Alchemy, ancient and modern . think, at least probable; butit is none the less certain that, when such failedhim, he had no scruples against employing othermeans of convincing the credulous of the validityof his claims. This was the case on his visit toRussia, which occurred not long afterwards. At a youthful medium he was employing, toput the matter briefly, gave the show away, and atWarsaw, where he found it necessary to turn alchemist,he was detected in the process of introducing a pieceof gold in the crucible containing the base metal hewas about to transmute. At Strasburg, w
Alchemy, ancient and modern . think, at least probable; butit is none the less certain that, when such failedhim, he had no scruples against employing othermeans of convincing the credulous of the validityof his claims. This was the case on his visit toRussia, which occurred not long afterwards. At a youthful medium he was employing, toput the matter briefly, gave the show away, and atWarsaw, where he found it necessary to turn alchemist,he was detected in the process of introducing a pieceof gold in the crucible containing the base metal hewas about to transmute. At Strasburg, which hereached in 1780, however, he was more he appeared as a miraculous healer of all diseases,though whether his cures are to be ascribed to somesimple but efficacious medicine which he had dis-covered, to hypnotism, to the power of the imagina-tion on the part of his patients, or to the power ofimagination on the part of those who have recordedthe alleged cures, is a question into which we do not PLATE COMTJE > CAGMOiSTRQ; ? ^>: To face page 92] § 70] THE OUTCOME OF ALCHEMY 93 propose to enter. At Strasburg Cagliostro came intocontact with the Cardinal de Rohan, and a fast friend-ship sprang up between the two, which, in the end,proved Cagliostros ruin. The Count next visitedBordeaux and Lyons, successfully founding lodges ofEgyptian Masonry. From the latter town he pro-ceeded to Paris, where he reached the height of hisfame. He became extraordinarily rich, although heis said to have asked, and to have accepted, no fee forhis services as a healer. On the other hand, there wasa substantial entrance-fee to the mysteries of EgyptianMasonry, which, with its alchemistic promises of healthand wealth, prospered exceedingly. At the summitof his career, however, fortune forsook him. As afriend of de Rohan, he was arrested in connection withthe Diamond Necklace affair, on the word of the in-famous Countess de Lamotte; although, of whateverelse he may have b
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