APPENDIX.

The life of Denis Zachaire has been made the subject of an interesting and well-written novel—“A Professor of Alchemy”—by “Percy Ross,” recently published by Mr George Redway. The life of the great adept, after his accomplishment of the Magnum Opus, is detailed at some length, M. Louis Figuier being apparently the authority for the bare facts of the case. The alchemist is represented by the French writer as having travelled to Lausanne, where he became enamoured of a young and beautiful lady, whom he carried from Switzerland into Germany, and then abandoned himself completely to a life of dissipation and folly, which closed tragically at Cologne in the year 1556. He was strangled in the middle of a drunken sleep by the cousin who had accompanied him in his travels, and who coveted his wealth and his mistress. The murderer effected his escape with the lady, who appears to have been his accomplice. The sole authority for this narrative appears to be a poem by Mardoché de Delle, who was attached, as a sort of laureate, to the court of Rodolph II. It is not improbably a mere invention of the versifier; there is nothing in the sober treatise of Denis Zachaire, written at the period in question, to give colour to the account of his extravagance.

II.

The manuscript volume entitled “Egyptian Freemasonry” fell, with the other papers of Cagliostro, into the hands of the Inquisition, and was solemnly condemned in the judgment as containing rites, propositions, a doctrine and a system which opened a broad road to sedition and were calculated to destroy the Christian religion. The book was characterised as superstitious, blasphemous, impious, and heretical. It was publicly burnt by the hands of the executioner, with the instruments belonging to the sect. Some valuable particulars concerning it are, however, preserved in the Italian life; they are reproduced from the original proceedings published at Rome by order of the Apostolic Chamber.

“It may be necessary to enter into some details concerning Egyptian Masonry. We shall extract our facts from a book compiled by himself, and now in our possession, by which he owns he was always directed in the exercise of his functions, and from which those regulations and instructions were copied, wherewith he enriched many mother lodges. In this treatise, which is written in French, he promises to conduct his disciples to perfection by means of physical and moral regeneration, to confer perpetual youth and beauty on them, and restore them to that state of innocence which they were deprived of by means of original sin. He asserts that Egyptian Masonry was first propagated by Enoch and Elias, but that since that time it has lost much of its purity and splendour. Common masonry, according to him, has degenerated into mere buffoonery, and women have of late been entirely excluded from its mysteries; but the time was now arrived when the grand Copt was about to restore the glory of masonry, and allow its benefits to be participated by both sexes.

“The statutes of the order then follow in rotation, the division of the members into three distinct classes, the various signs by which they might discover each other, the officers who are to preside over and regulate the society, the stated times when the members are to assemble, the erection of a tribunal for deciding all differences that may arise between the several lodges or the particular members of each, and the various ceremonies which ought to take place at the admission of the candidates. In every part of this book the pious reader is disgusted with the sacrilege, the profanity, the superstition, and the idolatry with which it abounds—the invocations in the name of God, the prostrations, the adorations paid to the Grand Master, the fumigations, the incense, the exorcisms, the emblems of the Divine Triad, of the moon, of the sun, of the compass, of the square, and a thousand other scandalous particulars, with which the world is at present well acquainted.

“The Grand Copt, or chief of the lodge, is compared to God the Father. He is invoked upon every occasion; he regulates all the actions of the members and all the ceremonies of the lodge, and he is even supposed to have communication with angels and with the Divinity. In the exercise of many of the rites they are desired to repeat the Veni and the Te Deum—nay, to such an excess of impiety are they enjoined, that in reciting the psalm Memento Domine David, the name of the Grand Master is always to be substituted for that of the King of Israel.

“People of all religions are admitted into the society of Egyptian Masonry—the Jew, the Calvinist, the Lutheran, are to be received into it as well as the Catholic—provided they believe in the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, and have been previously allowed to participate in the mysteries of the common masonry. When men are admitted, they receive a pair of garters from the Grand Copt, as is usual in all lodges, for their mistresses; and when women are received into the society, they are presented by the Grand Mistress with a cockade, which they are desired to give to that man to whom they are most attached.

“We shall here recount the ceremonies made use of on admitting a female.

“The candidate having presented herself, the Grand Mistress (Madame Cagliostro generally presided in that capacity) breathes upon her face from the forehead to the chin, and then says, ‘I breathe upon you on purpose to inspire you with the virtues which we possess, so that they may take root and flourish in your heart, I thus fortify your soul, I thus confirm you in the faith of your brethren and sisters, according to the engagements which you have contracted with them. We now admit you as a daughter of the Egyptian lodge. We order that you be acknowledged in that capacity by all the brethren and sisters of the Egyptian lodges, and that you enjoy with them the same prerogatives as with ourselves.’

“The Grand Master thus addresses the male candidate: ‘In virtue of the power which I have received from the Grand Copt, the founder of our order, and by the particular grace of God, I hereby confer upon you the honour of being admitted into our lodge in the name of Helios, Mene, Tetragrammaton.’

“In a book, said to be printed at Paris in 1789, it is asserted that the last words were suggested to Cagliostro, as sacred and cabalistical expressions by a pretended conjuror, who said that he was assisted by a spirit, and that this spirit was no other than the soul of a cabalistical Jew, who by means of the magical art had murdered his own father before the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

“Common masons have been accustomed to regard St John as their patron, and to celebrate the festival of that saint. Cagliostro also adopted him as his protector, and it is not a little remarkable that he was imprisoned at Rome on the very festival of his patron. The reason for his veneration of this great prophet was, if we are to believe himself, the great similarity between the Apocalypse and the rites of his institution.

“We must here observe that when any of his disciples were admitted into the highest class, the following execrable ceremony took place. A young boy or girl, in the state of virgin innocence and purity, was procured, who was called the pupil, and to whom power was given over the seven spirits that surround the throne of the divinity and preside over the seven planets. Their names according to Cagliostro’s book are Anaël, Michaël, Raphaël, Gabriel, Uriel, Zobiachel, and Anachiel. The pupil is then made use of as an intermediate agent between the spiritual and physical worlds, and being clothed in a long white robe, adorned with a red ribbon, and blue silk festoons, he is shut up in a little closet. From that place he gives response to the Grand Master, and tells whether the spirits and Moses have agreed to receive the candidates into the highest class of Egyptian masons....

“In his instructions to obtain the moral and physical regeneration which he had promised to his disciples, he is exceedingly careful to give a minute description of the operations to which they are to submit. Those who are desirous of experiencing the moral regeneration are to retire from the world for the space of forty days, and to distribute their time into certain proportions. Six hours are to be employed in reflection, three in prayer to the Deity, nine in the holy operations of Egyptian Masonry, while the remaining period is to be dedicated to repose. At the end of the thirty-three days a visible communication is to take place between the patient and the seven primitive spirits, and on the morning of the fortieth day his soul will be inspired with divine knowledge, and his body be as pure as that of a new-born infant.

“To procure a physical regeneration, the patient is to retire into the country in the month of May, and during forty days is to live according to the most strict and austere rules, eating very little, and then only laxative and sanative herbs, and making use of no other drink than distilled water, or rain that has fallen in the course of the month. On the seventeenth day, after having let blood, certain white drops are to be taken, six at night and six in the morning, increasing them two a day in progression. In three days more a small quantity of blood is again to be let from the arm before sunrise, and the patient is to retire to bed till the operation is completed. A grain of the panacea is then to be taken; this panacea is the same as that of which God created man when He first made him immortal. When this is swallowed the candidate loses his speech and his reflection for three entire days, and he is subject to frequent convulsions, struggles, and perspirations. Having recovered from this state, in which, however, he experiences no pain whatever, on the thirty-sixth day, he takes the third and last grain of the panacea, which causes him to fall into a profound and tranquil sleep; it is then that he loses his hair, his skin, and his teeth. These again are all reproduced in a few hours, and having become a new man, on the morning of the fortieth day he leaves his room, enjoying a complete rejuvenescence, by which he is enabled to live 5557 years, or to such time as he, of his own accord, may be desirous of going to the world of spirits.”

Concerning the Lodge of Freemasons discovered at Rome.

The final chapter of the Italian life of Cagliostro, which appeared before the death of its subject, contains a curious and interesting account under the above title. The lodge was situated in the quarter of the city called the Holy Trinity of the Mountain. It was visited on the night of Cagliostro’s capture, but the members had been evidently forewarned; they had taken precautions as to their personal safety, had removed the symbols of their craft and the greater part of their books and papers, which perhaps, says the writer, contained secrets of great importance. The Inquisition claims to have a true insight, notwithstanding, into the origin, establishment, and other particulars of this lodge, drawn in part from the depositions of “a multitude of well-informed persons.”

The founders were seven in number, five Frenchmen, an American, and a Pole, all of whom had been previously initiated into other lodges. It assumed the title of the Lodge of the Reunion of True Friends, and the first meeting took place on November 1, 1787. Proselytes were immediately made, and included candidates who had not been received into any other society. Its numbers rapidly increased, and to establish it with all the necessary formalities approbation was procured from the Mother Lodge at Paris, and a deputy was sent to reside in that city as its representative. Its letters were transported by special messengers. Mention is made in the register of archives kept under three locks, in which the statutes, the mysteries, and the symbols transmitted from Paris were preserved, with all the most interesting speeches delivered within the lodge. However, the Egyptian lodge is affirmed to have been in this instance devoid of special characteristics. The list of its officers was as follows:—

The Venerable, or Grand Master.
The Superintendent, or Deputy Grand Master.
The Terrible.
The Master of the Ceremonies.
The Treasurer.
The Almoner.
The Secretary.
The Orator, or Export Broker.

The entire Lodge was composed of two chambers, or halls. The first was called the Chamber of Reflections. A death’s head was placed on a table, and above it were two inscriptions in French, which contained an arcane significance. The second apartment was called the Temple; it was adorned according to the various rites performed in it. On all occasions it was provided with a throne, on which the Venerable constantly sat. Some emblems of masonry adorned the walls—among them were the sun, moon, and planets. On the two sides of the throne several magnificent pillars were placed, and opposite to these the brotherhood were arranged in order, each of them wearing his leathern apron, and a black ribbon in the form of a deacon’s stole about his neck, while in his hands, which were covered with a pair of white gloves, he brandished a naked sword, a hammer, or a compass, according to the different formalities prescribed by the institution.

With the secret signs and passports, the Inquisition does not seem to have been acquainted.