Arabia,

in various directions, stirring up the Oriental "old fogies" in amazing

style. Harems and palaces, according to Cagliostro's own apocryphal

story, were thrown open to them everywhere, and while the Scherif of

Mecuca took Balsao under his high protection, one of the Grand Muftis

actually gave him splendid apartments in his own abode. It is only

necessary to reflect upon the unbounded reverence felt by all good

Mussulmen for these exalted dignitaries, to comprehend the height of

distinction thus attained by the Palermo thimble-rigger. But, among the

many obscure records that exist in the Italian, French, and German

languages, touching this arch impostor, there is a hint of a night

adventure in the harem of a high and mighty personage, at Mecca, whereby

the latter was put out of doors, with his robes torn and his beard

singed, by his own domestics, and left to wander in the streets, while

Beppo, in disguise, received the salaams and sequins of the

establishment, including the attentions of the fair ones therein caged,

for an entire night. His escape to the seacoast after this adventure was

almost miraculous; but escape he did, and shortly afterward turned up in

Rome, with the title (conferred by himself) of Count Cagliostro, the

reputation of enormous wealth, and genuine and enthusiastic letters of

recommendation from Pinto, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Pinto

was an alchymist, and had been fooled to the top of his bent by the

cunning Joseph.

These letters introduced our humbug into the first families of Rome;

who, like some other first families, were first also as fools. He also

married a very beautiful, very shrewd, and very wicked Roman donzella,

Lorenza Feliciani by name; and the worthy couple, combining their

various talents, and regarding the world as their oyster, at once

proceeded to open it in the most scientific style. I cannot follow this

wonderful human chameleon in all his transformations under his various

names of Fischio, Melissa, Fenice, Anna, Pellegrini, Harat, and

Belmonte, nor state the studies and processes by which he picked up

sufficient knowledge of physic, chemistry, the hidden properties of

numbers, astronomy, astrology, mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the genuine

old-fashioned "black art;" but suffice it to say, that he travelled

through every part of Europe, and set it in a blaze with excitement.

There were always enough of silly coxcombs, young and old, of high

degree, to be allured by the siren smiles of his "Countess;" and dupes

of both sexes everywhere, to swallow his yarns and gape at his

juggleries. In the course of his rambles, he paid a visit to his great

brother humbug, the Count of St. Germain, in Westphalia, or Schleswig,

and it was not long afterward that he began to publish to the world his

grand discoveries in Alchemy, of the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixir

of Life, or Waters of Perpetual Youth. These and many similar wonders

were declared to be the result of his investigations under the Arch of

Old Egyptian Masonry, which degree he claimed to have revived. This

notion of Egyptian Masonry, Cagliostro is said to have found in some

manuscripts left by one George Cofton, which fell into our quack's

hands. This degree was to give perfection to human beings, by means of

moral and physical regeneration. Of these two the former was to be

secured by means of a Pentagon, which removes original sin and renews

pristine innocence. The physical kind of regeneration was to be brought

about by using the "prime matter" or philosopher's stone, and the

"Acacia," which two ingredients will give immortal youth. In this new

structure, he assumed the title of the "Grand Cophta" and actually

claimed the worship of his followers; declaring that the institution had

been established by Enoch and Elias, and that he had been summoned by

"spiritual" agencies to restore it to its pristine glory. In fact, this

pretension, which influenced thousands upon thousands of believers, was

one of the most daring impostures that ever saw the light; and it is

astounding to think that, so late as 1780, it should, for a long time,

have been entirely successful. The preparatory course of exercises for

admission to the mystic brotherhood has been described as a series of

"purgation, starvation, and desperation," lasting for forty days! and

ending in "physical regeneration" and an immortality on earth. The

celebrated Lavater, a mild and genial, but feeble man, became one of

Cagliostro's disciples, and was bamboozled to his heart's content--in

fact, made to believe that the Count could put the devil into him, or

take him out, as the case might be.

The wondrous "Water of Beauty," that made old wrinkled faces look young,

smooth, and blooming again, was the special merchandise of the Countess,

and was, of course, in great request among the faded beaux and dowagers

of the day, who were easily persuaded of their own restored loveliness.

The transmutation of baser metals into gold usually terminated in the

transmigration of all the gold his victims had into the Count's own

purse.

In 1776, the Count and Countess came to London. Here, funnily enough,

they fell into the hands of a gambler, a shyster, and a female scamp,

who together tormented them almost to death, because the Count would

not pick them out lucky numbers to gamble by. They persecuted him fairly

into jail, and plagued and outswindled him so awfully, that, after a

time, the poor Count sneaked back to the Continent with only fifty

pounds left out of three thousand which he had brought with him.

One incident of Cagliostro's English experience was the affair of the

"Arsenical Pigs"--a notice of which may be found in the "Public

Advertiser," of London of September 3, 1786. A Frenchman named Morande,

was at that time editing there a paper in his own language, entitled "Le

Courrier de l'Europe," and lost no opportunity to denounce the Count as

a humbug. Cagliostro, at length, irritated by these repeated attacks,

published in the "Advertiser" an open challenge, offering to forfeit

five thousand guineas if Morande should not be found dead in his bed on

the morning after partaking of the flesh of a pig, to be selected by

himself from among a drove fattened by the Count--the cooking, etc., all

to be done at Morande's own house, and under his own eye. The time was

fixed for this singular repast, but when it came round, the French

Editor "backed down" completely, to the great delight of his opponent

and his credulous followers.

Cagliostro and his spouse now resumed their travels upon the Continent,

and, by their usual arts and trades, in a great measure renewed their

fallen fortunes. Among other new dodges, he now assumed so supernatural

a piety that (he said) he could distinguish an unbeliever by the smell!

which, of course, was just the opposite of the "odor of sanctity." The

Count's claim to have lived for hundreds of years was, by some,

thoroughly believed. He ascribed his immortality to his own Elixir, and

his comparatively youthful appearance to his "Water of Beauty," his

Countess readily assisting him by speaking of her son, a Colonel in the

Dutch service, fifty years old, while she appeared scarcely more than

twenty.

At length, in Rome, he and the Countess fell into the clutches of the

Holy Office; and both having been tried for their manifold offences

against the Church, were found guilty, and, in spite of their contrition

and eager confessions, immured for life; the Count within the walls of

the Castle of Sante Leone, in the Duchy of Urbino, where, after eight

years' imprisonment, he died in 1795, and the Countess in a suburban

convent, where she died some time after.

The portraits of Cagliostro, of which a number are extant, are pictures

of a strong-built, bull-necked, fat, gross man, with a snub nose, a

vulgar face, a look of sensuality and low hypocritical cunning.

The celebrated story of "The Diamond Necklace," in which Cagliostro,

Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal de Rohan, and others were mixed in such a

hodge-podge of rascality and folly, must form a narrative by itself.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

In my sketch of Joseph Balsamo, alias the Count Alessandro de

Cagliostro, I referred to the affair of the diamond necklace, known in

French history as the _Collier de la Reine_, or Queen's necklace, from

the manner in which the name and reputation of Marie Antoinette, the

consort of Louis XVI, became entangled in it. I shall now give a brief

account of this celebrated imposition--perhaps the boldest and shrewdest

ever known, and almost wholly the work of a woman.

On the Quai de la Ferraille, not far from the Pont Neuf, stood the

establishment, part shop, part manufactory, of Messrs. Boehmer &

Bassange, the most celebrated jewelers of their day. After triumphs

which had given them world-wide fame during the reign of Louis XV, and

made them fabulously rich, they determined, with the advent of Louis

XVI, to eclipse all their former efforts and crown the professional

glory of their lives. Their correspondents in every chief jewel market

of the world were summoned to aid their enterprise, and in the course of

some two or three years they succeeded in collecting the finest and most

remarkable diamonds that could be procured in the whole world of

commerce.

The next idea was to combine all these superb fragments in one grand

ornament to grace the form of beauty. A necklace was the article fixed

upon, and the best experience and most delicate taste that Europe could

boast were expended on the design. Each and every diamond was specially

set and faced in such manner as to reveal its excellence to the utmost

advantage, and all were arranged together in the style best calculated

to harmonize their united effect. Form, shape, and the minutest shades

of color were studied, and the result, after many attempts and many

failures, and the anxious labor of many months, was the most exquisite

triumph that the genius of the lapidary and the goldsmith could

conceive.

The whole necklace consisted of three triple rows of diamonds, or nine

rows in all, containing eight hundred faultless gems. The triple rows

fell away from each in the most graceful and flexible curves over each

side of the breast and each shoulder of the wearer, the curves starting

from the throat, whence a magnificent pendant, depending from a single

knot of diamonds, each as large as a hazel-nut, hung down half way upon

the bosom in the design of a cross and crown, surrounded by the lilies

of the royal house--the lilies themselves dangling on stems which were

strung with smaller jewels. Rich clusters and festoons spread from the

loop over each shoulder, and the central loop on the back of the neck

was joined in a pattern of emblematic magnificence corresponding with

that in front.

It was in 1782 that this grand work was finally completed, and the happy

owners gloated with delight over a monument of skill as matchless in its

way as the Pyramids themselves. But, alas! the necklace might as well

have been constructed of the common boulders piled in those same

pyramids as of the finest jewels of the mine, for all the good it seemed

destined to bring the poor jewelers, beyond the rapture of beholding it

and calling it theirs.

The necklace was worth 1,500,000 francs, equivalent to more than

$300,000 in gold, as money then went, or nearly $500,000 in gold,

now-a-days. Rather too large a sum to keep locked up in a casket, the

reader will confess! And then it seems that Messrs. Boehmer & Bassange

had not entirely paid for it yet. They had ten creditors on the diamonds

in different countries, and an immense capital still locked up in their

other jewelry.

Of course, then, after their first delight had subsided, they were most

anxious to sell an article that had to be constantly and painfully

watched, and that might so easily disappear. How many a nimble-fingered

and stout-hearted rogue would not, in those days, have imperiled a dozen

lives to clutch that blazing handful of dross, convertible into an

Elysium of pomp and pleasure! It would hardly have been a safe noonday

plaything in moral Gotham, let alone the dissolute Paris of eighty years

ago!

The first thought, of course, that kindled in the breasts of Boehmer and

Bassange was, that the only proper resting-place for their matchless

bauble was the snowy neck of the Queen Marie Antoinette, then the

admired and beloved of all! Her peerless beauty alone could live in the

glow of such supernal splendor, and the French throne was the only one

in Christendom that could sustain such glittering weight. Moreover, the

Queen had already once been a good customer to the court jewelers, for

in 1774 she bought four diamonds of them for $75,000.

Louis XV would not have hesitated to fling it on the shoulders of the Du

Barry, and Louis XVI, in spite of his odd notions upon economy and just

administration, easily listened to the delicate insinuations of his

court-jewelers; and, one fine morning, laid the necklace in its casket

on the table of his Queen. Her Majesty, for a moment, yielded to the

promptings of feminine weakness, and danced and laughed with the glee of

an overjoyed child in the new sunshine of those burning, sparkling,

dazzling gems. Once and once only she placed it on her neck and breast,

and probably the world has never before or since seen such a countenance

in such a setting. It was almost the head of an angel shining in the

glory of the spheres. But a better thought prevailed, and quickly

removing it, she, with a wave of her beautiful hand, declined the gift

and besought the King to apply the sum to any other purpose that would

be useful or honorable to France, whose finances were sadly straitened.

"We want ships of war more than we do necklaces," said she. The King was

really delighted at this act of the Queen's, and the incident soon

becoming widely known, gave the latter immense popularity for at least

twenty-four hours after it occurred. In fact, the amount was really

applied to the construction of a grand line-of-battle ship called the

Suffren, after the great Admiral of that name.

Boehmer, who seems to have been the business manager of the jeweler

firm, found his necklace as troublesome as the cobbler did the elephant

he won in a raffle, and tried so perseveringly to induce the Queen to

buy it, that he became a real torment. She seems to have thought him a

little cracked on the subject; and one day, when he obtained a private

audience, he besought her either to buy the necklace or to let him go

and drown himself in the Seine. Out of all patience, the Queen intimated

that he would have been wiser to secure a customer to begin with; that

she would not buy; that if he chose to throw himself into the Seine it

would be entirely on his own responsibility; and that as for the

necklace, he had better pick it to pieces and sell it. The poor German

(for Boehmer was a native of Saxony) departed in deep distress, but

accepted neither his own suggestion nor the Queen's.

For some months after this, the court jewelers busied themselves in

peddling their necklace about among the courts of Europe. But none of

these concerns found it convenient just then to pay out three hundred

and sixty thousand dollars for a concatenation of eight hundred

diamonds; and still the sparkling elephant remained on the jewelers'

hands.

Time passed on. Madame Campan, one of the Queen's confidential ladies,

happened to meet Boehmer one day, and the necklace was alluded to.

"What is the state of affairs about the necklace," asked the lady.

"Highly satisfactory," replied Boehmer, whose serenity of countenance

Madame Campan had already remarked. "I have sold it to the Sultan at

Constantinople, for his favorite Sultana."

This the lady thought rather curious, but she was glad the thing was

disposed of, and said no more.

Time passed on again. In the beginning of August 1785, Boehmer took the

trouble to call on Madame Campan at her country-house, somewhat to her

surprise.

"Has the Queen given you no message for me?" he inquired.

"No!" said the lady; "What message should she give?"

"An answer to my note," said the jeweler.

Madame remembered a note which the Queen had received from Boehmer a

little while before, along with some ornaments sent by his hands to her

as a present from the King. It congratulated her on having the finest

diamonds in Europe, and hoped she would remember him. The Queen could

make nothing of it, and destroyed it. Madame Campan therefore replied,

"There is no answer, the Queen burned the note. She does not even

understand what you meant by writing that note."

This statement very quickly elicited from the now startled German a

story which astounded the lady. He said the Queen owed him the first

instalment of the money for the diamond necklace; that she had bought it

after all; that the story about the Sultana was a lie told by her

directions to hide the fact; since the Queen meant to pay by

instalments, and did not wish the purchase known. And Boehmer said, she

had employed the Cardinal de Rohan to buy the necklace for her, and it

had been delivered to him for her, and by him to her.

Now the Queen, as Madame Campan knew very well, had always strongly

disliked this Cardinal; he had even been kept from attending at Court in

consequence, and she had not so much as spoken to him for years. And so

Madame Campan told Boehmer, and further she told him he had been imposed

upon.

"No," said the man of sparklers decisively, "It is you who are deceived.

She is decidedly friendly to the cardinal. I have myself the documents

with her own signature authorizing the transaction, for I have had to

let the bankers see them in order to get a little time on my own

payments."

Here was a monstrous mystification for the lady of honor, who told

Boehmer to instantly go and see his official superior, the chief of the

king's household. She herself being very soon afterwards summoned to the

Queen's presence, the affair came up, and she told the Queen all she

knew about it. Marie Antoinette was profoundly distressed by the evident

existence of a great scandal and swindle, with which she was plainly to

be mixed up through the forged signatures to the documents which Boehmer

had been relying on.

Now for the Cardinal.

Louis de Rohan, a scion of the great house of Rohan, one of the proudest

of France, was descended of the blood royal of Brittany; was a handsome,

proud, dissolute, foolish, credulous, unprincipled noble, now almost

fifty years old, a thorough rake, of large revenues, but deeply in debt.

He was Peer of France, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of France,

Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Commendator of the benefice of

St. Wast d'Arras, said to be the most wealthy in Europe, and a

Cardinal. He had been ambassador at Vienna a little after Marie

Antoinette was married to the Dauphin, and while there had taken

advantage of his official station to do a tremendous quantity of

smuggling. He had also further and most deeply offended the Empress

Maria Theresa, by outrageous debaucheries, by gross irreligion, and

above all by a rather flat but in effect stingingly satirical

description of her conduct about the partition of Poland. This she never

forgave him, neither did her daughter Marie Antoinette; and accordingly,

when he presented himself at Paris soon after she became Queen, he

received a curt repulse, and an intimation that he had better go

to--Strasburg.

Now in those days a sentence of exclusion from Court was to a French

noble but just this side of a banishment to Tophet; and de Rohan was

just silly enough to feel this infliction most intensely. He went

however, and from that time onward, for year after year, lived the life

of a persevering Adam thrust out of his paradise, hanging about the gate

and trying all possible ways to sneak in again. Once, for instance, he

had induced the porter at the palace of the Trianon to let him get

inside the grounds during an illumination, and was recognized by the

glow of his cardinal's red stockings from under his cloak. But he was

only laughed at for his pains; the porter was turned off, and the poor

silly miserable cardinal remained "out in the cold," breaking his heart

over his exclusion from the most tedious mess of conventionalities that

ever was contrived--except those of the court of Spain.

About 1783, this great fool fell in with an equally great knave, who

must be spoken of here, where he begins to converge along with the rest,

towards the explosion of the necklace swindle. This was Cagliostro, who

at that time came to Strasburg and created a tremendous excitement with

his fascinating Countess, his Egyptian masonry, his Spagiric Food (a

kind of Brandreth's pill of the period,) which he fed out to poor sick

people, his elixir of life, and other humbugs.

The Cardinal sent an intimation that he would like to see the quack. The

quack, whose impudence was far greater than the Cardinal's pride, sent

back this sublime reply: "If he is sick let him come to me, and I will

cure him. If he is well, he does not need to see me, nor I him."

This piece of impudence made the fool of a cardinal more eager than

ever. After some more affected shyness, Cagliostro allowed himself to be

seen. He was just the man to captivate the Cardinal, and they were

quickly intimate personal friends, practising transmutation, alchemy,

masonry, and still more particularly conducting a great many experiments

on the Cardinal's remarkably fine stock of Tokay wine. Whatever poor de

Rohan had to do, he consulted Cagliostro about it, and when the latter

went to Switzerland, his dupe maintained a constant communication with

him in cipher.

Lastly is to be mentioned Jeanne de St. Remi, Countess de Lamotte de

Valois de France, the chief scoundrel, if the term may be used of a

woman--of the necklace affair. She seems to have been really a

descendant of the royal house of Valois, to which Francis I. belonged;

through an illegitimate son of Henry II. created Count de St. Remi. The

family had run down and become poor and rascally, one of Jeanne's

immediate ancestors having practiced counterfeiting for a living. She

herself had been protected by a certain kind hearted Countess de

Boulainvilliers; was receiving a small pension from the Court of about

$325 a year; had married a certain tall soldier named Lamotte; had come

to Paris, and was living in poverty in a garret, hovering about as it

were for a chance to better her circumstances. She was a quick-witted,

bright-eyed, brazen-faced hussy, not beautiful, but with lively pretty

ways, and indeed somewhat fascinating.

Her protectress, the countess de Boulainvilliers, was now dead; while

she was alive Jeanne had once visited her at de Rohan's palace of

Saverne, and had thus scraped a slight acquaintance with the gay

Cardinal, which she resumed during her abode at Paris.

Everybody at Paris knew about the Diamond Necklace, and about de Rohan's

desire to get into court favor. This sharp-witted female swindler now

came in among the elements I have thus far been describing, to frame

necklace, jeweller, cardinal, queen, and swindler, all together into her

plot, just as the key-stone drops into an arch and locks it up tight.

No mortal knows where ideas come from. Suddenly a conception is in the

mind, whence, or how, we do not know, any more than we know Life. The

devil himself might have furnished that which now popped into the

cunning, wicked mind of this adventuress. This is what she saw all at

once:

Boehmer is crazy to sell his necklace. De Rohan is crazy after the

Queen's favor. I am crazy after money. Now if I can make De Rohan think

that the Queen wants the necklace, and will become his friend in return

for his helping her to it; if I can make him think I am her agent to

him, then I can steal the diamonds in their transit.

A wonderfully cunning and hardy scheme! And most wonderful was the cool,

keen promptitude with which it was executed.

The countess began to hint to the cardinal that she was fast getting

into the Queen's good graces, by virtue of being a capital gossip and

story-teller; and that she had frequent private audiences. Soon she

added intimations that the Queen was far from being really so displeased

with the cardinal, as he supposed. At this the old fool bit instantly,

and showed the keenest emotions of hope and delight. On a further

suggestion, he presently drew up a letter or memoir humbly and

plaintively stating his case, which the countess undertook to put into

the Queen's hands. It was the first of over _two hundred_ notes from

him, notes of abasement, beseeching argument, expostulation, and so on,

all entrusted to Jeanne. She burnt them, I suppose.

In order to make her dupe sure that she told the truth about her access

to the Queen, Jeanne more than once made him go and watch her enter a

side gate into the grounds of the Trianon palace, to which she had

somehow obtained a key; and after waiting he saw her come out again,

sometimes under the escort of a man, who was, she said one Desclos, a

confidential valet of the Queen. This was Villette de Retaux, a "pal"

of Jeanne's and of her husband Lamotte, who had, by the way, become a

low-class gambler and swindler by occupation.

Next Jeanne talked about the Queen's charities; and on one occasion,

told how much the amiable Marie Antoinette longed to expend certain sums

for benevolent purposes if she only had them--but she was out of funds,

and the King was so close about money!

The poor cardinal bit again--"If the Queen would only allow him the

honor to furnish the little amount!"

The countess evidently hadn't thought of that. She reflected--hesitated.

The cardinal urged. She consented--it was not much--and was so kind as

to carry the cash herself. At their next meeting she reported that the

Queen was delighted, telling a very nice story about it. The cardinal

would only be too happy to do so again. And sure enough he did, and

quite a number of times too; contributing in all to the funds of the

countess in this manner, about $25,000.

Well: after a time the cardinal is at Strasburg, when he receives a note

from the countess that brings him back again as quick as post-horses can

carry him. It says that there is something very important, very secret,

very delicate, that the queen wants his help about. He is overflowing

with zeal. What is it? Only let him know--his life, his purse, his soul,

are at the service of his liege lady.

His purse is all that is needed. With infinite shyness and

circumspection, the countess gradually, half unwillingly, lets him find

out that it is the diamond necklace that the Queen wants. By diabolical

ingenuities of talk she leads de Rohan to the full conviction that if he

secures the Queen that necklace, he will thenceforward bask in all the

sunshine of court favor that she can show or control.

And at proper times sundry notes from the Queen are bestowed upon the

enraptured noodle. These are written in imitation of the Queen's

handwriting, by that Villette de Retaux who personated the Queen's

valet, and who was an expert at counterfeiting.

A last and sublime summit of impudent pretension is reached by a secret

interview which the Queen, says the countess, desires to grant to her

beloved servant the cardinal. This suggestion was rendered practicable

by one of those mere coincidences which are found though rarely in

history, and which are too improbable to put into a novel--the casual

discovery of a young woman of loose character who looked much like the

Queen. Whether her name was d'Essigny or Gay d'Oliva, is uncertain; she

is usually called by the latter. She was hired and taught; and with

immense precautions, this ostrich of a cardinal was one night introduced

into the gardens of the Trianon, and shown a little nook among the

thickets where a stately female in the similitude of the Queen received

him with soft spoken words of kindly greeting, allowed him to kneel and

kiss a fair and shapely hand, and showed no particular timidity of any

kind. Yet the interview had scarcely more than begun before steps were

heard. "Some one is coming," exclaimed the lady, "it is Monsieur and

Madame d'Artois--We must part. There"--she gave him a red rose--"You

know what that means! Farewell!" And away they went--Mademoiselle

d'Oliva to report to her employers, and the cardinal, in a seventh

heaven of ineffable tomfoolery, to his hotel.

But the interview, and the lovely little notes that came sometimes,

"fixed" the necklace business! And if further encouragement had been

needed, Cagliostro gave it. For the cardinal now consulted him about the

future of the affair, having indeed kept him fully informed about it for

a long time, as he did of all matters of interest. So the quack set up

his tabernacles of mummery in a parlor of the cardinal's hotel, and

conducted an Egyptian Invocation there all night long in solitude and

pomp; and in the morning he decreed (in substance) "go ahead." And the

cardinal did so. Boehmer and Bassange were only too happy to bargain

with the great and wealthy church and state dignitary. A memorandum of

terms and time of payment was drawn up, and was submitted to the Queen.

That is, swindling Jeanne carried it off, and brought it back, with an

entry made by Villette de Retaux in the margin, thus: "_Bon,

bon--Approuve, Marie Antoinette de France_." That is, "Good, good--I

approve. Marie Antoinette de France." The payment was to be by

instalments, at six months, and quarterly afterwards; the Queen to

furnish the money to the cardinal, while he remained ostensibly holden

to the jewellers, she thus keeping out of sight.

So the jewels were handed over to the cardinal de Rohan; he took them

one evening in great state to the lodgings of the countess, where with

all imaginable formality there came a knock at the door, and when it was

open a tall valet entered who said solemnly "On the part of the Queen!"

De Rohan _knew_ it was the Queen's confidential valet, for he saw with

his own eyes that it was the same man who had escorted the countess from

the side gate at the Trianon! And so it was; to wit, Villette de Retaux,

who, calmly receiving the fifteen hundred thousand franc treasure,

marched but as solemnly as he had come in.

As that counterfeiting rascal goes out of the door, the diamond necklace

itself disappears from our knowledge. The swindle was consummated, but

there is no whisper of the disposition of the spoils. Villette, and

Jeanne's husband Lamotte, went to London and Amsterdam, and had some

money there; but seemingly no more than the previous pillages upon the

cardinal might have supplied; nor did the countess' subsequent

expenditures show that she had any of the proceeds.

But that is not the last of the rest of the parties to the affair, by

any means. Between this scene and the time when the anxious Boehmer,

having a little bill to meet, beset Madame Campan about his letter and

the money the Queen was to pay him, there intervened six months. During

that time countess Jeanne was smoothing as well as she could, with

endless lies and contrivances, the troubles of the perplexed cardinal,

who "couldn't seem to see" that he was much better off in spite of his

loyal performance of his part of the bargain.

But this application by Boehmer, and the enormous swindle which it was

instantly evident had been perpetrated on somebody or other, of course

waked up a commotion at once. The baron de Breteuil, a deadly enemy of

de Rohan, got hold of it all, and in his overpowering eagerness to ruin

his foe, quickly rendered the matter so public that it was out of the

question to hush it up. It seems probable that Jeanne de Lamotte

expected that the business would be kept quiet for the sake of the

Queen, and that thus any very severe or public punishments would be

avoided and perhaps no inquiries made. It is clear that this would have

been the best plan, but de Breteuil's officiousness prevented it, and

there was nothing for it but legal measures. De Rohan was arrested and

put in the Bastile, having barely been able to send a message in German

to his hotel to a trusty secretary, who instantly destroyed all the

papers relating to the affair. Jeanne was also imprisoned, and Miss Gay

d'Oliva and Villette de Retaux, being caught at Brussels and Amsterdam,

were in like manner secured. As for Cagliostro, he was also imprisoned,

some accounts saying that he ostentatiously gave himself up for trial.

This was a public trial before the Parliament of Paris, with much form.

The result was that the cardinal, appearing to be only fool, not knave,

was acquitted. Gay d'Oliva appeared to have known nothing except that

she was to play a part, and she had been told that the Queen wanted her

to do so, so she was let go. Villette was banished for life. Lamotte,

the countess' husband, had escaped to England, and was condemned to the

galleys in his absence, which didn't hurt him much. Cagliostro was

acquitted. But Jeanne was sentenced to be whipped, branded on the

shoulder with the letter V for _Voleuse_ (thief), and banished.

This sentence was executed in full, but with great difficulty; for the

woman turned perfectly furious on the public scaffold, flew at the

hangman like a tiger, bit pieces out of his hands, shrieked, cursed,

rolled on the floor, kicked, squirmed and jumped, until they held her by

brute force, tore down her dress, and the red hot iron going aside as

she struggled, plunged full into her snowy white breast, planting there

indelibly the horrible black V, while she yelled like a fiend under the

torment of the smoking brand. She fled away to England, lived there some

time in dissolute courses, and is said to have died in consequence of

falling out of a window when drunk, or as another account states, of

being flung out by the companions of her orgy, whom she had stung to

fury by her frightful scolding. Before her death she put forth one or

two memoirs,--false, scandalous things.

The unfortunate Queen never entirely escaped some shadow of disrepute

from the necklace business. For to the very last, both on the trial and

afterwards, Jeanne de Lamotte impudently stuck to it that at least the

Queen had known about the trick played on the Cardinal at the Trianon,

and had in fact been hidden close by and saw and laughed heartily at the

whole interview. So sore and morbid was the condition of the public mind

in France in those days, when symptoms of the coming Revolution were

breaking out on every side, that this odious story found many and

willing believers.

CHAPTER LXII.

THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN, SAGE, PROPHET, AND MAGICIAN.

Superior to Cagliostro, even in accomplishments, and second to him in

notoriety only, was that human nondescript, the so-called Count de St.

Germain, whom Fredrick the Great called, "a man no one has ever been

able to make out."

The Marquis de Crequy declares that St. Germain was an Alsatian Jew,

Simon Wolff by name, and born at Strasburg about the close of the

seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century; others insist

that he was a Spanish Jesuit named Aymar; and others again intimate that

his true title was the Marquis de Betmar, and that he was a native of

Portugal. The most plausible theory, however, makes him the natural son

of an Italian princess, and fixes his birth at San Germano, in Savoy,

about the year 1710; his ostensible father being one Rotondo, a

tax-collector of that district.

This supposition is borne out by the fact that he spoke all his many

languages with an Italian accent. It was about the year 1750 that he

first began to be heard of in Europe as the Count St. Germain, and put

forth the astounding pretensions that soon gave him celebrity over the

whole continent. The celebrated Marquis de Belleisle made his

acquaintance about that time in Germany, and brought him to Paris, where

he was introduced to Madame de Pompadour, whose favor he very quickly

gained. The influence of that famous beauty was just then paramount with

Louis XV, and the Count was soon one of the most eminent men at court.

He was remarkably handsome--as an old portrait at Friersdorf, in Saxony,

in the rooms he once occupied, sufficiently indicated; and his musical

accomplishments, added to the ineffable charm of his manners and

conversation, and the miracles he performed, rendered him an

irresistible attraction, especially to the ladies, who appear to have

almost idolized him. Endowed with an enchanting voice, he could also

play every instrument then in vogue, but especially excelled upon the

violin, which he could handle in such a manner as to give it the effect

of a small orchestra. Cotemporary writers declare that, in his more

ordinary performances, a connoisseur could distinctly hear the separate

tones of a full quartet when the count was extemporizing on his favorite

Cremona. His little work, entitled "La Musique Raisonnee," published in

England, for private circulation only, bears testimony to his musical

genius, and to the wondrous eccentricity, as well as beauty, of his

conceptions. But it was in alectromancy, or divination by signs and

circles; hydromancy, or divination by water; cleidomancy, or divination

by the key, and dactylomancy, or divination by the fingers, that the

count chiefly excelled, although he, at the same time, professed

alchemy, astrology, and prophecy in the higher branches.

The fortunes of the Count St. Germain rose so rapidly in France, that in

1760 he was sent by Louis XV, to the Court of England, to assist in

negotiations for a peace. M. de Choiseul, then Prime Minister of France,

however, greatly feared and detested the Count; and secretly wrote to

Pitt, begging the latter to have that personage arrested, as he was

certainly a Russian spy. But St. Germain, through his attendant sprites,

of course, received timely warning, and escaped to the Continent. In

England, he was the inseparable friend of Prince Lobkowitz--a

circumstance that gave some color to his alleged connection with the

Russians. His sojourn there was equally distinguished by his devotion to

the ladies, and his unwavering success at the gaming-table, where he won

fabulous sums, which were afterward dispensed with imperial munificence.

It was there, too, that he put forward his claims to the highest rank in

Masonry; and, of course, added, thereby, immensely to the _eclat_ of his

position. He spoke English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian,

German, Russian, Polish, the Scandinavian, and many of the Oriental

tongues, with equal fluency; and pretended to have traveled over the

whole earth, and even to have visited the most distant starry orbs

frequently, in the course of a lifetime which, with continual

transmigrations, he declared to have lasted for thousands of years. His

birth, he said, had been in Chaldea, in the dawn of time; and that he

was the sole inheritor of the lost sciences and mysteries of his own and

the Egyptian race. He spoke of his personal intimacy with all the twelve

Apostles--and even the august presence of the Savior; and one of his

pretensions would have been most singularly amusing, had it not bordered

upon profanity. This was no less an assertion than that he had upon

several occasions remonstrated with the Apostle Peter upon the

irritability of his temperament! In regard to later periods of history,

he spoke with the careless ease of an every-day looker on; and told

anecdotes that the researches of scholars afterwards fully verified. His

predictions were, indeed, most startling; and the cotemporaneous

evidence is very strong and explicit, that he did foretell the time,

place, and manner of the death of Louis XV, several years before it

occurred. His gift of memory was perfectly amazing. Having once read a

journal of the day, he could repeat its contents accurately, from

beginning to end; and to this endowment he united the faculty of writing

with both hands, in characters like copperplate. Thus, he could indite a

love-letter with his right while he composed a verse with his left hand,

and, apparently, with the utmost facility--a splendid acquisition for

the Treasury Department or a literary newspaper! He would, however, have

been ineligible for any faithful Post Office, since he read the contents

of sealed letters at a glance; and, by his clairvoyant powers, detected

crime, or, in fact, the movements of men and the phenomena of nature, at

any distance. Like all the great Magi, and Brothers of the Rosy Cross,

of whom he claimed to be a shining light, he most excelled in medicine;

and along with remedies for "every ill that flesh is heir to," boasted

his "Aqua Benedetta" as the genuine elixir of life, capable of restoring

youth to age, beauty and strength to decay, and brilliant intellect to

the exhausted brain; and, if properly applied, protracting human

existence through countless centuries. As a proof of its virtues, he

pointed to his own youthful appearance, and the testimony of old men who

had seen him sixty or seventy years earlier, and who declared that time

had made no impression on him. Strangely enough, the Margrave of

Anspach, of whom I shall presently speak, purchased what purported to be

the recipe of the "Aqua Benedetta," from John Dyke, the English Consul

at Leghorn, towards the close of the last century; and copies of it are

still preserved with religious care and the utmost secrecy by certain

noble families in Berlin and Vienna, where the preparation has been used

(as they believe) with perfect success against a host of diseases.

Still another peculiarity of the Count would be highly advantageous to

any of us, particularly at this period of high prices and culinary

scarcity. He never ate nor drank; or, at least, he was never seen to do

so! It is said that boarding house _regime_ in these days is rapidly

accustoming a considerable class of our fellow-citizens to a similar

condition, but I can scarcely believe it.

Again, the Count would fall into cataleptic swoons, which continued

often for hours, and even days; and, during these periods, he declared

that he visited, in spirit, the most remote regions of the earth, and

even the farthest stars, and would relate, with astonishing power, the

scenes he there had witnessed!

He, of course, laid claim to the transmutation of baser metals into

gold, and stated that, in 1755, while on a visit to India, to consult

the erudition of the Hindoo Brahmins, he solved, by their assistance,

the problem of the artificial crystallization of pure carbon--or, in

other words, the production of diamonds! One thing is certain, viz.:

that upon a visit to the French ambassador to the Hague, in 1780, he, in

the presence of that functionary, induced him to believe and testify

that he broke to pieces, with a hammer, a superb diamond, of his own

manufacture, the exact counterpart of another, of similar origin, which

he had just sold for 5,500 louis d'or.

His career and transformations on the Continent were multiform. In 1762,

he was mixed up with the dynastic conspiracies and changes at St.

Petersburg; and his importance there was indicated ten years later, by

the reception given to him at Vienna by the Russian Count Orloff, who

accosted him joyously as "caro padre" (dear father,) and gave him twenty

thousand golden Venetian sequins.

From Petersburg he went to Berlin, where he at once attracted the

attention of Frederick the Great, who questioned Voltaire about him; the

latter replying, as it is said, that he was a man who knew all things,

and would live to the end of the world--a fair statement, in brief, of

the position assumed by more than one of our ward politicians!

In 1774, he took up his abode at Schwabach, in Germany, under the name

of Count Tzarogy, which is a transposition of Ragotzy, a well-known

noble name. The Margrave of Anspach met him at the house of his

favorite Clairon, the actress, and became so fond of him, that he

insisted upon his company to Italy. On his return, he went to Dresden,

Leipzig, and Hamburg, and finally to Eckernfiorde, in Schleswig, where

he took up his residence with the Landgrave Karl of Hesse; and at

length, in 1783, tired, as he said, of life, and disdaining any longer

immortality, he gave up the ghost.

It was during St. Germain's residence in Schleswig that he was visited

by the renowned Cagliostro, who openly acknowledged him as master, and

learned many of his most precious secrets from him--among others, the

faculty of discriminating the character by the handwriting, and of

fascinating birds, animals, and reptiles.

To trace the wanderings of St. Germain is a difficult task, as he had

innumerable aliases, and often totally disappeared for months together.

In Venice, he was known as the Count de Bellamare; at Pisa, as the

Chevalier de Schoening; at Milan, as the Chevalier Welldone; at Genoa,

as the Count Soltikow, etc.

In all these journeys, his own personal tastes were quiet and simple,

and he manifested more attachment for a pocket-copy of Guarini's "Pastor

Fido"--his only library--than for any other object in his possession.

On the whole, the Count de St. Germain was a man of magnificent

attainments, but the use he made of his talents proved him to be also a

most magnificent humbug.

CHAPTER XLIII.

RIZA BEY, THE PERSIAN ENVOY TO LOUIS XIV.

The most gorgeous, and with one sole exception the most glorious reign

that France has known, so far as military success is concerned, was that

of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque. His was the age of lavish expenditure,

of magnificent structures, grand festivals, superb dress and equipage,

aristocratic arrogance, brilliant campaigns, and great victories. It

was, moreover, particularly distinguished for the number and high

character of the various special embassies sent to the court of France

by foreign powers. Among these, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain,

and Venice rivaled each other in extravagant display and pomp. The

singular and really tangible imposture I am about to describe, practiced

at such a period and on such a man as Louis of France, was indeed a bold

and dashing affair.

"L'Etat c'est moi"--"I am the State," was Louis' celebrated and very

significant motto; for in his own hands he had really concentrated all

the powers of the realm, and woe to him who trifled with a majesty so

real and so imperial!

However, notwithstanding all this imposing strength, this mighty

domineering will, and this keen intelligence, a man was found bold

enough to brave them all in the arena of pure humbug. It was toward the

close of the year 1667, when Louis, in the plenitude of military

success, returned from his campaign in Flanders, where his invincible

troops had proven too much for the broad breeched but gallant Dutchmen.

In the short space of three months he had added whole provinces,

including some forty or fifty cities and towns, to his dominions; and

his fame was ringing throughout Christendom. It had even penetrated to

the farthest East; and the King of Siam sent a costly embassy from his

remote kingdom, to offer his congratulations and fraternal greeting to

the most eminent potentate of Europe.

Louis had already removed the pageantries of his royal household to his

magnificent new palace of Versailles, on which the wealth of conquered

kingdoms had been lavished, and there, in the Great Hall of Mirrors,

received the homage of his own nobles and the ambassadors of foreign

powers. The utmost splendor of which human life was susceptible seemed

so common and familiar in those days, that the train was dazzling indeed

that could excite any very particular attention. What would have seemed

stupendous elsewhere was only in conformity with all the rest of the

scene at Versailles. But, at length, there came something that made even

the pampered courtiers of the new Babylon stare--a Persian embassy. Yes,

a genuine, actual, living envoy from that wonderful Empire in the East,

which in her time had ruled the whole Oriental world, and still retained

almost fabulous wealth and splendor.

It was announced formally, one morning, to Louis, that His Most Serene

Excellency, Riza Bey, with an interminable tail of titles, hangers-on

and equipages, had reached the port of Marseilles, having journeyed by

way of Trebizond and Constantinople, to lay before the great "King of

the Franks" brotherly congratulations and gorgeous presents from his own

illustrious master, the Shah of Persia. This was something entirely to

the taste of the vain French ruler, whom unlimited good fortune had

inflated beyond all reasonable proportions. He firmly believed that he

was by far the greatest man who had ever lived; and had an embassy from

the moon or the planet Jupiter been announced to him, would have deemed

it not only natural enough, but absolutely due to his preeminence above

all other human beings. Nevertheless, he was, secretly, immensely

pleased with the Persian demonstration, and gave orders that no expense

should be spared in giving the strangers a reception worthy of himself

and France.

It would be needless for me to detail the events of the progress of Riza

Bey from Marseilles to Paris, by way of Avignon and Lyons. It was

certainly in keeping with the pretensions of the Ambassador. From town

to town the progress was a continued ovation. Triumphal arches,

bonfires, chimes of bells, and hurrahing crowds in their best bibs and

tuckers, military parades and civic ceremonies, everywhere awaited the

children of the farthest East, who were stared at, shouted at--and by

some wretched cynics sneered and laughed at--to their hearts' content.

All modern glory very largely consists in being nearly stunned with

every species of noise, choked with dust, and dragged about through the

streets, until you are well nigh dead. Witness the Japanese Embassy and

their visit to this country, where, in some cases, the poor creatures,

after hours of unmitigated boring with all sorts of mummery, actually

had their pigtails pulled by Young America in the rear, and--as at the

windows of Willard's Hotel in Washington--were stirred up with long

canes, like the Polar Bear or the Learned Seal.

Still Riza Bey and his dozen or two of dusky companions did not, by any

means, cut so splendid a figure as had been expected. They had with them

some camels, antelopes, bulbuls, and monkeys--like any travelling

caravan, and were dressed in the most outrageous and outlandish attire.

They jabbered, too, a gibberish utterly incomprehensible to the crowd,

and did everything that had never been seen or done before. All this,

however, delighted the populace. Had they been similarly transmogrified,

or played such queer pranks themselves, it would only have been food for

mockery; but the foreign air and fame of the thing made it all

wonderful, and, as the chief rogue in the plot had foreseen, blinded the

popular eye and made his "embassy" a complete success.

At length, after some four weeks of slow progress, the "Persians"

arrived at Paris, where they were received, as had been expected, with

tremendous _eclat_. They entered by Barriere du Trone, so styled because

it was there that Louis Quatorze himself had been received upon a

temporary throne, set up, with splendid decorations and triumphal

arches, in the open air, when he returned from his Flanders campaign.

Riza Bey was upon this occasion a little more splendid than he had been

on his way from the sea-coast, and really loomed up in startling style

in his tall, black, rimless hat of wool, shaped precisely like an

elongated flower-pot, and his silk robes dangling to his heels and

covered with huge painted figures and bright metal decorations of every

shape and size unknown, to European man-millinery. A circlet or collar,

apparently of gold, set with precious stones (California diamonds!)

surrounded his neck, and monstrous glittering rings covered all the

fingers, and even the thumbs of both his hands. His train, consisting of

sword, cup, and pipe bearers, doctors, chief cooks, and bottle-washers,

cork extractors and chiropodists (literally so, for it seems that

sharing the common lot of humanity, great men have corns even in

Persia,) were similarly arrayed as to fashion, but less stupendously in

jewelry.

Well, after the throng had scampered, crowded, and shouted themselves

hoarse, and had straggled to their homes, sufficiently tired and

pocket-picked, the Ambassador and his suite were lodged in sumptuous

apartments in the old royal residence of the Tuileries, under the care

and charge of King Louis' own assistant Major-Domo and a guard of

courtiers and regiments of Royal Swiss. Banqueting and music filled up

the first evening; and upon the ensuing day His Majesty, who thus did

his visitors especial honor, sent the Duc de Richelieu, the most

polished courtier and diplomatist in France, to announce that he would

graciously receive them on the third evening at Versailles.

Meanwhile the most extensive preparations were made for the grand

audience thus accorded; and when the appointed occasion had arrived, the

entire Gallery of Mirrors with all the adjacent spaces and corridors,

were crowded with the beauty, the chivalry, the wit, taste, and

intellect of France at that dazzling period. The gallery, which is three

hundred and eighty feet in length by fifty in height, derives its name

from the priceless mirrors which adorn its walls, reaching from floor to

ceiling, opposite the long row of equally tall and richly mullioned

windows that look into the great court and gardens. These windows, hung

with the costliest silk curtains and adorned with superb historical

statuary, give to the hall a light and aerial appearance indescribably

enchanting; while the mirrors reflect in ten thousand variations the

hall itself and its moving pageantry, rendering both apparently

interminable. Huge marble vases filled with odorous exotics lined the

stairways, and twelve thousand wax lights in gilded brackets, and

chandeliers of the richest workmanship, shone upon three thousand titled

heads.

Louis the Great himself never appeared to finer advantage. His truly

royal countenance was lighted up with pride and satisfaction as the

Envoy of the haughty Oriental king approached the splendid throne on

which he sat, and as he descended a step to meet him and stood there in

his magnificent robes of state, the Persian envoy bent the knee, and

with uncovered head presented the credentials of his mission. Of the

crowd that immediately surrounded the throne, it is something to say

that the Grand Colbert, the famous Minister, and the Admiral Duquesne

were by no means the most eminent, nor the lovely Duchess of Orleans and

her companion, the bewitching Mademoiselle de Kerouaille, who afterward

changed the policy of Charles II, of England, by no means the most

beautiful personages in the galaxy.

A grand ball and supper concluded this night of splendor, and Riza Bey

was fairly launched at the French court; every member of which, to

please the King, tried to outvie his compeers in the assiduity of his

attentions, and the value of the books, pictures, gems, equipages, arms,

&c., which they heaped upon the illustrious Persian. The latter

gentleman very quietly smoked his pipe and lounged on his divan before

company, and diligently packed up the goods when he and his "jolly

companions" were left alone. The presents of the Shah had not yet

arrived, but were daily expected via Marseilles, and from time to time

the olive-colored suite was diminished by the departure of one of the

number with his chest on a special mission (so stated) to England,

Austria, Portugal, Spain, and other European powers.

In the meantime, the Bey was feted in all directions, with every species

of entertainment, and it was whispered that the fair ones of that

dissolute court were, from the first, eager in the bestowal of their

smiles. The King favored his Persian pet with numerous personal

interviews, at which, in broken French, the Envoy unfolded the most

imposing schemes of Oriental conquest and commerce that his master was

cordially willing to share with his great brother of France. At one of

these chatty tete-a-tetes, the munificent Riza Bey, upon whom the King

had already conferred his own portrait set in diamonds, and other gifts

worth several millions of francs, placed in the Royal hand several

superb fragments of opal and turquoise said to have been found in a

district of country bordering on the Caspian sea, which teemed with

limitless treasures of the same kind, and which the Shah of Persia

proposed to divide with France for the honor of her alliance. The king

was enchanted; for these mere specimens, as they were deemed, must, if

genuine, be worth in themselves a mint of money; and a province full of

such--why, the thought was charming!

Thus the great King-fish was fairly hooked, and Riza Bey could take his

time. The golden tide that flowed in to him did not slacken, and his own

expenses were all provided for at the Tuileries. The only thing

remaining to be done was a grand foray on the tradesmen of Paris, and

this was splendidly executed. The most exquisite wares of all

descriptions were gathered in, without mention of payment; and one by

one the Persian phalanx distributed itself through Europe until only two

or three were left with the Ambassador.

At length, word was sent to Versailles that the gifts from the Shah had

come, and a day was appointed for their presentation. The day arrived,

and the Hall of Audience was again thrown open. All was jubilee; the

King and the court waited, but no Persian--no Riza Bey--no presents from

the Shah!

That morning three men, without either caftans or robes, but very much

resembling the blacklegs of the day in their attire and deportment, had

left the Tuileries at daylight with a bag and a bundle, and returned no

more. They were Riza Bey and his last body-guard; the bag and the

bundle were the smallest in bulk but the most precious in value of a

month's successful plunder. The turquoises and opals left with the King

turned out, upon close inspection, to be a new and very ingenious

variety of colored glass, now common enough, and then worth, if

anything, about thirty cents in cash.

Of course, a hue and cry was raised in all directions, but totally in

vain. Riza Bey, the Persian Shah, and the gentlemen in flower-pots, had

"gone glimmering through the dream of things that were." L'etat c'est

moi had been sold for thirty cents! It was afterward believed that a

noted barber and suspected bandit at Leghorn, who had once really

traveled in Persia, and there picked up the knowledge and the ready

money that served his turn, was the perpetrator of this pretty joke and

speculation, as he disappeared from his native city about the time of

the embassy in France, and did not return.

All Europe laughed heartily at the Grand Monarque and his fair

court-dames, and "An Embassy from Persia" was for many years thereafter

an expression similar to "Walker!" in English, or "Buncombe!" in

American conversation, when the party using it seeks to intimate that

the color of his optics is not a distinct pea-green!

IX. RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS.

CHAPTER XLIV.

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND; OR, YANKEE SUPERSTITIONS.--MATTHIAS THE

IMPOSTOR.--NEW YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS AGO.

There is a story that on a great and solemn public occasion of the

Romish Church, a Pope and a Cardinal were, with long faces, performing

some of the gyrations of the occasion, when, instead of a pious

ejaculation and reply, which were down in the programme, one said to the

other gravely, in Latin "_mundus vult decipi_;" and the other replied,

with equal gravity and learning, "_decipiatur ergo_:" that is, "All the

world chooses to be fooled."--"Let it be fooled then."

This seems, perhaps, a reasonable way for priests to talk about ignorant

Italians. It may seem inapplicable to cool, sharp, school-trained

Protestant Yankees. It is not, however--at least, not entirely.

Intelligent Northerners have, sometimes, superstition enough in them to

make a first-class Popish saint. If it had not been so, I should not

have such an absurd religious humbug to tell of as Robert Matthews,

notorious in our goodly city some thirty years ago as "Matthias, the

Impostor."

In the summer of 1832, there was often seen riding in Broadway, in a

handsome barouche, or promenading on the Battery (usually attended by a

sort of friend or servant,) a tall man, of some forty years of age,

quite thin, with sunken, sharp gray eyes, with long, coarse, brown and

gray hair, parted in the middle and curling on his shoulders, and a long

and coarse but well-tended beard and mustache. These Esau-like

adornments attracted much attention in those close-shaving days. He was

commonly dressed in a fine green frock-coat, lined with white or pink

satin, black or green pantaloons, with polished Wellington boots drawn

on outside, fine cambric ruffles and frill, and a crimson silk sash

worked with gold and with twelve tassels, for the twelve tribes of

Israel. On his head was a steeple-crowned patent-leather shining black

cap with a shade.

Thus bedizened, this fantastic-looking personage marched gravely up and

down, or rode in pomp in the streets. Sometimes he lounged in a

bookstore or other place of semi-public resort; and in such places he

often preached or exhorted. His preachments were sufficiently horrible.

He claimed to be God the Father; and his doctrine was, in substance,

this:--"The true kingdom of God on earth began in Albany in June 1830,

and will be completed in twenty-one years, or by 1851. During this time,

wars are to stop, and I, Matthias, am to execute the divine judgments

and destroy the wicked. The day of grace is to close on December 1,

1836; and all who do not begin to reform by that time, I shall kill."

The discourses by which this blasphemous humbug supported his

pretensions were a hodge-podge of impiety and utter nonsense, with

rants, curses and cries, and frightful threats against all objectors.

Here is a passage from one;--"All who eat swine's flesh are of the

devil; and just as certain as he eats it he will tell a lie in less than

half an hour. If you eat a piece of pork, it will go crooked through

you, and the Holy Ghost will not stay in you; but one or the other must

leave the house pretty soon. The pork will be as crooked in you as rams'

horns." Again, he made these pleasant points about the ladies: "They who

teach women are of the wicked. All females who lecture their husbands

their sentence is: 'Depart, ye wicked, I know you not.' Everything that

has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the cap-sheaf of the

abomination of desolation, full of all deviltry." There, ladies! Is

anything further necessary to convince you what a peculiarly wicked and

horrible humbug this fellow was?

If we had followed this impostor home, we should have found him lodged,

during most of his stay in New-York city, with one or the other of his

three chief disciples. These were Pierson, who commonly attended him

abroad, Folger, and--for a time only--Mills. All three of these men were

wealthy merchants. In their handsome and luxuriously-furnished homes,

this noxious humbug occupied the best rooms, and controlled the whole

establishment, directing the marketing, meal times, and all other

household-matters. Master, mistress (in Mr. Folger's home,) and

domestics were disciples, and obeyed the scamp with an implicitness and

prostrate humility even more melancholy than absurd, both as to

housekeeping and as to the ceremonies, washing of feet, etc., which he

enjoined. When he was angry with his female disciples, he frequently

whipped them; but, being a monstrous coward, he never tried it on a man.

The least opposition or contradiction threw him into a great rage, and

set him screaming, and cursing, and gesticulating like any street drab.

When he wished more clothes, which was pretty often, one of his dupes

furnished the money. When he wanted cash for any purpose indeed, they

gave it him.

This half-crazy knave and abominable humbug was Robert Matthews, who

called himself Matthias. He was of Scotch descent, and born about 1790,

in Washington county, New York; and his blood was tainted with insanity,

for a brother of his died a lunatic. He was a carpenter and joiner of

uncommon skill, and up to nearly his fortieth year lived, on the whole,

a useful and respectable life, being industrious, a professing Christian

of good standing, and (having married in 1813) a steady family-man. In

1828 and 1829, while living at Albany, he gradually became excited about

religious subjects; his first morbid symptoms appearing after hearing

some sermons by Rev. E. N. Kirk, and Mr. Finney the revivalist. He soon

began to exhort his fellow-journeymen instead of minding his work, so

uproariously that his employer turned him away.

He discovered a text in the Bible that forbid Christians to shave. He

let his hair and beard grow; began street-preaching in a noisy, brawling

style; announced that he was going to set about converting the whole

city of Albany--which needed it badly enough, if we may believe the

political gentlemen. Finding however, that the Lobby, or the Regency,

or something or other about the peculiar wickedness of Albany, was

altogether too much for him, he began, like Jonah at Nineveh, to

announce the destruction of the obstinate town; and at midnight, one

night in June, 1826, he waked up his household, and saying that Albany

was to be destroyed next day, took his three little boys--two, four, and

six years old--his wife and oldest child (a daughter refusing to go,)

and "fled to the mountains." He actually walked the poor little fellows

forty miles in twenty-four hours, to his sister's in Washington county.

Here he was reckoned raving crazy; was forcibly turned out of church for

one of his brawling interruptions of service, and sent back to Albany,

where he resumed his street-preaching more noisily than ever. He now

began to call himself Matthias, and claimed to be a Jew. Then he went on

a long journey to the Western and Southern States, preaching his

doctrines, getting into jail, and sometimes fairly cursing his way out;

and, returning to New York city, preached up and down the streets in his

crazy, bawling fashion, sometimes on foot and sometimes on an old bony

horse.

His New York city dupes, Elijah Pierson and Benjamin H. Folger and their

families, together with a Mr. Mills and a few more, figured prominently

in the chief chapter of Matthews' career, during two years and a half,

from May, 1832, to the fall of 1834.

Pierson and Folger were the leaders in the folly. These men, merchants

of wealth and successful in business, were of that sensitive and

impressible religious nature which is peculiarly credulous and liable to

enthusiasms and delusions. They had been, with a number of other

persons, eagerly engaged in some extravagant religious performances,

including excessive fasts and asceticisms, and a plan, formed by one of

their lady friends, to convert all New York by a system of female

visitations and preachings--a plan not so very foolish, I may just

remark, if the she apostles are only pretty enough!

Pierson, the craziest of the crew, besides other wretched delusions, had

already fancied himself Elijah the Tishbite; and when his wife fell ill

and died a little while before this time, had first tried to cure her,

and then to raise her from the dead, by anointing with oil and by the

prayer of faith, as mentioned in the Epistle of Saint James.

Curiously enough, a sort of lair or nest, very soft and comfortable, was

thus made ready for our religious humbug, just as he wanted it worst;

for in these days he was but seedy. He heard something of Pierson, I

don't know how; and on the 5th of May, 1832, he called on him. Very

quickly the poor fellow recognized the long-bearded prophetical humbug

as all that he claimed to be--a possessor and teacher of all truth, and

as God himself.