L.H. Nicolay (1737–1820) and his Contemporaries: Cagliostro

L.H. Nicolay (1737–1820) and his Contemporaries: Cagliostro

On a visit, which one day I made to Mrs. Z.'s table, she very much begged me to come back to lunch, and to help her entertain Count Cagliostro, whom she expected. For several weeks this Abyssinian had been practicing his life in St. Petersburg, playing the miracle doctor, the miller, but, rich in himself, the first bishop of philanthropy, without payment, the second as a side effect to his amusement, but basically quite dedicated to the higher philosophy alone. Freylich attributed to him his works of art, his Arcana more visits and praise than his transcendental wisdom. My natural reluctance to do anything with the blackness had always prevented me from running with him to the pile, and I thought it wise for reasonable men to be fooled when they let themselves be fooled by his exchanges, but now offered such a convenient opportunity to happen to him by accident Seeing a narrow circle, some curiosity awoke in me and drove me to accept the invitation.

His figure struck me as uncomfortable. She promised nothing noble, nothing lofty, nothing deep. Madame Z. greeted him with a simple address: Ah, Monsieur Cagliostro! But at once she reassembled herself and begged him not to have given him his title of title for the sake of forgiveness. What, title? he exclaimed. I am what I want, today Furst, tomorrow Count, Marchese, Baron or Burger. He broke off immediately and poured into long-running reports from the sick, which he now has in the Cur. I, who am not a doctor, sought to guide him in the same field to a circumstance about which I could also speak with a word. So I directed the conversation to the history of Arzney science. He chatted the most unrealized stuff with unstoppable glee and betrayed the coarsest and boldest ignorance. What are, he finally exclaimed, what are all the old doctors against the new ones? What is a Hippocrates? Isocrates? ... I had to turn away to hide my laugh. Hail was called to the table. Again, he touched on a scientific discourse, in which he occasionally scattered alchemical chunks. 

I cast a word about the elemental salts, as if they were a fishing rod. Greedy, he bit down, and overcame me with a barrage of mystical phrases. Out of sheer curiosity, in my youth I had read some alchemical books, but without ever putting one hand to a tig. I still had the whole language in fresh poetry, and flanked me with green lions, with black crinkles, and the like. pretty well around. Mr. B. who sat next to me, and noticed my courage, turned against his other neighbor, and said, just a little too loud: Comme ille persifle! Cagliostro might have heard it, suddenly fell silent, and went straight to the table [illeg.]

Friend, Mr. von T., otherwise a very clever man [illeg.] Still in a little confined space, often went to Cagliostro. He basically did his ghost show and other gaukeleyes. But once in the society was the speech on the lottery game. The great copte assured that at each drawing he could accurately and safely calculate the five numbers which, among the ninety, were to be given, except that the place, the year, the month, the day, and the hour should be exactly indicated the drawing was done. 

This made the guetn T. attentive. He asked for a sample. Said he said that tomorrow at eleven o'clock a lottery was drawn here in Petersburg, which numbers would come out? Cagliostro gave him five formulas of numbers which he would soon add, subtract, multiply and divide, until finally five numbers came between I and go, which were sure to win. But this was not enough for Mr. T., for the whole calculation was based on a chimerical hypothesis which could not give him any proof of correctness. But, he began, it was possible to draw already done so calculate? Cagliostro - I thought that I seldom miss it. Now T. told me he had him trapped. He had spent a few years in Italy, playing in all lotteries, but receiving nothing but a lot of printed records of drawings that had unfortunately failed him. From one of them he put together a task and presented it to the wise man. 

He asked for a few days to calculate, and finally gave him on a small piece of paper written down the Numem, which had really won at that time. T. was beside himself with astonishment, and was very anxious to give him the key to this secrets. And this, replied the mystic, is the only thing that I can not possibly discover, for among us it is the gold mine from which I draw all my wealth. Cagliostro gave himself an astonishing misfortune to approach the great Catharina by the reputation of his miracles, his secrets, or by the fealty of some deluded exteriors, but never down to him. 

At last he discovered to one of his Gonners that he knew the whole mixture of the famous Corinthian ore, and that he had come chiefly to St. Petersburg to turn this noblest of all metals into a statue of the greatest monarchy. The Kayserinn forbade itself the honor. 2 o you my dear Strassburger! Neither Cagliostro, nor Mesmer, nor any of the more recent modern fantasies and perpetrators, has found such blind faith in any people, as zealous followers have found, than in your good-natured Abdera. 3