The night wanes. The lights of the banqueting-hall burn lower and lower. Finally the _grandes dames_ and the _seigneurs_ take their departure. When the last carriage has rolled away into the darkness, Cagliostro and his wife yawn wearily, and retire to their respective sleeping-apartments. The augurs of Rome, says a Latin poet, could not look at each other without laughing. Cagliostro and Lorenza in bidding each other goodnight exchange smiles of incalculable cunning. The sphinx masks have dropped from their faces, and they know each other to be—charlatans and impostors, preying upon a superstitious society. The magician is alone. He places his wax light upon an escritoire, and throws himself into an arm-chair before the great fireplace, carved and gilded with many a grotesque image. The flames of the blazing logs weave all sorts of fantastic forms on floor and ceiling. The wind without howls in the chimney like a lost spirit. The figures embroidered on the tapestry assume monstrous shapes of evil portent—alguazils, cowled inquisitors, and jailers with rusty keys and chains. {86} But the magician sees nothing of it all, hears not the warning cry of the wind: he is thinking of his newly hatched lodges of Egyptian occultism, and the golden louis d’or to be conjured out of the strong-boxes of his Parisian dupes. {87} GHOST-MAKING EXTRAORDINARY. “Stay illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, Speak to me.”—SHAKESPEARE: _Hamlet_. I. The French Revolution drew crowds of adventurers to Paris, their brains buzzing with the wildest schemes—political, social, and scientific—which they endeavored to exploit. Among the inventors was a Belgian optician, Etienne-Gaspard Robertson, born at Liège, in 1763, where for many years he had been a professor of physics. He addressed a memorial in the year 1794 to the Government proposing to construct gigantic burning glasses _à la_ Archimedes, to set fire to the English fleets, at that period blockading the French seaports. A commission composed of Monge, Lefevre, Gineau and Guyton de Morveau was appointed to investigate the matter, but nothing came of it. Failing to accomplish his scheme, Robertson turned his attention to other methods of money-making. Four years passed away. Having a decided _penchant_ for magic illusions, etc., he set about constructing a ghost-making apparatus. The “Red Terror” was a thing of the past, and people had begun to pluck up courage and seek amusements. Rid to a great extent, of his rival, La Guillotine—the most famous of “ghost-making machines”—Robertson set up his phantasmagoria at the Pavilion de l’Echiquier, and flooded the city with circulars describing his exhibition. Poultier, a journalist and one of the Representatives of the People, wrote an amusing account of the entertainment in the _L’Ami des Lois_, 1798.[17] He says: {88} [Illustration: ROBERTSON’S GHOST SHOW.]