Warned by the tumult occasioned by the rush of purchasers who had besieged the house of Madame de Lamotte’s advocate on the publication of her mémoire, Thilorier took the precaution to secure eight soldiers of the watch to guard his door. Within a few hours tens of thousands of copies were scattered over Paris, and large editions were dispatched to the principal cities of Europe. It was regarded as a romance after the style of the Arabian Nights rather than the serious defence of a man whose liberty and very life were at stake. Everywhere people read it with a sort of amused bewilderment, and “Thilorier himself,” says Beugnot, “who was a man of infinite wit, was the first to laugh at it.”
As a masterpiece of irony, clearness, dignity, and wit it was equalled only by Blondel’s defence of the “Baroness d’Oliva.” But its chief merit lay not so much in the piquancy of its literary style as in its portrayal of Cagliostro. Those who read this fantastic document felt that they not only saw the man but could hear him speak. Thilorier had drawn his hero to the life.
Beginning with a high-flown and egotistical recapitulation of his sufferings and virtues Cagliostro proceeded to refute “those imputations (as to his origin) which in any other circumstance he would have treated with contempt” by relating “with candour” the history of his life. As a specimen of his grandiloquence it is worth quoting at some length.
“I cannot,” he says, “speak positively as to the place of my nativity, nor to the parents who gave me birth. All my inquiries have ended only in giving me some great notions, it is true, but altogether vague and uncertain, concerning my family.
“I spent the years of my childhood in the city of Medina in Arabia. There I was brought up under the name of Acharat, which I preserved during my progress through Africa and Asia. I had my apartments in the palace of the Muphti Salahaym. It is needless to add that the Muphti is the chief of the Mahometan religion, and that his constant residence is at Medina.
“I recollect perfectly that I had then four persons attached to my service: a governor, between fifty-five and sixty years of age, whose name was Althotas,[33] and three servants, a white one who attended me as valet de chambre and two blacks, one of whom was constantly about me night and day.
“My governor always told me that I had been left an orphan when only about three months old, that my parents were Christians and nobly born; but he left me absolutely in the dark about their names and the place of my nativity. Some words, however, which he let fall by chance have induced me to suspect that I was born at Malta. Althotas, whose name I cannot speak without the tenderest emotion, treated me with great care and all the attention of a father. He thought to develop the talent I displayed for the sciences. I may truly say that he knew them all, from the most abstruse down to those of mere amusement. My greatest aptitude was for the study of botany and chemistry.
“By him I was taught to worship God, to love and assist my neighbours, and to respect everywhere religion and the laws. We both dressed like Mahometans and conformed outwardly to the worship of Islam; but the true religion was imprinted in our hearts.
“The Muphti, who often visited me, always treated me with great goodness and seemed to entertain the highest regard for my governor. The latter instructed me in most of the Eastern languages. He would often converse with me on the pyramids of Egypt, on those vast subterraneous caves dug out by the ancient Egyptians, to be the repository of human knowledge and to shelter the precious trust from the injuries of time.
“The desire of travelling and of beholding the wonders of which he spoke grew so strong upon me, that Medina and my youthful sports there lost all the allurements I had found in them before. At last, when I was in my twelfth year, Althotas informed me one day that we were going to commence our travels. A caravan was prepared and we set out, after having taken our leave of the Muphti, who was pleased to express his concern at our departure in the most obliging manner.