The Old and the New Magic. Henry Ridgely Evans
and then passed around for examination the mask of a man, very much resembling a death-mask, but unlike that ghastly memento mori in the particulars that it was exquisitely modeled in wax and artistically colored.
“Messieurs et mesdames,” said the professor of magic and mystery, “this mask is a perfect likeness of Joseph Balsamo, Count de Cagliostro, the famous sorcerer of the eighteenth {43} century. It is a reproduction of a death-mask which is contained in the secret museum of the Vatican at Rome. Behold! I lay the mask upon this table in your midst. Ask any question you please and it will respond.”
The mask rocked to and fro with weird effect at the bidding of the conjurer, rapping out frequent answers to queries put by the spectators. It was an ingenious electrical trick.7 Being already acquainted with the secret of the surprising experiment in natural magic, I evinced no emotion at the extraordinary behavior of the mask. But I was intensely interested in the mask itself. Was it indeed a true likeness of the great Cagliostro, the prince of charlatans? I repaired to the manager’s office at the close of the soirée magique, and sought an introduction to M. Caroly.
“Is monsieur an aspiring amateur who wishes to take lessons in legerdemain?”
“No!” I replied.
“Pardon! Then monsieur is desirous of purchasing the secrets of some of the little jeux?”
I replied as before in the negative. The manager shrugged his shoulders, toyed with his ponderous watch-chain, and elevated his eyebrows inquiringly.
“I simply wish to ascertain whether the mask of Balsamo was really modeled from a genuine death-mask of the old-world wizard.”
“Monsieur, I can answer that question,” said the theatrical man, “without an appeal to the artist who performed this evening. It was taken from a likeness of the eighteenth-century sorcerer, not a death-mask as stated, but a rare old medallion cast in the year 1785. Unfortunately this is not in our possession.”
7 “The secret of the trick is as follows: That part of the wood which forms the chin is replaced by a small strip of iron, which is painted the same color as the mask, so that it cannot be seen; an electro-magnet is let into the top of the table, so that the cores shall be opposite the strip of iron when the mask is laid upon the table. Contact is made by means of a push-button somewhere in the side scenes; the wires run under the stage, and connection is made through the legs of the table when the legs are set on the foreordained place.”—Hopkins’ Magic, etc.
{44}
I thanked the manager for his information. The story about the death-mask in the possession of the Vatican was simply a part of the prestidigitateur’s patter, but everything is permissible in a conjuring séance.
I went home to the little hotel where I lodged in the historic Rue de Beaune, a stone’s throw from the house where Voltaire died. In my bedroom, over the carved oak mantel, was a curious old mirror set in a tarnished gilt frame, a relic of the eighteenth century. Said I to myself: “Would this were a ghost-glass, a veritable mirror of Nostradamus, wherein I might conjure up a phantasmagoria of that vanished Paris of long ago.” Possessed with this fantastic idea, I retired to rest, closed in the crimson curtains of the antique four-poster, and was soon wafted into the land of dreams. Strange visions filled my brain. In the mirror I seemed to see Cagliostro searching for the “elixir of life,” in the laboratory of the Hotel de Strasbourg, while near him stood the Cardinal de Rohan, breathlessly awaiting the results of the mystic operation. The red glow from the alchemist’s furnace illumined the great necromancer with a coppery splendor.
Cagliostro! Cagliostro! I was pursued all the next day, and for weeks afterward, with visions of the enchanter. “Ah, wretched mask of Balsamo,” I said to myself, “why have you bewitched me thus with your false oleaginous smile?” I took to haunting the book-stalls and antiquarian shops of the Quai Voltaire, in the hope of picking up some old medallion or rare print of the arch-quack. The second-hand literature of the world may be found here. Amid the flotsam and jetsam of old books tossed upon this inhospitable shore of literary endeavor many a precious Elzevir or Aldus has been picked up. My labors were not in vain. I was fortunate in discovering a quaint little volume, the life of Cagliostro, translated from the Italian work printed under the auspices of the Apostolic Chamber, Rome, 1790. It was entitled Vie de Joseph Balsamo, Connu Sous le Nom de Comte Cagliostro. Traduite d’après l’original italien, imprimé à la Chambre Apostolique; enrichie de Notes curieuses, et ornée de son Portrait. Paris et Strasbourg, 1791. The frontispiece was an engraved portrait of Cagliostro. Yes, here {45} was the great magician staring at me from out the musty, faded pages of a quaint old chronicle. A world of cunning lay revealed in the depths of his bold, gleaming eyes. His thick lips wore a smile of Luciferian subtlety. Here, indeed, was a study for Lavater. Here was the biography of the famous sorcerer of the old régime, the prince of charlatans, who foretold the fall of the Bastille, the bosom friend of the Cardinal de Rohan, and founder of the Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry. Fascinated with the subject of magic and magicians, I visited the Bibliothèque Nationale and dipped into the literature on Cagliostro. Subsequently, at the British Museum, I examined the rare brochures and old files of the Courrier de l’Europe for information concerning the incomparable necromancer, who made use of hypnotism, and, like Mesmer, performed many strange feats of pseudo-magic, and made numerous cures of diseases which baffled the medicos of the time.8
Goethe9 and Catharine II. wrote plays about him; George Sand introduced him into her novel, “The Countess of Rudolstadt;” Alexander Dumas made him the hero of several romances; Scribe, St. Georges, and Adam in the year 1844 brought out “Cagliostro,” a comic opera in three acts, which was successfully performed at the Opéra Comique, Paris; Alexander Dumas fils wrote a drama in five acts called “Joseph Balsamo” which was produced at the Odéon, March 18, 1878; and Thomas Carlyle philosophized concerning him.
8 “Der Gros-Cophta” (a comedy in five acts). Goethe’s Werke, vol. 18, Stuttgart, 1868.
9 A superb bibliography of Cagliostro is to be found in “Börsenblatt fürden deutschen Buchhandel,” 1904, Nos. 210–212, and 214 (Sept. 9–12, 14), pp. 7488–92, 7524–30, 7573–75. This publication is to be found in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
To understand Cagliostro, one must understand the period in which he lived and acted his strange world-drama, its philosophical and religious background. The arch-enchanter appeared on this mortal scene when the times were “out of joint.” It was the latter part of that strange, romantic eighteenth century of scepticism and credulity. The old world like a huge Cheshire cheese was being nibbled away from within, until little but the {46} rind was left to tell the tale. The rotten fabric of French society, in particular, was about to tumble down in the sulphurous flames of the Revolution, and the very people who were to suffer most in the calamity were doing their best to assist in the process of social and political disintegration. The dogmas of the Church were bitterly assailed by learned men. But the more sceptical the age, the more credulity extant. Man begins by denying, and then doubts his doubts. Charles Kingsley says: “And so it befell, that this eighteenth century, which is usually held to be the most ‘materialistic’ of epochs, was in fact a most ‘spiritualistic’ one.” The soil was well fertilized for the coming of Cagliostro, the sower of superstition. Every variety of mysticism appealed to the imaginative mind. There were societies of Illuminati, Rosicrucians, and Alchemists.
| From a painting in the Versailles Historical Gallery | After an engraving which served as a frontis piece of Balsamo’s Life, published in 1781 |