Part 23

There was another female quack in 1738, one Mrs. Stephens, and in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for that year, p. 218, we read that ‘Mrs. _Stephens_ has proposed to make her Medicines for the Stone publick, on Consideration of the sum of £5,000 to be rais’d by Contribution, and lodged with Mr. _Drummond_, _Banker_. He has receiv’d since the 11th of this month (April) about £500 on that Account.’ She advertised her cures very fully, and she obtained and acknowledged, as subscriptions from April 11 to the end of December, 1738, the receipt of £1,356 3s. (_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1739, p. 49). And the subscribers were of no mean quality; they included five bishops, three dukes, two duchesses, four earls, two countesses, five lords, and of smaller fry a vast quantity. But this did not satisfy her; she had influence enough to get a short Act of Parliament passed in her favour (Cap. 23, 12, Geo. II., 1739), entitled:

‘_An Act for providing a reward_ to Joanna Stephens _upon a proper discovery to be made by her for the use of the publick, of the medicines prepared by her for the cure of the stone._

‘WHEREAS _Joanna Stevens_ (sic) of the City of _Westminster_, spinster, hath acquired the knowledge of medicines, and the skill of preparing them, which by a dissolving power seem capable of removing the cause of the painful distemper of the stone, and may be improved, and more successfully applied when the same shall be discovered to persons learned in the science of physick; now, for encouraging the said _Joanna Stephens_ to make discovery thereof, and for providing her a recompence in case the said medicines shall be submitted to the examination of proper judges, and by them be found worthy of the reward hereby provided; may it please your Majesty, that it be enacted, etc.

‘£5,000 granted out of the supplies for the discovery of Mrs. Stephens’s medicines. Treasury to issue the said sum on a proper certificate.’

A committee of twenty scientists investigated her medicines, and reported favourably on them. They were trifold. A powder, a draught, and a pill--and what think you they were made of? The powder was made of egg-shells and snails, both burnt; the draught was made of Alicante soap, swine’s cresses burnt, and honey. This was made into a ball, which was afterwards sliced and dissolved in a broth composed of green camomile, or camomile flowers, sweet fennel, parsley, and burdock leaves, boiled in water and sweetened with honey; whilst the pill was compounded of snails, wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, ashen keys, hips and haws, all burnt to blackness, and then mixed with Alicante soap! These were the famous remedies for which a grateful nation paid such a large sum!!!

CAGLIOSTRO IN LONDON.

Carlyle, in a very diffuse essay on this adventurer, thus introduces him: ‘The Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Pupil of the sage Althotas, Foster-child of the Scherif of Mecca, probable Son of the last King of Trebisond; named also Acharat, and unfortunate child of Nature; by profession healer of diseases, abolisher of wrinkles, friend of the poor and impotent, grand-master of the Egyptian Mason Lodge of High Science, Spirit Summoner, Gold Cook, Grand Cophta, Prophet, Priest, and thaumaturgic moralist and swindler; really a Liar of the first magnitude, thorough-paced in all provinces of Lying, what one may call the King of Liars.

‘Mendez Pinto, Baron Munchaüsen, and others are celebrated in this art, and not without some colour of justice; yet must it in candour remain doubtful whether any of these comparatively were much more than liars from the teeth onwards: a perfect character of the species in question, who lied not in word only, but continually in thought, word, and act; and, so to speak, lived wholly in an element of lying, and from birth to death did nothing but lie--was still a desideratum. Of which desideratum Count Alessandro offers, we say, if not the fulfilment, perhaps as near an approach to it as the limited human faculties permit.’

And yet this man made a name, and was famous in his time, and even afterwards. Lives, novels, and romances, notably being immortalized by Alexandre Dumas in his ‘Memoires d’un Médecin,’ nay, even plays, have been written about this clever rogue, who rose from a poor man’s son to be the talk of Europe, and his connection with the famous diamond necklace, made him of almost political importance, sufficient to warrant his incarceration in the Bastille.

I do not propose to write the life of Cagliostro--enough and to spare has been written on this subject,[109] but simply to treat of him in London; yet at the same time it is necessary to say when and where he was born--the more especially because he always professed ignorance of his birth, and, when examined in a French court of justice in relation to the famous diamond necklace on January 30, 1786, the question was put to him, ‘How old are you?’ _Answer_--‘Thirty-seven or thirty-eight years.’ _Question_--‘Your name?’ _Answer_--‘Alessandro Cagliostro.’ _Question_--‘Where born?’ _Answer_--‘I cannot say for certain, whether it was at Malta or at Medina; I have lived under the tuition of a governor, who told me that I was of noble birth, that I was left an orphan when only three months old,’ etc.

But in a French book,[110] of which an English translation was made in 1786, Cagliostro is made to say, ‘I cannot speak positively as to the place of my nativity, nor to the parents who gave me birth. From various circumstances of my life I have conceived some doubts, in which the reader perhaps will join with me. But I repeat it: 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 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 in my service; a governor, between 55 and 60 years of age, whose name was Althotas, 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 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: a few words which he dropped by chance have induced me to suspect that I was born at Malta; but this circumstance I have never been able to ascertain.’

Althotas was a great sage, and imparted to his young pupil all the scientific knowledge he possessed, and that awful person, the Grand Muphti himself, would deign to converse with the boy on the lore and history of ancient Egypt. At this time he says he dressed as a Mussulman, and conformed to their rites; but was all the time at heart a true Christian.

At the mature age of twelve, he felt a strong desire to travel, and Althotas indulged him by joining a caravan going to Mecca, and here comes an attempt to fasten his paternity upon the Cherif of that place.

‘On our arrival at Mecca, we alighted at the palace of the Cherif, who is the sovereign of Mecca, and of all Arabia, and always chosen from amongst the descendants of Mahomet. I here altered my dress, from a simple one, which I had worn hitherto, to one more splendid. On the third day after our arrival, I was, by my Governor, presented to the Cherif, who honoured me with the most endearing caresses. At sight of this prince, my senses experienced a sudden emotion, which it is not in the power of words to express; my eyes dropped the most delicious tears I ever shed in my life. His, I perceived, he could hardly restrain....

‘I remained at Mecca for the space of three years; not one day passed without my being admitted to the Sovereign’s presence, and every hour increased his attachment and added to my gratitude. I sometimes surprized his eyes rivetted upon me, and then looking up to heaven, with every expression of pity and commiseration. Thoughtful, I would go from him, a prey to an ever fruitless curiosity. I dared not ask any question of my Governor, who always rebuked me with great severity, as if it had been a crime in me to wish for some information concerning my parents, and the place where I was born....

‘One day as I was alone, the prince entered my apartment; so great a favour struck me with amazement; he strained me to his bosom with more than usual tenderness, bade me never cease to adore the Almighty, telling me that, as long as I should persist in serving God faithfully, I should at last be happy, and come to the knowledge of my real destiny; then he added, bedewing my cheeks with tears, “Adieu, thou nature’s unfortunate child.” ...’

This is one side of the question--his own. It is romantic, and in all probability a lie. There is another side; but the evidence, although far more within the bounds of reason, is unsupported by corroboration. The authority is from an Italian book of one hundred and eighty-nine pages, entitled: ‘Compendio della Vita, et delle Gesta di GIUSEPPE BALSAMO, denominato Il CONTE CAGLIOSTRO. _Che si è estratto dal Processo contro di lui formato in Roma l’Anno, 1790. E che può servire di scorta per conoscere l’indole della Setta de_ LIBERI MURATORI.In Roma 1791.’ This book purports to be printed in the Vatican, ‘from the Printing press of the Reverend Apostolic Chamber.’[111]

In the preface of this book is the following sentence, which is intended to vouch for the facts it contains: ‘Thence comes the justice of that observation, that these Charlatans especially acquire credit, renown, and riches, in those countries where the least religion is found, where philosophy is most fashionable. Rome is not a place that agrees with them, because error cannot throw out its roots, in the centre, the capital, of the true faith. The life of Count Cagliostro is a shining proof of this truth. It is for this reason that it has been thought proper to compose this compendium, faithfully extracted from the proceedings taken against him, a short while since, at Rome; this is evidence which the critic cannot attack. In order to effect this, the Sovereign Pontifical Authority has deigned to dispense with the law of inviolable secrecy, which always accompanies, with as much justice as prudence, the proceedings of the Holy Inquisition.’

And the account of his life opens thus: ‘Joseph Balsamo was born at Palermo on the 8th of June, 1743. His parents were Pietro Balsamo and Felice Braconieri, both of mean extraction. His father, who was a shopkeeper, dying when he was still a baby, his maternal uncles took care of him,’ &c.

In another book, ‘The Life of the Count Cagliostro,’ &c., London, 1787, there is a foot-note to the first page: ‘Some authors are of opinion that he is the offspring of the grand Master of Malta, by a Turkish lady, made captive by a Maltese galley. Others that he is the only surviving son of that prince who, about thirty-five years ago, swayed the precarious sceptre of Trebisond, at which period, a revolution taking place, the reigning prince was massacred by his seditious subjects, and his infant son, the Count Cagliostro, conveyed by a trusty friend to Medina, where the Cherif had the unprejudiced generosity to have him educated in the faith of his Christian parents.’

I do not follow his career, but the most marvellous stories were current about him, _vide_ the following extract from a book already quoted (see foot-note page 334): ‘The Comtesse de la Motte dares to assert that one of my men makes a boast of having been 150 years in my service. That I sometimes acknowledge myself to be only 300 years old; at others that I brag of having been present at the nuptials in Cana, and that it was to burlesque the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the transubstantiation, that I had imagined to multiply the necklace, taken to pieces, into a hundred different manners, and yet it was delivered, as it is said, in its full complement to the august Queen.

‘That I am by turns a Portuguese Jew, a Greek, an Egyptian of Alexandria, from whence I have imported into France hyeroglyphics and sorcery.

‘That I am one of those infatuated Rosicrucians, who have the power of making the dead converse with the living; that I attend the poor gratis, but that I sell for _something_, to the rich, the gifts of immortality.’

But it is not of these things I wish to treat; it is of the facts connected with his residence in London. Two or three accounts say that he visited London in 1772, where he swindled a Doctor Benemore, who had rescued him from prison, under pretence of painting his country house, and his enemy, De Morande, of the _Courier de l’Europe_, who, in No.’s 16, 17, and 18 of that journal, made frightful accusations against Cagliostro, reiterates the story of his being here in 1772. In page xiv. of the preface to ‘The Life of the Count Cagliostro,’ 1787, there occurs the following passage: ‘M. de Morande is at infinite pains to persuade us that the Count resided in London in 1772, under the name of Balsamo, in extreme poverty, from which he was relieved by Sir Edward Hales. That Baronet professes, indeed, to recollect an _Italian_ of that name; but, as M. de Morande positively assures us that the Count is a _Calabrois_, a _Neapolitan_, or a _Sicilian_, we can desire no better argument to prove the fallacy of his information.’

In a pamphlet entitled, ‘Lettre du Comte Cagliostro au Peuple Anglois pour servir de suite à ses Memoires,’ 1786, p. 7, he says distinctly: ‘Nous sommes arrivés, ma femme et moi, en Angleterre, pour la première fois de ma vie, au mois de Juillet, 1776,’ and on p. 70 of the same work is the following (translated):

‘The greatest part of the long diatribe of M. Morande is used to prove that I came to London in 1772, under the name of _Balsamo_. In view of the efforts which M. Morande makes, in order to arrive at such proof, an attempt is made to show that the _Balsamo_ with whom they attempt to identify me ought to have been hung, or, at all events, he rendered himself guilty of some dishonourable actions. Nothing of the sort. This _Balsamo_, if the _Courier de l’Europe_ can be believed, was a mediocre painter, who lived by his brush. A man named _Benamore_, either agent, or interpreter, or chargé d’affaires to the King of Morocco, had commissioned him to paint some pictures, and had not paid for them. _Balsamo_ issued a writ against him for £47 sterling, which he said was due to him, admitting that he had received two guineas on account. Besides, this _Balsamo_ was so poor that his wife was obliged to go into town herself, in order to sell the pictures which her husband painted. Such is the portrait which M. de Morande draws of the _Balsamo_ of London, a portrait which no one will accuse him of having flattered, and from which the sensible reader will draw the conclusion that the _Balsamo_ of London was an honest artist who gained a livelihood by hard work.

‘I might then admit without blushing that I had lived in London in 1772 under the name of _Balsamo_, on the product of my feeble talents in painting; that the course of events and circumstances had reduced me to this extremity, etc....

‘I am ignorant whether the law-suit between _Balsamo_ and _Benamore_ is real or supposed: one thing is certain, that in London exists a regular physician of irreproachable probity, named Benamore. He is versed in oriental languages: he was formerly attached, as interpreter, to the Moroccan Embassy, and he is, at this date, employed, in the same capacity, by the ambassador of Tripoli. He will bear witness to all who wish to know that, during the 30 years he has been established in London, he has never known another Benamore than himself, and that he has never had a law-suit with anyone bearing the name of _Balsamo_.’

Now take Carlyle, with whom dogmatism stood in stead of research, and judge for yourselves. ‘There is one briefest but authentic-looking glimpse of him presents itself in England, in the year 1772: no Count is he here, but mere Signor Balsamo again, engaged in house-painting, for which he has a peculiar talent. Was it true that he painted the country house of a “Doctor Benemore;” and, not having painted, but only smeared it, was refused payment, and got a lawsuit with expenses instead? If Doctor Benemore have left any representatives in the Earth, they are desired to speak out. We add only, that if young Beppo had one of the prettiest of wives, old Benemore had one of the ugliest daughters; and so, putting one thing to another, matters might not be so bad.’

Who set this story afloat, about Cagliostro being in London in 1772? Why, Monsieur de Morande, the editor of the _Courier de l’Europe_, and of his veracity we may judge by an advertisement in the _London Evening Post_ of November 27 to 30, 1773, p. 4, col. 4, (translated).

‘Monsieur Le Comte de Lauraguais has kindly consented, after the humble apologies I have made to him, to forego the action commenced against me for having defamed him in some verses full of untruths, injurious both to his honour and his reputation, of which I was the author, and which I caused to be inserted in the _Morning Chronicle_ of 24 and 25 June last, entitled: “Answer of the Gazetteer Cuirassé.” I therefore beg you, Mr. Woodfall,[112] to publish through the same channel by which I made my verses public,--my sincere repentance for having so injuriously libelled Monsieur le Comte, and my very humble thanks for his having accepted my apologies, and stopping all action in the matter.

‘DE MORANDE.

‘Nov. 26, 1773.’

This is what in law would be called _a tainted witness_, as, about that time he was, on his own confession, given to lying.

According to his own account he came to London in July, 1776, possessed of a capital of about three thousand pounds in plate, jewels, and specie, and hired apartments in Whitcomb Street, Pall Mall East, and here he fell into evil company. The story is not very lucid--but it seems that his wife’s companion, a Portuguese woman named Blavary, and his secretary and interpreter, Vitellini, introduced to him a certain Lord Scot. They were a lot of sharpers all round. Scot introduced a woman as his wife--Lady Scot, if you please--(in reality Miss Fry), who got money and clothes from the countess, and Cagliostro lent my lord two hundred pounds on his simple note of hand.

He declares that he gave them lucky numbers for the lottery, and that they gained much money thereby--on one occasion, when he gave Miss Fry the number eight, she won the sum of fifteen hundred guineas; but she was requested by Cagliostro not to visit, or bother himself, or his wife again. He moved into Suffolk Street in January, 1777, but the persevering Miss Fry took lodgings in the same house. She attempted to borrow money, and to get lucky numbers, but, failing in both, she had him arrested on the 7th of February for a pretended debt of one hundred and ninety pounds. He recovered his liberty the next day, by depositing in the hands of the sheriff’s officer, jewels worth double the amount.

Then a warrant was taken out against him and his wife, signed by one Justice Miller--on the charge of practising witchcraft. This does not, however, seem to have been acted on, but he was frequently harassed by actions for debt brought against him by Miss Fry, and he became well acquainted with the inside of a spunging-house. On the 24th of May he was taken into custody for a debt of two hundred pounds, at the suit of Miss Fry, but he managed to find bail. The case was tried before Lord Mansfield, in the Court of Queen’s Bench, on the 27th of June, but his lordship suggested that it was a case for arbitration, which was agreed to.

The arbitration took place on the 4th of July, when Cagliostro’s lawyer deserted him, and the decision was that the count had lost his case, and must pay all costs. As if this was not bad enough, as he was leaving the court he was arrested at the suit of one Aylett, who had lodged a detainer against him for a debt of ten pounds and upwards, by the name of Melisa Cagliostro, otherwise Joseph Balsamo, which debt he said was due to him from Balsamo, who had employed him in 1772 to recover a debt from Dr. Benamore. He got bail, but, as his money was getting scarce, it was at the cost of ‘two soup-ladles, two candlesticks, two salt-cellars, two pepper-castors, six forks, six table spoons, nine knife handles with blades, a pair of snuffers and stand, all of silver.’ He had, however, suffered six weeks’ imprisonment, as he was not liberated from the King’s Bench till the 24th of September, 1777.

In vain his friends endeavoured to stir him up to commence actions for fraud and perjury against all concerned, but either his cause was not just, or he had had enough law to last him some time--and he refused. He paid up his debts and left England, with only fifty guineas and a few jewels in his possession.

Rightly or wrongly, he was connected with the ‘Diamond Necklace’ affair, and suffered incarceration in the Bastile. If he can be at all believed, the police plundered him and his wife right royally. He says he lost fifteen rouleaux, each containing fifty double louis, sealed with his seal; one thousand two hundred and thirty-three sequins (Venetian and Roman): one rouleau of twenty-four Spanish quadruples, sealed also; and forty-seven billets of one thousand livres each on the Caisse d’Escompte. They also took papers which were to him of inestimable value; and, as to diamonds and jewellery, he knew not what was taken, besides plate, porcelain, and linen, etc. After an examination, he was acquitted, but he had to leave France, and came to London, where he lived in Sloane Street. Here he became acquainted with Lord George Gordon, and this acquaintance afterwards cost him dearly, when he was arrested at Rome. To show the intimacy between the two, I will quote from the _Public Advertiser_ of the 22nd of August, 1786, p. 2, col. 3.