Unable to penetrate the mystery in which he wrapped his origin, his fortune, and his remarkable powers, they attacked his character. As it was known that he frequently stayed at Saverne when the Cardinal was absent, attempts were made to poison the mind of the prince by informing him that his guest gave costly banquets at his expense when “Tokay flowed like water.”[21] But the Cardinal only laughed.
“Indeed!” he exclaimed, when Georgel reported to him what he himself had only heard. “Well, I have given him the right to abuse my hospitality if he chooses.”
As the confidence of the Cardinal in his mysterious friend was not to be shaken by the slanders of the doctors, he also was assailed. Old stories of his Eminence’s private life were revived and new ones added to them. His friendship for Cagliostro was declared to be merely a cloak to hide a passion for his wife. The Countess was said, and believed by many, to be his mistress. It was consequently regarded as a matter of course that it was the Cardinal’s money which the Count spent so lavishly.
But far from plundering the infatuated prince as his enemies asserted, Cagliostro did not so much as appeal to him for protection. Fortunately the Cardinal did not require to be reminded of the claims of friendship. Fully aware of the hostility to Cagliostro, he endeavoured to silence it by procuring for him from three members of the Government letters to the chief civil authority in which his protégé was recommended in the highest terms. To Cagliostro these letters, to which at any time he would have attached an exaggerated importance, had a special significance from the fact that “he neither solicited them directly nor indirectly.” He counted them among his most valuable possessions.
The tranquillity, however, which they procured him was only transient. Ever employing fresh weapons and methods in attacking him, his enemies eventually found his Achilles’-heel—the impulsive sympathy of a naturally kind heart.
One day, while he was showing an important government official over his hospital, a man whom he had never seen before, and who appeared to have fallen on evil times, appealed to him for assistance. He asked to be taken into his service, and offered to wear his livery. He said that his name was Sacchi, that he came of a good family in Amsterdam, and had some knowledge of chemistry. Touched by his evident distress, Cagliostro yielded as usual to his charitable impulses. He found employment for Sacchi in his hospital, and paid him liberally.
SAVERNE
From a very rare French print
Reproduced by the courtesy of L’Alsace Illustrée