CHAPTER III
MASKED AND UNMASKED
I
Before leaving England, during an interlude in the persecution to which he had been subjected, Cagliostro had become a Freemason. This event, innocent enough in itself, though destined years later to have such terrible consequences for him, occurred on April 12, 1777. The lodge he joined was the Esperance, which met in a room of the King’s Head in Gerard Street, Soho.
According to the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe, who professed to have obtained the particulars of his admission and initiation from an eye-witness, the Count on this occasion described himself as “Joseph Cagliostro, Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Brandenburg.”[10] Three other members were received at the same time: Pierre Boileau, a valet; Count Ricciarelli, “musician and alchemist, aged seventy-six”; and the Countess Cagliostro.
There was a full attendance of members, “Brother” Hardivilliers, an upholsterer, presiding. Out of courtesy to her sex the Countess was received first. Her initiation consisted in taking the prescribed oath, after which “she was given a garter on which the device of the lodge, Union, Silence, Virtue, was embroidered, and ordered to wear it on going to bed that night.”
The ceremony, however, of making the “Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Brandenburg” a Freemason was characterized by the horseplay usual on such occasions. By means of a rope attached to the ceiling the “Colonel” was hoisted into the air, and allowed to drop suddenly to the floor—an idiotic species of buffoonery that entailed unintentionally a slight injury to his hand. His eyes were then bandaged, and a loaded pistol having been given him, he was ordered by “Brother” Hardivilliers to blow out his brains. As he not unnaturally manifested a lively repugnance to pull the trigger he was assailed with cries of “coward” by the assembly. “To give him courage” the president made him take the oath. It was as follows—
“I, Joseph Cagliostro, in presence of the great Architect of the Universe and my superiors in this respectable assembly, promise to do all that I am ordered, and bind myself under penalties known only to my superiors to obey them blindly without questioning their motives or seeking to discover the secret of the mysteries in which I shall be initiated either by word, sign, or writing.”
The pistol—an unloaded one this time—was again put into his hand. Reassured, but still trembling, he placed the muzzle to his temple and pulled the trigger. At the same time he heard the report of another pistol, received a blow on the head, and tearing the bandage from his eyes found himself—a Freemason![11]
To make these perfectly harmless particulars, which were published by the Editor of the Courier de l’Europe with the express purpose of damaging Cagliostro, appear detrimental, their malignant author cites the menial occupations of the members of the Esperance Lodge, who were chiefly petty tradesmen and servants of foreign birth, as indicative of the low origin and questionable status of the self-styled Count. Such a reproach from its manifest absurdity is scarcely worth repeating. If any inference is to be drawn from Cagliostro’s association with the hairdressers and upholsterers, the valets and shoemakers, of whom the Esperance Lodge chiefly consisted, it is to be drawn from the character of his lodge, and certainly not from the occupations of his brother masons.