[10] _Nachricht von des berüchtigten Cagliostro’s Aufenthalt in Mithau im Jahre, 1779, und von dessen dortigen magischen Operationen._—Charlotte Elisabeth von der Recke. Berlin und Stettin, 1787. 8vo. “What see ye?” cried in a hoarse voice the sage of the pyramids. “I see,” replied a sceptical gentleman from the audience, “that Monsieur le Comte de Cagliostro has disguised himself with a mask and a white beard.” Everybody recognized the portly figure of the vision. A rush seemed imminent. Quick as thought, the Grand Kophta, by a wave of his hands, extinguished the two candles. A sound followed as the slipping off of a mantle. The tapers were relit. Cagliostro was observed sitting where the sage had disappeared. At Wola, in a private laboratory, he pretended to transmute mercury into silver. The scene must have been an impressive one. Girt with a freemason’s apron, and standing on a black floor marked with cabalistic symbols in chalk, Cagliostro worked at the furnace. In the gloom of twilight the proceedings were held. By a clever substitution of crucibles, Cagliostro apparently accomplished the feat of transmutation, but the fraud was detected the next morning, when one of the servants of the house discovered the original crucible containing the mercury, which had been cast upon a pile of rubbish by the pretended alchemist, or one of his confederates. In September, 1780, Cagliostro arrived in Strasburg. Here he was received with unbounded enthusiasm. He lavished money right and left, cured the poor without pay, and treated the great with haughtiness. Just outside of the city he erected a {56} country villa in Chinese architecture, wherein to hold his Egyptian lodges. This place was long pointed out as the Cagliostræum. The peasants are said to have passed it with uncovered heads, such was their admiration and awe of the great wonder-worker. At Strasburg resided at that time the Cardinal Louis de Rohan, who was anxious to meet the magician. Cagliostro, to whom the fact was reported, said: “If the Cardinal is sick, he may come to me and I will cure him; if he is well, he has no further need of me, nor I of him.” Cardinal de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, Commander of the order of the Holy Ghost, enormously rich, and an amateur dabbler in alchemy and the occult sciences, was now more anxious than ever to become acquainted with the charlatan. Such disdain on the part of a layman was a new experience to the haughty churchman. His imagination, too, was fired by the stories told of the enchanter. The upshot of it was that Cagliostro and the Cardinal became bosom friends. The prelate invited the juggler and his wife to live at his episcopal palace.