[12] As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Order of the Knights Templar was suppressed in the fourteenth century by Pope Clement V, Jacques Molay, the Grand Master, being burnt alive by King Philip the Fair of France.
[13] Schröpfer’s name is generally associated with this prediction. As he died, however, in 1774, nearly five years before—a date easily ascertainable—some idea may be gathered of the slight importance most writers on Cagliostro have attached to accuracy.
[14] The stories told of Swedenborg are quite as fantastic as any concerning Cagliostro. “He was walking,” says Brittan in The Shekinah, “one day along Cheapside with a friend, a person of great worth and credit (who afterwards related the incident), when he was suddenly seen to bow very low to the ground. To his companion’s question as to what he was about, Swedenborg replied by asking him if he had not seen Moses pass by, and that he was bowing to him.”
[15] The “magic” nail held by the child has a strong family resemblance to Mesmer’s baquet divinatoire. The famous discovery of Mesmer, it is scarcely needless to say, was merely an attempt to explain scientifically powers the uses of which had been known to alchemists from time immemorial.
[16] As all the above-mentioned rumours—which, be it understood, were voiceless till the Diamond Necklace Affair—are hostile, it may be inferred that Cagliostro’s visit to St. Petersburg was, to say the least, a failure. This impression is confirmed by the fact that on the publication of the Countess von der Recke’s book, the Empress Catherine caused it to be translated into Russian.
[17] This seems to have been suggested to de Luchet by the Courier de l’Europe, which stated that Cagliostro, on becoming a Freemason, described himself as “Colonel of the Brandenburg regiment.”
[18] As an agent of the Illuminés, Cagliostro would have been quite free to found lodges of Egyptian Masonry. Many Egyptian Masons were also Illuminés, notably Sarazin of Bâle, the banker of both societies. In joining the Illuminés, therefore, Cagliostro would not only have furthered their interests, but have received every assistance from them in return.
[19] The story that it was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Marano, furiously demanding of Cagliostro the sixty ounces of gold that Giuseppe Balsamo had defrauded him of years before in Palermo, is a pure invention of the Marquis de Luchet.
[20] Motus, another contemporary, gives the number as “over fifteen hundred.”
[21] This charge is cited by Carlyle as an instance of the baseness of Cagliostro’s character. But as a matter of fact, the charge, like most of the others made against him, proves on investigation to be without any foundation. It was the Baron de Planta, one of the Cardinal’s secretaries, who gave the much-talked-of midnight suppers at Saverne, “when the Tokay flowed like water.” It is extremely doubtful whether Cagliostro even tasted the Tokay; his contemporaries frequently mention with ridicule his abstemiousness. Referring to his ascetic habits, Madame d’Oberkirch says contemptuously that “he slept in an arm-chair and lived on cheese.”