The Old and the New Magic. Henry Ridgely Evans
MEMOIRE
POUR
LE COMTE DE CAGLIOSTRO,
ACCUSE;
CONTRE
M. LE PROCUREUR-GENÉRAL,
ACCUSATEUR;
En préſence de M. le Cardinal DE ROHAN, de la Comteſſe DE LA MOTTE, et autres Co-Accusés.
M. DE CAGLIOSTRO NE DEMANDE QUE TRANQUILLITÉ ET SURETÉ; l’HOSPITALITÉ LES LUI ASSURE. EXTRAIT d’une Lettre écrite per M. le Comte de VERGENNES, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, à M. GÉRARD, Préteur de Strasbourg, le 13 Mars 1783.
1786.
TITLE-PAGE OF THE DEFENSE OF CAGLIOSTRO.
VIE
DE JOSEPH BALSAMO,
CONNU SOUS LE NOM
DE
COMTE CAGLIOSTRO,
Extraite de la Procédure instruite contre lui à Rome, en 1790,
Traduite d’après l’original italien, imprimé à la Chambre Apostolique; enrichie de Notes curieuses, et ornée de son Portrait.
A PARIS,
Chez ONFROY, libraire, rue Saint-Victor, no. 11.
ET A STRASBOURG,
Chez JEAN-GEORGE TREUTTEL, libraire.
1791.
TITLE-PAGE OF THE LIFE OF CAGLIOSTRO.
Speaking of the great charlatan, the Anglo-Indian essayist Greeven in an article published a few years ago in the {47} Calcutta Review writes: “It is not enough to say that Cagliostro posed as a magician, or stood forth as the apostle of a mystic religion. After all, in its mild way, our own generation puts on its evening dress to worship at the feet of mediums, whose familiar spirits enable them to wriggle out of ropes in cupboards, or to project cigarette papers from the ceiling [à la Madame Blavatsky]. We ride our hobby, however, only when the whim seizes us, and, as soon as it wearies, we break it in pieces and fling it aside with a laugh. But Cagliostro impressed himself deeply on the history of his time. He flashed on the world like a meteor. He carried it by storm. Princes and nobles thronged to his ‘magic operations.’ They prostrated themselves before him for hours. His horses and his coaches and his liveries rivaled a king’s in magnificence. He was offered, and refused, a ducal throne. No less illustrious a writer than the Empress of Russia deemed him a worthy subject of her plays. Goethe made him the hero of a famous drama. A French Cardinal and an English Lord were his bosom companions. In an age which arrogated {48} to itself the title of the philosophic, the charm of his eloquence drew thousands to his lodges, in which he preached the mysteries of his Egyptian ritual, as revealed to him by the Grand Kophta under the shadow of the pyramids.”
II.
And now for a brief review of his life. Joseph Balsamo, the son of Peter Balsamo and Felicia Braconieri, both of humble extraction, was born at Palermo, on the eighth day of June, 1743. He received the rudiments of an education at the Seminary of St. Roche, Palermo. At the age of thirteen, according to the Inquisition biographer, he was intrusted to the care of the Father-General of the Benfratelli, who carried him to the Convent of that Order at Cartagirone. There he put on the habit of a novice, and, being placed under the tuition of the apothecary, he learned from him the first principles of chemistry and medicine. He proved incorrigible, and was expelled from the monastery in disgrace. Then began a life of dissipation in the city of Palermo. He was accused of forging theatre-tickets and a will. Finally he had to flee the city for having duped a goldsmith named Marano of sixty pieces of gold, by promising to assist him in unearthing a buried treasure by magical means. The superstitious Marano entered a cavern situated in the environs of Palermo, according to instructions given to him by the enchanter, and discovered, not a chest full of gold, but a crowd of Balsamo’s confederates, who, disguised as infernal spirits, administered to him a terrible castigation. Furious at the deception, the goldsmith vowed to assassinate the pretended sorcerer. Balsamo, however, took wing to Messina, where he fell in with a strolling mountebank and alchemist named Althotas, or Altotas, who spoke a variety of languages. They traveled to Alexandria in Egypt, and finally brought up at the island of Malta. Pinto, the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, was a searcher after the philosopher’s stone, an enthusiastic alchemist. He extended a warm reception to the two adventurers, and took them under his patronage. They remained for some time at Malta, working in the laboratory of the deluded {49} Pinto. Eventually Althotas died, and Balsamo went to Naples, afterwards to Rome, where he married a beautiful girdle-maker, named Lorenza Feliciani. Together with a swindler calling himself the Marchese d’Agliata, he had a series of disreputable adventures in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Unmasked at one place, he fled in hot haste to another.
In 1776 he arrived in London. He had assumed various aliases during the course of his life, but now he called himself the “Conte di Cagliostro.” The title of nobility was assumed, but the name of Cagliostro was borrowed from an uncle on his mother’s side of the house, Joseph Cagliostro, of Messina, who was an agent or factor of the Prince of Villafranca. His beautiful wife called herself the “Countess Serafina Feliciani.” Cagliostro announced himself as a worker of wonders, especially in medicine. He carried about two mysterious substances—a red powder, known as his “Materia Prima,” with which he transmuted baser metals into gold, and his “Egyptian Wine,” with which he prolonged life.
He dropped hints that he was the son of the Grand-Master Pinto of Malta and the Princess of Trebizonde. He foretold the lucky numbers in a lottery and got into difficulty with a gang of swindlers, which caused him to flee from England to avoid being imprisoned. While in London he picked up, at a second-hand book-stall, the mystic writings of an obscure spiritist, one George Coston, “which suggested to him the idea of the Egyptian ritual”; and he got himself initiated into a masonic lodge. Henri d’Alméras (Cagliostro: la Franc-Maçonnerie et l’Occultisme au XVIII siècle, Paris, 1904) states authoritatively that the famous charlatan received the masonic degrees in the Esperance Lodge, April 12, 1777. This lodge, composed mainly of French and Italian residents in London, held its sessions at the King’s Head Tavern (Gerard Street). It was attached to the Continental Masonic order of the Higher Observance, which was supposed to be a continuation and perfection of the ancient association of the Knights Templars. According to Alméras, Cagliostro was initiated under the name of Joseph Cagliostro, Colonel of the 3d regiment of Brandenburg. On June 2, the Grand Lodge of London gave him his masonic patent, which is to {50} be found in the collection of autographs of the Marquis de Chateaugiron, V. Catalogue, Paris, 1851. Cagliostro is regarded as the greatest masonic imposter of the world. His pretentions were bitterly repudiated by the English members of the fraternity, and many of the Continental lodges. But the fact remains that he made thousands of dupes. As Grand Master of the Egyptian Rite he leaped at once into fame. His swindling operations were now conducted on a gigantic scale. He had the entrée into the best society. According to him, freemasonry was founded by Enoch and Elias. It was open to both sexes. Its present form, especially with regard to the exclusion of women, is a corruption. The true form was preserved only by the Grand Kophta, or High Priest of the Egyptians. By him it was revealed to Cagliostro. The votaries of any religion are admissible, subject to these conditions, (1) that they believe in the existence of a God; (2) that they believe in the immortality of the soul; and (3) that they have been initiated into common Masonry. The candidate must swear an oath of secrecy, and obedience to the Secret Superiors. It is divided into the usual three grades of Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Mastermason.
In this system he promised his followers “to conduct them to perfection, by means of a physical and moral regeneration;