XVII. 1781–1785. CHARLATAN COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

When, in the autumn of the year 1781, the De la Mottes were chasing the Marchioness de Boulainvilliers, who they had heard was at Strasbourg, the notorious Cagliostro was astonishing the good people of that famous town as much by his singular conduct as by the extraordinary cures he was represented to have performed. “Curious to behold so remarkable a personage, the cardinal,” who was then at his episcopal palace of Saverne, “went over to Strasbourg, but found it necessary to use interest to get admitted into the presence of the illustrious charlatan. ‘If monseigneur the cardinal is sick,’ said he, ‘let him come to me and I will cure him. If he is well, he has no business with me nor I with him.’ This reply, far from offending the cardinal’s vanity, only increased the desire he had to become acquainted with this new Esculapius. Having at length gained admission to his sanctuary, the cardinal fancied he saw impressed on the countenance of this mysterious and taciturn individual, a dignity so imposing that he felt himself penetrated with an almost religious awe, and the very first words he uttered were inspired by reverence. The interview, which was but brief, excited more strongly than ever in the mind of the cardinal the desire of a more intimate acquaintance. This gradually came about, the crafty empiric timing his conduct and his advances so skilfully, that without seeming to desire it he gained the grand almoner’s entire confidence, and obtained the greatest ascendency over him.”⁠[121]⁠

During the next two years or so, Cagliostro seems to have made the episcopal palace at Saverne his home whenever he felt so inclined. When the cardinal happened to be there, the count amused him by performing experiments in the laboratory which had been fitted up in a private part of the palace for his especial use—making, so the cardinal maintained, not only gold, but diamonds, under his very eyes.⁠[122] But when the cardinal was away the crucibles were no longer in request, and the count would indulge in carousals, prolonged far into the night, with the Baron de Planta, the cardinal’s equerry and confidant, and a black sheep of the choicest breed, carousals at which his eminence’s matchless Tokay flowed like water.⁠[123]⁠

In the memorial published in his behalf at the time of the Necklace trial, Cagliostro gives a most romantic account of himself. He is ignorant, he says, of the place of his birth, but was brought up while a child in the city of Medina, where he went by the name of Acharat, and lived attended by servants in a style of great splendour in apartments in the palace of the Mufti Salahayn, the chief of the Mussulmans. From Medina, he pretends, he was taken when quite a youth to Mecca, where he remained for three years petted by the scherif. He is next taken to Egypt, visits the chief cities of Africa and Asia, and eventually sails from Rhodes for Malta, where apartments are provided for him in the palace of the grand master. Here, he says, he assumed the name of Cagliostro and the title of count. From Malta he proceeds to Sicily and Naples, thence to Rome, where he makes the acquaintance of several cardinals, and is admitted to frequent audiences of the Pope. He professes to have next visited Spain, Portugal, Holland, Russia, and Poland, and gives a list of the nobles of these countries with whom he had become acquainted. At length, in September, 1780, he goes to Strasbourg, where his fame as a physician had already preceded him. Here, he asserts, with perfect truth, he cured the poor generally, and particularly sick soldiers and prisoners, without fee or reward. Strasbourg was soon crowded with strangers, who came either to see him or to consult him. It is now that he makes the acquaintance of the Cardinal de Rohan, whom he accompanies to Paris to prescribe for the Prince de Soubise, suffering at the time from an accident to his leg. After a short sojourn in the capital he returns to Strasbourg, when being persecuted by a party in the town, it is quite certain that letters are written to the authorities in his behalf by the Count de Vergennes, minister for foreign affairs, the Marquis de Miroménil, keeper of the seals, and the Marquis de Ségur, minister of war, who desire that every protection shall be afforded him.

Cagliostro’s story about his residence in Medina and Mecca, and Egypt, Rhodes and Malta, was a tissue of impudent lies. The truth is, his real name was Joseph Balsamo, and he was the son of a small tradesman of Palermo, in which city he was born in 1743. The family were of Jewish origin, and he derived the name of Cagliostro from a great uncle. In his early youth he belonged to the religious order of Charitable Brethren, and as he grew older became remarkable for his intelligence, cleverness, and cunning. Later on, he appears to have studied medicine with advantage.

Growing tired of the obscurity of his lot, he forged the title-deed to some considerable estate, and on the fraud being discovered precipitately embarked for Catalonia where he married a young and pretty girl. With her he proceeded to Rome, and having conferred on himself the title of Prince Pellegrini, with that audacity which never deserted him, he returned to Palermo under this assumed appellation. There a genuine prince became infatuated with Donna Lorenza and took her husband under his powerful protection. The false Pellegrini, however, was soon recognised as the escaped forger and arrested. But on the day appointed for his examination, his friend the prince forced the doors of the tribunal, assaulted the counsel for the prosecution, and overwhelmed the president with reproaches. The consequence was that the terrified court set the prisoner at liberty, and Cagliostro, leaving his wife in the care of the prince, again started on his travels,⁠[124] in the course of which he visited many of the chief cities of the Continent. He was picked up, it is commonly asserted, while still a young man—being little over thirty years of age—by the sect of Illuminati, who thought, and correctly thought, that they had discovered in him a willing and able instrument for the dissemination of their doctrines. His initiation into the mysteries of Illuminism took place in a cave some little distance from Frankfort-on-the-Main, when he learnt for the first time that the object of the society of which he was now a member, was to overturn the thrones of Europe, and that the first blow was to be struck in France; that after the fall of the French monarchy it was proposed to attack Rome; that the society had extensive resources, and was in the possession of enormous funds, dispersed among the banks of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Basle, Lyons, London, Venice, and Genoa, the proceeds of the annual subscriptions of its members. A considerable sum of money, which he afterwards pretended he had acquired by the practice of alchemy, was at once placed at his disposal, to enable him to propagate the doctrines of the sect in France. This was the origin of his first visit to Strasbourg in the autumn of the year 1780, when he adopted for his device the letters L. P. D. signifying Lilia pedibus destrue—Trample the lilies under foot.⁠[125]⁠

Cagliostro was one of those individuals who, for reasons of their own, envelop themselves in a maze of mystery, and are rarely seen through during their lives, because they address themselves to men’s imaginations alone. By exciting wonder they disarm reason. He laid claim to many gifts and acquirements; had studied medicine, was an adept at alchemy, and knew something of natural magic. The acts which he performed were so contrived by his arts and wiles, that all his visitors (and they comprised persons of the highest rank and the utmost intellectual attainments) considered them to be marvellous, whilst the gaping multitude magnified every feat until it went far beyond this ideal. He set no price on his public exhibitions, and darted looks of wounded honour at those who, he pretended, degraded him by offering him gold; whilst his hand was constantly open to the indigent, whom he waited on in their humble homes with advice, medicine, and money. His widespread acts of benevolence, and the luxurious style in which he lived, proved him to be rich, and yet none were able to discover the sources of his wealth. The houses of the most opulent citizens were thrown open to him, and without seeking the great, but seeming rather to avoid them, he constantly found himself in their company. Among this class he had many proselytes, but none who believed in him so implicitly as the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, who, spite of the count’s “perfect quack face,” seems to have worshipped him as a being something more than human. Indeed in one of the salons of the Palais-Cardinal there was a marble bust of Cagliostro, with a Latin inscription on the pedestal signifying “God of the Earth.”⁠[126]⁠

A friend of the grand almoner’s, the Baroness d’Oberkirche, who met Cagliostro at Saverne at this epoch, sketches his portrait for us in her “Memoirs,” and furnishes us with convincing proofs of the singular influence which the count had succeeded in acquiring over his credulous patron. “Cagliostro was anything but handsome,” she observes, “still I have never seen a more remarkable physiognomy; above all, he had a penetrating look which seemed almost supernatural. I know not how to describe the expression of his eyes: it was at once fire and ice; attracted and repelled you at the same time; made you afraid and inspired you with an irrepressible curiosity. One might draw two different portraits of him, both resembling him, and yet totally dissimilar. He wore on his shirt-front, on his watch-chain, and on his fingers, diamonds of large size, and apparently of the purest water. If they were not paste, they were worth a king’s ransom. He pretended that he had made them himself. All this frippery showed the charlatan miles off.

“When Cagliostro perceived me he saluted me very respectfully. I returned his salutation without affecting either hauteur or condescension. There were fifteen of us at dinner; nevertheless, the cardinal occupied himself almost exclusively with me, using a sort of refined coquetry to bring me over to his way of thinking with regard to Cagliostro, with whom he was perfectly infatuated. I was placed on the cardinal’s right hand, and during dinner he tried by every means to enforce his convictions upon me. I resisted, politely but firmly; he grew impatient, and on leaving table volunteered me his confidence. Had I not heard him with my own ears I could never have believed that a prince of the Roman church, a Rohan, an intelligent and honourable man in so many respects, could have allowed himself to be brought to the point of abjuring both his dignity and free will at the bidding of a chevalier d’industrie.

“‘In truth, baroness, you are very hard to convince,’ remarked the cardinal; ‘what! has not all that he has told you, all that I have just related, satisfied you? I must then avow everything. Understand, at least, that I am about to confide to you a secret of importance.’ I was greatly embarrassed. I did not wish to be the depositary of any of the cardinal’s secrets, and was about to excuse myself when, divining my intention, the prince exclaimed: ‘Do not say no! but listen to me. You see this?’

“The cardinal showed me a large solitaire which he had on his little finger, engraved with the arms of the house of Rohan; it was a ring worth 20,000 francs at least. ‘It is a fine stone, my lord,’ observed I; ‘I have been already admiring it.’ ‘Well, it was he who made it; created it out of nothing. I saw him myself. I was present, with eyes fixed upon the crucible, and assisted at the operation. Is this science? What do you think of it, baroness? They tell me that he is only luring me on, that he cheats me; the jeweller and engraver have valued this brilliant at 25,000 francs. You will at least admit that he is a strange sort of sharper to make such presents as this.’

“I acknowledge I was stupefied. The Prince de Rohan perceived it, and continued, certain of his victory: ‘But this is not all: he makes gold; he has made in my presence, in the crucibles of the palace, five or six thousand francs’ worth. I shall have more of it—I shall, in fact, have any quantity—he will make me the richest prince in Europe. These are not dreams, madam, these are certainties. Think, too, of his prophecies fulfilled; of the miraculous cures he has performed. I tell you that he is not only a most extraordinary, but a sublime man, and one whose goodness has never been equalled; the charities he bestows, the benefits he confers, pass all imagination.’

“‘Am I to understand your eminence,’ inquired I, ‘that you have given him nothing for all this—have not made him the smallest advance, have made him no promise, given him no written document which compromises you? Pardon my curiosity, but since you wish to make me a confidant of these mysteries, I——’ ‘You are right, madam,’ replied the prince, ‘but I can assure you that he has asked nothing, has received nothing from me.’ ‘Ah! my lord,’ I exclaimed, ‘it must be that this man reckons on obtaining from you many dangerous sacrifices since he buys your unbounded confidence so dearly. Were I in your place I should be extremely cautious; one of these days he will lead you too far.’ The cardinal only answered by an incredulous smile; but I am certain that later, at the time of the Necklace affair, when Cagliostro and the Countess de la Motte had cast him to the bottom of the abyss, he recalled my words.”⁠[127]⁠

Singularly enough, Cagliostro arrived in Paris just at the time the cardinal was making the final arrangements with the crown jewellers for the purchase of the Necklace. Whether or no he was summoned thither by the cardinal himself we are unable to say, but if the Abbé Georgel’s statement is to be relied on, it is quite certain that the grand almoner consulted Cagliostro respecting the business of the Necklace prior to concluding the negotiations. The abbé says: “This Python mounted his tripod; the Egyptian invocations were made at night in the cardinal’s own saloon, which was illuminated by an immense number of wax tapers. The oracle, under the inspiration of its familiar demon, pronounced that the negotiation was worthy of the prince, that it would be crowned with success, that it would raise the goodness of the queen to its height, and bring to light that happy day which would unfold the rare talents of the cardinal for the benefit of France and of the human race.”⁠[128]⁠

The Countess de la Motte, who it will be remembered had formerly met Cagliostro at Strasbourg, renewed her acquaintance with him in the salons of the Palais-Cardinal, where she was now a constant visitor. For a time it was an affair of diamond cut diamond between them. She flattered the arch impostor with the finest art, appeared to be his dupe, and broke out into loud exclamations of surprise when he performed his tricks and practised his delusions in her presence. The crafty cheat was himself cheated. By degrees he became persuaded that she was really a confidant of the French queen, that she had credit at court, and would soon have power. Fully convinced of her influence, and perceiving, as he thought, that his patron the cardinal would by her assistance retrieve his political fortune, he encouraged that sanguine prelate, and worked, as we have seen, upon his imagination, with a view to dispel any lingering doubt he might chance to entertain. So infatuated did Cagliostro become under the influence of his own delusions on the one side, and the spell of this enchantress on the other, that the countess would appear to have controlled the crafty necromancer even in the performance of his own spells.⁠[129]⁠

Cagliostro, after he was regularly settled in Paris, became a frequent visitor at the countess’s house—he and madame, we are told, were like two fingers on one hand—where he was received with an amount of respect verging on to reverence. The De la Mottes and he were close neighbours, for he lived at the Hôtel de Chavigny, in the Rue Saint-Claude, only a couple of streets off. “The house which he occupied, and which was afterwards the residence of Barras, was one of the most elegant of the quarter.⁠[130] In the salon, decorated with oriental luxury, and bathed in a kind of semi-daylight when it was not resplendent with the blaze of a hundred lights, the pursuits of the philosopher and conspirator might be divined by the side of the projects of the quack. There one saw the bust of Hippocrates, and, in a black frame, inscribed in letters of gold, a literal translation of Pope’s Universal Prayer.”⁠[131] Here Cagliostro lived in state, giving balls, assemblies, and audiences at which he insolently offered his hand to his fair disciples to kiss, while he treated his male visitors, and at times even the cardinal himself, with marked disdain.⁠[132]⁠

Young Beugnot, who met Cagliostro at one of Madame de la Motte’s petits soupers, tells us that the countess previously warned him that she would be obliged to disarm the inquietude of Cagliostro, who, for no reason whatever, invariably refused to sup if he thought that any one had been invited to meet him. Moreover, she begged Beugnot to ask him no questions, not to interrupt him when he was speaking, and to answer with readiness any inquiries he had addressed to him. “I subscribed,” says Beugnot, “to these conditions, and would have accepted even harder ones to gratify my curiosity. At half-past ten the folding doors were thrown open, and the Count de Cagliostro was announced. Madame de la Motte precipitately quitted her arm-chair, rushed up to him and drew him into a corner of the salon, where I presume she begged him to pardon my presence. Cagliostro advanced towards me and bowed, without appearing at all embarrassed at perceiving a stranger. He was of medium height, rather stout, had a very short neck, and a round face ornamented with two large eyes sunken in his head, and a broad turn-up nose; his complexion was of an olive tinge; his coiffure was new in France, his hair being divided into several little tresses, which, uniting at the back of the head, were tied up in the form known as the ‘club.’ He wore a French cut coat of iron grey embroidered with gold lace, and carried his sword stuck in the skirts, a scarlet vest trimmed with point d’Espagne, red breeches, and a hat edged with a white feather. This last article of dress was still necessary to mountebanks, dentists, and other medical artistes who made speeches and sold their drugs out of doors. Cagliostro’s costume was relieved by lace ruffles, several costly rings, and shoe-buckles of an old pattern but brilliant enough to pass for very fine diamonds.

“There were at supper only the members of the family, among whom I include Father Loth, minime of the Place Royale, who reconciled, I know not how, his sacred functions with the place of second secretary to Madame de la Motte. He used to say mass for her on Sundays, and charged himself during the rest of the week with commissions at the Palais-Cardinal which the first secretary thought beneath his dignity. Neither must I count as a stranger the Chevalier de Montbreul, a veteran of the green rooms, and still a good conversationalist, who was prepared to affirm almost any mortal thing, and was found, as if by chance, wherever Cagliostro appeared, ready to bear witness to the marvels he had performed, and to offer himself as a positive example miraculously cured of I know not how many diseases, of which the names alone were sufficiently startling.

“There were then nine or ten of us at table; Madame de la Motte had on one side of her Cagliostro and Montbreul, and I was on her other side, facing the former, whom I made a point of examining by stealth, and still did not know what to think of him; the face, the style of dressing the hair, the whole of the man, impressed me in spite of myself. I waited for him to open his mouth. He spoke I know not what jargon, half Italian, half French, plentifully interlarded with quotations in an unknown tongue, which passed with the unlearned for Arabic. He had all the talking to himself, and found time to go over at least twenty different subjects in the course of the evening, simply because he gave to them merely that extent of development which seemed good to him. Every moment he was inquiring if he was understood, whereupon everybody bowed in turn to assure him that he was. When starting a subject he seemed like one transported, raised his voice to the highest pitch and indulged in the most extravagant gesticulations. The subjects of his discourse were the heavens, the stars, the grand arcanum, Memphis, transcendental chemistry, giants, and the extinct monsters of the animal kingdom. He spoke, moreover, of a city in the interior of Africa ten times as large as Paris, and where he pretended he had correspondents.” Beugnot further mentions, that in between his rhapsodies he would chatter the most frivolous nonsense to the Countess de la Motte, whom he designated his dove, his gazelle, and his white swan. After supper he addressed numerous questions to Beugnot, one following another with extraordinary rapidity. To all the count’s catechising the young advocate invariably replied by a respectful avowal of his ignorance, and subsequently was surprised to learn from Madame de la Motte that Cagliostro had conceived a most favourable opinion, not merely of his deportment, but likewise of his knowledge.⁠[133]⁠