arose when Madame de Boulainvilliers visited Strasbourg as a guest in the chateau of Saveme, the magnificent home of the Cardinal de Rohan. Jeanne remembered that the Cardinal was notoriously fond of women, and she was undoubtedly attractive. With her air of haughty refinement, her lovely chestnut hair and blue eyes under black eyebrows, her colouring was startling.
She decided to use the Cardinal, but at this stage she was not sure how. The wildest of plans would occur to her later when a series of strange events fell into their places setting the stage and making possible this plot which would otherwise have seemed too incredible for reality.
I have already written much of the Cardinal de Rohan. I shall never be able to get that man out of my mind, and even now when I have become resigned to my fate and my understanding of others has grown I still feel a great revulsion every time I hear his name or allow his image to cloud my thoughts.
I suppose he was handsome in his way, for he was known as La Belle Eminence. Sometimes I think he was an extremely foolish man—indeed he must have been, for who but a simpleton would have allowed himself to be used as he was?
I can recall his face clearly; there is something childlike about it—round and like a doll’s, unwrinkled and highly coloured; the only ageing feature was his white hair, which grew far back from his forehead, and even this merely accentuated the ruddy roundness of his face. He was very tall and carried himself with grace and great dignity; and in his Cardinal’s robes he was a figure of magnificence.
He held the Bishopric of Strasbourg, which was the richest in France;
he was a Prince of the Empire, Landgrave of Alsace, Abbe of the Grand Abbey of Saint-Vaast and Chaise- Dieu, Provisor of Sorbonne, Grand Almoner of France, Superior-General of the Royal Hospital of the QuuueVingts, and Commander of the order of the Holy Ghost And this was the man who had been arrested at Versailles like a common felon—as his family said.
At the time he made the acquaintance of Jeanne de la Motte-Valois the Cardinal was under the spell of Cagliostro.
I do not know the truth about Cagliostro. Who does? Some laugh at him.
Others say that he was in possession of some of the great secrets of the universe. The fact remains that while he was close to the Cardinal, the Cardinal accepted ridiculous falsehoods as truth.
There were so many stories about the magician. I have heard descriptions of him from my servants who waited in the streets to catch a glimpse of him. His coat was of blue silk, his shoes were fastened by buckles made of diamonds; even his stockings were studded with gold; he glittered as he walked, for diamonds and rubies covered his hands; his flowered waistcoat was set with gems which sparkled so fiercely that they dazzled the eyes of all who beheld them.
When he was arrested, shortly after the Cardinal, I heard many stories of his strangeness. The one which most impressed me was that of how he stopped in the square of Strasbourg before a crucifix and declared in a loud voice which could be heard by all those around—and there was always a crowd following him: “How could an artist who had never seen him have made such a perfect likeness?”
“Your lordship knew Christ?” asked a hushed voice close by.
“We are on terms of friendship,” was the answer.
“How many times we strolled together on the shady shore of Lake Tiberias. His voice was of great sweetness, but he would not listen to me. He loved to walk on the shore, where he picked up a band of fishermen. This and his preaching brought him to a bad end.” Then to his servant he added:
“Do you remember that day when they crucified Christ in Jerusalem?”
Then came the astonishing climax to the story: “No, my lord,” replied the servant in the hushed tones of reverence with which the great man was addressed, ‘your lordship forgets I have only been in your service for the last fifteen hundred years. “
He was a small fat man with the appearance of being in his forties; he had large bright animated eyes, and a strong voice. He was undoubtedly fascinating, for often those who went to him to jeer at him and expose him as a fraud became his most earnest admirers.
Of course there were those who said he talked gibberish which people thought was brilliant wit and wisdom because they could not understand it. He had a formula for certain questions and when he was asked who he was would reply, “I am he who is!” and would add: “I am he who is not!” which was so baffling’ that most people who heard became very deferential and pretended they were the wise ones who could understand the meaning of his imagery.
There were countless sinister murmurs about him. He was a Freemason and wished to set up Egyptian Free masonry in France; he was in the pay of secret societies and his motives were more devious than the duping of a foolish Cardinal. He had discovered the philosopher’s stone and could transmute base metals into gold and make precious stones. Stories of the cures he had effected on his journeys were told everywhere. He could look at a man who was crippled and make him walk.
He would not give his attention to all sufferers, however, and he reserved the right to treat those whom he favoured.
There was a Comtesse de Cagliostro a young woman of charm and beauty who was said to be ‘not of this world. ” No one knew where she came from any more than they knew her husband’s origins. She was ‘an angel in human form who had been sent to soften the days of the Man of Marvels.” Cagliostro was a faithful husband who never gave one amorous glance in any other woman’s direction. All he was interested in was his own doctrine.
In spite of the wild life he had led, there was about the Cardinal a touch of innocence; he was a lecher, but a roman tic one; superstitious in the extreme, he was very much attracted by the occult. Moreover he delighted in splendour; be admired fine clothes, and above all magnificent jewellery; and Cagliostro was a magician who, by his great wisdom, could bring sparkling jewels from his crucible. Such an achievement could not fail to impress the Cardinal, and in a very short time he had invited Cagliostro to Saveme, where the two became great friends.
The Cardinal wore an enormous jewel the size of an egg, which he declared he had seen Cagliostro pluck fro tn the crucible. How the Cardinal was duped, whether the Cardinal was duped, remains a secret, but it was a fact that Cagliostro lived in great splendour with his Comtesse in the palace of Saveme and that the Cardinal could scarcely bear him out of his sight.
And then in the private apartments of the Cardinal’s palace these two men began to talk of me. I had become an obsession with the Cardinal.
I had stubbornly refused to receive him at Court; I had remembered my mother’s warnings about him; I had tried to prevent his being Grand Almoner; he knew that I disliked him, and he wanted my favour with the desperation of a man who has only had to take what he desires all his life and suddenly finds something denied him.
There was. something even more sinister which had crept into the Cardinal’s mind. He wanted to be my lover. The thought of this took possession of his mind. He began to think of little else. Did he talk of me to Cagliostro? Did he ask what chances he had of success with me? If he had calked with me instead of the magician I could have told him that never . never never should I have looked at him with favour even if I had been the kind of woman who forgets her marriage vows.
Why did Cagliostro lend himself to this mad scheme? Did he know what was going on? Could it be true that he had gifts like Mesmer’s and could make people act as he wished at certain times? And did he wish me to be caught up in this gigantic scandal because his masters of some of the secret lodges of the world were eager to see the end of the Monarchy in France?
At the rime it seemed that this was merely the story of a gullible man, a scheming woman and a man of mystery. I was involved the central figure in the plot, the character who never makes an actual appearance during the whole of the play but without whom there would be no play.
Jeanne de la Motte-Valois speedily became the Cardinal’s mistress; that was an inevitable sequel. She also became Cagliostro’s friend.
Did she suspect he was a charlatan? Did he know that she was a scheming woman? Whichever way one turns in this incredible story there is mystery.
Jeanne would soon have discovered the Cardinal’s obsession with me.
Then the Comtesse saw a way of improving her status with the Cardinal; it may have been then that it all began.
She had become friendly with a comrade of her husband’s, Retaux de Ville’tte, a handsome man of about
