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Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions

C >> Charles Mackay >> Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions




ALBERT ALUYS.

This pretender to the philosopher's stone, was the son, by a
former husband, of the woman Aluys, with whom Delisle became
acquainted at the commencement of his career, in the cabaret by the
road side, and whom he afterwards married. Delisle performed the part
of a father towards him, and thought he could show no stronger proof
of his regard, than by giving him the necessary instructions to carry
on the deception which had raised himself to such a pitch of
greatness. The young Aluys was an apt scholar, and soon mastered all
the jargon of the alchymists. He discoursed learnedly upon
projections, cimentations, sublimations, the elixir of life, and the
universal alkahest; and on the death of Delisle gave out that the
secret of that great adept had been communicated to him, and to him
only. His mother aided in the fraud, with the hope they might both
fasten themselves, in the true alchymical fashion, upon some rich
dupe, who would entertain them magnificently while the operation was
in progress. The fate of Delisle was no inducement for them to stop in
France. The Provencals, it is true, entertained as high an opinion as
ever of his skill, and were well inclined to believe the tales of the
young adept on whom his mantle had fallen; but the dungeons of the
Bastille were yawning for their prey, and Aluys and his mother
decamped with all convenient expedition. They travelled about the
Continent for several years, sponging upon credulous rich men, and now
and then performing successful transmutations by the aid of
double-bottomed crucibles and the like. In the year 1726, Aluys,
without his mother, who appears to have died in the interval, was at
Vienna, where he introduced himself to the Duke de Richelieu, at that
time ambassador from the court of France. He completely deceived this
nobleman; he turned lead into gold (apparently) on several occasions,
and even made the ambassador himself turn an iron nail into a silver
one. The Duke afterwards boasted to Lenglet du Fresnoy of his
achievements as an alchymist, and regretted that be had not been able
to discover the secret of the precious powder by which he performed
them.

Aluys soon found that, although he might make a dupe of the Duke
de Richelieu, he could not get any money from him. On the contrary,
the Duke expected all his pokers and fire shovels to be made silver,
and all his pewter utensils gold; and thought the honour of his
acquaintance was reward sufficient for a roturier, who could not want
wealth since he possessed so invaluable a secret. Aluys seeing that so
much was expected of him, bade adieu to his Excellency, and proceeded
to Bohemia, accompanied by a pupil, and by a young girl who had fallen
in love with him in Vienna. Some noblemen in Bohemia received him
kindly, and entertained him at their houses for months at a time. It
was his usual practice to pretend that he possessed only a few grains
of his powder, with which he would operate in any house where he
intended to fix his quarters for the season. He would make the
proprietor a present of the piece of gold thus transmuted, and promise
him millions, if he could only be provided with leisure to gather his
lunaria major and minor on their mountain tops, and board, lodging,
and loose cash for himself, his wife, and his pupil in the interval.

He exhausted in this manner the patience of some dozen of people,
when, thinking that there was less danger for him in France, under the
young king Louis XV, than under his old and morose predecessor, he
returned to Provence. On his arrival at Aix, he presented himself
before M. le Bret, the President of the province, a gentleman who was
much attached to the pursuits of alchymy, and had great hopes of being
himself able to find the philosopher's stone. M. le Bret, contrary to
his expectation, received him very coolly, in consequence of some
rumours that were spread abroad respecting him; and told him to call
upon him on the morrow. Aluys did not like the tone of the voice, or
the expression of the eye of the learned President, as that
functionary looked down upon him. Suspecting that all was not right,
he left Aix secretly the same evening, and proceeded to Marseilles.
But the police were on the watch for him; and he had not been there
four-and-twenty hours, before he was arrested on a charge of coining,
and thrown into prison.

As the proofs against him were too convincing to leave him much
hope of an acquittal, he planned an escape from durance. It so
happened that the gaoler had a pretty daughter, and Aluys soon
discovered that she was tender-hearted. He endeavoured to gain her in
his favour, and succeeded. The damsel, unaware that he was a married
man, conceived and encouraged a passion for him, and generously
provided him with the means of escape. After he had been nearly a year
in prison he succeeded in getting free, leaving the poor girl behind,
to learn that he was already married, and to lament in solitude that
she had given her heart to an ungrateful vagabond.

When he left Marseilles, he had not a shoe to his foot, or a
decent garment to his back, but was provided with some money and
clothes by his wife in a neighbouring town. They then found their way
to Brussels, and by dint of excessive impudence, brought themselves
into notice. He took a house, fitted up a splendid laboratory, and
gave out that he knew the secret of transmutation. In vain did M.
Percel, the brother-in-law of Lenglet du Fresnoy, who resided in that
city, expose his pretensions, and hold him up to contempt as an
ignorant impostor: the world believed him not. They took the alchymist
at his word, and besieged his doors, to see and wonder at the clever
legerdemain by which he turned iron nails into gold and silver. A rich
greffier paid him a large sum of money that he might be instructed in
the art, and Aluys gave him several lessons on the most common
principles of chemistry. The greffier studied hard for a twelvemonth,
and then discovered that his master was a quack. He demanded his money
back again; but Aluys was not inclined to give it him, and the affair
was brought before the civil tribunal of the province. In the mean
time, however, the greffier died suddenly; poisoned, according to the
popular rumour, by his debtor, to avoid repayment. So great an outcry
arose in the city, that Aluys, who may have been innocent of the
crime, was nevertheless afraid to remain and brave it. He withdrew
secretly in the night, and retired to Paris. Here all trace of him is
lost. He was never heard of again; but Lenglet du Fresnoy conjectures,
that he ended his days in some obscure dungeon, into which he was cast
for coining, or other malpractices.

THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN

This adventurer was of a higher grade than the last, and played a
distinguished part at the court of Louis XV. He pretended to have
discovered the elixir of life, by means of which he could make any one
live for centuries; and allowed it to be believed that his own age was
upwards of two thousand years. He entertained many of the opinions of
the Rosicrucians; boasted of his intercourse with sylphs and
salamanders; and of his power of drawing diamonds from the earth, and
pearls from the sea, by the force of his incantations. He did not lay
claim to the merit of having discovered the philosopher's stone; but
devoted so much of his time to the operations of alchymy, that it was
very generally believed, that, if such a thing as the philosopher's
stone had ever existed, or could be called into existence, he was the
man to succeed in finding it.

It has never yet been discovered what was his real name, or in
what country he was born. Some believed, from the Jewish cast of his
handsome countenance, that he was the "wandering Jew;" others
asserted, that he was the issue of an Arabian princess, and that his
father was a salamander; while others, more reasonable, affirmed him
to be the son of a Portuguese Jew, established at Bourdeaux. He first
carried on his imposture in Germany, where he made considerable sums
by selling an elixir to arrest the progress of old age. The Marechal
de Belle-Isle purchased a dose of it; and was so captivated with the
wit, learning, and good manners of the charlatan, and so convinced of
the justice of his most preposterous pretensions, that he induced him
to fix his residence in Paris. Under the Marshal's patronage, he first
appeared in the gay circles of that capital. Every one was delighted
with the mysterious stranger; who, at this period of his life, appears
to have been about seventy years of age, but did not look more than
forty-five. His easy assurance imposed upon most people. His reading
was extensive, and his memory extraordinarily tenacious of the
slightest circumstances. His pretension to have lived for so many
centuries naturally exposed him to some puzzling questions, as to the
appearance, life, and conversation of the great men of former days;
but he was never at a loss for an answer. Many who questioned him for
the purpose of scoffing at him, refrained in perplexity, quite
bewildered by his presence of mind, his ready replies, and his
astonishing accuracy on every point mentioned in history. To increase
the mystery by which he was surrounded, he permitted no person to know
how he lived. He dressed in a style of the greatest magnificence;
sported valuable diamonds in his hat, on his fingers, and in his
shoe-buckles; and sometimes made the most costly presents to the
ladies of the court. It was suspected by many that he was a spy, in
the pay of the English ministry; but there never was a tittle of
evidence to support the charge. The King looked upon him with marked
favour, was often closeted with him for hours together, and would not
suffer anybody to speak disparagingly of him. Voltaire constantly
turned him into ridicule; and, in one of his letters to the King of
Prussia, mentions him as "un comte pour fire;" and states, that he
pretended to have dined with the holy fathers, at the Council of
Trent!

In the "Memoirs of Madame du Hausset," chamber-woman to Madame du
Pompadour, there are some amusing anecdotes of this personage. Very
soon after his arrival in Paris, he had the entree of her
dressing-room; a favour only granted to the most powerful lords at the
court of her royal lover. Madame was fond of conversing with him; and,
in her presence, he thought fit to lower his pretensions very
considerably: but he often allowed her to believe that he had lived
two or three hundred years, at least. "One day," says Madame du
Hausset, "Madame said to him, in my presence, 'What was the personal
appearance of Francis I? He was a King I should have liked.' 'He
was, indeed, very captivating,' replied St. Germain; and he proceeded
to describe his face and person, as that of a man whom he had
accurately observed. 'It is a pity he was too ardent. I could have
given him some good advice, which would have saved him from all his
misfortunes: but he would not have followed it; for it seems as if a
fatality attended princes, forcing them to shut their ears to the
wisest counsel.' 'Was his court very brilliant?' inquired Madame du
Pompadour. 'Very,' replied the Count; 'but those of his grandsons
surpassed it. In the time of Mary Stuart and Margaret of Valois, it
was a land of enchantment -- a temple sacred to pleasures of every
kind.' Madame said, laughing, 'You seem to have seen all this.' 'I
have an excellent memory,' said he, 'and have read the history of
France with great care. I sometimes amuse myself, not by making, but
by letting, it be believed that I lived in old times.'

"'But you do not tell us your age,' said Madame du Pompadour to
him on another occasion; 'and yet you pretend you are very old. The
Countess de Gergy, who was, I believe, ambassadress at Vienna some
fifty years ago, says she saw you there, exactly the same as you now
appear.'

"'It is true, Madam,' replied St. Germain; 'I knew Madame de Gergy
many years ago.'

"'But, according to her account, you must be more than a hundred
years old?'

"'That is not impossible,' said he, laughing; 'but it is much more
possible that the good lady is in her dotage.'

"'You gave her an elixir, surprising for the effects it produced;
for she says, that during a length of time, she only appeared to be
eighty-four; the age at which she took it. Why don't you give it to
the King ?'

"'O Madam !' he exclaimed, 'the physicians would have me broken on
the wheel, were I to think of drugging his Majesty.'"

When the world begins to believe extraordinary things of an
individual, there is no telling where its extravagance will stop.
People, when once they have taken the start, vie with each other who
shall believe most. At this period all Paris resounded with the
wonderful adventures of the Count de St. Germain; and a company of
waggish young men tried the following experiment upon its credulity:-
A clever mimic, who, on account of the amusement he afforded, was
admitted into good society, was taken by them, dressed as the Count de
St. Germain, into several houses in the Rue du Marais. He imitated the
Count's peculiarities admirably, and found his auditors open-mouthed
to believe any absurdity he chose to utter. NO fiction was too
monstrous for their all-devouring credulity. He spoke of the Saviour
of the world in terms of the greatest familiarity; said he had supped
with him at the marriage in Canaan of Galilee, where the water was
miraculously turned into wine. In fact, he said he was an intimate
friend of his, and had often warned him to be less romantic and
imprudent, or he would finish his career miserably. This infamous
blasphemy, strange to say, found believers; and, ere three days had
elapsed, it was currently reported that St. Germain was born soon
after the deluge, and that he would never die!

St. Germain himself was too much a man of the world to assert
anything so monstrous; but he took no pains to contradict the story.
In all his conversations with persons of rank and education, he
advanced his claims modestly, and as if by mere inadvertency; and
seldom pretended to a longevity beyond three hundred years; except
when he found he was in company with persons who would believe
anything. He often spoke of Henry VIII, as if he had known him
intimately; and of the Emperor Charles V, as if that monarch had
delighted in his society. He would describe conversations which took
place with such an apparent truthfulness, and be so exceedingly minute
and particular as to the dress and appearance of the individuals, and
even the weather at the time, and the furniture of the room, that
three persons out of four were generally inclined to credit him. He
had constant applications from rich old women for an elixir to make
them young again; and, it would appear, gained large sums in this
manner. To those whom he was pleased to call his friends, he said, his
mode of living and plan of diet were far superior to any elixir; and
that anybody might attain a patriarchal age, by refraining from
drinking at meals, and very sparingly at any other time. The Baron de
Gleichen followed this system, and took great quantities of senna
leaves, expecting to live for two hundred years. He died, however, at
seventy-three. The Duchess de Choiseul was desirous of following the
same system; but the Duke her husband, in much wrath, forbade her to
follow any system prescribed by a man who had so equivocal a
reputation as M. de St. Germain.

Madame du Hausset says, she saw St. Germain, and conversed with
him several times. He appeared to her to be about fifty years of age,
was of the middle size, and had fine expressive features. His dress
was always simple, but displayed much taste. He usually wore diamond
rings of great value; and his watch and snuff-box were ornamented with
a profusion of precious stones. One day, at Madame du Pompadour's
apartments, where the principal courtiers were assembled, St. Germain
made his appearance in diamond knee and shoe buckles, of so fine a
water, that Madame said, she did not think the King had any equal to
them. He was entreated to pass into the antechamber, and undo them;
which he did, and brought them to Madame, for closer inspection. M. de
Gontant, who was present, said their value could not be less than two
hundred thousand livres, or upwards of eight thousand pounds sterling.
The Baron de Gleichen, in his "Memoirs," relates, that the Count one
day showed him so many diamonds, that he thought he saw before him all
the treasures of Aladdin's lamp; and adds, that he had had great
experience in precious stones, and was convinced that all those
possessed by the Count were genuine. On another occasion, St. Germain
showed Madame du Pompadour a small box, containing topazes, emeralds,
and diamonds, worth half a million of livres. He affected to despise
all this wealth, to make the world more easily believe that he could,
like the Rosicrucians, draw precious stones out of the earth by the
magic of his song. He gave away a great number of these jewels to the
ladies of the court; and Madame du Pompadour was so charmed with his
generosity, that she gave him a richly-enamelled snuff-box, as a token
of her regard; on the lid of which was beautifully painted a portrait
of Socrates, or some other Greek sage, to whom she compared him. He
was not only lavish to the mistresses, but to the maids. Madame du
Hausset says, -- "The Count came to see Madame du Pompadour, who was
very ill, and lay on the sofa. He showed her diamonds enough to
furnish a king's treasury. Madame sent for me to see all those
beautiful things. I looked at them with an air of the utmost
astonishment; but I made signs to her, that I thought them all false.
The Count felt for something in a pocket-book about twice as large as
a spectacle-case; and, at length, drew out two or three little paper
packets, which he unfolded, and exhibited a superb ruby. He threw on
the table, with a contumptuous air, a little cross of green and white
stones. I looked at it, and said it was not to be despised. I then put
it on, and admired it greatly. The Count begged me to accept it. I
refused. He urged me to take it. At length, he pressed so warmly, that
Madame, seeing it could not be worth more than a thousand livres, made
me a sign to accept it. I took the cross, much pleased with the
Count's politeness."

How the adventurer obtained his wealth remains a secret. He could
not have made it all by the sale of his elixir vitae in Germany;
though, no doubt, some portion of it was derived from that source.
Voltaire positively says, he was in the pay of foreign governments;
and in his letter to the King of Prussia, dated the 5th of April 1758,
says, that he was initiated in all the secrets of Choiseul, Kaunitz,
and Pitt. Of what use he could be to any of those ministers, and to
Choiseul especially, is a mystery of mysteries.

There appears no doubt that he possessed the secret of removing
spots from diamonds; and, in all probability, he gained considerable
sums by buying, at inferior prices, such as had flaws in them, and
afterwards disposing of them at a profit of cent. per cent. Madame du
Hausset relates the following anecdote on this particular:-- "The
King," says she, "ordered a middling-sized diamond, which had a flaw
in it, to be brought to him. After having it weighed, his Majesty said
to the Count, 'The value of this diamond, as it is, and with the flaw
in it, is six thousand livres; without the flaw, it would be worth, at
least, ten thousand. Will you undertake to make me a gainer of four
thousand livres?' St. Germain examined it very attentively, and said,
'It is possible; it may be done. I will bring it you again in a
month.' At the time appointed, the Count brought back the diamond,
without a spot, and gave it to the King. It was wrapped in a cloth of
amianthos, which he took off. The King had it weighed immediately, and
found it very little diminished. His Majesty then sent it to his
jeweller, by M. de Gonrant, without telling him of anything that had
passed. The jeweller gave nine thousand six hundred livres for it. The
King, however, sent for the diamond back again, and said he would keep
it as a curiosity. He could not overcome his surprise; and said M. de
St. Germain must be worth millions; especially if he possessed the
secret of making large diamonds out of small ones. The Count neither
said that he could, or could not; but positively asserted, that he
knew how to make pearls grow, and give them the finest water. The King
paid him great attention, and so did Madame du Pompadour. M. du
Quesnoy once said, that St. Germain was a quack; but the King
reprimanded him. In fact, his Majesty appears infatuated by him; and
sometimes talks of him as if his descent were illustrious."

St. Germain had a most amusing vagabond for a servant, to whom he
would often appeal for corroboration, when relating some wonderful event
that happened centuries before. The fellow, who was not without
ability, generally corroborated him in a most satisfactory manner.
Upon one occasion, his master was telling a party of ladies and
gentlemen, at dinner, some conversation he had had in Palestine, with
King Richard I. of England, whom he described as a very particular
friend of his. Signs of astonishment and incredulity were visible on
the faces of the company; upon which St. Germain very coolly turned to
his servant, who stood behind his chair, and asked him if he had not
spoken truth? "I really cannot say," replied the man, without moving a
muscle; "you forget, sir, I have only been five hundred years in your
service!" "Ah! true," said his master; "I remember now; it was a
little before your time!" Occasionally, when with men whom he could
not so easily dupe, he gave utterance to the contempt with which he
could scarcely avoid regarding such gaping credulity. "These fools of
Parisians," said he, to the Baron de Gleichen, "believe me to be more
than five hundred years old; and, since they will have it so, I
confirm them in their idea. Not but that I really am much older than I
appear."

Many other stories are related of this strange impostor; but
enough have been quoted to show his character and pretensions. It
appears that he endeavoured to find the philosopher's stone; but never
boasted of possessing it. The Prince of Hesse Cassel, whom he had
known years before, in Germany, wrote urgent letters to him,
entreating him to quit Paris, and reside with him. St. Germain at last
consented. Nothing further is known of his career. There were no
gossipping memoir-writers at the court of Hesse Cassel to chronicle
his sayings and doings. He died at Sleswig, under the roof of his
friend the Prince, in the year 1784.

CAGLIOSTRO,

This famous charlatan, the friend and successor of St. Germain,
ran a career still more extraordinary. He was the arch-quack of his
age, the last of the great pretenders to the philosopher's stone and
the water of life, and during his brief season of prosperity one of
the most conspicuous characters of Europe.

His real name was Joseph Balsamo. He was born at Palermo about the
year 1743, of humble parentage. He had the misfortune to lose his
father during his infancy, and his education was left in consequence
to some relatives of his mother, the latter being too poor to afford
him any instruction beyond mere reading and writing. He was sent in
his fifteenth year to a monastery, to be taught the elements of
chemistry and physic; but his temper was so impetuous, his indolence
so invincible, and his vicious habits so deeply rooted, that he made
no progress. After remaining some years, he left it with the character
of an uninformed and dissipated young man, with good natural talents
but a bad disposition. When he became of age, he abandoned himself to
a life of riot and debauchery, and entered himself, in fact, into that
celebrated fraternity, known in France and Italy as the "Knights of
Industry," and in England as the "Swell Mob." He was far from being an
idle or unwilling member of the corps. The first way in which he
distinguished himself was by forging orders of admission to the
theatres. He afterwards robbed his uncle, and counterfeited a will.
For acts like these, he paid frequent compulsory visits to the prisons
of Palermo. Somehow or other he acquired the character of a sorcerer -
of a man who had failed in discovering the secrets of alchymy, and had
sold his soul to the devil for the gold which he was not able to make
by means of transmutation. He took no pains to disabuse the popular
mind on this particular, but rather encouraged the belief than
otherwise. He at last made use of it to cheat a silversmith, named
Marano, of about sixty ounces of gold, and was in consequence obliged
to leave Palermo. He persuaded this man that he could show him a
treasure hidden in a cave, for which service he was to receive the
sixty ounces of gold, while the silversmith was to have all the
treasure for the mere trouble of digging it up. They went together at
midnight to an excavation in the vicinity of Palermo, where Balsamo
drew a magic circle, and invoked the devil to show his treasures.
Suddenly there appeared half a dozen fellows, the accomplices of the
swindler, dressed to represent devils, with horns on their heads,
claws to their fingers, and vomiting apparently red and blue flame.
They were armed with pitchforks, with which they belaboured poor
Marano till he was almost dead, and robbed him of his sixty ounces of
gold and all the valuables he carried about his person. They then made
off, accompanied by Balsamo, leaving the unlucky silversmith to
recover or die at his leisure. Nature chose the former course; and
soon after daylight he was restored to his senses, smarting in body
from his blows and in spirit for the deception of which he had been
the victim. His first impulse was to denounce Balsamo to the
magistrates of the town; but on further reflection he was afraid of
the ridicule that a full exposure of all the circumstances would draw
upon him: he therefore took the truly Italian resolution of being
revenged on Balsamo by murdering him at the first convenient
opportunity. Having given utterance to this threat in the hearing of a
friend of Balsamo, it was reported to the latter, who immediately
packed up his valuables and quitted Europe.

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