“There is no world beyond,” replied d’Alembert. “Death is simply the cessation of the evils which have tortured us. No pleasure is experienced, but, on the other hand, there is no suffering. I have not met with Mademoiselle Lespinasse, but I have not seen Lorignet. There is marked sincerity, moreover. Some deceased persons who have recently joined us inform me that I am almost forgotten. I am, however, consoled. Men are unworthy of the trouble we take about them. I never loved them, now I despise them.”
“What has become of your learning?” said M. de —— to Diderot.
“I was not learned, as people commonly supposed. My ready wit adapted all that I read, and in writing I borrowed on every side. Thence comes the desultory character of my books, which will be unheard of in half a century. The Encyclopædia, with the merit of which I am honoured, does not belong to me. The duty of an editor is simply to set in order the choice of subjects. The man who showed most talent in the whole of the work was the compiler of its index, yet no one has dreamed of recognising his merits.”
“I praised the enterprise,” said Voltaire, “for it seemed well fitted to further my philosophical opinions. Talking of philosophy, I am none too certain that I was in the right. I have learned strange things since my death, and have conversed with half a dozen Popes. Clement XIV. and Benedict, above all, are men of infinite intelligence and good sense.”
“What most vexes me,” said the Duc de Choiseul, “is the absence of sex where we dwell. Whatever may be said of this fleshly envelope, ’twas by no means so bad an invention.”
“What is truly a pleasure to me,” said the Abbé Voisenon, “is that amongst us one is perfectly cured of the folly of intelligence. You cannot conceive how I have been bantered about my ridiculous little romances. I had almost confessed that I appreciated these puerilities at their true value, but whether the modesty of an academician is disbelieved in, or whether such frivolity is out of character with my age and profession, I expiate almost daily the mistakes of my mortal existence.”
Amid these marvels, Cagliostro proceeded with the dearest of all his projects, namely, the spread of his Egypto-masonic rite,[AN] into which ladies were subsequently admitted, a course of magic being opened for the purpose by Madame Cagliostro. The postulants admitted to this course were thirty-six in number, and all males were excluded. Thus Lorenza figured as the Grand Mistress of Egyptian Masonry, as her husband was himself the grand and sublime Copt. The fair neophytes were required to contribute each of them the sum of one hundred louis to abstain from all carnal connection with mankind, and to submit to everything which might be imposed on them. A vast mansion was hired in the Rue Verte, Faubourg Saint Honoré, at that period a lonely part of the city. The building was surrounded with gardens and magnificent trees. The séance for initiation took place shortly before midnight on the 7th of August 1785.
On entering the first apartment, says Figuier, the ladies were obliged to disrobe and assume a white garment, with a girdle of various colours. They were divided into six groups, distinguished by the tint of their cinctures. A large veil was also provided, and they were caused to enter a temple lighted from the roof, and furnished with thirty-six arm-chairs covered with black satin. Lorenza, clothed in white, was seated on a species of throne, supported by two tall figures, so habited that their sex could not be determined. The light was lowered by degrees till surrounding objects could scarcely be distinguished, when the Grand Mistress commanded the ladies to uncover their left legs as far as the thigh, and raising the right arm to rest it on a neighbouring pillar. Two young women then entered sword in hand, and with silk ropes bound all the ladies together by the arms and legs. Then after a period of impressive silence, Lorenza pronounced an oration, which is given at length, but on doubtful authority, by several biographers, and which preached fervidly the emancipation of womankind from the shameful bonds imposed on them by the lords of creation.
These bonds were symbolised by the silken ropes from which the fair initiates were released at the end of the harangue, when they were conducted into separate apartments, each opening on the Garden, where they made the most unheard-of experiences. Some were pursued by men who unmercifully persecuted them with barbarous solicitations; others encountered less dreadful admirers, who sighed in the most languishing postures at their feet. More than one discovered the counterpart of her own lover, but the oath they had all taken necessitated the most inexorable inhumanity, and all faithfully fulfilled what was required of them. The new spirit infused into regenerated woman triumphed along the whole line of the six and thirty initiates, who with intact and immaculate symbols re-entered triumphant and palpitating the twilight of the vaulted temple to receive the congratulations of the sovereign priestess.