a few rather disheartening scenes, he began to lay the foundations of that cloudy pillar of fame with which all France was to be so soon dazzled. In addition to a facile pen, which he had already in London and elsewhere turned to account, he now put in requisition his alleged supernatural powers. Washes for renewing freshness and beauty to complexions ravaged by the hand of time-Egyptian wines which should restore to age and decrepitude the lusty vigor of youth-these were the least of his accomplishments. He pretended to a knowledge of the past and of the future, to the secret of perpetual life, to the art of producing, by chemical means, gold and diamonds to any amount whatsoever, and to a miraculous gift of healing; and, what is a little odd, he managed things so dextrously as actually to seem very often to perform all that he promised. Sleight of hand, perhaps, aided him in part; a practical knowledge of all the secrets of the laboratory doubtless wrought its share; and the means of information which his masonic combinations put at his disposal probably did the rest. For during some years previously Cagliostro had busied himself, wherever he went, in endeavoring to purify and reform, as he called it, the existing order of Free and Accepted Masons, and to create their lodges anew, introducing women as well as men therein. Of course, we cannot guess at the secrets of the legitimate Masonic Order; but it is certain Cagliostro was at the head of a widely-ramified society, founded on principles professedly similar to theirs, and from the slight tax levied on each member he drew his copious and unaccountable revenue. It was this circumstance that so puzzled many of the shrewdest investigators into his affairs. They would find large sums suddenly and mysteriously placed to his credit in banking houses all over Europe, in States where they knew he possessed not one stiver of capitaland they could never ascertain anything

more.

No wonder they were astounded. Beside these resources, by many a little tour de force did our hero help himself along, and find the means to bestow his abundant charities. Some such feat of escroquerie, or, perhaps, a mere love of change, induced him to leave Paris when his fame was nearly at its zenith, and surely no man could say, when he had left the place, who it was that had

been sojourning there. With prosperity, Cagliostro's genius had risen equal to the contingencies of the case. Some account of his previous history was wanted; and he set tales enough in circulation to have satisfied the whole of Paris. At various times, with the most solemn unction, he would intimate to his audience chance snatches of his origin, any one of which was sufficient to have adorned the pages of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. At one time it was whispered that he was an antediluvian; that he had been present-a wedding guest-at the marriage of Cana in Galilee. Again, he was the natural son of the Grand Master at Valetta, by a Turkish princess captured by his galleys. But the most current tale was, that he was the only son of that unfortunate sultan of Trebizonde, who had some thirty or forty years before lost both throne and life in a popular tumult. Privately conveyed from these scenes of danger by his wise tutor, Altotas, the young prince was carried to Medina, one of the holy cities of the Mahometan creed, where, under the immediate protection of the Moslem Sheriff, he was brought up not only in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, but also in the faith and worship of the Christian church. Finally, for reasons of state, Altotas set out with him on their travels, and he saw the world.

How these conflicting stories were to be reconciled is no business of ours: non nobis tantas componere lites. One thing is certain, Cagliostro at Paris was no vulgar charlatan. To him, as it were, the arcana of Nature were revealed; from him no secrets were hid. His alms were constant and liberal He professed to cure the sick, to heal the wounded by a single touch, and crowds of the poor thronged around him, blessing the hand that gave them health. "His appearance," says La Borde, "announces not only talent, but genius his eyes, like smouldering coals of fire, penetrate to the bottom of your soul. Acquainted with almost every language of Europe and Asia, his eloquence is of a nature hitherto unheard of: it com-" pletely subdues and leads away the hearer's will."-"I have seen," he adds, "this paragon of his race present himself in a vast saloon filled with sick and needy. Hastening from one to another, he would relieve them of their diseases, and bind up their loathsome wounds;

he would cover them with gifts and bounties, and at last dismiss those who had sought him, depressed with disease and poverty, in the full glow of health and hope. His charities, not only sanitary but pecuniary, knew no bounds Thrice in each week was the preceding spectacle repeated, and more than fifteen thousand persons in Paris alone owe to him health and prosperity." Nor were such sentiments peculiar to the author of the Lettres sur la Suisse; M. de Miromesnil, M. de Vergennes, the Marquis de Segur, and many others, statesmen, cabinet ministers, men of rank and perfectly familiar with the world, bear the most exalted testimony to the virtues and genius of this arch impostor. A few wanderings, after leaving Paris at this juncture, had brought him, in 1780, to Strasburg, where, as we have seen, he won the confidence of the Cardinal, and no doubt cozened him handsomely under the rose. When

Rohan repaired to court, Cagliostro was not far distant; and it was probably from probing the efforts, which vanity and wounded self-love prompted the prelate to essay, in order to restore himself to favor with the King and Queen that he took the hint of putting into execution the most audacious, the most reckless and one of the most heavy robberies that ever was committed. In 1772, Rohan had been appointed Ambassador at Vienna by Louis XV., where his indiscretions made him so obnoxious to Maria Theresa that she used every effort to obtain his recall; which she did not succeed in effecting, however, till two months after Louis XVI. had ascended the throne. Naturally, Marie Antoinette cherished no other feelings but those of personal antipathy towards a man whose dispatches to his own court had conveyed little else than satires and caricatures of her mother, her kindred, and even, covertly, of herself. While, then, the King recompensed his titular services by conferring upon the Cardinal new dignities, and emoluments to the amount of half a million of francs annually, both he and his Queen made no secret of their determination to withhold utterly from his Eminence all those smiles and gracious words that mark the peculiar lot of a favorite at court. Too late, he found out that the "gates of mercy" had been shut upon him, and that he was virtually banished from all the royal

intimacies. To restore himself to favor now became the darling passion of his soul, and we shall see to what lengths it led him, in the celebrated affair of the Diamond Necklace.

This episode brings another character upon the stage, in the person of Jeanne de Luz de Saint Remy de Valois, Countess de la Motte, a woman whose career was to the full as adventurous, as abundant in the utmost extremes of prosperity and adversity as the most confirmed reader of romances could desire. Though born at Fontelle, in Champagne, in 1752, in the greatest poverty and indigence, she was the lineal descendant of Henry II., of France, through his natural son Henry de St. Remi, by Nicole de Savigni. The Marquise de Boulain-Villiers, wife of the Provost of Paris, had found this girl and her brother begging alms. Ascertaining their condition, she had them educated at her own expense, and in due season presented their pedigree to d'Hozier de Serigni, the King-atarms, and chief herald, so to speak, of the nobility of France. This ceremony was necessary for her presentation at court: the general rule being, that, save in certain specified exceptions, all Frenchmen aspiring to that honor must produce their certified pedigree, exhibiting a clear noble descent since the year 1399. Accordingly they were duly received by Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and were presented with substantial marks of the royal bounty. But, unfortunately, these children were most unworthy objects of any such favor. The brother terminated a profligate life without doing anything to bring him under our notice here. sister married, in 1780, the Count de la Motte, an officer in the service of the Count d'Artois, afterwards Charles X. Falling into an intrigue with the Cardinal de Rohan, she, in a luckless hour for him, undertook to speed his affairs with the queen. In this business her only coadjutors, according to her own story, were her husband and Cagliostro. From time to time she comforted her employer with pretended assurances of her success, while she busily sponged upon his purse. Thriftless and extravagant to a degree, the prelate little recked by what means he procured the funds to gratify his present pleasures; and the conspirators found him a fruitful resource. But they aimed at a more

The

brilliant coup de main. The point was to bring the Cardinal's credulity up to the desired pitch. Accordingly, Madame de la Motte persuaded him to write a letter to her Majesty; to which, with great mystery, she brought him a forged reply. The enraptured courtier, gulled by a few false lines, made his next note more cordial; that which he received in response was couched in similar terms. Letter after letter thus passed, till, at last, the Queen was made to confess a positive passion for the Cardinal, and only restrained by reasons of state from publicly countenancing him. Now was the moment for the plotters to strike. The royal jewelers, MM. Boehmer and Bassange, had about this time vainly importuned the Queen to purchase from them a diamond necklace, of the value of nearly eighteen hundred thousand francs, or over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars: she admired it vastly, but had not the money, and would not become the purchaser. The Countess one evening visited M. Boehmer, and with many injunctions to secresy, and a cock-andbull story of her mistress's reasons, exhibited a forged letter from the Queen, consenting to take the necklace at the price of sixteen hundred thousand francs. Not doubting the authenticity of the document, but unwilling to sell on credit such a valuable article without some more positive security for its payment, the jeweler suggested that if her Majesty had reasons for not appearing publicly as the buyer, she might perhaps employ some friend of sufficient stability to make the purchase for her. She could settle with her friend, and he with the merchants. "Very well," quoth La Motte, "she will doubtless agree to these terms: one of the most considerable dignitaries of the court shall call on you in a few days." Of course, her victim was to be the Cardinal. An intimation of the Queen's desires was given him-but he still hung back. Then a formal procuration, authorizing him to purchase the necklace in her name, payable in four sums, of four hundred thousand francs each, at intervals of six months, and signed Marie Antoinette de France, was conveyed to him, with a promise that any favor in her power to grant him would not be withheld by the Queen to the graceful and accomplished cavalier who was

so willing to aid her design. The arrogant prelate put on these words their most liberal construction, and probably not less to his amazement than delight, his overtures were accepted. A secret interview with a disguised lady, under the cover of the night and in the groves of Versailles, crowned his felicity. It is wonderful how a man so well acquainted with the court could have mistaken a professional character of the very lowest class, named Oliva, (for it was no other whom he had thus encountered,) for the stately and beautiful Marie Antoinette. The very signature to the procuration should have warned him of the imposture. Their simple initials, or at most the Christian name, was the only method of signature to the Queens of France. It is true, and the circumstance is worth noting, that there dwelt at that time, in a small mansion in the park at Versailles, a daughter of Joseph II., (brother of Marie Antoinette) by a morganatic marriage with the Countess Wilhelmine de B-, whose resemblance to her aunt was of the most striking character. But this young lady lived in the most perfect seclusion with a single governess, receiving no company but the Queen and the Princess Royal, (afterwards, in our day, Duchesse d'Angoulème,) and the secret of her origin was limited to the breasts of her visitors. It is only from the revelations of the Princess de Lamballe, that innocent but ill-fated friend of the Queen's, that this narrative has reached us. And there also remains no doubt of the identity of the woman Oliva with the pretended Queen. In raptures with his success, the Cardinal flew to M. Boehmer and greedily acceded to his terms. The necklace was handed over to the Countess to be delivered to the Queen; her husband at once conveyed it to England, and there, breaking it up, he soon managed to dispose of his ill-gotten spoil. What share Cagliostro had in this scheme we cannot point out with precision. Probably, however, his master-hand merely traced out the movements to be made, leaving to his subordinate the danger and the execution. Certain it is, that Retaux de Villette was the forger of the letter, and that no legal proof could be found to implicate Cagliostro in the meshes of Justice, or even to destroy him in the eyes of the Cardinal. For, as in all such cases, a day of reckoning came at last. The

jeweler, astonished at not receiving the first six months' installment, appealed to the Queen. An investigation followed, and everything became manifest. The Cardinal was publicly taken into custody, to the prodigious indignation of the Prince de Condé, the Marshal de Soubise, the Princess de Marsan, and all the other branches and connections of the Rohan family, who had not yet recovered from the shock they had received at the tremendous bankruptcy of the Prince de Guéménée, an important scion of that house. But all was in vain; nothing but the Cardinal's public disgrace could avenge the deeds of his insolent ambition and the scandal he had brought upon the names of his sovereigns. In vain did Pope Pius VI. claim for him, on the ground of his spiritual functions, exemption from trial by an ordinary court of justice. And though the result of this trial was the discharge of the accused, yet his reputation was ruined by the strange developments it occasioned. All the sums raised by his subjects for the restoration of the Chateau de Savergne had been shamelessly appropriated by its resident to far different purposes. A thousand other peccadilloes came to light; a thousand epigrams, ballads, squibs were circulated against him. Even the children in the streets went about singing

Et l'innocente candeur

Du prélat de Savergne Va briller comme un docteur Dans une lanterne.

As for the Countess de la Motte, des

pite her noble blood, she was sentenced to be flogged through the streets with a halter about her neck, to be branded on both shoulders, and shut up for the rest of her life in la Salpêtrière.

But where, all this while, was his Excellency the Count Alexander? Released from the Bastile for lack of legal evidence against him, his wanderings began anew. From London, by slow stages, he proceeded Italyward, till at last, in an evil hour for himself, he arrived in Rome. There he was arrested -on what charge does the reader suppose? Of nothing less than of being a Free Mason! Alas! all his subtilties and shifts could not avail him here; the facts were too strongly proven against him. Convicted upon this accusation, he was sent to prison for the remainder of his days, and in the year 1795 died in his dungeon. So perished the prince of liars and impostors, and one of the most ingenious of men, leaving behind him a reputation so parti-colored (according to the various lights in which it had been visible to men's eyes), that while nine-tenths of the world reviled him as a rogue and a charlatan, the remaining decimal part venerated him as a saint and a martyr. We have seen an engraved copy of his portrait-thousands of which were dispersed over Europe-bearing this modest inscription, of whose justice our readers may best judge:

De l'Ami des Humains reconaissez les traits:
Tous ses jours sont marqués par de nouveaux bien-

faits:

Il prolonge la vie, il secourt l'indigence;
Le plaisir d'être utile est seul sa recompense.

Ι

II.