When they had breathed a little after their trials, the vaulted roof opened suddenly, and, on a vast sphere of gold, there descended a man, naked as the unfallen Adam, holding a serpent in his hand, and having a burning star upon his head.
The Grand Mistress announced that this was the genius of Truth, the immortal, the divine Cagliostro, issued without procreation from the bosom of our father Abraham, and the depositary of all that hath been, is, or shall be known on the universal earth. He was there to initiate them into the secrets of which they had been fraudulently deprived. The Grand Copt thereupon commanded them to dispense with the profanity of clothing, for if they would receive truth they must be as naked as itself. The sovereign priestess setting the example unbound her girdle and permitted her drapery to fall to the ground, and the fair initiates following her example exposed themselves in all the nudity of their charms to the magnetic glances of the celestial genius, who then commenced his revelations.
He informed his daughters that the much abused magical art was the secret of doing good to humanity. It was initiation into the mysteries of Nature, and the power to make use of her occult forces. The visions which they had beheld in the Garden where so many had seen and recognised those who were dearest to their hearts, proved the reality of hermetic operations. They had shewn themselves worthy to know the truth; he undertook to instruct them by gradations therein. It was enough at the outset to inform them that the sublime end of that Egyptian Freemasonry which he had brought from the very heart of the Orient was the happiness of mankind. This happiness was illimitable in its nature, including material enjoyments as much as spiritual peace, and the pleasures of the understanding.
The Marquis de Luchet, to whom we are indebted for this account, concludes the nebulous harangue of Cagliostro by the adept bidding his hearers abjure a deceiving sex, and to let the kiss of friendship symbolise what was passing in their hearts. The sovereign priestess instructed them in the nature of this friendly embrace.
Thereupon the Genius of Truth seated himself again upon the sphere of gold, and was borne away through the roof. At the same time the floor opened, the light blazed up, and a table splendidly adorned and luxuriously spread rose up from the ground. The ladies were joined by their lovers in propria persona; the supper was followed by dancing and various diversions till three o’clock in the morning.
About this time the Count Cagliostro was unwillingly compelled to concede to the continual solicitations of the poor and to resume his medical rôle. In a short time he was raised to the height of celebrity by a miraculous cure of the Prince de Soubise, the brother of the Cardinal de Rohan, who was suffering from a virulent attack of scarlet fever. From this moment the portrait of the adept was to be seen everywhere in Paris.
In the meantime, the cloud in his domestic felicity, to which a brief reference has been made already, began to spread. A certain adventuress, by name Madame de la Motte, surprised Lorenza one day in a tête-à-tête with the Chevalier d’Oisemont. The count at the time was far away from Paris, and the adventuress promised to keep the secret on condition that Lorenza should in turn do all in her power to establish her as an intimate friend in the house, having free entrance therein, and should persuade Cagliostro to place his knowledge and skill at her disposal, if ever she required it. The result of this arrangement was the complicity of Cagliostro in the extraordinary and scandalous affair of the Diamond Necklace. When the plot was exposed, Cagliostro was arrested with the other alleged conspirators, including the principal victim, the Cardinal de Rohan. He was exonerated, not indeed without honour, from the charge of which he was undoubtedly guilty, but his wife had fled to Rome at his arrest, and had rejoined her family. He himself began to tremble at his own notoriety, and grew anxious to leave France. He postponed till a more favourable period his grand project concerning the metropolitan lodge of the Egyptian rite.[AO] A personage, calling himself Thomas Ximenes, and claiming descent from the cardinal of that name, sought to reanimate his former masonic enthusiasm; but the vision of the Bastile seemed to be ever before his eyes, and neither this person, nor the great dignitaries of the Parisian lodges, could prevail with him. In spite of his acquittal he nourished vengeance against the Court of France, and more than once he confided to his private friends that he should make his voice heard when he had passed the frontier. He prepared to depart, and one day his disconsolate adepts learned that he was on the road to England.
Once in London he recovered his energy. He was received with great honour; many of his disciples from Lyons and Paris followed him. The English masons invited him to the metropolitan lodge, and gave him the first place, that of grand orient. He was entreated to convene a masonic lodge of the Egyptian rite, and consented with some sadness, for the memory of the brilliant Paris lodge which he had been on the point of founding was incessantly before him. He could not console himself for the fall of that beautiful and long-cherished plan, which had cost him so much study, pains, and preaching.
It was from this discreet distance that Cagliostro addressed his famous Letter to the People of France, which was translated into a number of languages, and circulated widely through Europe. It predicted the French Revolution, the demolishment of the Bastile, and the rise of a great prince who would abolish the infamous lettres de cachet, convoke the States-General, and re-establish the true religion.
The publication was intemperate in its language and revolutionary in its sentiments, and close upon its heels followed his well-known quarrel with the Courrier de l’Europe, which resulted in the exposure of the real life of Cagliostro from beginning to end.