[15] Lord George Gordon.

VI.

To escape the harpies of the law, who threatened him with a debtor’s prison, Cagliostro fled to his old hunting-ground, the Continent, leaving la petite Comtesse to follow him as best she could. But the game was played out. The police had by this time become fully cognizant of his impostures. He was forbidden to practice his peculiar system of medicine and masonry in Austria, Germany, Russia, and Spain. Drawn like a needle to the lodestone rock, he went to Rome. Foolish Grand Kophta! Freemasonry was a capital offence in the dominions of the Pope. One lodge, however, existed. Says Greeven: “There is reason to suppose that it was tolerated only because it enabled the Holy Church to spy out the movements of freemasons in general.” Cagliostro attempted to found one of his Egyptian lodges, but met with no success. His exchequer became depleted. He appealed to the National Assembly of France to revoke the order of banishment, on the ground of “his services to the liberty of France.” Suddenly on the evening of Dec. 27, 1789, he and his wife were arrested and incarcerated in the fortress of San Angelo. His highly-prized manuscript of Egyptian masonry was seized, together with all his papers and correspondence. He was tried by the Holy Inquisition. It must have been an impressive scene—that gloomy council {75} chamber with the cowled inquisitors. Cagliostro’s wife appeared against him and lifted the veil of Isis that hid the mysteries of the charlatan’s career. The Egyptian manuscript of George Coston, the seals, the masonic regalia and paraphernalia were mute and damning evidences of his guilt. He was indeed a freemason, even though he were not an alchemist, a soothsayer, the Grand Kophta of the Pyramids. Cagliostro’s line of defense was that “he had labored throughout to lead back freemasons, through the Egyptian ritual, to Catholic orthodoxy.” He appeared at first to be contrite. But it availed him nothing. Finding his appeals for mercy useless, he adopted another tack, and told impossible stories of his adventures. He harangued the Holy Fathers for hours, despite their threats and protests. Nothing could stop his loquacious tongue from wagging. Finally, he was condemned to death as a heretic, sorcerer, and freemason, but Pope Pius VI., on the 21st of March, 1791, commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. His manuscript was declared to be “super­sti­tious, blasphemous, wicked, and heretical,” and was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, together with his masonic implements.

After the sentence of the Inquisition, Cagliostro was taken back to the Castle of San Angelo and immured in a gloomy dungeon, where no one but the jailer came near him. But still his indomitable spirit was unconquered. He conceived a plan of escape. Expressing the greatest contrition for his crimes, he begged the Governor of the prison to send him a confessor. The request was granted, and a Capuchin monk was detailed to listen to the condemned man’s catalogue of sins. During the confession, the charlatan suddenly sprang upon the monk and endeavored to throttle him. His object was to escape from the Castle in the Capuchin’s robe. But the Father Confessor proved to be a member of the church militant, and vigorously defended himself. Cagliostro’s attempt proved futile. This anecdote was related by S. A. S. the Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar to the French masonic historian, Thory (Acta Latamorum, I, 68). The Prince declared it to be authentic.

Soon after the above-mentioned event, the Pontifical Government ordered Cagliostro to be conducted in the night time to {76} the Fortress of San Leon, in the Duchy of Urbino. Here in a subterranean dungeon, it is said, he was literally swallowed up alive, like the victims of mediæval days in the stone in pace. From this epoch we lose all traces of the great necromancer. It is said that he died in the month of August, 1795, the rigor of his punishment having somewhat abated. The following item will prove of interest: “News comes from Rome that the famous Cagliostro is dead in the fortress of San Leon.” (Moniteur universel, 6 Octobre, 1795. Correspondence dated from Genoa, August 25th.) Everything concerning that death is shrouded in mystery. The stone walls of San Leon have told no tales. No one knows where the magician is buried. In all likelihood in some ignoble prison grave. One can readily picture the obsequies: A flash of flambeaux in the night; a coarse winding-sheet; a wooden coffin; an indifferent priest to mumble a few Latin prayers; the callous grave diggers with their spades—and all is over! No masonic honors here; no arches of steel; no mystic lights and regalia. Farewell forever, Balsamo! I confess a weakness for you, despite your charlatanry. Doubtless you were welcomed with open arms to the Shades by your brethren—the Chaldeans, the sorcerers and the soothsayers.

Alfred de Caston, in his Marchands de Miracles, Paris 1864, remarks that Cagliostro “rendered up his soul to God” just one hundred years after the death of his predecessor in the art magique, the brilliant charlatan Joseph Francis Borri of Milan, who was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the Castle of St. Angelo by the Holy Inquisition, as a heretic, alchemist, and sorcerer. A curious coincidence, says Castro.

The beautiful “Flower of Vesuvius,” Lorenza Feliciani, escaped severe punishment by immuring herself in the convent of St. Appolonia at Rome, where she died in 1794. She was more sinned against than sinning.

There lived in 1858, an old woman known by the name of Madeline, who inhabited a miserable attic in Paris, the ceiling of which was covered with cabalistic and astrological emblems. She pretended to divine the future and tell fortunes. She was the daughter of Cagliostro and a Jewess of Lyons. (Le Figaro, 13 mai, 1858.) {77}

In the Inquisition biography some curious letters to Cagliostro from his masonic correspondents in France are published. They evidence the profound respect, one might almost say blind worship, with which he was regarded by his disciples.

The masonic lodge at Rome was disrupted shortly after Cagliostro’s arrest. The Sbirri of the Holy Office pounced down upon it, but the birds had flown, taking with them their most important papers. Father Marcellus says that among the members of this Roman lodge were an Englishman and an American.