Note 27 — Chapter V

If it be true that the Count and Countess Cagliostro were really Giuseppe and Lorenza Balsamo, surely the remarkable change in the appearance, not to speak of the character, of both, must be regarded as the most astonishing of all Cagliostro’s prodigies. The impression he produced from the accounts given above was totally different from that which Balsamo was said to have produced. As for his wife, it is preposterous to expect any one to believe that the pretty demirep Lorenza would have looked as girlish and fresh as the Countess Seraphina after fifteen years of the sort of life she led with Giuseppe. As vice and hardship have never yet been regarded as aids to beauty, those who persist in pinning their faith to the Balsamo legend will perhaps assent to the suggestion that Cagliostro’s remedies possessed virtues hitherto denied them.