Chapter XI: Appendix: 307 (9)

It is from this period that our adventurer’s success as an alchemist must be dated. Here he found means to form an acquaintance with two persons of distinction, who carried their love of chemistry to a ridiculous excess. He pretended to have discovered some miraculous secrets in the transcendent science, proclaimed himself publicly a depository of the Hermetic Mystery, and posing as a supernatural personage in possession of the great arcanum of the philosophers’ stone and of the glorious life-elixir. This also was the epoch of mesmerism, of which novel science Cagliostro decided to avail himself. After a time, according to the Italian biography, his two dupes entertained suspicions of his veracity, and being in fear of arrest, he obtained a passport under a fictitious name, fled with great precipitation to Brussels, traversed Germany and Italy, and once more arrived at his native city Palermo.[AM]

At Palermo he was speedily arrested by the implacable Marano, but the protection of a noble, to whom he had obtained a powerful recommendation while at Naples, ensured his speedy release, and he embarked with his wife for Malta, where, according to the Italian biographer, he ostensibly supported himself by the sale of his pomade for the improvement of the complexion, but his more certain income appears to have been his wife. Monsieur Saint-Félix, however, declares, and this, on the whole, is most probable, that they were received with the most marked distinction by the Grand Master. In either case, they soon retired to Naples, when Cagliostro professed in public for three months both chemistry and the Kabbalah. At Naples they were joined by a younger brother of Feliciani, a lad named Paolo, who was remarkable for his extraordinary loveliness. Cagliostro, seeing that he might prove useful, persuaded him to share their fortunes. They embarked with a great train for Marseilles, and thence proceeded to Barcelona. The star of the great adventurer was now fairly in the ascendant, and from this time he seems always to have travelled in considerable state. He met, however, with no dupes of importance in the peninsula till he reached its extremity, where he cheated a fanatical alchemist of a hundred thousand crowns, under the pretence of a colossal accomplishment of the _magnum opus_. After this signal success he incontinently departed for England, while Paolo, with whom he had quarrelled, returned to Rome, much to the grief of his sister.

The commencement of the grandeur of Cagliostro is to be dated from his second visit to London. It was then that he was initiated into masonry, and conceived his titanic project of the mysterious Egyptian rite. Saint Félix accredits him even from the moment of his admission into the order with an unavowed object. Cagliostro, he informs us, was resolved one day to seat himself on the throne of the grand master of a rival and more potent institution, and he appears to have lived henceforth in the light of his high aspiration, and to have eschewed--theoretically at least--all petty rogueries.

He incessantly visited the various London lodges, and a correspondence printed in English at Strasburg during the year 1788, relates that by a pure chance he picked up a curious manuscript at an obscure London bookstall. This manuscript appears to have belonged to a certain George Gaston, who is absolutely unknown. It treated of Egyptian masonry, and abounded in magical and mystical notions which excited the curiosity of its purchaser, nourished both his ambition and his imagination, and in a short time he developed his own system from its suggestive hints. The source of his inspiration, of course, remained concealed. He pretended to have received his masonic tradition by succession from Enoch and Elias. Privately, however, he pursued his former rogueries, and his sojourn in London was not infrequently disturbed by his squabbles with the police. Those who are interested in this part of the Cagliostro controversy will do well to refer to the English biography, dedicated to the countess, and which contains much curious information.

When all his plans were matured he departed for the Hague, and thence proceeded to Venice, where some of his English creditors seem to have disturbed his serenity, and prompted him in consequence to retire through Germany into Holstein, where he is supposed to have visited the renowned Count de St Germain.

According to the _Mémoires Authentiques pour servir à l’Histoire du Comte de Cagliostro_, published in 1785, he demanded an audience with this man of inscrutable mystery, in order that he might prostrate himself before the _dieu des croyants_. With characteristic eccentricity the Count de St Germain appointed two in the morning as the hour for the interview, which moment being arrived, say the “Memoirs,” Cagliostro and his wife, clothed in white garments, clasped about the waist with girdles of rose-colour, presented themselves at the castellated temple of mystery, which was the abode of the dubious divinity whom they desired to adore. The drawbridge was lowered, a man six feet in height, clothed in a long grey robe, led them into a dimly-lighted chamber. Therein some folding doors sprang suddenly open, and they beheld a temple illuminated by a thousand wax lights, with the Count de Saint-Germain enthroned upon the altar; at his feet two acolytes swung golden thuribles, which diffused sweet and unobtrusive perfumes. The divinity bore upon his breast a diamond pentagram of almost intolerable radiance. A majestic statue, white and diaphanous, upheld on the steps of the altar a vase inscribed, “Elixir of Immortality,” while a vast mirror was on the wall, and before it a living being, majestic as the statue, walked to and fro. Above the mirror were these singular words--“Store House of Wandering Souls.” The most solemn silence prevailed in this sacred retreat, but at length a voice, which seemed hardly a voice, pronounced these words--“Who are you? Whence come you? What would you?” Then the Count and Countess Cagliostro prostrated themselves, and the former answered after a long pause, “I come to invoke the God of the faithful, the Son of Nature, the sire of truth. I come to demand of him one of the fourteen thousand seven hundred secrets which are treasured in his breast, I come to proclaim myself his slave, his apostle, his martyr.”

The divinity did not respond, but after a long silence, the same voice asked:--“What does the partner of thy long wanderings intend?”

“To obey and to serve,” answered Lorenza.

Simultaneously with her words, profound darkness succeeded the glare of light, uproar followed on tranquillity, terror on trust, and a sharp and menacing voice cried loudly:--“Woe to those who cannot stand the tests!”

Husband and wife were immediately separated to undergo their respective trials, which they endured with exemplary fortitude, and which are detailed in the text of the memoirs. When the romantic mummery was over, the two postulants were led back into the temple, with the promise of admission to the divine mysteries. There a man mysteriously draped in a long mantle cried out to them:--“Know ye that the arcanum of our great art is the government of mankind, and that the one means to rule them is never to tell them the truth. Do not foolishly regulate your actions according to the rules of common sense; rather outrage reason and courageously maintain every unbelievable absurdity. Remember that reproduction is the palmary active power in nature, politics, and society alike; that it is a mania with mortals to be immortal, to know the future without understanding the present, and to be spiritual while all that surrounds them is material.”

After this harangue the orator genuflected devoutly before the divinity of the temple and retired. At the same moment a man of gigantic stature led the countess to the feet of the immortal Count de Saint-German, who thus spoke:--

“Elected from my tenderest youth to the things of greatness, I employed myself in ascertaining the nature of veritable glory. Politics appeared to me nothing but the science of deception, tactics the art of assassination, philosophy the ambitious imbecility of complete irrationality; physics fine fancies about Nature and the continual mistakes of persons suddenly transplanted into a country which is utterly unknown to them; theology the science of the misery which results from human pride; history the melancholy spectacle of perpetual perfidy 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 man, the theologian a fanatical pedagogue, and the historian a word-monger. Then did I hear of the divinity of this temple. I cast my cares upon him, with my incertitudes and aspirations. When he took possession of my soul he caused me to perceive all objects in a new light; I began to read futurity. This universe so limited, so narrow, so desert, was now enlarged. I abode not only with those who are, but with those who were. He united me to the loveliest women of antiquity. I found it eminently delectable to know all without studying anything, to dispose of the treasures of the earth without the solicitation of monarchs, to rule the elements rather than men. Heaven made me liberal; I have sufficient to satisfy my taste; all that surrounds me is rich, loving, predestinated.”

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, foster, and blind fools, that they must spread abroad with much mystery the intelligence that the Count de Saint-Germain was five hundred years old, that they must make gold, but dupes before all.

The truth of this singular episode is not attested by any sober biographer. If it occurred as narrated, it doubtless served to confirm Cagliostro in his ambitious projects. The change which had taken place in the adventurer since his second visit to England is well described by Figuier. “His language, his mien, his manners, all are transformed. His conversation turns only on his travels in Egypt, to Mecca, and in other remote places, on the sciences into which he was initiated at the foot of the Pyramids, on the arcana of Nature which his ingenuity has discovered. At the same time, he talks little, more often enveloping himself in mysterious silence. When interrogated with reiterated entreaties, he deigns at the most to draw his symbol--a serpent with an apple in its mouth and pierced by a dart, meaning that human wisdom should be silent on the mysteries which it has unravelled.... Lorenza was transfigured at the same time with her husband. Her ambitions and deportment became worthy of the new projects of Cagliostro. She aimed, like himself, at the glory of colossal successes.”

The initiates of the Count de Saint-Germain passed into Courland, where they established Masonic lodges, according to the sublime rite of Egyptian Freemasonry. The countess was an excellent preacher to captivate hearts and enchant imaginations, her beauty fascinated a large number of Courlandaise nobility. At Mittau, Cagliostro attracted the attention of persons of high rank, who were led by his reputation to regard him as an extraordinary person. By means of his Freemasonry he began to obtain an ascendency over the minds of the nobles, some of whom, discontented with the reigning duke, are actually said to have offered him the sovereignty of the country, as to a divine man and messenger from above. The Italian biography represents him plotting with this end in view. “He pretends,” say the documents of the Holy Inquisition, “that he had virtue enough to resist the temptation, and that he refused the proffered boon from the respect due to sovereigns. His wife has assured us that his refusal was produced by the reflection that his impostures would soon be discovered.” He collected, however, a prodigious number of presents in gold, silver, and money, and repaired to St Petersburg, provided with regular passports. But the prophet soon found that a sufficiently brilliant reputation had not preceded him, and he, therefore, simply announced himself as a physician and chemist, by his retired life and air of mystery soon attracting attention.

His assumption of the _rôle_ of physician leads to a brief consideration of the miraculous cures which have been attributed to him. They are generally referred to a broad application of the principles and methods of Mesmer, his contemporary. They were performed without passes, iron rods, or any of the cumbrous paraphernalia of his rival in the healing art; he trusted simply to the laying on of hands. Moreover, he did not despoil his patients, but rather dispensed his wealth, which now appeared unlimited, among the poor, who flocked to him in great numbers as his reputation increased. The source of this wealth is not accurately known, but it is supposed to have been derived from the Masonic initiates, whose apostle and propagandist he was.

Many of the miraculous cures which Cagliostro performed in Germany spread widely, and in Russia he was soon surrounded by the curious. Lorenza played her own part admirably; she answered discreetly and naturally, making the most outrageous statements with apparently complete unconsciousness. The physician-chemist, besides his healing powers, had his reputation as an alchemist and adept of the arcane sciences. The supposed restoration in a miraculous manner of the infant child of an illustrious nobleman to health exalted him to the pinnacle of celebrity, and his extravagant pretensions, assisted, as they powerfully were, by the naïve beauty of his wife, were beginning to be taken seriously, but the combined result of an amour between Lorenza and Prince Poternki, Prime Minister and favourite of the Czarina, Catherine, and the discovery that the nobleman’s child had been apparently changed, caused them to depart hastily with immense spoils towards the German frontier.

They tarried at Warsaw for a time, and there the Italian biographer tells us that Cagliostro made use of all his artifices to deceive a prince to whom he was introduced, and who was exceedingly anxious to obtain, with the help of the pretended magician, the permanent command of a devil. Cagliostro puffed him up for a long time with the expectation of gratifying this preposterous ambition, and actually procured presents from him to the amount of several thousand crowns. The prince at length perceiving that there was no hope of retaining one of the infernal spirits in his service, wished to make himself master of the earthly affections of the countess, but in this too he was disappointed, the lady positively refusing to comply with his desires. Finding himself thus balked in both his attempts, he abandoned every sentiment but revenge, and intimidated our adventurer and his wife so much by his menaces that they were obliged to restore his presents.

The veracity of this account is not, however, beyond suspicion, and other of his biographers represent Cagliostro proceeding directly to Francfurt and thence to Strasbourg, into which, more wealthy and successful than ever, he made a triumphal entry. The distinguished visitor, the Rosicrucian, the alchemist, the physician, the sublime count, had been expected since early morning by the bourgeois of the old town, and the following extraordinary account in the _Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes_ has been given by an anonymous biographer.

“On the 19th of September 1780, in a public-house just outside Strasburg, surrounded by a group of humble tipplers, who stared from the little window at the vast crowd collected below them, there might have been remarked the countenance of a bald and wrinkled man, some eighty years of age, and evidently of southern origin; this was the goldsmith Marano. Successive failures, and debts which he did not see fit to liquidate, had forced him to leave Palermo, and he had established himself in his former trade at Strasbourg. Like the rest of the townsfolk he had come out to behold the phenomenal personage whose arrival was expected, and who made a greater sensation than many a powerful monarch. He had come by way of Germany from Varsovia, where he had amassed immense riches, said popular rumour, by the transmutation of base metals into gold, for he was possessed of the secret of the philosophic stone, and had all the incalculable talents of an alchemist.”

“By my faith,” said a hatter, “I am indeed happy since I am destined to behold this illustrious mortal, if indeed he be a mortal.”

“’Tis asserted,” added a druggist, “that he is a son of the Princess of Trebizond, and that he has withal the fine eyes of his mother.”

“Also that he is a lineal descendant of Charles Martel,” said a town clerk.

“He dates still further back,” put in a rope-maker, “for he took part in the marriage feast of Cana.”

“Beyond doubt then, he is the wandering Jew!” exclaimed Marano.

“Still better, some credible persons assert that he was born before the deluge.”

“What hardihood! Yet suppose he is the devil.”

These notions here reproduced with fidelity, and which were adorned by the most extravagant commentaries, were actually at that period in general circulation among the crowd. Some regarded the mysterious Count Cagliostro as an inspired saint, a performer of miracles, a phenomenal personage outside the order of Nature. The cures attributed to him were equally innumerable and unexplainable. Others regarded him merely as an adroit charlatan. Cagliostro himself boldly asserted that all his prodigies were performed under the special favour and help of heaven. He added that the Supreme Being had deigned to accord him the beatific vision, that it was his mission to convert unbelievers and reinstate catholicism, but in spite of this exalted vocation he told fortunes, taught the art of winning at lotteries, interpreted dreams, and held séances of transcendental phantasmagoria.

“But,” contended the rope-maker with much animation, “a man who converses with angels is never the devil.”

“Is he in communication with angels?” cried Marano, struck by the circumstances. “In that case I must see him at all costs. How old is he?”

“Bah!” said the druggist, “as if such a being could have an age! He looks about thirty-six.”

“Oh!” muttered the goldsmith. “What if he were my rascal? My rascal should now be thirty-seven.”

As the hoary Sicilian ruminated over his lamentable past, he was roused by a tumult of voices. The supernal being had arrived, and he passed presently in the road, surrounded by a numerous cortege of couriers, lacqueys, valets, &c., all in magnificent liveries. By his side, in the open carriage, sat Lorenza or Seraphina Feliciani, his wife, who seconded with all her ability the intrigues of her husband, whom reasonable people regarded as a wandering member and emissary of the masonic templars, his opulence insured by contributions from the different lodges of the order.

A great shout rose up when Count Cagliostro passed before the inn. Marano had recognised his man, and flying out had contrived to stop the carriage, shouting as he did so--“Joseph Balsamo! It is Joseph! Coquin, where are my sixty ounces of gold?”

Cagliostro scarcely deigned to glance at the furious goldsmith; but in the middle of the profound silence which the incident occasioned among the crowd, a voice, apparently in the clouds, uttered with great distinctness the following words: “Remove this lunatic, who is possessed by infernal spirits!”

Some of the spectators fell on their knees, others seized the unfortunate goldsmith, and the brilliant cortege passed on.

Entering Strasburg in triumph, Cagliostro paused in front of a large hall, where the equerries who had preceded him had already collected a considerable concourse of the sick. The famous empiric entered and cured them all, some simply by touch, others apparently by words or by a gratuity in money, the rest by his universal panacea; but the historian who records these things asserts that the sick persons thus variously treated had been carefully selected, the physician preferring to treat the more serious cases at the homes of the patients.

Cagliostro issued from the hall amidst universal acclamations, and was accompanied by the immense crowd to the doors of the magificent lodging which had been prepared against his arrival. The élite of Strasburg society was invited to a sumptuous repast, which was followed by a séance of transcendental magnetism, when he produced some extraordinary manifestations by the mediation of clairvoyant children of either sex, and whom he denominated his doves or pupils. The unspotted virginity and innocence of these children were an indispensable condition of success. They were chosen by himself, and received a mystical consecration at his hands. Then he pronounced over a crystal vessel, filled with water, the magical formulæ for the evocation of angelic intelligences as they are written in the celestial rituals. Supernal spirits became visible in the depths of the water, and responded to questions occasionally in an intelligible voice, but more often in characters which appeared on the surface of the water, and were visible to the pupils alone, who interpreted them to the public.

Contemporary testimony establishes that these manifestations, as a whole, were genuine, and there is little doubt of the mesmeric abilities of Cagliostro, who had probably become acquainted in the East with the phenomena of virginal lucidity, especially in boys, and had supplemented the oriental methods by the discoveries of Puséygur, which were at that time sufficiently notorious.

For three years Cagliostro remained at Strasburg and was fêted continually. Here he obtained a complete ascendency over the mind of the famous cardinal-archbishop, the Prince de Rohan. His first care, on taking up his abode in the town, was to prove his respect for the clergy by his generosity and zeal. He visited the sick in the hospitals, deferentially participated in the duties of the regular doctors, proposed his new remedies with prudence, did not condemn the old methods, but sought to unite new science with the science which was based on experience. He obtained the reputation of a bold experimenter in chemistry, of a sagacious physician, and a really enlightened innovator. The inhabitants of the crowded quarters regarded him as a man sent from God, operating miraculous cures, and dispensing riches from an inexhaustible source with which he was alone acquainted. Unheard-of cures were cited, and alchemical operations which surpassed even the supposed possibilities of the transmutatory art.

Anything which savoured of the marvellous was an attraction for the cardinal-archbishop, and he longed to see Cagliostro. An anonymous writer states that he sought an interview with him again and again unsuccessfully; for the cardinal-prince of trickery divined even at a distance the character of the prince-cardinal, and enveloped himself in a reserve which, to the imagination of his dupe, was like the loadstone to the magnet. Others represent him, however, courting the favour of the great ecclesiastic’s secretary, and so obtaining an introduction. At the first interview he showed some reserve, but permitted certain dazzling ideas to be glimpsed through the more ordinary tenour of his discourse. After a judicious period he admitted that he possessed a receipt for the manufacture of gold and diamonds. A supposed transmutation completed his conquest of the cardinal, and the Italian historian confesses that he accordingly lavished immense sums upon the virtuous pair, and to complete his folly, agreed to erect a small edifice, in which he was to experience a physical regeneration by means of the supernal and auriferous elixir of Cagliostro. The sum of twenty thousand francs was actually paid the adept to accomplish this operation.

Doubtless during his sojourn at Strasburg he propagated with zeal the mysteries of his Egyptian Freemasonry, and at length, laden with spoils, he repaired to Bordeaux, where he continued his healing in public, and then proceeded to Lyons, where for the space of three months he occupied himself with the foundation of a mother-lodge, and, according to the Italian biographer, here as elsewhere, in less creditable pursuits. At length he arrived at Paris, where, says the same authority, he soon became the object of general conversation, regard, and esteem. His curative powers were now but little exercised, for Paris abounded with mesmerists and healers, and the prodigies of simple magnetism were stale and unprofitable in consequence. He assumed now the _rôle_ of a practical magician, and astonished the city by the evocation of phantoms, which he caused to appear, at the wish of the inquirer, either in a mirror or in a vase of clear water. These phantoms equally represented dead and living beings, and as occasionally collusion appears to have been well-nigh impossible, and as the theory of coincidence is preposterous, there is reason to suppose that he produced results which must sometimes have astonished himself. All Paris at any rate was set wondering at his enchantments and prodigies, and it is seriously stated that Louis XVI. was so infatuated with _le divin Cagliostro_, that he declared anyone who injured him should be considered guilty of treason. At Versailles, and in the presence of several distinguished nobles, he is said to have caused the apparition in mirrors, vases, &c., not merely of the spectra of absent or deceased persons, but animated and moving beings of a phantasmal description, including many dead men and women selected by the astonished spectators.

The mystery which surrounded him abroad was deepened even when he received visitors at home. He had lived in the Rue Saint Claude, an isolated house surrounded by gardens and sheltered from the inconvenient curiosity of neighbours. There he established his laboratory, which no one might enter. He received in a vast and sumptuous apartment on the first floor. Lorenza lived a retired life, only being visible at certain hours before a select company, and in a diaphanous and glamourous costume. The report of her beauty spread through the city; she passed for a paragon of perfection, and duels took place on her account. Cagliostro was now no longer young, and Lorenza was in the flower of her charms. He is said for the first time to have experienced the pangs of jealousy on account of a certain Chevalier d’Oisemont, with whom she had several assignations. Private vexations did not, however, interfere with professional thaumaturgy, and the evocation of the illustrious dead was a common occurrence at certain magical suppers which became celebrated through all Paris. These were undoubtedly exaggerated by report, but as they all occurred within the doubtful precincts of his own house of mystery, they were in all probability fraudulent, for it must be distinctly remembered that in his normal character he was an unparalleled trickster, that the genuine phenomena which he occasionally produced were simply supplements to charlatanry, and not that his deceptions were aids to normally genuine phenomena.

On one occasion, according to the _Mémoires authentiques pour servir à l’histoire du Comte de Cagliostro_, the distinguished thaumaturgist announced that at a private supper, given to six guests, he would evoke the spirits of any dead persons whom they named to him, and that the phantoms, apparently substantial, should seat themselves at the banquet. The repast took place with the knowledge and, it may be supposed, with the connivance of Lorenza. At midnight the guests were assembled; a round table, laid for twelve, was spread, with unheard-of luxury, in a dining-room, where all was in harmony with the approaching Kabbalistic operation. The six guests, with Cagliostro, took their seats, and thus the ominous number thirteen were designed to be present at table.

The supper was served, the servants were dismissed with threats of immediate death if they dared to open the doors before they were summoned. Each guest demanded the deceased person whom he desired to see. Cagliostro took the names, placed them in the pocket of his gold-embroidered vest, and announced that with no further preparation than a simple invocation on his part the evoked spirits would appear in flesh and blood, for, according to the Egyptian dogma, there were in reality no dead. These guests of the other world, asked for and expected with trembling anxiety, were the Duc de Choiseul, Voltaire, d’Alembert, Diderot, the Abbé de Voisenon, and Montesquieu. Their names were pronounced slowly in a loud voice, and with all the concentrated determination of the adept’s will; and after a moment of intolerable doubt, the evoked guests appeared very unobtrusively, and took their seats with the quiet courtesy which had characterised them in life.

The first question put to them when the awe of their presence had somewhat worn off was as to their situation in the world beyond.

“There is no world beyond,” replied d’Alembert. “Death is simply the cessation of the evils which have tortured us. No pleasure is experienced, but, on the other hand, there is no suffering. I have not met with Mademoiselle Lespinasse, but I have not seen Lorignet. There is marked sincerity, moreover. Some deceased persons who have recently joined us inform me that I am almost forgotten. I am, however, consoled. Men are unworthy of the trouble we take about them. I never loved them, now I despise them.”

“What has become of your learning?” said M. de ---- to Diderot.

“I was not learned, as people commonly supposed. My ready wit adapted all that I read, and in writing I borrowed on every side. Thence comes the desultory character of my books, which will be unheard of in half a century. The Encyclopædia, with the merit of which I am honoured, does not belong to me. The duty of an editor is simply to set in order the choice of subjects. The man who showed most talent in the whole of the work was the compiler of its index, yet no one has dreamed of recognising his merits.”

“I praised the enterprise,” said Voltaire, “for it seemed well fitted to further my philosophical opinions. Talking of philosophy, I am none too certain that I was in the right. I have learned strange things since my death, and have conversed with half a dozen Popes. Clement XIV. and Benedict, above all, are men of infinite intelligence and good sense.”

“What most vexes me,” said the Duc de Choiseul, “is the absence of sex where we dwell. Whatever may be said of this fleshly envelope, ’twas by no means so bad an invention.”

“What is truly a pleasure to me,” said the Abbé Voisenon, “is that amongst us one is perfectly cured of the folly of intelligence. You cannot conceive how I have been bantered about my ridiculous little romances. I had almost confessed that I appreciated these puerilities at their true value, but whether the modesty of an academician is disbelieved in, or whether such frivolity is out of character with my age and profession, I expiate almost daily the mistakes of my mortal existence.”

* * * * *

Amid these marvels, Cagliostro proceeded with the dearest of all his projects, namely, the spread of his Egypto-masonic rite,[AN] into which ladies were subsequently admitted, a course of magic being opened for the purpose by Madame Cagliostro. The postulants admitted to this course were thirty-six in number, and all males were excluded. Thus Lorenza figured as the Grand Mistress of Egyptian Masonry, as her husband was himself the grand and sublime Copt. The fair neophytes were required to contribute each of them the sum of one hundred louis to abstain from all carnal connection with mankind, and to submit to everything which might be imposed on them. A vast mansion was hired in the Rue Verte, Faubourg Saint Honoré, at that period a lonely part of the city. The building was surrounded with gardens and magnificent trees. The séance for initiation took place shortly before midnight on the 7th of August 1785.

On entering the first apartment, says Figuier, the ladies were obliged to disrobe and assume a white garment, with a girdle of various colours. They were divided into six groups, distinguished by the tint of their cinctures. A large veil was also provided, and they were caused to enter a temple lighted from the roof, and furnished with thirty-six arm-chairs covered with black satin. Lorenza, clothed in white, was seated on a species of throne, supported by two tall figures, so habited that their sex could not be determined. The light was lowered by degrees till surrounding objects could scarcely be distinguished, when the Grand Mistress commanded the ladies to uncover their left legs as far as the thigh, and raising the right arm to rest it on a neighbouring pillar. Two young women then entered sword in hand, and with silk ropes bound all the ladies together by the arms and legs. Then after a period of impressive silence, Lorenza pronounced an oration, which is given at length, but on doubtful authority, by several biographers, and which preached fervidly the emancipation of womankind from the shameful bonds imposed on them by the lords of creation.

These bonds were symbolised by the silken ropes from which the fair initiates were released at the end of the harangue, when they were conducted into separate apartments, each opening on the Garden, where they made the most unheard-of experiences. Some were pursued by men who unmercifully persecuted them with barbarous solicitations; others encountered less dreadful admirers, who sighed in the most languishing postures at their feet. More than one discovered the counterpart of her own lover, but the oath they had all taken necessitated the most inexorable inhumanity, and all faithfully fulfilled what was required of them. The new spirit infused into regenerated woman triumphed along the whole line of the six and thirty initiates, who with intact and immaculate symbols re-entered triumphant and palpitating the twilight of the vaulted temple to receive the congratulations of the sovereign priestess.

When they had breathed a little after their trials, the vaulted roof opened suddenly, and, on a vast sphere of gold, there descended a man, naked as the unfallen Adam, holding a serpent in his hand, and having a burning star upon his head.

The Grand Mistress announced that this was the genius of Truth, the immortal, the divine Cagliostro, issued without procreation from the bosom of our father Abraham, and the depositary of all that hath been, is, or shall be known on the universal earth. He was there to initiate them into the secrets of which they had been fraudulently deprived. The Grand Copt thereupon commanded them to dispense with the profanity of clothing, for if they would receive truth they must be as naked as itself. The sovereign priestess setting the example unbound her girdle and permitted her drapery to fall to the ground, and the fair initiates following her example exposed themselves in all the nudity of their charms to the magnetic glances of the celestial genius, who then commenced his revelations.

He informed his daughters that the much abused magical art was the secret of doing good to humanity. It was initiation into the mysteries of Nature, and the power to make use of her occult forces. The visions which they had beheld in the Garden where so many had seen and recognised those who were dearest to their hearts, proved the reality of hermetic operations. They had shewn themselves worthy to know the truth; he undertook to instruct them by gradations therein. It was enough at the outset to inform them that the sublime end of that Egyptian Freemasonry which he had brought from the very heart of the Orient was the happiness of mankind. This happiness was illimitable in its nature, including material enjoyments as much as spiritual peace, and the pleasures of the understanding.

The Marquis de Luchet, to whom we are indebted for this account, concludes the nebulous harangue of Cagliostro by the adept bidding his hearers abjure a deceiving sex, and to let the kiss of friendship symbolise what was passing in their hearts. The sovereign priestess instructed them in the nature of this friendly embrace.

Thereupon the Genius of Truth seated himself again upon the sphere of gold, and was borne away through the roof. At the same time the floor opened, the light blazed up, and a table splendidly adorned and luxuriously spread rose up from the ground. The ladies were joined by their lovers _in propria persona_; the supper was followed by dancing and various diversions till three o’clock in the morning.

About this time the Count Cagliostro was unwillingly compelled to concede to the continual solicitations of the poor and to resume his medical _rôle_. In a short time he was raised to the height of celebrity by a miraculous cure of the Prince de Soubise, the brother of the Cardinal de Rohan, who was suffering from a virulent attack of scarlet fever. From this moment the portrait of the adept was to be seen everywhere in Paris.

In the meantime, the cloud in his domestic felicity, to which a brief reference has been made already, began to spread. A certain adventuress, by name Madame de la Motte, surprised Lorenza one day in a _tête-à-tête_ with the Chevalier d’Oisemont. The count at the time was far away from Paris, and the adventuress promised to keep the secret on condition that Lorenza should in turn do all in her power to establish her as an intimate friend in the house, having free entrance therein, and should persuade Cagliostro to place his knowledge and skill at her disposal, if ever she required it. The result of this arrangement was the complicity of Cagliostro in the extraordinary and scandalous affair of the Diamond Necklace. When the plot was exposed, Cagliostro was arrested with the other alleged conspirators, including the principal victim, the Cardinal de Rohan. He was exonerated, not indeed without honour, from the charge of which he was undoubtedly guilty, but his wife had fled to Rome at his arrest, and had rejoined her family. He himself began to tremble at his own notoriety, and grew anxious to leave France. He postponed till a more favourable period his grand project concerning the metropolitan lodge of the Egyptian rite.[AO] A personage, calling himself Thomas Ximenes, and claiming descent from the cardinal of that name, sought to reanimate his former masonic enthusiasm; but the vision of the Bastile seemed to be ever before his eyes, and neither this person, nor the great dignitaries of the Parisian lodges, could prevail with him. In spite of his acquittal he nourished vengeance against the Court of France, and more than once he confided to his private friends that he should make his voice heard when he had passed the frontier. He prepared to depart, and one day his disconsolate adepts learned that he was on the road to England.

Once in London he recovered his energy. He was received with great honour; many of his disciples from Lyons and Paris followed him. The English masons invited him to the metropolitan lodge, and gave him the first place, that of grand orient. He was entreated to convene a masonic lodge of the Egyptian rite, and consented with some sadness, for the memory of the brilliant Paris lodge which he had been on the point of founding was incessantly before him. He could not console himself for the fall of that beautiful and long-cherished plan, which had cost him so much study, pains, and preaching.

It was from this discreet distance that Cagliostro addressed his famous Letter to the People of France, which was translated into a number of languages, and circulated widely through Europe. It predicted the French Revolution, the demolishment of the Bastile, and the rise of a great prince who would abolish the infamous _lettres de cachet_, convoke the States-General, and re-establish the true religion.

The publication was intemperate in its language and revolutionary in its sentiments, and close upon its heels followed his well-known quarrel with the _Courrier de l’Europe_, which resulted in the exposure of the real life of Cagliostro from beginning to end.

Dreading the rage of his innumerable dupes, and extreme measures on the part of his creditors, he hastened to quit London, disembarked in Holland, crossed Germany, took refuge in Basle, where the patriarchal hospitality of the Swiss cantons to some extent reassured the unmasked adept. From the moment, however, of this exposure, the descent of Cagliostro was simply headlong in its rapidity. Nevertheless, he was followed by some of his initiates, who pressed him to return to France, assuring him of the powerful protection of exalted masonic dignitaries. In his hesitation he wrote to the Baron de Breteuil, the king’s minister of the house, but, as it chanced, a personal enemy of the Cardinal de Rohan. Considering Cagliostro as a _protégé_ of the prince, he replied that if he had sufficient effrontery to set foot within the limits of the kingdom, he should be arrested and transferred to a prison in Paris, there to await prosecution as a common swindler, who should answer to the royal justice for his criminal life.

From this moment Cagliostro saw that he was a perpetual exile from France, and feeling in no sense assured of his safety even in Switzerland, he left Basle for Aix, in Savoy. He was ordered to quit that town in eight and forty hours. At Roveredo, a dependency of Austria, the same treatment awaited him. He migrated to Trent, and announced himself as a practitioner of lawful medicine, but the prince-bishop who was sovereign of the country discerned the cloven hoof of the sorcerer beneath the doctor’s sober dress, and showed him in no long space of time his hostility to magical practices. The wandering hierophant of Egyptian masonry, somewhat sorely pressed, took post to Rome, and reached the Eternal City after many vicissitudes. Here, according to Saint-Félix and Figuier, he was rejoined by his wife; according to the Italian biographer, Lorenza had accompanied him in his wanderings, and persuaded him to seek refuge in Rome, being sick unto death of her miserable course of life. The former statement is, on the whole, the most probable, as it is difficult to suppose that she left Italy to rejoin Cagliostro at Passy, and she appears to have returned to him with marked repugnance. She endeavoured to lead him back to religion, which had never been eradicated from her heart. He lived for some time with extraordinary circumspection, and consented at last to see a Benedictine monk, to whom he made his confession. The Holy Inquisition, which doubtless had scrutinised all his movements, is said to have been deceived for a time, and he was favourably received by several cardinals. He lived for a year in perfect liberty, occupied with the private study of medicine. During this time he endeavoured to obtain loans from the initiates of his Egyptian rite who were scattered over France and Germany, but they did not arrive, and the sublime Copt, the illuminated proprietor of the stone philosophical and the medicine yclept metallic, came once more, to the eternal disgrace of Osiris, Isis, and Anubis, on the very verge of want.

His extremity prompted him to renew his relations with the masonic societies within the area of the Papal States. A penalty of death hung over the initiates of the superior grades, and their lodges were in consequence surrounded with great mystery, and were convened in subterranean places. He was persuaded to found a lodge of Egyptian Freemasonry in Rome itself, from which moment Lorenza reasonably regarded him as lost. One of his own adepts betrayed him; he was arrested on the 27th of September 1789, by order of the Holy Office, and imprisoned in the Castle of St Angelo. An inventory of his papers was taken, and all his effects were sealed up. The process against him was drawn up with the nicest inquisitorial care during the long period of eighteen months. When the trial came on he was defended by the Count Gætano Bernardini, advocate of the accused before the sacred and august tribunal, and to this pleader in ordinary the impartial and benign office, of its free grace and pleasure, did add generously, as counsel, one Monsignor Louis Constantini, “whose knowledge and probity,” saith an unbought and unbuyable witness (inquisitorially inspired), “were generally recognised.” They did not conceal from him the gravity of his position, advised him to refrain from basing his defence on a series of denials, promising to save him from the capital forfeit, and so he was persuaded to confess everything, was again reconciled to the church; and being almost odoriferous with genuine sanctity, on the 21st of March 1791 he was carried before the general assembly of the purgers of souls by fire, before the Pope on the 7th of the following April, when the advocates pleaded with so much eloquence that they retired in the agonies of incipient strangulation, Cagliostro repeated his avowal, and as a natural consequence of the unbought eloquence and the purchased confession, the penalty of death was pronounced.

When, however, the shattered energies of the advocates were a little recruited, a recommendation of mercy was addressed to the Pope, the sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, and the condemned man was consigned to the Castle of St Angelo. After an imprisonment of two years, he died, God knows how, still in the prime of life, at the age of fifty.

Lorenza, whose admissions had contributed largely towards the condemnation of her husband, was doomed to perpetual seclusion in a penitentiary. The papers of Cagliostro were burned by the Holy Office, and the phantom of that institution keeps to the present day the secret of the exact date of its victim’s death. It carefully circulated the report that on one occasion he attempted to strangle a priest whom he had sent for on the pretence of confessing, hoping to escape in his clothes; and then it made public the statement that he had subsequently strangled himself. When the battalions of the French Revolution entered Rome, the commanding officers, hammering at the doors of Saint-Angelo, determined to release the entombed adept, but they were informed that Cagliostro was dead, “at which intelligence,” says Figuier, “they perceived plainly that the former _Parlement de France_ was not to be compared with the Roman Inquisition, and without regretting the demolished Bastile, they could not but acknowledge that it disgorged its prey more easily than the Castle of Saint Angelo.”

* * * * *

The personal attractions of Cagliostro appear to have been exaggerated by some of his biographers. “His splendid stature and high bearing, increased by a dress of the most bizarre magnificence, the extensive suite which invariably accompanied him in his wanderings, turned all eyes upon him, and disposed the minds of the vulgar towards an almost idolatrous admiration.”

With this opinion of Figuier may be compared the counter-statement of the Italian biographer:--“He was of a brown complexion, a bloated countenance, and a severe aspect; he was destitute of any of those graces so common in the world of gallantry, without knowledge and without abilities.” But the Italian biographer was a false witness, for Cagliostro was beyond all question and controversy a man of consummate ability, tact, and talent. The truth would appear to lie between these opposite extremes. “The Count de Cagliostro,” says the English life, published in 1787, “is below the middle stature, inclined to corpulency; his face is a round oval, his complexion and eyes dark, the latter uncommonly penetrating. In his address we are not sensible of that indescribable grace which engages the affections before we consult the understanding. On the contrary, there is in his manner a self-importance which at first sight rather disgusts than allures, and obliges us to withhold our regards, till, on a more intimate acquaintance, we yield it the tribute to our reason. Though naturally studious and contemplative, his conversation is sprightly, abounding with judicious remarks and pleasant anecdotes, yet with an understanding in the highest degree perspicuous and enlarged, he is ever rendered the dupe of the sycophant and the flatterer.”

The persuasive and occasionally overpowering eloquence of Cagliostro is also dwelt upon by the majority of his biographers, but, according to the testimony of his wife, as extracted under the terror of the Inquisition and adduced in the Italian life:--“His discourse, instead of being eloquent, was composed in a style of the most wearisome perplexity, and abounded with the most incoherent ideas. Previous to his ascending the rostrum he was always careful to prepare himself for his labours by means of some bottles of wine, and he was so ignorant as to the subject on which he was about to hold forth, that he generally applied to his wife for the text on which he was to preach to his disciples. If to these circumstances are added a Sicilian dialect, mingled with a jargon of French and Italian, we cannot hesitate a single moment as to the degree of credibility which we are to give to the assertions that have been made concerning the wonder-working effects of his eloquence.”

But the Inquisition was in possession of documents which bore irrefutable testimony to the extraordinary hold which Cagliostro exercised over the minds of his numerous followers, and it is preposterous to suppose it could have been possessed by a man who was ignorant, unpresentable, and ill-spoken. Moreover, the testimony of Lorenza, given under circumstances of, at any rate, the strongest moral intimidation is completely worthless on all points whatsoever, and the biassed views of our inquisitorial apologists are of no appreciable value.

I have given an almost disproportionate space to the history of Joseph Balsamo, because it is thoroughly representative of the charlatanic side of alchemy, which during two centuries of curiosity and credulity had developed to a deplorable extent. There is no reason to suppose, despite the veil of mystery which surrounded Altotas, that he was an adept in anything but the sophistication of metals, and his skill in alchemical trickery descended to his pupil. That Balsamo was a powerful mesmerist, that he could induce clairvoyance with facility in suitable subjects, that he had dabbled in Arabic occultism, that he had the faculty of healing magnetically, are points which the evidence enables us to admit, and these genuine phenomena supported his titanic impostures, being themselves supplemented wherever they were weak or defective by direct and prepared fraud. Thus his miraculous prophecies, delineations of absent persons, revelations of private matters, &c., may to some extent be accounted for by the insatiable curiosity and diligence which he made use of to procure knowledge of the secrets of any families with which he came into communication. Lorenzo declared upon oath during her examination that many of the pupils had been prepared beforehand by her husband, but that some had been brought to him unawares, and that in regard to them she could only suppose he had been assisted by the marvels of magical art.

His powers, whatever they were, were imparted to some at least of his Masonic initiates, as may be seen in a genuine letter addressed to him from Lyons, and which describes in enthusiastic language the consecration in that town of the Egyptian lodge called Wisdom Triumphant. This letter fell into the hands of the Inquisition. It relates that at the moment when the assembly had entreated of the Eternal some explicit sign of his approval of their temple and their offerings, “and whilst our master was in mid air,” the first philosopher of the New Testament appeared uninvoked, blessed them after prostration before the cloud, by means of which they had obtained the apparition, and was carried upwards upon it, the splendour being so great that the young pupil or dove was unable to sustain it.

The same letter affirms that the two great prophets and the legislator of Israel had given them palpable signs of their goodwill and of their obedience to the commands of the august founder, the sieur Cagliostro. A similar communication testifies that the great Copt, though absent, had appeared in their lodge between Enoch and Elias.[AP]