It was certainly with a very definite object that he went to Bordeaux, where he is next heard of, and whither he travelled, as he himself says, through the cities of Southern France. Now the cities of Southern France were permeated with supernaturalism. It was at Bordeaux, that Martinez Pasqualis had held his celebrated school of magic and mystical theurgy, the most distinguished of whose pupils was Saint-Martin, the founder of the Martinists. No place was better adapted for gaining recruits to Egyptian or any other kind of Freemasonry.
It was here that Mesmer found the noisiest and most ardent of his admirers in Père Hervier, an Augustinian monk who by his eloquence had made a great reputation as a popular preacher. Summoned to Bordeaux by the municipality to preach during Lent at the Church of St. Andrew, Hervier preached not only the gospel according to Christ but that according to the Messiah of animal magnetism, with the result that he made both the clergy and the doctors his enemies.
This church, one of the finest Gothic monuments in Europe, was the stage on which he displayed his talents both as an orator and as a mesmerist. He was preaching one day on eternal damnation. His flashing eyes, commanding gestures, and alluring voice, which had from the start prepared the church from the holy water stoup to the candles on the altar, never once lost their hold upon the imagination. The congregation, consisting of the richest, youngest, and most frivolous women of Bordeaux, was in complete accord with the preacher. Suddenly when the monk began to picture the horrors of hell a young girl fell into a fit. Such an incident happening at such a moment created a panic, and those in the immediate neighbourhood of the unfortunate girl fled from the spot in terror. Suspending his sermon Père Hervier descended from the pulpit with the sublime gravity of an apostle, and going up to the young girl, magnetized her after the manner of Mesmer. Immediately her convulsions began to cease. The congregation fell on its knees. The face of the priest seemed illumined with a divine light. As he passed the women kissed his feet, and were with difficulty prevented from worshipping him.
Perceiving that the moment was, so to speak, psychological, Père Hervier remounted the pulpit, and taking as his text the miracle he had just performed, discoursed with all the eloquence for which he was noted on charity and Christ healing the sick; finally bringing his sermon to a close with a passionate denunciation of the doctors and clergy of Bordeaux who did not believe in magnetism and desired nothing better than to persecute a poor monk who did.
Such a stage was too well adapted to Egyptian Masonry not to have attracted Cagliostro. On the night of his arrival in Bordeaux he and his wife went to the play, and on being recognized received an ovation. The next day the concourse of people who flocked to consult him was so great that the magistrates were obliged to give him a guard of soldiers to preserve order in the street.
He had resolved, he says, on leaving Strasburg to give up the practice of medicine in order to avoid exposing himself again to the envy of the doctors. However, as the number of persons of all stations who sought his assistance was so great he was induced to change his mind, and resume the gratuitous “miracles” which had rendered him so celebrated in Strasburg. In coming to this decision he afterwards declared that he counted on the protection of the Comte de Vergennes, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and one of the three Cabinet Ministers who had previously recommended him to the Pretor of Strasburg. It was, he said, at Vergennes’ special request that he returned to France. As the Comte de Vergennes failed to deny this statement, which he could easily have done when it was made by Cagliostro at his trial in the Necklace Affair, there seems no reason to doubt it.
In Bordeaux, as at Strasburg, his cures and his charities attracted general attention and procured him a large and enthusiastic following. Many of the most influential men of the city sought admittance to the lodge he founded. But, as before, Egyptian Masonry flourished at the expense of the tranquillity and security of the Grand Cophta. The influence of Vergennes and other powerful patrons was powerless to protect him from the ingenious malevolence of the envious doctors. Even Père Hervier, instead of joining forces with him, entered the lists against him. Mere “clerk of Mesmer,” he had the folly to engage Cagliostro in a public discussion, in which he received so humiliating a chastisement that he was laughed out of Bordeaux. But in spite of his triumphs life was made such a burden to Cagliostro that after being continually baited for eleven months he could endure the torment no longer, and departed for Lyons.
This city was a veritable stronghold of Freemasonry. Lodges of all descriptions flourished here, notably those founded by Saint-Martin, the most mystical of occultists, in which the Swedenborgian Rite was observed. It was here that Cagliostro found his most ardent and loyal supporters. Their enthusiasm was such that they built a “temple” expressly for the observance of the Egyptian Rite. It enjoyed the dignity of being the Mother Lodge of Egyptian Masonry, the lodges at Strasburg, Bâle, Bordeaux, Paris, and other places being affiliated to it. As it was the custom for the mother lodges of every order of Freemasonry to be named after some virtue, this one received the title of Sagesse Triomphante. It was the only lodge specially erected by Cagliostro’s followers, all the others being held in rooms rented for their needs.
It would have been well for Cagliostro had he been content to remain in Lyons. He would have enjoyed the “tranquillity and security” he so much desired; and history, perhaps, would have forgotten him, for it is owing to his misfortunes that his achievements are chiefly remembered.
But destiny lured him to destruction and an ignominious renown. Inordinately vain and self-conscious, he was enticed to Paris by the Cardinal, who was then residing there, and with whom he had been in constant correspondence ever since he left Strasburg. So insistent was his Eminence that he sent Raymond de Carbonnières, one of his secretaries, and an enthusiastic admirer of Cagliostro, to Lyons on purpose to fetch him. Paris, too, Mecca of every celebrity, called him with no uncertain voice. Magic-struck she craved the excitement of fresh mysteries and the spell of a new idol. Mesmer’s tempestuous vogue was over; adored and ridiculed in turn he had departed with 340,000 livres, a very practical proof of his success.