The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cagliostro
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Cagliostro
The splendour and misery of a master of magic
Author: W. R. H. Trowbridge
Release date: October 21, 2024 [eBook #74618]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton & Co
Credits: Alan, Hannah Wilson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAGLIOSTRO ***
CAGLIOSTRO
[Illustration: _Count Cagliostro._]
CAGLIOSTRO
_THE SPLENDOUR AND MISERY
OF A MASTER OF MAGIC_
BY
W. R. H. TROWBRIDGE
AUTHOR OF
“SEVEN SPLENDID SINNERS,” “A BEAU SABREUR,” ETC.
_WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS_
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1910
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
PREFACE
Though much has been written about Cagliostro, most of it is confined
to articles in encyclopedias and magazines, or to descriptive
paragraphs in works dealing with magic, freemasonry and the period
in which he lived.[1] This material may be described as a footnote
which has been raised to the dignity of a page of history. It is
based on contemporary records inspired by envy, hatred and contempt
in an age notoriously passionate, revengeful and unscrupulous. It
is, moreover, extremely superficial, being merely a repetition of
information obtained second-hand by compilers apparently too ignorant
or too lazy to make their own investigations. Even M. Funck-Brentano,
whose brilliant historical monographs have earned him a deservedly
high reputation, is not to be relied upon. In the sequel[2] to his
entertaining account of the affair of the Diamond Necklace, the brief
chapter he devotes to Cagliostro contains so many inaccuracies as to
suggest that, like the majority of his predecessors, he was content to
impart his information without previously taking the trouble to examine
the sources from which it was derived.
It has been said that every book on Cagliostro must be a book
_against_ him. With this opinion I totally disagree. In choosing
Cagliostro as the subject of an historical memoir I was guided at
first, I admit, by the belief that he was the arch-impostor he
is popularly supposed to be. With his mystery, magic, and highly
sensational career he seemed just the sort of picturesque personality
I was in search of. The moment, however, I began to make my researches
I was astonished to find how little foundation there was in point
of _fact_ for the popular conception. The deeper I went into the
subject--how deep this has been the reader may gather from the
Bibliography, which contains but a portion of the material I have
sifted--the more convinced I became of the fallacy of this conception.
Under such circumstances there seemed but two alternatives open to me:
either to abandon the subject altogether as unsuited for the purpose I
had in view, or to follow the line of least resistance and, dishonestly
adhering to the old method, which from custom had almost become _de
rigueur_, help to perpetuate an impression I believed to be unfounded
and unjust.
On reflection I have adopted neither course. Irritation caused by the
ignorance and carelessness of the so-called “authorities” awoke a fresh
and unexpected interest in their victim; and I decided to stick to
the subject I had chosen and treat it for the first time honestly. As
Baron de Gleichen says in his _Souvenirs_, “Enough ill has been said
of Cagliostro. I intend to speak well of him, because I think this is
always preferable providing one can, and at least I shall not bore the
reader by repeating what he has already heard.”
Such a statement made in connection with such a character as Cagliostro
is popularly supposed to be will, no doubt, expose me to the charge
of having “whitewashed” him. This, however, I emphatically deny.
“Whitewashing,” as I understand this term, is a plausible attempt to
portray base or detestable characters as worthy of esteem by palliating
their vices and attributing noble motives to their crimes. This manner
of treating historical figures is certainly not one of which I can be
accused, as those who may have read previous biographical books of mine
will admit. Whatever sympathy for Cagliostro my researches may have
evoked it has always been exceeded by contempt of those who, combining
an unreasoning prejudice with a slovenly system of compilation, have
repeated the old charges against him with parrot-like stupidity. The
object of this book is not so much an attempt to vindicate Cagliostro
as to correct and revise, if possible, what I believe to be a false
judgment of history.
W. R. H. TROWBRIDGE
_London, August 1910._
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The books and documents relating to Cagliostro are very numerous. Their
value, however, is so questionable that in making a critical choice it
is extremely difficult to avoid including many that are worthless.
In the French Archives:
A _dossier_ entitled _Documents à l’aide desquels la police de Paris a
cherché à établir, lors du procès du Collier, que Cagliostro n’était
autre qu’un aventurier nommé Joseph Balsamo, qui avait déjà séjourné à
Paris en 1772_:
Lettre adressée par un anonyme au commissaire Fontaine, remise de
Palerme, le 2 Nov., 1786.
Plainte adressée à M. de Sartine par J. Balsamo contre sa femme.
Ordre de M. de Sartine au commissaire Fontaine de dresser
procès-verbal de la capture de la dame Balsamo, 23 Janvier, 1773.
Procès-verbal de capture de la dame Balsamo, 1 Fevrier, 1773.
Interrogatoire de la dame Balsamo, 20 Fevrier, 1773.
Rapport au Ministre.
The above have also been printed in full in Emile Campardon’s _Marie
Antoinette et le Procès du Collier_.
The following documents are unprinted:
Procès-verbal de capture des sieur et dame Cagliostro.
Procès-verbal de perquisition fait par le commissaire Chesnon le 23
Août, 1785, chez le sieur Cagliostro.
Interrogatoire de Cagliostro le 30 Janvier, 1786.
Minute des confrontations des témoins de Cagliostro.
Procès-verbal de la remise faite à Cagliostro, lors de sa mise en
liberté, des effets saisis à son domicile le jour de sa mise en êtat
d’arrestation.
Journal du libraire Hardy.
Copie d’une lettre écrite de Londres par un officier français remise á
Paris le 19 Juillet 1786.
Lettre au peuple français.
Published Works:
Vie de Joseph Balsamo, connu sous le nom de Comte Cagliostro; extraite
de la procédure instruite contre lui à Rome, en 1790, traduite d’après
l’original italien, imprimé à la Chambre Apostolique.
Courier de l’Europe, gazette anglo-française, September, October,
November, 1786; also Gazette de Hollande, Gazette d’Utrecht, Gazette
de Leyde, Gazette de Florence, Courier du Bas-Rhin, Journal de Berlin,
Public Advertizer, Feuille Villageoise, and Moniteur Universel.
Cagliostro démasqué à Varsovie en 1780.
Nachricht von des berüchtigten Cagliostro aufenthalte in Mitau, im
jahre 1779 (Countess Elisa von der Recke).
Lettres sur la Suisse en 1781 (J. B. de Laborde).
Geschichten, geheime und räthselhafte Menschen (F. Bulau); or the
French translation by William Duckett _Personnages Énigmatiques_.
Souvenirs de Baron de Gleichen.
Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy.
Correspondance littéraire (Grimm).
Mémoires récréatifs, scientifiques, et anecdotiques du
physicien--aéronaute E. G. Roberson.
Mémoires authentiques de Comte Cagliostro (spurious, by the Marquis de
Luchet).
Mémoires de Brissot, Abbé Georgel, Baronne d’Oberkirch, Madame du
Hausset, Grosley, Bachaumont, Métra, Casanova, Comte Beugnot, and
Baron de Besenval.
Réflexions de P. J. J. N. Motus.
Cagliostro: La Franc-Maçonnerie et l’Occultisme au XVIIIᵉ siècle
(Henri d’Alméras).
Orthodoxie Maçonnique (Ragon).
La Franc-Maçonne, ou Révélations des Mystères des Francs-Maçons.
Annales de l’origine du Grand Orient en France.
Acta Latomorum (Thory).
Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Jacobinisme (Abbé Barruel).
Histoire du Merveilleux (Figuier).
Histoire de la Franc-Maçonnerie (Clavel).
Histoire philosophique de la Maçonnerie (Kauffmann et Cherpin).
Les Sectes et les sociétés secrètes (Comte Le Couteulx de Canteleu).
Schlosser’s History of the Eighteenth Century.
Histoire de la Révolution Française: Les Révolutionnaires Mystiques
(Louis Blanc).
Histoire de France: XVIIIᵉ siècle (Henri Martin).
Histoire de France: L’Affaire du Collier (Michelet).
Recueil de toutes les pièces (31) qui out paru dans l’affaire de M. le
Cardinal de Rohan.
Marie Antoinette et le Procès du Collier (Emile Campardon).
L’Affaire du Collier (Funck-Brentano).
The Diamond Necklace (Henry Vizetelly).
Marie Antoinette et le Procès du Collier (Chaix d’Est-Ange).
La Dernière Pièce du fameux Collier.
Mémoire du Sieur Sacchi.
Lettre de Labarthe à l’archéologue Seguier.
Lettre d’un Garde du Roi (Manuel).
Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau à ... sur Cagliostro et Lavater.
Requête au Parlement par le Comte de Cagliostro.
Mémoire pour le Comte de Cagliostro, demandeur, contre M. Chesnon le
fils et le sieur de Launay.
Lettre au Peuple Anglais par le Comte de Cagliostro.
Theveneau de Morande (Paul Robiquet).
Liber Memorialis de Caleostro dum esset Roboretti.
Alessandro di Cagliostro. Impostor or Martyr? (Charles Sotheran).
Count Cagliostro (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays; Carlyle).
Vieux papiers, vieilles maisons (G. Lenôtre).
Italiänische Reise (Goethe).
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAP. PAGE
I THE POWER OF PREJUDICE 1
II GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 19
PART II
I CAGLIOSTRO IN LONDON 49
II EIGHTEENTH CENTURY OCCULTISM 74
III MASKED AND UNMASKED 111
IV THE CONQUEST OF THE CARDINAL 155
V CAGLIOSTRO IN PARIS 180
VI THE DIAMOND NECKLACE AFFAIR 214
VII CAGLIOSTRO RETURNS TO LONDON 253
VIII “NATURE’S UNFORTUNATE CHILD” 283
INDEX 309
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_To face page_
COUNT CAGLIOSTRO _Frontispiece_
CARDINAL DE ROHAN 8
COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO 14
MESMER 76
EMMANUEL SWEDENBORG 90
ADAM WEISHAUPT 104
COUNTESS ELISA VON DER RECKE 128
LAVATER 170
SAVERNE 182
HOUDON’S BUST OF CAGLIOSTRO 194
COUNTESS DE LAMOTTE 214
MARIE ANTOINETTE 224
LORD GEORGE GORDON 258
THEVENEAU DE MORANDE 266
A MASONIC ANECDOTE 277
PHILIP JAMES DE LOUTHERBOURG 280
SAN LEO 304
CAGLIOSTRO
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE POWER OF PREJUDICE
I
The mention of Cagliostro always suggests the marvellous, the
mysterious, the unknown. There is something cabalistic in the very
sound of the name that, considering the occult phenomena performed by
the strange personality who assumed it, is curiously appropriate. As
an _incognito_ it is, perhaps, the most suitable ever invented. The
name fits the man like a glove; and, recalling the mystery in which
his career was wrapped, one involuntarily wonders if it has ever
been cleared up. In a word, what was Cagliostro really? Charlatan,
adventurer, swindler, whose impostures were finally exposed by the
ever-memorable Necklace Affair in which he was implicated? Or “friend
of humanity,” as he claimed, whose benefactions excited the enmity of
the envious, who took advantage of his misfortunes to calumniate and
ruin him? Knave, or martyr--which?
This question is more easily answered by saying what Cagliostro was
_not_ than what he _was_. It has been stated by competent judges--and
all who have studied the subject will agree with them--that there
is, perhaps, no other equally celebrated figure in modern history
whose character is so baffling to the biographer. Documents and books
relating to him abound, but they possess little or no value. The
most interesting are frequently the most unreliable. The fact that
material so questionable should provide as many reasons for rejecting
its evidence--which is, by the way, almost entirely hostile--as for
accepting it, has induced theosophists, spiritualists, occultists,
and all who are sympathetically drawn to the mysterious to become
his apologists. By these amiable visionaries Cagliostro is regarded
as one of the princes of occultism whose mystical touch has revealed
the arcana of the spiritual world to the initiated, and illumined the
path along which the speculative scientist proceeds on entering the
labyrinth of the supernatural. To them the striking contrasts with
which his agitated existence was chequered are unimpeachable witnesses
in his favour, and they stubbornly refuse to accept the unsatisfactory
and contemptuous explanation of his miracles given by those who regard
him as an impostor.
Unfortunately, greater weight is attached to police reports than
to theosophical eulogies; and something more substantial than the
enthusiasm of the occultists is required to support their contention.
However, those who take this extravagant (I had almost said ridiculous)
view of Cagliostro may obtain what consolation they can from the
fact--which cannot be stated too emphatically--that though it is
utterly impossible to grant their prophet the halo they would accord
him, it is equally impossible to accept the verdict of his enemies.
In reality, it is by the evil that has been said and written of him
that he is best known. In his own day, with very few exceptions, those
whom he charmed or duped--as you will--by acts that in any case should
have inspired gratitude rather than contempt observed a profound
silence. When the Necklace Affair opened its flood-gates of ridicule
and calumny, his former admirers saw him washed away with indifference.
To defend him was to risk being compromised along with him; and, no
doubt, as happens in our own times, the pleasure of trailing in the mud
one who has fallen was too delightful to be neglected. It is from this
epoch--1785--when people were engaged in blighting his character rather
than in trying to judge it, that nearly all the material relating to
Cagliostro dates. With only such documents, then, to hand as have been
inspired by hate, envy, or simply a love of detraction, the difficulty
of forming a correct opinion of him is apparent.
The portrait Carlyle has drawn of Cagliostro is the one most familiar
to English readers. Now, though Carlyle’s judgments have in the main
been upheld by the latest historians (who have had the advantage
of information to which he was denied access), nevertheless, like
everybody else, he made mistakes. In his case, however, these mistakes
were inexcusable, for they were due, not to the lack of data, but to
the strong prejudices by which he suffered himself to be swayed to the
exclusion of that honesty and fairness he deemed so essential to the
historian. He approached Cagliostro with a mind already biassed against
him. Distasteful at the start, the subject on closer acquaintance
became positively repugnant to him. The flagrant mendacity of the
documentary evidence--which, discount it as he might, still left the
truth in doubt--only served to strengthen his prejudice. It could
surely be no innocent victim of injustice who aroused contempt so
malevolent, hatred so universal. The mystery in which he masqueraded
was alone sufficient to excite suspicion. And yet, whispered the
conscience of the historian enraged at the mendacity of the witnesses
he consulted, what noble ideals, what lofty aspirations misjudged,
misunderstood, exposed to ridicule, pelted with calumny, may not have
sought shelter under that mantle of mystery?
“Looking at thy so attractively decorated private theatre, wherein thou
actedst and livedst,” he exclaims, “what hand but itches to draw aside
thy curtain; overhaul thy paste-boards, paint-pots, paper-mantles,
stage-lamps; and turning the whole inside out, find _thee_ in the
middle thereof!”
And suiting the action to the word, he clutches with an indignant hand
at that metaphorical curtain; but in the very act of drawing it aside
his old ingrained prejudice asserts itself. Bah! what else but a fraud
can a Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry be? Can a Madame von der Recke,
a Baroness d’Oberkirch, whose opinions at least are above suspicion, be
other than right? The man is a shameless liar; and if he has been so
shamelessly lied about in turn, he has only got what he deserved. And
exasperated that such a creature should have been permitted even for a
moment to cross the threshold of history, Carlyle dropped the curtain
his fingers “itched to draw aside” and proceeded to empty all the vials
of his wrath on Cagliostro.
In his brilliant essay, in the _Diamond Necklace_, in the _French
Revolution_--wherever he meets him--he brands him as a “King of
Liars,” a “Prince of Scoundrels,” an “Arch-Quack,” “Count Front
of Brass-Pinch-beckostrum,” “Bubby-jock,” “a babbling, bubbling
Turkey-cock,” _et cetera_. But such violence defeats its intention.
When on every page the historian’s conscience is smitten with doubts
that prejudice cannot succeed in stilling, the critical and inquisitive
reader comes to the conclusion he knows less about the _real_
Cagliostro at the end than he did at the beginning. He has merely seen
Carlyle in one of his fine literary rages; it is all very interesting
and memorable, but by no means what he wanted. As a matter of fact, in
this instance Carlyle’s judgment is absolutely at sea; and the modern
biographers of Cagliostro do not even refer to it.
Nevertheless, these writers have come pretty much to the same
conclusion. M. Henri d’Alméras, whose book on Cagliostro is the best,
speaking of the questionable evidence that so incensed Carlyle,
declares “the historian, even in handling it with care, finds himself
willy-nilly adopting the old prejudice. That is to say, every book
written on Cagliostro, even under the pretext of rehabilitating him,
can only be a book _against_ him.” But while holding to the old
conventional opinion, he considers that “a rogue so picturesque disarms
anger, and deserves to be treated with indulgence.” D’Alméras pictures
Cagliostro as a sort of clown, which is certainly the most curious view
ever taken of the “Front of Brass,” and even more unjustifiable than
Carlyle’s.
“What a good-natured, amusing, original rascal!” he exclaims. “The
Figaro of Alchemy, more intelligent than Diafoirus, and more cunning
than Scapin. And with what imperturbable serenity did he lie in five
or six languages, as well as in a gibberish that had no meaning at
all. To lie like that gives one a great superiority over the majority
of one’s fellow-men. He did not lie because he was afraid to speak
the truth, but because, as in the case of many another, falsehood was
in him an excessive development of the imagination. He was himself,
moreover, the first victim of his lies. By the familiar phenomenon
of auto-suggestion, he ended by believing what he said from force of
saying it. If he was successful, in a certain sense, he deserved to be.”
From all of which it may be gathered that whether Cagliostro is
depicted as an Apostle of Light by his friends the occultists, or a
rank impostor by his enemies, of whom Carlyle is the most implacable
and d’Alméras the most charitably inclined, the real man has been as
effectually hidden from view by prejudice as by the mystery in which
he wrapped himself. But heavy though the curtain is that conceals him,
it is perhaps possible for the hand that “itches” to draw it aside. As
a matter of fact, no really honest attempt has ever been made to do
so. It is true it is only a fleeting, somewhat nebulous, glimpse that
can be obtained of this singular personality. There is, moreover, one
condition to be observed. Before this glimpse can be obtained it is
essential that some attempt should be made to discover, if possible,
_who_ Cagliostro was.
II
Considering that one has only to turn to the biographical dictionaries
and encyclopedias to find it definitely asserted that “Count
Cagliostro” was the best known of many _aliases_ assumed by Giuseppe
Balsamo, a Sicilian adventurer born in Palermo in 1743 or 1748, the
above statement would appear to be directly contrary to recorded
fact. For though biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias are
notoriously superficial and frequently misleading, they are perhaps in
this instance accurate enough for the purpose of casual inquiry, which
is after all what they are compiled for. Indeed, this Balsamo legend
is so plausible an explanation of the mystery of Cagliostro’s origin
that, for lack of any other, it has satisfied all who are entitled to
be regarded as authorities. The evidence, however, on which they have
based their belief is circumstantial rather than positive.
Now circumstantial evidence, as everybody knows, is not always to
be trusted. There are many cases on record of persons having been
condemned on the strength of it who were afterwards found to be
innocent. In this particular case, moreover, doubts _do_ exist, and
all “authorities” have admitted the fact. Those prejudiced against
Cagliostro have agreed to attach no importance to them, those
prejudiced in his favour the greatest. To the occultists they are the
rock on which their faith in him is founded. Their opinion, however,
may be ruled aside as untenable, for the doubts are entirely of a
negative character, and suggest no counter-theory of identity whatever.
Nevertheless, since they exist they are worth examining--not so much
for the purpose of questioning the accuracy of the “authorities” as to
show how the Balsamo legend, which plays so important a part in the
history of Cagliostro, originated.
It was not till Cardinal Rohan entangled him in the Diamond Necklace
Affair that the name of Cagliostro hitherto familiar only to a limited
number of people who, as the case might be, had derived benefit or
suffered misfortune from a personal experience of his fabulous powers,
acquired European notoriety.
The excitement caused by this _cause célèbre_, as is well known, was
intense and universal. The arrest of the Cardinal in the Oeil-de-Boeuf
at Versailles, in the presence of the Court and a great concourse of
people from Paris, as he was about to celebrate mass in the Royal
Chapel on Assumption Day, on the charge of having purchased a necklace
for 1,600,000 livres for the Queen, who denied all knowledge of
the transaction; the subsequent disappearance of the jewel and the
suspicion of intent to swindle the jeweller which attached itself to
both Queen and Cardinal; the further implication of the Countess de
Lamotte, with her strangely romantic history; of Cagliostro, with his
mystery and magic; and of a host of other shady persons--these were
elements sensational enough to strike the dullest imagination, fire
the wildest curiosity, and rivet the attention of all Europe upon the
actors in so unparalleled a drama.
[Illustration: CARDINAL DE ROHAN (_From an old French print_)]
After the Cardinal, whose position as Grand Almoner of France (a
sort of French Archbishop of Canterbury, so to speak) made him the
protagonist of this drama, the self-styled Count Cagliostro was the
figure in whom the public were most interested. The prodigies he
was said to have performed, magnified by rumour, and his strange
undecipherable personality gave him an importance out of all proportion
to the small part he played in the famous Affair of the Necklace.
Speculation as to his origin was naturally rife. But neither the police
nor the lawyers could throw any light on his past. The evidence of the
Countess de Lamotte, who in open court denounced him as an impostor
formerly known as Don Tiscio, a name under which she declared he
had fleeced many people in various parts of Spain, was too palpably
untrustworthy and ridiculous to be treated seriously. Cagliostro
himself did, indeed, attempt to satisfy curiosity, but the fantastic
account he gave of his career only served--as perhaps he intended--to
deepen its mystery.
The more it was baffled, the keener became the curiosity to discover
a secret so cleverly guarded. The “noble traveller,” as he described
himself with ridiculous pomposity on his examination, confessed that
Cagliostro was only one of the several names he had assumed in the
course of his life. An _alias_--he had termed it _incognito_--is
always suspicious. Coupled, as it was in his case, with alchemical
experiments, prognostications, spiritualist séances, and quack
medicines, it suggested rascality. From ridicule to calumny is but a
step, and for every voice raised in defence of his honesty there were a
dozen to decry him.
On the day he was set at liberty--for he had no difficulty in proving
his innocence--eight or ten thousand people came _en masse_ to offer
him their congratulations. The court-yard, the staircase, the very
rooms of his house in the Rue St. Claude were filled with them. But
this ovation, flattering though it was to his vanity, was intended
less as a mark of respect to him than as an insult to the Queen, who
was known to regard the verdict as a stigma on her honour, and whose
waning popularity the hatred engendered by this scandalous affair had
completely obliterated. Banished the following day by the Government,
which sought to repair the prestige of the throne by persecuting and
calumniating those who might be deemed instrumental in shattering it,
Cagliostro lost what little credit the trial had left him. _Who_ ever he
was, the world had made up its mind _what_ he was, and its opinion was
wholly unfavourable to the “noble traveller.”
From France, which he left on June 21, 1786, Cagliostro went to
England. It was here, in the following September, that the assertion
was made for the first time by the _Courier de l’Europe_, a French
paper published in London, that he was Giuseppe Balsamo. This
announcement, made with every assurance of its accuracy, was at once
repeated by other journals throughout Europe. It would be interesting,
though not particularly important, to know how the _Courier de
l’Europe_ obtained its information. It is permissible, however, to
conjecture that the Anglo-French journal had been informed of the
rumour current in Palermo at the time of Cagliostro’s imprisonment in
the Bastille that he was a native of that city, and on investigating
the matter decided there were sufficient grounds for identifying him
with Balsamo.
Be this as it may, it is the manner in which the statement made by the
_Courier de l’Europe_ appears to be confirmed that gives the whole
theory its weight.
On December 2, 1876--dates are important factors in the
evidence--Fontaine, the chief of the Paris police, received a very
curious anonymous letter from Palermo. The writer began by saying that
he had read in the _Gazette de Leyde_ of September 25 an article taken
from the _Courier de l’Europe_ stating that the “famous Cagliostro was
called Balsamo,” from which he gathered that the Balsamo referred to
was the same who in 1773 had caused his wife to be shut up in Sainte
Pélagie at Paris for having deserted him, and who had afterwards
applied to the courts for her release. To confirm Fontaine in this
opinion, he gave him in detail the history of this Balsamo’s career,
which had been imparted to him on June 2 by the said Balsamo’s uncle,
Antonio Braconieri, who was firmly convinced that his nephew, of whom
he had heard nothing for some years, was none other than Cagliostro. As
he learnt this the day after Cagliostro’s acquittal and release from
the Bastille, the news of which could not have reached Palermo in less
than a week, it proves that Braconieri’s conviction was formed long
before the Press began to maintain it.
In fact the anonymous writer stated that this conviction was prevalent
in Palermo as far back as the previous year, when the news arrived
there of the arrest of Cagliostro in connection with the Diamond
Necklace Affair.
He went on to say that he had personally ridiculed the report at
the time, but having reflected on the grounds that Braconieri had
given him for believing it “he had come to the conclusion that Count
Cagliostro was Giuseppe Balsamo of Palermo or that Antonio Braconieri,
his uncle, was a scoundrel worthy of being the uncle of M. le Comte de
Cagliostro.” As it was not till November 2 that this somewhat ingenuous
person sent anonymously to Fontaine the information he had received on
June 2 from Braconieri, his reflections on the veracity of the latter,
one suspects, were scarcely complimentary. However, such doubts as he
might still have cherished were finally set at rest on October 31, when
Antonio Braconieri met him in one of the chief thoroughfares of Palermo
and showed him a _Gazette de Florence_ which confirmed everything
Braconieri had told him more than four months before. Hereupon, the
anonymous individual, convinced at last beyond the shadow of a doubt
that the “_soi-disant_ Count Cagliostro was really Giuseppe Balsamo
of Palermo,” decided to inform the chief of the Paris police of his
discovery.
Such is the history of the proofs in favour of the Balsamo legend. Now
to examine the proofs.
As the late M. Émile Campardon was the first to unearth this anonymous
letter together with the official report upon it in the National
Archives, and as his opinion is the one commonly accepted, it will be
sufficient to quote what he has to say on the subject.
“The adventures,” he asks, “of Giuseppe Balsamo and those of Alessandro
Cagliostro--do they belong to the history of the same career? Was the
individual who had his wife shut up in Sainte Pélagie in 1773 the same
who in 1786 protested so vehemently against the imprisonment of his
wife?[3]
“Everything goes to prove it. The Countess Cagliostro was born in
Rome; Balsamo’s wife was likewise a Roman. The maiden name of both was
Feliciani.
“Madame Balsamo was married at fourteen; the Countess Cagliostro at the
time of her marriage was still a child.
“Cagliostro stated at his trial that his wife did not know how to
write; Madame Balsamo at _her_ trial also declared she could not write.
“Her husband at any rate could. At the time of his petition against
his wife Balsamo signed two documents which are still to be seen in
the Archives. By comparing--as Fontaine had done--these two signatures
with a letter written whilst in the Bastille by Cagliostro the
experts declared the writing of Balsamo and that of Cagliostro to be
identically the same.
“Furthermore, according to the statement of Antonio Braconieri, Balsamo
had frequently written him under the name of Count Cagliostro. Nor had
he invented the name, for Giuseppe Cagliostro of Messina, steward of
the Prince of Villafranca, was Braconieri’s uncle, and consequently
Giuseppe Balsamo’s great-uncle.
“If to these probabilities one adds certain minor resemblances--such
as Cagliostro’s declaration that Cardinal Orsini and the Duke of Alba
could vouch for the truth of the account he gave of himself, who
were personages by whom Balsamo was known to have been employed; the
fact that Cagliostro spoke the Sicilian dialect, and that Balsamo had
employed magic in his swindling operations--it is scarcely credible
that lives and characters so identical could belong to two different
beings.”
The arguments in favour of this hypothesis are very plausible and
apparently as convincing as such circumstantial evidence usually is. It
is possible, however, as stated above, to question the accuracy of the
conclusion thus reached for the following reasons.
(1) The basis of the supposition that the Countess Cagliostro and
Madame Balsamo were the same rests entirely on coincidence.
Granted that both happened to be Romans, that the maiden name of both
was Feliciani, that both were married extremely young, and that neither
could write. The fact that both were Romans is no argument at all.
Though their maiden name was Feliciani, it was a comparatively common
one--there were several families of Feliciani in Rome, and for that
matter all over Italy. Madame Balsamo’s father came from Calabria. Her
Christian name was Lorenza. The statement that the Countess Cagliostro
was likewise called Lorenza and changed her name to Seraphina, by which
she was known, is based entirely on supposition. That both were married
very young and that neither knew how to write, scarcely calls for
comment. Italian women usually married in early girlhood, and very few,
if any, of the class to which Seraphina Cagliostro and Lorenza Balsamo
belonged could write.
[Illustration: _SERAPHINIA FELICHIANI._
COMTESSE DE CAGLIOSTRO.
(_From a very rare French print_)]
(2) The testimony of the experts as to the remarkable similarity
between the writing of Balsamo and Cagliostro requires something
more than an official statement to that effect to be convincing. At the
time the experts made their report, the French Government were trying
to silence the calumnies with which Marie Antoinette was being attacked
by making the character of Cagliostro and others connected with the
Necklace Affair appear as bad as possible. The Parisian police in the
interest of the Monarchy, jumped at the opportunity of identifying the
mysterious Cagliostro with the infamous Balsamo. The experts’ evidence
is, to say the least, questionable.
(3) The fact that Giuseppe Balsamo had an uncle called Giuseppe
Cagliostro is the strongest argument in favour of the identification
theory. There is no reason to doubt Antonio Braconieri’s statement that
he had received letters from his nephew signed “Count Cagliostro.”
However, the writer of the anonymous letter declared that, desiring
to prove Braconieri’s word as to the existence of Giuseppe Cagliostro
of Messina, he discovered that there were _two_ families of the name
in that city. The prefix Cagli, moreover, is not unusual in Sicilian,
Calabrian and Neapolitan names. The selection of it by Cagliostro as
an _incognito_ may have been accidental, or invented because of its
peculiar cabalistic suggestion as suitable for the occult career on
which he embarked, or it may have been suggested to him by some one
of the name he had met when wandering about southern Italy. As his
identification with Balsamo is based principally on coincidence, it is
surely equally permissible to employ a coincidence as the basis of one
of the many arguments in an attempt at refutation.
(4) As to the minor points of resemblance between Cagliostro and
Balsamo given as “probabilities” for supposing them identical: in
considering that Cagliostro used as references the names of Cardinal
Orsini and the Duke of Alba, by whom Balsamo was known to have been
employed at one time, the fantastic account he gave of himself at
his trial should be remembered. One of the principal reasons for
disbelieving him was the fact that these personages were _dead_ and
so unable to verify or deny his statement. Again, though the Sicilian
dialect was undoubtedly Balsamo’s mother-tongue, no one could ever
make out to what _patois_ Cagliostro’s extraordinary abracadabra of
accent belonged. But nothing can be weaker than to advance their use of
magic and alchemy as a reason for identifying them. Magic and alchemy
were the common stock-in-trade of every adventurer in Europe in the
eighteenth century.
So much for criticism of the “official” proof.
There is, however, another reason for doubting the identity of the
two men. It is the most powerful of all, and has hitherto apparently
escaped the attention of those who have taken this singular theory of
identification for granted.
Nobody that had _known_ Balsamo ever _saw_ Cagliostro.
The description of Balsamo’s features given by Antonio Braconieri
resembles that which others have given of Cagliostro’s personal
appearance _as far as it goes_. Unfortunately, it merely proves that
both were short, had dark complexions, and peculiarly bright eyes. As
for their noses, Braconieri described Balsamo’s as being _écrasé_;
it is a much more forcible and unflattering term than has ever been
applied to the by no means uncommon shape of Cagliostro’s nasal organ.
There were many pictures of Cagliostro scattered over Europe at the
time of the Necklace Affair. In Palermo, where the interest taken
in him was great, few printsellers’ windows, one would imagine, but
would have contained his portrait. Braconieri certainly is likely to
have seen it; and had the resemblance to Balsamo been undeniable, he
would surely have attached the greatest importance to it as a proof of
the identity he desired to establish. As a matter of fact, he barely
mentions it.
Again, one wonders why nobody who had known Balsamo ever made the
least attempt to identify Cagliostro with him either at the time of
the trial or when the articles in the _Courier de l’Europe_ brought
him a second time prominently before the public. Now Balsamo was known
to have lived in London in 1771, when his conduct was so suspicious to
the police that he deemed it advisable to leave the country. He and
his wife accordingly went to Paris, and it was here that, in 1773, the
events occurred which brought both prominently under the notice of the
authorities. Six years after Balsamo’s disappearance from London, Count
Cagliostro appeared in that city, and becoming involved with a set of
swindlers in a manner that made him appear a fool rather than a knave,
spent four months in the King’s Bench jail. How is it, one asks, that
the London police, who “wanted” Giuseppe Balsamo, utterly failed to
recognize him in the notorious Cagliostro?
Now granting that the police, as well as the persons whom Balsamo
fleeced in London in 1771, had forgotten him in 1777, and that all
who could have recognized him as Cagliostro in 1786, when the
_Courier de l’Europe_ exposed him, were dead, is it probable that the
same coincidences would repeat themselves in Paris? If the Parisian
police, who were doing their best to discover traces of Cagliostro’s
antecedents in 1785 and 1786 had quite _forgotten_ the Balsamo who
brought the curious action against his wife in 1773, is it at all
likely that the various people the Balsamos had known in their
two-years’ residence in Paris would all have _died_ in the meantime?
People are always to be found to identify criminals and suspicious
characters to whom the attention of the police is prominently drawn.
But before the sort of Sherlock Holmes process of identification
employed by the _Courier de l’Europe_ and the Parisian police, not a
soul was ever heard to declare that Cagliostro and Balsamo were the
same.
* * * * *
To the reader who, knowing little or nothing of Cagliostro, takes up
this book with an unbiassed mind, the above objections to the Balsamo
legend may seem proof conclusive of its falsity. This would, however,
be to go further than I, who attach much greater importance to these
doubts than historians are inclined to do, care to admit. They merely
show that it is neither right nor excusable to treat as a conviction
what is purely a conjecture.
If this conclusion, wrapping as it does the origin and early life
of Cagliostro once more in a veil of mystery, be accepted, it will
go far to remove the prejudice which has hitherto made the answer
to that other and more important question “What was Cagliostro?” so
unsatisfactory.
CHAPTER II
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO
I
There could be no better illustration of the perplexities that confront
the biographer of Cagliostro at every stage of his mysterious career
than the uncertainty that prevails regarding the career of Giuseppe
Balsamo himself. For rightly or wrongly, their identity has so long
been taken for granted that the history of one has become indissolubly
linked to that of the other.
Now, not only is it extremely difficult, when not altogether
impossible, to verify the information we have concerning Balsamo, but
the very integrity of those from whom the information is derived, is
questionable. These tainted sources, so to speak, from which there
meanders a confused and maze-like stream of contradictory details and
unverifiable episodes, are (1) Balsamo’s wife, Lorenza, (2) the Editor
of the _Courier de l’Europe_, and (3) the Inquisition-biographer of
Cagliostro.
Lorenza’s statement is mainly the itinerary of the wanderings
of herself and husband about Europe from their marriage to her
imprisonment in Paris in 1773. Such _facts_ as it purports to give as
to the character of their wanderings are very meagre, and coloured so
as to depict her in a favourable light. The _dossier_ containing the
particulars of her arrest is in the Archives of Paris, where it was
_discovered_ by the French Government in 1786, and where it is still to
be seen. Query: considering the suspicious circumstances that led to
its discovery, is the _dossier_ a forgery?
Opposed to the evidence of the _Courier de l’Europe_ are the character,
secret motives, and avowed enmity of the Editor.
As to the life of Balsamo,[4] published anonymously in Rome in 1791,
under the auspices of the Inquisition, into whose power Cagliostro
had fallen, the tone of hostility in which it is written, excessive
even from an ultra-Catholic point of view, its lack of precision,
and the absence of dates which makes it impossible to verify its
statements, have caused critics of every shade of opinion, to consider
it partially, if not wholly, unauthenticated.
It purports to be the confession of Cagliostro, extracted either by
torture or the fear of torture, during his trial by the Inquisition.
That Cagliostro did indeed “confess” is quite likely. But what sort of
value could such a confession possibly have? The manner in which the
Inquisition conducted its trials has rendered its verdicts suspect the
world over. His condemnation was decided on from the very start, as
the charge on which he was arrested proves--as will be shown in due
course--and to escape torture, perhaps also in the hope of acquittal,
Cagliostro was ready enough to oblige his terrible judges and “confess”
whatever they wished.
It is, moreover, a question whether the adventures related in the _Vie
de Joseph Balsamo_ are those of one or of several persons. As it is
quite inconceivable that the Cagliostro of the Necklace Affair could
ever have been the very ordinary adventurer here depicted, it has
been suggested--and there is much to support the view--that Giuseppe
Balsamo, as known to history, is a sort of composite individual
manufactured out of all the rogues of whom the Inquisition-writer had
any knowledge.
One thing, however, may be confidently asserted: whether the exploits
of Giuseppe Balsamo were partially or wholly his, imaginary or real,
they are at any rate typical of the adventurer of the age.
Like Cagliostro, he boasted a noble origin, and never failed on the
various occasions of changing his name to give himself a title. There
is, however, no reason to suppose that he was in any way related to, or
even aware of the existence of the aristocratic family of the same name
who derived _their_ title from the little town of Balsamo near Monza
in the Milanese. As a matter of fact the name was a fairly common one
in Italy, and the Balsamos of Palermo were of no consequence whatever.
Nothing is known of Giuseppe’s father, beyond the fact that he was a
petty tradesman who became bankrupt, and died at the age of forty-five,
a few months after the birth of his son. Pietro Balsamo was _thought_
to be of mixed Jewish and Moorish extraction, which would account for
his obscurity and the slight esteem in which his name was held in
Palermo, where the Levantines were the scum of the population.
Such scant consideration as the family may have enjoyed was due
entirely to Giuseppe’s mother, who though of humble birth was of
good, honest Sicilian stock. Through her he could at least claim to
have had a great-grandfather, one Matteo Martello, whom it has been
supposed Cagliostro had in mind when in his fantastic account of
himself at the time of the Necklace Affair he claimed to be descended
from Charles Martel, the founder of the Carlovingian dynasty. This
Matteo Martello had two daughters, the youngest of whom Vincenza
married Giuseppe Cagliostro of Messina, whose name and relationship
to Giuseppe Balsamo is the chief argument in the attempt to prove the
identity of the latter with Cagliostro. Vincenza’s elder sister married
Giuseppe Braconieri and had three children, Felice, Matteo, and Antonio
Braconieri. The former was Giuseppe’s mother. He had also a sister
older than himself, Maria, who became the wife of Giovanni Capitummino.
On the death of her husband she returned with her children to live with
her mother, all of whom Goethe met when in Palermo in 1787.
The poverty in which Pietro Balsamo died obliged his widow to appeal
to her brother for assistance. Fortunately they were in a position and
willing to come to her relief. Matteo, the elder, was chief clerk in
the post-office at Palermo; while Antonio was bookkeeper in the firm of
J. F. Aubert & Co. Both brothers, as well as their sister, appear to
have been deeply religious, and it is not unlikely that the severity
and repression to which Giuseppe was continually subjected may have
fostered the spirit of rebellion, already latent in him, which was to
turn him into the blackguard he became.
It manifested itself at an early age. From the Seminary of San Rocco,
where he received his first schooling, he ran away several times.
As the rod, which appears to have played an important part in the
curriculum of the seminary, failed to produce the beneficial results
that are supposed to ensue from its frequent application, his uncles,
anxious to get rid of so troublesome a charge, decided to confide the
difficult task of coaxing or licking him into shape to the Benfratelli
of Cartegirone. Giuseppe was accordingly enrolled as a novice in this
brotherhood, whose existence was consecrated to the healing of the
sick, and placed under the supervision of the Convent-Apothecary. He
was at the time thirteen.
According to the Inquisition-biographer, it was in the laboratory of
the convent that Cagliostro learnt “the principles of chemistry and
medicine” which he afterwards practised with such astonishing results.
If so, he must have been gifted with remarkable aptitude, which both
his conduct and brief sojourn at Cartegirone belie. For whatever hopes
his mother and uncles may have founded on the effect of this pious
environment were soon dispelled. He had not been long in the convent
before he manifested his utter distaste for the life of a Brother of
Mercy. Naturally insubordinate and bold he determined to escape; but
as experience had taught him at the Seminary of San Rocco that running
away merely resulted in being thrashed and sent back, and as he had
neither the means nor the desire to go anywhere save home to Palermo,
he cunningly cast about in his mind to obtain his release from the
Brothers themselves. This was not easy to accomplish, but in spite of
the severe punishment his wilfully idle and refractory conduct entailed
he was persistent and finally succeeded in wearing out the patience of
the long-suffering monks.
From the manner in which he attained his object Carlyle detects in
him a “touch of grim humour--or deep world-irony, as the Germans call
it--the surest sign, as is often said, of a character naturally great.”
It was a universal custom in all religious associations that one of
their number during meals should read aloud to the others passages from
the Lives of the Saints. This dull and unpopular task having one day
been allotted to Giuseppe--probably as a punishment--he straightway
proceeded, careless of the consequences, to read out whatever came into
his head, substituting for the names of the Saints those of the most
notable courtezans of Palermo. The effect of this daring sacrilege
was dire and immediate. With fist and foot the scandalized monks
instantly fell upon the boy and having belaboured him, as the saying
is, within an inch of his life, indignantly packed him back to Palermo
as hopelessly incorrigible and utterly unworthy of ever becoming a
Benfratello.
No fatted calf, needless to say, was killed to celebrate the return
of the prodigal. But Giuseppe having gained his object, took whatever
chastisement he received from his mother and uncles philosophically,
and left them to swallow their mortification as best they could.
However, sorely tried though they were, they did not even now wash
their hands of him. Somehow--just how it would be difficult to say--one
forms a vague idea he was never without a plausible excuse for his
conduct. Adventurers, even the lowest, more or less understand the art
of pleasing; and many little things seem to indicate that with all his
viciousness his disposition was not unattractive. On the contrary
there is much in the character of his early villainies to suggest his
powers of persuasion were considerable.
Thus, after his expulsion from Cartegirone the Inquisition-biographer
tells us that he took lessons in drawing for which, no doubt, he must
have given some proof of talent and inclination. Far, however, from
showing any disposition to conform to the wishes of his uncles, who for
his mother’s sake, if not for his own, continued to take an interest
in him, the boy rapidly went from bad to worse. As neither reproof nor
restraint produced any effect on his headstrong and rebellious nature
he appears to have been permitted to run wild, perhaps because he had
reached an age when it was no longer possible to control his actions.
Nor were the acquaintances he formed of the sort to counteract a
natural tendency to viciousness. He was soon hand in glove with all the
worst characters of the town.
“There was no fight or street brawl,” says the indignant
Inquisition-biographer, “in which he was not involved, no theft of
which he was not suspected. The band of young desperadoes to which he
belonged frequently came into collision with the night-watch, whose
prisoners, if any, they would attempt to set free. Even the murder of a
canon was attributed to him by the gossips of the town.”
In a word Giuseppe Balsamo became a veritable “Apache” destined
seemingly sooner or later for the galleys or the gallows. Such a
character, it goes without saying, could not fail to attract the notice
of the police. He more than once saw the inside of the Palermo jail;
but from lack of sufficient proof, or from the nature of the charge
against him, or owing to the intercession of his estimable uncles, as
often as he was arrested he was let off again.
Even his drawing-lessons, while they lasted, were perverted to the most
ignoble ends. To obtain the money he needed he began, like all thieves,
with petty thefts from his relations. One of his uncles was his first
victim. In a similar way he derived profit from a love-affair between
his sister and a cousin. As their parents put obstacles in the way of
their meeting Giuseppe offered to act as go-between. In a rash moment
they accepted his aid, and he profited by the occasion to substitute
forged letters in the place of those he undertook to deliver, by means
of which he got possession of the presents the unsuspecting lovers were
induced to exchange. Encouraged by the skill he displayed in imitating
hand-writing and copying signatures--which seems to have been the
extent of his talent for drawing--he turned it to account in other and
more profitable ways. Somehow--perhaps by hints dropped by himself in
the right quarter--his proficiency in this respect, and his readiness
to give others the benefit of it for a consideration, got known. From
forging tickets to the theatre for his companions, he was employed to
forge leave-of-absence passes for monks, and even to forge a will in
favour of a certain Marquis Maurigi, by which a religious institution
was defrauded of a large legacy.
There is another version of this affair which the Inquisition-writer
has naturally ignored, and from which it would appear that it was the
marquis who was defrauded of the legacy by the religious institution.
But be this trifling detail as it may, the fact remains that the
forgery was so successfully effected that it was not discovered till
several years later, when some attempt was made to bring Balsamo to
justice, which the impossibility of ascertaining whether he was alive
or dead, rendered abortive.
Such sums of money, however, as he obtained in this way must of
necessity have been small. It could only have been in copper that his
“Apache” friends and the monks paid him for the theatre-tickets and
convent-passes he forged for them. Nor was the notary by whom he was
employed to forge the will, and who, we are told, was a relation,
likely to be much more liberal. In Palermo then, as to-day, scores of
just such youths as Giuseppe Balsamo were to be found ready to perform
any villainy for a fifty centime piece. He accordingly sought other
means of procuring the money he needed and as none, thanks to his
compatriots’ notorious credulity, was likely to prove so remunerative
as an appeal to their love of the marvellous, he had recourse to what
was known as “sorcery.”
It is to the questionable significance attached to this word that the
prejudice against Cagliostro, whose wonders were attributed to magic,
has been very largely due. For it is only of comparatively recent
date that “sorcery” so-called has ceased to be anathema, owing to
the belated investigations of science, which is always, and perhaps
with reason, suspicious of occult phenomena, by which the indubitable
existence of certain powers--as yet only partially explained--active in
some, passive in others, and perhaps latent in all human beings, has
been revealed. And even still, so great is the force of tradition, many
judging from the frauds frequently perpetrated by persons claiming
to possess these secret powers, regard with suspicion, if not with
downright contempt, all that is popularly designated as sorcery, magic,
or witchcraft.
But this is not the place to discuss the methods by which those who
work miracles obtain their results. Suffice it to say, there has been
from time immemorial a belief in the ability of certain persons to
control the forces of nature. Nowhere is this belief stronger than in
Sicily. There the “sorcerer” is as common as the priest; not a village
but boasts some sibyl, seer, or wonder-worker. That all are not equally
efficient, goes without saying. Some possess remarkable powers, which
they themselves would probably be unable to explain. Others, like
Giuseppe Balsamo, are only able to deceive very simple or foolish
people easy to deceive.
From the single instance cited of Giuseppe’s skill in this
direction one infers his magical gifts were of the crystal-gazing,
sand-divination kind--the ordinary kind with which everybody
is more or less familiar, if only by name. According to the
Inquisition-biographer, “one day whilst he and his companions were
idling away the time together the conversation having turned upon a
certain girl whom they all knew, one of the number wondered what she
was doing at that moment, whereupon Giuseppe immediately offered to
gratify him. Marking a square on the ground he made some passes with
his hands above it, after which the figure of the girl was seen in the
square playing at _tressette_ with three of her friends.” So great was
the effect of this exhibition of clairvoyance, thought-transference,
hypnotic suggestion, what you will, upon the amazed Apaches that they
went at once to look for the girl and “found her in the same attitude
playing the very game and with the very persons that Balsamo had shown
them.”
The fact that such phenomena are of quite common occurrence and to be
witnessed any day in large cities and summer-resorts on payment of
fees, varying according to the renown of the performer, has robbed
them if not of their attraction at least of their wonder. One has come
to take them for granted. Whatever may be the scientific explanation
of such occult--the word must serve for want of a better--power as
Giuseppe possessed, he himself, we may be sure, would only have been
able to account for it as “sorcery.” He was not likely to be a whit
less superstitious than the people with whom he associated. Indeed,
his faith in the efficacy of the magic properties attributed by vulgar
superstition to sacred things would appear to have been greater than
his faith in his own supernatural powers.
It is reported of him on one occasion that “under pretext of curing
his sister, who he said was possessed of a devil, he obtained from a
priest in the country a little cotton dipped in holy oil,” to which,
doubtless, he attached great importance as the means of successfully
performing some wonder he had no confidence in his own powers to
effect. Such cryptic attributes as he had been endowed with must have
been very slight, or undeveloped, for there is no reference whatever to
the marvellous in the swindles of his subsequent history in which one
would expect him to have employed it. Very probably whatever magnetic,
hypnotic, or telepathic faculty he possessed was first discovered
by the apothecary under whom he was placed in the laboratory at
Cartegirone, who, like all of his kind, no doubt, experimented in
alchemy and kindred sciences. If so, he certainly did not stay long
enough with the Benfratelli to turn his mysterious talent to account
or to obtain more than the merest glimpse of the “sorcery,” of which,
though banned by the Church, the monasteries were the secret nursery.
Be this as it may, needless to say those who had witnessed Giuseppe’s
strange phenomenon required no further proof of his marvellous power,
which rapidly noised abroad and exaggerated by rumour gave the young
“sorcerer” a reputation he only wanted an opportunity of exploiting
for all it was worth. How long he waited for this opportunity is not
stated, but he was still in his teens when it eventually turned up in
the person of a “certain ninny of a goldsmith named Marano,” whose
superstition, avarice, and gullibility made him an easy dupe.
One day in conversation with this man, who had been previously nursed
to the proper pitch of cupidity, as one nurses a constituency before an
election, Giuseppe informed him under pledge of the strictest secrecy
that he knew of a certain cave not far from Palermo, in which a great
treasure was buried. According to a superstition prevalent in Sicily,
where belief in such treasure was common, it was supposed to be guarded
by demons, and as it would be necessary to hire a priest to exorcize
them, Giuseppe offered to take Marano to the spot and assist him in
lifting the hidden wealth for the consideration of “sixty ounces of
gold.”[5]
Whatever objection Marano might have had to part with such a sum was
overcome by the thought of gaining probably a hundred times as much.
He accordingly paid the money and set out one night with Giuseppe, the
priest, and another man who was in the secret. On arriving at the cave,
preparatory to the ceremony of exorcism, the priest proceeded to evoke
the demons, which was done with due solemnity by means of magic circles
and symbols drawn upon the ground, incantations in Latin, _et cetera_.
Suddenly hideous noises were heard, there was a flash and splutter
of blue fire, and the air was filled with sulphur. Marano, who was
waiting in the greatest terror for the materialization of the powers of
darkness, in which he firmly believed, and who, he had been told, on
such occasions sometimes got beyond the control of the exorcist, was
commanded to dig where he stood. But scarcely had his spade struck the
ground when the demons themselves appeared with shrieks and yells--some
goat-herds hired for the occasion, as horrible as paint, burnt cork,
and Marano’s terrified imagination could paint them--and fell upon the
wretched man. Whereupon Giuseppe and his confederates took to their
heels, leaving their dupe in a fit on the ground.
Fool that he was, it did not take the goldsmith on recovering his
senses long to discover that he had been victimized. Indifferent to
the ridicule to which he exposed himself he lost no time in bringing
an action against Giuseppe for the recovery of the money of which he
had been defrauded, swearing at the same time to have the life of the
swindler as well. Under such circumstances Palermo was no longer a safe
place for the sorcerer, and taking time by the forelock he fled.
II
At this stage in Balsamo’s career even the Inquisition-biographer
ceases to vouch for the accuracy of what he relates.
“Henceforth,” he confesses, “we are obliged to accept Cagliostro’s own
assertions”--wrung from him in the torture chamber of the Castle of St.
Angelo, be it remembered--“without the means of verifying them, as no
further trace of his doings is to be found elsewhere.”
Considering that accuracy, to which no importance has been attached in
all previous books on Cagliostro, is the main object of this, after
such a statement the continuation of Balsamo’s history would appear to
be superfluous. Apart, however, from their romantic interest, Balsamo’s
subsequent adventures are really an aid to accuracy. For the character
of the man as revealed by them will be found to be so dissimilar to
Cagliostro’s as to serve more forcibly than any argument to prove how
slight are the grounds for identifying the two.
By relating what befell Balsamo on fleeing from Palermo one may
judge, from the very start, of the sort of faith to be placed in his
Inquisition-biographer. In Cagliostro’s own account of his life--which
will be duly reported in its proper place--his statements in regard to
the “noble Althotas,” that remarkable magician by whom he avowed he
was brought up, were regarded as absolutely ridiculous. Nevertheless
for the sole purpose apparently of proving Cagliostro’s identity
with Balsamo the Inquisition-biographer drags this individual
whose very existence is open to doubt into the life of the latter,
and unblushingly plunges the two into those fabulous and ludicrous
adventures, of which the description caused so much mirth at the time
of the Necklace Affair.
Thus the imaginative Inquisition-biographer declares it was at
Messina, whither he went on leaving Palermo, that Balsamo met the
“noble Althotas,” whose power “to dematerialize himself” was, to judge
from the last occasion on which he was reported to have been seen in
the flesh at Malta, only another way of saying that he was clever in
evading the police. But as Balsamo after having “overrun the whole
earth” with Althotas emerges once more into something like reality at
Naples, in the company of the renegade priest who had assisted in the
fleecing of Marano, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this city
and not Messina was his immediate destination on leaving Palermo.
He did not stay long, however, at Naples. Owing either to a quarrel
with the priest over their ill-gotten funds, or to a hint from the
police whose suspicions his conduct aroused, he went to Rome. The
statement that on his arrival he presented a letter of introduction
from the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta--one of his adventures
with Althotas--to the Baron de Bretteville, the envoy from Malta to
the Holy See, by whom in turn he was introduced to Cardinals York and
Orsini, is scarcely worth refuting. For if the Palermo Apache ever
entered the salon of a Roman noble it could of course only have been
via the _escalier de service_.
The Inquisition-biographer, however, quickly reduces him to a
situation much more in keeping with his character and condition. “Not
long,” he says, “after his arrival in Rome, Balsamo was sentenced to
three days in jail for quarrelling with one of the waiters at the sign
of the Sun, where he lodged.” On his release, he was, as is highly
probable forced to live by his wits, and instead of consorting with
Cardinals and diplomatists turned his attention to drawing. But as his
talent in this respect appears to have been as limited as his knowledge
of the occult, it is not surprising that the revenue he derived from
the sketches he copied, or from old prints, freshened up and passed off
as originals, was precarious.
Love, however, is the great consoler of poverty. About this time
Balsamo conceived a violent passion for Lorenza Feliciani, the
fourteen-year-old daughter of a “smelter of copper” who lived in an
alley close to the Church of the Trinita de’ Pellegrini--one of the
poorest quarters of Rome. Marriage followed the love-making, and
Lorenza, in spite of her tender years, in due course became his wife.
This event--which is one of the few authenticated ones in Balsamo’s
career--took place in “April 1769 in the Church of San Salvatore in
Campo.”
As the sale of her husbands pen-and-ink sketches, which in Lorenza’s
estimation at least were “superb,” was not remunerative at the best
of times, the young couple made their home at first with the bride’s
parents. And now for perhaps the only time in his life a decent
and comfortable existence was open to Balsamo. He had a young and,
according to all accounts, a beautiful wife, whom he loved and by
whom he was loved; he had a home, and the chance of adopting his
father-in-law’s more lucrative, if less congenial, trade--of settling
down, in a word, and turning over a new leaf. But he was a born
blackguard and under the circumstances it is not surprising that he
should have had the _nostalgie de la boue_. In other words his Apache
nature asserted itself, and he had no sooner married than he proceeded
with revolting cynicism to turn his wife’s charms to account.
But Lorenza, being at this stage of her career as innocent as she
was ignorant, very naturally objected to his odious proposal. By
dint, however, of persuasion and argument he finally succeeded in
indoctrinating her with his views, to the great indignation of her
parents, who, scandalized by such conduct, after frequent altercations
finally turned the couple out of the house. Whereupon Lorenza decided
to abandon any remaining scruples she had and assist her husband to the
best of her ability.
Among the acquaintances they made in this way were two Sicilians of
the worst character, Ottavio Nicastro, who finished on the gallows,
and a self-styled Marquis Agliata. The latter being an accomplished
forger was not long in discovering a similar talent in the husband of
Lorenza, by whose charms he had been smitten. He accordingly proposed
to take him into partnership, a proposition which Balsamo was ready
enough to accept. Nicastro, however, feeling himself slighted by the
close intimacy between the two, from which he was excluded, informed
the police of their doings; but as he was foolish enough to quarrel
with them beforehand, they suspected his intention, and defeated it by
a hurried flight.
If Lorenza is to be believed, their intention was to go to Germany,
and it was perhaps with this end in view that Agliata had, as the
Inquisition-biographer asserts, previously forged the brevet of a
Prussian colonelcy for Balsamo. At any rate, once out of the Papal
States they proceeded very leisurely, swindling right and left as they
went. At Loretto they obtained “fifty sequins” from the governor of the
town by means of a forged letter of introduction from Cardinal Orsini.
In this way they got as far as Bergamo, where the crafty Agliata
decided to adopt different tactics. He accordingly gave out that he
was a recruiting agent of the King of Prussia; but by some chance the
suspicions of the authorities were aroused, whereupon Agliata, having
somehow got wind of the fact, without more ado decamped, leaving
the Balsamos to shift for themselves. Scarcely had he gone when the
_sbirri_ arrived to arrest him. Not finding him, they seized the
Balsamos as his accomplices; they, however, succeeded in clearing
themselves, and on being released were ordered to leave the town. As
Agliata had gone off with all the money, they were obliged to sell
their effects to obey this injunction; and not daring to return to
Rome, they proceeded to Milan, where they arrived almost destitute.
Beggary was now their only means of existence, but even beggary may
be profitable providing one knows _how_ to beg. According to the
Countess de Lamotte, who spoke from experience, there was “only one
way of asking alms, and that was in a carriage.” In fine, “to get on”
as a beggar, as in every profession, requires ability. It is the kind
of ability with which Balsamo was abundantly gifted. Aware that the
pilgrims he saw wandering about Italy from shrine to shrine subsisted
on wayside charity, he conceived the ingenious expedient of imitating
them. As the objective of this expiatory vagabondage he selected St.
James of Compostella, one of the most popular shrines at the time in
Christendom, and consequently one to which a pilgrimage might most
easily be exploited.
So setting out from Milan, staff in hand, mumbling paternosters,
fumbling their beads, begging their way from village to village, from
presbytery to presbytery, and constantly on the alert for any chance
of improving their condition, the couple took the road to Spain. Of
this tour along the Riviera to Barcelona, where the “pilgrimage” ended,
Lorenza, on being arrested three years later in Paris, gave an account
which the Inquisition-biographer has embellished, and which in one
particular at least has been verified by no less a person than Casanova.
As it happened, this prince of adventurers--who in obedience to a
time-honoured convention is never mentioned in print, by English
writers _bien entendu_, without condemnation, though in private
conversation people wax eloquent enough over him--was himself wandering
about the South of France at the time. Arriving in Aix-en-Provence in
1770, he actually stopped in the same inn as the Balsamos, who excited
his curiosity by their lavish distribution of alms to the poor of the
town. Being a man who never missed a single opportunity of improving
any acquaintance that chance might throw in his way, he called upon the
couple, and recorded his impression in those fascinating Memoirs of
his, of which the authenticity is now fully established and, what is
more to the point, of which all the details have been verified.[6]
“I found the female pilgrim,” he says, “seated in a chair looking like
a person exhausted with fatigue, and interesting by reason of her youth
and beauty, singularly heightened by a touch of melancholy and by a
crucifix of yellow metal six inches long which she held in her hand.
Her companion, who was arranging shells on his coat of black baize,
made no movement--he appeared to intimate by the looks he cast at his
wife I was to attend to her alone.”
From the manner in which Lorenza conducted herself on this occasion she
appears to have had remarkable aptitude for acting the rôle her husband
had given her.
“We are going on foot,” she said in answer to Casanova’s questions,
“living on charity the better to obtain the mercy of God, whom I have
so often offended. Though I ask only a sou in charity, people always
give me pieces of silver and gold”--a hint Casanova did not take--“so
that arriving at a town we have to distribute to the poor all that
remains to us, in order not to commit the sin of losing confidence in
the Eternal Providence.”
Whatever doubts Casanova may have had as to her veracity, the
Inquisition-biographer most certainly had none. He declares that the
“silver and gold” of which she and her husband were so lavish at Aix
was a shameful _quid pro quo_ obtained from some officers at Antibes
whom she had fascinated.
Unfortunately there is no Casanova at Antibes to verify him or to
follow them to London via Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon. Lorenza
is very explicit as to where they went on leaving Aix, and as to
the time they remained in the various places they visited. The
Inquisition-biographer, _faute de mieux_, is obliged to confirm her
itinerary, but he has his revenge by either denying everything else
she says, or by putting the worst construction upon it. At all events,
between them one gets the impression that the pilgrims, for some reason
or other, abandoned their pilgrimage before reaching the shrine of St.
James of Compostella; that Lorenza was probably more truthful than she
meant to be when she says they left Lisbon “because the climate was
too hot for her”; and that however great the quantity of “silver and
gold” she was possessed of at Aix, she and her husband had divested
themselves of most of it by the time they reached London.
As to the character of their adventures by the way, it bears too close
a resemblance to those already related to be worth describing.
III
The Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_--which journal, as previously
stated, was published in London--is the authority for the information
concerning the Balsamos in England. He ferreted out or concocted
this information _fourteen years_ later; and, as quite apart from
his motives, no one of the people he refers to as having known the
Balsamos in 1772 came forward to corroborate what he said or to
identify them with the Cagliostros, it is impossible to verify his
evidence. From the fact, however, that it was commonly accepted at the
time, and is still regarded as substantially trustworthy, _entirely
because Cagliostro absolutely denied any knowledge of the Balsamos_,
the reader may judge at once of the bitterness of the prejudice against
Cagliostro as well as of the value to be attached to such “proof.”
According to the _Courier de l’Europe_, Balsamo and his wife arrived in
London from Lisbon in 1771, and after living for a while in Leadenhall
Street moved to New Compton Street, Soho. They were, we are told, in
extreme poverty, which Lorenza--to whom vice had long ceased to be
repugnant--endeavoured to alleviate by the most despicable expedients.
As she had but indifferent success, Balsamo, having quarrelled with a
painter and decorator by name of Pergolezzi, by whom he had for a few
days been employed, assisted her in the infamous rôle of blackmailer.
Their most profitable victim appears to have been “a Quaker,” who, in
spite of the rigorous standard of morality prescribed by the sect to
which he belonged, occasionally deigned to make some secret concession
to the weakness of human nature. Decoyed by Lorenza, this individual
was discovered by her husband in so compromising a situation that
nothing short of the payment of one hundred pounds could mollify
Balsamo’s feigned indignation and avert the disgrace with which he
threatened the erring and terrified disciple of William Penn.
Their ill-gotten gains, however, did not last long; and while Lorenza
promenaded the streets in the vain quest for other victims, Balsamo
was once more obliged to have recourse to his artistic talents. But
Fortune remained hostile, and even went out of her way to vent her
spite on the couple. For a certain Dr. Moses Benamore, described as
“the envoy of the King of Barbary,” was induced to purchase some of
Balsamo’s drawings, payment of which the artist was obliged to seek
in the courts. The case, however, was decided against him, and since,
after paying the costs to which he was condemned, he was unable to pay
his rent, his landlord promptly had him arrested for debt.
To extricate him from this predicament, Lorenza adopted tactics which,
according to the Inquisition-biographer, had proved effective under
similar circumstances in Barcelona. Instead of endeavouring to excite
admiration in the streets, she now sought to stir the compassion of
the devout. Every day she was to be seen on her knees in some church
or other, with a weather-eye open for some gullible dupe whilst she
piously mumbled her prayers. In this way she managed to attract the
attention of the charitable Sir Edward Hales, or as she calls him “Sir
Dehels,” who not only procured Balsamo’s release from jail, but on
the strength of his pen-and-ink sketches employed him to decorate the
ceilings of some rooms at his country-seat near Canterbury--a task for
which he had not the least qualification. Four months later, after
ruining his ceilings, “Sir Dehels” caught his rascally _protégé_ making
love to his daughter, whereupon the Balsamos deemed it advisable to
seek another country to exploit.
IV
Fortune, like Nature, is non-moral. If proof of so palpable a fact
where required no more suitable example could be cited than the good
luck that came to the Balsamos at the very moment they least deserved
it.
Leaving England as poor as when they entered it, they found whilst
crossing the Channel between Dover and Calais, if not exactly a
fortune, what was to prove no mean equivalent in the person of a
certain M. Duplessis de la Radotte. This gentleman, formerly an
official in India, had on its evacuation by the French found an
equally lucrative post in his native country as agent of the Marquis
de Prie. Very susceptible to beauty, as Lorenza was quick to detect,
he no sooner beheld her on the deck of the Dover packet than he sought
her acquaintance. Lorenza, one imagines, must have been not only
particularly attractive and skilled by considerable practice in the art
of attraction, but a very good sailor; for in the short space of the
Channel crossing she so far succeeded in captivating Duplessis that
on reaching Calais he offered her a seat in his carriage to Paris.
Needless to say, it was not the sort of offer she was likely to refuse;
and while her husband trotted behind on horseback she turned her
opportunity to such account that Duplessis was induced to invite both
the husband and wife to be his guests in Paris.
But to cut a long story short: as the result of the acceptance of this
invitation Duplessis after a time quarrelled with Balsamo and persuaded
Lorenza to leave her husband and live under his “protection.” This
was not at all to Balsamo’s taste, and he appealed to the courts for
redress. He won his case, and Lorenza, according to the law in such
matters, was arrested and imprisoned in Sainte Pélagie, the most
famous--or infamous--penitentiary for women in France during the
eighteenth century.
* * * * *
This event occurred in 1773, if the _dossier_ discovered in the French
Archives in 1783, which contains the statement Lorenza made at the
time, is to be regarded as authentic. That _none_ of the numerous
people referred to in the _dossier_ with whom the Balsamos were very
closely connected should have come forward during the Necklace Affair
and identified Cagliostro, lays the genuineness of this celebrated
document open to doubt. Is it likely that _all_ these people had
died in the fourteen years that elapsed? If not, why did not those
who still lived attempt to satisfy the boundless curiosity that the
mysterious Cagliostro excited? He could not have changed out of all
recognition during this period, for according to Goethe, in Palermo
those who remembered Balsamo discovered, or thought they discovered, a
likeness to him in the published portraits of Cagliostro. In any case,
however much Cagliostro’s appearance may have changed, his wife’s most
certainly had not. At thirty the Countess Cagliostro possessed the
freshness of a girl of twenty. Had she been Lorenza Balsamo, she would
have been very quickly recognized.
* * * * *
But from these doubts which shake one’s faith, not only in the
_dossier_ to which so much importance has been attached, but in the
Balsamo legend itself, let us return to the still more unauthenticated
doings of our adventurers.
It was not long before Balsamo repented of his vengeance. On
his intercession his wife was released, and shortly afterwards,
to avoid arrest on his own score, the couple disappeared. The
Inquisition-biographer states vaguely that they went to “Brussels
and Germany.” But it is not a matter of any importance. A few months
later, however, Giuseppe Balsamo most unquestionably reappeared in his
native city, where he astonished all his kindred, to whom alone he made
himself known, by the splendour in which he returned.
Somewhere in the interval between his flight from Paris and his arrival
in Palermo he had metamorphosed himself into a Marchese Pellegrini,
and by the aid of Lorenza picked up a prince. Never before had they
been so flush. The Marchese Pellegrini had his carriage and valet, one
“Laroca,” a Neapolitan barber, who afterwards started business on his
own account as an adventurer. The “Marchesa” had her prince and his
purse, and what was to prove of even greater value, his influence to
draw upon. For a while, indeed, so great was his luck, Balsamo even had
thoughts of settling down and living on the fortune Lorenza had plucked
from her prince. He actually hired a house on the outskirts of Palermo
with this intention. But he counted without Marano, that “ninny of a
goldsmith,” from whose vengeance he had fled years before. For Marano
was still living, and no sooner did he become aware that the boy who
had made such a fool of him in the old treasure-digging business was
once more in Palermo than he had him seized and clapt into prison.
The matter, no doubt, must have had very serious consequences for
the Marchese Pellegrini had it not been for the powerful interest of
Lorenza’s prince. As this episode in Balsamo’s career is one of the
very few concerning which the information is authentic, it is worth
while describing.
“The manner of his escape,” says Goethe, who was told what he relates
by eye-witnesses, “deserves to be described. The son of one of the
first Sicilian princes and great landed proprietors, who had, moreover,
filled important posts at the Neapolitan Court, was a person that
united with a strong body and ungovernable temper all the tyrannical
caprice which the rich and great, without cultivation, think themselves
entitled to exhibit.
“Donna Lorenza had contrived to gain this man, and on him the
fictitious Marchese Pellegrini founded his security. The prince had
testified openly that he was the protector of this strange pair,
and his fury may be imagined when Giuseppe Balsamo, at the instance
of the man he had cheated, was cast into prison. He tried various
means to deliver him, and as these would not prosper, he publicly,
in the President’s ante-chamber, threatened Marano’s lawyer with
the frightfullest misusage if the suit were not dropped and Balsamo
forthwith set at liberty. As the lawyer declined such a proposal he
clutched him, beat him, threw him on the floor, trampled him with his
feet, and could hardly be restrained from still further outrages, when
the President himself came running out at the tumult and commanded
peace.
“This latter, a weak, dependent man, made no attempt to punish the
injurer; Marano and his lawyer grew fainthearted, and Balsamo was
let go. There was not so much as a registration in the court books
specifying his dismissal, who occasioned it, or how it took place.
“The Marchese Pellegrini,” Goethe adds, “quickly thereafter left
Palermo, and performed various travels, whereof I could obtain no clear
information.”
Nor apparently could anybody else, for on leaving Palermo this time the
Balsamos vanished as completely as if they had ceased to exist. The
_Courier de l’Europe_ and the Inquisition-biographer, however, were not
to be dismayed by any such trifling gap in the chain of evidence they
set themselves to string together. Unable to discover the least trace
of Balsamo, they seized upon two or three other swindlers, who may or
may not have been the creations of their distracted imagination, and
boldly labelled them Balsamo.
Lorenza’s honest copper-smelting father and brother are dragged from
Rome to join in the swindling operations of herself and husband. The
brother is whisked off with them to Malta and Spain, where he is
abandoned as an incubus, apparently because he objected to exploit his
good looks after the manner of his sister. Then, as it is necessary in
some way to account for Cagliostro’s occult powers, Balsamo suddenly
takes up the study of alchemy, and in the moments he snatches from
the preparation of “beauty salves” and “longevity pills,” picks an
occasional pocket.
But the most bare-faced of all these problematic Balsamos is the Don
Tiscio one, for whose existence “Dr.” Sacchi is responsible. Of Sacchi,
be it said, nothing is known to his credit. Having some knowledge of
surgery, and being in very low water, he appealed for assistance to
Cagliostro, who found some work for him in his private hospital at
Strasburg. But within a week he was dismissed for misconduct. Hereupon
Sacchi published a book, or was said to have done so--for no one
apparently but the Countess de Lamotte’s counsel in the Necklace Trial
ever saw it--in which he denounced Cagliostro as a swindler by name of
Don Tiscio who had adorned the pillory in Spain, and suffered other
punishments of a kind Sacchi preferred not to mention. Notwithstanding,
though no credence was attached to this statement when cited by the
Countess de Lamotte, it was raked up again by the _Courier de l’Europe_
with the addition that Balsamo now becomes Sacchi’s Don Tiscio.
Thus, after having been forger, swindler, blackmailer, _souteneur_,
quack, pickpocket--all of the commonest type--Balsamo, on the word
of a disreputable Sacchi, supported by a few singular coincidences,
is saved without rhyme or reason from the gallows in Cadiz, on which
he very probably perished, in order to be brought back to London as
Count Cagliostro, a highly accomplished charlatan and past-master in
wonder-working. An improbability that even the Inquisition-biographer
is unable to pass over in silence.
“How,” he exclaims in amazement, “could such a man without either
physical or intellectual qualities, devoid of education, connections,
or even the appearance of respectability, whose very language was a
barbarous dialect--how could he have succeeded as he did?”
How, indeed! The transformation is obviously so improbable that the
puzzled reader will very likely come to the conclusion that, whoever
Cagliostro may have been, he could certainly never have been Giuseppe
Balsamo.
But enough of speculation; let us now turn our belated attention to the
man whose career under the impenetrable _incognito_ of Count Cagliostro
is the subject of this book.
PART II
CHAPTER I
CAGLIOSTRO IN LONDON
I
Some time in July 1776--the exact date is unascertainable--two
foreigners of unmistakable respectability, to judge by their
appearance, if not of distinction, arrived in London and engaged a
suite of furnished apartments in Whitcombe Street, Leicester Fields.
They called themselves Count and Countess Cagliostro; and their
landlady, who lost no time in letting everybody in the house, as well
as her neighbours, know she had people of title as lodgers, added that
she believed they were Italian, though so far as she could understand
from the Count’s very broken English they had last come from Portugal.
A day or two later she was able to inform her gossips, which no doubt
she did with even greater satisfaction, that her foreign lodgers were
not only titled but undoubtedly rich, for the Countess had very fine
jewels and the Count was engaged in turning one of the rooms he had
rented into a laboratory, as he intended to devote himself to the study
of physics and chemistry, subjects, it seemed, in which he was keenly
interested.
Their first visitor was a Madame Blevary, a lady in reduced
circumstances who lodged in the same house. Hearing they had come from
Portugal, and being herself a native of that country, she sought their
acquaintance in the hope of deriving some personal benefit from it. In
this she was not disappointed; for the Countess, who knew no English,
required a companion, and as Madame Blevary was conversant with several
languages and had the manners of a gentlewoman, she readily obtained
the post on the recommendation of the landlady.
Among the acquaintances Madame Blevary informed of her good fortune,
which she was no doubt induced to dilate upon, was a certain Vitellini,
an ex-Jesuit and professor of languages. Like her, he too had fallen
on hard times; but in his case the love of gambling had been his
ruin. He was also, as it happened, almost equally devoted to the
study of chemistry, on a knowledge of which he particularly piqued
himself. No sooner, therefore, did he learn that Count Cagliostro had
a similar hobby, and a laboratory into the bargain, than he persuaded
Madame Blevary to introduce him to the Count, in the hope that he
too might profit by the acquaintance as she had done. As a result of
this introduction, Vitellini succeeded in ingratiating himself into
the favour of Cagliostro, who employed him in the laboratory as an
assistant.
Stinginess was a quality of which neither the Count nor his wife was
ever accused. On the contrary, as even those most prejudiced against
them have been obliged to admit, they were exceedingly generous.
With them, however, generosity was one of those amiable weaknesses
that are as pernicious in their effect as a vice. There were few who
experienced it but abused it in some way. It was so in this instance.
Vitellini, who was at bottom more of a fool than a knave, in the first
flush of excitement over the sudden turn of tide in his fortunes which
had long been at the lowest ebb, began to brag to his acquaintances in
the gambling-dens and coffee-houses he frequented of his connection
with Cagliostro, whom he described as “an extraordinary man, a true
adept, whose fortune was immense, and who possessed the secret of
transmuting metals.”
Such praise naturally excited the curiosity of Vitellini’s
acquaintances, who in their turn were eager to meet the benevolent
foreigner. Thus by the indiscretion of Vitellini, Cagliostro was
soon besieged by a crowd of shady people whose intentions were so
apparent that he was obliged in the end to refuse to receive them when
they called. But this only exasperated them; and one in particular,
Pergolezzi--the painter and decorator by whom the reader will recall
Balsamo was for a time employed--“threatened to blast the reputation
of the Count by circulating a report throughout London that he was
ignorant and necessitous, of obscure birth, and had once before resided
in England.”[7]
Vitellini, needless to say, perceiving the effect of his folly, now
hastened to put a curb on his tongue lest he too should be shown the
door. But as the sequel will prove, discretion came to him too late
to benefit him. For Madame Blevary, who also entertained in secret a
similar opinion of her patron’s wealth and knowledge, was one of those
whose cupidity had been excited by Vitellini’s gossip. She at least had
the advantage of being on the inner side of the Count’s door, and she
determined while she had the chance to profit by it.
To this effect she bethought herself of “one Scott, a man of ambiguous
character, and the pliability of whose principles was such that he was
ever ready to convert them to the interest of the present moment.” It
was accordingly arranged between them that Scott should impersonate a
Scotch nobleman, in which guise it was hoped the Cagliostros would be
effectually deceived as to his intentions. A severe illness, however,
with which she was suddenly seized, and during which the Cagliostros
“supplied her with every necessary comfort,” prevented Madame Blevary
from personally introducing her confederate. Nevertheless she did not
abandon the idea she had conceived, and ill though she was, she sent
word to Cagliostro that “Lord Scott, of whom she had often spoken
to him, had arrived in town and proposed to himself the honour of
introduction that afternoon.”
Entirely unsuspicious of the treachery of a woman who owed so much to
their generosity, the Count and Countess received “Lord Scott” on his
arrival. His appearance, it seems, did not exactly tally with such
notions as Cagliostro had formed either of the man or his rank. But
Scott succeeded in dispelling his disappointment, and swindling him
into the bargain, by way of gentle beginning, out of £12 in Portuguese
money which he undertook to get exchanged for its English equivalent,
afterwards declaring with well-feigned mortification “he had lost it
through a hole in his pocket.”
A Giuseppe Balsamo, one imagines, would have been the last person
in the world to be taken in by such a story. Cagliostro, however,
swallowed it without hesitation; and begging Scott, who confusedly
regretted he was in no position to make good the loss, to think no more
about it, invited him to come to dinner the next day.
Whether Madame Blevary got a share of these or subsequent spoils is
not known, for at this point she disappears from the scene altogether.
Perhaps she died of that severe illness in which she received from the
Cagliostros while betraying them so many “proofs of their generosity
and humanity.” In any case, her place was most completely filled
by “Lady Scott,” who was at this period presented by Scott to the
Cagliostros, and from whom in an incredibly short time she managed to
borrow on her simple note of hand £200.
II
Owing to the prejudice against Cagliostro, a construction wholly
unfavourable to him has been placed upon the extraordinary series of
events that now ensued. This construction, however, cannot be allowed
to pass unchallenged. For it is based solely on the accusations of
the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_, who was the bitter enemy of
Cagliostro. Now though it may be the custom in France for the accused
to be considered guilty till he proves his innocence, the contrary
is the custom in England, where fortunately it requires something
more than the mere word of a single and professedly hostile witness
to condemn a man. The Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_ declared
that “upwards of twenty persons” would confirm his statements. None,
however, offered to do so. Under such circumstances, as we are reduced
to dealing with prejudices, I shall in this particular instance confess
to one in favour of an ancient English principle of justice, and give
Cagliostro the benefit of the doubt. His word at least is as much
entitled to respect as that of the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_.
There is, moreover, much in his spirited defence even worthy of
credence.
* * * * *
Having found him so easy to dupe, the crew by whom he was surrounded
naturally devoted their attention to increasing the friendship they had
formed with him and his wife. Not a day passed but “Lord” Scott and his
lady paid the Count and Countess a visit, and as it was their habit to
drop in just before dinner or supper they soon managed to obtain their
meals at the expense of the hospitable foreigners.
On one of these occasions the conversation having turned on a lottery
in which his guests were interested, Cagliostro was reminded of “a
manuscript he had found in the course of his travels which contained
many curious cabalistic operations by aid of which the author set
forth the possibilities of calculating winning numbers.” But since
the matter was not one in which he had hitherto taken any particular
interest, he was unwilling to express an opinion as to the value of
these calculations, “having long contracted the habit of suspending his
judgment on subjects he had not investigated.” On being urged, however,
he consented to consult the manuscript; whereupon, to test its system,
Scott “risked a trifle” and won upwards of a hundred pounds.
But whatever opinion Cagliostro may now have formed as to the value to
be attached to these “cabalistic operations,” he refused to put them
to further test. Gambling would appear to have had no attraction for
him. Not only, if we are to believe him, did he risk nothing himself,
or benefit in any way by the winning numbers he predicted on this
occasion, but _never afterwards_ is there to be found any allusion
to gambling in the records that relate to his career. His aversion,
however, which others--notably Mirabeau--have also shared, is not
necessarily to be regarded as a virtue. There are many who, without
objecting to gambling on moral grounds, are unable to find any pleasure
in it.
Apart from all other considerations, Cagliostro had a strong personal
motive for his refusal to make a business of predicting winning
numbers for Scott. He was too completely absorbed in his alchemical
experiments to find an interest in anything else. Of what value was
the most perfect betting system in the world compared with the secret
of transmuting metals, making diamonds, and prolonging life? To the
man who is wrapped up in such things, lotteries and the means of
winning them are beneath contempt. He has not only got something more
profitable to do than waste his time in calculating lucky numbers, but
he is on a plane above the ordinary gambler.
This, however, was a distinction that Scott, who was merely a vulgar
sharper, was incapable of either making himself or appreciating when
made. After his success in testing the system he believed it to be
infallible. To be refused so simple a means of making a fortune was
intolerable. In his exasperation he dropped the rôle of Scotch nobleman
altogether and appeared in his real character as the common rogue he
was, whereupon Cagliostro promptly showed him the door and refused to
have any further intercourse with him.
“Lady” Scott, however, a few days later forced herself upon the
Countess, and endeavoured to excite her compassion with the relation
of a pitiful story, in which she declared that Scott, by whom she had
been betrayed, had decamped with the profit arising from the lottery,
leaving her and three children entirely destitute. The Countess,
touched by this imaginary tale, generously interceded in her behalf
with the Count, who sent her “a guinea and a number for the following
day.” Miss Fry, to give her her real name, no sooner obtained this
number than she and Scott risked every penny they could raise upon it.
Fortune once more favoured them and they won on this occasion the sum
of fifteen hundred guineas.
In the first moment of exultation Miss Fry at once rushed off to the
Cagliostros with the whole of her winnings, which she offered to the
Count as a token of her gratitude and confidence in him. But Cagliostro
was not to be caught in this cunningly laid snare. He received her very
coldly and refused to concern himself in her affairs.
“If you will take my advice,” he said, “you will go into the country
with your three children and live on the interest of your money. If I
have obliged you, the only return I desire is that you will never more
re-enter my doors.”
But Miss Fry was not to be got rid of in this fashion. Dazzled by the
golden shower the Count’s predictions had caused to rain upon her,
she sighed for more numbers, and to obtain them she had recourse to
Vitellini, in the hope that as he was still employed by the Count he
might succeed in getting them for her. So eager was she to procure them
that she gave Vitellini twenty guineas in advance as an earnest of her
sincerity and to increase his zeal in the matter.
But though Vitellini was, needless to say, only too eager to oblige
her, Cagliostro was not to be persuaded to gratify him. Hereupon,
Miss Fry, repenting of her liberality, made a debt of her gift, and
had Vitellini, who was unable to repay her, imprisoned. Cagliostro,
however, generously came to the rescue, and obtained his release. This
action awoke a belated sense of gratitude in the fellow, which he
afterwards ineffectually attempted to prove.
But to return to Miss Fry. Having failed to turn Vitellini to account,
she determined to approach the Countess and lay her, if possible, under
an obligation. After considering various schemes by which this was to
be effected, she “purchased of a pawnbroker a diamond necklace for
which she paid £94.” She then procured a box with two compartments, in
one of which she placed the necklace, and in the other some snuff of
a rare quality that she knew the Countess liked, and watching for an
opportunity of finding her alone, managed to get access to her.
In the hands of a Miss Fry, the Countess, who was the most amiable,
pliable, and insignificant of creatures, was like wax. Cleverly turning
the conversation so as to suit her purpose, Miss Fry casually produced
the box and opening the compartment containing the snuff prevailed
upon the Countess to take a pinch. After this it was an easy matter to
persuade her to keep the box. Two days later the Countess discovered
the necklace. As she had been forbidden to receive any presents from
Miss Fry, she at once reported the matter to her husband. He was for
returning the necklace at once, but as the Countess, who doubtless had
no desire to part with it, suggested that to do so after having had
it so long in her possession would appear “indelicate,” Cagliostro
foolishly consented to let her keep it. As to retain the gift without
acknowledging it would have been still more indelicate, Miss Fry was
accordingly once more permitted to resume her visits.
Fully alive to the fact that she was only received on sufferance, she
was naturally very careful not to jeopardize the position she had
recovered with so much difficulty by any indiscretion. She by no means,
however, lost sight of the object she had in view. Hearing that the
Cagliostros were moving to Suffolk Street, she hired a room in the same
house where it was impossible to avoid her. As she had told Cagliostro
that she intended to follow his advice and live in the country
with her three children--a fiction to which she still adhered--he
naturally inquired the reason of her continued residence in London.
She gave a lack of the necessary funds as her excuse, and hinted, as
he had broached the subject, that he should “extricate her from her
embarrassment by giving her numbers for the French lottery.”
The Count ignored the hint. But in consideration of the necklace she
had given the Countess, and with the hope of being entirely rid of her,
he gave her £50 to defray the expense of her journey into the country.
This was, however, not at all to Miss Fry’s taste. She wanted numbers
for the French lottery, and meant to have them too, or know the reason
why, as the saying is. Accordingly, the next day she trumped up some
fresh story of debts and absconding creditors, and, appealing to the
compassion of the Countess, implored her to intercede with the Count to
give her the numbers she wanted.
Cagliostro was now thoroughly annoyed. To settle the matter once for
all, he told her that “he believed the success of the system was due
more to chance than to calculation; but whether it was effected by the
one or the other he was resolved to have no further concern in anything
of that nature.” The manner in which these words were uttered was too
emphatic to permit Miss Fry to continue to cherish the least hope of
ever being able to induce Cagliostro to change his mind. Still, even
now she refused to accept defeat. The numbers had become to her like
morphia to a _morphineuse_; and precisely as the latter to obtain the
drug she craves will resort to the most desperate stratagems, so Miss
Fry determined to execute a scheme she had long premeditated by which
Cagliostro was to be _compelled_ to give her the numbers.
III
This scheme, described by an ardent defender of Cagliostro against the
violent denunciations of the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_ as
“the most diabolic that ever entered into the heart of ingratitude,”
was nothing more nor less than a sort of muscular blackmail. Taking
advantage of his ignorance of English, Cagliostro was to be arrested on
a false charge and simultaneously robbed of the precious manuscript by
which he predicted the numbers.
To assist in the execution of her plan Miss Fry, who was the life and
soul of the conspiracy, had the help of a barrister named Reynolds,
“who, notwithstanding his expertness in the pettifogging finesse of the
low law, could not preserve himself from an ignominious exhibition in
the pillory”; a rough known as Broad; and, of course, Scott.
When everything was arranged, Miss Fry brought an action against
Cagliostro to recover £190, the writ for which was served by Reynolds,
apparently by bribing the sheriff’s officer. Thus armed, he proceeded
to Cagliostro’s house accompanied by the others, and while he explained
to the amazed Count, who had never seen him before, the object of his
visit and the authority for what he did, Scott and Broad broke into the
laboratory, where they found and took possession of the manuscript and
the note-of-hand for the two hundred pounds the Count had lent Miss
Fry, who during these highly criminal proceedings had the shrewdness
to “wait on the stairs” without. Reynolds then conducted Cagliostro
to a sponging-house, from which he was released the following day by
depositing with Saunders, the sheriffs officer, “jewels worth three or
four hundred pounds.”
The conspirators, however, baffled by the release of Cagliostro, from
whom they had obtained nothing but the note-of-hand and the manuscript,
of which they could make neither head nor tail, at once renewed their
persecution. This time they procured a warrant for the arrest of
both himself and his wife on the charge of practising _witchcraft_.
The fact that it was possible to obtain a warrant on so ridiculous a
charge, which both those who made it, as well as the official by whom
the warrant was granted, were perfectly aware would be dismissed with
contempt the moment it was investigated, explains how easy it was,
under the corrupt and chaotic state of the legal system of the period,
to convert the protection of the law into a persecution. Indeed,
unauthenticated though they are, none of the legal proceedings in which
Cagliostro was now involved are improbable. On the contrary their
probability is so great as almost to guarantee their credibility.
By a bribe--for it can scarcely be termed bail--Cagliostro and his
wife escaped the inconvenience of being taken to jail before the
investigation of the charge on which they were apprehended. Seeing
that their victim was not to be terrified, his persecutors tried other
tactics. Reynolds was deputed to persuade him, if possible, to explain
the system by which he predicted the winning numbers. But Cagliostro
indignantly refused to gratify him when he called, whereupon Scott,
who had remained without the door, his ear glued to the key-hole,
perceiving that the eloquence of Reynolds failed to produce the desired
effect, suddenly burst into the room, and “presenting a pistol to the
breast of the Count, threatened to discharge it that instant unless he
consented to reveal the secrets they demanded.”
This species of bluff, however, was equally futile. Cagliostro regarded
the bully and his pistol with contemptuous composure--particularly
as he did not discharge it. He assured him that nothing was to be
accomplished by solicitations or threats, but as he desired to be
left in peace he was ready “to think no more of the note-of-hand
they had robbed him of, and would even let them have the effects he
had deposited with Saunders, the sheriffs officer, on condition the
proceedings against him were dropped and the manuscript returned.”
Seeing there was no better alternative, Reynolds and Scott decided
to accept the proposition, and immediately went with Cagliostro to
Saunders’ house to settle the matter. But Saunders, realizing that
Cagliostro’s troubles were due to his gullibility, ignorance of
English, and apparent fortune, was tempted to reserve the plucking of
so fat a bird for himself. He accordingly advised the Count not to
compromise the matter, but to bring in his turn an action for robbery
against the crew of sharpers into whose power he had fallen. Cagliostro
was easily induced to accept this advice, and with the aid of Saunders
procured four warrants for the arrest of Scott, Reynolds, Broad, and
Miss Fry. The last, however, aware that the charge against her could
not be substantiated, as she had not personally been present at the
time of the robbery, made no attempt to escape, and was taken into
custody--from which, as she had foreseen, she soon freed herself. As
for the other three, perceiving that the game was up, they took time by
the forelock and disappeared while they had the chance.
But Cagliostro had yet to realize what a vindictive fury he had to
deal with in Miss Fry. The two actions she had instituted against him
had not been quashed, as she took care daily to let him know in ways
studiously calculated to render the reminder particularly harassing.
Saunders, with whom he had now become intimate, was “much concerned at
this persecution, and repeatedly advised him to take an apartment in
his house.”
Now little as Cagliostro was acquainted with English customs, he was
not so ignorant, as he himself confesses, as not to understand that
such a proposition was “singular”; but as Saunders had been kind
to him, “kept his carriage,” and appeared in every way worthy of
respect, the Count, being desirous of purchasing tranquillity, without
hesitation accepted the invitation.
Because no Englishman would have done so, and it appears absurd to
picture even a foreigner passing six weeks of his own accord in a
sponging-house, the visit Cagliostro now paid to Saunders is generally
regarded as anything but voluntary. But how much more absurd is the
assertion of the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_--the _only_
other source of information beside Cagliostro in regard to these
proceedings--that the Count was “constrained from _poverty_” to reside
with Saunders! Even if foreigners in distress would be likely to seek
refuge in a sponging-house, is it at all likely that they would be
admitted just because of their _poverty_?
“I occupied,” says Cagliostro, “the finest apartment in the house.
There was always a seat at my table for a chance comer. I defrayed the
expenses of the poor prisoners confined there, and even paid the debts
of some, who thus obtained their freedom.” Of these, one “Shannon, a
chemist,” is quoted by him as being ready to testify to the truth of
the statement. Be this as it may, after six weeks Cagliostro once more
returned to his rooms in Suffolk Street to the “sensible regret of
Saunders.”
But scarcely had he arrived when he was served for the third time with
a writ issued at the instigation of Miss Fry for “a debt of £200.” At
the instance of Saunders, an Italian merchant named Badioli was induced
to be his surety. Saunders, whose interest in his affairs was inspired
by the profit he calculated on deriving from them, also recommended him
to engage as counsel to defend him a certain Priddle whom Cagliostro
had met in the sponging-house. Thus supported, and conscious of
innocence, he awaited his trial with comparative composure.
The case came on in due course at the King’s Bench, but Priddle,
discovering that it was to be tried by Lord Mansfield, whom he dared
not face, backed out of it altogether. Left without counsel at the
last moment, Cagliostro was driven in desperation to defend his cause
himself. As his knowledge of English was very imperfect, he was obliged
to have an interpreter, and, none other apparently being available,
he employed Vitellini. But as Vitellini, either owing to excitement
caused by the responsibility he was suddenly called upon to assume, or
to an equally imperfect knowledge of English, could not make himself
understood, Lord Mansfield, to avoid further confusion, and perceiving
from the charge of witchcraft that the case was trivial, suggested
a compromise and recommended a Mr. Howarth as arbitrator. To this
proposal Cagliostro was compelled, and Miss Fry was only too glad, to
consent.
The first thing Howarth had to decide was Miss Fry’s first claim to
£190, which she alleged she had lent the Count. As she had no proof
whatever to advance in support of her claim, it was at once set aside.
The charge of witchcraft was also with similar expedition dismissed as
“frivolous.”
In her attempt to substantiate her other claim to £200, Miss Fry
and her witness Broad very nearly perjured themselves. They both
asserted that the money had been expended “in purchasing sequins”
for Cagliostro. Questioned by Howarth as to how he had obtained the
sequins, Broad replied that he had “bought them of a merchant whose
name he could not recollect.” At this Howarth, whose suspicions
were naturally aroused by such a reply, observed that “it must have
been a very large amount of sequins to represent £200, and he did
not believe any merchant would have such a quantity on hand.” Broad
hereupon declared he had not bought them of one merchant, “but of about
_fourscore_.” But on being pressed by Howarth he could not remember the
names or places of abode of any of them.
Nor could Miss Fry assist him to disentangle himself. She stated that
“a Jew of whose name she was ignorant had brought the sequins to
her.” After this there was nothing for Howarth to do but dismiss the
charge, which he did with “a severe reprimand.” Miss Fry, however,
was not to be beaten without a further effort. She demanded that the
necklace should be returned to her, which she declared she had only
_lent_ to the Countess. To this Cagliostro saw fit to protest, but as
Vitellini failed to express his reasons intelligibly, Howarth came to
the conclusion that the necklace at least belonged to Miss Fry. He
therefore ordered the Count to return it to her, and pay the costs of
the arbitration into the bargain.
This decision, however, by no means put an end to the troubles of
Cagliostro.
Whether at his own request, or by order of Howarth, he seems to
have been given a few days in which to conform to the ruling of the
arbitrator. But Badioli, his surety, no sooner learnt the result of
the case than, dreading lest Cagliostro should decamp and leave him to
pay the costs and compensate Miss Fry, he resolved to release himself
from his obligations by surrendering the Count. Keeping his intention
a profound secret, he paid a friendly visit to Cagliostro, and at
the close carried him off for a drive in the park. “On their way,”
says an anonymous author of the only contemporary book in defence of
Cagliostro, “they alighted at a judge’s chambers, where Mr. Badioli
said he had business to settle. They then again entered the coach,
which in a short time stopped before an edifice of which the Count was
ignorant. However, his companion entering, he followed his example;
when Mr. Badioli, making a slight apology, desired him to wait there a
few minutes, saying which he left him.
“Minutes and hours elapsed, but no Mr. Badioli appeared. The Count
then endeavoured to return through the door at which they had entered,
but found himself repulsed, though he was ignorant of the cause. He
remained till evening in the greatest agitation of mind, roving from
place to place, when he attracted the observation of a foreigner, who
having heard his story, and made the necessary inquiries, informed him
that he was a prisoner in the King’s Bench.
“Two days had elapsed before the Countess was able to obtain any
information concerning him.”
IV
The conduct of Badioli, who had taken so treacherous an advantage of
his ignorance of the English language and law, was to Cagliostro the
unkindest cut of all. After such convincing proofs of its hostility,
to continue to struggle against adversity seemed no doubt futile.
He accepted the situation apathetically. More than a month elapsed
before he apparently took steps to procure his release--even then the
proceedings which resulted in his liberation from the King’s Bench
prison do not appear to have been instituted by himself, but by a
certain O’Reilly. Now as this good Samaritan was previously unknown to
him, there is reason to suppose that he was delegated by the Esperance
Lodge of Freemasons, of which the Count was a member, to assist him.
For O’Reilly was the proprietor of the “King’s Head in Gerard Street
where the Esperance Lodge assembled.”[8]
Through the instrumentality of O’Reilly, for whose kindness on this
occasion Cagliostro was ever after grateful, fresh bail was procured.
But as the summer vacation had commenced, Miss Fry had the right--which
she was only too glad to avail herself of--to refuse to accept the bail
offered till the end of the vacation. O’Reilly, however, was not a
Saunders; his interest in the Count was not mercenary, and being fully
conversant with the intricate workings of the law, he applied directly
to Lord Mansfield, who at once ordered Miss Fry’s attorney to accept
the bail.
Considering the evidences Cagliostro had had of this woman’s fury, it
was not surprising that he should have attributed the extraordinary
circumstances that now occurred to her vindictive ingenuity. As he was
preparing to leave the King’s Bench, “Mr. Crisp, the under-marshal of
the prison, informed him that one Aylett had lodged a detainer against
him by name of Melisa Cagliostro, otherwise Joseph Balsamo, for a debt
of £30.” The Count demanded with the utmost surprise the meaning of
this new intrigue. Crisp replied that Aylett declared the sum specified
was due to him as his fee, with interest added, from “one Joseph
Balsamo, by whom he had been employed in the year 1772 to recover a
debt of a Dr. Benamore.”
It mattered not in the least that Cagliostro protested “he had never
seen Aylett, and did not believe Aylett had ever seen him,” or that
Aylett himself did not appear in person. As the law then stood, Crisp’s
statement was sufficient to detain the unfortunate Count, whom he in
his turn was anxious to bleed while he had the chance. Accordingly,
while admitting that without Aylett’s consent he was not empowered to
accept the bail which Cagliostro eagerly offered him, Crisp was only
ready to let him go “if he could deposit in his hand thirty pounds to
indemnify him.”
To this proposition Cagliostro consented, but as he had not the cash
upon him he asked Crisp if he would accept its equivalent in plate,
promising to redeem it the next day. His request was granted, and
Cagliostro remained in King’s Bench while O’Reilly went to the Countess
for the plate in question, which consisted of “two soup-ladles, two
candlesticks, two salt-cellars, two pepper-castors, six forks, six
table-spoons, nine knife-handles with blades, a pair of snuffers and
stand, all of silver.”
The next day, true to his promise, the Count paid Crisp thirty pounds.
Crisp, however, instead of giving back the plate, declared that Aylett
had been to him in the meantime, and on learning that he had freed
the prisoner was highly exasperated and demanded the plate, which
had consequently been given him. As Aylett, on the other hand, when
questioned, declared that Crisp “was a liar,” “it was impossible,” says
Cagliostro, “for me to ascertain by whom I was plundered.”
Of all the incidents in this series of “injustices,” as he termed
it, of which he was the victim the most curious is undoubtedly
the unexpected advent of Aylett upon the scene in a rôle totally
unconnected with the development, so to speak, of the plot of the
play. Considering that he was the first person on record to state that
Cagliostro was Giuseppe Balsamo, it is worth while inquiring into his
reason for doing so and the value to be attached to it.
Aylett’s reputation, to begin with, was such as to render the truth of
any statement he might make extremely doubtful, if not to invalidate it
altogether. Like Reynolds and Priddle, he was a rascally attorney who
had been “convicted of perjury and exposed in the pillory.” Granting
that he had defended Balsamo in his action against Dr. Benamore, and
was sufficiently struck by the resemblance of Cagliostro to his old
client as to believe them to be the same person, his conduct on the
present occasion was decidedly ambiguous. According to his statement,
“happening one day in 1777 to be in Westminster Hall, he perceived
a person that he immediately recognized as Balsamo, whom he had not
seen since 1772.” Instead of accosting him then and there, he decided
to find out where he lived; and after much difficulty learnt that the
person he had seen and believed to be Balsamo was in the King’s Bench
prison and that his name was Cagliostro; whereupon, _without taking the
least step to ascertain whether he was right or not in his surmise_, he
laid a detainer against him for the money Balsamo owed him. No record
of any kind exists as to what passed between Aylett and Cagliostro when
they finally met, or in fact whether they met at all.
That Aylett would, after having received Cagliostro’s plate or
money from Crisp, have admitted he had made a mistake is, judging
from the man’s character, not to be credited. But what renders this
singular matter still more questionable is the fact that the Editor
of the _Courier de l’Europe_ nine years later, when publishing his
“incontestable proofs” of the identity of Balsamo with Cagliostro,
should have accepted the statement of Aylett and _ignored_ that of
Dr. Benamore, who was also living at the time and whose position as
representative in England for thirty years of the various Barbary
States would, to say the least, have given the weight of respectability
to his word. Now as there is no doubt at all that the Editor of the
_Courier de l’Europe_ passionately desired that his proofs should
really be “incontestable,” there is only one explanation of his conduct
in this matter possible: Dr. Benamore must have _refused to make the
statement requested of him_.
On the other hand, Cagliostro--and his word, even prejudice must admit,
is to be trusted quite as much as that of an Aylett or the Editor of
the _Courier de l’Europe_--asserts in the most emphatic language that
Dr. Benamore was ready to testify in _his_ behalf to a total ignorance
of the very name of Balsamo.
As it is impossible to verify either one or the other of these
statements, the reader must be left to form his own conclusions.
Having once more regained his liberty, Cagliostro very wisely sought
safety from further molestation by taking up his abode with his wife
“in O’Reilly’s hotel,” where he resided during the remainder of his
stay in London. On the recommendation of his friend he employed a
lawyer by the name of James, through whom he succeeded in recovering
the jewels which, it will be remembered, he had deposited with Saunders
as bail in the first suit brought against him by Miss Fry. As he
could, no doubt, have managed to decamp without returning the necklace
or paying the costs of his trial as ordered by the arbitrator--the
date named for the settlement was still some weeks off--it is, under
the circumstances and considering all that has been said against him,
decidedly to his credit that he remained and fulfilled his obligations.
He states--and there is no reason to disbelieve him--that O’Reilly and
James, after the final settlement of his case, tried hard to persuade
him “to commence an action against Aylett for perjury, another against
Crisp for swindling, and one of blackmail against Fry, Scott, Reynolds
and Broad,” He was, however, not to be beguiled into any such costly
and uncertain undertakings.
“The injustices,” he says, “I had experienced rendered me unjust
to myself, and attributing to the whole nation the faults of a few
individuals I determined to leave a place in which I had found neither
laws, justice, nor hospitality.”
Accordingly, having given O’Reilly, with whom he continued in close
communication, a power of attorney to use in case of need, he left for
Brussels “with no more than fifty pounds in cash and some jewels.”
He afterwards asserted that during the eighteen months he had resided
in London he had been defrauded of 3000 guineas.
In this a hostile writer--with sheep-like fidelity to popular
prejudice--sees “the native excellence of English talent, when the
most accomplished swindler of the swindling eighteenth century was so
hobbled, duped, and despoiled by the aid of the masterly fictions of
English law.”
It is possible, however, to draw another and more sensible inference
from this legal _escroquerie_ of which Cagliostro was the dupe, than
one based on mere prejudice. As his fame, needless to say, lies not in
proved charges of embezzlement, but in the secrets of the crucible and
the mysteries of Egyptian Masonry, it is clearly by his adventures in
the laboratory and the lodge rather than by those which led him to the
King’s Bench and the Bastille that he is to be judged. Since it is a
question of swindling, it is perhaps just as well to bear in mind the
_character_ of these accomplished impostures to which so much obloquy
has been attached. Accordingly, before attempting to draw aside the
figurative curtain which conceals him, as Carlyle’s “hand itched” to
do, it is essential to examine the fabric, so to speak, of the curtain
itself--in other words, to get some idea of what was understood by the
Occult in Cagliostro’s day.
As I have no intention of entering this labyrinth of perpetual darkness
which none but an adept is capable of treading, I shall merely stand on
the threshold. There, at any rate, it is light enough for the reader to
see as much as is necessary for the present purpose.
CHAPTER II
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY OCCULTISM
I
Man, at once instinctively mistrusting his own power, and inspired by
the love of the marvellous which is inherent in human nature, has from
the beginning invoked, or invented, as you will, the invisible powers
of an inaccessible sphere. History is filled with the phenomena arising
from this innate tendency to believe in the supernatural, which while
varying in form according to epochs, places, and customs are at bottom
identical. Belief in the supernatural is, indeed, the basic principle
of primitive man’s first conception of community of interest, the germ
from which religion, social order, civilization have developed.
In the beginning religion and magic were one. All the priests of Egypt
and the East were invested with supernatural and mysterious powers of
which they long possessed the monopoly. These powers were precisely the
same as those of the mediums of the present day; but the effects they
produced no doubt appeared infinitely greater owing to the boundless
credulity, simplicity, and ignorance of those who witnessed them.
By degrees, as civilization after civilization perished, knowledge
became more diffused. Magic passed from the sanctuary to the street.
The Pagan world was filled with astrologers, sorcerers, sibyls,
sooth-sayers, wonder-workers of all descriptions. In the Middle Ages,
when Christianity finally superseded Paganism, the supernatural once
more took up its abode in religion. Demonology, which had survived
all the revolutions of antiquity, and which still exists without
much fundamental difference under other forms all over the world,
assimilated itself to the dogmas of the Church. The Popes affirmed
the popular belief in sorcery, magic and diabolic possession. But the
supernatural phenomena associated with the belief in these things were
regarded as the work of the devil, in whose existence the Christian
world believed as implicitly as in the existence of God; so while the
Church sanctioned this belief as one of the mysteries of religion it
waged a merciless war against all persons suspected of having commerce
with demons. From its terrible ban the mystical visionaries alone were
exempt. These persons, ascetics all, the sanctity of whose reputations
was unquestioned and whose hallucinations were due to hysteria,
epilepsy, or neuroticism, were canonized.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century, with the revival of
a tolerant and enlightened philosophy, the devil had grown old and
accusations of sorcery were rare. But the belief in the supernatural
still continued to thrive; and in the century of universal scepticism,
the century of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, when faith in
everything till then venerated was exploded, that in the marvellous
alone survived. “The more civilization advances,” wrote Voltaire, “the
more noise does superstition make.”
On the eve of the French Revolution, Mesmer electrified the world
with his animal magnetism. With this discovery the belief in the
supernatural entered a new and more wonderful phase. The marvellous
had passed from a grossly material to a purely spiritual plane. The
magnetism of Mesmer was followed by the hypnotism of the Marquis de
Puységur, with its attendant train of table-turning and telepathy,
clairvoyance and clairaudience, spiritualism, theosophy, and Christian
science. To-day the whole system of the hermetic philosophy of the
Egyptians and Hindus has been re-discovered, re-deciphered, and
restored with the most astonishing results and the most conspicuous
success to the amazement of the world.
Never has the belief in the supernatural been more flourishing and more
invincible than at the present. Side by side with the positivism of
modern science marches the mysticism of the occult, equally confident
and undaunted, and equally victorious. Not a link in the chain that
connects the phenomena of the mediums and adepts of to-day with those
of the Chaldaeans has been broken. Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Eddy are
the latest descendants of Hermes Trismegistus, who whether regarded as
man, god, or the personification of all the knowledge of his remote
times, is the parent of all the wonder-workers, scientific as well
as unscientific, of the world. The prodigies of these priestesses of
theosophy and Christian science, which are the last and most popular
manifestations of the marvellous, are no less significant, and much
more wonderful because more inexplicable, than those of a Ramsay or a
Curie.
[Illustration: A.MESMER (_After Pujo!_)]
As to the future of this faith in the supernatural, one thing may
reasonably be taken for granted; the marvellous will never cease to
appeal to the imagination of mankind till the riddle of the universe
is solved. To deride it is ridiculous. Occultism is not a menace to
progress, but a spur. Its secrets are not to be ridiculed, but to be
explained. That is its challenge to modern science, which is at once
its offspring and its servant.
* * * * *
The desire to prolong life, the desire to enjoy life, and the desire to
look beyond life are inherent in human nature, and man has sought from
time immemorial to realize them. To-day it is to science that we look
for the realization of the first two of these great desires of which it
is the outcome; while it is only with the third that the marvellous, or
what is understood by occultism, is now associated.
Formerly, however, the search for remedies for the irremediable was
conducted exclusively in the sphere of the supernatural. The love of
life gave rise to the quest for the Fountain of Youth, which still
continues under innumerable other forms and names that will occur to
every one. The latest, perhaps, is the Menshikov Sour Milk Cure. From
the love of ease sprang the search for the “philosopher’s stone,” which
was to create wealth by the transmutation of metals into gold. This
quest which long captivated the imagination of men is now entirely
abandoned, though its object, needless to say, is more furiously
desired than ever. While to the curiosity as to the future we owe the
pseudo-sciences of astrology, palmistry, fortune-telling, divination,
etc.
Those who devoted their lives to these things were divided into three
classes--alchemists, astrologers, and the motley tribe of quacks and
charlatans, who may be summed up for sake of convenience under the
name of sorcerers. These divisions, however, were by no means hard and
fast. United by a common idea each class dabbled in the affairs of
the others. Thus astrologers and sorcerers were often alchemists, and
alchemists seldom confined their attention solely to the search for the
_elixir vitae_ and the philosopher’s stone.
As the alchemists, owing to their superior knowledge, and the results
they obtained, were more considered than the astrologers and sorcerers,
alchemy developed into a science at an early date. The obscurity
in which its origin is involved is a sign of its antiquity. Some
enthusiasts believe it to be coeval with the creation of man. Vincent
de Beauvais was of the opinion that all the antediluvians must have had
some knowledge of alchemy, and cites Noah as having been acquainted
with the _elixir vitae_, “otherwise he could not have lived to so
prodigious an age and begotten children when upwards of five hundred.”
Others have traced it to the Egyptians, from whom Moses was believed to
have learnt it. Martini, on the other hand, affirms that alchemy was
practised by the Chinese two thousand five hundred years before the
birth of Christ. But though a belief in the transmutation of metals was
general in the Roman Empire, the practice of alchemy does not appear
to have received much consideration before the eighth century. At this
period the discoveries of Gebir, an Arabian alchemist, gave so great
a stimulus to the quest of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of
life that he is generally regarded as the creator of these picturesque
delusions, which for a thousand years had so great a hold on the
popular imagination.
Banned and fostered in turn, and often at the same time, by the Church;
practised in all classes of society and by all sorts and conditions of
people; regarded with admiration and contempt; alchemy has played too
vast and important a rôle in the history of humanity to be despised,
wild and romantic though this rôle has been. Nothing could be more
unjust and absurd than to judge it by the charlatans who exploited
it. The alchemists whom history still remembers were in reality the
pioneers of civilization, who, venturing ahead of the race befogged in
dense forests of ignorance and superstition, cut a road through to the
light, along which mankind travelled slowly in their wake. Not only
were these fantastic spirits of light the parents of modern science and
physics, but they have helped to adorn literature and art. Some idea
of their importance may be gathered from the many words in common use
that they have given to the language, such as: _crucible_, _amalgam_,
_alcohol_, _potash_, _laudanum_, _precipitate_, _saturation_,
_distillation_, _quintessence_, _affinity_, etc.
The alchemists often stumbled upon discoveries they did not seek.
Science is thus indebted to Gebir for the first suggestion of corrosive
sublimate, the red oxide of mercury, nitric acid, and nitrate of
silver; to Roger Bacon for the telescope, the magic lantern, and
gunpowder; to Van Helmont for the properties of gas; to Paracelsus,
the most extraordinary of them all, for laudanum. It is to him also
that medicine owes the idea of the clinic. As in chemistry so in
other sciences the most important discoveries were made by men who
had a marked taste for alchemic theories. Kepler was guided in his
investigations by cabalistic considerations.
The search for gold and youth, however, were only one phase of alchemy.
It was too closely allied to what was known as “magic” not to be
confounded with it. In the popular estimation the alchemists were
all magicians. Most, perhaps all, of the so-called occult phenomena
so familiar to us to-day were performed by them. Long before such
things as animal magnetism, hypnotism, telepathy, ventriloquism,
autosuggestion, etc., had a name, the alchemists had discovered them,
though they themselves were as unable to explain or account for the
wonders they performed as the ignorant world that witnessed them.
Albertus Magnus had the power to delude whole crowds, precisely as
Indian necromancers do at the present. Cornelius Agrippa “at the
request of Erasmus and other learned men called up from the grave many
of the great philosophers of antiquity, among others Cicero, whom he
caused to re-deliver his celebrated oration for Roscius.” He also
showed Lord Surrey, when on the continent, “the resemblance in a glass”
of his mistress, the fair Geraldine. “She was represented on a couch
weeping for her lover. Lord Surrey made a note of the exact time at
which he saw this vision and afterwards ascertained that his mistress
was so employed at the very minute.” The famous Dr. Dee, whose whole
life was devoted to the search for the philosophers stone, was an
accomplished crystal-gazer and spirit-rapper.
It was, without doubt, the strong and crude element of magic in
alchemy that prepared the way for the great change that came over the
science at the beginning of the seventeenth century. With the revival
of learning that followed the Renaissance, there arose a mysterious
sect in Germany known as the Rosicrucians, who were destined to
revolutionize the belief in the supernatural. They claimed to derive
their name from a certain Christian Rosencreutz who, in a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, had been initiated into the mysteries of the wisdom of
the East. The tenets of the Rosicrucians, as well as their existence,
were first made known to the world at the beginning of the seventeenth
century in an anonymous German work said to have been found in the tomb
of Rosencreutz, who had died one hundred and twenty years previously.
The absurd legends concerning him have led many to deny that such
a person as Rosencreutz ever existed. Such writers attribute the
origin of the society to the theories of Paracelsus and Dr. Dee,
who unconsciously became the real though unrecognized founders of
the Rosicrucians. Be this as it may, no sooner were their doctrines
generally known than all the alchemists and believers in the marvellous
hastened to accept them. The influence thus acquired by the “Society
of the Rose-Cross” was as beneficial as it was far-reaching. Its
character was a sort of Protestant mysticism, and its chief aim the
gratuitous healing of the sick. Hitherto alchemy and the belief in the
supernatural had been grossly materialistic. The Rosicrucians refined
the one and spiritualized the other. They claimed that by strictly
conforming to the rules of their philosophy, of which chastity was
the most rigorous and important, they could ignore hunger or thirst,
enjoy perfect health, and prolong their lives indefinitely. Of the
occult knowledge they possessed, that of transmuting metals into gold
was stripped of its old significance. The philosopher’s stone was no
longer to be regarded as merely the means of acquiring riches, but the
instrument by which mankind could command the service of the spirits of
the invisible world.
They denied that these were the horrible and terrifying demons with
which the monks had peopled the unseen, but mild, beautiful, and
beneficent sprites, anxious to be of service to men. In the Rosicrucian
imagination there existed in each element a race of spirits peculiar
to it. Thus the air was inhabited by Sylphs, the water by Undines,
the earth by Gnomes, and the fire by Salamanders. It was by them that
all that was marvellous was done. In the course of their development
the mystical tendencies of the Rosicrucians became more and more
pronounced. Thus they finally came to regard the philosopher’s stone
as signifying contentment, the secret of which was compared in the
mystical phraseology they adopted to “a spirit that lived within an
emerald and converted everything near it to the highest perfection it
was capable of.”
In fine, Rosicrucianism may be described as the bridge over which the
belief in the supernatural passed from sorcery, witchcraft, and the
grossest superstition to the highly spiritualized form in which it
is manifested at the present. The transit, however, was not effected
without interruption. Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century
the bridge, undermined by the mockery and scepticism of the age,
collapsed. About fifty years later it was reconstructed by Swedenborg
on a new and spiritualistic system. In the meantime, as will be seen,
superstition adrift on the ocean of unbelief, clutched credulously at
every straw that floated by.
II
The old belief in alchemy as a magical science did not survive the
seventeenth century. It is true the credulous and ignorant, deluded
by swindlers and impostors, long continued to regard alchemy as
supernatural; but the bona-fide alchemists themselves, who were able
and intelligent men, had begun to understand the nature of their
discoveries. The symbolic interpretation of the philosopher’s stone
led to a new conception of the uses of the crucible. The alchemists
of the eighteenth century, during which the name was still in common
use, though its original signification had become obsolete, were really
amateur chemists. From pseudo-science modern science was beginning to
be evolved.
The great changes, however, that upset the convictions and
disintegrated the whole fabric of society of the eighteenth century,
were favourable to the increase and spread of superstition. The
amazing recrudescence of the belief in the supernatural, which was one
of the most conspicuous features of the age, was the direct result
of the prevailing infidelity and indifference. Persecuted, banned,
anathematized, but never exterminated, it crept from the hiding-places
in which it had lurked for centuries, and in the age of unbelief
emerged boldly into the light of day. The forms it assumed were many
and various.
In 1729 Jansenism--a sort of evangelical movement in the Church of
Rome--which in its war with Jesuitism in the previous century had been
crushed, but not exterminated, took advantage of the apathy of the time
to reassert itself. To do this with success it was necessary to make a
powerful appeal to the popular imagination, and as no means are as sure
of producing effect as supernatural ones, the world was startled by a
series of miracles performed at the grave of Deacon Pâris, a famous
martyr in the cause of Jansenism. These miracles, which at first took
the form of cures such as at the present day are to be seen at Lourdes,
soon acquired fame. All sorts of people, whom the doctors were unable
to restore to health, began to flock to the Jansenist Cemetery of St.
Médard, where it was discovered that other graves beside that of Deacon
Pâris, and finally the whole cemetery shared the healing properties of
his ashes. The hitherto simple character of the cures was changed. They
were accompanied by extraordinary convulsions, considered more divine
than the cures themselves, in which the bones cracked, the body was
scorched with fever, or parched with cold, and the invalid fell into a
prophetic transport.
The noise of these pathological phenomena attracted immense crowds to
the Cemetery of St. Médard, where the spectators, who were drawn out of
mere idle curiosity, as well as those who came to be cured, were seized
or pretended to be seized with the convulsive frenzy. The popularity
of St. Médard induced the Jansenists to attach similar virtues to
other cemeteries. Convulsions became epidemic; the contagion spread
to the provinces which, jealous of Paris, determined to have their
share of the Jansenist deacon’s favours. Similar scenes to those at
St. Médard were enacted in several towns all over France, notably at
Troyes and Corbeil. The miracles now gave rise to scandalous scenes.
Women _convulsionnaires_ ran through the streets “searching for the
prophet Elijah.” Some believing they had found him in a handsome priest
named Vaillant, a visionary who had persuaded himself that he was the
reincarnation of Elijah, testified their adoration for him in a manner
that indicated their convulsions were caused by erotic hysteria rather
than by the miraculous properties of the bones of Deacon Pâris. Others
stretched themselves at full length on the ground of the cemetery, and
invited the spectators to beat them and otherwise maltreat them, only
declaring themselves satisfied when ten or twelve men fell upon them at
once.
The cure of a girl who had a frightful collection of infirmities,
“swellings in the legs, hernia, paralysis, fistula, etc.,” was the
signal for a general St. Vitus’ dance, led by the Abbé Bécherand, an
ecclesiastic with one foot shorter than the other. “He executed daily
on the tomb of the sainted deacon,” says Figuier, “with a talent not
to be matched, his favourite _pas_, the famous ‘carp jump,’ which the
spectators were never tired of admiring.”
But by this time the miracles had become a public scandal, and the
government hastened to suppress the “_ballet_ de St. Médard” and close
the cemetery. The Jansenists to escape ridicule, which would have
killed them more surely than the Jesuits, were obliged to disassociate
themselves from the _convulsionnaires_, who formed themselves into a
sect, which existed down to the Revolution.
To-day medical science has stripped the _convulsionnaires_ of St.
Médard of the last rag of the supernatural, but in the eighteenth
century only the sane intelligence of the philosophers divested them of
all claims to wonder. Their fame spread throughout Europe and helped in
its way to emphasize the trend of public opinion in which the boundless
credulity and ignorance of the many advanced side by side through the
century with the scepticism and enlightenment of the few.
So strong was the passion for the marvellous that the least
mystification acquired a supernatural significance. In Catholic Germany
a curé named Gassner who exorcised people possessed of devils and cured
the sick by a touch had over a million adherents. In England, “Dr.”
Graham with his “celestial bed,” his elixirs of generation, and his
mud-baths, acquired an immense reputation. In Switzerland, Lavater, an
orthodox Lutheran pastor, read character and told the future by the
physiognomy with astonishing success.
At Leipsic, Schröpfer, the proprietor of a café, flattered credulity so
cleverly that belief in his ability to communicate with the invisible
world survived even his exposure as an impostor. His history is not
without dramatic interest. Gifted with a temperament strongly inclined
to mysticism he became so infatuated with the study of the supernatural
that he abandoned his profession of _cafétier_ as beneath him and
turned his café into a masonic lodge where he evoked the souls of
the dead, damned and saved alike. Some of those who witnessed these
apparitions believing they recognized relations or friends, went mad, a
fate that was not long in overtaking Schröpfer himself. Intoxicated by
the immense vogue he obtained, he next turned his lodge into a private
hotel in which he received only persons of rank, assuming himself that
of a colonel in the French army to which he declared he was entitled as
“a bastard of the Prince de Conti.” Unfortunately at Dresden, whither
he had gone to evoke the shade of a King of Poland for the benefit of
the Duke of Courland, his imposture was exposed. Schröpfer hereupon
returned to Leipsic and after giving a grand supper to some of his most
faithful adherents blew out his brains. Nevertheless, this did not
prevent many from continuing to believe in his evocations. A report
that he had predicted he would himself appear after his death to his
followers at a given hour in the Rosenthal at Leipsic, caused a vast
concourse of people to assemble in that promenade on the day specified
in the expectation of beholding his shade.
Still more remarkable than the credulity that clung to imposture after
its exposure, was the credulity that discovered supernatural powers
in persons who did not even pretend to possess them. The curiosity
that scented the marvellous in the impenetrable mystery in which it
pleased the self-styled Count de Saint-Germain to wrap himself, induced
him to amuse himself at the expense of the credulous. With the aid of
his valet, who entered into the jest, he contrived to wrap his very
existence in mystery. He had only to speak of persons who had been dead
for centuries to convince people he had known them. Many believed he
had witnessed the Crucifixion, merely because by a sigh or a hint he
conveyed that impression when the subject was mentioned. No absurdity
was too extravagant to relate of him that was not credited. Even his
servant was supposed to have moistened his lips at the Fountain of
Youth.
As the century advanced the folly increased. Rumours began to be
current that agitated the popular mind--rumours of secret societies
bound by terrible oaths and consecrated to shady designs, rumours
of the impending fulfilment of old and awful prophecies; rumours
of vampires and witches; of strange coincidences and strange
disappearances--rumours in which one may trace the origin of the
haunting suspicion to which the Reign of Terror was due. All the
superstitions regarding the unseen world had their vogue. In Protestant
countries interpreters of the Apocalypse were rife. Everywhere the dead
came back to affright the living, led by the “White Lady,” Death’s
messenger to the Hohenzollerns.
In such an atmosphere it was not surprising that the _baquet
divinatoire_ of Mesmer should have seemed more wonderful than the
scientific discoveries of Newton and Lavoisier. Cagliostro had only
to appear to be welcomed, only to provide credulity with fresh occult
novelties to win a niche in the temple of fame.
III
Occultism, however, like human nature of which it is the mystical
replica, has its spiritual as well as its material side, and from the
depths of gross superstition is capable of mounting to the heights of
pure mysticism. In the boundless credulity of the age, symptom of
death though it was, the germ of a new life was latent.
The uneasy and forbidding ghosts of dead faiths that haunted Europe
awoke aspirations in ardent and passionate souls which sought their
realization in the fantastic reign of dreams. From the chaos of
superstition the need to believe gradually emerged. In the process the
marvellous became mystical. On the ruins of Rosicrucianism, Emmanuel
Swedenborg erected a new supernatural belief.
This man whose influence in the latter half of the eighteenth century,
especially in the years immediately preceding the Revolution was more
subtle than the philosophers who derided him had any conception,
is Occultism’s Copernicus; the spiritual Abraham from whom all the
Blavatskys and Eddys of the present are descended.
He was born at Stockholm in 1688 and throughout his long life--he died
in London in 1772 at the age of eighty-four--Fortune was uniformly
and exceptionally kind to him. Possessed of brains, sharpened and
cultivated by an excellent education, of an attractive personal
appearance and influential friends, he began at an early date to make
his mark, as the saying is. At twenty-one he started on the “grand
tour,” which it was customary in those days for young men of wealth and
position to make. But young Swedenborg was not one of those who merely
wandered luxuriously about Europe pursuing pleasure. Avid of knowledge
he devoted the time others spent in dissipation to Greek, Latin,
Hebrew, mathematics, science and philosophy. At the end of five years
he returned to Sweden with the intention of giving himself up entirely
to science. He published a scientific review and gained some reputation
as an inventor. At the age of twenty-eight Charles XII appointed him
assessor of mines; and three years later Queen Ulrica raised him to the
rank of nobility, by which his name was changed from Swedberg, as his
family was originally called, to the more euphonious and aristocratic
Swedenborg.
Being of an exceedingly inquiring and philosophical mind and having
plenty of leisure he naturally widened the area of his investigations.
For many years he sought to find the scientific explanation of the
universe. This quest and the intensity with which he pursued it
insensibly led him to seek to discover the connection between the soul
and the body, the relation of the finite to the infinite. From this
stage, to which he had been led no doubt by the force of heredity--his
father, a Lutheran bishop and professor of theology believed himself
in constant intercourse with angels--it was but a step to the
supernatural. The scientist, however, takes a long time in turning into
the mystic. Swedenborg was fifty-seven before the transformation was
accomplished.
This event occurred in London in 1745.
“I was dining,” he says, “one day very late at my hotel in London, and
I ate with great appetite, when at the end of my repast I perceived a
sort of fog which obstructed my view, and the floor was covered with
hideous reptiles. They disappeared, the darkness was dispersed, and I
plainly saw in the midst of a bright light, a man sitting in the corner
of the room, who said in a terrible voice, _Do not eat so much!_”
[Illustration: EMMANUEL SWEDENBORG]
From the character of this vision, “Do not drink so much” would
appear to have been the more sensible advice. Be this as it may,
Swedenborg was so frightened that he resolved to do as he had been
bidden. His diet henceforth was of the simplest, and it is possible
that the sudden change from one extreme to the other at an age when
the system has lost its elasticity may not be unconnected with the
continuation of his visions.
The next night “the same man, resplendent with light,” appeared to
him again. This time while Swedenborg gazed upon the spectre, which
was perhaps a thought visualized by the intensity of its fascination,
it said, “I am God the Lord, the Creator and Redeemer of the world. I
have chosen thee to explain the meaning of the Holy Scripture. I will
dictate to thee what thou shalt write.”
Whatever cause Swedenborg may have assigned to the previous vision, he
did not doubt for a moment now that the Most High had actually revealed
Himself to him. This conviction was so reassuring that the strange
things he beheld in his visions ceased to have any terror for him. If
he ever asked himself why he should have been selected by the Almighty
above the rest of mankind for so great an honour, the frequency of
the divine appearances no doubt speedily satisfied his curiosity, for
not a day passed during the rest of his life but God descended from
Paradise--or if too busy, “sent an angel or saint in His place”--to
converse with this remarkably privileged Swede and explain to him the
mysteries of Heaven and Hell.
In the visions of St. Francis and St. Theresa, the Virgin, Jesus and
the Almighty appeared according to the Roman Catholic conception of
them. The faith of Swedenborg’s heavenly visitor was Lutheran--a faith
be it said, to which Swedenborg adhered as devotedly as Saints Francis
and Theresa did to theirs--and when he appeared he dressed accordingly,
wearing neither the Stigmata nor the Crown of Thorns without which no
good Catholic would have recognized him. He spoke a mystical jargon
which was often so absurd as to be unintelligible.
The Unseen World, as revealed to Swedenborg was the exact counterpart
of the seen. It was inhabited by spirits of both sexes--the good ones
dwelt in Heaven and the bad ones in Hell. They had the same occupations
as people on the earth. They married and begot children, among other
things; and Swedenborg was present at one of these celestial weddings.
They also had “schools for infant angels; universities for the learned;
and fairs for such as were commercially inclined--particularly for the
English and Dutch angels!” For the spirits of the Unseen had all lived
in the seen.
According to Swedenborg, man never dies. The day he experiences what
he calls death is the day of his eternal resurrection. Christ was the
ruler of both these worlds. He was the one and only God. All human
desire would be consummated when the two worlds should become one, as
they had been in the beginning, before the Fall. On this day the New
Jerusalem would be established on earth. To hasten this event, it was
necessary to seek the “lost word” or “primitive innocence.” This was
Swedenborg’s idea of the philosopher’s stone, which he declared was to
be found in the doctrines he taught. Should any person be tempted to
seek it elsewhere, he was advised to go in quest of it in Asia, “among
the Tartars”!
It was some time, however, before he became at home in the spiritual
world. Time ceased to have any significance to him. He would lie for
days in a trance from which he would awake at night “to wrestle with
evil spirits” to the terror of his household. Sometimes his soul
would escape altogether from his body and “borne on the wings of the
Infinite, journey through Immensity from planet to planet.” To these
travels, the most marvellous that imagination has ever taken, we owe
the _Arcana Cœlestia_ and _The New Jerusalem_. These books translated
from the Latin in which they had been dictated to him by the Almighty
had a prodigious success. In Protestant countries--which he personally
canvassed--especially in Sweden and England where he made the most
converts, they were regarded as the gospel of a new religion, the Bible
of the Church of the New Jerusalem.
“Show me four persons,” said Fontenelle, “who swear it is midnight when
it is noon, and I will show you ten thousand to believe them.”
Firmly convinced that he was in daily intercourse with the Almighty,
Swedenborg soon convinced others. For his was the faith which removes
mountains. He had, moreover, a majestic appearance and a magnetic
personality which rendered ridicule silent in his presence, and
inspired the confidence and love of all who came in contact with him.
Three extraordinary instances of his power to communicate with the
unseen world are cited by his followers. Even Kant, the philosopher,
was struck by them, though he confesses that on inquiry he dismissed
them as having no foundation but report. Nevertheless there were
thousands who did not doubt, least of all Queen Ulrica. Had Swedenborg
not related to her the contents of a letter known only to herself and
her brother who had been dead for years?
That the sentimental Lutheranized Gnosticism he preached should have
been received with enthusiasm in Protestant Europe is not surprising.
The peoples of the North are naturally mystical. Nothing that appears
to them in the guise of religion is too fantastic to be refused a
hearing. In England the more fantastic the more certain is it of
success. Swedenborgianism was to the “illuminized Jerusalemites”
of Manchester, where alone they numbered twenty thousand, merely a
very delicious _rechauffée_ of a diet to which their imagination was
specially addicted. The eagerness with which it was accepted in England
was due entirely to appetite.
Much more remarkable was the influence of Swedenborg in the Catholic
world. Naturally it manifested itself differently in different nations,
assuming the character peculiar to each. Thus, whilst in England
supernaturalism under the influence of Swedenborg became a religious
craze, in France it grafted itself upon philosophy, and in Germany
infected the secret societies in which the theories of the French
philosophers found active political expression.
The secret of this universal appeal is not far to seek. It was one
of the articles of faith with the old Rosicrucians that by them “the
triple diadem of the pope should be reduced to dust.” The theosophy
of Swedenborg _presumed_ the liberty, equality, and fraternity of
mankind. It was at once the spiritual negation and defiance of the
arrogant supremacy of both Church and State. Occultism, which has ever
proclaimed the spiritual rebellion of the soul against any kind of
tyranny, was in the eighteenth century of necessity revolutionary. Of
the forces of disintegration to which the _ancien régime_ succumbed, it
was the only one that worked systematically towards a definite object.
In the previous century, when the social system that deprived the soul
of its liberty seemed irrefragable, the Rosicrucians had resignedly
considered contentment to be the philosopher’s stone. But now when the
whole structure was toppling, it was necessary to interpret afresh,
and in terms more in accordance with occult principles, the secret of
perfection. To the mystics of the eighteenth century the “philosophical
egg” by means of which the tyranny of throne and altar was to be
transmuted into the gold of absolute liberty was the Revolution.
And the crass credulity and superstition of the age was the crucible in
which they sought it.
IV
Nothing is more curious than to note the manner in which these
descendants of the old alchemists, pioneers at one and the same time of
modern Occultism and modern Socialism, while engaged in shadowing, so
to speak, the unbelief of their century, conspired to put an end to the
old _régime_.
In spite of the disasters that dimmed the glory of the last years of
Louis XIV’s long reign, the immense prestige that France had acquired
in _le grand siècle_ remained unchallenged. Intellectually the
influence of France under his successors was so supreme that the decay
of French civilization in the eighteenth century may be regarded as a
sort of mirror in which the process of the disintegration of European
society generally is reflected. Already as early as 1704, eleven years
before the death of Louis XIV, when _authority_ still seemed to be
everywhere dominant, Leibnitz detected “all the signs of the general
Revolution with which Europe is menaced.” With the passing of Louis
XIV respect, the chief stronghold of feudalism, surrendered to the
cynicism of the Regency. In that insane Saturnalia chains were snapped,
traditions shattered, old and worn-out conventions trampled under-foot.
The Regency was but the Revolution in miniature.
The orgy of licence passed in its turn, as the gloomy and bigoted
hypocrisy of which it was the natural reaction, had passed before
it. But the calm of the exquisite refinement that took its place was
only superficial. Freedom conceived in the revels of the Regency
yearned to be born. To assist at this _accouchement_ was the aim
of all the philosophical midwifery of the age. In 1734 Voltaire,
physician-in-ordinary to the century, declared “action to be the chief
object of mankind.” But as freedom of action is impossible without
freedom of thought Vauvenargues next demanded in clarion tones that
“God should be freed.” The idea of “freeing God” in order to free man
was an inspiration, and Vauvenargues’ magnificent phrase became the
tocsin of the philosophers.
But the chief effect of the Regency upon France, and thus indirectly
upon Europe, had been to “free unbelief.” Authority, which had feared
faith when alive and despised it when dead, crawled into the shell
from which the snail of belief had departed and displayed the same
predatory and brutal instincts as the intolerant religion in whose iron
carapace it dwelt. To dislodge it was the first step towards “freeing
God”; and all sorts and conditions of athletes entered the arena to
battle with prejudice and injustice. In France, where the contest was
destined to be decided, the Bastille or banishment was the punishment
that brute authority awarded those who dared to defy it. But to crush
the rebellion of intelligence against stupidity was impossible. The
efforts of the philosophers were reinforced by sovereigns imbued
with the spirit of the century. With Frederick the Great a race of
benevolent despots sprang into existence, who dazzled by the refulgence
of the philosophical light they so much admired did not perceive till
too late that in igniting their torches at its flame they were helping
to kindle a conflagration destined to destroy the system that would
deprive them of the absolute freedom they enjoyed, and to a limited
share of which they were willing to admit the nations they ruled.
Nor for that matter did the philosophers themselves. To them as
well as to their princely disciples “to free God” was another name
for religious toleration. That was the revolution for which the
Encyclopedists worked, and which Frederick the Great and the sovereigns
who shared his enlightened opinions desired. Nothing was further
from their intention than that it should take the form in which it
eventually came. It is impossible to believe that the Revolution which
demanded the heads of a Lavoisier and a Bailly would have spared those
of a Voltaire or a Rousseau. Least of all would the stupid mob that
watched the victims doomed to the guillotine “spit into the basket,” as
it termed in ferocious jest the fall of the heads beneath the axe, have
made any distinction between the virtuous and innocent Louis XVI and
Joseph II, or the Empress Catherine, had it been possible to arraign
them likewise at the bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The gratitude
of the people is even less to be depended on than that of princes. But
God was not to be “freed” in a day. Seventy-five years elapsed between
Freedom’s conception in the Regency and birth in the Revolution.
During this long pregnancy the century which was to die in child-bed
developed an extraordinary appetite for the supernatural. To the
materialistic philosophy that analyzed and sought to control the
process of decay which by the middle of the century had become
visible, even to one so indifferent to “signs of the times” as Louis
XV, the cult of the supernatural was an element unworthy of serious
consideration. But though long ignored the time was to come when it
obtained from the torch-bearers of reason a questionable and dangerous
patronage. It was on the eve of the birth of Freedom that “the century
of Voltaire,” as Henri Martin expresses it, “extended its hand to the
occultists of the middle ages.”
Between Voltaire and cabalistic evocations, between the scepticism
of the Encyclopedists and the mysticism of Swedenborg who would
believe there could be any affiliation? Yet the transition was
natural enough. The philosophers in their abuse of analysis had too
persistently sacrificed sentiment to reason. Imagination, which Louis
Blanc has called the intoxication of intelligence, had begun to doubt
everything by the middle of the century. Reaction was inevitable.
The sneers of Voltaire were succeeded by the tears of Rousseau. The
age of sensibility followed the age of unbelief. This was the hour
for which a despised occultism had waited. It alone had a clear and
definite conception of the Revolution. Patronized by philosophy, which
vacillated between sentiment and reason, it imbued it finally with
its own revolutionary ideas. The extent of their ascendency may be
gauged by the declaration of Condorcet, “that volcano covered with
snow,” as he has been called, “that society must have as its object the
amelioration, physical, intellectual and moral of the most numerous
and poorest class.” In his desire to escape from materialism the
philosopher trained in the school of Voltaire had but taken the road to
perfection along which the mystics were leading France and Europe.
Strange to relate, the leader of the mystical movement in France to
which philosophy was destined to attach itself, was himself the mildest
and least revolutionary of men.
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin might be described as the reincarnation
of St. Francis of Assisi in the eighteenth century. Had he lived four
hundred years earlier he would have passed his gentle flower-like
life in the seclusion of some cloister, had beatific visions of the
Saviour of the world, communed with the Virgin and Saints, worked
miracles, founded a monastic order, and at his death been canonized
by the Church, of whose faith he would have been the champion and of
its tenderness the exemplar. Pure and meditative by nature he had
been greatly influenced when a boy by an ascetic book, _The Art of
Knowing Oneself_, that he chanced to read. As his father, to whom he
was deeply attached, intended him for the Bar he devoted himself to
the study of law, and though he had no taste for the profession passed
his examinations. But after practising six months he declared himself
incapable of distinguishing in any suit between the claims of the
defendant and the plaintiff, and requested to be allowed to exchange
the legal profession for the military--not because he had any liking
for the career of arms, but in order that he might “have leisure to
continue the study of religion and philosophy.”
To oblige his father the Duc de Choiseul, then Prime Minister, gave him
a lieutenancy in the Regiment de Foix, then in garrison at Bordeaux.
Here he met one of those strange characters so common in this century,
who, either charlatans of genius or dreamers by temperament, supplied
with arms from the arsenal of the supernatural boldly asserted the
supremacy of the occult and attacked science and philosophy alike.
This particular individual was called Martinez Pasqualis, but as like
so many of his kind he enveloped himself in mystery it is impossible
to discover who or what he was, or where he came from. He was supposed
to be a Christianized Jew from one of the Portuguese colonies in the
East, which would account perhaps for his skill in the practice of the
occult. At any rate, the strange secrecy he maintained in regard to
himself was sufficient in the eighteenth century to credit him with
supernatural powers.
When Saint-Martin met him in Bordeaux he had for ten years held a
sort of school of theurgy. At Avignon, Toulouse, and other Southern
cities his pupils or disciples formed themselves into a sect, known
as Martinists after their master, for the practice of his doctrines,
which though but vaguely understood were attractive from the hopes
they held out of communicating with the invisible world. Saint-Martin
was the first to grasp their meaning. He joined the Martinists, whose
existence till then was scarcely known, and became their chief when the
dissensions to which the private life of Pasqualis had given rise were
healed by his sudden and singular departure for Haiti, where he died of
yellow fever shortly after his arrival.
Drawn from obscurity by the personal charm and high social position of
its new leader, Martinism rapidly attracted attention. In a strange
little book, _Des Erreurs et de la Vérité par un philosophe inconnu_,
Saint-Martin endeavoured to detach himself and his adherents from the
magic in which Pasqualis--who practised it openly--had involved this
sect. But though he gave up the quest of supernatural phenomena as
unnecessary to an acquaintance with the unseen, and wandered deeper
and deeper into pure mysticism, he never wholly succeeded in escaping
from the grosser influence of his first initiation in the occult. From
the fact, however, that he called himself the “Robinson Crusoe of
spiritualism,” some idea may be gained of the distance that separated
him from those who also claimed connection with the invisible world. He
did not count on being understood. Of one of his books he said, “it is
too far from ordinary human ideas to be successful. I have often felt
in writing it as if I were playing valses on my violin in the cemetery
of Montmartre, where for all the magic of my bow, the dead will neither
hear nor dance.”
Nevertheless, though philosophy failed to follow him to the remote
regions of speculation to which he withdrew, it grasped enough of his
meaning to apply it. And the Revolution, which before its arrival he
had regarded as the “lost word” by which the regeneration of mankind
was to be effected, and when it actually came as “the miniature of
the last judgment,” adopted his sacred ternary “Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity”--the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of Martinism--as its
device. Saint-Martin was one of the few who strove to inaugurate it
whom it did not devour. He passed through it unmolested, dying as he
had lived gently. His only regret in passing from the visible to the
invisible was that he had left “the mystery of numbers unsolved.”
V
The influence of Saint-Martin, however, was passive rather than
active. Though philosophy confusedly and unconsciously imbibed the
Socialistic theories of mysticism, the French being at once a practical
and an excitable people were not to be kindled by speculations of the
intellect, however daring, original, and attractive they might be. The
palpable prodigies of Mesmer appealed more powerfully to them than the
vague abstractions of Saint-Martin.
It was in Germany that revolutionary mysticism found its motive power.
Whilst Saint-Martin, proclaiming in occult language that “all men
were kings,” sought to efface himself at the feet of sovereigns, Adam
Weishaupt was shaking their thrones. It would be impossible to find two
men more unlike. Weishaupt was the very antithesis of Saint-Martin.
He was not a mystic at all, and furthermore always professed the
greatest contempt for “supernatural tricks.” But consumed with an
implacable hatred of despotism and with a genius for conspiracy he
perceived in the widespread attraction and revolutionary tendency of
the supernatural the engine of destruction he required.
Born of Catholic parents at Ingolstadt in Bavaria, Weishaupt had been
sent as a boy to the Jesuit seminary in that town, but conceiving a
great dislike for the method of instruction employed there he left it
for the university. On the temporary abolition of the Order of the
Jesuits, having taken his degree, he was appointed to the professorship
of jurisprudence till then held by a Jesuit. Though deprived of their
functions the members of the suppressed Order still remained in the
country, and posing as martyrs continued to exercise in secret their
malign influence as powerfully as ever. Weishaupt naturally found in
them bitter enemies; and to fight them conceived the idea of founding
a secret society, which the great popularity he enjoyed among the
students enabled him to realize.
Perceiving the immense success that Gassner was having at this time
by his cures, and fully alive to the powerful hold the passion for
the supernatural had obtained on the popular imagination, he decided
to give his society a mystic character as a means of recruiting
followers. As Weishaupt’s object was to convert them into blind
instruments of his supreme will, he modelled his organization after
that of the Jesuits, adopting in particular their system of espionage,
their practice of passive obedience, and their maxim that the end
justifies the means. From mysticism he borrowed the name of the
society: Illuminés. From freemasonry, the classes and grades into
which they were subdivided, the purpose of which was to measure the
progress of the adept in assimilating the doctrine of the absolute
equality of man and to excite his imagination by making him hope for
the communication of some wonderful mystic secret when he reached the
highest grade. Those who enjoyed the confidence of Weishaupt were known
as _areopagites_. To them alone was he visible, and as he deemed that
too many precautions could not be observed in concealing the existence
of a society sworn to the abolition of the Christian religion and the
overthrow of the established social system, he and his accomplices
adopted names by which alone they were known to the others.
Comprised at first of a few students at the University of Ingolstadt,
the Illuminés gradually increased their numbers and sought recruits
in other places, special attention being given to the enlistment of
young men of wealth and position. In this way, the real objects of
Illuminism being artfully concealed, the society extended within the
course of four or five years all over Germany. Its adepts even had a
hand in affairs of State and gained the ear of many of those petty
and picturesque sovereigns of the Empire who, catching the fever of
philosophy from Frederick the Great and Joseph II, amused themselves
in trying to blend despotism, philanthropy, and the occult. As the
Illuminés were utterly unscrupulous, they did not hesitate to seek
recruits in the Church of Rome itself, of which they were the secret
and deadly enemy, in order by taking sides in the theological quarrels
of the day to increase dissensions and weaken the power of the Pope.
[Illustration: ADAM WEISHAVPT.
_G. V. Mansinger pinx._ _C. W. Bockfe._
(_After Mansinger_)]
However, cleverly organized though they were, the Illuminés, composed
of very young and passionate men carefully chosen--Weishaupt himself
was scarcely twenty-eight when he founded the sect in 1776--did not
make much progress, till Baron von Knigge joined them in 1780. He
possessed the one faculty that Weishaupt lacked--imagination. Young,
monstrously licentious, irreligious and intelligent, he was consumed
with an insatiable curiosity for fresh experiences. He had written
a number of novels which had attracted some attention and certain
pamphlets on morals that had been put on the Index. He had been
admitted to most of the secret societies of the day, particularly
that of the Freemasons. He had experimented in alchemy and studied
every phase of occultism from the philosophy of the Gnostics to that
of Swedenborg. Everything that savoured of the supernatural had a
profound attraction for him; even sleight of hand tricks, it is
said, had engaged his attention. At thirty he had seen, studied and
analyzed everything, and still his imagination remained as untired and
inquisitive as ever. An ally at once more invaluable and more dangerous
it would have been impossible for Weishaupt to have procured.
Admitted to the confidence of Weishaupt this young Hanoverian nobleman
rapidly gained an ascendency over him. It was owing to the advice
of Knigge that Weishaupt divided the Illuminés into grades after the
manner of the Freemasons, and adopted the method of initiation of which
the mysterious and terrifying rites were well calculated to impress the
proselyte. With a Knigge to invent and a Weishaupt to organize, the
Illuminés rapidly increased their numbers and activities. Overrunning
Germany they crossed the frontiers preaching, proselytizing, and
spreading the gospel of the Revolution everywhere. But this rapid
development was not without its dangers. Conscious that the existence
of such a society if it became known would inevitably lead to its
suppression, Knigge, who was nothing if not resourceful, conceived the
idea of grafting it on to Freemasonry, which by reason of its powerful
connections and vast proportions would, he trusted, give to Illuminism
both protection and the means of spreading more widely and rapidly.
The origin of this association, the oldest known to the world, composed
of men of all countries, ranks, and creeds sworn to secrecy, bound
together by strange symbols and signs, whose real mystic meaning has
long been forgotten, and to-day devoted to the practice of philanthropy
on an extensive scale--has been the subject of much speculation. The
theory, most generally accepted, is that which supposes it to have
been founded at the time and for the purpose of building the Temple of
Solomon. But whatever its early history, Freemasonry in its present
form first came into prominence in the seventeenth century in England,
whence it spread to France and Germany. It was introduced into the
former country by the Jacobites early in the eighteenth century with
the object of furthering the cause of the Stuarts. On the extinction
of their hopes, however, it reverted to its original ideals of equality
and fraternity, and in spite of these democratic principles obtained
a strong hold upon the aristocracy. Indeed, in France it was from the
first a decidedly royalist institution and this character it preserved,
outwardly at least, down to the Revolution, numbering nobles and clergy
alike among its members, and always having a prince of the blood as
Grand Master.
In Germany, on the contrary, where since the Thirty Years’ War popular
aspirations and discontent had expressed themselves inarticulately in
a multitude of secret societies, the principles of Freemasonry had a
political rather than a social significance.
The importance it acquired from the number of its members, its
international character, and its superior organization could not fail
to excite the hostility of the Church of Rome, which will not tolerate
within it the existence of secret and independent associations. The
Jesuits had sworn allegiance to the Pope and in their ambition to
control the Papacy were its staunchest defenders. But the Freemasons
refused to admit the Papal authority, and treated all creeds with
equal respect. War between the Church of Rome and Freemasonry was thus
inevitable--a war that the Church in such a century as the eighteenth,
permeated with scepticism and the desire for individual liberty, was
most ill-advised to wage. For it was a war in which extermination was
impossible and the victories of Rome indecisive.
Anathematized by Clement XII, persecuted in Spain by the Inquisition,
penalized in Catholic Germany by the law, and its members decreed
worthy of eternal damnation by the Sorbonne in France, Freemasonry
nevertheless managed to find powerful champions. Entrenched behind the
thrones of Protestant Europe, particularly that of Frederick the Great,
and encouraged by the philosophers who saw in it something more than
a Protestant challenge to the Church of Rome, it became the rallying
ground of all the forces of discontent and disaffection of the century,
the arsenal of all its hopes and ideals, the nursery of the Revolution.
To render it, if possible, suspect even to its patrons Rome denied the
humanity of its aims and the boasted antiquity of its origin. According
to the stories circulated by the priests, which excited by their fears
existed solely in their imagination, the Freemasons were the successors
of the old Knights Templars sworn to avenge the abolition of that
order by the bull of Pope Clement V and the death of its Grand Master,
Jacques Molay, burnt alive by King Philip the Fair in the fourteenth
century. But their vengeance was not to be limited to the destruction
of the Papacy and the French monarchy; it included that of all altars
and all thrones.[9]
This tradition, however, continually repeated and rendered more and
more mysterious and alarming by rumour, merely helped to articulate
the hatred of the enemies of the old _régime_ who had flocked to
Freemasonry as to a camp. As this association had at this period of
its history no homogeneity, it was possible for anybody with a few
followers to form a lodge, and for each lodge to be a distinct society
united to Freemasonry by the community of signs and symbols. It thus
became a vast confederation of independent lodges representing all
sorts of opinions, often hostile to one another, and possessing each
its own “rite” or constitution. Philosophy and occultism alike both
found a shelter in it. Even Saint-Martin left his mystic solitude to
found lodges which observed the “Swedenborg rite.”
To attach themselves to the Freemasons was therefore for the Illuminés
as easy as it was natural. Lodges of Illuminism were founded all over
Germany. The number and variety of sects, however, that had found an
asylum in Freemasonry by the diversity of their aims tended to weaken
rather than strengthen the association. At length, the discovery that
impostors, like Schröpfer, Rosicrucians and even Jesuits had founded
lodges led to a general council of Freemasons for the purpose of giving
the society the homogeneity it lacked. With this object a convention of
Masons was held at Wilhelmsbad in 1782 to which deputies were sent from
all parts of Europe. Knigge and Weishaupt attended and, perceiving the
vast possibilities of the consolidation of the sects, they endeavoured
to capture the whole machinery of the organization for the Illuminés,
much as the Socialists of to-day have endeavoured to capture the Trades
Unions.
The intrigue, however, not only failed, but led to a misunderstanding
between the chiefs of Illuminism. Knigge definitely withdrew from the
society, the existence and revolutionary aims of which were betrayed
two years later, in 1784, by a member who had reached the highest
grade, only to discover that the mystic secrets by which he had been
attracted to the Illuminés did not exist. This information conveyed
to the Bavarian government was confirmed by domiciliary visits of the
police who seized many incriminating papers. Weishaupt fled to Gotha,
where he found a protector in the occultist Duke, whose friendship he
had nursed for years in view of just such a contingency.
But though the society he had formed was broken up, it was too late
to stamp out the fire it had kindled. The subterranean rumblings of
the Revolution could already be heard. Mysticism which had made use of
philosophy in France to sap tyranny was in its turn in Germany turned
to political account. From the seeds sown by the Illuminés sprang that
amazing crop of ideals of which a few years later Napoleon was to reap
the benefit.
* * * * *
Such, then, was the “curtain” of Cagliostro; woven, so to speak, on the
loom of the love-of-the-marvellous out of mystical masonic principles
and Schröpfer-Mesmer phenomena.
And now let us turn once more to the personality of the man behind it.
CHAPTER III
MASKED AND UNMASKED
I
Before leaving England, during an interlude in the persecution to which
he had been subjected, Cagliostro had become a Freemason. This event,
innocent enough in itself, though destined years later to have such
terrible consequences for him, occurred on April 12, 1777. The lodge
he joined was the Esperance, which met in a room of the King’s Head in
Gerard Street, Soho.
According to the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_, who professed to
have obtained the particulars of his admission and initiation from an
eye-witness, the Count on this occasion described himself as “Joseph
Cagliostro, Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Brandenburg.”[10] Three
other members were received at the same time: Pierre Boileau, a valet;
Count Ricciarelli, “musician and alchemist, aged seventy-six”; and the
Countess Cagliostro.
There was a full attendance of members, “Brother” Hardivilliers, an
upholsterer, presiding. Out of courtesy to her sex the Countess was
received first. Her initiation consisted in taking the prescribed oath,
after which “she was given a garter on which the device of the lodge,
_Union, Silence, Virtue_, was embroidered, and ordered to wear it on
going to bed that night.”
The ceremony, however, of making the “Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of
Brandenburg” a Freemason was characterized by the horseplay usual
on such occasions. By means of a rope attached to the ceiling the
“Colonel” was hoisted into the air, and allowed to drop suddenly to the
floor--an idiotic species of buffoonery that entailed unintentionally
a slight injury to his hand. His eyes were then bandaged, and a loaded
pistol having been given him, he was ordered by “Brother” Hardivilliers
to blow out his brains. As he not unnaturally manifested a lively
repugnance to pull the trigger he was assailed with cries of “coward”
by the assembly. “To give him courage” the president made him take the
oath. It was as follows--
“I, Joseph Cagliostro, in presence of the great Architect of the
Universe and my superiors in this respectable assembly, promise to do
all that I am ordered, and bind myself under penalties known only to
my superiors to obey them blindly without questioning their motives or
seeking to discover the secret of the mysteries in which I shall be
initiated either by word, sign, or writing.”
The pistol--an unloaded one this time--was again put into his hand.
Reassured, but still trembling, he placed the muzzle to his temple and
pulled the trigger. At the same time he heard the report of another
pistol, received a blow on the head, and tearing the bandage from his
eyes found himself--a Freemason![11]
To make these perfectly harmless particulars, which were published by
the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_ with the express purpose of
damaging Cagliostro, appear detrimental, their malignant author cites
the menial occupations of the members of the Esperance Lodge, who were
chiefly petty tradesmen and servants of foreign birth, as indicative of
the low origin and questionable status of the self-styled Count. Such
a reproach from its manifest absurdity is scarcely worth repeating. If
any inference is to be drawn from Cagliostro’s association with the
hairdressers and upholsterers, the valets and shoemakers, of whom the
Esperance Lodge chiefly consisted, it is to be drawn from the character
of his lodge, and certainly not from the occupations of his brother
masons.
The Order of Strict Observance, to which the Esperance Lodge was
affiliated, was one of the many secret societies grafted on to
Freemasonry in the eighteenth century. It had been founded in the
middle of the century in Germany by a Baron von Hundt with the object
of reviving the Order of the Knights Templar, who were regarded by the
seditious as classic victims of papal and monarchical tyranny.[12]
Hundt’s Order of Strict Observance, however, at the beginning at any
rate, was the very opposite of a revolutionary character; though to
the Church of Rome, aware that it perpetuated the tradition of the
Templars, it was none the less anathema. To this fact the stories
may be traced which caused Freemasonry as a whole to be suspected of
conspiring to “trample the lilies under-foot.”
In England the Order of Strict Observance was purely philanthropic and
social, though there, as elsewhere, it was steeped in occultism--a fact
which of itself is quite sufficient to explain why Cagliostro joined
the Esperance Lodge. The importance, moreover, acquired by this masonic
order, whose lodges were scattered all over Europe, also explains the
comparative ease with which he afterwards exploited the curiosity his
remarkable faculties aroused.
The precise manner, however, in which he laid the foundations of his
fame can only be conjectured. Between November 1777, when Cagliostro
left England unknown and impoverished, and March 1779, when he arrived
in Courland to be received into the highest society, his movements are
wrapped in mystery.
“My fifty guineas,” he says, “which was all that I possessed on leaving
London, took me as far as Brussels, where I found Providence waiting to
replenish my purse.”
As he did not deign to enlighten the public as to the guise in
which Providence met him, his Inquisition-biographer, who is always
prejudiced and generally unreliable, was of the opinion that it was
highly discreditable. This authority states that he procured money
from a credulous man whom he duped into believing he could predict the
winning number in a lottery, and that without waiting to learn the
result of his prediction--which, on this occasion, in spite of his
previous uniform success in London, was a failure--fled to the Hague.
Whilst here, so it was rumoured years later, he was admitted as a
Freemason into a lodge of the Order of Strict Observance, to the
members of which he made a speech on Egyptian Masonry. As a result
of the interest he aroused, a lodge was founded in accordance with
the Egyptian Rite, open to both sexes, and of which the Countess was
appointed Grand Mistress.
The Inquisition-biographer professes to discover him next in Venice,
“from which he fled after swindling a merchant out of one thousand
sequins.” But as he is described as calling himself at the time Marquis
Pellegrini--one of the _aliases_ under which Giuseppe Balsamo had
masqueraded some years previously, he may be acquitted of the charge.
If Cagliostro was really Balsamo it is inconceivable that he would
have returned to Italy under a name he had rendered so notorious. The
incident, if it has any foundation in fact, must have occurred several
years before this date. Moreover, if Cagliostro and Balsamo are the
same, Freemasonry must have wrought a most remarkable and unprecedented
spiritual reformation in the character of the Sicilian crook, for under
the name of Count Cagliostro he most certainly ceased to descend to the
vulgar villainies formerly habitual to him.
Much more in keeping with Cagliostro’s character is the following
adventure reported to have befallen him at Nuremburg, whither rumour
next traces him. Being asked his name by a Freemason who was staying
at the same hotel, and to whom he had communicated the fact that he
was also a member of the same fraternity by one of the secret signs
familiar to the initiated, he replied by drawing on a sheet of paper
a serpent biting its tail. This cryptic response, coupled with the
air of mystery Cagliostro habitually gave to his smallest action,
deeply impressed the inquisitive stranger, who with the characteristic
superstition of the century at once jumped to the conclusion that
he was in the presence of the chief of one of the secret societies
attached to Freemasonry who, fleeing from persecution, was obliged to
conceal his identity. Accordingly, with a sentimental benevolence--from
which it may be inferred he was both a Mason and a German--“he drew
from his hand a diamond ring, and pressing it upon Cagliostro with
every mark of respect, expressed the hope that it might enable him more
easily to elude his enemies.”
From Nuremburg rumour follows the Count to Berlin, where the
interpretation the unsentimental police of Frederick the Great put
upon the mystery in which he enveloped himself was so hostile that he
hastened to Leipsic. In this town, veritable home of occultism and
stage on which Schröpfer a few years before had persuaded his audience
to believe in him in spite of his impostures, any mysterious person was
sure of a welcome. The voice of rumour, hitherto reduced to a whisper,
now becomes audible. The Freemasons of the Order of Strict Observance
are said to have given a banquet in Cagliostro’s honour “at which three
plates, three bottles, and three glasses were set before each guest in
commemoration of the Holy Trinity.”
After the repast the Count made a speech, to the eloquence of which and
its effect on his hearers the mystic triad of bottles would appear to
have contributed. As at the Hague, he discoursed on Egyptian Masonry;
praised the superiority of its ideals and rites to those of the lodge
of which he was the guest; and carried away by bibulous enthusiasm,
which caused him to ignore the rules of politeness and good breeding,
he turned impressively to the head of the lodge--one Scieffort--and in
impassioned accents informed him that if he did not adopt the Egyptian
Rite “he would feel the weight of the hand of God before the expiration
of the month.”
The fact that Scieffort[13] committed suicide a few days later was
regarded as a fulfilment of this prophecy, which from the strange
manner and appearance of the mysterious person who uttered it produced
a deep impression. At once all Leipsic began to ring with the name of
Count Cagliostro and his gift of prophecy. It was his first step on the
road to fame. “On leaving the city,” says the Inquisition-biographer,
“not only did his admirers pay his hotel bill, but they presented him
with a considerable sum of money.”
Henceforth, wherever he went he was sure of a cordial reception in
the lodges of the Order of Strict Observance. By the Freemasons of
Dantzic and Königsberg he appears to have been treated as a person of
great distinction. As the lodges of the Order in these cities were
wholly given up to the practice and study of occult phenomena he must,
no doubt, have furnished them with some proof of his possession of
“supernatural” faculties.
In this way, recommended from lodge to lodge, he reached Mittau, the
capital of the Duchy of Courland, in March 1779. Here the cloud of
uncertainty in which he had been enveloped since leaving England was
completely dispelled.
II
Now one does not go to Courland without a reason, and a powerful one.
Marshal Saxe, the only other celebrity one recalls in connection with
this bleak, marshland duchy of Germanized Letts on the Baltic, was
lured thither by its crown. Cagliostro too had his reason--which was
not Saxe’s; though the ridiculous Inquisition-biographer, remembering
that the crown of Courland had been worn by more than one adventurer
within the memory of the generation then living, declares that there
was a project to depose the reigning duke and put Cagliostro in his
place.
As a matter of fact, Cagliostro went to Courland to further his great
scheme of founding the Order of Egyptian Masonry. This was the thought
uppermost in his mind from the time he left England, or at least the
one most frequently expressed.
The idea of Egyptian Masonry is said to have been suggested to him by
some unpublished manuscripts that he purchased while in London. He
himself, on the contrary, professed to have conceived it in Egypt
during his travels in the East, of which he gave such an amazing
account at his trial in the Diamond Necklace Affair. It is the spirit,
however, in which the idea was conceived that is of chief importance,
and this seems to have been wholly creditable to him.
For in spite of the vanity and ostentation he exhibited when his star
was in the ascendant Cagliostro, whose “bump of benevolence” was
highly developed, was inspired with a genuine enthusiasm for the cause
of humanity. Egyptian Masonry had for its aim the moral regeneration
of mankind. As the revelations made to men by the Creator (of whom
he never failed to speak with the profoundest respect) had, in his
opinion, been altered to subserve their own purposes by the prophets,
apostles, and fathers of the Church, the regeneration of mankind was
only to be accomplished by restoring the knowledge of God in all its
purity. This Cagliostro professed was only to be effected by Egyptian
Masonry, which he declared had been founded by the patriarchs, whom he
regarded as the last and sole depositaries of the truth, as the means
of communicating with the invisible world.
That he really believed it was his mission to re-establish this
communication there can be no doubt. Even Carlyle’s conception of
him as a “king of liars” only serves to emphasize this. For since it
is generally admitted that the habitual liar is in the end persuaded
of the truth of what he says, there is no reason why the “king” of
the tribe should be an exception. Had Cagliostro, therefore, _in the
beginning_ known that the religion he preached was a lie--of which I
can find no evidence whatever--he was most certainly convinced of its
truth _in the end_. In France, where his following was most numerous,
the delegates of the French lodges, after hearing him, declared in
their report that they had seen in him “a promise of truth which none
of the great masters had so completely developed before.”
If it be true that a man’s works are the key to his character, nothing
reveals that of Cagliostro more clearly than his system of Egyptian
Masonry. Never did the welfare of humanity, sublimest of ideals, find
more ridiculous expression. But to describe in detail the astonishing
_galimathias_ of this system for the regeneration of mankind would be
as tedious as it is unnecessary, and the following rough outline must
serve to illustrate the constitution and ceremonies of the Egyptian
Rite.
Both sexes were alike eligible for admission to the Egyptian Rite, the
sole conditions being belief in the immortality of the soul and--as
regards men--previous admission to some Masonic Lodge. There were,
as in ordinary Freemasonry, three grades: apprentice, companion, and
master Egyptian. The master Egyptians were called by the names of the
Hebrew prophets, while the women of the same grade took those of sibyls.
Cagliostro himself assumed the title of Grand Cophta, which he declared
to be that of Enoch, the first Grand Master of Egyptian Masonry. His
wife, as Grand Mistress, was known as the Queen of Sheba.
The initiations of the neophytes consisted of being “breathed upon”
by the Grand Master or Grand Mistress, according to their sex. This
proceeding was accompanied by the swinging of censers and a species of
exorcism that served as a preparation for moral regeneration. The Grand
Cophta then made a short speech, which he also addressed to the members
on their promotion from one grade to the other, ending with the words
“Helios, Mene, Tetragammaton.”
Concerning the apparent gibberish of these words, the Marquis de
Luchet, a clever writer of the day who never hesitated to sacrifice
truth to effect, and found in Cagliostro a splendid target for his wit,
pretends that “the Grand Cophta borrowed them from a conjurer, who in
his turn had been taught them by a spirit, which spirit was no other
than the soul of a cabalistic Jew who had murdered his own father.” As
a matter of fact they are often employed in Freemasonry and signify
the Sun, the Moon, and the four letters by which God is designated in
Hebrew.
The ceremony of initiation concluded with a sort of spiritualistic
séance, for which a very young boy or girl, known respectively as a
_pupille_ or _colombe_ was chosen as the medium, whom the Grand Cophta
rendered clairvoyant by “breathing on its face from the brow to the
chin.”
The same rites were observed for both sexes. At the initiation of
women, however, the _Veni Creator_ and _Miserere mei Deus_ were
chanted. On these occasions the Grand Mistress drank “a draught of
immortality,” and “the shade of Moses was evoked.” Moses, however,
persistently refused to be evoked, because--so the Countess is reported
to have confessed to the Inquisitors--“Cagliostro considered him a
thief for having carried off the treasures of the Egyptians.”
As the promise of spiritual health was not of itself sufficient to
ensure the success of Egyptian Masonry, Cagliostro in the course of
time found it expedient to heighten its attraction by holding out hopes
of bodily health, and infinite wealth as well. It was by his ability
to cure the sick that the majority of his followers were recruited;
and as he gave to his marvellous cures the same mysterious and absurd
character as he gave to all his actions, his enemies--of whom he had
many--unable to explain or deny them, endeavoured to turn the “physical
regeneration” that Egyptian Masonry was said to effect into ridicule.
According to a curious and satirical prospectus entitled “The Secret
of Regeneration or Physical Perfection by which one can attain to the
spirituality of 5557 years (Insurance Office of the Great Cagliostro),”
he who aspired to such a state “must withdraw every fifty years in the
month of May at the full of the moon into the country with a friend,
and there shutting himself in a room conform for forty days to the most
rigorous diet.”
The medical treatment was no less heroic. On the seventeenth day after
being bled the patient was given a phial of some “white liquid, or
primitive matter, created by God to render man immortal,” of which he
was to take a certain number of drops up to the thirty-second day. The
candidate for physical regeneration was then bled again and put to bed
wrapped in a blanket, when--if he had the courage to continue with the
treatment--he would “lose his hair, skin, and teeth,” but would recover
them and find himself in possession of youth and health on the fortieth
day--“after which he need not, unless he liked, shuffle off the mortal
coil for 5557 years.”
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the boundless credulity which
characterized the period immediately preceding the French Revolution
than the belief that this report, intended as a _conte pour rire_
by the Marquis de Luchet, its author, obtained. As Cagliostro and
his followers were very likely aware that any attempt to deny such a
statement would but serve to provide their enemies with fresh weapons
of attack, they endured the ridicule to which this malicious invention
subjected them in silence. This attitude, however, was not only
misunderstood by the public, but has even misled historians of a later
date, very few of whom, like Figuier in his _Histoire du Merveilleux_,
have had the wit to see the humour of the lampoon which they have been
too careless or too prejudiced to explain.
As a matter of fact, the mumbo-jumbo of the Egyptian Rite was no
more grotesque than the Swedenborgian, Rosicrucian, or any other
of the numerous rites that were grafted onto Freemasonry in the
eighteenth century. If the Baron von Gleichen, whose integrity was
as irreproachable as his experience was wide, is to be credited,
“Cagliostro’s Egyptian Masonry was worth the lot of them, for he tried
to render it, not only more wonderful, but _more honourable_ than any
other Masonic order in Europe.”
Considered as the key to Cagliostro’s character, Egyptian Masonry so
far fits the lock, so to speak. To turn the key, it is necessary to
explain the means he employed to realize the sublime ideal he expressed
so ridiculously.
It is characteristic of the tyranny of ideals to demand their
realization of the enthusiast, if need be at the cost of life, honour,
or happiness. All reformers magnetic enough to attract any notice have
been obliged to face this lion-like temptation at some time in their
careers. The perfervid ones almost always yield to it, and may count
themselves lucky if the sacrifice of their happiness is all that is
asked of them. The nature of the surrender is governed entirely by
circumstances. Cagliostro paid for his attempt to regenerate mankind
with his honour. It was an excessive price, and--considering the result
obtained--useless.
As he did not hesitate to recruit his followers by imposture when
without it he would have failed to attract them, many writers--and
they are the most hostile--have denied that he ever had a lofty ideal
at all. To them Egyptian Masonry is merely a device of Cagliostro
to obtain money. Such an opinion, however, is as untenable as it is
intentionally unjust.
_There is not a single authenticated instance in which he derived
personal profit by imposture._
Had he _succeeded_, like Swedenborg--who had a precisely similar ideal,
and also had recourse to imposture when it suited his purpose--his
reputation, like the Swede’s, would have survived the calumny that
assailed it.[14] For though Cagliostro debased his ideal to realize it,
his impostures did not make him an impostor, any more than Mirabeau can
be said to have been bought by the bribes he accepted from the Court.
His impostures consisted (1) in exhibiting his occult powers--which in
the beginning he had not developed--on occasions and under conditions
he knew to be opposed to their operation, whereby to obtain results he
was obliged to forge them, and (2) in attributing to a supernatural
cause _all_ the wonders he performed as well as the “mysteries” of the
Egyptian Rite, in which mesmerism, magnetism and ordinary conjuring
tricks were undoubtedly employed.
As the establishment of Egyptian Masonry was the object he had in view,
he no doubt believed with his century that the end justifies the means.
But to those who shape their conduct according to this passionate maxim
it becomes a two-edged sword that seldom fails to wound him who handles
it. The end that is justified by the means becomes of necessity of
secondary importance, and eventually, perhaps, of no importance at all.
This was the case with Cagliostro’s ideal. In rendering it subservient
to the magic which it was originally part of its object to suppress,
the latter gained and kept the upper hand. The means by which his ideal
was to be realized became thus, as justifying means are capable of
becoming, ignoble; and by robbing their end of its sublimity made that
end appear equally questionable. That Cagliostro perceived the danger
of this, and struggled hard to avert it, is abundantly proved by his
conduct on numerous occasions.
At the start, indeed, imposture was the very last thing he
contemplated. His strong objection to predicting winning numbers in
lotteries was the cause of all his trouble in London. From the Hague
to Mittau--wherever a glimpse of him is to be had--there is a reference
to the “eloquence with which he denounced the magic and satanism to
which the German lodges were addicted.” It was not till he arrived in
Courland that his repugnance for the _supercheries_ of supernaturalism
succumbed to the stronger forces of vanity and ambition.
III
If “Providence waited for Cagliostro at Brussels,” it was certainly
Luck that met him on his arrival at Mittau.
As hitherto the cause of Egyptian Masonry does not appear to have
derived any material benefit from the great interest he is said to have
excited in Leipsic and other places, it seems reasonable to infer that
the lodges he frequented were composed of _bourgeois_ or uninfluential
persons. At Mittau, however, the lodge to which he was admitted,
addicted like the others to the study of the occult, consisted of
people of the highest distinction who, advised in advance of the coming
of the mysterious Count, were waiting to receive him with open arms.
The great family of von Medem in particular treated him with the
greatest consideration, and in them he found at once congenial and
influential friends. Marshal von Medem was the head of the Masonic
lodge in Mittau, and from boyhood had made a special study of magic
and alchemy, as had his brother Count von Medem. This latter had two
very beautiful and accomplished daughters, the youngest of whom was
married to the reigning Duke of Courland--a fact that could not fail
to impress a regenerator of mankind in quest of powerful disciples.
It was, however, her sister Elisa, Count von Medem’s eldest daughter,
who became the _point d’appui_ of Cagliostro’s hopes.
The mystical tendencies of Elisa were entirely due to environment. She
had grown up in an atmosphere in which magic, alchemy, and the dreams
of Swedenborg were the principal topics of conversation. Familiarity,
however, as the saying is, bred contempt. In her childhood she declared
that the wonders of the supernatural which she heard continually
discussed around her, “made less impression on her than the tale of
Blue Beard, while a concert was worth all the ghosts in the world.”
Nevertheless, the occult was not without a subtle effect on her mind.
As a girl she had a decided preference for books of a mystic or
religious character, her favourites being “Young’s _Night Thoughts_ and
the works of Lavater.”
Gifted with an exceptionally brilliant intellect, of which she
afterwards gave unmistakable proof, she also possessed a most
enthusiastic and affectionate nature--qualities that her husband, a
Count von der Recke, alone appears to have neither recognized nor
appreciated. Their union was of short duration: after six years of
wedlock the Countess von der Recke, who had married at seventeen to
please her father, obtained a divorce. She was amply compensated for
what she had suffered by the affection she obtained from her family.
Father, uncles, aunts, cousins seemed only to exist to study her
wishes. Her sister, the Duchess of Courland, constantly sought her
advice in political matters, and regarded her always as her dearest
friend. But it was to her young brother to whom she was most deeply
attached. Nor was he less devoted to her. Nearly of the same age, and
possessing the same temperament and talents, the sympathy between them
was such that “one was but the echo of the other.” They differed only
in one respect. Equally serious and reflective, each longed to solve
the “problems of existence”; but while the Countess von der Recke
was led to seek their solution in the Bible, in the gospel according
to Swedenborg, or in the correspondence she formed with Lavater, her
brother thought they were to be found “in Plato and Pythagoras.” Death,
however, prematurely interrupted his quest, carrying with him to the
grave the ambition of his father and the heart of his sister.
It was at this moment, when she was overwhelmed with grief, that Count
Cagliostro arrived in Mittau, with the reputation of being able to
transmute metals, predict the future, and communicate with the unseen
world. Might he not also evoke the spirits of the dead? In any case,
such a man was not to be ignored. Mittau was a dead-and-alive place at
the best of times, the broken-hearted Countess was only twenty-five,
the “problems of existence” might still be solved--and workers of
wonders, be they impostors or not, are not met every day. So the
Countess von der Recke was determined to meet the “Spanish” Count,
and--what is more to the point--to believe in him.
[Illustration: COUNTESS ELISA VON DER RECKE
(_After Seibold_)]
As usual, on his arrival in Mittau, Cagliostro had denounced the
excessive rage for magic and alchemy that the Freemasons of Courland,
as elsewhere, displayed. But though he found a sympathetic listener
in the Countess von der Recke while he discoursed mystically on the
moral regeneration of mankind and the “Eternal Source of all Good,”
her father and uncle, who were devoted to magic and manifestations
of the occult, demanded practical proofs of the power he was said to
possess. As he was relying on their powerful patronage to overcome the
opposition unexpectedly raised to the foundation of an Egyptian Lodge
at Mittau by some persons whose suspicions were excited by the mystery
he affected, he did not dare disoblige them.
One day, after conversing on magic and necromancy with the von
Medems, he gave them and a certain Herr von Howen a proof of his
occult powers. Apart from his “miraculous” cures, nearly all the
prodigies performed by Cagliostro were of a clairvoyant nature. As
previously stated, in these exhibitions he always worked through a
medium, known as a _pupille_ or _colombe_, according to the sex--the
_pupilles_ being males and the _colombes_ females. From the fact that
they were invariably very young children, he probably found that they
responded more readily to hypnotic suggestion than adults. Though these
exhibitions were often impostures (that is, arranged beforehand with
the medium) they were as often undoubtedly genuine (that is, _not_
previously arranged, and baffling explanation). In every case they were
accompanied by strange rites designed to startle the imagination of the
onlooker and prepare it to receive a deep and durable impression of
mystery.
On this occasion, according to the Countess von der Recke, Cagliostro
selected as _pupille_ the little son of Marshal von Medem, “a child of
five.” “Having anointed the head and left hand of the child with the
‘oil of wisdom,’ he inscribed some mystic letters on the anointed hand
and bade the _pupille_ to look at it steadily. Hymns and prayers then
followed, till little von Medem became greatly agitated and perspired
profusely. Cagliostro then inquired in a stage whisper of the Marshal
what he desired his son to see. Not to frighten him, his father
requested he might see his sister. Hereupon the child, still gazing
steadfastly at his hand, declared he saw her.
“Questioned as to what she was doing, he described her as placing her
hand on her heart, as if in pain. A moment later he exclaimed, ‘now
she is kissing my brother, who has just come home.’ On the Marshal
declaring this to be impossible, as this brother was leagues away,
Cagliostro terminated the séance, and with an air of the greatest
confidence ordered the doubting parent ‘to verify the vision.’ This
the Marshal immediately proceeded to do; and learnt that his son, whom
he believed so far away, had unexpectedly returned home, and that
shortly before her brother’s arrival his daughter had had an attack of
palpitation of the heart.”
After proof so conclusive Cagliostro’s triumph was assured. Those who
mistrusted him were completely silenced, and all further opposition to
the foundation of his lodge ceased.
But the appetite of the von Medem brothers only grew by what it
fed upon. They insisted on more wonders, and to oblige them “the
representative of the Grand Cophta”--later he found it simpler to
assume in person the title and prerogatives of the successor of
Enoch--held another séance. Aware that he had to please people over
whose minds the visions of Swedenborg had gained such an ascendency
that everything that was fantastic appeared supernatural to them, he
had recourse to the cheap devices of magic and the abracadabra of black
art.
At a meeting of the lodge he declared that “he had been informed
by his chiefs of a place where most important magical manuscripts
and instruments, as well as a treasure of gold and silver, had been
buried hundreds of years before by a great wizard.” Questioned as
to the locality of this place, he indicated a certain heath on the
Marshal’s estate at Wilzen whereon he had been wont to play as a boy,
and which--extraordinary coincidence!--he remembered the peasants of
the neighbourhood used to say contained a buried treasure guarded by
ghosts. The Marshal and his brother were so astonished at Cagliostro’s
description of a place which it seemed improbable he could have heard
of, and certainly had never seen, that they set out at once for Wilzen
with some friends and relatives to find the treasure with the occult
assistance of their mysterious guest.
Now the Countess’s interest in the occult was of quite a different
character from that of her father and uncle. Deeply religious, she had
turned in her grief to mysticism for consolation. From the commencement
of her acquaintance with Cagliostro, she had been impressed as much
by the nobility of the aims he attributed to his Egyptian Masonry,
of which he spoke “in high-flown, picturesque language,” as by his
miraculous gifts. While others conversed with him on magic and
necromancy, which she regarded as “devilish,” she talked of the “union
of the physical and spiritual worlds, the power of prayer, and the
miracles of the early Christians.” She told him how the death of her
brother had robbed her life of happiness, and that in the hope of
seeing him once more she had often spent a long time in prayer and
meditation beside his grave at night. And she also gave the Grand
Cophta to understand that she counted on him to gratify this desire.
As to confess his utter inability to oblige her would have been to
rob him at one fell swoop of the belief in his powers on which he
counted to establish a lodge of Egyptian Masonry at Mittau, Cagliostro
evaded the request. His great gifts, he explained, were only to be
exercised for the good of the world, and if he used them merely for
the gratification of idle curiosity, he ran the risk of losing them
altogether, or of being destroyed by evil spirits who were on the watch
to take advantage of the weakness of such as he.
But as the exhibitions he had given her father and uncle of his powers
were purely for the benefit of idle curiosity, the Countess had not
unnaturally reproached him with having exposed himself to the snares of
the evil spirits he was so afraid of. Whereupon the unfortunate Grand
Cophta, in his desire to reform Freemasonry and to spread his gospel of
regeneration, having left the straight and narrow path of denunciation
for the broad road of compromise, sought to avoid the quagmire to which
it led by taking the by-path of double-dealing.
Conscious that his success at Mittau depended on keeping the Countess’s
esteem, he assumed an air of mystery and superiority when talking of
the occult calculated to impress her with the utter insignificance
of her views in matters of which, as she admitted, she was ignorant.
Having made her feel as small as possible, he endeavoured to reconcile
her to the phenomena he performed for the benefit of her relations by
holding out to her a hope that by similar means it might be possible to
evoke the shade of the brother she so yearned to see. When next she met
him, he assured her that “Hanachiel,” as he called his “chief” in the
spiritual world to whom he owed his marvellous gifts, “had informed him
that her intention was good in wishing to communicate with her brother,
and that this was only to be accomplished by the study of the occult
sciences, in which she might make rapid progress if she would follow
his directions unquestioningly.”
In this way, like another Jason steering his Argos-ship of Egyptian
Masonry clear of the rocks and quicksands, he sought to round the
cape of suspicion and come to a safe anchorage in port. But though
he handled the helm with consummate skill, as the Countess herself
afterwards acknowledged, it was a perilous sea on which he sailed.
Unquestioning obedience, the Countess declared, she could not promise
him.
“God Himself,” she said, “could not induce me to act against what my
conscience tells me is right and wrong.”
“Then you condemn Abraham for offering up his son?” was Cagliostro’s
curious rejoinder. “In his place, what would you have done?”
“I would have said,” replied the Countess: “‘O God, kill Thou my son
with a flash of Thy lightning if Thou requirest his life; but ask me
not to slay my child, whom I do not think guilty of death.’”
With such a woman, what is a Cagliostro to do? Prevented, so to speak,
by this flaw in the wind from coming to anchor in the harbour of her
unquestioning faith in him, he sought to reach port by keeping up
her hopes. To reconcile her to the magical operations he was obliged
to perform in order to retain his influence upon the von Medems, he
finally promised her a “magic dream” in which her brother would appear
to her.
From the manner in which Cagliostro proceeded to perform this
phenomenon, one may obtain an idea of the nature and extent of his
marvellous powers. As heretofore his effects had been produced by
hypnotic suggestion, accompanied by every accessory calculated to
assist it, so now he proceeded on similar lines. That the thoughts of
others besides himself should be concentrated on the “magic dream,” the
relations of the Countess, as well as herself, were duly agitated by
its expectation. With an air of great mystery, which Cagliostro could
make so impressive, he delivered to Count von Medem a sealed envelope
containing, he said, a question, which he hoped by the dream to have
answered. At night, before the Countess retired, he broke the silence
which he had imposed on her and her relations during the day to refer
once more to the dream, with the object of still further exciting the
imagination of all concerned, whose thoughts were fixed upon the coming
apparition of the dead, until the prophecy, like many another, worked
its own fulfilment.
But this cunningly contrived artifice, familiar to magicians in all
ages, and frequently crowned with success, was defeated on the present
occasion by the health of the Countess, whose nerves were so excited
by the glimpse she expected to have of her dearly beloved brother as to
prevent her sleeping at all.
This eventuality, however--which Cagliostro had no doubt allowed
for--far from complicating his difficulties, was easily turned to
advantage. For, upbraiding the Countess for her weakness and lack of
self-control, he declared she need not any longer count on seeing
her brother. Nevertheless, he dared not deprive her of all hope. In
response to her pleading, and urged by her father and uncle, he was
emboldened to promise her the dream for the ensuing night, trusting
that in the condition of body and mind to which he perceived she was
reduced by the overwrought state of her nerves she might even _imagine_
she had seen her brother.
But though the slippery road along which, impelled by vanity and
ambition, he travelled was beset with danger, Cagliostro proceeded
undaunted. When his second attempt to evoke the dead failed like
the first, he boldly asserted that he himself had prevented the
apparition, “being warned by Hanachiel that the vision of her brother
would endanger the Countess’s life in her excitable state.” And to
render this explanation the more convincing he gave the von Medems,
who were plainly disappointed by the failure of the “magic dream,”
one of those curious exhibitions of second sight which he was in the
habit of knocking off--no other word expresses it--so frequently and
successfully for their benefit.
Though aware that the Countess at the moment was ill in bed, he
declared that, if a messenger were sent to her house at a certain hour,
he would find her seated at her writing-table in perfect health. This
prediction was verified in every particular.
Such was the state of affairs when Cagliostro accompanied the von
Medems to Wilzen to prove the existence of the buried treasure he had
so craftily located. In spite of his great confidence in himself, he
must have realized that the task he had so rashly undertaken at Wilzen
was one that would require exceptional cunning to shirk. For the chance
of finding a treasure said to have been buried hundreds of years before
was even smaller than that on which he counted of evoking the spirit of
the Countess’s brother. But in this case, strange to say, it was not
his failure to produce the treasure, but the “magic” he successfully
employed to conceal his failure that was to cause him the most concern.
IV
Conscious that the Countess’s faith in him was shaken by his failure to
give her the consolation she so greatly desired, Cagliostro requested
they should travel in the same carriage in order that he might have the
opportunity to clear himself of her suspicions as to his sincerity.
The very boldness of such a request was sufficient to disarm her. She
herself has confessed, in the book from which these details have been
drawn, that “his conversation was such as to create in her a great
reverence for his moral character, whilst his subtle observations on
mankind in general astonished her as greatly as his magical operations.”
From the manner, however, in which he faced the difficulty, he does
not appear to have been in the least apprehensive of the consequences
of failing to surmount it. The Countess was once more his ardent
disciple; the von Medems’ belief in magic was proof against
unsuccessful experiments; and Hanachiel--invaluable Hanachiel--was
always on hand to explain his failures as well as his successes.
On arriving at Alt-Auz, as the von Medem estate at Wilzen was named,
Cagliostro produced from his pocket “a little red book, and read aloud
in an unknown tongue.” The Countess, who believed him to be praying,
ventured to interrupt him as they drove through the haunted forest in
which the treasure was said to be buried. Hereupon he cried out in wild
zeal, “Oh, Great Architect of the Universe, help me to accomplish this
work.” A bit of theatricality that much impressed his companion, and
which was all the more effective for being natural to him.
The von Medems were eager to begin digging for the treasure as soon as
they alighted. Cagliostro, however, “after withdrawing to commune in
solitude with Hanachiel,” declared that the treasure was guarded by
very powerful demons whom it was dangerous to oppose without taking
due precautions. “To prevent them from spiriting it away without his
knowledge” he performed a little incantation which was supposed to bind
Hanachiel to keep an eye on them. The next day, to break the fall, so
to speak, of the high hopes the von Medems had built on the buried
treasure, he held a séance in which the infant medium was again the
chief actor. The child--“holding a large iron nail,” and with only a
screen between it and the other members of the party, having presumably
been hypnotized[15] by Cagliostro--described the site of the buried
treasure, the demon that guarded it, the treasure itself, and “seven
angels in long white robes who helped Hanachiel keep an eye on the
guardian of the treasure.” At the command of Cagliostro the child
kissed, and was kissed by, these angels. And to the amazement of those
in the room, with only the screen between them and the child, the sound
of the kisses, says the Countess von der Recke, could be distinctly
heard.
Similar séances took place every day during the eight days the von
Medem party stayed at Alt-Auz. At one the Countess herself was induced
to enter the “magic circle holding a magic watch in her hand,” while
the little medium, assisted by the representative of the Grand Cophta,
in his turn assisted by Hanachiel, read her thoughts.
But, unlike her father and uncle, while the impression these phenomena
made upon her mind was profound, it was also unfavourable. Though
curiosity caused her to witness these séances, the Countess von der
Recke strongly disapproved of them on “religious grounds.” Like
many another, what she could not explain, she regarded as evil. The
phenomena she witnessed appeared so uncanny that she believed them
to be directly inspired by the powers of darkness. At first, in her
admiration of Cagliostro, she prayed that he might escape temptation
and be preserved from the demons with which it was but too evident to
her he was surrounded. When at last he declared that he was informed
by the ever-attendant Hanachiel that the demon who guarded the
buried treasure was not to be propitiated without much difficulty and
delay, it did not occur to her to doubt him. The wonders he had been
performing daily had convinced her, as well as the others, of his
occult powers. But from regarding him with reverence, she now regarded
him with dread.
Cagliostro, who never lost sight of the aims of Egyptian Masonry in
the deceptions to which the desire to proselytize led him, was in the
habit, “before each of his séances, of delivering lectures that were a
strange mixture of sublimity and frivolity.” It was by these lectures
that he unconsciously lost the respect of the Countess he strove so
hard to preserve. One day, while expatiating on the times when the sons
of God loved the daughters of men, as described in the Bible--which, he
predicted, would return when mankind was morally regenerate--carried
away by his subject he declared that, “not only the demi-Gods of
Greece, and Christ of Nazareth, but he himself were the fruit of such
unions.”
Such a statement inexpressibly shocked the Countess; and considering
that the evil spirits from whom she prayed he might be preserved had
completely taken possession of him, she resolved to have no more to
do with him. At her father’s entreaty, however, she was persuaded to
attend another séance, but as Cagliostro, not suspecting her defection,
prefaced his phenomena by a discourse on “love-potions,” the Countess
was only confirmed in her resolution.
Nevertheless, he was not the man to lose so influential an adherent
without a protest. On returning to Mittau he managed to a certain
extent to regain her confidence in his sincerity. He perceived,
however, that the interest he excited was on the wane, and wisely took
advantage of what he knew to be the right moment to depart.
Hoping by the aristocratic connections he had made in Mittau to gain
access to the highest circles in Russia, he decided to go to St.
Petersburg. His intention was received with dismay by those whom his
magical phenomena had so astonished. The von Medems heaped presents on
him. “From one he received a gift of 800 ducats, from the other a very
valuable diamond ring.” Even the Countess von der Recke herself, though
she made no attempt to detain him, proved that she at least believed
him to be a man of honour.
A day or two before his departure, being at some Court function, “he
recognized old friends in some large and fine pearls the Duchess of
Courland was wearing,” which, he said, reminded him of some pearls
of his wife’s that he had increased in size by a process known to
himself and sold for the benefit of a bankrupt friend in Holland. The
Countess von der Recke hereupon desired him to do the same with hers.
Cagliostro, however, “refused, as he was going away, and the operation
would take too long.” Nor would he take them with him to Russia, as
the Countess urged, and return them when the process was complete. A
striking instance of his integrity, from an authentic source, that his
prejudiced biographers have always seen fit to ignore.
If the above is characteristic of Cagliostro’s honesty, the following
episode, also related by the Countess, is equally characteristic of his
vanity. Informing him once that she was writing to Lavater and wished
to give him the details of a certain conversation, he objected.
“Wait twelve months,” said he, “and when you write call me only Count
C. Lavater will ask you, ‘Is not this the Great Cagliostro?’ and you
will then be able to reply, ‘It is.’”
* * * * *
As the unfavourable opinion the Countess von der Recke subsequently
formed of Cagliostro, whose path never crossed hers again, has, on
account of her deservedly high reputation, been largely responsible
for the hostility with which history has regarded him, it is but fair
to explain how she came to reverse the favourable opinion she had
previously entertained.
The value of her evidence, indeed, rests not so much on her _word_,
which nobody would dream of questioning, but on the _manner_ in which
she obtained her evidence. It was not till 1784--five years after
Cagliostro had left Mittau--that the Countess von der Recke came to
regard him as an impostor. To this opinion she was converted by one
Bode whom she met in Weimar and who, she says, gave her “the fullest
information concerning Cagliostro.”
Bode was a Freemason of the Order of Strict Observance who had joined
the Illuminés and was intimately acquainted with Weishaupt, the
founder of the sect. As it is generally assumed that Cagliostro was
also an Illuminé, Bode no doubt had excellent means of observing him.
The value of his opinion, however, is considerably lowered by the
fact that Cagliostro afterwards withdrew from the Illuminés when he
had succeeded in turning his connection with them to the account of
Egyptian Masonry. Under the circumstances Bode, who afterwards became
the leader of the Illuminés, would not be likely to view Cagliostro in
a favourable light.
The fact, moreover, that it took the Countess von der Recke five years
to make up her mind that her “apostle of light” was an impostor, was
perhaps due less to any absolute faith in Bode than to the changes that
had taken place in herself during this period.
On recovering her health she became as pronounced a rationalist as she
had formerly been a mystic. As this change occurred about the period of
her meeting with Bode, it may possibly account for the change in her
opinion of Cagliostro.
But if the manner in which the Countess came to regard Cagliostro
as an impostor somewhat detracts from the importance to be attached
to her opinion, the manner in which she made her opinion public was
unworthy of a woman to whose character this opinion owes the importance
attributed to it. For this “born fair saint” as Carlyle calls her,
waited till the Diamond Necklace Affair, when Cagliostro was thoroughly
discredited, before venturing to “expose” him.
V
Very curious to relate, all that is known of Cagliostro’s visit to
St. Petersburg is based on a few contradictory rumours of the most
questionable authenticity. This is all the more remarkable considering,
as the Countess von der Recke herself states, that he left Mittau in
a blaze of glory, regretted, honoured, and recommended to some of
the greatest personages in Russia by the flower of the nobility of
Courland.[16]
According to report, Cagliostro’s first act in St. Petersburg, as
everywhere else he went, was to gain admission to one of the lodges
of Strict Observance and endeavour to convert the members to the
Egyptian Rite. As experience had taught him the futility of attempting
to recruit adherents merely by expounding his lofty ideal of the
regeneration of mankind, he had recourse to the methods he had adopted
with such success in Mittau; but with the most humiliating result. For,
being apparently unable to procure a suitable medium, he was forced to
resort to an expedient which was discreditable in itself and unworthy
of his remarkable faculties.
On this occasion his medium was a _colombe_, “the niece of an actress”
in whose house the séance was held. There was the usual mumbo-jumbo,
sword-waving passes, stamping of the feet, _et cetera_. The medium
behind a screen gazed into a carafe of water and astonished the
assembled company with what she saw there. But later in the evening
while Cagliostro, covered with congratulations, was discoursing on the
virtue of Egyptian Masonry and dreaming of fresh triumphs, the medium
suddenly declared that she had seen nothing and that her rôle had been
prepared beforehand by the Grand Cophta!
Cagliostro, as has been seen, was bold and resourceful when his
situation seemed utterly untenable. That he would have seen his
prestige destroyed in this way without attempting to save it is far
from likely, and though the fact that St. Petersburg is the only city
in which Cagliostro failed to establish a lodge of Egyptian Masonry
may be regarded as proof of the futility of his efforts, the nature of
other rumours concerning him leads one to suppose that he strove hard
to regain the ground he had lost.
It was, no doubt, with this object that he turned his knowledge of
medicine and chemistry to account. It is in St. Petersburg that he is
heard of for the first time as a “healer.” According, however, to the
vague and hostile rumours purporting to emanate from Russia at the time
of the Diamond Necklace Affair he was a quack devoid of knowledge or
skill.
“A bald major,” says the Inquisition-biographer, “entrusted his head to
his care, but he could not make a single hair grow. A blind gentleman
who consulted him remained blind; while a deaf Italian, into whose ears
he dropped some liquid, became still more deaf.”
As a few months later Cagliostro was performing the most marvellous
cures at Strasburg, and was for years visited by invalids from all over
Europe, may we not assume that in this instance malice only published
his failures and suppressed his successes?
These rumours, however, were by no means damaging enough to please
the Marquis de Luchet, who had no scruples about inventing what he
considered “characteristic” anecdotes. The following story drawn from
his spurious _Mémoires Authentiques_ is worth repeating, less as an
illustration of his inventive powers than for the sake of nailing a
popular lie.
“Death,” he writes, “threatened to deprive a Russian lady of an
idolized infant aged two. She promised Cagliostro 5000 louis if he
saved its life. He undertook to restore it to health in a week if
she would suffer him to remove the babe to his house. The distressed
mother joyfully accepted the proposal. On the fifth day he informed her
there was a marked improvement, and at the end of the week declared
that his patient was cured. Three weeks elapsed, however, before he
would restore the child to its mother. All St. Petersburg rang with
the news of this marvellous cure, and talked of the mysterious man who
was able to cheat death of its prey. But soon it was rumoured that the
child which was returned to the mother was not the one which had been
taken away. The authorities looked into the matter, and Cagliostro was
obliged to confess that the babe he restored was substituted for the
real one, which had died. Justice demanded the body of the latter, but
Cagliostro could not produce it. He had burnt it, he said, ‘to test
the theory of reincarnation.’ Ordered to repay the 5000 louis he had
received, he offered bills of exchange on a Prussian banker. As he
professed to be a colonel in the service of the King of Prussia,[17]
the bills were accepted, but on being presented for payment were
dishonoured. The matter was therefore brought to the notice of Count
von Goertz, the Prussian Envoy at St. Petersburg, who obtained an order
for his arrest. This is the true explanation of his sudden departure.”
Rumour, however, differed widely from de Luchet. For at the same time
that de Luchet declared Cagliostro to be posing as a Prussian colonel
he is also said to have donned the uniform of a colonel in the Spanish
service, and assumed the title of Prince de Santa Cruce. But far from
being treated with the respect usually paid to any high-sounding
title and uniform in Russia, this prince-colonel doctor excited the
suspicions of M. de Normandez, the Spanish chargé d’affaires at the
Russian Court, who demanded his passport as proof of his identity. To
forge one would have been easy for Giuseppe Balsamo, who had a talent
in that line, one would think. As he failed, however, to adopt this
very simple expedient, M. d’Alméras, his latest and least prejudiced
biographer, is forced to the conclusion that “he had long given up
the profession of forger”--Freemasonry being responsible for his
renunciation! The conception of Cagliostro as Balsamo reformed by
Freemasonry is the most singular and unconvincing explanation ever
offered of this strange man.
At any rate, the Prince de Santa Cruce could neither produce a passport
nor forge one, and, hearing that a warrant was about to be issued
for his arrest, he made haste to disappear. That such an adventurer
was actually in St. Petersburg when Cagliostro was there is highly
probable, and no doubt accounts for rumour confounding them several
years later. But that Cagliostro, bearing letters of introduction from
the greatest families in Courland, should have adopted any other name
than that which he bore in Mittau is inconceivable.
Still more absurd is the rumour that the Empress Catherine, jealous
of the attention that her favourite the great Potemkin--“a train-oil
prince,” as Carlyle contemptuously styles him--paid to the Countess
Cagliostro, offered her 20,000 roubles to quit the country. Catherine
would certainly never have _paid_ any one to leave her dominions; she
had a much rougher way of handling those whose presence offended her.
The Cagliostros, moreover, who went to Warsaw from St. Petersburg,
arrived there in anything but an opulent condition.
There is yet another rumour, which is at least probable, to the
effect that Cagliostro was forced to leave Russia by the intrigues
of Catherine’s Scotch doctors, Rogerson and Mouncey, who were “so
enraged that a stranger, and a pretended pupil of the school of Hermes
Trismegistus to boot, should poach upon their preserves, that they
contemplated a printed exposure of his quackery.” It was not the last
time, as will be seen, that Cagliostro excited the active hostility of
the medical faculty.
Strange to say, the Countess von der Recke, who, if any one, would
have known the truth concerning his visit to St. Petersburg, fails to
give any particulars. Perhaps there were none, after all, to give. She
merely says: “On his way from St. Petersburg to Warsaw, Cagliostro
passed through Mittau, but did not stop. He was seen by a servant of
Marshal von Medem, to whom he sent his greeting.”
VI
In any case, the disgrace in which Cagliostro is supposed to have
left St. Petersburg by no means injured him in the opinion of his
former admirers in Courland, who, from their high position and close
connection with the Russian official world, would have been well
informed of all that befell him. For by one of them, as we are told
on the best authority, he was furnished with introductions to Prince
Adam Poninski and Count Moczinski, which he presented on his arrival in
Warsaw.
Now Warsaw society, like that of Mittau, was on the most intimate terms
with the great world of St. Petersburg. Had Cagliostro masqueraded
in Russia as a bogus Prince de Santa Cruce or a swindling Prussian
colonel, or had his wife excited the jealousy of the Empress Catherine,
the fact would have been known in Warsaw--if not before he arrived
there, certainly before he left. Of one thing we may be absolutely
sure, the anonymous author of _Cagliostro démasqué à Varsovie_ would
not have failed to mention a scandal so much to the point. As a matter
of fact, while denouncing Cagliostro as an impostor, this hostile
witness even speaks of the “marvels he performed in Russia.”
Nothing could have been more flattering to Cagliostro than the welcome
he received on his arrival in Warsaw in May 1780. Poland, like
Courland, was one of the strongholds of Freemasonry and occultism.
Prince Poninski, who was as great a devotee to magic and alchemy as the
von Medems, insisted on the wonder-worker and his wife staying at his
house. Finding the soil so admirably adapted to the seed he had to sow,
Cagliostro began at once to preach the gospel he had so much at heart.
The conversion of Poninski to Egyptian Masonry was followed by that of
the greater part of Polish society. Within a month of his arrival he
had established at Warsaw a Masonic lodge in which the Egyptian Rite
was observed.
It was not, however, by Cagliostro’s ideals that Poninski and his
friends were attracted, but by his power to gratify their craving for
sensation. No speculations in pure mysticism _à la_ Saint-Martin for
them: they were occult materialists, and demanded of the supernatural
practical, tangible manifestations.
As under similar circumstances at Mittau, Cagliostro had found it
convenient to encourage the abuses he had professed to denounce, he
had no compunction about following the same course at Warsaw. But it
evidently did not come easy to him to prostitute his ideal, judging
from the awkwardness with which he adapted himself to the conditions it
entailed.
At first, apart from certain remarkable faculties he possessed and a
sort of dilettante knowledge of magic and alchemy, he lacked both skill
and experience. In Mittau, where his career as a wonder-worker may
first fairly be said to begin, he failed as often as he succeeded. That
the phenomena he faked were not detected at the time was due to luck,
which, to judge from rumour, appears almost entirely to have deserted
him in St. Petersburg.
In Warsaw, too, he was still far from expert. Here, in spite of
the precautions he took, he found himself called upon to pass an
examination in alchemy, a subject for which he was unprepared, and
failed miserably.
In the opinion of the indignant Pole who caught him “cribbing,” so to
speak, “if he knew a little more of optics, acoustics, mechanics, and
physics generally; if he had studied a little the tricks of Comus and
Philadelphus, what success might he not have with his reputed skill
in counterfeiting writing! It is only necessary for him to go into
partnership with a ventriloquist in order to play a much more important
part than he has hitherto done. He should add to the trifling secrets
he possesses by reading some good book on chemistry.”
But it is by failure that one gains experience. As Cagliostro was
quick and intelligent, and had a “forehead of brass that nothing could
abash,” by the time he had reached Strasburg he was a past-master of
the occult, having brought his powers to a high state of perfection, as
well as being able, on occasion, to fake a phenomenon with consummate
skill.
There are two accounts of his adventures in Warsaw--one favourable,
the other unfavourable. The latter, it is scarcely necessary to say,
is the one by which he has been judged. It dates, as usual, from the
period of the Necklace Affair--that is, six years after the events it
describes. It is by an anonymous writer, who obtained his information
second-hand from an “eye-witness, one Count M.” Even Carlyle refuses to
damn his “Arch-Quack” on such evidence. This vial of vitriol, flung by
an unknown and hostile hand at the Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry in
his hour of adversity, is called _Cagliostro démasqué à Varsovie_.
Nevertheless, contemptible and questionable though it is, the
_impression_ it conveys, if not the actual account, is confirmed by
Madame Böhmer, wife of the jeweller in the Necklace Affair. Madame
Böhmer’s testimony is the more valuable in that it was given _before_
the anonymous writer flung his vitriol.
One night in “April 1785”--Cagliostro then at the height of his
fame--at a dinner-party at Madame Böhmer’s, the conversation turned
on mesmerism. The Countess de Lamotte, who was present, declared she
believed in it--an opinion that her hostess did not share.
“Such people,” said Madame Böhmer, “only wish to attract attention,
like Cagliostro, who has been driven out of every country in which he
has tried to make gold. The last was Poland. A person who has just
come from there told me that he was admitted to Court on the strength
of his knowledge of the occult, particularly of the philosopher’s
stone. There were some, however, who were not to be convinced without
actual proof. Accordingly, a day was set for the operation, and one
of the incredulous courtiers, knowing that he had as an assistant a
young girl, bribed her. I do not say this was the Countess Cagliostro,
because I am informed that he had several [mediums] who travelled with
him. ‘Keep your eye,’ said the girl to the courtier, ‘on his thumb,
which he holds in the hollow of his hand to conceal the piece of gold
he will slip into the crucible.’ All attention, the courtier heard the
gold and, immediately seizing Cagliostro’s hand, exclaimed to the King,
‘Sire, didn’t you hear?’ The crucible was searched, and a small lump of
gold was found, whereupon Cagliostro was instantly and very roughly, as
I was told, flung out of the palace.”
The anonymous writer’s “eye-witness, Count M.,” described in
detail the particulars of Cagliostro’s quest for the philosopher’s
stone. According to this authority, he made his début at Prince
Poninski’s with some magical séances similar to those at Mittau,
adding sleight-of-hand tricks to his predictions and “divinations by
_colombes_.”
Unfortunately, the occultists of Warsaw were principally interested in
the supernatural properties of the crucible. They were crazy on the
subject of alchemy, and the pursuit of the secret of the transmutation
of base metals into gold. Having bent the knee to magic, in which at
least, by virtue of his own occult gifts, he could appear to advantage,
Cagliostro rashly--compelled by necessity, perhaps, rather than vanity
in this instance--assumed a knowledge of which he was ignorant, relying
on making gold by sleight-of-hand.
Alas! “Count M.” had devoted his life to the subject, of which it
did not take him long to discover Cagliostro knew next to nothing.
Indignant that one who had not even learnt the alphabet of alchemy
should undertake to instruct him of all people, he laid the trap
described by Madame Böhmer. It was not, however, at the Royal Palace
that the exposure took place that caused Cagliostro to leave Poland,
but at a country seat near Warsaw. Moreover, if we are to believe
“Count M.,” Cagliostro did not wait to be exposed, but suspecting what
was a-foot, “decamped during the night.”
* * * * *
Now, on the strength of Madame Böhmer’s evidence--not given by her in
person, by the way, but _quoted_ by the Countess de Lamotte in her
defence at the Necklace trial--while there seems to be little doubt
that the statement of the anonymous “Count M.” is substantially
correct, there is, nevertheless, another--and a favourable--account of
Cagliostro in Poland. It has the advantage of being neither anonymous
nor dated, like the Countess von der Recke’s book, years after the
events it relates. It is from a letter written by Laborde, the
Farmer-General, who happened to be in Warsaw when Cagliostro was there.
The letter bears the date of 1781, which was that of the year after the
following episodes occurred.
“Cagliostro,” writes Laborde, “was some time at Warsaw, and several
times had had the honour of meeting Stanislas Augustus. One day, as
this monarch was expressing his great admiration for his powers,
which appeared to him supernatural, a young lady of the Court who had
listened attentively to him began to laugh, declaring that Cagliostro
was nothing but an impostor. She said she was so certain of it that she
would defy him to tell her certain things that had happened to her.
“The next day the King informed the Count of this challenge, who
replied coldly that if the lady would meet him in the presence of
His Majesty, he would cause her the greatest surprise she had ever
known in her life. The proposal was accepted, and the Count told the
lady all that she thought it impossible for him to know. The surprise
this occasioned her caused her to pass so rapidly from incredulity to
admiration that she had a burning desire to know what was to happen to
her in the future.
“At first he refused to tell her, but yielding to her entreaty, and
perhaps to gratify the curiosity of the King, he said--
“You will soon make a long journey, in course of which your carriage
will meet with an accident, and, whilst you are waiting for the repairs
to be made, the manner in which you are dressed will excite such
merriment in the crowd that you will be pelted with apples. You will
go from there to some famous watering-place, where you will meet a man
of high birth, to whom you will shortly afterwards be wedded. There
will be an attempt to prevent your marriage, which will cause you to be
foolish enough to make over to him your fortune. You will be married in
a city in which I shall be, and, in spite of your efforts to see me,
you will not succeed. You are threatened with great misfortunes, but
here is a talisman by which you may avoid them, so long as you keep it.
But if you are prevented from making over your fortune to your husband
in your marriage contract you will immediately lose the talisman, and,
the moment you cease to have it, it will return to my pocket wherever I
may be.’
“I do not know,” continues Laborde, “what confidence the King and
the lady placed in these predictions, but I know that they were all
fulfilled. I have had this on the authority of several persons, as
well as the lady herself; also from Cagliostro, who described it in
precisely the same words. I do not guarantee either its truth or its
falsity, and, as I do not pretend to be an exact historian, I shall not
indulge in the smallest reflection.”
CHAPTER IV
THE CONQUEST OF THE CARDINAL
I
Of the difficulties that perpetually beset the biographer of
Cagliostro, those caused by his frequent disappearances from sight
are the most perplexing. It is possible to combat prejudice--to
materialize, so to speak, rumour, to manipulate conflicting evidence,
and even to throw light on that which is mysterious in his character.
But when it is a question of filling up the gaps, of bridging the
chasms in his career, one can only proceed by assumption.
Such a chasm, and one of the deepest, occurs between June 26, 1780,
when Cagliostro suddenly fled from Warsaw, and September 19, when
he arrived in Strasburg. Even rumour lost track of him during this
interval. The Inquisition-biographer pretends to discover him for a
moment at Frankfort-on-the-Main as a secret agent of the Illuminés,
and, as an assumption, the statement is at once plausible and probable.
Cagliostro, as stated in a previous chapter, has always been supposed,
on grounds that all but amount to proof, to have been at some period in
his mysterious career connected with one of the revolutionary secret
societies of Germany. This society has always been _assumed_ to be the
Illuminés.[18] If this assumption be true--and without it his mode of
life in Strasburg is utterly inexplicable--his initiation could only
have taken place at this period and, probably, at Frankfort, where
Knigge, one of the leaders of the Illuminés, had his head-quarters.
As Knigge was a member of the Order of Strict Observance, in the lodges
of which throughout Germany Cagliostro’s reputation as a wonder-worker
stood high, he had undoubtedly heard of him, if he was not personally
acquainted with him. Knigge, moreover, was just the man to appreciate
the possibilities of such a reputation in obtaining recruits for
Illuminism. Nothing is more reasonable, then, than to assume that
certain members of the Illuminés made overtures at Frankfort to
Cagliostro, who, one can imagine, would have readily accepted them
as the means of recovering the influence and prestige he had lost in
Poland.
His initiation, according to the Inquisition-biographer, took place in
a grotto a short distance from the city. In the centre, on a table, was
an iron chest, from which Knigge or his deputy took a manuscript. On
the first page Cagliostro perceived the words “_We, the Grand Masters
of the Templars_.” Then followed the formula of an oath written in
blood, to which eleven signatures were appended, and which signified
that Illuminism was a conspiracy against thrones. The first blow was
to be struck in France, and, after the fall of the monarchy, Rome
was to be attacked. Cagliostro, moreover, learnt that the society
had ramifications everywhere, and possessed immense sums in banks
in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London, Genoa, and Venice. This money was
furnished by an annual subscription of twenty-five livres paid by each
member.
On taking the oath, which included a vow of secrecy, Cagliostro is
presumed to have received a large sum, destined to defray the expenses
of propaganda, and to have proceeded immediately, in accordance with
instructions, to Strasburg, where he arrived on September 19, 1780.
II
From the nature of his entry into the capital of Alsace, it is certain
that great pains had been taken in advance to excite public interest in
him. The fabulous Palladium could not have been welcomed with greater
demonstrations of joy. From early morning crowds of people waited on
the Pont de Kœhl and on both banks of the Rhine for the arrival of a
mysterious personage who was reported to go from city to city healing
the sick, working miracles, and distributing alms. In the crowd
speculations were rife as to his mysterious origin, his mysterious
travels in strange and remote countries, and of the mysterious source
of his immense wealth. Some regarded him as one inspired, a saint or
a prophet possessed of the gift of miracles. To others, the cures
attributed to him were the natural result of his great learning
and occult powers. Yet another group saw in him an evil genius, a
devil sent into the world on some diabolic mission. Among these,
however--and they were not the least numerous--there were some more
favourable to Cagliostro, and who, considering that after all he only
did good, inferred logically that, if supernatural, he must be a good,
rather than an evil, genius.
Suddenly, speculation was silenced by the approach of the being who
had excited it. The rumbling of wheels, the clatter of hoofs, the
cracking of whips was heard, and out of a cloud of dust appeared a
carriage drawn by six horses, and accompanied by lacqueys and outriders
in magnificent liveries. Within rode the Grand Cophta, the High
Priest of Mystery, with his “hair in a net,” and wearing a blue coat
covered with gold braid and precious stones. Bizarre though he was
with his circus-rider’s splendour, the manner in which he acknowledged
the vivats of the crowd[19] through which he passed was not without
dignity. His wife, who sat beside him, sparkling with youth, beauty,
and diamonds, shared the curiosity he excited. It was a veritable
triumphal progress.
The advantage to which such an ovation could be turned was not to be
neglected. Fond of luxury and aristocratic society though he was,
Cagliostro was not the man to despise popularity in any form that it
presented itself. Having lost the influence of the great, by means of
whom he had counted to establish Egyptian Masonry, he was anxious to
secure that of the masses. So great was the importance he attached to
the interest he had aroused, he even took up his abode among them,
“living first over a retail tobacconist’s named Quère, whose shop was
in one of the most squalid quarters of the town, and later lodging with
the caretaker of the canon of St. Pierre-le-Vieux.”
According to all reports, from the very day of his arrival in Strasburg
he seemed to busy himself solely in doing good, regardless of cost or
personal inconvenience. No one, providing he was poor and unfortunate,
appealed to him in vain. Hearing that an Italian was in prison for
a debt of two hundred livres, Cagliostro obtained his release by
paying the money for him, and clothed him into the bargain. Baron von
Gleichen, who knew him well, states that he saw him, on being summoned
to the bed-side of a sick person, “run through a downpour in a very
fine coat without stopping to take an umbrella.”
Every day he sought out the poor and infirm, whose distress he
endeavoured to relieve not only with money and medicine, but “with
manifestations of sympathy that went to the hearts of the sufferers,
and doubled the value of the action.” Though his enemies did not
hesitate to charge him with the most mercenary motives in administering
his charities, they were obliged to admit the fact of them. Meiners,
who thoroughly disliked him and considered him both a quack and a
charlatan, was honest enough to acknowledge that he gave his services
gratis, and even refused to make a profit on the sale of his remedies.
“For some time,” says this hostile witness, “it was believed that he
shared with his apothecary the profits on the remedies he prescribed
to his patients. But as soon as Cagliostro learnt that such suspicions
were entertained, he not only changed his apothecary, but obliged the
one he chose in his place, as I have been informed by several people,
to sell his remedies at so low a price that the fellow made scarcely
anything by the sale of them.
“He would take, moreover, neither payment nor present for his labour.
If a present was offered him of a sort impossible to refuse without
offence, he immediately made a counter present of equal or even of
higher value. Indeed, he not only took nothing from his patients, but
if they were very poor he supported them for months; at times even
lodging them in his own house and feeding them from his own table.”
III
At first, only the poor received attention from Cagliostro. If a rich
invalid desired his attendance he referred him to the regular doctors.
Though such an attitude was well calculated to attract attention, it
was not, as his enemies have declared, altogether prompted by selfish
considerations. In the disdain he affected for the rich there was
much real resentment. Through the rich and powerful, he had gained
nothing but mortification and disgrace. The circumstances under which
he was forced to flee from Warsaw must have wounded to the quick a
nature in which inordinate vanity and generosity were so curiously
blended. Of a certainty it was not alone the hope of turning Illuminism
to the advantage of Egyptian Masonry that prompted him to join the
Illuminés in his hour of humiliation. In Illuminism, whose aim,
revolutionary though it was, like that of Egyptian Masonry, was also
inspired with the love of humanity, Cagliostro had seen both a means
of rehabilitation and revenge. Of studied vengeance, however, he was
incapable; the disdain with which he treated the rich was the extent of
his revenge. Indeed, susceptible as he was to flattery, it was not long
before his resentment was altogether appeased. But though, in spite
of his bitter experience, he was even once more tempted to court the
favour of the great, he did so in quite a different manner. Henceforth,
in pandering to their love of sensation, he took care to give them what
_he_ saw fit, and not, as before, what _they_ demanded.
Particularly was this the case in the exhibitions he gave of his occult
powers. If, as on previous occasions, he had recourse to artifice to
obtain the effect he desired, it was not detected. It is evident that
his unfortunate experiences in Warsaw had taught him the wisdom of
confining himself solely to phenomena within his scope. No longer does
one hear of séances arranged beforehand with the medium; of failures,
exposures, and humiliations.
If from some of his prodigies the alchemists of the period saw in him
a successor of the clever ventriloquist and prestidigitator Lascaris,
from many others the mediums of the present day in Europe and America
might have recognized in him their predecessor and even their master in
table-turning, spirit-rapping, clairvoyance, and evocations. In a word,
he was no longer an apprentice in magic, but an expert.
As the manifestations of the occult of which Cagliostro, so to speak,
made a speciality were of a clairvoyant character, some idea of the
manner in which he had developed his powers may be gathered from the
following account by a contemporary of a séance he held in Strasburg
with the customary _colombe_ and carafe.
“Cagliostro,” says this witness, “having announced that he was ready
to answer any question put to him, a lady wished to know the age of
her husband. To this the _colombe_ made no reply, which elicited great
applause when the lady confessed she had no husband. Another lady
demanded an answer to a question written in a sealed letter she held in
her hand. The medium at once read in the carafe these words: ‘You shall
not obtain it.’ The letter was opened, the purport of the question
being whether the commission in the army which the lady solicited for
her son would be accorded her. As the reply was at least indicative of
the question, it was received with applause.
“A judge, however, who suspected that Cagliostro’s answers were the
result of some trick, secretly sent his son to his house to find out
what his wife was doing at the time. When he had departed the father
put this question to the Grand Cophta. The medium read nothing in the
carafe, but a voice announced that the lady was playing cards with two
of her neighbours. This mysterious voice, which was produced by no
visible organ, terrified the company; and when the son of the judge
returned and confirmed the response of the oracle, several ladies were
so frightened that they withdrew.”
At Strasburg he also told fortunes, and read the future as well as
the past with an accuracy that astonished even the sceptical Madame
d’Oberkirch. One of the most extraordinary instances he gave of his
psychic power was in predicting the death of the Empress Maria Theresa.
“He even foretold the hour at which she would expire,” relates Madame
d’Oberkirch. “M. de Rohan told it to me in the evening, and it was five
days after that the news arrived.”
IV
It was, however, as a healer of the sick that Cagliostro was chiefly
known in Strasburg. Sudden cures of illnesses, thought to be mortal
or incurable, carried his name from mouth to mouth. The number of his
patients increased daily. On certain days it was estimated that upwards
of five hundred persons besieged the house in which he lodged, pressing
one another to get in. From the collection of sticks and crutches left
as a mark of gratitude by those who, thanks to his skill, no longer had
need of them, it seemed as if all the cripples in Strasburg had flocked
to consult him.
The Farmer-General Laborde declares that Cagliostro attended over
fifteen thousand[20] sick people during the three years he stayed in
Strasburg, of whom only three died.
One of his most remarkable cures was that of the secretary of the
Marquis de Lasalle, the Commandant of Strasburg. “He was dying,”
says Gleichen, “of gangrene of the leg, and had been given up by the
doctors, but Cagliostro saved him.”
On another occasion he procured a belated paternity for Sarazin,
the banker of Bâle, who afterwards became one of his most devoted
adherents. No illness appeared to baffle him. The graver the malady
the more resourceful he became. A woman about to be confined, having
been given up by the midwives, who doubted even their ability to save
her child, sent for him in her extremity. He answered the summons
immediately, as was his custom, and after a slight examination
guaranteed her a successful _accouchement_. What is more to the point,
he kept his word.
This case is worthy of note as being the only one on record concerning
which Cagliostro gave an explanation of his success.
“He afterwards confessed to me,” says Gleichen, “that his promise was
rash. But convinced that the child was in perfect health by the pulse
of the umbilical cord, and perceiving that the mother only lacked the
strength requisite to bring her babe into the world, he had relied
on the virtue of a singularly soothing remedy with which he was
acquainted. The result, he considered, had been due to luck rather than
skill.”
The most famous of all his cures was that of the Prince de Soubise, a
cousin of Cardinal de Rohan. In this case, however, it was the rank of
the patient, even more than the illness of which he was cured, that set
the seal to Cagliostro’s reputation. The prince, it seems, had been ill
for some weeks, and the doctors, after differing widely as to the cause
of his malady, had finally pronounced his condition to be desperate.
Thereupon the Cardinal, who had boundless confidence in Cagliostro’s
medical skill, immediately carried him off in his carriage to Paris
to attend his cousin, simply stating, on arriving at the Hôtel de
Soubise, that he had brought “a doctor,” without mentioning his name,
lest the family, influenced by the regular physicians, who regarded
him as a quack, should refuse his services. It was, perhaps, a useless
precaution, for, as the patient had just been given up by the doctors,
the family were willing enough to suffer even a quack to do what he
could.
Cagliostro at once requested all who were in the sick-room to leave
it. What he did when he found himself alone with the prince was never
known, but, after an hour, he called the Cardinal and said to him--
“If my prescription is followed, in two days Monseigneur will leave his
bed and walk about the room. Within a week he will be able to take a
drive, and within three to go to Court.”
When one has consulted an oracle, one can do no better than obey it.
The family accordingly confided the prince completely to the care of
the unknown doctor, who on the same day paid his patient a second
visit. On this occasion he took with him a small vial containing a
liquid, ten drops of which he administered to the sick man.
On leaving, he said to the Cardinal: “To-morrow I will give the prince
five drops, the day after two, and you will see that he will sit up the
same evening.”
The result more than fulfilled the prediction. The second day after
this visit the Prince de Soubise was in a condition to receive some
friends. In the evening he got up and walked about the room. He was in
good spirits, and even had sufficient appetite to ask for the wing of
a chicken. But, in spite of his insistence, it was necessary to refuse
him what he so much desired, since an absolute abstention from solid
food was one of the prescriptions of the “doctor.”
On the fourth day the patient was convalescent, but it was not till
the evening of the fifth that he was permitted to have his wing of
a chicken. “No one,” says Figuier, “in the Hôtel de Soubise had the
least idea that Cagliostro was the doctor who attended the prince. His
identity was only disclosed _after_ the cure, when his name, already
famous, ceased to be regarded any longer as that of a charlatan.”
V
The secret of these astonishing cures, by far the most wonderful of
Cagliostro’s prodigies, has given rise to a great deal of futile
discussion. For he never cured in public, like Mesmer; nor would he
consent to give any explanation of his method to the doctors and
learned academicians, who treated him with contempt born of envy--as
the pioneers of science, with rare exceptions, have always been treated.
From the fact that he became celebrated at about the same time as
Mesmer, many have regarded them as rivals, and declared that the
prestige of both is to be traced to the same source. According to this
point of view, Cagliostro, being more encyclopedic than Mesmer, though
less scientific in manipulating the agent common to both, had in some
way generalized magnetism, so to speak. His cures, however, were far
more astonishing than Mesmer’s, for they were performed without passes
or the use of magnets and magnetic wands. Neither did he heal merely by
_touching_, like Gassner, nor by prayers, exorcisms, and the religious
machinery by which faith is made active; though very probably the
greater part of his success was due, like Mrs. Eddy’s, to the confident
tone in which he assured his patients of the certainty of their
recovery.
Cagliostro’s contemporaries, on the other hand, to whom the mechanism
of Christian Science and the attributes of hypnotism--since so well
tested by Dr. Charcot--were unknown, sought a material explanation
of his cures in the quack medicines he concocted. The old popular
belief in medicinal stones and magical herbs was still prevalent.
One writer of the period pretended to know that Cagliostro’s “Elixir
Vitæ” was composed of “magical herbs and gold in solution.” Another
declared it to be the same as the elixir of Arnauld de Villeneuve, a
famous alchemist of the Middle Ages, whose prescription consisted of
“a mixture of pearls, sapphires, hyacinths, emeralds, rubies, topazes
and diamonds, to which was added the scraping of the bones of a stag’s
heart.”
Equally fantastic were the properties attributed to these panaceas by
those who owed their restoration to health to Cagliostro. The following
story, repeated everywhere--and believed, too, by many--gave the
notoriety of a popular modern advertisement to the “Wine of Egypt.”
A great lady, who was also, unfortunately for her, an old one, and was
unable to resign herself to the fact, was reported to have consulted
Cagliostro, who gave her a vial of the precious liquid with the
strictest injunction to take two drops when the moon entered its last
quarter. Whilst waiting for this period to arrive the lady who desired
to be rejuvenated shut up the vial in her wardrobe, and the better to
insure its preservation informed her maid that it was a remedy for the
colic. Fatal precaution! By some mischance on the following night, the
maid was seized with the very malady of which her mistress had spoken.
Remembering the remedy so fortuitously at hand she got up, opened the
wardrobe, and emptied the vial at a draught.
The next morning she went as usual to wait on her mistress, who looked
at her in surprise and asked her what she wanted. Thinking the old lady
had had a stroke in the night, she said--
“Ah, madame, don’t you know me? I am your maid.”
“My maid is a woman of fifty,” was the reply, “and you----”
But she did not finish the sentence. The woman had caught a glimpse
of her face in a mirror. The Wine of Egypt had rejuvenated her thirty
years!
In an age unfamiliar with the cunning devices of the art of advertising
and the universality of the pretensions of quack remedies, such
encomiums lavished on “an extract of Saturn,” a “Wine of Egypt,”
or an “Elixir Vitæ,” were calculated to damage the reputation of
their inventor in the opinion of serious people even more than the
bitter denunciations to which they were exposed. One of the charges
of imposture on which the case against Cagliostro rests is that of
manufacturing his remedies with the object of defrauding the public
by attributing to them fabulous properties which he knew they did not
possess. If this be admitted, then a similar accusation must be made
against every maker of patent medicines to-day, which, in view of the
law of libel and the fact that many persons have been restored to
health by the concoctions of quacks whom the skilled physician has
been powerless to heal, would be incredibly foolish.
To regard these remedies of Cagliostro with their ridiculous names and
quixotic pretensions with the old prejudice is preposterous. Judged
by the number and variety of his cures--and it is the only reasonable
standard to judge them by--they were, to say the least, remarkable.
In the present day, it is no longer the custom to deride the knowledge
of the old alchemists. The world has come to acknowledge that, in spite
of the fantastic jargon in which they expressed themselves, they fully
understood the uses of the plants and minerals of which they composed
their drugs. Stripped of the atmosphere of magic and mystery in which
they delighted to wrap their knowledge--and which, ridiculous as it
may seem to-day, had just as much effect on the imagination in their
benighted age as the more scientific mode of “suggestion” employed
by the doctors of our own enlightened era--the remedies of a Borri
or a Paracelsus are still deserving of respect, and still employed.
Cagliostro is known to have made a serious study of alchemy, and it is
very probable that his magic balsams and powders were prepared after
receipts he discovered in old books of alchemy. Perhaps too, like all
quacks--it is impossible to accord a more dignified title to one who
had not the diploma of a properly qualified practitioner--he made the
most of old wives’ remedies picked up haphazard in the course of his
travels.
Without doubt the unparalleled credulity and superstition of the age
contributed greatly to his success. Miracles can only succeed in an
atmosphere favourable to the miraculous. In Europe, as the reader has
seen--particularly in France--the soil had been well prepared for seed
of the sort that Cagliostro sowed.
VI
The cure of the Prince de Soubise gave Cagliostro an immense prestige.
“It would be impossible,” says the Baroness d’Oberkirch, “to give an
idea of the passion, the madness with which people pursued him. It
would appear incredible to any one who had not seen it.” On returning
to Strasburg, “he was followed by a dozen ladies of rank and two
actresses” who desired to have the benefit of his treatment. People
came from far and wide to consult him; and many out of sheer curiosity.
To these, whom he regarded as spies sent by his enemies, he was either
inaccessible or positively rude.
Lavater, who came from Zurich, was treated with very scant courtesy.
“If,” said Cagliostro, “your science [that of reading character by the
features, by which he had acquired a European reputation] is greater
than mine, you have no need of my acquaintance; and if mine is the
greater, I have no need of yours.”
Lavater, however, was not to be repulsed by the inference to be drawn
from such a remark. The following day he wrote Cagliostro a long letter
in which, among other things, he asked him “how he had acquired his
knowledge, and in what it consisted.” In reply Cagliostro limited
himself to these words: _In verbis, in herbis, in lapidibus_, by which,
as M. d’Alméras observes, he probably indicated correctly the nature
and extent of his medical and occult lore. But Lavater, as credulous
as he was inquisitive, impressed by the mystery in which Cagliostro
enveloped his least action, read into his words quite another meaning.
Believing firmly in the Devil--about whom he had written a book--the
Swiss pastor returned home convinced that the Grand Cophta of Egyptian
Masonry was “a supernatural being with a diabolic mission.”
[Illustration: LAVATER
(_After the engraving by William Blake_)]
In nobody were the curiosity and admiration that he inspired greater
than in the notorious Cardinal de Rohan. His Eminence was one of the
darlings of Fortune, whose choicest favours had been showered on him
with a lavish hand. Of the most illustrious birth, exceptionally
handsome, enormously rich, and undeniably fascinating, no younger son
ever started life under more brilliant auspices. The Church seemed to
exist solely for the purpose of providing him with honours. Bishop of
Strasburg, Grand Almoner of France, Cardinal, Prince of the Empire,
Landgrave of Alsace--his titles were as numerous as the beads of a
rosary. Nor were they merely high-sounding and empty dignities. From
the Abbey of St. Waast, the richest in France, of which he was the
Abbot, he drew 300,000 livres a year, and from all these various
sources combined his revenue was estimated at 1,200,000 livres.
Nature had endowed him no less bounteously than Fortune. To the
honours which he owed to the accident of birth, his intellect had won
him another still more coveted. At twenty-seven he had been elected
to the Académie Française, where, as he was particularly brilliant
in conversation, it is not surprising that the Immortals should have
“declared themselves charmed with his company.”
He possessed all the conspicuous qualities and defects which in
the eighteenth century were characteristic of the aristocrat. High
ecclesiastic that he was, he had nothing of the ascetic about him.
Like so many of the great dignitaries of the Church under the _ancien
régime_, he was worldly to the last degree. As he was not a hypocrite,
he did not hesitate to live as he pleased. Appointed Ambassador to
Vienna, he had scandalized the strait-laced Maria Theresa by his
reckless extravagance and dissipation. The Emperor, to her disgust,
“loved conversing with him to enjoy his flippant gossip and wicked
stories.” “Our women,” she wrote to her Ambassador at Versailles,
“young and old, beautiful and ugly, are bewitched by him. He is their
idol.”
His character was a mosaic of vice and virtue. With him manners took
the place of morals. “He possessed,” says Madame d’Oberkirch, “the
gallantry and politeness of a grand seigneur such as I have rarely met
in any one.” Madame de Genlis considered that, “if he was nothing that
he ought to be, he was as amiable as it was possible to be.” In him
vice lost all its grossness and levity acquired dignity. Anxious to
please, he was also susceptible to flattery. “By my lording him,” says
Manuel, who disliked him, “one can get from him whatever one desires.”
At the same time he was obliged to confess that the Cardinal “had a
really good heart.”
It was to his excessive good-nature that he owed most of his
misfortunes. The entire absence of intolerance in his character caused
him to be regarded as an atheist, but his unbelief, like his vices, was
greatly exaggerated. Men in his position never escape detraction, but
in the case of the Cardinal he deliberately invited it. Gracious to
all, he was generous to a fault. He dispensed favour and charity alike
without discernment, giving to the poor as readily and as bountifully
as to his mistresses. Of these he had had many; the memoirs of the
period contain strange, and often untranslatable, stories of his
private life. For some years he was followed wherever he went by the
beautiful Marquise de Marigny dressed as a page.
Besides his weakness for a pretty face, this splendid tare had a
fondness amounting to passion for pomp and alchemy. “On state occasions
at Versailles,” says Madame d’Oberkirch, “he wore an alb of lace _en
point à l’aiguille_ of such beauty that the assistants were almost
afraid to touch it.” It was embroidered with his arms and device--the
famous device of the Rohans, _Roy ne puis, prince ne daigne, Rohan je
suis_. It was said to be worth a million livres.
In gratifying his taste for luxury, the cost was the last thing he
considered. On going to Vienna as Ambassador he took with him two gala
coaches worth 40,000 livres each; fifty horses, two equerries, two
piqueurs, seven pages drawn from the nobility of Brittany and Alsace
with their governors and tutors, two gentlemen-in-waiting, six footmen,
whose scarlet and gold liveries cost him 4000 livres apiece, etc.
In France his style of living was still more extravagant. He spent
vast sums on pictures, sculptures, and artistic treasures generally.
Collecting illuminated missals was his speciality. At his episcopal
palace at Saverne, near Strasburg, which he rebuilt after it was
destroyed by fire in 1779 at a cost of between two and three million
livres, he had a magnificent library. As printed books, according to
Madame d’Oberkirch, were beneath his notice, his library was noted for
its beautiful bindings, and above all for the missals ornamented with
miniatures worth their weight in gold.
His principal pastime, however, was alchemy. At Saverne, besides his
library, he had one of the finest laboratories in Europe. He was almost
mad on the subject of the philosopher’s stone. The mention of the
occult sciences at once arrested his attention; then, and only then,
did the brilliant, frivolous Cardinal become serious.
Naturally, such a man could not fail to be impressed by the mysterious
physician whose cures were the talk of Strasburg.
Shortly after Cagliostro’s arrival, Baron de Millinens, the Cardinal’s
master of the hounds, called to inform him that his Eminence desired
to make his acquaintance. But Cagliostro knowing, as he stated at his
trial in the Necklace Affair, that the prince “only desired to see him
from curiosity, refused to gratify him.” The answer he returned is
famous, and thoroughly characteristic of him.
“If the Cardinal is ill,” he is reported to have said, “let him come to
me and I will cure him; but if he is well, he has no need of me nor I
of him.”
This message, far from affronting the Cardinal, only increased his
curiosity. After having attempted in vain to gain admittance to the
sanctuary of the new Esculapius, his Eminence had, or feigned, an
attack of asthma, “of which,” says Cagliostro, “he sent to inform me,
whereupon I went at once to attend him.”
The visit, though short, was long enough to inspire the Cardinal with a
desire for a closer acquaintance. But Cagliostro’s disdainful reserve
was not easily broken down. The advances of the Cardinal, however, were
none the less flattering. At last, captivated by the persistency of
the fascinating prelate, he declared in his grandiose way, to Rohan’s
immense joy, that “the prince’s soul was worthy of his, and that he
would confide to him all his secrets.”
The relation thus formed, whatever the motives that prompted it, soon
ripened into intimacy. Needless to say, they had long, frequent, and
secret confabulations in the Cardinal’s well-equipped laboratory.
Cagliostro, with his wife, eventually even went to live at Saverne at
the Cardinal’s request. He was bidden to consider the palace as his
own, and the servants were ordered to announce him when he entered a
room as “His Excellency M. le Comte de Cagliostro.”
The Baroness d’Oberkirch, on visiting Saverne while he was there, “was
stunned by the pomp with which he was treated.” She was one of the few
great ladies of Strasburg who refused to believe in him. To her he was
merely an adventurer. On the occasions of her visit to Saverne the
Cardinal, who had great respect for her, endeavoured to bring her round
to his opinion. “As I resisted,” she said, “he became impatient.”
“Really, madame,” said he, “you are hard to convince. Do you see this?”
He showed me a large diamond that he wore on his little finger, and on
which the Rohan arms were engraved. This ring was worth at least twenty
thousand francs.
“It is a beautiful gem, monseigneur,” I said, “I have been admiring
it.”
“Well,” he exclaimed, “it is Cagliostro who made it: he made it out of
nothing. I was present during the whole operation with my eyes fixed
on the crucible. Is not that science, Baroness? People should not say
that he is duping me, or taking advantage of me. I have had this ring
valued by a jeweller and an engraver, and they have estimated it at
twenty-five thousand livres. You must admit that he would be a strange
kind of cheat who would make such presents.”
I acknowledge I was stunned. M. de Rohan perceived it, and continued--
“This is not all--he can make gold! He has made in this very palace, in
my presence, five or six thousand livres. He will make me the richest
prince in Europe! These are no mere vagaries of the imagination,
madame, but positive facts. Think of all his predictions that have been
realized, of all the miraculous cures that he has effected! I repeat he
is a most extraordinary, a most sublime man, whose knowledge is only
equalled by his goodness. What alms he gives! What good he does! It
exceeds all power of imagination. _I can assure you he has never asked
or received anything from me._”
But Cagliostro did not confine himself solely to seeking the
philosopher’s stone for the Cardinal. For the benefit of his splendid
host he displayed the whole series of his magical phenomena.
One day, according to Roberson--who professed to have obtained his
information from “an eye-witness very worthy of credence”--he promised
to evoke for the Cardinal the shade of a woman he had loved. He had
made the attempt two or three times before without success. Death
seemed to hesitate to come to the rendez-vous. The moon, perhaps, had
not been propitious, or some great crime committed at the moment of
evocation may have had an unfavourable effect. But on this occasion all
the conditions on which success depended were united.
“The performance,” says Roberson, “took place in a small darkened room
in the presence of four or five spectators who were seated far enough
apart to prevent them from secretly communicating with one another.
Wand in hand, Cagliostro stood in the middle of the room. The silence
which he had commanded was so profound that even the hearts of those
present seemed to stop beating. All at once the wand, as if drawn by
a magnet, pointed to a spot on the wall where a vague, indefinite
form was visible for a moment. The Cardinal uttered a cry. He had
recognized--or believed he had, which amounted to the same thing--the
woman he had loved.”
* * * * *
So great was the confidence that Rohan placed in Cagliostro that he
treated him as an oracle. He constantly consulted him, and suffered
himself to be guided entirely by his advice. As the consequences of
this infatuation were in the end disastrous, it is customary to regard
the Cardinal as the dupe of Cagliostro. Many, blinded by prejudice,
have supposed that Cagliostro, having previously informed himself of
the tastes, character, and vast wealth of the prince, came to Strasburg
for the express purpose of victimizing him. It is even asserted that
the Countess had her share in the subjugation of the Cardinal, and
that while Cagliostro attacked his understanding, she laid siege to
his heart.
The disdainful, almost hostile, attitude that Cagliostro adopted
towards his patron at the beginning of their acquaintance was so well
calculated to inflame Rohan’s curiosity that it is a matter of course
to attribute it to design. The Abbé Georgel, who as a Jesuit thoroughly
disliked the Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry, asserts that “he sought,
without having the air of seeking it, the most intimate confidence of
his Eminence and the greatest ascendency over his will.”
But this very plausible statement is not only unsupported by any fact,
but is actually contrary to fact. The Cardinal was _not_ Cagliostro’s
banker, as has so often been stated. At his trial in the Necklace
Affair Rohan denied this most emphatically. Moreover, it would have
been utterly impossible for him, had he wished, to have supplied
Cagliostro with the sums he spent so lavishly. In spite of his vast
income, he had for years been head over ears in debt. If there were any
benefits conferred, it was the Cardinal who received them.
“Cagliostro,” says Madame d’Oberkirch, “treated him, as well as the
rest of his aristocratic admirers, as if they were under infinite
obligation to him and he under none to them.”
This statement is the secret of the real nature of Cagliostro’s
so-called conquest. It was not cupidity, but colossal vanity, that
lured him into the glittering friendship that ruined him. The Cardinal,
with his great name and position, his influence, and his undeniable
charm, dazzled Cagliostro quite as much as he, with his miracles, his
magic, and his mystery, appealed to the imagination of the Cardinal.
Each had for the other the fascination of a flame for a moth. Each
fluttered round the other like a moth; and each met with the proverbial
moth’s fate. But the Cagliostro-flame only scorched the wings of his
Eminence. It was in the flame of the Cardinal that Cagliostro perished.
CHAPTER V
CAGLIOSTRO IN PARIS
I
Notwithstanding the immense vogue that Cagliostro enjoyed throughout
the three years he passed in Strasburg, his life was by no means one
of unalloyed pleasure. Many a discordant note mingled in the chorus of
blessing and praise that greeted his ears. In the memoir he published
at the time of the Diamond Necklace Affair, he speaks vaguely of
certain “persecutions” to which he was constantly subjected.
“His good fortune, or his knowledge of medicine,” says Gleichen,
“excited the hatred and jealousy of the doctors, who when they
persecute are as dangerous as the priests. They were his implacable
enemies in France, as well as in Poland and Russia.”
His marvellous cures wounded the _amour propre_ of the doctors as much
as they damaged their reputation. Everything that malice and envy could
devise was done to decry him. They accused him of treating only such
persons as suffered from slight or imaginary ailments, questioned the
permanency of his cures, denied that he saved lives they had given
up, and attributed every death to him. He was charged with exacting
in secret the fees he refused in public. His liberality to the poor
was ascribed to a desire to attract attention, his philanthropy was
ridiculed, and the luxury in which he lived at Cagliostrano, as he
called the fine villa he rented on the outskirts of the town--attached
to which was a private hospital or “nursing-home,” where his poor
patients were treated free of charge--was called ostentation.
Unable to penetrate the mystery in which he wrapped his origin, his
fortune, and his remarkable powers, they attacked his character. As
it was known that he frequently stayed at Saverne when the Cardinal
was absent, attempts were made to poison the mind of the prince by
informing him that his guest gave costly banquets at his expense when
“Tokay flowed like water.”[21] But the Cardinal only laughed.
“Indeed!” he exclaimed, when Georgel reported to him what he himself
had only heard. “Well, I have given him the right to abuse my
hospitality if he chooses.”
As the confidence of the Cardinal in his mysterious friend was not
to be shaken by the slanders of the doctors, he also was assailed.
Old stories of his Eminence’s private life were revived and new ones
added to them. His friendship for Cagliostro was declared to be merely
a cloak to hide a passion for his wife. The Countess was said, and
believed by many, to be his mistress. It was consequently regarded as
a matter of course that it was the Cardinal’s money which the Count
spent so lavishly.
But far from plundering the infatuated prince as his enemies asserted,
Cagliostro did not so much as appeal to him for protection. Fortunately
the Cardinal did not require to be reminded of the claims of
friendship. Fully aware of the hostility to Cagliostro, he endeavoured
to silence it by procuring for him from three members of the Government
letters to the chief civil authority in which his _protégé_ was
recommended in the highest terms. To Cagliostro these letters, to
which at any time he would have attached an exaggerated importance,
had a special significance from the fact that “he neither solicited
them directly nor indirectly.” He counted them among his most valuable
possessions.
The tranquillity, however, which they procured him was only transient.
Ever employing fresh weapons and methods in attacking him, his enemies
eventually found his Achilles’-heel--the impulsive sympathy of a
naturally kind heart.
One day, while he was showing an important government official over
his hospital, a man whom he had never seen before, and who appeared to
have fallen on evil times, appealed to him for assistance. He asked
to be taken into his service, and offered to wear his livery. He said
that his name was Sacchi, that he came of a good family in Amsterdam,
and had some knowledge of chemistry. Touched by his evident distress,
Cagliostro yielded as usual to his charitable impulses. He found
employment for Sacchi in his hospital, and paid him liberally.
[Illustration: SAVERNE
(_From a very rare French print_)
Reproduced by the courtesy of L’Alsace Illustrée]
“I was even persuaded,” he said afterwards, “to give him the receipt
of certain medicaments, among others that of an elixir, which he has
since sold in London as my balsam, though there is not the least
resemblance between them.”
A week later a man, whose wife and daughter had been cured of a
dangerous illness by Cagliostro, called to inform him that Sacchi was a
spy of his enemies the doctors, and that he was seeking to damage him
by extorting fees from his patients. Horrified at the ingratitude and
treachery of which he was the victim, Cagliostro forthwith turned “the
reptile he had harboured” out of doors. Destitute of honour, rage now
deprived Sacchi of common sense. Having been rash enough to threaten
the life of the person who had exposed him, he was expelled from the
city by the Marquis de Lasalle, the Commandant of Strasburg, who had
been cured of a dangerous illness by Cagliostro.
But this action only served to increase the exasperation of the
doctors, whose agent Sacchi was. Instigated by them he wrote to
Cagliostro an insolent letter in which he demanded one hundred and
fifty louis for the week he had passed in his service, threatening,
if it were not instantly paid, to libel him. Cagliostro treated the
threat with contemptuous silence, whereupon Sacchi proceeded to publish
his libel, which he composed with the aid of a French lawyer who had
escaped from the galleys. In it he declared the mysterious Count to be
the son of a Neapolitan coachman, formerly known as Don Tiscio, a name
under which he, Sacchi, had seen him exposed in the pillory at Alicante
in Spain.[22]
As sensitive to abuse as he was susceptible to flattery, Cagliostro
was unable to endure such treatment, and convinced from his previous
experience in Russia that there would be no limit to the vindictive
malevolence of the doctors, he determined, he says, to leave Strasburg,
where, in spite of the Cardinal’s protection and his ministerial
letters, he could find neither tranquillity nor security. A letter
received about this time informing him that the Chevalier d’Aquino,
of Naples, a friend of his mysterious past, was dangerously ill, and
desired to see him, confirmed him in his resolution. Accordingly, in
spite of the entreaties of the Cardinal, he shook the dust of Strasburg
from his feet, and departed in all haste for Naples, where, however, he
states, he arrived too late to save his friend.
II
On leaving Strasburg, as previously on leaving London and Warsaw,
Cagliostro once more plunged into the obscurity in which so much of
his career was passed that it might almost be described as his native
element, to emerge again three months later as before on the crest of
the wave of fortune in Bordeaux. As rumour, however, followed him it is
possible to surmise with some degree of probability what became of him.
The imaginative Inquisition-biographer, though unable to give any
account of Cagliostro’s journey from Strasburg to Naples, his
residence in that city, or subsequent journey to Bordeaux--a singular
tour!--nevertheless unconsciously throws something like light on the
subject. He declares that the Countess Cagliostro, who accompanied
her husband, “confessed” at her trial before the Apostolic Court in
Rome that “he left Naples owing to his failure to establish a lodge
of Egyptian Masonry.” Questionable as the source is from which this
statement emanates, it is nevertheless a clue.
Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the honesty of
Cagliostro’s motives in propagating Egyptian Masonry, there is
none as to his pertinacity. Within three weeks of his arrival in
Strasburg he had founded a lodge for the observance of the Egyptian
Rite. The mysterious and hurried visits he paid from time to time
to Bâle, Geneva, and other places in Switzerland during his three
years’ residence in Alsace were apparently of a Masonic nature. It
is, moreover, curious to note that his hurried departure for Naples
occurred immediately after the Neapolitan government removed its ban
against Freemasonry. As the Neapolitan government would not have taken
this step had there been the least likelihood of Freemasonry obtaining
a hold over the masses, it is highly probable that Cagliostro left
Naples for the reason given by the Inquisition-biographer.
This probability is still further strengthened by his subsequent
movements, which, erratic though they may appear, had a well-defined
purpose. From the time he left London, be it said, till his last fatal
journey to Rome, Cagliostro never went anywhere without having a
definite and preconceived purpose.
It was certainly with a very definite object that he went to Bordeaux,
where he is next heard of, and whither he travelled, as he himself
says, through the cities of Southern France. Now the cities of Southern
France were permeated with supernaturalism. It was at Bordeaux, that
Martinez Pasqualis had held his celebrated school of magic and mystical
theurgy, the most distinguished of whose pupils was Saint-Martin, the
founder of the Martinists. No place was better adapted for gaining
recruits to Egyptian or any other kind of Freemasonry.
It was here that Mesmer found the noisiest and most ardent of his
admirers in Père Hervier, an Augustinian monk who by his eloquence had
made a great reputation as a popular preacher. Summoned to Bordeaux by
the municipality to preach during Lent at the Church of St. Andrew,
Hervier preached not only the gospel according to Christ but that
according to the Messiah of animal magnetism, with the result that he
made both the clergy and the doctors his enemies.
This church, one of the finest Gothic monuments in Europe, was the
stage on which he displayed his talents both as an orator and as a
mesmerist. He was preaching one day on eternal damnation. His flashing
eyes, commanding gestures, and alluring voice, which had from the
start _prepared_ the church from the holy water stoup to the candles
on the altar, never once lost their hold upon the imagination. The
congregation, consisting of the richest, youngest, and most frivolous
women of Bordeaux, was in complete accord with the preacher. Suddenly
when the monk began to picture the horrors of hell a young girl fell
into a fit. Such an incident happening at such a moment created a
panic, and those in the immediate neighbourhood of the unfortunate
girl fled from the spot in terror. Suspending his sermon Père Hervier
descended from the pulpit with the sublime gravity of an apostle, and
going up to the young girl, magnetized her after the manner of Mesmer.
Immediately her convulsions began to cease. The congregation fell
on its knees. The face of the priest seemed illumined with a divine
light. As he passed the women kissed his feet, and were with difficulty
prevented from worshipping him.
Perceiving that the moment was, so to speak, psychological, Père
Hervier remounted the pulpit, and taking as his text the miracle he
had just performed, discoursed with all the eloquence for which he was
noted on charity and Christ healing the sick; finally bringing his
sermon to a close with a passionate denunciation of the doctors and
clergy of Bordeaux who did not believe in magnetism and desired nothing
better than to persecute a poor monk who did.
Such a stage was too well adapted to Egyptian Masonry not to have
attracted Cagliostro. On the night of his arrival in Bordeaux he and
his wife went to the play, and on being recognized received an ovation.
The next day the concourse of people who flocked to consult him was so
great that the magistrates were obliged to give him a guard of soldiers
to preserve order in the street.
He had resolved, he says, on leaving Strasburg to give up the practice
of medicine in order to avoid exposing himself again to the envy of the
doctors. However, as the number of persons of all stations who sought
his assistance was so great he was induced to change his mind, and
resume the gratuitous “miracles” which had rendered him so celebrated
in Strasburg. In coming to this decision he afterwards declared that
he counted on the protection of the Comte de Vergennes, Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, and one of the three Cabinet Ministers who
had previously recommended him to the Pretor of Strasburg. It was, he
said, at Vergennes’ special request that he returned to France. As the
Comte de Vergennes failed to deny this statement, which he could easily
have done when it was made by Cagliostro at his trial in the Necklace
Affair, there seems no reason to doubt it.
In Bordeaux, as at Strasburg, his cures and his charities attracted
general attention and procured him a large and enthusiastic following.
Many of the most influential men of the city sought admittance to the
lodge he founded. But, as before, Egyptian Masonry flourished at the
expense of the tranquillity and security of the Grand Cophta. The
influence of Vergennes and other powerful patrons was powerless to
protect him from the ingenious malevolence of the envious doctors.
Even Père Hervier, instead of joining forces with him, entered the
lists against him. Mere “clerk of Mesmer,” he had the folly to engage
Cagliostro in a public discussion, in which he received so humiliating
a chastisement that he was laughed out of Bordeaux. But in spite of his
triumphs life was made such a burden to Cagliostro that after being
continually baited for eleven months he could endure the torment no
longer, and departed for Lyons.
This city was a veritable stronghold of Freemasonry. Lodges of all
descriptions flourished here, notably those founded by Saint-Martin,
the most mystical of occultists, in which the Swedenborgian Rite was
observed. It was here that Cagliostro found his most ardent and loyal
supporters. Their enthusiasm was such that they built a “temple”
expressly for the observance of the Egyptian Rite. It enjoyed the
dignity of being the Mother Lodge of Egyptian Masonry, the lodges at
Strasburg, Bâle, Bordeaux, Paris, and other places being affiliated
to it. As it was the custom for the mother lodges of every order of
Freemasonry to be named after some virtue, this one received the title
of _Sagesse Triomphante_. It was the only lodge specially erected by
Cagliostro’s followers, all the others being held in rooms rented for
their needs.
It would have been well for Cagliostro had he been content to remain
in Lyons. He would have enjoyed the “tranquillity and security” he so
much desired; and history, perhaps, would have forgotten him, for it is
owing to his misfortunes that his achievements are chiefly remembered.
But destiny lured him to destruction and an ignominious renown.
Inordinately vain and self-conscious, he was enticed to Paris by the
Cardinal, who was then residing there, and with whom he had been in
constant correspondence ever since he left Strasburg. So insistent
was his Eminence that he sent Raymond de Carbonnières, one of his
secretaries, and an enthusiastic admirer of Cagliostro, to Lyons on
purpose to fetch him. Paris, too, Mecca of every celebrity, called him
with no uncertain voice. Magic-struck she craved the excitement of
fresh mysteries and the spell of a new idol. Mesmer’s tempestuous vogue
was over; adored and ridiculed in turn he had departed with 340,000
livres, a very practical proof of his success.
So having appointed a Grand Master to represent him, and delegated his
seal--a serpent pierced with an arrow--to two “venerables,” Cagliostro
left Lyons for Paris. If he made enemies in Lyons they did not molest
him. It was the only place in which he does not complain of being
persecuted.
III
On arriving in Paris, Cagliostro declares that he “took the greatest
precaution to avoid causing ill-will.” As the majority of contemporary
documents concur in describing his life in Paris as “dignified and
reserved,” there is no reason to doubt the truth of his statement.
But one cannot escape one’s fate, and in spite of his efforts not to
attract attention, he was condemned to an extraordinary notoriety.
His arrival was no sooner known than, as at Strasburg, Bordeaux, and
Lyons, his house was beset with cripples and invalids of all walks of
life. As usual he refused to accept payment for his services or even
for his remedies.
“No one,” says Grimm, “ever succeeded in making him accept the least
mark of gratitude.”
“What is singular about Cagliostro,” says the Baron de Besenval, “is
that in spite of possessing the characteristics that one associates
with a charlatan, he never behaved as such all the time he was at
Strasburg or at Paris. On the contrary, he never took a sou from a
person, lived honourably, always paid with the greatest exactitude
what he owed, and was very charitable.”
Needless to say, it was not long before his name became the chief
topic of conversation in the capital. In the enthusiasm his successes
excited his failures were ignored. Rumour multiplied the number of his
cures and magnified their importance. His fame was thus reflected on
the invalids themselves. To be “healed” by the Grand Cophta became the
rage. In 1785 Paris swarmed with men and women who professed to have
been cured by Cagliostro.
Naturally this infatuation infuriated his inveterate enemies the
doctors. It is said that they obtained an order from the King
compelling him, if he wished to remain in Paris, to refrain from
practising medicine. If so, they had not the courage to enforce it, for
he counted among his partisans men of the very highest rank, such as
the Prince de Luxembourg, who was Grand Master of the Lodge at Lyons,
as well as those distinguished for their learning like the naturalist
Ramon. All the same the doctors did not leave him entirely unmolested.
Urged by their masters, who from a sense of dignity or prudence dared
not encounter him in person, two medical students resolved to play a
practical joke upon the “healer.” It was a species of amusement very
popular at the period; in this instance it was regarded also as a duty.
The students accordingly called on Cagliostro, and on being admitted
one of them complained of a mysterious malady of which the symptoms
seemed to him extraordinary. In attempting, however, to describe them,
he used certain scientific terms, which at once caused Cagliostro to
suspect that his visitor was an emissary of the doctors. Restraining
his indignation he turned to the other and said with the greatest
gravity--
“Your friend must remain here under my care for sixteen days. The
treatment to which I shall subject him is very simple, but to effect
his cure it will be absolutely necessary for him to eat but once a day,
and then only an ounce of nourishment.”
Alarmed at the prospect of so drastic a diet the mock-invalid began to
protest, and asked if it was not possible to indicate exactly what it
was he suffered from.
“Nothing simpler,” replied Cagliostro. “Superfluity of bile in the
medical faculty.”
The two students, finding themselves caught in the trap they had set
for him, stammered their apologies as best they could. Whereupon
Cagliostro, perceiving their discomfiture, good-naturedly set them at
ease and invited them to breakfast, with the result that they were
converted into ardent admirers.
He did not desire, however, to be known only as a healer of the sick.
In the exhibitions he gave of his occult or psychic powers, he soon
eclipsed every other contemporary celebrity from the number and variety
of the phenomena he performed. Everybody wished to witness these
wonders, and those who were denied the privilege were never tired of
describing them in detail as if they had seen them, or of listening in
turn to their recital. The memoirs of the period are filled with the
marvels of his séances at which he read--by means of _colombes_ and
_pupilles_--the future and the past, in mirrors, carafes, and crystals;
of his predictions, his cures, and his evocations of the dead, who
appeared at his command to rejoice or to terrify, as the case might be,
those in compliance with whose wishes he had summoned them from the
grave.
Every day some new and fantastic story was circulated about him.
It was related, for example, that one day after a dinner-party at
Chaillot, at which the company consisted chiefly of ladies, he was
asked by his hostess to procure partners for her friends who had
expressed the desire to dance.
“M. de Cagliostro,” she said half-seriously, half-playfully, “you have
only to employ your supernatural powers to fetch us some officers from
the Ecole Militaire.”
“True,” he replied, going to a window from which this institution could
be seen in the distance, “it only requires an invisible bridge between
them and us.”
A burst of ironical laughter greeted his words. Indignant, he extended
his arm in the direction of the Hôtel des Invalides, which could also
be seen from the window. A few minutes later eighteen veterans with
cork-legs arrived at the house!
On another occasion it was reported that Cagliostro, having invited
six noblemen to dine with him, had the table laid for thirteen. On
the arrival of his guests he requested them to name any illustrious
shades they desired to occupy the vacant seats. Straightway, as their
names were mentioned, the spectres of the Duc de Choiseul, the Abbé de
Voisenon, Montesquieu, Diderot, d’Alembert, and Voltaire appeared, and
taking the places assigned them conversed with their hosts in a manner
so incredibly stupid, which had it been characteristic of them in the
flesh would have robbed them of all claim to distinction.
This anecdote, one of the gems of the Marquis de Luchet’s lively
imagination, who related it with much spirit, was devoid of the least
particle of truth. Nevertheless the Cénacle de Treize or Banquet of the
Dead, as it was called, acquired an immense notoriety. All Paris talked
of it; and even at Versailles it had the honour for some minutes of
being the subject of royal conversation.
Constantly fired by such stories, the admiration and curiosity that
Cagliostro aroused in all classes of society reached a degree of
infatuation little short of idolatry. By his followers he was addressed
as “revered father” or “august master.” They spent whole hours censing
him with a flattery almost profane, believing themselves purified
by being near him. Some more impassioned and ridiculous than others
averred that “he could tell Atheists and Blasphemers by their smell
which threw him into epileptic fits.”
Houdon, the most celebrated sculptor of the day, executed his bust.
Replicas in bronze, marble, and plaster, bearing the words, _Le Divin
Cagliostro_ on the pedestal, were to be found in salons, boudoirs,
and offices. Rings, brooches, fans, and snuff-boxes were adorned with
his portrait. Prints of him by Bartolozzi and others were scattered
broadcast over Europe, with the following flattering inscription--
De l’ami des humains reconnaissez les traits;
Tous ses jours sont marqués par de nouveaux bienfaits,
Il prolonge la vie, il secourt l’indigence,
Le plaisir d’être utile est seul sa récompense.
[Illustration: HOUDON’S BUST OF CAGLIOSTRO
Reproduced by the courtesy of Messrs. Hachette et Cie.]
Figuier’s statement, however, that “bills were even posted on the
walls to the effect that Louis XVI had declared that any one who
injured him was guilty of _lèse-majesté_” is extremely doubtful. He
was never received at Versailles. Marie Antoinette, who had protected
Mesmer, could not be induced to take the least interest in Cagliostro.
IV
The interest displayed in the prodigies he was said to perform was
augmented by the profound secrecy he observed in regard to his
parentage, his nationality, and his past in general. In the hectic
years immediately preceding the Revolution, when credulity, curiosity,
and the passion for sensation had reached a stage bordering almost on
madness, it required no effort of the imagination to make this secrecy
itself supernatural; indeed, in the end the interest taken in the
mystery in which Cagliostro wrapped himself surpassed that in all his
wonders combined.
People speculated on the source of his wealth without being able to
arrive at any conclusion. “No one,” says Georgel, “could discover the
nature of his resources, he had no letter of credit, and apparently
no banker, nevertheless he lived in the greatest affluence, giving
much to the needy, and seeking no favours whatever from the rich.”
In Strasburg, according to Meiners, “at the very lowest estimate his
annual expenditure was not less than 20,000 livres.” In Paris he was
reputed to live at the rate of 100,000 livres a year. The splendid
footing on which his establishment was maintained was, however,
probably greatly exaggerated. He himself says that the fine house in
the Rue St. Claude, which he rented from the Marquise d’Orvilliers, was
“furnished by degrees.”
Some, as previously stated, attributed his splendour to the Cardinal.
It was attested during the Necklace Affair that proof of this was
found among the Cardinal’s papers. Rohan, however, at his trial denied
the charge most emphatically, and Cagliostro himself declared that
the Cardinal’s munificence never went beyond “birthday gifts to the
Countess, the whole of which consisted of a dove, his (Cagliostro’s)
portrait set in diamonds, with a small watch and chain also set with
brilliants.”[23]
Others declared that his wealth was derived from “the mines of Lima,
of which his father was said to be director.” By others, again, it
was said that “the Jesuits supplied him with funds, or that having
persuaded some Asiatic prince to send his son to travel in Europe,
he had murdered the youth and taken possession of his treasures.”
Cagliostro himself was always very mysterious on this subject.
“But your manner of living,” he was questioned at his trial in the
Necklace Affair, “is expensive; you give away much, and accept of
nothing in return; you pay everybody; how do you contrive to get money?”
“This question,” he replied, “has no kind of relation to the case in
point. What difference does it make whether I am the son of a monarch
or a beggar, or by what means I procure the money I want, as long as I
regard religion and the laws and pay every one his due? I have always
taken a pleasure in refusing to gratify the public curiosity on this
score. Nevertheless I will condescend to tell you that which I have
never revealed to any one before. The principal resource I have to
boast of is that as soon as I set foot in any country I find there
a banker who supplies me with everything I want. For instance, M.
Sarazin, of Bâle, would give me up his whole fortune were I to ask it.
So would M. Sancotar at Lyons.”[24]
Equally various were the nationalities attributed to him. “Some thought
him a Spaniard, others a Jew, an Italian, a Ragusan, or even an Arab.”
All attempts to discover his nationality by his language failed. Baron
Grimm was “certain that he had a Spanish accent,” others were equally
certain that he talked “the patois of Sicily or of the lazzaroni of
Naples.” His enemies declared that he spoke no known language at all,
but a mysterious jargon mixed with cabalistic words.
One day being pressed by the Comtesse de Brienne to explain the origin
of a life so surprising and mysterious, he replied, with a laugh,
that “he was born in the Red Sea and brought up in the shadow of the
Pyramids by a good old man who had taken care of him when he was
abandoned by his parents, and from whom he had learnt all he knew.”
But Mirabeau states that “M. de Nordberg, who had travelled much in
the East, once addressed him some words in Arabic of which he did not
understand one word.”
The mystery in which he purposely enveloped himself, and which became
the deeper the more it was probed, coupled with the wonders he
performed, recalled the famous Count de Saint-Germain, who had created
a similar sensation some twenty years before. Of the life, family
or country of this mysterious individual nothing was ever known. Of
many suppositions the most popular was that he was the son of a royal
_femme galante_--Marie de Neubourg, widow of the last King of Spain of
the House of Austria--and a Jewish banker of Bordeaux. Louis XV, who
had a particular predilection for men of his stamp and was probably
perfectly acquainted with his history, employed him for a time on
secret diplomatic missions and gave him apartments at Chambord. His
fascinating manners, good looks, lavish expenditure and mysterious
antecedents attracted attention wherever he went.
In London, where he lived for a couple of years, he excited great
curiosity. “He was called,” says Walpole, “an Italian, a Spaniard, a
Pole, a nobody that married a great fortune in Mexico and ran away with
her jewels to Constantinople.”
These jewels were the admiration of all who beheld them. Madame de
Hausset, the companion of Madame de Pompadour, to whom he showed
them once, believed them to be false. Gleichen, however, who was a
connoisseur of precious stones, “could discern no reason to doubt their
genuineness.” Like Cagliostro, who gave a diamond valued at 20,000
livres to Cardinal de Rohan, Saint-Germain made a present of one to
Louis XV worth 10,000 livres.
The secrecy he observed in regard to his origin appears in the
beginning to have been due less to any intention to mystify the public
than to a strong sense of humour. In an age when a supernatural
significance was attached to anything that appeared mysterious, he was
at once credited with occult powers which he never claimed to possess.
Urged by a whim to see how far he could play upon the credulity of the
public, he found the rôle of wonder-man so congenial that he never
attempted to adopt another.
A particular talent for romancing, aided by a wonderful memory, enabled
him to doctor up the marvellous to suit the taste of his hearers. He
described people and places of the distant past with a minuteness
of detail that produced the impression that he had been personally
acquainted with them. As many were foolish enough to take him
literally, all sorts of fabulous stories were circulated about him.
“I amuse myself,” he once confessed to Gleichen, who reproved him for
encouraging the belief that he had lived from time immemorial, “not by
making people believe what I wish, but by letting them believe what
they wish. These fools of Parisians declare that I am five hundred, and
I confirm them in the idea since it pleases them.”
The least credulous believed him to be at least a hundred. Madame de
Pompadour said to him once that old Madame de Gergy remembered having
met him fifty years before in Venice when he passed for a man of sixty.
“I never like to contradict a lady,” he replied, “but it is just
possible that Madame de Gergy is in her dotage.”
Even his valet was supposed to have discovered the secret of
immortality. This fellow, a veritable Scapin, assisted him admirably in
mystifying the credulous.
“Your master,” said a sceptic one day, seizing him by the collar, “is a
rogue who is taking us all in. Tell me, is it true that he was present
at the marriage of Cana?”
“You forget, sir,” was the reply, “I have only been in his service a
century.”
Many of the most amazing stories circulated about Cagliostro
were merely a repetition of those related twenty years before of
Saint-Germain. The recollection of Saint-Germain’s reputed longevity
led to the bestowal of a similar attribute to his successor. Thus it
was reported that Cagliostro stopped one day before a “Descent from
the Cross” in the Louvre and began to talk of the Crucifixion as if he
had witnessed it. Though the story was devoid of foundation it was not
without effect, and many declared, and believed too, that the Grand
Cophta had lived hundreds, and even thousands of years. Cagliostro, it
is but fair to add, complained bitterly of this at his trial.
On the strength of the close resemblance in the mystery and the stories
concerning Saint-Germain and Cagliostro, as well as their alchemical
knowledge--for Saint-Germain, needless to say, was credited with having
discovered the philosopher’s stone--Grimm believed Cagliostro to have
been the valet alluded to above. There is, however, not the least
evidence that the paths of the two men ever crossed.[25]
V
Great though the influence that an impenetrable mystery and so-called
supernatural phenomena always exercise over the human mind, their
appeal, even when credulity reaches the pitch it did in 1785, will
never alone provoke interest so extraordinary as that taken in
Cagliostro. It is only a very powerful and magnetic personality that
is able to fix such curiosity and to excite such admiration. It is,
moreover, equally certain, that had he been such a man as Carlyle
has painted him, history would never have heard of him, much less
remembered him.
Speaking of Cagliostro’s physiognomy, he describes it as “a most
portentous face of scoundrelism; a fat snub, abominable face;
dew-lapped, flat-nosed, greasy, full of greediness, sensuality, ox-like
obstinacy; the most perfect quack-face produced by the eighteenth
century.”
It is the _ignorance_ of his subject, be it said, rather than the
violence of his prejudice, which such statements as this reveal
that have deprived Carlyle’s opinion of Cagliostro of any value in
the estimation of modern writers.[26] There is plenty of reliable
information, to which Carlyle had access, to prove that Cagliostro’s
appearance was anything but repulsive.
Beugnot, who has described him with more mockery than any of his
contemporaries, says “he was of medium height, rather stout, with an
olive complexion, a short neck, round face, a broad turned-up nose, and
two large eyes.” From all accounts his eyes were remarkable. “I cannot
describe his physiognomy,” says the Marquise de Créquy, “for he had
twelve or fifteen at his disposal. But no two eyes like his were ever
seen; and his teeth were superb.” Laborde speaks of “his eyes of fire
which pierced to the bottom of the soul.” Another writer declares that
“his glance was like a gimlet.”
All the contemporary documents that speak of him--and they are hostile
with very few exceptions--refer to the powerful fascination that he
exercised on all who approached him. The impression he produced upon
the intellectual Countess von der Recke has already been referred to.
Like her, Laborde, Motus, and others considered that his countenance
“indicated genius.”
Cardinal de Rohan told Georgel that on seeing him for the first time
“he discovered in his physiognomy a dignity so imposing that he felt
penetrated with awe.”
“He was not, strictly speaking, handsome,” says Madame d’Oberkirch, who
certainly was not one of his admirers, “but never have I seen a more
remarkable face. His glance was so penetrating that one might be almost
tempted to call it supernatural. I could not describe the expression
of his eyes--it was, so to speak, a mixture of flame and ice. It
attracted and repelled at the same time, and inspired, whilst it
terrified, an insurmountable curiosity. I cannot deny that Cagliostro
possessed an almost demoniacal power, and it was with difficulty that
I tore myself from a fascination I could not comprehend, but whose
influence I could not deny.”
Lavater, whose unfavourable opinion seems to be due to the contemptuous
way in which Cagliostro received him, nevertheless thought him “a man
such as few are.”
Beugnot, after ridiculing him as “moulded for the express purpose of
playing the part of a clown,” confesses that “his face, his attire--the
whole man, in fact, impressed him in spite of himself.”
If, as Meiners and other hostile contemporaries assert, “he spoke
badly all the languages he professed to know,” there is not the least
reason to infer, like Carlyle, that “he was wholly intelligible to no
mortal,” or that “what thought, what resemblance of thought he had,
could not deliver itself, except in gasps, blustering gushes, spasmodic
refluences which made bad worse.”
Michelet--Carlyle’s brilliant and equally learned
contemporary--regarded him as “a veritable sorcerer possessed of great
eloquence.” Even the bitter Inquisition-biographer confessed that
he was “marvellously eloquent.” Motus declared that “his eloquence
fascinated and subjugated one, even in the languages he spoke least
well.” “If gibberish can be sublime,” says Beugnot, “Cagliostro was
sublime. When he began any subject he seemed carried away with it, and
spoke impressively in a ringing, sonorous voice.”
The beauty of the Countess Cagliostro was also an important element
in the success of her husband. She was like a sylph with her fluffy
straw-coloured hair, which she wore unpowdered, her large, deep, soft
blue eyes, her small and delicately chiselled nose, her full rose-red
lips, and a dazzlingly white skin.
“She is an angel in human form,” said Maître Polverit, by whom she
was defended when she was imprisoned in the Bastille on the charge of
being implicated in the Necklace Affair, “who has been sent on earth
to share and soften the days of the Man of Marvels. Beautiful with a
beauty that never belonged to any woman, she cannot be called a model
of tenderness, sweetness and resignation--no! for she does not even
suspect the existence of any other qualities.” And the judges evidently
agreed, for they ordered her release without a trial.
Motus describes her as “a beautiful and modest person and as charitable
as her husband.” She was fond of dress, and her diamonds were the talk
of Paris. The Countess de Lamotte at her trial declared that “Madame
de Cagliostro’s display of jewelry scandalized respectable women, as
well as those who were not.” It is scarcely necessary, however, to
observe that Madame de Lamotte saw the Countess through her hatred of
Cagliostro. To make a display of jewelry at that period did not cause
the least scandal. The Countess, moreover, was a fine horsewoman, and
mounted on her black mare Djèrid attracted attention quite apart from
the fact that she was the wife of Cagliostro.
Uneducated--she could not write; though from mixing in the best society
she had acquired the manners of a lady--she was one of those women who
always remain a child. In the over-civilized, cynical, and hysterical
age in which she lived, her ingenuous chatter passed for a new type of
spirituality, and her ignorance for candour. That was the secret of her
charm. As all the world lacked it, candour was a novelty.
“The admiration she excited,” says one writer, “was most ardent among
those who had never seen her. There were duels over her, duels proposed
and accepted as to the colour of her eyes, which neither of the
adversaries knew, or as to whether a dimple was on her right cheek or
on her left.”
Needless to say, scandal did not fail to attack her reputation. The
enemies of Cagliostro were quick to accuse her of light conduct, and
her husband of encouraging it. The Cardinal was popularly supposed
to be her lover. The Countess de Lamotte asserted that she specially
distinguished a Chevalier d’Oisemont among a crowd of admirers. But,
as Gleichen says in reference to her supposed infidelity, “why suppose
without proof?” Of Cagliostro’s devotion to her at least there is no
doubt. So little is known of her character that it is impossible to
speak of it with any certainty; but considering the admiration that
all agree she inspired and the numerous temptations she had to desert
him when fortune turned against him, the fact that she stuck to him to
the end is a pretty strong argument in favour of both her fidelity and
affection.
Owing to her girlish appearance, the age of the lovely Countess was
a subject of considerable speculation. It is said, though with what
truth cannot be stated, that “she occasionally spoke of a son who
was a captain in the service of the Dutch government.” As this made
her at least forty when she did not appear to be twenty, a credulous
public was ready to see in her a living witness to the efficacy of her
husband’s rejuvenating powders and elixir of life. De Luchet, who is
responsible for the story, asserts that she added to her age expressly
to advertise Cagliostro’s quack-medicines.[27]
Like Saint-Germain’s valet, she was also credited with a share of her
husband’s supernatural endowments. According to certain unauthenticated
information, she was the Grand Mistress of the Isis lodge for women,
which among other conditions of membership included a subscription
of one hundred louis. This lodge is said to have been composed of
thirty-six ladies of rank, who joined it for the purpose of being
taught magic by the wife of Cagliostro. The report widely circulated by
de Luchet, of the obscene character of the “evocations,” is devoid of
the least authenticity. It is doubtful, indeed, whether such a lodge
ever existed at all. Madame de Genlis, who figures in de Luchet’s list
of members, never so much as mentions the Cagliostros in her memoirs.
VI
Needless to say, Cagliostro did not fail to turn the prodigious furore
he created to the account of Egyptian Masonry. Not long after his
arrival in Paris a lodge was established at the residence of one of his
followers in a room specially set apart for the purpose and furnished,
says the Inquisition-biographer, “with unparalleled magnificence.”
Here from time to time the “seven angels of the Egyptian Paradise, who
stand round the throne of God--Anaël, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel,
Zobriachel, and Hanachiel” (with whom the Grand Cophta was a special
favourite) “condescended to appear to the faithful.”
Cagliostro also opened another lodge in his own house, when the angels
came at the bidding of other members besides the Grand Cophta. It was
not long before similar phenomena were witnessed in all the Egyptian
lodges. In a remarkable letter of an adept of the lodge at Lyons found
in Cagliostro’s papers at the time of his arrest in Rome, the writer,
in describing a ceremony held there, said that “the first philosopher
of the New Testament _appeared without being called_, and gave the
entire assembly, prostrate before the blue cloud in which he appeared,
his blessing. Moreover” (adds the writer), “two great prophets and the
legislator of Israel have given us similar convincing signs of their
good-will.”
It is from Cagliostro’s ability “to transmit his powers,” as it was
termed, that the singular phenomena of modern spiritualism were
developed. In reality it was nothing more or less than the discovery
of the “psychic”--the word must serve for want of a better--properties
latent in every human being, and which in many are capable of a very
high degree of development. This discovery, till then unimagined, was
the secret of the veneration in which Cagliostro was regarded by his
followers.
Notwithstanding the very high development to which Cagliostro’s own
“psychic” powers had now attained, one gathers the impression from his
own utterances that he never completely understood them. A link between
the old conception of magic and the new theosophical theories, there
are many indications that he regarded the phenomena he performed as
direct manifestations of divine power. In an age of unbelief he always
spoke of God with the greatest respect, even in circles in which it
was the fashion to decry the goodness as well as the existence of the
Supreme Being. Like all the mystics of the eighteenth century, he was
deistic. “All duty, according to him,” says Georgel, “was based on the
principle: Never do to others what you would not wish them to do to
you.” One of the first things seen on entering his house in Paris was
a slab of black marble on which was engraved in gold letters Pope’s
_Universal Prayer_.
Historians who have been inclined to treat him leniently as the loyal
agent of a revolutionary sect are horrified that he “should have
effaced the dignity of the enthusiast behind the trickeries of the
necromancer.” Louis Blanc, who preached a perpetual crusade against
thrones and altars, and despised occultism, declares that Cagliostro’s
phenomena “cast suspicion on his own ideals, and were a veritable crime
against the cause he proclaimed to be holy, and which there was no
necessity to associate with shameful falsehoods.”
The charge is a very just one. The bitterness with which Cagliostro
has been regarded for a hundred years is due less to the calumnies
with which he was assailed in his life--and which till the present no
one has dreamt of investigating--than to the belief that he debased
his ideals. As his “psychic” powers developed it cannot be denied that
he attached a significance to them that, in the opinion of thoughtful
people, was calculated to render his motives suspect. His real
imposture was not in cheating people of their money or faking miracles,
but in encouraging the belief that he was a supernatural being--“I am
that I am,” as he is said to have described himself profanely on one
occasion. Intoxicated by his amazing success, he lost all sense of
proportion. The means which he had begun to employ in Mittau to justify
his end all but effaced the end itself in Paris.
To attract followers he was no longer content to gratify the passion
for the marvellous, but sought to stimulate it. To enhance the effect
of his phenomena he had recourse to artifices worthy of a mountebank.
The room in which his séances were held contained statuettes of Isis,
Anubis, and the ox Apis. The walls were covered with hieroglyphics, and
two lacqueys, “clothed like Egyptian slaves as they are represented
on the monuments at Thebes,” were in attendance to arrange the screen
behind which the _pupilles_ or _colombes_ sat, the carafe or mirror
into which they gazed, or to perform any other service that was
required.
To complete the _mise en scène_, Cagliostro wore a robe of black silk
on which hieroglyphics were embroidered in red. His head was covered
with an Arab turban of cloth of gold ornamented with jewels. A chain
of emeralds hung _en sautoir_ upon his breast, to which scarabs and
cabalistic symbols of all colours in metal were attached. A sword with
a handle shaped like a cross was suspended from a belt of red silk.
“In this costume,” says Figuier, “the Grand Cophta looked so imposing
that the whole assembly felt a sort of terror when he appeared.”
The manner in which Cagliostro dressed and conducted himself in public
was equally designed to attract attention, though it was scarcely of
the sort he desired. A writer who saw him walking one day followed by
an admiring band of street-arabs says “he was wearing a coat of blue
silk braided along the seams; his hair in powdered knots was gathered
up in a net; his shoes _à la d’Artois_ were fastened with jewelled
buckles, his stockings studded with gold buttons; rubies and diamonds
sparkled on his fingers, and on the frill of his shirt; from his
watch-chain hung a diamond drop, a gold key adorned with diamonds, and
an agate seal--all of which, in conjunction with his flowered waistcoat
and musketeer hat with a white plume, produced an instantaneous effect.”
The Marquise de Créquy, Beugnot, and nearly all his contemporaries
allude to the fantastic manner in which he dressed as well as to his
colossal vanity, which, inflated by success, rendered him not only
ridiculous to those whom he failed to fascinate, but even insufferable.
Pompous in Mittau, he became arrogant, domineering, and choleric in
Paris. Flattery, to which he had always been peculiarly susceptible,
at last became to him like some drug by which he was enslaved. He could
not tolerate criticism or contradiction. “The Chevalier de Montbruel,”
says Beugnot, “a veteran of the green-room, and ready to affirm
anything, was always at hand to bear witness to Cagliostro’s cures,
offering himself as an example cured of I do not know how many maladies
with names enough to frighten one.”
However, Cagliostro was never so spoilt by success, never so
compromised by the tricks and devices to which he stooped to perform
his wonders, as to lose sight of his ideal. Had he been the vulgar
cheat, the sordid impostor it is customary to depict him, he would have
contented himself with the subscriptions paid by the members of the
lodges he founded and have ceased to insist on the ethical character of
Egyptian Masonry. In 1785 a religious element was calculated to repel
rather than to attract. It was the wonder-man, and not the idealist,
in whom Paris was interested. But instead of taking the line of least
resistance, so to speak, Cagliostro deliberately adopted a course that
could not fail to make enemies rather than friends.
Far from dropping the religious and moral character of the Egyptian
Rite, he laid greater stress on it than ever, and claimed for his sect
a superiority over all the others of Freemasonry, on the ground that
it was based on the mysteries of Isis and Anubis which he had brought
from the East. As no one ever ventured to regard him as a fool as
well as a knave, it is impossible to question his sincerity in the
matter. At once the seventy-two Masonic lodges of Paris rose in arms
against him. He managed, however, to triumph over all opposition. At
a meeting held for the purpose of expounding the dogmas of Egyptian
Masonry “his eloquence was so persuasive,” says Figuier, “that he
completely converted to his views the large and distinguished audience
he addressed.”
From the respect that Cagliostro thus exacted and obtained, Egyptian
Masonry acquired an importance in France not unlike that of the
Illuminés in Germany. Nothing proves this so well as the Congress of
Philalètes, or the Seekers of Truth.
This Masonic body was composed of members of Swedenborgian and
Martinist lodges affiliated to Illuminism. Its character was at
once occult and political. On the detection and suppression of the
Illuminés, in 1784, the Philalètes, organized by Savalette de Langes,
a revolutionary mystic, sought to finish in France the work which
Weishaupt had begun in Germany. As an old Illuminé, Savalette de Langes
was well acquainted with Cagliostro, and the importance he attached to
him was so great that he desired to incorporate the sect of Egyptian
Masonry in that of the Philalètes. He accordingly summoned a congress
of Philalètes to which Cagliostro was invited to explain his doctrine.
The ambitions and aspirations of the Grand Cophta had kept pace with
the steadily rising fortunes of Egyptian Masonry. He was quick to
perceive the immense advantage to be derived from a union of the
organization of which he was the head with that of the Philalètes, who
were one of the most numerous and influential of the Masonic sects. But
he had no intention of playing second fiddle to them, and in replying
to their invitation he assumed that they were prepared to acknowledge
the superiority of the Egyptian Rite. So with pompous condescension,
which was as astute as it was bizarre, he informed them that “having
deigned to extend to them his hand and consented to cast a ray of light
upon the darkness of their Temple, he requested them as a sign of their
submission to the truths of Egyptian Masonry to burn their archives.”
Though taken aback by such an answer, the Philalètes did not abandon
the hope of coming to some satisfactory arrangement. But Cagliostro
proved too clever for them, and in the series of interviews and
negotiations which followed they were completely overawed and
over-reached. For a moment it seemed as if Freemasonry in general
was to be restored to “its original Egyptian character,” and that
Cagliostro would realize his sublime ideal, perform the greatest of all
his prodigies, and “evoke” the Revolution, which the noblest minds in
Europe had dreamt of for a hundred years.
But life has her great ironies as well as her little ones. Suddenly, to
the rapt enthusiast on the Pisgah-peak of his ambition the shadow of
the Revolution did indeed appear. Not the benign genius it was fondly
imagined to be before 1789: herald of freedom and the golden age; but
the monstrous demon of calumny, hatred and terror: the shadow of the
Revolution as it was to be, claiming its victims in advance.
Before the Philalètes and the Egyptian Masons could effect their union,
the Diamond Necklace Affair was to destroy all Cagliostro’s dreams and
projects.
CHAPTER VI
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE AFFAIR
I
Few subjects have been more written about, more discussed than the
Affair of the Diamond Necklace. The defences alone of those involved
in this _cause célèbre_ fill two big volumes. All the memoirs of the
period contain more or less detailed accounts of it; in every history
of France it occupies a chapter to itself; and as it suggests romance
even more than history, novelists and dramatists alike have often
exercised their imagination upon its entanglements.
To re-tell in detail this romance, to rehearse this drama in which
the happiness and reputations of all who figure in it were destroyed,
does not come within the scope of this book. For the chief interest it
excites is focussed on the star--the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois--who
dominates the scene from first to last. It is only in the last act that
Cagliostro appears. Nevertheless, the part he played was so important
that a brief _résumé_ of the action preceding his appearance is
necessary to enable the reader to understand how he came to be involved
in the imbroglio.
[Illustration: COUNTESS DE LAMOTTE
(_After Robinet_)]
Nature had specially cast Madame de Lamotte for the part she played in
this drama. Descended from the Valois through a natural son of Henry
II, her family had sunk into a state of abject poverty. At her birth
her father was reduced to poaching for a livelihood on his former
ancestral estate. He eventually died in the Hôtel Dieu, the famous
hospital for the indigent founded by Madame de Pompadour. Madame de
Lamotte herself as a child was a barefoot beggar on the highway. It
was in this condition that she first attracted the attention of the
Marquise de Boulainvilliers, who out of pity gave her a home, educated
her as well as her brother and sister, and afterwards obtained a small
pension for them from Louis XVI.
Being naturally extremely precocious and intelligent, Jeanne de
Saint-Remy, as she was called, did not neglect her opportunities. It
was her misfortune, however, to derive but small profit from them.
Having flirted with the wrong people--her benefactress’s husband and
a bishop--she married the wrong man. Lamotte was good-looking, of a
respectable family, and crippled with debt. Unable to support himself
and his wife on his pay as a subaltern in the army, he resigned his
commission, adopted the title of Count--to which he had a shadowy
claim--added Valois to his name, and went to Paris to seek fortune,
where the Countess made the most of her wits and her looks.
The expedient to which she most frequently resorted was to pester
well-known people with petitions, in which she sought to have the claim
she had set up to the lands of her ancestors recognized. As by some
extraordinary coincidence the Crown had recently acquired these lands,
she had, she hoped, only to find the right person to take up her cause
to triumph in the end. Among those to whom she appealed was Cardinal
de Rohan. His Eminence, who was both sympathetic and susceptible,
manifested the greatest pity for the young and charming Countess whose
condition was in such a contrast to her illustrious birth. He was
amazed that the Court should so neglect a descendant of Henri II, and
promised readily to support her claim. A few days later in his capacity
as Grand Almoner of France, he sent his interesting _protégée_ 2,400
livres as an earnest of his intention. As gratitude and necessity
caused the suppliant to renew her visits frequently, the impression she
produced on the Cardinal deepened. His pride as well as his sensuality
urged him to protect a woman as fascinating and distinguished as she
was unfortunate. He entered into her views, gave her advice; and even
confided to her his own grievances and desires.
With all his splendour his Eminence was what is known as a disappointed
man. It was his ambition to play a conspicuous part in affairs of
state. To flatter him the sycophants who surrounded him were in the
habit of comparing his abilities to those of Richelieu, Mazarin, and
Fleury, the three great Cardinals who had governed France. It was
more than his right, it was his duty, they told him, to become First
Minister. In reality he was utterly unfitted for such a position,
though not more so than Calonne and Loménie de Brienne, the last
two ministers to govern the state under the _ancien régime_. Rohan,
however, intoxicated by flattery, believed what he was told; and his
desire for power developed into a passion, a fixed idea.
One obstacle alone stood between him and the pursuit of his
ambition--Marie Antoinette; a fascinating and dazzling obstacle to
this consecrated voluptuary, so dazzling that it became confused in
his mind with the summit from which it kept him. He did not bear the
Queen the slightest resentment for her animosity to him. He was aware
that it had been imparted to her by her mother Maria Theresa, at whose
instance he had been recalled from Vienna twelve years before. He felt
certain that if he could but meet her, get into communication with her,
he could win her esteem. Unfortunately Marie Antoinette’s contempt
extended to Louis XVI. Versailles was thus closed to the Cardinal. He
was never seen there but once a year, on Assumption Day, in his rôle of
Grand Almoner, when he celebrated mass in the Royal Chapel.
The confidences of her protector gave the Countess de Lamotte more
than an insight into his character. In the vanity and credulity they
revealed, her alert and cunning mind saw a Golconda of possibilities
which not only her necessity but her genius for intrigue urged her
to exploit.[28] By circulating rumours of her friendship with the
Queen, to which her frequent journeys to Versailles in search of some
influential person to present her petition to the King gave weight, she
had obtained credit from tradespeople. To cause this rumour to glide
to the ears of his Eminence was easy. And as people generally believe
what flatters them, when Madame de Lamotte spoke of the interest that
the Queen took in him, an interest that circumstances compelled her to
conceal, the dissipated, amorous Cardinal, too vain to dream any one
would deceive him, listened and believed all he was told.
Thus began the famous series of violet-tinted letters which during May,
June, and July, 1784, passed between Marie Antoinette and Rohan. This
correspondence of which the Queen, needless to say, had not the least
inkling, becoming as it proceeded less and less cold and reserved,
inflamed all the desires that fermented in the heart of the Cardinal.
In this way it was the simplest thing in the world for the Countess
de Lamotte to induce him to send the Queen through her “60,000 livres
out of the Almonry funds for a poor family in whom her Majesty was
interested.”
As Marie Antoinette continued to be “short of cash,” Rohan, who was
himself heavily in debt and had misappropriated into the bargain
the funds of various institutions of which he was the trustee, was
obliged to borrow the money the Queen was supposed to be in need of
from the Jews. His Eminence, however, at length became restive under
these incessant demands for money. He even began to suspect that the
Queen might be playing him false, and in spite of all the Countess’s
explanations demanded some visible proof of the interest she professed
to manifest in him.
It was at this juncture, when it seemed as if the game was up, that
Lamotte, walking in the garden of the Palais Royal, met by accident an
unfortunate female whose face bore a perfect resemblance to that of the
Queen.[29] To such an _intrigante_ as the Countess, this resemblance
was sufficient material out of which to forge a fresh chain for the
Cardinal. On August 11, 1784, between ten and eleven at night, “the
unfortunate female”--Mlle. Leguay, Baroness d’Oliva or whatever she
called herself--having been carefully trained and paid to represent
Marie Antoinette, gave the Cardinal, “disguised as a mousquetaire,”
a meeting in the park of Versailles, a meeting which the Countess de
Lamotte was careful to interrupt ere it began, giving his Eminence
barely time to kiss the hand of the supposed Queen, who as she was
hurried away flung the kneeling prelate a rose as a token of her
affection and esteem.
To Rohan that fleeting vision of the Queen of France served as the
proof he had demanded. Henceforth the dream of his diseased fancy
enveloped him as in a veil. Obsessed by a single idea, he became
the blind instrument of the consummate enchantress by whom he was
bewitched. After his romantic rendezvous in the park of Versailles, he
advanced confidently and triumphantly to the abyss into which he was
destined to plunge, without looking to the right or to the left, and
seeing nothing but his vision of the Queen as she had dropped the rose
at his feet.
So complete was his thraldom, that later in the depth of his abasement,
when he lay in the terrible solitude of the Bastille, charged with
swindling a jeweller of a necklace, it was with difficulty that Rohan
could bring himself to believe, not that he had been basely betrayed by
the Queen, but duped by Madame de Lamotte. “I was completely blinded by
the immense desire I had to regain the favour of the Queen,” he said
at his trial, in reply to the observations of the judges how a man
so cultivated, so intelligent, and even so able, as he unquestionably
was--his embassy in Vienna had been a brilliant success--should have
become the plaything of the Countess de Lamotte.
“His incredible credulity,” says the Duc de Lévis, “was really the knot
of the whole affair.” However, it is not so incredible as it seems. The
very fact of his intelligence partially explains it. As Suzanne says
to Figaro in the _Barber of Seville_, “intellectual men are fools,”
particularly when there is a woman in the case, and Madame de Lamotte
was clever and fascinating enough to have turned the head of the Devil
himself.
As a result of this strategy the Countess managed to mulct the Cardinal
of 150,000 livres. The figure that she cut on this money confirmed the
rumours of her intimacy with the Queen, a circumstance she did not
fail to turn to account. By paying those whom she owed she obtained
from them and others still greater credit, whereby the foundations of
the vast structure of deceit in which she lived were still further
strengthened and extended. She had no longer to ask for credit, it was
offered to her, and people even came to implore her to use her boasted
influence at Court in their behalf. Some silk merchants of Lyons, who
desired the patronage of the Queen, sent her a case of superb stuffs
valued at 10,000 livres.
It was in this way that she became acquainted with Böhmer, the maker of
the famous necklace.
Except the Cardinal, it would be impossible to imagine a more
ridiculous monomaniac than this Saxon Jew. For over ten years he had
locked up his whole fortune in a “matchless jewel” for which he was
unable to find a purchaser. Marie Antoinette, in particular, had been
pestered to buy it, till her patience being exhausted she ordered
Böhmer never to mention it to her again.[30] He obeyed her, but none
the less continued to hope she would change her mind. In the course of
ten years this hope became a fixed idea, which he sought to realize by
hook or crook. Thus hearing that Madame de Lamotte had great influence
with the Queen, Böhmer came, like the silk merchants of Lyons and
others, to purchase it if possible.
It did not take the wily Countess long to gauge the credulity of her
visitor, or to make up her mind that it was worth her while to exploit
it. Needless to say, a woman clever enough to persuade the Grand
Almoner of France that a _fille de joie_ of the Palais Royal from whom
he had received a rose in the park of Versailles was Marie Antoinette,
would have no difficulty in getting possession of Böhmer’s necklace.
The Cardinal, who had been marking time, so to speak, at Saverne ever
since his adventure, was hastily summoned to Paris to perform a service
for her Majesty concerning which she enjoined the strictest secrecy.
When Rohan, who had travelled post in a blizzard, discovered what the
service was he was staggered. No wonder. The Queen, he was informed,
wished him to be her security for the purchase of the necklace,
for which she had agreed to pay 1,600,000 livres (£64,000) in four
instalments of equal amounts at intervals of six months. Madame de
Lamotte, however, succeeded in persuading him to affix his signature to
the necessary documents--and in due course Böhmer’s “matchless jewel”
was in her possession.
It did not take her long “to break it up,” as Marie Antoinette had
advised Böhmer to do years before. Her manner of disposing of the
diamonds, which she “picked from the setting with a knife,” was
itself a romance. But it is impossible in so hurried a _résumé_ of
this imbroglio to enter into any particulars that have no connection
whatever with Cagliostro.
The _dénouement_ arrived six months later when the first instalment of
400,000 livres became due. Madame de Lamotte awaited it with perfect
indifference. She had involved the Cardinal too deeply to have any
fears for herself. The very peril to which _he_ was exposed was _her_
safety. At all costs Rohan would be obliged to pay for the necklace to
prevent a scandal.
She made a mistake, however, in not informing him in time that the
Queen was not in a position to pay the instalment, whereby as her
security the liability devolved on him. For never dreaming that such
a contingency was possible, he was utterly unprepared for it when it
came. Crippled with debt, he was unable to put his hand on 400,000
livres at a moment’s notice. The difficulty he found in raising the
sum made Böhmer so nervous that he consulted Madame Campan, one of the
Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. She informed the jeweller that he was mad
if he imagined the Queen had bought his necklace. Hereupon Böhmer in
great agitation rushed off to Madame de Lamotte, who coolly informed
him she suspected he was being victimized.
“But,” she added reassuringly, “the Cardinal is, as you know, very
rich; he will pay. Go to him.”
This was a master-stroke; for the Countess had as much reason to
believe that Böhmer would take her advice as that the Cardinal,
to avoid a scandal which meant his ruin, would assume the entire
responsibility of the purchase of the necklace. Unfortunately, the
distracted jeweller instead of going to the Cardinal tottered off to
the King!
By a dramatic coincidence it was Assumption Day, the one day in the
year on which the Cardinal was entitled to appear at Versailles, when
as Grand Almoner he celebrated mass to which the Royal Family always
went in state. He and the Court were waiting in the Oeil-de-Boeuf
for the King and Queen to appear in order to accompany them to the
Chapel of St. Louis, when a door opened and a chamberlain summoned
his Eminence to the sovereign. Everybody knows what followed. Böhmer,
having obtained an audience of Louis XVI, had related to that amazed
monarch all the details of the transaction by which the necklace had
been bought for the Queen. This story, repeated in the presence of
Marie Antoinette, whose honesty and virtue it alike impugned, stung
her to fury. Exasperated though she was by Böhmer’s assertion that
she had purchased his necklace, which for ten years she had refused
to do, she might nevertheless have excused him on the ground of his
insanity. But when he charged her with having employed Rohan, whom she
hated, to purchase the necklace through a confidante of whom she had
never heard, she was transported with indignation. Forgetting that
she was a Queen, which she did too often, she remembered only that
she was a woman, and without thinking of the consequences, insisted
that the Cardinal should be arrested and her reputation publicly
vindicated. Louis XVI, whose misfortune it was to be guided by her when
he shouldn’t, and never when he should--a misfortune that in the end
was to cost him crown and life--at once ordered the arrest of the Grand
Almoner, who, attired in his pontifical robes, was carried off then and
there to the Bastille like a common criminal before the eyes of the
entire Court.
The arrest of the Cardinal[31] was in due course followed by that
of the Countess de Lamotte, Cagliostro and his wife, the “Baroness
d’Oliva,” who had acted the part of the Queen in the park of
Versailles, Réteaux de Vilette, who had forged the Queens letters to
Rohan, and several others on whom suspicion had fallen. “The Bastille,”
as Carlyle says, “opened its iron bosom to them all.”[32]
Such in brief is the story of the rape of the Diamond Necklace.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Marie Antoinette (_From a French print_)]
The trial that followed has been justly described as the prologue of
the Revolution. To the calumnies it gave birth may be traced the hatred
which engendered the Reign of Terror.
“Calumny,” says M. Chaix d’Est-Ange in his brilliant monograph on the
Necklace Affair, “is common to all ages, but it has not always the
same force and success. In times when public opinion is indifferent or
feeble it is despised and powerless. At other periods more favourable
to it, borne on the wings of passion it soars aloft strong, confident,
and triumphant. If ever it was a power it was in the eighteenth
century.”
“It was everywhere,” says de Goncourt, “under the roofs of courtiers
and blackmailers alike, in the bureaux of the police themselves, and
even at the side of the Queen.”
Given such a state of society Marie Antoinette could have done nothing
so calculated to injure herself as to cause the arrest of the Cardinal.
If he deserved the Bastille it was not necessary to send him there.
Though she may be excused for regarding him as a “vulgar swindler who
stole diamonds to pay his debts,” she should have remembered that he
was also the head of one of the greatest houses in France. As soon as
the news of his arrest was known there was but a single opinion in the
_salons_ of the nobility: “What, arrest the Grand Almoner of France in
full pontificals before the whole Court for a bit of chiffon! Send a
Rohan and the chief of the clergy to the Bastille! _C’est trop!_”
The malcontents of the Court recognized in this shameful disgrace the
hand of the unpopular minister Breteuil, who was known to be the bitter
enemy of the Cardinal.
“M. de Breteuil,” wrote Rivarol with truth, “has taken the Cardinal
from the hands of Madame de Lamotte and crushed him on the forehead of
the Queen, which will retain the marks.”
It was by his advice, indeed, that Louis XVI had been persuaded to
gratify the rage of his reckless consort. The opportunity of ruining
his enemy had been too great for Breteuil to resist. The weakness of
the King, the unpopularity of the Queen and the faults of a blundering
minister were thus alike accentuated.
“When a king has absolute power,” says Chaix d’Est-Ange, “it is without
doubt at such a time as this that he should use it to stifle scandal.”
The arrest of the Cardinal could only have been justified by his
conviction. It was a question of his honour or the Queen’s. Thirty
years before it would have been an easy matter to find him guilty, but
the spirit of disrespect for a tyrannized and stupid authority which
was beginning to assert itself everywhere made Rohan’s conviction
extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible. For Louis XVI, from
a mistaken sense of equity which was interpreted as weakness, allowed
the Parliament to try him.
This was the height of folly. For sixty years there had been war
between the Court and the Parliament. In the truce which had taken
place on the accession of Louis XVI, the members had resumed their
deliberations more imbued than ever with the spirit of resistance;
embittered by a long exile they regarded their recall as a victory.
Thus to give the Parliament the power of determining the guilt or
innocence of the Cardinal, which was in reality that of the Queen
herself, was to take an acknowledged enemy for a judge.
When the news of the Cardinal’s arrest reached the Parliament, one of
the most popular members--he afterwards perished on the guillotine like
most of them--cried out, rubbing his hands, “Grand and joyful business!
A Cardinal in a swindle! The Queen implicated in a forgery! Filth on
the crook and on the sceptre! What a triumph for ideas of liberty! How
important for the Parliament!”
In such circumstances it is not surprising that the trial of the
Cardinal and his _co-accusés_ should become, as Mirabeau wrote, “the
most serious affair in the kingdom.”
The great family of Rohan left no stone unturned to save the honour of
their name. To assist them--but inspired by quite other motives--they
had all the enemies of the Queen and the Ministry, as well as the
people who considered the Cardinal the victim of despotism. Women in
particular were all for la Belle Eminence. It was the fashion to wear
ribbons half red and half yellow, the former representing the Cardinal,
the latter the straw on which he was supposed to lie in the Bastille.
_Cardinal sur la paille_ was the name of the ribbon, which was worn
even in the palace of Versailles itself.
To save the honour of the throne the Government was obliged to descend
into the arena and fight the forces arrayed against it. The attention
of the civilized world was thus riveted on the trial, which lasted
nine months. No detail was kept secret, accounts were published daily
in which the slightest incident was recorded. France and Europe were
inundated with libels and calumnies in which the reputations of all
concerned were torn to shreds.
Throw enough mud and some of it is sure to stick. It took more than
half a century to cleanse the honour of Marie Antoinette of all
suspicion of connivance in the theft of the necklace.
The mistrust that mystery and magic always inspire made Cagliostro with
his fantastic personality an easy target for calumny. After having
been riddled with abuse till he was unrecognizable, prejudice, the
foster-child of calumny, proceeded to lynch him, so to speak. For over
one hundred years his character has dangled on the gibbet of infamy,
upon which the _sbirri_ of tradition have inscribed a curse on any one
who shall attempt to cut him down.
His fate has been his fame. He is remembered in history, not so much
for anything he did, as for what was done to him. The Diamond Necklace
Affair, in which the old _régime_ and the new met in their duel to
the death, was Cagliostro’s damnation. In judging him to-day, it is
absolutely essential to bear in mind the unparalleled lack of scruple
with which the Government and its enemies contested this trial.
II
Implicated in her swindle by the Countess de Lamotte, to whose
accusations his close intimacy with the Cardinal gave weight,
Cagliostro was arrested at seven in the morning by Inspector Brugnière,
accompanied by Commissary Chesnon and eight policemen.
“He desired me,” says Cagliostro, who has described his arrest in
detail, “to deliver up my keys, and compelled me to open my bureau,
which I did. There were in it several of my remedies, amongst the rest
six bottles of a precious cordial. Brugnière seized on whatever he
took a fancy to, and the catchpoles he had brought with him followed
his example. The only favour I asked was that I might be permitted
to go in my own carriage to the place of my destination. This was
refused. I then requested to be allowed the use of a cab; this also was
denied. Proud of making a show of his prey to the thronging multitude,
Brugnière insisted on my walking part of the way; and although I was
perfectly submissive and did not make the least shadow of resistance
he laid hold of me by the collar. In this way, closely surrounded by
four _sbirri_, I was dragged along the Boulevards as far as the Rue
Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, where a cab appearing, I was mercifully thrust
into it and driven the rest of the way to the Bastille.”
The admiration amounting almost to veneration that Cagliostro inspired
was shared only by his followers--of whom, however, he could count
several thousands, it is said, in Paris. On the other hand, the
curiosity which he had excited was general and anything but reverent.
The exaggerated enthusiasm of his followers, the incredible stories
related of him, and the extreme seriousness with which he took himself
made him ridiculous. If he was the chief subject of conversation in
all classes in Paris, it was as a subject of mirth. In the drama of
the Necklace Affair it was to him that the public looked to supply
the comic relief. He was by common consent the clown, the funny man
of the play, so to speak. He had but to appear on the scene to raise
a laugh, his slightest gesture produced a roar, when he spoke he
convulsed the house. But to Cagliostro his rôle was very far from
comic. The consciousness of innocence is not necessarily a consolation
in adversity. It poisons as often as it stimulates--according to the
temperament. Cagliostro was utterly crushed by the blow that had fallen
on him. The gloom of the Bastille, which the popular imagination
haunted by old legends made deeper than it was, seemed to chill his
very soul. He who had faced with “a front of brass” all the previous
dangers and humiliations of his agitated existence was for the
first time cowed. Illuminist, Egyptian Mason, Mystic Regenerator of
Mankind--Revolutionist, in a word--he had no confidence in the justice
of the power into whose hands he had fallen. He believed that he would
be forgotten in his dungeon like so many others.
The severity with which he was treated was calculated to justify his
fears.
“Were I left to choose,” he says, “between an ignominious death, and
six months in the Bastille, I would say without hesitation, ‘Lead me on
to the scaffold.’”
For five months he was not only in ignorance, but purposely
misinformed, as to what was transpiring without his prison. During this
time the beautiful Countess, less rigorously guarded, was confined
near him without his knowledge. As soon as Brugnière had carried off
her husband, Chesnon and the police, who had remained behind after
searching for incriminating documents which they did not find, attached
seals to the house and carried her off too, “half dead with fear,” to
the Bastille. In response to Cagliostro’s repeated inquiries as to
whether she shared his captivity, as he feared, his jailers “swore by
their honour and God that she was not in the Bastille.”
This deception was even carried to the length of permitting him to
write letters to her which never reached her, and to receive replies
which she never wrote, “in which she assured him that she was taking
steps to restore him to freedom.” As the Countess Cagliostro could
not write, a friend was supposed to write the letters for her. In the
same way if he wanted clothes or linen he would dispatch a line to his
wife, and an official would go to his house and fetch what he required,
bringing back a letter from the Countess calculated to make him believe
that they had been sent by her.
At the same time the Cardinal was living in almost as much comfort as
if he had been in his own palace. He occupied a spacious apartment,
had three of his servants to wait on him, and saw as many people as he
wished. The number of his visitors was so great that the drawbridge of
the Bastille was kept lowered throughout the day. On one occasion he
even “gave a dinner of twenty covers.”
As money--and Cagliostro had plenty of it--like rank, was able to
purchase equal consideration in the Bastille, the contrast in the
treatment of the two prisoners almost warrants the supposition that the
jailers derived no little amusement from making sport of the sufferings
of one who was alleged to be immune from those ills to which mere clay
is prone. There are many people to whom a weeping Pierrot is as funny
as a laughing one.
It was not till his despondency, on discovering as he eventually did
that his wife was a prisoner like himself, threatened to affect his
reason that the severity of his confinement was relaxed. To prevent
him from committing suicide, Thiroux de Crosne, the minister who had
issued the warrant for his arrest, advised de Launay, the Governor of
the Bastille, “to choose a warder, likely to be sympathetic, to sleep
in his cell.” He was also permitted, like the other prisoners, to have
exercise and to select a lawyer to defend him.
The first use he made of this privilege was to petition the
Parliament--“to release his wife from a dungeon, where a man himself
had occasion for all his strength, all his fortitude, and all his
resignation to struggle against despair.”
The Bastille was too massive a cage for so delicate a bird. Implicated
without the shadow of a reason in the Necklace Affair the Countess
Cagliostro began to imagine herself ill. She pined for her fine
house, her admirers, her diamonds, her black mare Djérid, and the
companionship of the man to whom she owed all that spelt happiness
in her inoffensive, doll-like existence. Moved to pity less by the
petition of Cagliostro than by the pleading of her lawyer, Polverit,
and the eloquence of d’Epremenil, the most brilliant member of the
Parliament, that body was finally persuaded to set her free without a
trial after having been imprisoned seven months in the Bastille.
The release of the Countess Cagliostro, to which the Court was bitterly
opposed, was the first reverse of the Government in the duel to which
it had so foolishly challenged public opinion.
No sooner was the news known than friends and strangers alike came to
congratulate her. For more than a week nearly three hundred people
came daily to inscribe their names in the visitors’ book kept by the
concierge.
“It is the perfection of good style,” says one of the newswriters of
the period, “to have made a call on the Countess Seraphina.”
“Even the ‘nymphs’ of the Palais Royal,” says d’Alméras, “discreetly
manifested their sympathy with the victim of arbitrary power on
recognizing her as she walked one day in the gardens.”
III
Madame de Lamotte in the meantime, utterly undaunted by her
imprisonment, was energetically preparing for the trial, which, in
spite of all her efforts, was to end in her conviction. Her defence
was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. She contradicted herself
with brazen effrontery, accused Cagliostro, the Cardinal, and at last
the Queen, of swindling Böhmer of the necklace. She did not hesitate
to defame herself by declaring that she had been the mistress of the
Cardinal--which was as false as the rest of her evidence--and, as each
lie became untenable, took refuge in another, even admitting that she
was lying “to shelter an exalted personage.” In only one thing was she
consistent; to the end she asserted her complete innocence. Her object
was to confuse the issue and so wriggle herself free.
In the first of her _mémoires justificatifs_, which were printed
and sold in accordance with the legal custom of the day, she boldly
charged Cagliostro with the robbery of the necklace. He was represented
as an impostor to make him the more easily appear a swindler. To
penetrate the mystery in which he had wrapped his origin she invented
for him a low and shameful past, which the editor of the _Courier
de l’Europe_ and the Inquisition-biographer afterwards merged into
Giuseppe Balsamo’s. She ridiculed his cures, and cited the Medical
Faculty as witnesses of the deaths he had caused. She declared his
disinterestedness and his generosity to be a fraud, and accused him of
practising in private the vices he denounced in public. Having stripped
him of the last stitch of respectability she proceeded to expose the
woman who passed as his wife, and whose _liaisons_ with the Cardinal
and others she declared he encouraged. As for the wonders he was said
to perform they were not even worthy of the name of tricks; only fools
were taken in by them. In fine, to Madame de Lamotte, the Grand Cophta
was nothing but “an arch empiric, a mean alchemist, a dreamer on the
philosophers stone, a false prophet, and a Jew who had taken to pieces
the necklace which he had beguiled the Cardinal, over whom he had
gained an incredible influence, to entrust to him, in order to swell a
fortune unheard of before.”
This _mémoire_--the first of many which the various persons implicated
in the Affair rained upon the public--was to an impatient world the
signal that the battle had begun. Excitement, already at fever heat,
was intensified by the boldness, directness and violence of Madame de
Lamotte’s denunciation. It was felt that to justify himself Cagliostro
would be obliged to clear up the mystery of his past. Never before
had the “Grand Coffer,” as he was called by a police official who
unwittingly confounded the title and the fortune of the restorer of
Egyptian Masonry, roused curiosity to so high a pitch. The recollection
of his reputed prodigies gave to his expected self-revelation the
character of an evocation, so to speak; and the public, as ready to
mock as it had formerly been to respect him, awaited his defence as a
sort of magic séance at which all the tricks of necromancy were to be
explained.
Cagliostro employed to defend him Thilorier, one of the youngest
and most promising advocates of the Parisian bar. Perhaps no _cause
célèbre_ in history has ever called forth a more brilliant display of
legal talent than the Diamond Necklace Affair. Of all the _mémoires_
or statements that were published by the advocates engaged in the case
that of Thilorier created the greatest sensation.
Warned by the tumult occasioned by the rush of purchasers who had
besieged the house of Madame de Lamotte’s advocate on the publication
of her _mémoire_, Thilorier took the precaution to secure eight
soldiers of the watch to guard his door. Within a few hours tens of
thousands of copies were scattered over Paris, and large editions were
dispatched to the principal cities of Europe. It was regarded as a
romance after the style of the _Arabian Nights_ rather than the serious
defence of a man whose liberty and very life were at stake. Everywhere
people read it with a sort of amused bewilderment, and “Thilorier
himself,” says Beugnot, “who was a man of infinite wit, was the first
to laugh at it.”
As a masterpiece of irony, clearness, dignity, and wit it was equalled
only by Blondel’s defence of the “Baroness d’Oliva.” But its chief
merit lay not so much in the piquancy of its literary style as in its
portrayal of Cagliostro. Those who read this fantastic document felt
that they not only saw the man but could hear him speak. Thilorier had
drawn his hero to the life.
Beginning with a high-flown and egotistical recapitulation of
his sufferings and virtues Cagliostro proceeded to refute “those
imputations (as to his origin) which in any other circumstance he would
have treated with contempt” by relating “with candour” the history of
his life. As a specimen of his grandiloquence it is worth quoting at
some length.
“I cannot,” he says, “speak positively as to the place of my nativity,
nor to the parents who gave me birth. All my inquiries have ended only
in giving me some great notions, it is true, but altogether vague and
uncertain, concerning my family.
“I spent the years of my childhood in the city of Medina in Arabia.
There I was brought up under the name of Acharat, which I preserved
during my progress through Africa and Asia. I had my apartments in the
palace of the Muphti Salahaym. It is needless to add that the Muphti is
the chief of the Mahometan religion, and that his constant residence is
at Medina.
“I recollect perfectly that I had then four persons attached to my
service: a governor, between fifty-five and sixty years of age, whose
name was Althotas,[33] and three servants, a white one who attended me
as _valet de chambre_ and two blacks, one of whom was constantly about
me night and day.
“My governor always told me that I had been left an orphan when only
about three months old, that my parents were Christians and nobly born;
but he left me absolutely in the dark about their names and the place
of my nativity. Some words, however, which he let fall by chance have
induced me to suspect that I was born at Malta. Althotas, whose name I
cannot speak without the tenderest emotion, treated me with great care
and all the attention of a father. He thought to develop the talent I
displayed for the sciences. I may truly say that he knew them all, from
the most abstruse down to those of mere amusement. My greatest aptitude
was for the study of botany and chemistry.
“By him I was taught to worship God, to love and assist my neighbours,
and to respect everywhere religion and the laws. We both dressed like
Mahometans and conformed outwardly to the worship of Islam; but the
true religion was imprinted in our hearts.
“The Muphti, who often visited me, always treated me with great
goodness and seemed to entertain the highest regard for my governor.
The latter instructed me in most of the Eastern languages. He would
often converse with me on the pyramids of Egypt, on those vast
subterraneous caves dug out by the ancient Egyptians, to be the
repository of human knowledge and to shelter the precious trust from
the injuries of time.
“The desire of travelling and of beholding the wonders of which he
spoke grew so strong upon me, that Medina and my youthful sports there
lost all the allurements I had found in them before. At last, when I
was in my twelfth year, Althotas informed me one day that we were going
to commence our travels. A caravan was prepared and we set out, after
having taken our leave of the Muphti, who was pleased to express his
concern at our departure in the most obliging manner.
“On our arrival at Mecca we alighted at the palace of the Cherif. Here
Althotas provided me with sumptuous apparel and presented me to the
Cherif, who honoured me with the most endearing caresses. At sight of
this prince my senses experienced a sudden emotion, which it is not in
the power of words to express, and my eyes dropped the most delicious
tears I have ever shed in my life. His, I perceived, he could hardly
contain.
“I remained at Mecca for the space of three years; not a day passed
without my being admitted to the sovereign’s presence, and every
hour increased his attachment and added to my gratitude. I sometimes
surprised his gaze riveted upon me, and turned to heaven with every
expression of pity and commiseration. Thoughtful, I would go from him a
prey to an ever-fruitless curiosity. I dared not question Althotas, who
always rebuked me with great severity, as if it had been a crime in me
to wish for some information concerning my parents and the place where
I was born. I attempted in vain to get the secret from the negro who
slept in my apartment. If I chanced to talk of my parents he would turn
a deaf ear to my questions. But one night when I was more pressing than
usual, he told me that if ever I should leave Mecca I was threatened
with the greatest misfortunes, and bid me, above all, _beware of the
city of Trebizond_.
“My inclination, however, got the better of his forebodings--I was
tired of the uniformity of life I led at the Cherifs court. One day
when I was alone the prince entered my apartment; he strained me to
his bosom with more than usual tenderness, bid me never cease to adore
the Almighty, and added, bedewing my cheeks with his tears: ‘_Nature’s
unfortunate child, adieu!_’
“This was our last interview. The caravan waited only for me and I set
off, leaving Mecca, never to re-enter it more.
“I directed my course first to Egypt, where I inspected those
celebrated pyramids which to the eye of the superficial observer only
appear an enormous mass of marble and granite. I also got acquainted
with the priests of the various temples, who had the complacence to
introduce me into such places as no ordinary traveller ever entered
before. The next three years of my progress were spent in the principal
kingdoms of Africa and Asia. Accompanied by Althotas, and the three
attendants who continued in my service, I arrived in 1766 at the island
of Rhodes, and there embarked on a French ship bound to Malta.
“Notwithstanding the general rule by which all vessels coming from the
Levant are obliged to enter quarantine, I obtained on the second day
leave to go ashore. Pinto, the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta,
gave us apartments in his palace, and I perfectly recollect that mine
were near the laboratory.
“The first thing the Grand Master was pleased to do, was to request
the Chevalier d’Aquino, of the princely house of Caramanica, to bear me
company and do me the honours of the island. It was here that I first
assumed European dress and with it the name of Count Cagliostro; nor
was it a small matter of surprise to me to see Althotas appear in a
clerical dress with the insignia of the Order of Malta.
“I have every reason to believe that the Grand Master Pinto was
acquainted with my real origin. He often spoke to me of the Cherif
and mentioned the city of Trebizond, but never would consent to enter
into further particulars on the subject. Meanwhile he treated me with
the utmost distinction, and assured me of very rapid preferment if I
would consent to take the cross. But my taste for travelling and the
predominant desire of practising medicine, induced me to decline an
offer that was as generous as it was honourable.
“It was in the island of Malta that I had the misfortune of losing my
best friend and master, the wisest as well as the most learned of men,
the venerable Althotas. Some minutes before he expired, pressing my
hand, he said in a feeble voice, ‘My son, keep for ever before your
eyes the fear of God and the love of your fellow-creatures; you will
soon be convinced by experience of what you have been taught by me.’
“The spot where I had parted for ever from the friend who had been
as a father to me, soon became odious. I begged leave of the Grand
Master to quit the island in order to travel over Europe; he consented
reluctantly, and the Chevalier d’Aquino was so obliging as to accompany
me. Our first trip was to Sicily, from thence we went to the different
islands of the Greek Archipelago, and returning, arrived at Naples,
the birthplace of my companion.
“The Chevalier, owing to his own private affairs, being obliged to
undertake a private journey, I proceeded alone to Rome, provided
with a letter of credit on the banking house of Signor Bellone.
In the capital of the Christian world I resolved upon keeping the
strictest _incognito_. One morning, as I was shut up in my apartment,
endeavouring to improve myself in the Italian language, my _valet de
chambre_ introduced to my presence the secretary of Cardinal Orsini,
who requested me to wait on his Eminence. I repaired at once to his
palace and was received with the most flattering civility. The Cardinal
often invited me to his table and procured me the acquaintance of
several cardinals and Roman princes, amongst others, Cardinals York and
Ganganelli, who was afterwards Pope Clement XIV. Pope Rezzonico, who
then filled the papal chair, having expressed a desire of seeing me, I
had the honour of frequent private interviews with his Holiness.
“I was then (1770) in my twenty-second year, when by chance I met
a young lady of quality, Seraphina Feliciani, whose budding charms
kindled in my bosom a flame which sixteen years of marriage have only
served to strengthen. It is that unfortunate woman, whom neither her
virtues, her innocence, nor her quality of stranger could save from the
hardships of a captivity as cruel as it is unmerited.”
From this stage of his Odyssey, beyond citing as references certain
persons by whom he was known in the various countries through which
he passed, Cagliostro was very reticent as to his doings. From
Rome he arrived at Strasburg at a bound, whence he proceeded to his
imprisonment in the Bastille with almost equal speed. His confession,
rendering as it did his country and parentage more mysterious than
ever, was received with derision. The credulous public, which had
swallowed so easily all the extravagant stories concerning his
supernatural powers refused to believe in this fantastic account of
a mysterious childhood passed in Mecca and Medina, of caravans and
pyramids, of tolerant Muphtis and benignant Grand Masters of Malta. It
was not that the credulity of the eighteenth century had its limit but
that calumny had mesmerized it, so to speak. Cagliostro’s prestige had
been submerged in the Necklace Affair; the blight of the Bastille had
fallen on the fame of the Grand Cophta and all his works.
As the manner in which he stated his ignorance of his birth seemed to
leave it to be inferred that he knew more than he wished to say, it
was determined to give him a father. While his enemies agreed with the
Countess de Lamotte that he was the son of a Neapolitan coachman, his
friends declared him to be the offspring of the illicit loves of the
Grand Master Pinto and a princess of Trebizond. To account for the
meeting of this singular pair it was gravely asserted that a Maltese
galley had captured a Turkish pleasure-boat with several young ladies
of distinction on board, one of whom had _exchanged hearts_ with Pinto,
who, prevented by his vow of celibacy from making her his wife, had
sent her back to her disconsolate parents, and that to frustrate their
rage at the condition in which she had returned she had caused her
child as soon as it was born to be spirited away to Arabia, which
accounted for the mysterious warning Acharat had received from the
black slave “to beware of Trebizond.”
Ridicule, however, soon disposed of this agreeable fable, and
substituted instead the popular Balsamo legend in which _just as much
as it has pleased subsequent biographers to accept of Cagliostro’s
confession_ has been included. As to whether he spoke the truth wholly
or partly or not at all, the present writer, confronted with his
mysterious and fantastic character on the one hand and the assertions
based on the prejudice of a century on the other, is unable to express
any opinion. It seems, however, hard to believe that any man placed
in so serious a situation as Cagliostro, and one which, moreover, had
thoroughly shaken his courage, would have ventured to invent a story
calculated to increase the suspicion it was his object to allay. To
the present generation, accustomed by the press to infinitely greater
improbabilities, Cagliostro’s adventures in Mecca and Medina have at
least lost the air of incredibility.
IV
As may be surmised from the cursory account of the Diamond Necklace
Affair already given, Cagliostro had no difficulty in proving his
innocence. The mere comparison of the dates of the various incidents of
the imbroglio with his own whereabouts at the time was sufficient to
vindicate him.
Throughout the whole of 1784, while the Cardinal was corresponding, as
he supposed, with the Queen, meeting her in the park of Versailles,
and purchasing the necklace, Cagliostro was in Bordeaux and Lyons. He
did not arrive in Paris till January 30, 1785; it was on February 1
that the Cardinal gave the necklace to Madame de Lamotte to hand to
the Queen. Accordingly, if Cagliostro had ever even seen the necklace,
it could only have been between January 30 and February 1 when Böhmer
had already obtained the Cardinal’s guarantee in exchange for his
precious jewel. This, however, he denied. “It was not,” he said, “till
a fortnight before the Cardinal was arrested that he informed me for
the first time of the transaction about the necklace.”
But Cagliostro was not content with merely establishing his innocence.
Madame de Lamotte’s attack on his character had deeply wounded him in
his most sensitive spot--his vanity--and pride would not suffer him to
ignore her gibes.
She had described him as “an arch empiric, a mean alchemist, a dreamer
on the philosopher’s stone, a false prophet, and a profaner of the true
religion.”
“Empiric,” he said, refuting each epithet in turn, not without a
certain dignity; “this word I have often heard without knowing exactly
what it meant. If it means one who without being a doctor has some
knowledge of medicine and takes no fee, who attends to rich and poor
alike and receives no money from either, then I confess I am an empiric.
“Mean alchemist. Alchemist or not, the epithet _mean_ is applicable
only to those who beg or cringe, and it is well known whether Count
Cagliostro ever asked a favour of any one.
“Dreamer on the philosopher’s stone. Whatever my opinion may be
concerning the philosopher’s stone, I have kept it to myself and never
troubled the public with my dreams.
“False prophet. Not always so. Had the Cardinal taken my advice he
would not be in the position in which he now finds himself. I told him
more than once that the Countess de Lamotte was a deceitful, intriguing
woman, and to beware of her.
“Profaner of the true religion. This is more serious. I have respected
religion at all times. My life and my outward conduct I freely submit
to the inquiries of the law. As to what passes inwardly God alone has a
right to call me to account.”
Cagliostro also took advantage of the occasion to deny the oft-repeated
assertion that he was a Jew.
“My education,” he said, “as I have already declared, was that of a
child born of Christian parents. I never was a Jew or a Mahometan.
These two religions leave on their sectaries an _outward_ and
_indelible_ mark. The truth, therefore, of what I here advance may be
ascertained; and rather than let any doubt remain on this affair, I am
ready, if required, to yield to a verification more shameful for him
who exacts it than for the person who submits to it.”[34]
When he was confronted with Madame de Lamotte the scene in court was in
the highest degree comic. The Countess, who had an unbounded contempt
for the occult in general, covered the séances of Cagliostro with
ridicule. She described one at which she had been present as a swindle,
and reproached him with having exploited the credulity of the Cardinal
by the most vulgar methods and for the most sordid motives. His
Eminence, she asserted, was so bewitched that he consulted Cagliostro
on “the pricking of a thumb,” which made her “regret she did not live
in those blessed times when a charge of sorcery would have led him to
the stake.”
But while she attempted to overwhelm the unfortunate creature she had
chosen to saddle with her own guilt, he dexterously turned the tables
upon her. Assuming that her calumnies were inspired by the desire
to clear herself rather than hatred, “he forgave her the tears of
bitterness she had caused him to shed.”
“Do not imagine,” he said, with the air of sublime bombast that
was characteristic of him, “that my moderation is a piece of mere
affectation. From the bottom of the abyss into which you have plunged
me I shall raise my voice to implore in your behalf the clemency of the
laws; and if, after my innocence and that of my wife is acknowledged,
the best of kings should think an unfortunate stranger who had settled
in France on the faith of his royal word, of the laws of hospitality,
and of the common rights of nations is entitled to some indemnity,
the only satisfaction I shall require will be that his Majesty may be
pleased, at my request, to pardon and set at liberty the unfortunate
Countess de Lamotte. However guilty she may be supposed, she is already
sufficiently punished. Alas! as I have been taught by sad experience,
there is no crime ever so great but may be atoned for by six months in
the Bastille!”
_Blague_ or conviction, at such a moment, it would be churlish to
inquire. When one is fighting for life and liberty one readily avails
oneself of any weapon that comes to hand. At least so thought Madame
de Lamotte. Failing further abuse of which she had been deprived by a
_riposte_ as unexpected as it was subtle, she picked up a candlestick.
Hurled at the head of her adversary, it “hit him in the stomach,” to
the amusement of the court, the judges and Madame de Lamotte herself,
who remarked to her counsel that “if he wished to render the scene
still more amusing he had but to give her a broomstick.”
But neither abusive epithets nor candlesticks are arguments. Finding
herself on the wrong road, the Countess made haste to leave it for
another. It was no longer Cagliostro who had stolen the necklace, but
the Cardinal.
At last, after more than nine months, the famous affair came to an end.
On May 30, 1786, all the accused were summoned before the Parliament.
When Cagliostro arrived, tricked out as usual like a mountebank in
a coat of green silk embroidered with gold, and his hair falling in
little tails on his shoulders, the whole assemblage burst into a laugh.
But to him it was anything but an occasion for merriment; he was
serious to the point of solemnity.
“Who are you?” asked the president.
“An illustrious traveller,” was the reply. Then with imperturbable
gravity he began in his loud, metallic voice, which Madame d’Oberkirch
compared to a “trumpet veiled in crape,” to repeat the story of his
life.
At the mention of Trebizond the laughter redoubled. This made him
nervous, and either unconsciously from old habit, or in the hope of
exciting an interest favourable to his cause, he related his adventures
in a jargon composed, says Beugnot, “of all known languages as well as
those which never existed.” The gibberish he employed rendered him and
his story still more fantastic. The laughter in the court was so loud
that at times the voice of the speaker was drowned. Even the judges
were convulsed. At the finish the president seemed to be on the point
of complimenting “Nature’s unfortunate child.” It was evident that
Cagliostro had won the sympathy of those on whom his fate depended.
Of the verdict of the mob there was no doubt. He took the cheers
with which he was greeted on being driven back to the Bastille as a
premonition of his acquittal. One writer says he displayed the joy he
felt “by throwing his hat into the air.”
* * * * *
On the following day (May 31) the Parliament pronounced the verdict.
The Cardinal and Cagliostro were unanimously acquitted--the innocence
of the latter had been acknowledged by all implicated in the trial,
even in the end by the Countess de Lamotte herself.[35]
The verdict was immensely popular. “I don’t know what would have
befallen the Parliament,” said Mirabeau, “had they pronounced
otherwise.” The fish-wives--the same who later were the Furies of the
Revolution--forcibly embraced the judges and crowned them with flowers.
In the street the name of the Cardinal was cheered to the echo. The
ovation he received, however, was inspired less from any desire of the
populace to acclaim him personally than to affront the Queen.
It was also to the violent hatred of the Court that Cagliostro owed
the reception accorded him. His account of the scenes that took place
on his deliverance from captivity would do credit to the lachrymose
romances of the “age of sensibility.”
“I quitted the Bastille,” he says, “about half-past eleven in the
evening. The night was dark, the quarter in which I resided but little
frequented. What was my surprise, then, to hear myself acclaimed by
eight or ten thousand persons. My door was forced open; the courtyard,
the staircase, the rooms were crowded with people. I was carried
straight to the arms of my wife. At such a moment my heart could not
contain all the feelings which strove for mastery in it. My knees gave
way beneath me. I fell on the floor unconscious. With a shriek my wife
sank into a swoon. Our friends pressed around us, uncertain whether the
most beautiful moment of our life would not be the last. The anxiety
spread from one to the other, the noise of the drums was no longer
heard. A sad silence followed the delirious joy. I recovered. A torrent
of tears streamed from my eyes, and I was able at last, without dying,
to press to my heart ... I will say no more. Oh, you privileged beings
to whom heaven has made the rare and fatal gift of an ardent soul and
a sensitive heart, you who have experienced the delights of a first
love, you alone will understand me, you alone will appreciate what
after ten months of torture the first moment of bliss is like!”
Both Cagliostro and the Cardinal were obliged to show themselves at
the windows of their respective houses before the crowds, which were
cheering them and hissing the name of the Queen, could be induced to
disperse.
To Marie Antoinette, whose popularity was for ever blasted by the
trial, the verdict of the Parliament was an insult--as it was meant to
be--which intolerable though it was, she would have been wise to have
borne in silence. But it was her fate to the last to hold the honour of
the woman higher than the majesty of the Queen. Having made the blunder
of arresting the Cardinal and suffering the Parliament to try him, the
King, advised by her, now committed the folly of showing his resentment
of the verdict, which had after all, in the eye of the law, cleared
his consort of complicity in the swindle. On June 2, the day after
his release from the Bastille, Rohan was stripped of all his Court
dignities and functions, and exiled to one of his abbeys in Auvergne.
At the same time, Cagliostro was also ordered to leave Paris with his
wife within a week, and France within three.
The news no sooner became known than an immense concourse of people
flocked to manifest their disapproval in front of the house of the
Grand Cophta. But if he mistook their demonstration of hatred of
the Queen as a sign of sympathy for himself, popularity under such
conditions was too fraught with danger for him to take any pleasure
in it. Terrified lest the Government should seize the opportunity of
thrusting him back into the Bastille, he came out on the balcony of his
house and entreated the mob to withdraw quietly, and then hurriedly
left Paris.
He went first to Passy, whither he was followed by a small band of his
most faithful adherents, who during the few days he remained there
mounted guard in the house in which he had taken shelter. A fortnight
later he embarked from Boulogne with his wife for England. Upwards of
five thousand people are said to have witnessed his departure, many
of whom demanded and received his farewell blessing on their knees.
France, on a page of whose history he had indelibly printed his name,
never saw him more.
* * * * *
There is an old and uncorroborated report that he who had always been
so punctilious in the discharge of his liabilities left Paris without
paying his rent. It appears to have arisen from the action that he
afterwards brought against the magistrate Chesnon and de Launay,
the governor of the Bastille, to recover property valued at 100,000
livres which he declared had been stolen from his house during his
imprisonment and for which he sought to hold them responsible. His
failure to substantiate the charge gave it the appearance of having
been trumped up. Whether it had any basis in fact it is impossible to
say, but there can be no doubt from the manner in which the police
turned his house upside down at the time he and his wife were arrested,
as well as from the carelessness with which the official seals were
affixed, that many valuable articles might easily have been spirited
away in the confusion by unscrupulous servants and even by the police
themselves.
If Cagliostro, however, failed to pay his rent the proprietor of
the house certainly took the matter very lightly. “His house,” says
Lenôtre, “remained closed till the Revolution. In 1805 the doors were
opened for the first time in eighteen years when the owner sold the
Grand Cophta’s furniture by auction.” Surely a very long time to wait
to indemnify oneself for unpaid rent?
A curious interest attaches to this house, which is still standing,
though long since shorn of its splendour in the days when the Cardinal
and the aristocracy of the old _régime_ came to assist at Cagliostro’s
magic séances. Yet in the meantime it has not been without a history.
In 1855 the doors of the gateway were removed during some process of
repair and replaced by doors which had formerly done service at the
Temple where the Royal Family were incarcerated after the fall of the
monarchy. They may be still seen with their heavy bolts and huge locks.
What a fatality--the doors of Marie Antoinette’s prison closing
Cagliostro’s house! History has her irony as well as her romance.
CHAPTER VII
CAGLIOSTRO RETURNS TO LONDON
I
If ever a man had cause to be embittered and to nurse a grievance it
was Cagliostro. He had been cast suddenly headlong, through no fault of
his own, from the pinnacle of good fortune into the Bastille; accused
of another’s crime; arrested with the utmost brutality and treated
with outrageous severity; kept in uncertainty of the fate of his
wife, who for six months, unknown to him, was confined within fifteen
feet of him; he had been an object of ridicule and mockery within, of
calumny and detraction without his prison, of which the name alone was
sufficient to reduce him to despair; then--crowning injustice--after
being acquitted on every count in a manner that could leave no doubt
of his innocence, he had been arbitrarily banished within twenty-four
hours of the recovery of his liberty.
Under such circumstances resentment is perfectly natural and
justifiable. To “take it lying down,” as the saying is, at all times a
doubtful virtue, becomes frequently a downright folly.
Had Cagliostro been silent in the present instance with the protecting
arm of the sea between him and a corrupt and blundering despotism
he would have been utterly undeserving of pity. In “getting even,”
however, to his credit be it said, he did not adopt the methods of
the _Rohanists_, as all the enemies of the Government were called, and
launch, like Calonne, Madame de Lamotte and so many others, libel after
libel at the honour of the defenceless and unpopular Queen--the low and
contemptible revenge of low and contemptible natures. On the contrary,
he held the Baron de Breteuil, as the head of the Government, directly
responsible for his sufferings and attacked him once and once only, in
his famous _Letter to the French People_.[36]
This letter, written the day after his arrival in England, to a
friend in Paris, was immediately published in pamphlet form, and even
translated into several languages. Scattered broadcast over Paris
and all France it created an immense sensation. Directed against
Breteuil, whose unpopularity, already great, it increased, it assailed
more or less openly the monarchical principle itself. Of all the
pamphlets which from the Necklace Affair to the fall of the Bastille
attacked the royal authority none are so dignified or so eloquent.
The longing for freedom, which was latent in the bosom of every man
and which the philosophers and the secret societies had been doing
their best to fan into a flame, was revealed in every line. It was not
unreasonably regarded as the confession of faith of an Illuminé. The
Inquisition-biographer declares that it was conceived in a spirit so
calculated to excite a revolt that “it was with difficulty a printer
could be found in England to print it.” Cagliostro himself admits that
it was written with “a freedom rather republican.”[37]
This letter gave great offence to the French Government and
particularly to the Baron de Breteuil who dominated it, and whose
conduct in the Necklace Affair sufficiently proves his unfitness for
the post he filled. Under ordinary circumstances he would no doubt
have ignored the attack upon himself. His pride, the pride of an
aristocrat--he was the personification of reaction--would have scorned
to notice the insult of one so far beneath him as Cagliostro. But the
prestige of the Government and the majesty of the throne damaged by
the unspeakable calumnies of the Necklace Affair had to be considered.
Might not the sensation caused by the inflammatory _Letter to the
French People_ encourage the author to follow it up by other and
still more seditious pamphlets? There was but one way to prevent this
contingency--_to kidnap him_. For not only would it be impossible to
persuade the English Government to give him up, but futile to attempt
to purchase silence from one who had a grievance and made it his boast
that he never took payment for the favours he conferred.
Before the days of extradition, kidnapping was a practice more or less
common to all governments. Eighteenth century history, particularly
that of France, is full of such instances.[38] Breteuil was, therefore,
merely following precedent when he ordered Barthélemy, the French
Ambassador in London, to inform Cagliostro that “His Most Christian
Majesty gave him permission to return to his dominions.”
This permission, was, accordingly, duly conveyed to Cagliostro, with
the request that he would call at a certain hour on the following
day at the Embassy when the ambassador would give him any further
information on the subject he desired. It is exceedingly unlikely that
Barthélemy intended to forcibly detain him when he called, but rather
to gull him by false pretences--a not difficult proceeding in the case
of one so notoriously vain as Cagliostro--into returning to France. Be
this as it may, on calling on the ambassador at the appointed hour he
prudently invited Lord George Gordon and one Bergeret de Frouville, an
admirer who had followed him from France, to accompany him. This they
not only did, but insisted in being present throughout the interview.
Nettled by this veiled suggestion of treachery, Barthélemy received his
visitor in a manner which served to confirm this impression. Producing
a letter from the Baron de Breteuil he informed Cagliostro that he was
authorized to give him permission to return to France. But Cagliostro,
having taken no steps to obtain this permission was naturally
suspicious of the source from which it emanated.
“How is it possible,” he asked, “that a simple letter of the Baron de
Breteuil should be able to revoke the _lettre de cachet_ signed by the
King himself, by which I was exiled? I tell you, sir, I can recognize
neither M. de Breteuil nor his orders.”
He then begged Barthélemy to let him have the letter or a copy of it.
The ambassador, however, for some inexplicable reason saw fit to refuse
the request, whereupon the interview ended.
There was certainly nothing unreasonable in the request.
“Without having some proof of my permission to return to France,”
says Cagliostro in the letter he subsequently wrote to the _Public
Advertiser_, “how could I have answered the Governor of Boulogne or
Calais when I was asked by what authority I returned? I should at once
have been made a prisoner.”
The next day Lord George Gordon publicly constituted himself the
champion of Cagliostro in a letter to the _Public Advertiser_, in
which he made an outrageous and utterly unjustifiable attack on Marie
Antoinette. No better illustration could be given of the spirit in
which the established authorities sought to crush the revolutionary
tendency of the times, which had begun to manifest itself, than the
price that Lord George was made to pay for his libel. Exasperated by
the insults and calumnies that were now continually directed against
his unpopular consort, Louis XVI ordered his ambassador in London to
bring an action against Gordon.
Under ordinary circumstances Gordon, relying on the resentment that
England cherished against France for the part she had taken in the
American War of Independence, would have had nothing to fear. But he
was a rabid demagogue with a bad record. A few years before he had
accepted the presidency of the Protestant Association formed to secure
the repeal of the act by which the Catholic disabilities imposed in
the time of William and Mary had been removed. It was this association
which had fomented the famous Gordon riots, as they were called, when
London had been on the point of being pillaged. Gordon, it is true,
had disclaimed all responsibility for the conduct of the mob, which,
however, acknowledged him as its leader, and though tried for high
treason had been acquitted. But this experience had not sobered his
fanaticism. He was the soul of sedition in his own country, and one of
the most notorious and violent revolutionists in Europe at this period.
The British Government was only too glad of the opportunity afforded it
by the French to reduce him to silence.
Gordon, accordingly, fled to Holland, but learning that the Dutch
Government was preparing to send him back, he returned secretly to
England. Soon afterwards he was betrayed by a Jew, whose religion he
had adopted and with whom he had taken shelter. The action of the
French Government having in the meantime been decided against him, he
was sentenced to five years imprisonment and to pay a heavy fine. This
was the end of Lord George Gordon. For at the expiration of his term of
confinement, being unable to pay the fine, he remained a prisoner,
and eventually died in Newgate.
[Illustration: LORD GEORGE GORDON (_From an old print_)]
Compromised by the dangerous manner in which Gordon had taken up his
cause, Cagliostro hastened to disclaim all connection with him. In his
letter to the _Public Advertiser_, in which he described his interview
with Barthélemy, he referred to the ambassador, the Baron de Breteuil,
and the King of France in terms of the greatest respect. Breteuil,
however, did not forget him. A month later Barthélemy called in person
upon him with a warrant signed by the King’s own hand, permitting him
to return to France.
Cagliostro received it with profuse thanks, but he did not dare to
avail himself of the privilege it accorded him.
“It is but natural,” he said, “for a man who has been nine months in
the Bastille without cause, and on his discharge receives for damages
an order of exile, to startle at shadows and to perceive a snare in
everything that surrounds him.”
So suspicious did he become that when a friend, who was showing him the
sights of London, suggested “an excursion down the Thames as far as
Greenwich,” he at once scented danger.
“I did not know who to trust,” he says, “and I remembered the history
of a certain Marquis de Pelleport and a certain Dame Drogard.”[39]
Needless to say, he was careful not to write any more letters or
pamphlets “with a freedom rather republican.” Nevertheless he was a
marked man, and Fate was getting ready her net to catch him.
II
Had Cagliostro come to England before his fame had been tarnished by
the Necklace Affair, he would in all probability have been lionized
by the best society as he was in France. But the unsavoury notoriety
he had acquired, the hundred and one reports that were circulated to
his discredit and believed, for people always listen more readily to
the evil that is said of one than to the good, closed the doors of the
aristocracy to him. Instead of floating on the crest of the wave he was
caught in the under-current. With few exceptions the acquaintances he
made were more calculated to lower him still further in the esteem of
respectable society, than to clear him of the suspicion that attached
to him. The mere association of his name with Lord George Gordon’s
would alone have excited mistrust. But the injury he received from the
questionable manner in which Gordon sought to befriend him was trifling
compared with the interest that the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_
took in him.
Theveneau de Morande, to give this individual a name, was one of the
greatest blackguards of his time--the last quarter of the eighteenth
century produced many who equalled him in infamy but none who surpassed
him. The son of a lawyer at Arnay-le-Duc in Burgundy, where he was
born in 1741, Theveneau de Morande “was,” as M. Paul Robiquet truly
says in his brilliant study of him, “from the day of his birth to the
day of his death utterly without scruple.”[40] When a boy he was
arrested for theft in a house of ill-fame. Compelled to enlist or be
sent to prison he chose the former alternative, but did not serve long.
In response to his entreaties his father obtained his discharge on
condition that he would reform. Instead, however, of returning home as
he promised, Morande went to Paris, where his dissolute life led him to
the prison of For-l’Evêque. Hereupon his father solicited the favour of
a _lettre de cachet_ by means of which he was confined in a convent at
Armentières.
On being released two years later at the age of four-and-twenty, having
been imprudent enough to lampoon one of the principal members of the
Government, Morande fled the country. After tramping about Belgium
he arrived in London in a condition of absolute want. But he was not
long without means of subsistence. The ease with which he extorted
money by threatening to inform the police of the equivocal lives of
such acquaintances as chance threw in his way suggested the system of
blackmail which he afterwards developed into a fine art.
Gifted with a talent for writing he ventured to attack notabilities.
From fear of his mordant, cynical pen many were induced to purchase
his silence. In _Le Gazetier Cuirassé, ou Anecdotes scandaleuses sur
la cour de France_, all who had refused to purchase exemption had been
represented by him in the worst possible light. For this work, which
Brissot describes as “one of those infamous productions the very name
of which one blushes to mention,” he is said to have received 1,000
guineas.
Emboldened by the fright he inspired he redoubled his attacks, but
they did not always meet with the same success. He thought to extort
a ransom from Voltaire, but the aged philosopher of Ferney had lived
through too much to be frightened for so little. He published Morande’s
letter, accompanied with commentaries of the sort he knew so well
how to make effective. The Comte de Lauraguais replied even more
effectively than Voltaire. Not only did he obstinately refuse to pay
the tribute demanded of him, but, being in London at the time, gave the
blackmailer a horsewhipping, and compelled him to publish an abject
apology in the press into the bargain.
Morande, however, was not discouraged, and prepared to reap the most
fruitful of all his harvests. For the object he had in view Madame du
Barry was a gold mine. The famous favourite of Louis XV was notoriously
sensitive on the subject of her reputation, and dreaded nothing so much
as a libel. Morande, accordingly, wrote to inform her that he had in
preparation a work in four volumes, to be entitled the _Mémoires d’une
femme publique_, in which she would figure as the heroine, unless she
preferred to pay a handsome sum for its suppression. To assist her to
come to the latter decision a scenario of the work was sent her. “_Le
Gazetier Cuirassé_,” says Bachaumont, who saw it, “was rose-water in
comparison with this new _chef-d’œuvre_.”
Alarmed and enraged, the poor creature communicated her fears and anger
to the King, who applied to George III for Morande’s extradition. The
attitude of the British Government was characteristic of the political
morality of the age. The laws and customs of England rendering the
extradition of a foreign refugee out of the question, the French
Court was informed that failing an action for libel--which under
the circumstances was clearly impossible--the only alternative was
to kidnap the libellist. The British Government even offered its
assistance, providing that Morande’s “removal was done with the
greatest secrecy and in such a manner as not to wound the national
susceptibilities.”
The French Government accordingly sent a brigade of police to London,
but Morande was on the alert. Warned from Paris of his danger, he
exposed the contemplated attack upon him in the Press, giving himself
out as “a political exile and an avenger of public morality”--poses,
needless to say, which are always applauded in England. Public sympathy
was thus excited in his favour to such a pitch that the French police
were obliged to return to France empty-handed, after having narrowly
escaped being thrown into the Thames by an infuriated crowd.
Morande, enchanted at having got the better of the French Government,
redoubled his threats. He wrote again to Madame du Barry to inform
her that 6,000 copies of his scandalous work were already printed and
ready for circulation. Louis XV, who had no more fear of a libel than
Voltaire, would have let him do his worst, but to please his mistress
he decided to come to terms. As this had now become a delicate matter,
Beaumarchais was entrusted with the negotiation on account of his
superior cunning. The celebrated author who had everything to gain by
earning the gratitude of Madame du Barry went to London under the name
of Ronac, and in a very short time succeeded in gaining the confidence
of the libellist, whose silence was purchased for the sum of 32,000
livres in cash and a pension of 4,000 livres, to be paid to Morande’s
wife in the event of her surviving him.
It was about this time that Morande, without altogether abandoning his
career of blackmail, adopted the more profitable one of spy. Instead of
attacking authority, he now offered to serve it. Having been taught his
value by experience, the French Government gladly accepted the offer.
He began by “watching” the French colony in London, which was composed
chiefly of escaped criminals and political refugees, and ended as
Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_.
This paper had been started by a refugee, Serres de Latour, with the
object of instructing the French public in the internal affairs of
England, particularly as regards her foreign policy. The money to
finance the scheme had been supplied by a Scotchman by name of Swinton,
who was granted every facility by the Comte de Vergennes, the French
Minister for Foreign Affairs, that would assist the enterprise.
Thus protected, the _Courier de l’Europe_ was a success from the start.
In a short time it had 5,000 subscribers--an enormous number for those
days--and a revenue of 25,000 livres. Brissot, the leader of the
Girondins in the Revolution, who was connected with it for a time as a
young man, estimated its readers at over a million. “There was not,” he
says, “a corner of Europe in which it was not read.”
Such a widely circulated journal naturally had great influence. During
the American War of Independence its ever-increasing success alarmed
the English Cabinet, which, instead of suppressing it, foolishly
endeavoured to circumvent the laws respecting the liberty of the
Press by placing an embargo on the bales of the paper destined for
export. But Swinton parried this blow by causing it to be printed
simultaneously at Boulogne. “Whereupon,” says Brissot, “the English
Government resigned itself to the inevitable and suffered the _Courier
de l’Europe_ to continue to injure England under the protection of
English law itself.” Throughout the war which ended so humiliatingly
for England, as Vergennes expressed it, “the gazette of Latour was
worth a hundred spies” to France.
Under the editorship of Morande, who succeeded Serres de Latour, the
journal, as may be imagined, more than maintained its reputation. “In
it,” says Brissot, “he tore to pieces the most estimable people, spied
on all the French who lived in or visited London, and manufactured, or
caused to be manufactured, articles to ruin any one he feared.”
Such was the man, and such the weapon, that the Court of Versailles,
which had frequently utilized both before, now employed to destroy
Cagliostro.[41]
Morande, who had now become the chief of the brigade of police spies,
which when he himself had been their quarry he had so loudly denounced
in the English press, opened fire, in obedience to his orders, on
September 1, 1786. For three months he bombarded Cagliostro unceasingly
in a long series of articles that befouled, calumniated, and ridiculed
him with a devilish cleverness. Like the Countess de Lamotte, he did
not hesitate to deny his own statements when others could be made
more serviceable. Thus, after affirming “Nature’s unfortunate child”
to be the son of a coachman of the Neapolitan Duke of Castropignani,
he declared him to be the valet of the alchemist Gracci, known as the
Cosmopolite, from whom he had stolen all his secrets, which he had
afterwards exploited in Spain, Italy, and Russia under various titles:
sometimes a count, at others a marquis, here a Spanish colonel, there a
Prussian--but always and everywhere an impostor.
In this way rambling from article to article, from calumny to calumny,
without knowing where he was going, so to speak, Morande finally
arrived at Giuseppe Balsamo--as described at the beginning of the
book. The discovery of Balsamo was a veritable _trouvaille_. It
enabled Morande to tack on to the variegated career of the Sicilian
scoundrel all that he had hitherto affirmed of Cagliostro’s past life
without appearing to contradict himself. Once on Balsamo’s track, he
never lost scent of him. He ferreted out or invented all the stories
concerning the Balsamos: their marriage, the manner in which they
had lived, their forgeries, blackmail, poverty, licentiousness,
imprisonment--everything, in fact, that could damage Cagliostro and
_his_ wife. He found people, moreover, to swear to the truth of all
he said, or rather he asserted it, and on the strength of their
accusations caused Cagliostro to be sued for debts incurred in the
name of Balsamo years before. He collected all the hostile reports of
the enemies the Grand Cophta had made in his travels through Europe
and afterwards in the Necklace Affair, and re-edited them with the
precision of an historian and the malice of a personal enemy. Then,
after having done him all the injury he could and given the French
Government full value for its money, Morande with brazen effrontery
proposed to Cagliostro that he should purchase the silence of the
_Courier_!
[Illustration: THEVENAU DE MORANDE]
But Cagliostro was not the man--to his credit, be it said--to ignore
the feigned indignation of the libellist who had been hired to ruin
him. Aided by Thilorier,[42] his brilliant counsel in the Necklace
Affair, who happened to be in England, the wonder-worker published a
_Letter to the English People_, in which he flung in the face of the
blackmailer all the atrocious acts of his own past. Morande, however,
aware that any effort on his part to clear himself of these accusations
would be useless, sought to distract attention from the subject by
daring Cagliostro to disprove the charges made in the _Courier_. At the
same time he thought to stab him to silence by covering with ridicule a
statement which he asserted Cagliostro had made to the effect that “the
lions and tigers in the forests of Medina were poisoned by the Arabians
by devouring hogs fattened on arsenic for the purpose.”
The laughter which this reply aroused evidently stung Cagliostro to the
quick, and to refute Morande’s implied accusation of charlatanism, he
wrote the following letter to the _Public Advertiser_, in which, after
some preliminary sarcasms, he said--
“Of all the fine stories that you have invented about me, the best is
undoubtedly that of the pig fattened on arsenic which poisoned the
lions, the tigers, and the leopards in the forest of Medina. I am
now going, sir jester, to have a joke at your expense. In physics and
chemistry, arguments avail little, persiflage nothing; it is experiment
alone that counts. Permit me, then, to propose to you a little
experiment which will divert the public either at your expense or mine.
I invite you to lunch with me on November 9 (1786). You shall supply
the wine and all the accessories, I on the other hand will provide but
a single dish--a little pig fattened according to my plan. Two hours
before the lunch you shall see it alive, and healthy, and I will not
come near it till it is served on the table. You shall cut it in four
parts, and, having chosen the portion that you prefer, you shall give
me what you think proper. The next day one of four things will occur:
either we shall both be dead, or we shall neither of us be dead; or I
shall be dead and you will not; or you will be dead and I shall not. Of
these four chances I give you three, and I will bet you 5,000 guineas
that the day after the lunch you are dead and that I am alive and well.”
Whether or no Morande’s perception had been blunted by over-taxing
his imagination in the attempt to discredit his enemy, he interpreted
Cagliostro’s sarcasm literally. Afraid to accept the challenge, but
tempted by the 5,000 guineas, he suggested “that the test should take
place in public, and that some other carnivorous animal should be
substituted for the pig fattened on arsenic.” But this suggestion,
which revealed his cowardice by reducing the culinary duel to a farce,
gave his adversary an opportunity he was quick to seize.
“You refuse to come yourself to the lunch to which I invite you,”
wrote Cagliostro in a letter to the _Public Advertiser_ which recalls
one of Voltaire’s, “and suggest as a substitute some other carnivorous
animal? But that was not my proposal. Such a guest would only very
imperfectly represent you. Where would you find a carnivorous animal
which amongst its own species is what you are amongst men? It is not
your representative, but yourself, with whom I wish to treat. The
custom of combat by champions has long gone out of fashion, and even
if I allowed you to restore it, honour would forbid me to contend with
the champion you offer. A champion should not have to be dragged into
the arena, but enter it willingly; and however little you may know of
animals, you must be aware that you cannot find one flesh-eating or
grass-eating that would be your champion.”
To this letter the unscrupulous agent of the French Court dared not
reply. The man he had been hired to defame with his venomous pen had
the laugh on his side. The public, moreover, were beginning to detect
the mercenary hireling in the detractor, and as the gallery had ceased
to be amused Morande, to avoid losing what reputation he possessed,
suddenly ceased his attacks, apologizing to his readers for “having
entertained them so long with so futile a subject.”
Nevertheless, though the victory remained with Cagliostro, he had
received a mortal wound. The poisoned pigs of the Arabians were not
more destructive than the poisoned pen of Theveneau de Morande. The
persistency of his attacks, the ingenuity of his detraction, were more
effective than the most irrefutable proof. His articles, in spite of
their too evident hostility, their contradictions, their statements
either unverifiable or based on the testimony of persons whose
reputations alone made it worthless, created a general feeling that the
man whom they denounced was an impostor. The importance of the paper in
which they appeared, quoted by other papers, all of Europe, served to
confirm this impression. Thus the world, whose conclusions are formed
by instinct rather than reason, forgetting that it had ridiculed as
improbable Cagliostro’s own story of his life, accepted the amazing and
still more improbable past that Morande “unmasked” without reservation.
Nor did the Court of Versailles and its friends, nor all the forces
of law and order which, threatened everywhere, made common cause with
the threatened French monarchy, fail to circulate and confirm by every
means in their power the statements of Morande. As if the stigma which
the Countess de Lamotte and the Parliament, for two totally different
reasons, had cast upon the reputation of Marie Antoinette was to be
obliterated by blighting Cagliostro’s!
The deeper an impression, the more ineradicable it becomes. Within
a quarter of a century the man whom Morande had called a cheat, an
impostor, and a scoundrel had become on the page of history on which
his memory is imprisoned the “Arch-quack of the eighteenth century,” “a
liar of the first magnitude,” “an unparalleled impostor.”
But in the curious mass of coincidence and circumstantial evidence on
which the popular conception of Cagliostro has been based, ingenious
and plausible though it is, there is one little _fact_ which history
has overlooked and which Morande was careful to ignore. In turning
Cagliostro into Giuseppe Balsamo, the fantastic idealist-enthusiast
into the vagabond forger, “the charlatan,” as Queen’s friend Besenval
describes him, “who never took a sou from a soul, but lived honourably
and paid scrupulously what he owed,” into the vulgar _souteneur_,
Morande, by no trick of the imagination, with all the cunning
calumnies of the French Court, and the so-called “confession” wrung
from its victim by the Inquisition, to aid him, could not succeed in
making the two _resemble_ one another. Yet it is on the word of this
journalist-bravo, hired by the French Ministry to defame an innocent
man whose unanimous acquittal of a crime in which he had been unjustly
implicated was believed by Marie Antoinette to be tantamount to her
own conviction, that Cagliostro has been branded as one of the most
contemptible blackguards in history.
Surely it is time to challenge an opinion so fraudulently supported
and so arbitrarily expressed? The age of calumny is past. The frenzied
hatreds and passions that, like monstrous maggots, so to speak,
infested the dying carcass of the old _régime_ are extinct, or at
least have lost their force. We can understand the emotions they once
stirred so powerfully without feeling them. In taking the sting from
the old hate Time has given new scales to justice. We no longer weigh
reputations by the _effects_ of detraction, but by its _cause_.
The evidence on which Morande’s diabolically ingenious theories are
based has already been examined in the early chapters of this book. It
requires no effort of the imagination to surmise what the effect would
be on a jury to-day if their decision depended upon the evidence of a
witness who, as Brissot says, “regarded calumny as a trade, and moral
assassination as a sport.”
III
The campaign against Cagliostro was by no means confined to defamation.
Morande assailed not only his character, but his person.
On the first shot fired by the _Courier de l’Europe_, as if it were the
signal for a preconcerted attack, a swarm of blackmailers, decoys, and
spurious creditors descended upon the unfortunate Grand Cophta. Warned
by the noise that the daring, but unsuccessful, attempts of the secret
agents of the French police to kidnap the Count de Lamotte had created,
Morande adopted methods less likely to scandalize the British public in
his efforts to trepan Cagliostro. While apparently confining himself
to the congenial task of “unmasking” his victim daily in the columns
of his widely-read journal, he was a party to, if he did not actually
organize, the series of persecutions that embittered the existence of
the now broken and discredited wonder-worker.
If, as he declared, in his efforts to convince the public that
Cagliostro was Giuseppe Balsamo, the perjured Aylett and the
restaurant-keeper Pergolezzi were prepared to corroborate his
statement, then given his notorious character, unconcealed motive,
and the money with which he was supplied by the French Government,
the presumption that these questionable witnesses were bought is at
least well founded. In the _Letter to the English People_ in which
Cagliostro, with the aid of Thilorier, sought to defend himself from
the charges of the _Courier de l’Europe_, he states, as “a fact well
known in London,” that Morande went about purse in hand, purchasing the
information, witnesses, and accomplices he required.
He offered one hundred guineas to O’Reilly, to whose good offices
Cagliostro owed his release from the King’s Bench jail in 1777, to
swear that he had left England without paying his debts. But though
O’Reilly refused to be bought, Swinton, Morande’s intimate friend and
the proprietor of the _Courier de l’Europe_, proceeding on different
lines, succeeded in making mischief between O’Reilly and Cagliostro,
by which the latter was deprived of a valuable friend when he had most
need of him.
According to Brissot, who knew him thoroughly, and whose testimony is
above dispute, Swinton was every bit as unprincipled as his editor.
A Scotchman by birth, he had lived the greater part of his life,
married, and made his fortune in France. On settling in London he had
drifted naturally into the French colony, in which, by reason of his
sympathies, connections and interests he had acquired great influence,
which he turned to account on every possible occasion. One of his many
profitable enterprises was a “home” for young Frenchmen employed in
London. “He also ran a druggist’s shop,” says Brissot, “in the name
of one of his clerks, and a restaurant in the name of another.”[43]
And when Cagliostro arrived in London with a letter of introduction to
him, Swinton, who was as full of schemes as he was devoid of principle,
thought to run him, too, for his own profit. The wonder-worker with
his elixirs, his balsams, and his magical phenomena was, if properly
handled, a mine of gold.
Taking advantage of Cagliostro’s ignorance of the language and customs
of the country in which he had sought refuge, Swinton, who was
assiduous in his attentions, rented him a house in Sloane Street, for
which he desired a tenant, induced him to pay the cost of repairing
it, and provided him with the furniture he needed at double its value.
To prevent any one else from interfering with the agreeable task of
plucking so fat a bird, and at the same time the better to conceal his
duplicity, Swinton endeavoured to preclude all approach to his prey. It
was to this end that he made trouble between Cagliostro and O’Reilly.
Having succeeded thus far in his design he redoubled his attentions,
and urged Cagliostro to give a public exhibition of his healing powers,
as he had done at Strasburg. But warned by previous experience of the
danger of exciting afresh the hostility of the doctors, Cagliostro
firmly refused. Swinton then proposed to become his apothecary, and to
push the sale of the Grand Cophta’s various medicaments, of which his
druggist’s shop should have the monopoly, in the _Courier de l’Europe_.
To this, however, Cagliostro also objected, preferring, apparently, not
to disclose the secret of their preparation--if not to share with the
apothecary, as Morande afterwards declared, the exorbitant profit to be
derived from their sale. Perceiving that he was not to be persuaded by
fair means, Swinton injudiciously tried to put on the screw. But his
threats, far from accomplishing their purpose, only served to betray
his designs, and so disgusted Cagliostro that he ceased to have any
further communication with him. Swinton, however, was not to be got rid
of in any such fashion. Living next door to his enemy, his house became
the rendezvous of the various bailiffs and decoys hired by Morande to
seize or waylay his unfortunate adversary.
Among numerous schemes of Swinton and Morande to capture Cagliostro
were two attempts to obtain his arrest by inducing persons to take out
writs against him for imaginary debts--a proceeding which the custom of
merely swearing to a debt to procure a writ rendered easy. In this way
Priddle, who had behaved so scurvily in Cagliostro’s arbitration suit
with Miss Fry in 1777, was induced to take out a writ for sixty pounds,
due, as he pretended, for legal business transacted nine years before.
Warned, however, that the bailiffs were hiding in Swinton’s house to
serve the writ the moment he should appear, Cagliostro was able to
defeat their intention by procuring bail before they could accomplish
their purpose. In the end it was Priddle who went to Newgate. But
instead of the former demand for sixty pounds, Cagliostro, by means
of one of the various legal subterfuges in the practice of which the
eighteenth century lawyer excelled, was obliged to pay one hundred and
eighty pounds and costs.
Immediately after this dearly-bought victory, the baited victim of
ministerial tyranny and corruption was similarly attacked from another
quarter in a manner which proves how great was the exasperation of
his enemies. Sacchi, the blackmailer, who had published a libellous
pamphlet against Cagliostro--quoted by Madame de Lamotte at her trial,
when it was generally regarded as worthless, and its suppression
ordered by the Parliament of Paris--appeared in London and obtained a
writ for one hundred and fifty pounds, which, he claimed, Cagliostro
owed him for the week passed in his service in Strasburg in 1781. The
impudence of this claim on examination was, of course, sufficient
to disprove it; but Morande, who had brought Sacchi to England
and assisted him to procure the writ, all but succeeded in having
Cagliostro ignominiously dragged to Newgate on the strength of it.
The proximity, however, of Swinton’s house--in which the bailiffs had
secreted themselves pending an opportunity of seizing their prey, as on
the former occasion--helped to betray their presence, and once again
Cagliostro managed to forestall them by giving the necessary bail in
due time.
Such an existence was enough to give the most fearless nature cause for
alarm, and the Bastille had effectually damped the courage of the Grand
Cophta. “Startling at shadows” the pertinacity of his enemies left him
not a moment’s peace. The fate of Lord George Gordon was ever in his
thoughts. If the French Government was powerful enough to effect the
imprisonment of an Englishman who had offended it in his own country,
what chance had he of escaping?
[Illustration: A MASONIC ANECDOTE
(_After the caricature by Gillray_)]
His Masonic experiences in England, moreover, were not of a nature
to encourage the hopes he had entertained of making converts to the
sect he had founded. At first it seemed as if Egyptian Masonry might
prosper on English soil. Assisted by a number of adepts from Paris and
Lyons, whose zeal had induced them to follow their master to London,
Cagliostro had sought to found a lodge for the observance of the
Egyptian Rite. To this end he had held séances which many people of
distinction attended. These were so successful that to encourage some
of the more promising of his clientele he “transmitted to them, as a
mark of exceptional favour, the power to obtain manifestations in his
absence.” Unfortunately, instead of the angels they expected to evoke,
devils appeared.[44] The effect produced upon these inexperienced
occultists was deplorable; combined with the attacks of the _Courier de
l’Europe_ it effectually killed Egyptian Masonry in England.
The Freemasons, who had welcomed him to their lodges with open arms, as
the victim of a degenerate and despicable despotism, influenced by the
scathing attacks of Morande, who was himself a Mason, now gave him the
cold shoulder. At a convivial gathering at the Lodge of Antiquity which
he attended about this time, instead of the sympathy he expected he was
so ridiculed by one “Brother Mash, an optician,” who gave a burlesque
imitation of the Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry as a quack-doctor
vending a spurious balsam to cure every malady, that the victim of his
ridicule was compelled to withdraw.
The mortification which this incident occasioned Cagliostro was
further intensified by the wide notoriety that it was given by Gillray
in a caricature entitled “A Masonic Anecdote,” to which the following
lines were attached in English and French:--
“EXTRACT OF THE ARABIAN COUNT’S MEMOIRS
“Born, God knows where, supported, God knows how,
From whom descended--difficult to know;
Lord Crop adopts him as a bosom friend,
And madly dares his character defend.
This self-dubb’d Count some few years since became
A Brother Mason in a borrow’d name;
For names like Semple numerous he bears,
And Proteus-like in fifty forms appears.
‘Behold in me (he says) Dame Nature’s child
Of Soul benevolent and Manners mild,
In me the guiltless Acharat behold,
Who knows the mystery of making Gold;
A feeling heart I boast, a conscience pure,
I boast a Balsam every ill to cure,
My Pills and Powders all disease remove,
Renew your vigour and your health improve.’
This cunning part the arch-impostor acts
And thus the weak and credulous attracts.
But now his history is render’d clear
The arrant hypocrite and knave appear;
First as Balsamo he to paint essay’d,
But only daubing he renounc’d the trade;
Then as a Mountebank abroad he stroll’d;
And many a name on Death’s black list enroll’d.
Three times he visited the British shore,
And ev’ry time a different name he bore;
The brave Alsatians he with ease cajol’d
By boasting of Egyptian forms of old.
The self-same trick he practis’d at Bourdeaux,
At Strasburg, Lyons and at Paris too.
But fate for Brother Mash reserv’d the task
To strip the vile impostor of his mask.
May all true Masons his plain tale attend!
And Satire’s laugh to fraud shall put an end.”
To recover the prestige he had lost in the Masonic world Cagliostro
seems for a moment to have sought affiliation with the Swedenborgians,
whose extravagant form of spiritualism was not unlike that of the
Egyptian Rite. It was undoubtedly with this object in view that he
inserted a notice in the _Morning Herald_ in which he invited “all true
Masons in the name of Jehovah to assemble at O’Reilly’s Hotel to form
a plan for the reconstruction of the New Temple of Jerusalem.” The
Swedenborgians, however, failed to respond to the invitation.
Smitten thus hip and thigh, England became impossible to Cagliostro;
and having made the necessary preparations he set out with great
secrecy and alone for Switzerland some time in May 1787. But Morande
even now did not cease persecuting him. Not content with boasting that
“he had succeeded in hunting his dear Don Joseph out of England,”
he circulated the report that “the charlatan had gone off with the
diamonds of his wife, who in revenge now admitted that her husband was
indeed Giuseppe Balsamo and that all the _Courier de l’Europe_ had
written about him was true.”
This report is another instance of the vindictive rumours on which so
much of the prejudice against Cagliostro is based. It was devoid of the
least particle of truth, and was deliberately fabricated and circulated
solely for the purpose of injuring the man it slandered.
As a matter of fact, in travelling without his wife for the first
and only time in his career, Cagliostro did so from necessity. Beset
with spies who, as he was informed, suspecting his intention of
leaving England had planned to capture him _en route_,[45] he had need
of observing the greatest caution in his movements. The Countess
Cagliostro, far from being left in “great distress,” as Morande
asserted, had ample means at her disposal as well as valuable friends
in the Royal Academician de Loutherbourg and his wife, with whom she
lived till her own departure for Switzerland.
Philip James de Loutherbourg was a painter of considerable note in his
day. An Alsatian by birth, he had studied art under Vanloo in Paris,
but meeting with little success in France, migrated to England, where
fortune proved more propitious. His battle-pieces and landscapes in
the Salvator Rosa style were very popular with the great public of
his day. Engaged by Garrick to paint scenery for Drury Lane Theatre,
the innovations that he introduced completely revolutionized the
mounting of the stage. He was also the originator of the panorama. His
“Eidophusicon,” as he called it, in which, by the aid of mechanical
contrivances, painted scenes acquired the appearance of reality, when
exhibited in London excited the unbounded admiration of Gainsborough.
Of a decidedly visionary temperament, de Loutherbourg “went in” for
alchemy, till his wife, who was equally visionary and more spiritually
inclined, smashed his crucible in a fit of religious exaltation.
Converted in this violent fashion to a less material though no less
absurd form of supernaturalism, the popular Royal Academician, whose
pictures at least had nothing mystical about them, became assiduous
in attending Baptist chapels, revivalist meetings, and Swedenborgian
services. After associating with the enthusiast Brothers, who called
himself “the nephew of the Almighty” and was more fitted for a lunatic
asylum than the prison to which his antics led him, de Loutherbourg
turned faith-healer. At the same time his wife also acquired the power
to heal.
[Illustration: PHILIP JAMES DE LOUTHERBOURG]
Beside the cures the de Loutherbourgs are reported to have performed
those of Cagliostro pale into insignificance. Even Mrs. Eddy, of
Christian science fame, with her “absent treatment,” has only imitated
them. Unlike her, the de Loutherbourgs healed free of charge.
Sometimes the sufferer they treated would be in another room or even
in another house. On one occasion, if “A Lover of the Lamb of God” is
to be believed, they cured “a boy suffering from scrofula who had been
discharged from St. Bart’s as incurable in five days without seeing
him.”
Naturally their fame soon spread, and as they professed to be able
to cure all diseases, people suffering from all sorts of infirmities
flocked to consult them. Horace Walpole declares that de Loutherbourg
had as many as three thousand patients. Certain days in each week were
appointed for their treatment, which were regularly advertised. On one
occasion all the three thousand, apparently owing to some error in the
announcement, are said to have surrounded the house at once, so that it
was with the greatest difficulty one could either enter or leave it.
“A Lover of the Lamb of God” was so impressed by the miracles the de
Loutherbourgs performed as to call upon the Archbishop of Canterbury
“to compile a form of prayer to be used in all churches and chapels
that nothing may impede their inestimable gift having free course.”
Their practice, however, was brought to an abrupt close by some
indignant patients whom they had failed to cure, and who, accompanied
by a mob, attacked the house and very nearly lynched the faith-healers.
De Loutherbourg’s mystical tendencies, however, do not appear to
have injured him in the least in the opinion of the general public.
On resuming his career as painter he found the same encouragement as
before, and was highly respected by all who knew him. As contrasted
with the enmity of so notorious a blackguard as Morande, the
friendship of so estimable a man as de Loutherbourg speaks volumes for
Cagliostro’s own probity.
The charity of the de Loutherbourgs, on which Morande, Swinton
and Company declared that the Countess Cagliostro lived after her
husband’s escape from their clutches, consisted entirely in defeating
their attempts to take advantage of her defenceless state. Receiving
information that a writ was to be issued by which Cagliostro’s
furniture was to be seized, de Loutherbourg advised the Countess to
sell it and take up her abode in his house until her husband sent for
her, when to ensure her travelling without molestation he and Mrs. de
Loutherbourg accompanied her to Switzerland.
The first thing that she did on arriving at Bienne was to go before
a magistrate and make an affidavit to the effect that her reported
corroboration of the charges made against her husband in the _Courier
de l’Europe_ was a lie. The fact that the Countess Cagliostro did this
with the knowledge of the de Loutherbourgs is sufficient to prove the
truth of her words.
CHAPTER VIII
“NATURE’S UNFORTUNATE CHILD”
I
On leaving England in 1786 Cagliostro was doomed to resume the vagabond
existence of his earlier years; with the difference, however, that
whereas previously his star, though often obscured by clouds, was
constantly rising, it was now steadily on the decline.
At first its descent was so imperceptible as to appear to have been
checked. After the manner in which he had been harried in London the
tranquillity and admiration he found in Bâle must have been balm to
his tortured spirit. At Bâle he had followers who were still loyal,
particularly the rich banker Sarazin, on whom he had “conferred the
blessing of a belated paternity,” and whose devotion to him, as
Cagliostro declared in his extravagant way at his trial in Paris, was
so great that “he would give him the whole of his fortune were he to
ask for it.”
It was at Bâle, moreover, that the dying flame of Egyptian Masonry
flickered up for the last before expiring altogether. Under the
auspices of Sarazin a lodge was founded on which the Grand Cophta
conferred the high-sounding dignity of the “Mother Lodge of the
Helvetic States.” The funds, however, did not run to a “temple” as at
Lyons, but the room in which the faithful met was arranged to resemble
as closely as possible the interior of that edifice. Both sexes were
admitted to this lodge, and Cagliostro again transmitted his powers
to certain of the members who, having been selected for the favour
apparently with more care on this occasion than in London, performed
with the greatest success.
It was, however, in the little town of Bienne that Cagliostro seems
to have resided chiefly while in Switzerland. According to rumours
that reached London and Paris “he lived there for several months on a
pension allowed him by Sarazin.” Why he left this quiet retreat, or
when, is unknown. He is next heard of vaguely at Aix-les-Bains, where
the Countess is said to have taken the cure. Rumour follows him thence
to Turin, “but,” says the Inquisition-biographer, “he had no sooner set
foot in the town than he was ordered to leave it instantly.”
Henceforth fortune definitely deserted him. Against the poison in
which Morande had dipped his barbed pen there was no antidote. It
destroyed him by slow degrees, drying up the springs of his fabulous
fortune, exhausting the resources of his fertile brain, withering
his confidence, his ambition, and his heart. But though the game was
played, he still struggled desperately to recover all he had lost, till
he went to Rome, into which he crawled like a beast wounded to the
death that has just enough strength to reach its lair.
The luxury and flattery so dear to him were gone for ever. His journeys
from place to place were no longer triumphal processions but flights.
Dishonoured, discredited, disillusioned, the once superb High Priest
of the Egyptian Mysteries, the “divine Cagliostro,” accustomed to
be courted by the greatest personages, acclaimed by the crowd, and
worshipped by his adherents, was now shadowed by the police, shunned
wherever he was recognized, hunted from pillar to post. All towns in
which he was likely to be known were carefully avoided; into such as
seemed to offer a chance of concealment he crept stealthily. He dared
not show his face anywhere, it was as if the whole world, so to speak,
had been turned by some accident of his magic into the Trebizond that
the black slave of the Arabian days had warned him to beware of.
If this existence was terrible to him, it was equally so to his
delicate wife. The poverty and hardship through which Lorenza Balsamo
passed so carelessly, left their mark on the Countess Seraphina. Under
the pinch of want her charms and her jewels began alike to vanish. At
Vicenza necessity “obliged her to pawn a diamond of some value.”
Rumour, following in their track, mumbles vaguely of petty impostures,
small sums gulled from the credulous, and of shady devices to make
two ends meet, but gives no details, makes no definite charge. If
the rumour be true, it is not surprising that one so bankrupt in
reputation, in purse, and in friends as Cagliostro had now become,
should have lost his self-respect. In the pursuit of his ideal, having
formed the habit of regarding the means as justifying the end, what
wonder when the end had changed to hunger that any means of satisfying
it should have appeared to him justifiable?
At Rovoredo, an obscure little town in the Austrian Tyrol, where he
found a temporary refuge, he did not scruple to make capital out of
his knowledge of both magic and medicine. Here he managed to interest
several persons in the mysteries of Egyptian Masonry to the extent of
being invited to give an exhibition of his powers. He even succeeded
in founding a lodge at Rovoredo, which he affiliated with the lodge at
Lyons, the members of which still believed in him. At the same time,
followers being few and subscriptions small, he resumed the practice
of medicine, making a moderate charge for his attendance and his
medicaments.
But in spite of all his precautions to avoid exciting ill-will or
curiosity, it was not long before his identity was discovered. Some
one, perhaps the author of a stinging satire[46] which from its
biblical style was known as the “Gospel according to St. Cagliostro,”
notified the authorities. The “quack” was obliged to discontinue the
exercise of his medical knowledge in any shape or form; and the matter
coming to the ears of the Emperor Joseph II, that sovereign signed an
order expelling him from the town altogether.
Cagliostro then went to Trent, where there reigned a prince-bishop as
devoted to alchemy and magic as Rohan himself. This little potentate
was no sooner informed of the arrival of the pariah than instead of
following the example of his Imperial suzerain, he invited him to the
episcopal palace. It was an invitation, needless to say, that was
gladly accepted; for a moment, protected by his new friend, it seemed
as if he might succeed in mending his broken fortunes. But while the
prince-bishop was willing enough to turn his guest’s occult knowledge
to account he was not inclined to countenance Egyptian or any other
form of Freemasonry. Accordingly to allay suspicion Cagliostro
foreswore his faith in Masonic observances, sought a confessor to whom
he declared that he repented of his connection with Freemasonry, and
manifested a desire to be received back into the bosom of the Church.
The prince-bishop, in his turn, pretended to believe in this feigned
repentance, boasted of the convert he had made, and, assisted by
the reformed wonder-worker, resumed his quest of the philosopher’s
stone and any other secret his crucible might be induced to divulge.
The little world of Trent, however, which had palpitated like the
rest of Europe over the revelations of the Diamond Necklace Affair
and Morande, was profoundly scandalized. Certain persons felt it
their duty to inform the Emperor how the prince-bishop was behaving.
The free-thinking, liberty-affecting Joseph II could be arbitrary
enough when he chose. Severely reprimanding his episcopal vassal for
harbouring so infamous an impostor, he commanded him to banish the
wretch instantly from his estates.
Judging from the itinerary of his wanderings in northern Italy and the
Tyrol, Cagliostro seems to have intended to go to Germany, hoping, no
doubt, to find an asylum, like Saint-Germain, Weishaupt, Knigge and
many other, at the Court of some Protestant prince, most of whom were
Rosicrucians, alchemists, Freemasons, and revolutionary enthusiasts.
But whatever hopes he may have had in this direction were effectually
dashed by the hostility of the Emperor. Expelled from Trent in such a
fashion he dared not enter Germany.
To turn back was equally perilous. In Italy, where the Church,
brutalized out of all semblance to Christianity by centuries of
undisputed authority, regarded the least attempt to investigate the
secrets of nature as a reflection on its own ignorance, a certain
and terrible doom awaited any one who excited its suspicions. But to
Cagliostro, with fate’s blood-hounds on his track, an Imperial dungeon
seemed a more present danger than an Inquisition torture-chamber. It
was no “Count Front of Brass,” as Carlyle jeeringly stigmatized him,
that was brought to bay at Trent. His courage was completely broken.
Spent in this struggle against destiny, he was no longer able to devise
new schemes and contrivances as of old. Retracing his steps with a sort
of defiant despair, as if driven by some irresistible force to his
doom, he took the road to Rome, where he and his wife arrived at the
end of May 1789.
According to the Inquisition-biographer it was to please his wife,
who desired to be reconciled to her parents, that Cagliostro went to
Rome. If, indeed, the parents of the Countess Seraphina, or Lorenza
Balsamo, as you will, were still living or even resident in Rome, they
were apparently unwilling or afraid to recognize the relationship,
for nothing further is heard of them. It is much more likely that
Cagliostro chose Rome on account of its size, as being the one place in
Italy which offered him the most likely chance of escaping observation.
In so large a city his poverty was itself a safe-guard.
Cagliostro’s first efforts to drive the wolf from the door were
confined to the surreptitious practice of medicine. On such patients
as he managed to procure he enjoined the strictest silence. But in
losing his confidence in himself he had lost the art of healing. The
Inquisition-biographer cites several instances of his failure to effect
the cures he attempted to perform. After “undertaking to cure a foreign
lady of an ulcer in her leg by applying a plaster that very nearly
brought on gangrene,” he had the prudence to abandon altogether a
practice that exposed him to so much danger.
The risk he ran in exploiting his psychic gifts in Rome was even
greater than the peril connected with the illicit practice of medicine.
On leaving Trent he seems to have resolved to renounce Egyptian
Masonry altogether, and he wrote to such of his followers as he still
corresponded with, imploring them to avoid all reference to it in their
letters to him. But the occult was now his only resource, and whether
he wished it or not, he was obliged to turn to it for a living.
In spite of all the efforts of the Church to stamp out Freemasonry
in Italy it still beat a feeble wing. For two years the Lodge of the
Vrais Amis had existed in secret in the heart of Rome itself. This
lodge, which had received its patent from the Grand Orient in Paris
and was in correspondence with all the principal lodges in France, was
really a revolutionary club of foreign origin. It had been founded
by “five Frenchmen, one Pole, and one American,” who, to judge from
the character of the ceremonies they observed at the initiation of
a member, were Illuminés. As a Freemason and an Illuminé himself
Cagliostro must have known of the existence of this lodge before coming
to Rome.
His fear of the Inquisition was so great that before making himself
known to the Vrais Amis he contemplated leaving Rome altogether.
The fall of the Bastille, which occurred about this time, having
inaugurated the Revolution in France, he petitioned the States General
for permission to return there, as “one who had taken so great an
interest in liberty.” At the same time not being in the position to
take advantage of the privilege were it granted, he wrote urgent
appeals for money to former friends in Paris. But in the rapidity with
which the Revolution marched, Cagliostro had ceased to have the least
importance, even as a missile to hurl at the hated Queen. Whether the
petition or the letters ever reached their destination is unknown; in
neither case, however, did he obtain a reply.[47]
With all hope of retreat cut off and starvation staring him in the
face, the wretched man timorously proceeded to seek the acquaintance
of the Vrais Amis. The difficulties and dangers they encountered in
obtaining recruits won for the discredited Grand Cophta a cordial
welcome. Notwithstanding, he refused to seek admission to their lodge,
and contented himself with begging a meal or a small loan of the
members with whom he fraternized.
Even Morande, who had himself experienced the horrors of abject poverty
in his early struggle for existence in London, must have pitied the
victim of his remorseless persecution had he seen him now. In his
miserable lodging near the Piazza Farnese everything--save such
furniture as was the property of the landlord--on which he could raise
the least money had been pawned. Not a stone of the diamonds that had
so dazzled, or scandalized, as Madame de Lamotte maliciously declared,
the high-born ladies of Paris and Strasburg, was left his once lovely,
and stilled loved, Countess. Faded, pinched with hunger, she still
clung to this man, himself now broken and aged by so many calumnies,
persecutions and misfortunes, whose enemies had falsely accused him of
treating her brutally, as she had clung to him for fifteen years--the
first and the last of his countless admirers and followers.
To one of his vain and grandiose temperament the abasement of his
soul must have been terrible as he who had been as good as master
of the splendid palace of Saverne cowered day after day in that
bare attic with hunger and terror, like sullen lacqueys in constant
attendance, and thought of all the past--of the fascinating Cardinal
whose friendship had brought him to this pass and who had now forsaken
him; of Sarazin, the rich banker “who would give me the whole of his
fortune were I to ask for it,” dead now, or as good as dead; of de
Loutherbourg, the Good Samaritan; of the reverent disciples to whom he
had been the _père adoré_, the “master”; of the Croesus’ fortune which
he had lavished so ostentatiously and generously; of the _gaudeamus_
with which the sympathetic crowds had greeted him on his release from
the Bastille; of the miracles of which he had lost the trick; and last
but not least of his fantastic scheme for the regeneration of mankind
which he had promulgated with such enthusiasm and success.
One day at a dinner to which some of his Masonic acquaintances invited
him when the memory of the past was perhaps more vivid, more insistent
than usual, influenced by the festal atmosphere of the occasion,
Cagliostro was persuaded to discourse on Egyptian Masonry. But alas!
instead of exciting interest as in former times his eloquence was
without effect. The ice, however, was broken, and necessity becoming
stronger than his fears he endeavoured to procure recruits in the hope
of maintaining himself and his wife on their subscriptions.
According to the Inquisition-biographer two men whom he approached
resolved to have a practical joke at his expense. They manifested a
lively desire to be instructed in the Egyptian Rite, and Cagliostro,
deceived into the belief that he had to do with men of means, “by a
false diamond, which he took to be real, on the hand of one,” decided
to gratify them. After having explained to them the aims and character
of Egyptian Masonry he proceeded to initiate them in conformity with
the usual ridiculous rites, passing them, as Grand Master, by the wave
of a sword through the three Masonic grades of apprentice, companion
and master at once. But to his mingled terror and mortification when
it came to the payment of the fifty crowns that he demanded as their
subscription fees, they excused themselves in a manner which showed him
only too plainly he was their dupe.
Alarmed lest they intended to inform against him, he thought to avoid
the consequences of detection by confessing to a priest as he had done
at Trent. It was the last effort of a beast at bay. In accordance with
the monstrous principle that the means justify the end confessors have
been known on occasion to betray the secrets confided to them in the
confessional. In this instance, however, there is no proof that the
Church profaned the sanctity of the sacrament to which it attaches
so much importance. It is much more likely that the Inquisition had
discovered Cagliostro’s presence in Rome, and that the men by whom
he had been duped were spies of the Holy Office. On the evening of
December 27, 1789, he and his wife were arrested by the Papal police
and imprisoned in the Castle of St. Angelo.
Cagliostro, it is said, had been warned of his danger anonymously by
some unknown well-wisher. But where could he flee without money? The
consolations of the confessional, moreover, seemed to have allayed his
fears to such an extent that he did not even take the precaution to
destroy any letters or documents that might compromise him.
On the same day that Cagliostro was seized the _sbirri_ of the
Inquisition made a raid on the Lodge of the Vrais Amis. But the
members, who had also received warning, better advised or better
supplied with funds than the ex-Grand Cophta, had taken time by the
forelock and fled.
II
The manner in which the Papal government tried those accused of heresy
and sedition is too notorious to require explanation. In all countries,
in all languages, the very name of the Inquisition has become a by-word
for religious tyranny of the cruelest and most despicable description.
If ever this terrible stigma was justified it was in the eighteenth
century, particularly in the Church’s struggle with the Revolution for
which clerical intolerance was more directly responsible than any
other factor of inhumanity and stupidity that led to the overthrow of
the _ancien régime_.
In the case of Cagliostro, who was one of the last to be tried by the
Apostolic Court, the Inquisition lived up to its reputation. Threatened
and execrated everywhere by the invincible spirit of freedom which
the fall of the Bastille had released, the Jesuits, who controlled
the machinery of the Papal government,[48] strove without scruple to
crush the enemies which their arrogant intrigues had created for the
Church. To them Freemasonry was a comprehensive name for everything and
everybody opposed to them and their pretensions. In a certain sense
they were right, and in France at any rate where the lodges and secret
societies no longer took the trouble to conceal their aims there was
no mistaking the revolutionary character of the Freemasons. So great,
therefore, was the fear and hatred that Freemasonry inspired in the
Church that in seizing Cagliostro the Inquisition never dreamt of
charging him with any other crime. Beside it his occult practices or
the crimes of which, on the assumption that he was Giuseppe Balsamo he
might have been condemned, paled into insignificance.
The fact that the Inquisition-biographer seeks to excuse the Apostolic
Court for its failure to charge him with these offences, on the ground
that “all who could testify against him were dead” proves how slight
was the importance his judges attached to them. Had they desired to
bring him to the gallows for the forgeries of Balsamo, the judges of
the Inquisition would have found the necessary witnesses. As a matter
of fact they never so much as attempted to identify him with Balsamo,
as they could easily have done by bringing some of the relations of the
latter from Palermo.[49]
The news that Cagliostro had been arrested as a revolutionary agent
caused great excitement. As the Papal government took care to foster
the belief that he was connected with all the events that were
occurring in France, the unfortunate Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry
suddenly acquired a political importance he had never possessed.
“Arrested,” says the _Moniteur_, “he evoked as much interest in Rome
as he had formerly done in Paris.” In all classes of society he became
once more the chief topic of conversation.
It was reported that before his arrest he had written a circular letter
to his followers, of whom he was popularly supposed to have many in
Rome itself, calling upon them to succour him in case he should fall
into the hands of the Inquisition, and if necessary to set fire to
the Castle of St. Angelo or any other prison in which he might be
confined. Even from his dungeon, “which was the same as the one that
the alchemist Borri had died in a century earlier,” he was said to have
found the means to communicate with his accomplices without. According
to the _Moniteur_ “a letter from him to a priest had been intercepted
which had led to the detection of a conspiracy to overthrow the Papal
monarchy.”
Whether the report was true or not, the Papal government, which had
probably circulated it, made it the excuse to arrest numerous persons
it suspected. These mysterious arrests caused a general feeling of
uneasiness, which was increased by rumours of more to follow. Fearing,
or affecting to fear, a rising the Papal government doubled the guards
at the Vatican, closed the Arsenal, which was usually open to the
public, and surrounded St. Angelo with troops. There was even talk of
exiling all the French in Rome.
It required no gift of prophecy to foretell the fate of the unhappy
creature who was the cause of all this excitement. From the first it
was recognized that he had not the ghost of a chance. Two papal bulls
decreed that Freemasonry was a crime punishable by death. To convict
him, moreover, the Inquisition had no lack of proof. Laubardemont,
Cardinal Richelieu’s famous police-spy, deemed a single compromising
line sufficient to hang a man. In Cagliostro’s case, thanks to his
singular lack of prudence in not destroying his papers, the documents
seized on his arrest were a formidable _dossier_. Nevertheless, before
dispatching their luckless victim the “Holy” Inquisition played with
him, like a cat with a mouse, for over a year.
As usual at all Inquisition trials the _forms_ of justice were
observed. Permission was granted Cagliostro to choose two lawyers to
defend him. This privilege, however, was a mockery, for his choice was
in reality limited to certain officials especially appointed by the
Apostolic Court to take charge of such cases as his. They were not free
to acquit; at most their defence could only be a plea for mercy. In
the present instance, if not actually prejudiced against their client,
they certainly took no interest whatever in him. Aware that he was
utterly incapable of paying them for their services, they grudged the
time they were obliged to devote to him. Their defence consisted in
advising him to acknowledge his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of
his judges.
Nor were the witnesses he was likewise permitted to summon in his
defence to be depended on. At Inquisition trials all witnesses,
fearing lest they should themselves be transformed into prisoners,
turned accusers. Before the terrible judges of the Holy Office, whose
court resembled a torture-chamber rather than a court of justice,
even his wife testified against him.[50] But though surrounded with
indifference, contempt or hate, and threatened with death, Cagliostro
did not abandon hope. His spirit was not yet wholly broken. The terror
in which he had lived so long gave place to rage. Caught in the gin of
the Inquisition he defended himself with the fury born of despair, and
something of his old cunning.
According to the Inquisition-biographer, when he was examined for the
first time four months after his arrest “he burst into invectives
against the Court of France to which he attributed all the misfortunes
he had experienced since the Bastille.” He accused the witnesses of
being his enemies, and on being told that his wife had “confessed” he
denounced her as a traitress. But the next moment, as if realizing what
she must have been made to suffer, “he burst into tears, testified the
liveliest tenderness for her, and implored the favour of having her as
a companion in his cell.”
“One may well imagine,” reports the Inquisition-biographer, “that this
request was not granted.” One may indeed! According to the _Moniteur_
he also asked to be bled, placed in a larger cell, allowed fresh
linen,[51] a fire and a blanket. The first and the last alone were
granted him, for the Inquisition had no desire to have him die before
they had finished trying him. As, however, his judges professed to be
deeply concerned for the health of his soul, when to the above request,
he added one for “some good book,” no objection was made to satisfy
him. He was, therefore, given three folio volumes on “the defence of
the Roman Pontificate and the Catholic Church.”[52]
Cagliostro took the cynical hint, and after reading the book manifested
the deepest contrition, admitted that Freemasonry was a veritable
crime, and the Egyptian Rite contrary to the Catholic religion. “No
one, however,” says the Inquisition-biographer, “believed him, and if
he flattered himself on recovering his liberty by this means he was
mistaken.” Perceiving that this act of repentance, far from being of
any avail, only served to furnish his enemies with fresh weapons, he
declared that “everything he had done in his life had been done with
the consent of the Almighty, and that he had always been faithful to
the Pope and the Church.”
Unhappily for him, however, he had to deal with men of a very
different type to those who composed the Parliament of Paris. Nothing
he could say would satisfy them. “I will confess whatever you wish
me to,” he said. Told that the Inquisition only desired the “truth,”
he declared that all he had said was true. He demanded to be brought
before the Pope himself. “If his Holiness would but hear me,” he said,
“I prophesy I should be set at liberty this very night!”
And who shall gainsay him? With Cardinals and Prince-Bishops steeped in
alchemy and the occult, perhaps even the Pope might have been tempted
to exploit the extraordinary knowledge and faculties of his famous,
mysterious prisoner. It would not have been the first time that the
philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life had been sought by a Papal
sovereign. At any rate Cagliostro’s request to be brought before Pius
VI was not granted. The judges of the Inquisition were taking no risks
calculated to cheat them of their prey.
But to give all the details of this trial as related by the
Inquisition-biographer, who was evidently himself one of the judges,
would be tedious. Suffice it to say, Cagliostro “confessed,” retracted,
and “confessed” again, “drowning the truth in a flood of words.” One
day he would acknowledge that Egyptian Masonry was a huge system of
imposture which had as its object the destruction of throne and altar.
The next he declared that it was a means of spreading the Catholic
religion, and as such had been recognized and encouraged by Cardinal de
Rohan, the head of the Church in France.
As regards his own religious convictions, which, by catechizing him
on the cardinal virtues and the difference between venial and mortal
sins, the Inquisition-biographer asserts to be the chief object of
the trial, they were those of the enlightened men of his century.
“Questioned,” he declared he believed all religions to be equal, and
that “providing one believed in the existence of a Creator and the
immortality of the soul, it mattered not whether one was Catholic,
Lutheran, Calvinist, or Jew.” As to his political opinions, he
confessed to a “hatred of tyranny, especially of all forms of religious
intolerance.”
At length, on March 21, 1791, the Inquisition judges brought their
gloomy farce to an end. As an instance of the hatred of the Papal
government for secret societies and especially for Freemasonry,
Cagliostro’s sentence is worth quoting in full--
“Giuseppe Balsamo, attainted and convicted of many crimes, and of
having incurred the censures and penalties pronounced against heretics,
dogmatics, heresiarchs, and propagators of magic and superstition, has
been found guilty and condemned to the said censures and penalties as
decreed by the Apostolic laws of Clement XII and Benedict XIV, against
all persons who in any manner whatever favour or form societies and
conventicles of Freemasonry, as well as by the edict of the Council of
State against all persons convicted of this crime in Rome or in any
other place in the dominions of the Pope.
“Notwithstanding, by special grace and favour, the sentence of death
by which this crime is expiated is hereby commuted into perpetual
imprisonment in a fortress, where the culprit is to be strictly guarded
without any hope of pardon whatever. Furthermore, after he shall have
abjured his offences as a heretic in the place of his imprisonment he
shall receive absolution, and certain salutary penances will then be
prescribed for him to which he is hereby ordered to submit.
“Likewise, the manuscript book which has for its title _Egyptian
Masonry_ is solemnly condemned as containing rites, propositions,
doctrines, and a system which being superstitious, impious, heretical,
and altogether blasphemous, open a road to sedition and the destruction
of the Christian religion. This book, therefore, shall be burnt by the
executioner, together with all the other documents relating to this
sect.
“By a new Apostolic law we shall confirm and renew not only the laws of
the preceding pontiffs which prohibit the societies and conventicles
of Freemasonry, making particular mention of the Egyptian sect and of
another vulgarly known as the Illuminés, and we shall decree that the
most _grievous corporal punishments_ reserved for heretics shall be
inflicted on all who shall associate, hold communion with, or protect
these societies.”
Throughout Europe, which was everywhere impregnated with the doctrines
of the Revolution, such a sentence for such a crime at such a time
created a revulsion of feeling in Cagliostro’s favour. His fate,
however, evoked less sympathy for him than indignation against Rome. An
article in the _Feuille Villageoise_ best expresses the general opinion.
“The Pope,” says the writer, “ought to have abandoned Cagliostro to the
effects of his bad reputation. Instead he has had him shut up and tried
by charlatans far more dangerous to society than himself. His sentence
is cruel and ridiculous. If all who make dupes of the crowd were
punished in this fashion, precedence on the scaffold should certainly
be granted to the Roman Inquisitors.”
* * * * *
That the trial of Cagliostro was really intended by the Papal
government as a proof of its determination to show no quarter
in its war against the Freemasons may be gathered from the
Inquisition-biographer’s _Vie de Joseph Balsamo_, which is less a
life of Balsamo or Cagliostro, as it purports to be, than a furious
attack on Freemasonry, which is depicted in the blackest and most
odious colours. Its publication exasperated the secret societies in
Lombardy and they were emboldened by the progress of the Revolution to
publish a reply. “This pamphlet,” says the _Moniteur_, “appeared under
the auspices of the Swiss government and produced such a sensation
throughout Italy, and particularly in Rome, that the Conclave,
terrified at the revolutionary fury it had awakened, instructed its
agents to buy up every copy they could find.”
The Conclave would have been better advised to suppress the work of
the Inquisition-biographer. The account it contains of Cagliostro’s
trial completely justifies the popular belief in the bigotry, cruelty,
tyranny, and total lack of the Christian spirit that characterized the
proceedings of the Holy Inquisition.
III
For some time after his trial the public continued to manifest
great interest in Cagliostro. The recollection of his extraordinary
career gave to his sentence a dramatic character, which made a deep
impression on the imagination. Speculation was rife as to his fate,
which the Papal government foolishly saw fit to shroud in mystery that
only served to keep his memory alive.
All sorts of rumours were current about him. One day it would be
said that he had attempted to commit suicide; the next that he was
chained to his cell a raving maniac. Again it was rumoured that he
had predicted the fall of the Papacy and was impatiently awaiting the
Roman populace to march on St. Angelo and deliver him. The _Moniteur’s_
correspondent relates that in a terrific storm “in which Rome was
stricken with a great fear as if the end of the world was at hand,
Cagliostro mistook the thunder for the cannon of the insurgents and was
heard shouting in his dungeon, _Me voici! à moi! me voici!_”
Knowing, as he did from his Masonic connection, how widespread was the
revolutionary movement, and what hopes were raised in Italy by the
stirring march of events in France, it is not unlikely that he may have
counted on some popular rising to set him free. That he despaired of
such a deliverance, however, and contemplated recovering his liberty by
his own efforts seems much more probable.
According to Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar who guaranteed the accuracy
of the story, Cagliostro did, indeed, make a bold attempt to escape
from St. Angelo. “Manifesting deep contrition,” says the Prince, “he
demanded penance for his sins and a confessor. A Capucin was sent him.
After his confession, Cagliostro entreated the priest to give him the
‘discipline’ with the cord he wore as a belt, to which the latter
willingly consented. But scarcely had he received the first blow when
he seized the cord, flung himself on the Capucin, and did his best to
strangle him. His intention was to escape in the priest’s cloak, and
had he been in his vigour and his opponent a weak man he might have
succeeded. But Cagliostro was lean and wasted from long imprisonment
and the Capucin was strong and muscular. In the struggle with his
penitent he had time to call for help.”
What followed on the arrival of the jailers is not known, but it is not
likely that the prisoner was handled with gloves.
As a sequel to that frantic struggle for life and liberty, Cagliostro
was secretly sent “in the middle of the night” to the Castle of San
Leo, near Montefeltro. The situation of this stronghold is one of the
most singular in Europe. The enormous rock, whose summit it crowns,
rising on three sides precipitously from an almost desert plain, is
like a monument commemorative of some primeval convulsion of nature.
In early times it had been the site of a temple of Jupiter, the ruins
of which after its destruction by the barbarians became the abode of
a Christian hermit, whose ascetic virtues were canonized, and who
bequeathed his name to it. In the Middle Ages the holy ruins gave place
to an almost impregnable fortress, which at a still later period was
converted into a Papal prison, compared to which the Bastille was a
paradise.[53]
[Illustration: SAN LEO]
In the eighteenth century the condition of the surroundings rendered
it well-nigh inaccessible. The roads leading to San Leo were only
practicable for horses in fine weather; in winter it was only
approached on foot. To accentuate still further this isolation, the
Papal government had taken care that those convicted of sedition or
heretical doctrines, should find there an everlasting seclusion. An
official, commissioned by Napoleon to visit and examine the Italian
prisons, gives an account of the cells, which were partly in the old
castle of San Leo itself and partly excavated out of the rock on which
it stands.
“The galleries,” he reports, “which have been cut out of the solid
rock, were divided into cells, and old dried-up cisterns had been
converted into dungeons for the worst criminals, and further surrounded
by high walls, so that the only possible egress, if escape was
attempted, would be by a staircase cut in the rock and guarded night
and day by sentinels.
“It was in one of these cisterns that the celebrated Cagliostro was
interred in 1791. In recommending the Pope to commute the sentence
of death, which the Inquisition had passed upon him, into perpetual
imprisonment, the Holy Tribunal took care that the commutation should
be equivalent to the death penalty. His only communication with mankind
was when his jailers raised the trap to let food down to him. Here he
languished for three years without air, movement, or intercourse with
his fellow-creatures. During the last months of his life his condition
excited the pity of the governor, who had him removed from this
dungeon to a cell on the level with the ground, where the curious, who
obtain permission to visit the prison, may read on the walls various
inscriptions and sentences traced there by the unhappy alchemist. The
last bears the date of the 6th of March, 1795.”[54]
This is the last definite trace of Cagliostro.
On the 6th October, 1795, the _Moniteur_ states “it is reported in
Rome that the famous Cagliostro is dead.” But when he died, or how, is
absolutely unknown. “That his end was tragic,” says d’Alméras, “one can
well suppose, and his jailers, to make sure that he should not escape,
may have put him out of his misery.” The _Moniteur_ speaks of the
probability of such an end as being a topic of conversation in Rome.
In any case, it seems impossible to believe that he could long have
survived so terrible a doom, which, whatever his offence, was utterly
disgraceful to the government that pronounced it.
This mysterious end, so in keeping with Cagliostro’s mysterious origin
and personality, appeals to the imagination. Nothing excites curiosity
like a mystery. Since his death there have been as many attempts
to lift the veil in which his end is shrouded as were made in his
lifetime to discover the secret of his birth. Of these specimens of
sheer futility, Madame Blavatsky’s is the most interesting, the most
unlikely, and the most popular among the believers in the supernatural
who have allowed their imaginations to run riot on Cagliostro generally.
According to the equally extraordinary High Priestess of the
Theosophists, Cagliostro escaped from San Leo, and long after his
supposed death in 1795 was met by various people in Russia, even
residing for some time in the house of Madame Blavatsky’s father, where
“in the midst of winter he produced by magical power a plate full of
fresh strawberries for a sick person who was craving it.”
Had Cagliostro survived his terrible sufferings in San Leo till 1797,
when the French invaded the Papal States, he certainly would have
been set at liberty. San Leo, to which the Pope’s troops had retired,
was taken by the famous Polish legion under General Dombrowski. The
first thing the officers did on entering the fortress was to inquire
anxiously if Cagliostro, whom they regarded as a martyr in the cause of
freedom, was living.
“They thought to rescue him,” says Figuier, “and perhaps even to give
him an ovation similar to that which he had received in Paris after his
acquittal by the Parliament. But they arrived too late. Cagliostro,
they were told, had just died.”
According to another version, they demanded to be shown his grave, and
having opened it, filled the skull with wine, which they drank to the
honour of the Revolution!
* * * * *
The fate of the inoffensive and colourless Countess Cagliostro was
quite as mysterious, though less cruel, perhaps, than her husband’s.
The Inquisition sentenced her, too, to imprisonment for life. She was
confined in the convent of St. Appolonia, a penitentiary for women in
Rome, where it was rumoured she had died in 1794.
INDEX
Agliata, Marquis, 35, 36
Agrippa, Cornelius, 80
Alba, Duke of, 13, 16
Albertus Magnus, 80
d’Alembert, 193
Alméras, Henri d’, 5, 146, 170, 201 _note_, 233, 306
Althotas, 32, 33, 236-240
Aquino, Chevalier d’, 184, 240, 241
Aubert & Co., J. F., 22
Aylett, 68-72, 272
Bachaumont, 262
Bacon, Roger, 79
Badioli, 64, 66, 67
Bailly, 97
Balsamo, Giuseppe, 7, 10-47, 68, 266, 270, 271, 300
----, Joseph. _See_ Giuseppe Balsamo
----, Lorenza, 13, 19, 34-47
----, Maria, 22
----, Pietro, 21, 22
Barthélemy, 256, 259
Beaumarchais, 263
Beauvais, Vincent de, 78
Bécherand, Abbé, 85
Benamore, Dr. Moses, 41, 68, 70, 71
Benedict XIV, 300
Bergeret de Frouville, 256
Besenval, Baron de, 190, 271
Beugnot, Count, 202, 203, 210, 211
Blanc, Louis, 98, 208
Blavatsky, Madame, 76, 306, 307
Blevary, Madame, 49, 50, 52, 53
Blondel, 235
Bode, 141, 142
Böhmer, 220, 221, 232, 233, 244
----, Madame, 150, 151, 152
Boileau, Pierre, 111
Borri, 169, 295
Boulainvilliers, Marquise de, 215
Braconieri, Antonio, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 22
----, Felice. _See_ Maria Balsamo
----, Giuseppe, 22
----, Matteo, 22
Breteuil, Baron de, 225, 226, 254 _note_, 255, 256, 257, 259
Bretteville, Baron de, 33
Brienne, Comtesse de, 197
Brissot, 256 _note_, 260 _note_, 264, 265, 274
Broad, 60, 62, 65, 72
Brugnière, Inspector, 228, 229, 230, 235
Cagliostro, Count--
prejudice against, 2;
Carlyle’s portrait of, 3-5;
the Balsamo legend, 11-18;
troubles in London, 49-73;
becomes a Freemason, 111;
in Leipsic, 117;
character of Egyptian Masonry, 119-125;
reception in Courland, 126;
magic séances in Courland, 129-140;
Countess von der Recke’s opinion of, 141, 142;
in St. Petersburg, 143-147;
visits Warsaw, 148-154;
joins the Illuminés, 156;
arrival in Strasburg, 157;
his benevolence, 163;
cures Prince de Soubise, 164-166;
nature of his cures, 167-169;
visited by Lavater, 170;
Mme. d’Oberkirch’s opinion of, 175;
admiration of Cardinal de Rohan, 176-179;
Sacchi’s libel, 183;
visits Naples, 184;
at Bordeaux, 187;
success in Lyons, 189;
arrives in Paris, 190;
infatuation of Parisians, 192-194;
mystery of his origin and wealth, 195-197;
appearance, 201-203;
character of his séances, 209, 210;
success of Egyptian Masonry, 211-213;
implicated in the Diamond Necklace Affair, 224;
arrest, 228;
in the Bastille, 230;
accused by Countess de Lamotte, 233;
his story of his life, 236-242;
refutes Countess de Lamotte, 244-246;
acquittal, 248;
receives a public ovation, 249;
banished, 250;
returns to London, 251;
_Letter to the French people_, 254;
hostility of French Court, 257;
denounced by Morande, 266;
defends himself, 267-269;
attempts to kidnap him, 272, 273;
ridiculed by Freemasons, 277;
leaves England, 279;
friendship of de Loutherbourg, 280-282;
seeks asylum in Switzerland, 283;
at Rovoredo, 285;
expelled from Trent, 287;
arrival in Rome, 288;
his poverty, 290;
arrested by Papal police, 293;
before the Inquisition, 299;
his sentence, 300;
attempt to escape, 303;
at San Leo, 304, 305;
mysterious end, 306
Cagliostro, Countess, 13, 14, 19, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 111,
112, 115, 120, 151, 177, 181, 185, 204, 205, 224, 230, 231, 232,
233, 241, 280, 282, 285, 288, 297, 307
----, Giuseppe, 13, 15, 22
Campan, Madame, 222
Campardon, Émile, 12
Capitummino, Giovanni, 22
Carbonnières, Raymond de, 189
Carlyle, 3, 4, 5, 6, 24, 201, 203, 224, 305 _note_
Cartegirone, Benfratelli of, 23, 25, 30
Casanova, 37, 38, 39
Castropignani, Duke of, 266
Catherine, Empress, 143, 147, 148
Chaix d’Est-Ange, 225, 226
Charles XII, 90
Chateaugiron, Marquis de, 113 _note_
Chesnon, 228, 230, 251
Choiseul, Duc de, 100, 193
Clement V, 108, 113 _note_
----, XII, 109, 300
----, XIV, 241
Condorcet, 99
Convulsionnaires, The, 85, 86
_Courier de l’Europe_, 10, 11, 17, 18, 20, 39, 40, 46, 47, 53, 54,
63, 71, 111, 113, 184 _note_, 196 _note_, 234, 264, 272, 273,
274, 277, 279, 282
----, Editor of. _See_ Theveneau de Morande
Courland, Duchess of, 127, 140
----, Duke of, 127
Créquy, Marquis de, 202, 210
Crisp, 68, 69, 70, 72
Dee, Dr., 80, 81
Diamond Necklace Affair, 119, 142, 214-252
Diderot, 193
Dombrowski, General, 307
Du Barry, Madame, 262, 263
Duplessis de la Radotte, 42
Eddy, Mrs., 76, 166, 281
Egyptian Masonry, 115, 117-126, 131, 132, 139, 142, 143, 144, 149,
156, 160, 185, 188, 189, 197 _note_, 207, 211, 212, 213, 276, 277,
292, 298, 299, 301
d’Epreminil, 232
Erasmus, 80
Esperance Lodge, 67, 111, 113, 114
Feliciani, Lorenza. _See_ Lorenza Balsamo
----, Seraphina. _See_ Countess Cagliostro
_Feuille Villageoise_, 301
Figuier, 85, 123, 166, 194, 210, 212
Fontenelle, 93
Frederick the Great, 97, 104, 108
Freemasons, The, 105, 107, 108, 109, 116, 117, 121, 185, 296
Fry, Miss, 53-68, 71, 72
Funck-Brentano, 201 _note_, 248 _note_
Ganganelli. _See_ Clement XIV
Gassner, 86, 103, 166
_Gazette de Florence_, 12
_Gazette de Leyde_, 11
Gebir, 78, 79
Genlis, Madame de, 172, 206
Georgel, Abbé, 178, 181, 202, 208
Gergy, Madame de, 199, 200
Gillray, 278
Gleichen, Baron de, 123, 159, 163, 164, 180, 198, 199, 205
Goertz, Baron von, 145
Goethe, 43, 45, 46, 305 _note_
Goncourt, 225
Gordon, Lord George, 256, 257, 258, 276
Gotha, Duke of, 110
Gracei, 266
Graham, Dr., 86
Grand Cophta, The. _See_ Count Cagliostro
Grimm, Baron, 190, 197, 200
Hales, Sir Edward, 41
Hardivilliers, 111, 112
du Hausset, Madame, 198
Hermes Trismegistus, 76
Hervier, Père, 186, 187, 188
Houdon, 194
Howarth, 65, 66
Howen, Herr von, 129
Hundt, Baron von, 113
Illuminés, The, 104, 105, 106, 110, 141, 155, 156, 160, 197 _note_,
289, 301
Inquisition, The, 20, 107, 289, 293, 294, 295
Inquisition-biographer, The, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 32, 33, 41, 44, 46,
47, 114, 115, 117, 118, 184, 203, 234, 254, 284, 289, 292, 293, 294,
298, 299
James, 71, 72
Jansenists, The, 84, 85
Jesuits, The, 85, 103, 107, 109, 196, 294
Joseph II, 104, 286, 287
Kant, 94
Kepler, 80
Knigge, Baron von, 105, 106, 109, 156, 287
Knights Templars, The Order of, 108, 113 _note_
Kölmer, 236 _note_
Laborde, 153, 154, 163, 202
Lamotte, Count de, 216, 224, 256 _note_, 272
----, Countess de, 8, 9, 36, 47, 151, 204, 205, 214, 215, 218-228,
233, 234, 235, 242, 244-248, 254, 256 _note_
Laroca, 44
Lasalle, Marquis de, 163, 183
Lascaris, 161
de Launay, 232, 251
Lavater, 86, 140, 170, 171, 203
Lavoisier, 88, 97
Leguay, Mlle., 219, 224, 235
Leibnitz, 96
Lenôtre, 252
_Letter to the English People_, 267, 272
_Letter to the French People_, 254, 255
Lévis, Duc de, 220
Lodge of Antiquity, The, 277
Lodge of Vrais Amis, 289, 290, 293
Louis XIV, 96
---- XV, 198, 199, 262, 263
---- XVI, 195, 215, 217, 223, 224, 226, 258, 259
Loutherbourg, Mrs. de, 280, 281, 282
----, Philip James, 280, 281, 282
Luchet, Marquis de, 120, 123, 144, 145, 146, 158, 194, 206
Luxembourg, Prince de, 191
Mansfield, Lord, 64, 65, 68
Manuel, 172
Marano, 30, 31, 33, 44, 45, 46, 158 _note_
Maria Theresa, Empress, 162, 172, 217
Marie Antoinette, Queen, 8, 10, 15, 195, 216, 228, 233, 249, 250, 252,
254, 270
Marigny, Marquise de, 173
Martello, Matteo, 22
----, Vincenza, 22
Martin, Henri, 98
Martini, 78
Mash, 277
Maurigi, Marquis, 26
Medem, Count von, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140
----, Marshal von, 126, 127, 129, 130, 134, 135, 136, 137, 147
Meiners, 159, 195, 203
Mesmer, 75, 76, 88, 102, 166, 186, 189, 195
Michelet, 203
Millinens, Baron de, 174
Mirabeau, 55, 124, 198, 227, 249
Moczinski, Count, 148, 150, 151, 152
Molay, Jacques, 108, 113 _note_
_Moniteur, The_, 290 _note_, 295, 297 _note_, 298, 302, 303, 306
Montbruel, Chevalier de, 211
Montesquieu, 193
Mother Lodge of the Helvetic States, 283
Motus, 163, 202, 203
Mouncey, Dr., 147
Napoleon, 305
Neubourg, Marie de, 198
Newton, Sir Isaac, 88
Nicastro, Ottavio, 35
Nordberg, M. de, 198
Normandez, M. de, 146
Oberkirch, Baroness d’, 4, 162, 163, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176,
178, 181 _note_, 202, 247
Oisemont, Chevalier d’, 205
Oliva, Baroness d’. _See_ Mlle. Leguay
O’Reilly, 67, 68, 69, 72, 273, 275
Orsini, Cardinal, 13, 16, 33, 241
Orvilliers, Marquise d’, 196
Paracelsus, 79, 81, 169
Pâris, Deacon, 84, 85
Pasqualis, Martinez, 100, 186
Pellegrini, Marchesa. _See_ Lorenza Balsamo
----, Marchese. _See_ Giuseppe Balsamo
Pergolezzi, 40, 51, 272, 273 _note_
Philalètes, The, 212, 213
Philip the Fair, King, 108, 113 _note_
Pinto, Grand Master, 236 _note_, 239, 240, 242
Pius VI, 299
Planta, Baron de, 181 _note_
Poland, King of. _See_ Stanislas Augustus
Polish Legion, The, 307
Polverit, Maître, 204, 232
Pompadour, Madame de, 198, 199, 215
Poninskí, Prince, 148, 149, 151
Potemkin, Prince, 147
Priddle, 64, 70, 275
Prie, Marquis de, 42
Puységur, Marquis de, 76
Quère, 159
Ramon, 191
Recke, Count von der, 127
----, Countess Elisa von der, 4, 127-147, 202
Réteaux de Vilette, 224
Reynolds, 60, 61, 62, 70, 72
Ricciarelli, Count, 111
Rivarol, 225
Roberson, 176, 177
Rogerson, Dr., 147
Rohan, Cardinal de, 8, 163, 164, 165, 171-179, 181, 182, 184, 189,
196, 199, 205, 215-227, 233, 244, 247, 248, 249, 250,
254 _note_, 299
Rosencreutz, Christian, 81
Rosicrucians, The, 81, 82, 94, 95, 109, 201
Rousseau, 97
Sacchi, 47, 182, 183, 275, 276
Sagesse Triomphante Lodge, The, 189
Saint Angelo, Castle of, 32, 293, 296, 303
Saint-Germain, Count de, 87, 198, 199, 200, 287
Saint James of Compostella, 37, 39
Saint-Martin, Louis Claude de, 99, 101, 102, 109, 186
Saint-Médard, Cemetery of, 84, 85
Saint-Remy, Jeanne de. _See_ Countess de Lamotte
Sancotar, 197
San Leo, Prison of, 304, 305, 306, 307
San Rocco, Seminary of, 23
Santa Cruce, Prince of, 146
Sarazin, 156, 163, 197, 283, 284
Saunders, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68
Savalette, de Langes, 212
Saverne, Palace of, 173, 174, 175, 181, 221
Saxe, Marshal, 118
Saxe-Weimar, Prince Bernard of, 300, 303
Schröpfer, 86, 87, 109, 117 _note_
Scieffort, 117
Scott, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 72
---- “Lady.” _See_ Miss Fry
Serres de Latour, 264, 265
Shannon, 64
Soubise, Prince de, 164, 165, 170
Stanislas Augustus, 151, 153, 154
Strict Observance, Order of, 113, 114, 115
Surrey, Lord, 80
Swedberg. _See_ Swedenborg
Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 124 and _note_
Swinton, 264, 265, 274, 275, 276
Theveneau de Morande, 261-282
Thilorier, 235, 267, 273
Thiroux de Crosne, 232
Tiscio, Don. _See_ Giuseppe Balsamo
Trent, Prince-Bishop of, 286, 287
Ulrica, Queen, 90, 93
Vaillant, 85
Van Helmont, 79
Vauvenargues, 96
Vergennes, Comte de, 188, 264, 265
Villafranca, Prince of, 13
Villeneuve, Arnauld de, 167
de Vismes, 279 _note_
Vitellini, 50, 51, 52, 57, 66
Voisenon, Abbé de, 193
Voltaire, 96, 193, 262
Walpole, Horace, 198, 281
Weishaupt, Adam, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 141, 287
York, Cardinal, 33, 241
_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Prior to the present volume no complete biography of Cagliostro has
been published in English.
[2] _La Mort de la Reine: Les suites de l’affaire du collier._
Translated into English under the title of _Cagliostro and Company_.
[3] On hearing that his wife had been arrested as well as himself in
connection with the Necklace Affair, Cagliostro manifested the wildest
grief.
[4] This book is now very rare. The French version is the more
available. It is entitled: _Vie de Joseph Balsamo connu sous le nom
de Comte Cagliostro, extraite de la procédure instruite contre lui à
Rome en 1790; traduite d’après l’original italien, imprimé à la Chambre
Apostolique_.
[5] About £30.
[6] To infer from this, however, as many writers have done, that
Casanova’s evidence proves Cagliostro and Balsamo to be the same is
absurd. He never met the _Cagliostros_ in his life. In stating that
they were the Balsamos whom he had met in 1770 he merely _repeats_ what
he had read in the papers. His Memoirs were not written till many years
later.
[7] Cagliostro, however, ignored this threat, which one can scarcely
believe he would have done had he had any reason to fear it. Nor did
Pergolezzi put it into effect; and it was not till ten years later,
when Cagliostro returned to London thoroughly discredited, that the
Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_ got wind of it in some way and
twisted it into his Balsamo theory of accounting for the mysterious
Cagliostro. Whether Pergolezzi was living at the time is unknown; in
any case the threat which Cagliostro now ignored contained _no mention
of Balsamo_.
[8] Were all the _suppositions_ on which the general opinion of
Cagliostro is based as reasonable as the present, there would be no
cause for complaint on that score.
[9] One of the symbols of the Masons was a cross on which were the
letters L.P.D. which were interpreted by the priests to mean _Lilia
Pedibus Destrue_, Trample the Lilies under-foot.
[10] This statement rests solely on the word of the Editor of the
_Courier de l’Europe_, who cited it as one of his reasons for
identifying Cagliostro with Balsamo. The latter, it may be recalled,
had passed as a colonel in the Prussian service during the time he was
connected with the forger Agliata.
[11] His diploma, for which he paid five guineas, was formerly in
the celebrated collection of autographs belonging to the Marquis de
Châteaugiron.
[12] As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Order of the Knights
Templar was suppressed in the fourteenth century by Pope Clement V,
Jacques Molay, the Grand Master, being burnt alive by King Philip the
Fair of France.
[13] Schröpfer’s name is generally associated with this prediction.
As he died, however, in 1774, nearly five years before--a date easily
ascertainable--some idea may be gathered of the slight importance most
writers on Cagliostro have attached to accuracy.
[14] The stories told of Swedenborg are quite as fantastic as any
concerning Cagliostro. “He was walking,” says Brittan in _The
Shekinah_, “one day along Cheapside with a friend, a person of great
worth and credit (who afterwards related the incident), when he was
suddenly seen to bow very low to the ground. To his companion’s
question as to what he was about, Swedenborg replied by asking him if
he had not seen Moses pass by, and that he was bowing to him.”
[15] The “magic” nail held by the child has a strong family resemblance
to Mesmer’s _baquet divinatoire_. The famous _discovery_ of Mesmer,
it is scarcely needless to say, was merely an attempt to explain
scientifically powers the uses of which had been known to alchemists
from time immemorial.
[16] As all the above-mentioned rumours--which, be it understood,
were voiceless till the Diamond Necklace Affair--are hostile, it may
be inferred that Cagliostro’s visit to St. Petersburg was, to say the
least, a failure. This impression is confirmed by the fact that on the
publication of the Countess von der Recke’s book, the Empress Catherine
caused it to be translated into Russian.
[17] This seems to have been suggested to de Luchet by the _Courier
de l’Europe_, which stated that Cagliostro, on becoming a Freemason,
described himself as “Colonel of the Brandenburg regiment.”
[18] As an agent of the Illuminés, Cagliostro would have been quite
free to found lodges of Egyptian Masonry. Many Egyptian Masons were
also Illuminés, notably Sarazin of Bâle, the banker of both societies.
In joining the Illuminés, therefore, Cagliostro would not only have
furthered their interests, but have received every assistance from them
in return.
[19] The story that it was interrupted by the sudden appearance of
Marano, furiously demanding of Cagliostro the sixty ounces of gold that
Giuseppe Balsamo had defrauded him of years before in Palermo, is a
pure invention of the Marquis de Luchet.
[20] Motus, another contemporary, gives the number as “over fifteen
hundred.”
[21] This charge is cited by Carlyle as an instance of the baseness of
Cagliostro’s character. But as a matter of fact, the charge, like most
of the others made against him, proves on investigation to be without
any foundation. It was the Baron de Planta, one of the Cardinal’s
secretaries, who gave the much-talked-of midnight suppers at Saverne,
“when the Tokay flowed like water.” It is extremely doubtful whether
Cagliostro even tasted the Tokay; his contemporaries frequently mention
with ridicule his abstemiousness. Referring to his ascetic habits,
Madame d’Oberkirch says contemptuously that “he slept in an arm-chair
and lived on cheese.”
[22] This libel attracted considerable attention, and great use was
made of it in Cagliostro’s lifetime by his enemies. Republished during
the Necklace Affair, the Parliament of Paris ordered its suppression
as “injurious and calumnious.” The editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_
afterwards quoted it in his bitter denunciation of Cagliostro, and
advanced it as proof of his identity with Giuseppe Balsamo. It has
since generally been admitted to be a malicious invention.
[23] To doubt these statements on the score of a popular prejudice in
favour of regarding Cagliostro as a liar who never by any chance spoke
the truth is quite ridiculous. Not only is there no proof on which to
base this assertion, but there is not even the least suggestion that
Cagliostro was ever considered a liar by his contemporaries before
the Editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_--himself the biggest of liars
and knaves--took advantage of the passions let loose by the Diamond
Necklace Affair to brand him as such.
[24] A cryptic reference to the Secret Societies, which were the real
source of his wealth. The great success of Egyptian Masonry, of which
the above-mentioned gentlemen were the bankers, more than compensated
him for what he lost by the suppression of the Illuminés in 1784, the
year before he came to Paris.
[25] De Luchet’s fantastic account of the visit paid by Cagliostro and
his wife to Saint-Germain in Germany, and their subsequent initiation
by him into the sect of the Rosicrucians, of which he was supposed to
be the chief, is devoid of all authenticity.
[26] D’Alméras and Funck-Brentano--the latter extremely careless when
writing of Cagliostro--never so much as mention Carlyle.
[27] If it be true that the Count and Countess Cagliostro were really
Giuseppe and Lorenza Balsamo, surely the remarkable change in the
_appearance_, not to speak of the _character_, of _both_, must be
regarded as the most astonishing of all Cagliostro’s prodigies. The
impression he produced from the accounts given above was totally
different from that which Balsamo was said to have produced. As for
his wife, it is preposterous to expect any one to believe that the
pretty demirep Lorenza would have looked as girlish and fresh as the
Countess Seraphina after fifteen years of the sort of life she led with
Giuseppe. As vice and hardship have never yet been regarded as aids
to beauty, those who persist in pinning their faith to the Balsamo
legend will perhaps assent to the suggestion that Cagliostro’s remedies
possessed virtues hitherto denied them.
[28] It is the custom to brand the Countess de Lamotte as infamous, and
judged by moral standards she certainly was. The amazing spirit and
inventions she displayed, however, give a finish to her infamy that
suggest the artist as well as the mere adventuress.
[29] All contemporaries are agreed on this point. “Same figure, same
complexion, same hair, a resemblance of physiognomy of the most
striking kind,” says Target, who defended the Cardinal at his trial.
[30] Marie Antoinette is said to have told Böhmer she could not afford
to buy it, but with her well-known extravagance and passion for
diamonds one cannot help thinking she would have found the means had
the necklace really appealed to her. The fact that Böhmer could find no
purchaser suggests that he had as little taste as brains. The Cardinal,
who like the Queen knew a beautiful object when he saw it, thought the
necklace anything but a beautiful ornament, and when told that the
Queen wanted it, wondered what she could see in it.
[31] The Cardinal was arrested on the 15th, and Cagliostro on the 23rd
August, 1785.
[32] Lamotte alone succeeded in escaping.
[33] The existence of Althotas is now generally conceded. A plausible
attempt has been made to identify him with a certain Kölmer from whom
Weishaupt received lessons in magic, and who was said to be a Jutland
merchant who had lived some years in Memphis and afterwards travelled
through Europe pretending to initiate adepts in the ancient Egyptian
Mysteries. He was known to have visited Malta in the time of the Grand
Master Pinto.
[34] Henry Swinburne, in his _Memoirs of the Courts of Europe_
describing his meeting with Cagliostro, declares that there was
“nothing Jewish” about him.
[35] One, de Soudak, in an interesting review of M. Funck-Brentano’s
_L’Affaire du Collier_, in the Paris _Temps_, April 1, 1902, is the
only modern writer who has ventured to question this verdict. The value
of his opinion may be judged from an article by him in the _Revue
Bleue_, 1899, in which he attempts to identify a mysterious Frenchwoman
who died in the Crimea in 1825 with the Countess de Lamotte, who died
in London 1791, after escaping from the Salpêtrière, to which she
had been condemned for life. Her sentence--the judges were unanimous
in finding her guilty--also included being “whipped naked by the
executioner, branded on the shoulders with the letter V. (voleuse),
and the confiscation of all her property.” The sentences of the others
implicated in this affair need not concern us here.
[36] The _Lettre au peuple français_ was dated the 20th June 1786.
As stated in the previous chapter, Breteuil was the deadly enemy of
Cardinal de Rohan, and encouraged Marie Antoinette in demanding his
arrest of the King.
[37] Nearly all who have written on Cagliostro have erred in stating
that the letter contained the “predictions that the Bastille would be
destroyed, its site become a public promenade, and that a king would
reign in France who would abolish _lettres de cachet_ and convoke the
States General”--all of which actually occurred three years later in
1789. The predictions are the invention of the Inquisition-biographer
to whose short-comings, to put it mildly, attention has frequently been
called. Cagliostro merely says that if in the future he was permitted
to return to France he would only do so “_provided_ the Bastille was
destroyed and its site turned into a public promenade.” A copy of this
letter, now become very rare, is to be seen in the French National
Archives.
[38] Many attempts were made at this very time to kidnap the Count de
Lamotte, who alone of all “wanted” in the Necklace Affair succeeded in
escaping. On one occasion his murder was even attempted. The Countess
de Lamotte herself, who escaped from the Salpêtrière to London and
published the vilest of all the calumnies against Marie Antoinette
perished in jumping out of a window to elude capture. Numerous
instances of the kidnapping of French subjects in England by the French
police are cited by Brissot in his Memoirs.
[39] Both of whom had recently been decoyed to France, where they had
at once been imprisoned.
[40] _Theveneau de Morande: Etude sur le XVIIIᵉᵐᵉ Siècle_ par Paul
Robiquet. By his contemporaries the name of Morande was never mentioned
without an abusive epithet. Brissot, meeting him for the first time in
a restaurant in London, “shuddered instinctively at his approach.”
[41] Morande had one redeeming quality. Royalist to the core, he served
the French Court loyally till the fall of the monarchy. Imprisoned
during the Revolution, he escaped the guillotine by an accident,
and having returned to his native town, retired into a respectable
obscurity.
[42] Whether Thilorier had come to England at the request of Cagliostro
or not is uncertain, but it is now known that he wrote Cagliostro’s
replies to Morande’s charges.
[43] Perhaps Pergolezzi?
[44] Cagliostro’s pretended transmission of his supernatural powers,
as previously stated, was nothing more than the discovery that the
so-called “psychic” faculty, instead of being confined to a few
exceptional people, as was till then generally believed, existed in a
more or less developed state in everybody. Before his time, and in fact
till many years after, the “psychic” faculty was so little understood
that the above phenomenon, familiar enough to spirit-rappers and
planchette-writers of the present day, was believed to be the work of
the powers of darkness whose manifestations inspired terror, of which
familiarity has apparently robbed them now-a-days.
[45] One of his followers, de Vismes, was induced to come to London
from Paris on purpose to act as a decoy.
[46] _Liber memorialis de Caleostro dum esset Roberetti_ contains an
account of Cagliostro’s doings in Rovoredo.
[47] The _Moniteur_, however, was subsequently informed by its Roman
correspondent that he had received bills of exchange from both London
and Paris.
[48] The abolition of their Order was but temporary. It had been forced
upon the Pope by sovereigns whose power in an atheistical age had
increased as his declined. The Jesuits continued to exist in secret,
and to inspire and control the Papacy.
[49] To justify the attitude they adopted the Inquisition-biographer
was accordingly obliged to blacken the character of Cagliostro by
_attributing_ to him the infamous reputation of Balsamo as a means of
emphasizing the odious lives of Freemasons in general.
[50] The Roman correspondent of the _Moniteur_ states that at each
examination of Cagliostro and his wife, the rack was displayed.
[51] In the Bastille he also asked for fresh linen, which was
given him. If he dressed like a mountebank, he was at least always
scrupulously clean.
[52] _Difesa del Pontificato romano e della Chiesa catholica_, by P. N.
M. Pallavicino, Rome 1686.
[53] San Leo is now a well-conducted Italian state prison.
[54] “These facts,” says Schlosser in his _History of the Eighteenth
Century_, “were unknown to Goethe.” The same statement may also be
applied to Carlyle.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAGLIOSTRO ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
