Chapter V: Introduction: By Dr. Paul Carus (4)

M. Frantz Funck-Brentano writes: “The idea of implicating Cagliostro in the intrigue had been conceived, as Georgel says, with diabolical cunning. If Jeanne de Valois had in the first instance made a direct accusation against Cardinal de Rohan, no one would have believed in it. But there was something mysterious and suspicious about Cagliostro, and it was known what influence he exercised on the mind of the Cardinal. ‘The alchemist,’ she suggested, ‘took the necklace to pieces in order to increase by means of it the occult treasures of an unheard-of fortune.’ ‘To conceal his theft,’ says Doillot [Madame de la {68} Motte’s lawyer], ‘he ordered M. de Rohan, in virtue of the influence he had established over him, to sell some of the diamonds and to get a few of them mounted at Paris through the Countess de la Motte, and to get more considerable quantities mounted and sold in England by her husband.’ . . . Cagliostro had one unanswerable argument: the Cardinal had made his agreement with the jewelers on the 29th of January, 1785, and he, Cagliostro, had only arrived in Paris at nine in the evening of the 30th.”

Cagliostro refuted the charges with wonderful _sang froid_. He appeared in court “proud and triumphant in his coat of green silk embroidered with gold.” “Who are you? and whence do you come?” asked the attorney for the crown.

“I am an illustrious traveler,” he answered bombastically. Everyone present laughed. He then harangued the judges in theatrical style. He told the most impossible stories of his adventures in Arabia and Egypt. He informed the judges that he was unacquainted with the place of his birth and the name of his parents, but that he spent his infancy in Medina, Arabia, and was brought up under the cognomen of Acharat. He resided in the palace of the Great Muphti, and always had the servants to attend his wants, besides his tutor, named Althotas, who was very fond of him. Althotas told him that his (Cagliostro’s) father and mother were Christians and nobles, who died when he was three months old, leaving him in the care of the Muphti. On one occasion, he asked his preceptor to tell him the name of his parents. Althotas replied that it would be dangerous for him to know, but some incautious expressions dropped by the tutor led him to believe that they were from Malta. When twelve years of age he began his travels, and learned the languages of the Orient. He remained three years in the sacred city of Mecca. The Sherif or Governor of that place showed him such unusual attention and kindness, that he oftentimes thought that personage was his father. He quitted this good man with tears in his eyes, and never saw him again.

“Adieu, nature’s unfortunate child, adieu!” cried the Sherif of Mecca to him, as he took his departure. {69}

Whenever he arrived in any city, either of Europe, Asia, or Africa, he found an account opened for him at the leading banker’s or merchant’s. Like the Count of Monte Cristo, his credit was unlimited. He had only to whisper the word “Acharat,” and his wants were immediately supplied. He really believed that the Sherif was the friend to whom all was owing. This was the secret of his wealth. He denied all complicity in the necklace swindle, and scornfully refuted the charge of Madame de la Motte, that he was “an empiric, a mean alchemist, a dreamer on the Philosopher’s Stone, a false prophet, a profaner of true worship, the self-dubbed Count de Cagliostro.”

“As to my being a false prophet,” he exclaimed grandiloquently, “I have not always been so; for I once prophesied to the Cardinal de Rohan, that Madame de la Motte would prove a dangerous woman, and the result has verified my prediction.”

In conclusion he said that every charge that Madame de la Motte had preferred against him was false, and that she was _mentiris impudentissime_, which two words he requested her lawyers to translate for her, as it was not polite to tell her so in French.

The Inquisition biographer, regarding the subject of the necklace, says: “It is difficult to decide whether, in this celebrated affair, Madame de la Motte or the Count Cagliostro had the greatest share of glory. It is certain, however, that both of them acquired uncommon _éclat_, and indeed attempted to surpass each other. We cannot affirm that they acted in concert on this memorable occasion; we can, however, with safety assert that Cagliostro was well acquainted with the designs of this woman, so wonderfully formed for intrigue, and that he always kept his eye steadily fixed upon the famous necklace. He certainly perceived, and has indeed _confessed in his interrogatories_ [the italics are mine], _that he was acquainted with all the manoeuvres which she put in practice to accomplish her criminal designs_.

“The whole affair was at length discovered. He had foreseen this; and wished to have evaded the inevitable consequences attendant on detection; but it was now too late. The officers of the police were persuaded that without his aid this piece of {70} roguery and deception could never have been carried on; and he was arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille. He, however, did not lose courage; he even found means to corrupt his guards, and to establish a correspondence with the other prisoners who were confined along with him. It was owing to this that they were enabled to be uniform in the answers which they gave in to the various interrogatories to which they were obliged to reply.

“Cagliostro, who has recounted the whole of the circumstances to us, has added, of his own accord, that he denied everything to his judges with the utmost intrepidity; and exhibited such a sameness in his replies, that, on Madame de la Motte’s being confronted with him, and finding herself unable to quash his evidence, she became so furious, that she threw a candlestick at his head in the presence of all his judges. By this means he was declared innocent.”

So much for the Inquisition biography. The incident of the candlestick has been verified by the archives of the Parliament.

Cagliostro was acquitted.

He drove in triumph from the Bastille to his residence, after hearing his order of discharge. His coach was preceded by “a fantastic cripple, who distributed medicines and presents among the crowd.” He found the Rue Saint Claude thronged with friends and sympathizers, anxious to welcome him home. At this period revolutionary sentiments were openly vented by the people of France. The throne was being undermined by the philosophers and politicians. Any excuse was made to revile Louis XVI and his queen. Scurrilous pamphlets were published declaring that Marie Antoinette was equally guilty with the de la Mottes in the necklace swindle. Cagliostro consequently was regarded as a martyr to the liberties of man. His arrest under the detested _lettre de cachet_, upon mere suspicion, and long incarceration in the Bastille without trial, were indeed flagrant abuses of justice and gave his sympathizers a whip with which to lash the King and Court.

His wife had been liberated some time before him. She met him at the door of the temple of magic, and he swooned in her arms. Whether this was a genuine swoon or not, it is {71} impossible to say, for Cagliostro was ever a _poseur_ and never neglected an opportunity for theatrical effect and self-advertisement. He accused the Marquis de Launay, Governor of the Bastille—he who had his head chopped off and elevated upon a pike a few years later—of criminal misappropriation of his effects, money, medicines, alchemical powders, elixirs, etc., etc., which he valued at a high sum. The Commissioner of Police who arrested him was also included in this accusation. He appealed to his judges, who referred him to the Civil Courts. But the case never came to trial. The day after his acquittal he was banished from France by order of the King. At St. Denis “his carriage drove between two dense and silent lines of well-wishers, while, as his vessel cleared from the port of Boulogne, five thousand persons knelt down on the shore to receive his blessing.” He went direct to London. No sooner there, than he filed his suit against the Marquis de Launay, “appealing, of course, to the hearts of all Frenchmen as a lonely and hunted exile.” The French Government, through its ambassador, granted him leave to come in person to Paris to prosecute his suit, assuring him of safe conduct and immunity from all prosecution, legal as well as social. But Cagliostro refused this offer, hinting that it was merely a stratagem to decoy him to Paris and reincarcerate him in a dungeon. No clear-headed, impartial person believed that the Marquis de Launay was guilty of the charge laid at his door. Whatever else he may have been, tyrannical, cold, unsympathetic, the Governor of the Bastille was a man of honor and above committing a theft. In fact, Cagliostro’s accusation was a trumped-up affair, designed to annoy and keep open “a running sore in the side of the French authorities.” Notoriety is the life of charlatanry. Cagliostro was no common quack, as his history shows. He next published a pamphlet, dated June 20th, 1786, prophesying that the Bastille would be demolished and converted into a public promenade; and, that a ruler should arise in France, who should abolish _lettres de cachet_ and convoke the Estates-General. In a few years the prediction was fulfilled. Poor De Launay lost his life, whereupon Cagliostro issued a pamphlet exulting over the butchery of his enemy. In London, Cagliostro became the {72} bosom friend of the eccentric Lord George Gordon, the hero of the “no-popery” riots. Eventually he became deeply involved in debt, and was obliged to pawn his effects. He was unable to impress the common-sense, practical English with his pretensions to animal magnetism, transcendental medicine, and occultism. One of his vaunted schemes was to light up the streets of London with sea-water, which by his magic power he proposed to change into oil. The newspapers ridiculed him, {73} especially the _Courrier de l’Europe_, published and edited by M. Morande, who had “picked up some ugly facts about the swindler’s early career.” The freemasons repudiated him with scorn, and would have nothing to do with his Egyptian Rite. There is a rare old print, a copy of which may be seen in the Scottish Rite Library, Washington, D. C., which depicts the unmasking of the famous imposter at the Lodge of Antiquity, published Nov. 21, 1786, at London. It was engraved by an eye-witness of the scene. In company with some French gentlemen, Cagliostro visited the lodge one evening. At the banquet which followed the working of the degree, a certain worthy brother named Mash, an optician, was called upon to sing. Instead of a post-prandial ditty, he gave a clever imitation of a quack doctor selling nostrums, and dilating bombastically upon the virtues of his elixirs, balsams (Balsamos), and cordials. Cagliostro was not slow in perceiving that he was the target for Brother Mash’s shafts of ridicule. His “front of brass,” as Carlyle has it, was beaten in, his pachyderm was penetrated by the barbed arrows of the ingenious optician’s wit. He left the hall in high dudgeon, followed by the jeers of the assembled masons. Alas, for the Grand Kophta, no “vaults of steel,” no masonic honors for him in London.

From a Rare Print in the Possession of the Supreme Council, A. A. S. R., Washington, D. C.]

The verse appended to the engraving of Cagliostro and the English lodge is as follows:

“Born, God knows where, supported, God knows how,
From whom descended, difficult to know.
_Lord Crop_[15] adopts him as a bosom friend,
And manly 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 vigor, and your health improve.’ {74}
This cunning part the arch impostor acts,
And thus the weak and credulous attracts,
But now, his history is rendered clear,
The arrant hypocrite, and quack appear.
First as _Balsams_, 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 every 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 lash to fraud shall put an end.”

[15] Lord George Gordon.

VI.

To escape the harpies of the law, who threatened him with a debtor’s prison, Cagliostro fled to his old hunting-ground, the Continent, leaving _la petite Comtesse_ to follow him as best she could. But the game was played out. The police had by this time become fully cognizant of his impostures. He was forbidden to practice his peculiar system of medicine and masonry in Austria, Germany, Russia, and Spain. Drawn like a needle to the lodestone rock, he went to Rome. Foolish Grand Kophta! Freemasonry was a capital offence in the dominions of the Pope. One lodge, however, existed. Says Greeven: “There is reason to suppose that it was tolerated only because it enabled the Holy Church to spy out the movements of freemasons in general.” Cagliostro attempted to found one of his Egyptian lodges, but met with no success. His exchequer became depleted. He appealed to the National Assembly of France to revoke the order of banishment, on the ground of “his services to the liberty of France.” Suddenly on the evening of Dec. 27, 1789, he and his wife were arrested and incarcerated in the fortress of San Angelo. His highly-prized manuscript of Egyptian masonry was seized, together with all his papers and correspondence. He was tried by the Holy Inquisition. It must have been an impressive scene—that gloomy council {75} chamber with the cowled inquisitors. Cagliostro’s wife appeared against him and lifted the veil of Isis that hid the mysteries of the charlatan’s career. The Egyptian manuscript of George Coston, the seals, the masonic regalia and paraphernalia were mute and damning evidences of his guilt. He was indeed a freemason, even though he were not an alchemist, a soothsayer, the Grand Kophta of the Pyramids. Cagliostro’s line of defense was that “he had labored throughout to lead back freemasons, through the Egyptian ritual, to Catholic orthodoxy.” He appeared at first to be contrite. But it availed him nothing. Finding his appeals for mercy useless, he adopted another tack, and told impossible stories of his adventures. He harangued the Holy Fathers for hours, despite their threats and protests. Nothing could stop his loquacious tongue from wagging. Finally, he was condemned to death as a heretic, sorcerer, and freemason, but Pope Pius VI., on the 21st of March, 1791, commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. His manuscript was declared to be “superstitious, blasphemous, wicked, and heretical,” and was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, together with his masonic implements.

After the sentence of the Inquisition, Cagliostro was taken back to the Castle of San Angelo and immured in a gloomy dungeon, where no one but the jailer came near him. But still his indomitable spirit was unconquered. He conceived a plan of escape. Expressing the greatest contrition for his crimes, he begged the Governor of the prison to send him a confessor. The request was granted, and a Capuchin monk was detailed to listen to the condemned man’s catalogue of sins. During the confession, the charlatan suddenly sprang upon the monk and endeavored to throttle him. His object was to escape from the Castle in the Capuchin’s robe. But the Father Confessor proved to be a member of the church militant, and vigorously defended himself. Cagliostro’s attempt proved futile. This anecdote was related by S. A. S. the Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar to the French masonic historian, Thory (_Acta Latamorum_, I, 68). The Prince declared it to be authentic.

Soon after the above-mentioned event, the Pontifical Government ordered Cagliostro to be conducted in the night time to {76} the Fortress of San Leon, in the Duchy of Urbino. Here in a subterranean dungeon, it is said, he was literally swallowed up alive, like the victims of mediæval days in the stone _in pace_. From this epoch we lose all traces of the great necromancer. It is said that he died in the month of August, 1795, the rigor of his punishment having somewhat abated. The following item will prove of interest: “News comes from Rome that the famous Cagliostro is dead in the fortress of San Leon.” (_Moniteur universel_, 6 Octobre, 1795. Correspondence dated from Genoa, August 25th.) Everything concerning that death is shrouded in mystery. The stone walls of San Leon have told no tales. No one knows where the magician is buried. In all likelihood in some ignoble prison grave. One can readily picture the obsequies: A flash of flambeaux in the night; a coarse winding-sheet; a wooden coffin; an indifferent priest to mumble a few Latin prayers; the callous grave diggers with their spades—and all is over! No masonic honors here; no arches of steel; no mystic lights and regalia. Farewell forever, Balsamo! I confess a weakness for you, despite your charlatanry. Doubtless you were welcomed with open arms to the Shades by your brethren—the Chaldeans, the sorcerers and the soothsayers.

Alfred de Caston, in his _Marchands de Miracles_, Paris 1864, remarks that Cagliostro “rendered up his soul to God” just one hundred years after the death of his predecessor in the _art magique_, the brilliant charlatan Joseph Francis Borri of Milan, who was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the Castle of St. Angelo by the Holy Inquisition, as a heretic, alchemist, and sorcerer. A curious coincidence, says Castro.

The beautiful “Flower of Vesuvius,” Lorenza Feliciani, escaped severe punishment by immuring herself in the convent of St. Appolonia at Rome, where she died in 1794. She was more sinned against than sinning.

There lived in 1858, an old woman known by the name of Madeline, who inhabited a miserable attic in Paris, the ceiling of which was covered with cabalistic and astrological emblems. She pretended to divine the future and tell fortunes. She was the daughter of Cagliostro and a Jewess of Lyons. (_Le Figaro_, 13 mai, 1858.) {77}

In the Inquisition biography some curious letters to Cagliostro from his masonic correspondents in France are published. They evidence the profound respect, one might almost say blind worship, with which he was regarded by his disciples.

The masonic lodge at Rome was disrupted shortly after Cagliostro’s arrest. The Sbirri of the Holy Office pounced down upon it, but the birds had flown, taking with them their most important papers. Father Marcellus says that among the members of this Roman lodge were an Englishman and an American.

And so endeth the career of Cagliostro, one of the most romantic of history. His condemnation as a sorcerer and freemason has invested him with “the halo of a religious martyr, of which perhaps no one was less deserving.”

Among his effects the Inquisition found a peculiar seal, upon which the mysterious letters “L. P. D.” were engraved. These letters were supposed to stand for the Latin sentence, _Lilia pedibus destrue_, which rendered into the vulgar tongue signifies, “Tread the lilies under foot.” The fleur-de-lys was the heraldic device of the Bourbon Kings of France, hence this trampling upon the lily alluded to the stamping out of the French monarchy by the freemasons. However, it is more than probable that the initials, arranged as follows, L. D. P., stood for _Libertè de Penser_—“Freedom of thought”—which is a motto of Scottish Rite Masonry. This was the opinion of General Albert Pike, 33d degree, than whom no greater masonic student ever lived.

Many theosophical writers have placed implicit belief in the mission of Cagliostro. They have regarded him as a genuine adept in magic and alchemy, and not a _chevalier d’industrie_ preying upon a credulous world. Totally ignoring the evidence contained in the police archives[16] of Paris and the numerous brochures by eminent men and women who personally knew Cagliostro, they point to the Inquisition biography as a mass of false evidence compiled by religious bigots, and consequently unreliable, as if no other testimony regarding Cagliostro’s character existed. Father Marcellus had an ecclesiastical axe to grind, {78} it is true, to prove Cagliostro a freemason and heretic (heinous crimes in the eyes of the Roman Church, but absurd charges in the eyes of all tolerant men), nevertheless he showed conclusively that Joseph Balsamo of Palermo, the man of many aliases, was also a charlatan, impostor and evil liver. All impartial contemporary biographers corroborate the facts adduced by the Inquisition in this respect. The Cardinal de Rohan is not a competent witness for Cagliostro, for he was blinded by his superstitious belief in magic and alchemy. _Populus vult decipi, decipiatur_—people who wish to be deceived are deceived.

[16] See _Documents manuscrits_ in the French archives at
Paris (Cartons: X2 B 1417—F7, 4445 B—Y, 11514—Y, 13125.)

Some writers have asserted that Cagliostro was the agent of the Templars, and therefore wrote to the freemasons of London that the time had arrived to begin the work of rebuilding the Temple of the Eternal. With the heads of the Order he had vowed to overturn the Throne and the Altar upon the tomb of the martyred Grand Master of Templars, Jacques de Molai. Learned in the esoteric doctrines of the Orient, the Knights Templars, or Poor Fellow Soldiery of the Holy House of the Temple, were accused of sorcery and witchcraft, hence their persecution by the Church, and Philippe le Bel of France. De Molai, before he was burned to death in Paris, organized and instituted what afterwards became in the eighteenth century occult, hermetic or Scottish Masonry. And thus the freemasons traced their order to the Templars of the Middle Ages, from whom they inherited the theosophical doctrines of Egypt and India. Such is the romantic but improbable legend. Color is lent to the story by Cagliostro himself. Among other Munchausen tales related by him to his Inquisitors, he told how he had visited the Illuminati of Frankfurt, when on his way to Strasburg. In an underground cavern the secret Grand Master of Templars “showed him his signature under a horrible form of oath, traced in blood, and pledged him to destroy all despots, especially in Rome.”

Taking this idea for a theme, Alexander the Great—he of the pen, not of the sword—has built up a series of improbable though highly romantic novels about the personality of Cagliostro, entitled _The Memoirs of a Physician_ and _The Diamond Necklace_. He makes him the Grand Kophta of a Society of {79} Illuminati, or exalted freemasons, which extends throughout the world. Pledged to the propagation of liberty, equality, and fraternity among men, the mystic brotherhood seeks to overthrow the thrones of Europe and the Papacy, symbols of oppression and persecution.

_The Memoirs of a Physician_ opens with a remarkable prologue, descriptive of a solemn conclave of the secret superiors of the Order. The meeting takes place at night in a ruined chateau located in a mountainous region near the old city of Strasburg. Cagliostro reveals his identity as the Arch-master of the Fraternity, the Grand Kophta, who is in possession of the secrets of the pyramids. He takes upon himself the important task of “treading the lilies under foot” and bringing about the destruction of the monarchy in France, the storm-centre of Europe. He departs on his mission. Like Torrini, the conjurer, he has a miniature house on wheels drawn by two Flemish horses. One part of the vehicle is fitted up as an alchemical laboratory, wherein the sage Althotas makes researches for the elixir of life. Arriving at the chateau of a nobleman of the _ancien régime_, Cagliostro meets the young dauphiness Marie Antoinette, on her way to Paris, accompanied by a brilliant cortège. He causes her to see in a carafe of water her death by the guillotine. Aided by the freemasons of Paris, Cagliostro sets to work to encompass the ruin of the throne and to bring on the great Revolution. Dumas in this remarkable series of novels passes in review before us Jean Jacques Rousseau, Cardinal de Rohan, Louis XV and XVI, Marie Antoinette, Countess du Barry, Madame de la Motte, Danton, Marat, and a host of people famous in the annals of history. Cagliostro is exalted from a charlatan into an apostle of liberty, endowed with many noble qualities. He is represented as possessing occult powers, and his séances are depicted as realities. Dumas himself was a firm believer in spiritualism, and hobnobbed with the American medium Daniel D. Home.

VII.

Cagliostro’s house in the Marais quarter, Paris, still remains—a memorial in stone of its former master. In the summer {80} of 1899 the _Courrier des Etats-Unis_, New York, contained an interesting article on this mansion. I quote as follows:

“Cagliostro’s house still stands in Paris. Few alterations have been made in it since the days of its glories and mysteries; and one may easily imagine the effect which it produced in the night upon those who gazed upon its strange pavilions and wide terraces when the lurid lights of the alchemist’s furnaces streamed through the outer window blinds. The building preserves its noble lines in spite of modern additions and at the same time has a weird appearance which produces an almost depressing effect. But this doubtless comes from the imagination, because the house was not built by Cagliostro; he simply rented it. When he took up his quarters in it, it was the property of the Marquise d’Orvillers. Cagliostro made no changes in it, except perhaps a few temporary interior additions for the machines which he used in his séances in magic.

“The plan of the building may well be said to be abnormal. The outer gate opens upon the Rue Saint Claude at the angle of the Boulevard Beaumarchais. The courtyard has a morose and solemn aspect. At the end under a flagged porch there is a stone staircase worn by time, but it still preserves its old iron railing. On looking at that staircase, one cannot help thinking of the hosts of beautiful women, attracted by curiosity to the den of the sorcerer, and terrified at what they imagined they were about to see, who placed their trembling hands upon that old railing. Here we can evoke {81} the shade of Mme. de la Motte running up the steps, with her head covered with a cloak, and the ghosts of the valets of Cardinal de Rohan sleeping in the driver’s seat of the carriage with a lantern at their feet, while their master, in company with the Great Kophta, is occupied with necromancy, metallurgy, cabala, or oneirocritics, which, as everybody knows, constitute the four elementary divisions of Cagliostro’s art.

“A secret stairway now walled up ran near the large one to the second story, where its traces are found; and a third stairway, narrow and tortuous, still exists at the other end of the building on the boulevard side. It is in the center of the wall, in complete darkness, and leads to the old salons now cut into apartments, the windows of which look out upon a terrace. Below, with their mouldering doors, are the carriage house and the stable,—the stable of Djerid, the splendid black horse of Lorenza Feliciani.”

To verify the above statement, I wrote to M. Alfred de Ricaudy (an authority on archæological matters and editor of _L’Echo du Public_, Paris), who responded as follows, Jan. 13, 1900:

“The house still exists just as it was in the time of Cagliostro [the exterior]. Upon the boulevard, contiguous to the mansion, there was formerly the shop of one Camerlingue, a bookseller, now occupied by an upholsterer. On January 30, 1785, Cagliostro took up his residence in this quaint old house. It was then No. 30 Rue St. Claude, at the corner of the Boulevard Saint Antoine, afterwards the Boulevard Beaumarchais. The Marquise d’Orvillers was the owner of the premises occupied by the thaumaturgist of the eighteenth century. Her father, M. de Chavigny, captain in the royal navy, had built this house on ground acquired in 1719 from Mme. de Harlay, who had inherited it from her father, le Chevalier Boucherat. (See Lefeuve, _Old Houses of Paris_, Vol. IV., issue 51, page 24, published by Achille Faure, Paris, 1863.)”

Cagliostro’s house is now No. 1, the numbering of the street having been altered during the reign of Louis Philippe. Says M. de Ricaudy:

“The numbering originally began at the Rue Saint Louis, now Rue de Turenne, in which is situated the church of Saint Denis du Sacrement. When the houses were re-numbered with reference to the direction of the current of the Seine (under Louis Philippe), the numbers of the Rue St. Claude, which is parallel to the river, began at the corner of the boulevard, and in that way the former number 30 became number 1.”

The sombre old mansion has had a peculiar history. Cagliostro locked the doors of the laboratories and séance-chambre some time in June, 1786, on the occasion of his exile from France. All during the great Revolution the house remained closed and intact. Twenty-four years of undisturbed repose passed away. The {82} dust settled thick upon everything; spiders built their webs upon the gilded ceilings of the salons. Finally, in the Napoleonic year 1810, the doors of the temple of magic and mystery were unfastened, and the furniture and rare curios, the retorts and crucibles, belonging to the dead conjurer, were auctioned off. An idle crowd of curious _quid nuncs_ gathered to witness the sale and pry about. Says Ricaudy:

“The household furniture, belongings, etc., of the illustrious adventure were not sold until five years after his death. The sale took place in the apartment which he had occupied, and was by order of the municipal government. An examination revealed many curious acoustical and optical arrangements constructed in the building by Cagliostro. By the aid of these contrivances and that of well-trained confederates, he perpetrated many supposedly magical effects, summoned the shades of the dead,” etc. (_See Dictionnaire de la France_. By A. G. de St. Fargeau, Vol. III., page 245. Paris, 1851.)

Says Lenôtre:

“Since the auctioning of Cagliostro’s effects the gloomy house of the Rue St. Claude has had no history. Ah, but I am mistaken. In 1855 some repairs were made. The old carriage door was removed, and the one that took its place was taken from the ruins of the Temple. There it stands today with its great bolts and immense locks. The door of the prison of Louis XVI. closes the house of Cagliostro.”

M. de Ricaudy verifies this statement about the door of the mansion. The student of Parisian archæology will do well to consult M. de Ricaudy, as well as M. Labreton, 93 Boulevard Beaumarchais, who possesses forty volumes relating to the history of the Marais Quarter. Last but not least is the indefatigable student of ancient landmarks of Paris, M. G. Lenôtre, author of _Paris révolutionnaire, vieilles maisons, vieux papiers, 1re série_.

My friend, M. Félicien Trewey, who visited the place in the summer of 1901, at my request, reported to me that it had been converted into a commercial establishment. The salons were cut up into small apartments. The laboratories and the _chambre égyptienne_ where the great sorcerer held his séances were no more. A grocer, a feather curler, and a manufacturer of cardboard boxes occupied the building, oblivious of the fact that the world-renowned Cagliostro once lived there, plying his trade of sorcerer, mesmerist, physician, and mason, like a true _chevalier d’industrie_. Alas! the history of these old mansions! They {83} have their days of splendid prosperity, followed by shabby gentility and finally by sordid decay,—battered, blear-eyed, and repulsive looking.

According to Henri d’Almeras (_Cagliostro, et la franc-maconnerie et l’occultisme au XVIIIe siècle_), Cagliostro’s apartment on the second floor of the house was occupied in the year 1904 by a watchmaker. Two famous watchmakers became conjurers, one after having read an old book on natural magic, the other after having seen a performance of the Davenport Brothers. I allude to Robert-Houdin and Jno. Nevil Maskelyne. Watchmaking leads naturally to the construction of automata and magical illusions. The young horologist of the Rue Saint Claude has every excuse to become a prestidigitateur. He works in an atmosphere of necromancy in that old house haunted by its memories of the past. If this does not influence him to enter the magic circle, nothing else will.

People pass and repass this ghost-house of the Rue Saint Claude every day, but not one in a hundred knows that the great enchanter once resided there and held high court. If those dumb walls could but speak, what fascinating stories of superstition and folly they might unfold to our wondering ears! Yes, in this ancient house, dating back to pre-Revolutionary Paris, to the old régime, the great necromancer known as Cagliostro lived in the zenith of his fame. In these golden years of his life, was he never haunted by disturbing visions of the dungeons of the Holy Inquisition, yawning to receive him? Ah, who can tell? Thanks to the gossipy memoir writers of the period, I am able to give a pen portrait, composite, if you will, of some of the scenes that were enacted in the antiquated mansion.

It is night. The lanterns swung in the streets of old Paris glimmer fitfully. Silence broods over the city with shadowy wings. No sound is heard save the clank of the patrol on its rounds. The Rue Saint Claude, however, is all bustle and confusion. A grand “soirée magique” is being held at the house of Monsieur le Comte de Cagliostro. Heavy old-fashioned carriages stand in front of the door, with coachmen lolling sleepily on the boxes, and linkboys playing rude games with each other in the kennel. A rumble in the street—ha, there, lackeys! out of {84} the way! Here comes the coach of my Lord Cardinal, Prince Louis de Rohan. There is a flash of torches. Servants in gorgeous liveries of red and gold, with powdered wigs, open the door of the vehicle, and let down the steps with a crash. Monseigneur le Cardinal, celebrant of the mass in the royal palace at Versailles, man of pleasure and alchemist, descends. He is enveloped in a dark cloak, as if to court disguise, but it is only a polite pretense. He enters the mansion of his bosom friend, Cagliostro the magician. Within, all is a blaze of light. A life-size bust of the divine Cagliostro ornaments the foyer. Visitors are received in a handsomely furnished apartment on the second floor. Beyond that is the séance-room, a mysterious chamber hung with somber drapery. Wax candles in tall silver sconces, arranged about the place in mystic pentagons and triangles, illuminate the scene.

In the center of the room is a table with a black cloth, on which are embroidered in red the symbols of the highest degree of the Rosicrucians. Upon this strange shekinah is placed the cabalistic apparatus of the necromancer—odd little Egyptian figures of Isis, Osiris, vials of lustral waters, and a large globe full of clarified water. It is all very uncanny. Presently the guests are seated in a circle about the altar, and form a magnetic chain. As the old chroniclers phrase it, to them enters Cagliostro, the Grand Kophta, the man who has lived thousands of years, habited in gorgeous robes like the arch-hierophant of an ancient Egyptian temple. The clairvoyant is now brought in, a child of angelic purity, who was born under a certain constellation, of delicate nerves, great sensitiveness, and, withal, blue eyes. She is bidden to kneel before the globe, and relate what she sees therein. Cagliostro makes passes over her, and commands the genii to enter the water. The very soul of the seeress is penetrated with the magnetic aura emanating from the magician. She becomes convulsed, and declares that she sees events taking place that very moment at the court of Versailles, at Vienna, at Rome.

Every one present is transported with joy. Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan is charmed, delighted, and lauds the necromancer to the skies. How weird and wonderful! Albertus {85} Magnus, Nostradamus and Appolonius of Tyana are not to be compared with the all-powerful Cagliostro. Truly he is the descendant of the Egyptian thaumaturgists.

The séance is followed by a banquet. Rose-leaves are showered over the guests from the gilded ceiling, perfumed water plashes in the fountains, and a hidden orchestra of violins, flutes and harps plays soft melodies. The scene reminds one of the splendid feasts of the Roman voluptuaries in the decadent days of the empire. The lovely Lorenza Feliciani, wife of the enchanter, discourses learnedly of sylphs, salamanders and gnomes, in the jargon of the Rosicrucians. The Cardinal, his veins on fire with love and champagne, gazes amorously at her. But he is thinking all the while of the aristocratic Marie Antoinette, who treats him with such cruel disdain. But Cagliostro has promised to win the Queen for him, to melt her icy heart with love-philters and magical talismans. Let him but possess his soul in patience a little while. All will be well. Aye, indeed, well enough to land the haughty prelate in the Bastille, and start the magician on that downward path to the Inquisition at Rome.

The night wanes. The lights of the banqueting-hall burn lower and lower. Finally the _grandes dames_ and the _seigneurs_ take their departure. When the last carriage has rolled away into the darkness, Cagliostro and his wife yawn wearily, and retire to their respective sleeping-apartments. The augurs of Rome, says a Latin poet, could not look at each other without laughing. Cagliostro and Lorenza in bidding each other goodnight exchange smiles of incalculable cunning. The sphinx masks have dropped from their faces, and they know each other to be—charlatans and impostors, preying upon a superstitious society. The magician is alone. He places his wax light upon an escritoire, and throws himself into an arm-chair before the great fireplace, carved and gilded with many a grotesque image. The flames of the blazing logs weave all sorts of fantastic forms on floor and ceiling. The wind without howls in the chimney like a lost spirit. The figures embroidered on the tapestry assume monstrous shapes of evil portent—alguazils, cowled inquisitors, and jailers with rusty keys and chains. {86}

But the magician sees nothing of it all, hears not the warning cry of the wind: he is thinking of his newly hatched lodges of Egyptian occultism, and the golden louis d’or to be conjured out of the strong-boxes of his Parisian dupes.

{87}

GHOST-MAKING EXTRAORDINARY.

“Stay illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, Speak to me.”—SHAKESPEARE: _Hamlet_.

I.

The French Revolution drew crowds of adventurers to Paris, their brains buzzing with the wildest schemes—political, social, and scientific—which they endeavored to exploit. Among the inventors was a Belgian optician, Etienne-Gaspard Robertson, born at Liège, in 1763, where for many years he had been a professor of physics. He addressed a memorial in the year 1794 to the Government proposing to construct gigantic burning glasses _à la_ Archimedes, to set fire to the English fleets, at that period blockading the French seaports. A commission composed of Monge, Lefevre, Gineau and Guyton de Morveau was appointed to investigate the matter, but nothing came of it.

Failing to accomplish his scheme, Robertson turned his attention to other methods of money-making. Four years passed away. Having a decided _penchant_ for magic illusions, etc., he set about constructing a ghost-making apparatus. The “Red Terror” was a thing of the past, and people had begun to pluck up courage and seek amusements. Rid to a great extent, of his rival, La Guillotine—the most famous of “ghost-making machines”—Robertson set up his phantasmagoria at the Pavilion de l’Echiquier, and flooded the city with circulars describing his exhibition. Poultier, a journalist and one of the Representatives of the People, wrote an amusing account of the entertainment in the _L’Ami des Lois_, 1798.[17] He says: {88}

“A decemvir of the Republic has said that the dead return no more, but go to Robertson’s exhibition and you will soon be convinced of the contrary, for you will see the dead returning to life in crowds. Robertson calls forth phantoms, and commands legions of spectres. In a well-lighted apartment in the Pavilion l’Echiquier I found myself seated a few evenings since, with sixty or seventy people. At seven o’clock a pale, thin man entered the room where we were sitting, and having extinguished the candles he said: ‘Citizens, I am not one of those adventurers and impudent swindlers who promise more than they can perform. I have assured the public in the _Journal de Paris_ that I can bring the dead to life, and I shall do so. Those of the company who desire to see the apparitions of those who were dear to them, but who have passed away from this life by sickness or otherwise, have only to speak; and I shall obey their commands.’ There was a moment’s silence, and a haggard-looking man, with dishevelled hair and sorrowful eyes, rose in the midst of the assemblage and exclaimed, ‘As I have been unable in an official journal to re-establish the worship of Marat, I should at least be glad to see his shadow.’ Robertson immediately threw upon {89} a brazier containing lighted coals, two glasses of blood, a bottle of vitriol, a few drops of aquafortis, and two numbers of the _Journal des Hommes Libres_, and there instantly appeared in the midst of the smoke caused by the burning of these substances, a hideous livid phantom armed with a dagger and wearing a red cap of liberty. The man at whose wish the phantom had been evoked seemed to recognize Marat, and rushed forward to embrace the vision, but the ghost made a frightful grimace and disappeared. A young man next asked to see the phantom of a young lady whom he had tenderly loved, and whose portrait he {90} showed to the worker of all these marvels. Robertson threw upon the brazier a few sparrow’s feathers, a grain or two of phosphorus, and a dozen butterflies. A beautiful woman with her bosom uncovered and her hair floating about her, soon appeared, and smiled on the young man with most tender regard and sorrow. A grave looking individual sitting close by me suddenly exclaimed, ‘Heavens! it’s my wife come to life again,’ and he rushed from the room, apparently fearing that what he saw was not a phantom.”

(From a French Print.)]

[17] Du 8 germinal au VI—28 Mars, 1798.

One evening one of the audience, avowing himself to be a Royalist, called for the shade of the martyred king, Louis XVI. Here was a dilemma for citizen Robertson. Had he complied with the request and evoked the royal ghost, prison and possibly the guillotine would have been his fate.

But the magician was foxy. He suspected a trap on the part of a police agent in disguise, who had a spite against him. He replied as follows: “Citizens, I once had a recipe for bringing dead kings to life, but that was before the 18th Fructidor, when the Republic declared royalty abolished forever. On that glorious day I lost my magic formula, and fear that I shall never recover it again.”

In spite of Robertson’s clever retort, the affair created such a sensation that on the following day, the police prohibited the exhibitions, and placed seals on the optician’s boxes and papers. However, the ban was soon lifted, and the performances allowed to continue. Lucky Robertson! The advertisement filled his coffers to overflowing. People struggled to gain admission to the wonderful phantasmagoria.

Finding the Pavilion too small to accommodate the crowds, the magician moved his show to an abandoned chapel of the Capuchin Convent, near the Place Vendôme. This ancient place of worship was located in the middle of a vast cloister crowded with tombs and funeral tablets.

A more gruesome spot could not have been selected. The Chapel was draped in black. From the ceiling was suspended a sepulchral lamp, in which alcohol and salt were burned, giving forth a ghastly light which made the faces of the spectators {91} resemble those of corpses. Robertson, habited in black, made his appearance, and harangued his audience on ghosts, witches, sorcery, and magic. Finally the lamp was extinguished and the apartment plunged in Plutonian darkness. A storm of wind and rain, thunder and lightning, interspersed with the tolling of a church bell, followed, and after this the solemn strains of a far-off organ were heard. At the evocation of the conjurer, phantoms of Voltaire, Mirabeau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robespierre, Danton, and Marat appeared and faded away again “into thin air.” The ghost of Robespierre was shown rising from a tomb. A flash of lightning, vivid and terrible, would strike the phantom, whereupon it would sink down into the ground and vanish.

People were often carried away fainting from the exhibition. It was truly awe inspiring and perfect in _mise en scène_.

At the conclusion of the séance, Robertson used to remark: “I have shown you, citizens, every species of phantom, and there is but one more truly terrible spectre—the fate which is reserved for us all. Behold!” In an instant there stood in the center of the room a skeleton armed with a scythe. It grew to a colossal height and gradually faded away.[18]

[18] For a romance embracing the subject of phantasmagoria
see the poet Schiller’s _Ghost-Seer_. (Bohn Library.)

Sir David Brewster, in his work on natural magic, has the following to say about concave mirrors and the art of phantasmagoria: “Concave mirrors are distinguished by their property of forming in front of them, and in the air, inverted images of erect objects, or erect images of inverted objects, placed at some distance beyond their principal focus. If a fine transparent cloud of blue smoke is raised, by means of a chafing dish, around the focus of a large concave mirror, the image of any highly illuminated object will be depicted in the middle of it, with great beauty. A skull concealed from the observer is sometimes used to surprise the ignorant; and when a dish of fruit has been depicted in a similar manner, a spectator, stretching out his hand to seize it, is met with the image of a drawn dagger which has been quickly substituted for the fruit at the other conjugate focus of the mirror.” {92}

Thoroughly conversant with the science of optics, it is more than probable that Robertson made use of large concave mirrors to project inverted phantoms of living persons in the air, with convex lenses to restore the ghosts to an upright position. If he merely used painted images, which is the more likely, then he had resort to the phantasmagoric magic lantern, rolling upon a small track. Pushing this contrivance backwards and forwards caused the images to lessen or increase, to recede or advance.

Robertson realized quite a snug fortune out of his ghost exhibition and other inventions. His automaton speaking figure, called _le phonorganon_, uttered two hundred words of the French language. Another interesting piece of mechanism was his Trumpeter. These two machines formed part of a beautiful _Cabinet de Physique_ in his house, the Hotel d’ Yorck, Boulevard Montmartre, No. 12 Paris. He has left some entertaining memoirs, entitled _Mémoires récréatifs et anecdotifs_ (1830–1834), copies of which are exceedingly rare. He was a great aeronaut and invented the parachute which has been wrongly attributed to Garnerin.

Robertson, as _Commandant des Aerostiers_, served in the French army, and rendered valuable service with his balloons in observing the movements of the enemy in the campaigns in Belgium and Holland, under General Jourdain. In the year 1804 he wrote a treatise on ballooning, entitled, _La Minerve, vaisseau Aérien destiné aux découvertes, et proposé, à toutes les Académies de l’Europe_, published at Vienna. He died at Batignolles (Paris) in 1837.

In his memoirs, Robertson describes a species of optical toy called the Phantascope, for producing illusions on a small scale. This may give a clue to his spectres of the Capuchin Convent. He also offers an explanation of Nostradamus’ famous feat of conjuring up the likeness of Francis I. in a magic mirror, for the edification of the beautiful Marie de Médici.

II.

We now come to the greatest of all ghost-shows, that of the Polytechnic Institute, London. In the year 1863 letters patent {93} were granted to Professor John Henry Pepper, professor of chemistry in the London Polytechnic Institute, and Henry Dircks, civil engineer, for a device “for projecting images of living persons in the air.” Here were no concave mirrors, no magic lanterns, simply a large sheet of unsilvered glass. The effect is founded on a well-known optical illusion. “In the evening carry a lighted candle to the window and you will see reflected in the pane, not only the image of the candle, but that of your hand and face as well. A sheet of glass, inclined at a certain angle, is placed on a stage between the actors and spectators. Beneath the stage and just in front of the glass, is a person robed in a white shroud, and illuminated by the brilliant rays of the electric or the oxy-hydrogen light. The image of the actor who plays the part of spectre, being reflected by the glass, becomes visible to the spectators, and stands, apparently, just as far behind the glass as its prototype is placed in front of it. This image is only visible to the audience. The actor who is on the stage sees nothing of it, and in order that he may not strike at random in his attacks on the spectre, it is necessary to mark beforehand on the boards the particular spot at which, to the eyes of the audience, the phantom will appear. Care must be taken to have the theatre darkened and the stage very dimly lighted.”

At the Polytechnic Institute the ghost was admirably produced. The stage represented the room of a mediaeval student who was engaged in burning the midnight oil. Looking up from his black-letter tome he beheld the apparition of a skeleton. Resenting the intrusion he arose from his chair, seized a sword which was ready to his hand, and aimed a blow at the figure, which vanished, only to return again and again.

The assistant who manipulated the spectre wore a cover of black velvet. He held the real skeleton in his arms, and made the fleshless bones assume the most grotesque attitudes. He had evidently studied Holbein’s “Dance of Death.” The lower part of the skeleton, from the pelvis downward, was dressed in white linen, presumably a shroud. To the audience the figure seemed to vanish and reappear through the floor. {94}

This ghost-making apparatus has been used with splendid success in the dramatizations of Dickens’ _Christmas Carol_ and _Haunted Man_; Bulwer’s _Strange Story_; and Alexander Dumas’ _Corsican Brothers_.

“In the course of the same year (1863),” says Robert-Houdin in his _Les Secrets de la prestidigitation et de la magie_, “M. Hostein, manager of the Imperial Châtelet Theatre, purchased[19] from M. Pepper the secret of the ‘Ghost,’ in order to introduce it into a drama entitled _Le Secret de Miss Aurore_ [a French adaptation of “Aurora Floyd”]. M. Hostein spared no expense in order to ensure the success of the illusion. Three enormous sheets of unsilvered glass, each five yards square, were placed side by side, and presented an ample surface for the reflection of the ghost-actor and his movements. Two Drummond lights (oxy-hydrogen) were used for the purpose of the trick.

[19] He paid 20,000 francs for the invention.

“But before the trick was in working order at its new destination, several of the Parisian theatres, in the face of letters patent duly granted to M. Pepper, had already advertised performances wherein it was included.

“M. Hostein had no means of preventing the piracy; unluckily for himself, and still more so for the inventor, the plagiarists had discovered among the French official records a patent taken out, ten years before, by a person named Séguin for a toy called the _Polyoscope_, which was founded on the same principle as the ghost illusion.”

Professor Pepper claims to have been totally unaware of the existence of M. Séguin’s Polyoscope. In his _True History of the Ghost_, Pepper describes the toy as follows:

“It consisted of a box with a small sheet of glass placed at an angle of forty-five degrees, and it reflected a concealed table, with plastic figures, the spectres of which appeared behind the glass, and which young people who possessed the toy invited their companions to take out of the box, when they melted away, as it were, in their hands and disappeared.”