by Sax Rohmer
.. Nothing contributes so much to a ready apprehension of our secret as a knowledge of our first substance, and after that of the distinctive species of minera which is the subject of investigation by the Philosopher.”
CAGLIOSTRO
I. GIUSEPPE BALSAMO
IN appearance he was below medium height and inclined to be stout; he had a neck such as appears in busts of Nero, a brown complexion, and a low, bald forehead. His large eyes — the most striking features of a countenance otherwise somewhat gross — were aglow with a mystic fire. He had the deep chest and distended nostrils which indicate unusual virility; and the lines of his mouth, if we may judge from Houdon’s bust, suggest that he may have taken himself less seriously than would appear to be the case from documentary evidence.
The majority of those who came in contact with him — friends and enemies alike — admitted him to possess a very imposing presence. He spoke fluent Italian, but almost incomprehensible French. Yet he never failed to fascinate his listeners. He is described as appearing, on one occasion, arrayed in a coat of blue silk, with braided seams, his hair powdered and gathered up in a net. His shoes were fastened with buckles of precious stones; his stockings studded with gold buttons; rubies and diamonds glittered on his fingers and on his shirt-frill. He wore a diamond watch-chain, from which depended six larger diamonds, a gold key set with diamonds, and an agate seal. To crown all he wore a musketeer’s hat wherefrom floated huge white feathers.
“Who are you, monsieur?” was a question to which he was well used, and to which, pointing heavenward, he was wont to reply:
“I am he who is.”
Such was Alessandro, Comte di Cagliostro, at the height of his fame, about 1780. In the Memoir compiled by himself during his incarceration in the Bastille, he speaks of his infancy in mysterious and romantic terms:
“I am ignorant,” he tells us, “not only of my birthplace, but even of the parents who bore me. All my researches on these points have won for me nothing but vague and uncertain, though, frankly, exalted notions. My earliest infancy was passed in the town of Medina, in Arabia, where I was brought up under the name of Acharat — a name by which I was known during my Asiatic and African travels — and where I was lodged in the palace of the mufti. I distinctly recollect four persons who were continually about me — a tutor, between fifty-five and sixty years of age, named Althotas, and three slaves, one of whom was white, whilst the others were black. My tutor always led me to believe that I had been left an orphan at the age of three months, and that my parents were noble, and were Christians; but he preserved an absolute silence respecting their name and the place of my birth, although by certain chance words I was led to infer that I first saw the light at Malta. Althotas was pleased to cultivate my inherent taste for the sciences; he himself was proficient in all, the profound and the trivial alike. It was in botany and physics the police. From this it is recorded that he proceeded to the counterfeiting of a will (his uncle’s) and to a Palermo gaol.
Upon regaining his freedom, he is next brought to our notice in the character of an intermediary in the amorous intrigue of a pretty cousin with one of his own associates. He is represented as appropriating the gifts of the lover and blackmailing his mistress. But it is all but impossible to say with certainty which of the many crimes imputed to him were justly imputed, or in what chronological order they occurred. Therefore I shall dismiss them and proceed to the most notorious and best authenticated exploit of Giuseppe Balsamo’s early days. The Italian account of the episode, though possibly the more accurate, is certainly the less picturesque; so that I turn to that of Louis Figuier, who tells a similar story, but clothes it in a pleasing vesture of French imagery.
A certain goldsmith, Marano by name, resided in Palermo, and he found himself fascinated by the aroma of mystery which, even thus early, distinguished the doings of Balsamo from the deeds of other men. Balsamo, in fact, already proclaimed himself an initiate of the occult sciences, in which claim he was assisted by his striking personality and a certain command of will which thralled those with whom he came in contact. In short, if we are to believe that these twain indeed were one, this was the period of transition when Balsamo the ne’er-do-well was merging into Cagliostro the master thaumaturgist.
The first interview, says Figuier, took place in Balsamo’s lodging; the goldsmith fell on his knees before the youthful sorcerer, and, Balsamo, having accepted his homage, raised him condescendingly from the ground, and demanded solemnly why he was come to him.
“Thanks to your daily communion with spirits, you must already know,” answered Marano, “and you should have no difficulty in assisting me to recover the money which I have wasted among false alchemists, or even in procuring me more.”
“I can perform this for you, provided you believe,” answered Balsamo.
“Provided I believe!” cried the goldsmith; “I believe, indeed!”
An appointment accordingly was made for the next day, in a meadow beyond the town, and the interview ended without another word.
At the appointed time they met, Balsamo, in dignified silence, motioning the goldsmith to follow him, and proceeding, but in a preoccupied manner, along the road to the chapel of St. Rosalia, for the space of a whole hour. They stopped at length in front of a grotto, before which Balsamo extended his hand, solemnly declaring that a treasure was buried within it which he himself was forbidden to touch and which was guarded by devils from the hells. These demons, he added, might be bound for a time by the angels who obeyed his magical invocations.
“It only remains to be ascertained,” he said in conclusion, “whether you will fulfil scrupulously the conditions which must be imposed; upon which terms the treasure shall be yours.”
The credulous goldsmith implored him to name them.
“They cannot be learned from my lips,” answered Balsamo. “On your knees!”
He himself had already assumed a kneeling posture; and Marano hastened to imitate him, when immediately a clear voice pronounced the following words:
“Sixty ounces of pearls, sixty ounces of rubies, sixty ounces of diamonds, in a coffer of chased gold, weighing one hundred and twenty ounces. The infernal ginn who protect this treasure will place it in the hands of the worthy man whom our friend has brought, if”... and several conditions were stipulated to which Marano found no difficulty in conforming — even to the last, which was this: “And if he deposit at the entrance of the grotto, ere setting foot therein, sixty ounces of gold to propitiate the guardians.”
“You have heard,” said Balsamo, who, already on his feet, began to retrace his steps, completely ignoring the stupefaction of his companion.
“Sixty ounces of gold!” ejaculated the miser with a dismal groan, and torn by an inward conflict of avarice and cupidity; but Balsamo heeded the exclamation as little as the groan, and they regained the town in dramatic silence.
When they were on the point of separating, cried Marano:
“Grant me one instant! Sixty ounces of gold? Is that the irrevocable condition?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Balsamo, carelessly.
“Alas! alas! and at what hour?”
“At six o’clock in the morning, and at the same spot.”
“I will be there.”
Such was the parting speech of the goldsmith, and it marked his victory over the demon of petty avarice. On the morrow, punctual to the appointment, they met as before, Balsamo reserved and nonchalant, Marano clutching his gold. They arrived in due course at the grotto, where the spirits, invoked as on the previous day, made the same responses. Marano then, groaningly, deposited his gold and prepared to cross the threshold. He took one step forward, then started back, inquired if it were dangerous to penetrate into the depths of the cavern, and, being assured of his safety, entered with more confidence, only to return again. These manoeuvres were repeated several times, under the eyes of the Adept, whose expression indicated complete indifference.
At length Marano took co
urage and proceeded so far that return was impossible; for three black, muscular devils started out from the shadows and barred his path, at the same time uttering most dreadful cries! They seized him, whirled him round and round for a long time, and then, whilst the unhappy goldsmith vainly invoked the assistance of Balsamo, proceeded to cudgel him lustily, until he dropped almost insensible to the ground, where a voice bade him to remain, absolutely silent and motionless, warning him that he would be instantaneously dispatched if he stirred hand or foot.
The wretched man did not dare to disobey; indeed, he swooned. Upon recovering consciousness, the complete stillness encouraged him to raise his head; he dragged himself as best he could to the mouth of the terrible grotto, and looked around him — to find that the Adept, the demons, and the gold alike had vanished.
On the morrow, the goldsmith, fortunately discovered by muleteers, was carried home, and forthwith denounced Balsamo to the law. The strange story spread everywhere, but the magician had sailed for Messina.
II. ALTHOTAS, THE MYSTERIOUS
Although one author avers that it was at Medina, in Arabia, that Balsamo first became acquainted with the alchemist Althotas, and although Cagliostro himself, as we have seen, represents him as the Oriental instructor of his infancy, it would appear that the encounter really took place in Messina.
As he was promenading one day near the jetty at the extremity of that port, he encountered a person most singularly dressed, and possessed of a countenance remarkable anywhere. This person, who was apparently of about fifty years of age, seemed to be an Armenian, or, according to other accounts, a Spaniard; probably he was a Greek. He wore a kind of caftan, or long-sleeved gown, a silk turban, and the extremities of his Eastern trousers disappeared within a pair of wide boots. In his left hand he held an umbrella, and in his right the end of a cord, by which he led an Albanian greyhound.
Probably out of curiosity, Cagliostro saluted this grotesque being, who bowed slightly, but with dignity; “You do not reside in Messina, signor?” he said in Sicilian, but with a marked foreign accent.
Cagliostro replied that he was only remaining for a few days; whereupon they began to converse upon the beauty of the town and upon its advantageous situation, a rich Oriental imagery characterizing the stranger’s discourse. He evaded inquiries regarding his own identity, but offered to unveil Cagliostro’s past, and to reveal what was actually passing in his mind at that moment. Cagliostro hinting at sorcery, the Armenian smiled somewhat scornfully, and dilated on the ignorance of a nation which confused science with witchcraft, and prepared faggots for discoverers.
His hearer, much interested, ventured to ask the address of the eccentric stranger, who graciously invited him to call. They walked past the cathedral and halted in a small street shaded by sycamores, and having a pleasant fountain in the centre.
“Signor,” said the wearer of the caftan, “yonder is the house I inhabit. I receive few visitors; but since you are a traveller, young and courteous, since, moreover, you have a passion for the sciences, I ask you to visit me. I shall be at home to you to-morrow a little before midnight. You will rap twice” — he pointed as he spoke to the door of a small house—” then three times more slowly, and you will be admitted. Adieu! Hasten at once to your inn. A Piedmontese is about to rob you of the thirty-seven ounces of gold that are in your valise, shut up in a press, the key of which lies in your pocket!”
Cagliostro, we learn, returning in all haste, discovered the thief in the act, and forthwith delivered him to justice.
On the morrow, at the time appointed, he knocked at the door of the little house inhabited by the mysterious stranger. It was opened at the fifth blow without any visible agency, and closed as soon as the visitor had entered.
Cagliostro advanced cautiously along a narrow passage, illuminated by a small iron lamp in a niche of the wall. At the extremity of the passage a big door swung open, giving admittance to an apartment which was illuminated by a four-branched candelabra, containing tapers of wax, and was, in fact, a laboratory furnished with all the apparatus in use among alchemists.
The man of mystery, issuing from an adjoining cabinet, greeted the visitor, inquired after the safety of the gold, and learnt that his prescience had led to the apprehension of the thief. He silenced the expressed astonishment and admiration of Cagliostro by declaring that the art of divination was simply the result of scientific calculation and close observation. “‘What are your plans?” he asked Cagliostro.
“I intend to seek riches.”
“That is, you would rise superior to the common herd, the imbecile mob — a laudable project, my son! Do you propose to travel?”
“Certainly, so far as my thirty-seven ounces of gold can take me.”
“You are very young,” said the other; then, abruptly: “How is bread manufactured?”
“With flour.”
“And wine?” —
“From the grape.”
“But gold?”
“I come to inquire of you.”
“We will solve that problem hereafter. Listen to me, young man. I am about to depart for Grand Cairo, in Egypt. ‘Will you accompany me?”
“With all my heart!” cried Cagliostro, overjoyed; and they sat down in tall oaken chairs, at either end of the table whereupon stood the candelabra.
“Egypt,” began the mysterious host, “is the birthplace of human science. Astronomy alone had Chaldea for its fatherland. There the shepherds first studied the courses of the stars. Egypt availed itself of the astro-Chaldean initiations, and soon surpassed the methods and increased the discoveries of the shepherds. Since the reign of Menes” (probably Mena, the first historic Pharaoh), “Egyptian knowledge has advanced with giant strides. Joseph the dream-reader established the basis of chiromancy; the priests of Osiris and Isis invented the Zodiac; the priestesses of Ansaki unveiled the secrets of philtres; the priests of Serapis taught medicine. I might proceed further, but to what end? Will you follow me to Egypt? I hope to embark to-morrow, and we shall touch at Malta on the way — possibly at Candia also — reaching the point of Phare in eight days.”
“’Tis settled!” cried Cagliostro, delighted. “I have my thirty-seven ounces of gold for the journey.”
“And I not a single crown.”
“The devil!”
“What matters it? What need to have gold when one can make gold? What need to possess diamonds when one can extract them from carbon more readily than from the mines of Golconda? Go to, simpleton!” But he extended his hand, the bargain was sealed, and their departure fixed for the morrow.
This Althotas, says Figuier, in his sprightly account, was no imaginary character. The Roman Inquisition collected many proofs of his existence, without, however, ascertaining where it began or ended, for the mysterious personage vanished like a comet. According to the Italian biography of Joseph Balsamo, Althotas was in possession of several Arabic manuscripts, and had great skill in chemistry; but according to Figuier, he was a sorcerer as well.
They embarked on board a Genoese vessel, sailed along the Archipelago, landed at Alexandria, and remained there for forty days, performing several operations in alchemy, by which they are said to have produced a considerable sum of money, but whether by transmutation or by imposture is not evident.
Althotas claimed to be in complete ignorance as to his birth and parentage.
“This may surprise you,” he said, “but science, which can enlighten us on behalf of another, is almost invariably impotent to instruct us concerning ourselves.”
He declared himself to be much older than would appear, and to be in possession of certain secrets for the conservation of health and strength. He had discovered the scientific methods of producing gold and precious stones, spoke ten or twelve languages fluently, and was acquainted with almost the entire cycle of human sciences.
“Nothing astonishes me,” he averred, “nothing grieves me, save the evils which I am powerless to prevent; and I trust to reach in peace the
term of a protracted existence.”
He confessed that his name, Althotas, was assumed. His early years had been passed on the coast of Barbary, near Tunis, where he belonged to a Moslem privateer, who was a rich and humane man, and who had purchased him from pirates, by whom he had been stolen from his family. At twelve years of age he spoke Arabic like a native, read the Koran to his master, who was a true believer, studied botany under his direction, and learned “the best methods of making sherbet and coffee.” A post of honour awaited him in the household of his master; but Kismet decreed that when Althotas was sixteen the worthy Moslem should be visited by” the Terminator of delights.” In his will he gave the young slave his liberty, and bequeathed him a sum equivalent to six thousand livres, wherewith Althotas quitted Tunis, to indulge his passion for travelling.
Cagliostro later claimed to have followed his instructor into the heart of Africa and to Egypt, to have visited the pyramids, making the acquaintance of the priests of several temples, and penetrating to their inner sanctuaries. Moreover, he declared himself to have visited, during the space of three years, all the principal kingdoms of Africa and Asia.
At Malta, they had letters of introduction to the Grand Master, Pinto, and remained for some time to work in his laboratory; for Pinto, after the fashion of the period, indulged in alchemical experiments.
In Malta, the Count relates in his memoir:
“It was my miserable misfortune to lose my best friend, the most wise, the most illuminated of mortals, the venerable Althotas. He clasped my hands shortly before his death.
“‘My son,’ he said, in a failing voice, ‘keep ever before thine eyes the fear of the Eternal, and the love of thy neighbour. Thou shalt ere long learn the truth of all that I have taught thee.’”