At first, only the poor received attention from Cagliostro. If a rich invalid desired his attendance he referred him to the regular doctors. Though such an attitude was well calculated to attract attention, it was not, as his enemies have declared, altogether prompted by selfish considerations. In the disdain he affected for the rich there was much real resentment. Through the rich and powerful, he had gained nothing but mortification and disgrace. The circumstances under which he was forced to flee from Warsaw must have wounded to the quick a nature in which inordinate vanity and generosity were so curiously blended. Of a certainty it was not alone the hope of turning Illuminism to the advantage of Egyptian Masonry that prompted him to join the Illuminés in his hour of humiliation. In Illuminism, whose aim, revolutionary though it was, like that of Egyptian Masonry, was also inspired with the love of humanity, Cagliostro had seen both a means of rehabilitation and revenge. Of studied vengeance, however, he was incapable; the disdain with which he treated the rich was the extent of his revenge. Indeed, susceptible as he was to flattery, it was not long before his resentment was altogether appeased. But though, in spite of his bitter experience, he was even once more tempted to court the favour of the great, he did so in quite a different manner. Henceforth, in pandering to their love of sensation, he took care to give them what he saw fit, and not, as before, what they demanded.
Particularly was this the case in the exhibitions he gave of his occult powers. If, as on previous occasions, he had recourse to artifice to obtain the effect he desired, it was not detected. It is evident that his unfortunate experiences in Warsaw had taught him the wisdom of confining himself solely to phenomena within his scope. No longer does one hear of séances arranged beforehand with the medium; of failures, exposures, and humiliations.
If from some of his prodigies the alchemists of the period saw in him a successor of the clever ventriloquist and prestidigitator Lascaris, from many others the mediums of the present day in Europe and America might have recognized in him their predecessor and even their master in table-turning, spirit-rapping, clairvoyance, and evocations. In a word, he was no longer an apprentice in magic, but an expert.
As the manifestations of the occult of which Cagliostro, so to speak, made a speciality were of a clairvoyant character, some idea of the manner in which he had developed his powers may be gathered from the following account by a contemporary of a séance he held in Strasburg with the customary colombe and carafe.
“Cagliostro,” says this witness, “having announced that he was ready to answer any question put to him, a lady wished to know the age of her husband. To this the colombe made no reply, which elicited great applause when the lady confessed she had no husband. Another lady demanded an answer to a question written in a sealed letter she held in her hand. The medium at once read in the carafe these words: ‘You shall not obtain it.’ The letter was opened, the purport of the question being whether the commission in the army which the lady solicited for her son would be accorded her. As the reply was at least indicative of the question, it was received with applause.
“A judge, however, who suspected that Cagliostro’s answers were the result of some trick, secretly sent his son to his house to find out what his wife was doing at the time. When he had departed the father put this question to the Grand Cophta. The medium read nothing in the carafe, but a voice announced that the lady was playing cards with two of her neighbours. This mysterious voice, which was produced by no visible organ, terrified the company; and when the son of the judge returned and confirmed the response of the oracle, several ladies were so frightened that they withdrew.”
At Strasburg he also told fortunes, and read the future as well as the past with an accuracy that astonished even the sceptical Madame d’Oberkirch. One of the most extraordinary instances he gave of his psychic power was in predicting the death of the Empress Maria Theresa.
“He even foretold the hour at which she would expire,” relates Madame d’Oberkirch. “M. de Rohan told it to me in the evening, and it was five days after that the news arrived.”
IV
It was, however, as a healer of the sick that Cagliostro was chiefly known in Strasburg. Sudden cures of illnesses, thought to be mortal or incurable, carried his name from mouth to mouth. The number of his patients increased daily. On certain days it was estimated that upwards of five hundred persons besieged the house in which he lodged, pressing one another to get in. From the collection of sticks and crutches left as a mark of gratitude by those who, thanks to his skill, no longer had need of them, it seemed as if all the cripples in Strasburg had flocked to consult him.