For a short time it seemed as though Fortune would indemnify him for his ill luck. But, after having for so long showered her favors on him, it now appeared that she had finally and definitely turned her back upon him. Long and severe illness exhausted not only his vigor, but the slender means he had saved from shipwreck. Pinetti fell into the most abject want. A {41} nobleman in the village of Bartitschoff in Volhynien took him in from pity. And thus, at the turn of the century, ended the life of this richly gifted artist, who was so wanting in nobility of spirit. The extraordinary story of Pinetti’s downfall was told to Robert-Houdin by De Grisy himself, and is given at length in Houdin’s memoirs. Pinetti had married a Russian girl, the daughter of a carriage-maker. By her he had two children. He was hardly fifty when he died. Etienne-Gaspard Robertson when traveling in Russia met the widow Pinetti at Bialistock. She showed him her husband’s cabinet of physics and endeavored to sell it to him, but he did not purchase it. However, he bought a medallion, set with diamonds, and a ring which the Czar had presented to Pinetti. Says Robertson, in his memoirs: “Pinetti had the audacity to ask the Russian Emperor to stand god-father for his children at the baptismal font, and the Emperor actually consented.” To me this seems nothing wonderful. Why should not the greatest conjurer of the age ask a favor of the greatest autocrat? Both were sovereigns in their particular domain. {42} CAGLIOSTRO—A STUDY IN CHARLATANISM. “Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.”—_Latin Proverb._ “The pseudo-mystic, who deceives the world because he knows that the world wishes to be deceived, becomes an attractive subject for psychological analysis.”—HUGO MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology and Life_. “Unparalleled Cagliostro! Looking at thy so attractively decorated private theatre, wherein thou actedst and livedst, what hand but itches to draw aside thy curtain; overhaul thy pasteboards, paint-pots, paper-mantles, stage-lamps, and turning the whole inside out, find _thee_ in the middle thereof!”—CARLYLE: _Miscellaneous Essays_. I.