Cardinal de Rohan told Georgel that on seeing him for the first time “he discovered in his physiognomy a dignity so imposing that he felt penetrated with awe.”
“He was not, strictly speaking, handsome,” says Madame d’Oberkirch, who certainly was not one of his admirers, “but never have I seen a more remarkable face. His glance was so penetrating that one might be almost tempted to call it supernatural. I could not describe the expression of his eyes—it was, so to speak, a mixture of flame and ice. It attracted and repelled at the same time, and inspired, whilst it terrified, an insurmountable curiosity. I cannot deny that Cagliostro possessed an almost demoniacal power, and it was with difficulty that I tore myself from a fascination I could not comprehend, but whose influence I could not deny.”
Lavater, whose unfavourable opinion seems to be due to the contemptuous way in which Cagliostro received him, nevertheless thought him “a man such as few are.”
Beugnot, after ridiculing him as “moulded for the express purpose of playing the part of a clown,” confesses that “his face, his attire—the whole man, in fact, impressed him in spite of himself.”
If, as Meiners and other hostile contemporaries assert, “he spoke badly all the languages he professed to know,” there is not the least reason to infer, like Carlyle, that “he was wholly intelligible to no mortal,” or that “what thought, what resemblance of thought he had, could not deliver itself, except in gasps, blustering gushes, spasmodic refluences which made bad worse.”
Michelet—Carlyle’s brilliant and equally learned contemporary—regarded him as “a veritable sorcerer possessed of great eloquence.” Even the bitter Inquisition-biographer confessed that he was “marvellously eloquent.” Motus declared that “his eloquence fascinated and subjugated one, even in the languages he spoke least well.” “If gibberish can be sublime,” says Beugnot, “Cagliostro was sublime. When he began any subject he seemed carried away with it, and spoke impressively in a ringing, sonorous voice.”
The beauty of the Countess Cagliostro was also an important element in the success of her husband. She was like a sylph with her fluffy straw-coloured hair, which she wore unpowdered, her large, deep, soft blue eyes, her small and delicately chiselled nose, her full rose-red lips, and a dazzlingly white skin.
“She is an angel in human form,” said Maître Polverit, by whom she was defended when she was imprisoned in the Bastille on the charge of being implicated in the Necklace Affair, “who has been sent on earth to share and soften the days of the Man of Marvels. Beautiful with a beauty that never belonged to any woman, she cannot be called a model of tenderness, sweetness and resignation—no! for she does not even suspect the existence of any other qualities.” And the judges evidently agreed, for they ordered her release without a trial.
Motus describes her as “a beautiful and modest person and as charitable as her husband.” She was fond of dress, and her diamonds were the talk of Paris. The Countess de Lamotte at her trial declared that “Madame de Cagliostro’s display of jewelry scandalized respectable women, as well as those who were not.” It is scarcely necessary, however, to observe that Madame de Lamotte saw the Countess through her hatred of Cagliostro. To make a display of jewelry at that period did not cause the least scandal. The Countess, moreover, was a fine horsewoman, and mounted on her black mare Djèrid attracted attention quite apart from the fact that she was the wife of Cagliostro.
Uneducated—she could not write; though from mixing in the best society she had acquired the manners of a lady—she was one of those women who always remain a child. In the over-civilized, cynical, and hysterical age in which she lived, her ingenuous chatter passed for a new type of spirituality, and her ignorance for candour. That was the secret of her charm. As all the world lacked it, candour was a novelty.