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Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions

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




He chose Medina, in Arabia, for his future dwelling-place, and
there became acquainted with a Greek named Altotas, a man exceedingly
well versed in all the languages of the East, and an indefatigable
student of alchymy. He possessed an invaluable collection of Arabian
manuscripts on his favourite science, and studied them with such
unremitting industry that he found he had not sufficient time to
attend to his crucibles and furnaces without neglecting his books. He
was looking about for an assistant when Balsamo opportunely presented
himself, and made so favourable an impression that he was at once
engaged in that capacity. But the relation of master and servant did
not long subsist between them; Balsamo was too ambitious and too
clever to play a secondary part, and within fifteen days of their
first acquaintance they were bound together as friends and partners.
Altotas, in the course of a long life devoted to alchymy, had stumbled
upon some valuable discoveries in chemistry, one of which was an
ingredient for improving the manufacture of flax, and imparting to
goods of that material a gloss and softness almost equal to silk.
Balsamo gave him the good advice to leave the philosopher's stone for
the present undiscovered, and make gold out of their flax. The advice
was taken, and they proceeded together to Alexandria to trade, with a
large stock of that article. They stayed forty days in Alexandria, and
gained a considerable sum by their venture. They afterwards visited
other cities in Egypt, and were equally successful. They also visited
Turkey, where they sold drugs and amulets. On their return to Europe,
they were driven by stress of weather into Malta, and were hospitably
received by Pinto, the Grand Master of the Knights, and a famous
alchymist. They worked in his laboratory for some months, and tried
hard to change a pewter-platter into a silver one. Balsamo, having
less faith than his companions, was sooner wearied; and obtaining from
his host many letters of introduction to Rome and Naples, he left him
and Altotas to find the philosopher's stone and transmute the
pewter-platter without him.

He had long since dropped the name of Balsamo on account of the
many ugly associations that clung to it; and during his travels had
assumed at least half a score others, with titles annexed to them. He
called himself sometimes the Chevalier de Fischio, the Marquis de
Melissa, the Baron de Belmonte, de Pelligrini, d'Anna, de Fenix, de
Harat, but most commonly the Count de Cagliostro. Under the latter
title he entered Rome, and never afterwards changed it. In this city
he gave himself out as the restorer of the Rosicrucian philosophy;
said he could transmute all metals into gold; that he could render
himself invisible, cure all diseases, and administer an elixir against
old age and decay. His letters from the Grand Master Pinto procured
him an introduction into the best families. He made money rapidly by
the sale of his elixir vitae; and, like other quacks, performed many
remarkable cures by inspiring his patients with the most complete
faith and reliance upon his powers; an advantage which the most
impudent charlatans often possess over the regular practitioner.

While thus in a fair way of making his fortune he became
acquainted with the beautiful Lorenza Feliciana, a young lady of noble
birth, but without fortune. Cagliostro soon discovered that she
possessed accomplishments that were invaluable. Besides her ravishing
beauty, she had the readiest wit, the most engaging manners, the most
fertile imagination, and the least principle of any of the maidens of
Rome. She was just the wife for Cagliostro, who proposed himself to
her, and was accepted. After their marriage, he instructed his fair
Lorenza in all the secrets of his calling - taught her pretty lips to
invoke angels, and genii, sylphs, salamanders, and undines, and, when
need required, devils and evil spirits. Lorenza was an apt scholar:
she soon learned all the jargon of the alchymists and all the spells
of the enchanters; and thus accomplished the hopeful pair set out on
their travels, to levy contributions on the superstitious and the
credulous.

They first went to Sleswig on a visit to the Count de St. Germain,
their great predecessor in the art of making dupes, and were received
by him in the most magnificent manner. They no doubt fortified their
minds for the career they had chosen, by the sage discourse of that
worshipful gentleman; for immediately after they left him, they began
their operations. They travelled for three or four years in Russia,
Poland, and Germany, transmuting metals, telling fortunes, raising
spirits, and selling the elixir vitae wherever they went; but there is
no record of their doings from whence to draw a more particular
detail. It was not until they made their appearance in England in
1776, that the names of the Count and Countess di Cagliostro began to
acquire a European reputation. They arrived in London in the July of
that year, possessed of property in plate, jewels, and specie to the
amount of about three thousand pounds. They hired apartments in
Whitcombe-street, and lived for some months quietly. In the same house
there lodged a Portuguese woman named Blavary, who, being in
necessitous circumstances, was engaged by the Count as interpreter.
She was constantly admitted into his laboratory, where he spent much
of his time in search of the philosopher's stone. She spread abroad
the fame of her entertainer in return for his hospitality, and
laboured hard to impress everybody with as full a belief in his
extraordinary powers as she felt herself. But as a female interpreter
of the rank and appearance of Madame Blavary did not exactly
correspond with the Count's notions either of dignity or decorum, he
hired a person named Vitellini, a teacher of languages, to act in that
capacity. Vitellini was a desperate gambler; a man who had tried
almost every resource to repair his ruined fortunes, including among
the rest the search for the philosopher's stone. Immediately that he
saw the Count's operations, he was convinced that the great secret was
his, and that the golden gates of the palace of fortune were open to
let him in. With still more enthusiasm than Madame Blavary, he held
forth to his acquaintance, and in all public places, that the Count
was an extraordinary man, a true adept, whose fortune was immense, and
who could transmute into pure and solid gold, as much lead, iron, and
copper as he pleased. The consequence was, that the house of
Cagliostro was besieged by crowds of the idle, the credulous, and the
avaricious, all eager to obtain a sight of the "philosopher," or to
share in the boundless wealth which he could call into existence.

Unfortunately for Cagliostro, he had fallen into evil hands;
instead of duping the people of England as he might have done, he
became himself the victim of a gang of swindlers, who, with the
fullest reliance on his occult powers, only sought to make money of
him. Vitellini introduced to him a ruined gambler like himself, named
Scot, whom he represented as a Scottish nobleman, attracted to London
solely by his desire to see and converse with the extraordinary man
whose fame had spread to the distant mountains of the north.
Cagliostro received him with great kindness and cordiality; and "Lord"
Scot thereupon introduced a woman named Fry, as Lady Scot, who was to
act as chaperone to the Countess di Cagliostro, and make her
acquainted with all the noble families of Britain. Thus things went
swimmingly. "His lordship," whose effects had not arrived from
Scotland, and who had no banker in London, borrowed two hundred pounds
of the Count; they were lent without scruple, so flattered was
Cagliostro by the attentions they paid him, the respect, nay,
veneration they pretended to feel for him, and the complete deference
with which they listened to every word that fell from his lips.

Superstitious, like all desperate gamesters, Scot had often tried
magical and cabalistic numbers, in the hope of discovering lucky
numbers in the lottery, or at the roulette tables. He had in his
possession a cabalistic manuscript, containing various arithmetical
combinations of the kind, which he submitted to Cagliostro, with an
urgent request that he would select a number. Cagliostro took the
manuscript and studied it; but, as he himself informs us, with no
confidence in its truth. He however predicted twenty as the successful
number for the 6th of November following. Scot ventured a small sum
upon this number, out of the two hundred pounds he had borrowed, and
won. Cagliostro, incited by this success, prognosticated number
twenty-five for the next drawing. Scot tried again, and won a hundred
guineas. The numbers fifty-five and fifty-seven were announced with
equal success for the 18th of the same month, to the no small
astonishment and delight of Cagliostro, who thereupon resolved to try
fortune for himself, and not for others. To all the entreaties of Scot
and his lady that he would predict more numbers for them, he turned a
deaf ear, even while he still thought him a lord and a man of honour.
But when he discovered that he was a mere swindler, and the pretended
Lady Scot an artful woman of the town, he closed his door upon them
and on all their gang.

Having complete faith in the supernatural powers of the Count,
they were in the deepest distress at having lost his countenance. They
tried by every means their ingenuity could suggest, to propitiate him
again; they implored, they threatened, and endeavoured to bribe him.
But all was vain. Cagliostro would neither see nor correspond with
them. In the mean time they lived extravagantly; and in the hope of
future, exhausted all their present gains. They were reduced to the
last extremity, when Miss Fry obtained access to the Countess, and
received a guinea from her on the representation that she was
starving. Miss Fry, not contented with this, begged her to intercede
with her husband, that for the last time he would point out a lucky
number in the lottery. The Countess promised to exert her influence,
and Cagliostro thus entreated, named the number eight, at the same
time reiterating his determination to have no more to do with any of
them. By an extraordinary hazard, which filled Cagliostro with
surprise and pleasure, number eight was the greatest prize in the
lottery. Miss Fry and her associates cleared fifteen hundred guineas
by the adventure; and became more than ever convinced of the occult
powers of Cagliostro, and strengthened in their determination never to
quit him until they had made their fortunes. Out of the proceeds, Miss
Fry bought a handsome necklace at a pawnbrokers for ninety guineas.
She then ordered a richly chased gold box, having two compartments, to
be made at a jeweller's, and putting the necklace in the one, filled
the other with a fine aromatic snuff. She then sought another
interview with Madame di Cagliostro, and urged her to accept the box
as a small token of her esteem and gratitude, without mentioning the
valuable necklace that was concealed in it. Madame di Cagliostro
accepted the present, and was from that hour exposed to the most
incessant persecution from all the confederates, Blavary, Vitellini,
and the pretended Lord and Lady Scot. They flattered themselves they
had regained their lost footing in the house, and came day after day
to know lucky numbers in the lottery; sometimes forcing themselves up
the stairs, and into the Count's laboratory, in spite of the efforts
of the servants to prevent them. Cagliostro, exasperated at their
pertinacity, threatened to call in the assistance of the magistrates;
and taking Miss Fry by the shoulders, pushed her into the street.

From that time may be dated the misfortunes of Cagliostro. Miss
Fry, at the instigation of her paramour, determined on vengeance. Her
first act was to swear a debt of two hundred pounds against
Cagliostro, and to cause him to be arrested for that sum. While he was
in custody in a sponging house, Scot, accompanied by a low attorney,
broke into his laboratory, and carried off a small box, containing, as
they believed, the powder of transmutation, and a number of cabalistic
manuscripts and treatises upon alchymy. They also brought an action
against him for the recovery of the necklace; and Miss Fry accused
both him and his Countess of sorcery and witchcraft, and of
foretelling numbers in the lottery by the aid of the devil. This
latter charge was actually heard before Mr. Justice Miller. The
action of trover for the necklace was tried before the Lord Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas, who recommended the parties to submit to
arbitration. In the mean time Cagliostro remained in prison for
several weeks, till having procured bail, he was liberated. He was
soon after waited upon by an attorney named Reynolds, also deep in the
plot, who offered to compromise all the actions upon certain
conditions. Scot, who had accompanied him, concealed himself behind
the door, and suddenly rushing out, presented a pistol at the heart of
Cagliostro, swearing he would shoot him instantly, if he would not
tell him truly the art of predicting lucky numbers, and of transmuting
metals. Reynolds pretending to be very angry, disarmed his accomplice,
and entreated the Count to satisfy them by fair means, and disclose
his secrets, promising that if he would do so, they would discharge
all the actions, and offer him no further molestation. Cagliostro
replied, that threats and entreaties were alike useless; that he knew
no secrets; and that the powder of transmutation of which they had
robbed him, was of no value to anybody but himself. He offered,
however, if they would discharge the actions, and return the powder
and the manuscripts, he would forgive them all the money they had
swindled him out of. These conditions were refused; and Scot and
Reynolds departed, swearing vengeance against him.

Cagliostro appears to have been quite ignorant of the forms of law
in England, and to have been without a friend to advise him as to the
best course he should pursue. While he was conversing with his
Countess on the difficulties that beset them, one of his bail called,
and invited him to ride in a hackney coach to the house of a person
who would see him righted. Cagliostro consented, and was driven to the
King's Bench prison, where his friend left him. He did not discover
for several hours that he was a prisoner, or in fact understand the
process of being surrendered by one's bail.

He regained his liberty in a few weeks; and the arbitrators
between him and Miss Fry, made their award against him. He was ordered
to pay the two hundred pounds she had sworn against him, and to
restore the necklace and gold box which had been presented to the
Countess. Cagliostro was so disgusted, that he determined to quit
England. His pretensions, besides, had been unmercifully exposed by a
Frenchman, named Morande, the Editor of the Courier de l'Europe,
published in London. To add to his distress, he was recognised in
Westminster Hall, as Joseph Balsamo, the swindler of Palermo. Such a
complication of disgrace was not to be borne. He and his Countess
packed up their small effects, and left England with no more than
fifty pounds, out of the three thousand they had brought with them.

They first proceeded to Brussels, where fortune was more
auspicious. They sold considerable quantities of the elixir of life,
performed many cures, and recruited their finances. They then took
their course through Germany to Russia, and always with the same
success. Gold flowed into their coffers faster than they could count
it. They quite forgot all the woes they had endured in England, and
learned to be more circumspect in the choice of their acquaintance.

In the year 1780, they made their appearance in Strasbourg. Their
fame had reached that city before them. They took a magnificent hotel,
and invited all the principal persons of the place to their table.
Their wealth appeared to be boundless, and their hospitality equal to
it. Both the Count and Countess acted as physicians, and gave money,
advice, and medicine to all the necessitous and suffering of the town.
Many of the cures they performed, astonished those regular
practitioners who did not make sufficient allowance for the wonderful
influence of imagination in certain cases. The Countess, who at this
time was not more than five-and-twenty, and all radiant with grace,
beauty, and cheerfulness, spoke openly of her eldest son as a fine
young man of eight-and-twenty, who had been for some years a captain
in the Dutch service. The trick succeeded to admiration. All the ugly
old women in Strasbourg, and for miles around, thronged the saloon of
the Countess to purchase the liquid which was to make them as blooming
as their daughters; the young women came in equal abundance that they
might preserve their charms, and when twice as old as Ninon de
L'Enclos, be more captivating than she; while men were not wanting
fools enough to imagine, that they might keep off the inevitable
stroke of the grim foe, by a few drops of the same incomparable
elixir. The Countess, sooth to say, looked like an incarnation of
immortal loveliness, a very goddess of youth and beauty; and it is
possible that the crowds of young men and old, who at all convenient
seasons haunted the perfumed chambers of this enchantress, were
attracted less by their belief in her occult powers than from
admiration of her languishing bright eyes and sparkling conversation.
But amid all the incense that was offered at her shrine, Madame di
Cagliostro was ever faithful to her spouse. She encouraged hopes, it
is true, but she never realised them; she excited admiration, yet kept
it within bounds; and made men her slaves, without ever granting a
favour of which the vainest might boast.

In this city they made the acquaintance of many eminent persons,
and among others, of the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, who was destined
afterwards to exercise so untoward an influence over their fate. The
Cardinal, who seems to have had great faith in him as a philosopher,
persuaded him to visit Paris in his company, which he did, but
remained only thirteen days. He preferred the society of Strasbourg,
and returned thither, with the intention of fixing his residence far
from the capital. But he soon found that the first excitement of his
arrival had passed away. People began to reason with themselves, and
to be ashamed of their own admiration. The populace, among whom he had
lavished his charity with a bountiful hand, accused him of being the
Antichrist, the Wandering Jew, the man of fourteen hundred years of
age, a demon in human shape, sent to lure the ignorant to their
destruction; while the more opulent and better informed called him a
spy in the pay of foreign governments, an agent of the police, a
swindler, and a man of evil life. The outcry grew at last so strong,
that he deemed it prudent to try his fortune elsewhere.

He went first to Naples, but that city was too near Palermo; he
dreaded recognition from some of his early friends, and after a short
stay, returned to France. He chose Bordeaux as his next
dwelling-place, and created as great a sensation there as he had done
in Strasbourg. He announced himself as the founder of a new school of
medicine and philosophy, boasted of his ability to cure all diseases,
and invited the poor and suffering to visit him, and he would relieve
the distress of the one class, and cure the ailings of the other. All
day long the street opposite his magnificent hotel was crowded by the
populace; the halt and the blind, women with sick babes in their arms,
and persons suffering under every species of human infirmity flocked
to this wonderful doctor. The relief he afforded in money more than
counterbalanced the failure of his nostrums; and the affluence of
people from all the surrounding country became so great, that the
jurats of the city granted him a military guard, to be stationed day
and night before his door, to keep order. The anticipations of
Cagliostro were realised. The rich were struck with admiration of his
charity and benevolence, and impressed with a full conviction of his
marvellous powers. The sale of the elixir went on admirably. His
saloons were thronged with wealthy dupes who came to purchase
immortality. Beauty, that would endure for centuries, was the
attraction for the fair sex; health and strength for the same period
were the baits held out to the other. His charming Countess in the
meantime brought grist to the mill, by telling fortunes and casting
nativities, or granting attendant sylphs to any ladies who would pay
sufficiently for their services. What was still better, as tending to
keep up the credit of her husband, she gave the most magnificent
parties in Bordeaux.

But as at Strasbourg the popular delusion lasted for a few months
only, and burned itself out; Cagliostro forgot, in the intoxication of
success, that there was a limit to quackery, which once passed,
inspired distrust. When he pretended to call spirits from the tomb,
people became incredulous. He was accused of being an enemy to
religion - of denying Christ, and of being the Wandering Jew. He
despised these rumours as long as they were confined to a few; but
when they spread over the town -- when he received no more fees --
when his parties were abandoned, and his acquaintance turned away when
they met him in the street, he thought it high time to shift his
quarters.

He was by this time wearied of the provinces, and turned his
thoughts to the capital. On his arrival, he announced himself as the
restorer of Egyptian Freemasonry and the founder of a new philosophy.
He immediately made his way into the best society by means of his
friend the Cardinal de Rohan. His success as a magician was quite
extraordinary: the most considerable persons of the time visited him.
He boasted of being able, like the Rosicrucians, to converse with the
elementary spirits; to invoke the mighty dead from the grave, to
transmute metals, and to discover occult things, by means of the
special protection of God towards him. Like Dr. Dee, he summoned the
angels to reveal the future; and they appeared, and conversed with him
in crystals and under glass bells. [See the Abbe Fiard, and
"Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis XVI." p. 400.] "There was hardly,"
says the Biographie des Contemporains, "a fine lady in Paris who would
not sup with the shade of Lucretius in the apartments of Cagliostro --
a military officer who would not discuss the art of war with Cesar,
Hannibal, or Alexander; or an advocate or counsellor who would not
argue legal points with the ghost of Cicero." These interviews with
the departed were very expensive; for, as Cagliostro said, the dead
would not rise for nothing. The Countess, as usual, exercised all her
ingenuity to support her husband's credit. She was a great favourite
with her own sex; to many a delighted and wondering auditory of whom
she detailed the marvellous powers of Cagliostro. She said he could
render himself invisible, traverse the world with the rapidity of
thought, and be in several places at the same time. ["Biographie des
Contemporains," article "Cagliostro." See also "Histoire de la Magie
en France," par M. Jules Garinet, p. 284.]

He had not been long at Paris before he became involved in the
celebrated affair of the Queen's necklace. His friend, the Cardinal de
Rohan, enamoured of the charms of Marie Antoinette, was in sore
distress at her coldness, and the displeasure she had so often
manifested against him. There was at that time a lady, named La Motte,
in the service of the Queen, of whom the Cardinal was foolish enough
to make a confidant. Madame de la Motte, in return, endeavoured to
make a tool of the Cardinal, and succeeded but too well in her
projects. In her capacity of chamber-woman, or lady of honour to the
Queen, she was present at an interview between her Majesty and M.
Boehmer, a wealthy jeweller of Paris, when the latter offered for sale
a magnificent diamond necklace, valued at 1,600,000 francs, or about
64,000 pounds sterling. The Queen admired it greatly, but dismissed
the jeweller, with the expression of her regret that she was too poor
to purchase it. Madame de la Motte formed a plan to get this costly
ornament into her own possession, and determined to make the Cardinal
de Rohan the instrument by which to effect it. She therefore sought an
interview with him, and pretending to sympathise in his grief for the
Queen's displeasure, told him she knew a way by which he might be
restored to favour. She then mentioned the necklace, and the sorrow of
the Queen that she could not afford to buy it. The Cardinal, who was
as wealthy as he was foolish, immediately offered to purchase the
necklace, and make a present of it to the Queen. Madame de la Motte
told him by no means to do so, as he would thereby offend her Majesty.
His plan would be to induce the jeweller to give her Majesty credit,
and accept her promissory note for the amount at a certain date, to be
hereafter agreed upon. The Cardinal readily agreed to the proposal,
and instructed the jeweller to draw up an agreement, and he would
procure the Queen's signature. He placed this in the hands of Madame
de la Motte, who returned it shortly afterwards, with the words, "Bon,
bon - approuve -- Marie Antoinette," written in the margin. She told
him at the same time that the Queen was highly pleased with his
conduct in the matter, and would appoint a meeting with him in the
gardens of Versailles, when she would present him with a flower, as a
token of her regard. The Cardinal showed the forged document to the
jeweller, obtained the necklace, and delivered it into the hands of
Madame de la Motte. So far all was well. Her next object was to
satisfy the Cardinal, who awaited impatiently the promised interview
with his royal mistress. There was at that time in Paris a young woman
named D'Oliva, noted for her resemblance to the Queen; and Madame de
la Motte, on the promise of a handsome reward, found no difficulty in
persuading her to personate Marie Antoinette, and meet the Cardinal de
Rohan at the evening twilight in the gardens of Versailles. The
meeting took place accordingly. The Cardinal was deceived by the
uncertain light, the great resemblance of the counterfeit, and his own
hopes; and having received the flower from Mademoiselle D'Oliva, went
home with a lighter heart than had beat in his bosom for many a day.
[The enemies of the unfortunate Queen of France, when the progress of
the Revolution embittered their animosity against her, maintained that
she was really a party in this transaction; that she, and not
Mademoiselle D'Oliva, met the Cardinal and rewarded him with the
flower; and that the story above related was merely concocted between
her, La Motte, and others to cheat the jeweller of his 1,600,000
francs.]

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