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Updated: June 19, 2025
Joseph Balsamo more generally known by his pseudonym of Count Alexander De Cagliostro, expelled from France, after nine months' durance in the Bastille, on account of his complicity in the diamond necklace fraud and scandal had taken refuge in England, bringing with him a long list of quackeries and impostures; among them, his art of making old women young again; his system of 'Egyptian freemasonry, as he termed it, by virtue of which the ghosts of the departed could be beheld by their surviving friends; and the secrets and discoveries of the great Dr.
Having given utterance to this threat in the hearing of a friend of Balsamo, it was reported to the latter, who immediately packed up his valuables and quitted Europe. He chose Medina, in Arabia, for his future dwelling-place, and there became acquainted with a Greek named Altotas, a man exceedingly well versed in all the languages of the East, and an indefatigable student of alchymy.
The goldsmith whom he had cheated of sixty ounces of gold many years before was in the crowd, and, recognising him, tried to stop the carriage, shouting: "Joseph Balsamo! It is Joseph! Rogue, where are my sixty ounces of gold?"
Cagliostro found himself, with profound sorrow, returning into the silent darkness, and the solemn Voice stealing, for the last time, into his brain. "Behold, Balsamo," it said, "the pleasures that may vanish with the loss of hearing. Behold, and shudder at the remembrance of thy blasphemies.
In my sketch of Joseph Balsamo, alias the Count Alessandro de Cagliostro, I referred to the affair of the diamond necklace, known in French history as the Collier de la Reine, or Queen's necklace, from the manner in which the name and reputation of Marie Antoinette, the consort of Louis XVI, became entangled in it.
I remember that I once heard a mesmerist, at Madame d'Espard's, undertake to prove by very specious historical deductions, that this old man, if put under the magnifying glass, would turn out to be the famous Balsamo, otherwise called Cagliostro. According to this modern alchemist, the Sicilian had escaped death, and amused himself making gold for his grandchildren.
Again the Alchemist found himself enveloped in darkness, again the unearthly Voice stole into his brain. "Lo!" it said, "how the frame rots in the ermine: how the body and soul are polluted by vicious passions! Such, Balsamo, are the penalties of the lusts of the flesh." Another scene then revealed itself to the Rosicrucian, but one altogether different from those he had already witnessed.
But just at that time condemnation burst upon us, and from a powerful order we were changed into a persecuted one. The forger Joseph Balsamo sought the brazier Feliciano, who gave him money, letters of recommendation, and instructed him how to serve the order, and procure an agreeable life for himself. Is it not so?" "It is so," answered Cagliostro, softly.
Not only, indeed, has this illustrious physician shown that the charlatan whom the elder Dumas introduced with such telling effect into his novels, "La Comtesse de Charny" and "Le Docteur Balsamo," was no mere charlatan, but a number of Charcot's disciples have proved the truth of what Dumas seemed to draw from his rich imagination. Dr.
He had long since dropped the name of Balsamo on account of the many ugly associations that clung to it; and during his travels had assumed at least half a score others, with titles annexed to them. He called himself sometimes the Chevalier de Fischio, the Marquis de Melissa, the Baron de Belmonte, de Pelligrini, d'Anna, de Fenix, de Harat, but most commonly the Count de Cagliostro.
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