The notorious Count Cagliostro appears from an impartial review of his
history and phenomenal exploits, to have been one of those characters
not uncommonly met with in the chequered annals of occultism. Even as
the modern “mediums,” who outrage the confidence of their believers by
leavening the supernatural bread, whereof the ghastly patent is their
prerogative and birthright, with the unrighteous mammon of material
conjuring, and even as those conjurors who are sometimes supposed to
still further perplex their audience by supplementary compacts with
“spooks,” this high priest of transcendental trickery would seem to
have possessed, perhaps unconsciously, a certain share of occult gifts,
which assisted no little his unparalleled rogueries. Mystical knowledge
beyond that of the age in which he lived was undoubtedly his, and
though it was still superficial, he had a genius for making the most of
it.
Joseph Balsamo, whatever has been advanced to the contrary by
himself[AJ] or his admirers, was the son of Peter Balsamo and Felicia
Bracconieri, both of humble extraction. He was born at Palermo,
in Sicily, on the 8th of June 1743. His parents are authentically
described as honest tradespeople and good Catholics, who were careful
in the education of their offspring, and solicitous for their spiritual
welfare. Their shop drew much custom in the populous neighbourhood
which divided the handsome Rue del Cæsaro. While his children
were still young, Peter Balsamo died, and, left under the inadequate
control of a widowed mother, Joseph betrayed, even in his earliest
years, a selfish and indolent disposition, greatly neglecting the
scanty educational advantages which were afforded him. According to
other accounts, he was taken under the protection of his maternal
uncle, who endeavoured to instruct him in the principles of religion,
and to give him an education suitable to his age and prospects; but,
even from his infancy, he showed himself uniformly averse to a virtuous
course of life. His uncle was a worthy bourgeois of Palermo,
who foresaw, by the vivacity and penetration of his nephew, that he
might easily become proficient in letters and the sciences.[AK] By
him he was desired to embrace an ecclesiastical career, as the royal
road to distinction in those days. Accordingly, at the age of thirteen
he was placed in the Seminary of St Roch di Palermo, where he proved
his independence and aversion to discipline by continually running
away. Recaptured in vagabond company, he was committed, with no very
favourable character, to a certain father-general of the Bon Fratelli,
who was passing through Palermo. The father-general took charge of him
and straightway carried him to a Benedictine convent on the outskirts
of Cartagirone. There the walls were high, and the caged dove was in
the keeping of an inflexible frère tourier. He assumed perforce
the habit of a novice, and the father-general discovering his aptitude
for natural history and, more especially, his herbalistic tastes,
placed him under the tuition of the conventual apothecary, from whom,
as he afterwards acknowledged, he learned the first principles of
chemistry and medicine. Figuier states that in a short time he was
able to manipulate the drugs with astonishing sagacity; but even then
it was remarked that he seemed eager to discover those secrets which
would further the interests of charlatanry.[AL] In strict accordance
with his natural perversity, he did not fail to give various instances
of his innate viciousness, and drew down upon himself the continual
chastisements of his superiors. One day the involuntary novice, whose
irregularities were to some extent excusable on the ground of the
constraint that was put on him, but who often outstripped all bounds,
was set to read during dinner in the refectory a certain portion of an
exceedingly edifying martyrology, and yielding, says one writer with
pious indignation, to an inspiration of Belial, he substituted for
the sacred text a blasphemous version suggested by his own dissolute
imagination, perverting the sense and the incidents, and pushed his
audacity so far as to substitute for the saintly names those of the
most notorious courtesans of the period. A severe penance was imposed
on the insolent offender; but one night he found means to evade the
vigilance of his guardians, escaped from the convent, crossed the
intervening country, and after some days of joyous gipsying and
vagabond wanderings, he arrived at Palermo. Some knowledge of the
principles of chemistry and medicine was about the total of the
advantages he had derived from the discipline of conventual life. His
uncle began to despair of him, but advice and remonstrances were alike
lost upon the young reprobate, who derided them all, and employing
a certain portion of his time in the cultivation of a natural taste
for drawing, he otherwise abandoned himself to unbridled excesses. He
associated with rascals and ne’er-do-wells; his drunkenness, gambling,
and general libertinage, led him into perpetual brawling; and he
was frequently in the hands of the police, whom he is said to have
taken special pleasure in resisting, frequently delivering by force
the prisoners whom they had arrested. He has been also accused of
forging tickets of admission to the theatres, and selling them with
characteristic effrontery. One of his uncles coaxed him back for a
time into his house, and was rewarded by the robbery of a considerable
quantity of money and some valuable effects. He became an intermediary
in the amorous intercourse of a female cousin with one of his friends.
He carried billets-doux to and fro between them, and made the
entire transaction personally profitable by extorting money from
his friend, persuading him that the fair cousin had a partiality
for presents, including both money and jewellery, and, of course,
appropriating the funds which were entrusted to him. Graver crimes
were soon laid to his charge. There was a certain dissolute Marquis
Maurigi in Palermo who coveted an inheritance which had been willed to
a pious establishment, and knowing Balsamo, to him were his projects
confided, and an expedient was presently forthcoming. Joseph had a
relative who was a notary, and by frequenting his office he found
means to forge a will, bearing every mark of authenticity, in favour
of the Marquis, who made good his claim to the estate, and no doubt
liberally recompensed the skill and pains of his confederate. The
falsification was discovered many years after, but the guilty parties
were both of them far away. It was also rumoured that Balsamo was
a party to the assassination of a wealthy canon, but the matter is
exceedingly doubtful. He was many times arrested on various charges,
but eluded justice, either by the absence of direct proof against him,
or by the credit of his relations, and the exertions of reputable
persons of Palermo, who took interest in his family. It will scarcely
be credited that at this period Balsamo was only fourteen years of
age. Naturally endowed with artistic aptitudes, he soon began to give
lessons in drawing, and seems to have been many times on a fair way to
reformation. His skill in arms is also acknowledged, but, conscious
of his superiority, his street brawls frequently ended in duels;
his impetuosity even prompted him to take up the gauntlet for his
companions, and he scorned danger.
The most notorious of his youthful exploits, and that which caused
him to commence his life-long wanderings, was the adventure of the
concealed treasure, which has been variously related.
An avaricious goldsmith, named Marano, resided at Palermo. He was
a weak, superstitious man—a believer in magic, says M. Louis
Figuier—and he was much attracted by the mystery which, even at
this period, is declared by Figuier to have surrounded the life and
escapades of Balsamo, who already posed as an initiate of the occult
sciences. Joseph was now seventeen years of age, of handsome mien and
haughty carriage, speaking little, but holding his hearers spell-bound
by the magnetic fascination of his glance. He had been seen evoking
spirits; he was believed to converse with angels, and to obtain by
their agency an insight into the most interesting secrets. He had,
in fact, radically changed; the common rogue was developing into the
transcendental impostor. Marano lent an attentive ear to the stories
concerning him, and burned with anxiety to behold “the friend of the
celestial spirits.” The first interview took place in the lodging of
Balsamo; the goldsmith fell on his knees before him, and Balsamo, after
receiving his homage, raised him condescendingly from the ground, and
demanded in a solemn manner why he had come to him.
“Thanks to your daily communion with spirits, you will easily know,”
answered Marano, “and you should have no difficulty in assisting me to
recover the money which I have wasted among false alchemists, or even
to procure me more.”
“I can perform this service for you, provided you believe,” said
Balsamo, with composure.
“Provided I believe!” cried the goldsmith; “I believe, indeed.”
An appointment was made for the next day in a meadow beyond the town,
and the interview ended without another word.
This version of the story is more romantic than probable, and we owe
it to the vivacity of a Frenchman’s imagination, which is never more
brilliant than when employed in the perversion or embellishment of
history. According to the more sober Aventures de Cagliostro,
Marano had for some time been acquainted with the youthful charlatan,
who sought him one day at his own residence, and said to him: “You are
aware of my communications with the supernal spirits; you are aware of
the illimitable potency of the incantations to which I devote myself.
Listen! In an olive field, at no great distance from Palermo, there is
a buried treasure according to my certain knowledge, and by the help of
a ceremonial evocation I can discover the precise spot where the spade
of the seeker should be driven in. The operation, however, requires
some expensive preliminaries; sixty ounces of gold are absolutely
needed. Will you place them at my disposal?”
Marano declaimed against the preposterous extravagance of the demand,
maintaining that the herbs and drugs utilised in alchemical experiments
were exceedingly moderate in their price.
“’Tis well,” said Balsamo, coldly. “The matter is soon settled; I shall
enjoy the vast treasure alone. A blessing when shared is but half a
blessing for those who participate in it.”
On the morrow, however, Marano sought out the enchanter, having been
agonised by the gold fever the whole night.
“I am furnished with the sum you require,” he said. “But I pray you to
bargain a little with the spirits, and endeavour to beat them down.”
“Do you take them for sordid speculators?” cried the magician,
indignant. “The devil is no Jew, though he abode full long in Judea. He
is a magnificent seigneur, living generously in every country of the
world. Treat him with respect, he returns a hundredfold. I shall find
elsewhere the sixty ounces of gold, and can afford to dispense with
your assistance.”
“It is here,” said Marano, drawing quickly a leather bag from his
pocket, and the arrangements were soon made.
At moonlight they repaired to the olive field, where Balsamo had
secretly made preparations for the approaching evocation. The
incantatory preliminaries were sufficiently protracted, and Marano
panted with terror under the influence of the magical charms, till
it seemed to him that the very earth shivered beneath his feet and
phantoms issued from the ground. Marano fell prostrate on his face, an
action apparently foreseen, for there and then the wretched goldsmith
was belaboured unmercifully with sticks by the infernal spirits, who
left him at length for dead, taking flight in the company of the
enchanter, and fortified by the possession of the sixty ounces of gold.
On the morrow, the goldsmith, fortunately discovered by muleteers, was
carried disconsolately home, and forthwith denounced Balsamo to the
law. The adventure spread everywhere, but the magician had sailed for
Messina.
These are the facts of the case, but the mendacious chronicle of
Louis Figuier, alchemical critic and universal manufacturer of light
scientific literature, offers us a far more ornate and attractive
version. There the adept and his miserable dupe repair to a place
appointed at six o’clock in the morning, Balsamo in dignified
silence motioning the goldsmith to follow him, and proceeding with a
pre-occupied aspect along the road to the chapel of Saint Rosalia for
the space of a whole hour. They stopped at length in the middle of a
wild meadow, and in front of a grotto, before which Balsamo extended
his hand, and solemnly declared that a treasure was buried within it
which he himself was forbidden to touch, which was guarded by devils of
hell, which devils might, however, be bound for a brief period by the
angels who commonly responded to his potent magical call.
“It only remains to be ascertained,” he remarked in conclusion,
“whether you will scrupulously fulfil the conditions which must be
imposed on you. At that price, the treasure may be yours.”
The credulous goldsmith impetuously implored him to name them.
“They cannot be learned from my lips,” said Balsamo loftily. “On your
knees, in the first place!”
He himself had already assumed the posture of adoration. Marano
hastened to imitate him, and immediately a clear, harmonious voice in
the celestial altitude pronounced the following words—words, says the
Frenchman, more delicious in the ears of the covetous miser than all
the symphonies of aërial choirs.
“Sixty ounces of pearls, sixty ounces of rubies, sixty ounces of
diamonds, in a coffer of enchased gold, weighing one hundred and twenty
ounces. The infernal genii who protect this treasure will place it in
the hands of the worthy man whom our friend has brought, if he be fifty
years of age, if he be no Christian—if—if—if—” and a series of
conditions followed which Marano perfectly united in his own penurious
person, even to the last, which was thus formulated:—“And if he
deposit at the entrance of the grotto, before setting foot therein,
sixty ounces of gold to propitiate the guardians.”
“You have heard,” said Balsamo, who, already on his feet, began to
retrace his steps, completely ignoring the utter stupefaction of his
companion.
“Sixty ounces of gold!” ejaculated the miser with a dismal groan, and
torn by the internal conflict of avarice and cupidity; but Balsamo
heeded the exclamation as little as the groan, and regained the town in
silence.
When they were on the point of separating, Marano appeared to have
resolved.
“Grant me one instant!” he cried in a piteous voice. “Sixty ounces of
gold? Is that the irrevocable condition?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Balsamo, carelessly.
“Alas! alas! And at what hour to-morrow?”
“At six o’clock in the morning and, mark, at the same spot.”
“I will be there.”
This was the parting speech of the goldsmith, and, as it were, the
last gasp of his conquered avarice. On the morrow, punctual to the
appointed time, they met as before, Balsamo with his habitual coolness,
Marano with his gold. They arrived in due course at the grotto, where
the angels, consulted as on the previous day, returned the same
oracles. Balsamo assumed ignorance of what would take place. With a
terrific struggle, Marano deposited his gold and prepared to cross the
threshold. He took one step forward, then started back, inquired if
there were no danger in penetrating into the depths of the cavern, was
assured of safety if the gold had been faithfully weighed, entered with
more confidence, and again returned, these manœuvres being repeated
several times, under the eyes of the adept, whose expression indicated
the most uninterested indifference. At length, Marano took courage
and proceeded so far that a return was impossible, for three black,
muscular devils started out from the shadows and barred his path,
giving vent to the most alarming growls. They seized him, forced him
to whirl round and round for a long time, and then while the unhappy
creature vainly invoked the assistance of Balsamo, they proceeded to
cudgel him lustily till he dropped overwhelmed to the ground, when a
clear voice bade him remain absolutely silent and motionless, for he
would be instantaneously despatched if he stirred either hand or foot.
The wretched man did not dare to disobey, but after a long swoon the
complete stillness encouraged him to raise his head; he dragged himself
as best he could to the mouth of the terrible grotto, looked round him,
and found that the adept, the demons, and the gold had alike vanished.
When Balsamo arrived at Messina he was furnished with a very handsome
sum to support the expenses of his sojourn therein, for the lion’s
share of the booty obtained from the goldsmith had, of course, fallen
to himself. He lodged in one of the chief inns near the port, and had
prepared himself for further adventures, when he suddenly remembered
that he had an old and affluent aunt in the town whom he took occasion
to visit, but only to discover that she had recently died, leaving the
bulk of her fortune to different churches of Messina, and distributing
the rest to the poor. Doubtless the dutiful nephew paid to the memory
of this ultra-Christian relation a just tribute of regrets, and anxious
to inherit at least something from a person so eminent in sanctity, he
determined to assume her family name, joined to a title of nobility,
and from that time forward he commonly called himself the Count
Alessandro Cagliostro. His penetrating and calculating mind, says one
of his biographers, understood the prestige which attached to a title
at a period when the privileges of birth still exercised an almost
undisputed influence.
It was in the town of Messina that Balsamo first met with the
mysterious alchemist Altotas, whom in his fabulous autobiography he
represented as the oriental tutor of his infancy. As he was promenading
one day near the jetty at the extremity of the port, he encountered
an individual singularly habited, and possessed of a most remarkable
countenance. This person, aged apparently about fifty years, seemed
to be an Armenian, though, according to other accounts, he was a
Spaniard or Greek. He wore a species of caftan, a silk bonnet, and the
extremities of his breeches were concealed in a pair of wide boots. In
his left hand he held a parasol, and in his right the end of a cord, to
which was attached a graceful Albanian greyhound.
Whether from curiosity or by presentiment, Cagliostro saluted this
grotesque being, who bowed slightly, but with satisfied dignity.
“You do not reside in Messina, signor?” he said in Sicilian, but with a
marked foreign accent.
Cagliostro replied that he was tarrying for a few days, and they
began to converse on the beauty of the town and on its advantageous
situation, a kind of oriental imagery individualising the eloquence of
the stranger, whose remarks were, moreover, adroitly adorned with a few
appropriate compliments. He eluded inquiries as to his own identity,
but offered to unveil the past of the Count Cagliostro, and to reveal
what was actually passing in his mind at that moment. When Cagliostro
hinted at sorcery, the Armenian smiled somewhat scornfully, and dilated
on the ignorance of a nation which confused science with witchcraft,
and prepared faggots for discoverers.
His hearer, much interested, ventured to ask the address of the
illustrious stranger, who graciously invited him to call. They walked
past the cathedral and halted in a small quadrilateral street shaded by
sycamores, and having a charming fountain in the centre.
“Signor,” said the stranger, “there is the house I inhabit. I receive
no one; but as you are a traveller, as you are young and courteous,
as, moreover, you are animated by a noble passion for the sciences, I
permit you to visit me. I shall be visible to you to-morrow a little
before midnight. You will rap twice on the hammer”—he pointed as he
spoke to the door of a low-storied house—“then three times more
slowly, and you will be admitted. Adieu! Hasten at once to your inn. A
Piedmontese is trying to possess himself of the seven and thirty ounces
of gold that are secured in your valise, and which is itself shut up
in a press, the key of which is in your pocket at this moment. Your
servant, signor!” and he departed rapidly.
Cagliostro, returning in all haste, discovered the thief in the act,
and, as a lawful and righteously indignant proprietor, he forthwith
delivered him to justice.
On the morrow, at the time appointed, he knocked at the door of the
little house inhabited by the Armenian. It was opened at the fifth
blow without any visible agency, and closed as soon as the visitor
had entered. Cagliostro cautiously advanced along a narrow passage,
illuminated by a small iron lamp in a niche of the wall. At the
extremity of the passage a spacious door sprang open, giving admittance
into a ground-floor parlour which was illuminated by a four-branched
candelabra, holding tapers of wax, and was, in fact, a laboratory
furnished with all the apparatus in use among practical alchemists. The
Armenian, issuing from a neighbouring cabinet, greeted the visitor,
inquired after the safety of the gold, had intelligence of the truth
of his clairvoyance, and of the deserved fate of the malefactor, but
cut short the expressed astonishment and admiration of Cagliostro
by declaring that the art of divination was simply the result of
scientific combinations and close observations. He ended by asking his
hearer if he denied the infallible certitude of judicial astrology, but
the self-constituted count denied nothing except the superior power of
virtue over self-interest, whereat the Armenian inquired to whom he was
indebted for his training.
“I was about to say to the solicitude of my uncles and to the
apothecary in the Convent of the Bon Fratelli,” said Cagliostro; “but
to what purpose? You undoubtedly know.”
“I know,” replied the strange individual, “that you have trained
yourself; that the apothecary, equally with your uncles, has but opened
for you the door to knowledge. What are your plans?”
“I intend to enrich myself.”
“That is,” said the other, grandiloquently, “you would make yourself
superior to the imbecile mob—a laudable project, my son! Do you
propose to travel?”
“Certainly, so far as my thirty-seven ounces of gold will take me.”
“You are very young,” said the Armenian. “How is bread manufactured?”
“With flour.”
“And wine?”
“By means of the grape.”
“But gold?”
“I come to inquire of yourself.”
“We will solve that problem hereafter. Listen to me, young man. I
propose to depart for Grand Cairo, in Egypt. Will you accompany me?”
“With all my heart!” exclaimed Cagliostro, overjoyed, and they sat down
in large oak chairs, each at one end of the table where the candelabra
was placed.
“Egypt,” said the Armenian, “is the birthplace of all human science.
Astronomy alone had Chaldea for its fatherland; there the shepherds
first studied the courses of the stars. Egypt availed itself of
the astro-Chaldean initiations, and soon surpassed the methods and
increased the discoveries of the shepherds. Since the reign of the
Pharaoh Manes, and of his successors, Busiris, Osymandyas, Uchoreas,
and Moeris, Egyptian knowledge has advanced with giant strides. Joseph,
the dream-reader, established the basis of chiromancy; the priests
of Osiris and Isis invented the Zodiac; the Cosmogonies of Phre and
Horus revealed agriculture and other physical sciences; the priestesses
of Ansaki unveiled the secrets of philtres; the priests of Serapis
taught medicine. I might proceed with the sublime enumeration, but to
what end? Will you faithfully follow me to Egypt? I hope to embark
to-morrow, and we shall touch at Malta on the way—possibly also at
Candia—reaching the port of Phare in eight days.”
“’Tis settled!” cried the delighted Cagliostro. “I have my thirty-seven
ounces of gold for the journey.”
“And I not a single crown.”
“The devil!” ejaculated Cagliostro.
“What matters it? What need to have gold when one knows how to make
gold? What need to possess diamonds when one can extract them from
carbon more beautifully than from the mines of Golconda? Go to! you are
excessively simple.”
“Therefore, by your leave, I intend to become your disciple.”
The Armenian extended his hand, and their departure was fixed for the
morrow.
This Altotas, or Althotes, we are assured by Figuier, was no imaginary
character. The Roman Inquisition collected many proofs of his
existence, without, however, ascertaining where it began or ended,
for the mysterious personage vanished like a meteor. According to
the Italian biography of Joseph Balsamo, Altotas was in possession
of several Arabic manuscripts, and assumed great skill in chemistry.
According to Figuier, he was a magician and doctor as well, though
others represent him despising and rejecting the abused name of
physician. As to his divinatory abilities, he had already given a
signal proof of their extent to his pupil, but he showed him that he
was acquainted with all his Palermese antecedents.
They embarked on board a Genoese vessel, sailed along the Archipelago,
landed at Alexandria, where they tarried for forty days, performing
several operations in chemistry, by which they are said to have
produced a considerable sum of money, but whether by transmutation or
by imposture is not apparently clear. Cagliostro’s respect for his
master did not prevent him, with true Sicilian subtlety, inquiring as
to his own antecedents, till Altotas, weary of resorting to the same
stratagems of evasion, declared to him once for all that he was himself
in complete ignorance as to his birth and parentage.
“This may surprise you,” he said, “but science, which can enlighten us
on the part of another, is almost invariably impotent to instruct us
concerning ourselves.”
He declared himself to be much older than would appear, but that he
was in possession of certain secrets for the conservation of strength
and health. He had discovered the scientific methods of producing gold
and precious stones, spoke ten or twelve languages fluently, and was
acquainted with almost the entire circle of human sciences. “Nothing
astonishes me,” he said, “nothing grieves me, save the evils which I
am powerless to prevent, and I trust to reach in peace the term of my
protracted existence.”
He confessed that his name of Altotas was self-chosen, yet was it truly
his. His early years had been passed on the coast of Barbary, near
Tunis, where he belonged to a Mussulman privateer, who was a rich and
humane man, and who had purchased him from pirates, by whom he had
been stolen from his family. At twelve years of age he spoke Arabic
like a native, read the Koran to his master, who was a true believer,
studied botany under his direction, and learned the best methods for
making sherbet and coffee. A post of honour was in store for him in
the household of his master; but destiny decreed that when Altotas was
sixteen, the worthy Mussulman should be gathered to his fathers. In
his will he gave the young slave his liberty, and bequeathed him a sum
which was equivalent to six thousand livres, wherewith Altotas
quitted Tunis to indulge his passion for travelling.
Cagliostro represented that he had followed his instructor into
Africa and the heart of Egypt, that he visited the pyramids, making
the acquaintance of the priests of different temples, and penetrating
into the arcana of their mysterious sanctuaries. Moreover, he declares
himself to have visited, during the space of three years, all the
principal kingdoms of Africa and Asia. These statements are identical
in their value with the romantic story of his education in the
palace of the muphti at Medina. It is altogether doubtful whether he
ever visited Arabia, which was in any case the extreme limit of his
wanderings, and he is subsequently discovered at Rhodes still in the
society of Altotas, and pursuing, in common with that mysterious being,
his doubtful chemical operations.
At Malta they had letters of introduction to the Grand Master, Pinto,
and tarried for some time to work in his laboratory, for the “supreme
chief of Maltese chivalry” was infatuated with alchemical experiments,
and, after the fashion of that extravagant period, had a strong bias
towards the marvellous. The history of the failure or success of the
errant adepts remains in the laboratory of the Grand Master; but
from this moment Altotas, the chemist and alchemist—Altotas, the
phenomenal, the wise man, the scientist—disappears completely. “Malta
was his sepulchre, or haply the place of his apotheosis.” “There,” says
the Count, in his Memoir, “it was my misery to lose my best friend, the
most wise, the most illuminated of mortals, the venerable Altotas.
He clasped my hands shortly before his death. ‘My son,’ he said, in a
failing voice, ‘keep ever before thine eyes the fear of the Eternal and
the love of thy neighbour. Thou wilt soon learn the truth of all which
I have taught thee.’”
With every mark of respect on the part of the Grand Master, and
accompanied by the Chevalier d’Aquino, of the illustrious house of
Caramania, and himself a Knight of Malta, Cagliostro repaired to
Naples, where he supported himself for some time with money which
had been presented to him by Pinto, and perhaps by loans from his
possibly opulent companion, who, however, eventually quitted him to
proceed into France. In Naples Cagliostro met with a Sicilian prince
who was infected by the prevalent gold fever, and was so enraptured
with the high-sounding theories of Cagliostro that he invited him to
his chateau in the neighbourhood of Palermo, where they might pursue
their operations in common. It was imprudent, but the pupil of the
great Altotas could not resist the desire to revisit his native land.
He tarried a certain period with his companion, but going one day
into Messina, he encountered an old acquaintance, a certain dissolute
priest, his confederate in the affair of Marano, and who had, in
fact, acted as one of the sable fiends whose stout clubs had agonised
the unfortunate goldsmith. The adventurer warned Cagliostro not to
enter Palermo, where justice was highly offended at his youthful
indiscretions. He persuaded him to join fortunes with himself, return
to Naples, and there open a gaming-house for the benefit, or rather for
the bleeding, of the wealthy foreigners who visited Italy. This method
of gold-making was quite after the heart of his hearer, who soon took
his leave of the Sicilian prince, but they were regarded with so much
suspicion by the Neapolitan Government that they retired into the Papal
states. Cagliostro’s companion had, however, received the tonsure,
and he trembled for his safety on the consecrated ground which was
the stronghold of the Holy Inquisition, so he hastened his departure
to less orthodox places, and does not figure further in the chequered
history of his brother in chicanery.
Cagliostro remained, and is said to have assumed several different
characters, occasionally including the sacerdotal habit. According
to some accounts, he made himself remarkable for his extreme piety,
visiting all the churches, fulfilling the duties of religion, and
frequenting the palaces of cardinals. By means of some letters of
recommendation which he had brought with him from Naples, he obtained
access to several persons of distinction, among others to the Seneschal
de Breteuil, at that time Ambassador from Malta to Rome, and who,
hearing of his former connection with the Grand Master, received him
with much warmth, and procured him other honourable connections. One
illustrious dupe ensured others, and we find him in a short time
established in the Holy City, retailing wonderful recipes and specifics
for all the diseases which afflict fallen humanity in Rome and the
universe. Crowns and ducats flowed in upon him; he lived in some state
and luxury, refraining, however, from scandalous enjoyments.
The Italian biography which represents the opinions, embodies the
researches, and champions the cause of the Inquisition, draws, however,
a different picture to those of Saint-Felix and Louis Figuier.
“He employed himself at this period,” says this doubtful, because
indisputably biassed, authority, “in making drawings on paper, the
outlines of which were produced by means of a copperplate engraving,
and afterwards were filled up with Indian ink. These he sold as designs
made by means of the pen alone. Having taken up his abode at the Sign
of the Sun, in the neighbourhood of the Rotunda, he quarrelled with
one of the waiters and suffered imprisonment for three days.”
Whatever these statements are worth, there is no doubt hanging over the
most important incident of his Roman career. It was in that place and
at this period that he first beheld the young and beautiful Lorenza
Feliciani, and having in two days fallen violently in love with her, he
demanded her in marriage from her father, who, fascinated by his birth,
his aristocratic name, and opulent appearance, consented, together
with the lady. The marriage took place, not without éclat, says
one section of the witnesses, and the pair resided in the house of
the father-in-law. The Italian life, minimising to the uttermost the
success of Cagliostro, says that he received as a dower a trifling
fortune proportionate to their condition.
According to the testimony of all the biographers, inquisitorial or
otherwise, Lorenza was not only young and beautiful, but “rich in every
quality of the heart, being tender, devoted, honest, and modest;” but
her husband conceived the diabolical design of advancing his fortunes
at the expense of her honour, and in private conversation took occasion
to rally her notions of virtue, which he sought to undermine. The first
lesson which the young bride received from her husband, according
to her own confession, was intended to instruct her in the means of
attracting and gratifying the passions of the opposite sex. The most
wanton coquetry and the most lascivious arts were the principles with
which he endeavoured to inspire her. The mother of Lorenza, scandalised
at his conduct, had such frequent altercations with her son-in-law,
that he resolved to remove from her house, and in other quarters found
it a simpler task to corrupt the mind and morals of his wife. Then,
according to the Italian author, he presented her to two persons well
qualified for the exercise of her talents, having instructed her to
entangle them both by her allurements. With one of these she did not
succeed, but over the other she acquired a complete victory. Cagliostro
himself conducted her to the house destined for the pleasure of the
lover, left her alone in his company, and retired to another chamber.
The interview and the offers made to her were such as entirely
corresponded to the wishes of the husband, but the wife on this
occasion did not exhibit a proper instance of conjugal obedience, and
upon imparting the whole affair confidentially to her husband, received
the most bitter reproach and the most violent and dreadful menaces.
He also repeatedly assured her that adultery was no crime when it
was committed by a woman to advance her interests, and not through
affection for other men. He even added example to precept, by showing
how little he himself respected the ties of conjugal fidelity—that is,
apparently, he sold himself to lascivious females of advanced age, and
on these occasions aroused his dormant passions by drinking a certain
Egyptian wine, composed of aromatics which possessed the necessary
qualities for the completion of his intention. His wife, hearkening
at length to his instructions, was conducted several times to the
place where she had formerly proved so disobedient to his orders. She
sometimes received, says the same witness, either clothes or trinkets,
and sometimes a little money, as the reward of her condescension. One
day her husband wrote a letter, in the name of his wife, in which he
begged the loan of a few crowns; these were immediately sent. In return
for them an interview was promised during the course of the next day,
and the lady was faithful to the appointment.
Such is the version of this disgraceful business given by the
enemies of Cagliostro, but all biographers agree that he corrupted
the morals of his wife. Indeed, the only question is whether the
transaction took place on the sordid scale described by the Italian
writer. Other authorities tell us that his success tempted “a
beautiful Roman—Lorenza Feliciani—to share his rising fortunes.
Unscrupulous, witty, and fascinating, Lorenza was an admirable partner
for Cagliostro, who speedily made her an adept in all his pretended
mysteries.” Whatever were her natural virtues or failings, it is highly
improbable that she sold her uncommon attractions for such paltry and
miserable advantages.
The house which was taken by Cagliostro became the resort of sharpers,
two of whom, Ottavio Nicestro, who was eventually hanged, and a
so-called Marquis d’Agriata, both Sicilians, became intimate associates
of their host. With the latter he was frequently closeted for hours
together. Their occupation is uncertain; but as Cagliostro’s wealth
increased at no ordinary rate, and as the Marquis was an unparalleled
proficient in the production of counterfeit writing, they are supposed
to have succeeded in forging numerous bills of exchange; and it is, at
any rate, certain that the letters patent by which the great charlatan
was authorised to assume the uniform of a Prussian colonel, which he
subsequently did to his definite advantage, were the production of this
skilful miscreant. But a quarrel arose between the three confederates;
Nicastro betrayed his accomplices, the Marquis fled from Rome,
Cagliostro and the unhappy Lorenza incontinently following his example.
Our three fugitives took the road to Venice, reached Bergamo, and there
practised several unparticularised rogueries, till their identity was
discovered by the Government. The marquis again managed to escape,
the others after a short imprisonment were expelled from the town,
and being stripped of all their resources, undertook a pilgrimage
into Galicia, hoping to cross Spain, through the charity of the clergy
and conventual communities. They travelled through the territories of
the King of Sardinia, through Genoa, and so arrived at Antibes. From
this moment the life of the Count Cagliostro was for several years
one of incessant wandering. According to the Italian biographer, as
beggary proved unprofitable, Lorenza was again forced by her husband
to augment their resources through the sale of her charms. In this way
they arrived at Barcelona, where they tarried for six months, the same
course of infamous prostitution, followed by Lorenza with the most
manifest reluctance, contributing in the main to their support.
From Barcelona they proceeded to Madrid, where also certain noble
Spaniards proved sensible to the charms of Lorenza. From Madrid they
journeyed to Lisbon, and thence sailed to England, where Cagliostro
is said to have adopted the profession of a common quack, to have
fallen into prison, to have been bought out by his wife, in whose
person he still continued to traffic, bartering her charms to every
opulent man who wished to become a purchaser; but the frequency of her
prostitutions has probably been grossly exaggerated.
An English Life of the Count Cagliostro, dedicated, in 1787, to Madame
la Comtesse, and written in the interests of the charlatan, gives a
singular account of his misfortunes in London, showing that when he
arrived there he was in possession of plate, jewels, and specie to the
amount of three thousand pounds, that he hired apartments in Whitcomb
Street, where he dedicated a large portion of his time to his favourite
studies of chemistry and physics, and that all he suffered must be
entirely attributed to the profuse generosity and charity of himself
and his lady.
In 1772, Cagliostro and his wife crossed over to France, accompanied by
one M. Duplaisir, who lodged with them at Paris, and seems to have been
intimate with Lorenza. But Cagliostro was insatiable, says St Felix. He
sold his honour at a high price, and the fortune of Duplaisir melted
in the crucible of another’s follies and extravagances. At length,
in alarm, the victim took leave of his rapacious guests, not without
strongly warning Lorenza to return to her parents, for he had learned
to esteem the natural good qualities which she possessed. According to
one account, she attempted to follow this advice, but others say that
she sought refuge from incessant prostitution with Duplaisir himself.
In either case, Cagliostro had recourse to the authority of the king,
and obtaining an order for her arrest, she was imprisoned in the
penitentiary of Sainte Pélagie, and was detained there several months,
during which Cagliostro abandoned himself to a life of congenial
dissipation. The sale of a certain wash for beautifying the complexion
appears to have procured him a considerable revenue about this period.
The imprisonment of Lorenza did not prevent a reconciliation with her
husband immediately after her release, which occurred on December
21, 1772, on which date, having obtained under false pretences some
magnificent dresses from the costumiers, Cagliostro appeared at
the ball of a dancing-master in a peculiarly brilliant costume.
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]