dissipated the alarms of suspicion.
"But, then,'^ exclaimed the King, "you are great politicians,
and can enlighten us."
"]^o, Sire," said Lorenzo simply.
"Why not?" asked the King.
"Sire, it is given to no one to be able to predict what will
come of a concourse of some thousands of men; we may be
able to tell what one man will do, how long he will live, and
whether he will be lucky or unlucky; but we cannot tell how
several wills thrown together will act, and any calculation of
the swing of their interests is even more difficult, for inter-
ests are men plus things ; only in solitude can we discern the
general aspect of the future. The Protestantism that is de-
vouring you will be devoured in its turn by its practical out-
come, which, in its day, will become a theory too. Europe,
so far, has not gone further than religion; to-morrow it will
attack Royalty."
"Then the night of Saint-Bartholomew was a great con-
ception ?"
"Yes, Sire; for when the people triumph, they will have
their Saint-Bartholomew, When Religion and Royalty are
swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the
great they will fall upon the rich. Finally, when Europe is
no more than a dismembered herd of men for lack of leaders,
it will be swallowed up by vulgar conquerors. The world
has presented a similar spectacle twenty times before, and Eu-
rope is beginning again. Ideas devour the ages as men are
devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human
nature will cure itself perhaps. Science is the soul of man-
kind, and we are its pontiffs ; and those who study the soul
care but little for the body."
"How far have you gone ?" asked the King.
"We move but slowly ; but we never lose what we have once
conquered."
"So you, in fact, are the King of the Wizards," said
Charles IX., piqued at finding himself so small a personage
in the presence of this man.
300 ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI
The imposing Grand Master of Adepts flashed a look at
him that left him thunder-stricken.
"You are the King of men,*' replied he; "I am the King
of Ideas. Besides, if there were real wizards, yon could not
have burned them !" he added, with a touch of irony. "We
too have our martyrs."
"But by what means," the King went on, "do you cast
nativities? How did you know that the man near your win-
dow last night was the King of France ? What power enabled
one of your race to foretell to my mother the fate of her three
sons? Can you, the Grand Master of the Order that would
fain knead the world, — can you, I say, tell me what the Queen
my mother is thinking at this moment?"
"Yes, Sire."
The answer was spoken before Cosmo could pull his
brother's coat to warn him.
"'You know why my brother, the King of Poland, is re-
turning home?"
"Yes, Sire."
"And why?"
"To take your place."
"Our bitterest enemies are our own kith and kin," cried
the King, starting up in a fury, and striding up and down
the room. "Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!
ColigTiy was right; my executioners are in the conventicles,
they are at the Louvre. You are either impostors or regicides !
— Jacob, call in Solern."
"My Lord," said Marie Touchet, "the Ruggieri have your
word of honor. You have chosen to eat of the fruit of the
tree of knowledge; do not complain of its bitterness."
The King smiled with an expression of deep contempt; his
material sovereignty seemed small in his eyes in comparison
with the supreme intellectual sovereignty of old Lorenzo Rug-
gieri. Charles IX. could scarcely govern France; the Grand
Master of the Rosicrucians commanded an intelligent and
submissive people.
"Be franJv; I give you my word as a gentleman that youi
ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI 301
reply, even if it should contain the avovral of the worst crimes,
shall be as though it had never been spoken," the King said.
"Do you study poisons?"
"To know what will secure life, it is needful to know what
will cause death."
"You have the secret of many poisons?"
"Yes, but in theory only, and not in practice; we know
them, but do not use them."
, "Has my mother asked for any ?"
"The Queen-mother, Sire, is far too clever to have recourse
to such means. She knows that the sovereign who uses poi-
son shall perish by poison; the Borgias, and Bianca, Grand
Duchess of Tuscan}', are celebrated examples of the da^igers
incurred by those who use such odious means. At Court
everything is known. You can kill a poor wretch outright;
of what use, then, is it to poison him? But if you attempt
the life of conspicuous persons, what chance is there of se-
crecy? Kobody could have fired at Coligny but you, or the
Queen-mother, or one of the Guises. No one ma-de any mis-
take about that. Take my word for it, in politics poison can-
not be used twice with impunity: princes always have suc-
cessors.
"As to smaller men, if, like Luther, they become sovereigns
by the power of ideas, by killing them you do not kill their
doctrine. — The Queen is a Florentine; she knows that poi-
son can only be the instrument of private vengeance. My
brother, who has never left her since she came to France,
knows how deeply Madame Diane aggrieved her; she never
thought of poisoning her, and she could have done so. What
would the King your father have said? No woman would
have been more thoroughly justified, or more certain of im-
punity. But Madam^e de Valentinois is alive to this day."
"And the magic of wax images ?" asked the King.
"Sire," said Cosmo, "these figures are se entirely innocuous
that we lend ourselves to such magic to satisfy blind pas-
sions, like physicians who give bread pills to persons who
fancy themselves sick. A desperate woman imagines that
302 ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI
by stabbing the heart of an image she brings disaster on the
faitliless lover it represents. What can we say? Tliese are
our taxes."
"The Pope sells indulgences/' said Lorenzo Ruggieri, smil-
ing.
"Does my mother make use of sucli images ?"
"Of what use would such futile means be to her who can
do what she will?"
"Could Queen Catherine save you at this moment?" asked
Charles ominously.
"We are in no danger, Sire," said Lorenzo calmly. "I
knew before I entered this house that I should leave it safe
and sound, as surely as I know the ill-feeling that the King
will bear my brother a few days hence ; but, even if he should
run some risk, he will triumph. Though the King reigns by
the sword, he also reigns by justice," he added, in allusion to
the famous motto on a medal struck for Charles IX.
"You know everything; I shall die before long, and that
is well," returned the King, hiding his wrath under feverish
impatience. "But how will my brother die, who, according
to you, is to be Henri III. ?"
"A violent death."
"And Monsieur d'Alengon.?"
"He will never reign."
"Then Henri de Bourbon will be King?'*
"Yes, Sire."
"And what death will he die ?"
"A violent death."
"And when I am dead, what will become of madame?"
asked the King, turning to ]\Iarie Touchet.
"Madame de Belleville will marr}^, Sire."
"You are impostors ! — Send them away, my Lord," said
Marie Touchet.
"Dear heart, the Ruggieri have my word as a gentleman,"
said Charles, smiling. "Will Marie have children?"
"Yes— and madame will live to be more than eighty."
"Must I have them hanged?" said the King to his mis-
ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI 303
tress. — "And my son, the Comte d'Auvergne?" said Charles,
rising to fetch the child.
"Why did you tell him that I should marry?" said Marie
Touchet to the two brothers during the few moments when
they were alone.
"Madame," replied Lorenzo with dignity, "the King re-
quired us to tell the truth, and we told it."
"Then it is true ?" said she.
"As true as that the Governor of Orleans loves you to dis=
traction."
"But I do not love him," cried she.
"That is true, madame," said Lorenzo. "But your horo-
scope shows that you are to marry the man who at this pres-
ent loves you."
"Could you not tell a little lie for my sake ?" said she with
a smile. "For if the King should believe your forecast "
"Is it not necessary that he should believe in our inno-
cence?" said Cosmo, with a glance full of meaning. "The
precautions taken by the King against us have given us rea-
son, during the time we spent in your pretty jail, to suppose
that the occult sciences must have been maligned in his ears."
"Be quite easy," replied Marie; "I know him, and his
doubts are dispelled."
"We are innocent," said the old man haughtily.
"So much the better; for at this moment the King is hav-
ing your laboratory searched and your crucibles and phials
examined by experts."
The brothers looked at each other and smiled.
Marie took this smile for the irony of innocence; but it
mehnt : "Poor simpletons ! Do you suppose that if we know
how to prepare poisons, we do not also know how to conceal
them?"
"Where are the King's people, then ?" asked Cosmo.
"In Rene's house," replied Marie; and the Ruggieri ex-
changed a glance w^hieh conveyed from each to each the same
thought, "The Hotel de Soissons is inviolable !"
The King had so completely thrown off his suspicions, that
304 ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI
when he went to fetch his son, and Jacob intercepted him to
give him a note written b}- Chapelain, he opened it in the cer-
tainty of finding in it what his physician told him concern-
ing his visit to the laboratory, where all that had been dis-
covered bore solely on alchemy.
"Will he live happy?" asked the King, showing his infant
son to the two alchemists.
"This is Cosmo's concern/' said Lorenzo, turning to his
(brother.
Cosmo took the child's little hand and studied it carefully.
"Monsieur," said Charles IX. to the elder man, "if you
are compelled to deny the existence of the spirit to believe
that your enterprise is possible, tell me how it is that you
can doubt that which constitutes your power. The mind
you desire to annihilate is the torch that illumines your
search. Ah, ha ! Is not that moving while denying the fact
of motion ?" cried he, and pleased at having hit on this argu-
ment, he looked triumphantly at his mistress.
"Mind," said Lorenzo Ruggieri, "is the exercise of an in-
terna) sense, just as the faculty of seeing various objects and
appreciating their form and color is the exercise of our sight.
That has nothing to do with what is assumed as to another
life. Mind — thought — is a faculty which may cease even dur-
ing life with the forces that produce it."
"You are logical," said the King with, surprise. "But
alchemy is an atheistical science."
"Materialist, Sire, which is quite a different thing. Ma-
terialism is the outcome of the Indian doctrines transmitted
through the mysteries of Isis to Chaldtea. and Egypt, and
brought back to Greece by Pythagoras, one of the demi-gods
among men ; his doctrine of transmigration is the mathe-
matics of materialism, the living law of its phases. Each
of the different creations which make up the earthly creation
possesses the power of retarding the impulse that drags it into
another form."
"Then alchemy is the science of sciences !" cried Charles
IX., fired with enthusiasm. "I must see you at work."
ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI 305
"As often as you will^ Sire. You cannot be more eager
than the Queen your mother."
"Ah! That is why she is so much attached to youF'
cried the King.
"The House of Medici has secretly encouraged our re-
search for almost a century past."
"Sire," said Cosmo, "this child will live nearly a hundred
years; he will meet with some checks, but will be happy and
honored, having in his veins the blood of the Valois."
"I will go to see you," said the King, who had recovered
his good humor. "You can go."
The brothers bowed to Marie and Charles IX, and with-
drew. They solemnly descended the stairs, neither looking
at each other nor speaking; they did not even turn to look
up at the windows from the courtyard, so sure were they that
the King's eye was on them; and, in fact, as they turned to
pass through the gate, they saw Charles IX. at a window.
As soon as the alchemist and the astrologer were in the
Rue de I'Autruche, they cast a look in front and behind to
see that no one was either following them or waiting for
them, and went on as far as the Louvre moat without speak-
ing a word; but there, finding that they were alone, Lorenzo
said to Cosmo in the Florentine Italian of the time :
"Affe d'lddio! como le abhiamo infinocchiato !" (By God,
we have caught them finely!)
"Gran merces! a lui sta di spartojarsi" — (Much good may
it do him; he must make what he can of it) — said Cosmo.
"May the Queen do as much for me ! We have done a good
stroke for her."
Some days after this scene, which had struck Marie
Touchet no less than the King, in one of those moments when
in the fulness of joy the mind is in some sort released from
the body, Marie exclaimed :
"Charles, I understand Lorenzo Euggieri; but Cosmo said
nothing."
"That is true," said the King, startled by this sudden flash
306 ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI
of light, "and there was as much falsehood as truth in what
they said. Those Italians are as slipper}^ as the silk they
spin."
This suspicion explains the hatred of Cosmo that the King
betrayed on the occasion of the trial on the conspiracy of
la Mole and Coconnas. When he found that Cosmo was
one of the contrivers of that plot, the King believed himself
duped by the two Italians; for it proved to him that his
mother's astrologer did not devote himself exclusively to
studying the stars, fulminating powder and final atoms. Lo-
renzo had then left the countr}'.
In spite of many persons' incredulity of such things, the
events which followed this scene confirmed the prophecies
uttered by the Ruggieri.
The King died three months later. The Comte de Gondi
followed Charles IX. to the tomb, as he had been told that
he would by his brother, the Marechal de Retz, a friend of
the Enggieri, and a believer in their foresight.
Marie Touehet married Charles de Balzac, Marquis d'En-
tragues, Governor of Orleans, by whom she had two daugh-
ters. The more famous of these two, the Comte d'Auvergne's
half-sister, was Henri IV.'s mistress, and at the time of
Biron's conspiracy tried to place her brother on the throne
of France and oust the Bourbons.
The Comte d'Auvergne, made Due d'Angouleme, lived till
the reign of Louis XIV. He coined money in his province,
altering the superscription; but Louis XIV. did not inter-
fere, so great was his respect for the blood of the Valois.
Cosmo lived till after the accession of Louis XIII. ; he
saw the fall of the House of Medici in France, and the over-
throw of the Concini. History has taken care to record that
he died an atheist — that is to say, a materialist.
The Marquise d'Entragues was more than eighty when she
died.
Lorenzo and Cosmo had for their disciple the famous
Comte de Saint-Germain, who became notorious under
Louis XV. The great alchemist was not less than a hundred
ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI ao7
and thirty j^ears old, the age to which some biographers say
Marion Delorme attained. The Count may have heard from
the Euggieri anecdotes of the Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew
and of the reigns of the Valois, in which they could at pleas-
ure assume a part by speaking in the first person. The Comte
de Saint-Germain is the last professor of alchemy who ex-
plained the science well, but he left no writings. The doc-
trine of the Cabala set forth in this volume was derived from
that mysterious personage.
It is a strange thing! Three men's lives, that of the old
man from whom this information was obtained, that of the
Comte de Saint-Germain, and that of Cosmo Ruggieri, em-
brace European history from the reign of Francis I. to that
of Napoleon. Only fifty lives of equal length would cover the
time to as far back as the first known epoch of the world. — •
'^Vhat are fifty generations for studying the mysteries of
life ?" the Comte de Saint-Germain used to say.
Paris, November-December 1836.
JOS AHOUT HATFERINE TW; !\IEDICI
PART III
THE TWO DREAMS
In 1786 Bodard de Saint-James, treasurer to the Navy, was
of all the financiers of Paris the one whose luxury gave rise
to most remark and gossip. At that time he was building
his famous Folly at Neuilly, and his wife bought, to crown
the tester of her bed, a plume of feathers of which the price
had dismayed the Queen. It was far easier then than now
to make oneself the fashion and be talked of by all Paris;
a witticism was often quite enough, or the caprice of a
woman.
Bodard lived in the fine house in the Place Yendome which,
the farmer-general Dange had not long since been compelled
to quit. This notorious Epicurean was lately dead; and on
the day when he was buried. Monsieur de Bievre, his intimate
friend, had found matter for a jest, saying that now one could
cross the Place Vendome without danger (or Dange). This
allusion to the terrific gambling that went on in the de-
ceased m.an's house was his funeral oration. The house is
that opposite to the Chancellerie.
To complete Bodard's history as briefly as possible, he was
a poor creature, he failed for fourteen millions of francs
after the Prince de Guemenee. His clumsiness in not antici-
pating that Serene bankruptcy — to use an expression of
Lebrun-Pindare's — led to his never even being mentioned.
He died in a garret, like Bourvalais, Bouret, and many others.
Madame de Saint- James indulged an ambition of never
receiving any but people of qualit}' — a stale absurdity that
is ever new. To her the cap of a lawyer in the Farlement
was but a small affair ; she wanted to see her rooms filled with
ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI 309
persons of title who had at least the minor privileges of
entree at Versailles. To say that many blue ribbons were to
be seen in the lady's house would be untrue; but it is quite
certain that she had succeeded in winning the civility and
attention of some members of the Rohan family, as was
proved subsequently in the too famous case of the Queen's
necklace.
One evening — it was, I believe, in August 178G — I was
greatly surprised to see in this millionaire's room, precise as
she was in the matter of proofs of rank, two new faces, which
struck me as being of decidedly inferior birth.
She came up to me as I stood in a window recess, where
I had intentionally ensconced myself.
"Do tell me," said I, with a questioning glance at one of
these strangers, "who is that specimen? How did he get
into your house ?"
"He is a charming man."
"Do you sec him through the prism of love, or am I mis-
taken in him?''
"You are not mistaken," she replied, laugliing; 'Tie is as
ugly as a toad; but he has done me the greatest service a
woman can accept from a man."
As I looked at her with mischievous meaning, she hastened
to add: "He has entirely cured me of the ugly red patches
which spoiled my complexion and made me look like a peas-
ant woman."
I shrugged my shoulders with disgust.
"A quack !" I exclaimed.
"No," said she, "he is a physician to the Court pages. He
is clever and amusing, I assure you ; and he has written books
too. He is a very learned physicist."
"If his literary style is like his face ! " said I, smiling.
''And the other?"
"What other?"
"That little prim man, as neat as a doll, and who looks as
if he drank verjuice."
"He is a man of good family," said she. "He has come
310 ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI
from some province — I forget which. — Ah ! yes, from Artois.
He is iu Paris to wind up some affair that concerns the Car-
dinal, and His Eminence has just introduced him to Monsieur
de Saint-James. They have agreed in choosing Monsieur de
Saint-James to be arbitrator. In that the gentleman from
^ the provinces has not shown much wisdom. What are peo-
ple thinking of when they place a case in that man's hands ?
He is as gentle as a lamb, and as shy as a girl. His Emi-
nence is most kind to him."
''What is it about ?" said I.
"Three hundred thousand livres," said she.
"What ! a lawyer ?" I asked, with a little start of astonish-
ment.
"Yes," replied she.
And, somewhat disturbed by having to make this humiliat-
ing confession, Madame Bodard returned to her game of faro.
Every table was made up. I had nothing to do or to
say. I had just lost two thousand crowns to Monsieur de
Laval, whom I had met in a courtesan's drawing-room. I
went to take a seat in a deep chair near the fire. If ever on
this earth there was an astonished man, it certainly was I
on discovering that my opposite neighbor was the Controller-
General. Monsieur de Calonne seemed to be drowsy, or else
he was absorbed in one of those brown studies which come
over a statesman. When I pointed out the Minister to Beau-
marchais, who came to speak to me, the creator of Figaro
explained the mystery without speaking a word. He pointcvi
iirst to my head and then to Bodard's in an ingeniously sig-
nificant way, by directing his thumb to one and his little
finger to the other, with the rest of the fingers closed. My
[first impulse was to go and say something sharp to Calonne,
but I sat still; in the first place, because I intended to play
the favorite a trick, and also because Beaumarchais had some-
what familiarly seized my hand.
"What is it, monsie^jr?" said I.
With a wink he indicated the Minister.
"Do not wake him," he said in a low tone; "we may be
only too thankful when he sleeps."
ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI 811
"But even sleeping is a scheme of finance," said I.
"Certainly it is," replied the statesman, who had read our
words by the mere motion of our lips. "And would to God
we could sleep a long time; there would not be such an
awakening as you will see !"
"Monseigneur," said the play-writer, "I owe you some
thanks."
"What for?"
"Monsieur de Mirabeau is gone to Berlin. I do not know
whether in this matter of the Waters we may not both be
drowned."
"You have too much memory and too little gratitude,"
replied the Minister drily, vexed at this betrayal of one of his
secrets before me.
"Very possibly," said Beaumarchais, greatly nettled. "But
I have certain millions which may square many accounts."
Calonne affected not to have heard.
It was half-past twelve before the card-tables broke up.
Then we sat down to supper — ten of us : Bodard and his wife,
the Controller-General, Beaumarchais, the two strangers, two
pretty women whose names may not be mentioned, and a
farmer-general named, I think, Lavoisier. Of thirty persons
whom I had found on entering the drawing-room but these
ten remained. And the two "specimens" would only stay to
supper on the pressing invitation of the lady of the house,
who thought she could discharge her debt to one by giving
him a meal, and asked the other perhaps to please her hus-
band, to whom she was doing the civil — wherefore I know
not. Monsieur de Calonne was a power, and if any one had
cause to be annoyed it would have been I.
The supper was at first deadly dull. The two men and
the farmer-general weighed on us. I signed to Beaumar-
chais to make the son of Esculapius, by whom he was sitting,
drink till he was tipsy, giving him to understand that I would
deal with the lawyer. As this was the only kind of amuse-
ment open to us, and as it gave promise of some blundering
impertinence on the part of the two strangers, which amused
312 ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI
US by anticipation, Monsieur de Calonne smiled on tlie
scheme. In two seconds the ladies had entered into our
Bacchic plot. By significant glances they expressed their
readiness to play their part, and the wine of Sillery crowned
our glasses again and again with silvery foam. The surgeon
was easy enough to deal with ; but as I was about to pour out
my neighbors second glass, he told me with the cold polite-
ness of a money-lender that he would drink no more.
At this time, by what chance I know not, Madame de Saint-
James had turned the conversation on the wonderful suppers
to the Comte de Cagliostro, given by the Cardinal de Rohan.
My attention was not too keenly alive to what the mistress of
the house was saying ; for since her reply I had watched, with
invincible curiosity, my neighbor's pinched, thin face, of
which the principal feature was a nose at once wide and sharp,
which made him at times look very like a ferret. Suddenly
his cheeks flushed as he heard Madame de Saint-James dis-
puting with Monsieur de Calonne.
"But I assure you, monsieur," said she in a positive tone,
*'that I have seen Queen Cleopatra."