famous imposter 11

famous imposter 11

Aided by these adjuncts he was a great success in Paris whither he

returned in 1785. As an impostor he knew his business and played “the

game” well. When he was at work he brought to bear the influence of all

his “properties,” amongst them a tablecloth embroidered with cabalistic

signs in scarlet and the symbols of the Rosy Cross of high degree; the

same mysterious emblems marked the globe without which no wizard’s

atelier is complete.

 

Here too were various little Egyptian figures--“ushabtui” he would

doubtless have called them had the word been in use in his day. From

these he kept his dupes at a distance, guarding carefully against

any discovery. He evidently did not fear to hurt the religious

susceptibilities of any of his votaries, for not only were the crucifix

and other emblems of the kind placed amongst the curios of his ritual,

but he made his invocation in the form of a religious ceremony, going

down on his knees and in all ways cultivating the emotions of those

round him. He was aided by a young woman whom he described as pure

as an angel and of great sensibility. The said young person kept

her blue eyes fixed on a globe full of water. Then he proceeded to

expound the Great Secret which he told his hearers had been the same

since the beginning of things and whose mystery had been guarded by

Templars of the Rosy Cross, by Magicians, by Egyptians and the like.

He had claimed, as the Comte Saint-German said, that he had already

existed for many centuries; that he was a contemporary of Christ; and

that he had predicted His crucifixion by the Jews. As statements of

this kind were made mainly for the purpose of selling the elixir which

he peddled, it may easily be imagined that he did not shrink from

lying or blasphemy when such seemed to suit his purpose. Daring and

recklessness in his statements seemed to further his business success,

so prophecy--or rather boastings of prophecy _after the event_--became

part of the great fraud. Amongst other things he said that he had

predicted the taking of the Bastille. Such things shed a little light

on the methods of such impostors, and help to lay bare the roots or

principles through which they flourish.

 

After his Parisian success he made a prolonged tour in France. In la

Vendée he boasted of some fresh miracle--of his own doing--on each day;

and at Lyons the boasting was repeated. Of course he occasionally had

bad times, for now and again even the demons on whose acquaintance and

help he prided himself did not work. In London after 1772, things had

become so bad with him that he had to work as a house painter under

his own name. Whatever may have been his skill in his art this was

probably about the only honest work he ever did. He did not stick to

it for long however, for four years afterwards he lost three thousand

pounds by frauds of others by whom he was introduced to fictitious

lords and ladies. Here too he underwent a term of imprisonment for debt.

 

Naturally such an impostor found in Freemasonry, which is a secret

cult, a way of furthering his ends. With the aid of his wife, who all

through their life together seems to have worked with him, he founded a

new branch of freemasonry in which a good many rules of that wonderful

organisation were set at defiance. As the purpose of the new cult was

to defraud, its net was enlarged by taking women into the body. The

name used for it was the _Grand Egyptian Lodge_--he being himself the

head of it under the title of the _Cophte_ and his wife the _Grand

Priestess_. In the ritual were some appalling ceremonies, and as these

made eventually for profitable publicity, the scheme was a great

success--and the elixir sold well. This elixir was the backbone of

his revenue; and indeed it would have been well worthy of success if

it had been all that he claimed for it. Dispensers of elixirs are not

usually backward in proclaiming the virtues of their wares; but in his

various settings forth Cagliostro went further than others. He claimed

not only to restore youth and health and to make them perpetual,

but to restore lost innocence and effect a whole moral regeneration.

No wonder that he achieved success and that money rolled in! And no

wonder that women, especially of the upper classes, followed him like

a flock of sheep! No wonder that a class rich, idle, pleasure-loving,

and fond of tasting and testing new sensations, found thrilling moments

in the great impostor’s mélange of mystery, religion, fear, and hope;

of spirit-rapping and a sort of “black mass” in which Christianity

and Paganism mingled freely, and where life and death, good and evil,

whirled together in a maddening dance.

 

It was not, however, through his alleged sorcery that Cagliostro crept

into a place in history; but by the association of his name with a

sordid crime which involved the names of some of the great ones of the

earth. The story of the Queen’s Necklace, though he was acquitted at

the trial which concluded it, will be remembered when the vapourings

of the unscrupulous quack who had escaped a thousand penalties justly

earned, have been long forgotten. Such is the irony of history! The

story of the necklace involved Marie Antoinette, Cardinal Prince de

Rohan, Comte de la Motte--an officer of the private guard of “Monsieur”

(the Comte d’Artois), his wife Jeanne de Valois, descended from Henry

II through Saint-Remy, his natural son and Nicole de Savigny. Louis XV

had ordered from MM. Boemer et Bassange, jewellers to the Court of

France, a beautiful necklace of extraordinary value for his mistress

Madame du Barry, but died before it was completed. The du Barry was

exiled by his successor, so the necklace remained on the hands of its

makers. It was, however, of so great intrinsic value that they could

not easily find a purchaser. They offered it to Marie Antoinette for

one million eight hundred thousand livres; but the price was too

high even for a queen, and the necklace remained on hand. So Boemer

showed it to Madame de la Motte and offered to give a commission on

the sale to whoever should find a buyer. She induced her husband,

Comte de la Motte, to join with her in a plot to accomplish the sale.

De la Motte was a friend of Cagliostro, and he too was brought in as

he had influence with the Cardinal Prince de Rohan whom they looked

on as a likely person to be of service. He had his own ambitions to

acquire influence over the queen and use her for political purposes as

Mazarin had used Anne of Austria. De Rohan was then a man of fifty--not

considered much of an age in these days, but the Cardinal’s life had

not made for comparative longevity. He was in fact something of that

class of fool which has no peer in folly--an old fool; and Jeanne

de la Motte fooled him to the top of his bent. She pretended to him

that Marie Antoinette was especially friendly to her, and shewed him

letters from the queen to herself all of which had been forged for the

purpose. As at this time Madame de la Motte had borrowed or otherwise

obtained from the Cardinal a hundred and twenty thousand livres, she

felt assured he could be used for the contemplated fraud. She probably

had not ever even spoken to the queen but she was not scrupulous in

such a small matter as one more untruth. She finally persuaded him that

Marie Antoinette wished to purchase the necklace through his agency, he

acting for her and buying it in her name. To aid in the scheme she got

her pet forger, Retaux de Vilette, to prepare a receipt signed “Marie

Antoinette de France.” The Cardinal fell into the trap and obtained

the jewel, giving to Boemer four bills due successively at intervals

of six months. At Versailles de Rohan gave the casket containing the

necklace to Madame de la Motte, who in his presence handed it to a

valet of the royal household for conveyance to the queen. The valet

was none other than the forger Retaux de Vilette. Madame de la Motte

sent to the Cardinal a letter by the same forger asking him to meet her

(the queen) in the shrubbery at Versailles between eleven o’clock and

midnight. To complete the deception a girl was procured, one Olivia,

who in figure resembled the queen sufficiently to pass for her in the

dusk. The meeting between de Rohan and the alleged queen was held at

the Baths of Apollo--to the deception and temporary satisfaction of the

ambitious churchman. When the first instalment for the purchase of the

necklace was due, Boemer tried to find out if the queen really had

possession of the necklace--which had in the meanwhile been brought to

London, it was said, by Comte de la Motte. As Boemer could not manage

to get an audience with the queen he came to the conclusion that he

had been robbed, and made the matter public. This was reported to

M. de Breteuil, Master of the King’s household, and an enemy of de

Rohan. De Breteuil saw the queen secretly and they agreed to act in

concert in the matter. Louis XVI asked for details of the purchase

from Boemer, who told the truth so far as he knew it, producing as a

proof the alleged receipt of the queen. Louis pointed out to him that

he should have known that the queen did not sign after the manner of

the document. He then asked de Rohan, who was Grand Almoner of France,

for his written justification. This being supplied, he had him arrested

and sent to the Bastille. Madame de la Motte accused Cagliostro of the

crime, alleging that he had persuaded de Rohan to buy the necklace. She

was also arrested as were Retaux de Vilette, and, later on at Brussels,

Olivia, who threw some light on the fraud. The King brought the whole

matter before Parliament, which ordered a prosecution. As the result of

the trial which followed, Comte de la Motte and Retaux de Vilette were

banished for life; Jeanne de la Motte was condemned to make _amende

honourable_, to be whipped and branded with V on both shoulders, and

to be imprisoned for life. Olivia and Cagliostro were acquitted. The

Cardinal was cleared of all charges. Nothing seems to have been done

for the poor jewellers, who, after all, had received more substantial

injury than any of the others, having lost nearly two million livres.

 

After the affair of the Necklace, Cagliostro spent a time in the

Bastille and when free, after some months, he and his wife travelled

again in Europe. In 1789 he was arrested at Rome by order of the

Inquisition and condemned to death as a Freemason. The punishment was

later commuted to perpetual imprisonment. He ended his days in the

Château de Saint-Leon near Rome. His wife was condemned to perpetual

seclusion and died in the Convent of Sainte-Appolive.

 

 

 

 

MESMER

 

 

Although Frederic-Antoine Mesmer made an astonishing discovery which,

having been tested and employed in therapeutics for a century, is

accepted as a contribution to science, he is included in the list of

impostors because, however sound his theory was, he used it in the

manner or surrounded with the atmosphere of imposture. Indeed the

implement which he used in his practice, and which made him famous in

fashionable and idle society, was set forth as having magic properties.

He belonged to the same period as Cagliostro, having been born but nine

years before him, in 1734, in Itzmang, Suabia; but the impostor pure

and simple easily picked up the difference by beginning his life-work

earlier and following it quicker with regard to results. Mesmer was not

in any sense a precocious person. He was thirty-two years of age when

he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Vienna in 1765. However

he had already chosen his subject, animal magnetism as allied with

medical therapeutics. His early script under the title _De planetarum

influxi_ is looked on as a legal reminiscence of judicial astronomy. He

left Vienna because, he said, of a cabal against him, and travelled

in Europe, particularly in Switzerland, before he went to Paris to

seek his fortune. This was in 1778, when he was some forty-four years

of age; his reputation, which had been growing all the time, preceded

him. He was then a man of fine appearance, tall and important-looking

and conveying a sense of calm power. He produced much sensation and was

at once credited--not without his own will or intention--with magic

power. He posed as a benefactor of humanity; a position which was at

once conceded to him, partly owing to the fact that an extraordinary

atmosphere of calm seemed to surround him, which with his natural

air of assurance founded on self-belief, was able to convey to his

patients a sense of hope which was of course very helpful in cases of

nervous failure and depression. He settled in the Hotel Bouret near the

Place Vendôme and so in the heart of Paris; and at once undertook the

treatment of patients hitherto deemed incurable. Fashion took up the

new medical “craze” or “sensation,” and he at once became the vogue.

It was at this time of his life that Mesmer came to the parting of

the ways between earnest science and charlatanism. So far as we know

he still remained earnest in his scientific belief--as indeed he was

till the end of his days. Inasmuch as fashion requires some concrete

__EXPRESSION__ of its fancies, Mesmer soon used the picturesque side of

his brain for the service of fashionable success. So he invented an

appliance which soon became the talk of the town. This was the famous

_baquet magique_ or magic tub, a sort of covered bath, round which his

patients were arranged in tiers. To the bath were attached a number

of tubes, each of which was held by a patient, who could touch with

the end of it any part of his or her body at will. After a while the

patients began to get excited, and many of them went into convulsions.