According to Henri d’Almeras (Cagliostro, et la franc-maconnerie et l’occultisme au XVIIIe siècle), Cagliostro’s apartment on the second floor of the house was occupied in the year 1904 by a watchmaker. Two famous watchmakers became conjurers, one after having read an old book on natural magic, the other after having seen a performance of the Davenport Brothers. I allude to Robert-Houdin and Jno. Nevil Maskelyne. Watchmaking leads naturally to the construction of automata and magical illusions. The young horologist of the Rue Saint Claude has every excuse to become a prestidigitateur. He works in an atmosphere of necromancy in that old house haunted by its memories of the past. If this does not influence him to enter the magic circle, nothing else will.
People pass and repass this ghost-house of the Rue Saint Claude every day, but not one in a hundred knows that the great enchanter once resided there and held high court. If those dumb walls could but speak, what fascinating stories of superstition and folly they might unfold to our wondering ears! Yes, in this ancient house, dating back to pre-Revolutionary Paris, to the old régime, the great necromancer known as Cagliostro lived in the zenith of his fame. In these golden years of his life, was he never haunted by disturbing visions of the dungeons of the Holy Inquisition, yawning to receive him? Ah, who can tell? Thanks to the gossipy memoir writers of the period, I am able to give a pen portrait, composite, if you will, of some of the scenes that were enacted in the antiquated mansion.
It is night. The lanterns swung in the streets of old Paris glimmer fitfully. Silence broods over the city with shadowy wings. No sound is heard save the clank of the patrol on its rounds. The Rue Saint Claude, however, is all bustle and confusion. A grand “soirée magique” is being held at the house of Monsieur le Comte de Cagliostro. Heavy old-fashioned carriages stand in front of the door, with coachmen lolling sleepily on the boxes, and linkboys playing rude games with each other in the kennel. A rumble in the street—ha, there, lackeys! out of {84} the way! Here comes the coach of my Lord Cardinal, Prince Louis de Rohan. There is a flash of torches. Servants in gorgeous liveries of red and gold, with powdered wigs, open the door of the vehicle, and let down the steps with a crash. Monseigneur le Cardinal, celebrant of the mass in the royal palace at Versailles, man of pleasure and alchemist, descends. He is enveloped in a dark cloak, as if to court disguise, but it is only a polite pretense. He enters the mansion of his bosom friend, Cagliostro the magician. Within, all is a blaze of light. A life-size bust of the divine Cagliostro ornaments the foyer. Visitors are received in a handsomely furnished apartment on the second floor. Beyond that is the séance-room, a mysterious chamber hung with somber drapery. Wax candles in tall silver sconces, arranged about the place in mystic pentagons and triangles, illuminate the scene.
In the center of the room is a table with a black cloth, on which are embroidered in red the symbols of the highest degree of the Rosicrucians. Upon this strange shekinah is placed the cabalistic apparatus of the necromancer—odd little Egyptian figures of Isis, Osiris, vials of lustral waters, and a large globe full of clarified water. It is all very uncanny. Presently the guests are seated in a circle about the altar, and form a magnetic chain. As the old chroniclers phrase it, to them enters Cagliostro, the Grand Kophta, the man who has lived thousands of years, habited in gorgeous robes like the arch-hierophant of an ancient Egyptian temple. The clairvoyant is now brought in, a child of angelic purity, who was born under a certain constellation, of delicate nerves, great sensitiveness, and, withal, blue eyes. She is bidden to kneel before the globe, and relate what she sees therein. Cagliostro makes passes over her, and commands the genii to enter the water. The very soul of the seeress is penetrated with the magnetic aura emanating from the magician. She becomes convulsed, and declares that she sees events taking place that very moment at the court of Versailles, at Vienna, at Rome.
Every one present is transported with joy. Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan is charmed, delighted, and lauds the necromancer to the skies. How weird and wonderful! Albertus {85} Magnus, Nostradamus and Appolonius of Tyana are not to be compared with the all-powerful Cagliostro. Truly he is the descendant of the Egyptian thaumaturgists.
The séance is followed by a banquet. Rose-leaves are showered over the guests from the gilded ceiling, perfumed water plashes in the fountains, and a hidden orchestra of violins, flutes and harps plays soft melodies. The scene reminds one of the splendid feasts of the Roman voluptuaries in the decadent days of the empire. The lovely Lorenza Feliciani, wife of the enchanter, discourses learnedly of sylphs, salamanders and gnomes, in the jargon of the Rosicrucians. The Cardinal, his veins on fire with love and champagne, gazes amorously at her. But he is thinking all the while of the aristocratic Marie Antoinette, who treats him with such cruel disdain. But Cagliostro has promised to win the Queen for him, to melt her icy heart with love-philters and magical talismans. Let him but possess his soul in patience a little while. All will be well. Aye, indeed, well enough to land the haughty prelate in the Bastille, and start the magician on that downward path to the Inquisition at Rome.
The night wanes. The lights of the banqueting-hall burn lower and lower. Finally the grandes dames and the seigneurs take their departure. When the last carriage has rolled away into the darkness, Cagliostro and his wife yawn wearily, and retire to their respective sleeping-apartments. The augurs of Rome, says a Latin poet, could not look at each other without laughing. Cagliostro and Lorenza in bidding each other goodnight exchange smiles of incalculable cunning. The sphinx masks have dropped from their faces, and they know each other to be—charlatans and impostors, preying upon a superstitious society. The magician is alone. He places his wax light upon an escritoire, and throws himself into an arm-chair before the great fireplace, carved and gilded with many a grotesque image. The flames of the blazing logs weave all sorts of fantastic forms on floor and ceiling. The wind without howls in the chimney like a lost spirit. The figures embroidered on the tapestry assume monstrous shapes of evil portent—alguazils, cowled inquisitors, and jailers with rusty keys and chains. {86}
But the magician sees nothing of it all, hears not the warning cry of the wind: he is thinking of his newly hatched lodges of Egyptian occultism, and the golden louis d’or to be conjured out of the strong-boxes of his Parisian dupes.
GHOST-MAKING EXTRAORDINARY.
“Stay illusion!