The Baroness d’Oberkirch, who saw him there, says in her memoirs:[11] “No one can ever form the faintest idea of the fervor with which everybody pursued Cagliostro. He was surrounded, besieged; every one trying to win a glance or a word. . . . A dozen ladies of rank and two actresses had followed him in order to continue their treatment. . . . If I had not seen it, I should never have imagined that a Prince of the Roman Church, a man in other respects intelligent and honorable, could so far let himself be imposed upon as to renounce his dignity, his free will, at the bidding of a sharper.” Cagliostro said to the Cardinal one day: “Your soul is worthy of mine, and you deserve to be the confidant of all my secrets.” He presented the Cardinal with a diamond worth 20,000 francs which he pretended to have made, the churchman claiming to have been an eye-witness of the operation. The Cardinal said to the Baroness: “But that is not all; he makes gold; he has made five or six thousand francs worth before me, up there in the top of the palace. I am to have more; I am to have a great deal; he will make me the richest prince in Europe {57} These are not dreams, madame; they are proofs. And his prophecies that have come true! And the miraculous cures that he has wrought! [_He really cured the Cardinal of the asthma._] I tell you, he is the most extraordinary man, the sublimest man in the world.”[12] [11] _Mémoires de la Baronne d’Oberkirche, I._ [12] It is an interesting fact to note that Cagliostro was recommended as a physician to our Benjamin Franklin, at that time residing in Paris. See Hale’s _Franklin in France_, vol. 2, p. 226. From Strasburg Cagliostro went to Naples, and from thence to Bordeaux. After residing at Bordeaux for eleven months, he proceeded to Lyons in great pomp, with lackeys, grooms, guards armed with battle-axes, and heralds garbed in cloth of gold, blowing trumpets. In the year 1785 he founded at Lyons the Lodge of Triumphant Wisdom, and made many converts to his mystical doctrines. The fame of his Egyptian masonry reached Paris and created quite a stir among the lodges. The chiefs of a masonic convocation assembled in Paris wrote to him for information concerning his new rite. He scornfully refused to have anything to do with them, unless they burned all their masonic books and implements as useless trash and acknowledged their futility, claiming that his Egyptian Rite was the only true freemasonry and worthy of cultivation among men of learning. His next move was to the French capital. Behold him on his travels with coach-and-four, flunkies and outriders in gorgeous liveries of red and gold; vehicles filled with baggage and paraphernalia. Best of all, he carries with him an iron coffer which contains the silver, gold, and jewels reaped from his dupes. IV.