“On the 19th of September 1780, in a public-house just outside Strasburg, surrounded by a group of humble tipplers, who stared from the little window at the vast crowd collected below them, there might have been remarked the countenance of a bald and wrinkled man, some eighty years of age, and evidently of southern origin; this was the goldsmith Marano. Successive failures, and debts which he did not see fit to liquidate, had forced him to leave Palermo, and he had established himself in his former trade at Strasbourg. Like the rest of the townsfolk he had come out to behold the phenomenal personage whose arrival was expected, and who made a greater sensation than many a powerful monarch. He had come by way of Germany from Varsovia, where he had amassed immense riches, said popular rumour, by the transmutation of base metals into gold, for he was possessed of the secret of the philosophic stone, and had all the incalculable talents of an alchemist.” “By my faith,” said a hatter, “I am indeed happy since I am destined to behold this illustrious mortal, if indeed he be a mortal.” “’Tis asserted,” added a druggist, “that he is a son of the Princess of Trebizond, and that he has withal the fine eyes of his mother.” “Also that he is a lineal descendant of Charles Martel,” said a town clerk. “He dates still further back,” put in a rope-maker, “for he took part in the marriage feast of Cana.” “Beyond doubt then, he is the wandering Jew!” exclaimed Marano. “Still better, some credible persons assert that he was born before the deluge.” “What hardihood! Yet suppose he is the devil.” These notions here reproduced with fidelity, and which were adorned by the most extravagant commentaries, were actually at that period in general circulation among the crowd. Some regarded the mysterious Count Cagliostro as an inspired saint, a performer of miracles, a phenomenal personage outside the order of Nature. The cures attributed to him were equally innumerable and unexplainable. Others regarded him merely as an adroit charlatan. Cagliostro himself boldly asserted that all his prodigies were performed under the special favour and help of heaven. He added that the Supreme Being had deigned to accord him the beatific vision, that it was his mission to convert unbelievers and reinstate catholicism, but in spite of this exalted vocation he told fortunes, taught the art of winning at lotteries, interpreted dreams, and held séances of transcendental phantasmagoria. “But,” contended the rope-maker with much animation, “a man who converses with angels is never the devil.” “Is he in communication with angels?” cried Marano, struck by the circumstances. “In that case I must see him at all costs. How old is he?” “Bah!” said the druggist, “as if such a being could have an age! He looks about thirty-six.” “Oh!” muttered the goldsmith. “What if he were my rascal? My rascal should now be thirty-seven.”