From Barcelona they proceeded to Madrid, where also certain noble Spaniards proved sensible to the charms of Lorenza. From Madrid they journeyed to Lisbon, and thence sailed to England, where Cagliostro is said to have adopted the profession of a common quack, to have fallen into prison, to have been bought out by his wife, in whose person he still continued to traffic, bartering her charms to every opulent man who wished to become a purchaser; but the frequency of her prostitutions has probably been grossly exaggerated.
An English Life of the Count Cagliostro, dedicated, in 1787, to Madame la Comtesse, and written in the interests of the charlatan, gives a singular account of his misfortunes in London, showing that when he arrived there he was in possession of plate, jewels, and specie to the amount of three thousand pounds, that he hired apartments in Whitcomb Street, where he dedicated a large portion of his time to his favourite studies of chemistry and physics, and that all he suffered must be entirely attributed to the profuse generosity and charity of himself and his lady.
In 1772, Cagliostro and his wife crossed over to France, accompanied by one M. Duplaisir, who lodged with them at Paris, and seems to have been intimate with Lorenza. But Cagliostro was insatiable, says St Felix. He sold his honour at a high price, and the fortune of Duplaisir melted in the crucible of another’s follies and extravagances. At length, in alarm, the victim took leave of his rapacious guests, not without strongly warning Lorenza to return to her parents, for he had learned to esteem the natural good qualities which she possessed. According to one account, she attempted to follow this advice, but others say that she sought refuge from incessant prostitution with Duplaisir himself. In either case, Cagliostro had recourse to the authority of the king, and obtaining an order for her arrest, she was imprisoned in the penitentiary of Sainte Pélagie, and was detained there several months, during which Cagliostro abandoned himself to a life of congenial dissipation. The sale of a certain wash for beautifying the complexion appears to have procured him a considerable revenue about this period.
The imprisonment of Lorenza did not prevent a reconciliation with her husband immediately after her release, which occurred on December 21, 1772, on which date, having obtained under false pretences some magnificent dresses from the costumiers, Cagliostro appeared at the ball of a dancing-master in a peculiarly brilliant costume.
It is from this period that our adventurer’s success as an alchemist must be dated. Here he found means to form an acquaintance with two persons of distinction, who carried their love of chemistry to a ridiculous excess. He pretended to have discovered some miraculous secrets in the transcendent science, proclaimed himself publicly a depository of the Hermetic Mystery, and posing as a supernatural personage in possession of the great arcanum of the philosophers’ stone and of the glorious life-elixir. This also was the epoch of mesmerism, of which novel science Cagliostro decided to avail himself. After a time, according to the Italian biography, his two dupes entertained suspicions of his veracity, and being in fear of arrest, he obtained a passport under a fictitious name, fled with great precipitation to Brussels, traversed Germany and Italy, and once more arrived at his native city Palermo.[AM]
At Palermo he was speedily arrested by the implacable Marano, but the protection of a noble, to whom he had obtained a powerful recommendation while at Naples, ensured his speedy release, and he embarked with his wife for Malta, where, according to the Italian biographer, he ostensibly supported himself by the sale of his pomade for the improvement of the complexion, but his more certain income appears to have been his wife. Monsieur Saint-Félix, however, declares, and this, on the whole, is most probable, that they were received with the most marked distinction by the Grand Master. In either case, they soon retired to Naples, when Cagliostro professed in public for three months both chemistry and the Kabbalah. At Naples they were joined by a younger brother of Feliciani, a lad named Paolo, who was remarkable for his extraordinary loveliness. Cagliostro, seeing that he might prove useful, persuaded him to share their fortunes. They embarked with a great train for Marseilles, and thence proceeded to Barcelona. The star of the great adventurer was now fairly in the ascendant, and from this time he seems always to have travelled in considerable state. He met, however, with no dupes of importance in the peninsula till he reached its extremity, where he cheated a fanatical alchemist of a hundred thousand crowns, under the pretence of a colossal accomplishment of the magnum opus. After this signal success he incontinently departed for England, while Paolo, with whom he had quarrelled, returned to Rome, much to the grief of his sister.
The commencement of the grandeur of Cagliostro is to be dated from his second visit to London. It was then that he was initiated into masonry, and conceived his titanic project of the mysterious Egyptian rite. Saint Félix accredits him even from the moment of his admission into the order with an unavowed object. Cagliostro, he informs us, was resolved one day to seat himself on the throne of the grand master of a rival and more potent institution, and he appears to have lived henceforth in the light of his high aspiration, and to have eschewed—theoretically at least—all petty rogueries.
He incessantly visited the various London lodges, and a correspondence printed in English at Strasburg during the year 1788, relates that by a pure chance he picked up a curious manuscript at an obscure London bookstall. This manuscript appears to have belonged to a certain George Gaston, who is absolutely unknown. It treated of Egyptian masonry, and abounded in magical and mystical notions which excited the curiosity of its purchaser, nourished both his ambition and his imagination, and in a short time he developed his own system from its suggestive hints. The source of his inspiration, of course, remained concealed. He pretended to have received his masonic tradition by succession from Enoch and Elias. Privately, however, he pursued his former rogueries, and his sojourn in London was not infrequently disturbed by his squabbles with the police. Those who are interested in this part of the Cagliostro controversy will do well to refer to the English biography, dedicated to the countess, and which contains much curious information.
When all his plans were matured he departed for the Hague, and thence proceeded to Venice, where some of his English creditors seem to have disturbed his serenity, and prompted him in consequence to retire through Germany into Holstein, where he is supposed to have visited the renowned Count de St Germain.
According to the Mémoires Authentiques pour servir à l’Histoire du Comte de Cagliostro, published in 1785, he demanded an audience with this man of inscrutable mystery, in order that he might prostrate himself before the dieu des croyants. With characteristic eccentricity the Count de St Germain appointed two in the morning as the hour for the interview, which moment being arrived, say the “Memoirs,” Cagliostro and his wife, clothed in white garments, clasped about the waist with girdles of rose-colour, presented themselves at the castellated temple of mystery, which was the abode of the dubious divinity whom they desired to adore. The drawbridge was lowered, a man six feet in height, clothed in a long grey robe, led them into a dimly-lighted chamber. Therein some folding doors sprang suddenly open, and they beheld a temple illuminated by a thousand wax lights, with the Count de Saint-Germain enthroned upon the altar; at his feet two acolytes swung golden thuribles, which diffused sweet and unobtrusive perfumes. The divinity bore upon his breast a diamond pentagram of almost intolerable radiance. A majestic statue, white and diaphanous, upheld on the steps of the altar a vase inscribed, “Elixir of Immortality,” while a vast mirror was on the wall, and before it a living being, majestic as the statue, walked to and fro. Above the mirror were these singular words—“Store House of Wandering Souls.” The most solemn silence prevailed in this sacred retreat, but at length a voice, which seemed hardly a voice, pronounced these words—“Who are you? Whence come you? What would you?” Then the Count and Countess Cagliostro prostrated themselves, and the former answered after a long pause, “I come to invoke the God of the faithful, the Son of Nature, the sire of truth. I come to demand of him one of the fourteen thousand seven hundred secrets which are treasured in his breast, I come to proclaim myself his slave, his apostle, his martyr.”