CAGLIOSTRO

Count Cagliostro.

CAGLIOSTRO

THE SPLENDOUR AND MISERY
OF A MASTER OF MAGIC

BY

W. R. H. TROWBRIDGE

AUTHOR OF
“SEVEN SPLENDID SINNERS,” “A BEAU SABREUR,” ETC.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & CO.
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET

1910

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

PREFACE

Though much has been written about Cagliostro, most of it is confined to articles in encyclopedias and magazines, or to descriptive paragraphs in works dealing with magic, freemasonry and the period in which he lived.[1] This material may be described as a footnote which has been raised to the dignity of a page of history. It is based on contemporary records inspired by envy, hatred and contempt in an age notoriously passionate, revengeful and unscrupulous. It is, moreover, extremely superficial, being merely a repetition of information obtained second-hand by compilers apparently too ignorant or too lazy to make their own investigations. Even M. Funck-Brentano, whose brilliant historical monographs have earned him a deservedly high reputation, is not to be relied upon. In the sequel[2] to his entertaining account of the affair of the Diamond Necklace, the brief chapter he devotes to Cagliostro contains so many inaccuracies as to suggest that, like the majority of his predecessors, he was content to impart his information without previously taking the trouble to examine the sources from which it was derived.

It has been said that every book on Cagliostro must be a book against him. With this opinion I totally disagree. In choosing Cagliostro as the subject of an historical memoir I was guided at first, I admit, by the belief that he was the arch-impostor he is popularly supposed to be. With his mystery, magic, and highly sensational career he seemed just the sort of picturesque personality I was in search of. The moment, however, I began to make my researches I was astonished to find how little foundation there was in point of fact for the popular conception. The deeper I went into the subject—how deep this has been the reader may gather from the Bibliography, which contains but a portion of the material I have sifted—the more convinced I became of the fallacy of this conception. Under such circumstances there seemed but two alternatives open to me: either to abandon the subject altogether as unsuited for the purpose I had in view, or to follow the line of least resistance and, dishonestly adhering to the old method, which from custom had almost become de rigueur, help to perpetuate an impression I believed to be unfounded and unjust.

On reflection I have adopted neither course. Irritation caused by the ignorance and carelessness of the so-called “authorities” awoke a fresh and unexpected interest in their victim; and I decided to stick to the subject I had chosen and treat it for the first time honestly. As Baron de Gleichen says in his Souvenirs, “Enough ill has been said of Cagliostro. I intend to speak well of him, because I think this is always preferable providing one can, and at least I shall not bore the reader by repeating what he has already heard.”

Such a statement made in connection with such a character as Cagliostro is popularly supposed to be will, no doubt, expose me to the charge of having “whitewashed” him. This, however, I emphatically deny. “Whitewashing,” as I understand this term, is a plausible attempt to portray base or detestable characters as worthy of esteem by palliating their vices and attributing noble motives to their crimes. This manner of treating historical figures is certainly not one of which I can be accused, as those who may have read previous biographical books of mine will admit. Whatever sympathy for Cagliostro my researches may have evoked it has always been exceeded by contempt of those who, combining an unreasoning prejudice with a slovenly system of compilation, have repeated the old charges against him with parrot-like stupidity. The object of this book is not so much an attempt to vindicate Cagliostro as to correct and revise, if possible, what I believe to be a false judgment of history.

W. R. H. Trowbridge

London, August 1910.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The books and documents relating to Cagliostro are very numerous. Their value, however, is so questionable that in making a critical choice it is extremely difficult to avoid including many that are worthless.

In the French Archives:

A dossier entitled Documents à l’aide desquels la police de Paris a cherché à établir, lors du procès du Collier, que Cagliostro n’était autre qu’un aventurier nommé Joseph Balsamo, qui avait déjà séjourné à Paris en 1772:

Lettre adressée par un anonyme au commissaire Fontaine, remise de Palerme, le 2 Nov., 1786.

Plainte adressée à M. de Sartine par J. Balsamo contre sa femme.

Ordre de M. de Sartine au commissaire Fontaine de dresser procès-verbal de la capture de la dame Balsamo, 23 Janvier, 1773.

Procès-verbal de capture de la dame Balsamo, 1 Fevrier, 1773.

Interrogatoire de la dame Balsamo, 20 Fevrier, 1773.

Rapport au Ministre.

The above have also been printed in full in Emile Campardon’s Marie Antoinette et le Procès du Collier.

The following documents are unprinted:

Procès-verbal de capture des sieur et dame Cagliostro.

Procès-verbal de perquisition fait par le commissaire Chesnon le 23 Août, 1785, chez le sieur Cagliostro.

Interrogatoire de Cagliostro le 30 Janvier, 1786.

Minute des confrontations des témoins de Cagliostro.

Procès-verbal de la remise faite à Cagliostro, lors de sa mise en liberté, des effets saisis à son domicile le jour de sa mise en êtat d’arrestation.

Journal du libraire Hardy.

Copie d’une lettre écrite de Londres par un officier français remise á Paris le 19 Juillet 1786.

Lettre au peuple français.

Published Works:

Vie de Joseph Balsamo, connu sous le nom de Comte Cagliostro; extraite de la procédure instruite contre lui à Rome, en 1790, traduite d’après l’original italien, imprimé à la Chambre Apostolique.

Courier de l’Europe, gazette anglo-française, September, October, November, 1786; also Gazette de Hollande, Gazette d’Utrecht, Gazette de Leyde, Gazette de Florence, Courier du Bas-Rhin, Journal de Berlin, Public Advertizer, Feuille Villageoise, and Moniteur Universel.

Cagliostro démasqué à Varsovie en 1780.

Nachricht von des berüchtigten Cagliostro aufenthalte in Mitau, im jahre 1779 (Countess Elisa von der Recke).

Lettres sur la Suisse en 1781 (J. B. de Laborde).

Geschichten, geheime und räthselhafte Menschen (F. Bulau); or the French translation by William Duckett Personnages Énigmatiques.

Souvenirs de Baron de Gleichen.

Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy.

Correspondance littéraire (Grimm).

Mémoires récréatifs, scientifiques, et anecdotiques du physicien—aéronaute E. G. Roberson.

Mémoires authentiques de Comte Cagliostro (spurious, by the Marquis de Luchet).

Mémoires de Brissot, Abbé Georgel, Baronne d’Oberkirch, Madame du Hausset, Grosley, Bachaumont, Métra, Casanova, Comte Beugnot, and Baron de Besenval.

Réflexions de P. J. J. N. Motus.

Cagliostro: La Franc-Maçonnerie et l’Occultisme au XVIIIᵉ siècle (Henri d’Alméras).

Orthodoxie Maçonnique (Ragon).

La Franc-Maçonne, ou Révélations des Mystères des Francs-Maçons.

Annales de l’origine du Grand Orient en France.

Acta Latomorum (Thory).

Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Jacobinisme (Abbé Barruel).

Histoire du Merveilleux (Figuier).

Histoire de la Franc-Maçonnerie (Clavel).

Histoire philosophique de la Maçonnerie (Kauffmann et Cherpin).

Les Sectes et les sociétés secrètes (Comte Le Couteulx de Canteleu).

Schlosser’s History of the Eighteenth Century.

Histoire de la Révolution Française: Les Révolutionnaires Mystiques (Louis Blanc).

Histoire de France: XVIIIᵉ siècle (Henri Martin).

Histoire de France: L’Affaire du Collier (Michelet).

Recueil de toutes les pièces (31) qui out paru dans l’affaire de M. le Cardinal de Rohan.

Marie Antoinette et le Procès du Collier (Emile Campardon).

L’Affaire du Collier (Funck-Brentano).

The Diamond Necklace (Henry Vizetelly).

Marie Antoinette et le Procès du Collier (Chaix d’Est-Ange).

La Dernière Pièce du fameux Collier.

Mémoire du Sieur Sacchi.

Lettre de Labarthe à l’archéologue Seguier.

Lettre d’un Garde du Roi (Manuel).

Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau à ... sur Cagliostro et Lavater.

Requête au Parlement par le Comte de Cagliostro.

Mémoire pour le Comte de Cagliostro, demandeur, contre M. Chesnon le fils et le sieur de Launay.

Lettre au Peuple Anglais par le Comte de Cagliostro.

Theveneau de Morande (Paul Robiquet).

Liber Memorialis de Caleostro dum esset Roboretti.

Alessandro di Cagliostro. Impostor or Martyr? (Charles Sotheran).

Count Cagliostro (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays; Carlyle).

Vieux papiers, vieilles maisons (G. Lenôtre).

Italiänische Reise (Goethe).

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CAGLIOSTRO

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE POWER OF PREJUDICE

I

The mention of Cagliostro always suggests the marvellous, the mysterious, the unknown. There is something cabalistic in the very sound of the name that, considering the occult phenomena performed by the strange personality who assumed it, is curiously appropriate. As an incognito it is, perhaps, the most suitable ever invented. The name fits the man like a glove; and, recalling the mystery in which his career was wrapped, one involuntarily wonders if it has ever been cleared up. In a word, what was Cagliostro really? Charlatan, adventurer, swindler, whose impostures were finally exposed by the ever-memorable Necklace Affair in which he was implicated? Or “friend of humanity,” as he claimed, whose benefactions excited the enmity of the envious, who took advantage of his misfortunes to calumniate and ruin him? Knave, or martyr—which?

This question is more easily answered by saying what Cagliostro was not than what he was. It has been stated by competent judges—and all who have studied the subject will agree with them—that there is, perhaps, no other equally celebrated figure in modern history whose character is so baffling to the biographer. Documents and books relating to him abound, but they possess little or no value. The most interesting are frequently the most unreliable. The fact that material so questionable should provide as many reasons for rejecting its evidence—which is, by the way, almost entirely hostile—as for accepting it, has induced theosophists, spiritualists, occultists, and all who are sympathetically drawn to the mysterious to become his apologists. By these amiable visionaries Cagliostro is regarded as one of the princes of occultism whose mystical touch has revealed the arcana of the spiritual world to the initiated, and illumined the path along which the speculative scientist proceeds on entering the labyrinth of the supernatural. To them the striking contrasts with which his agitated existence was chequered are unimpeachable witnesses in his favour, and they stubbornly refuse to accept the unsatisfactory and contemptuous explanation of his miracles given by those who regard him as an impostor.

Unfortunately, greater weight is attached to police reports than to theosophical eulogies; and something more substantial than the enthusiasm of the occultists is required to support their contention. However, those who take this extravagant (I had almost said ridiculous) view of Cagliostro may obtain what consolation they can from the fact—which cannot be stated too emphatically—that though it is utterly impossible to grant their prophet the halo they would accord him, it is equally impossible to accept the verdict of his enemies.

In reality, it is by the evil that has been said and written of him that he is best known. In his own day, with very few exceptions, those whom he charmed or duped—as you will—by acts that in any case should have inspired gratitude rather than contempt observed a profound silence. When the Necklace Affair opened its flood-gates of ridicule and calumny, his former admirers saw him washed away with indifference. To defend him was to risk being compromised along with him; and, no doubt, as happens in our own times, the pleasure of trailing in the mud one who has fallen was too delightful to be neglected. It is from this epoch—1785—when people were engaged in blighting his character rather than in trying to judge it, that nearly all the material relating to Cagliostro dates. With only such documents, then, to hand as have been inspired by hate, envy, or simply a love of detraction, the difficulty of forming a correct opinion of him is apparent.

The portrait Carlyle has drawn of Cagliostro is the one most familiar to English readers. Now, though Carlyle’s judgments have in the main been upheld by the latest historians (who have had the advantage of information to which he was denied access), nevertheless, like everybody else, he made mistakes. In his case, however, these mistakes were inexcusable, for they were due, not to the lack of data, but to the strong prejudices by which he suffered himself to be swayed to the exclusion of that honesty and fairness he deemed so essential to the historian. He approached Cagliostro with a mind already biassed against him. Distasteful at the start, the subject on closer acquaintance became positively repugnant to him. The flagrant mendacity of the documentary evidence—which, discount it as he might, still left the truth in doubt—only served to strengthen his prejudice. It could surely be no innocent victim of injustice who aroused contempt so malevolent, hatred so universal. The mystery in which he masqueraded was alone sufficient to excite suspicion. And yet, whispered the conscience of the historian enraged at the mendacity of the witnesses he consulted, what noble ideals, what lofty aspirations misjudged, misunderstood, exposed to ridicule, pelted with calumny, may not have sought shelter under that mantle of mystery?

“Looking at thy so attractively decorated private theatre, wherein thou actedst and livedst,” he exclaims, “what hand but itches to draw aside thy curtain; overhaul thy paste-boards, paint-pots, paper-mantles, stage-lamps; and turning the whole inside out, find thee in the middle thereof!”

And suiting the action to the word, he clutches with an indignant hand at that metaphorical curtain; but in the very act of drawing it aside his old ingrained prejudice asserts itself. Bah! what else but a fraud can a Grand Cophta of Egyptian Masonry be? Can a Madame von der Recke, a Baroness d’Oberkirch, whose opinions at least are above suspicion, be other than right? The man is a shameless liar; and if he has been so shamelessly lied about in turn, he has only got what he deserved. And exasperated that such a creature should have been permitted even for a moment to cross the threshold of history, Carlyle dropped the curtain his fingers “itched to draw aside” and proceeded to empty all the vials of his wrath on Cagliostro.

In his brilliant essay, in the Diamond Necklace, in the French Revolution—wherever he meets him—he brands him as a “King of Liars,” a “Prince of Scoundrels,” an “Arch-Quack,” “Count Front of Brass-Pinch-beckostrum,” “Bubby-jock,” “a babbling, bubbling Turkey-cock,” et cetera. But such violence defeats its intention. When on every page the historian’s conscience is smitten with doubts that prejudice cannot succeed in stilling, the critical and inquisitive reader comes to the conclusion he knows less about the real Cagliostro at the end than he did at the beginning. He has merely seen Carlyle in one of his fine literary rages; it is all very interesting and memorable, but by no means what he wanted. As a matter of fact, in this instance Carlyle’s judgment is absolutely at sea; and the modern biographers of Cagliostro do not even refer to it.

Nevertheless, these writers have come pretty much to the same conclusion. M. Henri d’Alméras, whose book on Cagliostro is the best, speaking of the questionable evidence that so incensed Carlyle, declares “the historian, even in handling it with care, finds himself willy-nilly adopting the old prejudice. That is to say, every book written on Cagliostro, even under the pretext of rehabilitating him, can only be a book against him.” But while holding to the old conventional opinion, he considers that “a rogue so picturesque disarms anger, and deserves to be treated with indulgence.” D’Alméras pictures Cagliostro as a sort of clown, which is certainly the most curious view ever taken of the “Front of Brass,” and even more unjustifiable than Carlyle’s.

“What a good-natured, amusing, original rascal!” he exclaims. “The Figaro of Alchemy, more intelligent than Diafoirus, and more cunning than Scapin. And with what imperturbable serenity did he lie in five or six languages, as well as in a gibberish that had no meaning at all. To lie like that gives one a great superiority over the majority of one’s fellow-men. He did not lie because he was afraid to speak the truth, but because, as in the case of many another, falsehood was in him an excessive development of the imagination. He was himself, moreover, the first victim of his lies. By the familiar phenomenon of auto-suggestion, he ended by believing what he said from force of saying it. If he was successful, in a certain sense, he deserved to be.”

From all of which it may be gathered that whether Cagliostro is depicted as an Apostle of Light by his friends the occultists, or a rank impostor by his enemies, of whom Carlyle is the most implacable and d’Alméras the most charitably inclined, the real man has been as effectually hidden from view by prejudice as by the mystery in which he wrapped himself. But heavy though the curtain is that conceals him, it is perhaps possible for the hand that “itches” to draw it aside. As a matter of fact, no really honest attempt has ever been made to do so. It is true it is only a fleeting, somewhat nebulous, glimpse that can be obtained of this singular personality. There is, moreover, one condition to be observed. Before this glimpse can be obtained it is essential that some attempt should be made to discover, if possible, who Cagliostro was.

II

Considering that one has only to turn to the biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias to find it definitely asserted that “Count Cagliostro” was the best known of many aliases assumed by Giuseppe Balsamo, a Sicilian adventurer born in Palermo in 1743 or 1748, the above statement would appear to be directly contrary to recorded fact. For though biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias are notoriously superficial and frequently misleading, they are perhaps in this instance accurate enough for the purpose of casual inquiry, which is after all what they are compiled for. Indeed, this Balsamo legend is so plausible an explanation of the mystery of Cagliostro’s origin that, for lack of any other, it has satisfied all who are entitled to be regarded as authorities. The evidence, however, on which they have based their belief is circumstantial rather than positive.

Now circumstantial evidence, as everybody knows, is not always to be trusted. There are many cases on record of persons having been condemned on the strength of it who were afterwards found to be innocent. In this particular case, moreover, doubts do exist, and all “authorities” have admitted the fact. Those prejudiced against Cagliostro have agreed to attach no importance to them, those prejudiced in his favour the greatest. To the occultists they are the rock on which their faith in him is founded. Their opinion, however, may be ruled aside as untenable, for the doubts are entirely of a negative character, and suggest no counter-theory of identity whatever.

Nevertheless, since they exist they are worth examining—not so much for the purpose of questioning the accuracy of the “authorities” as to show how the Balsamo legend, which plays so important a part in the history of Cagliostro, originated.

It was not till Cardinal Rohan entangled him in the Diamond Necklace Affair that the name of Cagliostro hitherto familiar only to a limited number of people who, as the case might be, had derived benefit or suffered misfortune from a personal experience of his fabulous powers, acquired European notoriety.

The excitement caused by this cause célèbre, as is well known, was intense and universal. The arrest of the Cardinal in the Oeil-de-Boeuf at Versailles, in the presence of the Court and a great concourse of people from Paris, as he was about to celebrate mass in the Royal Chapel on Assumption Day, on the charge of having purchased a necklace for 1,600,000 livres for the Queen, who denied all knowledge of the transaction; the subsequent disappearance of the jewel and the suspicion of intent to swindle the jeweller which attached itself to both Queen and Cardinal; the further implication of the Countess de Lamotte, with her strangely romantic history; of Cagliostro, with his mystery and magic; and of a host of other shady persons—these were elements sensational enough to strike the dullest imagination, fire the wildest curiosity, and rivet the attention of all Europe upon the actors in so unparalleled a drama.

CARDINAL DE ROHAN

(From an old French print)

After the Cardinal, whose position as Grand Almoner of France (a sort of French Archbishop of Canterbury, so to speak) made him the protagonist of this drama, the self-styled Count Cagliostro was the figure in whom the public were most interested. The prodigies he was said to have performed, magnified by rumour, and his strange undecipherable personality gave him an importance out of all proportion to the small part he played in the famous Affair of the Necklace. Speculation as to his origin was naturally rife. But neither the police nor the lawyers could throw any light on his past. The evidence of the Countess de Lamotte, who in open court denounced him as an impostor formerly known as Don Tiscio, a name under which she declared he had fleeced many people in various parts of Spain, was too palpably untrustworthy and ridiculous to be treated seriously. Cagliostro himself did, indeed, attempt to satisfy curiosity, but the fantastic account he gave of his career only served—as perhaps he intended—to deepen its mystery.

The more it was baffled, the keener became the curiosity to discover a secret so cleverly guarded. The “noble traveller,” as he described himself with ridiculous pomposity on his examination, confessed that Cagliostro was only one of the several names he had assumed in the course of his life. An alias—he had termed it incognito—is always suspicious. Coupled, as it was in his case, with alchemical experiments, prognostications, spiritualist séances, and quack medicines, it suggested rascality. From ridicule to calumny is but a step, and for every voice raised in defence of his honesty there were a dozen to decry him.

On the day he was set at liberty—for he had no difficulty in proving his innocence—eight or ten thousand people came en masse to offer him their congratulations. The court-yard, the staircase, the very rooms of his house in the Rue St. Claude were filled with them. But this ovation, flattering though it was to his vanity, was intended less as a mark of respect to him than as an insult to the Queen, who was known to regard the verdict as a stigma on her honour, and whose waning popularity the hatred engendered by this scandalous affair had completely obliterated. Banished the following day by the Government, which sought to repair the prestige of the throne by persecuting and calumniating those who might be deemed instrumental in shattering it, Cagliostro lost what little credit the trial had left him. Whoever he was, the world had made up its mind what he was, and its opinion was wholly unfavourable to the “noble traveller.”

From France, which he left on June 21, 1786, Cagliostro went to England. It was here, in the following September, that the assertion was made for the first time by the Courier de l’Europe, a French paper published in London, that he was Giuseppe Balsamo. This announcement, made with every assurance of its accuracy, was at once repeated by other journals throughout Europe. It would be interesting, though not particularly important, to know how the Courier de l’Europe obtained its information. It is permissible, however, to conjecture that the Anglo-French journal had been informed of the rumour current in Palermo at the time of Cagliostro’s imprisonment in the Bastille that he was a native of that city, and on investigating the matter decided there were sufficient grounds for identifying him with Balsamo.

Be this as it may, it is the manner in which the statement made by the Courier de l’Europe appears to be confirmed that gives the whole theory its weight.

On December 2, 1876—dates are important factors in the evidence—Fontaine, the chief of the Paris police, received a very curious anonymous letter from Palermo. The writer began by saying that he had read in the Gazette de Leyde of September 25 an article taken from the Courier de l’Europe stating that the “famous Cagliostro was called Balsamo,” from which he gathered that the Balsamo referred to was the same who in 1773 had caused his wife to be shut up in Sainte Pélagie at Paris for having deserted him, and who had afterwards applied to the courts for her release. To confirm Fontaine in this opinion, he gave him in detail the history of this Balsamo’s career, which had been imparted to him on June 2 by the said Balsamo’s uncle, Antonio Braconieri, who was firmly convinced that his nephew, of whom he had heard nothing for some years, was none other than Cagliostro. As he learnt this the day after Cagliostro’s acquittal and release from the Bastille, the news of which could not have reached Palermo in less than a week, it proves that Braconieri’s conviction was formed long before the Press began to maintain it.

In fact the anonymous writer stated that this conviction was prevalent in Palermo as far back as the previous year, when the news arrived there of the arrest of Cagliostro in connection with the Diamond Necklace Affair.

He went on to say that he had personally ridiculed the report at the time, but having reflected on the grounds that Braconieri had given him for believing it “he had come to the conclusion that Count Cagliostro was Giuseppe Balsamo of Palermo or that Antonio Braconieri, his uncle, was a scoundrel worthy of being the uncle of M. le Comte de Cagliostro.” As it was not till November 2 that this somewhat ingenuous person sent anonymously to Fontaine the information he had received on June 2 from Braconieri, his reflections on the veracity of the latter, one suspects, were scarcely complimentary. However, such doubts as he might still have cherished were finally set at rest on October 31, when Antonio Braconieri met him in one of the chief thoroughfares of Palermo and showed him a Gazette de Florence which confirmed everything Braconieri had told him more than four months before. Hereupon, the anonymous individual, convinced at last beyond the shadow of a doubt that the “soi-disant Count Cagliostro was really Giuseppe Balsamo of Palermo,” decided to inform the chief of the Paris police of his discovery.

Such is the history of the proofs in favour of the Balsamo legend. Now to examine the proofs.

As the late M. Émile Campardon was the first to unearth this anonymous letter together with the official report upon it in the National Archives, and as his opinion is the one commonly accepted, it will be sufficient to quote what he has to say on the subject.

“The adventures,” he asks, “of Giuseppe Balsamo and those of Alessandro Cagliostro—do they belong to the history of the same career? Was the individual who had his wife shut up in Sainte Pélagie in 1773 the same who in 1786 protested so vehemently against the imprisonment of his wife?[3]

“Everything goes to prove it. The Countess Cagliostro was born in Rome; Balsamo’s wife was likewise a Roman. The maiden name of both was Feliciani.

“Madame Balsamo was married at fourteen; the Countess Cagliostro at the time of her marriage was still a child.

“Cagliostro stated at his trial that his wife did not know how to write; Madame Balsamo at her trial also declared she could not write.

“Her husband at any rate could. At the time of his petition against his wife Balsamo signed two documents which are still to be seen in the Archives. By comparing—as Fontaine had done—these two signatures with a letter written whilst in the Bastille by Cagliostro the experts declared the writing of Balsamo and that of Cagliostro to be identically the same.

“Furthermore, according to the statement of Antonio Braconieri, Balsamo had frequently written him under the name of Count Cagliostro. Nor had he invented the name, for Giuseppe Cagliostro of Messina, steward of the Prince of Villafranca, was Braconieri’s uncle, and consequently Giuseppe Balsamo’s great-uncle.

“If to these probabilities one adds certain minor resemblances—such as Cagliostro’s declaration that Cardinal Orsini and the Duke of Alba could vouch for the truth of the account he gave of himself, who were personages by whom Balsamo was known to have been employed; the fact that Cagliostro spoke the Sicilian dialect, and that Balsamo had employed magic in his swindling operations—it is scarcely credible that lives and characters so identical could belong to two different beings.”

The arguments in favour of this hypothesis are very plausible and apparently as convincing as such circumstantial evidence usually is. It is possible, however, as stated above, to question the accuracy of the conclusion thus reached for the following reasons.

(1) The basis of the supposition that the Countess Cagliostro and Madame Balsamo were the same rests entirely on coincidence.

Granted that both happened to be Romans, that the maiden name of both was Feliciani, that both were married extremely young, and that neither could write. The fact that both were Romans is no argument at all. Though their maiden name was Feliciani, it was a comparatively common one—there were several families of Feliciani in Rome, and for that matter all over Italy. Madame Balsamo’s father came from Calabria. Her Christian name was Lorenza. The statement that the Countess Cagliostro was likewise called Lorenza and changed her name to Seraphina, by which she was known, is based entirely on supposition. That both were married very young and that neither knew how to write, scarcely calls for comment. Italian women usually married in early girlhood, and very few, if any, of the class to which Seraphina Cagliostro and Lorenza Balsamo belonged could write.

SERAPHINIA FELICHIANI.

COMTESSE DE CAGLIOSTRO.

(From a very rare French print)

(2) The testimony of the experts as to the remarkable similarity between the writing of Balsamo and Cagliostro requires something more than an official statement to that effect to be convincing. At the time the experts made their report, the French Government were trying to silence the calumnies with which Marie Antoinette was being attacked by making the character of Cagliostro and others connected with the Necklace Affair appear as bad as possible. The Parisian police in the interest of the Monarchy, jumped at the opportunity of identifying the mysterious Cagliostro with the infamous Balsamo. The experts’ evidence is, to say the least, questionable.

(3) The fact that Giuseppe Balsamo had an uncle called Giuseppe Cagliostro is the strongest argument in favour of the identification theory. There is no reason to doubt Antonio Braconieri’s statement that he had received letters from his nephew signed “Count Cagliostro.” However, the writer of the anonymous letter declared that, desiring to prove Braconieri’s word as to the existence of Giuseppe Cagliostro of Messina, he discovered that there were two families of the name in that city. The prefix Cagli, moreover, is not unusual in Sicilian, Calabrian and Neapolitan names. The selection of it by Cagliostro as an incognito may have been accidental, or invented because of its peculiar cabalistic suggestion as suitable for the occult career on which he embarked, or it may have been suggested to him by some one of the name he had met when wandering about southern Italy. As his identification with Balsamo is based principally on coincidence, it is surely equally permissible to employ a coincidence as the basis of one of the many arguments in an attempt at refutation.

(4) As to the minor points of resemblance between Cagliostro and Balsamo given as “probabilities” for supposing them identical: in considering that Cagliostro used as references the names of Cardinal Orsini and the Duke of Alba, by whom Balsamo was known to have been employed at one time, the fantastic account he gave of himself at his trial should be remembered. One of the principal reasons for disbelieving him was the fact that these personages were dead and so unable to verify or deny his statement. Again, though the Sicilian dialect was undoubtedly Balsamo’s mother-tongue, no one could ever make out to what patois Cagliostro’s extraordinary abracadabra of accent belonged. But nothing can be weaker than to advance their use of magic and alchemy as a reason for identifying them. Magic and alchemy were the common stock-in-trade of every adventurer in Europe in the eighteenth century.

So much for criticism of the “official” proof.

There is, however, another reason for doubting the identity of the two men. It is the most powerful of all, and has hitherto apparently escaped the attention of those who have taken this singular theory of identification for granted.

Nobody that had known Balsamo ever saw Cagliostro.

The description of Balsamo’s features given by Antonio Braconieri resembles that which others have given of Cagliostro’s personal appearance as far as it goes. Unfortunately, it merely proves that both were short, had dark complexions, and peculiarly bright eyes. As for their noses, Braconieri described Balsamo’s as being écrasé; it is a much more forcible and unflattering term than has ever been applied to the by no means uncommon shape of Cagliostro’s nasal organ. There were many pictures of Cagliostro scattered over Europe at the time of the Necklace Affair. In Palermo, where the interest taken in him was great, few printsellers’ windows, one would imagine, but would have contained his portrait. Braconieri certainly is likely to have seen it; and had the resemblance to Balsamo been undeniable, he would surely have attached the greatest importance to it as a proof of the identity he desired to establish. As a matter of fact, he barely mentions it.

Again, one wonders why nobody who had known Balsamo ever made the least attempt to identify Cagliostro with him either at the time of the trial or when the articles in the Courier de l’Europe brought him a second time prominently before the public. Now Balsamo was known to have lived in London in 1771, when his conduct was so suspicious to the police that he deemed it advisable to leave the country. He and his wife accordingly went to Paris, and it was here that, in 1773, the events occurred which brought both prominently under the notice of the authorities. Six years after Balsamo’s disappearance from London, Count Cagliostro appeared in that city, and becoming involved with a set of swindlers in a manner that made him appear a fool rather than a knave, spent four months in the King’s Bench jail. How is it, one asks, that the London police, who “wanted” Giuseppe Balsamo, utterly failed to recognize him in the notorious Cagliostro?

Now granting that the police, as well as the persons whom Balsamo fleeced in London in 1771, had forgotten him in 1777, and that all who could have recognized him as Cagliostro in 1786, when the Courier de l’Europe exposed him, were dead, is it probable that the same coincidences would repeat themselves in Paris? If the Parisian police, who were doing their best to discover traces of Cagliostro’s antecedents in 1785 and 1786 had quite forgotten the Balsamo who brought the curious action against his wife in 1773, is it at all likely that the various people the Balsamos had known in their two-years’ residence in Paris would all have died in the meantime? People are always to be found to identify criminals and suspicious characters to whom the attention of the police is prominently drawn. But before the sort of Sherlock Holmes process of identification employed by the Courier de l’Europe and the Parisian police, not a soul was ever heard to declare that Cagliostro and Balsamo were the same.

******

To the reader who, knowing little or nothing of Cagliostro, takes up this book with an unbiassed mind, the above objections to the Balsamo legend may seem proof conclusive of its falsity. This would, however, be to go further than I, who attach much greater importance to these doubts than historians are inclined to do, care to admit. They merely show that it is neither right nor excusable to treat as a conviction what is purely a conjecture.

If this conclusion, wrapping as it does the origin and early life of Cagliostro once more in a veil of mystery, be accepted, it will go far to remove the prejudice which has hitherto made the answer to that other and more important question “What was Cagliostro?” so unsatisfactory.

CHAPTER II

GIUSEPPE BALSAMO

I

There could be no better illustration of the perplexities that confront the biographer of Cagliostro at every stage of his mysterious career than the uncertainty that prevails regarding the career of Giuseppe Balsamo himself. For rightly or wrongly, their identity has so long been taken for granted that the history of one has become indissolubly linked to that of the other.

Now, not only is it extremely difficult, when not altogether impossible, to verify the information we have concerning Balsamo, but the very integrity of those from whom the information is derived, is questionable. These tainted sources, so to speak, from which there meanders a confused and maze-like stream of contradictory details and unverifiable episodes, are (1) Balsamo’s wife, Lorenza, (2) the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe, and (3) the Inquisition-biographer of Cagliostro.

Lorenza’s statement is mainly the itinerary of the wanderings of herself and husband about Europe from their marriage to her imprisonment in Paris in 1773. Such facts as it purports to give as to the character of their wanderings are very meagre, and coloured so as to depict her in a favourable light. The dossier containing the particulars of her arrest is in the Archives of Paris, where it was discovered by the French Government in 1786, and where it is still to be seen. Query: considering the suspicious circumstances that led to its discovery, is the dossier a forgery?

Opposed to the evidence of the Courier de l’Europe are the character, secret motives, and avowed enmity of the Editor.

As to the life of Balsamo,[4] published anonymously in Rome in 1791, under the auspices of the Inquisition, into whose power Cagliostro had fallen, the tone of hostility in which it is written, excessive even from an ultra-Catholic point of view, its lack of precision, and the absence of dates which makes it impossible to verify its statements, have caused critics of every shade of opinion, to consider it partially, if not wholly, unauthenticated.

It purports to be the confession of Cagliostro, extracted either by torture or the fear of torture, during his trial by the Inquisition. That Cagliostro did indeed “confess” is quite likely. But what sort of value could such a confession possibly have? The manner in which the Inquisition conducted its trials has rendered its verdicts suspect the world over. His condemnation was decided on from the very start, as the charge on which he was arrested proves—as will be shown in due course—and to escape torture, perhaps also in the hope of acquittal, Cagliostro was ready enough to oblige his terrible judges and “confess” whatever they wished.

It is, moreover, a question whether the adventures related in the Vie de Joseph Balsamo are those of one or of several persons. As it is quite inconceivable that the Cagliostro of the Necklace Affair could ever have been the very ordinary adventurer here depicted, it has been suggested—and there is much to support the view—that Giuseppe Balsamo, as known to history, is a sort of composite individual manufactured out of all the rogues of whom the Inquisition-writer had any knowledge.

One thing, however, may be confidently asserted: whether the exploits of Giuseppe Balsamo were partially or wholly his, imaginary or real, they are at any rate typical of the adventurer of the age.

Like Cagliostro, he boasted a noble origin, and never failed on the various occasions of changing his name to give himself a title. There is, however, no reason to suppose that he was in any way related to, or even aware of the existence of the aristocratic family of the same name who derived their title from the little town of Balsamo near Monza in the Milanese. As a matter of fact the name was a fairly common one in Italy, and the Balsamos of Palermo were of no consequence whatever. Nothing is known of Giuseppe’s father, beyond the fact that he was a petty tradesman who became bankrupt, and died at the age of forty-five, a few months after the birth of his son. Pietro Balsamo was thought to be of mixed Jewish and Moorish extraction, which would account for his obscurity and the slight esteem in which his name was held in Palermo, where the Levantines were the scum of the population.

Such scant consideration as the family may have enjoyed was due entirely to Giuseppe’s mother, who though of humble birth was of good, honest Sicilian stock. Through her he could at least claim to have had a great-grandfather, one Matteo Martello, whom it has been supposed Cagliostro had in mind when in his fantastic account of himself at the time of the Necklace Affair he claimed to be descended from Charles Martel, the founder of the Carlovingian dynasty. This Matteo Martello had two daughters, the youngest of whom Vincenza married Giuseppe Cagliostro of Messina, whose name and relationship to Giuseppe Balsamo is the chief argument in the attempt to prove the identity of the latter with Cagliostro. Vincenza’s elder sister married Giuseppe Braconieri and had three children, Felice, Matteo, and Antonio Braconieri. The former was Giuseppe’s mother. He had also a sister older than himself, Maria, who became the wife of Giovanni Capitummino. On the death of her husband she returned with her children to live with her mother, all of whom Goethe met when in Palermo in 1787.

The poverty in which Pietro Balsamo died obliged his widow to appeal to her brother for assistance. Fortunately they were in a position and willing to come to her relief. Matteo, the elder, was chief clerk in the post-office at Palermo; while Antonio was bookkeeper in the firm of J. F. Aubert & Co. Both brothers, as well as their sister, appear to have been deeply religious, and it is not unlikely that the severity and repression to which Giuseppe was continually subjected may have fostered the spirit of rebellion, already latent in him, which was to turn him into the blackguard he became.

It manifested itself at an early age. From the Seminary of San Rocco, where he received his first schooling, he ran away several times. As the rod, which appears to have played an important part in the curriculum of the seminary, failed to produce the beneficial results that are supposed to ensue from its frequent application, his uncles, anxious to get rid of so troublesome a charge, decided to confide the difficult task of coaxing or licking him into shape to the Benfratelli of Cartegirone. Giuseppe was accordingly enrolled as a novice in this brotherhood, whose existence was consecrated to the healing of the sick, and placed under the supervision of the Convent-Apothecary. He was at the time thirteen.

According to the Inquisition-biographer, it was in the laboratory of the convent that Cagliostro learnt “the principles of chemistry and medicine” which he afterwards practised with such astonishing results. If so, he must have been gifted with remarkable aptitude, which both his conduct and brief sojourn at Cartegirone belie. For whatever hopes his mother and uncles may have founded on the effect of this pious environment were soon dispelled. He had not been long in the convent before he manifested his utter distaste for the life of a Brother of Mercy. Naturally insubordinate and bold he determined to escape; but as experience had taught him at the Seminary of San Rocco that running away merely resulted in being thrashed and sent back, and as he had neither the means nor the desire to go anywhere save home to Palermo, he cunningly cast about in his mind to obtain his release from the Brothers themselves. This was not easy to accomplish, but in spite of the severe punishment his wilfully idle and refractory conduct entailed he was persistent and finally succeeded in wearing out the patience of the long-suffering monks.

From the manner in which he attained his object Carlyle detects in him a “touch of grim humour—or deep world-irony, as the Germans call it—the surest sign, as is often said, of a character naturally great.” It was a universal custom in all religious associations that one of their number during meals should read aloud to the others passages from the Lives of the Saints. This dull and unpopular task having one day been allotted to Giuseppe—probably as a punishment—he straightway proceeded, careless of the consequences, to read out whatever came into his head, substituting for the names of the Saints those of the most notable courtezans of Palermo. The effect of this daring sacrilege was dire and immediate. With fist and foot the scandalized monks instantly fell upon the boy and having belaboured him, as the saying is, within an inch of his life, indignantly packed him back to Palermo as hopelessly incorrigible and utterly unworthy of ever becoming a Benfratello.

No fatted calf, needless to say, was killed to celebrate the return of the prodigal. But Giuseppe having gained his object, took whatever chastisement he received from his mother and uncles philosophically, and left them to swallow their mortification as best they could. However, sorely tried though they were, they did not even now wash their hands of him. Somehow—just how it would be difficult to say—one forms a vague idea he was never without a plausible excuse for his conduct. Adventurers, even the lowest, more or less understand the art of pleasing; and many little things seem to indicate that with all his viciousness his disposition was not unattractive. On the contrary there is much in the character of his early villainies to suggest his powers of persuasion were considerable.

Thus, after his expulsion from Cartegirone the Inquisition-biographer tells us that he took lessons in drawing for which, no doubt, he must have given some proof of talent and inclination. Far, however, from showing any disposition to conform to the wishes of his uncles, who for his mother’s sake, if not for his own, continued to take an interest in him, the boy rapidly went from bad to worse. As neither reproof nor restraint produced any effect on his headstrong and rebellious nature he appears to have been permitted to run wild, perhaps because he had reached an age when it was no longer possible to control his actions. Nor were the acquaintances he formed of the sort to counteract a natural tendency to viciousness. He was soon hand in glove with all the worst characters of the town.

“There was no fight or street brawl,” says the indignant Inquisition-biographer, “in which he was not involved, no theft of which he was not suspected. The band of young desperadoes to which he belonged frequently came into collision with the night-watch, whose prisoners, if any, they would attempt to set free. Even the murder of a canon was attributed to him by the gossips of the town.”

In a word Giuseppe Balsamo became a veritable “Apache” destined seemingly sooner or later for the galleys or the gallows. Such a character, it goes without saying, could not fail to attract the notice of the police. He more than once saw the inside of the Palermo jail; but from lack of sufficient proof, or from the nature of the charge against him, or owing to the intercession of his estimable uncles, as often as he was arrested he was let off again.

Even his drawing-lessons, while they lasted, were perverted to the most ignoble ends. To obtain the money he needed he began, like all thieves, with petty thefts from his relations. One of his uncles was his first victim. In a similar way he derived profit from a love-affair between his sister and a cousin. As their parents put obstacles in the way of their meeting Giuseppe offered to act as go-between. In a rash moment they accepted his aid, and he profited by the occasion to substitute forged letters in the place of those he undertook to deliver, by means of which he got possession of the presents the unsuspecting lovers were induced to exchange. Encouraged by the skill he displayed in imitating hand-writing and copying signatures—which seems to have been the extent of his talent for drawing—he turned it to account in other and more profitable ways. Somehow—perhaps by hints dropped by himself in the right quarter—his proficiency in this respect, and his readiness to give others the benefit of it for a consideration, got known. From forging tickets to the theatre for his companions, he was employed to forge leave-of-absence passes for monks, and even to forge a will in favour of a certain Marquis Maurigi, by which a religious institution was defrauded of a large legacy.

There is another version of this affair which the Inquisition-writer has naturally ignored, and from which it would appear that it was the marquis who was defrauded of the legacy by the religious institution. But be this trifling detail as it may, the fact remains that the forgery was so successfully effected that it was not discovered till several years later, when some attempt was made to bring Balsamo to justice, which the impossibility of ascertaining whether he was alive or dead, rendered abortive.

Such sums of money, however, as he obtained in this way must of necessity have been small. It could only have been in copper that his “Apache” friends and the monks paid him for the theatre-tickets and convent-passes he forged for them. Nor was the notary by whom he was employed to forge the will, and who, we are told, was a relation, likely to be much more liberal. In Palermo then, as to-day, scores of just such youths as Giuseppe Balsamo were to be found ready to perform any villainy for a fifty centime piece. He accordingly sought other means of procuring the money he needed and as none, thanks to his compatriots’ notorious credulity, was likely to prove so remunerative as an appeal to their love of the marvellous, he had recourse to what was known as “sorcery.”

It is to the questionable significance attached to this word that the prejudice against Cagliostro, whose wonders were attributed to magic, has been very largely due. For it is only of comparatively recent date that “sorcery” so-called has ceased to be anathema, owing to the belated investigations of science, which is always, and perhaps with reason, suspicious of occult phenomena, by which the indubitable existence of certain powers—as yet only partially explained—active in some, passive in others, and perhaps latent in all human beings, has been revealed. And even still, so great is the force of tradition, many judging from the frauds frequently perpetrated by persons claiming to possess these secret powers, regard with suspicion, if not with downright contempt, all that is popularly designated as sorcery, magic, or witchcraft.

But this is not the place to discuss the methods by which those who work miracles obtain their results. Suffice it to say, there has been from time immemorial a belief in the ability of certain persons to control the forces of nature. Nowhere is this belief stronger than in Sicily. There the “sorcerer” is as common as the priest; not a village but boasts some sibyl, seer, or wonder-worker. That all are not equally efficient, goes without saying. Some possess remarkable powers, which they themselves would probably be unable to explain. Others, like Giuseppe Balsamo, are only able to deceive very simple or foolish people easy to deceive.

From the single instance cited of Giuseppe’s skill in this direction one infers his magical gifts were of the crystal-gazing, sand-divination kind—the ordinary kind with which everybody is more or less familiar, if only by name. According to the Inquisition-biographer, “one day whilst he and his companions were idling away the time together the conversation having turned upon a certain girl whom they all knew, one of the number wondered what she was doing at that moment, whereupon Giuseppe immediately offered to gratify him. Marking a square on the ground he made some passes with his hands above it, after which the figure of the girl was seen in the square playing at tressette with three of her friends.” So great was the effect of this exhibition of clairvoyance, thought-transference, hypnotic suggestion, what you will, upon the amazed Apaches that they went at once to look for the girl and “found her in the same attitude playing the very game and with the very persons that Balsamo had shown them.”

The fact that such phenomena are of quite common occurrence and to be witnessed any day in large cities and summer-resorts on payment of fees, varying according to the renown of the performer, has robbed them if not of their attraction at least of their wonder. One has come to take them for granted. Whatever may be the scientific explanation of such occult—the word must serve for want of a better—power as Giuseppe possessed, he himself, we may be sure, would only have been able to account for it as “sorcery.” He was not likely to be a whit less superstitious than the people with whom he associated. Indeed, his faith in the efficacy of the magic properties attributed by vulgar superstition to sacred things would appear to have been greater than his faith in his own supernatural powers.

It is reported of him on one occasion that “under pretext of curing his sister, who he said was possessed of a devil, he obtained from a priest in the country a little cotton dipped in holy oil,” to which, doubtless, he attached great importance as the means of successfully performing some wonder he had no confidence in his own powers to effect. Such cryptic attributes as he had been endowed with must have been very slight, or undeveloped, for there is no reference whatever to the marvellous in the swindles of his subsequent history in which one would expect him to have employed it. Very probably whatever magnetic, hypnotic, or telepathic faculty he possessed was first discovered by the apothecary under whom he was placed in the laboratory at Cartegirone, who, like all of his kind, no doubt, experimented in alchemy and kindred sciences. If so, he certainly did not stay long enough with the Benfratelli to turn his mysterious talent to account or to obtain more than the merest glimpse of the “sorcery,” of which, though banned by the Church, the monasteries were the secret nursery.

Be this as it may, needless to say those who had witnessed Giuseppe’s strange phenomenon required no further proof of his marvellous power, which rapidly noised abroad and exaggerated by rumour gave the young “sorcerer” a reputation he only wanted an opportunity of exploiting for all it was worth. How long he waited for this opportunity is not stated, but he was still in his teens when it eventually turned up in the person of a “certain ninny of a goldsmith named Marano,” whose superstition, avarice, and gullibility made him an easy dupe.

One day in conversation with this man, who had been previously nursed to the proper pitch of cupidity, as one nurses a constituency before an election, Giuseppe informed him under pledge of the strictest secrecy that he knew of a certain cave not far from Palermo, in which a great treasure was buried. According to a superstition prevalent in Sicily, where belief in such treasure was common, it was supposed to be guarded by demons, and as it would be necessary to hire a priest to exorcize them, Giuseppe offered to take Marano to the spot and assist him in lifting the hidden wealth for the consideration of “sixty ounces of gold.”[5]

Whatever objection Marano might have had to part with such a sum was overcome by the thought of gaining probably a hundred times as much. He accordingly paid the money and set out one night with Giuseppe, the priest, and another man who was in the secret. On arriving at the cave, preparatory to the ceremony of exorcism, the priest proceeded to evoke the demons, which was done with due solemnity by means of magic circles and symbols drawn upon the ground, incantations in Latin, et cetera. Suddenly hideous noises were heard, there was a flash and splutter of blue fire, and the air was filled with sulphur. Marano, who was waiting in the greatest terror for the materialization of the powers of darkness, in which he firmly believed, and who, he had been told, on such occasions sometimes got beyond the control of the exorcist, was commanded to dig where he stood. But scarcely had his spade struck the ground when the demons themselves appeared with shrieks and yells—some goat-herds hired for the occasion, as horrible as paint, burnt cork, and Marano’s terrified imagination could paint them—and fell upon the wretched man. Whereupon Giuseppe and his confederates took to their heels, leaving their dupe in a fit on the ground.

Fool that he was, it did not take the goldsmith on recovering his senses long to discover that he had been victimized. Indifferent to the ridicule to which he exposed himself he lost no time in bringing an action against Giuseppe for the recovery of the money of which he had been defrauded, swearing at the same time to have the life of the swindler as well. Under such circumstances Palermo was no longer a safe place for the sorcerer, and taking time by the forelock he fled.

II

At this stage in Balsamo’s career even the Inquisition-biographer ceases to vouch for the accuracy of what he relates.

“Henceforth,” he confesses, “we are obliged to accept Cagliostro’s own assertions”—wrung from him in the torture chamber of the Castle of St. Angelo, be it remembered—“without the means of verifying them, as no further trace of his doings is to be found elsewhere.”

Considering that accuracy, to which no importance has been attached in all previous books on Cagliostro, is the main object of this, after such a statement the continuation of Balsamo’s history would appear to be superfluous. Apart, however, from their romantic interest, Balsamo’s subsequent adventures are really an aid to accuracy. For the character of the man as revealed by them will be found to be so dissimilar to Cagliostro’s as to serve more forcibly than any argument to prove how slight are the grounds for identifying the two.

By relating what befell Balsamo on fleeing from Palermo one may judge, from the very start, of the sort of faith to be placed in his Inquisition-biographer. In Cagliostro’s own account of his life—which will be duly reported in its proper place—his statements in regard to the “noble Althotas,” that remarkable magician by whom he avowed he was brought up, were regarded as absolutely ridiculous. Nevertheless for the sole purpose apparently of proving Cagliostro’s identity with Balsamo the Inquisition-biographer drags this individual whose very existence is open to doubt into the life of the latter, and unblushingly plunges the two into those fabulous and ludicrous adventures, of which the description caused so much mirth at the time of the Necklace Affair.

Thus the imaginative Inquisition-biographer declares it was at Messina, whither he went on leaving Palermo, that Balsamo met the “noble Althotas,” whose power “to dematerialize himself” was, to judge from the last occasion on which he was reported to have been seen in the flesh at Malta, only another way of saying that he was clever in evading the police. But as Balsamo after having “overrun the whole earth” with Althotas emerges once more into something like reality at Naples, in the company of the renegade priest who had assisted in the fleecing of Marano, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this city and not Messina was his immediate destination on leaving Palermo.

He did not stay long, however, at Naples. Owing either to a quarrel with the priest over their ill-gotten funds, or to a hint from the police whose suspicions his conduct aroused, he went to Rome. The statement that on his arrival he presented a letter of introduction from the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta—one of his adventures with Althotas—to the Baron de Bretteville, the envoy from Malta to the Holy See, by whom in turn he was introduced to Cardinals York and Orsini, is scarcely worth refuting. For if the Palermo Apache ever entered the salon of a Roman noble it could of course only have been via the escalier de service.

The Inquisition-biographer, however, quickly reduces him to a situation much more in keeping with his character and condition. “Not long,” he says, “after his arrival in Rome, Balsamo was sentenced to three days in jail for quarrelling with one of the waiters at the sign of the Sun, where he lodged.” On his release, he was, as is highly probable forced to live by his wits, and instead of consorting with Cardinals and diplomatists turned his attention to drawing. But as his talent in this respect appears to have been as limited as his knowledge of the occult, it is not surprising that the revenue he derived from the sketches he copied, or from old prints, freshened up and passed off as originals, was precarious.

Love, however, is the great consoler of poverty. About this time Balsamo conceived a violent passion for Lorenza Feliciani, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a “smelter of copper” who lived in an alley close to the Church of the Trinita de’ Pellegrini—one of the poorest quarters of Rome. Marriage followed the love-making, and Lorenza, in spite of her tender years, in due course became his wife. This event—which is one of the few authenticated ones in Balsamo’s career—took place in “April 1769 in the Church of San Salvatore in Campo.”

As the sale of her husbands pen-and-ink sketches, which in Lorenza’s estimation at least were “superb,” was not remunerative at the best of times, the young couple made their home at first with the bride’s parents. And now for perhaps the only time in his life a decent and comfortable existence was open to Balsamo. He had a young and, according to all accounts, a beautiful wife, whom he loved and by whom he was loved; he had a home, and the chance of adopting his father-in-law’s more lucrative, if less congenial, trade—of settling down, in a word, and turning over a new leaf. But he was a born blackguard and under the circumstances it is not surprising that he should have had the nostalgie de la boue. In other words his Apache nature asserted itself, and he had no sooner married than he proceeded with revolting cynicism to turn his wife’s charms to account.

But Lorenza, being at this stage of her career as innocent as she was ignorant, very naturally objected to his odious proposal. By dint, however, of persuasion and argument he finally succeeded in indoctrinating her with his views, to the great indignation of her parents, who, scandalized by such conduct, after frequent altercations finally turned the couple out of the house. Whereupon Lorenza decided to abandon any remaining scruples she had and assist her husband to the best of her ability.

Among the acquaintances they made in this way were two Sicilians of the worst character, Ottavio Nicastro, who finished on the gallows, and a self-styled Marquis Agliata. The latter being an accomplished forger was not long in discovering a similar talent in the husband of Lorenza, by whose charms he had been smitten. He accordingly proposed to take him into partnership, a proposition which Balsamo was ready enough to accept. Nicastro, however, feeling himself slighted by the close intimacy between the two, from which he was excluded, informed the police of their doings; but as he was foolish enough to quarrel with them beforehand, they suspected his intention, and defeated it by a hurried flight.

If Lorenza is to be believed, their intention was to go to Germany, and it was perhaps with this end in view that Agliata had, as the Inquisition-biographer asserts, previously forged the brevet of a Prussian colonelcy for Balsamo. At any rate, once out of the Papal States they proceeded very leisurely, swindling right and left as they went. At Loretto they obtained “fifty sequins” from the governor of the town by means of a forged letter of introduction from Cardinal Orsini. In this way they got as far as Bergamo, where the crafty Agliata decided to adopt different tactics. He accordingly gave out that he was a recruiting agent of the King of Prussia; but by some chance the suspicions of the authorities were aroused, whereupon Agliata, having somehow got wind of the fact, without more ado decamped, leaving the Balsamos to shift for themselves. Scarcely had he gone when the sbirri arrived to arrest him. Not finding him, they seized the Balsamos as his accomplices; they, however, succeeded in clearing themselves, and on being released were ordered to leave the town. As Agliata had gone off with all the money, they were obliged to sell their effects to obey this injunction; and not daring to return to Rome, they proceeded to Milan, where they arrived almost destitute.

Beggary was now their only means of existence, but even beggary may be profitable providing one knows how to beg. According to the Countess de Lamotte, who spoke from experience, there was “only one way of asking alms, and that was in a carriage.” In fine, “to get on” as a beggar, as in every profession, requires ability. It is the kind of ability with which Balsamo was abundantly gifted. Aware that the pilgrims he saw wandering about Italy from shrine to shrine subsisted on wayside charity, he conceived the ingenious expedient of imitating them. As the objective of this expiatory vagabondage he selected St. James of Compostella, one of the most popular shrines at the time in Christendom, and consequently one to which a pilgrimage might most easily be exploited.

So setting out from Milan, staff in hand, mumbling paternosters, fumbling their beads, begging their way from village to village, from presbytery to presbytery, and constantly on the alert for any chance of improving their condition, the couple took the road to Spain. Of this tour along the Riviera to Barcelona, where the “pilgrimage” ended, Lorenza, on being arrested three years later in Paris, gave an account which the Inquisition-biographer has embellished, and which in one particular at least has been verified by no less a person than Casanova.

As it happened, this prince of adventurers—who in obedience to a time-honoured convention is never mentioned in print, by English writers bien entendu, without condemnation, though in private conversation people wax eloquent enough over him—was himself wandering about the South of France at the time. Arriving in Aix-en-Provence in 1770, he actually stopped in the same inn as the Balsamos, who excited his curiosity by their lavish distribution of alms to the poor of the town. Being a man who never missed a single opportunity of improving any acquaintance that chance might throw in his way, he called upon the couple, and recorded his impression in those fascinating Memoirs of his, of which the authenticity is now fully established and, what is more to the point, of which all the details have been verified.[6]

“I found the female pilgrim,” he says, “seated in a chair looking like a person exhausted with fatigue, and interesting by reason of her youth and beauty, singularly heightened by a touch of melancholy and by a crucifix of yellow metal six inches long which she held in her hand. Her companion, who was arranging shells on his coat of black baize, made no movement—he appeared to intimate by the looks he cast at his wife I was to attend to her alone.”

From the manner in which Lorenza conducted herself on this occasion she appears to have had remarkable aptitude for acting the rôle her husband had given her.

“We are going on foot,” she said in answer to Casanova’s questions, “living on charity the better to obtain the mercy of God, whom I have so often offended. Though I ask only a sou in charity, people always give me pieces of silver and gold”—a hint Casanova did not take—“so that arriving at a town we have to distribute to the poor all that remains to us, in order not to commit the sin of losing confidence in the Eternal Providence.”

Whatever doubts Casanova may have had as to her veracity, the Inquisition-biographer most certainly had none. He declares that the “silver and gold” of which she and her husband were so lavish at Aix was a shameful quid pro quo obtained from some officers at Antibes whom she had fascinated.

Unfortunately there is no Casanova at Antibes to verify him or to follow them to London via Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon. Lorenza is very explicit as to where they went on leaving Aix, and as to the time they remained in the various places they visited. The Inquisition-biographer, faute de mieux, is obliged to confirm her itinerary, but he has his revenge by either denying everything else she says, or by putting the worst construction upon it. At all events, between them one gets the impression that the pilgrims, for some reason or other, abandoned their pilgrimage before reaching the shrine of St. James of Compostella; that Lorenza was probably more truthful than she meant to be when she says they left Lisbon “because the climate was too hot for her”; and that however great the quantity of “silver and gold” she was possessed of at Aix, she and her husband had divested themselves of most of it by the time they reached London.

As to the character of their adventures by the way, it bears too close a resemblance to those already related to be worth describing.

III

The Editor of the Courier de l’Europe—which journal, as previously stated, was published in London—is the authority for the information concerning the Balsamos in England. He ferreted out or concocted this information fourteen years later; and, as quite apart from his motives, no one of the people he refers to as having known the Balsamos in 1772 came forward to corroborate what he said or to identify them with the Cagliostros, it is impossible to verify his evidence. From the fact, however, that it was commonly accepted at the time, and is still regarded as substantially trustworthy, entirely because Cagliostro absolutely denied any knowledge of the Balsamos, the reader may judge at once of the bitterness of the prejudice against Cagliostro as well as of the value to be attached to such “proof.”

According to the Courier de l’Europe, Balsamo and his wife arrived in London from Lisbon in 1771, and after living for a while in Leadenhall Street moved to New Compton Street, Soho. They were, we are told, in extreme poverty, which Lorenza—to whom vice had long ceased to be repugnant—endeavoured to alleviate by the most despicable expedients. As she had but indifferent success, Balsamo, having quarrelled with a painter and decorator by name of Pergolezzi, by whom he had for a few days been employed, assisted her in the infamous rôle of blackmailer.

Their most profitable victim appears to have been “a Quaker,” who, in spite of the rigorous standard of morality prescribed by the sect to which he belonged, occasionally deigned to make some secret concession to the weakness of human nature. Decoyed by Lorenza, this individual was discovered by her husband in so compromising a situation that nothing short of the payment of one hundred pounds could mollify Balsamo’s feigned indignation and avert the disgrace with which he threatened the erring and terrified disciple of William Penn.

Their ill-gotten gains, however, did not last long; and while Lorenza promenaded the streets in the vain quest for other victims, Balsamo was once more obliged to have recourse to his artistic talents. But Fortune remained hostile, and even went out of her way to vent her spite on the couple. For a certain Dr. Moses Benamore, described as “the envoy of the King of Barbary,” was induced to purchase some of Balsamo’s drawings, payment of which the artist was obliged to seek in the courts. The case, however, was decided against him, and since, after paying the costs to which he was condemned, he was unable to pay his rent, his landlord promptly had him arrested for debt.

To extricate him from this predicament, Lorenza adopted tactics which, according to the Inquisition-biographer, had proved effective under similar circumstances in Barcelona. Instead of endeavouring to excite admiration in the streets, she now sought to stir the compassion of the devout. Every day she was to be seen on her knees in some church or other, with a weather-eye open for some gullible dupe whilst she piously mumbled her prayers. In this way she managed to attract the attention of the charitable Sir Edward Hales, or as she calls him “Sir Dehels,” who not only procured Balsamo’s release from jail, but on the strength of his pen-and-ink sketches employed him to decorate the ceilings of some rooms at his country-seat near Canterbury—a task for which he had not the least qualification. Four months later, after ruining his ceilings, “Sir Dehels” caught his rascally protégé making love to his daughter, whereupon the Balsamos deemed it advisable to seek another country to exploit.

IV

Fortune, like Nature, is non-moral. If proof of so palpable a fact where required no more suitable example could be cited than the good luck that came to the Balsamos at the very moment they least deserved it.

Leaving England as poor as when they entered it, they found whilst crossing the Channel between Dover and Calais, if not exactly a fortune, what was to prove no mean equivalent in the person of a certain M. Duplessis de la Radotte. This gentleman, formerly an official in India, had on its evacuation by the French found an equally lucrative post in his native country as agent of the Marquis de Prie. Very susceptible to beauty, as Lorenza was quick to detect, he no sooner beheld her on the deck of the Dover packet than he sought her acquaintance. Lorenza, one imagines, must have been not only particularly attractive and skilled by considerable practice in the art of attraction, but a very good sailor; for in the short space of the Channel crossing she so far succeeded in captivating Duplessis that on reaching Calais he offered her a seat in his carriage to Paris. Needless to say, it was not the sort of offer she was likely to refuse; and while her husband trotted behind on horseback she turned her opportunity to such account that Duplessis was induced to invite both the husband and wife to be his guests in Paris.

But to cut a long story short: as the result of the acceptance of this invitation Duplessis after a time quarrelled with Balsamo and persuaded Lorenza to leave her husband and live under his “protection.” This was not at all to Balsamo’s taste, and he appealed to the courts for redress. He won his case, and Lorenza, according to the law in such matters, was arrested and imprisoned in Sainte Pélagie, the most famous—or infamous—penitentiary for women in France during the eighteenth century.

******

This event occurred in 1773, if the dossier discovered in the French Archives in 1783, which contains the statement Lorenza made at the time, is to be regarded as authentic. That none of the numerous people referred to in the dossier with whom the Balsamos were very closely connected should have come forward during the Necklace Affair and identified Cagliostro, lays the genuineness of this celebrated document open to doubt. Is it likely that all these people had died in the fourteen years that elapsed? If not, why did not those who still lived attempt to satisfy the boundless curiosity that the mysterious Cagliostro excited? He could not have changed out of all recognition during this period, for according to Goethe, in Palermo those who remembered Balsamo discovered, or thought they discovered, a likeness to him in the published portraits of Cagliostro. In any case, however much Cagliostro’s appearance may have changed, his wife’s most certainly had not. At thirty the Countess Cagliostro possessed the freshness of a girl of twenty. Had she been Lorenza Balsamo, she would have been very quickly recognized.

******

But from these doubts which shake one’s faith, not only in the dossier to which so much importance has been attached, but in the Balsamo legend itself, let us return to the still more unauthenticated doings of our adventurers.

It was not long before Balsamo repented of his vengeance. On his intercession his wife was released, and shortly afterwards, to avoid arrest on his own score, the couple disappeared. The Inquisition-biographer states vaguely that they went to “Brussels and Germany.” But it is not a matter of any importance. A few months later, however, Giuseppe Balsamo most unquestionably reappeared in his native city, where he astonished all his kindred, to whom alone he made himself known, by the splendour in which he returned.

Somewhere in the interval between his flight from Paris and his arrival in Palermo he had metamorphosed himself into a Marchese Pellegrini, and by the aid of Lorenza picked up a prince. Never before had they been so flush. The Marchese Pellegrini had his carriage and valet, one “Laroca,” a Neapolitan barber, who afterwards started business on his own account as an adventurer. The “Marchesa” had her prince and his purse, and what was to prove of even greater value, his influence to draw upon. For a while, indeed, so great was his luck, Balsamo even had thoughts of settling down and living on the fortune Lorenza had plucked from her prince. He actually hired a house on the outskirts of Palermo with this intention. But he counted without Marano, that “ninny of a goldsmith,” from whose vengeance he had fled years before. For Marano was still living, and no sooner did he become aware that the boy who had made such a fool of him in the old treasure-digging business was once more in Palermo than he had him seized and clapt into prison.

The matter, no doubt, must have had very serious consequences for the Marchese Pellegrini had it not been for the powerful interest of Lorenza’s prince. As this episode in Balsamo’s career is one of the very few concerning which the information is authentic, it is worth while describing.

“The manner of his escape,” says Goethe, who was told what he relates by eye-witnesses, “deserves to be described. The son of one of the first Sicilian princes and great landed proprietors, who had, moreover, filled important posts at the Neapolitan Court, was a person that united with a strong body and ungovernable temper all the tyrannical caprice which the rich and great, without cultivation, think themselves entitled to exhibit.

“Donna Lorenza had contrived to gain this man, and on him the fictitious Marchese Pellegrini founded his security. The prince had testified openly that he was the protector of this strange pair, and his fury may be imagined when Giuseppe Balsamo, at the instance of the man he had cheated, was cast into prison. He tried various means to deliver him, and as these would not prosper, he publicly, in the President’s ante-chamber, threatened Marano’s lawyer with the frightfullest misusage if the suit were not dropped and Balsamo forthwith set at liberty. As the lawyer declined such a proposal he clutched him, beat him, threw him on the floor, trampled him with his feet, and could hardly be restrained from still further outrages, when the President himself came running out at the tumult and commanded peace.

“This latter, a weak, dependent man, made no attempt to punish the injurer; Marano and his lawyer grew fainthearted, and Balsamo was let go. There was not so much as a registration in the court books specifying his dismissal, who occasioned it, or how it took place.

“The Marchese Pellegrini,” Goethe adds, “quickly thereafter left Palermo, and performed various travels, whereof I could obtain no clear information.”

Nor apparently could anybody else, for on leaving Palermo this time the Balsamos vanished as completely as if they had ceased to exist. The Courier de l’Europe and the Inquisition-biographer, however, were not to be dismayed by any such trifling gap in the chain of evidence they set themselves to string together. Unable to discover the least trace of Balsamo, they seized upon two or three other swindlers, who may or may not have been the creations of their distracted imagination, and boldly labelled them Balsamo.

Lorenza’s honest copper-smelting father and brother are dragged from Rome to join in the swindling operations of herself and husband. The brother is whisked off with them to Malta and Spain, where he is abandoned as an incubus, apparently because he objected to exploit his good looks after the manner of his sister. Then, as it is necessary in some way to account for Cagliostro’s occult powers, Balsamo suddenly takes up the study of alchemy, and in the moments he snatches from the preparation of “beauty salves” and “longevity pills,” picks an occasional pocket.

But the most bare-faced of all these problematic Balsamos is the Don Tiscio one, for whose existence “Dr.” Sacchi is responsible. Of Sacchi, be it said, nothing is known to his credit. Having some knowledge of surgery, and being in very low water, he appealed for assistance to Cagliostro, who found some work for him in his private hospital at Strasburg. But within a week he was dismissed for misconduct. Hereupon Sacchi published a book, or was said to have done so—for no one apparently but the Countess de Lamotte’s counsel in the Necklace Trial ever saw it—in which he denounced Cagliostro as a swindler by name of Don Tiscio who had adorned the pillory in Spain, and suffered other punishments of a kind Sacchi preferred not to mention. Notwithstanding, though no credence was attached to this statement when cited by the Countess de Lamotte, it was raked up again by the Courier de l’Europe with the addition that Balsamo now becomes Sacchi’s Don Tiscio.

Thus, after having been forger, swindler, blackmailer, souteneur, quack, pickpocket—all of the commonest type—Balsamo, on the word of a disreputable Sacchi, supported by a few singular coincidences, is saved without rhyme or reason from the gallows in Cadiz, on which he very probably perished, in order to be brought back to London as Count Cagliostro, a highly accomplished charlatan and past-master in wonder-working. An improbability that even the Inquisition-biographer is unable to pass over in silence.

“How,” he exclaims in amazement, “could such a man without either physical or intellectual qualities, devoid of education, connections, or even the appearance of respectability, whose very language was a barbarous dialect—how could he have succeeded as he did?”

How, indeed! The transformation is obviously so improbable that the puzzled reader will very likely come to the conclusion that, whoever Cagliostro may have been, he could certainly never have been Giuseppe Balsamo.

But enough of speculation; let us now turn our belated attention to the man whose career under the impenetrable incognito of Count Cagliostro is the subject of this book.

PART II

CHAPTER I

CAGLIOSTRO IN LONDON

I

Some time in July 1776—the exact date is unascertainable—two foreigners of unmistakable respectability, to judge by their appearance, if not of distinction, arrived in London and engaged a suite of furnished apartments in Whitcombe Street, Leicester Fields. They called themselves Count and Countess Cagliostro; and their landlady, who lost no time in letting everybody in the house, as well as her neighbours, know she had people of title as lodgers, added that she believed they were Italian, though so far as she could understand from the Count’s very broken English they had last come from Portugal. A day or two later she was able to inform her gossips, which no doubt she did with even greater satisfaction, that her foreign lodgers were not only titled but undoubtedly rich, for the Countess had very fine jewels and the Count was engaged in turning one of the rooms he had rented into a laboratory, as he intended to devote himself to the study of physics and chemistry, subjects, it seemed, in which he was keenly interested.

Their first visitor was a Madame Blevary, a lady in reduced circumstances who lodged in the same house. Hearing they had come from Portugal, and being herself a native of that country, she sought their acquaintance in the hope of deriving some personal benefit from it. In this she was not disappointed; for the Countess, who knew no English, required a companion, and as Madame Blevary was conversant with several languages and had the manners of a gentlewoman, she readily obtained the post on the recommendation of the landlady.

Among the acquaintances Madame Blevary informed of her good fortune, which she was no doubt induced to dilate upon, was a certain Vitellini, an ex-Jesuit and professor of languages. Like her, he too had fallen on hard times; but in his case the love of gambling had been his ruin. He was also, as it happened, almost equally devoted to the study of chemistry, on a knowledge of which he particularly piqued himself. No sooner, therefore, did he learn that Count Cagliostro had a similar hobby, and a laboratory into the bargain, than he persuaded Madame Blevary to introduce him to the Count, in the hope that he too might profit by the acquaintance as she had done. As a result of this introduction, Vitellini succeeded in ingratiating himself into the favour of Cagliostro, who employed him in the laboratory as an assistant.

Stinginess was a quality of which neither the Count nor his wife was ever accused. On the contrary, as even those most prejudiced against them have been obliged to admit, they were exceedingly generous. With them, however, generosity was one of those amiable weaknesses that are as pernicious in their effect as a vice. There were few who experienced it but abused it in some way. It was so in this instance.

Vitellini, who was at bottom more of a fool than a knave, in the first flush of excitement over the sudden turn of tide in his fortunes which had long been at the lowest ebb, began to brag to his acquaintances in the gambling-dens and coffee-houses he frequented of his connection with Cagliostro, whom he described as “an extraordinary man, a true adept, whose fortune was immense, and who possessed the secret of transmuting metals.”

Such praise naturally excited the curiosity of Vitellini’s acquaintances, who in their turn were eager to meet the benevolent foreigner. Thus by the indiscretion of Vitellini, Cagliostro was soon besieged by a crowd of shady people whose intentions were so apparent that he was obliged in the end to refuse to receive them when they called. But this only exasperated them; and one in particular, Pergolezzi—the painter and decorator by whom the reader will recall Balsamo was for a time employed—“threatened to blast the reputation of the Count by circulating a report throughout London that he was ignorant and necessitous, of obscure birth, and had once before resided in England.”[7]

Vitellini, needless to say, perceiving the effect of his folly, now hastened to put a curb on his tongue lest he too should be shown the door. But as the sequel will prove, discretion came to him too late to benefit him. For Madame Blevary, who also entertained in secret a similar opinion of her patron’s wealth and knowledge, was one of those whose cupidity had been excited by Vitellini’s gossip. She at least had the advantage of being on the inner side of the Count’s door, and she determined while she had the chance to profit by it.

To this effect she bethought herself of “one Scott, a man of ambiguous character, and the pliability of whose principles was such that he was ever ready to convert them to the interest of the present moment.” It was accordingly arranged between them that Scott should impersonate a Scotch nobleman, in which guise it was hoped the Cagliostros would be effectually deceived as to his intentions. A severe illness, however, with which she was suddenly seized, and during which the Cagliostros “supplied her with every necessary comfort,” prevented Madame Blevary from personally introducing her confederate. Nevertheless she did not abandon the idea she had conceived, and ill though she was, she sent word to Cagliostro that “Lord Scott, of whom she had often spoken to him, had arrived in town and proposed to himself the honour of introduction that afternoon.”

Entirely unsuspicious of the treachery of a woman who owed so much to their generosity, the Count and Countess received “Lord Scott” on his arrival. His appearance, it seems, did not exactly tally with such notions as Cagliostro had formed either of the man or his rank. But Scott succeeded in dispelling his disappointment, and swindling him into the bargain, by way of gentle beginning, out of £12 in Portuguese money which he undertook to get exchanged for its English equivalent, afterwards declaring with well-feigned mortification “he had lost it through a hole in his pocket.”

A Giuseppe Balsamo, one imagines, would have been the last person in the world to be taken in by such a story. Cagliostro, however, swallowed it without hesitation; and begging Scott, who confusedly regretted he was in no position to make good the loss, to think no more about it, invited him to come to dinner the next day.

Whether Madame Blevary got a share of these or subsequent spoils is not known, for at this point she disappears from the scene altogether. Perhaps she died of that severe illness in which she received from the Cagliostros while betraying them so many “proofs of their generosity and humanity.” In any case, her place was most completely filled by “Lady Scott,” who was at this period presented by Scott to the Cagliostros, and from whom in an incredibly short time she managed to borrow on her simple note of hand £200.

II

Owing to the prejudice against Cagliostro, a construction wholly unfavourable to him has been placed upon the extraordinary series of events that now ensued. This construction, however, cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. For it is based solely on the accusations of the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe, who was the bitter enemy of Cagliostro. Now though it may be the custom in France for the accused to be considered guilty till he proves his innocence, the contrary is the custom in England, where fortunately it requires something more than the mere word of a single and professedly hostile witness to condemn a man. The Editor of the Courier de l’Europe declared that “upwards of twenty persons” would confirm his statements. None, however, offered to do so. Under such circumstances, as we are reduced to dealing with prejudices, I shall in this particular instance confess to one in favour of an ancient English principle of justice, and give Cagliostro the benefit of the doubt. His word at least is as much entitled to respect as that of the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe. There is, moreover, much in his spirited defence even worthy of credence.

******

Having found him so easy to dupe, the crew by whom he was surrounded naturally devoted their attention to increasing the friendship they had formed with him and his wife. Not a day passed but “Lord” Scott and his lady paid the Count and Countess a visit, and as it was their habit to drop in just before dinner or supper they soon managed to obtain their meals at the expense of the hospitable foreigners.

On one of these occasions the conversation having turned on a lottery in which his guests were interested, Cagliostro was reminded of “a manuscript he had found in the course of his travels which contained many curious cabalistic operations by aid of which the author set forth the possibilities of calculating winning numbers.” But since the matter was not one in which he had hitherto taken any particular interest, he was unwilling to express an opinion as to the value of these calculations, “having long contracted the habit of suspending his judgment on subjects he had not investigated.” On being urged, however, he consented to consult the manuscript; whereupon, to test its system, Scott “risked a trifle” and won upwards of a hundred pounds.

But whatever opinion Cagliostro may now have formed as to the value to be attached to these “cabalistic operations,” he refused to put them to further test. Gambling would appear to have had no attraction for him. Not only, if we are to believe him, did he risk nothing himself, or benefit in any way by the winning numbers he predicted on this occasion, but never afterwards is there to be found any allusion to gambling in the records that relate to his career. His aversion, however, which others—notably Mirabeau—have also shared, is not necessarily to be regarded as a virtue. There are many who, without objecting to gambling on moral grounds, are unable to find any pleasure in it.

Apart from all other considerations, Cagliostro had a strong personal motive for his refusal to make a business of predicting winning numbers for Scott. He was too completely absorbed in his alchemical experiments to find an interest in anything else. Of what value was the most perfect betting system in the world compared with the secret of transmuting metals, making diamonds, and prolonging life? To the man who is wrapped up in such things, lotteries and the means of winning them are beneath contempt. He has not only got something more profitable to do than waste his time in calculating lucky numbers, but he is on a plane above the ordinary gambler.

This, however, was a distinction that Scott, who was merely a vulgar sharper, was incapable of either making himself or appreciating when made. After his success in testing the system he believed it to be infallible. To be refused so simple a means of making a fortune was intolerable. In his exasperation he dropped the rôle of Scotch nobleman altogether and appeared in his real character as the common rogue he was, whereupon Cagliostro promptly showed him the door and refused to have any further intercourse with him.

“Lady” Scott, however, a few days later forced herself upon the Countess, and endeavoured to excite her compassion with the relation of a pitiful story, in which she declared that Scott, by whom she had been betrayed, had decamped with the profit arising from the lottery, leaving her and three children entirely destitute. The Countess, touched by this imaginary tale, generously interceded in her behalf with the Count, who sent her “a guinea and a number for the following day.” Miss Fry, to give her her real name, no sooner obtained this number than she and Scott risked every penny they could raise upon it. Fortune once more favoured them and they won on this occasion the sum of fifteen hundred guineas.

In the first moment of exultation Miss Fry at once rushed off to the Cagliostros with the whole of her winnings, which she offered to the Count as a token of her gratitude and confidence in him. But Cagliostro was not to be caught in this cunningly laid snare. He received her very coldly and refused to concern himself in her affairs.

“If you will take my advice,” he said, “you will go into the country with your three children and live on the interest of your money. If I have obliged you, the only return I desire is that you will never more re-enter my doors.”

But Miss Fry was not to be got rid of in this fashion. Dazzled by the golden shower the Count’s predictions had caused to rain upon her, she sighed for more numbers, and to obtain them she had recourse to Vitellini, in the hope that as he was still employed by the Count he might succeed in getting them for her. So eager was she to procure them that she gave Vitellini twenty guineas in advance as an earnest of her sincerity and to increase his zeal in the matter.

But though Vitellini was, needless to say, only too eager to oblige her, Cagliostro was not to be persuaded to gratify him. Hereupon, Miss Fry, repenting of her liberality, made a debt of her gift, and had Vitellini, who was unable to repay her, imprisoned. Cagliostro, however, generously came to the rescue, and obtained his release. This action awoke a belated sense of gratitude in the fellow, which he afterwards ineffectually attempted to prove.

But to return to Miss Fry. Having failed to turn Vitellini to account, she determined to approach the Countess and lay her, if possible, under an obligation. After considering various schemes by which this was to be effected, she “purchased of a pawnbroker a diamond necklace for which she paid £94.” She then procured a box with two compartments, in one of which she placed the necklace, and in the other some snuff of a rare quality that she knew the Countess liked, and watching for an opportunity of finding her alone, managed to get access to her.

In the hands of a Miss Fry, the Countess, who was the most amiable, pliable, and insignificant of creatures, was like wax. Cleverly turning the conversation so as to suit her purpose, Miss Fry casually produced the box and opening the compartment containing the snuff prevailed upon the Countess to take a pinch. After this it was an easy matter to persuade her to keep the box. Two days later the Countess discovered the necklace. As she had been forbidden to receive any presents from Miss Fry, she at once reported the matter to her husband. He was for returning the necklace at once, but as the Countess, who doubtless had no desire to part with it, suggested that to do so after having had it so long in her possession would appear “indelicate,” Cagliostro foolishly consented to let her keep it. As to retain the gift without acknowledging it would have been still more indelicate, Miss Fry was accordingly once more permitted to resume her visits.

Fully alive to the fact that she was only received on sufferance, she was naturally very careful not to jeopardize the position she had recovered with so much difficulty by any indiscretion. She by no means, however, lost sight of the object she had in view. Hearing that the Cagliostros were moving to Suffolk Street, she hired a room in the same house where it was impossible to avoid her. As she had told Cagliostro that she intended to follow his advice and live in the country with her three children—a fiction to which she still adhered—he naturally inquired the reason of her continued residence in London. She gave a lack of the necessary funds as her excuse, and hinted, as he had broached the subject, that he should “extricate her from her embarrassment by giving her numbers for the French lottery.”

The Count ignored the hint. But in consideration of the necklace she had given the Countess, and with the hope of being entirely rid of her, he gave her £50 to defray the expense of her journey into the country. This was, however, not at all to Miss Fry’s taste. She wanted numbers for the French lottery, and meant to have them too, or know the reason why, as the saying is. Accordingly, the next day she trumped up some fresh story of debts and absconding creditors, and, appealing to the compassion of the Countess, implored her to intercede with the Count to give her the numbers she wanted.

Cagliostro was now thoroughly annoyed. To settle the matter once for all, he told her that “he believed the success of the system was due more to chance than to calculation; but whether it was effected by the one or the other he was resolved to have no further concern in anything of that nature.” The manner in which these words were uttered was too emphatic to permit Miss Fry to continue to cherish the least hope of ever being able to induce Cagliostro to change his mind. Still, even now she refused to accept defeat. The numbers had become to her like morphia to a morphineuse; and precisely as the latter to obtain the drug she craves will resort to the most desperate stratagems, so Miss Fry determined to execute a scheme she had long premeditated by which Cagliostro was to be compelled to give her the numbers.

III

This scheme, described by an ardent defender of Cagliostro against the violent denunciations of the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe as “the most diabolic that ever entered into the heart of ingratitude,” was nothing more nor less than a sort of muscular blackmail. Taking advantage of his ignorance of English, Cagliostro was to be arrested on a false charge and simultaneously robbed of the precious manuscript by which he predicted the numbers.

To assist in the execution of her plan Miss Fry, who was the life and soul of the conspiracy, had the help of a barrister named Reynolds, “who, notwithstanding his expertness in the pettifogging finesse of the low law, could not preserve himself from an ignominious exhibition in the pillory”; a rough known as Broad; and, of course, Scott.

When everything was arranged, Miss Fry brought an action against Cagliostro to recover £190, the writ for which was served by Reynolds, apparently by bribing the sheriff’s officer. Thus armed, he proceeded to Cagliostro’s house accompanied by the others, and while he explained to the amazed Count, who had never seen him before, the object of his visit and the authority for what he did, Scott and Broad broke into the laboratory, where they found and took possession of the manuscript and the note-of-hand for the two hundred pounds the Count had lent Miss Fry, who during these highly criminal proceedings had the shrewdness to “wait on the stairs” without. Reynolds then conducted Cagliostro to a sponging-house, from which he was released the following day by depositing with Saunders, the sheriffs officer, “jewels worth three or four hundred pounds.”

The conspirators, however, baffled by the release of Cagliostro, from whom they had obtained nothing but the note-of-hand and the manuscript, of which they could make neither head nor tail, at once renewed their persecution. This time they procured a warrant for the arrest of both himself and his wife on the charge of practising witchcraft. The fact that it was possible to obtain a warrant on so ridiculous a charge, which both those who made it, as well as the official by whom the warrant was granted, were perfectly aware would be dismissed with contempt the moment it was investigated, explains how easy it was, under the corrupt and chaotic state of the legal system of the period, to convert the protection of the law into a persecution. Indeed, unauthenticated though they are, none of the legal proceedings in which Cagliostro was now involved are improbable. On the contrary their probability is so great as almost to guarantee their credibility.

By a bribe—for it can scarcely be termed bail—Cagliostro and his wife escaped the inconvenience of being taken to jail before the investigation of the charge on which they were apprehended. Seeing that their victim was not to be terrified, his persecutors tried other tactics. Reynolds was deputed to persuade him, if possible, to explain the system by which he predicted the winning numbers. But Cagliostro indignantly refused to gratify him when he called, whereupon Scott, who had remained without the door, his ear glued to the key-hole, perceiving that the eloquence of Reynolds failed to produce the desired effect, suddenly burst into the room, and “presenting a pistol to the breast of the Count, threatened to discharge it that instant unless he consented to reveal the secrets they demanded.”

This species of bluff, however, was equally futile. Cagliostro regarded the bully and his pistol with contemptuous composure—particularly as he did not discharge it. He assured him that nothing was to be accomplished by solicitations or threats, but as he desired to be left in peace he was ready “to think no more of the note-of-hand they had robbed him of, and would even let them have the effects he had deposited with Saunders, the sheriffs officer, on condition the proceedings against him were dropped and the manuscript returned.”

Seeing there was no better alternative, Reynolds and Scott decided to accept the proposition, and immediately went with Cagliostro to Saunders’ house to settle the matter. But Saunders, realizing that Cagliostro’s troubles were due to his gullibility, ignorance of English, and apparent fortune, was tempted to reserve the plucking of so fat a bird for himself. He accordingly advised the Count not to compromise the matter, but to bring in his turn an action for robbery against the crew of sharpers into whose power he had fallen. Cagliostro was easily induced to accept this advice, and with the aid of Saunders procured four warrants for the arrest of Scott, Reynolds, Broad, and Miss Fry. The last, however, aware that the charge against her could not be substantiated, as she had not personally been present at the time of the robbery, made no attempt to escape, and was taken into custody—from which, as she had foreseen, she soon freed herself. As for the other three, perceiving that the game was up, they took time by the forelock and disappeared while they had the chance.

But Cagliostro had yet to realize what a vindictive fury he had to deal with in Miss Fry. The two actions she had instituted against him had not been quashed, as she took care daily to let him know in ways studiously calculated to render the reminder particularly harassing. Saunders, with whom he had now become intimate, was “much concerned at this persecution, and repeatedly advised him to take an apartment in his house.”

Now little as Cagliostro was acquainted with English customs, he was not so ignorant, as he himself confesses, as not to understand that such a proposition was “singular”; but as Saunders had been kind to him, “kept his carriage,” and appeared in every way worthy of respect, the Count, being desirous of purchasing tranquillity, without hesitation accepted the invitation.

Because no Englishman would have done so, and it appears absurd to picture even a foreigner passing six weeks of his own accord in a sponging-house, the visit Cagliostro now paid to Saunders is generally regarded as anything but voluntary. But how much more absurd is the assertion of the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe—the only other source of information beside Cagliostro in regard to these proceedings—that the Count was “constrained from poverty” to reside with Saunders! Even if foreigners in distress would be likely to seek refuge in a sponging-house, is it at all likely that they would be admitted just because of their poverty?

“I occupied,” says Cagliostro, “the finest apartment in the house. There was always a seat at my table for a chance comer. I defrayed the expenses of the poor prisoners confined there, and even paid the debts of some, who thus obtained their freedom.” Of these, one “Shannon, a chemist,” is quoted by him as being ready to testify to the truth of the statement. Be this as it may, after six weeks Cagliostro once more returned to his rooms in Suffolk Street to the “sensible regret of Saunders.”

But scarcely had he arrived when he was served for the third time with a writ issued at the instigation of Miss Fry for “a debt of £200.” At the instance of Saunders, an Italian merchant named Badioli was induced to be his surety. Saunders, whose interest in his affairs was inspired by the profit he calculated on deriving from them, also recommended him to engage as counsel to defend him a certain Priddle whom Cagliostro had met in the sponging-house. Thus supported, and conscious of innocence, he awaited his trial with comparative composure.

The case came on in due course at the King’s Bench, but Priddle, discovering that it was to be tried by Lord Mansfield, whom he dared not face, backed out of it altogether. Left without counsel at the last moment, Cagliostro was driven in desperation to defend his cause himself. As his knowledge of English was very imperfect, he was obliged to have an interpreter, and, none other apparently being available, he employed Vitellini. But as Vitellini, either owing to excitement caused by the responsibility he was suddenly called upon to assume, or to an equally imperfect knowledge of English, could not make himself understood, Lord Mansfield, to avoid further confusion, and perceiving from the charge of witchcraft that the case was trivial, suggested a compromise and recommended a Mr. Howarth as arbitrator. To this proposal Cagliostro was compelled, and Miss Fry was only too glad, to consent.

The first thing Howarth had to decide was Miss Fry’s first claim to £190, which she alleged she had lent the Count. As she had no proof whatever to advance in support of her claim, it was at once set aside. The charge of witchcraft was also with similar expedition dismissed as “frivolous.”

In her attempt to substantiate her other claim to £200, Miss Fry and her witness Broad very nearly perjured themselves. They both asserted that the money had been expended “in purchasing sequins” for Cagliostro. Questioned by Howarth as to how he had obtained the sequins, Broad replied that he had “bought them of a merchant whose name he could not recollect.” At this Howarth, whose suspicions were naturally aroused by such a reply, observed that “it must have been a very large amount of sequins to represent £200, and he did not believe any merchant would have such a quantity on hand.” Broad hereupon declared he had not bought them of one merchant, “but of about fourscore.” But on being pressed by Howarth he could not remember the names or places of abode of any of them.

Nor could Miss Fry assist him to disentangle himself. She stated that “a Jew of whose name she was ignorant had brought the sequins to her.” After this there was nothing for Howarth to do but dismiss the charge, which he did with “a severe reprimand.” Miss Fry, however, was not to be beaten without a further effort. She demanded that the necklace should be returned to her, which she declared she had only lent to the Countess. To this Cagliostro saw fit to protest, but as Vitellini failed to express his reasons intelligibly, Howarth came to the conclusion that the necklace at least belonged to Miss Fry. He therefore ordered the Count to return it to her, and pay the costs of the arbitration into the bargain.

This decision, however, by no means put an end to the troubles of Cagliostro.

Whether at his own request, or by order of Howarth, he seems to have been given a few days in which to conform to the ruling of the arbitrator. But Badioli, his surety, no sooner learnt the result of the case than, dreading lest Cagliostro should decamp and leave him to pay the costs and compensate Miss Fry, he resolved to release himself from his obligations by surrendering the Count. Keeping his intention a profound secret, he paid a friendly visit to Cagliostro, and at the close carried him off for a drive in the park. “On their way,” says an anonymous author of the only contemporary book in defence of Cagliostro, “they alighted at a judge’s chambers, where Mr. Badioli said he had business to settle. They then again entered the coach, which in a short time stopped before an edifice of which the Count was ignorant. However, his companion entering, he followed his example; when Mr. Badioli, making a slight apology, desired him to wait there a few minutes, saying which he left him.

“Minutes and hours elapsed, but no Mr. Badioli appeared. The Count then endeavoured to return through the door at which they had entered, but found himself repulsed, though he was ignorant of the cause. He remained till evening in the greatest agitation of mind, roving from place to place, when he attracted the observation of a foreigner, who having heard his story, and made the necessary inquiries, informed him that he was a prisoner in the King’s Bench.

“Two days had elapsed before the Countess was able to obtain any information concerning him.”

IV

The conduct of Badioli, who had taken so treacherous an advantage of his ignorance of the English language and law, was to Cagliostro the unkindest cut of all. After such convincing proofs of its hostility, to continue to struggle against adversity seemed no doubt futile. He accepted the situation apathetically. More than a month elapsed before he apparently took steps to procure his release—even then the proceedings which resulted in his liberation from the King’s Bench prison do not appear to have been instituted by himself, but by a certain O’Reilly. Now as this good Samaritan was previously unknown to him, there is reason to suppose that he was delegated by the Esperance Lodge of Freemasons, of which the Count was a member, to assist him. For O’Reilly was the proprietor of the “King’s Head in Gerard Street where the Esperance Lodge assembled.”[8]

Through the instrumentality of O’Reilly, for whose kindness on this occasion Cagliostro was ever after grateful, fresh bail was procured. But as the summer vacation had commenced, Miss Fry had the right—which she was only too glad to avail herself of—to refuse to accept the bail offered till the end of the vacation. O’Reilly, however, was not a Saunders; his interest in the Count was not mercenary, and being fully conversant with the intricate workings of the law, he applied directly to Lord Mansfield, who at once ordered Miss Fry’s attorney to accept the bail.

Considering the evidences Cagliostro had had of this woman’s fury, it was not surprising that he should have attributed the extraordinary circumstances that now occurred to her vindictive ingenuity. As he was preparing to leave the King’s Bench, “Mr. Crisp, the under-marshal of the prison, informed him that one Aylett had lodged a detainer against him by name of Melisa Cagliostro, otherwise Joseph Balsamo, for a debt of £30.” The Count demanded with the utmost surprise the meaning of this new intrigue. Crisp replied that Aylett declared the sum specified was due to him as his fee, with interest added, from “one Joseph Balsamo, by whom he had been employed in the year 1772 to recover a debt of a Dr. Benamore.”

It mattered not in the least that Cagliostro protested “he had never seen Aylett, and did not believe Aylett had ever seen him,” or that Aylett himself did not appear in person. As the law then stood, Crisp’s statement was sufficient to detain the unfortunate Count, whom he in his turn was anxious to bleed while he had the chance. Accordingly, while admitting that without Aylett’s consent he was not empowered to accept the bail which Cagliostro eagerly offered him, Crisp was only ready to let him go “if he could deposit in his hand thirty pounds to indemnify him.”

To this proposition Cagliostro consented, but as he had not the cash upon him he asked Crisp if he would accept its equivalent in plate, promising to redeem it the next day. His request was granted, and Cagliostro remained in King’s Bench while O’Reilly went to the Countess for the plate in question, which consisted of “two soup-ladles, two candlesticks, two salt-cellars, two pepper-castors, six forks, six table-spoons, nine knife-handles with blades, a pair of snuffers and stand, all of silver.”

The next day, true to his promise, the Count paid Crisp thirty pounds. Crisp, however, instead of giving back the plate, declared that Aylett had been to him in the meantime, and on learning that he had freed the prisoner was highly exasperated and demanded the plate, which had consequently been given him. As Aylett, on the other hand, when questioned, declared that Crisp “was a liar,” “it was impossible,” says Cagliostro, “for me to ascertain by whom I was plundered.”

Of all the incidents in this series of “injustices,” as he termed it, of which he was the victim the most curious is undoubtedly the unexpected advent of Aylett upon the scene in a rôle totally unconnected with the development, so to speak, of the plot of the play. Considering that he was the first person on record to state that Cagliostro was Giuseppe Balsamo, it is worth while inquiring into his reason for doing so and the value to be attached to it.

Aylett’s reputation, to begin with, was such as to render the truth of any statement he might make extremely doubtful, if not to invalidate it altogether. Like Reynolds and Priddle, he was a rascally attorney who had been “convicted of perjury and exposed in the pillory.” Granting that he had defended Balsamo in his action against Dr. Benamore, and was sufficiently struck by the resemblance of Cagliostro to his old client as to believe them to be the same person, his conduct on the present occasion was decidedly ambiguous. According to his statement, “happening one day in 1777 to be in Westminster Hall, he perceived a person that he immediately recognized as Balsamo, whom he had not seen since 1772.” Instead of accosting him then and there, he decided to find out where he lived; and after much difficulty learnt that the person he had seen and believed to be Balsamo was in the King’s Bench prison and that his name was Cagliostro; whereupon, without taking the least step to ascertain whether he was right or not in his surmise, he laid a detainer against him for the money Balsamo owed him. No record of any kind exists as to what passed between Aylett and Cagliostro when they finally met, or in fact whether they met at all.

That Aylett would, after having received Cagliostro’s plate or money from Crisp, have admitted he had made a mistake is, judging from the man’s character, not to be credited. But what renders this singular matter still more questionable is the fact that the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe nine years later, when publishing his “incontestable proofs” of the identity of Balsamo with Cagliostro, should have accepted the statement of Aylett and ignored that of Dr. Benamore, who was also living at the time and whose position as representative in England for thirty years of the various Barbary States would, to say the least, have given the weight of respectability to his word. Now as there is no doubt at all that the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe passionately desired that his proofs should really be “incontestable,” there is only one explanation of his conduct in this matter possible: Dr. Benamore must have refused to make the statement requested of him.

On the other hand, Cagliostro—and his word, even prejudice must admit, is to be trusted quite as much as that of an Aylett or the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe—asserts in the most emphatic language that Dr. Benamore was ready to testify in his behalf to a total ignorance of the very name of Balsamo.