To one of his vain and grandiose temperament the abasement of his soul must have been terrible as he who had been as good as master of the splendid palace of Saverne cowered day after day in that bare attic with hunger and terror, like sullen lacqueys in constant attendance, and thought of all the past—of the fascinating Cardinal whose friendship had brought him to this pass and who had now forsaken him; of Sarazin, the rich banker “who would give me the whole of his fortune were I to ask for it,” dead now, or as good as dead; of de Loutherbourg, the Good Samaritan; of the reverent disciples to whom he had been the père adoré, the “master”; of the Croesus’ fortune which he had lavished so ostentatiously and generously; of the gaudeamus with which the sympathetic crowds had greeted him on his release from the Bastille; of the miracles of which he had lost the trick; and last but not least of his fantastic scheme for the regeneration of mankind which he had promulgated with such enthusiasm and success.
One day at a dinner to which some of his Masonic acquaintances invited him when the memory of the past was perhaps more vivid, more insistent than usual, influenced by the festal atmosphere of the occasion, Cagliostro was persuaded to discourse on Egyptian Masonry. But alas! instead of exciting interest as in former times his eloquence was without effect. The ice, however, was broken, and necessity becoming stronger than his fears he endeavoured to procure recruits in the hope of maintaining himself and his wife on their subscriptions.
According to the Inquisition-biographer two men whom he approached resolved to have a practical joke at his expense. They manifested a lively desire to be instructed in the Egyptian Rite, and Cagliostro, deceived into the belief that he had to do with men of means, “by a false diamond, which he took to be real, on the hand of one,” decided to gratify them. After having explained to them the aims and character of Egyptian Masonry he proceeded to initiate them in conformity with the usual ridiculous rites, passing them, as Grand Master, by the wave of a sword through the three Masonic grades of apprentice, companion and master at once. But to his mingled terror and mortification when it came to the payment of the fifty crowns that he demanded as their subscription fees, they excused themselves in a manner which showed him only too plainly he was their dupe.
Alarmed lest they intended to inform against him, he thought to avoid the consequences of detection by confessing to a priest as he had done at Trent. It was the last effort of a beast at bay. In accordance with the monstrous principle that the means justify the end confessors have been known on occasion to betray the secrets confided to them in the confessional. In this instance, however, there is no proof that the Church profaned the sanctity of the sacrament to which it attaches so much importance. It is much more likely that the Inquisition had discovered Cagliostro’s presence in Rome, and that the men by whom he had been duped were spies of the Holy Office. On the evening of December 27, 1789, he and his wife were arrested by the Papal police and imprisoned in the Castle of St. Angelo.
Cagliostro, it is said, had been warned of his danger anonymously by some unknown well-wisher. But where could he flee without money? The consolations of the confessional, moreover, seemed to have allayed his fears to such an extent that he did not even take the precaution to destroy any letters or documents that might compromise him.
On the same day that Cagliostro was seized the sbirri of the Inquisition made a raid on the Lodge of the Vrais Amis. But the members, who had also received warning, better advised or better supplied with funds than the ex-Grand Cophta, had taken time by the forelock and fled.
II
The manner in which the Papal government tried those accused of heresy and sedition is too notorious to require explanation. In all countries, in all languages, the very name of the Inquisition has become a by-word for religious tyranny of the cruelest and most despicable description. If ever this terrible stigma was justified it was in the eighteenth century, particularly in the Church’s struggle with the Revolution for which clerical intolerance was more directly responsible than any other factor of inhumanity and stupidity that led to the overthrow of the ancien régime.
In the case of Cagliostro, who was one of the last to be tried by the Apostolic Court, the Inquisition lived up to its reputation. Threatened and execrated everywhere by the invincible spirit of freedom which the fall of the Bastille had released, the Jesuits, who controlled the machinery of the Papal government,[48] strove without scruple to crush the enemies which their arrogant intrigues had created for the Church. To them Freemasonry was a comprehensive name for everything and everybody opposed to them and their pretensions. In a certain sense they were right, and in France at any rate where the lodges and secret societies no longer took the trouble to conceal their aims there was no mistaking the revolutionary character of the Freemasons. So great, therefore, was the fear and hatred that Freemasonry inspired in the Church that in seizing Cagliostro the Inquisition never dreamt of charging him with any other crime. Beside it his occult practices or the crimes of which, on the assumption that he was Giuseppe Balsamo he might have been condemned, paled into insignificance.
The fact that the Inquisition-biographer seeks to excuse the Apostolic Court for its failure to charge him with these offences, on the ground that “all who could testify against him were dead” proves how slight was the importance his judges attached to them. Had they desired to bring him to the gallows for the forgeries of Balsamo, the judges of the Inquisition would have found the necessary witnesses. As a matter of fact they never so much as attempted to identify him with Balsamo, as they could easily have done by bringing some of the relations of the latter from Palermo.[49]