[CHAPTER VI.]
NAPOLEON III. AND THE ROSICRUCIANS—AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN AND AN EXTRAORDINARY THEORY.
Beverly continued his very singular narrative, saying:—“You have already been informed of the singular doom that hangs over me—that I am condemned to perpetual transmigrations, unless relieved by a marriage with a woman in whom not one drop of the blood of Adam circulates—and even then, the love must be perfect and mutual. Thus my chance is about as one in three hundred and ninety-six billions against, to a single one for me. This doom has brought around me, as it did around others before me, certain beings, powers, influences, and at length I became a voluntary adept in the Rosicrucian mysteries and brotherhood. How, when, or where I was found worthy of initiation, of course I am not at liberty to tell; suffice it that I belong to the Order, and have been—by renouncing certain things—admitted to the companionship of the living, the dead, and those who never die; have been admitted to the famous Derishavi-Laneh, and am familiar with the profoundest secrets of the Fakie-Deeva Records; and through life have had ever three great possibilities before me: one of these—I being a neutral soul—is that of becoming after death a chief of a supreme order, called the Light; or of its opposite, called the Shadow—to which I am tempted by invisible, but potent agencies; and the third of which is the one I dread most—the perpetuation of the doom to wander the earth for ages, in various bodies, as the result of the curse pronounced by a dying man ages ago, as you already have been told, unless I be redeemed by a true marriage with a woman in whom not one drop of the blood of Adam circulates. I desire to avoid all three if possible, and to share the lot of other men.
“I have another mysterious thing to relate to you. Doubtless you recollect that the curse was uttered by the young poet—and that the mysterious voice heard in the dungeon where he was slain, declared that thenceforth, until the doom was fully accomplished, this youth during all his ages should be known as the Stranger. Well, in the course of the centuries that rolled away, this Stranger became a member of an august Fraternity in the Heavens, known as the Power of the Light. You know, also, that I, who was the king, incurred the penalty of wandering till relieved; and you are also aware that him who was the Vizier was sentenced to a singular destiny under the name of Dhoula Bel. Well, he also became an active member of a vast Association in the Spaces, known as the Power of the Shadow. This is but one half of the mystery, for it became the object of both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger—who both knew that in my birth from the woman Flora—years before I underwent my present incarnation—that I would be in every respect a Neutral man; one having no tendencies whatever, naturally, to either good or evil, but only toward ATTAINMENT; and as such neutral man, it became possible to forego my doom, and to become supreme chief of either of the Orders named; hence both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger, beside their original, have the strong additional motive of making me subservient to their loftier views; and to achieve it, they frequently attend me in visible and invisible shapes—tempting, nearly ruining, and as often saving me from dangers worse than death itself—in what way has already been partly told, and will be hereafter seen.
“In one of my frequent sojourns in Paris, I became acquainted with a few reputed Rosicrucians, and after sounding their depths, found the water very shallow, and very muddy—as had been the case with those I met in London—Bulwer, Jennings, Wilson, Belfedt, Archer, Socher, Corvaja, and other pretended adepts—like the Hitchcocks, Kings, Scotts, and others of that ilk, on American soil. At length, there came an invitation from Baron D——t, for me to attend, and take part in, a Mesmeric Séance. I attended; and from the reputation I gained on that occasion, but a few days elapsed ere I was summoned to the Tuilleriés, by command of his majesty, Napoleon III.,[3] who for thirty-four years had been a True Rosicrucian, and whom I had before met at the same place, but on a different errand than the present. What then and there transpired, so far as myself was an actor, it is not for me to say, further than that certain experiments in clairvoyance were regarded as very successful, even for Paris, which is the centre of the Mesmeric world, and where there are hundreds who will read you a book blindfold; and two—Alexis, and Adolph Didiér—who will do the same, though the page be inclosed in the centre of a dozen boxes of metal or wood, one within the other.
“On this occasion I had played and conquered at both chess and écarte, no word being spoken, the games simultaneous, and the players in three separate rooms. There was present, also, an Italian gentleman with an unpronounceable name; a Russian Count Tsovinski, and a Madame Dablin—a mesmerist and operatic singer. After awhile his majesty asked the empress, and the general (Pellisier), who afterwards became the Duke de Malakoff, if they would submit to a trial of mesmerism by either of the three professors of the art, named. They declined; whereupon the Emperor, speaking aloud, asked ‘if any of the company were willing to test, in their own persons, the vaunted powers of his excellency, the Italian Count?’ whose methods of inducing his magnetic marvels differed altogether from those usually adopted; inasmuch as he, like Boucicault, the actor, in his famous play—‘The Phantom’—makes no passes, scarcely glances for an instant at his subjects, and invariably looks away from, not toward, them. Now, it is a well-known fact that everybody believes everybody else, save themselves, subject to mesmeric influence, as is often demonstrated at the weekly séances of the Magnetic Society, held in the Rue Grenelle St. Honore.
“At the date of this Imperial Séance, spiritualism had not yet made public pretensions in France, and although the Scotch trickster, Daniel Hume, had crossed the Atlantic, and was at that time living at Cox’s, in Jermyn street, Picadilly, London—yet he had not then obtained the notoriety that subsequently became his, nor had half Europe ran after those in whose presence tables tipped by heel, toe, and genuine spirit power. Of course, then, spiritual phenomena, so called, being then under bann, it could not be, and was not depended on as a means of explaining what there and then took place.
“ ‘With great pleasure,’ said the Count, in reply to a request to exhibit his power. ‘With great pleasure, your majesty,’ and forthwith he turned and looked straight into a massive mirror that occupied the entire space between two windows of the saloon. As he spoke it struck me that, somewhere, at some time, I had met this Italian Rosicrucian, but where, for the life of me, I could not tell; yet I was certain that I had heard that voice, and still more certain that I had beheld that strange, sweet smile.
“The Count’s position before the mirror was such that, supposing his eye had been a flame, the reflected rays would strike the forehead of one of the company fairly in the centre. The person upon whom it struck had not the least suspicion of what was being done. He did not make the discovery until it was too late, for no sooner did the operator get him fairly in focus, then he clenched his hands, looked with ten-fold earnestness at the mirror, muttered to himself a few unintelligible words, and the gentleman fell to the floor as if his heart had been perforated by a bullet, or as if he had been struck down with a club. In an instant all was confusion, everybody thinking it a fit of apoplexy, except the Emperor, the operator, myself and the Russian.
“Several went to raise him, but before they could do so he sprung to his feet, began to sing and dance—the truth, at the same time, flashed upon the company, that the phenomenon was mesmeric—and in another minute to plead for his life, as if before his judges, with the prison and the axe before him. The scene was solemn to the last degree.
“Suddenly, and without a word from the Count, the pleading changed to a musical scena; and although, at other times totally incapable of singing or playing in the least degree, he performed several difficult pieces in magnificent style, on the harp and piano, accompanying the performances vocally, and in a manner that drew involuntary plaudits from every person present.