by Sax Rohmer
“Know ye that the arcanum of our great art is the government of mankind, and that the one means to rule mankind is never to tell mankind the truth. Do not foolishly regulate your actions in accordance with the precepts of common sense; rather outrage reason and indomitably maintain every incredible absurdity. Remember that reproduction is the primary power in nature, politics, and society alike; that it is a madness with mortals to be immortal, to know the future although they fail to comprehend the present, and to be spiritual whilst grovelling in the grossly material!”
After this harangue the orator genuflected before the divinity of the temple and retired. At the same moment a man of gigantic stature led the Comtesse to the feet of the immortal Comte de Saint-Germain, who addressed her modestly thus:
“Marked out from my tenderest youth for greatness, I employed myself in ascertaining the nature of true glory. Politics appeared to me nothing but the science of deception; war the art of assassination; philosophy the ambition of imbecility; physics quaint conceits about nature and the habitual mistakes of persons suddenly translated to a country utterly unknown to them; theology the science of misery born of human pride; history the contemplation of perpetual perfidity and blundering. Thence I concluded that the statesman was a skilful liar, the hero an illustrious idiot, the philosopher an eccentric creature, the physician a pitiable and blind person, the theologian a fanatical pedagogue, and the historian a wordmonger.
“Then did I hear of the divinity of this temple. I cast my cares upon him, with my doubts and my aspirations. When he took possession of my soul he enabled me to perceive all objects in a new light; I began to read futurity. This universe so limited, so narrow, so desert-like, was now bordered only by infinity. I abode not only with those who are, but with those who were. He united me to the loveliest women of antiquity...”
To illustrate the spiritual character of the ladies with whom Saint-Germain claimed acquaintance, I append the whole passage in the original French of Figuier: “Il me fit connaître les plus belles femmes de l’antiquité — cette Aspasie, cette Leontium, cette Sapho, cette Faustine, cette Semiramis, cette Irène, dont on a tant parté!”
When the service was finished, the costume of ordinary life was resumed. A superb repast terminated the ceremony. During the course of the banquet the two guests were informed that the Elixir of Immortality was merely Tokay coloured green or red according to the necessities of the case. Several essential precepts were enjoined upon them; among others that they must detest, avoid, and calumniate men of understanding, but flatter, encourage, and blind fools; that they must spread abroad with much mystery the report that the Comte de Saint-Germain was five hundred years of age; that they must make gold, but dupes above all.
The facts of this singular encounter unfortunately are not available from any reliable source. If it occurred as above narrated, it served beyond doubt to confirm Cagliostro in his ambitious projects; and certainly a marked change had taken place in the adventurer since his second visit to England, as is described by Figuier:
“His language, his mien, his manners, are all transformed. His conversation turns only upon his travels in Egypt, to. Mecca, and to other remote places, upon the secret sciences into which he was initiated at the foot of the pyramid, on the arcana of nature which he has discovered. At the same time, he talks little, and more often envelops himself in mysterious silence. When interrogated, he only deigns, for the most part, to draw his symbol — a serpent with an apple in its mouth and pierced by a dart — meaning that human wisdom should be silent respecting the mysteries which it has unravelled...
VI. THE HEALING ART OF CAGLIOSTRO
From this time onward the Comte takes the stage in the character of a new Æsculapius. Louis Figuier says — Histoire du Merveilleux, tome iv. — that as Cagliostro came into prominence at the time when Mesmer was engaging much attention, each was regarded as the rival of the other, and it was asserted that they both drew their powers from the same source. Cagliostro, less restrained in the application of his knowledge of the use of the common agent, more catholic than Mesmer, seems to have generalized the employment of magnetism.
It is known that Cagliostro cured quite as successfully as Mesmer, although he was without title and without other mission than that which he gave to himself; but he cured without passes, without iron wands, without manipulations, and by a mere touch; which approached more to Gassner and Greatrakes than to Mesmer. Another difference: Cagliostro did not exploit his patients. On the contrary, in all the towns that he visited, medicines were prepared by his agents at his own expense, and all those who came to him to be cured received these palliatives at his hands, with relief for their wants and even for the needs of their families.
Cagliostro was lavish, and he proved it by the generous alms which he distributed in his path. For the rest, profoundly silent on the origin of his fortune, he maintained the same silence as to the nature of his agent, and betrayed nothing to savants, doctors, or academicians. He proceeded with audacity, operated with authority, and everywhere produced an astonishment which occasioned, without any doubt, a great part of his success. Louis XVI, who ridiculed Mesmer, pronounced guilty of lèse-majesté (or something similar) whomsoever should injure or cast reflection upon Cagliostro.
But the medical cures of Cagliostro were merely a hors-d’ œuvre in his career of a universal magnetizer, and served only as a means of obtaining popularity with the masses.
His imposing figure and haughty manner, his numerous suite, and the extensive train that accompanied him on his journey, naturally attracted all eyes and caused the vulgar spirits to regard him with an admiration almost idolatrous. He seems, moreover, to have exercised a fascination over all who approached him. All sorts of sciences and marvellous faculties were attributed to this latest man of mystery. The following is a description by a contemporary who claimed to have been intimately acquainted with Cagliostro:
“He is a doctor initiated in the Cabalistic art; in that part of the art which consists of communication with the dead and absent. He is a Rosicrucian; he is possessed of all the human sciences and is an adept in the transmutation of base metal into gold. He is a good Samaritan, who treats the poor without thought of gain, and sells, for a consideration, immortality to the rich....”
Bordes, in his Lettres sur la Suisse, describes Cagliostro as an admirable man:
“His face,” he says, “indicates spirit, discloses genius, and his eyes of fire search the depths of the soul. He knows nearly every language of Europe and Asia; his eloquence astounds, entrances even those of whom he speaks lightly.”
I append other descriptions of him. Carlyle says: “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!”
Madame d’Oberkirch in her Mémoires writes: “He was not, strictly speaking, handsome, but I have never seen a more remarkable face. His glance was so penetrating that one might almost be 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 whilst it inspired terror it aroused along with it an irresistible curiosity.”
The Gazette de Santé completed the painting of this personage:
“M. le Comte de Cagliostro is the possessor, it is said, of the marvellous secrets of a famous Adept who has discovered the Elixir of Life.... M. le Comte is painted in an Oriental garb, his portrait is always to be seen at Medina, at the house of the Grand Seigneur; he never sleeps but in an arm-chair; he satisfies himself with a meal of macaroni. He is learned in the medicine and chemistry of Egypt, and suggests fifty thousand écus to found an Egyptian hospital. He does not hold communication with others of the art, but, to distinguish himself from them, he cures gratuitously. He is named M. le Chevalier de I... It is said that his remedy is the same as that of a famous operator who had watch
es for buttons, like the wife of another who carried chimes in her ear-rings.”
From their initiation by the Comte de Saint-Germain the Comte and Madame di Cagliostro proceeded into Courland, where they established Masonic lodges, according to the sublime rite of Egyptian Freemasonry. Madame was an excellent preacher to captivate hearts and enchain imagination, and her beauty fascinated a large number of the Courlandaise nobility.
At Mittau, Cagliostro attracted the attention of persons of high rank, who were led by his conversation to regard him as an extraordinary person. By means of his Freemasonry he began to obtain an ascendancy over the minds of the nobles, some of whom, discontented with the reigning duke, are actually represented as offering him the sovereignty of the country!
The Comtesse, at this time, was about five-andtwenty years of age, and radiant with grace and beauty; indeed, she looked like an incarnation of immortal loveliness, a very goddess of love; “and it is possible that the crowds of young men and old, who at all convenient seasons haunted the perfumed chambers of this enchantress, were attracted less by their belief in her occult powers than from admiration of her languishing bright eyes.”
In St. Petersburg they soon became the one topic of conversation. The miraculous cure of a nobleman’s child exalted Cagliostro to the pinnacle of popularity; but the extraordinary beauty of Madame, which thus far had powerfully contributed to his success, now brought about Cagliostro’s banishment.
The Prime Minister, Potemkin, says one authority, then at the outset of his favour, goes to see him, and has his reasons for going again, reasons to which the fair and fascinating Lorenza is no stranger. According to one of the thousand reports which were then in circulation, Catherine herself intervenes in order to get rid of this rival, offering her thirty thousand roubles, which the lady refuses in favour of twice the amount on the part of the favourite. The story is highly improbable. Catherine had better means than that of getting rid of her rivals, and she has given too amusing an account, in a letter to Grimm, of the prowess of Cagliostro in her capital:
“He came here calling himself a colonel in the service of Spain, and Spanish by birth, pretending to be a sorcerer, having spirits at his beck and call. When I heard that, I said: ‘This man has made a mistake in coming here; nowhere will he succeed so badly as in Russia.’
“We do not burn sorcerers here, and for twenty years there has only been one single affair in which there were supposed to be any sorcerers, and then the Senate asked to see them, and, when they had been summoned, they were found to be quite stupid and perfectly innocent.
“M. Cagliostro, however, has come just at the right moment for himself, when several lodges of Freemasons, which had taken up Swedenborg’s principles, were anxious at all cost to see spirits; they therefore ran to Cagliostro, who declared he had all the secrets of Dr. Falk, an intimate friend of the Duc de Richelieu, and who formerly sacrificed to the black goat in the midst of Vienna.... M. Cagliostro then produced his marvellous cures; he pretended to extract quicksilver from a gouty man’s leg, and he was taken in the act of pouring a teaspoonful of quicksilver into the water in which he put the gouty man. Then he produced dyes which would dye nothing, and chemical preparations which would not work.... After which, it has been discovered that he could hardly read or write.
“Finally, overwhelmed with debts, he took refuge in the cellar of M. Ielaguine, where he drank as much champagne and English beer as he could. One day, apparently, he exceeded the usual measure, for, on leaving his repast, he hooked himself on to the wig of the secretary of the house, who boxed his ears, whereupon there was a free fight; M. Ielaguine, tired alike of his cellar-rat and of the expenditure of the wine and beer, as well as of his secretary’s complaints, politely persuaded him to take his departure in a kibitka, and not in the air as he threatened; and in order that his creditors should put no hindrance in the way of this brisk means of conveyance, he gave him an old soldier to accompany him and Madame la Comtesse as far as Mittau. There is the whole story of Cagliostro, in which there is everything but the marvellous. I never saw him, even at a distance, nor had any inclination to.”
Madame Cagliostro, adds this chronicler, seems to have had no share after all in the failure of the expedition; “Catherine of Russia always had, as we know, an exceptional allowance for the amorous caprices of the most capricious and amorous of her favourites.”
She had, also, the tact which selects ridicule as the most potent weapon to slay romance. Her letter, in which there is no mention of Lorenza, except that of her departure, has no historical value.
According to another account, obliged to quit Russia by reason of the jealousy of the chief physician of the Empress, M. le Comte di Cagliostro proposed to this official that each should make up four pills of the most violent poison.
“I will take yours,” he said to the Russian doctor, “and I will afterwards swallow a drop of my elixir, which will cure me. You will take mine, and cure yourself if you can.”
This reasonable challenge was not accepted.
VII. NO. 1, RUE SAINT-CLAUDE
With Cagliostro’s arrival in Paris, we reach the most extraordinary part of his career. Paris, no doubt, had for long been the Mecca of his dreams, and, well aware that the capital was already overfull of magnetic healers and mesmerists, he attacked Parisian society in the guise of a practical sorcerer, at the same time proclaiming himself the restorer of Egyptian Freemasonry and the founder of a new philosophy.
He claimed to possess the science of the priests of Ancient Egypt, and his conversation usually turned upon three points: (a) the Universal Medicine, the secret of which was known to him; (b) Egyptian Freemasonry, which he had come to restore, and of which he had already established lodges; (c) the Philosopher’s Stone, which he proposed to obtain by means of the solidification of quicksilver.
Furthermore he claimed, as Saint-Germain had claimed before him, to have a process for giving to cotton the appearance and properties of silk, and one for softening marble and afterwards restoring it to its pristine hardness — of great interest to sculptors; another was that for increasing the size of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds; fourth, a means of feeding a pig upon arsenic, and from its carcass manufacturing a fulminating poison.
(It is interesting to compare this process with that whereby — according to a contemporary historian — the Borgias procured their liquid poison — as distinct from the notorious Contarella. Their method, then, was to administer arsenic to a boar, and, so soon as the poison began to take effect, hang the animal up by the heels. Convulsions supervened; and a froth, deadly and abundant, ran out from his jaws. It was this froth, collected into a silver vessel and subsequently transferred to a bottle hermetically sealed, which constituted the liquid poison.)
But perhaps the most curious of Cagliostro’s claims was that of being able to render sea-water as combustible as oil. On his last visit to London he asserted that he could light the Metropolis by such means.
Cagliostro’s task, according to himself, was to restore the knowledge of God in all its purity. The delegates of the French lodges, having considered his pretensions, 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, and perfectly analogous with the blue masonry of which it seems to be a sympathetic and sublime interpretation.”
No doubt the Cardinal de Rohan was in some measure instrumental in securing Cagliostro’s admission to Parisian society, but Madame’s beauty played its part as well. Paris went into rhapsodies about the seductive Lorenza.
Says one author, “Her lips, arched in the antique manner, of a carmine which seemed very bright in contrast with the whiteness of her complexion, were always motionless, as if they were never to be awakened but by the caresses of love.”
“She had nobility,” declares Casanova, “modesty, naïveté, sweetness, and that blushing timidity which gives so much charm to a young woman.”
Accordingly, when she p
assed by on Djérid, her black mare, with set figure, with animated bust, men followed her with their looks. They fell in love with her at a distance, without having seen her.
“Her warmest partisans, her most passionate admirers were precisely those who had never looked upon her face. There were duels about her, duels proposed and accepted as to the colour of her eyes, which neither of the adversaries had ever seen, as to whether a dimple was on her right cheek or her left.”
The hôtel of the Marchioness d’Orvillers, No i, Rue Saint-Claude, on the corner of the Boulevard Beaumarchais, to-day — for it still exists — fills one with that kind of gloom experienced in an empty theatre. This was the house that Cagliostro rented in Paris.
“And one can imagine,” says Lenôtre, “without great effort, the effect which the house would produce at night, with its angular pavilions, at that time concealed by ancient trees, its deep courtyards, its wide terraces, when the flames — the live flames from the crucibles of the alchemist — showed themselves through the high window-blinds.”
At the back of the house (the carriage entrance opens on to the Rue Saint-Claude), beneath a frowning porch, may be seen a stone staircase with railings of forged iron. Here once blazed in the torchlight the liveries of noble houses; the courtyard, now so dreary and grey, was crowded with fine carriages; there was a stamping of hoofs, a cracking of whips — a scene of the greatest animation. And how many women boasting ancient names have mounted that stone stair, with hearts thudding wildly in their breasts, to consult the mysterious Cagliostro! How many nobles of France have passed the same way, seeking a glance from the bright eyes of Madame! Like Dr. Dee, the Count summoned the angels to reveal the future; he called up the mighty departed. Says the Biographie des Contemporains:
