Cagliostro

Count Cagliostro.
CAGLIOSTRO
THE SPLENDOUR AND MISERY OF A MASTER OF MAGIC
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
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.