He showed me a large diamond that he wore on his little finger, and on which the Rohan arms were engraved. This ring was worth at least twenty thousand francs.
“It is a beautiful gem, monseigneur,” I said, “I have been admiring it.”
“Well,” he exclaimed, “it is Cagliostro who made it: he made it out of nothing. I was present during the whole operation with my eyes fixed on the crucible. Is not that science, Baroness? People should not say that he is duping me, or taking advantage of me. I have had this ring valued by a jeweller and an engraver, and they have estimated it at twenty-five thousand livres. You must admit that he would be a strange kind of cheat who would make such presents.”
I acknowledge I was stunned. M. de Rohan perceived it, and continued—
“This is not all—he can make gold! He has made in this very palace, in my presence, five or six thousand livres. He will make me the richest prince in Europe! These are no mere vagaries of the imagination, madame, but positive facts. Think of all his predictions that have been realized, of all the miraculous cures that he has effected! I repeat he is a most extraordinary, a most sublime man, whose knowledge is only equalled by his goodness. What alms he gives! What good he does! It exceeds all power of imagination. I can assure you he has never asked or received anything from me.”
But Cagliostro did not confine himself solely to seeking the philosopher’s stone for the Cardinal. For the benefit of his splendid host he displayed the whole series of his magical phenomena.
One day, according to Roberson—who professed to have obtained his information from “an eye-witness very worthy of credence”—he promised to evoke for the Cardinal the shade of a woman he had loved. He had made the attempt two or three times before without success. Death seemed to hesitate to come to the rendez-vous. The moon, perhaps, had not been propitious, or some great crime committed at the moment of evocation may have had an unfavourable effect. But on this occasion all the conditions on which success depended were united.
“The performance,” says Roberson, “took place in a small darkened room in the presence of four or five spectators who were seated far enough apart to prevent them from secretly communicating with one another. Wand in hand, Cagliostro stood in the middle of the room. The silence which he had commanded was so profound that even the hearts of those present seemed to stop beating. All at once the wand, as if drawn by a magnet, pointed to a spot on the wall where a vague, indefinite form was visible for a moment. The Cardinal uttered a cry. He had recognized—or believed he had, which amounted to the same thing—the woman he had loved.”
******
So great was the confidence that Rohan placed in Cagliostro that he treated him as an oracle. He constantly consulted him, and suffered himself to be guided entirely by his advice. As the consequences of this infatuation were in the end disastrous, it is customary to regard the Cardinal as the dupe of Cagliostro. Many, blinded by prejudice, have supposed that Cagliostro, having previously informed himself of the tastes, character, and vast wealth of the prince, came to Strasburg for the express purpose of victimizing him. It is even asserted that the Countess had her share in the subjugation of the Cardinal, and that while Cagliostro attacked his understanding, she laid siege to his heart.