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BUST OF CAGLIOSTRO. After Houdon. (In the possession of M. Storelli.)CAGLIOSTRO. From Vie de Joseph Balsamo, etc. Paris, 1791.

Hats and neckties were named after him. In Paris as in Strasburg, he gave away large sums of money to the poor and cured them of their ailments free of charge. His mansion was always crowded with noble guests. The idle aristocracy could find nothing better to do than attend the spirit séances of the charlatan. The shades of Voltaire, Rousseau, and other dead celebrities were summoned from the “vasty deep,” impersonated doubtless by clever confederates in the pay of Cagliostro, often aided by mechanical and optical accessories. The art of phan­tas­ma­goria, in which the concave mirror plays a part, was well known to the enchanter. The Count de Beugnot gives in detail, in his interesting autobiography, an account of Cagliostro’s performances at the residences of Madame de la Motte and the Cardinal de Rohan. The niece of Count de la Motte, a Mlle. de {62} la Tour, a charming girl of fifteen, frequently acted as clairvoyant in the mystical séances. She is reported to have possessed all the requisites of a seeress: angelic purity, delicate nerves, and blue eyes, also to have been born under the constellation Capricorn. “Her mother nearly died of joy.”

Says Count Beugnot: “When she learned that her child fulfilled all these conditions of Egyptian thaumaturgy, she thought the treasures of Memphis and of that large city in the interior of Africa were about to fall upon her family, which was badly in need of them.” In the report of the necklace trial (Arch. Nat. X2, B‐1417), the young girl confesses to have aided the charlatan in his magical operations at the house of the Cardinal, by pretending to see visions of Marie Antoinette and others in a globe of water, which was surrounded by lighted tapers and figures of Isis and Apis. He had decked her out in a freemason’s apron embroidered with cabalistic characters. She aided him because “she did not want to be bothered,” and answered his leading questions, etc. But there was perhaps another reason for her acquiescence in the fraud. Cagliostro had declared to her, in the presence of the prelate, her aunt and mother, when she first attempted to play the part of pythoness and failed, that her inability to see anything in the globe was evidence that she was not innocent. Stung by his inuendos, she immediately yielded and saw all she was desired to see, thereby becoming his confederate to deceive De Rohan.

An interesting pen portrait of Cagliostro is contained in Beugnot’s memoirs. The Count met the enchanter for the first time at the house of Madame de la Motte:

“Cagliostro was of medium height, rather stout, with an olive complexion, a very short neck, round face, two large eyes on a level with the cheeks, and a broad, turned-up nose. . . . His hair was dressed in a way new to France, being divided into several small tresses that united behind the head, and were twisted up into what was then called a club.

“He wore on that day an iron gray coat of French make, with gold lace, a scarlet waistcoat trimmed with broad Spanish lace, red breeches, his sword looped to the skirt of his coat, and a laced hat with a white feather, the latter a decoration still {63} required of mountebanks, tooth-drawers and other medical practitioners, who proclaim and retail their drugs in the open air. Cagliostro set off this costume by lace ruffles, several valuable rings, and shoe-buckles which were, it is true, of antique design, but bright enough to be taken for real diamonds. . . . The face, attire, and the whole man made an impression on me that I could not prevent. I listened to the talk. He spoke some sort of medley, half French and half Italian, and made many quotations which might be Arabic, but which he did not trouble himself to translate. I could not remember any more of [his conversation] than that the hero had spoken of heaven, of the stars, of the Great Secret, of Memphis, of the high-priest, of transcendental chemistry, of giants and monstrous beasts, of a city ten times as large as Paris, in the middle of Africa, where he had correspondents.”[14]

Cagliostro often boasted of his great age.

One day in Strasburg, he stopped before a huge crucifix of carved wood, and contemplated it with melancholy countenance.