1

(From the cover)

The Comte de Saint Germain is one of history's most mysterious characters. In the middle of the
Eighteenth century he appeared suddenly, a man of mature years and unusual learning. An intimate
of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour, this 'man without a past' gained renown as a chemist,
musician, composer, diplomat and esoteric religious figure. Jean Overton Fuller's fresh study of
Saint Germain probes little-known areas of 18th century political and spiritual life and provides new
answers about a figure who, to Frederick the Great, was 'A man whose riddle has never been
solved.'

The Author
Jean Overton Fuller is an honours graduate in English from the University of London and has also
undertaken post-graduate work in phonetics and comparative philology. She has written biographies
of Swinburne, Shelley and Sir Francis Bacon, as well as the best-selling Madeleine (recently
reissued in an expanded form as Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan) and other books on S.O.E. While
researching The Comte de Saint Germain, her interest in philology proved extremely useful as the
papers concerning him are in a number of languages and scattered throughout the libraries of
Europe. Miss Fuller's next work, the biography Blavatsky and Her Teachers, will be published in
June 1988 and also in preparation is a new study of Henri Déricourt.

2
THE COMTC DE SAINT-GERMAIN

Last Scion of

the House of Ràkòczy

3
BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Biographies and Studies

MADELEINE
THE STARR AFFAIR
DOUBLE WEBS
HOROSCOPE FOR A DOUBLE AGENT
THE MAGICAL DILEMMA OF VICTOR NEUBURG
SHELLEY, A BIOGRAPHY
SWINBURNE, A BIOGRAPHY
NOOR UN-NISA INAYAT KHAN (MADELEINE)
THE GERMAN PENETRATION OF S.O.E.
SIR FRANCIS BACON, A BIOGRAPHY

Verse

VENUS PROTECTED
CARTHAGE AND THE MIDNIGHT SUN
AFRICAN VIOLETS
THE SUN'S CART
SILVER PLANET
DARUN AND PITAR
GILBY
TINTAGEL
CONVERSATIONS WITH A CAPTOR THE NORN
PROPHECY FROM HELEN
THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF THE MUCH TRAVELLED LITTLE
OAK-TREE THE MYSTICAL TALE OF TWO HENS

Verse in translation

SHIVA'S DANCE (from the French of Helene Bouvard)

THAT THE GODS MAY REMEMBER (from the French of Helene Bouvard)
THE PROPHET (from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin)

4
THE COMTE DE SAINT-GERMAIN

Last Scion of the House

of Ràkòczy

Jean Overton Fuller

EAST-WEST PUBLICATIONS
LONDON AND THE HAGUE

5
 For Timothy d'Arch Smith

First published in Great Britain in 1988

by East-West Publications Ltd
Newton Works, 27/29 Macklin Street,
London WC2B 5LX

© 1988 Jean Overton Fuller

This edition is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights are
reserved. Apart from any fair dealings for the purpose of private
study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1956, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means whatsoever without the prior permission of the copyright
owner.

Cover illustration, St. Germain attributed to Retro

Rotari, courtesy of Scott Vincent

ISBN 0 85692 114 9

Typeset in lOpt Souvenir by GCS
Printed in Great Britain by
Whitstable Litho Ltd.

6
 Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 RÀKÒCZY 14
2 JOSEPH AND GEORGE 55
3 A RARE BOOK 57
4 THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION 61
5 LONDON AND MUSIC 63
6 PLACING THE MUSIC 64
7 THE PORT-CLEANING MACHINE 81
8 THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION 83
9 FIRST DAYS IN FRANCE 86
10 AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV 90
11 THE POEM 97
12 'MILFORD GOWER' 100
13 THE HOSTILITY OF CHOISEUL 102
14 A CONFIDENTIAL INITIATIVE 105
15 BENTINCK 110
16 AMONG THE AMBASSADORS 116
17 HISTORY IN THE BALANCE 121
18 BENTINCK PROVES HIS FRIENDSHIP 134
19 LONDON AGAIN 137
20 NORTHERN MISTS 140
21 BRUSSELS AND TOURNAI 144
22 RUSSIA AND ITALY 173
23 THE PLAN IS GREAT' 176
24 ANSPACH: GEMMINGEN-GUTTENBERG'S TESTIMONY 179
25 FLASH-BACK TO THE FLEET 185
26 BACK TO THE EXPERIMENTS AT ANSPACH 190
27 LEIPZIG 194
28 DRESDEN 204
29 BERLIN 209
30 ALTONA (HAMBURG) 213
31 PRINCE CARL OF HESSE-CASSEL 216
32 GOTTORP AND ECKERNFORDE 220
33 FREEMASONS 222
34 WILLERMOZ AND DYES 225
35 VON HAUGWITZ AND MEDICINES 236
36 TH244E MEDICIS AND RÀKÒCZY 244
37 WILHELMSBAD 248
38 PRINCE CARL GETS A SHOCK 250
39 BLESSEDLY TO SLEEP 252
40 THE ESTATE OF SAINT-GERMAIN 253
41 WHAT DOES NOT APPEAR 259
42 THE END OF THE ROAD 260
43 SAINT-GERMAIN: THE MASTER RÀKÒCZY 261

7
Appendix I CAGLIOSTRO, THE NECKLACE, THE REVOLUTION
AND THE MOST HOLY TRINOSOPHIA 266

II CATALOGUE OF THE MUSIC OF SAINT-GERMAIN 268

Bibliography 279

Index 286

List of Illustrations 154

The Comte de Saint-Germain

Francis Ràkcòzy
Princess Violante
The Castle of Sarospatak
Bentinck
Prince Carl
Madame de Pompadour
Chambord
Saint-Germain's last home at Ekernforde
Inscription in Saint-Germain's hand
Letter of Saint-Germain to Frederick the Great

8
'He was the greatest soul I have ever known'

Prince Carl of Hesse

'A man whose riddle has never been solved'.

Frederick the Great

9
 Note on the Pronunciation of Hungarian Names

English forms of the Christian names of Ràkòczy and his family are given in the text, but for
those who would like to try to pronounce the Hungarian names in the story as nearly as possibly in
the Hugarian way, the following guidelines are offered.
Stress is always on the first syllable. The accents indicate vowels to be pronounced long. The
most difficult of the vowels, for English people, is the a, because whereas, in English, the long a as
in "father", is the back variety and the front one, as in 'cat', the short, in Hungarian it is the other
way round. The long a with the accent as in Rakàczy, is the front one, which can be aimed at by
uttering the English word 'rack' and drawing it, but the back a, without the accent, is short, and so
sounds to English ears more like the English short o in 'not'.
The pronunciation of the consonants differs from the English chiefly in that:

c is pronounced as English ts
s is pronounced as English sh
sz is pronounced as English s
cz is pronounced as English ch
z however is as in English
j is pronounced as English y; so is ly
g is always hard
y following g, n, or t is silent, indicating palatalisation of the preceding consonant, that is the
articulation against the palate instead of either the velum or the alveolar ridge. The hardest of these
for English people is the palatalisedg, as twice in György. It is not our soft g as in George, but a
hard one, articulated further forward, between the positions of our g and our d, with the blade (not
the back or the tip) of the tongue. The nearest sound we have to it is in English 'geese' where the
close fronted vowel induces a more forward articulation than in the singular 'goose'. The palatised n
may be heard in the French 'Champagne' or 'vigne'.
The voiceless plosives, p, t, k, are pronounced without aspiration as in German, that is, without
the little puff of air that follows their articulation in English, so that to English ears they may sound
like weak forms of b, d, g. That is why one sometimes finds Ràkòczy spelled Ragotsi. r in whatever
position is rolled or tapped on the tip of the tongue.

10
 Acknowledgements

With regard to Saint-Germain's music, I am happy to thank Dr Stanley Sadie, editor of the New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, editor of The Musical Times and music critic of The
Times, for having written for me a detailed consideration of the compositions I sent him and for
permitting me to publish it. I have to thank Professor Robert Donington OBE for replies to my
queries concerning some of the pieces, and Dr Zoltàn Falvy, Director of the Music Department of
the Magyar Department of the Magyar Tudomànyos Akadèmia, Budapest.
The Dutch American composer Mr Johan Franco has been more than generous in sending me
everything he could think of to help. I should like also to thank Mrs Yvonne Bowness, violin
teacher, for playing for me some of the Saint-Germain's violin music from my photocopies supplied
by the British Museum; Mr Richard Wilkinson, piano teacher with whom I took a course of lessons,
for help in understanding the scores for harpsichord, with figured bass; Miss Sharon Dickenson. I
am indebted to Dr Milada Rutova of the Narodni Muzeum at Prague for sending me photocopied
pages of their copy of Saint-Germain's Musique Raisonnée, and to Mrs Edward (Jill) Croft-Murray
for showing me her copy at Richmond and the mural in her house of one of his arias painted by
Jolli. In the Music Department of the British Museum I am indebted to Miss V.H. Cummings for
looking out the answers to endless questions, also to Mr J.A. Parkinson. In Oxford, the Music
Librarian of the Bodleian, Mr Peter Ward Jones, found a great deal of information for me. With
regard to the song 'O wouldst thou', I have to thank Professor John MacQueen, Director of Scottish
Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Brian Hillyard, Assistant Keeper of the National Library
of Scotland and Miss M. Deas of the same. Dr Thomas Crawford of the University of Aberdeen was
particularly helpful concerning the printings in Scottish songbooks,
Regarding Ràkcòzy, two Hungarian historians, Dr. Agnes Varkonyi, Principal of the
Department of Mediaeval History at the University of Budapest, and Dr. Kalman Benda, of the
History Department of the Magyar Tudomanyos Akàdèmia, Budapest, have been most kind in
answering my appeals for information, and in sending me photocopies of documents and
publications. Dr. Vàrkonyi has read through my long chapter on Rakcòzy, not that she should be
made responsible for any mistakes in it that may have escaped her critical eye. In the Hungarian
Embassy in London, Mr. Laszlò Demus, the Cultural Attache, was so kind as to give me a lesson in
the pronunciation of Hungarian, and to speak onto a tape for me the personal and place names
occurring with frequency in the story, and in this connection I should like to thank also Professor
A.C. Gimson, Principal of the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics at the University of
London, for making his own phonetic transcription of the tape to set beside the one I had made.
Neither do I forget my one-time pupil in the phonetics of English, the Hungarian novelist Sari de
Megyery (Mrs André Lang).
For important technical information I am pleased to be able to thank Mr. J.E. Roux of Messrs.
de Beers Consolidated Diamond Mines Ltd., Mr. Ralph Broadhurst, Curator of the Museum of the
Society of Dyers and Colourists, Bradford, and Mr. N.S. Bromelle, Director of the Hamilton Kerr
Institute of the University of Cambridge; I am also most grateful for the information supplied by
Mr. T.L. Bell, Librarian to the Bank of England; and at the Public Record Office, Mr. D. Crook.
Mr. Douglas Matthews of the London Library has been of invaluable assistance, and as usual
he has made my index.
Miss Pamela M. Baker, Stirling Librarian of the University of London has been more than
helpful.
In the Manuscripts Department of the British Museum I should like to thank Dr. M.A.E.
Nickson and Mr. P.M. Barber, and in the Department of Incunables to the Keeper, Mr. Dennis E.
Rhodes.

11
 In Paris I am much indebted to the Minister, M. Martial de la Fournière, for permission to
consult the Archives Nationales, and for the pains taken by M.J. Mignon at the Service
Internationale des Microfilms. At the Archives de France I have to thank M. Jean Favier; at the
Bibliotheque Nationale, PApartment des Estampes, M. Jean-Pierre Seguin, Conservateur-en-Chef,
in their department of printed books to those nameless people who just nt me photocopies of
particular passages with their compliments; and in i Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal to M. D. Muzerelle,
Conservateur-en-Chef. In Bibliotheque de Troyes I should like to thank Mademoiselle F. Bibelot,
r»ervateur-en-Chef.
I Brussels I am indebted to Madame Claudine Lemaire at the Bibliotheque I Albert and to
Monsieur C. Wyffels at the Archives Génerates du ume; in the Hague to Mr. L. van Dorp, Director
of the Koninklijk rchiv, Aid-de-Camp to Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands, and MM.
M.C.J.C. Jansem-van Hoof at the Algemeen Rijksarchief; at the it, also, I am grateful to my
publisher, Mr. L.C. Carp, for arranging for to receive books on loan from the Koninklijke
Bibliotheek and for riooking my occasional translations from Dutch. In Zurich, I am grateful r. J.P.
Bodmer of the Handschriften Abteilung of the Zentralbibliothek tracing one capital document for
me. In Vienna, I am beholden to Hofrat Frau Dr. Anna Benna of the Haus-, Hof-und Staatsarchiv
for looking out very many papers for me. In Florence I am grateful to Dr. Tomaso Urso of the
Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Biblioteca della Facolta di Lettere e Filosophia. In Milan I am
obliged to Signora Rita Carie (or Cane) of the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense. In Germany, I
should like to thank Dr. G. Hirschmann, Director of the Stadtarchiv, Nurnberg, and Frau Dr.
Schmidt-Folkersamb, Archivratin, Nurnberg; Dr. Wolfgang Milde, Leiter der Handschriftabteilung,
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbuttel; Frau Dr. Eva Ziesche, Bibl. Amtmann of the
Handscriftabteilung of the Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, and Bibl. Oberamtsratin L. Ritter of
the Benutzung-abteilung of the same and Dr. Hans Erick Teitge, Abteilungsdirektor of the Deutsche
Staatsbibliothek, Berlin; Herr Barabas of the Staatsarchiv, Hamburg; a scholar whose signature I
cannot read (reference number Dr. Ko) at the Zentralesarchiv, Merseburg; Dr. A. Luhnung, Director
of the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, and to Herr Jessen, Town Archivist of
Eckenforde. In Copenhagen I am obliged to Herr Herluf Lauring and Herr Mogens Vinther of Den
Danske Frimurerorden. In Krakow I am grateful to Dr. Marian Zwiercam of the Universytet
Jagiellonski, Bibliotheka Jagielloriska and in Finland to Mr. S. Albert Kivinen.
In Manchester I should like to thank Miss Gabriele Reinsch of the Goethe Institut, and in
London Miss Marcella Barzetti of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, also Miss Lilian Storey, Librarian
of the Theosophical Society.
In the world of historians, I should like to thank Dr. Rohan Butler for his kindly interest in my
work and helpfulness, and Sir Harold Acton for his courtesy. Professor John Shearman, Chairman
of Princeton University, gave me his valuation of a Raphael in 1763.
For an opinion of Saint-Germain's prescriptions, I am grateful to Dr. Anita Davies (my own
doctor) and to my friend Dr. Margaret Little, another medical practitioner. But the whole Little
family has been constantly helpful to me; Dr. Little's German-born mother, Mrs. Georgette
Hutchinson, has looked over my translations from German, and so has her daughter, Miss Stephanie
Little, while her husband, John, as a physicist, has been able to suggest scientific lines of enquiry. It
was through Margaret that John first put me on to iron pyrites.
Madame Helène Bouvard has contributed some intuitive suggestions.
My friend Mr. Timothy d'Arch Smith has helped in every way possible, and has, as always, read my
proofs.

Jean Overton Fuller

12
 Foreword

For the Theosophists, he is one of the Seven Masters of Wisdom. For some he brought the
French Revolution. For others, he came to try to prevent it. For all he is a mystery. Frederick the
Great referred to him as a man whose riddle had never been solved. Friend of Louis XV and
Madame de Pompadour, he appears suddenly in the middle of the 18th century, of mature years,
with no known birth or background. Like Pallas Athena springing from the head of Zeus fully
armed, he was an accomplished musician and composer of music, a chemist, and had a unique
knowledge of diamonds.
Some story about him graces almost every memoir of the period, but so many of the memoirs
are fictionalised or even perhaps composed according to the title-pages after the decease of their
authors. Some periods of history are particularly bad for this sort of thing, and salient-examples
include the French Resistance in the last World War, and the French Revolution and the days
leading up to it. The reason, in each case, is the same; the period is exciting and glamorous; there is
a reading public for stories about it, and hence, if authentic accounts are not to hand, spurious ones
are invented along the lines of popular imagination. Andrew Lang, having searched the British
Calendar of State Papers and Newcastle MSS without finding Saint-Germain's name, wrote
'Whenever you think you have a chance of finding him in authentic State papers, he gives you the
slip; and if his existence were not vouched for by Horace Walpole, I should incline to deem of him
as Betsy Prig thought of Mrs Harris.' Betsy Prig thought Mrs Harris never existed. Betsy Prig and
Mrs Harris, or more accurately 'Arris, are characters from Charles Dickens' novel, Martin
Chuzzlewit, and the reference is from Andrew Lang's Historical Mysteries (1904), in the chapter
entitled 'Saint-Germain the Deathless'. Because his birth could not be located in place and time,
some imagined he must have been thousands of years old. He himself said, towards the end of his
life, that he was a son of Prince Francis Ràkòczy of Transylvania. Yet sometimes he spoke as
though he were Francis Rakcòzy himself. If he was a son of Francis, which son was he? Let us
begin by getting to know Francis Rakcòzy, and of course, his family.

13
 CHAPTER I

RÀKÒCZY

There was a piece of music my mother used to play when I was eight or nine. One day, as she
brought it to a triumphal conclusion, she looked up at me across the piano and said, 'It's called the
Ràkòczy March, but I don't know who Ràkòczy was, or where, when or why he marched!' It was
too early for me to be able to tell her then, and now it is too late, but as I fear she was not unique
amongst English people in not knowing about him, perhaps I had better begin by explaining.
He came from a family that had been established from the 10th century in Transylvania. That is
an area covering the greater part of what used to be Hungary, its old capital Gyulaféhervàr, figuring
as Alba Iulia (fehér means - white-alba), almost in the middle of today's Rumania, whilst other parts
of it are now in the USSR, Jugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland. It is the land of the Magyars. I
have been told by someone I trust that there are in it seven mountains with the same names as seven
mountains in the Himalayas, but I have never been able to find them. Maps do not show every peak,
and difference of spelling may obscure identity that has to be in the pronunciation of the peoples of
the regions.
The language of the Hungarians is Magyar (pronounced almost Mogor),1 and the Magyar for
Transylvania is Erdely-Land at the Foot of the Forest-from erdö, forest. Magyar is unrelated to any
of the Latin, Germanic, Slavonic or indeed Indo-European languages, and used to be thought the
sole language of its kind, without relations. Today we know it has links with Lapp, Finnish,
Samoyed, and the tongues of all the non-European peoples strung out along the Arctic coasts of
Siberia, Russia, Finland, Norway and Sweden, the peoples of the reindeer and the big, bushy dogs.
The language has agglutinative suffixes but no grammatical gender or case-endings, hence no
making of adjectives to agree with their nouns in gender and case, which is the bane of Latin,
Greek, German and Russian. Their Christian names, which follow their family names, are, however,
borrowed from the peoples round them. The Hungarians of today are Europeans, like any others,
though the nature of their language seems to tell a story lost in pre-history's night. It may have had
its effect in contributing to their feeling they should not allow their land to be overrun and their
ways submerged in, and obliterated by, their powerful neighbours.
However, invasions were impossible to avoid, because their territory lay between the Holy
Roman and Ottoman Empires, with both the Austrians and the Turks coveting Transylvania. Caught
in the middle, they tended to make expedient alliances with which-ever seemed at the moment the
lesser evil. In favour of the Austrians was their Christianity, against them their Catholicism, as the
Magyars were in the main Protestant. Against the Turks was their not being Christians at all; in their
favour, that at least they did not try to turn the Magyars into Muslims.
In the 15th century the hero of the Magyars was Hunyadi Janos or John Hunyadi, from the
southern, or Rumanian, part of Transylvania, who spent his life defending his homeland against the
Turks. The Ràkòczys, from Zemplen, a forested district in the Carpathian mountains (which on a
map of modern Hungary will be found in the northeast tip between Rumania and Czechoslovakia
but giving directly onto the USSR), were to be occupied more in combating the Austrians.
After the disastrous battle of Mohacs in 1526, the Turks captured the middle part of the
country, including, in 1541 Buda (one half of modern Budapest), and most of the important castles.
From that time the Habsburgs ruled the northwestern part of the country, which became known as
Imperial or Royal Hungary, and a separate Transylvania was formed in the eastern region of what is
now Hungary, at first under Turkish suzeranity. Hungary was not to gain independence again until
1918.
In the 17th century a György-or George-Ràkòczy served under Prince Bethlen Gabor-or
Gabriel Bethlen. Here is a point of contact with British history, for Bethlen was the sole supporter

14
of Frederick and Elizabeth(the daughter of King James I of England), when the Czechs, having
refused to accept the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II as their King, crowned them in Prague,
counting on British support. But King James let his daughter and son-in-law down. This
abondonment of an enlightened young couple so disgusted Francis Bacon that his opposition to
King James over it may well have provoked the engineering of his downfall as Chancellor.
Ten years later, on 26 November, 1630, György Ràkòczy was elected Prince György I of
Transylvania. His father, Szigismond, had been Prince, prior to Bethlen. In England, we have
become accustomed to divide countries into those which have hereditary monarchies and those
which are republics, but most of the countries in central Europe used to have elective monarchies.
Once elected, a sovereign was invested and consecrated, like a hereditary one, and could not be
removed; though there was a tendency to elect the eldest son of the previous monarch, the principle
of election was nevertheless dear to the freedom-loving spirit of the people.
György I allied himself with the Protestant King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and played a
leading part in the successful war against the Habsburgs: the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III,
was obliged to conclude on 16 September, 1645 the Treaty of Linz, whereby, amongst other things,
the Magyars were guaranteed religious independence. Transylvania was recognised as an
independent Principality, and the Tokaj district ceded to it. In the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, which
ended the Thirty Years War,
Transylvania figured as a sovereign state.
György married a Protestant, Susan Lorantffy, and their son became György, or George II. A
letter to György II from Oliver Cromwell of England (written in June, 1652, just before he became
Lord Protector) proposed their joint defence of the internal peace of the Christian world. 2 György
continued the alliance with Gustavus Adolphus, but was unwise in supporting his campaign in
Poland, for it provoked the Turks who, taking advantage of his absence, invaded Transylvania,
deposed him and put in his place a vassal to themselves, Mihael Apafy or Apafi. The Holy Roman
Emperor Leopold I, therefore, sent an Austrian army to invade it from the other side. György U fell
in fighting the Turks on 6 June, 1648, and died the following day at Nagyvarad, or Nagy Varad.
(The word Nagy, pronounced Nog, will be found constantly recurring in Hungarian place-names. It
means 'Great', as in Great Yarmouth. Its opposite Kis 'Little' also occurs. On modern maps e.g.,
Varad is Oradea, in Rumania.
His widow, Szòfia or Sophy Bathory, though she had become a Calvinist on marriage to him,
now reverted to her former Catholicism, and their second son-Ferenc, or Francis, I (their first son
having died) was brought up in the same faith. He had, before his father's death, been elected to
succeed him, but was never able to rule as his country was divided between the Turks and
Austrians. He maintained however, splendid state, in his castles at Sarospatak or Saros Patak—the
name means Muddy (Saros) Place—on the River Tisza (near to the modern boundary with the
USSR), and Makovica, to the north-east or Eperjes (Presov), near to the Polish border. Makovica
was noted for having a bathroom with glass windows.
He married Ilona or Helen Zrìnyi, Catholic but an ardent Magyar patriot. Her father, Petert or
Peter Zrìnyi, and brother, were beheaded in 1671 for their attempt to oust the Austrians. Ferenc of
Francis I, who had certainly taken part in the endeavour, was probably only spared for ransom
because of intervention by Sophy Bathory.
He and Helen Zrìnyi had two children, first Julianna, then at Borsi, today in Czechoslovakia),
on 27 March, 1676, a son Ferenc or Francis.3 This is our Francis Ràkòczy, the great Ràkòczy.4
His father died on 8 July 1676, less than three months after he was born. He was only two when
there spread the first premature rumour of his death. It was said he had been poisoned. Helen Zrìnyi,
widowed, now entered into correspondence with another patriot, Imre Thököly, whose father had,
like hers, been put to death for his part in the 1670 attempt to expel the Hapsburgs.
The Protestant Magvars in Hapsburg Hungary were now being subjected to such persecution by
the new Emperor, Leopold I, that they felt the Turks had not been as bad as this, and sent messages
to Thököly beseaching him to deliver them. He made contact with a kinsman of his, Mihael Teleky,
15
who was Minister to Mihael Apaffy, and, backed by Apaffy and the Turkish Pasha of Nagyvarad,
together with promises of help from King Louis XIV of France, who had been at war with Leopold
I from 1678, he began a campaign against the Austrians in 1680. This was the year in which Sophy
Bathory died. On 30 June, 1680, the Magyar officers of the guard took their oath of loyalty to Helen
Zrìnyi in the presence of Francis, aged four, and his sister Julianna. In 1682 Helen Zrìnyi married
Thököly, and in that year he invaded upper Hungary and assumed the title of Prince. The following
year, 1683, was that of the historic march upon the capital of the Hapsburg Empire, Vienna.
Francis had, at the age of five, been taken out of the hands of women and put in the care of a
governor, Gyfirgy or George Körösy. At six, he had begun Latin with a tutor, but was jerked away
from his studies when, at the age of seven, Thököly, very strangely took him with the Turkish army
on its long march into the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. This ultimate trial of strength between
the two great Empires (virtually between the East and the West) would, if successful from the
Turkish side, have led to the setting up of the Crescent in place of the Cross in the very bastion of
the Holy Roman Empire. It was therefore bound to involve the very fiercest of fighting, and it
seemed to some around them that Thököly's only motive in taking a small child of seven with him
could be to get him killed. Indeed, if the Turks were successful in their campaign, patriots would
hope to elect Francis, when he came of age, as the next Prince of all Transylvania. If he died,
Thököly would not have to stand down for him. Francis' only protector was his governor, Körösy.
After an apparent attempt to poison Francis, Körösy was convinced of Thököly's purpose to murder
him, and himself prepared and served all food and drink brought to the child, never leaving him
unguarded for a minute.
Thököly's army actually reached the River Vah, which is not far from Vienna, and his Turkish
allies came within sight of the city, which was in a state of panic. Vienna was only relieved by the
intervention of the Polish hero, Jan Sobieski, come to save Christendom.
The Turks, whose camp fires had been seen from the city, were obliged to strike their tents and
a long retreat began. As the Holy Roman Imperial forces recovered ground, so the Turkish army
had to go back through all that they had taken, traversing the mountains and forests into
Transylvania. Disappointed and looking for a scapegoat, the Turks now began to pick upon
Thököly, even appearing to suspect his loyalty. When he got back to Helen Zrìnyi, he now asked
her for Francis, whom he had momentarily returned to her, so that he could take him with him as
they continued their retreat, and offer him as a hostage or pledge of loyalty to the Turkish Pasha at
Nagyvarad. Although he assured her there was no danger, it was obvious the child would be put to
death should Thököly in fact defect from the Turks. The horses were saddled and ready when, at the
last moment, the mother decided she could not allow Francis to be taken away and given as a
hostage. So, Thököly departed with the Turks alone. Francis was never to see him again.
Later they heard that Thököly had been arrested and sent to Belgrade in irons. He was soon
released, but nevertheless the incident ended the cooperation of the Magyars with the Turks.
Helen Zrìnyi was with her children in the fortress of Munkàcs, when in November, 1695, the
Austrian General Carafa, his name odious from his atrocities, invested it. Rejecting a call for
surrender, she had the commandant run up a red flag. Helen Zriny lived with Julianna and Francis
in a high-up apartment of the fort. This the Austrians appeared to know, for on 13 March, 1686,
they fired fifteen salvoes directly at that part of the building, by way of overture to the siege proper.
Balls of 100 to 120 pounds proving insufficient, balls of 200 pounds were brought up. It was under
this bombardment that Francis celebrated his tenth birthday. An early interest in star-gazing had
given way to watching the arcs described by the fuses, and the cannonade made upon his senses an
impression that was to last for the rest of his life. His mother took him with her on her rounds of the
dying and wounded, perhaps helping in his early maturity. On 30 March, a day during which the
bonbardment lasted from morning to night, a shot even came through the ceiling of his sister's
bedroom.
On 27 April, Carafa abandoned the siege and withdrew. On the following day, a service of
thanksgiving was held in the chapel of Munkàcs, and on 1 May, the garrison was passed in review.
16
Francis, aged ten years and one month, appeared in the national costume, on horseback, before the
troops. He took their salute as they passed, and, making his first formal address to them, thanked
them for their loyalty and courage.
Meanwhile, Thököly had been experiencing increasing difficulties and asked his wife to
negotiate a peace. That which the bombardment of her fortress had failed to achieve, was gained by
her husband's appeal. Indeed, except for Munkàcs, all the towns of northern Hungary were in
Austrian hands. Previously she had rejected peace offers, but having received this behest from her
husband, when in January she received a further proposition from Carafa, she consented to enter
into negotiations. On 17 January, 1688, the proud citadel of Munkàcs was ceded by treaty to the
Emperor. Helen Zrìnyi read the garrison the terms, by which all who had taken part in the defence,
including her children and herself, were granted a full amnesty and the free disposal of their goods.
The Austrian soldiery entered Munkàcs the same evening Helen Zrìnyi and her two children were
conducted under guard to Vienna.
When the sad cortege arrived at Vienna, they found the gates of the city closed by order of the
Emperor Leopold, to separate the Princess and the children from the crowd. They were taken to an
Ursuline convent. There, the Princess Julianna was told she would have to stay in the convent, and
forcibly separated from Francis, weeping that she would rather be killed than parted from him. This
was another moment that made a strong impression on Francis, and in later life he could never
recall it without anger against the Cardinal Kollonics, by whose decree this separation took place.
Cardinal Kollonics took Francis to a private house, where he left him for three days, then
returned to take him to his own home, where Francis found his old governor, Körösy, and tutor
Badinyi. The following day the Cardinal took Francis in a carriage to say good-bye to his mother
and sister, as he would be away from Vienna for some time. Helen Zrìnyi protested that the Treaty
conferred no right to separate her children from her, but no attention was paid to this. Francis, aged
twelve, was never to see her again.
After he had taken leave of his mother, he was allowed to say good-bye to his sister, whom he
saw only through a grille. He was taken into a church to pray, and it seemed that the crowd which
gathered around to gaze at the young prisoner was sympathetic, though Austrian. The Emperor
Leopold sent troops to disperse it.
Leopold had appointed himself the tutor of Francis but delegated his education to Cardinal
Kollonics. By Kollonics he was taken from Vienna into Bohemia, to the college of Neuhaus where
he was to live. Having arrived there, he was told that if he had anything to send his mother he
should give it to Badinyi, to take on his return. Francis, who had thought that Badinyi, since he had
accompanied them, was to remain with him, broke down into tears. The Cardinal told him that the
separation was by formal order, and conducted him to a room he would share with other boys. The
beds were divided by screens, and Francis tried to hide himself behind these. At last Badinyi was
allowed in to say good-bye to him. Badinyi advised Francis to be of sagacious behaviour and to
recite his rosary. Doing the latter Francis fell asleep. In the morning, when he awoke, Badinyi was
gone.
One day he was taken to Neuhaus castle, where he spied a map of Hungary in a corner. At once
he asked, 'Where is Munkàcs?' On being shown the place, he found himself crying, and excused
himself, saying, 'One cannot forget so soon.'5
All his educators' efforts were, in fact, based upon the idea of suppressing his memory, and he
was given no opportunity to speak or read Hungarian. He refused, however, to leam German, and
consented to address his educators only in Latin.
Otherwise, he showed keen interest in all the natural sciences, particularly astronomy, and
would spend long periods in contemplation of the stars from his window. After three years, he took
the examinations which terminated the course at the college, and entered the University of Prague.
Here he read philosophy. He also did a great deal of drawing and for recreation played billiards. In
1691-92, he was allowed to specialise in natural sciences.

17
 Helen Zrìnyi was permitted to leave Vienna on 20 January, 1692, in order to join her husband
in exile. Permission to see her son before leaving was refused. Francis Ràkòczy was, however,
allowed to return to Vienna and to see his sister after a separation of five years. They were very glad
to see each other, but discovered there was now a linguistic barrier to communication. Francis had
practically lost the use of Hungarian, from having nobody to speak it with, and could express
himself only in Latin, since German he had refused to learn and French had not been offered to him
as a subject he could study. Julianna had been taught French but not Latin. However, she had been
allowed meetings with her mother up to the time of the latter's exile, and had spoken Hungarian
with her, thus she was able to revivify Francis' memory of his native language. Julianna had married
a Belgian, Ferdinand Gobert d'Aspremont-Linden, Count of Rekheim. This young man, whom she
had fired with enthusiasm for the cause of Hungary, persuaded Francis Ràkòczy to acquire at least
some knowledge of German, as being, although he could not like the Austrians' tongue, a practical
necessity.
Cardinal Kollonics, in order to continue administering Francis Ràkòczy's estate, now refused
the celebration of his majority. It looked as if Francis would have to remain in Vienna and marry
into the Imperial family if he was to better his situation, and d'Aspremont suggested Madeleine of
Brunswick, a distant relation of the Empress. The Emperor, Leopold however, imposed a delay.. To
fill the time Francis Ràkòczy decided to broaden his horizons.
Ràkòczy left Vienna about 5 April, 1693, and, after crossing the frontier into Italy, made first
for Venice, and thence, through Ferrara, to Florence. Here, he tells us in his Confessions, a
travelling companion left him to go on to Malta, while he stayed in the town forfour months, at the
Salviatore Palace, (I translate from his Latin) 'alone with my servants, wishing to avoid having to do
with Italians'.6
The question is, why, having come to Italy, should he have wished to avoid 'having to do with
Italians'? Probably he had been warned that Florence, while it was on the one hand a great treasury
of works of art and a centre of learning, had, on the other, degenerated into a place of much vice.
The great Medici family, to whom the city owed so much of its art and science, tended to
libertinage, with occasional exceptions, such as the reigning Cosimo III. He was last but one of the
Grand Dukes of his lineage, and was religious. Deserted by his French wife, (who had been trying
to obtain an annulment on the grounds that the marriage had been forced on her by Louis XIV for
political reasons, and that she had gone to the altar her spirit not consenting), he was a lonely and
melancholy figure. A French visitor to his court noted that he gave much time to the education of
his little pages, who were of good families and came from all parts. He procured tutors for them and
showed them personal kindness, such as taking them into his carriage if it rained. 7 His own sons,
however, were a disappointment to him. Failing to learn from his own bitter experience, he had
already forced the elder, Prince Ferdinando, in to a political marriage, and was soon to force the
younger, Giovanni (or Gian) Gastone into a similar arrangement. Both these marriages were to fail
as dismally as his own. And yet, Prince Ferdinando had been contracted to what other people
thought a most pleasing girl, Princess Violante Beatrice of Bavaria. She was the youngest child of
the Elector of Bavaria, Prince Ferdinando Maria and of Enrica Adelaide of Savoy. She was
therefore a Wittelsbach. Cosimo, when he was so keen on securing this match for his son, probably
had in mind that Violante's sister Victoire was Dauphine, which would strengthen the Medici's links
with the Bourbons. A medallion struck with her likeness, by E. Permoser, shows an unusually long
and swanlike neck, suggestive of her aristocracy, but the portrait included in this book shows
beneath the fair hair a face that is warm and almost homely, but also intelligent and responsible.
Born in 1672, she was only thirteen when she left Munich to be married to a man she had never
seen, and at the wedding, in usually sunny Florence, the weather was so cold as to be, as Sir Harold
Acton put it,8 symbolic. Two of the soldiers on parade fell from their saddles, frozen to death, and
after the function it was noticed that Princess Violante kept her muff to her face throughout the
journey to the Pitti Palace, and looked so wan as to arouse compassion. Her husband was probably,
like his brother, basically a boy-lover. At any rate, his affections were governed by a eunuch,
18
Cecchino de' Castris, and he took no interest in Violante. The marriage was childless and one may
doubt whether it was consummated. Violante made friends amongst nuns.
Ràkczy says he lived alone with his servants, avoiding Italians, but he may mean 'alone' in the
sense of having parted with his travelling companion who went on to Malta. It does not have to
mean he lived totally as a hermit. Indeed, he goes on to say that in the mornings he went out riding,
and spent the afternoons in tournaments or jousting (in gladitatione) or jumping and latter in the
day played cards.9 Certain of these are social occupations. Tournaments require other contestants,
unless he was merely a spectator, and one cannot play cards alone. He was presumably not playing
'patience' and it is unlikely he was seated at the card-table with his domestics. He may not have
wanted Italians on his household staff, yet it was probably in the company of people of his own
social level that he indulged in these amusements. He says he did not meet the Grand Duke,
Cosimo, but does not state whether he met Ferdinand or Violante. He goes on to say that he kept
away from prostitutes, not from religious obedience but only because women of that type were
repulsive to him and he did not care to risk infection. He adds, rather curiously, that others saw him
as chaste living, yet he was but a whited sepulchre. He writes 'Thou, alone, Lord, knowest my
turpitude'. What does he mean? Is he implying that he merely experienced sexual stirrings, without
having an outlet, or that he did, indeed, have a relationship, with a superior woman, which was
unknown to others, and of which he can say nothing?
This question is not raised idly. We shall come back to it later, as one of possible consequence.
After Florence he continued his tour, through Pisa, Livorno (Leghorn) Massa, Carrara and so to
Rome, where he was received in audience by Pope Innocent XII, with the honours due to his rank as
a Prince. By February, 1694, he was in Naples. He had apparently returned to Rome when word
reached him that Madeleine of Brunswick, whom he had never met but whom he had contracted to
marry, was dead. He left Rome immediately, and made his way back, through Venice, arriving in
Vienna in March, 1694.
He now announced his wish to go to Hungary, but for that he needed to obtain his majority.
The Emperor signed the act on 6 March, 1694, just before his eighteenth birthday, and a few days
afterwards Francis left for his own country in company of his brother-in-law. They travelled
through Zborò and Nagysaros to Kistapolcsàny arriving on 28 March at Szerencs, the ancient
family seat. Now he began to see the old domains, all in the same state of dilapidation. In the castle
of Sarospatak he found his old governor and tutor, Körösy and Badinyi. Everyone told him how
much the people had suffered.
Aspremont feared that Francis could be pushed into leading a revolt before he had strength
enough to sustain it, and therefore advised him to return to Vienna and, above all, to get married.
The Ràkòczy dynasty was fragile, having in him its sole representative. With descendants, the
future would be better assured. Francis, who, before they left Vienna, had noticed Aspremont's
sisters's daughter, was nothing loth to accept the suggestion of returning, but Aspremont had higher
ideas for him.
Aspremont gave up his house in Vienna to Francis, for when he would be settled, but first
Francis wished to travel some more. Aspremont obtained permission for him to visit Duke Louis of
Baden and the King of England, William III (husband of Queen Mary), at that moment in Germany
and then they went to Cologne to meet the Prince of Hesse.
The Hesses were proud of having French ancestry sharing with the Kings of France a remote
descent from Pepin the short, who reigned over Brabant and Lorraine in the 8th century. One of the
descendants married Sophie, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary. At one time the family
had turned Protestant, but Ernest, Prince of Hesse-Rheinfels who stayed for some time at the court
of Louis XIII and then at Avignon, was converted back to the Catholic faith. It was Ernest's second
son, Karl, born 1649, who by his second wife, Countess Leiningen-Westerberg, had six daughters,
of whom the eldest was the Princess Charlotte Amalie von Hesse-Rheinfels, to whom Francis
Ràkòczy was presented.

19
 She was sixteen, he nineteen. They liked each other, and after only a few days acquaintance
Francis asked Prince Karl for her hand. He not only consented, but agreed with Aspremont that the
marriage should take place without delay, as should the Emperor get wind of it, he would stop it.
The marriage contract was drawn up on 25 September, 1694, and the affianced couple swore
fidelity unto death. Prince Karl would give with her a dowry of 20,000 florins, and Francis settled
on her 150,000 florins assured on his estate of Munkàcs, plus jewels and an annual allowance. She
would have a court of thirty persons and twenty horses.
On the following morning, the wedding was celebrated in the Cathedral of Cologne by the
Archbishop, but quietly.
Prince Karl informed the foreign courts afterwards. From Darmstadt, a messenger overtook the
honeymoon couple at Frankfurt, and gave Francis a letter saying his first fiancée was alive and
reproached him his infidelity. He showed this to Aspremont, who made enquiries, and found that it
had emanated from the Empress, who had scented the intended marriage before it took place and
concocted this lugubrious missive in the hope of being able to impede it.
The young couple continued their honeymoon journey, to Ratisborn, and thence by boat down
the Danube to Vienna. As soon as they arrived, Francis found himself placed under house arrest, by
order of the Emperor.
It was now contended that the marriage was null Francis Ràkòczy being a minor who had
married without the consent of the Emperor. Aspremont produced the act of emancipation from
minority before the ministers, which proved Francis did not need permission to marry. The
ministers agreed that the decree must have been forgotten, and the Emperor was obliged to free
Francis.
Francis felt himself, nevertheless, to be under surveillance, and removed from Vienna with his
wife, sister and Aspremont, and all four travelled together to Hungary.
Francis Ràkòczy chose for his residence Saros-Patak, the ancient home of Susan Lorantfy, his
great-godmother, some members of whose household had never left. As the time grew near for her
first child to be born, however, the young Princess Charlotte-Amalie moved to Kistapolcany, where
Elizabeth Ràkòczy could look after her, and it was here, on 28 May, 1696, that their first child was
born, a son, Leopold Louis George.
It was thought prudent to invite the Emperor to be godfather, and he accepted—though the birth
could not have been welcome to him, for it was what he had striven to avoid. Francis now asked for
the recognition of his own title as Prince. The Emperor delayed. Francis' more powerful father-in-
law, Karl of Hesse-Rheinfels, came to Vienna and lent his weight to his son-in-law's claim. The
Emperor conceded a half measure. Francis was to be known as Prince Ràkòczy, but the decree said
nothing about the automatic succession of his son to the title.
At Saros-Patak he was able to maintain a certain state, with a court of 150 to 160 persons,
which became the centre of the region for arts and sciences. Its glory was a collection of Hungarian
goldsmithery.
Involvement in trouble was not long delayed. The lot of the ordinary people had not improved,
and a peasant, Francis Tokaj, having whipped up a revolt, conceived the idea of kidnapping the
young Prince in order to place him at the head of the insurgents. Francis and Charlotte-Amalie were
out riding in the direction of Munkàcs when they were warned. It would have been impossible,
without proper forces, to defy the Imperial might, and to avoid useless bloodshed, Francis veered
off, to Kistapolcàny, and thence to Vienna, to try to reassure the Emperor Leopold. His excuses
were accepted, but on returning he found his castle of Saros Patak already occupied by Imperial
troops, with orders to arrest him. He went back to Vienna to protest, and eventqaily the troops were
withdrawn and he was able to re-enter Saros-Patak.
In Eperjes, Francis Ràkòczy met a man who was to become very important in his life, Miklòs
(Nichòlas) Bercsényi. Born in 1665, Miklòs Bercsényi was nine years his senior, and experienced in
the field", having been from 1684 taken on campaigns by his father. At the recapture of Buda, in
1686 he had distinguished himself, and after his father's death, Miklòs Bercsenyi had become a
20
General. He was a powerful orator able to fire men for the cause of Hungarian freedom. He was
also a magnate, and kept great state in his castle of Ungvair, where he held fetes and made
especially welcome those interested in Hungary.
He deferred to Francis Ràkòczy because of his birth, and perhaps also because of his personal
qualities, but it has been suggested that because of his seniority he was an influence upon the
younger man, and encouraged him to think that as a Ràkòczy it was his responsibility to set the
people free.
Early in 1700, at Lòcse in northern Hungary, Ràkòczy's son, Leopold Louis George, died.
Ràkòczy refers in his Confessions to his sorrow over this loss:10

'Marvellous are thy judgements, Lord, and thou alone knowest why thou hast wished this infant
of three years brought to an end by an illness of one whole year, whereby languishing and
gradually dying out without consciousness, like a candle lacking wax, he perished at Lòcse,
under the care of the celebrated physician Spilberger. I confess my affliction at his death was
not of the slightest.'

On 18 August of that year, 1700, however, a second son Joseph was born to Ràkòczy and his
wife in Vienna.
Almost immediately after this, Ràkòczy received a visit from a Belgian, Captain Longueval,
who offered to take a letter for him to the King of France, Louis XIV, should he wish to write one.
Ràkòczy took the opportunity, but cautiously. Avoiding controversial issues, he spoke of the good
relations which had subsisted between France and Hungary, hoping they might some day be
resumed, and he did mention the present unhappy condition of the Hungarian people. Longueval
must have been an agent provocateur, for he passed the letter, on 1 November, 1700, to an Austrian
official in Vienna. It was read, sealed up again and sent on its way, very likely with letters from
other Hungarian patriots approached by Longueval with offers to act as courier.
Ràkòczy and his wife returned to Saros-Patak. The reply he received from France was
encouraging, and on 11 February, he wrote again, more boldly, but yet without mentioning
insurrection. On the night of 18 April, 1701, Saros-Patak was surrounded, the bed-chamber of the
Princess penetrated by armed soldiers, and Francis Ràkòczy, who was with her, arrested and taken
to Eperjes. From the prison here he was taken to Wiener-Nuestadt, where he found himself in the
very cell occupied by his maternal grandfather, Peter Zrìnyi, before his death on the scaffold.
Francis spent two months in prison Without being informed of what he was accused. Then the
Chancellor of State, Count Buccelini, and a representative of the Ministry of War, came to question
him. Ràkòczy told them he could not legally be tried except in a properly constituted court of law.
Nevertheless, out of respect for the Emperor Leopold, he would answer their questions.
He was then shown a number of letters and taxed with having written them. Some he
repudiated as forgeries, and of those which he acknowledged having written, the one to King Louis
contained no treason against the Emperor At to those which he had written to the Emperor Leopold,
they detailed the grievances of the Hungarian people, but to set out grievances, in letters to the
Emperor, asking for their redress, was not treason against him.
What told in Ràkòczy's favour was that, on learning of the 'arrest' of Longueval he had not
attempted to flee. Nevertheless, it became obvious that If h« remained in the prison he would be
murdered. There was appointed to his guard a Captain Lehmann, of Prussian birth, who, with the
complicity of hit younger brother, an officer in the Austrian service, on 7 November, 1701, brought
Ràkòczy the uniform of an Austrian dragoon. This he put on and then they both walked out
together, without being intercepted. Ràkòczy entered a waiting carriage, ordered by his wife. To
protect Lehmann from suspicion, he had left a rope trailing out of the window, as though he had slid
down It. He had also left a letter to the Emperor Leopold, saying that if he had left by stealth it was
because he did not wish, like his grandfather, to mount the scaffold, without any proper reason, but

21
that he would be willing to present himself for judgement in a court legally constituted. He would
also, at the same time, claim the return of his confiscated estates.
The Emperor Leopold replied by having posters put up in Vienna proclaiming Ràkòczy an
outlaw, with a price on his head of 10,000 florins (that is 15,000 thalers or about £100,00 in English
money today). The father confessor of Ràkòczy was condemned to imprisonment for the duration of
his life, and the guard, Lehmann, despite Ràkòczy's endeavour to cover him, was put to death by
tortures too horrible to be described.
An extraordinary court was convened in Vienna which condemned Ràkòczy to death, in his
absence, and confiscated his possessions. Friends of Ràkòczy who had been arrested at the same
time as himself, such as Ladislav Vay and Paul Okolicanyi, were, however, released for lack of
proof.
He had escaped over the border into Poland, from which an attempt to have him extradited
failed, largely thanks to the influence of the French Ambassador. In Poland, Ràkòczy again met his
compatriot Miklos Bercsenyi, who was already in contact with the Marquis dUeron, through whom
he was discussing with Louis XIV what help France might give in the event of a Hungarian
uprising. Louis, however, was reserved as to what he could send (with the War of the Spanish
Succession looming on his horizon), and the next two years passed without action.
Then Ràkòczy was traced to his hiding-place by a Ladislav Bige, who came to talk to him of
the sufferings of the people of Hungary and of the Tiszahat rebellion, lead by Tamas (Thomas)
Esze, a serf in Tarpa, a salt merchant. The Austrians, he said, were planning to recruit a big force to
put these beginnings of rebellion down, and there was no time to lose.
All the same, Ràkòczy was cautious. England, where Queen Anne had the previous year
succeeded to the throne, was now an ally of the Emperor, and so was the Netherlands. Louis XIV,
faced with this combination, would be unlikely to have much support to spare for the Magyars. The
Turks were no longer to be counted upon, and the Poles too divided amongst themselves to be
called on. Francis sent a man to Hungary to investigate and report whether things were really so
bad, and the need for his internvention so urgent as he had been told. This person reported to him
that it was so.
Francis Ràkòczy then sent Tamas Esze and his patriots six flags, with a motto he had chosen,
Cum Deo, pro Patria et Libertate (With God, for our Country and Freedom), and a letter, signed by
himself and by Bercsényi, assuring them they were coming. This was received on 12 May, 1703.
The flags were not to be shown yet or any move made prematurely. One young nobleman, however,
was unable to resist the temptation to take a few easy forts, and so open conflict started. Forces
promised by the Poles had not arrived, but Ràkòczy had either to lose the moment and let the
patriots be mown down or go in without waiting.
With a small party, he rode across the border form Poland into Hungary. Peasants left their
fields to welcome and fall in behind him, armed only with the long forks they used on their farms
and with whatever other agricultural implements could be used as weapons; some only had sticks.
They brought him the horses they used in their farm-work. In this way, Ràkòczy found himself at
the head of some three hundred on horseback and as many thousand on foot. They descended from
the mountains and in three days reached the village of Munkàcs, near to the old family fort. Those
who had flocked to him wanted to engage the Imperial troops immediately. He, a realist, did not
think they were as yet properly prepared to do that. Amongst the whole crowd were hardly a dozen
who had served in Thököly's army, yet he divided the crowd up into detatchments, putting those
with at least some experience of soldiering in command of groups. In addition, so as not to depress
their enthusiasm by seeming to hold back, he permitted a limited encounter, to give them battle
experience, without the losses being too great. In the fighting he disappeared from view and
fugitives spread the false news through villages that he had been killed. The people were swept with
such a wave of desolation that, when he reappeared, with only a few companions, the joy with
which he was surrounded was as delirious as though there were a great victory to celebrate. Simply

22
to have him alive and with them seemed to be all that they could want, and this profoundly touched
him.
By now the numbers surrounding him had swelled to about 8,000 men, news of his arrival
having drawn volunteers from all parts of the country to find and join him. They all wanted him to
march across the River Tisza, which separated Transylvania (in what is now Rumania) from
western Hungary. It cost him a pang to leave the fort of Munkàcs behind him still in the hands of
the Austrians, yet, not to seem tardy in the great enterprise, Ràkòczy marched. The Ràkòczy march
must have appeared ragged. His men had no uniforms and, unless by chance they happened to own
them previously, no firearms. They marched wearing whatever they had arrived wearing, and were
armed with whatever they had brought with them—forks, rakes, scythes, sickles, hammers, sticks—
but they marched singing. A popular myth that Ràkòczy himself composed the marching song
which Berlioz orchestrated seems to be without foundation. Dr. Agnes Varkonyi, Principal of the
Department of Mediaeval History in the University of Budapest, has informed me that it emerges
from the researches of Bela Barték that there is no style that can be attributed specifically to the
hero or to the Kuruc, as his followers were called, but 'Berlioz' Ràkòczi March is based on a 17th
century tune, known as the Ràkòczi song. It is a folk tune, and as is the rule with folk tunes, it has
come down to us in a great number of variants. Two of these had been taken down as dance tunes
before Ràkòczi's era, between 1634 and 1680, and are still sung to religious words'. Indeed, even
had Ràkòczy been trained in music, he could hardly have given time to composing on the march.
What is more likely is that he and the Kuruc, as they marched along, sang all the Magyar songs they
knew, perhaps creating their own variants to the swing of their steps. 11
Arriving by the Tisza at the point Ràkòczy thought to ford it, Tisza Becsa, they were able to
surprise and rout the Austrian garrison and march straight across.

From his camp, on 7 June, 1703 he issued his first public statement: 'Universi orbis Christiani
principibus et rebuspublicis. Nec non aliis quibus cujusqunque Conditionis Gradus, Honoris,
Dignitatis, Officii ac praeeminentiae Statibus et ordinibus NOS, FRANCISCUS DEI GRATIA
PRINCEPS RÀKÒCZY, de Felso Vadasz, comes de Saros, dux Munkàcsiensis et
Makoviczensis, dominus perpetuus de Saafos-Patak, Tokay, Regecz, Ecsed, Somlyò, Lednicze,
Szerencs, Onod, etc Ad perpetuam Rei Memoriam. Recrudescunt diutina Inclytae Gentis
Hungarae vulnera . . .'

'To all princes and republics of the Christian world. Also to any other states and orders of
whatsoever condition, rank, honour, dignity, office and preeminence. WE, FRANCIS BY GRACE
OF GOD PRINCE RÀKÒCZY, of Felso Vadasz, Count of Saros Duke of Munkàcs and Makovicza,
Perpetual Lord of Saros-Patak, Tokaj, Regécz, Ecsed, Somlyò, Lednicze, Szerencs, Onod etc. To
the Perpetual Memory of the Cause. The ancient wounds of the Hungarian people are breaking open
afresh...
This document, often called for short the Recrudescunt, since it was issued in Latin, was
incomprehensible to the peasants, who formed the major part of his army, but was not intended to
exhort them to follow him. They were doing that already. It was a statement for the heads of state
and lawyers of the world:

We wish to make known the real reasons for our resort to arms...
The primal origine of the many insurrections was, and is, the illegal violation of the laws of the
country, for the Austrians no sooner began, through adroit manoeuvres, to feel the people a
little more malleable, than, their taste for domination augmenting from day to day, they
considered their own will as the sole law having wiped out some of the most noble
Magyar families and seized their goods, which they carried away, deprived the people of their
dignities, introduced foreign laws, demanded excessive contributions, and by a bold stroke
changed the elective monarchy we have had for so many centuries into a hereditary
23
 government, designed to give wider reign to the most absolutely despotic power; at the same
time, they abolished the law of the great Andrew II authorising armed resistance to any king
violating the constitution, which has always been the principal support of the liberties and
prerogatives of all classes and orders...'

Franciz Ràkòczy's reference is to one of Hungary's great kings, Andrew II, who issued his
country, in 1222, a Golden Bull, which has always been to Hungarians what Magna Carta is to
England. All kings, since his time, had signed it, and even the Austrian Emperors, although as
Ràkòczy points out, they cancelled its most essential provisions.

'After having despoiled us of the right to free election of our king and lawful resistance, after
having solemnly sworn to maintain all the other laws, following in the furrow, they trod
underfoot all bur liberties and rights without exception... Who can see without profound sorrow
a warlike nation, from the earliest times, which at its own expense and unheard of efforts and
sacrifice of blood so gloriously served as a rampart of Christianity, no longer able to dispose
military dignities and obliged to see them attributed to foreigners, in scorn of Hungarian
bravery and the clearest laws of the land?
...The Commision of Finances groans beneath the same yoke, the Court of Vienna has taken
away all its powers... not the least evil deed is the removing from the poor nature's own
indispensible gift; by placing upon it an excessive tax, they have made salt, of which
Providence has made our country an inexhaustible mine, so expensive that the poor peasant is
obliged to make his bread without any.'

The question of social class was especially nettling in Hungary, for the Magyar peasants, who
formed the major part of what had become Ràkòczy's army, were a special case. Since they had
come to occupy the land anciently known as Panmonia, there had been no division amongst them
into nobles and non-nobles. All were nobles. Some nobles were less well off than other nobles, but
did not on that account think of themselves as belonging to an inferior class. Over the course of the
centuries, the poorer amongst them had dropped into the position of peasants, yet never accepted, as
the peasants of other nations, submission to this condition as their natural lot.
A problem for Ràkòczy was that the peasants flocking to him were not free men; they were
serfs from the estates of one magnate or another. Where the magnate was himself disposed towards
Ràkòczy this was not a problem yet some magnates were not pleased when, to join Ràkòczy's army,
serfs left without leave. While a brief absence from their usual duties was one thing, if the campaign
was to be long drawn out, the crops in the fields, the beasts in the farms and the whole condition of
the states must suffer to a degree to test the magnates' patriotism.. Ràkòczy found himself engaged
in much discussion about this with the magnates to whom the serfs composing his army were bound
by law. It may have been this which set Ràkòczy asking himself why some men were not the
masters of their own destinies but virtually the slaves of others. He must have felt it an
embarrassment that Tamas Esze, whose invitation and appeal for armed support had brought him
across the border, was not in law his own master. Ràkòczy began to try to obtain an agreement from
the magnates that the serfs who engaged themselves to fight for the cause should receive their
freedom. So he became engaged in two kinds of struggle, to free the whole people from oppression
by the foreign domination! of the Hapsburgs and at the same time to free the serfs from their own
magnates at home.
He had also to pick his way with regard to the Churches. Most of the serfs composing his army
were Calvinists or Lutherans, and Pal or Paul Rady, his Premier, who had drawn up his
Recrudescunt for him was leader of a highly cultured group.of Protestants, supporting Ràkòczy,
including the two Lutheran Barons Ladislas Vay and György Ottlyk, who were for social and
economic reform. Yet Pal Okolicanyi now began to express fears that Ràkòczy would as a price of
obtaining King Louis' support be obliged to keep the Protestants down, while the Catholics feared
24
that a Prince however Catholic who undertook to free the country from the Holy Roman Empire,
would end up ruled by Protestants. Trust, from both sides, was something Ràkòczy had to build up.
It has to be confessed that Ràkòczy's army was not called upon to do much fighting. His march
had become more of a triumphal progress. He had in his mind a series of forts that he wished to
capture, and what happened when he arrived at them fell into a repeating pattern. Just outside the
fort, he and his army would stop. Conversations would then open up with the townspeople. The
townspeople would then recommend the garrison commander not to fire but to open the gates and
let them in. He then did as they advised him. They entered, and found within the walls new recruits.
At one place where this happened the Hungarian owner of the fort, Count Karolyi, was in Vienna
when his wife and the garrison handed the fort over, and returned to find the Kuruc possession.
However, he joined up with Ràkòczy and became one of this most noted commanders. Why did
everything happen so easily? Did the strange, motley army strike terror into the Imperial troops?
The Austrian General Glockelsperg fled, and no other was sent to replace him. Why did the
Emperor Leopold just let all this happen? This was a puzzle to Ràkòczy, and remained so to the day
of his writing his reflective Memoires.
Winter put a stop to movements, and Ràkòczy, with the Tokaj district in his hands but the
future uncertain, had during the months of inactivity to keep up the morale of his men, over whom
he had no authority save that which they* invested in him.
In November he was offered the Crown of Poland. This came about because King Charles XII
of Sweden, victorious over a coalition of Denmark, Russian and Poland against him, had deposed
Augustus II, the Elector of Saxony whom the Poles had elected to be their King. The Swedish King
said he did not seek more crowns for himself, only to redistribute them. Ràkòczy replied to him:

'I entered public life only to deliver my own country from the yoke under which it groaned, not
to win a Crown. I am not fighting for myself but for my fellow citizens. If I truimph, the honour
of having satisfied them will be to me a sufficient recompense. Great and brilliant as would be
the title of King of Poland, that of liberator of Hungary is to me not less fine or worthy...What
would become of the brave men who left their ploughs to follow my flag? What would they do,
those noble sons of the country, who have shared the dangers with me, without other thought
than to restore the state to freedom and its proper glory? Can I abandon them to the vengeance
of Austria? If they have exposed themselves to her hate it is because they were incited by me. I
do not wish to earn their legitimate reproach, nor that of the whole of Europe and posterity...'

One sees, here, the purity of his nature. Had he been a vulgar seeker for a throne he would have
jumped into that of Poland, a far more glittering prospect than Transylvania could offer him.
It was, simply, that the Polish people were not his people. It was not they to whom he owed his
first care. To go to Poland, be crowned in it and rule it, he would have to leave his little band of
peasants; and abandoned by him, they would be massacred.
Perhaps, also, he did not care for the idea of owing a throne to another sovereign, which would
place him in his debt, and perhaps make him almost a puppet. For he added,

'Charles XII is magnanimous enough to aprove my negative reply, perhaps even to envy it. He
knows how to despise Crowns as well as how to gain them, and if he attached to this one a
great value he would not make a present of it. He, who never for one instant forgets his
elevated end, the liberation of his own country, will remember that his predecessor concluded
with mine an inviolable alliance, whereby he engaged himself to sustain my family, should it
ever have need, with all his forces. Now, the moment to keep this promise has come. May he
avenge Hungary as he has avenged Poland, and may his benevolence extend not to the
overwhelming of myself along with a gift, but to the whole nation, and may he prefer to the
satisfaction of having created a King the joy, greater and more sublime, of rendering
independence to thousands of people, liberty to a people oppressed...
25
 If it could be said against Ràkòczy that he was the leader of a band of peasants, it is as a
statesman of lofty ideals, indeed a philosopher, that Francis Ràkòczy reveals himself in this letter.
Receiving this refusal from Ràkòczy, Charles XII offered the Polish Crown to Stanisalv
Leszczynski, (Polish 'szcs' is pronounced like English 'sh-ch' in cash-chest and the accented n is
palatalised) who accepted it. His election was procured, he was crowned and Charles XII did not
come to the aid of Ràkòczy in Hungary.
On 10 December 1703, the Archbishop Kalosca wrote to the Emperor Leopold saying that, the
rebellion having developed to such a point that there was no longer any possibility of putting it
down by force, perhaps he might be used as an intermediary between His Imperial Majesty and the
rebels. This offer was taken up. On 2 January, 1704, the Emperor replied to the Archbishop
authorising conversations with the malcontents.
The Archbishop addressed himself in the first place to Counts Karolyi and Bercsenyi, but they
would not talk without Prince Ràkòczy. On 28 January, the Archbishop wrote to Rakriczy, at
Miskolcz, sending him a copy of the Emperor's letter of 2 January. He asked Ràkòczy to call a Diet,
that is a conference, at which certain propositions could be discussed. Ràkòczy, suspecting
Leopold's good faith, replied on 5th February, asking what guarantees were offered that the
proposed concessions would actually be made. Austria's record with regard to Hungary was too
perfidious for anything to be taken on trust. The guarantee must be the forces of foreign powers.
Moreover, he must insist that the Emperor dealt with Hungary as the sovereign nation that she
properly was, and not as a rebellious part of his own dominions. The Hungarians were not rebelling
against a harsh but legitimate government, they were expelling a foreign power who had wrongfully
imposed itself upon their territory by force of arms. Nevertheless, he offered the Archbishop an
interview in the nearby hill citadel of Gyongyos at the beginning of March.
On 4 April, the Archbishop wrote to the Emperor Leopold that Ràkòczy was not responsive to
a suggestion that Pope Clement-XI should intervene, insisting on physical guarantees of Leopold's
good faith. He disliked terms such as the 'grace' or 'pardon' of the Emperor, since these addressed
him as the chief of rebels, whereas it was the patriots of a sovereign state which had asked him to
free them from a foreign oppression.
Ràkòczy's reserve was justified, for before the month was out the Emperor Leopold had sent
General Heister into Hungary with 7,000 to 8,000 men. He surprised and rounted Karolyi and
burned villages, his troops raping women and killing children. Bercsényi, however, halted him, and
he retreated. A General Ritschan, sent to replace Heister was stopped by Karolyi.
Ràkòczy was meanwhile attempting the siege of Eger. He had not really the artillery needed to
invest the mountain fortress, but the Commandant, entering into the usual conversations, promised
that if no attack was made, he would cede the fortress at the end of the four months, if in that time
reinforcements from Austria had not reached him.
Pàpa castle had been left by Heister in the command of Anthony Esterhazy. Esterhazy, with
400 men, surrended to Ràkòczy and even went further; he joined Ràkòczy and swore fidelity to
him.
Ràkòczy would have liked to profit from these successes and cross the Danube but his
volunteer army proved unwilling. It was composed of peasants from the other side of the Tisza, and
they did not wish to push the campaign so far from home. Ràkòczy felt that he could not force them
against their nature, or he would lose their good will.
From the Transylvania he had left behind him in his march into Hungary, Ràkòczy received a
request that he should call a Diet, at which the next occupant of the throne of Transylvania should
be formally elected. Ràkòczy was not keen to call for an election whilst the country remained in
such an unsettled state, but on being told that some of the volunteers on the Transylvanian side of
the border had been unruly, he consented, in order that questions of organisation and constitution be
discussed. He called it to sit at Gyulafehervar, but preferred, as an election to the throne of the
Principality was on the agenda, not to attend. Since Prince George Ràkòczy I, Prince George
26
Ràkòczy II, and Prince Francis Ràkòczy I had succeeded one another, it might appear that the
Princedom had become hereditary in the Ràkòczy family, but it did not inevitably follow that he
should succeed as Prince Francis Ràkòczy II. Count Bercsenyi appeared to have ambitions in
Transylvania and Francis Ràkòczy did not wish to prejudice the freedom of the election by his
presence.
It was put to him that he must, nevertheless, be represented on the Diet. He therefore chose a
Hungarian Protestant, Janos Radvanszky, whose lack of enthusiasm for Ràkòczy's movement was
well known. He could be trusted not to sway the assembly against its better judgement concerning
the advantages of having a Catholic ascend the throne of a Protestant Principality.
The strains of the last year had been considerable. On march, Ràkòczy had slept as the common
soldiers, on a heap of straw, in a draughty tent. He had born the sole burden of decisions. He fell ill.
The only doctor in his camp was recalled from a distance of seven leagues and gave him pills.
He recovered sufficiently to go about again, but was thought to look as though he could have
done with a longer convalescence. What really decided him to give ear to the propositions of the
Archbishop concerning a conference, however, was news of the Battle of Blenheim.
To understand what had happened, we need to go back a little, and refresh our memories of a
sequence of major historical events taught to practically every English child at school. King Carlos
II of Spain (d.1700) had left a will whereby his kingdom, with its foreign possessions, were
bequeathed (since he had no children of his own) to the second grandson of Louis XIV of France,
Philip of Anjou. As this person was his nephew's child (the sister of Carlos D of Spain having
married Louis XIV), this might seem a normal type of legacy, familiar in families. It would have the
effect, however, of bringing the Crown of Spain into the family of the King of France, enormously
augmenting the power of France. Here one may remark that political morality is a curious thing.
When the death of Queen Elizabeth left the King of Scotland heir to the Crown of England, nobody
in England complained that this was improper because the falling together of the two Crowns would
create a power stronger than either had been by itself, and alter in our favour the balance of power
with Europe. Now, however, that the French and Spanish Crown were to fall together this was a
monstrosity, an alteration in the balance of power, a thing not to be tolerated. The King of England,
William III, and the Emperor of Austria, Leopold I, had already made their own private treaty as to
how the King of Spain's possessions should be shared up. The Emperor's second son, Charles, was
to get Spain, as his Kingdom, together with the Spanish dominions other than those in Italy—Milan,
Naples and Sicily—which should be all that France would receive. A purist might ask what
business it was of the King of England and the Emperor of Austria thus to dispose of the Spanish
King's possessions, but as that schoolchild's classic, A New History of England, R.B. Mowatt
(Oxford), 1926) points out, 'England in the Partition Treaty asked nothing for herself; she was only
interested in securing such a division of the Spanish dominions between Spain and the Empire as
would prevent any one of them from becoming lord of all Europe.' The Spanish Netherlands (which
today we call Belgium) would, by the will of the Spanish King discovered at his death, go to France
and mean that the French would be facing us not merely from Calais but from Antwerp.
Moreover, since France was harbouring the grandson of the dispossessed Catholic King James
II of England, a restoration to the throne of England of the Stuart dynasty might be attempted.
William III did not hesitate. He formed with Leopold and the Dutch a Grand Alliance with the
avowed object of ensuring that the Crowns of France and Spain should never be united under the
same person. The paper was signed on 7 September, 1701. On 8 March, 1702, William III died; it
was under Queen Anne, succeeding, that Marlborough thrust down through the Spanish Netherlands
and the Rhine, uniting on the way with the Imperial General Prince Eugene of Savoy, to head off
the French army of 25,000 that was making for Vienna. On the north bank of the Danube, near the
village of Blenheim, on 13 August, 1704, the combined British and Austrian armies defeated the
French.

'Floating in gore with their dead masters mixt,

27
 With heaps of spears and standards driven around,
Lie in the Danube's bloody whirlpools drown'd.
Troops of bold youths born on the distant Saone,
Or sounding borders of the rapid Rhone,
Or where the Loire through winding vinyards glides:
In heaps the rolling billows sweep away,
And into Scythian seas their bloated corps convey.'

So sang Addison, in The Campaign, the patriotic composition which in the words of The
Harmsworth Encyclopaedia (1910), p.60, 'launched him upon a career of state service.' A later, less
enchanted poet, William Southey, was to write After Blenheim:

'And everybody praised the Duke

Who this great fight did win.'
But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin:
'Why that I cannot tell,' said he,
'But 'twas a famous victory.'

For Britain, Blenheim was a great occasion of national glory; for Ràkòczy a heavy blow.
Ràkòczy was at the small thermal spa of Vilnye, seeking with the aid of the waters to recover
his health, when news was brought him of the Diet at Gyulafehérvar. He had been elected on 6 July,
1704 to the throne of Transylvania, vacant since the death of his father. The country was, however,
still reeling from the shock of the result of the Battle of Blenheim. The moment seemed to him,
therefore, not apt for a coronation, or even for his formal acceptance of the title of Prince, but he
accepted from the Diet, what he had held de facto from the people, responsibility for leading and
organising the operations aiming at bringing freedom to their country.
Blenheim made the prospect much less rosy. It was not merely that the French had been
weakened. Though they had supported financially and indirectly, they had sent no soldiers to
Ràkòczy. It was rather that the weakening of the French, through the intervention of the British, left
Austria enormously strengthened. Her rotten garrisons in Hungary had barely put up even a token
resistance to the patriots. But Austria backed up by Marlborough was a different matter. It was no
longer appropriate to dismiss Archbishop Kalosca's offer of mediation.
Ràkòczy, therefore, consented to call another conference at Gyongyos.
The Emperor, for his part, had consented to Ràkòczy's demand for the involvement of foreign
powers; only the foreign powers chosen were England And Holland, Austria's allies. Lord George
Stepney and Jakobvan Hammel-Bruyninx, Ambassadors for these countries, addressed Ràkòczy in
April, offering their mediation. Ràkòczy replied that he had asked not for mediation but for
guarantees, and not from allies of the Emperor only. If England and Holland were to participate in
the discussions, he would desire the participation of Poland and Sweden.
He was not successful in obtaining agreement to the participation of Poland and Sweden, but
was able to refuse both of two places proposed for the conference, which were too near the Austrian
border for the safety of his own envoys; for, as the Emperor would not be coming in person, neither
would he. At the small mining town of Szelmecz, in the middle of the country, there sat down
Berscényi for Ràkòczy, together with Michael Mikes for Transylvania; the Archbishop Kalosca,
with Baron Seiler and Count Kohary, for the Emperor, George Stepney for England and Hammel-
Bruyninx for Holland.
This sounds rather one-sided, yet in fact Lord Stepney was thought of as pro-Hungarian, and
indeed Queen Anne had learned from her Court Painter, Jakob Bogdanyi, a Hungarian, and from the
Hungarians surrounding him, to have a feeling for the Hungarian people. Also, the British
Ambassador to Constantinople, Paget, having returned through Transylvania, conceived there a
28
favourable impression of Ràkòczy and his supporters, some of whom he took with him to London.
There were also some Hungarian students in the English Universities who were speaking for their
country, so that, although Britain had the Emperor for an ally against France, yet there had come to
be amongst the English a current of sympathy for Ràkòczy and his Kuruc. It is, after all, natural to
the English character to feel sympathy and admiration for a very small nation fighting for its
independence against forbidding odds. To be sure, Daniel Defoe saw Ràkòczy as a danger, and
expressed fear that, unable to match the Emperor's forces with his own, he would bring the Turks
in, as Thököly had, yet there seems to have been a general feeling the Emperor should make his
peace with Ràkòczy and propose acceptable terms. 12. Never theless, the Conference at Szelmecz
seems to have achieved little.
Ràkòczy now found himself attacked by religious doubters. On the one hand a Protestant zealot
was putting it about that if he triumphed Louis XIV would suppress Protestantism, whereas the
Emperor had concessions in mind, and on the other both Louis XIV and Pope Clement XI received
anonymous papers alleging Ràkòczy meant to sell out to the Protestants. Both these rumours were
perhaps put about by the Austrians. Louis XIV, more courteous and artful, sent a copy of the paper
to Ràkòczy, asking whether the points made were true, because in that case he would be obliged to
withdraw his friendship and support.
Ràkòczy was able to assure His Most Christian Majesty (as French Kings were always called)
that the freedom he intended according to the Protestants was not of a character to shame a Catholic
monarch. He also talked to his Lutheran Barons, Vay and Ottlyk, and persuaded them that they
should not press him for concessions that would lose him the support of Louis. In the upshot, this
clarification gained him increase of trust from both sides.
Ràkòczy now received from Louis XIV what he could spare from the needs of his own army.
Ràkòczy felt his men to be deeply in need of military training from professionals and was very glad
when about fifty French officers arrived, to assume the drilling and instucting of the Kuruc. A
military school was created. Some of the French private soldiers and non-commissioned officers,
however, misbehaved in Hungary, and, in order to escape punishment, disappeared over the borders
into Poland and even into Austria, to fight for the Emperor instead of for Ràkòczy.
The towns of Kassa and Eperjes were taken by Ràkòczy's men, and the population of Ersek-
Ujvar persuaded its garrison to surrender to Ràkòczy without fighting.
Ràkòczy was waiting for his artillery when he received word from Bercsenyi that General
Heister, with troops brought from Bavaria, was at Dévény, where the Morva jointed the Danube. He
suggested their own armies meet at Farkasfalva. Ràkòczy agreed, and divided his infantry. Half,
under Captain de La Motte, he ordered to remain stationed before the walls of Lipotvar, the other
half, under General Esterhazy, was to go forward to meet the enemy. It was only on Christmas Eve
that Ràkòczy learned that Bercsényi had allowed the enemy to advance right to Nagy-Szombat
without firing at them. His first impulse was to go out, immediately, to the great plain before the
town, so as to engage them there on Christmas morning. Bercsényi, however, advised against a
midnight march. He pointed out that to reach the plain they would have to pass through a narrow
defile wherein, in the darkness, they would be particularly vulnerable to ambush. This seemed to be
sage counsel from an elder and more experienced soldier, but when Ràkòczy arrived at the plain in
the morning of Christmas Day, he found Heister's men already there, installed upon the best
positions. It was under a cannonade that he had to direct his own to the best available. Nevertheless,
his cavalry, under Ebeczky, gained ground. Unfortunately, the cavalry of Bercsenyi was too far
away to sustain the advantage. Also, at this moment, a battalion which had been formed from
German deserters to Ràkòczy's army recognised familiar faces amongst the Bavarians, and deserted
once again, to their former side. Ràkòczy's left and centre, which had been making progress, found
itself stopped by the battalion changing sides. Ràkòczy, teeing the disorder, tried to ride to the front,
but his Field Marshal, Ottlyk, fearing to see him instantly killed, instructed some young officers to
stop him, •nd they caught his bridle.

29
 Nevertheless, if-the reverse made a disappointing close to the year, several Of Heister's
battalions had been completely wiped out.
Bercsényi remained on the shores of the Vag and reassembled his men. Ràkòczy directed La
Motte, if attacked, to take up the position Bercsényi had occupied. Karolyi arrived, at last, with six
thousand cavalrymen. He had apparently thought that in an insurrectional war one should avoid
head on conflicts between drawn up lines and be content merely to harrass, guerrilla fashion. It was
not Ràkòczy's point of view, but he made no reproaches.
Heister had not crossed the river, and Ràkòczy took advantage of the ice on the Danube to send
Karolyi right up to the frontier, to harry the Austrians on their own border.
Ràkòczy spent the opening months of 1705 at the mountain fortress of Eger. He now had
75,000 men, and was trying to mould them into a force which could penetrate Austria, but fighting
remained circumscribed within the Valley of the Vag. On 6 May the Emperor Leopold died.
Ràkòczy, however, was becoming concerned because he felt that the long months of training and
disciplining had taken the edge off his men's keenness. In June, on the eve of the battle of
Podmeriez, he told them that if they wished to conclude peace and his own person was the obstacle
they should withdraw from him. This decided them to fight, but the battle was inconclusive.
The new Emperor, Joseph I, wished to show himself better disposed than Leopold. On being
advised that Heister was too much hated by the Hungarians for them to make peace 1 while he was
leading the forces trying to put them down, he recalled him and ,replaced him with a General of
French origin, d*Herberville. Further, the Cmperor Joseph wrote to Ràkòczy, assuring him of his
intention to right the wrongs of Hungary, and promising total amnesty to all who had taken part in
the rebellion, on their submission.
Ràkòczy replied, assuring him of his own desire for peace, but making the point that it would
have to be on acceptable terms. At this reserve, the new Emperor Joseph baulked.
Ràkòczy felt that some amongst those who had accepted his authority would like settlement. It
was not what he wanted, but he felt the choice should be that of the people. He therefore called a
Diet, at Szécseny. All the towns of the two thirds of the country now liberated were invited to send
representatives, as well as the commanders in the different districts, and both the Catholic and
Protestant clergy. He proposed not to attend himself. Bercsényi protested that he should take part,
even a leading part, in order to make his own views known. Ràkòczy, however, considered that the
question was simple enough for those participating to understand it, without his being there to
explain it to them, and he preferred to remain away, so that the judgement should be truly theirs, not
his.
The Bishop of Eger said a mass in honour of the Holy Spirit, on 12 September, and Ràkòczy
gave a welcoming speech to those who had installed themselves in the great tent. He emphasised,
however, that the decisions to be taken would be theirs. He committed himself in advance to accept
and execute them. After that, the Diet was on its own.
The long discussions, in the course of which a Confederation was constituted, ended on 20
September with a unanimous decision, that Francis Ràkòczy be invested with a new title, 'Chief of
the Confederates'. It was communicated the same day to the people outside, by means of a
proclamation. Transylvania had elected him its, Prince, and had given him civic responsibility, for
the whole of liberated Hungary. The Diet also decided that there should be a Senate, and chose
twenty-four Senators, upon whom responsibility should fall if he were killed. Prince Ràkòczy and
the Senate were authorised to enter into peace negotiations with the Emperor, with England and
Holland as guarantors, and to conclude, if certain terms were met. Transylvania should be invited to
join the Confederation.
These resolutions were written out in triplicate. One copy was given to Ràkòczy, one was taken
to the Primate of Poland, and one (for the security of the Protestants) to the Elector of Hanover,
later to become King George I of England.
The Senate met, at the beginning of 1706, at Miskolcz, to discuss money. Ràkòczy's men had
always been short of it. The gold and silver mines constituting the country's natural riches had been
30
so neglected that to restore them to profitable working order would require too much of an outlay.
Ràkòczy had in 1703 authorised the minting of copper coins in three denominations inscribed with
the words Pro libertate, but their purchasing power had fallen. The Senate wanted to establish a tax,
but Ràkòczy, now aged thirty, objected, as it was excessive taxation which had been a major cause
of the revolt:

'To exact such taxes would mean resorting to the means which made the Austrians hated:
rigorous measures which would achieve nothing, because the peasants do not possess wealth in
cash. Very few copper coins would come in to swell the coffers of the State. What there is of
such money is in the hands not of the people but of the nobles, who do not wish to be taxed.
The depreciation in the value will not be halted unless the nobles will use it for goods and the
payment of debts.'

This was well received by the Senators, many of whom took the occasion to realise the value of
goods.
There was also the problem of counterfeit money in circulation. Ràkòczy therefore had new
pieces minted, in a form more difficult to imitate, and of higher value. Gradually, Ràkòczy managed
to get in a little gold and silver, and used the precious metals to buy lead, of which both Hungary
and Transylvania were short. He also bought horses and arms for the two regiments, one cavalry
and two infantry, which were under his personal command. As yet, these were the only regiments to
have uniforms. All the lift were wearing what they had worn when they joined him, in many cases
#M uniforms of the enemy whom they had deserted to come to him. It was still not possible to arm
all of them with modern weapons. Those not yet issued with fire-arms carried forks. These were, in
skilled hands, however, quite fearsome instruments.
They now penetrated Austria itself. The English Queen Anne intervened. Trough her
plenipotentiary envoy, Lord Stepney, she spoke of an intercession in favour of the Emperor's
rebellious subjects. Apparently he had not heard Bercsenyi say for Rakbczy, 'We are not insurgents,
but a free nation fighting for its right.'
The Confederates took the position that they were a belligerent sovereign power, and that any
treating with them would have to be upon that basis. Their primary requirement was that the forced
session of the elective to the hereditary principle of monarchy, wrung from the Parliament of 1687
at Presburg, should be annulled, leaving valid the Golden Bull of 1222, as their constitution. The
Emperor Joseph replied that the assembly of Presburg had introduced no new principle, the throne
of Hungary having been hereditary in the Hapsburg family for three centuries. This was precisely
the Confederates' complaint, that the Hapsburg family, preventing them from electing their
sovereigns, had been taking the throne from them for three hundred years, and had been doing so as
though it were not an elective but a hereditary monarchy; at Presburg illegally 'legalising' their
offence.
Nevertheless, they agreed to a further conference, and demanded as foreign guarantors, not
only England and Holland, which were allies of Austria, but Sweden, Poland and the Republic of
Venice. The Delegates sat down at Nàgy-Szombat in May, 1706.
The principle Confederate demands were:

'That Transylvania should be recognised as a separate state, independent of Austria.

'In Hungary, that the Treaty of Presburg be annulled and the Golden Bull of King Andrew II re-
established and respected
'That Austrian troops should leave the forts and towns . . .
'That the Palatine be re-established, with other dignataries, and the councils of the towns . . .
'That the general charge be re-established
'That the illegal authority of a foreign fiscal minister be abolished and replaced by a treasurer of
the Realm.
31
 'That the Holy Crown of Hungary, the Crown jewels and Hungarian State Archives be returned
to Hungary, where they would be kept in Murany Castle, never to be taken out except with
the authority of the Palatine and Senate
'That the pretended rights of Austria over the area reclaimed from the Turks be abolished, and
the goods removed returned to their lawful owners, without these having to pay for the
transport
'That foreigners be excluded from the highest offices . . .
'That the adherents of all recognised religions should be permitted freely to practise their
worship and to maintain their own churches . . .
'That Diets be convoked in accordance with the ancient laws . . .
'That donations and privileges accorded under Leopold I to the detriment of the nation be
declared null
'That the copper money conserve its value until the State could bring it in...
'That no negotiation of the affairs of Hungary be made without the intervention of the Palatine
and Senate . . .
'That all the Confederates, priests or laymen, ministers, officers functionaries be solemnly
declared the defenders of the laws and liberties of the country . . .
'That illegalities committed against nobles, against Ràkòczy and Bercsenyi be annulled . . .
'That the privileges of all the classes, nobles, Coumans, Jagyses and hajdouks be respected.
'That the laws, prerogatives, decrees, treaties, certificates in all their clauses be confirmed by
royal oath and unattackable. No one, noble or not, should be imposed without the
authorisation of Parliament.
'That the preceding articles be submitted to the deliberations of Parliament and published in the
presence of foreign mediators . . . and that by this act, pacification being established, the
legal government give satisfaction to complaints'

For the opening years of the 18th century, this was a very advanced and liberal constitution.
Vienna received the paper and studied it.
The reply transmitted from the Empire sought to make the clauses seem needless: why regard
as 'foreign', troops intended only to ensure the security of the country? Why should it be
objectionable that finances be directed by Austrians, from the moment they be administered with
impartiality? Had the Protestants not rights enough, by laws and by promises made them from long
ago?....'Other points can be put aside for treatment by the convocation of a Diet or by grace and
benevolence of the Emperor'.
This document arrived only a few days before the armistice was due to end, in mid-July. It gave
no real satisfaction, and in particular did not recognise the independence of Transylvania. The
Hungarian Confederation did not demand separation from Austria, this was demanded only by
Transylvania. On the other hand, the Hungarians owed their ability to negotiate from such strength
to a Transylvanian, Prince Ràkòczy, and did not wish to let him down or lose his suport.
Ràkòczy did not wish to force them, but in the end they decided, of their own accord, that they
could not sacrifice Transylvania in order to conclude with the Emperor. On 22 July, they drew up a
letter to the foreign guarantors, saying they had genuinely sought peace and carefully studied the
Emperor's reply, but that not finding in it satisfaction, Hungary would have to re-take up arms.
During all this time, Ràkòczy’s wife, Princess Charlott Amalie, had been held prisoner in the
convent. Now, suddenly, she was released, invited to the Court of Vienna, made much of by the
Empress and the Arch-Duchess. Lord Stepney informed Ràkòczy that the Emperor, being animated
by singular goodness, was willing to convey his wife to him, at his camp. Ràkòczy replied that,
being at war with the Emperor, he could ask nothing from him. Nevertheless, as he wrote also to his
wife, he did wish to see her, though he would engage himself to return her to Vienna if the Emperor
desired. She crossed the border into Hungary on 30 April, 1706.

32
 After so many years of separation, the couple met again in early July at Nyitr a, whence they
travelled together to Ersek-Ujvar, but not alone. She was accompanied by Count Wratislaw,
Chancellor of Bohemia, who had come to propose on behalf of the Emperor that, as a new
concession, Transylvania should be elevated to the rank of a sovereign principality, with seat on the
Council of German Princes; in somewhat humiliating circumstances, however, for he could not
recognise Ràkòczy's title as Prince.
His wife had evidently been counted upon to back up this proposition and to plead with him to
accept it. However, she did not. She thought that, even if her husband accepted the proposition, the
Emperor would resent having gone so far and take it out of him later.
A heart-breaking glimpse of one another ended in the leave-taking of husband and wife, on 13
July 1706; the Princess, as a prisoner, was conducted back to Vienna, or rather, towards Vienna. At
Karlsbad, she asked permission to ride on horseback, which being granted, she dashed away. The
escorting party was unable to capture her and she escaped into Saxony.
Ràkòczy had sent a reply by the Bohemian Chancellor, saying that he was not insisting that he,
himself, should be Prince of Transylvania, only upon the freedom of Transylvania to separate from
Austria. He would be willing to return to the authorities in Transylvania the Certification they had
given him of his election by them as Prince, if Austria would renounce its claim to rule the
Principality.
The Bohemian Chancellor was much impressed by the purity of Ràkòczy's attitude, and spoke
in his favour at Vienna.
The Emperor now sent Ràkòczy another visitor, his sister, Juliana, the Countess of Aspremont.
The meeting with his childhood companion affected him much, but though she tried to work out
some kind of solution, the result of her mission was again negative.
These two encounters, with his wife and his sister playing upon his emotions, so long
unexpressed, had been tantalising and painful for him; and would have been more so, had he known
the condition of his wife at their meeting.
On 17 November, 1706, Princess Ràkòczy gave birth to a baby daughter. As this was only four
months subsequent to her brief reunion with Prince Ràkòczy after six years of separation, the child
could not have been his. When, through a third party, he learned of the infant's birth, and early
death, in apparently suspicious circumstances, he wrote his wife a letter. It is written in French,
which, since she was German born, was plainly their common language. It is difficult to read, for
two reasons. One is that it is written on a very small sheet of paper, folded into four to make four
still smaller pages; paper may have been short in Transylvania, from whence he was writing. The
other reason is that his French is not quite that of France. In idiom, it is fluent and graceful, but the
spelling shows difficulty with the nasals and silent letters, and with grammatical gender and the
agreement of adjectives etc in respect of it. Hungarian has no nasals, no silent letters and no
grammatical gender, hence no making of adjectives etc agree with substantives or pronouns in
respect of it. But it is a remarkable letter, which has not, so far as I know, been reproduced before
(unless perhaps in Hungarian), and gives us so valuable an insight not only into the relationship but
into the mind and personality of Ràkòczy, that I shall do my best to translate it worthily:

'It could only be with pleasure that I learned of your escape, although the reasons which obliged
you to it are unknown to me, since Mr. Bonnine (?) has assured me, by return of the express (?)
by which I wished to send you money, that the Court had sent you several passports, and that
nothing prevented your having come to join me here if you had wished. However it happened,
it is at any rate good that you are out of the hands of the Germans, into which it is [probably
meaning would have been] certainly not my council you should have been reconducted,
particularly if your pregnancy had been known to me, but since you wished to hide it from me,
render, if you will, account to God for the death of your child, whose life you could have
conserved had you wished; but as for things done there is no remedy, it eases me to know you
have taken the route to Danzig, where you should be perfectly safe. The affairs of Poland are a
33
 little calmed. But I beg you, above all, to change, if you please, your manner of living, and not
to act as though you lived for yourself alone; particularly if you wish us to come together in this
country, where there is the love and the veneration of the people whom I govern, whereas it
must lead you, infallibly, to your ruin if you continue to be familiar with those with whom
familiarity is not suiting, and grave [or off-putting] with those with whom you should be more
familiar. It is not the infamous rumours spread about you by the Germans that will cause me to
cease to [illegible word, literally 'inir', perhaps for 'aimer', love] but the happiness for which I
would wish, one day to be with you, and to avoid the [illegible word, presenting the appearance
of mutui] in you [chez vous] that we have always given ourselves by the difference in our
manners of living. I would change mine with pleasure, by your complaisance, yet mine has
always served me well and saved me from many embarrassments, whereas yours has caused
you many troubles [chagrins]. You know that I am not of a jealous nature, but [words crossed
out], as you know there are certain chagrins that consist only in imagination are as prejudicial
to honour when they are well founded, if the public believe them. Therefore I beg you to
beware of the company of certain minor gentlemen who have always abused your natural
goodness, and have been good for nothing but to trick you; keep them as servitors, not as
masters in the house, who will chase out the other domestic servants at their fantasy and invite
a thousand troubling things. Do not, please, change your natural generosity into prodigality by
benefits out of reason, as otherwise you will always lack everything.
The Court of Vienna wishes to send on your furniture, but on condition I pay your debts, which
are unknown to me, seeing that [?] ecus which I gave you in Vienna before your departure must
have gone I do not know where, seeing that neither the horses nor the other purchases have
been paid for. Send me, I beg you, some light on this, as soon as you can. As also about the
poor doctor and other domestics you have taken with you.
'Mr de Bonnine will furnish you with money until I am able to send you someone to take care
of your house.'

No date appears on the letter but it is known to have been written on the same day as one sent
to somebody else, dated 23 February, 1707, from Munkàcs.
One may think this a very different kind of letter from what would have been expected, in the
circumstances. One might have expected a wronged husband to rage and rail, and, especially
considering his dignity and the conventions of the time, to write her off, refusing all further
congress. Instead, there is a letter that has the hallmark of a master of wisdom. Reproaches are kept
to a minimum. Concerning the offence against himself (as most people would see it), nothing is
said. But the murder of her child is an offence against God, and she needs to make her peace with
God. This said, there is the same sense as in Macbeth that 'Things done cannot be undone' and it is
therefore no good going on talking about it. It is not he who would have wished the child destroyed
for respectability's sake, but what matters, now, is her own governing of her life, in her own interest
spiritual, social and material. It is unbecoming conduct in Prince Ràkòczy's wife that she should
consort with his enemies—the general belief was that the father was an officer in the Imperial
army.1 Her natural generosity is recognised as a quality, though one which degenerates through lack
of discrimination into a softness laying her open to exploitation, not only sexually but in general, as
in the government of her household. These counsels are the expression of an abiding care for her—
apparent also in the acceptance of responsibility for her debts, though puzzled as to how
expenditure could have exceeded the money left with her—and above all, what one would expect to
be most precious to a woman guilty, wretched and humiliated by discovery, the assurance he would
like her back, if she cared to re-make her marriage.
He who wrote Macbefh wrote in another play: to be wise and love Exceeds man's might; that
dwells with gods above.' (Troilus and Cressida), III, ii, 164-5.
In Ràkòczy, that difficulty seems to have been overcome.

34
 To return to practical affairs, Ràkòczy used the winter to deal with economic problems. The
copper had not held its value, and there was need of silver. The Senate was asking him once again
to let it levy a tax. This time he agreed, but on condition it should not be in coin, which the peasants
hardly possessed, but in kind, the foodstuffs they cultivated or articles made by their hands. Not
only could such things be supplied with less hardship, but they could be collected and sold abroad,
to bring in the coins of which Hungary was so short.
Word reached him from Transylvania that the man he had left in charge was suspected of
treachery. Ràkòczy hoped an interview might clear up the grounds for suspicion, but it meant that
he had to go to Transylvania. Once back there, he called a Diet for April, 1707. Then it emerged
there was another trouble. One Lawrence Pekry, related through his wife to Thököly, was saying
that it was Thököly who should have been brought back from exile and made Prince. As ThSkoly
was by now of advanced years, Pekry perhaps had in mind to succeed his aging relative Ràkòczy,
he said, would have Transylvania governed by Hungarians, and he asked for restrictions on his
authority.
Ràkòczy replied that he would sooner renounce the throne of Transylvania than mount it
subject to the conditions proposed.
Louis XIV had always been a difficult ally, though his support was very necessary. His Most
Christian Majesty was still not too pleased by the numbers of Lutherans and Calvinists amongst
Ràkòczy's supporters, nor by the fact that amongst the French officers sent to him, Ràkòczy seemed
to be giving considerable responsibilities to two Huguenots, Riviere and Bonafoux.
The French king now sent word to Ràkòczy that, with regard to further help asked, he, as a
king, could not be formally the ally of anyone except a Sovereign. The Hungarian Confederates had
no Sovereign, and were regarded by their enemies as the rebellious subjects of the Emperor. If they
wanted a treaty with him, they must first pronounce the formal deposition of the Emperor. And
Prince Ràkòczy had not yet mounted the throne of Transylvania...
Ràkòczy, democratic to the core, had always rather hung back. Seeing, now, that the support of
Louis XIV, so important for all of them, depended on it, he made no further delays.
In a tent in a vast plain outside Maros-Vàsàrhely, on 5 April, 1707 in the presence of a great
assembly of clergy and nobles, Prince Francis Ràkòczy II was invested by the Bishop with the high
cap of the Princes of Transylvania, received from him the sceptre, swore the traditional oath, and
afterwards attended a Te Deum at a Catholic church nearby.
The assembly, before it broke up, conferred on Prince Francis Ràkòczy a new title, Pater
Patriae, Father of the Fatherland.
The Hungarian Confederation had sent a deputation into Transylvania to congratulate him, and
the Marquis Des Alleurs brought him a letter from Louis XIV, apparently full of promise.
Ràkòczy had now to return to Hungary, but broke his journey at Radnod, to accept the salute of
3,000 Sicules (a central European people), who passed in review before him armed with sticks.
From some of them he formed a cavalry regiment, to become part of the palace troops. He also
created a special company of 100 noble-guards, whom he placed under the command of Simon
Kemény. He wished, in addition, to create, on the model of medieval chivalries, an Order of the
Divine Providence, but affairs in Hungary called him back too fast.
The position of Louis XIV was weakening badly in relation to the Emperor, and it was looking
as though he would be obliged to sign a peace treaty. Ràkòczy wished to secure an assurance from
the French king that, in such a case, he would insist that recognition of his Princedom of
Transylvania and constitutional freedom of Hungary be included in the terms. Through the French
representative to the Confederation, the Baron de Vetésy, he sent Louis a message to this effect.
A Diet was convoked for 16 May, 1707, at Onod, at the junction of the Sojo and the Mermad,
under the shadow of the increasing Austrian strength relative to the weakening French. Ràkòczy,
loyal to his principle of tolerance for free speech, had allowed Austrian representatives to circulate
freely in Hungary during the peace negotiations, and had not expelled them when the armistice
ended. They were using this opportunity to make it known that the Emperor was now prepared to
35
treat all his fractious subjects with extraordinary generosity, providing they returned to the fold.
One of them, Christopher Okolicsànyi who had relatives in Turòc (the smallest of the districts into
which Hungary was divided), circulated a paper urging everyone to cease fighting in a war which,
he said, the chiefs were keeping up for their own ends.
Flooding of the rivers prevented many of the delegates from reaching Onod in time, and the
Diet did not open until 30 May, in a tent in the Köròn plain.
On 1 June, Ràkòczy read the Diet a resume of the Conference of NàgySzombat and set out the
position following its breakdown. He then explained the financial position, and asked the delegates
if they would contribute to the upkeep of the army. This suggestion was not received with
enthusiasm, and 10 June found finance still under discussion. Most thought there had been
insufficient rigour in collecting from the peasants. Some thought the minting of copper coins had
been a mistake, yet had nothing more practical to suggest.
Ràkòczy felt that they were hanging back, and asked them if they had seen and been influenced
by the paper emanating from Turòc, which had now been ciruclating in its neightbouring districts.
He showed them a copy, as proof that it had come into his own hands. If Turòc wished to act in line
with the propositions in this paper, he said, it was free to do so, but then it would have to cease to be
a member of the Hungarian Confederation, and be treated as having become part of the hostile
power.
The assembly remaining uneasily quiet, Ràkòczy added that, if the Confederation as a whole
felt as did Turòc, then he would renounce his office as Chief of the Confederation.
He turned, and was walking out of the tent, when the silence gave way to tumult. Someone
cried out, 'Better death of the calumniator than loss of the Prince.' Bercsenyi and Karolyi both drew
their swords. Christopher Okolicsànyi was wounded, but managed to escape. Others were too
heavily wounded to flee.
To stop the carnage, Ràkòczy turned back to face the assembly, calling out for 'order', and
demanded that there should be no violence, or rather, no further violence, against the delegates from
Turòc.
Order restored, Turòc was expelled from the Confederation, its seal broken, its standard torn,
and its territory shared out between the neighbouring districts of the Confederation.
On 14 June, 1707, by unanimous vote of the whole House (or rather tent), the Emperor was
deposed and Hungary declared an independent sovereign kingdom.
The election of a King was put off to the next Diet, without a date being fixed for it. Here,
surely, was a mistake. So long as the Confederation had been republican in form, Ràkòczy as its
Chief was its head. Now, he was in the position of a Prime Minister for a King who did not yet
exist; perhaps one should say, a Regent, without that title. The interregnum gave the enemies of the
new kingdom an opportunity to say that the delay in chosing an occupant for the throne betrayed
half-heartedness, and irresolution.
It was at this moment that the Tsar Peter the Great of Russia intervened. King Charles XII of
Sweden had not prevailed upon him. On the contrary, it was he who had deposed Stanislav
Leszczynski, whom the Swedish King had seated on the Polish throne after Ràkòczy refused it.
Now, the Tsar Peter asked R&k6czy to be King of Poland. It was strange for Ràkòczy to find
himself offered the throne of this foreign country first by the one side and then by the other. He had
always tried to keep out of the conflict between Sweden and Russia.
He replied courteously to the Tsar, saying that as Poland was, like Hungary and most of the
kingdoms in the centre of Europe, an electoral kingdom, he did not see how he could become King
of Poland unless the Polish people had elected him, which was not the case. This was perhaps a
quibble, for it was obvious that just as Charles XII had seen to it that the Poles elected Stanislav
Leszczynski, so Peter would now ensure that they elected Ràkòczy. Peter replied that if Ràkòczy
refused the Polish Crown, he would be obliged to offer it to Prince Eugene of Savoy, the ally of the
Emperor. This would greatly strengthen Austria's power against Hungary, whereas, with Poland his
own, Ràkòczy would, on the contrary, be better placed to help Hungary. This was a kind of
36
blackmail. Ràkòczy wrote to Charles XII, telling him of the proposition which had been made to
him and asking what help Sweden would give him if, irritated by his refusal, the Tsar Peter should
attack him. Charles XII replied that he would re-enter Poland and chase Tsar Peter out. In fact, Peter
simply did not take Ràkòczy’s refusal seriously. Probably it was inconveivable to him that anybody
would refuse the opportunity to become a King. He sent a letter saying that he respected Ràkòczy's
scruples and would procure his election by the Poles and, without waiting for an answer, convoked
a Diet at Lublin, which, on 11 August, 1707, elected and proclaimed Prince Francis Rdkdczy King
of Poland.
A deputation of Poles and Russians came to Munkàcs to place the certificate of his election in
Ràkòczy's hands. Ràkòczy, however, refused to receive it. He explained that, as King of Poland, he
would be expected to live on good terms with the Emperor, and that this would not be consonant
with the terms of the oath he had sworn when accepting the Crown of the Principality of
Transylvania, or with his duty to the Hungarian Confederation.
He sent Bercsényi and others to Peter at Warsaw, suggesting that Leszczynski be replaced on
the throne, that Peter sign a truce with Charles XII and use his influence with the Emperor to give
the Crown of Hungary to Maximilian of Bavaria, leaving to himself Transylvania. He sent also to
Leszczynski, offering to mediate with Peter the Great, if with his support he would re-ascend the
Polish throne. Leszczynski haughty from weakness, replied ungraciously that he was King of
Poland by Grace of God and needed no grace from the great of this earth.
The Crown of Hungary was, now, offered to Maximilian of Bavaria, who lived in France. But
he thought it too dangerous to accept, thereby betraying that he did not think Louis XIV would
sufficiently support him. Worse, Louis XIV, having insisted on the formal deposition of the
Emperor, both in Transylvania and in Hungary, as a precondition of his concluding with either a
binding treaty of alliance, failed, now that this step had been taken, to speak further of a treaty. By
way of compensation he offered Ràkòczy an estate in Poland. Perhaps he did not know that
Ràkòczy had just refused the crown of Poland. If he did it was insulting. For Hungary, all he could
offer was to include it in the peace which he, himself, should be obliged to make with the Emperor.
Even this promise was not kept.
When it became evident that France had abandoned them, Hungarian morale foundered. The
many Germans who had attached themselves to Ràkòczy's army, now left it for the Emperor. Even
Hungarian garrisons ceded to the Austrian troops. The Pope Clement XI, issued a Bull forbidding
Catholics, under pain of excommunication, to take further part in the rebellion against the Emperor.
Also, Cardinal Kollonics, who had died in January 1707, had been replaced as Primate of Hungary
by a convert from Protestantism, much less disposed than Kollonics to tolerate the Protestant
elements in the country.
Peter the Great had wanted Ràkòczy on the throne of Poland but was not willing to help him in
Hungary.
It was in these conditions that the Emperor judged the moment propitious to speak again of an
armistice. He called a Diet, at Eperjes. for 29 February, 1708, and invited Ràkòczy. Ràkòczy
declined, but issued to those who wished to attend papers authorising them to pass.
Almost all the clergy went, and the nobles from the towns re-taken by the Austrians. They
began by talking about the religious freedom desired by the Protestants, but could hardly settle
anything without the Confederates taking part. An outbreak of plague then made it undesirable to
continue the meeting.
Ràkòczy, from his headquarters at Eger, was now preparing an army of 20,000 to 22,000 men,
with whom he hoped, in the autumn, to enter Silesia. There he would join Prince Maximilian of
Bavaria, who had now agreed to accept the Crown of Hungary, if France furnished aid. In a council
of war held on 30 July, all his chiefs, with one exception, urged him, to make the attack
immediately. The army was ready and eager, and it might not be possible to maintain its zeal until
the autumn. Bercsényi, who had just returned from Warsaw, was of the same opinion.

37
 Ràkòczy accepted the advice of his chiefs of staff, and set off through the Carpathians towards
the valley of the Vag, where his Generals thought they could gain an easy victory over Heister, who
had been sent back into Hungary. Ràkòczy won some ground near Banka.
Then, on 3 August, 1708, they engaged the enemy at Trencsen. At first they seemed to be
gaining. Heister retreated within the fortifications. However, a traitor indicated to him the weak
point in the Confederate lines. Heister attacked, was repulsed, and attacked again causing some
disarray among the peasants. Ràkòczy, seeing that there was trouble, pressed to the front, but his
horse, Pandour, stumbled as he leaped a ditch, throwing him forward, so that he hit his head. Seeing
him lie without movement, some of his men gathered him up, and carried him into a house. He had
a wound on one temple and was for some while unconscious.
The rest of his army, not knowing that he was being tended, thought he was dead. Bereft of
their leader, all the fight went out of them. After they had been routed, scarcely half of them could
be reassembled.
Ràkòczy later wrote on his Mémoires:

There was never a rout more shameful or more pitable, or of more disasterous
consequences...Nothing prospered after that unhappy day.'

News of the defeat spead and was exaggerated. Ràkòczy's whole army was said to have been
wiped out. Panic caused defections. Heister pursued with relentless cruelty, according to a German
work (Engel: Geschichte) cutting off the ears and noses of prisoners. Eger, Eperjes, Bartfia and the
mining towns fell. France ceased to send any aid at all; it was not only that she was, sending no
men, but no goods or funds. Nobody in Hungary doubted that they were beaten. Nevertheless,
Ràkòczy managed to call a Diet which liberated the serfs who fought for the Confederates at Saros-
Patak. Appeals to Charles XII of Sweden and Tsar Peter both proved vain, and an Austrian royal
commissioner, Gabriel Tolvay, who had been for a longtime a prisoner, was sent back to Vienna to
suggest terms, on the part of the Confederates.
The Emperor offered an amnesty to all who had taken part in the revolt, excepting Ràkòczy and
Bercsenyi. The arrival of a new Ambassador from England, Lord Peterborough, may have had
something to do with this generosity, for his message to the Emperor was that England wished to
see an end to the Hungarian troubles, and would therefore like him not to be too difficult about the
terms. In consequence, as he was so much hated by the Hungarians, the Emperor Joseph recalled
Heister and replaced him with a more popular person, a Hungarian General in the Imperial service,
Count Janos Pàlffy.
Ràkòczy, for his part, was trying to mediate a peace between King Charles XII of Sweden and
Tsar Peter of Russia, as the war between them was dividing parties both friendly to himself. This,
however, was not an easy task since the Swedish King had twice rejected peace overtures from
Peter. Also, his puppet King Stanislav Leszcziriski showed no realisation that in all likelihood he
would have to step down for Frederick Augustus of Saxony who Peter intended to make Augustus
II of Poland.
On Sunday 15 September, 1709 the Hungarian Ambassador to Poland, Sandor Nedeczky, gave
a banquet in Lublin in honour of the Tsar, and placed at the head of the table, on Tsar Peter's right,
Princess Ràkòczy. If she had been unfaithful to her husband in the past, she was now certainly
trying to do her best for him in procuring Russia's friendship. Other notable Russians at the table
were Prince Dolgorouky, Peter's Prime Minister, and Prince Golovkin, his Counsellor or Minister
for Foreign Affairs.14
At the beginning of 1710, Ràkòczy unexpectedly acquired several Swedish regiments which,
having been beaten by the Russians at Poltava, found themselves adrift in Transylvania. They
rallied to him and engaged the Emperor's troops at Vadkert, but did not prevail.
In the autumn of 1710 Ràkòczy initiated an armistice and authorised Karolyi, as Commander-
in-Chief of his forces, to make the arrangements for it.
38
 As regards Hungary (exclusive of Transylvania), he was advised that the Hungarians would be
willing to accept the Emperor as their King, but he suggested this should be provisional upon the
assurance of religious liberty, as in England.
Transylvania he had always considered as a state separate from Hungary, an independent
principality, which should retain its independence. Nevertheless, if his person was the obstacle, he
would not wish to continue to rule it, but would be willing to retire into private life once the
independence of the Principality from the Empire had been recognised by the Emperor. He could
not, however, abdicate unless and until the sovereignity of the Principality of Transylvania was
recognised. This was because it must be as head of state that he entered into any discussions that
were to be held with the Emperor, concerning the terms upon which the fighting was to end and a
peace concluded.15
The one point for which he stuck out, however, was the one which the Emperor refused to
recognise, that Transylvania, whosoever should be its Prince, was an independent Principality and
no part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Ràkòczy convoked both the Hungarian Senate and Transylvanian Senate on 12 February, 1709
at Salànk. The Hungarians thought that they should ask for peace on the conditions that had been
offered at Nagy-szombat. The Transylvanians agreed, only they did not wish to accept Ràkòczy’s
offer to abdicate from the throne of the Principality, in order to make things easier for them. Rather
than allow him to be the sacrifice, they would die with him, or follow him into exile.
Faced with this show of devotion, Ràkòczy did not abdicate but said that he would withdraw,
so that their deliberations would not be affected by his presence. He could go either to Munkàcs or
to Poland. Turkey had just declared war on Russia, which perhaps explained why the Tsar Peter had
sent them no help, and the situation threatened to make their eastern borders unquiet. Both the
Hungarian and Transylvanian deputies voted Unanimously that they would prefer him to go to
Poland.
Ràkòczy gave to Kàrolyi the command of what remained of the troops and confided to him
charge of the further negotiation. With Bercsényi, Anthony Esterhazy and a few others who were
accompanying him into his exile, he rode out of Hungary on 14 February, 1711, never again to re-
enter it. As they passed through Munkàcs, a gipsy caught at Ràkòczy’s coat, sobbing, dolorously,
'Leave, leave, Prince; here you say good-bye to happiness to enter shadow.'
A month later, on 14 March, 1712, Kàrolyi took a secret oath of fidelity to the Holy Roman
Emperor, but afterwards, overcome with remorse, went into Poland to show Ràkòczy the terms of
the proposed treaty and ask him to call a Diet. Some of the faithful thought he should rather have
Kàrolyi arrested. This he did not; but was still of the opinion that the Senate should decide without
him. He declared that he would, however, be willing to call a Diet at Huszt. Kàrolyi returned to
Hungary. The Senate now decided that, having been vested with full powers by Ràkòczy, Kàrolyi
could call a Diet on his own. This he did, not at Huszt but a Szatmar.
Ràkòczy sent the assembly a letter, warning against placing too much trust in the promises of
Vienna, but they were hardly in a condition to listen. On 27 April, in the absence of Ràkòczy,
Kàrolyi opened the Diet. On 29 April, the Peace of Szatmar was signed. On 1 May the officers of
the army took the oath of loyalty to the Holy Roman Emperor and a Te Deum was sung to celebrate
the conclusion of hostilities, and the peace of Szatmar was signed on the following day. The liberty
of the Protestants was guaranteed.
Ràkòczy, if he took the oath within three weeks, would benefit from the amnesty, and all his
goods and domains would be restored to him, excepting for his fortresses.
Ràkòczy did not accept the amnesty. Before him stretched the life of an exile. He was thirty-
five years old. What might have been a studious life had been interrupted by a call to action. For
eight years, he had led and held together a numerous army, without the help of a uniform, that great
aid to unification and discipline. He had ruled it with courtesy, and, though they were facing an
enemy guilty of many atrocious acts, there had been no revenge in kind. Finally, though their arms
had not prevailed, he had left his people in better state than he found them. This is rare with
39
rebellions, which normally end in a blood-bath. The Austrians had learned their lesson. From now
on, they were to treat the Hungarians with, at least, more respect.
Today, Ràkòczy is still Hungary's great hero. But in 1956 the Russians entered Budapest, and
whether or not as an effect of their influence, his campaign is now regarded less in national than in
social terms. It is emphasised that he fought the Hapsburg domination not because it was foreign
but because it oppressed the people; the democracy of his rule is stressed and his most significant
achievement is seen to be that he started the liberation of serfs.
Ràkòczy's wife, who since her escape had been living at a convent at Jaroslav, now came to
meet him. Yet they were not to be together for long. The Tsar was coming to Javorow, for talks
with a French envoy, with a view to a possible alliance between Russia and France. Ràkòczy was
invited to join in the talks. He left the Princess at Visoczkò, and went to Javorow.
Sweden had over-reached herself in attacking Russia. After Poltava, the Tsar had begun to feel
strong. But his 30,000 men were now beset by 50,000 Turks, and he was looking for allies. In
Vienna the Emperor Joseph I had died of an attack of smallpox on 17 April, 1710—just before the
peace with the Hungarian Confederates was signed—and both Tsar Peter and Louis XIV were
waiting to see the consequence of the succession of his brother Charles, who had to come back from
Spain (eventually crowned Charles III at Frankfurt, on 22 December, 1711). Ràkòczy had tried to
help, by sending a man Papay, to mediate on behalf of the Tsar with the Sultan Ahmed III, but
Papay was captured, and the Tsar thought it politic to disown him. The conference with the French
envoy seems to have had little result politically, but Ràkòczy's position was discussed. In Poland, he
had been received with rapturous enthusiasm, even by King Augustus II whom the Tzar had put
back on the throne since Ràkòczy refused it. On the other hand, Germans sent into Poland by the
Emperor, with an obvious mission to disrupt harmony, were making it impossible for him to settle
there. The Tsar Peter offered him an estate in the Ukraine, which would be sufficient for the
maintenance of all those exiled with him. But it was far away, and Ràkòczy thought that he and his
friends would feel isolated amongst a people strange to them. He preferred to go to France, the
culture of which attracted him.
The Hungarians who would stay in Poland, he left in the charge of Bercsényi and then set out
down the Vistula, by boat. Indeed, the way was long, slow and not without its dangers. Near, to
Warsaw, the boat itself was menaced. At Thoru they were held up for a long time. The Tsar gave
himself up to pleasures that were not to the taste of Ràkòczy, and were an embarrassment to him.
Chaste himself, he hoped his abstention did not offend his powerful host. Eventually, the Tsar went
to take the waters at Karlsbad, leaving the Tsarina behind with Ràkòczy. Ràkòczy did not like this.
In Karlsbad, the Tsar would be in the Emperor's dominions, and might be won over to his side. Or if
not that, he might, on his return, misinterpret the sympathy being shown him by the Tsarina. He
wanted to get out of this situation and push on to Danzig and thence to Prussia. Happily, the Tsar,
whom he informed, did not oppose this project, so he said good-bye to the Tsarina, changed his
Hungarian clothes for French, and continued his journey alone, still by boat. Only this time, nobody
aboard knew his identity.
A few more days afloat brought him to Danzig, and then it was in the name of the Count of
Saros (one of his ancient domains) that he obtained a safe-conduct into Prussia. In this Prussian port
he felt safe from the Emperor's reach, but the Prussian King, though he had seemed welcoming
from a distance, now did not appear eager to receive him. At Elbing, (near Danzig), he met the Tsar
again, who now urged Ràkòczy to return with him to Russia and make his home in St. Petersburg.
Ràkòczy, however, felt that this would not be in his line. The ways of his Russian hosts were not
his. He spoke no Russian, and although the aristocracy spoke French, it would be strange not to
understand the speech heard on the roads and fields. He refused the Tsar's invitation, but remained
at Elbing so long as he was there. When Peter left for Konigsberg, Ràkòczy returned to Danzig.
Ràkòczy had made up his mind to go to France, but it was not easy. There were no passenger
services, and French ships did not enter the Baltic. He entered into negotiations with the envoy of
the English Queen Anne, and obtained permission to travel aboard a British ship. It was the first
40
time that Ràkòczy had been on the sea, and, as it was in November, 1712, that his journey began,
the short, winter days and heavy fog combined to make the passage through the close-packed Baltic
islands dismal and hazardous. Worse, news that Ràkòczy was aboard had spread through Denmark
and Sweden, both now on good terms with the Emperor, and emissaries were sent to seize him. At
Holm, the ship was boarded, under pretext that the search was being made on behalf of the
Customs. Ràkòczy went down into the hold. The Captain of the ship said that they had no foreigner
aboard, and eventually the searchers gave up.
Off the coat of Jutland, a violent storm nearly sank the ship. Ràkòczy regretted not having left
his affairs in better order, for he thought they were going down. Somehow they passed from the
Baltic into the North Sea, where the wind blew still harder. It was the first time that Ràkòczy had
ever seen open sea. On his Italian tour, in his teens, he had seen the calm blue Mediterranean, but
the North Sea storm was an addition to his experience. The ship was, in fact, driven off its course,
to the north. It was thought, aboard, that they would find themselves landing at Edminburgh; but
then she was blown south again. Grey through the mists, Ràkòczy glimpsed for the first time the
coast of England. They put in through what he was told was the mouth of the River Humber, and
docked at Hull.
Here the Captain was informed Hull was smitten by the plague, and no one from the ship was
permitted to land. Also quarantined was a French ship, and it was elicited that the Captain would be
willing to take Ràkòczy to France.
From his own quarantined ship, Ràkòczy wrote a letter to the English Queen Anne, asking her
permission to transfer himself to the French ship. The letter was carried by Baron Saint-James, and
Her Majesty's consent was received. Ràkòczy was rowed to the French ship, but she had to wait for
thirty days, during which he still had Hull, a grey huddle, to look at, before at last there was a
favourable wind to take them out. So ended Ràkòczy's single direct contact with England.
He had hoped to land at Dunkirk, which Berscényi and his men had reached by the long
overland route, or failing that at Calais. However the wind drove the ship on, and they were not able
to dock until at Dieppe. At last Ràkòczy set foot in France, that land where he felt himself not quite
a stranger, so much had he read of its literature.
He went to Rouen, as the capital of Normandy, where he was welcomed by the Duke of
Luxumburg and the civic authorities. Fatigued and unwell after the strains of the voyage, he was
obliged to remain at Rouen for a few days. Parties and fetes were organised for him, but in order not
to cause embarrassment to the country that had taken him in, he did not use his title of Prince but let
himself be styled, as at Danzig, as the Comte de Saros.
As soon as he was well enough, he set out again, for Paris. The journey took him five days.
There he took a lodging in the city whilst looking for a house somewhere just outside. The curiosity
of the Parisians to see the Prince was enormous, and he was forced to remain indoors to avoid being
surrounded in the street. He had written at once to King Louis XIV, to inform him of his arrival.
Louis XIV sent him a series of emissaries, finally the Marquis deTorcy, who escorted him to
Versailles. As he was not a reigning monarch, Louis could not give him an official welcome, but the
now aging Sun King came down the intimate "small staircase" to meet him, and afterwards
Ràkòczy was introduced to the Princes and Princesses.
Ràkòczy must afterwards have gone to spend some time in Chignon. This we know from some
unpublished letters he wrote to a Cardinal Carolo Gualterio. The Cardinal had written to him upon
his arrival in France, to welcome him and express sympathy. Ràkòczy's letter to him of 10 May,
1714 is dated from Chignon.18
Louis assigned to Ràkòczy a pension of 100,000 livres a year for himself, personally, and
40,000 livres a year for his suite. These sums represent, respectively, £300,000 and £120,000 in the
purchasing power of English money of today.
According to the impression of Saint-Simon (not the philosopher but his father, Louis de
Rouvroy, Due de Saint-Simon), Ràkòczy 'saw the King easily, during public hours and very rarely
without the King seeking speech with him, and alone in his study whenever he wished, though he
41
was very discreet about this... Ragotzi was very tall, yet not too much so, well-covered without
being plump, very well proportioned, and very shapely, and very noble, very imposing, without the
least crudity... he was a wise man, modest, controlled... of great politeness, but very distinguished,
perfectly at ease with everybody, at the same time as being—and it is rare these characteristics go
together—very dignified, with nothing of self-glorification in his manner ... A very honest man,
straight, true, extremely brave. God-fearing, without showing it, without hiding it either, with much
simplicity. He gave much to the poor, but secretly; he gave much time to prayer; had a numerous
household, which he ruled as to its morals, its expenses and payment of its debts, and all that
gently... He was a very good man, and very likeable; able, also, in matters of commerce, but one
remained forever astonished that he had been elected the leader of a great movement, which had
created so much uproar in the world.' From the pen of a usually peevish and sarcastic critic of his
fellow men, this is praise indeed.
There are also some tributes from women. The grave Madame de Maintenant, to whom Louis
XIV was secretly married, wrote, 'He looks at everything with attention, and appears wise in
everything he does.' The Duchesse d'Orleans, wife of the King's brother, was to write in 1713, 'He is
a fine man, of much spirit; he has read a great deal, and seems to know about everything; he asked
to see my jewelry and gems, and it was with great pleasure that I showed them to him. 19
The Protestants in France naturally made much of him. Louis tried to do what he could for
Transylvania in the Treaty of Rastadt, though it was not much. The Hungarians Ràkòczy had
brought with him were all well established in France. Esterhazy and the son of Bercsényi both
formed regiments of Hussars (the latter was to become under Louis XV a Field-Marshal). The son
of Esterhazy later achieved fame in his attempt to protect Louis XVI during the flight to Varennes.
Ràkòczy rented a house in Passy, then a village, overlooking the Seine opposite to where the
Eiffel Tower now stands. At that time, it was stijl country. However, he was much at Court, often
with the Comte de Toulouse, a man whom Saint-Simon assures us was of very good character.
The winter passed, between Passy and Versailles. He rose with the Court, and attended parties;
and he went for walks. He went with the Court on its visits to Fonainebleau and to Marly. At Marly,
he stayed some time in the small house which the Comte de Toulouse owned, right on the Seine.
Here he stayed through the following autumn, afterwards moving to spend the winter in Clagny, to
be nearer Versailles.
His thoughts, however, turned a good deal to those he had left behind, especially his family.
His children, of course, were still prisoners of the Emperor. It is not clear why his wife could not
now join him, but perhaps one underestimates the dangers of the long journey for a woman. The
passage from Poland had not been especially easy for Ràkòczy himself; in her convent, at least she
was safe.
Nevertheless, his present life did not satisfy him. On 14 August, 1714, he was walking with the
Duchesse de Bourbon and some others in the Foret de Fontainebleau when they passed a Carmelite
monastery and went into its church. Vespers were being said and Holy Communion given. Ràkòczy
kneeled, and after his companions had withdrawn he remained. When he rejoined him, they teased
him, but he said, 'If it is fitting for subjects to kneel before the King, is it not for the creature before
the Creator?'
During Advent, he went back and listened to the sermons regularly. He decided to observe the
fast during the forty days of Lent, which he had never done before.
There was also a practical problem. He did not'wish to live for ever on the King's pension. Yet
to renounce it and to live in poverty would not be for the dignity of the Hungarian exiles or of the
cause for which he had fought. A religious retreat would be the answer. After some discussion with
the Augustins, they suggested that he should stay in a small monastery in the Foret of Saint-
Germain, which he had sometimes passed when riding with the Due de Bourbon. But precisely
because this was known to his friends he did not think it a good choice. He wanted a retreat more
remote, where his contemplations would not be disturbed.

42
 He was riding from Clagny to Marly when a monk came up to him with a letter. He read it. It
was from a captain of artillery in his one-time French legion. The captain had entered a monastery
in Flanders, and from there had moved to one in Angoumois, which had been burned down. He
wanted to enter the Camaldules, and asked Ràkòczy for a letter to the Superior.
Ràkòczy did not merely write the letter of introduction requested. He wondered if this would be
the place for him, and sent a man to ask for a room to be prepared for him. Giving up the visit to
Marly, he reached Grossbois during the last days of Holy Week. On the Saturday after Good Friday
he returned to the Court, to pay his respects to the King, who had been informed of his absence, and
explained his retreat. He was persuaded to accompany the King to Marly, but was back at Grossbois
for Whitsun, and his life was for a time divided between the Court and the monastery.
He accepted an invitation from the Due de Bourbon to visit him in his own Chateau at
Chantilly, and promised the Due de Conti to go on to see him at Isle-Adam, from where he would
go on to join the Comte de Toulouse at Fontainebleau; but at Chantilly he heard the news of the
sharp decline in the King's strength. As the King wished it, he attended the concert of Saint-Louis,
where he spoke with a number of courtiers, all very anxious. Then he went on to Grossbois, where,
a few days later, he received information that the King had passed away, on 1 September, 1715, just
five days short of his seventy-seventh birthday.
The Sun-King had reigned for almost three quarter of a century. His eldest son and that son's
son had predeceased him. The heir, his second great-grandson, who must be crowned as Louis XV,
was a little child of five.
Philippe d'Orltans, brother of Louis XIV, whose mother had shown Ràkòczy her jewels, was
appointed Regent, until Louis XV should come of age, in 1723.
Ràkòczy went to the funeral of Louis XIV, and after a suitable delay paid his respects to the
Regent. He did not, however, care for the company in which he found him.
Louis XIV, thwarted in his early love for Marie Mancini, had taken one mistress after another.
With his last love, however, everything had changed. Madarne de Maintenant was a pious woman,
and he was unable to make her his mistress. Though his Queen's death had left him a widower, and
so free to marry her, she was a commoner, and therefore he would not make her his Queen. But he
married her, and although the marriage was secret in their lifetimes, her influence on him, and
through him on the Court, was chastening. It was in this last, much sobered period that Ràkòczy had
entered the Court of the Sun King. He had not seen him in his vain worst.
The Regent surrounded himself with women of a low order, prostitutes rather than Royal
mistresses, and that chameleon, the character of the Court, changed its colour accordingly. Ràkòczy
no longer found it to his taste, and totally withdrew into his monastery of Grossbois.
From now on, he was minded to pay court only to 'the King of Kings'. The Comte de Toulouse,
however, sometimes came to visit him, and they went out riding in the Forest of Fontainebleau. The
Marechal de Tesse, who had a little house at Grossbois, passed hours with Ràkòczy, in 'spiritual
studies, prayer and religious exercises' as the latter writes.
There is also an interesting letter of Madame, the Duchesse d'Orleans (the Regent's mother)
who had heard that: 'Prince Ràkòczi lives five or six leagues from Paris in a monastery of monks
called Camaldules, whose rule is as strict as that of the Chartreux; he lives amongst these monks as
though he were one of them, takes part in their prayers and in their vigils, and he often fasts. It must
be that he has much suffered internally.'
He was reading a great deal. In 1715, he tells us, he read De importantia salutis ('Of the
Importance of Health'), which greatly benefited him, and helped him to know himself better. He
also read Saint Augustin, Thomas Aquinus and Bossuet. It was the Confessions of Saint Augustin
that gave him the idea of writing his reflections, also, a task to which he only settled at Christmas,
1716, though in the light of the future, it is the book on health which will seem significant.
But before settling to begin the writing of his Mimoires that Christmas, he prepared himself by
a specially rigorous retreat, during which he examined his entire life, and at the end of which he
made a general confession, and it was from this time that he dated his conversion. By March, 1717,
43
he had finished the history of the events of 1700, and by May he had brought the story up to the end
of 1703. The rest was to come later. The Mémoires are not merely a chronicle of the affair in
Hungary, but contain deeper thoughts. Thus, at the end of 1719, he wrote:

'My God, you find me at the end of this year according to your will. I am deprived of my wife
and of my children. My wife suffers, and I cannot go to her aid, because of the insurmountable
obstacles preventing our correspondence. My sons are in the hands of my persecutors, and you
alone, know, my God, how they are bringing them up. 1 know no more of them than if they did
not live. O Lord, father of the poor and of orphans, come to our aid, according to your holy will
and just decrees. Enlighten and sustain my wife, so that she may bear with patience the trials
your hand has brought her. Inspire those who educate my sons to teach them to know You and
to perform the works for which You have had them born. Of myself, I can do nothing,
excepting, in despite of my unworthiness, to pray for them every day . . .

Ràkòczy’s years of contemplation at Grossbois were interrupted by news from the outside
world. Austria and Turkey were at war, and Venice had sided with Austria. Turkey had invaded
first Peloponnesia then Hungary, where they were in conflict with Prince Eugene's forces. The
attempts of the British and Dutch Ambassadors to mediate were rejected. The Turks were seeking
aid from the Hungarian exiles. Already they were in touch with Bercsényi and his group in Poland.
It was during Holy Week that Ràkòczy was brought a letter from the Sultan. He was half inclined to
wait until after Easter to open it. But on 24 March, he broke the seal and read it. The Sultan
believed that if he would come to their aid, there would be a general uprising in Hungary, capable
of throwing the Austrians out. The letter concluded 'Hurry!'
Ràkòczy did not wish for a useless bloodbath. He made conditions: three and a half million
thalers to raise an army composed of Christians, for he did not wish to command a Mohammedan
army. All rights of Hungary and Transylvania must be respected, and Turkey must bind herself not
to appropriate territories or fortresses that her men might occupy during the fighting. The Sultan
must treat with him as an ally and not a vassal. Time did not permit the establishment of a formal
treaty, though Papay, his envoy, expressed himself sure the Sultan would agree to these conditions.
On the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Ràkòczy had an interview with the
Regent, who was somewhat dubious as to his setting out without a formal treaty, but recognised the
advantage for France, and assured him that France would always be open for him to re-enter.
In Paris, he received a message from the Tsar Peter, also warning him of the danger of the
project, yet assuring him of his benevolent intervention, as soon as a peace had been signed between
Russia and Austria. He was trying to conclude a defensive alliance with France and Prussia; this
was in fact signed at Amsterdam on 4 August, 1717.
Some warned Ràkòczy against counting too much on the Hungarians. After they had renounced
their independence and signed their re-integration into the Empire, they had declared Rakdczy,
since his rejection of the amnesty, a traitor to the Kingdom and Empire, and proclaimed him an
outlaw. All his estates and goods were confiscate and anyone was authorised to seize him, at cost of
whatever violence, to bring him for 'merited punishment'. Transylvania, only, had shown more
firmness, refusing to confiscate the estates of Ràkòczy and his colleagues. In Hungary, morale
seemed to have been completely broken and the situation was deplorable. Ràkòczy, however, did
not hold the Hungarians' defection against them. He seems to have thought that they were merely
worn out, and could revive. At any rate, he thought that what he had been offered was providential
opportunity, which it was not for him to reject.
He was not without cruel doubts, but after a retreat of eight days to Grossbois before the
Assumption, to pray for strength and guidance, he set out, on 16 August, 1717.
He passed through Paris, and after saying good-bye there and at Fontainebleau to many friends
who tried to restrain him, descended quickly to Lyons, where he paused briefly, then followed the
Rhone down to Marseilles. Here he did not enter the town, but found in a village nearby the
44
monastery de Chartreux, where, presenting himself under an assumed name, he asked for lodging
for three days, over the Feast of the Nativity (September 8). However, he was recognised there by a
former officer, who had often seen him during his youth in Vienna, and all the monks gathered
around Ràkòczy to give him comfort, by which he felt supported. All the way from Paris, he had
been pursued by messengers bringing him bad news and begging him to return: Belgrade had fallen
to the enemy, the Turks were being beaten, Sardinia was in the hands of the Spaniards ...
There were delays. Ràkòczy was to sail from near the Res d'Hy^res, and went there to await the
arrival of the Aga from the Sultan. Whilst waiting he sent Papay to King Philip of Spain to ask if he
would be interested in an aliance for the protection of Christians in the east.
The Aga arrived. Rakdczy boarded the Ange Gabriel, taking Bercsényi, and all his men, and
sailed on 15 September.
The Due de Saint-Simon wrote in his Memoires:

It is inconceivable that man who, having lived through so many tempests, had found such a safe
harbour, should again cast himself to the mercy of the waves.'

On 10 October, Ràkòczy disembarked at Gallipoli. He sent emissaries to Adrianople and

Constantinople to announce his arrival. The Grand-Vizier brought him not the three and a half
million thalers for which he had asked (upwards of eight million £s in purchasing power of today)
but only four thousand, insufficient to reimburse him even for the expenses of the passage. With the
escort of the Aga, he and his men began their journey inland. The road lay along the side of a river
and was thronged with Turks, who hailed Ràkòczy as a King come from a far-off land to help them.
Indeed, they looked to Ràkòczy as though they needed help; to be plain, they looked hungry. If he
had known the Sultan had already engaged in talks with the Emperor, he would not have gone
forward another step.
On 17 October, 1717, they reached Adrianople (modern Edirne). The quarters he and his men
were offered were so inferior as to constitute a slight and cause suspicion something was wrong.
Ràkòczy regretted having left his ship. It was still at Megara, and he was half tempted to go back,
even secretly, and re-embark.
It was not until 4 February, 1718, that he was received by the Sultan Ahmed III. His words,
however, seemed reassuring: 'Do not doubt the protection and aid of the Sublime Porte. Guests are
always received with honour, and you are one who will always be welcomed with the most
distinction.'
From King Philip V of Spain he received, on 15 March, an envoy, Boissemens, assuring him
that Spain would not make peace with Austria unless Transylvania were restored to the Prince. The
presence of this Spanish envoy increased his prestige, and on 13 May the Grand-Vizier Ibrahim
received them both together. Nevertheless, a treaty was not concluded, and there was no breath of
action. Everything seemed to be strangely at a standstill.
Ràkòczy wrote to the Duke of Cellamare, Spanish Ambassador to the Court of France, but the
letter was captured by the Austrians, who showed it to the Pope, Clement XI, as proof that a pillar
of the Catholic faith was in relation with the Turks. Boissemens was recalled, which pained
Ràkòczy. It was a sign to the Turks that they could not count on Spain to mount a diversion.
Ràkòczy began to fear that if the Sultan signed a peace with the Emperor, he would simply hand
him over, and he thought, again, to make his escape. Yet on Whitsunday, the Grand-Vizier called to
assure him he would be making a mistake in leaving Turkey. Ràkòczy expressed a wish to go to
Constantinople. Opposition was placed in his path. In Constantinople he would learn too much. He
might learn that a Peace with Austria had already been signed, on 21 July, after seventy days of
negotiation.
The Treaty of Passzarovicz, the most favourable Austria had ever concluded with Turkey, was
sedulously concealed from Ràkòczy. He was at last granted permission to go to Constantinople, the
modern Istambul, but, the city having been ravaged by fire, was assigned lodging in the village of
45
Jenikey, nearby. He sent his luggage on ahead, and fixed his departure from Adrianople for 16
August. When he asked for his passport, he was told it would not be delivered until all the
Hungarians left together.
Angered, Ràkòczy said he would not remain an hour longer in Adrianople, and that, not having
a carriage in which to depart, he would put up a tent in the wilderness outside the town. The Turkish
official tried to calm him, assuring him there had been some kind of muddle. In the end, he left
Adrianople on 13 August. A year had passed since he left his spiritual retreat at Grossbois, much
regretted.
The village near Constantinople, Jenikey, proved wretched. The houses, or rather hovels, had
neither windows nor doors. Yet it was not the unworthiness of the accommodation that troubled
Ràkòczy so much as what it gave him to suspect.
It was towards the end of September that he learned the worst. He had been betrayed, and was
likely, with those who had come with him, to be handed over to execution by the Austrians. To add
to his anguish, news reached him that his wife, whom he had thought safe in her convent, had, on
the insistence of the Austrian envoy to Poland, been obliged to leave, on the ground that she was in
correspondence with her husband. This was not even the case. But if she had been expelled from the
sanctuary of the convent, where was she? (In fact, she managed to flee to France).
Ràkòczy sent a message to Tsar Peter, but while this was on the way, a messenger from Tsar
Peter arrived in Constantinople. He had come to say that he was charged to negotiate a peace
between Russia and Turkey, but also to arrange the departure of Ràkòczy for Moscow, where the
Tsar would be his host, until he could instal him on the throne of Poland. So, for the third time, the
Crown of Poland was offered Ràkòczy, and this time, he had been in the country, and known its
people's acclaim. What had happened to King Augustus? Another suggestion of the Tsar was that
Ràkòczy might like to additionally or alternatively, the principalities of Moldavia and Valachia
(parts of today's Rumania), which might appeal to him as adjoining Transylvania.
Meanwhile, the Austrian Ambassador was trying to persuade the Sultan to hand Ràkòczy and
all the Hungarians over to the Emperor, for execution. The Sultan, however, would not carry
betrayal to this point. Ràkòczy had come at his invitation, and was his friend. The Austrian
Ambassador gave way, and stipulated, finally, only that Ràkòczy and the other Hungarians should
live in some part of Turkey other than Constantinople.
Ràkòczy wanted to return to France. However, he now received a messenger from the Comte
de Toulouse, to tell him, on behalf of the Regent, that the Treaty of Alliance just concluded between
the infant King Louis XV and the Emperor made it impossible to have Ràkòczy back in France. The
Regent sent his compliments and suggested he try to go to Spain. He had forgotten that at parting he
had assured Ràkòczy that a return to France would always be open to him.
Ràkòczy declined once again a Crown offered him by the Tsar. On April 1720, a ship
embarked him and his fellow Hungarians from Jenikey, and took them to Rodosto (modern
Tekirdag).
bi Rodosto they stayed. Indeed, they were banished to it, without permission to move. The
Sultan, when he announced to them that he was moving them from Jenikey, explained that it was in
order to accommodate them more suitably. Indeed, when they arrived, on 24 April, 1720, they
found that they had a sizeable house each, each with its own small garden. Rodosto itself, was a
Turkish town of narrow and tortuous streets, but they were at one end of it, right on the shore, with
an uninterrupted view of the Sea of Marmora. In the fields beyond the town, the vegetation was
very rich, as in their own gardens.
The houses indeed belonged to some rich Armenians, from whom the Sultan rented them in
order to lodge the exiles. Eventually, he bought them from the Armenians, and gave them to the
exiles.
The Hungarians did not realise at first that this was going to be their permanent home. It was a
new idea to them, that they might settle. For a while, Ràkòczy watched the political situation in

46
Europe, to see if there should again be the possibility of his intervening on the behalf of Hungary.
As France drew closer to Austria, that hope faded.
It may be asked why Ràkòczy did not accept either of the magnificent offers made him by Tzar
Peter. The reason was that he did not wish King Augustus unseated in order to make the throne of
Poland vacant for him; and the lands which have become part of Roumania, he had no special links
with. Peter the Great thought the finest thing he could do for another man was to make him a King.
What he never realised was that, for Ràkòczy, to be a King had, in itself, no meaning. He had
wanted to do something for Transylvania and for Hungary, but to sit on a throne of some other
country seemed to him an irrelevance. His youth had been studious. In France, he had practically
decided for a contemplative life, and only the Sultan's call to seize an immediate opportunity to
liberate Transylvania and Hungary had brought him from the monastery where he was writing his
Confessions. He finished them, now, in Rodosto. He does not describe his life in exile, and it is one
of the other Hungarians, Kelemen or Clement Mikes, who served in his house as a page, who, in his
Lettres de Turquie, tells us that Ràkòczy had one of the rooms in the house converted into a chapel,
consecrated to the Holy Virgin, Patron of Hungary, and had for his chaplin Anthony Ovary. It is
Mikes, also, who tells us Ràkòczy became a gardener.
He designed the lay-out, obtained particular plants, bushes and trees which he put in, creating
shady alleys and spending much of his time in the cultivation.
Just because they were exiles in a foreign land, he did not allow behaviour to go slack. Mikes
writes:

'Serviters had to be ready at six in the morning; drums were sounded at this hour. The Prince
rose at six, dressed and went to Mass. After Mass, we went into the dining-room, where we
drank coffee and smoked. At a quarter to eight, the drums sounded to announce Mass. A
second drumming, later, and then a third drumming, and the Prince went again to Mass. After
Mass, he went into his own room and everyone did what he wished. At half past ten there was
another round on the drums, and at noon we afl sat down to table. At half past two, the Price
went into the chapel alone and stayed there until three. At a quarter to five, a first round on the
drums to announce the evening prayer at five o'clock; a second round on the drums and a little
later a third round. When the Prince left the chapel, everyone was again free to do what he
wished. At half past six the drum was sounded for supper, which did not take long. At eight
o'clock the Prince undressed, but did not go to bed; in the same way, in the morning he dressed
at six, but had been up for two hours. Excepting when the Prince was ill, this regime was
always maintained.'

It sounds strict, but it may well be that without this pattern imposed upon their lives, idleness
might breed disorders. It seems comparable to the behaviour of the legendary Englishman nightly
changing into white tie and tails to eat his dinner alone in the African bush; an external discipline to
preserve an internal discipline, in conditions that might otherwise lead to slackness and moral
degeneration. Endless leisure favours the artistically creative, but to those without mental resources
leads only to sloth, gluttony, drink or malpractices. With all those rounds on the drum, to divide
each day, Ràkòczy's fellow exiles would have little time to stray into mischief.
Mikes tells us that often in the evening they would walk out into the garden, to gaze up at the
stars, or across the sea to the isles.
There were one or two women in the settlement. Miklos Bercsényi had his wife with him. One
or two marriages were recorded, though it is not clear where the exiles found brides, and births were
recorded. Had one or two of the exiles managed to meet Christian women, or convert Muslim ones?
To Ràkòczy, it must have seemed strange to see the Turkish women creeping about behind veils,
apparently so backward. In his own family, the women had played a notably forward role,
particularly his mother, Helen Zrìnyi, the heroine of the epic siege. Word reached him that his wife
had died, at the Convent of the Visitation, in Paris (which she had managed to reach after he had
47
left it), on 18 February, 1722. As he had long since forgiven her, even though it was so many years
since he had seen her, the news of her death must have left him feeling bereft, and perhaps moved
him to those feelings which prompted him to write a letter to his sons, not supposing he would ever
see them, not knowing if they would every read it:20

'My dear Children, the Providence of God, whose ways are inscrutable to men, has, by the
reserves it has sent me, led me to the knowledge of truth, so crim... or praiseworthy as my
conduct may appear in the eyes of the world, I leave the judgement of it to God in... submission
to his very holy will, being always ready to be held to account for my actions. Let glory be to
him for whatever has been good or praiseworthy in my works; I take upon myself all that has
been bad in his eyes; so, recognising my nothingness, I place my trust in his mercy. Truth has
taught me that every man is on this earth a traveller, and this reflection has brought tranquility
to my spirit in my doubel pilgrimage, so that I must await without fear and without impatience
the end of my journey, which may be closer than my vigorous constitution would permit if the
desire for life possessed me.
'God made me your father but he reserved you to his own Providence in a special measure,
beyond that of most men, since he nourished you and brought you to the age of manhood
without any help from your father, or from your mother, in such a way that according to the
testimony of public news, I have reason to think God has given you to me as a gift of His
mercy and not of His.. and this consolation is greater to me than is the sadness of flesh and
blood, never to have seen but one of you except in your cradle, and to know nothing of the
other, excepting that he came into the world. Nature planted in my heart tenderness for you, but
charity makes me love you in God and for God; so, separated from you as I am, you are always
present to me; and although God... of me that I shall never see you in this miserable life,
nothing takes from me the hope of living with you in an eternity that will be happy.
'That, Dear Children, is the solid consolation with which charity furnishes me, it is what my
tenderness asks every day of the God of mercy, the father of all consolation, from whom you
must expect the unfolding of your lives, worldly and eternal. But as your confidence in arriving
at this end would be vain and illusory if you despised His commands, or failed to lead a life
worthy of Christians, which you are in name, my paternal charity has prompted me to address
you the reflections which follow, in which you will find maxims which will help to conduct
you on the way you have to go, so that we may be reunited in that realm which God has
prepared for those who love His commandments and keep them with fidelity.
'Your dear mother has predeceased you, as you may have learned, and knowing God's mercy to
her, you can have no ambition more useful or more worthy than to wish her reunited with me, if
I also predecease you, as the course of nature makes likely. God give you the firm faith to
desire nothing more ardently than this happiness, and the fervent charity to bring you to it. The
wish which you may have to see your father in this world, My Dear Children, may expose you
to a thousand dangers, but that you may have to see me before God, in accordance with his
Holy Will, is the end to which you have being.
'Consider often his mercies to you, and you will see His marvels; you may be able one day to
read those He has performed for me, in my own writings, and you will be unfortunate if you do
not love Him. Forget, my beloved Children, all qualities given you by your birth, and
remember only that you are Christians and children of God, for death will one day deprive you
of all advantages save those, which no one can take away from you, unless your own conduct if
you distance yourselves from the maxims of our holy religion.
'It may be that in the place where you are, people will make you ashamed of your father.
Renounce me. I allow you to do it, providing only that you glorify only your Heavely Father,
who has engendered you in a far more excellent fashion than I in the flesh; say and believe that
you owe everything to Him and nothing to me; and you will be right, for what you owe me, you
owe me only because He ordered you to render it to me for love of Him. Never complain of
48
 your lot, but accept it with patience, and with resignation to the will of your Celestial Father.
Meditate often the prayer which Jesus Christ, His Son, our elder bother, has left to us; you will
see how far it is unworthy of a Christian to say to God, Our Father which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name, Thy will be done etc., and at the same time to mutter and not to be
content with the manner in which He disposes on earth.
'I leave to God without reserve your destinies, as my own. Consult Him often, in entire
detachment from vain and frivolous desires for riches, greatness, worldly Principalities; as to
the choice of your estate, in so far as it depends on you, He will teach you what He wants of
you; and into whatever condition He calls you, love it because God has placed you in it, follow
your duty in it, in simplicity and fidelity.
'There, my dear Children, are the first and perhaps the last words of your father to you; your
mother has ceased to speak to you, but hope that she speaks for you. I have chosen to write to
you in French, because I imagine you know it better than Latin, and that you are as little
practised in Hungarian as I am in German.
'I shall pray to God to help you understand what I have written; and that he makes you love
these truths, and gives you the strength to practise them, so that united with you in spirit and in
trust we can adore Him in this world and never cease to love and praise Him.
'This is what you father wants for you, my Dear Children, and giving you his paternal blessing,
he embraces you with tenderness. On the shore of the Propontic, at Rodosto, 1722

Francis Prince'

It is the letter not of a soldier but of a saint. It is also shrewd, because he is giving the boys a
practical get-out, should they be pressed, at the same time as a spiritual lesson. The two boys,
Joseph and George, born in Vienna on 18 August and 8 August respectively of the years 1700 and
1701, would be twenty-two and twenty-one when he wrote them this letter.
It is not a letter that would have been posted, yet he would have written in the reasonable hope
of its being found amongst his papers after his death and transmitted to his sons by his executors.
In France, the Regent had died, in 1723. This gave Ràkòczy a hope that he might be allowed to
return to France, if the boy King, Louis XV, honoured the promise made him by Louis XIV.
However the Sultan refused to let him leave.
Two years later, Ràkòczy lost his strongest remaining ally when Peter the Great died. The great
Tsar's death left a vacuum, a scramble for power filled a number of very short reigns, and political
uncertainty, things settling only when, Peter the Great's daughter, Elizabeth, dethroned Ivan VI and
made herself Tsarina.
When Ràkòczy speaks of bearing without complaint the estate ordained by God, he must mean
with regard to one's personal fortunes, high or low, for he did not cease to watch political
developments with an active eye. When news reached him that France and Spain had combined and
seized Sicily and Naples from the Emperor, and that they proposed to give them to the exiled James
Stuart, as he could not have the throne of England, Ràkòczy suggested to the Grand-Vizier that
Turkey should support this disposition of these Kingdoms, and wrote also the the French Minister
Bonnac, to encourage the idea.
He also told Bonnac he would be willing to use his good relations with the Turks in favour of
the Christians with regard to certain questions which (as from the days of the Crusaders) concerned
the Holy places of Jerusalem and the safety of those visiting them. He further suggested the French
government take over the missions of Galata and Pera, in which the Italians showed little zeal. (This
was not well received by the new Pope, Innocent XIII, and was not acted upon.) He also asked the
Grand-Vizier permission to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but this was refused.
In October, 1723, Miklòs Bercsényi died. Ràkòczy had lost his longest standing companion. He
erected a monument to him.

49
 He had a moment of great joy when he learned that his youngest son, George, had at last
escaped from Vienna. But it was only a very relative escape. The two boys had been deprived of the
name of Ràkòczy and named, instead, after the Emperor's family, the Marquis of Saint-Marco and
the Marquis of Santa Elizabeth. They had both been given domains in Sicily, and George had been
permitted to visit his; but he had to go back to Vienna. It was only in 1726 that he was allowed to
leave Austria on his own.
On 13 June, 1727, George arrived in Rodosto. One has no eye-witness to the transports of joy
with which Ràkòczy must have received the man of almost twenty-six, whom he had never seen at
all. He spoke no Hungarian. They talked in French.
All the Hungarian exiles made much of him. Ràkòczy organised excursions for him, and all the
entertainments he could devise. Yet it was the impression of Mikes that George did not really enjoy
the stay in Turkey. The Hungarians, their traditions and their way of thinking, were all strange to
him. Perhaps it was even difficult for father and son to make deep contact. Yet it is to the honour of
George that he came. Before he left, Ràkòczy gave him a Hungarian title, the Count of Makovicz.
And when he left, it was not to return to Vienna but to go to France, where he made his life.
But he had become real to his father. Ràkòczy wrote in September 1729 to King Augustus II of
Poland, asking him to mediate with the Emperor. He would, now, be willing to offer his
submission, on condition that George was declared Prince of Transylvania. For Joseph, his eldest,
he would require the Principality of Burgau and County of Nellenburg; amnesty for all the
Hungarian exiles and restoration of their estates. He himself would be willing to live in Poland, or
in Saxony, at Hamburg. He longed to live in a Christian country again.
King Augustus II of Poland took this up on his behalf, and so did King Frederick-William of
Prussia. Prince Eugene, however, dissuaded the Emperor Charles VI from agreement. If Ràkòczy
were back in Christendom, he warned him, the whole of Transylvania and Hungary would break out
into revolt within a month. A reply was, therefore, sent to Ràkòczy saying that if he wished for
reconciliation he should first submit himself to the Emperor as his faithful subject. This humiliation
was refused.
On 27 October, 1732, Ràkòczy made his will19. It is a very long document, beginning (I
translate from his French)21

'I, Francis Ràkòczy, by Your Grace O my God Christian Prince of Transylvania, Prince
Ràkòczy, Lord of a part of Royal Hungary, Count of Sides, Duke of Munkacz, Duke of
Makowicz, Count of Saros, Lord of Saros-Patak, Tokay, Regez, Sczcrencz, and Onod . . .
These are the titles, Lord, which you have given me, some by the election of a free People and
some by birth . .. Far from glorifying in these vain titles, I avow myself in the humility of my
heart nothing but a child of anger, cinders and dust . . .'

(He says he has misspent and misused those talents given him at birth).

1 thank you, Lord, for having taken the Principality away me, and all that the world calls
goods... and for having made me quit the sweetness of a quiet and peaceful life, and brought me
into this country so contrary to my taste and to my natural pride . . .

(He leaves his heart to the Camaldules of Grossbois).

After detailing a large number of small, particular legacies, to his Chaplain in Rodosto, to the
Master of his Household, to his Gentilhomme de la Chambre or Gentleman-on-ordinary, to Mikes
and to a whole range of domestics . . . the Keeper of the Goblets,. .. the Cooks (so much each)... and
to some nearby Jesuits who had shown concern for the Hungarian refugees, he leaves everything to
George. His hereditary lands all being lost to him, there was not very much to leave, the house in

50
Rodosto with its contents and garden, and some things he should be able to claim from the King of
France:

'But I have here to dispose of what I should have in France in the way of privileges and special
licences in virtue of the engagements of Louis XIV of glorious memory ... the late King Louis
XIV brough from Queen Mary of Poland for me half the land of Jeroslav... I leave my right in
that land to my son George, Count Ràkòczy, Duke of Makovicz... I leave to my son George,
Duke of Makovicz, whatever the King may grant beyond the designated forms, charging him,
however, to pay my just debts, of which, however, I do not think I have any.'

Though the will is very long—to print it in full would require some fifty pages of print—
George is the only son for whom provision is made, the son who had acted to him as one. Joseph is
remembered only in a passage towards the end and not by name:

'All the Families from which I descend are extinct, and I have no close relative, far less in
France, to give me any support before the King, His Most Christian Majesty, who will hardly
remember me, having seen me only when he was a very young child... But the two children
whom I leave, and those in favour of whom I implore the mercy of the King, and I dare say
even his justice . . .'

He remembers the Due de Charolais and the Comte de Charolais, the Due de Maine and the
Comte de Toulouse, and asks these four gentlemen to be his Executors. It is usual, he adds, before
naming persons as Executors to ask them if they would be willing, but he is not permitted to write
to them and in the circumstances can only hope they will forgive his assumption and accept the
charge. Indeed it is not the only favour he will ask of them. He is encouraged by his memory of
their generous sentiments particularly to recommend the them 1e Sieur Molitard, a French
gentleman whom I have brought up,22 my French valets and those of my domestic servants who are
of this nationality: because I am not able to assure their bread for the rest of their days or
sufficiently reward their fidelity.'
The meaning of this passage is perfectly clear and simple. He had French people in his service,
who had come with him from France and remained with him, perhaps marrying and having
children. After his death, he hoped that his Executors, being French, would make arrangements for
these people to be brought back to France and either take them into their own service or find some
suitable service they could enter, so as to be able to gain their livings in their own country. With this
thought for his French dependents (destined to be misinterpreted by authors) 20, the long will ends:
'Made at Rodosto, 27th October, 1729 Francis, Prince.'
In 1733, the French Marechal Villars entered Milan. All the Hungarians lived with their eyes
forever turned to the west, as Mikes writes, like the sick man of the Gospel watching for thirty years
for someone to pass on the lake. Did this mean they would again be called on to play a role?
Ràkòczy received from the French Minister a message to say that he had only to present himself at
Triest at the head of troops to penetrate Croatia and join up with Bonneval; but it was not practical.
Two of the exiles managed to make their way to Poland, from where in 1734 they sent back
one of their men, Jan Kiss, bearing letters from the exiles in Poland to Rodosto. He found himself
surrounded by eager questioners. Who was still alive and who dead? Who had married whom? He
was perhaps Ràkòczy's last Hungarian visitor.
He composed, on the model of Saint Etienne's instructions to his son, a work he hoped would
be useful to his own: Reflexions sur las principes de la vie civile etde la politesse d'un chretien. In
this he plainly had in mind that they might one day become Princes, for he counsels that a Prince
should consort with savants and prefer learned studies to theatres. The most sacred obligation of a
sovereign is to fulfil his duty to his people. For his soul's sake, he must bear afflictions rather than
fail his word, and expect deliverance only from God:
51
 'Every Christian must fear God rather than men, but above all Princes must do this, being the
representatives of God on earth, the depositaries of truth, love and power .. . Many repeat, but
few deeply realise, that man proposes, God disposes.'

He has also some remarks to make about the relative positions of women in pagan,
Mohammedan and Christian worlds.
His Treaty of Power (Traite de la Puissance'), earlier written 1725, a study of the Constitution
of Saint-Etienne and the Golden Bull of Andrew II, likewise insists upon the duties (not the rights)
of Princes or Kings with regard to their people. It argues that Christianity takes nothing from the
liberties of peoples but complements it. His Aspirations of a Prince shows the same humility. In all
his works, the emphatic message is the same, that to be a sovereign is to bear the weight of heavy
duties, for the discharge of which he is answerable.
The Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church came to Rodosto especially to see Ràkòczy.
Indeed, he may well have been the holiest man in Europe.
In 1734, the French Ambassador brought him the news that his son Joseph had left Vienna,
without telling anyone of his intended departure, and was now in Venice. Ràkòczy was in great
hope that he, like George, might come to Rodosto, but he went to Rome.
In January, 1735, he had hopes again of being able to return to France, but the Sultan (it was
now the Sultan Mahmood) thought the time not ripe.
In March, his health failed. His birthday, on the 27th, was his fifty-ninth. He had been fifteen
years (all but one month) in Rodosto. It had not been an uncomfortable place, physically. The
garden and the view across the sea were always beautiful. But there was absence of intellectual
companionship, save that which the exiles could provide for each other. There was always the sense
of exile. He attended Mass on the Day of the Annunciation, but was unable to go to the church on
Palm Sunday. He heard the Mass in the chapel, and the priest brought him a blessed palm, which he
received on his knees. On the Monday and Tuesday he appeared to be stronger, on the Wednesday
weaker again, though he said he was not in pain. It is not clear from what he was suffering, if not
from weariness of that life. On the Thursday he took Holy Communion, but during the day sank
rapidly. At midnight the priest asked him if he wished to receive the last sacrament. He made an
affirmative sign, with tears in his eyes. After he had taken the sacrament, said Mikes, 'he died,
falling asleep like a child.' It was at three o'clock in the morning, of Good Friday, 8 April, 1735, that
he passed from those who had loved him. A little later Mikes wrote:
'The body of our master was laid in a little court where for three days religious services were
held. Everyone could see the body, including at one moment thirty Turks, but, despite that, they did
not believe the Prince was dead. They said that another had been laid out in his clothes, and that he
had gone away. If only it could be true!'

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

1 For the pronunciation of Hungarian names see p. ix.

2 Ad pacem universalemn, the International Antecedents of the Peace of Satmar, Agnes
Vàrkonyi (Budapest, 1980), p. 21.
3 The positions of the Sun, Moon and planets at noon on the day of Francis Ràkòczy's birth were:
Sun Aries 7°38, Moon Virgo 6°47, Mercury Aries 10, Venus Taurus 7°41, Mars Aquarius
25°44, Jupiter Capricorn 18, Saturn Taurus 11, Uranus Aries 1, Neptune Aquarius 12, Pluto
Cancer 7; the Moon's North Node was in Sagittarius 26°57. The hour of his birth is not known,
so the Ascendant must be speculative.

52
4 All recent Hungarian works spell the name Ràkòczi. The hero often signed his name Ràkòczy,
but then he tended to write in French or Latin, hence the appearance of his Christian name as
Francois or Franciscus for Ferenc. But in his most official document, the Recrudescunt (see p.
14) his name is spelled Ràkòczy, despite that it is in Latin and that Latin has no 'y'- This seems
to me to indicate pretty strongly that Ràkòczy was felt to be the correct Hungarian spelling.
One portrait, of 1703, designates him on the entablature Franciscus Ràkòczy Princeps. And
why did a German work of 1704 spell his name with a y, a letter possessed no more by German
than by Latin, save that the name was believed to end with y in Hungarian? In the convent in
Annecy entered by his granddaughter, the register shows the spelling of her name with y.
5 This affecting detail is not in Ràkòczy's Con/essions, but is given in Francois Rakoczi II, Emile
Horn (Paris 1906), pp. 57-8 on the authority of an anonymous Relation de Neuhaus I have been
unable to trace.
6 Ràkòczy Ferenc öneletrajza (Budapest, Magyar Tudomànyos Akadémia, 1876), p. 35.
7 Voyages en Espagne et Italie, Jean-Baptiste Labat (Paris, 1730), vol. 2, pp. 191-2.
8 The Last Medici, Harold Acton (Macmillan, 1932), p. 190, or, in the luxury edition of 1980, p.
173.
9 Ràkòczy Ferenc öneletrajza (Budapest, Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia, 1876, p. 36.
10 These lines disprove the thesis this child became the Comte de Saint-Germain, advanced in A
New & Authentic History of the Rosicrucians, Fr. Wittermans (Rider, 1938).
11 Francois Ràkòczy II, Emile Horn (Paris, 1906), pp. 214-215.
12 This account of Anglo-Hungarian relations is taken from Ad Pacem Universalem, the
International Antecedents to the Peace of Szatmdr, Agnes Varkonyi (Budapest, 1980), pp. 8-9.
The footnotes to these pages cite as sources eight works in the Hungarian language published in
Budapest and other towns of Hungary.
13 Budapest, National Archives of Hungary, G 15, Caps.A/1, Fasc. 11.1 am deeply indebted to Dr.
Kalman Benda for telling me of the existence of this letter and obtaining for me a photocopy of
the manuscript.
14 A contemporary diary in the Hungarian language, Beniczsky Gaspar Naploja 1707-10, ed. K.
Thaly (Pest 1866), vol. 1, p. 217^ cited in Ad Pacem Universalem, the International
Antecedents to the Peace of Szatmàr, Agnes Varkonyi (Budapest Magyar Tudomànyos
Akadémia, 1980), p. 13.
15 Ad Pacem Universalem, the International Antecedents to the Peace of Szatmàr Agnes Vàrkonyi
(Budapest, Magyar Tudomdnyos Akademia, 1980), pp. 26-27.
16 Une Ambassade francaise en Orient sous Louis XV, A. Vandal.
17 British Museum, Additional MSS., 20404, ff. 161r-179v.
18 Memoires de Saint-Simon (ed. A. de Boislisle, 1879-1928), vol. 32, pp. 258-261.
19 Correspondence de Madame, ed. Brunet, vol. 1, p. 137.
20 The original of this letter is stated in Francois Ràkòczy II, Emile Horn (Paris, 1960) p. 431 to
be in the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, 'slightly damaged in places'. Horn did not,
unfortunately, supply the library's reference number, and when I wrote to the Manuscript
Department of the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris asking for a photocopy of the holograph,
they replied that they were unable to find it. They had inspected the only Ràkòczy MS in their
catalogue, but it was plainly not that indicated by Horn, whose p. 431 they had also viewed. I
therefore translate from Horn's transcription.
21 Testament Politique et Morale (Abrége de la vie du Prince), (The Hague, 1751), vol. 1, pp. 48-
67.
22 An oddly garbled account of this will appears in The Comte de Saint-Germain, I. Cooper-
Oakley (London, 1927), p. 15, Giving as her source Der Genealogische Archivarius aus dem
Jahr 1736 (Leipzig, 1736) she states that the will shows Ràkòczy to have had a third son,
whom he commended to the care of the Executors and to whom he left 'a large legacy and other
53
rights on this valuable property'—the latter seeming to be the land in Poland Louis XIV had
bought, for his father, mentioned by her just above. The whole page is couched in such a way
as to create the impression this unnamed third son was the principal beneficiary, and on p. 37
she avers this explains why he, that is the Comte de Saint-Germain, with whom she equates his
third son, was, when he went to France, so cordially received by the King. Puzzled both
because she did not name this all important third son she had found, and because the only son
mentioned in the will was George, whom she did not name, I consulted the said Archivarius, to
see whether she had misunderstood it, or its compiler had misunderstood the will. On pp. 525-
526 there is indeed a much abridged account of the will. The compiler starts by saying we learn
from it that the elder son of Prince Georgius [sic] Ragozzi was 'Georgius Ragozzi, Herzog von
Makowiez', that is 'George Ràkòczy, Duke of Makovicza'. The younger, he says, was left
without anything. Here it is the compiler who has misunderstood. George, Duke of Makovicza
was the younger son; it was the elder who received nothing. After naming the Executors, he
says there was committed to them 'den Caminer-Junker, Ludovicum Molitard, den er erzogen
gehabt (und der vermutlich sein naturlicher Sohn gewesen... wie er ihn den auch mit einem
ansehnlichen Legato bedacht; und dass der sich ehemals under den. Namen eines Grafen von
Saros in Frankreich aufgehalten'. I translate, 'the pageboy, Louis Molitard, whom he had
brought up (and who was very like his natural son . . . because he was endowed with a
considerable legacy and because in France he sometimes went under the title, Le Comte de
Saros.' This cannot be the Comte de Saint-Germain, for whose upbringing in Italy Mrs Cooper-
Oakley cites Prince Carl of Hesse, since it is obvious he was brought up in Turkey, by Prince
Ràkòczy himself. The archivist is, however, in error concerning his ground for supposing this
boy to have been a son of Ràkòczy, since, as it will emerge from the following chapter, it was
on George's behalf he applied for papers in the style Prince Ràkòczy had used in France. I
would think that Molitard was the son of a Frenchman in Ràkòczy’s service who had followed
him to Turkey, and that (as he had perhaps lost his father), Ràkòczy commended him to his
Executors, who were French, in the hope they would arrange his passage back to France and
find him some suitable service.

54
 CHAPTER 2

JOSEPH AND GEORGE

In September 1735, Joseph, the elder son of Prince Ràkòczy, arrived in Paris, determined to
contest his father's will, in which George, the younger son, was the only one mentioned. George
came hurrying back from a visit to Madrid to speak with him. George seems to have been an
amiable and easy-going person. He offered to share his inheritance with his elder brother, letting
him have all his father's possessions in Turkey, and on 2 June, 1736, a contract to this effect was
drawn up between them, in the presence of a lawyer, Maitre Francois de la Balle, at 2 rue de
Tournon, Paris, (where George was living and where, for the next six months Joseph stayed with
him).1 During this time Joseph had a relationship with a Baroness de Perravex, from which there
was born, on 11 December, 1736, a daughter, Josepha Charlotte. 2 Just before her birth, Joseph had
left for Rodosto, where he arrived on 3 December, 1736. Here, the Hungarian exiles welcomed him
as the successor to his late father, and he was received in that capacity by the Sultan Mahmood V.
He had, however, been taken unwell almost from the moment of his arrival in Rodosto. On 7
November, 1738, he made his will, in which he left a substantial legacy to Josepha Charlotte, as his
natural daughter, and three days later, on 10 December, 1738, in the place where he had made his
will, Czernavoda (in what is now Bulgaria) he died; and there he was buried.
George made another trip to Spain, in connection with which it is interesting to see that on 14
March, 1741,3 he wrote to a Monsieur Molidard, instructing him to apply for a passport for this trip,
made out to him in the name and style Comte de Saros.4 This was the incognito which his father,
Francis Ràkòczy, had used on some occasions, and Emile Pillias is doubtless right in supposing
Molidard to be the Molitard, the apparently orphaned young Frenchman, whom Ràkòczy had
mentioned in his will, hoping that one of his executors would take him into his service. It must have
been George who had done so.
After this, George seems to have spent the rest of his life in France. He perhaps married, first, a
Marquise de Bethune. Subsequently, he lived with and perhaps married a Marguerite Susanne
Pinthereau de Bois lisle, of a Normandy family. A police report made, one does not know why,
upon George when he was fifty-two, says he was found living with her in a house with a garden and
three cows on the St. Denis road, in the village of la Chapelle Saint-Denis, about a league north of
Paris. It describes her as a woman of about fifty, tall, broad and dark, who owned a farm, from
which they were supplied with chickens, turkeys, ducks, pigeons and other provisions. Of him it
says (I translate from the French):5

He is a man of monstrous girth, hardly able to hold up his stomach. It is held up by a kind of
belt that goes under it and up round the back of his neck. Generally he drinks ten to twelve
bottles of wine a day. It would be worse, except that he is restrained by the Demoiselle
Boislisle, with whom he has been living for twelve years. He lives entirely on the bounty of the
King... Prince Ràkòczy never goes out, not even to attend mass. But he always keeps a very
good table... Some people say they are married. At any rate they had a son, who, however, did
not live.

The police report supposes this child to have been the George Rumel, buried aged three, 28
March, 1743, in the nearby village of Guiry, where he had lived with his nurse, his mother's name
not given on the death certificate, paternity being attributed to a valet of Prince George Ràkòczy. To
me, these details suggest George did not wish to appear as having had a child by a woman he would
have regarded as of lower class. The whole picture presented is of a degeneration through idleness.

55
 George Ràkòczy, Count of Makovicza, died at la Chapelle Saint-Denis, suddenly, on Thursday,
17 June, 1756.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

1 Les Derniers d'une Grande Famille, Joseph et Georges Ràkòczy, Emile Pillias (Revue
d'Histoire Comparee), XXC, Nouvelle Serie, vol. vi, 1947, pp. 214-225.
2 Joseph Charlotte was placed as a child in the Convent of the Visitation at Annecv. The
Dauphin, son of Louis XV, sent to visit her there Princess Christine Henriette de Carignan, her
distant cousin, since they were both descended from Ernst Leopold Langraf of Hesse-
Rheinfels-Rottenburg, and married to Victor Amadeus Joseph of Savoy. The King of Sardinia
wished to offer Josepha-Charlotte an asylum, but when his emissary reached Annecy, it was to
be told she had decided to become a nun. She took her vows on 11 December, 1755, was most
pious, much appreciated, and died on 3 July, 1780. These details are from Josepha-Charlotte,
la Dernière des Ràkòczy, 1736-1780, Emile Pillias, (Revue d'Histoire Comparee, XXV,
Nouvelle Serie, vol. v, 1947, pp 208-218.
3 Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hongrie et Transylvanie I, f.444.
4 This will explain the confusion in the Archivarius by which Mrs. Cooper-Oakley was misled. See
footnote to Ràkòczy's will, p. 57.
5 Paris, Bibliothèque de 1'Arsenal, Archives de la Bastille, 10.244. The report is dated 31
December, 1753, and made for M. Meunier, Councillor to the King, Inspector of Police.

56
 CHAPTER 3

A RARE BOOK

There is no record of the birth or early years of the Comte de Saint-Germain. What may be the
earliest trace of his is a letter written seven months after Ràkòczy’s death, to the British antiquary
and bibliophile Sir Hans Sloane. It is not in his hand but could be the work of a secretary, even to
the signature. (I translate from the French):1

The Hague, 22 November, 1735 Sir,

Long having known your taste for rare books, and the care you take continually to enrich your
beautiful and ample library, I have believed that I would bring you pleasure by speaking to you
of one of the rarest and most singular known; since it is a copy of the second of all the editions
of the world made with movable types. The first, as you doubtless know, is a Latin Bible, of
which Fritheme speaks under the year 1450 in his Annates Hispangienses, and after him Master
Chevillier, Mairtaire and many others. The second, which is the one in question, and which I
can procure for you, is a Catholicon Joannis Januensis, unknown to all librarians, excepting
only Fathers Quetif and Echard, who speak of it thus in their Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum
recensiti, Tom. I, page 462, which you can verify. Altera (the first was an edition on wooden
blocks of the same book, which was the first real work of Guttenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer, and
which was followed by the Latin Bible, in movable types:) altera ex Arte Typographicd turn
perfectd, tamen absque Numeris, Signaturis, Reclamationibus, Anno Loco; Nomine
Typotheace; absque Litteris etiam initialibus, quae omnes additae et pictae: quam Noguntiae
prodijsse conjiciunt. Extat ejusce Exemplaar Parisiis, in Genovaafird Bibliothecd, in folio
maxima, Charta Regia.
The copy I have corresponds exactly to this description, and there is no doubt that it is from
Mainz and from the press of the first three printers of that Bible and of that World, for the paper
on which it is printed bears the same marks as that on which Schoeffer alone printed his
Decretum Gratiani in 1472. The typeface is exactly the same as to form but a little smaller than
that of the Latin Bible of 1462 and the pages are much taller and wider, each column having 65
lines, whereas those of the Bible have only 48 [sic] That this Catholicon is older than the Bible
is proved by there being only one sole and unique punctuation-mark, the full stop, where in the
book this is divided by the author into comma or point with comma above, colon or point
without comma, and Periodum, or point with comma beneath; whereas in the Bible of 1452
there appear everywhere the Point, the two Points, the Question-mark etc. It is therefore
obvious that this publication is older by several years, and without doubt made before the
litigation betwen the Printers in 1455, and before they put dates on their publications, which
Fust and Schoeffer, after they separated from Gutenberg, did not do until 1457, in their Latin
Psalter, the earliest of all the dated books. There you have the history of this publication.
As to the copy I have, it is perfectly preserved, bound in wood, covered with pig-skin, dotted
with fleurs de lis, each one marked off by four rosettes and enclosed in diamonds formed by
triple lines crossing each other obliquely over the whole height of the volume, themselves
enclosed in a frame or border of dragons, divided by a long band running zig-zag, and for this
cover there were once corners and bosses, traces of which can still be discerned. It has an
antique look about the edges, and is squared and ruled, not only in the ordinary way around
each page, but extraordinarily around each line, and not only are there capital letters at the
beginning of sentences and chapters embellished with flowers and leaves painted in vermillion

57
 and azure, but those beginning each heading of this Encyclopaedia, which goes to an infinite
number, are from the beginning to the end in the same colours, alternately. There are two tomes
in folio, which make a volume of extraordinary size and thickness. One sees nothing written by
hand, as in most old books, disfiguring them.
Such, Sir, is the book of which I have the honour to write to you, and concerning which I would
not have importuned you, but that it is an extraordinary piece, very rare and wholly fit to
occupy a place in a library as celebrated or as renowned as yours. So that you may have it
examined here by some persons of confidence, I will take the liberty of adding my address,
after having signed myself,

Sir,
Your humble and obedient servitor,
P.M.de Saint-Germain
at the house of the widow Vincent, on the
the Nieue-laan, in de Twyn-laan
The Hague, 22nd November, 1735

It is to be found nowhere else excepting in the Sainte-Genevieve at Paris.

What is all this about? Before we come to problems, let us state what is plain. It is about an
incunable; that is, one of the earliest books printed. In England we tend to associate the beginning
of printing with Caxton, but it had begun still earlier in the Low Countries and Germany,
particularly at Mainz. In the beginning, a whole page of type would be cut from a single block of
wood, and the paper pressed down on it to obtain an inked impression. Obviously, this method was
very cumbersome, and the storage of as many big blocks as there were pages in a book would take
up a lot of room. Moveable types, for single letters, were a great improvement. That is what Saint-
Germain is referring to when he says the Catholicon he is offering is only the second book in the
world printed with moveable types (He makes a slip when he refers to the Bible as having 48
columns, it has 42). As he is writing to a learned man, he does not explain too much but assumes his
reader's knowledge of the history of printing. Johann Gutenberg teamed up with two men, Johann
Fust and Peter Schoeffer, to print the Bible. These two later broke away from him and sued him.
This explains Saint-Germain's allusions in the second paragraph.
To have written this letter, Saint-Germain himself must have possessed considerable
knowledge of the beginnings of printing; however it is an amateur's knowledge. I sent a photocopy
of the original to my friend Mr. Timothy d'Arch Smith, an experienced bibliographer, and he
assured me Saint-Germain was mistaken in his belief the Catholicon preceded the Bible. He wrote:

What would have misled him was that it was, as he observed, printed in earlier types. What the
Comte is talking about is: Johannes Balbus or Januensis, Catholicon (Mainz, 1460). He is not
correct, however, in saying it is the second book in the world, although it is the first large non-
religious printed book. The Gutenberg Bible, as it is known, or the 42-line Bible, was definitely
finished before 15 August, 1456, which is the rubricator's (the man who put in the handwritten
initials) date in the copy once belonging to Cardinal Mazarin and now in the Bibliothéque
Nationale. So there were at least four years of printed books between that and the Catholicon. It
is a huge book of 373 leaves printed in double columns of an undistinguished typeface ... While
there is a strong case to attribute the printing of this book to G utenberg, no firm evidence yet
exists... As an interesting footnote, the Catholicon may have pride of place as being the first
known 'remainder'. It appeared in Schoeffer's list of 1470. It is, if one can use such an
expression of a 15th century item, a very common book. There are three copies in the British
Museum, one on vellum.

58
A copy was sold at auction in 1973 for £34,000. Curiously, it, too, was in pigskin, lacking two
clasps and cover bosses.

59
NOTE TO CHAPTER 3

1 British Museum, Sloane MSS., 4026, ff. 289r-290v.

60
 CHAPTER 4

THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION

After this brief glimpse of Saint-German, if it is our man, we lose sight of him again for several
years. During this time there broke out the War of the Austrian Succession. It is not necessary to
follow its course in detail, but the political background to it needs to be understood if we are to
comprehend Saint-Germain's involvement with rival political figures, Belle-Isle and Choiseul, at a
later date. The Emperor Leopold I (Ràkòczy’s old enemy) had decreed that in the absence of male
heirs, female should succeed to his territories; daughters of his elder son, Joseph, taking precedence
over those of his younger, Charles. When the younger succeeded his brother, Joseph I, as Charles
VI, he set his father's decree aside, in favour of his daughter, Maria-Theresa. The instrument was
called the Pragmatic Sanction. The daughters of Joseph I, who had married Electors of Bavaria and
Saxony, were persuaded to accept it. It was then accepted by Spain, Russia, Prussia, England,
Denmark and France, in that order, followed by the minor powers, with the exception of Bavaria
and the Palatinate, which did not recognise it. These were the two Wittelsbach Principalities.
At about the same time there was agitation over the Tuscan succession. The last marriages in
the family having been barren, the Medicis were about to become extinct. Naturally, this interested
all the powers. The last Grand Duke Giovanni, Gian Gastone, acknowledged as his heir Don Carlos
of Spain, but the Emperor, Charles VI, asserted that Tuscany, too, should go to his daughter, Maria-
Theresa. He sent an army of 50,000 Austrians into Tuscany. In October, 1735, it was agreed
between France, England, Holland and Austria that at Gian Gastone's death Tuscany should go to
Maria-Theresa, but that she should be married to the Duke Francis of Lorraine, he to give up to
France the succession to Lorraine (when Stanislav Leszczynski should die) in exchange for the
succession to Tuscany. The marriage took place on 12 February, 1736. Gian Gastone died on 9 July,
1737, and the Tuscans, without having been consulted, found themselves with Maria-Theresa's
husband for their Grand Duke. Thus began the Austrian domination of Tuscany that was to end only
with the liberation of Italy by Garibaldi in the following century.
None of the signatories to the Pragmatic Sanction had power to bind his heirs, and when
Friedrich II, better known as Frederick the Great, succeeded to the Prussian throne, just before the
decease of the Emperor Charles VI, he thought Silesia should be given to Prussia and sent a
message to Maria-Theresa that in return for this he would back her husband's election as Emperor.
Vienna rejected this bargain. Frederick switched his support to Charles Albert, the Elector of
Bavaria, for Emperor, and marched into Silesia, capturing it but starting the War of the Austrian
Succession. In France, the Marechal de Belle-Isle, Charles-Louis Auguste Fouquet, Comte, later
Due de Gisors, urged the opportunity to be taken to end the Habsburg domination of so much of
Europe, and it was his voice which tipped the balance, both in bringing France into the war on the
side of Frederick and persuading the other German electors to vote for the Bavarian, who was
elected Emperor Charles VD and crowned in January, 1742. Louis XV rewarded Belle-Isle by
making him a Duke, Due de Gisors. With good cause had Frederick written to Belle-Isle (on 9
October, 1741) that it was 'Reserved to Louis XV to be the arbiter of Kings and to Monsieur de
Belle-Isle to be the instrument of his power and wisdom.' Later, Frederick thought he caught the
French in treacherous contact with Austria through a communication of the Cardinal Fleury to the
Marquis de Stainville (Francois Etienne de Choiseul, father of the future Due de Choiseul), a native
of Lorraine, who had followed his old master and was now minister to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
On this occasion, it does not seem the French had played Frederick false, but Frederick was correct
in his suspicion that de Stainville could connect France with Austria. Protecting himself against an
alignment in that direction, Frederick, in July 1742, made his own peace with the Austrians at

61
Breslau, by which he might keep Silesia. By this settlement, he left the French army in the lurch and
Belle-Isle's retreat from Prague, in the winter of 1742-43, has been compared for its mastery with
that of Xenophon and the ten thousand.
On 20 December, 1744, The Marechal de Belle-Isle (now Due de Gisors), drove into the
courtyard of a posting house displaying the Prussian escutcheon, unaware that, by a traffic
convention, it was sited in a Hanoverian possession. Nothing could be more confusing than the map
of Germany at that period, one power having small spots of territory enclosed within lands of
another. Hanoverian guards seized him and he was sent as a prisoner to England, where he arrived
at Harwich in February, 1745. From there he was given cavalry escort to Windsor Castle. At
Windsor he was confined in the main tower, as Butler puts it 'to scotch unfounded suspicions of
collusion with the Broadbottom Administration of the Pelhams who were moderating the haughty
pretensions of Earl Granville, as Carteret had become upon losing office just when the Marquis
d'Argenson assumed it. Belle-Isle was solaced by an English allowance of fifty pounds a day, by the
politeness of the Duke of Newcastle (Thomas Holies Pelham, Secretary of State) and the Duke of
Grafton, the Great Chamberlain'.1
Since we shall later find Saint-Germain and Belle-Isle acting in confidence, and Saint-Germain
(as we shall find in the next chapter) was by this time in England, there has always been speculation
that it might have been in this early period the connection first was formed. War was politer in those
days, and Belle-Isle was not close confined but circulated and indeed became the lion of the London
season, so they could easily have met.
Subjects of countries at war were then allowed to correspond and on 27 January, 1745, the
Marquis de Stainville (Choiseul’s father) wrote from Paris to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Maria-
Theresa's husband, in Vienna,2 that the French regarded it as very lucky their Maréchal de Belle-Isle
had been taken prisoner by the English, as otherwise, 'at the present juncture' he might have gained
approval in Paris for a project as extraordinary as the first. What he surely means is that the
Bavarian, whose election as Emperor Charles VII had been supported by Frederick and by Belle-
Isle, had died on the night of 20-21 January, creating a chance for Maria-Theresa's husband to be
elected Emperor. So he was, and perhaps it was indeed because Belle-Isle was a prisoner that the
overlordship of the Holy Roman Empire came back to the Habsburg family.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

1 Choiseul, Father and Son, Rohan Butler (Oxford, 1980), pp. 470-471.
2 Florence; Esteri des Granducato di Toscana, vol. 2295/1826, f. 555 (copy in Vienna,
Lothringiesches Hausarchiv 77/177A, f. 34)

62
 CHAPTER 5

LONDON AND MUSIC

After a gap of eight years, if one accepts the letter about the rare book as having been written
by our Comte de Saint-Germain, we find at last another reference to him, the first unchallenged
reference. It comes, casually, into the correspondence of Horace Walpole with Horace Mann. The
two Horaces had met when Walpole had made a tour of Italy with the poet Thomas Gray. In the
course of this they met the British Resident in Florence, Mann, and afterwards kept up a permanent
exchange of letters, affording a running commentary on the events of the times. This material, if not
always profound, being anecdotal and frequently flippant, has been a mine for quarrying by
historians. It was natural that Horace Walpole should have something to tell his friend about the
sudden turmoil into which England was thrown when Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender
(grandson of the King James II who had been driven from his throne to the exile he had chosen at
Saint-Germain, near Paris) sailed from France to land in the Hebrides on 23 July, 1745.
By 4 September he was in Perth, and his march into Edinburgh was practically unopposed. He
was calling himself King James ID. English forces abroad under the Duke of Cumberland (second
son of King George II) were hurriedly recalled, but not in time to prevent a defeat of the English
forces at Prestonpans. Because the invasion had been launched from France, with the connivance of
the French King, it was felt, in London, almost as though it was the French who had encompassed
the invasion of the British Isles, which could end in the murder of King George. It was in these
circumstances of intense alarm that a new song was heard at two theatres at once in London.
Nobody has ever known who wrote the words, but on 28 September,God Save the King was heard
simultaneously at Drury Lane in a setting by Thomas Arne, and at Covent Garden in the setting by
Arne's pupil, Charles Burney, which remains our national anthem. 'Frustrate their knavish tricks'
was probably meant for the French connivance at the assault upon Britain. The October issue of The
Gentleman's Magazine carried both the words and music, the first line reading 'God save great
George, our King'. It was a moment in which, in a seemingly desperate situation—for the Pretender
was continuing to march south, into the heart of England as though nothing could stop him—an
immense patriotism surged up, as in the time of the first Elizabeth when the Spanish Armada
threatened our shores, and more recently in the campaign to recover the Falklands. Foreigners,
particularly French names, were suddenly objects of keenest suspicion in London.
It was in these circumstances that, on 9 December, 1745, Horace Walpole wrote to Horace
Mann.1

The Duke, from some strange want of intelligence, lay last week for four and twenty hours at
Stone, in Staffordshire, expecting the rebels every moment, while they were marching in all
haste to Derby. The news of this threw the town into great consternation, but His Royal
Highness repaired his mistake, and got to Northampton, between the Highlanders and …
We begin to take up people . .. The Provost of Edinburgh is in custody of a messenger; and the
other day they seized an odd man, who goes by the name of Comte St. Germain. He had been
here these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that he does not go
by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very
sensible. He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in
Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman.
The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity about him, but in vain.

If the portrait he offers is that of a ludicrous person, one must remember that Horace Walpole,
never at any time of his life profound, and then still only in his twenties, was the son of the great

63
Whig Prime Minister. It is quite obvious he knows nothing about Saint-Germain, save from the
wildest gossip. He would, like his father, have been unsympathetic to the Prince of Wales, feeling
that by his harbouring of Tories and Jacobites he had encouraged faction, and, though he himself
would lose his inheritance of the Crown if the Pretender attained it, half responsible for the danger
in which the 'establishment' stood. Anybody belonging to the Prince's circle would therefore be a
target for Walpole's mockery.
On 21 December, 1745, the French Charge d'Affaires in London— countries at war left their
representatives in each other's capitals in those days—Monsieur Chiquet, mentioned the matter in
one of his reports to his Government. The English, he said, were still arresting a great number of
people. One whom he had found taken into custody was a certain Smith, wine merchant, suspected
because he had lived in Boulogne and because he had, since England and France had been at war,
made five trips from London to Edinburgh, where he was thought to have had relations with the
Provost. (Any kind of relations with Scotland were suspect, because of the enthusiasm with which
the Scots supported the Stuart Pretender. It was thought the reception he had been given there must
have been plotted in advance, or at any rate counted on.) After dealing with this case, Chiquet
continued (I translate from his French):2

I find, also, a person who has been here for some time, known here as the Comte de Saint-
Germain. He has met every highly placed person, including the Prince of Wales. He speaks
several languages, French, English, German, Italian etc., is a very good musician and plays
several instruments, said to be a Sicilian and of great wealth. What has drawn suspicion on him
is that he has cut a very fine figure here, receiving great sums and settling all bills with such
promptitude that it has never been necessary to remind him. Nobody could imagine how a man
who was simply a gentleman could dispose of such vast resources, unless he were employed as
a spy. He has been left in his own apartment under the guard of a State Messenger; no papers
have been found in it or on his person which furnish the least evidence against him; he has been
interrogated by the Secretary of State, to whom he does not furnish an explanation of himself
quite so satisfactory as that gentleman wishes, persisting in his refusal to state his real name,
title or occupaion, unless to the King himself, for, he says, his behaviour has been in no wise
contrary to the laws of this country, and it is against common right to deprive an honest
foreigner of his liberty without formulating an accusation.

Saint-Germain's refusal to disclose his identity except to the King suggests a secret as to his
parentage affecting the honour of some royal house. Whether King George received him in
audience or Saint-Germain was persuaded to tell Newcastle we do not know, but he was released.
The next reference we have to Saint-Germain comes in a musical context.3 Two musical people
who arrived in London in the tail end of 1745 were Gluck and Prince Lobkowitz. Though born in
the Upper Palatinate, Christopher Willibald Gluck had been brought up on the Bohemian border of
Germany. This was why he had for his patron the young Prince Ferdinand Philipp Lobkowitz, who
had become head of his house at the age of twelve. After completing his education in Prague, Gluck
obtained his juvenile patron's leave to study in Italy. There, he composed his first operas, without
having yet discovered what was to be his eventual style. He afterwards visited Paris, to learn
something of the French style, met Rameau and probably heard his music. In the meantime,
Lobkowitz had attained his majority and projected a visit to England. Lord Middlesex, Director of
Italian Opera at the King's Theatre in London, (in succession to Heidegger and Handel) invited him
to bring his protege and so they arrived, thirty-one and twenty-one respectively, but to a
disappointment. Because of the Pretender's invasion, all foreigners were suddenly treated with
suspicion and opera houses closed. As the Pretender withdrew from Derby, however, the fear
slowly left people, and conditions began to ease. Middlesex commissioned Gluck to write an opera
celebrating the victory at Culloden (which was, however, stained by an atrocious blood-letting), and
his La caduta dei giganti was performed on 7 January, 1746, without winning much appreciation.
64
Handel said, 'He knows no more of counterpoint than my cook'. A musician did Handel's cooking
for him. G luck accepted his criticism in good part, called on Handel, from whom he received some
advice, and Handel and Gluck appeared together in a concert at the King's Theatre, in the
Haymarket on 25 March.
Charles Burney, the composer of 'God save the King', writes in his History of Music:3

The great Opera house being shut up this year on account of the rebellion, and popular
prejudice against the performers, who being foreigners were chiefly Roman Catholics: an opera
was attempted April 7th, at the little theatre in the Hay-market, under the direction of
Geminiani. Prince Lobkowitz, who was at this time in London and fond of music, and the
celebrated and mysterious Count Saint-Germain attended all the rehearsals. Pasquali led: and I
remember, at a rehearsal, Geminiani taking the violin out of his hands, to give him the style and
expression of the symphony to a song, which had been mistaken when first led off. And this
was the first time I ever saw or heard Geminiani. The opera was a pasticcio, and called
L'incostanza Delusa. But Count Saint-Germain composed several new songs, particularly Per
pieta bel idol mio, which was sung by Frasi, first woman, and encored every night.

When Burney says, Prince Lobkowitz and Saint-Germain attended all the rehearsals, Gluck was
probably with them, although unnoticed by Burney, not being yet very well known. Gluck and
Lobkowitz would have been going about together, and if Lobkowitz and Saint-Germain were doing
so, that implies they were all three in company. Such were the interconnections between them, it is
not unlikely Saint-Germain also met Handel.
A pasticcio was a form of opera in which were presented songs by different composers, most
often previously heard in other contexts—which is why Burney specifies that Saint-Germain had
composed new ones specially— strung together in some frame. Somebody decided which songs
should go in and organised them into a new ensemble.
It has, however, been pointed out that Burney was mistaken in referring to L'incostanza delusa
as a pasticcio. L'inconstanza delusa (‘Delusive Inconstancy’) was an opera by Giuseppe Ferdinando
Brivio, born in Milan in 1700, teacher of singing, violinist, composer and, for a good many years,
manager of the Teatro Regio Ducale at Milan, where, in 1738, he had his own opera, L'incostanza
delusa, put on. It is generally thought that between 1742 and 1745 Brivio must have been in
London, several of his operas having suddenly been put on here and arias from them published by
Walsh. Also, his foremost pupil, the soprano Giulia Frasi was here to take the leading part in his
works. What is mysterious is how three arias by Saint-Germain came to be interpolated in the
London production of his L'incostanza delusa. If it was Geminiani's idea, it would seem like an
insult to Brivio, as suggesting his work needed livening up by the insertion of some pieces by
somebody else. So, perhaps it was Brivio who invited Saint-Germain to make a contribution to it.
How came Saint-Germain to be a composer of such standing as to make such an invitation
comprehensible? This is the first one hears of him as a musician. One does not suddenly compose a
score with (as we shall see) parts for a number of different instruments, without having learned the
technique somewhere. Where?
The Little Theatre, where L'incostanza delusa was performed, was in the Haymarket, just
opposite to the King's, which Aaron Hill had managed, scene of Handel's reign (jointly with
Heidegger) until he forsook opera for sacred oratorio.
Francesco Geminiani was an Italian composer of some distinction, and the author of books on
music. He had studied under Corelli and perhaps Alessandro Scarlatti, though his work
distinguished itself from theirs by its vivacity and eccentricity. He had been in England since 1714
and was recognised as a virtuoso. Handel had chosen him to be his First Violinist in the first
performance of the Messiah, on 13 April, 1742.
The Pasquali mentioned would have been Niccol6 Pasquali, an Italian violinist and composer
living in Edinburgh, who must have come down specially.
65
 How long Lobkowitz and Gluck stayed in London is not known. The latter was by November
of that year in Hamburg. Saint-Germain remained in London.
In c. 1747, Walsh, the well known music publisher of St. Catherine Street, off the Strand,
London, published Favourite Songs in the Opera called L'Incostanza Delusa. This was a collection
of six arias, three of which were the ones by Saint-Germain. All had been sung by either Giulia
Frasi or her friend Caterina Galli. These two sopranos were always singing together, notably in
Handel's Messiah and other of his oratorios, Frasi as his prima donna.
The one which Burney told us was encored every night, sung by Frasi, has accompanying lines
for first and second violins, viola, cello and harpsichord. It is in 3/4 time, the introduction, first
verse and link between the verses in F Major, the second verse in F Minor. An aria being by
definition an extended song in three sections, the first verse is, with repetitions, made to extend over
the first two sections of the music while the music for the second verse contrasts. The libretto is
written without punctuation save for the final full stop:

Per pietà bel Idol mio

Non mi dir che sono ingrato
Infelice sventurato
Abbastanza il del mi fa
Infelice sventurato

Se fedele a te son io
Semi struggo a tuoi bei lumi
Fallo amor
Lo fallo i numi
Il mio cor
Il tuo lo fa.

I translate from the Italian:

For pity's sake, beautiful Idol mine,

Tell me not I am unwelcome [literally ungrateful]
Unhappy, misadventured.
It is enough that Heaven renders me
Wretched, unfortunate.

So faithful to you am I,
I faint in your beautiful beams.
Love does it.
The gods do it.
My heart,
Your heart, does it.

The one sung by Galli is in G Major, 3/4 time:

Digli digli ch'e un infedele

Digli che mi tradì
Senti senti non me dir cost
Digli che l'amo

Ma se nel mio martir lo vedi

Sospirar tornami a Consolar
66
 Prima del mio morir
Di più non bramo.

I translate from the Italian:

Tell him, tell him he is faithless,

Tell him he betrayed me.
Feel, feel, yet do not say this.
Tell him I love him.

But if at my martyrdom
You see him sigh,
Turn to console me before I die,
I ask no more than this.

The other, sung by Frasi, is in 3/8 time, the introduction, first verse and voice rest in G Major,
the second verse in G Minor.

Senza pietà mi credi

Senza pietà non sono
L'offesa io ti perdono
Ma non ti posso amar

Lasciami in pace
E volgi altrove
Altrove i sguardi tuoi
Sei libero sei voi deh deh
Più non mi tormentar.

I translate from the Italian:

Think me without pity.

Without pity I am not.
The offence I forgive you,
But I cannot love you.

Leave me in peace.
Turn your regard elsewhere.
You are free, if you wish it.
Torment me no more.

There is something curious. Long associated with the King's theatre was the Swiss, Johann
Jakob Heidegger. He had been Manager from 1713, joint-Manager with Handel from 1729 until his
own retirement in 1734. In 1744 he bought number 4, Maids of Honour Row, one of the four very
beautiful houses in Richmond, Surrey, built by order of George II while Prince of Wales, for his
wife's maids of honour. Heidegger commissioned Antonio Jolli, long scene-painter at the King's (a
pupil of Pannini and follower of Canaletto) to decorate the interior of his house with murals. The
front door opens straight into the best room, where one finds, painted in oils on the pinewood walls,
eleven Swiss and Italian landscapes, and over the door from this room to the rear, wreathed in
acanthus, symbol of immortality, an open book of music. The music it is open at is Per pietà bel
Idol mio. The staves carry the treble only, words and melody going as far as il ciel mi, there being
67
no room for fa. To be visible from the floor, the notes and words have had to be painted large. This
was the most popular of Saint-Germain's arias, the one Burney tells us was encored every night.
That a retired opera house manager should like to see an aria on one of his walls is understandable.
What is curious is that the theatre in which this one had been performed was not his own, the
King's, but its smaller rival, the Little, opposite.
What kind of a London was it to which Saint-Germain addressed his music? As regards the
native arts it was between periods. Pope and Swift had both just died. James Thompson would die
next year. Gray's Elegy had not yet been written, nor any of the melancholy, sequestered school
come in. In the history of poetry, this is the void. In painting it was somewhat the same; Kneller had
died; Gainsborough was still in his 'teens. Yet it was Hogarth's London, the London of which
Samuel Johnson wrote, 'When a man is tired of London he is tired of life.' Saint-Germain was
staying in St. Mary Axe, in the City, with a Dr. Abraham Gomes Ergas, otherwise La-Cour. People
like Johnson, less comfortably established, or simply wishing to meet their fellows, spent half their
day in the coffee-houses, of which there were four of special note, where intellectual and artistic
people gathered.
The straight theatre was dominated by Garrick's great s'eries of Shakespeare revivals, with their
wonderful scenery; it was only a few years since the re-discovery of the Bard had been celebrated
by the erection of the statue to him in Westminster Abbey. But mainly the capital found its
entertainment in music, that is to say largely opera. Since Handel had given up his challenge to the
Italians in this sphere, deserting the operatic stage for sacred oratorio, this had come to be, even
more than it had been earlier, the Italian Opera, and this not solely the official Italian Opera of the
King's. George II was the patron of Handel, whom he had commissioned to write his Coronation
Anthems. Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, opposite to his father in most things, gave all his
encouragement to the Italian musicians. There were his musical evenings at Albermarle Street and
at Cliveden, and there were beginning to be great hostesses who gave in their drawing-rooms
musical evenings, such as today the Earl and Countess of Harewood give in their homes.
Indeed, Burney added to the account quoted above:

As to such elegant private concerts as are now [ 1789] frequently given by the nobility and
gentry at their own houses, they were at this time scarcely known. The first I remember was at
Lady Brown's, under the direction of Count St. Germain. Her ladyship distinguished herself as
a persevering enemy to Handel, and a protectress of foreign musicians in general, of the new
Italian style; and was one of the first persons of fashion who had the courage, at the risk of her
windows, to have concerts on a Sunday evening.

What is interesting is to notice that Saint-Germain participated not merely as a performer but as
the director.
Newspaper articles refer to images drawn from music featuring in his conversation4 and to his
having on one occasion arrived at one of Lady Townshend's musical evenings at her house in
Grosvenor Square with his finger in his ears because of the noise being made by the men delivering
her coal.5 It has been pointed out that this anecdote bears a suspicious resemblance to one told of
Rameau, so it may have been a kind of stock story to tell of composers. But the reference to Lady
Townshend is interesting, because she and her husband belonged to the circle of Frederick Prince of
Wales, and were often invited to his country residence, Clivedon, an enormous house in
Buckinghamshire, as well as to his London musical evenings at Lord Grantham's house in
Albemarle Street. It could have been through Lady Townshend that Saint-Germain had come to
know the Prince of Wales and to arouse his curiosity. The Townshends had probably taken Saint-
Germain with them to some of the Prince's musical evenings.
What was growing up was a kind of drawing-room musical and poetic culture, and it will have
been for the pleasure of English hostesses that Saint-Germain tried his hand at setting English verse.

68
 The Maid that's made for Love and Me, Set by the Comte de St. Germain appeared from Walsh
without a date. The British Museum's cataloguer has given it a circa date of 1745, while another
printing of the same, also from Walsh, but entitled simply A New Song, set by Comte de St.
Germain, is catalogued under its first line, O wouldst thou know what sacred charms and accorded
a c. 1747 date. Actually, I would doubt whether either of them is likely to have preceded the
printing in The London Magazine, January, 1747, which was followed by a reprinting in The
Gentleman's Magazine of September, 1747. The words are:

O wouldst thou know what kind of charms

This destined heart of mine alarms;
What kind of nymph the Heav'ns decree
The maid that's made for love and me.

Who joys to hear the sigh sincere,

Who melts to see the tender tear,
From each ungentle passion free,
O be the maid that's made for me.

Whose heart with gen'rous friendship glows,

Who feels the blessings she bestows,
Gentle to all but kind to me,
Be such the maid that's made for me.

Whose simple thoughts, devoid of art,

Are all the natives of her heart,
A gentle train from falsehood free,
Be such the maid that's made for me.

Avaunt! ye light coquets retire,

Where flatt'ring fops around admire.
Unmov'd your tinsel charms I see,
More genuine beauties are for me.

In the single folio sheets published by Walsh, 'what kind of charms' is replaced by 'her sacred
charms', suggesting a correction made because it had been noticed that 'kind of figured again two
lines below. If it should stay before 'nymph', something else should be put before 'charms'. If this
was the thought, then the Walsh sheets would both have followed the two magazine publications.
The music is in 3/4 time. The key signature is B Flat, but the persistence with which A is
prefixed with a flat, and the structure of the piece as a whole, made me feel it as in E Flat Major. In
The Interpretation of Early Music, Robert Donington, I found a possibly relevant passage:6 'In
baroque music, a key signature may often be one sharp or one flat short of the number required, the
deficiency being subsequently made good by accidentals throughout the piece as required. This is a
relic of modal notation...' I wrote to Professor Donington, sending him a photostat of the photocopy
I had obtained from the British Museum, from which I was playing it, and asking if this was an
instance. His reply confirmed my judgement, 'Key is E Flat'.
But who are the words by? Are they, as well as the music, by Saint-Germain? In the four
appearances of the poem in London which we have noted, two in literary magazines and two from
the music publisher, Walsh, no name appears in connection with it save that of Saint-Germain.
But then a version of the poem, without the music, appeared in Poems on Several Occasions,
from the house of Robert and Andrew Foulis (Glasgow, 1748). This collection was published
without any indication as to who the poems in it might be by, but has come to be accepted as the
69
first edition of the poems of a Scottish poet, William Hamilton. He had joined with the Pretender in
the rising of 1745, and so had been obliged to flee the country. An anonymous preface forecasting
the poet's return to his native land and the production of 'a more perfect edition', is dated 21
December, 1748, so probably the volume was not in print until the following year. The poems in it
had apparently been put together by Hamilton's friends, from published and unpublished sources,
without his consent or even knowledge. However well intentioned, they may have made mistakes in
attribution. It has been pointed out that one of the poems in it, 'Go, plaintive sounds', though it has
passed into all future editions of Hamilton's work, appears, dated 4 November, 1747, in the Royal
Society Hume MSS in Edinburgh—see Life and Correspondence of David Hume (Edinburgh, 1846,
2 volumes), I, p. 227-and therefore suggested Hume should be assumed to be its author. If it was
gathered into the Poems on Several Occasions by mistake, could the same have happened to a poem
by Saint-Germain? A second edition of the Poems on Several Occasions appeared in 1749, and
incorporated corrections to some of the poems which Hamilton had made in a copy of the first
edition bearing the bookplate of Andrew Lumisden. Hamilton's name still did not appear, but there
was a portrait of him, suggesting his authorship of the whole.
I wrote to someone at the University of Edinburgh saying I would like to be put in touch with a
scholar of Scottish poems of the period, and Prof. David Daiches, Principal of the English
Department, wrote for me to Dr Thomas Crawford, of the English Department of the University of
Aberdeen. Dr Crawford replied to me explaining that it had been while researching the sources of
Robert Burns' poems that he had made what he hoped was a first-line index of all poems in song-
books (with or without music) published in Scotland from 1662-1785. 'Wouldst thou know her
sacred charms' had appeared, without music, in a song-book The Charmer (Edinburgh, 1744),
without name of author or composer but with an indication it should be sung to the tune of 'Swains I
scorn', by which it was preceded, and with which it was made to seem to pair, as 'Swains I scorn',
also anonymous, was presented as from a lady wishing only for a manly type of man. The editor of
The Charmer was 'a certain Yair, who raided Walsh and other English song books quite
shamelessly'. Of the Poems on Several Occasions (Glasgow, 1748), Dr Crawford wrote, that,
bearing in mind that it was put together without his (Hamilton's) consent, from MSS circulating in
Edinburgh at the time ... 'it's possible that one or more of the songs are not by Hamilton at all'.
Though Walsh was Saint-Germain's publisher, the text in The Charmer is as in the Glasgow
'wouldst thou know', so I would think that the source raided. 'Swains I scorn' does not appear in any
edition of Hamilton's poems, but The Scots Magazine of February 1751 printed a reply to 'Wouldst
thou know' as from a lady, signing herself 'Glasgow', listing the qualities she would expect of a
man, and this evoked a reply to the reply, signed 'Edinburgh'. Hamilton was by this time returned to
Scotland, and if he wrote the reply signed 'Edinburgh' that might be considered as tacitly accepting
endorsing attribution to himself of the authorship of 'Wouldst thou know', but though he could have
written the piece signed 'Edinburgh' there is no evidence that he did so. In 1754 Hamilton died, and
when, six years later, there appeared Poems on Several Occasions, William Hamilton of Bangour
(Edinburgh, 1760), with a memoir of the poet, 'Wouldst thou know' appeared in it, as it later
appeared in The poetical works of William Hamilton, ed. Thomas Parks (London, 1805). Thus it
entered his accepted works. Yet is it his or Saint-Germain's? A search of such earlier publications as
Dr Crawford suggested to me proved negative, but is it possible it was a poem of Hamilton's which,
before he fled to the Continent, had begun to circulate in manuscript and that somebody gave a
manuscript copy to Saint-Germain, which he set to music and gave to be first printed in his musical
setting?
There is only one biography of the Scottish poet, that is William Hamilton of Bangour, Nelson
S. Bushnell (Aberdeen, 1957). This makes no mention of Saint-Germain, the earliest printing of
'Wouldst thou know' known to Dr. Bushnell being in the Poems on Several Occasions (Glasgow,
1748). On p. 66, however, he mentions 'Wouldst thou know' as difficult to place in Hamilton's life.
It is plainly the work of an unmarried man, and Hamilton married in 1743. It is not among his
contributions to The Tea-Time Miscellanies, Allan Ramsay (London, 1730), and, stranger, it is not
70
inscribed in his Manuscript Volume, in which, some time in his middle years, 1730-39, Hamilton
listed his unpublished poems. Between 1739 and his marriage he was travelling abroad and not
apparently writing much verse. I wrote to Dr Bushnell, at his American University, telling him of
Saint-Germain's settings raising the question of the authorship, but received no reply.
Let us look at the differences between the Scottish version and Saint-Germain's text. In the first
verse, the Scottish version omits the initial '0', starting, 'Wouldst thou' instead of 'O wouldst thou',
and has, like the Walsh sheets, 'sacred charms' instead of, as in the London magazines, 'kind of
charms'. In the second verse one reads 'pants to hear' instead of 'joys to hear'. Between the second
and third verses there is a verse interpolated. In the next verse, 'Whose heart' becomes 'Whose soul'.
In the fourth verse, 'simple thoughts' is changed to 'genuine thoughts' and 'Gentle train' to 'simple
train', and in the last verse, 'flatt'ring fops' becomes 'glittering fops'. There is added a final verse,
which seems not quite to go with the rest, the ending, 'Should she change, but can that be?/No other
maid is made for me' seeming to suggest there is already a particular maiden known to the writer,
which I do not find in the Saint-Germain. Moreover, as a poet, I ask myself for what reason I would
have made the small changes in the earlier verses. Why would it seem necessary to change 'joys' to
'pants' and 'heart' to 'soul'—especially as by tradition it is the heart which glows? The answer is that
the extra verse, between the second and the third, contains the words 'joys' and 'heart'. My feeling is,
therefore, that this extra verse was let in to something that was conceived without it, and that the
emplacement of this interpolation necessitated the removal of 'joys' and 'hearts' from the verses on
either side.
On these grounds I would give Saint-Germain's form of the poem, which has priority of
publication, also priority of composition.
If Saint-Germain wrote the words as well as the music of 'O wouldst thou', he also set two
lyrics by English poets. There is a publication which, from its title, would seem to have been
intended as the first number of a periodical, though no further issues followed, The Temple of
Apollo or Temple of the Muses, for the month of April, 1747, by a Society of Gentlemen (London,
printed for the Society, 1747). The Society is believed to have been presided over by James Oswald,
a Scot from Edinburgh, who had migrated to London and opened a music shop on the corner of St
Martin's Lane nearest the Church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields. In the shop the members of the
Society met, presumably for conversation upon musical matters. The first song in this their first
(and only) publication was a setting by Saint-Germain of Edmund Waller's poem, The Self-
Banished. From the middle of the preceding century, this had been a popular piece for musicians to
set, amongst those who had composed settings for it being Dr John Bold and James Oswald. The
new setting, by Saint-Germain, is in F Major, in 3/4 time, amoroso, with an Obbligato for German
Flute, transposed to G. Other songs in the volume are by James Oswald and Charles Burney, one or
two less known people, and a second contribution by Saint-Germain, a setting for Aaron Hill's
poem, Gentle Love, this hour befriend me, in D Major, in 4/4 time, moderato.
Both these settings were later in published by Walsh as single folio sheets, Gentle Love, c.
1750, and The Self-Banished, c. 1755.
In The London Magazine of July, 1748, there appeared A New Song, with melody and bass line
(though unfigured) but no composer's name. A month later, in The Gentleman's Magazine of
August, 1748, p. 272, the same words and melody reappear; the bass has been shorn off, probably
for want of editorial space, but we are granted the composer's name—A New Song Set by Count St
Germain.

Jove, when he saw my Fanny's face

With wondrous passion mov'd,
Forgot the care of human race,
And felt at last he lov'd.
Then to the God of soft desire,
71
 His suit he thus addrest.
I Fanny love; with mutual fire
O touch her tender breast.

Your signs are hopeless, Cupid cries.

I lov'd the maid before.
What! Rival me? Great Jove replies,
Whom gods and men adore!
He grasp'd the bolt, he shook the springs
Of his imperial throne;
While Cupid wav'd his rosy wings,
And in a breath was gone.

O'er earth and seas the godhead flew,

But still no shelter found.
For as he fled, his danger grew,
And lightning flash'd around:
At last his trembling fear impels
His flight to Fanny's eyes,
Where happy, safe and pleas'd, he dwells,
Nor minds his native skies.

It is in D Major, in 6/4 time, Affetuoso. I find the lilt of this one quite celestial; though an
unusual interval, from a G Sharp in the bass to the A eight and a half tones above it requires
accustomation.
I spent much time trying to trace the author of the lyric. I appealed, but in vain, through the
columns of The Times Literary Supplement.
At Senate House (University of London), Miss P.M. Baker, Sterling Librarian, looked in
English Verse, 1701-51, A Catalogue of separately printed poems, with notes on contemporary
collected editions, David Foxon (1975) and found it was not there. As it appeared under Saint-
Germain in New Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, she suggested Saint-Germain might
be the author not only of the music but of the words. It did not appear to me that the article in the
New Grove attempted to assign authorship of the words, but nevertheless, the possibility they were
by Saint-Germain had occurred to me, from inspection of the text.
This appears, at first sight, not outstanding. It is in the style of the drawing-room songs of the
time. That need not, however, preclude its containing autobiographical clues. A mythological
setting has often cloaked a poet's own actual involvements. Yet the stock mask for a lover is an
Arcadian shepherd, not Jove, the Roman Jupiter or Greek Zeus. Moreover, though the sky-god had
loves, myth does not represent him as being deflected by them from care of the human race, or
indeed as having much care for the human race at all. Pastoral care is the attribute of a human
shepherd, a minister or philosopher rather than of a deity of the classical pantheon. It is,
furthermore, humans striving towards saintliness or philosophy who find particular affections
distracting, which is why the Catholic and Orthodox churches forbid their priests to marry. Jove
took his amours in his stride, so why does the poet pick on him? The most notable characteristic
with regard to the thunderer was that when coming to mortal women he was accustomed to assume
a disguising form, such as an eagle or a shower of gold, because, to appear to them in all his glory,
unveiled, would be too much for them and burn them up. It is in the same spirit that some fairy
stories feature princes who disguised themselves as humbler persons so as not to over-awe a modest
companion.
Then again, why should Jupiter or Zeus be wandering over earth and sea seeking shelter? This
is not in his character. The father of the gods needed no shelter, for everywhere belonged to him.
72
Surely, it is the poet who has wandered through many countries, without finding an abiding home. I
England, 'in Fanny's eyes', he forgets his 'native skies'. But the sky-god was god of the whole of the
sky and of all skies everywhere. He could have no skies more 'native' to him than any others. It is
the poet, surely, who when with Fanny 'happy, safe and pleased' forgets his native land. Therefore
he is a foreigner. Moreover, the person suggests or would fit a royal refugee, who should have
responsibilities elsewhere. Note the play on the word 'minds'. Though apparently used here to mean
'calls to mind', the usual meaning is 'takes care of, as a governor minds an infant.
The last verse may express a wish-fulfilment, seeing that the middle one conveys the hint of a
rival, Cupid.
Dr. Crawford, to whom I had mentioned this poem too, replied, 'As for "Jove, when he saw my
Fanny's face", my slip says it was entitled Cupid's Refuge and "sung by Mr. Lowe at Vauxhall". It
was published in Scotland in Yair's Charmer (Vol.11,1751), p. 55; The Lark (1765), p. 69, and The
Cheerful Companion (1774), p. 65'.
Mr. Lowe will be Thomas Lowe, the English tenor. He had been MacHeath in The Beggar's
Opera. He was the original singer of Arne's settings of the songs in As You Like It; the original
singer of roles in a number of Handel's operas. He was engaged to sing at Vauxhall in 1745, the
year they also engaged Arne and expanded the orchestra; also in some subsequent seasons. A singer
such as Lowe, accustomed to sing the best work of his time, would not have sung a work by Saint-
Germain unless it had been considered worthy.
Mr. Peter Ward Jones, Music Librarian of the Bodleian, kindly sent me photocopies of a
number of different prints of 'Jove, when he saw' including some with the Cupid's Refuge title
above. In these versions, starting with that in Yair's Charmer, there were small alterations to the
words; in the first verse, line 4, 'And found at once' appears in place of 'And felt at last'; in the
second verse, line 3, 'the Pow'r' replaces 'Great Jove' and in line 7, 'clap't' replaces 'wav'd'; in the
third verse, line 1, 'the god he' replaces 'the godhead' and in line 3, 'the dangers' "his danger'.
What seems to me suspicious about this version is the title, Cupid's Refuge. It was not Cupid
who found, or sought, a refuge. That title could not, therefore, have been given it by the author, but
was probably put above it by somebody who had not troubled to read it properly, and the same
person probably made the small verbal changes: probably Yair, or Yair's hack.
Mr. Ward Jones of the Bodleian was able to give me considerable further information, 'Thanks
to the first-line index to English songbooks and songsheets compiled by the late Walter Harding,
which came to us with his vast collection a few years ago. It is an extremely comprehensive index
to English song for the period 1600-c. 1820'. As he nowhere found any other name associated with
the words, he inclined to agree with my theory that they, like the music, were by Saint-Germain
himself. He found in Harding fifteen sources for 'Jove, when he saw my Fanny's face'; the earliest
being those in The London Magazine and The Gentleman's Magazine.
One can therefore make a bibliography of the poem as follows:

The London Magazine, July, 1748, p.328 with music

The Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1748, p.372 with music
Harding single sheet song with music
The Bullfinch, c.1748, p. 10
The Bullfinch, c.1750, p. 10
The Goldfinch, c.1749, p. 10
Vocal Medley, vol.1, c.1749, p. 10
The Charmer, vol.2, 1751, p.55. Title Cupid's Refuge
Vocal Melody, vol.1, 1751, p.55
The Merry Lad, 1753, p.3
The Wreath, 1753
The Muses Delight (Liverpool), 1754, p. 193 with music. Title Cupid's Refuge
Apollo's Cabinet (Liverpool), 1756
73
 The Lark, 1756 p.69
Clio and Euterpe, vol.2, 1759, p. 176 with music. Title Cupid's Refuge
Clio and Euterpe, vol.2, 1762, p. 176 with music. Title Cupid's Refuge
The Blackbird, 1764, p.54
The Lark, 1765, p.69
The Cheerful Companion, 1774
The Cheerful Companion, 1776

In The Muses Delight, which was published in Liverpool, by J. Sadler, the music is mistakenly
credited to 'Mr. Oswald', as also in a repeat printing under the title Apollo's Cabinet, two years later.
In c.1750 there appeared from Walsh Musique Raisonnee selon le bon sens, awe Dames
Angloises qui aiment le urai gout en cet art par SSSS de Saint-Germain. The title means 'Music
reasoned according to good sense, to the English ladies who like true taste in that art'. There is a
copy, once in Roudnice or Raudnitz Castle, now in the Narodni Museum at Prague , 7 whose
Librarian, Dr. Milada Rutova, kindly sent me microfilm of some pages, including one bearing the
long title written out in Saint-Germain's hand and dedicated 'Par....SSSSS de St. Germain avec
Privilege'. Literally, 'with Privilege', the last means Complimentary Copy, and as Raudnitz was the
seat of the Lobkowitz family, this copy will have been a presentation to Prince Lobkowitz. One
notices that there are here five Ss (not as in Walsh four). What these mean is for anybody to guess.
They are unlikely to represent Christian names. My feeling is that they probably stand for five
words, in French, by which he described himself to himself. The Dutch American composer, Mr.
Johan Franco, sends me, from his wife, Boise, a wittily punning reading of the riddle 'quintessence
of spirit'; but one must remember what Saint-Germain had in mind may have been something of a
totally different order.
It was Mr. Franco who put me upon the trail of another hand-dedicated copy, in the private
collection of the late Mr. Edward Croft-Murray of the British Museum. At the Museum they put me
in touch with his widow, Jill, and it was so I came to her home, the Heidegger house at Richmond.
The Croft-Murray copy is inscribed on the inside front cover 'Pour la Duchesse de Leeds' and has
the title written by hand, Musique Raisonnee selon le bon sens aux Dames d'Angleterre qui aiment
le vraigout en cetart Par....St. Germain avec Privilege'. One notices small distinctions, 'dames
d'Angleterre' (ladies of England) in place of 'Dames Angloises' (English ladies). Privilege has got
its accent, which was missing before, but Saint-Germain has signed without S's or title.
There may have been complimentary copies to Ladies Townshend and Brown and perhaps
other people, though they have not come to light. The presentation to the Duchess of Leeds suggests
that hers was one of the great drawing-rooms in which Saint-Germain's music was heard, either at
the Leeds' town house, in St. James's Square (today numbered 21) London or at the Duke's seat,
North Mimms, in Hertfordshire near St. Albans and Francis Bacon's old home.
The phrase 'reasoned according to good sense' is unusual, but probably indicated the endeavour
to make the music bring out the sense of the words.
Although the title is in French, the arias are all in Italian. There are forty-two of them, including
the three that were in L'Incostanza delusa, preceded by a copyright notice, granting to Walsh the
exclusive right to publish Saint-Germain's music, signed by Newcastle, as Secretary of State, dated
27 November, 1749. Though the words of all the arias relate to dramatic situations, as though they
were intended to go into operas, and, extending to 135 pages of print, there are surely enough arias
for several, they are not arranged so that any story emerges, which has caused Dr. Calmeyer to
wonder whether the mass of them might not have been composed as exercises while pursuing
musical studies. They do, indeed, seem rather many to have all been composed since Saint-Germain
came to London. When instead of assembling them into operas, he published them all at once in this
way, was it a sign he was becoming bored with opera? The most care has been bestowed on the last
one, Non ha ragione ingrato... (The ungrateful man has not reason, or The ungrateful man is in the

74
wrong), which bears expression marks at almost every bar, con colera, dolorosamente, pregando
(angrily, sorrowfully, beggingly) etc. It is in F. Minor, in 4/4 time, the last section in 3/4:

Non ha ragione ingrato

Un Core abbandonato
Da chi giurò gli fe
Ingrato da chi giurò gli fe?
Anime innamorate
Se to provaste mai
Dite le voi per me.
Perfido tu lo sai Si tu lo sai
Si in premio un tradimento
lo meritai da te?
E qual sarà tormento
Anime innamorate
Se questo mio non e?

The virtual absence of punctuation marks and, at the beginning, loose syntax, leaves the
meaning to be sensed. I translate from the Italian:

Is he not wrong, ungrateful

To a heart, forsaken,
That swore to him faith,
Ungrateful to one who swore him faith?
Loving souls,
If you have experienced it,
Say it for me.

Perfidious, you know,

Yes, you know,
Whether, as my reward,
1 deserved betrayal by you?
And what shall torment be,
Loving souls,
If this of mine is not?

Are the words as well as the music of his Italian arias Saint-Germain's own? It would be natural
to suppose so, in the absence of any other attribution. I had all the 42 first lines checked against the
Arie Antiche of Parisotti, but none of them figure there. In case Saint-Germain should have made
use of existing Italian straight poems, I wrote to Dr. Tomaso Urso of the University of Florence, and
he consulted colleagues, but none of them knew anything having any of these first lines. At the
Conservatore Giuseppe Verdi in Milan they recognised nothing and could not trace arias from first
lines. In short, I think the chances are that the Italian lyrics, as well as the music, are by Saint-
Germain himself.
Also c.1750 Walsh published Six Sonatas for two Violins with a bass for Harpsichord or
Violoncello by SSSS de St. Germain. (A note on the title-page refers to his Musique Raisone'e as
still available). Keys and times of these trio sonatas are: I, F Major, 4/4; II, B Flat Major, 4/4; III, E
Flat Major, 4/4; IV, G Minor, 4/4; V, G Major 4/4; VI,A Major, 3/4. It is unfortunate that
instrumental music does not lend itself to representation in words, for whereas the songs were for
the ladies the violin was Saint-Germain's own instrument, and his sonatas are much more serious.

75
 For a description of these, I feel I cannot do better than quote Dr. Calmeyer 8: 'In the trio sonatas
Saint-Germain shows the same versatility as in the English songs. The trio sonatas have three or
four movements (slow-fast-slow-fast or fast-slow-fast). The last movement is frequently a
cantabile, with contrapuntal imitation in the three parts, in 3/4 time. The allegro, including the
tempi giusti and a moderate, are of the same contrapuntal or imitative order. The adagio and
andante movements are in both the polyphonic and homophonic styles. Dynamics range from
pianissimo to fortissimo. On the whole, these sonatas adhere to the late Baroque scheme of one
theme per movement, without any discernible form or phrase structure. There is a considerable
extension and development of the one idea, but there does not evolve a clearly defined second
theme. Neither do we find the rococo dominance of the first violin or the typical rococo phrase turns
and flourishes'.
In c.1758, according to the British Museum catalogue, there appeared Seven Solos for a Violin,
composed by Compt [sic] St. de Germain [sic] All are provided with figured bass for keyboard
accompaniment. The publisher was J. Johnson, which is rather surprising, in view of the copyright
notice in Musique Raisonee; presumably Walsh had freed Saint-Germain.
Dr. Calmeyer has pointed out that these show a different structure from the trio sonatas. 'Except
for a few minor variations, they consist invariably of an adagio, allegro, andante and allegro. Each
movement is divided into two sections, the first of which ends regularly on the dominant. They have
more of a rococo character than the earlier set. The bass is chordal throughout. The occurrence of
trills and the long grace note is much more frequent and we find here again the 'Scottish snap' which
was so conspicuously absent in the trio sonatas.'8
By the time these violin solos appeared, however, Saint-Germain had returned to the continent.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

1. Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W.S. Lewis, Warren Hunting
Smith and George Lam with the assistance of Edwin M. Martz (OUP, 1967), Vol. XIX, pp.
181-182
2. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Angleterre, Vol. 420, ff. 513v-514v.
3. History of Music, Charles Burney (1789), Vol. I, p. 441.
4. The London Chronicle, 2 June, 1750.
5. The London Chronicle, 31 May, 1760.
6. The Interpretation of Early Music, Robert Donington (Faber, 1963) p. 67 or (revised ed., 1974)
p. 129.
7. Prague, Narodni Muzeum, Lobkowitz, II La 16.
8. 'The Count of Saint-Germain or Giovannini: a case of mistaken identity', J.H. Calmeyer, in
Music and Letters (U.S.A.), xlviii, (1967). The title of Dr. Calmeyer's article needs explaining.
Confusion has arisen from the facts which follow. There was a Sammlung verschiedener und
ausserlesener Oden (1737-43) of J.F.Gräfe—in which there are seven songs by Giovannini,
said by Gräfe to be a born Italian who had not disdained to set German words. There is also, in
a 1725 notebook of Anna Magdelena Bach, wife of Johann Sebastian Bach, an 'Aria de
Giovannini' beginning 'Willst du dein Herz mir schenken? ('Will you pour out your heart to
me?'). Now, there is, thirdly a Hi'sfori'sche-biograpWsches Lexicon der Tonkunstler of Ludwig
Gerber, in the 1790 edition of which it was merely said of Giovannini that in 1740 he lived in
Berlin. In the 1812 edition, however, Gerber asserts that Giovannini afterwards went to London
and published further music under the name Comte de Saint-Germain. He gives no reason for
this statement. A. Heuss, in his 'Ob das Lied "Willst du dein Herz mir schenken." nach doch
nur von Bach sein kann' argues that because of its excellence this song can only be by Bach.
Bach's authorship is refuted in Philipp Spitta's two volume biography of the great composer,
76
and the Dutch American composer, Mr. Johan Franco, in his article The Count of Saint-
Germain' in the Musical Quarterly (1950) xxxvi, observes that Bach sometimes copied out
works by other composers he admired and that a secular piece of this kind would be unique in
his work. He suggests Giovannini was read as an Italian form of Johann, and maintains that
Giovannini was in fact Saint-Germain, who wrote the same kind of secular thing. Dr. Calmeyer
is taking to task a Dr. Heinz Becker, who in his Die Musik in Geschichte und Gengenwart
argues that Giovannini's Lieder in Gräfe's collection distinguish themselves in nothing from the
Favourite Songs of Saint-Germain. Dr. Calmeyer says they do; they are metrically more
diversified and have more grace notes, appogiaturas, trills, semiquavers and demisemiquavers
but simpler basses than Saint-Germain's songs. Giovannini is, he asserts, neither Bach nor
Saint-Germain but a third composer of slender output. With this view I tend to agree. I accept
Mr. Franco's reasons for refusing the composition to Bach, but, while we do not know where
Saint-Germain was in 1740 and cannot therefore aver he was not in Berlin, my feeling is that
Gerber, confounded by two personages, both unsatisfactory in that they had no origins known
of, suddenly upon a whim decided to box them into one, without further reason. Also, 1725 is
earlier than I would expect to find anything by Saint-Germain. Nevertheless, that an argument
could arise, whether something was by Saint-Germain or by Bach, is surely a compliment to
Saint-Germain.

77
 CHAPTER 6

PLACING THE MUSIC

As the great question concerning Saint-Germain has always been where he came from, I hoped
analysis of his music might suggest a national background. To start with, I exposed it to people
living near to me, on the Northamptonshire-Bedfordshire border, first of all a seventeen year old
pianist, Miss Sharon Dickenson. She played the English songs and said she felt the composer was
from some place in the centre of Europe where there were 'very high mountains'. I never despise a
naive opinion in case it should be intuitive, and this was such an odd answer that—remembering the
Ràkòczy’s came from the Carpathians—I sent photostats to Budapest. However, Dr. Zoltan Falvy,
Director of the Institute of Musical Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, could detect in
it no Hungarian influences.
I then took some of the violin music to Mrs. Yvonne Bowness, a local teacher of the violin.
Looking through before taking up her bow, she pointed at once to the instances of Scotch snap, a
'di-DUM' rhythm, introduced from Scotland to London about 1720 and still very popular there by
the middle of the century. She felt the music to be of an international style, and said the composer
could have lived in half the great capitals of Europe. Her first impression was Central European
with Italian influences, but after playing it for some weeks she settled for simply Italian, in the
tradition of Vivaldi and the Scarlattis, though with English influences. 'He could have listened to
Purcell and perhaps to Handel'.' In fact it evoked nothing so much as the Italian Opera in London.
Mr. Richard Wilkinson, a local piano teacher with whom I took some lessons, thought Handel
the strongest influence, but the bars of syncopation 'di DUM DUM di... di DUM DUM di,' in O
wouldst thou know took him by surprise. 'It can't be, at that date .. . It's swing!' On reflection,
however, he recalled there was some syncopation at that time, particularly in Domenico Scarlatti.
As it would have been in London that Saint-Germain would have heard Handel, and some of
Domenico Scarlatti's music had been played in London, this enquiry was not advancing the question
as to where Saint-Germain had lived before he came to London. Mr. Wilkinson suggested that as in
those days it was generally in a Court that a musician learned, a start might be made by thinking
what Courts there were in which music enjoyed patronage.
I thought of a Court that could supply a point of contact between the two composers whose
names had been mentioned both by Mrs. Bowness and Mr. Wilkinson, Scarlatti and Handel.
Although Londoners contrasted Handel with the Italians, Handel had been in Italy before he came
to London. It had been Gian Gastone, the younger of the last two Medici brothers, who, meeting
Handel in Hamburg, suggested to him that he should visit Italy. 1 This visit was made by Handel, in
1707. One supposes he went first to Florence, to see Gian Gastone. Though destined to be the last
of the Medicis, Gian Gastone had not yet succeeded his brother, Prince Ferdinando (Violante's
husband), whose patronage of music made of his Court a most notable centre of musical activity.
His keeper of instruments was Bartolomeo Cristofori, reputed inventor of the piano, or as he called
it cembalo col piano e forti (harpsichord with soft and loud), built for him by 1709. 2 Prince
Ferdinando had five of the operas of Alessandro Scarlatti 3 performed in the theatre of his villa at
Pratolino, near Florence. He did not offer a position to Alessandro's son, Domenico and it is thought
it was probably in Venice or Rome that Handel met the Scarlattis and formed a friendship with the
younger, born in the same year as himself. It is not necessary that Saint-Germain should have met
either of them in Italy, but would a Court such as that of the Medici brothers in Florence not provide
the kind of musical background he must have had?
To anyone who has played the music of the 18th century only in modern editions, Saint-
Germain's, existing only in the original, will look odd. At first sight there appear to be no chords.
There are; but shown by the numerals above and below the bass-note. This is what is known as

78
Figured Bass. With this kind of notation it can be difficult in places to make out what the composer
intended. I therefore sent Professor Donington photostats of my photocopies of the harpsichord
settings of English songs, with problems arrowed, and also of some of the instrumental music,
asking questions which included his impression of the national or other influences on the work. He
saw nothing outlandish about the bars of 'swing' and he thought the songs were mainly influenced
by Handel. As to the instrumental music, he wrote, 'The style of the sonatas is I think best described
as late baroque with galant features'.
This tied in with an article I later found by the composer, Johan Franco, saying the music of
Saint-Germain compared favourably with that of his contemporaries, Johann Joachim Quantz,
Georg Philipp Telemann and Bach's sons (Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian), though not
with the great Bach. Of Saint-Germain's work, he wrote, 'The music itself is delicate and typically
galant'.4
For a definition of the term galant, one can hardly do better than go back to Professor
Donington's Interpretation of Early Music, pp. 108-109, 'The word galant . . . means polite, in the
sense of polite conversation . . .the deeper emotions, when they are mentioned at all, are brought in
with a light touch. The beat of such music glows with a genuine radiance; but it is the radiance of
sensibility and not of passion... Sensibility is feeling rendered elegant... For all its facile aspects, it
was the galant music which achieved the crucial transition between baroque music and classical
music. At the end of that road stood Beethoven'.
Professor Donington suggested I should seek a second opinion from Dr. Stanley Sadie, editor
of The New Grove Encyclopaedia of Music and Musicians, editor of The Musical Times and music
critic of The Times whose wife was an expert on French baroque of that period.
I, therefore, sent Dr. Sadie photostats of some of the violin solos and string trios, English songs
and Bel Idol mio. He very kindly replied in considerable fullness; covering a number of problems I
had raised:

I have looked with interest at the music, which is fairly typical of its date and provenance.
Nearly all single sheet songs were issued in the form of these, that is, an unnamed instrumental
part on the same stave as the voice when the voice is not singing. It is generally to be assumed
that a part was for any available instruments, like the violin or the flute in domestic
performance, or perhaps the right hand of the keyboard; though of course the figured harmonies
imply that intermediate notes needed to be added by a keyboard player. Probably the songs
were written, however, not primarily for domestic performance but for use in the pleasure
gardens or the concert rooms, or in the case of the Chanson 'L'Incostanza Delusa', by normal
string orchestra. The fact that a separate flute part is provided in one song means nothing as to
the instrumentation of the main text. This part at the bottom of the page—again normal
procedure in such publications—is intended for the flautist playing by himself; it is set in a
convenient key for the compass of the instrument (as is normal in such cases) and is not meant
to be used in association with another instrument.
I think there is very little point in trying to be too precise about a composer's intentions
regarding scores like these. Essentially they were intended for the leisured amateur, who would
buy copies in order to re-create at home pieces she had enjoyed elsewhere—then she could sing
or play them, or both, with or without accompaniment, with or without an obligato part. This is
a kind of all-purpose score designed to please the amateur, and in no way a complete or precise
representation of a composer's intentions.
The other works are however very different. These are formed publications of his intentions,
and to my mind interesting and by no means untypical examples of the trio-sonata and the solo
sonata of the time. I find myself in agreement with Calmeyer's observation at the end of his
article in The New Grove in saying that the trio-sonatas combine polyphonic and homophonic
writing, while the violin sonatas tend more towards the Rococo; this is in fact more or less what
one would expect from music in the very middle of the 18th century, where the trio sonata was
79
 the chief form in which the polyphonic survived. Clearly Saint-Germain was a composer of
considerable competence and merit, in this early galant style.

I have made a catalogue of it, which appears at the end of this book, and ventured to confer
opus numbers.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

1. Handel, R.A. Streatfield (London, 1909), pp. 24, 26; Domenico Scarlatti, Ralph Kirkpatrick
(Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 32.
2. Domenico Scarlatti, Ralph Kirkpatrick (Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 15.
3. Op. cit.
4. 'The Count of St. Germain', Johan Franco The Musical Quarterly, xxxvi, (1950), p. 547.

80
 CHAPTER 7

THE PORT-CLEANING MACHINE

It is thanks to Walpole that we have another reference to Saint-Germain in his own editorial
footnote to the letter to Mann already quoted (for obviously he saw the correspondence as destined
for publication):

In the beginning of the year 1755, on rumour of a great armament at Brest, one Virette, a Swiss
who had been a kind of toadeater to this Saint-Germain, was denounced to Lord Holdernesse as
a spy; but Mr. Stanley going pretty surlily to his lordship, on his suspecting a friend of his,
Virette was declared innocent, and the penitent Secretary of State made him the ammende
honourable of a dinner.

The 4th Earl of Holderness, Robert d'Arcy, was Secretary of State for the North and had earlier
been Minister Plenipotentiary to the Hague. We shall meet him again. As to his being apparently
overawed by a Mr. Stanley, Stanley was the family name of the Earls of Derby, which could explain
Holderness' 'penitence'.
If by any chance Virette had been caught peering into the murky waters of our ports, it would
have been likely to have been from a reason different from that suspected. He was trying to help
promote adoption of an invention by a Frenchman, Francois X. d'Arles de Ligniere, from the
Franche Comte (though domiciled in Vienna), the purpose of which was to clean out ports and
estuaries. They had formed a company, in which they were offering shares, and Saint-Germain was
trying to give them some assistance. As he was not a hydraulic engineer, it is probable that he was
putting some of his own money behind the scheme and looking for a quarter from which they could
obtain more.
Saint-Germain recommended Ligniere and Virette to d'Affry at the Hague. This is established
from a later letter of d'Affry.1 From his use of the word 'recommended', it would seem as though
Saint-Germain must have been in the Hague, in conversation either to suggest that he see them or to
bring them. D'Affry gives no date for this episode, but he arrived at the Hague to take up his
appointment as Minister Plenipotentiary on 6 December, 1755, and left it again in July, 1756 until
after Saint-Germain would have been elsewhere. Thus, we have dates between which Saint-
Germain seems to have been, however briefly, at the Hague:
At the interview, d'Affry asked Ligniere if he had first offered his invention to their own
Government, in Paris. Ligniere said that he had, but that a Monsieur Bellidore, who examined it,
had told him it could only be accepted by the Commissioners nominated by the Academie des
Sciences, and he was not willing to entrust the secret to so many people. The machine was, in
principle, an exceedingly powerful pump, which would suck up from its bed in the mud whatever
refuse was making the water too shallow for shipping. It could also be used to deepen a basin so as
to accommodate larger vessels.
Saint-Germain's interest in the invention will, like his own music, have been a side-line with
him. For many years he had been pursuing researches into the nature of physical matter. These had
a practical aspect, in so far as they concerned treatment of a number of mineral, vegetable and
animal substances. At a works in Germany, he had developed a range of what he felt to be
remarkable products. It was not, however, in Germany that he wished to offer them. There was a
country to which he felt more drawn. That was France.

81
NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

1. Paris, Ministére des Affaires Etrangères, Hollander d'Affry to Choiseul, 27 April, 1761, f.
388; also, the same to the same, 27 June, 1761, f. 142.

82
 CHAPTER 8

THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION

In order to understand the situation in which Saint-Germain was to play an eventual role, we
need to understand that before he entered France there had taken place the 'Diplomatic Revolution'
or 'Great Reversal' heralding the Seven Years War, and to look back to see what had brought it
about. Since 1745, the mattresse en titre had been Madame de Pompadour. Some books say she was
responsible for the situation, but that is to look at it too superficially. Madame de Pompadour is one
of these people of whom it is difficult to form a just estimation because she is a type, indeed the
archetype of a style of living that gives delight or arouses condemnation according to one's social
and moral attitudes. To try to clear our vision from prejudice, let us take her as factually as possible.
Born on 29 December, 1721, in Paris, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, her background was from the
beginning one of finance. Her father was head clerk to the PSris brothers, and had married into their
family. They were the biggest financiers in France, lending at interest, usually 5%, to great national
undertakings and to important political personalities; for instance, to the Marquis de Stainville,
father of Choiseul. The little girl's father was condemned in a court of law for some irregular
transaction in the supplying of meat and corn, and fled the country. His wife and children were
looked after by one of his colleagues, who arranged for the marriage of Jeanne-Antoinette to
another financier, Charles-Guillaume le Norman d'Etioles. She had been well educated, possessed
sensibility to all the arts and some modest creative ability. She could both draw and engrave, though
her chief pleasure was to be to carve cameos upon stone. Voltaire was amongst the intellectuals
who came to her salon and contributed to its brilliance. She suffered, however, from a weak chest
and the spitting of blood, an ailment which began before she was twenty. In the years of her glory,
she was to send a disbursement, entered in her accounts, to a gipsy woman who had predicted she
would become the King's mistress.
The King, when first she met him, was mourning the death of his third mistress. The Queen
had, as it were, given up. Marie Leczczynska, daughter of the King Stanislav who lost the throne of
Poland in Ràkòczy's time, has been somewhat unkindly treated by de Pompadour's biographers as
cold or unattractive. Yet she had borne the King ten children in twelve years, and probably felt she
had done all that could be expected of her. She had been known to complain of the continual child
bearing to which she was subjected, and in an age when this was the regular result of intercourse, it
was not unknown for women feeling themselves worn out before their time, to wish to avoid
rousing the urges that would lead to a repetition of the cycle. She probably felt she had rendered
succession to the throne secure, and, if Louis still needed entertainment, she would be content if he
found it elsewhere.
When the King invited Madame d'Etioles, as she was then, to be his mistress, she had a legal
and financial separation from her husband, and the King almost immediately left on a campaign.
The months he was away, were used for her to be groomed, in a quiet place, by the Due de Gontant
and the Abbe Bernis (Franҫois Joachim de Pierre), in the etiquette of the Court. He bestowed on her
the Marquisates of Pompadour.and, when it became vacant, a little later, Crecy. The rents brought
her in respectively 4,000 and 25,000 livres a year, which, as the livre (or franc as it was beginning
to be called) stood at four to the British pound of that day, has to be multiplied by 30 1 (or a little
more) to bring it up to the same purchasing power today. This meant that she had an independence
of over £215,190 a year, even should the King's favour cease. That in practice the sum much
exceeded the one quoted, is shown by accounts of her expenditure.
At the King's return (it was believed he had received no favours before he left), she was
installed in an attic suite in the Chateau de Versailles, linked by a private staircase with the King's
rooms, on the first floor. She was formally presented on 16 September, 1745, first to the King and

83
then to the Queen, and the friendliness of the latter's words to her, as she made her three curtsies,
suggests she did not regret her arrival. Neither need one see any irony in the mistress' murmured
expression of desire to please her.
Patronage of the arts was now her joy. The exquisite Sevres porcelain, with its turquoise-sky
blue, jade and 'Pompadour Pink' was practically her creation; for it was she who persuaded the King
to revive and bring a works to Sevres, where she would walk about in the factory, suggesting and
encouraging.2 She commissioned portraits from Frangois Boucher, Quentin de la Tour and others,
bought paintings and objets d'art, and advised on purchases for the royal library, which became after
the Revolution the Bibliotheque Nationale. She found people sinecures giving them time for
leisured creativity. For Voltaire, a friend from her days in Paris, she obtained a fantastically highly
paid post, with almost no work attached at 150,000 livres (£1,125,000 in today's money) a year, as
Gentleman of the King's Bedchamber. He wrote:

Ainsi done vous riunissez

Tous les arts, tous les gouts, tous les talents pour plaire:
Pompadour, vous embellissez
La cour, Parnasse et Cythere...

I translate:

You thus unite

All arts, tastes and talents to delight:
Pompadour, your beauties smile
On Court, Parnassus, Venus' isle . . .

That was before he lost it by abusing familiarity to pluck the King by his sleeve. De Bernis
owed her his appointment, in 1754, as Ambassador to Venice. He wrote:

Les nymphes de Cythère,

Faisant un jour
Un eloge sincere
A Pompadour....

I translate:

The nymphs of Cythera

Making one day
A hymn sincere
To Pompadour . . .

What was her political responsibility? Was the advice she gave the King spontaneous or how
much was she used by people who worked on her that she might do so on him? She relied on the
Paris brothers, Joseph Paris-Duverney, her godfather, and Jean Paris-Monmartel. They had formed
her financial thinking, and were her natural financial advisers. It was she who was behind the
building of the vast Ecole Militaire; the King hesitated to increase the demands on already resentful
tax-payers, but she talked with the architect and with the PSris brothers and a loan was made at 5%.
This may seem a modest interest, but with the King and Government already embarrassed for
money, it was perhaps of precarious advantage to play continually further into the hands of
financiers already munitioning and provisioning the army.
The brothers Pâris were as active as wireworms in politics. As early as 28 December, 1745, the
Marquis de Stainville had written to the Emperor, 'M. Paris Duverney and his brother M. Paris
84
Marmontel are all powerful at court.They do not want to be Ministers, but make and unmake them'. 3
Indeed, when the Marquis d'Argenson, a friend of Belle-Isle, was removed from his post as Foreign
Minister, 10 January, 1747, he ascribed his fall to their agency. The PSris brothers only want
lackeys', he wrote.4 His successor, Puysieulx, was an intimate of their circle. King Frederick
thought of them as the most real power in France, and on 12 January, 1747 the Saxon Minister,
Count Loss, noted that Madame de Pompadour accepted their advice blindly. Butler notes that even
whilst France was the ally of Prussia against Austria, secret approaches to Austria were being made
through the Marquis de Stainville, 'most notably by the brothers Paris'.5
French policy was turning away from Prussia, as Austria, still wanting Silesia back, began to
look towards France. Count (later Prince) Winceslaus Anton von Kaunitz had made friends with
Madame de Pompadour, during his period as Ambassador to France, before returning to Vienna to
become Chancellor, and it was at Madame de Pompadour's house that a Viennese envoy was
received before the Empress' suggestion of an alliance was put to the King. But would Madame de
Pompadour have played the role in this that she did, had not the PSris brothers represented to her
that it would be a wonderful thing to do?
In 1756, on 16 January the Treaty of Westminster was signed between Britain and Prussia, and
on 1 May the Treaty of Versailles between France and Austria. Kaunitz signed for Austria. It was
Bernis who signed for France, the man who had written the little rhyme to Madame de Pompadour,
and was now Foreign Minister. He described it as 'my greatest triumph'.
In this manner, the Seven Years' War began.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 8

1. Money and Exchanges in Europe and America, 1600-1775, J.J. McKusker (Macmillan, 1978),
the table of Levels of Consumer Prices, wherein January 1974 being given as 100,1750 is given
as 8.4,1760 as 9.8. As Mr T.R. Bell, Librarian to the Bank of England, has kindly put it for me,
'Between 1750 and October 1981, the index of consumer prices rose from 8.04 to 303.7. This
means that talking the pound as worth £1 in 1750, its purchasing power in 1981 was
approximately 3 new pence, i.e. 8.6 equals 0.0275 ... for 1780 the pound would equal 4 new
pence.
2. Though this is something so very French, there are good displays at the Wallace Collection in
London and at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
3. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Lotheringerisches Hausarchiv, 77/177B.
4. Journal et Mémoires du Marquis d'Argenson, ed. E.J.B. Bathbury (Paris, 1859-67), Vol. V, p.
55.
5. Choiseul, Father and Son, Rohan Butler (Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 676.

85
 CHAPTER 9

FIRST DAYS IN FRANCE

We can approximately date Saint-Germain's entry into France from a remark we shall later find
d'Affry making, that he had seen him at the Princess Montaubon's. D'Affry had been at the Hague
until 6 July, 1756 and returned to it in mid-October of the same year. Saint-Germain had seen
d'Affry in the Hague in the earlier part of that year; so it must have been some time between that
and d'Affry's return there that both were entertained by the Princess. But if Saint-Germain had
entered France during the summer or early autumn of 1756, it is the spring of 1758 before we begin
to hear of him.
Madame de Pompadour's brother, Abel Poisson de Vandieres, who had now inherited the
Marquisate of Marigny, bestowed by the King upon their father, owed his elevatbn entirely to his
sister's having become Louis' mistress. It therefore suggests a vein of hypocrisy we would not have
expected from the French that, in the Paris of today, there is a broad Avenue de Marigny but not
even the smallest Rue Pompadour. However, the Marquis reflected his sister's taste in architecture
and the King had made him both Director of the King's Manufactures and Superintendent of the
King's Buildings. It will have been in both these capacities that Saint-Germain wrote to him a
number of letters, only one of which has been preserved. Even this is not in his own hand, but a
copy, presumably made by some clerk, the original then being destroyed. This is a pity because one
likes to have the original. Even if the original hand is difficult to read, one can take it to the light,
bring a magnifying glass to the inspection and form one's own opinion as to whether a word or
phrase has been left out. With a clerk's copy, the words have been read (or mis-read) and it is
difficult to judge what editorial decisions have been made. For instance, the date is lacking, and one
does not know if it was so in the original, and the text begins with dots, causing speculation whether
what was left out at the beginning was merely the salutation or some lines. (I translate from the
French):1

Paris at 9 o'clock in the morning this Wednesday

. . . The goodness of your character, intelligence, frankness and many other qualities essential
to an estimable man, which I have had the pleasure to remark in you, Monsieur, have gained
you my trust. You will be able to judge of it. I have made on my own lands the most rich and
rare discovery that has yet been made, excepting only that of America. I have worked at it with
a diligence, application and patience perhaps without precedent for close on twenty years. I say
nothing of the expense I have been to to render my work worthy of a King, or of the pains,
travels, studies, vigils it has cost me. The object of all this work having been achieved I wish to
donate the profit to the King, my expenses only deducted, without asking him for anything but
the use, free, of one of the royal residences, in which to establish the people I have brought
from Germany for his service. My presence will often be required where the work is being
done, so that I must ask for a lodging for myself nearby. I will assume all the expenses, both
those concerned with the transport of ready prepared materials and those of the work in colours
that will be extracted from materials prepared within 200 leagues of Paris; in a word, it will
cost the King only a furnished lodging suitable to the prompt and solid establishment I propose
to him, and some trees per year; in return for which I shall have the glory and satisfaction of
remitting to His Majesty my indisputable rights in the richest ever manufacture, leaving all the
profit to his kingdom.
Is it necessary to add I sincerely love the King and France? Can there be doubt of my
disinterest? Does not the whole thing's being so new seem to demand a special procedure in my

86
 case? Will the King and Madame de Pompadour deign to consider the offer in all its
circumstances and the man who makes it? I have now nothing more to do than to be silent. It is
a year that I have been talking about this, three months that I have been in Paris. I open myself,
Monsieur, to a man upright and frank. Can I be mistaken? Those who do not render justice do
not receive it, either. I know how to do without. I extend good will; can I desire anything but to
receive it?

I have the honour to be...

Denis de S.M.
Comte de St. Germain

This is the first and only time we see what looks like a Christian name, Denis, in connection
with Saint-Germain. Could he really have been baptised Denis, or is the name of this patron saint of
France another hieroglyph; and what is S.M.? We cannot know.
Since we do not know what has gone before we can only guess at the allusions. What is the rich
manufacture? Part of the work is in dyes. Why do a few of the King's trees have to be felled each
year? The bark of some trees is needed for making some dyes, and other bitter parts of trees are
used in dyeing as 'mordants' (the term will be explained later). He thought, probably, to save cost of
transportation from afar by felling a few trees near to the dye-works, which should be not too far
from Paris.
On the verso is a note in the same clerk's hand saying that a further letter was received from
Saint-Germain dated Versailles 24 May, 1758' complaining he still had not been received and
begging an audience 'in the name of justice and humanity'. Saint-Germain was wealthy and needed
neither for himself. From what will gradually transpire, it is more likely he thought the people of
France were in need, which his manufacture could relieve, by providing employment and so
increasing the national wealth as to permit a decrease in taxation of the classes least able to bear it.
But if he had not yet seen de Marigny, he had been granted use of a part of the Chateau de
Chambord, the most magnificent of the King's residences after Versailles. It had been left vacant by
the death of the retired Marechal de Saxe, an illegitimate son of King Augustus II of Poland
(Elector of Saxony). The King had treasured Saxe, so much interest was aroused in the successor to
the grant of Chambord.
We do not know when Saint-Germain first went to Chambord, but there is a letter to de
Marigny from the Keeper (I translate from his French):2

Chambord, 8 May, 1758

Sir,

. . . The Comte de Saint-Germain arrived last Saturday on his second visit to Chambord. I have
made two suites ready for the accommodation of some of his people, also three kitchens on the
ground floor, together with their attached larders, butteries, pantries, sculleries etc., for his
works. I have had nothing to do to that part of the Chateau excepting that I have had some
urgent repairs carried out . . .

Collet

The kitchens with their dependent offices will have been for use in the dyeing process. It would
appear that only a part of the Chateau had been made ready to receive him, but then he could hardly
have occupied, with the few people he had already brought with him, all of the 440 rooms in the
Chateau. Since it had been arranged that the workforce was to be accommodated in outbuildings to
the Chateau (letter from the Governor, Saumery, to de Marigny of 15 April) it would have been
87
only a few senior, directing people, and probably personal servants, such as his valet, who would
have been staying with him in the suites prepared actually within it. It seems Saint-Germain had
hardly arrived at Chambord when he returned to Paris, for two days later we find Collet writing to
de Marigny again (I translate from his French):3

Chambord, 10 May, 1758

Monsieur,

I am profiting of the kind offer of the Comte de Saint-Germain to take me to Paris with him to
make arrangements concerning him and also for some business that I must conclude by the end
of next week. I hope you will allow me to wait on you to receive your orders . . .
Collet

Saint-Germain's offer was presumably to let Collet ride with him in his coach.
Two months later we find someone writing to de Marigny from the town of Blo.s, near to
Chambord (I translate from his French)4

Blois, 12 August, 1758

Monsieur,
. . . We are constantly expecting the arrival of the Comte de Saint-Germain, who excites the
curiosity of everybody in these parts. I found myself meeting him twice at dinners; he seemed
to me to have very much knowledge, and to reason according to principle . . .

L'Abbé de Lapagerie

To this, there is a reply (I translate from the French):5

Versailles, 2 September, 1758

M. L'Abbé de la Pagerie,

... It is true that the King has accorded to Monsieur de Saint Germain an apartment in the
Chateau de Chambord. You are right in saying he is a man of worth. 1 have convinced myself
of that in the interviews I have had with him. It is hoped that from his superior insight
[Jumieres] real advantages will be derived.

de Marigny

By the time that this was written, Saint-Germain had met the King and Madame de Pompadour,
at Versailles. It is unfortunate that no pen has recorded the occasion for us.
Saint-Germain seems to have been living most of the time in Paris, from which Versailles was
in easy reach, only visiting Chambord when it was necessary to do something practical there (for it
seems the intended works had not yet started, possibly because of some difficulty in getting out of
Germany all that he had left there). One such visit was at the end of the year, for we find Collet
writing to de Marigny (I translate from his French):6

Chambord, 4 December, 1758

88
 Monsieur,

... Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Germain arrived at Chambord last Saturday, with two
gentlemen. He will stay five or six days, and then will have the kindness to take me to Paris
with him. I hope to have the honour . . .
Collet

NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

1. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, M.D. (or R.D.), France 1360, f.116 (or 146). The
stamp is very faint.
2. Paris, Archives Nationales, 01 1326, f.399.
3. Paris, Archives Nationales, 01 1326, f.399.
4. Paris, Archives Nationales, 01 1326, f.385.
5. Paris, Archives Nationales, 01 1326, f.386.
6. Paris, Archives Nationales, 01 1326, f.392.

89
 CHAPTER 10

AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV

Ask anybody at what period in his life Saint-Germain was most famous and the answer will
probably be, 'At the Court of Louis XV. One might, therefore, expect it to be the best documented,
but it is not so. There are not the copious exchanges of contemporary letters about him which we
shall find in later periods. What we find is a great froth of memoirs in which he figures, but most of
them are spurious, suspect or at least in parts mendacious, written so very long after the events they
purport to describe as to be heavily under the influence of legends that had developed in the
meantime. A great stand-by for biographies of Saint-Germain or Madame de Pompadour used to be
the supposed intimate Memoires of the latter's lady's maid Madame de Hausset, but now their
authenticity has been challenged.1 They doubtless reflect gossip that was current, but cannot be used
as evidential. Another usual recourse is to the Memoires of Madame de Genlis. Written after an
immense lapse of time, they may be good in parts, but exhibit both confusions and embroidery. The
Souueni'rs of the Baron von Gleichen are unreliable for the same two reasons. Among his
contemporaries, Madame de Deffand and Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin both remarked on his
tendency to distort as he narrates and to make things up. The so-called Chronicle de I'Oeil de Boeuf,
supposed anonymous eye-witness, is now generally considered spurious, and so far as Saint-
Germain is concerned, can be seen to derive its material at second-hand from the three sources
above mentioned. There are over-well known Mémoires of Giacomo Casanova, Italian libertine and
pretended magician, in which he relates how, dining with Madame la Marquise d'Urfe, he found as
his felbw guest the Comte de Saint-Germain, who did not eat but talked of many branches of
science and marvellous things all through the meal. That Saint-Germain was invited by Madame
d'Urfe is very likely for the only picture we have of him is a print from a painting amongst her
possessions at her death. Yet, as Casanova's accounts of two later meetings with Saint-Germain, in
the Hague and in Tournai must (as I shall show) be wholly fictitious, there is no reason to trust his
description of their meeting in Paris.2 As one discards one after another, it begins to feel like
removing the leaves from an artichoke in the hope of finding something in the middle. One can
understand Andrew Lang's doubt whether the Comte de Saint-Germain existed at all. Yet we shall
find documentation, later, in plenty.
In the meantime, it can be taken that Saint-Germain did become an intimate of Louis XV and
Madame de Pompadour. By the time that he knew them their relationship was in its fourteenth year,
and very stable. It seems they were no longer physically lovers. In the beginning, she had been
lodged in an attic, to which the King mounted by a private staircase. In 1751 she had been brought
down to the ground floor. This, being a position of greater openness and dignity, has generally been
taken to mark the change in their relations. For her garden at Bellevue, she had commissioned from
Pigalle a statue of herself as Friendship, and she sat for a painting in the same role. A friend of
Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes, she had always been considered philosophe, that is, sceptic; now
she communicated. The genuineness of this conversion has been debated. Jacques Levron, in his
sensitive biography, has suggested she felt the King was leaving her, and thought it for her dignity
to make the break herself. But he showed no diminution of affection, and I would think of other
possible causes. Her health had never been good, and the life of the Court fatigued her. To her
husband she had borne a daughter, by whose untimely death she had been grieved. The King she
had not presented with a child, which perhaps suggests a series of miscarriages, debilitating and
disappointing. The Comte de Maurepas, Secretary of State to the Navy and formerly Secretary of
the King's household, composed and circulated a disgusting rhyme about her dress being stained
from her courses. The King sent him a letter informing him that his services no longer pleased and
that he should hand his resignation to the Comte de Saint-Florentin, Minister to the King's

90
household and retire from the Court to Bourges. A regular periodic cycle, permitting a woman to
plan in advance, is a privilege of health. Some women go for months without having a period, so
that when one comes they are taken by surprise. Unless, in young girls, from late developement, this
is usually from some debilitating condition; anaemia can cause it, so can consumption and she was
consumptive. She wrote to her brother that although her spitting of blood was not really more than
before, people seemed to be noticing it more than before. If she coughed up blood during
intercourse with the King it might have put him off, or if it did not, she might have felt that it could
come to do so.
In parenthesis, some have blamed her with regard to the dismissal of Maurepas, pointing out
that France did not afterwards have an adequate Minister for the Navy. Truly, Nicolas-Rene
Berryer, Lieutenant of Police, who was now, perhaps on the advice of Paris Montmartel, moved
from this post in order to step into the place of Maurepas, did not seem able to do much for the
Navy, but Louis could hardly have been expected to tolerate about him a person who had so grossly
insulted Madame de Pompadour, and women may respect him for dismissing him instantly. Perhaps
what is highlighted is the disadvantage in the French system of having most of the Ministers live so
near to the King, in apartments within the Chateau de Versailles or houses very close to it. This
meant that he and those he cared about, had to be meeting them all the time, and social
considerations were bound to affect public affairs. This is mentioned because we shall see more of
it.
During the life time of Madame de Pompadour, Louis never took another maitresse en titre. He
had a retreat or 'den' at the Pare aux Cerfs, where women were entertained; but I would fancy it was
out of respect for her he went there to find his relief with them, where she would never have to see
them rather than bring any into the Chateau de Versailles, to be under her eyes.
Their relationship had deepened. She had become his principal secretary or personal assistant.
People wishing to put a matter to the King wrote to her, and it was from her that his reply came.
That does not mean he told everything, even to her. She was not in what has become known asLe
Secret du Roi (The King's Secret). This was a peculiar system of his own by which he had agents in
different countries who had their instructions direct from him; their missions and identities not
being known even to his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It had started over the Polish
succession. A Prince Louis Francois Conti, of the cadet branch of the Bourbon-Conde family, had
been approached by a group of Poles to ask whether, when Augustus ID died, he would accept the
Crown. He had the prudence to seek advice from Louis. Louis became excited. His Queen, Maria-
Leszczynska, was the daughter of the exiled King Stanislav Leszczynski and the son, the Dauphin,
was married (against the inclination of the mother) to a daughter of Augustus III. This was the
Crown which Ràkòczy had twice refused, when it was offered him first by Charles XII of Sweden,
then by Peter the Great, but to the King of France it seemed a very glittering prize; with these Polish
connections, he wanted it for a member of the French Royal family.
He therefore appointed as Ambassador to Poland the young Comte de Broglie and eight days
after his nomination wrote him a letter (I translate from his French):3

Versailles, 12 March, 1752

The Comte de Broglie will accord faith to what Prince Conti tells him, and not speak of it to a
living soul.

Louis

De Broglie thus received instructions in diametric opposition from those he received from the
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (d'Argenson at that time), not to meddle with the question of
the Polish succession. When d'Argenson found out that de Broglie was acting contrary to the
instructions he had given him, Louis allowed him to be dismissed and never said the contrary
91
instructions came from him. Only, as he still wanted de Broglie's opinion of the Polish mail, he
instructed the second in command at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tereier, to pass it to the
dismissed servant, unknown to the Minister.
He sent the Chevalier d'Eon to Russia to the Court of the Tsarina Elizabeth, Peter the Great's
daughter, with secret instructions unknown to the Ambassador there.
It was a way of acting which was not really fair, either to the formally appointed man or to the
secret one.
Perhaps it was Louis' way of keeping something for himself, a domain in which he was really
the head and answerable to nobody, which suggests a feeling of weakness in the face of Ministers
who, however much he was the King, imposed upon him considerations he found hard to stand up
against. Attended, and watched, even at his rising from bed and public retiring, he lived in a blaze
of open inspection, and probably wanted to maintain some kind of secret life of his own. This could
explain the Pare aux Cerfs, too.
Like many a secret man, he had a pet, a cat. De Cheverney tells of an occasion when some
courtiers had been giving it wine to intoxicate it. Unexpectedly, the King came in. Perceiving what
was afoot, he said with displeasure, 'Gentlemen amuse themselves in their own way. I do not expect
it to be at the expense of my cat'.
Paradoxically, the story in the Memoires attributed to Madame de Hausset which appears the
most sensational and has excited the most incredulity, is the one that could be true. The story,
allegedly told by Madame de Pompadour to her maid, is that there was conversation between
several people concerning Saint-Germain's secret for the removal of flaws from diamonds. The
King sent for one of his diamonds to be brought to him and showed Saint-Germain there was a flaw
in it. Because of this flaw, it had been valued at only 6,000 livres (upwards of £45,000). Without the
flaw, its value should be 10,000 livres (upwards of £75,000). Would Saint-Germain undertake, by
his secret process, to bring the value up to what it would be without the flaw? Saint-Germain looked
at the diamond closely, and said he thought he could do it. The diamond was weighed and he took it
away. About a month later, he brought it back, wrapped in amianthus. There was no longer a flaw in
it. It was weighed again and found to be practically of the same weight. The King had the Due de
Gontant take it back to the same jeweller, who gave him 9,600 livres for it; but when these were
brought to the King, he refused them saying he would like the diamond back, to keep as a curiosity.
Andrew Lang, in his Mysteries of the Universe, supposes Saint-Germain purchased another
diamond, one without flaw but so like the King's in colour and proportions that the King would
receive it back as his own with the flaw removed. The financial sacrifice would, he suggested, be a
small price to pay for the King's consequent regard for his abilities. This theory has generally been
followed by writers on Saint-Germain (excepting those believing in magic). But Andrew Lang had
assumed the removal of flaws from diamonds to be an impossibility—as impossible as man's going
to the moon—whence it followed that anyone claiming to be able to do it must be a cheat.
I wrote to Messrs De Beers Consolidated Diamond Mines Ltd., asking them whether it was
possible to remove flaws from diamonds or—another ability attributed to Saint-Germain—to
improve their colour and brilliance. The reply I received, from their Mr J.E. Roux, dated 8
February, 1980, was:

...improving the colour of a diamond has been practised for some considerable years. The
technique today is to take a badly coloured stone, i.e. a non-descript brown or yellow, and turn
it into a rare fancy colour by irradiation. This is bombarding the stone with electrons or
neutrons... Flawed diamonds could be improved, if the flaw was accessible via a hairline crack
in the stone, by boiling in strong acids. This technique is still used today to remove oxidisation
impurities. These are usually streaks of red, yeflow or orange which could be removed or
reduced by acids.

92
 Electrons and neutrons were not known to the 18th century, but acids were. Acids or mordants,
including vitriol, were extensively used in dyeing, and Saint-Germain was a dyer.
There is no reason why he should not have thought of using acids to eat out the impurities
causing the discolorations known as 'flaws' in diamonds. It would hardly have taken him a month,
but he may have taken the diamond, to the kitchens the King had made available to him in the
Chateau de Chambord, to do the boiling in acid.
When Saint-Germain met the King, it will have been most often in the apartment of Madame
de Pompadour, who, as her vitality failed, tended to go out less, often receiving from her couch or
from her bed. One of the intimates of her salon or boudoir whom Saint-Germain will certainly have
met was her physician, François Quesnay, who became known for his economic theories. She still
maintained the suppers. What we call lunch had not yet been invented, and the grand or formal meal
of the day, dinner, was still taken at what we call lunch time, or a little later, usually at about two
o'clock. It was the suppers that were intimate. The Queen withdrew to her own circle of friends, the
Dauphin to his, and the King joined Madame de Pompadour for supper. Here was the heart of the
Court. Guests were not more than about eighteen or twenty, to which there was a stable core, the
changes being rung upon a few extra admissions. After the supper, a still smaller number would go
with the King and Madame de Pompadour into a little sitting-room, where there were no servants,
and they made their own coffee, played cards or just talked.
Regulars included the Due de Choiseul. In the autumn of 1758 he had just returned from
Vienna, where he had been an Ambassador, to take over from de Bernis as Minister of State for
Foreign Affairs. Others would have been his refined and perceptive wife, Louise Honorine, nee
Crozat, his rather overpowering sister, the Duchesse de Gramont and his wife's brother-in-law, the
Due de Gontant. Choiseul had red hair and eyes that glinted. He was a man of abundant vitality and
great ability, as he had shown when, upon an earlier embassy, to Rome, he had brought the Pope,
Benedict XIV, round upon a ticklish point. He believed in his own star and had a gallant motto, 'By
force of going ill, things will end well'. When in good humour, he radiated a charm which, coupled
with that of his exquisite Duchesse, held some captive, as under an enchanted spell. When crossed,
he could, however, be explosive, and unfortunately he took against Saint-Germain. This may have
been, in the first place, because, in his new post as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, it vexed
him that the true name and nationality of the stranger who removed flaws from diamonds and was
now an intimate of the suppers, was not told him. Perhaps nothing more than this was needed to
create a resentment. But, as it will be remembered that Choiseul was the son of the Marquis de
Stainville, a Lorraine who had followed the Prince François who became the Emperor, Francis I, so
it was natural Choiseul's inclination should be towards the Viennese alliance. He disliked what he
had heard of the King of Prussia, and had never been to England. He did not question that England
was the natural enemy of France. Saint-Germain, however, had lived in England, and was probably
the only one of this small circle to have any sense of how things were likefy to be felt in London,
and this, if it seemed important to Madame de Pompadour and the King, would again have been
more of an irritant to Choiseul.
The Due and Duchesse de Choiseul, though they possessed an estate, Chanteloup, in Tourraine,
had an apartment in the royal palace or Chateau de Versailles, so meetings with them would have
been frequent.
Devoted to the Choiseuls, was Karl Heinrich Baron von Gleichen. In the service of the
Markgraf of Bayreuth, he had first of all met them during their Embassy to Rome and fallen in love
with them both. Arriving in Paris in 1759, he hastened to renew acquaintance with them. He also
made that of the Comte de Saint-Germain, but it was accidentally, when he went to call on a
Madame Lambert. She had taken over the banking business of her late husband and was Saint-
Germain's banker, and when in Paris he lodged at her Hòtel (that is great house, not hotel in the
modern sense). Von Gleichen, ensconced in her boudoir, did not at first know who he was. When he
came in, he put his hat and sword down on the bed and, pulling up a chair to join the circle round
the fire, entered into a general conversation that was going on about music, as though he knew very
93
much on that subject. Later, the talk turned upon paintings. Von Gleichen spoke of those he had
seen in Italy, and Saint-Germain offered to show him some of his own (apparently in his own
apartment in the Hotel Lambert) the like of which he would not have seen in Italy.
One must take with caution anything written by von Gleichen, for he is notably prone to
exaggerate and romance, but he says (I translate from his French):4

Indeed he kept his word, for the paintings he showed me were characterised by some
singularity or perfection, which made them more interesting than paintings in the first class,
above all a Holy Family by Murillo, equal in beauty to the one by Raphael at Versailles but he
showed me something else, a quantity of precious stones, mainly diamonds, of surprising size
and perfection.
I thought I was seeing the treasures of the wonderful lamp. There were, amongst them, an opal
of monstrous size, a white sapphire the size of an egg, which in its brilliance effaced all stones
offered it for comparison. I can dare to say that I know something of stones, and I can assert
that the eye could discover no reason to doubt them. They were the easier to inspect as they
were not mounted.
I stayed until midnight, and when I left it was as his faithful servitor.. I followed him for six
months, with the most humble assiduity...
While not all the fables and anecdotes relating to the age of Saint-Germain merit the attention
of serious people, it is true that the collection I have made of testimonies of persons of good
faith, who have attested the long duration and almost incredible preservation of his person, has
in it something of the marvellous. I have heard Rameau and an elderly relative of a French
Ambassador to Venice affirm having known Saint-Germain there in 1710, looking like a man
of fifty, and Monsieur Morin, who has since then been my secretary at the Embassy, for whose
veracity I can speak, told me that he knew Saint-Germain in Holland in 1735, and was
prodigiously astonished at finding him, now, not aged by so much as a year...
He possessed chemical secrets, for the making of colours, dyes, and a similor of rare beauty;
perhaps he made the stones of which I have spoken, the authenticity of which could only be
disproved by a file. But I never heard him speak of a universal medicine.
He kept a very strict regime, never drinking while eating, purging himself with senapods,
which he prepared himself, and that was all he had to recommend to those who asked him what
they should do to prolong their lives.

We will break here to gloss a point or two. That Morin, who had been Ambassador to the
Hague in 1735, had known Saint-Germain there lends support to the authenticity of the letter
written from there in that year, about the Catholicon, as being indeed a letter of our Saint-Germain.
Rameau is Jean-Phillippe Rameau, the composer. Since, after long years as church and
cathedral organist in provincial France; he had at last succeeded in establishing himself in Paris as
an operatic composer, he had lived as a permanent house-guest of Monsieur de la Poupliniere
(Alexandre le Riche), a financier (fermier général) and one of the richest men in France. He
supported Rameau and his works completely, and in the summers, when the Poupliniere family
moved out from the Hotel Poupliniere in Paris to a villa in the then rural suburb of Passy, Rameau
and the orchestra were taken with them, as part of the household. In the summer of 1759, other
house-guests included Stephanie-Felicite du Crest, (in later life Madame de Genlis and the mistress
of Philippe Egalite), but then only thirteen years of age and with her mother. She (the future
Madame de Genlis) was musical, having been accustomed, according to her own account, to
practise the harp for seven, eight or even fourteen hours a day, alone in her own room. Her
memoirs, not published until after the French Revolution had come and gone and Napoleon, too, are
suspect, but I suppose one can accept her statement that during the summer of 1759 she saw Saint-
Germain practically every day, and that sometimes he would, while she sang, accompany her by ear
on the harpsichord.5
94
 This suggests that, during that summer, Saint-Germain must also have been a house-guest,
having quit the Hòtel Lambert at de la Pouplinière's invitation. Probably it was his reputation as a
virtuoso on the violin which had gained him this invitation. However that may be, it will have been
there that he met Rameau, and Rameau, then seventy-five years of age—and described as having no
stomach, a body the shape of an organ pipe and legs like flutes—voiced the conviction he had met
Saint-Germain fifty years before, looking the same age as now. As Rameau's early days are mapped
out by his appointments as organist, this is an important piece of data, which we shall utilise later,
when trying to solve the riddle of Saint-Germain's parentage.
Rameau's innocent perplexity does seem, however, to have been at the bottom of what came to
be a legend of Saint-Germain's being of unnatural age, his birth-date being, with his parentage,
withheld.
It is probable that he had, however, given it to the King. Louis XV was notably fastidious
concerning titles, and, possessed of an excellent memory for the genealogies of royal and noble
houses, had been known to challenge anybody who was using a style to which he was not entitled.
He would never have tolerated, so close to him, a person living pseudonymously, as the Comte de
Saint-Germain, unless he had been satisfied there was a good reason for it, and that the title did not
hide a birth beneath the modest dignity assumed.
Madame de Genlis continues: (I translate from her French):6

My mother asked him ... if it was true his country was Germany. He shook his head, and with a
mysterious air, sighed profoundly: "All I can tell you," he said, "is that at the age of seven I was
wandering in the depths of the forest with my governor—a price on my head". These words
caused me to shiver, for I did not doubt the sincerity of this great confidence. "On the eve of
my flight," continued M. de Saint-Germain, "My mother, whom I was never to see again,
attached her portrait to my wrist". "Ah God!" I cried. At this exclamation, M. de Saint-Germain
regarded me and seemed to become tender on seeing I had tears in my eyes. "I will show it to
you," he said, rolling up his sleeve, and detached a bracelet [miniature] beautifully painted in
enamel representing a very beautiful woman. I contemplated it with great emotion. M. de Saint-
Germain said nothing more and changed the subject. When he had left, I was shocked to hear
my mother mock his outlawry and the queen his mother, for this price on his head from the age
of seven, this flight into the forest with his governor gave him to be understood as the son of a
dethroned sovereign.

This is not a testimony which should either be simply accepted or simply dismissed. If one
starts off by taking it as wholly true, one runs into difficulties when one tries to match it up with
what we shall later find Saint-Germain him-self stating with regard to his identity. Moreover, the
dethroned sovereigns of the period are countable. Yet, if we dismiss it as therefore wholly false, we
may be missing important clues. This is a strange story for the writer to have invented from
absolutely nothing. Her imagination is capable of having contributed a dramatic detail, such as the
rolling up of the sleeve. It is also possible that in the course of the seventy years which elapsed
between her meeting, as a child, with Saint-Germain, and her publication of her Memoires, in the
post-Napoleonic era, her recollection of what he said had lost its clarity, and she remembered only
some striking details, which she put together again in an order which was not that in which he had
presented them.

95
NOTES TO CHAPTER 10

1. Memoires de Madame de Hausset, femme de chambre de Madame de Pompadour, avec des

notes et des eclairissements historiques (Baudoin Freres Paris, 1824), The Memoires, according
to the Avertissement, pp. 53-4, were being thrown on the fire by the Marquis de Marigny with
the words, "a journal by a maid of my sister's, just twaddle" when rescued by a Senac de
Meilhan, standing by, and an Englishman, Quintin Crauford, later undertook the editing and
publication. Doubt upon its authenticity was first cast by Emile Dard in an article Un rival de
Fersen, Quintin Craufurd, 1947, and developed by Pierre Gaxotte of The Academie Francaise
in his book Le Ssièle de Louis XV (Paris, Fayard, 1974). Gaxotte does not believe that de
Marigny would have handed over a manuscript in which his sister confessed to frigidity and
attempts to cure it, or sent her maid to assist at the delivery of one of the girls at the Pare des
Cerfs whom the King had got with child, or that Senac de Meilhan would have taken it with
him when leaving France in a hurry to attend the bedside of a brother who was sick in England.
He thinks Senac de Meilhan composed the whole thing, and sold it to the Englishman as
authentic. On the other hand, Dr. Rohan Butler, author of Choiseul, (OUP, 1980) wrote to me
that he thought Gaxotte, who was very pro-Louis XV, might have been prejudiced against the
Memoires as not showing the King in a good light. He had seen in Choiseul's own hand, a diary
which Gaxotte had rejected as spurious. This, of course, proved nothing either way with regard
to the de Hausset. Such a person did exist, as is evidenced in a one-sentence reference to her in
on of Madame de Pompadour's letters to de Marigny—'Madame de Hausset's relative could be
somebody good'—but it seems to me odd that if she was her principal lady's maid, and such an
intimate confidant as represented, her name does not figure amongst those of the several of the
lady's maids to whom Madame de Pompadour left legacies in her will, made during the time of
the apparent intimacy. It is always possible there existed some genuine memoir which Senac de
Meilhan altered and spiced with inventions of his own.
2. Memoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt (Paris, Flammarion, 1899-1923), vol. Ill, pp. 92-
93).
3. Paris, Archives de l'Empire, N.157; le Roi a de Broglie, 12 mars, 1752.
4. Souvenirs de Charles Henri Baron de Gleichen (Paris, 1868) pp. 122-123.
5. Memoires inidites pour servir a l’Histoire des XVIII et XIX siècles, Madame de Genlis (Paris,
1825), Vol. I, p. 90.
6. Ibid., pp. 91-92.

96
 CHAPTER 11

THE POEM

Saint-Germain does not seem to have published any poetry himself, but we shall find a
contemporary reference to his being a poet, which suggests that he did show verse, privately. A
slender volume entitled Poèmes Philo-sophiques sur I'Homme, published in Paris by Mercier in
1795, consists of three poems, one of which is stated to be by 'le fameux Comte de Saint-Germain'.
It is a sonnet, written in the classic Alexandrines. An Alexandrine is a line of twelve syllables,
which is the French equivalent of the English iambic pentameter. French has no stressed and
unstressed syllables; each syllable carries its own impulsion; hence it has no beat and so can have
no metrical feet. That is why they count not feet but the number of syllables in the line.
Nevertheless, there is always a more or less heavily marked caesura in the middle, which gives it a
balancing swing, in this resembling Anglo-Saxon, which though possessing heavy stress, also was
not organised into metrical feet. I will give it first in the original French, and then attempt a worthy
verse translation:

Curieux scrutateur de la nature entiere,

J'ai connu du grand tout le principe et le fin,
J'ai vu For en puissance au fond de sa miniere,
J'ai saisi sa matiere et surpris son levain.

J'expliquerai par quel art l'âme flancs d'une mère,

Fait sa maison, I'emporte, et comment un pépin
Mis contre un grain du blé, sous I'humide poussiere;
L'un plante et I'autre cep, sont le pain et le vin.

Rien n'e'tait, dieu voulu, rien devient quelquechose,

J'en doutais, je cherchai sur quoi I'univers pose,
Rien gardait I'e'quilibre et servi de soutien.

Enfin, avec le poids d'éloge et du blame,

Je pesais I'eternel, il appela mon dme
Je mounts, j'adorai, je ne sauais plus rien.'

Three alternative versions of the last lines are appended, suggesting printing from the author's
manuscript, which was not a final, fair copy. The variant endings are:

Je pésais dieu lui-même, il appela mon âme,

Le cadaure tomba, j'adorai, tout en bien.
Je pésais l'éternel, il appela mon âme,
Le cadaure tomba, je ne savais plus rien.

Je redeuiens dieu même et je m'en doutais bien.

One can see that he had a difficult problem. What he wanted to say was important, complex
and teasing to express, and he was constricted by the strict rhyme-scheme of the sonnet. Without
exceeding the statutory fourteen lines, he must include in the last three a rhyme for 'soutien'. All the
versions carry different but cohiplementary shades of thought, which can help us do better to

97
understand him, and in my translation I will endeavour to compress and combine them, as well as
providing a title:

THE MYSTERY

Scrutator, curious of nature's whole,

I have seen the principle and end of all.
Gold in its puissance, deep in its mine:
I have seized its matter, surprised its leaven.

I can explain the art by which the soul

Within a mother's womb builds house, how swell
Beneath the humid dust pip against grain,
Wheat-ears and vine, bread and wine.

Nothing was; god willed: something became.

The universe rests on what? I stripped
Its frame; nothing bears it. With praise and blame
I weighed the eternal, and it called my soul.
I died, was again god, doubted myself, worshipped.
My cadaver fell. I know no more at all.

I think it is genuine. It will be noticed there are textual difficulties. Should there really be a
semicolon after "L'humide poussiere' (the humid dust)? The sense reads straight on. The editor has
either lost the thread or mistaken some accidental mark on the paper for a punctuation mark. A
forgery would not provide textual problems, would read in a facile, grandiose yet flashy manner,
emptily. This arouses questions on every level.
God is written with a small 'g', so the writer is not a Christian. Neither is he an atheist. The
desire to examine everything is scientific and sceptic; yet the sense is shown of something—that is
not a thing—that keeps the whole working. The writer is evoking not the father-figure of Biblical
scripture but something nearer to the Buddhist metaphysics, or to 'God is the ultimate law of
physics'. And yet it is not quite either of these, for 'it' or 'It' is a very active whatever it is. The
French 'il' means either 'he' or 'it', so he was not obliged to choose which pronoun he would use, and
for that reason was probably happier to be writing in French, rather than in English, which would
have forced him to decide between personality and impersonality, where he wanted to leave the
choice unmade. In the ninth line, he paraphrases Professor Fred Hoyle, the astronomer and
cosmologist, who acknowledging the scientist's inability to resolve ultimates, on the origins of
matter, confesses simply that at one moment there was nothing, at the next something. Yet there is a
sense of blasphemy, in having weighed up and criticised.
But what are we to make of other details in the poem? What is gold 'in its puissance' and what
is its 'leaven? It is almost as though, by clairvoyant sight, he had seen it alive, all its atoms moving,
as the foetus within the womb. Is the point of view reincarnationist? The 'a' before 'mother' is
evocative of there having been previous mothers, in previous existences. The phrase would be
fitting if, after a death, the soul had dropped into a womb again, and begun building its new body.
Notice, the word 'baby' is not used. For the reincarnationist, souls are as old as time. It can be a very
mature soul, that is starting again.
But, from the autobiographical point of view, the profoundest mystery is that contained in the
last lines, that gave him so much trouble. He died. His body fell off him,fell from him, leaving him,
like a Hindu Shiva, dancing free, an unentrammelled, liberated spirit. The butcher's word 'cadaver'
savours of a momentary contempt for the discarded vehicle. The respectful word, in French, is
'corps mort', dead body or corpse. The suggestion of meatiness is intentional. He had seen his body,
98
as so much dead meat, drop from him. In the wonder of that moment, he had both worshipped God
and felt like a god, doubted himself and his reason and returned feeling that he no longer understood
anything about anything.
In Masonry, as in the mystery religions, there is a symbolic death which the candidate must
undergo at his initiation; and what it is meant to symbolise is that one has to let go of—die to—
worldly preoccupation or fetters, to become alive in spirit. This notion, moreover, finds its
expression, through one form of parable or another, in all the great religions of the world.
But it sounds as though what is told of here, is not merely a formal symbolic death at a Lodge
ceremony of initiation. Did he swoon and think he had died, only to find himself back again, on this
earth? It sounds as though whatever had happened to him had constituted a revelation counter to
what had been his previous beliefs; hence the feeling that, though knowing, in some ways, more
than others, he no longer felt he understood anything at all.
It is a long way from those little lyrics he had set to music while in England; a long way from
the French verse of the period. This poem is not only unlike anything else written in the 18th
century; it is unlike anything else that has ever been written. 1

NOTES TO CHAPTER 11

1. Usually, I think literal translations of poetry unfair to the poet, because, by taking out what was
contributed by the verse-form and putting nothing in its place, they are made to read flatly.
Nevertheless, because of the interest in knowing Saint-Germain's words as exactly as possible,
I append a literal translation:
Curious scrutator of entire nature, I have known the principle and end of the great all. I have
seen gold in its puissance at the bottom of its mine. I have seized its matter and surprised its
leaven.
I shall explain by what art the soul in the flanks of a mother makes its house, carries it out, and
how a pip placed against a grain of wheat, beneath the humid earth, the one plant and the other
vine, are bread and wine.
Nothing was, god willed, nothing became something. I doubted of it, I sought on what the
universe poses. Nothing kept the equilibrium and served as support.
At last, with weights of eulogy and blame, I weighed up the eternal, it called my soul. I died, I
adored, I knew nothing more at all. The variants of the last lines are:
I weighed up god himself, he (or it) called my soul. My cadaver fell; I worshipped without
reserve.
I weighed up the eternal, it called my soul. My cadaver fell, I no more understood anything.
I re-became god even and totally doubted myself.

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 CHAPTER 12

'MILORD GOWER'

To go back now to Von Gleichen, the Baron continues:1

There was at that time a facetious man in Paris nicknamed Milord Gower because he
counterfeited the English. After being employed in the Seven Years War as a spy against the
British army, courtiers made use of his services in Paris to play the parts of all sorts of other
people, disguised. Now, it was malicious practical jokers who employed Milord Gower to go
about in the 'Marsh' district of Paris under the name of Monsieur de Saint-Germain, to satisfy
the curiosity of women and idlers in that quarter where they are less discerning than in the
Palais Royal; it was in that theatre that the counterfeit adept played his role first of all in a
minor way, but, seeing that all was received with admiration, exaggerating more and more,
going back from century to century till he made him as old as Jesus Christ, speaking of him
familiarly as though he had been his friend, saying for instance,"I knew him intimately, he was
the best man in the world but romantic and reckless; I always told him he would come to a bad
end"... It was this kind of absurdity which, being repeated all over the place, cost Monsieur de
Saint-Germain the reputation for possessing a medicine which rejuvenated and rendered
immortal, and gave rise to such silly stories as the one about the aged maid who found where
her mistress had hidden a bottle of it and drank the lot, which turned her straight back into a
baby.

So we have here the genesis of the legend. The factors contributing to it are easy to see. His
withholding of his true identity, his parentage and the circumstances of birth, meant the suppression
also of the date of it, and this, combining with the assertions of Rameau and Morin that they had
met him very much earlier in their lives but looking the same age as now, implied he was not
subject to the aging process.2 Also his being a vegetarian and preparing himself a regular herbal tea,
with sennapods, all added together to mean that he must have lived from immemorial times,
unchanging, by means of this tea.
But why did 'Milord Gower'—whom French writers identity with one Guave—give these
impersonations? There is the suggestion he was a paid agent. During the last war, impersonation
was frequent. When the German intelligence services captured within any of the territories they had
overrun an agent from London working with the Resistance, it was common practice to have one of
their own men impersonate him in meetings with further Resistance groups. Certain individuals,
skilful as actors, in some cases gifted with much dramatic flair, were employed time and time again
to impersonate at critical interviews, and in this manner confused situations arose, which even after
the end of the war, took years to sort out. It reads as though this 'Gower' or Guave may have been a
political agent employed in such capacities. Perhaps someone had an interest in making Saint-
Germain ridiculous, in order to destroy his standing. Certainly they did him a great deal of harm,
causing him to be thought of as a fantastical person, which he was not.
Von Gleichen thought he looked fifty, and Madame de Genlis also gave him fifty years in that
same year,( 1759). The latter, states she never heard him talk in the way alleged, adding, Mémoires
(p.89) 'He showed forth the best principles, fulfilled all external religious duties with exactitude,
was very charitable and everyone agreed he was of the purest morals ... of noble and serious
manners, exemplary conduct'.

100
NOTES TO CHAPTER 12

1. Souvenirs de Charles Henri Baron de Gleichen (Paris, 1868) pp. 124-126.

2. In the disputed Memoires de Madame de Hausset, jemme de chambre de Madame de
Pompadour . . . (Paris, 1824), discussed p. 108 f. n.l, much is made of Saint-Germain's having
an elixir of long life, and in a most ridiculous sounding conversation with Madame de
Pompadour he is made to describe meetings of Margaret de Valois with Mary, later Queen of
Scots, as though he had been present. No testimony that we can trust records Saint-Germain as
talking in this way, and I regard these passages, at any rate, as spurious.

101
 CHAPTER 13

THE HOSTILITY OF CHOISEUL

Choiseul did not at first show his hostility to Saint-Germain, but it was latent, as will appear
from an outburst related by von Gleichen (I translate from his French):1

Monsieur de Saint-Germain was a regular visitor to the Choiseuls and well received there. We
were therefore astonished by a violent outburst of the Minister to his wife on his subject.
Brusquely, he asked her why she was not drinking. She replied that she was, like me, following
the regime of Monsieur de Saint-Germain, and with great success. Monsieur de Choiseul said,
"So far as concerns the Baron, I recognise his special taste for adventurers and he can choose
his own regime, but you Madame, whose health is precious to me, Iforbid you to follow the
follies of a man so equivocal". To stop a conversation that was becoming embarrassing, the
Bailli de Solar asked Monsieur de Choiseul if it was true the Government was ignorant of the
origin of a man who lived in France on such a distinguished footing. "Of course we know,"
replied Choiseul (but the Minister was not telling the truth) "he is the son of a Portuguese Jew,
who imposes on the credulity of the town and of the Court. It is strange" he added, with
increasing heat, "that the King should allow himself to be practically alone with such a man,
although otherwise he never goes anywhere except surrounded by guards, as though the place
were full of assassins".'

The last is not astonishing, seeing that only two years previously the King had been stabbed by
an intending assassin, which doubtless made him cautious.
It seems fairly obvious that Choiseul had said the first thing that came into his head, and,
incensed by the suggestion his office—for he was after all Minister of State for Foreign Affairs—
did not know the origin of Saint-Germain, had endowed him with a low one. But Louis did not
receive men below a certain rank in the nobility.
Von Gleichen thought he had heard somewhere that amongst the many pseudonyms at one time
or another used by him was 'Marquis de Montferrat' (he may be mistaken about this by wishful
thinking) and casting his mind back to a conversation he had long ago, in the time of the Regency,
before Louis XV came of age, with somebody in Florence who told him of a Montferrat who was
the bastard of Queen Maria-Anna, widow of King Carlos II of Spain, by a Madrid banker, decided
that Saint-Germain was probably this person. Thus, von Gleichen became the ancestor of a whole
line of writers about Saint-Germain who have made him the bastard of this Queen of Spain, varying
only the father; a Jesuit priest, a Spanish officer or grandee. (Both Andrew Lang and Chacornac are
in this tradition, but I think the trail a false one.)
Von Gleichen writes:2

His philosophy was that of Lucretius; he spoke with mysterious emphasis of the profundities of
nature, so opening to the imagination vague, obscure and immense speculation as to the nature
of his science, his treasures and the nobility of his origin.
He liked to speak of his childhood, in which he painted himself as surrounded by a numerous
suite, walking on magnificent terraces in a delightful climate, as though he had been a prince
heir to the throne of some king of Grenada in the time of the Moors. What is certain, however,
is that no one has ever been able to discover who he was, nor from what country.
He spoke German, English well, French with a Piedmontese accent, Italian in superior manner
but above all Spanish and Portuguese without the slightest accent.

102
 It may be doubted whether von Gleichen, a German, would have been able to tell whether
anyone was speaking Spanish or Portuguese with or without accent.
One may feel that only a superficial understanding could say that Saint-Germain's philosophy
was purely that of Lucretius. It is possible that, if Lucretius came into the conversation, Saint-
Germain might have approved his theory of atoms combining to create things. As a chemist,
seeking to understand how things were composed, this would have interested him; but Lucretius
thought that a human being was solely composed of these material atoms and therefore had no
immortal principle or soul, but ceased to be when the body died. Saint-Germain's poem, The
Mystery, shows something very different as being in his mind. He had seen his body dead, and
knew he was not of it.
It is also possible that, without Lucretius coming into the conversation, Saint-Germain had
talked of atoms combining to make physical things, and von Gleichen's mind had leaped straight
from this to Lucretius.
Meanwhile, the Seven Years' War had been going ill for France. After an initial success in
taking Minorca, French forces had been beaten in practically every other field; notably in India, by
Clive, at Plassy, in 1755, and in Canada, by Wolfe, at Quebec, in 1759. Neither were they faring
better in Europe. The Marechal d'Estrees fell foul of Paris-Duverney, who, as army munitioner and
provisioner, apparently expected to be consulted over plans. The Marechal de Belle-Isle, now
Secretary of State for the Army, scenting d'Estrees' danger, sent to warn him he must have a victory
to report, quickly. He did, defeating the Duke of Cumberland at Hastenbeck, 26 July 1757, but such
was the influence of Paris-Duverney with the King, d'Estrees found himself recalled and (Madame
de Pompadour was not happy about this) replaced by the Due de Richelieu, who, by denying troops
to Soubise in Saxony was really responsible for the heavy French defeat at Rosbach.
He was replaced by the Comte de Clermont, Prince of the Blood (Louis de Bourbon), son of the
Great Conde and of a naturalised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. He was, in
parenthesis, Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France, the official French Freemasonry. Louis
XV, distant in spirit from most of his close relatives, tended to consult this cousin of his father.
Nevertheless, he let him down by suddenly withdrawing part of his army from him to send to
Maria-Theresa, which was probably why, on 18 June, 1758, he was beaten by Prince Ferdinant of
Brunswick, C-in-C at Creffield, of the Hanoverian Army. Madame de Pompadour wrote to him
distractedly, beseeching him to stop retreating, but it was impossible to retrieve a deteriorating
situation, and he, too, was recalled.
The command was now given to the Marechal de Contades, who was beaten by Prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick at Minden in August, 1759.
Madame de Pompadour was desperate. She had thought the Austrian alliance would be for the
glory of France, but it was not working out that way. The French finances were running out, and the
newly appointed Secretary of State for Finance, Etienne de Silhouette, seemed no more able to stem
the tide than the Generals. He besought everybody to economise—and indeed Madame de
Pompadour cut her living standards and gave silver to be melted down—but, in order to avoid
further increasing taxes (since the class that paid them was beginning loudly to growl), he cut
pensions. This was hardly a move likely to make for popularity. People began to mock him.
Trousers without pockets and all manner of articles that, for economy's sake, were made without
some essential feature, were called Silhouettes, hence his name came to be given to the little black
portraits that lacked features.
Madame de Pompadour knew there had to be an end of this situation. They must have a peace.
Choiseul had, through Voltaire, now in his exile in Switzerland, been sounding Frederick on
the possibility of Prussia's withdrawing her support from England, but met with a contemptuous
rebuff.
On 25 November, 1759, a Declaration of a Disposition to Peace, signed for Britain by the Earl
of Holderness and for Prussia by Baron von Knyphausen (Prussian Ambassador to London), was
handed to Prince Louis of Brunswick at the Hague, but Choiseul, perhaps because he had a
103
repugnance from meekly accepting terms dictated by Pitt, did not seize upon this with notable
eagerness. He seemed to be quibbling upon small points—it was not even agreed where emissaries
should meet if they were to do so, in order to discuss the possibility of a peace—and a feeling was
created that he was finding pretexts to delay, whereas what Madame de Pompadour wanted was an
end to the fighting at once.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 13

1. Souvenirs de Charles Henri Baron de Gleichen (Paris, 1868),pp. 129-130.

2. Op.cit., p.128.

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 CHAPTER 14

A CONFIDENTIAL INITIATIVE

It was from her bed that Madame de Pompadour handed Saint-Germain a letter which she had
received from a Scotsman living in Paris, by name of Crammont. 1 He was not the author of the
letter, but had received it by way of Brussels. It came from London, and said that the Duke of
Newcastle and Lord Granville would both favour a separate Peace between England and France.
Her relief was great. In the beginning she had favoured the Austrian alliance, but that was a long
time ago. She knew, now, that France desperately needed peace with England. Choiseul might say
he had to consult their allies before composing a reply to the Declaration by England and Prussia,
but things seemed to be moving slowly. A negotiation involving a number of powers promised to be
long drawn out, and meanwhile French resources were more and more exhausted by the cost of
keeping up the war. She suggested to Saint-Germain that he should acquaint Choiseul with this
exciting paper which she had received. Saint-Germain demurred, saying he doubted if Choiseul
would be interested.
Neither was he. Saint-Germain broached the matter to him, as Madame de Pompadour had
asked him to do so, but Choiseul dismissed it out of hand.
The question we may ask ourselves, and which Saint-Germain not improbably asked himself, is
why Madame de Pompadour disclosed this letter in the first place to him, and asked him to acquaint
Choiseul with it. Saint-Germain was not French and was not in the service of the French King.
Choiseul was the French Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and it would have been normal for
her to have given the letter to him. But Choiseul did not want to give in. He was angling for a
second Family Compact, by which Spain, Naples and Parma, since their royal houses had Bourbon
blood, should show their support for France by declaring war on England. That is why, while
paying lip-service to the idea of a desire for peace, he was employing delaying tactics with regard to
its conclusion, hoping it might not be necessary. Madame de Pompadour was very torn, because, on
the one hand, she wanted to stop the fighting instantly, and on the other Choiseul was an old friend,
an intimate of her circle, upon whom she had become accustomed to rely, though now their desires
were not the same. If she had given him the letter he might have just put it in his pocket and failed
to follow it up. Yet to take her own measures, without telling him anything about it, would be a
kind of treachery against him, while he remained in office.
Saint-Germain, a person who had actually lived in England, and knew both Newcastle and
Granville, was the ideal negotiator (whereas Choiseul, who had never visited it, knew no more of it
than herself or Louis). By confiding the letter to Saint-Germain and asking him to give it to
Choiseul, with her suggestion he act on it, she was doing him the courtesy of taking him into
consultation and trying to act through him, yet leaving herself free, should he do nothing, to discuss
further with Saint-Germain, with the King and with Belle-Isle.
The Marechal de Belle-Isle was now Secretary of State for War. His feeling with regard to
foreign alliances was the opposite to that of Choiseul. Whereas Choiseul, whose father had served
the Emperor, had thrown his whole weight behind the Diplomatic Revolution, Belle-Isle, who
admired Frederick the Great, had always regretted it. Also, he had spent time in England,
technically as a prisoner, yet a prisoner privileged to become the lion of London society, and
perhaps he, too, had come to have some liking or regard for the English. He would be the Minister
to welcome a stop to the fighting. But his Ministry was War, not Foreign Affairs. The simple
solution would seem to have been for Louis to shuffle his cabinet, but plainly he found it difficult to
do that. They had lived on far more intimate terms with Choiseul than with Belle-Isle. It was
Choiseul and his wife who supped with him and Madame de Pompadour in the latter's boudoir. That
made it difficult for him to remove him from his post while he wanted to remain; and Louis was not

105
good at being forthright with people. Choiseul was so dominating, so ebullient, as to make it
difficult to warn him without precipitating a crisis.
So, conversations appear to have taken place informally between Madame de Pompadour,
Saint-Germain, Belle-Isle and the King. Supposing the information in the letter from London to be
authentic, what Louis and Madame de Pompadour would have wanted to know was whether
Newcastle and Granville were strong enough to carry the day. Newcastle, indeed, was now Prime
Minister, but he had in his ministry, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, William Pitt, a very
powerful figure, who had established his fame as the man who was winning the war against France
and might not be willing to lay off until they were utterly ruined. The government was really one of
tug-of-war coalition. Final power lay, as in France, with the King, but there was the feeling that
George II, dependent like his father on the Whig support, and nearing the end of his days, would not
initiate a departure from the advice he received.
Who proposed the idea we cannot know, but as it will emerge from the following papers, it
came to be accepted that Saint-Germain, though not a Frenchman, would make a journey to the
Netherlands in the interest of France and, building upon an acquaintance during his days in England
with General Sir Joseph Yorke, now British Ambassador to the Hague, call upon him there, tell him
King Louis wanted peace and enquire if His Britannic Majesty's Ministers would agree.
Obviously, it was decided not to tell Choiseul in advance but to wait until, it might be hoped,
Saint-Germain had something positive to report. If Saint-Germain could make it possible to-present
him with indisputable evidence a Peace with England was theirs for the asking, Choiseul would
have either to espouse it or resign. Madame de Pompadour, at least, probably hoped he would
choose the former course, and perhaps Louis hoped it, for although Choiseul's obstinacy had
become an obstacle, his departure would leave a vacuum. He was bound to resent so momentous a
step having been taken by passing him, but she would probably hope he could be soothed and
coaxed into accepting a result so beneficial as Saint-Germain would, with luck, achieve.
It must have been just about this time there was written the first primary document we have had
for a long time, a letter from the Prussian Charge d'Affaires, at the Hague, Bruno von Hellen, to
King Frederick II. It is in French, both as being the diplomatic language and because Frederick was
not accustomed to use, or permit himself to be addressed, in any other. I translate:2

The Hague, 8 January, 1760

Sire,

The post from Hamburg has not yet come in. It comes to my ears that there is in Paris a
personage the role played by whom perhaps merits that I should report to Your Majesty what I
have been able to learn of him. He is a sort of adventurer, who has lived in Germany and
England as the Comte de Saint-Germain, who plays the violin with excellence, but also
prompts from behind the scenes, and so cuts a great figure. He lodges in Paris with an English
banker named Selwin. Your Majesty may have heard speak of the man in question. The Comte
must at the present time play a great role at the Court of Versailles, having entered into the
intimate councils of the King and the Marquise [de Pompadour], and I have been assured that
all the Ministers pay him court, not only as being a great favourite of the King, their Master,
but even taking advice from him. It is difficult to make out what has brought him into such a
high degree of favour, but it looks to all appearances as though he must have made the King
and the favourite believe he could present them with the philosopher's stone. The weakness of
the Sovereign, his mere curiosity with regard to natural history, and the avarice of the Marquise
render this probable; moreover, he seems to have really imparted to the King of France some
curious discoveries which he made through chemistry, amongst others the secret of rendering
colours fast. However that may be, this man is accustomed to express his sentiments to the
Ministers of France with the utmost frankness. He repeats often that they committed the highest
106
 degree of folly in breaking off relations with Your Majesty and mixing themselves up in the
war of the Continent. He advised them to prepare to make a peace. In general, he affects to be a
great admirer of Your Majesty. When the news arrived of the two defeats in the campaign
against the Russians, he contented himself with saying Your Majesty would soon re-establish
things, which has proved to be the case, and that one would see Your Majesty's enemies would
not advance further. It seems he had to do with the fall of the last Controller General, or at least
one could almost believe that from a letter he wrote to one of his friends: I have kept my
promise; Silhouette, that butcher of France, has been brought down. So far to the King.

Sire,
Your Majesty's
very humble, very obedient, very faithful servitor,
B. von Hellen

One should read this bearing in mind that for von Hellen, as a Prussian, the French Court was
the Court of the enemy, and therefore references to King Louis and Madame de Pompadour would
be unlikely to do them credit, and one can dismiss the notion Saint-Germain was offering them the
philosopher's stone. He was not an alchemist. What is important about this letter is that it discloses
Saint-Germain regretted the reversal of alliances. To be pro-Prussian meant to be anti-Austrian, not
anti the people of Austria, with their musical and artistic gifts, but anti the Court of Vienna, anti the
domination of so much of Europe by the Habsburgs. If he had been trying to teach something to
Louis and to Madame de Pompadour, then, it would have been that they made a mistake when they
allowed Bernis and Choiseul to guide them into the arms of Kaunitz and Maria-Theresa. The end of
the passage is curious. Silhouette's petty economies probably irritated Saint Germain because they
were negative measures and did nothing to make greater wealth for France. (Silhouette's term of
office had been ended on 21 November, 1759, when he had been replaced by de Bertin.)
The last sentence, though underlined, is too enigmatic for it to be wise to venture an
interpretation. One should, moreover, beware of attaching too much importance to a phrase
apparently seen by a person unnamed in a letter we have not before us.
It must have been shortly after von Hellen wrote this report that Saint-Germain left France for
Holland, lodging, as it will emerge, in Amsterdam with the brothers Adrian and Thomas Hope, both
Directors of the East-India Company.3
The Hopes introduced Saint-Germain to the Mayor of Amsterdam, Gerrard Arnoud Hasselaar,
and he must also have called upon d'Astier, the French Commissioner for the Navy at Amsterdam,
who must have informed d'Affry, for we find d'Affry, who since his return from France to the
Hague had been promoted Ambassador, writing to Choiseul (I translate from his French):4

The Hague, 22 February, 1760

Monsieur le Due,

...Monsieur d'Astier sends to tell me that there is at Amsterdam a Monsieur le Comte de Saint-
Germain, who I think must be the same who spent a long while in England, and who acts very
strangely. This man speaks of our finances and of our Ministry in a very extraordinary way. He
claims to be charged with an important commission regarding our finances.

...I have the honour to be, Monsieur le Due

Your very humble and obedient servant,
d'Affry

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 What was extraordinary in Saint-Germain's way of speaking of the finances of France was
probably his plainness in pointing out that they were deficient. Although it comes from the other
side of the fence, there is a concordance between this letter and that from von Hellen to his King, in
respect of the point that it was the finances of France, and their mis-management, that were of
concern to Saint-Germain. Apart from the peace-initiative which had brought him to Holland, he
was obviously using his time here for something else as well, something perhaps intended radically
to improve the French finances.
D'Affry, perhaps, had not perceived how serious had become the French insolvency. He had
not sensed the storm-clouds of the Revolution to break out in only just over thirty years. In the same
letter, he tells Choiseul it is believed the King of Prussia wants peace, and that the British also
desire it. He appears not aware that the French needed it, desperately, for they could not stand the
continual financial drain of the war, and because of that their entire world was threatened. D'Affry
expands trivia. Prince Louis of Brunswick, virtually Regent of the Netherlands, because tutor to the
very young Prince Willem V of Orange, had called to talk to him of the party he was giving for the
latter's twelfth birthday and to tell him he was invited, this being, however the only one of a series
of Dutch festivities, leading up to the marriage of Prince Willem's sister, Princess Caroline, to
which his position as Ambassador of France entitled him to an invitation.
In all, one obtains the impression through his letters that, concerned with affairs from day to
day, he was, on the whole, despite minor vexations, pretty cheerful and confident,little suspecting
France was already sliding down that slope that was to lead, in only about thirty years, to the
Revolution. Apparently he was not too disturbed by a letter from the Hope brothers: (I translate
from their French):5

Amsterdam, 25 February, 1760

Monsignor,

We received the letter which your Excellency did us the honour to write us on the 26th ult, to
which we deferred replying in the hope that through your Excellency we should receive a reply
from Monsieur le Due de Choiseul concerning the subject of the advances we have made, as
your Excellency gave us to expect, but receiving nothing, we find ourselves again obliged to
importune your Excellency...

It sounds as though they had made to the French Crown or Government a loan, on which the
repayments with interest are not being kept up.
On Wednesday, 5 March, Adrian Hope took Saint-Germain and a Madam Geelvink in his
coach to the Hague.

108
NOTES TO CHAPTER 14

1. The Hague, Koninklijk Huisarchiv, Bentinck Papers, 8 March, 1760.

2. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Depeschen, von Hellen, Vol. XIV, F.39 E, ff.4r-5r.
3. It is usual at the point to recapitulate from Casanova's Mémoires an account of how he met
Saint-Germain in Holland, but although Casanova did know the Hopes, his visits to Holland
had been in the autumn and winter of 1758 and then from the autumn of 1759 until the
beginning of February, 1760. He had arrived in Cologne by 7 February, which is probably
before Saint-Germain arrived and certainly before any of the happenings concerning Saint-
Germain he makes Hope retail to him by word of mouth.
4. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, f.154.
5. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, f.158.

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 CHAPTER 15

BENTINCK

On his arrival in the Hague, Saint-Germain's first call, on 5 March, 1760, seems to have been
upon Willem Bentinck, Count von Rhoon. This was a most distinguished man, whose family had
played a part in European affairs since the Middle Ages. His father, Hans Willem Bentinck, had
sailed with the Prince of Orange on the expedition to England which resulted in his coronation as
King William III, and had been for his services made Earl of Portland. George II had raised the
eldest son to Duke of Portland; three of his sisters had been married into the English aristocracy, to
the Earl of Sussex, to Lord Byron of Newstead and to the first Earl of Kingston, while the Dukes of
Newcastle became in-laws by the son's marriage. To our Bentinck, the last child, by a second
marriage, fell only their father's estates in Holland, whither he removed from England, but although
he made his way in Dutch affairs-to which he gave the more attention because deserted by his wife-
he always retained a sense of connection with England. He was now a member of the States-
General and one of the Regents for the infant Prince Willem V.
Saint-Germain carried a letter from his old friend Ligniere mentioning that Bentinck would like
to meet him. He was received, and trust was established at once. They talked of places and people,
so passing to world affairs, and Saint-Germain found it not difficult to introduce his theme, that
peace between England and France was to be desired.
It was Bentinck who took Saint-Germain to the ball and supper given for the Prince of Orange,
Willem V, on his twelfth birthday. It was at the Hòtel des Ambassadeurs, in the States-General,
overlooking the pool called the Vy ver, and the lights must have been reflected in the water.
At the door, Bentinck gave to the liveried footman announcing the guests as they arrived, the
name of the friend he had brought with him, 'The Comte de Saint-Germain.' Inside, the people who
greeted and joined them included a number whom Saint-Germain had already met in Amsterdam.
Saint-Germain put up at the 'Prince of Orange' inn, not meaning in the beginning to stay for
more than one night, though he was to remain there longer.
Bentinck was accustomed to keep a loose-leaved journal or diary, in French, which he wrote
up, not daily, but whenever anything had happened of which he wished to preserve his notes, made
while his memory was fresh. To this, we are indebted for the first genuine account of Saint-
Germain, made by somebody who had just met him and had the good will to listen to him. It is
doubtful whether Bentinck ever learned Dutch. In any case, Dutch at that period hardly existed as a
written language, the various forms of it not having yet been combined into an agreed form. The
written language of educated Dutch people was French, and therefore Bentinck, though not a
Francophile had become accustomed to writing in French and kept his diary in it. I translate from
his French:1

Sunday, 9 March, 1760

[Saint-Germain told me] that on the English side there would be no difficulty, that the difficulty
would come from France. That the King of England placed all his confidence in two people, the
Duke of Newcastle and Lord Granville, who both passionately wished for peace.
That the King of France and Madame the Pompadour, the whole Court and the whole of France
desired it passionately; that one man prevented it. That was the Due de Choiseul, won over as
he had been by the Court of Vienna (Queen of Hungary); that might seem extraordinary but it
was true. That the King was good-natured and would never upset anybody. That Monsieur de
Bernis had begun work upon the new plan whilst Ambassador to Venice, where he had not
served out his 3 years Ambassadorship; that in 1754 Bernis was busy as an ant.

110
That all the confusions and troubles of Europe came from the Treaty of Versailles, 1756, which
was but a consequence of that of Venice.
That there was a secret clause by which Flanders would be given to the Infanta in exchange for
Silesia, which would have to be conquered, ceded and guaranteed to the Queen of Hungary;
that the whole project fell through; that the war had turned ill in Germany; that the plan had
been extravagant in itself, since neither England nor this republic [the Netherlands] would ever
suffer the cession of Flanders to a Prince or Princess of France, nor indeed to anyone. That
moreover it was impossible to execute, in view of the troubles which had overtaken France;
that these misfortunes were however perhaps fortunate, since, if instead of losses France had
made conquests, she would have needed armies to keep and defend them and so would have
become even more exhausted.
That peace could have been concluded a year ago, leaving Louisburg to England and Minorca
to France, but that would have suited neither, since neither wanted to be burdened with the
upkeep of the acquisition.
That there was only one way out of it, and that was by a peace concerted between England and
France; that the usual method of preliminaries, congresses and conferences would lead to
drawing things out indefinitely and occasion a new campaign, the idea of which made one
shiver. That he was convinced that, if a few acceptable propositions could be put forward by
some honest man whom people could trust, it would be possible to conclude a peace as
necessary to England as to France.
That the King and Madame de Pompadour craved it, burningly and passionately; that the King
of England wished for it no less; that the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Granville strongly
favoured it; that Pitt, at present connected with the two others, had until now managed to thwart
them, but that Pitt was hated by the King; that he felt the advantage of Pitt's present popularity,
which guaranteed him against opposition in the Lower House, but that the glory reaped by Pitt,
like his success in the war, excited the jealousy of the other Ministers and made the King hate
him more.
(In speaking of Chesterfield, he said, "Chesterfield is a trifler", firmly and looking me straight
in the eyes to see how I would take it.)
'That he had business at Amsterdam, where he expected letters from the Court; that he had
drawn to come and see me by Linieres [sic], and strongly recommended to me both the man
and his project. That he did not really know d'Affry, who had received Linieres badly; that he
had seen d'Affry that morning and asked him why he received Linieres so ill; Linieres was not
an adventurer but a gentleman and a man of merit.
That d'Affry was a creature of Bernis, not an intimate of the Court.
With regard to the peace that could have been made a year ago, a certain Scotsman, whose
name was Crammont, who had been in London before settling in Paris, received from Neuville,
of Amsterdam, a letter which prepared him to receive another one from London, which indeed
came, by way of Brussels; that this letter contained ideas for a separate peace between France
and England; that they came from the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Granville; that this letter
had been handed him by Madame de Pompadour (with the circumstances, she was in bed); that
her joy was great; that she told him to speak of it to Choiseul; that he raised objections, but
obeyed; that Choiseul rejected everything, declaring that they could continue the war for
another 4 or 5 years. "What? To whom do you think you are talking? Do I not know the state of
your affairs? Not for one single year, without bringing yourselves to ruin."
That the event had justified him only too well; that now the poverty and decay were such that
they knew not to which side to turn for aid.
Regarding Amsterdam: its greatness, number of inhabitants, treasures and the circulation of
money; its superiority in this respect to London, Paris or any other city in the world, and of
proportion in a capital; comparing London and Paris, the one was only a capital and the other a
commercial town as well; he entered into great detail concerning the [French] provinces, their
111
 depopulation, the ruin of the gentlemen-landowners, bring in its train by natural consequence
the ruin of the peasants who cultivated the land, all caused by the disproportion between the
capital and the realm; of which one now felt the effects because the resources which supplied
the provinces and, to excess, the ruinous luxury consumption of Paris, were dried up by the
suspension of foreigners' profits and the ruin of trade.
That I was thought of as pro-English; that the Baron of Soele boasted himself pro-French to the
death.
He asked me if I saw d'Affry often, if I knew him well and what sort of man he was, and was
astonished when I told him that I really hardly knew him, never seeing him except for formal
exchange of calls; that d'Affry had never spoken to me of any serious matter and that, in the
position which I occupied, it would not have been suitable for me to speak of serious matters to
a minister who never spoke to me of anything, d'Affry being in credit with the state but me not
with him.

In this long note by the Dutch Minister we have, for the first time, a report of a serious
conversation with Saint-Germain by a serious person. Until now, we have only had the flippant
comments of Horace Walpole, who never met him, the superficial appraisal of the rogue Casanova,
the doubtful diary of a lady's maid, the recollections of a little girl of thirteen (not written until she
had grown up into Madame de Genlis) and the Memoirs of Von Gleichen, who seems only to be
impressed by jewels and wonders. From such a set of sources, it is not surprising that not much that
is solid emerges. Now that we have a solid man, a man of intelligence and responsibility, writing
down on the day afterwards all that he remembered of what Saint-Germain said to him, we find a
solid Saint-Germain. It is not the Saint-Germain of myth, astonishing by wonders. It is a man who
is very observant of the external world, informed as to national and international affairs at high
level, able to sustain conversation with the Minister upon an equal footing, and to interest him to the
extent that the Minister took the pains afterwards to write down what he had said.
The analysis of French affairs is interesting. He sees de Bernis as having used his time in
Venice to prepare the ground for the Austrian alliance. That is even before Choiseul made Austrian
contacts, and it was de Bernis who signed, with Kaunitz, the Treaty of Versailles, in 1756. How did
Saint-Germain know of the secret clause in it? It will not have been de Bernis or Kaunitz who told
him. Unless it was King Louis XV, it will have been Madame de Pompadour. She has been much
blamed for the Austrian alliance. Saint-Germain lets her off lightly in this connection. She had put
first Bernis and then Choiseul into office. She had also repented her choice of Bernis and now,
apparently repented that of Choiseul. She must have confessed to Saint-Germain that she now
doubted the wisdom of the Austrian alliance, and sought a way out of its consequences.
With regard to the comments on the secret clause in the Treaty; Austria hoped to regain Silesia
from Prussia. The Queen of Hungary was the Empress Maria Theresa. The only daughter of the last
Emperor, she had been crowned Queen of Hungary, and her husband Emperor. The plan was
apparently that Austria should in return for French help in gaining Silesia, hand over Flanders to the
Infanta. The Infanta was not Spanish but French, for the Kings of Spain had been Bourbons since
the second grandson of Louis XIV had accepted the Spanish Crown as Philip V. As Saint-Germain
says, obviously it would never have been accepted by the Protestant countries.
Saint-Germain's comment is interesting, that things had reached the pass where neither England
nor France actually wanted to conquer territories from one another, of which they could not afford
the upkeep. It may be noticed that Saint-Germain tends to see national problems with the eye of an
economist. At Versailles, the Court and government were too isolated from both the centres of
trading and from the land, which is the source of food. What Saint-Germain is analysing is the
causes of what ultimately became the French Revolution: imbalance in apportionment of the
national expenditure; too much on war that could not be won; too much on the upkeep of the Court
at Versailles, provoking in its luxury, in time of deepening misery in the country; too little spent on
the country; taxation, to meet the expenses of the war, and the Court reducing the capacity of the
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landowners to spend anything upon cultivation of the land that bore the crops or the sustenance of
those who worked it; total bankruptcy of the state and total lack of confidence of the low in the
high. Much before his time, Saint-Germain saw it all. Presumably he had been talking to Madame
de Pompadour and to Louis as now he was to Bentinck.
To stop the ruinous war with England, though most urgent, would be but a start towards putting
things right, the French credit abroad being so low.
It will be noticed that Bentinck, a statesman, concerned with the proper cares of a statesman,
has not spoiled a serious conversation with Saint-Germain by asking him about the marvels
connected with his name by legend. Nevertheless, he afterwards wrote an account of how he had
first become interested to know Saint-Germain in which he confessed curiosity played a part:2

Some months ago Mr. Yorke strongly recommended to me an old acquaintance, Monsieur
Virette, of Swiss nationality, related to the Stanley family in England, with which Mr. Yorke
was very friendly. This Monsieur Virette came here to ask a patent for a newly invented
machine, and addressed himself to me, as from Mr. Yorke. He was also strongly recommended
to me by Monsieur de la Quadra [Secretary to the Spanish Embassy in the Hague] as from Mr.
d'Albreu of London. As a politeness to these Ministers, I had Monsieur Virette to dine a couple
of times at my house. When I asked him about the machine in detail he was unable to reply, but
had to fetch from Amsterdam Monsieur Linieres [sic], the inventor, with whom Virette and
some others were associated. He was introduced to me by Monsieur Virette, and I explained to
him to whom he should address himself in the State and what formalities he would have to go
through, etc. Sometime afterwards Monsieur d'Affry came to return a call I had paid him, and
after some small talk spoke at length of Monsieur Linieres, who, he said, he had learned had
been to see me; amongst other things he told me Monsieur Linieres was connected with the
Comte de Saint-Germain.
This name struck me and excited my curiosity because of all I had heard about him in England.
I put several questions to Monsieur d'Affry, amongst others, who was the Comte de Saint-
Germain; and I added that in England where he had moved for a long time in the best society
nobody knew who he was; that this did not surprise me in England, where they have so few
police, but it astonished me that in France they did not know either. To this, d'Affry replied that
in France the King alone knew, but he believed that in England the Duke of Newcastle knew. I
told Monsieur d'Affry what I had heard about him, his manners, his magnificence, his
regularity in paying his bills in England, where it is expensive to live in such high style.
Monsieur d'Affry told me that indeed he was a remarkable man, of whom stories were told, one
sillier than another, that he possessed the philosopher's stone, was a hundred years old although
he looked only forty etc. I asked him if he knew him personally, and he said yes, he had met
him often at the home of the Princess de Montauban and that he was very well received and
very well known in Versailles and frequently with Madame de Pompadour; that he lived in a
style extremely sumptuous and magnificent, he spoke of his wealth in paintings, precious
stones, curios and other things which I do not remember now any more than I remember the
rest of the questions I asked him, never then thinking that I should ever see the Comte de Saint-
Germain.
What remained engrained in my mind was that Monsieur le Comte d'Affry appeared as
astonished as I was by the details which he cited, and that we conversed concerning the figure
which the Comte de Saint-Germain had cut in England and in France, without the least thing
that he told me being in any way to the detriment of the Comte de Saint-Germain. As a way of
making conversation, I mentioned him to Mr Yorke when speaking of Virette. Mr Yorke spoke
of him as a very gay, very polished man, who had found his way into Madame de Pompadour's
cabinet, and to whom the King of France had given Chambord; my curiosity was much excited
by these extraordinary and singular things which I was told.

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 Having learned that the Comte de Saint-Germain was at Amsterdam and spoken with Monsieur
Linieres, who told me things which impressed me still more, I told Monsieur Linieres I would
be extremely interested to meet the Comte de Saint-Germain and begged him, when he wrote to
him, to tell him how charmed I should be to make his acquaintance. A few days after that Saint-
Germain came to the Hague, at the beginning of March. He came to call on me as a result of
Linieres' letter. His conversation pleased me very much, being extremely brilliant, varied, full
of details concerning different countries in which he had been, very interesting anecdotes, and I
was extremely pleased with his judgement of persons and places known to me, his manners
were extremely polished and speak a well bred man of the highest class.
He came from Amsterdam with Madame Geelvink and Madame Hasselaar. He had stayed in
Amsterdam with Mr A. Hope, had been daily at the home of the Burgomaster Hasselaar and
had come to the Hague recommended by Monsieur de Soele and by the Hasselaar family, who
had taken him to the home of Madame Byland and elsewhere. On the birthday of the Prince of
Orange I gave his name at the door, at the old Court, and led him into the ball, where he was
greeted by the Hasselaars, by Madam Geelvink, Madam Byland and others. He had intended to
leave the next day and had retained a carriage from Amsterdam to take back the ladies who had
come with him, but they wanted to stay for three or four days longer.

Virette and Ligniere emerge as better connected than one might have thought from d'Affry and
Walpole, The Earls of Derby were Stanleys, and if Virette, though of Swiss nationality, was related
to them, Walpole's sneer is out of place and one understands why Holderness took him out to
dinner.
One notices that Bentinck, once he met Saint-Germain, seems not to have asked him the truth
about the extraordinary age and other marvels attributed to him by legend. Probably this was
because the obvious seriousness of Saint-Germain's concern with world affairs made him feel that
to express personal curiosity would be to display a levity that was out of place. He wrote further in
his journal on 9 March:

His conversation was in all so varied and so full of singular details and anecdotes that,
combined with the singularity of the man himself, the circumstances surrounding him, of which
I had heard chiefly from Yorke and d'Affry, in particular his relations with the King and
Madame de Pompadour, I was much struck, and the first thing that came into my head was that
I ought to do my best to make the most of my opportunity to see more clearly into the depth of
affairs, putting away the false information gathered from employed persons who think only of
themselves, and correcting false impressions concerning their personalities current amongst
people here, and so to stuff myself as to have some control in an affair in which it is important I
should see clearly, and from which there has been an attempt to exclude me. I therefore pressed
him with questions, to which he replied readily and clearly (for he speaks with such facility as
though he were giddy-headed, though I cannot yet be sure whether that is so or not); I affected
a great impartiality as regards all countries other than my own. I said I wished for peace, from
humanity, and expressed participation in the personal concern of the King over the state of the
French nation, of which he painted me so vivid and detailed a picture, speaking all the time as a
man who knew more about it than did others, and with so much precision concerning
personalities, that I continued as I had begun.
And what I told him of my own wishes, and of the stupid rumours and ridiculous and abusive
stories which the Ministers of the foreign Courts residing here write to their masters concerning
persons and affairs, which were so false to the reality which he brought me straight out of
France, made him say that he would write that to Madame de Pompadour, and that it was the
best news he could send her. Seeing no contrary argument, I said nothing against his doing this,
though I continued to encourage him to do the talking, which was easy, always pushing him to
go further, along any line upon which he had embarked.
114
 One gathers that the impression general in Holland of Madame de Pompadour and the King of
France, based on stories of a scandal-mongering type, were such as made them both ridiculous, so
that Saint-German was doing them (as well as Bentinck) a real favour in rendering them as credible
and, if not perfect, at least serious human beings, very worried by the way things were going, and
seeking help for the affairs of France.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 15

1. The Hague, Koninklijk Huisarchiv, Bentinck Papers.

2. Ibid.

115
 CHAPTER 16

AMONG THE AMBASSADORS

Saint-Germain's next call must have been on d'Affry. On 10 March, d'Affry wrote to Choiseul, 1
saying he had received two visits from Saint-Germain, who drew 'a lamentable picture of our
finances', but said he would 'protect a project for their rehabilitation', by obtaining credit for France
from Dutch bankers, and, 'in a nutshell, save the Realm'. He had not much good to say of the
predecessors of Bertin, the Minister of Finance, and 'He seemed to me above all to be an enemy of
Messieurs Pâris, de Monmartel and du Verney. He showed a letter from Belle-Isle. D'Affry asked
him if Monsieur Bertin knew of his plan, and he said not yet. On the following day, d'Affry added a
P.S., that Saint-Germain had just come in again and told him Bertin now knew of his project and
approved it'
One can understand d'Affry's stupefaction. The finances of France were certainly unhealthy.
Perpetual recourse to loans at interest from the Paris brothers only masked the insolvency of the
King and state. Unless a means could be found to make money for France, the end must be national
bankruptcy. Other countries were trying to call in their loans to France, not extend them. How did
this private individual think he could provide the security that would persuade banks to advance
money? Was his private credit greater than that of the French King and Realm? And what was the
scheme he had, that would actually create a new wealth for France?
Saint-Germain now wrote to Madame de Pompadour (I translate from his French):2

11 March, 1760

Madame,

My pure and sincere attachment to the King, to the good of your lovable country and to
yourself, will not change with the part of Europe in which I find myself, and there is not an
instant that I spend here that does not prove it to you in all its purity, in all its sincerity, in all its
force.
I am now at the Hague, at the home of Count Bentinck van Rhoon, with whom I have
established close relations. I have done so well that I think France has not a wiser, more sincere
or solid friend. Count on it, Madame, whatever indications you may hear to the contrary. This
gentleman is all powerful here, and in England, a great statesman and a perfectly honest man.
He opened out completely to me. 1 spoke to him of the adorable Marquise de Pompadour, with
all the fulness of a heart whose sentiments for you, Madame, you have long known, and which
are worthy of the goodness of heart and beauty of spirit which gave them birth. He was
charmed and transported, in a word, you can count on him as on myself.
I think the King can expect great help from him, seeing his power, his sincerity, his upright
character ... If the King thinks my relations with him can do him any service, I will spare no
pains, for his service, and my attachment, voluntary and disinterested, to his sacred person must
be known to him. You know the fidelity which I have vowed to you, Madame; order and you
will be obeyed. You can give Europe peace, without the time-consuming bother of a
conference.
Your orders will reach me safely if you address them care of Count van Rhoon at the Hague, or
if you prefer care of Masters Thomas and Adrian Hope, with whom I lodge in Amsterdam. That
of which I have the honour to write to you seems to me so interesting that I reproach myself for
not having told it earlier to you, Madame, from whom I have never kept and will never keep
anything. If you have not the time to write to me yourself, I beg you to have a reply sent me by

116
 someone who has your confidence; but do not lose a moment, I conjure you, for the sake of all
the attachment and all the love you have for the best and most amiable of Kings.

I am, etc . . .

P.S. I beg you, Madame, to interest yourself in the judgement concerning the seizure of the
Ackermann, the most unjust and scandalous that has been seen on sea; you know that I have an
investment in it of 50,000 ecus, and Emery & Co of Dunkirk have a commission to make
restitution of the ship. I ask you once again to obtain for me justice at the Royal Council, to
whichthis iniquitous case should be brought. It will please you to remember that you promised
me last summer that you would not let me suffer injustice.

With regard to the last paragraph, as there were three livres to the ecu and four livres to the
English pound of that day, Saint-Germain's investment in the Ackermann was £49,998 in the
currency then, or about £149,999 in purchasing power to the latest figures available at the end of
1981; therefore, say, upwards of £150,000 now. The name of the vessel looks German. I have been
unable to discover anything concerning the dispute, but it seems the French must have seized it as a
prize of war, improperly as Saint-Germain contended, and he wished it released. Probably it was the
cargo rather than the ship which belonged to him, but it was not being delivered whither it was
bound, being held together with the ship it was in. The detail is interesting as showing that apart
from his chemical researches he had ordinary and quite important trading investments.
His vital news for Madame de Pompadour, however, concerned Bentinck. He had always been
thought of as anti-French, but he had won his good will, which could be influential. Saint Germain
must have told Bentinck of his letter to Madame de Pompadour at once, for on the same date the
latter wrote in his journal (I translate from his French):3

Tuesday, 11 March, 1760

He told me he had written to Madame de Pompadour about our talk, and had sent the letter
under trading cover with a trading seal, and that the letter ran no risk, that Janelle was in charge
of the postal service and would not dare to open a letter of his, and that the one he had written
to Madame de Pompadour would be given in by a man wearing his own livery, which was well
known at Versailles, and that as soon as he had a reply, which he certainly would, he would
show it to me; that he had written also to the Minister. I asked him how the Minister would take
that, and he said, laughing, but with a tone of assurance, that there would soon be changes at
Versailles, giving me to understand that Choiseul would not for much longer be in a position to
prevent a Peace.

To this he added, the following day:

Wednesday, 12 March, 1760

That he had spoken to d'Affry about me, and told him he was wrong and failing his royal
master in neglecting me.

Saint-German must now have laid his plan before d'Affry, for we find d'Affry writing to
Choiseul on 14 March4, to say he has studied it but returned it to Saint-Germain, saying he could
not occupy himself with it unless instructed by his Government. Nevertheless, he had permitted
himself to observe that the 'cash-desk' referred to in the draft could become an 'Immense Treasure'
(he uses capital letters) for those entrusted with the management of it. Saint-Germain had replied
'with vivacity' that if 'the Messieurs Paris were allowed to become masters of it, they would be so of
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the whole finances of France'. He had come to Holland, he said, to form a company sufficient to the
needs of that desk. D'Affry, therefore, supposed he would wish it staffed by people of his own. He
adds that Saint-Germain told him Bentinck was hurt at not having more attention from him; that
Bentinck was not specifically anti-French but a Dutch patriot. D'Affry's tone conveys that to have
been told this nettled him, as being tantamount to a criticism, from an outsider, that he was
insufficiently carrying out his duties as Ambassador to pay his proper compliments to those whom
he should cultivate.
The plan mentioned as attached is not attached, nor summarised. We cannot, therefore, know in
what it consisted. To be able to bring into France the wealth which nobody else could, he must have
had something to offer which nobody else could offer. Could this have been his secret of the means
to remove flaws from diamonds, and allied secrets? Amsterdam was a centre not only of banking
but of diamond cutting and polishing.
On 14 March, General Yorke wrote to Lord Holdernesse (Robert Darcy, 4th Earl), Secretary of
State for the North, to tell him that he had been called upon by the Comte de Saint-Germain.5 He
had already gathered d'Affry was very jealous of him. Saint-Germain had shown him two letters
from the Marechal de Belle-Isle, of 4th and 26th February. In the former, he enclosed the French
King's passport, en blanc, for Saint-Germain to fill in as he wished, and in the latter he expressed
great impatience to hear from him concerning what he had come about, and great hopes founded
upon it.
Saint-Germain had come to say that the King, the Dauphin, Madame de Pompadour, the Court
and the whole nation, excepting only for the Due de Choiseul and Mr Berryer, desired peace with
England. The internal condition of the country rendered it imperative. They did not expect good to
come of Choiseul's attempt to obtain support from Spain. Madame de Pompadour was not really
pro-Austrian, only she was not firm and did not know where to place her confidence. She would
know, if a Peace with England were obtainable. It was she and the Marechal de Belle-Isle who, with
the knowledge of King Louis, had sent him, Saint-Germain, to Holland, to tell him of the French
King's desire for peace. D'Affry was not in the know, nor Choiseul, which mattered little, for he
would be 'turned out'.
Yorke had felt this overture to be one of such immense consequence he had doubted how much
it was in order to say, yet had felt he could not be doing amiss in assuring Saint-Germain His
Britannic Majesty wished for peace, if upon honourable terms.
Saint-Germain replied that France accepted the loss of Canada, which had cost her thirty-six
millions and brought her nothing in return. Neither would she hold up the peace for Guadaloupe;
she could get her sugar elsewhere. The sore point was India, for French finance was involved with
it. No difficulties would be made about Dunkirk. Saint-Germain then asked Yorke what he thought
about Minorca, to which Yorke ventured to reply, the British had forgotten it.
* It would have been a big thing for Yorke if, unexpectedly, the war could be brought to an end
through his agency, and his concluding hope the King would approve the way he had handled the
situation was probably heartfelt.
On the same date, 14 March, we find Kauderbach writing about Saint-Germain. Count
Kriegsrath Kauderbach, a Saxon, was Resident Representative at the Hague of the King of Poland,
but it was to a friend, Count Wickerbarth, that he wrote of his meeting, over a dinner, with Saint-
Germain. After recounting rumours of his immense age, he says (I translate from his French):6

What is certain is that a member of the States General who is approaching seventy has told me
he saw this extraordinary man in the house of his father when he was only a child, and yet that
he has the agile, loose movements of a man of thirty. His legs are ever ready to take a turn, he
wears his own hair, black and growing from all over his head, and has hardly a line on his face.
He never eats meat, except for a little of the white of chicken, and limits his nourishment to
cereals, vegetables and fish. He takes great precautions against cold, but does not object to

118
 sitting up late. He kept us company till after midnight, as an indulgence to us, and did not in the
morning appear to be feeling the effect of it.

He added that Saint-Germain claimed to have learned 'Nature's most beautiful secrets', was
immensely rich, and had shown him stones of inestimable value, yet did not seem to be designing.
He spoke highly of Madame de Pompadour, as having 'a very good heart, the most upright
intentions and unparalleled disinterest.' He said the radical ill lay in the King's lack of firmness.
Those surrounding him abused the excess of his good nature and flattered his weakness, especially
'the creatures of the Paris brothers, who, in themselves, constitute the entire ill of France. It is they
who have corrupted everything... Perish France, so long as they can make eight million!' His means
to save France could not fail, because they depended on him alone. He concluded, 'He has been
several times to Dresden, and has told me he knew the late King very well'.
This is one of the points we should bear in mind when trying, later, to divine the ultimate
mystery. Dresden was the capital of Saxony, but it was an elector of Saxony (born 1670) who had,
in 1697, become King of Poland, Augustus II. That is why we find Kauderbach, a Saxon,
representing Poland at the Hague, and moreover why Saint-Germain mentioned this to him. But the
present King was Augustus III, who had succeeded on his father's death, in 1733. Saint-Germain is
referring to Augustus II, whom Ràkòczy met in 1711 and then in 1712, and knew very well.
That his means to save France depended on him alone confirms that it would be his unique
knowledge he would give.
Kauderbach wrote on the same date a second letter, to Prince Galitzin, the Russian Ambassador
in London, which is practically a repeat of the text, but contains the additional mention that Saint-
Germain appeared to be anti-Austrian.
On the following day, 15 March,7 von Hellen wrote again to King Frederick concerning Saint-
Germain, mentioning that while in Amsterdam he had stayed, for a fortnight, with the richest
merchants, the Hopes, and here in the Hague was having conversation with the richest Portuguese
Jews. It was being rumoured he was here to negotiate a loan of thirty millions, but his own
impression was he had come for something different. He noted that this extraordinary man spoke
very freely, appeared 'to be anti-Austrian and to blame France in the highest degree for having
allied herself with the Court of Vienna, and to be a great admirer of Your Majesty. I myself heard
that the other day he said in front of Baron von Reischach that France had not been very wise.'
Baron Taddaus von Reischach was Austria's Ambassador to the Hague. Von Hellen is surprised
Saint-Germain permitted himself to speak so freely of the King and Government he was
representing, but the explanation of this is that Saint-Germain was not, in the ordinary sense, an
envoy. He was not French, and not a servant of the French King or his Government. His intention to
do them a good turn did not preclude him from saying they had been unwise.
That Saint-Germain regretted the reversal of alliances will not have been lost on von
Reischach, but he did not mention this in his letter to Kaunitz of 18 March. 8 Reischach was a man
of good will, and reported without animus. He said that Saint-Germain was believed to have
pledged his own credit as guarantor in order to secure the advance of an enormous sum to the
French Court, to have come with the intention of saving France, and that he had talks with Yorke.
From this, Reischach opined there was little doubt he had come with authority to negotiate a Peace.
D'Affry, he said, was visibly alarmed and unable to conceal his displeasure. In conclusion, he had
gathered Saint-Germain was known in the world of music, and was a virtuoso on the violin.
The following day, 19 March, Kauderbach wrote again to Galitzin, 9 saying it puzzled him a
little that Saint-Germain spoke with the presumption of so much authority. For instance, Saint-
Germain had mentioned to him that, as part of the price of a Peace, France would cede Guadaloup.
(Mere diplomatic envoys are not usually so outright, and do not usually express themselves as
though they had authority to commit the Governments they represent.)
On 22 March,10 von Hellen wrote to tell King Frederick that Yorke had allowed him to see the
report he sent to London of his interview with Saint-Germain. This must have crossed with one that
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Frederick had written to him on 20 March,11 advising him not to give ear to vague rumour
concerning Saint-Germain but 'to observe the man himself, very closely'.
By this time Yorke must have received from Lord Holdernesse the reply he had been eagerly
awaiting. Dated 21 March, Whitehall,12 it told him the King entirely approved his conduct in the
conversation with Count Saint-Germain, of which he had told him in his secret letter of the 19th.
His Majesty thought it not unlikely Saint-Germain was truly authorised by persons of weight in the
Counsels of the French King, and perhaps even by His Most Christian Majesty. Nevertheless, while
Yorke was an acccredited Minister of the British Crown, Saint-Germain's commission was
unknown to Choiseul, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, and, though the latter was apparently
faced with projected dismissal, if things took a different turn, Saint-Germain could simply be denied
and abandoned by the French King. Yorke should allow Saint-Germain to see this letter, and invite
him to obtain from the French King such formal proofs that he came from him as there could be no
going back upon negotiations, before they went further.
In other words, Holdernesse and King George have seen very clearly that everything depends
on there being a coup in France. If the coup fails and Choiseul remains in power, Saint-Germain
will be sacrificed.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 16

1. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, ff.212-214.

2. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, ff.215r-216v.
3. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, ff.217r-218r.
4. The Hague, Koninklijk Huisarchiv, Bentinck Papers.
5. British Museum, Additional MSS 6818 (in Mitchell Papers, IV, Lord Holdernesse's
Despatches, 1760), ff.100-107.
6. Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, State Papers, 107/86, "Foreign Ambassadors
Intercepted." This is a bound volume, into which the intercepted letters, largely in numerical
cipher, have been copied, with deciphering. The leaves have not been given folio numbers,
neither have the documents been numbered, and although there is a certain tendency to move
from earlier to later dates observable, the order is not strictly chronological.
7. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, XIV, 96.F.39.e., f.66r—66v.
8. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv.
9. Public Record Office, State Papers, 107/86, "Foreign Ambassadors Intercepted".
10. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, XIV, 39.e., f.77.
11. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv.
12. British Museum, Additional MSS.6818 (Mitchell Papers IV, Lord Holdernesse's Despatches,
1760), 168.1.(12), 20 March.

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 CHAPTER 17

HISTORY IN THE BALANCE

Choiseul had already got wind of what was afoot, and a letter to d'Affry was already on its way
from him (I translate from his French):1

Versailles, 19 March, 1760

I send you a letter Monsieur de Saint-Germain has written to Madame la Marquise de

Pompadour, which is sufficient in itself to demonstrate the absurdity of this personage; he is an
adventurer of the first water, and moreover very stupid.
I beg you, as soon as you receive this letter, to have him come to you, and tell him from me that
I do not know with what eye the King's Minister for Finance will view his ridiculous conduct in
Holland relative to this subject; but as for me, you have my order to warn him that if I hear he
has meddled in politics, in a big way or in small, I will obtain an order from the King that if
ever he returns to France he will spend the rest of his days in a dungeon.
You can add, I mean what I say, as I will prove if he gives me occasion.
After making this declaration, you will beg him never again to set foot within your doors, and it
would not be a bad thing for you to publish to all the Foreign Ministers, as well as to the
bankers in Amsterdam, the measures you have been obliged to take regarding this unbearable
adventurer . . .

Choiseul

How had Choiseul obtained sight of Saint-Germain's letter to Madame de Pompadour? Had
she, in a moment of weakness, shown it to him, perhaps hoping that they could take him with them?
Exactly what happened in Versailles we cannot know. In von Gleichen's memoirs (there is an
apparent eye-witness account of how Choiseul, absolutely dominating the Council and transfixing
the King and Belle-Isle with his piercing regard, read out the letter he had already sent to d'Affry,
saying he knew the King would never commit to an unauthorised person negotiations unknown to
his Minister, and 'the King, like a guilty man, lowered his eyes'. Louis spent his life in trusting to
persons unauthorised, except by him, missions unknown to his Ministers, and when they were
discovered by the Minister he always let them down. He had done it to de Broglie and would do it
to d'Eon. The scene, therefore, reads with the utmost credibility, though one must bear in mind that
von Gleichen, not being French, would not have had a seat on the Council and, in any case, had by
this time left France for Copenhagen. On 1 October, 1759, he had written to the Duchesse de
Choiseul lamenting the cold of the northern city, where, however, he was soon busy trying to
collect for Denmark the huge debt owed to her by France. The scene, therefore, has been written
from imagination, based upon knowledge of the characters, unless described to him by letter by
somebody who was on the Council—perhaps Choiseul, himself—or by the Duchesse de Choiseul,
from her husband's relation of it to her, since she always kept in touch with von Gleichen, for both
of them. The Duchesse, however, may have been troubled, for she had taken Saint-Germain as a
teacher. It is unlikely, though, that either of the Choiseuls would have committed to paper the
indiscretion of saying the King lowered his eyes like a guilty man, and it seems safe to attribute this
to the imagination of von Gleichen.
On the evening of 24 March, Saint-Germain, Kauderbach and a Chevalier de Bruhl arrived
together at d'Affry's, thinking to give him a lift, as Count Alexander Golovkin, the Russian
Ambassador, had invited all four of them to dine at his house in Ruyswick. D'Affry stunned them

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with the announcement that he was forbidden further meetings with Saint-Germain, whom the King
ordered to mind his own business.
Saint-Germain said he was not a subject of the King of France, who could give him no order.
He begged the others to excuse him, and left the party.
To Bentinck, as we shall see, he afterwards gave a fuller account of the exchange of words
between d'Affry and himself.
Bentinck now wrote in his journal:2

Wednesday, March 26, 1760

The Comte de Saint-Germain has this evening come to see me, to say that he had a strange
story to tell me. He had learned from somebody—he did not at first say who it was, but later
named Linières—that d'Affry had said he did not know me, except by reputation, that he had
received orders from the Court concerning him and spoke of him in a way that showed little
judgement.
That he [the Comte de Saint-Germany] had on Monday taken on himself to go and see d'Affry,
who told him he had received letters from Versailles by which he was ordered to tell him that
he had made a blunder [literally une mauvaise affaire, a bad business] in writing to Madame de
Pompadour about him, and that in general he occupied himself with affairs that did not concern
him and was enjoined by the King not to interfere. D'Affry spoke as though he thought to
intimidate him, or make him leave, and said he had orders to refuse his door to him. Having
heard him out, Saint-Germain said that it was he, d'Affry, who had made a blunder, or he to
whom d'Affry had written; that he had learned Monsieur d'Affry had denied knowing him, save
by reputation, and that it was a good way to be known, for his own was not such as being
known would cause embarrassment; that as for what he said about the King's enjoining him not
to interfere, the King could enjoin nothing upon him, he was sure it was only Monsieur de
Choiseul who had written to Monsieur d'Affry and that the King knew nothing about it, that
when he saw an order in the name of the King he would believe in it, not before; that he knew
Monsieur de Choiseul did not like him, and that he did not like Monsieur de Choiseul, either;
that as to Monsieur d'Affry's door being closed to him, that did not concern him so long as he
had his own to enter, or something like that, for I cannot remember his exact words; that as for
what concerned me, he repeated to Monsieur d'Affry what he had said to him before, that he
was wrong to neglect me; that if he thought of me as chief of the anti-French faction, he was
doubly wrong, for he should have sought to convert me from my prejudices, or at least get to
know me; not neglect me. He added that he thought Monsieur d'Affry had been led away by the
counsels of a man here, whose name I have forgotten but who had been to Brussels—O'Hara—
and that as for the affairs with which he concerned himself, and with which Monsieur d'Affry
said he should not concern himself, he was doing what he was doing solely for the good of the
King and of France; that he had rendered great services and could render further; that he was
astonished to hear such language from the mouth of Monsieur d'Affry to whom he had shown
his passport, the letters from the Marechal de Belle-Isle and other papers which he had brought
here with him (he showed me all these, and a letter from the Comte de Clermont Prince, which
was very friendly and obliging, about the death of the Princess de Conde, much mourned by the
Comte de Clermont Prince de Conde.
That when he had spoken to him in this way Monsieur d'Affry appeared somewhat confused;
that he spoke more quietly; that he said he would show him the orders he had received if he
would come back the next day, at ten, but that he, Saint-Germain had answered that he was not
interested to see the letters of Monsieur de Choiseul, and repeated that he was sure the King
knew nothing of them; that he was astonished Monsieur l'Ambassadeur should infringe the
orders he had received not to receive him, astonished even that he should have infringed them
by admitting him at all; that Monsieur d'Affry had said it was not important—'Oh, that's
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nothing!'—and that he, Saint-Germain, had replied that it was not nothing, it was very much,
and that he did not wish that Monsieur d'Affry should infringe his orders in his favour.
He told me he did not intend to call on Monsieur d'Affry again, but that he had written to
Madame de Pompadour, to the Marechal de Belle-Isle and to the Comte de Clermont [Prince de
Conde] telling them exactly what had passed between Monsieur d'Affry and himself, and that
he was sending Monsieur d'Affry not a letter but a Memorandum, in which he explained his
feeling with regard to his own situation and that of Monsieur d'Affry. Pulling it from his
pocket, he showed it to me, and read it aloud, while I followed the text with my eye. I found it a
very good piece, elegantly written, in which he made felt both his perfect independence and the
need there was of him in this crisis. With great gentleness, but yet with force in the expressions,
he made felt how little he was affected by what Monsieur d'Affry had said to him. He began to
laugh, and I with him, at the effect this would have on Monsieur d'Affry, whom he called 'this
cormorant, this poor man, this poor Monsieur d'Affry, who is trying to frighten me. He does not
realise that I have trodden underfoot both praise and blame, fear and hope, and that I have no
object but the good of humanity, to do the best I can for human kind. The King knows it well,
and I do not fear either Monsieur d'Affry or Monsieur de Choiseul.'
He made what seemed to me a very judicious reflection, that nothing good could be done in
France so long as one Minister could undo what another Minister had done.
He asked me if I had seen Yorke, and if Yorke had spoken to me of him. I told him, 'Yes', but
that Yorke had spoken of him only in general terms, without revealing what had passed
between them, and that I had not pressed him.
I asked him who was Berryer, whom he had named in passing, with scorn. He said Berryer was
a lackey wearing the livery of the house of Noailles, that Berryer was a notary, then
superintendent, risen to be lieutenant of police; that over the prosecutions following the
attempted assassination of the King he had served Madame de Pompadour, according to his
taste and views, and that Madame de Pompadour had made him Minister for the Navy as a
reward. I took the opportunity to ask him what kind of figure was cut by the Marechal de
Couflans and why he had left harbour on the 18th November, after spending all the summer in
the port where he could have spent the winter in safety whilst wrecking the English fleet on the
dangerous coast of Brittany. He told me it had been a most signal folly; that it came from
Berryer; that he cut a lamentable figure; then he added that the whole thing could crop up again
in the moment when least expected; that Monsieur le Marechal de Maillebois had been exiled,
but that he would reappear and would be employed again probably under Monsieur [le
Marechal] de Contades; that Monsieur [le Marechal] d'Estees was disgusted.
I asked him if he had been in France at the time of the attempted assassination of the King. He
said, 'Yes.' I asked him what Berryer had done relative to that. He said that Berryer as
Lieutenant of Police, had taken all the information of his department and his post, and sent it
sealed to Madame de Pompadour and she read it, showing papers to the King or not showing
them, or burning them without breaking the seals, as she thought good. As I expressed surprise,
he said it might seem to me strange but it was so. I asked him if after that there had been an
easing off in the prosecutions following the attempted assassination, and he said that it was so. I
asked why? He said the Court of France presented a confused picture; that the King and
Madame de Pompadour made together but one; that the King was not devout but was afraid of
the Devil; that the Dauphin was devout; that the Dauphine was not, but conducted herself in a
manner suiting to the wife of a devout husband; that the Queen was devout; that the Mesdames
de France floated between the Queen, the Dauphin the Dauphine, the King and Madame de
Pompadour; that the whole resembled a hoop, advancing sometimes to the one side, sometimes
to the other, by a quarter or a half turn, but never making a complete turn, because having little
vigour of movement and no consistency the least obstacle stopped it or sent it backwards; that
they all had Jesuit confessors; that the King never confessed and I could imagine what a
difference it made to the Jesuits when after having had a King who confessed every eight days
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 they had one who never confessed at all; that I must remember the different and nameless
papers which appeared at the time of the trial of Damiens and after it. I said I did indeed
remember them, and what he was telling me enabled me to make sense out of ideas 1 had not
been able to combine, not knowing with what string to bind them together.
I asked him if he knew anything about the Jesuits of Portugal and how the affair [of their
expulsion] was viewed by intelligent people in France. He told me the conspiracy against the
King of Portugal [Joseph I] had never taken place, it was a mere fabrication that the cause of
the attempted assassination was the King's intrigue with the Marquis of Tavora and family
vengeance; that Caravalijo is a villain, a man capable of anything to satisfy his own designs;
that it was Paraguay that was the source and cause of the resentment against the Jesuits; that the
General of the Jesuits was the slave of the Pope; that Rome would not push things to the
extreme against Portugal, which was worth more to Rome than almost the rest of Christendom
together, for fear lest the King of Portugal do as Henry VIII of England; that the writings from
Portugal against the Jesuits remained without reply; that Caravaljo in truth ran a risk and would
surely finish ill.
Speaking of the Comte de Clermont Prince [de Conde], he told me that he was a very likeable
and very gallant man, with all the qualities of Henri IV; that he had been ill-served and
betrayed by those who had served under him in 1758, and he named in particular Contades.
Of the Abbe de la Ville, he told me he had absolutely nothing to say, he was not listened to, far
less consulted about anything whatsoever.

Bentinck's long note of this conversation has been quoted in full because, although it covers
topics not affecting Saint-Germain's story, it illustrates the apparent universality of his conversance
with affairs. Ask him why a French force had set to sea at an inappropriate time, or what was the
background to the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal, and he was aware of the matter and could
illuminate it.
To take the last first, the Papacy had supported the Kings of Spain in their endeavours to
prevent Portugal's recovery of independence, which made the Jesuits, as the Pope's supporters, not
very popular in Portugal, though Saint-Germain tells us there was more to their expulsion than that.
Bentinck's notes, as a statesman for his own use, reminders rather than essays, leave us to guess
why Saint-Germain said Paraguay was the cause of even great resentment. But Paraguay had in the
beginning been colonised by Jesuits, who held most of the land in it and perhaps interfered in the
affairs of Brazil, a Portuguese colony with which she shared a border. S.J.Caravaljo (or Caralho) e
Mello, born 1699, had been appointed by King Joseph I of Portugal, who reigned from 1750, as his
Prime Minister, to whom he gave over the reality of power. On 12 December, 1758, Caravaljo
ordered the arrest of a large number of Portuguese nobles, including the Tavora family, on a charge
of conspiracy to assassinate King Joseph I. This must have met with the King's approval, for in
June, 1759, he created him Marquis of Pombal. He went on to allege complicity of the Jesuits in the
plot against the King's life, which Saint-Germain says never took place at all. On 19 January, 1760,
a decree deprived the Jesuits of all their goods, and they were expelled. What Saint-Germain seems
to have been telling Bentinck is that whilst the Portuguese had some genuine historic reasons for
resenting the Jesuits, this was used by the unscrupulous Minister to mount support for action against
them, in respect of a fictitious crime, so as to be able to seize all their wealth.
Saint-Germain was certainly in France at the time of these events, so how was he able to say so
much about them? He may have seen papers which came to King Louis XV or Madame de
Pompadour, and linked the picture to impressions formed of the Minister at some time before he
received the title by which he is generally known. Von Gleichen lists Portuguese amongst his
languages and Choiseul connected him with Portugal. He may, therefore, have been in to Portugal
during the lost years.
It was the Jesuit thread which caused Bentinck to ask Saint-Germain if he knew anything about
the affair in Portugal when Saint-Germain had been talking of Damiens. What he has to tell us of
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Madame de Pompadour's burning police papers is very extraordinary and could only have been told
him by herself. Damiens had said he had not been trying to kill King Louis XV but only to frighten
him into stopping the Council from preventing the Parlement from opposing the anti-Jansenist (pro-
Jesuit) Bull Unigenitus, the Bull Choiseul had gone to Rome to persuade the Pope to modify.
Madame de Pompadour, not being a convinced Christian, probably found the rivalry between the
Jansenists and Jesuits tedious. She certainly did not want the King murdered. Apart from the
affection she is likely to have felt for him, she depended for her position on his being King. When
he thought he was going to die from the wound Damiens had inflicted, he authorised the Dauphin to
exercise all royal power, and the Ministers d'Argenson and Marchault called to advise her to leave
the Court. Had the Dauphin been crowned, she would certainly have been obliged to go into retreat,
and perhaps even to leave France. But the King recovered. Once the danger was past, she probably
wished to limit the bloodbath. History books always tell us Damiens had no accomplices. How do
we know, since Madame de Pompadour burned the police evidence? For unless the papers were
evidential, why did she burn them? It is odd that she burned some without breaking the seals, but
perhaps she recognised handwritings.
The following day found Bentinck writing up his journal once more. (I translate from his
French):3

Thursday, 27 March, 1760

Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Germain has told me, under seal of the greatest secrecy, not
wishing to hide anything from me, that he spent four hours that day, the 25, with Mr Yorke,
who showed him the replies he had received from England, dated the 20 March, from the Duke
of Newcastle, from my Lord Holdernesse and from Mr Pitt, to what Yorke had written about
what had passed between Yorke and himself. He began by showing me three notes he had
received from Mr Yorke, which he allowed me to read, in which Yorke asked him to keep in
touch with him, and in one of which Mr Yorke specified to him what was required from the
Comte de Saint-Germain in order that they might talk without fear of being disavowed in their
private or public capacities; this note seemed to me of a character to be sent to France in the
original, and even couched to that end. It was required that he should be accorded either full
power [to negotiate] or else something by way of a supplement, to create faith, so that Mr
Yorke could open himself to Monsieur de Saint-Germain without fear to commit himself. He
told me Yorke made him read the original letters from the above-mentioned Ministers, whose
hands, excepting for that of Pitt, were already known to him, that the letters were extremely
obliging with regard to him, and what was more remarkable was that the King of England
declared himself willing to open himself on the conditions of a peace to him, the Comte de
Saint-Germain, as soon as it was made apparent he was authorised by France to enter into the
matter, which Yorke bade him note, adding that he had many times already insisted on a reply,
without having received one until now, and that this time they had replied that Mr Yorke had
read him and let him read these letters, which contained an order not only to let him read them
but to let him take notes to aid his memory; that in consequence Mr Yorke had dictated to him
in French the contents of his orders, he promised to let me see, at our next meeting, the notes he
had taken at Yorke's; that on leaving Yorke's he went straight back to his own place, whilst his
recollections were still fresh, to commit them to paper, that he would have his dispatch in order
for the next morning's post. He seemed well pleased by the silly figure all that would make
d'Affry cut, 'that good man who has not an inkling of what is going on'. I told him 1 thought
d'Affry suspected and would have him watched out for and observed. He said he really was not
troubled by anything d'Affry did; that he now held the peace in his hands, and the only trouble
could come from Choiseul, who might not seize the opportunity to take the course best for
Europe, and in particular for France. On this, I said it must be possible to find a means to
control the conduct of Choiseul, and he asked my opinion (just as though I knew the Court of
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 France and the strength and weakness of each one). I said it was for him to find the means; that
anything I could say could only be vague, not knowing any of the people, and simply by way of
conversation. I at first proposed Madame de Pompadour, but he said Madame de Pompadour
was a friend of Choiseul, who made up to her, knew her weakness; he feared Madame de
Pompadour would find it difficult to make up her mind to take a step contrary to the will of
Choiseul, or without him, in a matter such as this. I then suggested the Comte de Clermont; he
told me the Comte de Clermont was the man to go and speak clearly to the King and to
Madame de Pompadour, and that he was well regarded both by one and the other; but
unfortunately the royal Princes did not go to Versailles except on Sunday; that the letter which
he would send by the morrow's post would not arrive until Monday at mid-day, that the letter
would first be carried to him by a valet at Versailles; that the Comte de Clermont could not go
there again until six days afterwards, and by that time the decision would have been made and
the Comte de Clermont would arrive too late. I then proposed the Marechal de Belle-Isle; he
said that was a good idea; he would write to him at once and make sure the letter reached him
at once. I said it seemed to me the trouble was not the communication but the decision
concerning the point around which everything turned, whether he, the Comte de Saint-Germain
would or not be authorised to hear and report the proposals from England, and that his
apprehension was that Choiseul would take things up and cut him, Saint-Germain, out of the
negotiation. I did not express it exactly like that, but spoke as though that were the situation.
And I think I judged exactly like that, but spoke as though that were the situation. And I think I
judged rightly, for everything that he said sorted with this idea, fitted and supposed it. The
subject of the conversation changed several times, but he always came back to the matter in
question, and always seemed to be anxious as to the reply he would receive from Choiseul,
whom he dared not by-pass yet did not trust as to the genuineness of his desire for peace.
Amongst other things, he said he would have liked to have seen Prince Louis, because he was
the brother of Prince Ferdinand, which would make an impression on Choiseul. I told him he
had only to write, that he would see him in a day or two, before the next post, so the effect
would be the same. He said that was good, and he would do it; that he would send his despatch
for Choiseul inside his letter to Madame de Pompadour, sealed but with a copy, and would send
the whole to the Marechal de Belle Isle, with whom he was intimately connected and who was
on good terms with the King and Madame de Pompadour. He expressed himself very pleased
with Mr Yorke, who had received him very well and spoken to him very clearly and openly. He
told me d'Affry had sent someone to call on him to ask him how he was, since not having seen
him he wondered if he was unwell; that he had been with Yorke when the message was brought
to him, but that he did not intend to set foot in d'Affry's place again.

There are several points of importance to be gleaned from this. Saint-Germain was in no way
Madame de Pompadour's emissary since he is doubtful whether she will move without Choiseul, the
chief obstacle. Neither was Choiseul being cut out, as is sometimes represented, since there was a
letter for him inside that for her. Bentinck at once sees the possibility that if Choiseul sees peace as
already on the way, he will step in and take credit for it. Saint-Germain also thinks he will do that,
to preserve his own image, but knows it would be better negotiated by himself than by Choiseul. He
has lived in England, has good connections with the English, some feeling for them; he would see
to it that a real peace was negotiated, which would not contain in the treaty the germs of a future
war. This Choiseul cannot be trusted to do, not being really peace-minded.
What comes out of this is that the negotiation of a peace was Saint-Germain's idea. He knew
that Madame de Pompadour wanted it, but with Choiseul at the helm could not obtain it, and so had
taken on himself to obtain the reality of an offer from England that he knew would be acceptable to
everybody in France, saving Choiseul. His role, therefore, was one of benevolent intervention, not
as the servant or messenger of any, but to bring all parties to what seemed to him reason.

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 Saint-Germain's second letter to Madame de Pompadour, and his letters to Choiseul and Belle-
Isle, have unfortunately not descended to us. The one to Choiseul would, in particular, have been of
interest.
On 28 March, Yorke wrote again to Holdernesse,4 to say he had as bidden let him see that of
the 21st he had received from Holdernesse. He had explained to Saint-Germain the difficulty in
which the British Crown was placed, in finding itself faced with two representatives of the French
one, Saint-Germain and the formally accredited Ambassador. Especially embarrassing was
Choiseul's order to d'Affry to have nothing to do with him.
Saint-Germain showed him a letter he had received from the French King's uncle, the Comte de
Clermont, Prince, and said that, while he did not expect a reply from Madame de Pompadour, as she
never committed delicate matters to writing, he expected replies from Belle-Isle and Clermont to
letters he had just sent them through her, which he would be able to bring.
Yorke said Saint-Germain was equal, in the eyes of the British Government, with any other
representative of France. The British Crown was willing to treat with him of a Peace, providing he
produced a proper authority or sufficient proof he came from the King of France.
He added that he did find very odd that d'Affry, since acquainting Saint Germain with
Choiseul's order not to have to do with him, had again sent him his compliments. (Yes, it is odd;
probably d'Affry was hedging his bets.)
Yorke's letter must have crossed with one written to him by Holdernesse on the same date, 28
March4, saying His Majesty was satisfied, on other advice as well as Yorke's own communications,
that on the French side it was Choiseul who was least disposed to peace, but fancied that, finding
the pacific party in France too strong for him, he himself would pretend to go along with it, as
appeared from an overture now made by d'Affry, only, of all proposed negotiators who could be
imagined, 'Mr Dunn would be the most unfit for such a commission, and most obnoxious here'.
Holdernesse's thought is plain. Dunn was an expatriate Englishman living in France, and
Choiseul, by proposing him as the negotiator of a peace, while apparently showing willing, made
sure of obtaining a rebuff, since the British Crown would not be willing to receive a traitor, back in
London, smirking in diplomatic immunity.
On the same date, 18 March,5 Kauderbach wrote again to Galitzin, recounting how d'Affry,
having received Saint-Germain in his home and introduced him to all his distinguished friends, now
forbade him his door, but saying he nevertheless thought it certain Saint-Germain was really
charged with a commission.
On 28 March, also, von Reischach wrote again to Kaunitz (I translate from his German):6

Saint-Germain is charged to find a way whereby the French-American islands and colonies
which depend directly upon France should not have to be maintained from here with the means
to sustain life and needs; besides which he is charged to raise and promote the credit of French
finances and to report concerning the possibility of a Peace. This last he could not better have
gone about than by seeing Count van Bentinck and Mr Yorke... Mr Yorke gave him the
strongest assurance as to how genuinely England would welcome a speedy peace; this Crown
would not leave the King of Prussia in doubt that Her Imperial Majesty would be of a
reasonable and acceptable disposition with regard to a peace.

We know already, from Saint-Germain's remarks to Bentinck, that he considered France could
not afford the maintenance of dependent colonies, whence, doubtless, his readiness to see her cede
them to England.
Von Reischach's letter is a generous, intelligent one. He might have felt Saint-Germain's plan
was to leave Austria in the lurch. So far from taking amiss his initiative, however, he hastened to
climb on the wagon. If France concluded peace with England, then Austria would conclude peace
with Prussia. This friendly, open attitude on the part of von Reischach may have made its

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impression on Saint-Germain and taken away, somewhat, from his feeling that it was to please
Austria that Choiseul was keeping up the war.
On the following day, 29 March, von Hellen wrote to King Frederick to tell him of what he had
understood from Yorke of his conversations with Saint-Germain, adding, (I transfer from his
French),7 'It remains to be seen whether France will channel the negotiation through Saint-Germain
or through the Ambassador'.
A few days later, Bentinck wrote:8

Monday, March 31, 1760

The Comte de Saint-Germain having come to see me, and the conversation having got under
way, I told him that I had thought further about what I had previously said to him about the
difficulties Choiseul put in his path, about the principal point on which the whole of this affair
turns, the qualification he must have for Yorke to open to him. He told me that he had the
wherewithal to reduce Choiseul [literally, to put Choiseul to the foot of the wall]9 that he had
written to Madame de Pompadour and to the Marechal de Belle-Isle as well as to Choiseul, that
all the honest people of France desired a Peace, the Dauphin, Madame de Pompadour, the
Marechal de Belle-Isle, Mr Benget[?], Mr Raisially[?], the Marechal Etral[?], the Comte de
Saint-Florentin, and others whose names I do not recall; that the whole Nation longed for it and
had need of it; that Choiseul alone wanted the continuation of the war; that Choiseul would not
dare not to produce the letter he had written to him, and so to risk once again the continuation
of the war; that he had terrible arms against Choiseul in the letters which Yorke had written
him, of which he would know the origin, which he could produce against Choiseul, that he did
not fear anything; that in order to create greater facility, he had proposed, or he would propose
(I am not sure which he said) that another person should be sent out [from Versailles to the
Hague] and adjoined to him, to whom Yorke could open himself, he would not mind who it
was. He added anew that he was sure that Choiseul, ill-informed as he was, and
notwithstanding his false idea that England was of necessity obliged to seek peace, would not
dare, to shoulder alone the event of a campaign; that it was in France there was a necessity for
Peace; that her resources are insufficient for the present, that she is without money and without
credit, that, in a word, one could not imagine that when the whole Council was of one advice,
Choiseul would dare to be the only one standing out against the rest, or that he would dare to
hide from the Council the Despatches of which Madame de Pompadour and the Marechal de
Belle-Isle were informed.
I told him that since he was of that opinion, against which I could object nothing, since he knew
the Court at Paris and I did not, it seemed to be natural that he should stay here quietly, until he
received the reply for which he was waiting, and could see ahead clearly, and that he should
even defer seeing Prince Louis until the reply to his Despatch arrived. To this, after a moment
of 1 silence, he replied that it could do no good, he would like to see him and tell him things it
would be good he should know, and which no one except himself could tell him, and he
thought that if he had Monsieur Choiseul, and d'Affry, who was the slave of Choiseul, they
would be more treatable. He saw that I was of a different opinion, and that I thought it better to
wait a few days, let Choiseul, d'Affry etc define their position, so as to be able to see more
clearly into their behaviour and strengthen our own hands against them, if they dared to
prevaricate in a matter of this importance; that as we awaited from one day to the next the joint
reply of Versailles, St Petersburg and Vienna to the declaration remitted by Prince Louis to the
Kings of England and Prussia last November, I thought it best to wait, above all because of the
position publicly declared by d'Affry with regard to him [Saint-Germain] and that when all was
said and done, there was no hurry. This made some impression on him, and he pressed me no
further on this head.

128
 In Bentinck's journal, though there may be a few things unclear to us, two points of importance
stand out. The first is, that Choiseul had not (as is sometimes represented) been kept totally in the
dark with regard to Saint-Germain's embassy to the Hague. He had been chosen, in preference to
Choiseul, as the envoy, as he wanted the peace he had come to propose and Choiseul did not, but a
measure of courtesy had been preserved. Saint-Germain had sent to Choiseul, as the official
Minister for Foreign Affairs, a formal Despatch, though doubtless in less warm terms than his less
formal letters to Madame de Pompadour and the Marechal de Belle-Isle. The second point of
importance that emerges is that Saint-Germain was not seeking to hug a secret embassy to himself.
He could see that, since he held no Ministerial portfolio, and was indeed not a subject of the King of
France, Yorke might doubt if his embassy was official and hesitate to open to him what terms his
own Minister and King would be prepared to accept from France. He was therefore willing that
some person, it mattered little which person, who did hold an official position in the Government of
Louis XV, should come with him on his further visits to Yorke, simply as a proof he was
representing Louis.
The arm which he held against Choiseul would appear to be Yorke's letters, showing that a
Peace was within their grasp. The King's and everyone else's desire for it being so strong, he did not
see how, once they were exhibited, Choiseul could stand out against the joyous tide. He would have
to pretend it was what he wanted, too, unless he preferred to resign or let himself be dismissed.
On 1 April, von Hellen wrote again to King Frederick, 10 to tell him that d'Affry, having invited
Saint-Germain to share his box at the theatre, had forbidden him his door, on orders from the King
of France, he first said, though he later admitted to Saint-Germain the order came only from
Choiseul; and, strangely, on the next day he had sent after him, begging him to call again, as he
would be charmed to have a chat, to which Saint-Germain has replied, 'You will excuse me,
Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, but I would not have you expose yourself by breaking your orders a
second time'. Notwithstanding, d'Affry had, on the day after that, sent a messenger to call upon
Saint-Germain and express the hope he was not indisposed, since when d'Affry had called he had
not received the pleasure of seeing him.
This suggests d'Affry was now afraid he had done the wrong thing in acting on Choiseul's
order, since he would now find himself at a disadvantage should Saint-Germain gain the day.
On the same date, 1 April, 1760, Baron Dodo Heinrich von Knyphausen, Prussian Ambassador
to London, wrote two letters for Frederick, one marked 'For the Royal Department' 11 and one 'For
the King alone', but both to the same effect, that the British Government was embarrassed by the
evident division at Versailles, and that Yorke had been instructed to deal in an equal manner with
the Ambassador, d'Affry, and the Emissary, Saint-Germain. Both letters were countersigned by A.
L. Mitchell, British Envoy to Prussia, before being passed on by him to Frederick and his Ministers.
Two days later on 3 April 1760, von Hellen wrote to King Frederick again (I translate from his
French):12

The Due de Choiseul, sold to the Court of Vienna, still has great credit at the Court of
Versailles... [he] has written a second letter to the Comte d'Affry, in which he tells him to
threaten the Comte de Saint-Germain with a whip of knotted bull's intestines... All this trouble
comes from a letter which the Comte de Saint-Germain wrote to the Marquise, which she had
the weakness to show, to the Secretary of State [Choiseul] . . . What is rather curious is that the
Marechal de Belle-Isle should now have replied to Saint-Germain through d'Affry, scolding
him a little, in moderated language, saying France already had an Ambassador in the Hague, in
whom she had confidence, but that Saint-Germain's intentions were upright and good. The
English Minister thinks Saint-Germain is not too sure of the ground. When he told him the
replies from his Court, he let it be seen he would like to bring the Secretary of State into it in
some way; though earlier he had shown willing to topple him, he may have had second
thoughts . . .

129
 Probably because Madame de Pompadour, by showing his letter to Choiseul, had made evident
that she wished to take him along with them. A coup needs everyone to be resolute, and she was
irresolute. Choiseul and his wife had, after all, been friends of hers for very many years, intimates
of her supper-table, and it would have hurt her to have to throw them out. What she wanted was for
Choiseul to implement Saint-Germain's foreign policy, and her mistake as to his likely reaction was
fatal.
News that Saint-Germain was in the Hague must have reached Denmark, and a fear that he
might have been facing difficulties may have underlain the initiative now taken by his old friend the
Count of Laurwig, who obtained an address at which he could write to him from the Baron von
Gleichen, who was now at Copenhagen, having entered the Danish foreign service. Count Laurwig
wrote to Saint-Germain (I translate from his French):13

April 3, 1760 Copenhagen

It is entirely my fault not to have continued the honour of your acquaintance by letters, not
being so happy as to be able to see you; but I have not known your address, and did not dare to
be a nuisance to you, until the Chamberlain, the Baron von Gleichen, assured me I had the
honour to be remembered by you. Accept this token of my gratitude and of my joy in having
found again the opportunity to thank you all for all your goodness and for all the friendship
with which you honoured me in England. I still have the sword which you gave me, and the
letters which you wrote to me. I have preserved them as something too dear ever to part with;
but the honour of your remembrance is too deeply graven on my heart for me to lose the
occasion to assure you of the most distinguished esteem which is due to your dear self.
Give me, please, news of yourself, and your orders, if I can be of use to you in anything in this
country, and believe in my great joy in finding my friend (I hope you will allow me this
expression) again, which is such that I do not know how to prove to you the extent of my
gratitude. Please accept this letter kindly and believe that it is with true pleasure I repeat that I
am and shall remain throughout my life . . .

Laurwig

P.S. The address which is on this letter was given me by the Baron von Gleichen. He told me you
wished to be written to in this way. If you will, my dear Count, honour me with a reply, my style is:
Count de Danneskeold Laurwig, Knight Chamberlain and Admiral.

This letter was intercepted by British Intelligence, but they may, after taking a copy, have
allowed it to reach Saint-Germain.
On 4 April, Yorke wrote again to Holdernesse,14 gloomily saying that since his last despatch
Saint-Germain appeared to have lost ground. The French seemed 'still cramped by the unnatural
connection with Vienna, which the Due de Choiseul still has credit enough to support, and
consequently, as long as that prevails, we cannot expect anything but chicanes and delays in the
negotiations'. It puzzled him that Belle-Isle had written to Choiseul care of d'Affry.
Yes, it is troubling. Belle-Isle was by now an old man. He must, at the inception of the
enterprise, have been keen to see what Saint-Germain could achieve by by-passing Choiseul and
d'Affry, perhaps even to take over, should Choiseul be turned out and the King need a new
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. But if Choiseul was going to keep his place, perhaps he did
not wish to appear as though he had been trying to oust him, hence the sudden show of conformity,
in writing to Saint-Germain only through the official channel.
On the following day, 5 April, d'Affry wrote to Choiseul15 telling him he had informed all the
principal Ministers in the Hague, the big bankers and also d'Astier and the Hope brothers in
Amsterdam, that Saint-Germain was repudiated . . . Two letters from the Marechal de Belle-Isle had
130
arrived, addressed care of himself to Saint-Germain. He had not given them to Saint-Germain, but
sent them, enclosed, to Choiseul. When Golovkin, Reischach and he had seen the Prince Louis of
Brunswick to hand him their Counter-Declaration (the replies of Russia, Austria and France to the
British and Prussian Declaration of 29 November which had been handed to them by Prince Louis
of Brunswick), Prince Louis took the occasion to tell them His Majesty [the infant Prince Willem V,
of whom Prince Louis was guardian] would give to d'Affry all letters written by Saint-Germain to
persons in Versailles.
So that explains why Madame de Pompadour, the Due de Clermont Prince and Belle-Isle seem
not to have received the letters by which Saint-Germain set such store. Prince Louis had achieved
their mis-routing, through d'Affry to Choiseul. Prince Louis, as the official man in the middle,
between Britain and Prussia on the one hand, and France, Austria and Russia on the other, saw his
position of importance as mediator disappearing, if Saint-Germain was talking to Yorke, as from
France to England direct.
This impression is borne out in a letter written on 8 April by Reischach to Kaunitz (I translate
from his German):16

He [Saint-Germain] has asked to see Duke [ie Prince] Louis of Brunswick, but the latter has not
given him an interview, because, as he said to Count d'Affry, Count Golovkin and me, when
we met to go over the Counter-Declaration together at Ruyswick, his presence could confuse
and damage the Peace negotiations . . .
I observed that the Duke [Prince] spoke of Saint-Germain with violent anger, from which I
drew my own conclusion, that it was the Duke's care he himself should be the only channel
through which a Peace between France and England and her allies should pass.

King Frederick wrote from his camp at Freyberg on 8 April to von Hellen, 17 observing that if
Saint-Germain was authorised, then Choiseul, though Secretary of State, did not represent his
Court's real way of thinking. However that might be, he thought the step taken by Saint-Germain
might really have set in motion Peace talks between France and England.
King Frederick, it will be remembered, kept up a permanent correspondence with Voltaire,
from whom he now received a letter dated 15 April, 1760, saying (I translate from his French):18

Your Ministers at Breda will doubtless be able to form a clearer picture than myself of what is
happening. Monsieur le Due de Choiseul, Monsieur de Kaunitz and Mr Pitt do not tell me their
secret. It is said to be known only to a certain Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Germain, who
supped with the Fathers at the Council of Trent and will perhaps permit himself the honour of
calling on Your Majesty in another fifty years.

This is merely a witty way of saying he cannot make out what is happening and doubts if it is
clear to anybody. Voltaire was sceptic right through, as he knew Frederick to be, and his jibe at
Saint-Germain because of the unnatural longevity attributed to him in the impersonations by 'Milord
Gower' causes one to wonder who could have reported this nonsense to him in his Swiss retreat. He
was in permanent correspondence with the Choiseuls and some of their friends. Was Choiseul at the
back of this, too?
D'Affry received another long letter from Choiseul, dated 15 April, 1760, saying (I translate
from his French):19

The King has ordered me to direct you expressly not only to decry this so-called Comte de
Saint-Germain in the most humiliating and expressive terms, verbally and in actions, before all
whom you suspect of knowing this knave throughout the United Provinces [of Holland] but to
persuade the States General... to have this man arrested and transported to France, so that he

131
 can be punished according to the gravity of his fault... have a notice inserted in the Dutch
gazettes, decrying this knave once and for all. . .

This would have read strangely to those bankers who knew that Saint-Germain had offered
himself as guarantor for a loan to France, which apparently they were unwilling to make unless
protected by his credit. What this means is that the credit of the King and Government of France
was so bad it was difficult to find any quarter willing to lend or advance money to France, for fear
of losing it in the event of French national bankruptcy. Saint-Germain had, therefore, apparently
offered to make himself chargeable, should they default, pledging his own assets as security.
Naturally, he will have hoped that they would not default, since, once operating the business he
proposed to them, they should make a profit. This profit he had, from his first preserved letter to de
Marigny, promised to the realm of France, taking from it only his expenses. It was thus not in the
hope of making anything for himself, but to save the French nation (which he must have seen as on
the brink of the Revolution which eventually came) that he had come with the purpose of placing
his own wealth at risk. It was a project, an act, of probably unparalleled disinterest and generosity.
The combination of Choiseul, d'Affry and Prince Louis, each seeking only to preserve his own
importance, had been too much for him, and defeated his most noble design.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 17

1. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, f.239.

2. The Hague, Koninklijk Huisarchiv, Bentinck Papers.
3. Ibid.
4. British Museum, Additional MSS. 6818 (Mitchel Papers IV, Lord Holdernesse's Despatches,
1760).
5. Public Record Office, State Papers, 107/86 "Foreign Ambassadors Intercepted".
6. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv.
7. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, 96, F.39.e, f.80.
8. The Hague, Koninklijk Huisarchiv, Bentinck Papers, XII.
9. In the short excerpt from this letter which appears in The Comte de Saint-Germain, Mrs
Cooper-Oakley, p.205, the phrase 'mettre Choiseul au pied du mur' is very freely rendered into
a flamboyant English idiom of her time, 'knock Choiseul into a cocked hat'. In Le Comte de
Saint-Germain, Paul Chacornac, p.95, we find this translated back into French 'feront tomber
M. de Choiseul dans un tricorne' (Make M de Choiseul fall into a three-cornered hat). It is
therein revealed that Chacornac had not seen the original document, or he would have
discovered that it was in his own language. He has used Mrs. Cooper-Oakley's English
translation and made a French one from it. Perhaps he imagined the original would be in Dutch
and that it would therefore be useless for him to inspect it. For this error he would have had
some justification, seeing that Mrs Cooper-Oakley describes all her extracts from Bentinck's
papers as "translated from the Dutch", therein revealing she has not seen them, either. She must
have had the cooperation of somebody in the Hague who sent her translated extracts, without
mentioning that the language from which he had translated them was French.
10. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, XIV, 96.F,39,e, ff.83r-84r.
11. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Knyphausen und Michel [sic], XIV,96.33 d, f.180r-v.
12. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, von Hellen, XIV, 96, 39.e, ff.87r-89r.
13. Public Record Office, State Papers, 107/86, "Foreign Ambassadors Intercepted".
14. British Museum, Additional MSS.6818. (Mitchell Papers IV, Lord Holderness's Despatches,
1760).
15. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, ff.304r-307r.
132
16. Vienna, Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv.
17. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, von Hellen, XIV, 96, 39.e, f.90r.
18. Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire, ed.Pifot (Paris, 1877), Vol.X. No.339.
19. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 503, ff.320-322.

133
 CHAPTER 18

BENTINCK PROVES HIS FRIENDSHIP

Bentinck must have received intelligence of the danger in which Saint-Germain now stood.
Learning that d'Affry had been to see Yorke, and fearing the worst, he went, himself, to see Yorke,
hoping to be able to redress the balance. The reception with which he met cannot be better told than
in his own report to the guardian of his young sovereign:1

Tuesday, 15th April, 1760

When I told Yorke what I had just learned touching Saint-Germain, I expected that Yorke,
having begun to negotiate with him, and having encouraged him as he had done (I had seen
Yorke's original letters, which were extremely strong and encouraging), would have protected
him. Instead, Yorke put on his hard, high and haughty air, and said he would be glad to see him
in the hands of the police. 1 could have laughed, knowing what I knew. I nevertheless
expressed my opinion very quietly and modestly, so as not to send him into a worse passion.
But Yorke persisted in saying he abandoned him, and at first refused the passport for the
packet-boat which I asked him to make out for Saint-Germain. In the end, pressed by me,
Yorke said that if I asked him for a passport, he would give it to me, as he could not refuse it to
me in my official capacity [as President of the Dutch Council], on what I told him of the affair,
that, if d'Affry could, he would provoke for us many embarrassments, which it would be easy
to prevent, by furnishing Saint-Germain with means to escape, which I would arrange with
Greffier [clerk to a court, registrar's or other office] and with Major Pomienaire.
He called his secretary and told him to bring a passport, which he signed and gave to me with
the name of the person in whose favour it was made out left blank, so that Saint-Germain could
fill it in with whatever name he was using to evade pursuit by d'Affry and the latter's 'domestic
servants'. I carried off the passport without letting Yorke see to what a degree I had been
shocked and revolted by what I had seen of his attitude.

The case of Yorke seems banal. Those who have ever worked in the civil service know the
unwritten motto of the seasoned: 'Take no initiative and don't become responsible. You are safe if
you can pass the file on to somebody else.' Momentarily emboldened by the chance placed in his
way of achieving something important, Yorke had, most unusually, 'stuck his neck out'. If it were
possible to deal with a faction in France that wanted peace, despite Choiseul, England would thank
him for bringing the war to a speedy and highly successful conclusion. Once it became evident,
however, that Choiseul was not to be by-passed, and that Louis had failed to stand up for his secret
envoy, Yorke felt himself involved in the discredit, and wanted only to wash his hands of the whole
matter. The 'hard, high and haughty' manner was probably born of panic. Yet Bentinck was right to
be shocked. From a man of Yorke's seniority, he was entitled to expect better.
Bentinck went to see the Grand Pensioner, (first Minister of the Prince) Stein, and said to him
of Saint-German:

He is not chargeable with any crime, such that no Sovereign would give him protection, such as
murder, poisoning or the like and the right of sanctuary is held very sacred in this country.

The Grand Pensioner agreed, but seemed apprehensive of the consequences of incurring French
displeasure. In the Greffier's office, it was much the same conversation over again.

134
 At 7.0 or 8.0 in the evening (it was now 15 April), Bentinck took the passport to Saint-
Germain, presumably at his inn. He found him surprised, not so much that Choiseul had given the
order to d'Affry as that d'Affry should be willing to carry it out. (He may have thought d'Affry
should know it could not be justified in international law.) Bentinck said there was no time to
discuss. It would not be possible for d'Affry to obtain execution of the order for his arrest before
10.00 the next morning. He had, therefore, some hours in which to use the passport to leave the
country. A ship was leaving for England from Hellevoetsluis in the morning and he could just catch
it.
Saint-Germain said his own servants knew neither the language, the roads nor the customs of
the country, and asked Bentinck if he could lend him one of his. Bentinck did more. He ordered a
coach and four to be before his own house at 4.30, and when it arrived he instructed the coachman
to collect the Comte de Saint-Germain from his inn, take him to Hellevoetsluis and see him on
board the boat. It was the Prince of Orange, bound for Harwich.
Afterwards, Bentinck found Saint-Germain had left behind at the inn his sword and belt for it,
some clothes, some money and two bottles of a liquid he did not recognise. 2 So, Saint-Germain
must have departed from the Hague on 16 April.
Writing up his journal on the 18 April, Bentinck observed that he had very nearly succeeded,
and failed only 'because he had not a bad enough opinion of those with whom he had to deal'. What
piqued d'Affry, so it had come to his ears, was an underlined sentence in his letter to Madame de
Pompadour.3 (Indeed, that sentence could have been taken to imply d'Affry was sending back biased
information.)
On 17 April, d'Affry wrote at length to Choiseul 4 to tell him Saint-Germain was gone. It was
Kauderbach who had come to tell him. Kauderbach had seen Saint-Germain's landlord, a Saxon,
who told him Bentinck had called between 7 and 8, gone away, returned between 9 and 10 and
remained with Saint-Germain until after midnight. Saint-Germain had then gone to bed, but risen
and taken tea at 5 in the morning, when one of Bentinck's lackeys called for him with the carriage
and four, in which he had left. The details about the sword, money and bottles of liquid left behind
are as in Bentinck's journal. Only, it was not possible for d'Affry and Kauderbach to discover where
Saint-Germain had gone. D'Affry was furiously indignant at Bentinck's having aided what was
obviously an escape.
Kauderbach, he said, had been told by a Jewish money-lender, Tobias Boas, that he had lent
Saint-Germain 2,000 florins on the security of three opals in a sealed envelope, to be repaid by
letter of exchange by the 25th inst. If this did not arrive, he said, he would sell the opals. As there
were 9 florins to the pound of that day, which has gone down by over 30, Boas would have lent
Saint-Germain the purchasing power of upwards of £5,454 today. D'Affry had a strange idea of
money-lenders if he thought Boas would have advanced such a sum without viewing the opals
before the envelope was sealed.
Later the landlord of the inn, Kroll, told Bentinck about his interrogation first by Kauderbach
and then by d'Affry, and assured him he had told them he did not know where Monsieur le Comte
de Saint-Germain had gone to. All that concerned him was he had paid his bill before leaving.

135
NOTES TO CHAPTER 18

1. The Hague, Koninklijk Huisarchiv, Bentinck Papers XVI.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Paris, Minist^re des Affaires Etrang^res, Hollande, 503, f.357.

136
 CHAPTER 19

LONDON AGAIN

We learn of Saint-Germain's arrival in England from a letter of Baron von Knyphausen to King
Frederick (I translate from his French):1

London, 22 April, 1760

Sire,

.. . We have just this instant learned that the Comte de Saint-Germain has arrived in England,
by the packet-boat which came in today, not as a negotiator but to seek asylum from the
violence by which he was menaced by the Due de Choiseul, from resentment of the step he had
taken at the Hague. This provides further proof of the credit in which the Minister still stands
and his attachment to the Court of Vienna, of which he has thought good to make public
exhibition by the immolation to it of this victim.

Sire,
Your Majesty's
very submissive and very faithful servitors and subjects
B.von Knyphausen
Mitchell

For the boat which left on 16 April to have arrived only on 22 April, six days must have been
spent at sea, which suggests that a storm must have driven her off course. That he had suffered such
a long and wearisome crossing perhaps explains why Saint-Germain spent a few days resting in
Harwich, a smaller and quieter port then than now, before mounting the coach to London—perhaps
one of those fast ones which did the journey in a day—arriving on 26 or 27 April, to be met and
placed under polite house-arrest. On the latter date a letter was sent after him by a friend he had left
behind (I translate from his French).2

Amsterdam, 27 April, 1760

Monsieur,

If a thunderbolt had struck me, I could not have been more confused than I was at the Hague in
finding you gone. I will stake everything and make all imaginable efforts to pay my respects to
you in person, for I am not unaware, Monsieur, that you are the greatest Lord of the Earth, and
I am only mortified that wretched people dare to cause you troubles.
I have heard that gold and intrigues have been employed against your pacific pains. Today I
feel able to breathe a little. I have heard that Monsieur d'Affry left last Thursday for the Court,
and I hope he will get what he deserves for having failed you. I take him to be the cause of your
long absence, and so of my woe.
If you think I can be useful to you in any way, count on my fidelity. I have only my arm and
my blood, which are, with pleasure, at your service.

le Comte de la Watu

137
 In this letter, it is not simply the obviously deep esteem but the extraordinary phrase, 'greatest
Lord of the Earth' which makes an impact. I translate literally from the French, 'le plus grand
Seigneur de la Terre.' Chacornac, evidently not having seen the original, translated Mrs Cooper-
Oakley's English, 'the greatest lord on earth' back into French, as 'le plus grand gentilhomme qui
soit', that is, 'the greatest gentleman that could be.' This is a scaling down to the plane of social good
manners. It is not what the original French means. De la Watu's phrase, which I have never seen
used as the style of any other person, surely refers to no worldly standing but to the unique
knowledge of physical nature, which, combined with his teaching and something spiritual and
magisterial in his air to convince de la Watu that he was in the presence not of an ordinary man but
of a great Mage, Sage or Master.
Von Hellen's report to King Frederick of 22 April, 1760, shows some interesting reflections (I
translate from his French):3

It is certain that the proposition made by the Comte de Saint-Germain has at least been
effective in as much as the Due de Choiseul has not been able altogether to resist the current of
thought of those in Versailles who desire peace . . . But the Secretary of State was so much
enraged against that poor devil he charged d'Affry to solicit his arrest and extradition . . . Count
Bentinck . . . obtained from General Yorke a passport for the Comte to England. There, injured
as he has been, he should be able to furnish very interesting details of the present financial
situation of France, a subject on which he is very knowledgeable.

Yes, obviously it would be the hope in London that Saint-Germain would now talk without
discretion.
Knyphausen, writing to Frederick on 29 April,4 mentions that from an interview the Dutch
Ambassador must have had with Choiseul it did appear France would not pursue a project in favour
of the Infant, widower of the late Duchess of Parma, just as Saint-Germain, during his interview
with Yorke in the Hague, had assured him she would not. Since his arrival in London, Saint-
Germain had not been seen in public, and so far as he knew he had not yet been interviewed by a
Minister.
This will have crossed with a letter to him from Frederick, of 30 April, 1760, from his camp at
Meissen, saying (I translate from his French):5

It is not difficult to see from that whole circus that the Due de Choiseul has completely got the
upper hand over the King his Master, over the Council and
159 pacific party. Sufficiently eloquent proof of that is what has happened to the Comte de
Saint-Germain, on inspiration from Vienna.

On 6 May, 1760, Knyphausen wrote again of Saint-Germain to King Frederick (I translate from
his French):6

Sir William Pitt has not only refused to see him but absolutely insisted on his departure. This
put the Comte de Saint-Germain into such an embarrassing position that he asked to see me,
begging Sir William Pitt, who has had him kept guarded by a State Messenger, to obtain for
him an interview with me. The Minister therefore asked me to see him. He told me he could not
go back to Holland, as he would not be safe there, and that as Pitt would not allow him to stay
here ... I have therefore arranged with the consent of Sir William Pitt that he should travel,
under the name of Count Cea, to Aurich, where he will be near enough to Your Majesty to
learn your intentions . . .
P.S. Since finishing this despatch, Sir William Pitt, with whom we have had a further
conversation, has strongly urged us to do all in our power to dissuade Your Majesty from
receiving him . . .
138
 Saint-Germain had always thought of Pitt as the only person on the English side who did not
want peace. Newcastle and Granville wanted it. King George wanted it. So did George Prince of
Wales (son of Frederick Prince of Wales, untimely deceased), the future George III. His tutor, Lord
Bute, had taught him to think of the war as a useless expense, which he should stop as soon as he
came to the throne and got rid of Pitt. But, for the moment, Pitt was supreme, identified with the
war he was pushing forward to increase Britain's dominion overseas.
On the same date, Holdernesse wrote to Mitchell in Berlin 7 that it now appeared Saint-Germain
had not been authorised, and that 'his séjour here could be of no use . . . His examination has
provided nothing very material'.
Here we have the nub of it. Had Saint-Germain chosen to disclose that King Louis numbered
among his embarrassments an inability to repay an enormous loan from the Hope brothers, his
conversation might have been considered of greater interest. But it is plain that, despite having been
let down, he had remained discreet. Moreover, where had Holdernesse now got the idea he had
never really been authorised? Saint-Germain must have covered up for Louis' lamentable weakness
in failing to stand up for him by omitting to say it was by Louis he had been authorised. He had
made of his own dignity an oblation to Louis.
Even so, the appearance Louis had given of trifling, had hardened Frederick against him, and
he was now all for pushing forward the war against France to her utter destruction.
On 19 May, 1760, he wrote to Knyphausen (I translate from his French):8

As to the Comte de Saint-Germain ... I am willing to give him asylum at Emden, or rather at
Aurich, on condition of his not involving himself with anything . . .

But it seems that Saint-Germain, probably because he had gathered from Knyphausen that his
presence could embarrass King Frederick, had decided not to avail himself of the asylum.
Céa is a town in Portugal.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 19

1. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, 96.F.e, ff.215v-216r.

2. Public Record Office, State Papers 107/86, 'Foreign Ambassadors Intercepted'.
3. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, von Hellen, XIV,96,F.39.e. f.l07r-v.
4. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Knyphausen und Michel, XIV .F.96.C, f.226r-v.
5. Merseburg Zentrales Staatsarchiv.
6. Merseburg Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Knyphausen und Michel, XIV, F.96.C, f.244rv.
7. British Museum, Additional MSS 6818 (Mitchell Papers IV, Lord Holdernesse's Despatches,
1760), ff. 100-107.
8. Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, XIV,96,33.c, f.264.

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 CHAPTER 20

NORTHERN MISTS

After Saint-Germain had left London, the London newspapers suddenly got wind of his visit.
The Weekly Journal or British Gazeteer of 17 May and The London Chronicle of 31 May and 3
June, 1760, carry sympathetic allusions to his former stay in England, when he cut a figure in the
musical world. The first named, referring to his arrest in 1745, says one who was jealous of him
with a lady placed in his pocket a letter purporting to come from the Pretender thanking him for his
services and desiring him to continue them, and thereupon had him arrested by the state messenger,
who found it on him. This seems unlikely, in view of Chiquet's report to Paris that no incriminating
paper had been found on him, though it is always possible a private spite caused his arrest.
Meanwhile, at Chambord, the workpeople Saint-Germain had installed were becoming a
problem. On 16 June, Collet wrote to de Marigny that one of them was setting the others to spread a
rumour that Saint-Germain had returned to Paris and would in a fortnight be in Chambord, to
avenge this servant for things others had said of him. On 8 September, de Marigny wrote to the
Comte de Saint-Florentin to tell him this servant had claimed for himself alone the use of two of the
gardens at Chambord and attempted to stab Monsieur Collet. On 15 September, Saint-Florentin
replied to de Marigny that he was enquiring why this person, who had come in the service of Saint-
Germain, was still at Chambord. One supposes he and any other remaining servitors were then
required to withdraw.
What we do not have is the reactions of Madame de Pompadour and Louis to the fall of the
man they had let down.
On 12 February, 1761, the Gazette des Pays-Bas (Brussels) published a report from the Hague
(I translate from the French):

The so-called Comte de Saint-Germain, that indecipherable man, whose true name, origin and
nationality are unknown, who is rich with the revenues of unknown origin, and with knowledge
acquired it is not known where or how, who enters the cabinets of Princes without being
avowed, this man who has come to be upon this earth it is not divined how, is actually here [at
the Hague], not knowing where to lay his head, an exile from all lands.
He addressed himself lately to d'Affry, to obtain through his mediation the permission to exist
somewhere. D'Affry wrote in consequence to the Marechal de Belle-Isle, whose reply was that
if the King executed justice with rigour he would have him tried as a criminal of State; but that
His Majesty, being indulgent, confined himself to ordering M. d'Affry to have no connection
with him, and neither to reply to his letters nor permit him access.

This sounds garbled. Perhaps the Gazette des Pays-Bas was, like the London newspapers,
behind with the news, and had in mind Choiseul's order to d'Affry of a year ago. The Marechal de
Belle-Isle died on 12 January, 1761, only fourteen days after this was published. Yet it is disturbing
to find that Choiseul, writing to d'Affry to thank him for having sent him the cutting, comments (I
translate from the French):1

Versailles, 25 January, 1761

... What astonished me most was that the writer had been correctly informed as to the Marechal
de Belle-Isle's reply to you concerning the Comte de Saint-Germain.

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 Is it conceivable that Belle-Isle, on his death-bed, had been brow-beaten into disavowing Saint-
Germain?
On 27 June, 1761, d'Affry wrote2 to Choiseul to tell him Ligniere had come to see him again
about the port-cleaning machine. D'Affry was more impressed with it this time and had drawn up
details concerning it for submission to the King.
Nine months later we hear of Saint-Germain from a new source, the diary of a Dutchman,
Gijsbert Jan Baron van Hardenbroek (I translate from his Dutch):3

20 March, 1762

I hear that the so-called Comte de Saint-Germain is living at Ubbergen, near Nijmegen. That he
has also a property near Zutphen; that he has a great laboratory in his house and spends whole
days inside it; that he can bestow the most beautiful colours on all kinds of things that one can
think of, leather etc; that he is a great philosopher, a man with knowledge of nature; that he
expresses himself well and appears to be of virtuous character; that he speaks with great
emotion of Madame his late mother; that he sometimes signs himself Pr d'Es . . .; that he bears
himself proudly; that he will favour the Republic with his manufactures, but not any one town
to the prejudice of the others, despite that Amsterdam had made him the most advantageous
offer for the exclusive rights; that he gave much help to Gronsveld with the preparation of the
colours for his porcelain factory at Weesop; that he is on very good terms with [Bentinck van]
Rhoon, goes again and again to speak with him and corresponds with him, has also an
enormous correspondence with foreign countries; that he is known in every Court; that the late
Prince of Wales [Frederick Louis]—who was a bad character—treated him very ill, but that
being innocent he was freed with satisfaction; that he corresponds with the foremost people in
France; that he speaks very well of Madame de Pompadour.
He goes often to Amsterdam, where he knows G. Haselaar very well; possesses rare, precious
stones, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds. It is said that he possesses the art of giving
diamonds a brighter water and of giving stones a better colour; he is very generous and
possesses great properties in the Palatinate and in other parts of Germany; He lodges sometimes
in Amsterdam and in other places, and everywhere pays well.

There are several points for comment here. Some people have taken 'Pr, d'Es' (Prince
d'Espagne?) as suggesting Saint-Germain was a bastard of the Spanish royal family, but the title
Prince is not used in Spain, where the King's son is always the Infant. It seems more likely that
Hardenbroek's informant was mistaken. If not wishing to catch attention, he would use an
unexceptional name.
How had the late Prince of Wales—the son of George II and father of George III—treated
Saint-Germain badly? Perhaps he had failed to speak up for him, as an intimate of his musical
circle, at the time of his arrest in 1745. He was dead by the time of Saint-Germain's brief return to
London in 1760.
Just after this, we find a letter from d'Affry to Choiseul, also about the purchase of the property
in Guelders, that part of Holland which lies next to the German border:4

The Hague, 23 March, 1762

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 Monsieur,

. . . The so-called Comte de Saint-Germain . . . has now strayed into the Provinces of the
Republic and their environs, hiding under borrowed names, and a few days ago I learned that
under the name of an Amsterdam merchant, Noblet, he had purchased an estate in Gueldern
called Huberg [sic] from the Comte de Weldern, but had as yet paid only about thirty thousand
French francs for it. I thought I should inform you and ask whether His Majesty wishes me to
take proceedings, as by issuing a fresh memorandum to the States General, or to let him alone,
the principal object having been gained, in discrediting him so that he cannot show himself
openly and has to sell his chemical secrets to make a living.

By the time this was written, however, Saint-Germain was apparently in Russia. As he intended
establishing a factory at Ubberhen, probably this was a business trip. He may have needed to buy
some special ingredient for his processes.
It would be difficult now to check, but Mrs. Cooper-Oakley, while researching for her book,
first published in 1912, corresponded with a Mr. M. Pyliaeff, the author of Old Petersburg, who did
some research for her on the spot. What he wrote to her was that during the reign of Peter III, Saint-
Germain had stayed in St. Petersburg (Petrograd or the modern Leningrad), with the Italian artist
painting the Russian royal family, Count Rotari, at a house in the Gravski Pereoolok (which means
Lane), near the Anitchkoff Bridge over the Nevski, close to the Palace. Saint-Germain was friendly
with the Yousopoff family and gave Prince Yousopoff a beverage good for lengthening life. He was
remembered as a splendid violinist. Pyliaeff felt sure the Yousopoff family possessed papers
relating to Saint-Germain. He had bought, in a sale, some music by Saint-Germain. One was an air
for harp dated about 1760, but dedicated in Saint-Germain's own hand to Countess Ostermann and
bound in red morocco. (Perhaps he had composed it for the little girl who grew up to become
Madame de Genlis to play as the harp was the instrument she had been taught.) Pyliaef gave this
music to the composer, Peter Tchaikovsky, and supposed that it would have been amongst the
papers left by the composer, who, however, had little order. 6 He did not think Saint-Germain visited
Moscow, and did not think he used the name Soltikow while in Russia (Mrs Cooper-Oakley had
obviously asked him), but only later. He thought that he left Russia soon after, if not before, the
accession of Catherine II.
This account seems so precise, business-like and unembroidered that probably it can be trusted.
Moreover, it permits the time of Saint-German's visit to Russia to be fined down to within months,
since the reign of Peter III was short, beginning with the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth, on 5
January, 1762, and ending with his dethronement by the coup, organised by the Orlov brothers, on 9
July of the same year, in favour of his wife, to be known as Catherine the Great.
Peter III, Elizabeth's nephew, German on his father's side, had made himself unpopular in
Russia, by his apparent contempt for all things Russian and admiration only for Prussia and King
Frederick. He had pulled Russia out of the Seven Years War, which was a relief to Frederick and a
further blow to France, refused, as a Lutheran, to be crowned with the Greek Orthodox rite and
insisted on the Orthodox priests dressing as Lutheran pastors, a violation of their conscience as well
as a humiliation. Further, he had conceived a notion that Jutland should, historically, belong to
Russia, or to him, and had sent a Russian army to seize it from Denmark. The Danish King,
Christian VII, sent onto the field against him a French officer who had been lent him by Louis XV,
Marechel le Comte Claude Louis de Saint-Germain, under whom served the Prince Carl of Hesse-
Cassel later to become so important in the life of our Saint-Germain. The two armies were about to
join battle in Pomerania when news of the coup made it unnecessary.
Catherine, though German born, identified herself with Russia, and though privately sceptic,
left the Church alone and paid it outward respect.
There is a legend Saint-Germain met the Orlovs while in Russia and played a part with them in
the coup which placed Catherine on the throne. This, I shall try to show later, reflects a
142
misunderstanding relative to a venture of later date. On the other hand, I do believe that he now met
Catherine, and disclosed to her his true identity.
Not all his time, however, appears to have been spent in St Petersburg. Pyliaeff may have been
right about Saint-Germain's not having gone to Moscow, but Mrs Cooper-Oakley received,
presumably from another Russian source, the information that there was a record of his having been
on 3 March, 1762, with Princess Marie Galitzin, in Archangel. One wishes she had been more
specific. Archangel is a good four hundred miles north of St Petersburg, and the time taken in
getting there and back would have taken a substantial part of his stay. What would Saint-Germain
have wanted with that Arctic town? The map shows gold-fields in the vicinity, and near to the gold,
iron. Iron, we shall find, was essential to Saint-Germain's processes, though it would seem a long
way to go for it.
From this Russian trip, which we can only glimpse through the mists, he returned to Ubbergen.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 20

1. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 506, f.54.

2. Paris, Ministere dcs Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 509, ff. 142-143.
3. Gedenkenschriften van Gisbert Jan van Hardenbroek, ed. E.F.J. Kramer (in Werken uitgeven
door het Historisch Genootschap) (Johannes Muller, 1901), Vol. I, pp.220-221.
There are earlier references to Saint-Germain under April and May, 1760 (pp.60, 61) but they
only guess at his relations with Bentinck, Yorke and others, which we know better from their
own papers.
4. Paris, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Hollande, 509, ff.301-02.
5. The Comte de Saint-Germain, Isobel Cooper-Oakley (Milan, 1912, London, 1927), pp. 19-21.
6. I wrote about this to the Tchaikovsky scholar Dr Peter Young, and he suggested that if it
survived it might be at the Tchaikovsky Museum in Klin, near Moscow, USSR. I wrote to this
address and received a courteous reply from the Director Dr. Bonink, G.D., showing some
interest in this story of a composition for harp, but they do not have it or know where it is.

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 CHAPTER 21

BRUSSELS AND TOURNAI

Saint-Germain now meant to start his factory at Ubbergen. The name of the place meant 'On
the hill', and, translating this into French, he took a new name from it, 'Surmont'. It was a little like
styling himself 'Squire of the House on the Hill'. He had, however, still some further preparations to
make, and in connection with these crossed from the United Provinces of the Protestant Netherlands
(Holland) into that land which had not yet obtained independent identity as Belgium, but which,
since the end of the War of Spanish Succession had ceased to be the Spanish Netherlands and
become the Austrian Netherlands. The Empress Maria-Theresa referred to it as 'my Belgic
Province'. It had for Governor-General her husband's brother, Prince Charles of Lorraine.
In passage through Brussels, he called, we do not know why, on Count Karl Cobenzl, the
Austrian Minister Plenipotentiary (a diplomatic rank intermediate between Resident and
Ambassador). As it will emerge from the following documents, they got talking, about paintings
and cultural interests in the first place, then about Saint-Germain's experiments and ideas for
manufactures, and Cobenzl, scenting money, persuaded him not to hasten back to Ubbergen but to
tarry awhile and meet friends of his. These were principally a Madame Nettine, widow of the
founder of the Nettine Bank, the largest in the country, and relations of hers. An idea now grew up
that Saint-Germain's manufactures could be launched on a larger scale on this side of the frontier,
with an advance from the Nettine Bank.
The first we learn of this is from a letter written by Cobenzl to Kaunitz, the Austrian Chancellor
(I translate from his French):1

Brussels, 8 April, 1763

Monsieur,
About three months ago the person known as the Comte de St Germain passed through here
and paid a call on me. I have found him the most singular man I have met in my life. His birth
is not yet known to me exactly, but I believe him the son of a clandestine union contracted by a
member of a powerful and illustrious house. Possessed of great wealth, he lives in the greatest
simplicity. He knows everything, and is of a rectitude and goodness worthy of admiration.
Amongst other proofs of knowledge, he performed some experiments before my eyes; I will in
a short time send Your Excellency samples. The most essential is the transformation of iron
into a metal as beautiful as gold, and to say the least of it just as good for any kind of
goldsmith's work. Dyeing and the preparation of leathers surpassing all the Moroccos in the
world, and the most perfect tanning. Dyeing of silks carried to a perfection never seen until
now. Similar dyeing of wool. Dyeing of wool in all the most vivid colours, right through and
through, and all without Indigo or Cochineal, with the most ordinary ingredients and therefore
at a very modest price. Making up of colours as artists' paints; ultramarine as perfect as that
from lapis; finally, removal of smell from the oils used in painting, and preparation of best oil
of Provence from rape-seed, colza and other equally inferior oils.
I have in my hands all these products made under my eyes, I have had them submitted to the
most rigorous tests, and estimating that the profits from them should go into millions, I have
tried to profit from the friendship this man has conceived towards me to draw all his secrets out
of him. He is giving them to me and asks only a recompense proportionate to the fruits of the
enterprise, that is to say, only after a profit has been made.
As the marvellous must necessarily appear doubtful, I have avoided the two things that seemed
to me most to be feared, being a dupe and engaging myself in too great an expense.

144
 To guard against the first, I brought in a person whom I could trust, under whose eyes I had the
experiments made, and I am fully convinced of the reality and low cost of these products.
As to the second, I have given Mr Zurmont [sic] as St Germain is styling himself now, a good
and faithful merchant at Tournzi, on whose premises he works, and I have had advances, which
amount to very little, made by la Nettine, whose son and son-in-law, Walkiers, are the persons
who will be in charge of the manufacturing when the profits from the first trials put us in a
position to establish them on a larger scale without risking anything of our own. The moment
for drawing the first profit has practically arrived, for two of our good merchants, Barbieri and
Francolet, amazed by the beauty of the colours of the silks, are now bringing me for dyeing all
the silks in which they deal, both in this Province and throughout Nether Germany.
This account is as yet but very incomplete, but I beg Your Excellency to receive it as only a
prefatory report concerning a matter which could be of the greatest importance for the Royal
Finances of Her Majesty and for the good of her peoples. At the same time, to assure Your
Excellency that I am not risking any considerable sum, I ask Your Excellency for a little time,
in which to present fuller information and a calculation of the exact profits which I have not yet
made but am now preparing.
In the meantime, I only beg Your Excellency to approve what I have done so far, and I think
not to err in my assurance that this is a thing which is most important for the good of the
Monarchy.

I have the honour . . .

your very humble and very obliging servitor,
Cobenzl

This letter, and those that succeed it, will repay close reading. In following them, we are
embarking on a detective story, upon two levels. One of these is scientific. The correspondence
gives us our first view of the processes Saint-Germain was offering, and we may, as we go along,
be able to pick up clues as to their nature. The first of these is in this first letter and concerns a
transformation of iron. Why is this said to be 'the most essential'? It is quickly passed over here, but
we shall realise later the words were not lightly chosen.
Cochineal, the only good bright red dye known at that time, was an extract from the bodies of a
small insect reared upon a cactus in Mexico. The dark blue dye, Indigo, was derived from a plant of
the species indigofera, likewise tropical, and mainly grown in India. Indigo was, additionally, a
nuisance in being what was known as a 'vat' dye. Both, because of coming from so far, and because
of the trouble involved in the collection and preparation, were expensive colourants, and if the like
effect could be obtained from sources more accessible, fabrics dyed with them could be offered for
sale at much less. With regard to oil-paints, the best blue then available was made from grinding
lapis-lazuli to powder, and the price of it was therefore daunting; artists would obviously welcome
the appearance on the market of something that cost much less and looked the same. With regard to
the medium, it is usually a mixture of linseed oil (for the gloss and richness), and turpentine (for the
thinning and easy spreading) that is used, and it is the turpentine that smells. Doubtless it was from
the oil of turpentine that Saint-Germain removed the smell. As to the other oils mentioned, rape is
the seed of charlock, that plant of the cabbage family, grown as fodder for animals, the tiny yellow
flowers of which turn fields to that mustard colour so striking in the agricultural landscape. Most
dictionaries give coleseed or colza as synonyms for rape-seed or charlock but the cabbage family is
a large one, embracing many wild members of very similar appearance. Rape or Colza is known as
a source of oil, but not of the best kind. If oil from this humble source could be treated so as to
make it into an oil of the finest quality, suitable for culinary or domestic use, there would be
obvious advantages.
The other point of view, from which the whole of this correspondence should be looked at, is
financial, for we are going to find ourselves embarked upon a business detective story, in which
145
what has to be discovered is who is cheating who. The use of the term 'merchant' should first be
clarified. It should be remembered we are before the Industrial Revolution, or only at its very
inception. In the days when the craftsman was self-employed, making in his own home the articles
he would sell direct to his customers, no middleman was necessary. As soon as he tried to supply an
area beyond his personal reach, he needed a representative. So there arose the merchants, who took
the goods a few miles, from the craftsmen to new customers, but took something for their pains.
Merchants became rich, more so than the craftsmen they served, as explained by Paul Mantoux,
'The piece of cloth as delivered by the weaver was usually neither dressed nor dyed, and the
merchant was responsible for the process of finishing which precedes the actual sale'. 2 The
merchant would, therefore, find a dyer, with whom he would contract. It is in this sense that
Cobenzl refers to the merchants Barbieriand Francolet, who, having outlets throughout the Low
Countries, were contracting to have their wools, silks, etc. dyed before offering them to the shops.
But why were the merchants bringing their stuffs to Cobenzl rather than direct to Saint-
Germain? Had Cobenzl put in money of his own in addition to that he had persuaded Madame
Nettine to advance, presumably from the Nettine Bank? In what sense could he have said he 'had'
her do it. Chacornac refers to her as Cobenzl's mistress, in which case their finances may have been
intertwined, but then why does he have to assure Kaunitz that the investment has been 'very little'?
What they spent would seem to be their own affair, unless it was the Royal Finances of the Holy
Roman Empire that had in some way been drawn on, perhaps through their being made available to
Count Cobenzl, as Minister Plenipotentiary, for expenses, or some deposit from them having been
placed in the Nettine Bank to be drawn for usage in local administration.
Cobenzl had staying with him a nephew, Philipp, who later wrote in a Memoir that Saint-
Germain removed a flaw from a diamond belonging to his uncle, who at first refused to take it back,
so much had its value been improved, but in the end accepted it so as not to give offence. Then, as
the talk ran upon paintings, he mentioned that few private collections could boast a Raphael:3 (I
translate from his German)

Monsieur le Comte de Surmont agreed, adding that nevertheless his own collection was not
deficient in that respect, and to prove it, a fortnight or three weeks later, there arrived a
painting, which Mr. de Surmont presented as being from his own collection, and which some
artists of this city, connoisseurs or not, assured my uncle was a genuine Raphael. Mr. de
Surmont would not take it back and begged my uncle to keep it as a token of his friendship.

This is a very odd story because such a painting would be vastly more valuable than a diamond.
Today, a Raphael, like a Leonardo, might be expected to change hands at around a quarter of a
million pounds. By now, all Raphaels are catalogued. In 1763, could a Raphael still have changed
hands uncatalogued? I wrote to the National Gallery. Their reply, 'In the 18th century it would be
possible for a painting by Raphael to be catalogued ..." suggested cataloguing was then the
exception rather than the rule. One cannot therefore say it could not have happened as the nephew
said. An oblique confirmation seems to me von Gleichen's assertion that he had seen in Saint-
Germain's rooms a Murillo as beautiful as the Raphael in Versailles. Von Gleichen 'pulled' evidence
in order to fit in with his idea Saint-Germain was a bastard of the Queen of Spain. Could he—while
keeping the 'atmosphere' of a Raphael by the comparison—have done that here? Was what von
Gleichen saw in fact the Raphael Saint-Germain later gave to Cobenzl? Cobenzl does not mention
to Kaunitz receipt of such a gift, but then he would not.
Kaunitz wrote from Vienna on 19 April, 1763, expressing surprise at Cobenzl's news. If tests
had proved the efficacy of Saint-Germain's products, what could he say? But, he warned the
Minister (I translate from his French):4

There is an immense difference between experiments on a small scale and business enterprise
upon a great. A model is not a machine, and an assay proves nothing with regard to bulk
146
 manufacture, the establishment of a factory requiring unknown outlay and perhaps involving
high running costs.

He asked for further details, both of the proposed enterprise and Saint-Germain's
circumstances. Was his wealth in coin, paper, land or merchandise?
He enclosed an 'Anecdote' of Saint-Germain's days in France, made for him by a person he did
not name. This said Saint-Germain had had private interviews with the King and Madame de
Pompadour, and that there had been a great hope he would re-establish the Finances of France and
open up a new and creative source of wealth. He was believed to be of illustrious birth, but some
were shocked when at a dinner-table, round which were seated all the most illustrious persons of the
Court, he said he saw no house save that of Bourbon comparable to his own. Somebody (unnamed)
who visited him at his address in Paris found him in dirty rooms (this is unlikely, since he lived as
the guest of bankers, first Madame Lambert and then Selwin) and that when he left for Holland he
was in the process of buying a property from the Comte de Florentin, for 180 florins, for which the
contract had been drawn up, though sale had not been completed. (The property would, therefore,
have remained Saint-Florentin's.)
It may have been under provocation by needling questions he made the seemingly arrogant
statement about his descent, but the interesting thing is, only two royal houses in Europe compared
with regard to the antiquity of their reign, the Bourbons and the Wittelsbachs, the Wittelsbachs
being the elder.
Kaunitz wrote on 22 April, 1763, to 'Her Sacred, Imperial and Apostolic Majesty' Maria-Theresa,
giving her an exact account of the letter he had received from Cobenzl and his reply to it, adding
that Saint-Germain, if his products were good, would be in danger should his presence be
discovered.
Cobenzl replied to Kaunitz (I translate from his French):5

Brussels, 28 April, 1763

Monsieur,

In reply to the letter which Your Excellency has done me the honour to write to me on the 19th
of this month, 1 will begin with the assurance that the wonders which I see every day are so
great, and at the same time so simple, and so easy, that I am the less surprised Your Excellency
is unable to believe, in that I myself have hardly been able to believe what I have seen for
myself, and brought others to see, whose eyes are better than mine. Any chemical operation
may seem doubtful to those with insights into that science which I have not, but how can one
refuse credence to what one has seen oneself, to what one has done oneself, and to what could
be on a great scale what it is on a small? For it is impossible that what dyes a single piece of
stuff will not dye a hundred. To this I add that the physical reasons are so clear that one sees
that both principle and effect are alike unfailing.
I have had the honour to inform Your Excellency that the costs will not be immense, and that
we will not add to the expense except out of profits. Now for what we have done to establish
the transmutation of iron, dyeing of wood, wool, silk, stuffs and leather. We have got a good
and faithful manufacturer at Tournai, and are there making the necessary preparations. We have
taken on the young Lannois, whom Your Excellency has often seen at Vienna, and all is so far
advanced that on the 15th or 16th May, on the return of Madame Nettine from Paris where she
went first, her son can go to Tournai, to see the operation, learn the secret and take over the
direction of the process himself.
As to the character of our man, I will reply point by point to the memorandum Your Excellency
has sent me, but beg it to be considered that as he asks nothing from us, and wants to give me

147
 his secret, his personal qualities are indifferent to us, so long as we have his secret, which I
have already in part and will possess in whole. This alone it is which we have to desire.
I spoke of the wealth of this man, and this is what I can say of it: he has a property in Holland
two thirds paid for, and he has valuables which the man who provided him with the mortgage
on their security estimates at well over a million. I have had these valuables brought here and
deposited with Madame Nettine. Your Excellency will receive an ample, detailed memorandum
concerning this, from an informed pen; but I shall need a little time for that, and in the
meantime I beg Your Excellency to be assured I have laid out little and only in concert with
Madame Nettine.
It is certain he is of illustrious birth, but as that does not serve my end I must keep the secret
with which he has entrusted me.
He speaks of his wealth and must indeed possess much, since everywhere he has been, he has
given prodigious presents, spent a great deal, never asked for anything and never left debts . . .
Since leaving England he has been in Holland, where his principal connections were with
Count Bentinck, M. van Groensfeld de Diepenbroek and Burgomaster Hasselar of Amsterdam.
He bought the property of Hoebergen [sic], from which he took the name Surmont, and wanted
to establish a factory there. Chance brought him here, he visited me while passing through. His
knowledge of paintings and drawings first drew us into conversation, then little by little he
spoke of his discoveries... I introduced him to Madame Nettine. The admirable education she
gave her children touched him and he let himself be drawn by her and me to the point where
there is nothing in the world we cannot make him do.

Cobenzl

The reference to 'prodigious presents' is interesting. Is this as near as Cobenzl got to mentioning
he had accepted a Raphael? The last phrase quoted is dreadful; it suggests Saint-Germain was
regarded by him as a goose to be plucked.
Kaunitz wrote back on 10 May, 1763 (I translate from his French):6

... I suppose, along with Your Excellency, that a preparation that will dye one piece of stuff will
dye further pieces, but it is less easy to demonstrate that if the dyeing of one piece costs only
one florin the dyeing of a thousand pieces will cost only a thousand florins, especially where
chemical secrets are concerned, since they cannot be used without being confided to a large
number of persons, which means that a thousand accidents, a betrayal or leakage of the secrets,
negligence or just slackness can raise the cost of production, to an extent that must be allowed
for and subtracted from the expected profit . . .
I am not convinced, but I would like to be, and that drives me to express disquiet over your
choice of a frontier town for the establishment of such a precious factory, where it must
necessarily attract the attention and revive the jealousy of our Neighbours. Monsieur de
Surmont would not be too safe there, physically. I am really surprised that you, Monsieur, who
from your eye-witness expect more than I as yet dare, should not fear to risk the whole thing by
siting it at Tournai.

Kaunitz Rierberg

This is perfectly sensible. The reason why the cost of producing a single article, as
demonstrated by the inventor, cannot simply be multiplied by the number of articles it is intended to
produce for the market is that the inventor is paying himself nothing for his labour, and nothing for
premises. As soon as labour has to be engaged and a factory built, these are costs to be deducted
from the profit hoped, not to mention the loss through the industrial espionage of which the
Chancellor thinks. But these considerations sound so modern, it is as though we had leaped into
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today. In the accustomed system of that day, the workpeople had given out to them, by the
merchants who had bought the raw materials, pieces which they could make up in their own homes.
That was feasible while the machinery required was so simple that each craftsman or artisan could
have his own, inside his own house. The working households had the traditional tools for the
traditional jobs. Saint-Germain's work could not be given out in that way, because it was
innovatory. The processes being new, and secret, nobody would have at home the things required.
When he had bought Ubbergen, he had thought of workpeople coming into his premises, to process
the materials he would give out to them, in ways in which he would instruct them, using the
utilities, with which he had furnished the work rooms. He would be their employer, paying them for
their labour. This would have been the Industrial Revolution taking place. If Cobenzl and Madame
Nettine had the idea of taking over from him, when they persuaded him to establish his works not at
Ubbergen but at Tournai, were they proposing to take over the payment of the workpeople as well?
Cobenzl has not thought this through, but Kaunitz begins to see this new kind of cost looming up.
Moreover, he is right about the danger to Saint-Germain of inducing him to go to Tournai.
Choiseul could have mounted a raid across the frontier to kidnap him.
It is interesting that, with Marie-Antionette still to marry, and the arrangements, if it was to be
into the French royal family, necessarily to be negotiated between Kaunitz and Choiseul, Kaunitz
was keeping secret from Choiseul that they now had Saint-Germain staying within the Imperial
domains and were exploring the practicality of turning his secrets to the profit of the Imperial
Crown. It is not clear that Saint-Germain knew this. He probably thought he was dealing with
Cobenzl and Madame Nettine as private persons who wanted to invest their own money in his
factory. There is no indication he was informed their idea was to try to sell out to the Imperial
Crown.
Cobenzl replied on 19 May, 1763 (I translate from his French):7

... I have the honour to tell you I am taking no steps except in concert with Madame Nettine,
and that we go with a restraining hand on the bridle with regard to expenses; that I chose
Tournai because the costs there are less, and because I have there a man I can trust with the
manufacture, and because it is the town where I have least trouble with the abominable Guilds.
My man comes back from Tournai today and returns in two or three days with Monsieur de
Nettine, who will be the only person let into the secret of the processes, and this secret is such
that neither the workers nor those employed in management will ever divine it. Madame
Nettine learned nothing against our man during her visit to Paris, and is assured by her sons-in-
law that whatever is established here we shall have nothing to fear. As soon as Monsieur de
Nettine has learned the secret, a contract will be drawn up, which I will submit to Your
Excellency .. .

This suggests it was the funds entrusted to him by the Imperial Crown which he was already
investing. He fails to take Kaunitz' point about his putting Saint-Germain into physical danger at
Tournai. Costs are normally less when out of the capital, but a place outside Brussels could surely
have been found without going right up to the frontier with France. The excuses seem thin, even to
the point of brushing off the Chancellor's warning.
Cobenzl sent samples he had received from Saint-Germain, mentioning in his covering letter of
27 May, 1763,1 that all were made from the commonest forms of matter, hence their being so
inexpensive, and that the water in which the dyeing had been done could afterwards be used to
make paints, even ultramarine, for which cochineal had till now been needed. Next Sunday Saint-
Germain would return to Tournai with Nettine, 'and will give us all his secrets, which Nettine will
practise until he is sure of being able to imitate then, after which we shall draw up the contract with
him . . . '8

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 Cobenzl sent a further note on the following day, 28 May, saying he enclosed a memorandum
with instructions he had now received from Saint-Germain.9 (This, unfortunately, is not still
attached.)
Cobenzl had now sent three letters in a row without receiving a reply, and when one came it was
not from Kaunitz. Dated, Vienna, 8 June, 1763, it was signed le Chevalier de Dorn. Jakob von Dorn
was State Councillor and Referee for the Netherlands Commerce at the Court and State
Chancellery-He wrote that the Chancellor had a severe colic and therefore ordered him to say that (I
translate from his French):10

. . . the Chancellor hastens to warn Your Excellency that all preparations for the mass
production of these articles must cease, and no deal with Monsieur Surmont concluded until we
can give you express orders from Her Majesty.

Dyed wood wrote Dorn would not compete with the many beautiful woods from India, which
would always make marquetry preferred. The samples of fabric showed dyes less brilliant than
those of England and France, which people would still prefer despite their higher price. It would
hardly be worth while to manufacture only for the Low Countries, and even if it should be possible
to attract skills from abroad to be dyed at Tournai, cost of transport, commission and loss of time
would cancel out the benefit of a less expensive process. Nevertheless, something amongst the
many things Saint-Germain was offering might prove profitable, and Cobenzl should not break off
dealings with him or show any doubt, just hold his hand.
This clearly implies it is the Imperial funds which are being involved.
With regard to the wood, nobody would want to dye beautiful woods, such as used in
marquetry—walnut, rose, ebony, yew—but there are humbler woods, used for skirtings, window-
frames and doors, which it is usual to paint. Paint lasts only for so long, and dyeing, as a once and
for all operation, might interest those of modest means. Marquetry is for homes where expense is
not an object of concern. Dorn thinks in terms of wealth custom, but many to whom the expensive
dyed silks would be quite beyond their purchasing power would become customers for coloured
fabrics marketed in a more modest price range. Gaily coloured clothing used to distinguish the rich.
The poor could be recognized at once not only by the coarser quality of their clothing but by the
drabness of its colour. Saint-Germain's production of fabrics in a range of inexpensive but varied
and cheerful hues would have removed one mark of class distinction.
My own mother reported to me a remark made her by Colonel Vereker E. Ventris (the father of
Michael Ventris, the decipherer of the Minoan script, Linear B) that one of the things that struck
him most in England after the First World War was that it was no longer possible to distinguish the
social classes at a glance, by their dress; the working girl on her day off looking much like her
mistress. My mother attributed this to the invention of new fabrics, such as artificial silk, which
took pretty colours, just as did the real, at less cost, and perhaps also to the invention of new dyes,
less expensive than the old ones, which suddenly allowed every woman to dress in attractive
colours. This is the revolution Saint-Germain would have brought forward by more than a century.
When Dorn says that contact with Saint-Germain should not be broken off, as there might be
amongst the products he offered something of value, is that just a vague phrase or was there a
particular thing that claimed Kaunitz' interest?
Although one wonders if Kaunitz' colic had been diplomatic, he wrote, himself, to Cobenzl on
21 June, 1763, saying that with regard to the dyes he considered only the yellow to be outstanding.
The metal of gold-like appearance, it seemed to him could only be used to make candlesticks, fire-
iron handles and suchlike. Did they think to employ artisans to make it into objects, or sell it in
blocks and bars to artisans' workshops? He added (I translate from his French):11 'I will say nothing
of your oils.'
Is this just an afterthought, perhaps derisive, or had he an interest in that particular range of
products that was specific? Kaunitz ends by saying what troubles him, as being odd, is that a man
150
with such secrets had only to ask Cobenzl for the necessary octroi and then work for himself. Why
was he allowing Cobenzl and the Nettines to participate in the business? Was it that the initial
outlay was enormous and that despite his apparent wealth he would be glad for them to make it?
The point about the octroi (a permission, upon payment of a duty, for goods to be brought into
or through a town) is interesting, as it explains why Saint-Germain had called on Cobenzl in the
first place. He required an octroi to bring some goods through Brussels to Ubbergen. But then
Cobenzl, learning what it was for, persuaded him to let him and the Nettines into the business, and
to its being transferred from Ubbergen to Tournai, doubtless upon the pretext that with the addition
of their means it would be possible to do everything upon a larger scale.
Cobenzl's reply was both revealing and sinister. (I translate from his French):12

Brussels, 25 June, 1763

Monsieur,

I have the honour to make my very humble report to Your Excellency concerning what has
been concluded with my singular man, and for better order must first recapitulate in part what 1
have already told Your Excellency in my very humble previous reports. This man came here,
and did not see me except as someone wishing to pass through. Despite the singularity of the
mystery which shrouds his history and person, I found in him superior endowments with regard
to almost every art and science. He is a poet, musician, man of letters, doctor, physician,
chemist, mechanic, great connoisseur of paintings. In short, he has a universality such as I have
never encountered in any other man; and he speaks all languages almost equally well, but in
Italian, French or English for preference. He has lived in almost all parts of the world, and, as
he could not be other than very amusing, with all his experiences, I passed my moments of
leisure with him most agreably, and can reproach him only that he talks big concerning his
talents and his birth.
In the beginning, our conversations turned only upon matters of culture and amusement, but as
he began to talk to me of his secrets, to show me some of his products and to allow me to
witness some of his operations, I could hardly trust to my own eyes, and introduced him to
Madame Nettine, who was not less enchanted than myself by the talents of Monsieur Surmont.
He showed great friendship towards her, her family and myself. We saw that we could become
master of all his secrets, and applied ourselves to examining their solidity, and found, by our
own trials and the opinions of experts, that his metal could be good, that his dyes were
admirable, that his woods were even more successful than those used in France, that his skins
were articles of the greatest importance, and that his hats could become very commercial.
As we went further with him, we discovered that his talents were mixed with an extreme
obstinacy; while lending himself to our desires, he requires us to conform with his. There was
no way to gain the possession of his secrets save by consenting to found a factory. I chose
Tournai for the reasons which I have had the honour to detail to Your Excellency. That
required expenditure, and as 1 could not undertake it without Your Excellency's orders,
Madame Nettine threw herself into it with zeal, and wrote to the Referendary that she would be
willing to finance the whole foundation if Her Majesty should not wish to do so.
I have the honour to attach a note of what she has laid out already and of what further will be
needed.
During this time the Comte spoke to us of his means, and particularly of his precious effects in
Holland. We made enquiries and a merchant of Nijmegen who was in correspondence with him
assured us that his valuables must be worth not less than a million. As the Comte was without
money and wished to bring his valuables here, Madame Nettine made him the advances noted
in paragraph 2 of my attached note. We perceived that the merchant of Nijmegen must have
been in intelligence with him; the effects that were brought here were not of great value, and
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those that remained in Holland consisted only of paintings, which he esteemed highly but
which appeared to be of little worth. We perceived, moreover, that the Comte was pressed by
creditors in Holland, and as incapable of order and economy in his personal affairs as
marvellous in science.
We could, then, desire only to be finished with him, to get possession of his secrets as cheaply
as possible, avoid further expenditure and remove from the direction of the factory a man who,
by his lack of order, could have eaten up the profits in extravagancies.
To this end I charged the Vicomte de Nettine to go to Tournai, get him to give all his secrets
and learn how to carry out the processes, and the moment I was assured they were in our
possession, I would send Monsieur Walckiers and my nephew to Tournai to conclude the deal
with the Comte, which they did on the terms stated in paragraph 3 of the attached note.
We are now masters of the following secrets: we know how to permute iron into metal
[sic] and if this metal is good, it is one profit the more, if not, the cost is a nothing and we need
not make much of it, as it only takes a little to make the water needed to dye the skins, but this
dyeing is a process of the utmost importance, and the metal-water [L'Eau du metal] does not
only dye, it thins and refines the skins, strengthening them whilst conserving their softness and
suppleness. We have therefore established a tannery, of which the attached memorandum
speaks in paragraph 4, whilst 5 compares the prices of those now sold in this country with those
we are going to make.
We possess the secrets for the dyeing of wools, silks, yarn, goat-skins and cottons. The
importance lies in the difference between the prices of our dyes and those known until now, as
Your Excellency will see from paragraph 6 of the attached memorandum. The market is
assured since the biggest merchants are giving us their linens, camlets, silks and wools to dye.
This alone could bring a considerable profit to Her Majesty and an infinite good to these
Provinces.
As the remains of the colours left over serve for the dyeing of wood, we have one profit
the more, and no expense, which even if insignficant is pure profit, for Her Majesty.
The paints we know from French painters who have tried them will also be pure profit,
since they are made from the residue of the colours after use has been made of them in the
dyeing.
Finally, the manufacture of hats is of very considerable interest, as Your Excellency will
see from paragraph 7.
Your Excellency will see of what we have made the acquisition, what profit we can
promise ourselves and what expenditure we have already made. It remains only for me to have
the honour to inform Your Excellency of the outlay still to be made, detailed in paragraph 8.
It is now for the sovereign decision of Her Majesty whether she will abandon this factory
to Madame Nettine or take it over from her to her own account. I think the latter course would
be from all points of view preferable, and if that is adopted, a 4% interest on the advances she
has made for the factory will have to be made to Madame Nettine, together with reimbursement
of her capital, out of the profit, and it would be fitting to nominate her son Director General of
the manufactures, as very proper to that position by his zeal and intelligence, and as sole
possessor of the secret, making him subject only to the orders of its His Royal Highness Prince
Karl of Lorraine and to the superintendence of the Minister. The State Councillor and Director
of the Lottery Walckiers could be nominated Royal Commissioner for the factory, which as to
its direction can be joined to the Lottery; and seeing the profit that is to be made, Her Majesty
could either pay Nettine a fixed amount or a percentage of the profit; above all, I beg Your
Excellency to let me have the sovereign orders of Her Majesty. I have only to add that, as I
have acted in all this with the high approbation of His Royal Highness, he has read this letter
and I send it only on his orders. I have the honour to be ... .

Cobenzl
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 On the plane of science, we gain one new detail. The iron, in its goldenised form—perhaps
sulphide of iron—had, probably by plunging in water, to impart properties to the water, and it was
this water that was the active agent in the dyeing.
But from what came the solid residue from which paints could be made? Or was the residue not
solid? Was it perhaps merely that some of the water, after dyeing had been done in it, could be
mixed with some solid, so as to make paints?

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ILLUSTRATIONS

154
155
156
157
The Castle of Sàrospatak

158
159
160
161
Saint-Germain’s last homeEkernförde (OvertonFuller)

162
Inscription in Saint’s-Germain’s hand

163
164
 On the plane of business, Cobenzl's letter creates a disagreeable impression. It is admitted that
Saint-Germain came to see him only for some paper necessary for passing or bringing goods
through, and that he seized upon his friendliness as a thing to be exploited. Somehow or other, he
persuaded him to give up his own plans and to work through him, doubtless promising to launch his
products to greater advantage. Saint-Germain was induced to bring valuables as security for an
advance, and as soon as they arrived they were disparaged, as also those he had not yet brought. It is
inconceivable that any banker would advance money upon valuables not yet seen. The wretchedest
pawnbroker known to fiction is always represented as taking a close critical look at the pathetic
watches, rings, earrings or other treasure brought to him before offering some miserable sum on it.
The Nettine Bank would certainly have had whatever Saint-Germain brought in, gem-stones,
paintings or other valuables, examined by appropriate experts before advancing to him money on
their security, and one can be sure that it would not have been more than they were worth. It is
inconceivable that, as Cobenzl tries to hint, they made the advances blind, and were disappointed
when they saw the objects on which they had made them.
Then it is alleged, on the saying of an unnamed merchant of Nijmegen, that he was—which
even if true would have been irrelevant since they had the security—pressed by creditors, they
decided to remove him from the direction of his own enterprise, having got his secrets from him as
cheaply as possible. By what title could they do this? Note that they appear to have got the secrets
before presenting him with the agreement to be signed. Until he told them the secrets, all the power
was his. But from the moment the secrets passed from him to them, all the power was theirs. They
needed him no longer. The grape sucked, the skin could be thrown away. For form's sake they had
to present him with some sort of contract, but its terms may have been false to the spirit of what he
had understood from them verbally. It was unwise of Saint-Germain to have given them the secrets
before presentation of the contract, and he might have done well to let a lawyer scrutinise it—they
were five to one against him, Cobenzl and his nephew, Madame Nettine, her son and son-in-law—
but obviously he was not expecting to find himself the victim of what must have been one of the
oldest tricks in history. One even wonders whether Tournai, where he would be in danger of kidnap,
was not chosen by Cobenzl in the hope he would not unduly linger there. There is that suspicious
failure to take up Kaunitz' point, that in Tournai Saint-Germain would not be safe. Bad faith speaks
from every line of this letter.
But even if Saint-Germain was agreeable to hand over for some kind of royalty, the stipulation
that he should draw it only after the making of profit removes any kind of indebtedness. In the
relations between publisher and author, the publisher pays the whole cost of production, and pays
the author a royalty upon every copy sold, even if no profit but a loss is made. Saint-Germain was,
therefore, getting a worse deal than an author gets from his publisher. Since Madame Nettine had
his valuables, which would be forfeit if no profit was made, she actually was risking nothing. The
Nettine Bank, by offering merely a pawnbroker's service, had gained control.
Cobenzl wrote again on 2 July, 1763, to assure Kaunitz that, once the factory was established,
there would be no running costs, as these would be paid by Saint-Germain out of his half of the
takings. Also (I translate from his French):13

I have consulted experts and there is not one who has not found the dyes marvellous. Our
lace and silk-merchant Barbieri, our camlet merchant Francolet and our linen merchant DKint
beg me on their knees to press forward with these dyes, as most important to the state. The
woods are a side-dish; if the cabinet-makers like them, it is a profit the more; if not we can drop
them. A chemist I have consulted deems the metal good. It could be profitable in itself but if
not one would only make so much of it as is needed to make the water, which is marvellous for
dyeing leather black. By making one hundred pounds [livres] of the metal one has the
wherewithal to dye some millions of skins. I can affirm the water marvellous for I made an
experiment with it by myself, mixing it with ordinary water in a proportion of 1:60. In an
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 instant it dyed a piece of leather a most beautiful black. Left in the water for some hours, this
piece of very stout cowhide drew together and became reduced to the thinness of a doubled
sheet of paper, without losing its shape. I think not to mistake in saying this has great
importance. The hats could bring in something considerable and the worth of the oils is proven.

At last one gains the details needed in order to visualise Saint-Germain's secret process. He
took crude iron, did something to it that caused its hue to change from dark to golden, plunged it in
water (perhaps with additives), and after so long as was needed for it to impart properties to the
water, removed it and put in the materials to be dyed.
What could this golden permutation of iron have been? There is a thing called 'fool's gold'
which is iron pyrites (sulphide of iron). Yellowly-glinting specimens in both the layered and
crystalline form can be seen in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, with a model of
the molecular structure, one ball of iron to two of sulphur. Taking a very long shot, I wrote to the
Society of Dyers and Colourists at Bradford asking whether if iron pyrites were put in water, the
water would afterwards dye anything; also whether the pyrites could be made artificially. The reply
I received from Mr Ralph Broadhurst, Curator of their Museum, showed him not too much
surprised by what had seemed to me a very strange question. 'The fool's gold form of iron sulphide
crystalises in nature under rather special conditions, difficult to obtain artificially. It does occur in
thin film in coal measures and other deposits, but the massive form is very common ... Pyrite has
very low water solubility'. On the basis of the information I had furnished him, he suggested Saint-
Germain's description could have applied 'to the yellow-ochre colour of ferric hydroxide, which is
formed when iron is left in water in contact with oxygen (more rapidly if the water is ever so
slightly saline). On the other hand, it might refer to the golden yellow of ferric chloride. Ferric
chloride would impart colours to suitably prepared fibres, wood, leather etc. The description of the
hardening/thinning action on leathers suggests some quite powerful chemical agent at work. At
about the time in question, purely empirical workers had found how to make "prussian blue"
pigment, so it was not beyond possibility for someone to have found out how to make an alkali
ferrocyanide (pale yellow). Suppose some silk to have been treated with a dilute solution of this
substance and then kept away from air. If one immersed it in a "golden" solution obtained by
treating iron with... water... with spirits of salt. The silk would become blue. One could work out
other processes for yellow and brown'.
Is this, then, the answer so long sought? There does seem to lie here a very real possibility that
Saint-Germain was using one of these iron compounds, or some similar iron compound, as the
essential agent of his dyeing process.
How would he have obtained it? With regard to the pyrites, Mr Broadhurst seemed to think of
them as made by nature rather than by man. On diamondiferrous ground that has not been too much
gone over, it has sometimes been possible simply to pick up a diamond lying on the surface.
Perhaps in ferrous ground, that has not been too much tidied up, pyrites and other iron compounds
can simply be picked up. When Saint-Germain went to Archangel, could it have been to poke about
in the mineral-bearing regions off the White Sea for such creations of nature, and if he brought
some back, did he later learn how to make them himself, so as not to have to go so far for them?
Of the iron compounds listed by Mr Broadhurst, ferrocyanide sounded the most promising. But
how could Saint-Germain, without modern chemistry behind him, have made ferrocyanide? There
would not even have been a name for it in his day. What were natural sources of ferrocyanide?
Cyanide is oil of bitter almonds, and Saint-Germain worked with oils. Would simply mixing oil of
bitter almonds with iron filings or an iron salt be of any use?
Mr Broadhurst had mentioned Prussian Blue, and when there was an exhibition of the Queen's
Canalettos, it was said in the catalogue that it had been found the Italian artist used Prussian Blue. I
wrote to Buckingham Palace asking to be put in touch with the researcher, and received from the
Lord Chamberlain's office the suggestion I should write to the Director of the Hamilton Kerr
Institute, near Cambridge, where, while the Canalettos had been being cleaned for exhibition, a
166
sampling of the paint was carried out. This I did, and received a reply from Mr Norman S.
Bromelle, Director, saying, 'Prussian blue was of course much used by painters in the 18th century
following its preparation by Diesbach in the first decade of the century'. He sent me a photocopy of
a page in Gettens and Stout's Painting Materials (1942, reprinted 1966), which in its turn quoted
Experimentes, Observationibus, animadversionibus, CCC by Georg Ernst Stahl (1731). According
to Stahl, 'it came from an accident which resulted when Diesbach wished to prepare Florentine lake
by the precipitation of an extract of cochineal with alum and iron vitriol and a fixed alkali'. He
asked an alchemist, Johann Konrad Dippel, to let him 'have for the purpose some of the waste
potash over which he had distilled in process of purification some of the animal oil with which he
was working (Dieppel's oil—a distillation product of bones and other animal matter which consists
chiefly of pyridine and pyridine bases). With this alkali Diesbach got, in place of the expected red
pigment, a blue one. He told Dippel, who realised that the formation of the blue colour was the
result of the action of the spent alkali upon the iron vitriol. Dippel had prepared his animal oil from
blood. (The calcination of the blood with alkali had formed potassium ferrocyanide, which was the
reagent that had reacted with iron vitriol under oxidising conditions to form Berlin Blue.)' This was
kept secret until published by the Englishman, Woodward, in the Philosophical Transactions of
1724. 'It was soon demonstrated that the blue could be prepared from other animal remains
(nitrogenous substances) as well as from blood'.
I am not a chemist, and in any case, someone starting from scratch could hardly expect to
discover the process it had taken Saint-Germain so many years of his life to work out; one that must
have been subject to endless refinements, since he was still working upon it in 1763.1 do, however,
suggest that, in taking the above paragraph as a background to Mr Broadhurst's suggestions, one
may have before one the right lines along which to think. What Saint-Germain was offering was not
Prussian Blue paint, that had been discovered already, but a range of dyes that perhaps had a
common parent with it. Working with iron and oil, he was doing chemical dyeing before the age of
chemical dyeing.
The ingredients would, then, have been, as Cobenzl said, very ordinary, common or garden,
and hence inexpensive substances. We cannot know why the erection of the plant had to cost so
much.
With regard to the word 'camlet' in Cobenzl's letter, in the 15th century camlet was an eastern
cloth made with camel hair and silk, but by this time it was usually goat-hair and silk. In a letter to
the Duchesse de Choiseul from her friend Madame du Deffand there is mention of someone who
brought Angoras into Tuscany for the manufacturing of camlets. 14
If the Royal Finances would not take over, Madame Nettine would be happy to keep the
business for herself; but if Her Sacred Imperial and Apostolic Majesty were interested, Madame
Nettine would be willing to be bought out at an interest of 4% on her outlay.
This must have crossed with a letter from Kaunitz dated 5 July, 1763, 15 showing much
irritation, indeed fury, to have been caused by Cobenzl's of 25 June. Cobenzl had assured him he
was spending very little, but Kaunitz was shocked by the revelation 'a little late', that, without any
raw materials or equipment for the factory having as yet been purchased, 'Today this very little
amounts already to 190,000 florins'. (Bearing in mind that the florin stood at £0.09 then, and that
one must not only divide by 11 but multiply by at least 30 for inflation to the beginning of the
1980s, that is upwards of £518,181 in English money of today.) Further, Kaunitz asked, 'How could
Madame Nettine have advanced Saint-Germain 81,720 florins on his beautiful eyes?' I do not think
she did. I think it was after getting the expert to value the precious things, 'only paintings', that
Saint-Germain brought to the Nettine Bank, that she advanced him this sum on them, which is
upwards of £222,872. Moreover, I hazard a guess that this was where the Raphael came in.
I wrote to Sir Roy Strong, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, asking him what would
have been the value of a painting by Raphael, probably a Holy Family, in 1763. He referred me to
Professor John Shearman, Chairman of Princeton University, USA, a specialist in Raphael. I
addressed the question to him, asking whether 81,720 florins of that time, or practically a quarter of
167
a million English £s of today, would seem to him a suitable valuation. Professor Shearman replied,
'as a valuation of a Holy Family by Raphael ... I would guess that would be about right for the
period'.
Saint-Germain had no reason simply to make a present of it to the Banker or her friend,
Cobenzl. Kaunitz had not been told about the Raphael, and took at face value Cobenzl's implication
that security for the advance had been wanting. What Kaunitz has not seen is that Cobenzl is now
debasing Saint-Germain, as a prelude to ousting him from the direction of the enterprise and getting
the whole under Madame Nettine's and his own control.
On 21 July, 1763, Kaunitz wrote of the affair to Her Sacred Imperial and Apostolic Majesty so
fully16 that one wonders if she would have read it all, for his exposition of the details and comments
thereon occupy forty-six sides of long, foolscap paper, with occasional marginal balloons. After
resuming the letters he had received from Cobenzl and the replies he had made thereto, the points
he made were chiefly as follows. Not all enterprises which are successful in private hands are
necessarily so when run by the State. For instance, 'last year', in West Flanders, a farmer had
applied for renewal of a subsidy for an enterprise that was so successful it might have been said the
Royal Finances had only to take over in order to make an assured profit. But what the farmer did
was to buy thin beasts, fatten them and sell at a higher price. It was judged that if he were doing this
for the State, it would never be with the same zeal to watch for an opportunity as when doing it for
himself. It was better left in his hands. Kaunitz felt, in the same way, that Saint-Germain's
enterprises were not suitable for a take-over. If successful, they must, as a State monopoly, put all
other dyers out of business and so ruin many of Her Sacred Imperial and Apostolic Majesty's
subjects, while their very success would cause other countries to raise against their export deterrent
tariffs, which could only be circumvented by having centres of manufacture founded in all the other
countries, which would eat up the profit estimated upon the assumption it would be possible to
manufacture in Tournai and sell abroad. Suppose that one manufactured to market only within the
Empire: Cobenzl informed him that to dye so much fabric at Antwerp cost 600 florins, at Tournai
only 100 florins. Now, if the products of Tournai had equal brilliance with those of Antwerp, one
would be making the 500 saved; but if the brilliance was less, as he found it, this would be noticed
by the customers, who would not be willing to pay the same price for them, and so sales would not
be made.
The sole thing he thought could make 'a great profit' was Saint-Germain's secret for the
refinement of coarse oils so as to replace finest oils of Provence. Nobody else had ever been able to
do this, and the weeds from which he obtained them were growing all over the Belgian Province.
This really was something that could suitably be taken over by the Royal Finances. But Cobenzl
had not actually got this secret from Saint-Germain yet, and unless there was some difficulty about
it, would not this secret have been bought from Saint-Germain by France, England or Holland at
whatever the price he demanded?
As a whole, he thought the enterprises not suitable for taking over by the Royal Finances, but
he suggested that as Madame Nettine had ventured so much in them she should be granted all
facilities and permissions consonant with the good of the Royal Finances and constitution of the
country.
Kaunitz had plainly thought the matter over with care, and some of his points are well made.
Yet it is startling to see that lower cost of production means to him only increased difference
between cost of production and selling price. That is the only place he sees increased profit. The
selling price remains in his mind fixed, and so apparently does the number of customers. No breeze
ruffles the surface of his mind with the whisper that lower cost of production means ability to offer
for sale at lower price, so bringing the product within the purchasing power of a new class of
customer, the augmentation in the number of customers being what brings the greater profit to the
manufacturer. This is the principle upon which, today, empires such as Marks & Spencer's are built.
Nobody expects the cheerful and attractive, inexpensive garments sold in their stores to be
indistinguishable from the expensive ones sold at Harrods to the few who can afford them. Saint-
168
Germain was offering the first mass-market, and one can see from these details the sort of
revolution he would have wrought in France, wherein, besides giving a paid employment to the
workpeople whom the ruin of the land-owners left to starve, he would have produced clothing and
other goods at a price ordinary people could afford, reducing class distinction and creating new
exports, hence new internal wealth; so perhaps avoiding the bloody Revolution which eventually
came.
Interesting also is Kaunitz' admission to Maria-Theresa that he did see 'great profit' in the oils.
This he had omitted to mention in his letters to Cobenzl. This is the typical buyer's tactic, to
disparage or avoid praising anything the seller has to offer. In case he decided to advise the Empress
the Royal Finances should take over, he did not wish to increase the price at which Cobenzl and
Madame Nettine would expect to be bought out.
Maria Theresa, on receiving Kaunitz' letter, wrote to Prince Charles of Lorraine, telling him she
had decided in accordance with her Chancellor's advice.
Cobenzl wrote again to Kaunitz on 22 July, 1763, mentioning that Mayor Hasselaar of
Amsterdam had spoken much good of Saint-Germain.17 Does this mean Hasselaar had come
forward in the endeavour to help him?
Next, Cobenzl wrote to Kaunitz rather oddly (I translate from his French):18

Brussels, 2 August, 1763

Monsieur,

... I expect to receive today news of the departure of Monsieur Surmont, and I flatter myself
that Madame de Nettine will recover the outlay she has made. There is certain value in the
secrets; this is recognised in the leathers and hats, and all our silk and linen merchants find the
dyes admirable. His Royal Highness will execute with exactitude the orders of Her Imperial
Majesty . . .

Cobenzl

This seems rather a cavalier manner of announcing Saint-Germain had gone. Had he been
expelled or told he was no longer needed, now that his secrets had been extracted from him? What
had happened to the precious security he had left in the Nettine Bank? Would he be able to get that
back, and how would he be able to make Madame de Nettine and Cobenzl honour the contract by
which he was to receive half the profits?
Kaunitz was plainly perplexed by the off-hand announcement of Saint-Germain's departure, the
over-brevity of which perhaps hid something, though what Kaunitz feared hidden was that the
secrets had not been extracted. He replied (I translate from his French):19

Vienna, 14 August, 1763

Monsieur,

I have received your letter ...

I do not understand what Your Excellency means by the passage in the despatch of 2 August, 'I
expect today news of the departure of Mr. de Surmont'. Did he go of his own volition or was he
hunted out? If the former, I imagine he will have taken with him both Madame Nettine's
advance and his beautiful secrets, which he will now be able to transmit to others. If the latter,
it is to be hoped that before he went you were able to extract from him his secret for the
refinement of oils…

Kaunitz-Rietburg
169
 It was always the oils Kaunitz had wanted. Notice how, now that there is the possibility of the
secrets having been lost or offered ejsewhere, have become 'beautiful'.
Cobenzl wrote back (I translate from his French):20

Brussels, 23 August, 1763

Monsieur,

. . . We did not chase Mr. de Zurmont out, but whilst it was in question whether Her Majesty
would take the whole thing over or leave it with Madame Nettine, the latter left her son in
Tournai to learn all his secrets, and as it was obvious he told him all he knew and therefore his
presence was no longer needed, when the sovereign decision of Her Majesty reached us I told
Mr. de Surmont Her Majesty was not interested in his secrets. Nettine told him at the same time
that his mother would keep them in order to reimburse herself and would make no further
outlay, upon which he decided on the spot to leave, saying he would reimburse the whole in a
few months, or if not, they could make use of his secrets, and if they needed any further details
he would send them from wherever he might be. He took the road to Liege,and I think has gone
to stay at Karlsruhe with the Markgraf von Baden-Durlach.
Madame Nettine still hopes to recover at least part of her advance; you should have seen the
man, to excuse our credulity…

Cobenzl

The tone here is ambivalent. While the last sentence might suggest they had some feeling for
Saint-Germain, which had carried them beyond the bounds of prudence, the paragraph above reads
dishonestly. What does 'them' mean in 'His mother would keep them'. The grammatical reference is
to the secrets, yet can hardly be to the sheets of paper on which her son had taken down the
formulae. One feels the allusion is to the security left in the Nettine Bank. If that was the Raphael,
would it not have been more natural to write 'it? But that would have prompted Kaunitz to ask what
'it' was. As he was not to know, the purposely vague 'them' is substituted. Cobenzl and the Nettines
may have told Saint-Germain the takings had not yet covered the outlay, in respect of which the
security was retained, and he would have no means of knowing whether this was true or not.
The last document in the affair is a further letter to Kaunitz from Cobenzl (I translate from his
French):21

Brussels, 2 October, 1763

Monsieur,

... I hear nothing from any quarter as to what has become of Monsieur de Saint-Germain. The
works at Tournai are beginning to pick up and to amount to something, and I have every reason
to believe Madame Nettine is going to recover her outlay, at the very least.
Cobenzl

If Saint-Germain had still believed them honest, he would have been writing to them asking for
a statement of the sales to date, for he would want to redeem his security and then receive his half
of the profits. But he must have known they would send nothing, since he did not write. His treasure
was lost to him.
How would the Raphael have passed from the Nettine Bank to Cobenzl? We do not know their
financial relations but Chacornac assumes she was his mistress, so it could have passed into the
170
home where the nephew, Philipp Cobenzl, saw it, and 'This is what he gave us' would sound nicer
than 'This is what we fleeced him of'.22

NOTES TO CHAPTER 21

1. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister, Fz.95.
2. The Industrial Revolution, Paul Mantoux (Cape, 1935), p.62.
3. Graf Philipp Cobenzl und seine Memorien, A.von Arneth (Vienna, 1885), pp.85-86.
4. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Weisungen an die Bevolmachtigten Minister.
5. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister. Fz.95.
6. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Weisungen an die Bevolmachtigten Minister.
7. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister, Fz.95.
8. Loc. ci'f.
9. Loc. cit.
10. Brussels, Archives Generates du Royaume, Archives de la Secretairerie de Guerre et d'Etat de
Bruxelles, No.MIg (or MI9).
11. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Weisungen an die Bevolmachtigten Minister
Fz.8.
12. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister, Fz.96.
13. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister.
14. Correspondence Complete de Mme. du Deffand (Paris, 1868), Vol.1, p.118 (June 12-14, 1767).
15. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Weisungen an die Bevolmachtigten Minister, Fz.9.
16. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Vortrage, Fz.8.
17. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister.
18. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister.
19. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Weisungen an die Bevolmachtigten Minister.
20. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Weisungcn an die Bevolmachtigten Minister.
20. Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Belgien, Berichte der Bevolmachtigten Minister.
21. Loc.cit.
22. No credit need be given to an account by Casanova of an encounter at Tournai between himself
and Saint-Germain, who, dressed as an Armenian with a beard down to his waist (Chacornac
has pointed out he must have been thinking of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who travelled thus on
one occasion), assured him he was about to go into the manufacture of hats and apparently
made real gold before his very eyes (which the real Saint-Germain never did). His biographer,
J.Rives-Childs, Casanova (Allen & Unwin, 1961), p.297, in his Chronology, confidently
assigns this episode to 1764, which is the year after Saint-Germain had left Tournai, but indeed
it could not have been while he was there. Casanova was from before the beginning of 1763 at
Geneva, moving in January to Turin, thence to Milan where he spent most of February, arriving
in early March at Genoa, and leaving towards the end of that month for Marseilles, where he
spent the latter three weeks of April and the first fortnight of May, where were played out the
penultimate stages of the wretched drama of his relations with Madame d'Urfe. He had for
seven years persuaded this unfortunate woman he was a magical adept and would arrange for
her reincarnation into the body of a son he would beget on her, which was necessary for her
spiritual evolution but involved great expenses for the operation, for which she had to give him
the money in advance. Past the age of natural childbearing (born 1705) she began to get restive.
He threatened Saint-Germain would transform himself into a female gnome and get her. As
when she had met Saint-Germain in Paris she had liked him, this must have seemed to her odd.
By mid-June, when they were both in Paris, she had seen clearly, at last, that she had been
deceived, and gave up seeing Casanova. He then moved to London, in July, where he stayed for
171
some time. It will be seen from this chronology that there is no interval of time during which he
could have had the purported meeting with Saint-Germain in Tournai, in the course of which he
is made to inform Saint-Germain of Madame d'Urfe's death, which however did not take place
until 12 November, 1775. Casanova had, however, an imaginative fixation upon Saint-
Germain. In 1760, from about the middle of April to at least the latter part of May (that is
during the time of Saint-Germain's latter adventures in Holland and passage to London),
Casanova lived in Berne under the name and style of the Comte de Saint-Germain, professing
all kind of wonders. People who did not know thought it was our Comte de Saint-Germain who
was there amongst them. See Rives-Childs, op.ci., pp.127-28.

172
 CHAPTER 22

RUSSIA AND ITALY

We are now entering another period of what have been called 'the lost years' in the life of Saint-
Germain, though it may be we shall be able to restore a considerable part of them.
If, as he had intended, he left Tournai via Liege for Karlsruhe, he cannot have stayed very long
with the Markgraf von Baden-Durlach, as the next report we have of him (it comes in a letter we
shall later cite whole) is that somebody in a coach, overtaking him on the road, gave him a lift into
Moscow, where he had a factory for making Indiennes or calicos with his own colours. Calico is a
kind of cotton cloth, usually of a plain or tabby weave, undyed and unbleached, therefore the
natural colour of raw cotton, printed or painted with designs in colours, or, most often, painted by
hand within a printed outline, as it is done in Calicut (whence the name) on the Malabar coast of
India. The episode of the 'lift' seems to relate to the winter of 1765. In 1765 also, Saint-Germain's
music was heard again in London on 6 December at Covent Garden; that is, his setting of 'O
wouldst thou know' was played and published in a pasticcio, A Summer's Tale, but with a different
lyric, beginning 'O fatal day' set to it. This will have been without his knowledge or permission.
Four settings by Thomas Arne were played in the same production.
From Russia he seems to have gone to Italy, and we shall find allusions to his having been in
Venice, Milan, Genoa, Pisa and Florence. Von Gleichen heard of his travelling through villages in
Piedmont, and Madame de Genlis heard that in 1767 he was living in Siena, but under a different
name. It is the changes of names that make his movements difficult to follow.
What might seem to the unwary to indicate his whereabouts at a particular moment is a
paragraph in a Florentine newspaper Notizie del Mondo ('News of the World') of 4 August, 1770.
Amongst news from foreign parts, this carried a report, back-dated a month (I translate from the
Italian):

Tunis, 4 July

The Signor Count Maximillian of Lamberg, Chamberlain to the Emperor, after having made a
tour of the Island of Corsica, to make some observations there, has been joined here June by the
Signor St Germain, noted in Europe for his vast political and philosophical knowledge.

The report is certainly false, yet may have been supplied to the newspaper by von Lamberg,
for, although he was later to deny Saint-Germain had been with him in Tunisia (he may have been
obliged to) went to extraordinary lengths to create the impression Saint-Germain had favoured him
with his friendship.
Count Maximillian von Lamberg, born 27 November, 1729, in Brunn (Moravia), had been
briefly Chamberlain to the Emperor, then, after an idle spell, in Paris, 1757-60, Councillor to the
Duke of Wurtemburg and finally Marshal of the Court to the Prince of Augsburg. His retirement
having been forced when he was only forty, he thereafter wandered. His book, Memorial d'un
Mondain (Cap Corse, 1775) reveals him as inhabiting a world of Arabian Nights fantasy. For
instance, in the following of the Corsican patriot, Pasquale Paoli, he assures us, was one man who,
by smelling a person's shoes could tell the earth over which he had walked and hence the country of
his origin, and another who procured mistresses for the seraglio for some Sultan, selecting them not
by their looks but by smelling the sweat upon their garments.
With this before us, we should view with scepticism anything that he writes about Saint-
Germain, (pp.80-86). Now, it may be that, as he says, in Paris Saint-Germain had frequented the
salon of Princess Anhalt-Zerbst (the mother of Catherine the Great). It may be that during the time

173
of von Lamberg's Italian wanderings (he visited Venice in 1773), Saint-Germain was in Venice,
living under the name of Belmar and bleaching linen, since this is the sort of thing he did, refining it
to the quality of Italian silk. It may even be that he had a hundred women working for him, since he
must have had some staff. But we begin to feel the von Lamberg imagination working when, to
increase mystery, he avers that letters arriving at the Post Office addressed simply to Venice, or in
envelopes that were totally blank, were yielded up to collection by the servant of the Comte de
Saint-Germain; we feel it in his assertion that he dictated to Saint-Germain a passage from Zaire
which he took down with both hands at once, making simultaneously identical copies—a frivolous
and pointless exercise, out of key with anything we know of Saint-Germain, but in line with von
Lamberg's obsession with the development of unusual senses and faculties; that Saint-Germain
tamed bees and charmed snakes with his music; that he claimed to be three hundred and fifty years
old, that he played his violin so that, were a screen interposed to hide the sole performer, one would
suppose oneself listening to a complete string quartet, and that he carried an autograph book in
which things had been written by persons long dead, such as Montaigne; we see it in his garbled
account of Saint-Germain's adventure at the Hague, wherein, having been 'arrested' by d'Affry
(which he never was), he tried to buy his escape by offering d'Affry a diamond, and, on d'Affry's
refusing it, smashed it with a hammer, though it had taken him ages to 'make' it. Saint-Germain
never claimed to be able to make diamonds.
The serious damage, however, was done by the mocking up of a 'letter' following this passage,
(pp.84-5) purporting to have been received by himself, at Venice, in 1773, from Saint-Germain, at
that moment in Mantua, but which one can feel comfortably certain was composed by von Lamberg
(I translate from the French):

I owe the secret of melting stones to my second voyage to India, in 1755, with Colonel Clive,
under Vice-Admiral Watson. My previous experiments had brought me but little knowledge,
those in Vienna, Paris and London were but essayes ... I had reasons for not being known to the
fleet, except as Comte de C. and I enjoyed the same privileges as the Admiral. The Nawab of
Baba [sic] did all he could to persuade me to say from what country I came . . .)

Von Lamberg's ignorance of the methods by which Saint-Germain worked is revealed in this
forgery. As we shall later learn, fire was not an agent Saint-Germain used. We find this unscientific
idea that Saint-Germain melted small diamonds to make big diamonds from them in Casanova's
memoirs also. Stones do not melt, and diamonds, being purely carbon, are highly combustible.
Their close relation is coal. Chacornac is probably right in supposing that when von Lamberg and
Casanova met and made friends in Augsberg in 1761, they wove the woof of much of this tissue of
nonsense together, stimulating each other to the invention of stories. 1 Von Lamberg was what the
French call mythomane, mythomaniac. So, probably, was Casanova. It is this notion of Saint-
Germain's melting precious stones that must have inspired a fancy paragraph with which Madame
de Genlis has thought to render her memoirs more remarkable, describing how Saint-Germain
painted pictures, in which people were shown wearing jewelry, which gleamed and reflected light
as though it were the real stones that had been applied with a brush. Though a connoisseur of
paintings, it is unlikely Saint-Germain himself painted, or we should have heard of it from other
pens, particularly that of Cobenzl when first listing to Kaunitz all his gifts. Madame de Genlis will
have created this passage not from her genuine memories of Saint-Germain but from reading Von
Lamberg's absurdities.
Though it is not unlikely Saint-Germain kept in touch with Lobkowitz, there is no proof he ever
visited Vienna, or that he ever went to India. He could not have sailed with Clive, under Rear-
Admiral Watson, from Madras to Calcutta, en route for his sensational victory at Plassey, in 1755,
because in 1755 he was in the Hague, occupied with Ligniere and the port-cleaning machine.
Chacornac has suggested the idea of involving our Germain with the Nawab of Bengal, with whom

174
Clive had to do, may have been suggested to von Lamberg's imagination by there having been in
Bengal, in 1775, under the Nawab, a French governor, Pierre-Renalt de Saint-Germain.2
There was, however, a military voyage, leading to a victory as great as that at Plassey, which
caused very much talk in Italy, as we shall see from the letters written by Sir Horace Mann from
Florence and Pisa at just the time von Lamberg was there, too, his ears open to the same news.
Surely this was 191 the military voyage, our Saint-Germain's connection with which von Lamberg
transposed to a different theatre.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 22

1. Mémoires inedites pour servir a I'histoire des XVIII et XIX siècles, Madame de Genlis (Paris,
1825) p.88
2. Le Comte de Saint-Germain, Paul Chacornac (Editions Traditionelles, 1947), p.l43n, and his
source, Au service de la Compagnie des Indes. Lettres inedites d'une famille du Poitu au XVIIle
siècle, les Renault de Saint-Germain, ed. G.Vallee (Paris, Larose, 1938).

175
 CHAPTER 23

THE PLAN IS GREAT'

In the correspondence of Horace Walpole with Sir Horace Mann, British Resident in Florence,
there are to be found certain references to the Russian fleet, and to the Orlovs, beginning:1

Florence, 4th November, 1769

My dear Sir,

. . . We are expecting the appearance of the Russian fleet in these seas, probably even at
Leghorn . .. This Court went to Pisa yesterday. I shall follow in a few days. There are many
strangers, two Counts Orlov, favourites of the present Empress, and ... a Prince Galitzen and
many other muscovites . . .

The two Counts Orlov were Alexis and Feodor. It was Prince Gregory Orlov who was
Catherine's lover, but it was Alexis Orlov who had chiefly organised the coup which placed her on
the throne, and he was in Italy waiting for the fleet of which he was going to take command.
The Russo-Turkish war was on. Not primarily a maritime people Russia, till now, had hardly
used her fleet outside of the almost tideless, almost freshwater Baltic, and it must have been for the
first time that many English people saw Russian warships when they came sailing up the Humber,
making for Hull, on their way to Turkey, the long way round. The enterprise was regarded with
astonishment by other nations, in view of its intrepidity and the little maritime experience of the
Russians. This seemed emphasised when, at Portsmouth, they left one of their ships behind, to be
altered. Walpole wrote to Mann on December 6 that so far seven of the Russian ships had put in at
English ports and were sailed onward. As France was traditionally the ally of Turkey, it was natural
to the British to assist Russia, though it was still a question how actively either France or England
would participate in the operations. France under Choiseul was much occupied with the endeavour
to subdue Corsica, where the patriot Paoli was holding out. The Mann/Walpole correspondence is
much occupied with this. Walpole thinks Russian success will be a big blow for Choiseul. Mann
wrote to Walpole:2

Pisa, December 18th, 1769

. . . Prince Dolgorouky came here two days ago, but conceals his name and appears as a
merchant... Count Orlov has appointed an English agent. Sixteen of them dine here today. I
should have mentioned above that the French are not to oppose the Russian fleet... The
appearance of a Muscovite fleet will be the most extraordinary phenomenon that has yet
happened, and if it succeeds, will be looked upon as the greatest undertaking that has yet been
attempted . . . They may beat down the Dardanells.

Orlov, who was to take over the military command, had asked Sir John Dick, the British
Resident at Leghorn, to do the provisioning for him, but for whatever the reason, they stayed, Mann
thought, too long. He wrote to Walpole:3

Pisa, February 2, 1770

Had it [the Russian fleet] got into the archipelago at the time that the first consternation
prevailed at Constantinople ... much might have been done; but they have had time to fit out all
176
 their maritime force, and will have the assistance of the French in making use of it. I think the
Russians have lost the favourable moment ... I told you, 1 believe, that we have here one of the
Orlovs, a very principal agent in the late Revolution in Petersburg.

The delay in setting out may have been occasioned by an intention to await the arrival of a
division that was being sent out from Britain under Admiral (John) Elphinstone (British Captain,
Russian Rear-Admiral), to follow or perhaps go with them. To the Russians, inexperienced sailors,
British expertise may have seemed worth waiting for. The departure, like the arrival, of the fleet
was not as a body but somewhat piecemeal. At any rate, most seem to have gone, some to be lost in
storms, when Mann wrote:4

Florence, March 24th, 1770

The Russian fleet has been exposed to many disasters... Indeed the voyage was too long, and
the common obstacles they might expect to meet with were too great for their inexperience, and
yet I believe it may annoy their enemies much. There are troops to debark and arms to
distribute to the inhabitants of Morea and Greece, who are of their religion. The plan is great,
and to be carried on in concert with their great army, commanded by Romansow. You will say
that it is a terrible roundabout way to meet. The novelty of the expedition excites the curiosity
of everybody to see how it will succeed. Elphinstone's division, which is to follow, is, I believe,
bound for the archipelago, and may add much to the consternation at Constantinople, where the
people begin to murmur against the French as the authors of this war... The Due de Choiseul
however, must be alarmed by the dilemma he has brought himself into either to lose the French
influence with the Turks by abandoning them, or to bring on a general war (in all probability)
by assisting them.

Morea is the Peleponessus; the Archipelago the Aegean. Peter Alexandrovich Rumiansov was
the commander of the land forces menacing Turkey from the Russian lands bordering hers to the
north. The plan is, therefore, for a vast pincer movement, Orlov and Rumiansov to meet and
squeeze the Turks between them. The ship carrying Orlov left Leghorn on 12 April. On Friday 13
April Elphinstone sailed from Spithead and joined Orlov's squadron on 5 June. In the Gulf of
Argolis, Orlov found his fleet, under Admiral Spiridov, waiting for him, and now took overall
command of this and of the British fleet brought out by Elphinstone. On 22 June they were still at
Argolis, waiting for a favourable wind, but by 29 June they had arrived in the island of Paros,
whence Orlov sent a letter bearing that date. This was to Sir John Dick, and mentioned that on the
following day they were sailing to the island of Scio, where they had been informed the Turkish
fleet was to be found.
There indeed, behind the island, between it and the town of Chesme, or Tshesme, on the
Turkish mainland of Asia Minor, they found it. Mann wrote to Walpole:5

Florence, August 21, 1770

... we have since heard that on the 5th of July a most bloody engagement ensued, which on the
6th ended by the total destruction of the Turkish fleet. This is the substance of an account that I
received the day before yesterday from Malta by way of Rome, at which island the deposition
was made by an English captain in the service of Russia who was in the action and had put in
there ... Admiral Spiridov made his disposition to begin the attack, his ship (the Evstaffi) took
the lead, and got so close to the Rassa's ship, that his people forced away the Turkish standard
and presented it all torn to their admiral, whilst others threw into the ship such a quantity of
grenades as combustible matter as to set it all in a blaze. But lo! This Samson-like feat brought

177
 ruin upon themselves too, for it is said that scuttle of the Turkish ship falling into the Russian
set it ablaze too, so that it soon blew up, and only Admiral Spiridov, Count Orlov and 24 others
could escape. The equipage was numerous, and it is said that they had 500,000 rubles on board.
In half an hour after, the Turkish ship shared the same fate. The next day the Russians renewed
the attack, and with their bombs and fire ships are said to have destroyed the whole fleet,
excepting one large ship of 70 guns and many small vessels which were abandoned by their
crews and fell into the hands of the conquerors. If all this be true, it is certainly the most bloody
and the most decisive sea engagement that has ever happened.

Orlov, actually, was not on the ship that was set ablaze. A following letter of Mann, of
September 8, incorporates a report made for him by the Captain of the Winchelsea, which states that
the Turkish fleet had awaited the encounter in a semi-circle with the harbour behind it, whilst the
nine attacking ships sailed up to them in three divisions of three each, the first commanded by
Spiridov (whose ship ended in the blaze), the second by Orlov and the third by Elphinstone.
I shall in the next chapter adduce testimony seeming to show, in a flashback, that Saint-
Germain must have sailed with the Russian fleet, close to Orlov and therefore probably on the same
ship as he, and so participated in the action at Chesme. Some whiff of this must have reached Von
Lamberg, in Florence as was Mann, giving him the idea to substitute Clive for Orlov (each name
ends in a v) and Vice-Admiral Watson for Rear-Admiral Elphinstone, changing the scene from the
Aegean to India, perhaps for glamour, so far was he from understanding the significance of Saint-
Germain's sailing with Orlov to Turkey.
'The plan is great', Horace Mann had written. It was even greater than Horace Mann dreamed.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 23

1 Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W.S. Lewis, Warren Hunting
Smith and George Lam, with the assistance of Edwinne M. Martz (Oxford University Press,
1967), vol. 23, pp. 148-149.
2 Op. cit, pp. 160-161.
3 Op. cit., pp. 184-185.
4 Op. cit., p. 202.
5 Op. cit, pp. 226-228.

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 CHAPTER 24

ANSBACH: GEMMINGEN-GUTTENBERG'S
TESTIMONY

We pick up the trail of Saint-Germain again definitely, in Ansbach, or Anspach, a small

Principality in Franconia, now part of Bavaria, just to the south-west of Nuremberg, in the year
1774. It is through the pen of a Freiherr Reinhard Gemmingen-Guttenberg, auf Bonfeld, born 1739,
Minister to the Markgraf Karl Alexander von Ansbach und Bayreuth, three years his senior. He
wrote late, and might never have written at all but that he had read the memoirs of von Gleichen,
published in 1811-12, probably from curiosity in as much as von Gleichen had been in the service
of the previous Markgraf of Bayreuth, which had in 1769 been united with Ansbach under his own
Markgraf. Von Gleichen could have known nothing whatever of Saint-Germain's period in Ansbach
at first hand, and it was the inexactitudes in his imagination which prompted Gemmingen-
Guttenberg to write out, for the record, what he, as a primary witness, could remember. What he has
set down gives the impression of being an honest account, according to the best of the writer's
memory and understanding, bearing in mind that he was, at points, a little out of his depth.
Allowance should be made for difficulty in the accurate relation of specialised matters in which the
writer is not specialised: (I translate from his German):1

This singular man, who in his time caused so much unmerited sensation, lived for several years
in the Principality of Ansbach, without anyone's having the slightest idea he was the mysterious
adventurer about whom people spread such extraordinary stories.
It was in the year 1774 that the late Markgraf von Brandenberg Karl Alexander learned that
there was staying in Schwabach a town in the Principality a foreigner, who gave himself out for
a Russian officer, lived very withdrawn and secluded, yet performed many benevolent works.
The war of that time between Russia and Turkey and the presence of the Russian fleet in the
Archipelago excited the conjecture that the Russian Government had sent a man of confidence
to Franajfua, to treat of affairs, without the interception to which correspondence would be
liable in its passage across Italy. The Prince, as wise as humane, gave orders that so long as he
behaved quietly and gave the police no occasion to act, he should be more closely watched.
Some time afterwards, the Reformed-Church minister of Schwabach, Herr Dejean, told us that
this foreigner, who since he had come to stay there had taken counsel with himself and the late
town-councillor Gmeiner, would like, if it could be arranged inconspicuously, to meet the
Markgraf, to thank him for his
197 liberal protection. This wish was granted, and the Markgraf saw him for the first time on a
winter's evening, in the apartment of the famous actress Clairon, then [retired and] living at
Ansbach.
The foreigner seemed to be a man between 60 and 70 years old, of medium stature, lean rather
than strong, his grey hair hidden under a wig, looking like an ordinary, elderly Italian. His
clothes were of the very simplest; his appearance presented nothing extraordinary.
After he had, in French, the accent of which betrayed an Italian, thanked the Markgraf for the
permission to stay in his lands undisturbed, he complimented him on his rule, spoke of his own
wide travels, and ended by saying he would, as an expression of his gratitude, confide to him
certain secrets, which would contribute to the happiness and well-being of the principality.
Naturally, such an announcement commanded attention, which was raised to the highest pitch
when he displayed a number of very beautiful stones, which could be diamonds, and which, if
he spoke truly, were of enormous worth.

179
The Markgraf invited him to come with him in the spring to Triesdorf, his summer residence,
and Count Tsarogy—the name under which he went—accepted this invitation subject to the
condition that he should be allowed to live there in his own way, without anybody's taking
notice of him.
At Triesdorf his room was on the ground-floor, where Mademoiselle Clairon also had her
apartment. The Markgraf and his wife lived in the Falconry. He had no servants, ate alone and
as simply as possible, in his own room, which he seldom left. His needs were reduced to the
very minimum. He had no social circle of his own, but spent the evenings with the Markgraf
and Mademoiselle Clairon, and any friends brought in by the Markgraf. He could not be
persuaded to come for his meals to the Princely table, and only met the Markgrafin a few times,
though she was anxious to get to know this singular man.
His conversation was always interesting and showed much knowledge of the world and of
people, but sometimes there dropped a mysterious word and he broke off or changed the
subject when one sought to know more about him. He liked to speak of his childhood and of his
mother, whom he never mentioned without emotion. To believe him, his upbringing must have
been that of a Prince.
He was outspoken, but never discourteous. To write, as does the Baron von Gleichen, that he
behaved as a spoiled favourite and treated the Markgraf as a schoolboy is neither true nor in
character. The Markgraf, however little he might stand upon his dignity within his own familiar
circle, was a Prince, and commanded the respect to which his birth, position and moral qualities
entitled him. He would never have allowed himself to be ordered about, far less governed, by a
stranger.
What this singular man did with the whole of each day would be hard to say. He had no books
with him, except for a dirty copy of Pastor Fido.2 He would seldom allow anybody to come
into his room, but when one did one usually found him with his head wrapped in a black cloth.
His preferred occupation was with the preparation of all kinds of dyes. The windows of his
room, which gave onto the garden, were so spattered with dyes one could not see through them.
Soon after he arrived at Triesdorf he suggested to the Markgraf that he allow it to be used for
manufactures. Amongst these figured the making of the most beautiful Moroccan, Spanish and
Russian type leathers out of leather of the poorest quality, preparation of beautiful Turkish yarn
etc.
The Markgraf had the author of this article take the formulae, and then the experiments were
undertaken, the greatest secrecy being observed at his request. The work was carried on in a
specially prepared laboratory, behind locked doors.
Even after the passage of so many years, the author still vividly remembers the atmosphere of
eager excitement in which the experiments were conducted, and how often and how heartily the
Markgraf and he laughed to see themselves and their trusted helpers transformed with tan and
dyes. The endeavour was to investigate everything, and to use it for good. Hope, however, sank
under closer testing. A beautiful Spanish leather had been produced with little pains and at
minimal cost. The author of this article, in the joy of his heart, left his own shoes, which were
perfectly good, to be worked upon, and within 24 hours they had burst into pieces. The Turkish
yarn and other articles held together no better. Tsarogy attributed the fault to the ingredients
used. He said he would put his hand on it, and weeks passed during which he went backwards
and forwards between Triesdorf and Schwabach. When at Schwabach he wrote frequently to
the Markgraf and the author, sending ever further samples of prepared leathers, dyed silks and
cloths, of which the author still has a box. The samples were mostly marked in Tsarogy's own
hand, as, with regard to the leather 'quite unknown kind of leather; can be cut up and the worth
noted'.

'Very cheap leather; by itself, without any work being done on it, will come in pieces; after
preparation will not further deteriorate'.
180
And of samples of dyed cloth: 'All these pieces can be beautified, refined and strengthened. I
think without limit. To be convinced of it, it is only necessary to compare the black with that
sent last Sunday. The difference can be seen. It is possible to go yet further'.
Of another sample, 'This priceless black was obtained without vitriol, gallapple or boiling. It
will not fade, and was produced from the finest Russian blue. The unparalleled yellow was
induced in crystal-clear, crystal-clean water'.
It was his hope that through all these trials he would discover something useful and hitherto
unknown.
One day Tsarogy showed the Markgraf a letter he had received from Count Alexis Orlov, who
was returning from Italy; it contained a pressing invitation to meet him at Nuremberg, through
which he would pass. He suggested to the Markgraf that he should take this opportunity to meet
the hero of Chesme. This suggestion was acted upon, and the author accompanied them to
Nuremberg, where Orlov had already arrived.
Orlov came with open arms towards Tsarogy, who was now for the first time wearing the
uniform of a Russian General, embraced him and called him caro padre, caro amico ('dear
father', 'dear friend'), and so on. He received the Markgraf with extraordinary civility and
thanked him for the protection he had given his friend. This was the occasion which gave rise
to the remark attributed by the Baron von Gleichen to Prince Gregory Orlov (whom the
Markgraf never
199 met) that, as must be supposed, Tsarogy had played a great role in the Revolution of 1762
in Russia.
We all sat down to table as guests of Count Orlov at noon. The conversation was extremely
interesting, and ran in part upon the campaign in the Archipelago but more upon useful
discoveries. Amongst other things, Orlov showed the Markgraf a piece of unignitable wood,
that when a light was put to it it neither caught fire nor went into cinders, but swelled up like a
sponge and then fell in a light ash.

After the table was cleared, Orlov took Tsarogy into a neighbouring room, where they
remained together for a considerable time. The author, who happened to be standing at the
window, beneath which Count Orlov's carriage was standing, noticed one of his servants
opened the door of the carriage and drew out from under the seat a red leather bag, which was
carried up to the room they were in.
We took our leave shortly after. In the carriage, on the way back, Tsarogy had in his pockets
Venetian sequins, which he took out and seemed idly to play with. That he had had no money
before, I would feel certain, having been accustomed to observe him closely.
He handed the Markgrafin, from Count Orlov, a beautiful silver medal, which had been struck
in commemoration of the victory at Chesme. After we had got back, he showed us for the first
time his brevet as a Russian General, stamped with the great seal, and confided to the Markgraf
that the name Tsarogy was assumed, or anagrammatical, and that he was really a Ràkòczy,
descended from Prince Ràkòczy of Transylvania, of the time of the Emperor Leopold, the last
scion.
All these things taken together added to our curiosity, which was, however, soon afterwards
damped in a not very happy manner.
In 1775, the Markgraf went to Italy, accompanied by the author. In Naples they were told that
the last of the Ràkòczys, who had stayed there awhile, was long dead and that the name was
extinct. At Leghorn we were told by the English Consul, Sir John Dick, that the unknown was
none other than the notorious Comte de Saint-Germain, and that it was in Italy he had met
Prince Gregory Orlov and his brother, having been eager to do so.
From another not less trustworthy source we learned that he had been born in San Germano, a
little town in Savoy, and that his father, named Rotondo, was a tax-collector, but of
181
considerable means, enabling him to give his son a good education, which however put him
against the tax-collecting service. Because of its unacceptability, he took for his own the name
of his father's town and made of it Saint-Germain. From that time on he toured the world as an
adventurer, living in Paris and London as Saint-Germain, in Venice as Conte di Bellamare, in
Pisa as Chevalier Schoening, in Milan as Chevalier Welldone, in Genoa as Soltikow, and must
be 75 years old.
Naturally, the Markgraf had to beard with these discoveries a man who had mystified him as to
his ancestry and shamefully covered other things. On their return in 1776, he laid upon the
author the burden of going to Schwabach and facing him with all that had been gathered. He
had to tell him of the Prince's displeasure at the abuse of his goodness and say the Markgraf
wanted back the letters which from time to time he had written him. If these letters were given
back, he might stay on in Schwabach, so long as it was peaceably, otherwise his papers would
be withdrawn and he would be put over the border.
The author, on his arrival in Schwabach, found the Comte de Saint-Germain in bed, confined
despite his potions and usual health by age and an attack of gout.
He listened to all the charges in a completely relaxed manner, and said that he had, at one time
or another, used all of the names recited, even down to Soltikow; but, he said, under all these
names he was known as a man of honour. If a calumniator had imputed to him incorrect
dealing, he would answer as soon as he knew of what he was accused, and by whom. He feared
nothing, as there was nothing that could be set to his discredit. He asserted with steadfast
assurance that he had told the Markgraf nothing untrue with regard to his name and had
disclosed to him his true family. The proof of his birth was in the hands of a person on whom
he was dependent, and this had drawn upon him the worst persecution of his life. This
persecution and attempt upon his person, although he had escaped, had hindered him and
prevented his putting his great knowledge to worthwhile use. It was because of it that he had
sought a withdrawn place where he could live unrecognised and unnoticed. The moment could
come when his work would reach the point to which he was trying to bring it if he was not
prevented from getting on with it.
Asked why he had not forewarned the Markgraf of the many names under which he had lived
in different towns and countries, he said he had not thought it necessary; he thought that as he
asked nothing from the Markgraf, hurt nobody and gave no trouble, he would be judged simply
by his conduct. He had not abused the Markgraf's confidence and had given him his true name.
In a short time his performance should leave no doubt as to his way of thinking, and then he
would be able to show proof of his ancestry. He was distressed by the unpleasant picture of him
which had been given to the Markgraf. He would, however, undertake to live quietly, and try to
regain the Markgraf's respect, or else leave his territory.
He explained further that it was in Venice he had first met Count Orlov. The brevet he had been
given, which he now showed again, had been made out to him in the name Chevalier Welldone
by the Count, at Pisa. In connection with this, he mentioned that in 1760 Louis XV had trusted
him to try in a homely and informal manner to negotiate a peace with England. His sufficient
acquaintance with the Marechal de Belle-Isle drew upon him the hate of the Due de Choiseul,
who wrote to England and asked Pitt to have him arrested. The King of Prussia had warned him
of this impending blow and advised him never to return to France.

These recollections fall into line with what von Gleichen wrote in his Memoirs, and also with
what King Frederick II wrote in his Oeuvres Posthumes (Posthumous Works), IV, p.73,
wherein the King referred to Saint-Germain as a man whose mystery had never been solved.
He gave back the letters from the Markgraf, with obvious regret, save for one, which he said he
had given to Count Orlov.
After this he remained for some time at Schwabach, then went to Dresden.

182
 After a few words in anticipation of the story we shall go on to tell in detail, he adds some
reflections:

That he was a great chemist I cannot testify. His preparations could be seen to fail, and his
researches were only into small things; from the working and preparation of leather to mordant
or corrosive things, spirit of vitriol, oil of vitriol and the like. This exemplifies the kind of thing
to detail which would be tedious. Neither did he, whilst at Schwabach, make any article. The
big stones by which von Gleichen was impressed, were very beautiful, and, amongst authentic
gemstones, might perhaps deceive the eye of an expert; but they were not precious stones. They
would not withstand a file, and had not the weight of genuine stones. Saint-Germain himself
presented them only as brilliants. The author still has one of these stones, and a piece of the
matter from which they were prepared. The similor which Saint-Germain thought an important
invention or fabrication, soon lost its lustre and went as dark as the worst quality brass. A
factory for this metal set up at L. soon failed.
Amongst proofs of his secret knowledge he showed a large pocket-knife, of which half was a
yielding lead and half unyielding, hard iron. He offered this as proof that iron could be made as
yielding and ductile as lead, without losing its own proper qualities. This discovery would
really have been useful, only he could not be persuaded to make the experiment in quantity.
His chemical knowledge was to all appearances empiric. The now deceased town-advocate
Gmeiner of Schwabach, a man of much knowledge, particularly in the technical field, asserted
that from his conversations with him he was sure that Saint-Germain had not the least
theoretical knowledge.
In particular, the Marquis [sic] gloried in his medical knowledge, through which he had
attained to an advanced age. His prescription consisted chiefly in a strict diet and in a tea,
which he called The de Russie [Russian Tea] or Acqua Benedetta [Blessed Water]. The
Markgraf obtained the recipe for this from the above-named English Consul in Leghorn. It had
been taken by the Russian fleet in the Archipelago, to protect the men from sunstroke.
What resources Saint-Germain had to sustain the needs of his existence is a riddle hard to
answer. The author conjectures that he possessed the art of removing flaws from diamonds,
which had lessened their worth. That is a simple surmise.
It would be ungrateful to call him a deceiver. To make such a charge evidence is needed, and
there is none. So long as he stayed with the Markgraf, he asked for nothing, received nothing of
the least worth and engaged in nothing unbecoming. Because of his very simple life-style, his
needs were almost none. If he had money, he shared it with the poor. He is not known to have
left any debts. The author learned that during the late part of his stay at Schwabach a Baron von
L. lamented being thousand Guilders poorer through a speculative investment in his works.
However, no accusation was made, and no tricks or deception was involved. It remains a
mystery how this adventurer was able to find the means to sustain himself in London and Paris,
in high society.
The Markgraf found a portrait of him in his younger days at Madame dUrfe's or
Rochefoucauld's, and brought a copy of it back, and it is still today at Triesdorf, in what used to
be Saint-Germain's room.
There is so much of interest to consider here that one hardly knows where to start on it. The
author strikes one as an honest man, trying to set things down exactly. He is a little out of his
depth, and makes one or two evident errors in his recapitulation of what Saint-Germain told
him, for instance regarding his trouble at the Hague. It was to d'Affry, not to Pitt that Choiseul
wrote in the endeavour to procure his arrest, and it was Bentinck who organised his escape,
though it was King Frederick's Minister, Knyphausen, who afterwards extracted him from
confinement in London. But let the reader try to recapitulate a story told him forty-six years
before; without notes to support his memory, he will probably make a few slips. The testimony

183
 is remarkable for its freedom from bias, and gives us data of immense value, even if we must
sift it with care.
It is in this testimony that we meet, for the first time, with the identification of Saint-Germain
with a Ràkòczy, moreover as a quotation from himself, which we have no reason to doubt. But,
to tread carefully, of course what was told to the Markgraf and Gemmingen-Guttenberg in
Naples was true. Saint-Germain could not have been either Joseph or George Ràkòczy,
deceased respectively in 1738 and 1756. The Markgraf and Gemmingen-Guttenberg might,
however, have taken into consideration that there could be more ways than one of being a
Ràkòczy.
When Saint-Germain refers to the worst persecution of his life, he must mean that by Choiseul,
by which he had been obliged to forsake the name of Saint-Germain. But when Gemmingen-
Guttenberg cites him as saying, 'the proof of his birth was in the hands of a person on whom he
was dependent, and this had drawn upon him the worst persecution of his life', we need to ask
whether he has got this quite right. It is hard to see how the proof of Saint-Germain's birth
could have got into the hands of Choiseul, or—if one imagines Choiseul, because of his
Austrian sympathies, to have been put up to it by the Emperor, Empress or Kaunitz—how it
could have got into their hands. Certainly Saint-Germain was not a dependant of any of these
people. Gemmingen-Guttenberg knew Saint-Germain as a pauper. Obviously the adventure in
Brussels and Tournai—not among those which had come to the ears of Gemmingen-Guttenberg
and the Markgraf—had stripped him of his wealth. It had always been a wealth in valuables,
and the valuables had been deposited in the Nettine Bank, which had retained them after he had
been ousted from the business at Tournai. The combination of Cobenzl, the Nettine family and
Kaunitz had been too much for him. He had been defrauded of all he possessed. This he had not
related to Gemmingen-Guttenberg. Gemmingen-Guttenberg, not properly understanding the
story, seeing him a man without means and hearing the word 'dependence' mixed it with the
story about his birth and imagined its circumstances to have made him someone's financial
dependant. Perhaps, however, there was a sense in which Saint-Germain was dependent on
someone in a matter Gemmingen-Guttenberg never divined.

To approach that, we must go back to those passages in his testimony which refer to the Orlovs
and the Russian fleet.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 24

1 Curiositaten der physisch-litterarisch-artistisch- historischen Vor- und Umwelt, Hrag. Vulpius,

C.A. (Weimar, 1811-1923) vol. VIII, pp. 279-94, 'Ausschlusse uber den Wundermann. Marquis
St. Germain, und sein Aufenthalt in Anspach; von einen Augenzeugen', Reinhard von
Gemmingen-Guttenberg.
2 Pastor Fido [Faithful Shepherd], Giovanni Battista Guarini, 1585; a pastoral play in verse.

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 CHAPTER 25

FLASH-BACK TO THE FLEET

We have seen Saint-Germain confirm to Gemmingen-Guttenberg that it was in Italy he first

met Alexis Orlov; not during his time in Russia. This surely invalidates von Gleichen's idea that
what Orlov greeted him at Nuremberg in remembrance of, was a part he had played in the
revolution which placed Catherine on the throne. Moreover, the coup organised by the Orlov
brothers was a one-night affair, and it would be difficult to think of any role in it which could have
been played by Saint-Germain which required his putting on the uniform of a Russian General.
There is a more important point. Uniforms are not issued, like medals, in commemoration of
services past, but to facilitate some performance to come. He tells us it was in Pisa he received his
brevet. That means, in the winter of 1769-70, when the Russian fleet put in at Leghorn on its way
out to Turkey (not on its return, as he prescribed a tea against sunstroke in Turkish waters). Here we
must observe a time-slip in Gemmingen-Guttenberg's narrative. Orlov had returned to St.
Petersburg by March, 1771. When Gemmingen-Guttenberg went with Saint-Germain and the
Markgrav Alexander to meet him in Nuremberg, it must have been upon his way out again,
overland, upon a very different mission. Catherine had heard that in Italy there were two Poles
presenting a girl as a bastard of the Empress Elizabeth. That could only mean they were preparing
her to be a pretender to Catherine's throne, and she sent Orlov to fetch the girl from Italy (which he
did by luring her aboard a ship at Leghorn, but that will have been after the dinner at Nuremberg).
But was there a service which Saint-Germain could have rendered Catherine, for which he
would have needed to be issued with the brevet and uniform of a Russian General, when he met
Orlov in Pisa to receive both, while the Russian fleet was in at Leghorn on its way out to Turkey?
Did he need to mingle with the Russian officers upon a basis that would give him authority? But a
rank in the Army, even the highest, would not give him authority over officers of the Navy. On
board a ship, even a General is only a passenger. Was he going to be carried by the fleet? Did he
sail with Orlov to the Archipelago as General Soltikow? 1 It had been intended that if they were
victorious in their first battle against the Turks (as at Chesme they were), they should follow up
advantage by passing through the Dardanelles to Constantinople and the Black Sea. Indeed,
Elphinstone would have pressed on, before the Turks had time to recover, but Orlov, less
experienced or less resolute than the British, dallied too long in the Aegean, and by the time they
tried to pass the Dardanelles French engineers had made it impossible. But had they reached the
Black Sea, and landed in those parts of Turkey's domains in Europe known as Wallachia and
Moldavia (parts of modern Rumania), then, perhaps joined by land forces pushing down from the
south of Russia, they could have marched straight through into Transylvania.
Moreover, this was seen in Vienna. At a meeting between the Emperor Joseph II, who had now
succeeded his father, and King Frederick II of Prussia, at Neustadt, 3-7 September, 1770, Kaunitz,
speaking for the Emperor, said that Austria could never allow the Russians to take Moldavia and
Wallachia, as from there they could threaten Hungary.
But could the Emperor's forces have prevented it? In the Aegean, the Russo-British force had
counted, rightly, upon the rising of the Greeks, to take advantage of the opportunity to free
themselves from the hated Turkish rule. Perhaps in Wallachia and Moldavia, likewise, they would
have found Europeans craving for liberation by Europeans from Turkish rule. But in Transylvania,
Saint-Germain could have declared his identity as a son of Francis Ràkòczy, and there and in
Hungary the whole population might have flocked to him, in his General's uniform, greeting his
Russian forces as liberators from the domination of Austria. He might have been received in
succession to his father as Prince of Transylvania, and even have been acclaimed in Hungary.

185
 This I believe was the plan. Catherine could not have invaded these lands without pretext. If,
however, she could explain she was restoring them to the house of Ràkòczy, then her position was
morally much stronger. Whilst reducing both Turkey and Austria, and gaining in that region a
friend who owed to her the restoration of his dynasty, she would be not a usurper but a liberator.
But for the plan to succeed, she would have to have the proof of Saint-Germain's parentage, which
she could show to foreign heads of state: the sovereigns, their ministers and their lawyers.
That would be why Saint-Germain told Gemmingen-Guttenberg he could not show it to him, as
it was in the hands of a person on whom he was dependent. He had probably given the papers to
Catherine whilst he was in Russia, against the day when such a concerted initiative might be
practicable. If he used the word 'dependent', it would have been in a sense of which Gemmingen-
Guttenberg, not knowing the plan, would never have dreamed: In the sense that one might say of an
ally or confederate. 'I don't want to march out of step with her. My timetable must depend on hers'.
He was dependent on her for provision of the fleet and forces, if occasion should seem to her
judgement good to have another try.
When he said that a day might yet come when he could reveal his true descent and name
openly, he would not have meant when the chemical experiments reached a certain point. Here,
Gemmingen-Guttenberg has surely run together two different things of which Saint-Germain spoke.
The day might yet come when, if he was not prevented from getting on with them, his chemical
experiments would result in products of the standard he was trying to obtain; and, if the political
situation evolved in a suitable manner, the Markgraf s and Gemmingen-Guttenberg's curiosity as to
his true name and descent might be satisfied by his eventual investiture as Prince Racoczy III of
Transylvania.
It may be noticed that while the name Tsarogy is, indeed, an anagram for Ràkòczy, in its
common German form, Ragotsy, the first four lette rs form the Russian word for Prince or
Sovereign, Tsar. (Though usually written in English 'Czar', the first letters are represented in the
Cyrillic alphabet by the twenty-fourth character, which is pronounced fs.) As a further, but
expendable point, rogy, if pronounced in the Hungarian way, with the y following g silent and
serving to indicate that the plosion of the g should be articulated so far forward on the palate as to
make it very near a d, then one has practically the Russian word rod, meaning race, family or
descent.
The bag of Venetian sequins Orlov brought for him would not have been payment,
inappropriate in respect of an adventure in which he was Catherine's partner. We shall gather later
that Saint-Germain was making experiments with coins, relative to their weight, and Orlov had
probably given him these as old ones he might find interesting to experiment upon. That would
explain his taking them from his pockets in the coach and, as it seemed to Gemmingen-Guttenberg,
idly playing with them, probably tossing them in his hands to feel their weight before treatment.
We should pause here to note an event which affected the balance of Europe, the fall of
Choiseul. The deep cause can only be guessed at. He had been getting on the wrong side of the
King for a personal reason. He and his wife had been friends of Madame de Pompadour, a woman
of intellect and refinement. Her death, from consumption, on 15 April, 1764 (aged only forty-two)
had grieved them, as indeed it had grieved the King. Her replacement, however, shocked them.
Madame du Barry was a woman from a lower social couch. The King had taken her over from a
previous lover and some said that that lover had found her in a 'bad house'. Choiseul felt it an
affront to his wife and sister and himself that they should be expected to meet her, and there were
incidents. The King warned him, 'She is pretty, she pleases me; that should suffice'. Incidents,
however, continued, increasing tension between the Minister and the Monarch. Maupeu, of the
devout party, showed the King a letter written by Choiseul to the anti-Jesuit parlement to give it
courage. The King, who was at that moment vexed by the parlement, might have noticed that the
letter was undated and therefore might have been written in circumstances having nothing to do
with his present annoyance, had he not wished to be rid of Choiseul.

186
 The year had seen trouble in the South Atlantic, where Britain and Spain both claimed the
Falkland Islands. The French had, at one time, a settlement there, and there remained (and remains
to this day) a Choiseul Sound. If Choiseul favoured the British claim, peace would continue; if the
Spanish, war with England was inevitable. Did Louis, with unaccustomed resolution, pre-empt the
question by ditching Choiseul? Or had he come to resent Choiseul's behaviour with regard to
Madame du Barry as an interference with his private life? On 24 December, 1770, he wrote
Choiseul a curt letter relieving him of all his offices and banishing him to his estate at Chanteloup.
He added that but for consideration of the Duchesse, he would have made it somewhere else. The
Duchesse had seen it coming, for shortly before she had written to Gleichen that if a blow fell she
could be happy at Chanteloup if her husband were not unhappy. Perhaps her philosophy bore them
up as, in the closing shadows of Christmas Eve, they walked to their waiting coach.
News oi their expulsion spread last. On 29 December, Horace Walpole wrote to Horace Mann:2

The Duke of Choiseul is fallen! . . . The Abishaig [Madame du Barry] has strangled an
Administration that had lasted fourteen years. I am sincerely grieved for the Duchesse de
Choiseul, the most perfect being I know of either sex. I cannot possibly feel for her husband.

The Abbe Barthelmy, who visited the Choiseuls in their exile, wrote to Madame du Deffand,
that the cuisine was excellent, only vegetables, cereals and dairy foods being served, 'so as to render
our characters gentle'.3 This was also remarked upon by the Due de Lauzan.
Vegetarianism in the 18th century was not merely unusual, but practically unheard of, which
was why Saint-Germain's diet caused so much astonishment. One can only think the Duchesse,
despite her husband's opposition to it, was still following the diet prescribed for her by Saint-
Germain. Choiseul had succeeded in having Saint-Germain put to flight and forced to change his
name, only to be worsted by him at his own table. The guests who wrote letters do not, however,
mention whether he, too, ate the vegetarian meals, or if meat was served to him, alone.
A curious point emerges from one of the letters written by the Duchesse, on 6 February, 1771,
to a Lady Chatham. She makes the philosophical observation that, so long as her husband was
Minister she feared the loss of his glory, but now has not that to fear, and adds (I translate from her
French):4

So long as the fire of war which he lit between Turkey and Russia, to distance it from our own
hearts, is not extinct and the peace we enjoy rests as his last work . . .

King Frederick had nursed a suspicion it was France that had deliberately excited the hostilities
between Russia and Turkey, and asked Voltaire, as a correspondent of the fallen Choiseul, to try to
find out and let him know if he was right. We, able to see this letter of the Duchesse, know that he
was. It is difficult to think from whence Choiseul expected the attack upon France that necessitated
diversion by setting Russia and Turkey against one another, but paradoxically, that, too, had nearly
ended in a victory for Saint-Germain, foiled only by the failure of Alexis Orlov to force the passage
of the Dardanelles.
What is generally thought of as Choiseul's last work is the marriage of Marie-Antoinette with
the Dauphin. Negotiated between Choiseul and Kaunitz, it had been solemnised in the Cathedral of
Notre Dame on 16 May, 1770, and the Minister's fall, within the year, left her without support in a
strange land. The King's daughters, the Mesdames de France, are usually blamed for having seized
upon the young newcomer and instructed her not to recognise the du Barry, thereby gaining for her
an immediate reputation for haughtiness, and putting her at odds with the King. Kaunitz had to
write from Vienna, advising her that incivility to any member of the King's circle was an offence
against it, and that any person must be considered a member of it who was favoured by the King.
There is a persistent legend that Saint-Germain, after the fall of Choiseul, re-visited France, and
that he had conversations with Marie-Antoinette. There is no reason why he should not have done,
187
though I find no evidence that he did. Although the match was not one he would have favoured for
the heir to the French throne, he would not, .even while seeking to wrest Ràkòczy's country from
the grasp of her Imperial parents, have been threatening to a girl, without responsibility for what her
family had done (Maria-Theresa's daughter, according to her lady-in-waiting, Madame Campan had
awe of, rather than love for, her mother and was in no sense her spiritual continuer); in any case
warnings of the coming Revolution would at this stage have been premature, for she was not Queen
until her husband succeeded as Louis XVI on the death of Louis XV, on 10 May, 1774, by which
time Saint-Germain was at Ansbach.
In the meantime, Saint-Germain would not have wished to be too long absent from the Russian
fleet, for Orlov had retired from the Turkish waters no further than to Leghorn. On 18 May, 1771,
Horace Mann wrote to Horace Walpole:5

The Russians are on the point of their return to the Archipelago, that is to say, Count Orlov,
their commander, and that part of the fleet that had been repaired at Leghorn, for the greatest
part of it wintered at Paros. In all appearance it will be a vigorous campaign. France grumbles
much, in seeing their merchant ships taken with provisions for the Turks, but cannot even give
them that small assistance, after having brought them into the scrape by setting them upon the
Russians.

Saint-Germain must surely by this time have rejoined Orlov and the fleet ready for a further try
at the Dardanelles and Transylvania. On 8 June, 1771, Horace Walpole replied to Horace Mann:6

I do not know whether the Russian fleet will pass the Dardanelles, but their army must not pass
the Danube. It is certain that Prince [Joseph Maria Carl] Lobkowitz was sent to Petersburg to
make this declaration in the names of the Empress Queen and Emperor, and there is such a
dearth of rubles in t'other Empress' [Tsarina's] treasury, that she must stoop to the prohibition.

Whether or not Walpole is right about Catherine's insufficient financial power, what is
interesting to see from this letter is that even in London it could be sensed that Vienna's alarm was
that the real object of the campaign could be Transylvania and Hungary. (The italics are Walpole's.)
The London Daily Advertiser carried in its issues of 18 May and 10 June, under reports from
the Hague, assertions that 'According to authentic letters ... all the vigorous measures which the
Court of Vienna is taking . . . have entirely for their object the preventing the further progress of the
Russians... on the other side of the Danube', followed in the latter issue by a statement in line with
Walpole's, that Catherine's plan was not that her troops should cross the Danube. But how should
the writer in the Hague know what was in Catherine's head?
What was happening in the Turkish waters? We have no reports from there. On 9 September,
1771, Walpole wrote to Mann:7

Pray what is become of Constantinople? Are the Russians to be taking it and taking it, as long
as the Greeks Troy town? This is the third summer that the Russians have been sauntering
towards the Turkish capital.

The italics are his. Was there in Orlov's character some lack of resolution that prevented his
pressing the attack home? Mann replied on 17 September, 1771:8

Some Russian frigates are arrived at Leghorn from their fleet at Paros, which was then on its
departure for a great expedition.

188
 According to a letter of Dick to Rochford of 23 August, Orlov had arrived in Paros on 9 July
and sailed a few days afterwards to join Admiral Spiridov. Walpole's next letter, of 26 September,
says.9

We do not believe your Russian naval victory; it is a tedious war, and dull enough to afford the
invention of another game of chess.

It must have been exasperating to Saint-Germain, if he was still on the flagship, waiting for
action.
Mann replied to Walpole from Florence on 15 September, 1771:10

You ask me what is become of Constantinople and [the] Russians, why the latter neglected the
opportunity of beating down the Dardanelles and the seraglio too by following up their blow at
Chesme, when there was not the least defence for either, but since that opportunity was lost, the
Turks with the assistance of French engineers here have had time to fortify every inch of
ground of the avenue to their capital, so that it would be madness to attempt it. The Russian
fleet, it is said, was lately battering down Negropont [the island of Euboea] but the fact is we
know nothing of what they are about with any certainty, and as to their army on the Danube,
some secret influence seems to have fixed its inactivity.'

So faded Saint-Germain's hopes.

We have so far filled in the lost years as now to have narrowed the gap to only three before, in
1774 (the year in which Louis XV was succeeded by Louis XVI) Gemmingen-Guttenberg tells us
the Markgraf and he became aware that a Russian officer called Tsarogy was living somewhere in
Schwabach, and the Markgraf invited him to Ansbach.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 25

1 I have tried to check this. I wrote first to the Royal Naval Museum at Greenwich, but they had
not the names of Russian officers and suggested I asked the Russians. 1 wrote to the Soviet
Embassy and they gave me the address of the Naval Museum at Leningrad, suggesting I write
to it direct. I did, asking if in 1770 Orlov's fleet carried a General Soltikov, Welldone or indeed
anybody who did not seem to be a regularly accounted for Russian Officer. I have not had a
reply.
2 Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W.S. Lewis, Warren Hunter
Smith and George Lam, with the assistance of Edwinne M. Martz (Oxford University Press,
1967), vol. 23.
3 Correspondence Complete de Madame du Deffand . . . ed. M. le Mis de Saint. Aulaire (Paris,
1866), vol. I, p. 267.
4 Ibid., vol. I, p. 337.
5 Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W.S. Lewis, Warren Hunter
Smith and George Lam, with the assistance of Edwinne M. Martz (Oxford University Press,
1967), vol. 23, pp. 306-308.
6 Ibid., p. 310.
7 Ibid., p. 323.
8 Ibid., p. 326.
9 Ibid., p. 330.
10 Ibid., p. 331.

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 CHAPTER 26

BACK TO THE EXPERIMENTS AT ANSBACH

We had to leave Gemmingen-Guttenberg's testimony without having exhausted it, because of

the window it opened into Saint-Germain's Russian commission. That was dramatic and led to
considerations on the plane of history, but there are in Gemmingen-Guttenberg's testimony, also,
quieter things for which we have to thank him. He has, indeed, given us the first homely picture we
have of Saint-Germain's life. As to why he declined invitations to join the family for meals at the
Princely table, this was probably because he was a vegetarian. The Princely table would have
featured meat importantly, and his hosts would have been embarrassed by his not partaking of the
main dishes, fearing he would not receive enough, and whilst they would doubtless have made him
up something special he would not have wished to put them to the trouble. At a meat eater's table,
also, a vegetarian is apt to be anxious in case, having meat in their kitchens, they unthinkingly give
him something with disguised meat, in the form of gravy or suet, or lard or dripping as a frying
agent. He would have felt more relaxed in preparing his own vegetables and cereals in his own
room. He may have had some little stove installed there on which he could cook for himself; and he
would have been spared having to change for dinner. His working or sitting with his head wrapped
in a black cloth, if it was not to keep the dye out of his hair, may have been because his head was
sensitive to cold.
Pastor Fido (Faithful Shepherd), the only book he was seen to possess was a long Italian poem
by Giovanni Batista Guarini, not one of Italy's greatest poets, and yet one finds him represented in
anthologies of Italian verse. If it was an original edition of Pastor Fido which Saint-Germain had, it
was published in 1585. Its content would appear to have no bearing on Saint-Germain's researches
or inner life, but is rather the sort of thing a man of letters might by some chance have picked up. It
is obvious he was not seeking to impress as a literary man. His erudition was of the taken-for-
granted type. His not apparently having any technical books is in line with his experiments being of
such originality that he had no cause to consult what others had written.
When Gemmingen-Guttenberg says the manufactures were not made in bulk, he may have in
mind the difference Kaunitz made between private experiment and commercial exploitation. One
should not really expect the research chemist to make enough specimens to send to the shops for
marketing. That is for people of a different kind to do. From the point of view of scientific history,
if a thing has been done once, the state of its being impossible to do has been ended. From the
moment the first man-bearing spacecraft landed on the moon, the state of man's being unable to go
to the moon was ended. The single article made by Saint-Germain, the knife, wholly ductable, as
lead, though one half of it was iron, was the ending of its being impossible to have a ductable iron.
Even the failures have interest. That Gemmingen-Guttenberg's shoes, though good before,
decayed after treatment with Saint-Germain's leather improver at least demonstrated its power over
leather. It is, moreover, interesting in that it suggests the improver may have worked after the
manner of homeopathic medicines, which tend to cause, in healthy persons, the ailments they cure.
Saint-Germain's remedy was for leathers that were decaying; applied to leather that was healthy, it
caused decay.
Was it a form of the metal-water, which, as Cobenzl had proved for himself, if leather was left
in it longer than was needed for dyeing black, contracted whilst thinning it?
This brings us to the dyes. Mr Broadhurst, in my letter to whom I mentioned Saint-Germain's
having referred to one of his dyes as having been made 'without gallapple, vitriol or boiling', said in
his reply, 'Vitriol means probably ferrous sulphate (now called iron (2) sulphate). Gallnuts with
'vitriol' give a black. Is the writer's claim that he made a black without using the normal reagents?'
Yes, it was specifically a black to which Saint-Germain attached this note. Moreover, we know

190
from CobenzPs letter that Saint-Germain dyed leather (and presumably the other things that he
dyed) black by immersion in the water (diluted with ordinary water) in which had been put iron in
its golden form; that must be, in one of its compounds that have a golden hue. His black was
produced without vitriol or gallnuts because it was produced with the metal water. It will be
recalled that Mr Broadhurst associated ferro-cyanide with blue—immersed in water with spirits of
salts this iron compound would give blue; that this was in fact the agent at work was confirmed in
Saint-Germain's statement that he obtained the black out of a blue (presumably the first stage).
What puzzled me for a long time was the description of the blue from which the black was
made as Russian Blue. Was Prussian Blue what was meant? Prussian Blue I have known all my life,
since my mother introduced me to it as a child, as one of those basic paints without which any
artist's paint-box would be strangely deficient. Dark, with a greenish tinge, it is very strong, and if
used, it tends to be dominant, most artists use it sparingly, and most often in combination with other
colours. It is useful for moonlight or marine scenes. In my painting of Saint-Germain's residence
(Plate 7) I have carried it throughout, mixed in varying proportions with the red of the roofs, to
make the shadows in and beneath them, the doors, the road and the shadows beneath the tree, with
yellow in the green of the tree and with white (and some others things) in the sky and the white
walls. Russian Blue being unknown to me, I wrote to Mr Norman Bromelle, Director of the
Hamilton Kerr Institute of the University of Cambridge, which did the cleaning and analysis of
samples of paint taken from the Queen's Canalettos, telling him Saint-Germain spoke of Russian
Blue and asking him whether this had ever been a name for what we call Prussian Blue, as the
evidence suggested he used ferrocyanide. Mr Bromelle replied:

I have never heard Russian blue as a synonym for Prussian blue. It has been called Berlin blue,
Paris blue, Antwerp blue, Chinese blue, iron blue, potash blue, Milori blue, bronze blue, steel
blue, French blue (some of these having slightly differing composition), the latest authority on
the terminology of pigments (Pigments Handbook, ed.T.C.Patten) calling the range Ferriferro-
cyanide Pigments (iron blue). I think the Count must have taken the name Russian blue
phonetically from a mishearing of Prussian blue.

I think so too; or, on further thought, that Gemmingen-Guttenberg did so. We do not have
Saint-Germain's own notes on his colours, only Gemmingen-Guttenberg's recollection of them,
written down so very many years later. Gemmingen-Guttenberg was not an artist, and was probably
under the influence not only of phonetics but of 'Russian tea', the Russian General's uniform and the
Russian fleet as connected with Saint-Germain.
Saint-Germain made his black, then, out of Prussian blue. The usual black was made from
logwood, an adjective dye, which gave different colours according to the mordant used. At that time
there were three kinds of dyes known, vat dyes and what were called in the dyers' jargon
substantive dyes and adjective dyes. Vat dyes were the ancient Tyrian purple, from the cuttlefish
(no longer used) and indigo, from the plant, grown mainly in India. Neither of these being soluble in
water, they required fermentation in vats of alkaline solution, and were bothersome. The few
substantive dyes were those that would unite with the fibres of a fabric so as to form with them an
insoluble pigment. The vast majority were the adjective dyes, which would not take upon a fabric
unless what was called a mordant was used. Ancient mordants were the bitter parts of trees or the
galls formed on their leaves. By this time there was also piric acid (an extract from the pear tree)
and 'vitriol'. As Mr Broadhurst pointed out the term 'mordant' derived from a mechanistic
conception that the mordant 'bit' out tiny holes or pores in the fabric, in which the colouring matter
could find foothold, and so stay. Whereas it is now understood they combined with the colourant,
and usually with the fibre as well.
But Saint-Germain's dyes were none of these kinds. Saint-Germain was using chemical dyes,
before the age of chemical dyeing.

191
 As iron appears to have been his principal agent, it was very likely while working with it in
connection with the dyes that he made the piece of ductile iron, featured in the knife; and if he had
only arrived at it in passing, that would explain why he did not stop to manufacture it in commercial
quantities.
The 'similor' was, of course, the iron compound, treated in some other way. As to why that in
which the Baron von L. invested went dark, it is obvious this was an accident. If it always went
dark, Saint-Germain would surely have discovered long ago that its gold-like appearance was not
infinitely durable. He may well have been right when he said that his occasional failures were
caused by impurities in the ingredients or agents used. To obtain these sterile must have been so
difficult as to be practically impossible. Even the cleanest looking water found naturally is not
usually pure H20, but will have things in it, needless and perhaps vexatious to the purpose. It was
just unfortunate this particular failure occurred in a thing for which somebody had been willing to
back him.
A distinction not apparently made by any of the people with whom Saint-Germain had dealings
is that between scientific discovery and achievement and commercial use. The pure scientist is
concerned only with arrival at knowledge. What to do with it is for others. That ferrocyanide, put
with spirits of salts and water induced in things plunged in the water colour changes, was a pure
scientific finding. But with Saint-Germain and with Francis Bacon before him, investigation into
the laws of nature was linked with the idea of getting greater value out of this treasure-house of
unexplored resources that was all around us. For Saint-Germain as for Bacon, understanding and
useful use of it went hand in glove, indissolubly. From this came relations with people who wanted
only to know whether they would be good to put money into. Here, he found his offerings criticised
upon a different plane.
The portrait of Saint-Germain to which Gemminen-Guttenberg refers will be that we
reproduce, which is indeed the only one known. It formed part of the collection left by Madame
d'Urfe when she died, on 12 November, 1775. There is no artist's name on it. Chacornac has
surmised it to be by Rotari, which is not unlikely since during his stay at St Petersburg Saint-
Germain shared rooms with that artist. A painting, unless bought from the artist, is the artist's
property. How then would it have come into the hands of Madame d'Urfe? She was interested in
Saint-Germain and if she heard a portrait had been made of him might have written asking if she
could buy it. Or, if it was done before he left France she might have prevailed upon him to sit for it,
though its being unsigned suggests the artist, when he did it, thought of it as being only to keep for
himself. In 1783 it was engraved by N.Thomas. The engraving, which is all we now know it by,
bears beneath it lines that have caused embarrassment:

LE COMTE DE SAINT-GERMAIN
CELEBRE ALCH1MISTE

Ainsi que Promethee il deroba le feu

Par qui le Monde existe, et par qui tout respire;
La Nature a sa voix obéit et se meurt:
S'il n'est pas dieu lui-meme un dieu puissant l'inspire.
I will do my best to translate these Alexandrines:

THE COMTE DE SAINT-GERMAIN

CELEBRATED ALCHEMIST

Like Prometheus he stole the fire

By which the world exists and through which all respire
Nature obeys his vote and is subdued:
If he is not god himself he's by a powerful god inspired.
192
 That he did have his moments of exaltation is testified by one of the variant endings to his
poem 'The Mystery', 'Je redeviens dieu meme et je m'en doutais bieri ('I re-became god and wholly
doubted myself) which seems to point to a moment of singular experience, but, while it might be
the last of the lines beneath the picture was coined out of it, Saint-Germain's mood was never one of
settled vanity and it is difficult to imagine him styling himself an alchemist. He was a chemist. That
does not mean he was not interested in the mysterious and spiritual side of things, but his mind was
not Mediaeval.
The lines need not be by him. They could have been added by the engraver, when making a
surround for the picture. Had they appeared beneath it when the Markgraf and Gemmingen-
Guttenberg saw it, the latter would surely have made some comment on them. What is unfortunate
is that they convey an instant impression of charlatanry. Gemmingen-Guttenberg's account of Saint-
Germain's experiments at Ansbach witnesses their genuineness. And here the failures help.
Charlatanry has no failures to exhibit.

193
 CHAPTER 27

LEIPZIG

Trace of Saint-Germain becomes again more definite from his entry into Saxony, where he
took lodgings in Leipzig, ancient University town, seat of the famous commercial fair and centre for
the preparation of skins and of the textile industry. Saint-Germain had taken a new name, Welldone,
but his identity was soon pierced. Count Philipp Karl von Alvensleben, Prussian Ambassador to
Saxony, wrote to King Frederick from the capital (I translate from his French):1

Dresden, 10 March, 1777

Sire,

. . . The famous Saint-Germain, who has often, in several countries, presented himself as the
Marquis de Belmar or Monsieur Castelane, is in Leipzig, having been living here since October
under the name of Welldone. What brings me to speak of this man to your Majesty is that it is
claimed in public that he has been honoured with several letters from you, Sire, and as this
might cause annoyance to Your Majesty, it is very possible you will deign to accord some
attention to this singular man . . .

Your very faithful, very obedient, very humble

servitor and servant,
von Alvensleben

Curiously, the reply from Frederick the Great contains no denial that he had, in fact, written
Saint-Germain letters. He wrote merely (I translate from his French):2

Potsdam, 15 March, 1777

To the Sieur von Alvensleben at Dresden,

... Try to penetrate what the said Saint-Germain whom you mention has come to Leipzig in
order to do, and let me know as quickly as possible. It should be easy for you to learn from the
tradespeople of that town.

Two days later he wrote to his sister, Princess Wilhelmina of Orange (who had married the
Prince Willem V to whose twelfth birthday party Bentinck had taken him so long ago) to the effect
that he feared a visit from Saint-Germain.
What was disquieting Frederick? Was it Saint-Germain's peace-initiative of 1760, of which he
had been kept so fully informed by his Ambassador von Hellen, or was it a certain aura of the occult
engendered by that letter from Voltaire and some of the sillier passages in von Lamberg and the
popular press? Saint-Germain is not known to have expressed a wish to leave Saxony for Prussia,
but it was King Frederick's own nephew, Prince Frederick Augustus of Brunswick 3, with whom
Frederick shared his home, who had been pressing him to do so.
Prince Frederick Augustus had not written directly to Saint-Germain but through a friend in
Leipzig who could easily make his acquaintance. Prince Frederick Augustus was, like most German
aristocrats of that period, a Freemason, Master of The Three Globes Lodge in Berlin and Prior of
the Strict Observance. English Freemasonry has never recognised this Order, a derivative of the
'Scottish Rite', regarded in Britain as a Continental chimera. It was, however, the established
194
German form of Freemasonry. We shall go into the question of its origins later. For the moment, it
is sufficient to understand that in Germany, in certain circles, it was important to know whether
somebody was a Mason or not. Prince Frederick Augustus had chosen as his emissary to Saint-
Germain a certain Count von Bosch. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer for Saxony, banker and
Mason. Von Bosch had been of mystical leanings, but unfortunately had fallen recent victim to a
confidence trick practised on him by a Brother Mason, which had considerably soured him. The
offender was one Johann Georg Schroepfer. He had been made a Mason somewhere else, and in
Leipzig had set up under the name and style Baron von Steinbach, posing as a Colonel and
professing as a magician or medium. Masons were invited by him to come and hear
communications from departed spirits. He had a mission, as he gave it out, to effect the fusion of
Freemasonry with the Society of Jesus, part of whose funds were in his charge. On one pretext or
another, Brother Masons found themselves inveigled into advancing money for a project in which
very high names were bandied about to give an illusion of stability. Von Bosch had invested and
lost between 4,000 and 5,000 thalers (between £15,000 and £18,750 of today) before uncovering of
the imposture led to Schroepfer's suicide. Von Bosch had been too naive, credulous where he
should have been critical, and was, by reaction, now quick to be critical and suspicious. He now
wrote back to Prince Frederick Augustus (I translate from his French):4

Leipzig, 15 March, 1777

Monseigneur,

On receipt of your Most Serene Highness' letter, I lost no time in sending on to Monsieur de
Saint-Germain the letter with which, Monseigneur, you entrusted me for him. As Your Most
Serene Highness wished me to do, I accompanied it with a most pressing invitation not to defer
setting out for Berlin. I had to speak to him, instead of writing, but we did not get on, as I felt it
prudent to be suspicious of him. Here is a brief account of our ephemeral relations.
After an enigmatic sojourn of about three months as Count Wethlone [sic] the person now
recognised as Saint-Germain took great pains to let it be understood that this name hid his
veritable identity as Prince Ràkòczy, in order to enter into relations with me. I confess that,
through mistrust, I was not so flattered as I should have been [illegible] of a person of this
distinction and profound knowledge, living only to enrich and render happy the human race.
This reserve on my part ran contrary to my ardent desire to extend and rectify my own
understanding. Our first interview passed in a eulogy of his talents, his chemical experiments,
the great role which he played in Russia and of his having gone with the fleet to the
Archipelago (which he could not have done), his concern for the happiness of mankind and of
the millions he had spent in good deeds. He spoke highly of my own knowledge, uprightness
and other qualities, which was astonishing as he did not know me. Indeed, 1 hardly knew
myself in this portrait. This was followed by the exhibition of silks in all possible colours,
ordinary leather transformed into Morocco or fine leather in different colours and coarse wool
changed into Spanish wool, and he spoke of his secret process for the improvement of precious
stones, and of other less important secrets. I left impressed by the readiness of his tongue, but
not convinced.
We met further times. Each meeting lasted seven hours. I had time to doubt further. I convinced
myself he was not an adept, I saw in him only a man of spirit, who had seen, read and
attempted much, and possessed some chemical secrets, without being a methodical chemist, a
man in short without a connected system. I recognised that he was nothing less than a
Theosophist, that he was far from seeing the infinite All reflected in the sum of the isolated
parts, and that he was far from forming a correct idea of the First Cause from the analysis of the
beings created.

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 It seems to me that a man who is here only to make others happy and distribute treasure cannot
and should not find himself without money. I grant that an adept may live in a modest and
unassuming manner, but not in pressing need; he should never speak of his insights, he is
simple, reserved and true.
The story ends as I had foreseen. He asked to borrow money whilst waiting for his [illegible],
and I did not feel it appropriate to lend to him. That ended our relations.
I surprised him in self contradictions and even lies. He made someone of whom he solicited
4,000 florins, which he owed in Schwabach or that neighbourhood from the time he spent there,
believe that he would repay the sum from the product of 4,000 Roubles in bills of exchange
which he had given me to negotiate; now he must have risked telling this lie at the time when
he was asking me for a loan to extricate him from an embarrassment. Can a sage lie? Actually,
he is said to be back in funds now, having found a more credulous man with whom he is
working.
I flatter myself that Your Most Serene Highness will pardon my prolixity but I thought I should
not hide my ideas concerning this singular man.

I have the honour to be, with most respectful devotion

Your Most Serene Highness'
very humble and very obedient
servitor and brother
von Bosch5

Saint-Germain has just given me this letter which I have the honour to present to Your Most
Serene Highness.
If Saint-Germain's letter was attached, it has not been preserved.

One may feel that von Bosch's letter was not so much prolix as impertinent in its comments
upon a person whom the Prince had invited to his home. But to take the most urgent of the charges
first, that concerning the bills of exchange, it is based upon hearsay and therefore possibly
inaccurate. We cannot interrogate the unnamed person as to whether Saint-Germain said to him that
he had presented or that he could present the bills of exchange to von Bosch. The speaker could
easily have mis-remembered what Saint-Germain said, and yet it makes a great difference, for if he
had said only that he could present the bills, there is no lie. A bill of exchange was an order from
one person, the drawer, to another person, the drawee, to pay him a certain sum at or after some
specified future date. Naturally, it had to be accepted by the drawee, who might write some
condition on it. Presentation of it to a bank was an order to the drawee to pay now, or suddenly,
debiting his account. Though Saint-Germain was carrying about bills of exchange, presumably
made out to him during his days in Russia, he may have felt compunction about presenting them if
he thought those from whom he had received them were not well off. While holding them as
securities, he might still, on reflection, have decided to ask for a banker's loan. Von Bosch was,
after all, a banker.
As to the debt in Schwabach, Gemmingen-Guttenberg, living there, never heard of Saint-
Germain's having any debts. He told us of the Baron von L., who lost his investment in the similor.
This may have been the sum Saint-Germain wished to pay back, though under no legal
compunction to do so, since, in legal terms, it was simply a business loss.
Biographically, by far the most important feature of the letter is that it confirms the hypothesis,
erected upon the basis of details in Gemmingen-Guttenberg's testimony, that Saint-Germain sailed
with the fleet to its action in the Aegean. Saint-Germain himself is found saying so. That Bosch did
not believe it is nothing to the point. He had not seen the Russian uniform or brevet with the
Tsarina's seal. Von Bosch did not see in this connection, the significance of the name Ràkòczy.

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 Here we come to another point. When von Bosch says that an adept, or spiritual man, does not
speak of his birth etc, he is confusing two things, personal discipline and mundane action.
Spiritualisation is, indeed, recognition of the dispensibility fo worldly things and vanity of titles, of
birth or attainment. Any kind of public action, however, demands the exhibition of everything one
has to offer. To achieve something on the mundane plane, one uses every asset one has, whilst still,
as a matter of one's private asceticism, recognising its emptiness. At Schwabach and Ansbach,
Saint-Germain had lived unpretentiously because it was not a time for action. If he had now decided
to let his Ràkòczy blood be known, discreetly, it may have been because he was now toying with
the possibility, opened by Prince Frederick Augustus' interest that Prussia, with stronger reason than
Russia, might be the power to help him liberate Transylvania, shifting the balance of power in
Europe as a whole towards freedom of thought.
As to the metaphysics, as English Masons are accustomed to see the Blazing Star reflected into
something below, so von Bosch had probably been taught in his Lodge of the Strict Observance to
see the infinite All reflected 'in the sum of its isolated parts'—symbols probably vary slightly from
one such Order to another—but that von Bosch evidently considered himself capable of forming 'a
correct idea of the First Cause from analysis of the beings created' suggests lack of a sense of
humour.
Saint-Germain had practical things to talk about and probably was just not interested in
engaging with von Bosch in a discussion of metaphysics.
Von Alvensleben had meanwhile been trying to make the investigation required by King
Frederick. On 24 March, 1777, he wrote to tell him that Saint-Germain was still living in Leipzig,
under the name of Welldone, but that the things said of him were so contradictory as to make them
not worth repeating. Before he came to Leipzig he had apparently spent a whole year in Nuremberg,
Schwabach and Ansbach. The purpose for which he was in Leipzig was still unknown. All the
speculations he had heard advanced sounded to him unlikely. What stood out was that 'Welldone'
was regarded as extremely spiritual and knowledgeable, able to appreciate the quality of the person
he was addressing and to express himself accordingly. It was regarded as certain that he was in
close relations with Count Alexis Orlov, who had given him a letter to his brother, Prince Gregory
Orlov (the Empress Catherine's lover), in which he besought him to receive him as a bosom friend,
assuring him that he was one of the most respectworthy men in the world. It was thought likely he
would go to Russia, to visit the Orlovs.
The Orlovs had, however, fallen from power by then. Gregory had been jilted by Catherine in
favour of Potemkin and had left Russia. The news seems not to have reached Alvensleben. If Alexis
was trying to put Gregory into touch with Saint-Germain it was probably because, in his flight into
obscurity, he had come to be staying somewhere near Saint-Germain, in Germany.
Prince Frederick Augustus now received a reply from another Masonic Brother Johann Rudolf
von Bischoffwerder, the Saxon Equerry to Prince Karl, Duke of Kurland, from whom he had sought
a second opinion, (I translate from his French):6

Elsterverda, 25 March, 1777

Monseigneur,
The marks of confidence which Your Most Serene Highness accords to me by his letter of the
18th inspires me with the keenest desire to be worthy of it, and only my sincere and perfect
attachment to His Person can make good my claim to my title to the honour He does me. I
avow myself too little enlightened to judge a man such as Monsieur de Saint-Germain, but I
will obey the order of Your Most Serene Highness and give, naively, my opinion of the letter of
Brother von Bosch and of that from the Comte de Welldone. Although one could say of the
former, Ecce vere Israelita, in quo dolus non est 'Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no
guile' [St. John,l,47], yet I think him from experience, very precipitate in bringing judgement to
bear upon respectable persons. The accusation of a lie demands incontestable proofs; moreover,
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 he cannot be unaware that deep knowledge is compatible with, and, by the Law, sometimes
inseparable from, poverty. A man can be the disposer of a great treasury, and yet, from a
fantasy, not dare to pay out a very modest sum, and Brother von Bosch should know, from the
witness of those who have known Monsieur de Saint-Germain for a long time, that he
sometimes has to borrow but never fails to pay back honourably. In short, it seems that Brother
von Bosch took fright at the Comte de Saint-Germain's proposition, and from that moment has
seen everything in a false light.
On the other hand, Count Welldone's letter is what one would expect from a man knowing the
II, and I do not see that Your Most Serene Highness runs the slightest risk in making his
acquaintance, especially as, I am persuaded,he desires nothing which is not conformable to the
morality and to the vocation which he expresses in his letter, and that before contracting
particular relations he awaits the epoque designed to him, which the good desire for the glory
of God.
It is with sincere and inviolable attachment that 1 have the honour to be, Monseigneur,

Your Most Serene Highness'

very humble and very faithful servitor,
Brother Bischoffwerder

The reference to 'a great treasury' glances surely at von Bosch's position as a Banker. Thellor
Tau is a Masonic symbol, standing for the key to spiritual knowledge. The reference to 'the epoque
designed to him' suggests someone had done a horoscope for the Prince. Bischoffwerder thinks the
Prince should ignore Bosch's letter but wait to receive Saint-Germain until the favourable period.
Frederick Augustus was, however, now to receive a letter dated 28 March, 1777 from a
Christian Emanuel Frolich, merchant of Gorlitz and friend of Bosch, saying Bosch and he had eaten
a meal with Saint-Germain and (I translate from his German):7 'This Sieur Welldone is not a Mason,
not a Magus, not even a Theosophist'. One notices the curiously shallow notion that not to be a
Mason or something of the sort is not to be a profound person.
On the same date 28 March,8 von Alvensleben wrote again to King Frederick, to tell him Saint-
Germain wished to lay some projects before the Municipal Council of Leipzig. He was not poor, yet
short of money. However, when Count Camillo Marcolini (Saxon Cabinet Minister) had spoken to
him of the recompense he would be able to claim from the State, should his secret processes prove
to be of value, he replied that people were much mistaken if they supposed he wanted anything for
them. If they were of service to humanity.that would be, to him, a sufficient reward.
This crossed with a letter from King Frederick of 29 March, 1777, instructing von Alvensleben
to be sure not to forget to inform him of anything further concerning Saint-Germain.9
Von Bosch wrote again on 2 April, 177710, to Prince Fredrick Augustus to say a Swiss
Lieutenant-Colonel Hotz had told him that whilst in Russia he had overtaken Saint-Germain,
walking wretchedly, having something wrong with his foot, and of his compassion had stopped his
carriage and given him a lift into Moscow, in the environs of which he had a factory. Bosch added
that yesterday he was in a house where a ring was shown round which Saint-Germain had given
somebody as a present. It was set with a big yellow stone, 'which flashed fire' and Saint-Germain
had described it as a yellow diamond, worth 1000 ecus (upwards of £54,540 today) but a jeweller,
amongst those present, said it would be worth only about 8 grotes (upwards of £2,490).
Saint-Germain's first visit to Russia had been in 1762. The Swiss, Johann Wolfgang Konrad
Hotz, served from 1758 in Wurtemberg, and only in 1765 spent a winter in Russia. There is,
therefore, no discrepancy between this account and his having moved in brilliant circles in St.
Petersburg, in '62. In '65, he had been ruined by the affair in Brussels and Tournai. That does not
mean he had walked all the way from there to Moscow. We shall find later that he was interested
not merely in precious stones but in non-precious pebbles, and I would think that he was living by
his new workshop, and had walked out along one of the roads to look at some wayside stones.
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 To mention its value when making a gift would, in the ordinary way, be vulgar, but we do not
know the circumstances. If it was given as a scientific curiosity, as being a stone on which Saint-
Germain had worked, to remove a flaw or otherwise improve the quality, the point of interest might
be that the value had been raised from so-much to so-much. Is Bosch insinuating a doubt whether it
was a diamond? If so, the admission it 'flashed fire' is curious, for there is no other clear stone that
does this. Topaz may be clear golden but does not flash and reflect, as does diamond. Neither does
paste. Moreover, there is a simple test that can be performed without removing the object from the
setting. That is to lick it. Stones are cold to the tongue. Composition is not. Bosch has a sneering
way of writing which implies something wrong, where nothing wrong emerges from the facts
presented. The object was in any case a gift, so the recipient was the gainer, whether of a large or
modest amount. There could be different valuations of a particular stone; or the jeweller may have
down-valued it because it was not to him it had been donated, or because the happy recipient was
inviting him to buy it.
Bischoffwerder wrote again on 5 April 1777,11 to say that all he had succeeded in finding
concerning Saint-Germain was that, despite the proof of his knowledge, he was not Prior
Clericorum, ('Clerical Prior'). That was the title of a grade in the Strict Observance, second to that
of the Grand Prior, held by Frederick Augustus.
Bosch wrote again to Frederick Augustus on 12 April, 1777, furnishing the detail that the
factory Saint-Germain had in Moscow was for making calicos, using his own dyes. He observed
that Count Sagramoso (Knight of Malta and Ambassador to Warsaw) spoke very highly of Saint-
Germain, whom he had known in Italy, and had accompanied Count Marcolini, when the latter
called on Saint-Germain to try to tempt him to settle in Dresden. So far, however, Saint-Germain
remained in Leipzig. (This was not because of the fair. Saint-Germain had earlier replied to a
question that although he would still be there during the fair he did not think to attend it.) Bosch had
'yesterday' had a conversation with a gemnologist, who assured him Saint-Germain did not make
artificial stones. Saint-Germain had shown the gemnologist a method for improving topaz.
Afterwards, the gemnologist had tried it, by himself, on some brown topaz that he had, and it
worked; they became white topaz. He had then tried it upon some dingy diamonds, but they
remained unimproved. The gemnologist also said that Saint-Germain showed him some stones from
a mine he had discovered in Russia, which he had the right to work, and suggested they could
become the basis for a branch of commerce. These were only some sort of crystal, quite hard, but
inferior to topaz.
There are two separate questions here. The method Saint-Germain had given the gemnologist
may have been simply the method for improving topaz, and not intended for diamonds. Without
knowing what it was, the thought occurs to me that diamond, both because of its hardness and
because of its chemical simplicity, might require a different method. Diamond is the hardest thing
on earth. Nothing cuts diamond. (The so-called 'cutting' is done by rubbing small diamonds against
the one it is desired to shape.) The chemical formula for diamond is the shortest and simplest there
is, consisting of a single letter, C, for it is nothing but carbon. For both of these reasons, it might be
difficult to get 'inside' in any way, impermeable and having no elements to be decomposed. Its
hardness and chemical unity may have made of diamond a special case, requiring a method the
secret of which Saint-Germain still reserved.
Bosch tells the story about the mine with a sneer that suggests misunderstanding. Saint-
Germain would not have been prospecting for diamonds in Russia. They came, at that time, mainly
from India. Russia had emeralds, but in the Urals and Siberia. What interested him near Moscow
will have been some place where one could pick up pieces of some attractive stone of a non-
precious kind, most likely some kind of quartz, such as rock crystal. In Cornwall, there can be seen
glinting from the granite flanking some of the roads 'Cornish diamonds'. They are not valuable, yet
some people bring them home to use decoratively. Saint-Germain's idea was probably that the
stones from this place, when he had improved them by his techniques, could be sold for jewelry of
modest price.
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 Duke Karl von Kurland (son of Augustus II of Poland) wrote on 21 April 13 to Prince Frederick
Augustus that Bischoffwerder was going to Leipzig in the hope of meeting Saint-Germain.
Just arrived in Leipzig was Count Ernst Heinrich Lehndorff, Chamberlain to the Queen of
Prussia, who on 2 May wrote in his diary (I translate from the German) 14 that after 'trailing around
the fair':

I visited the most remarkable man in Europe, the Comte de Saint-Germain, as he was known
for 50 years, though now he calls himself Welldone. Some people think he has lived from the
time of Christ. This he himself says is certainly not the case, though he admits to having lived a
long time and not thinking to die yet. He says anyone following his way of life should attain
considerable age, without illness. He follows a very strict diet, studies great frugality, drinks
only water, never wine, and takes only one light meal a day. His behaviour is of interest. He
preaches virtue, abstemiousness and good works, and sets an example in these respects. No one
can reproach him with the least impropriety in any dealing. He seems not so rich as he used to
be. In France, England and Venice, he spent 6,000 ducats without anybody's knowing where
the money came from. Here in Leipzig, people say he is short of money, without, however,
troubling people about it; probably he has a lot of diamonds.
His face gives an impression of extraordinary spirituality. His speech is spirited and holds ones
attention, but he does not like contradiction. He says he can tell from a person's face whether he
is capable of understanding him or not. In the latter case he does not see the person again.
I was fascinated and listened to him with delight. He showed me much friendship, and in 3
days I spent 24 hours in looking at and listening to him. He is very fascinating.
People invent myths about him, and what he does not say. Some think he is a Portuguese Jew,
others that he is two hundred years old and a dethroned Prince. Some accuse him of making
people believe he must be the third son of Prince Ràkòczy.
He speaks as a great physicist. Above all things, he is a doctor, and speaks of his precious
powder, which should be drunk as tea. I let him pour me out a cup. It tasted of aniseed, and
acted in much the same way. He discourses constantly of right balance between body and soul.
When this is observed, he says, the life-machine cannot get out of order.

Count Lehndorff goes on to say that ever since his youth he has always read anything about
Saint-Germain that he could find, and from his recapitulation it is obvious that his reading included
(alas) von Lamberg. Nevertheless, if his head had been filled with silly stories by his reading, what
he had come to know of him at first hand has interest. In his last two sentences we find, all too
briefly put, what we have sought for, for so long, the essence of Saint-Germain's teaching. This
seems very close to that of the Latin Mens sana in corpore sano ('Healthy mind in healthy body'). It
is, of course, the principle of what is called by the Hindus yoga. But there are many kinds of yoga.
Though in essence one, there is hatha yoga, working directly upon the body, through posture, and
mantra yoga, the affecting of mind by music. Perhaps one could add that there is also a yoga of
environment— reflection into the clothes, the house, and from the house, the clothes back to the
inhabitant, the wearer. There should be accord. If these things are right, they help us; if they are
wrong, they depress us. It is not a matter of the money spent. A garment may be inexpensive, yet
being clean, and the fabric and colour or colours right, it may be right in whole. Yet the dividing
line between a colour that is bright and gay and one that is harsh may be a fine one, as is that
between those that are soft and restful and those that are merely dull. Artists know that a grey that is
made from mixing black paint with white looks dead, but that a grey that is made from mixing the
three primary colours, red, blue and yellow, in equal parts, is alive (perhaps because it is the earthly
counterpart of that pure light which the spectrum splits into colours) and every other colour looks
perfect against it. Perhaps it depends also on how the colours are made, and what they are made
from. Here could lie the importance of a method of dyeing.

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 But balance of soul and body implies virtue, equity in relation with others, integrity, wholeness
of the being in action. The least feeling that we may be doing wrong troubles our mind and upsets
our body. Hence Saint-Germain's insistence upon right conduct as the basis for health.
As for the 'third son of Prince Ràkòczy', which or what third son? The problem is still too
vaguely posed. We shall come back to it later.
Frölich now wrote to Prince Frederick Augustus (I translate from his German):15

Görlitz, 7 May, 1777

Saint-Germain is still in Leipzig but all hope fades of his having the least Masonic knowledge.

Prince Frederick Augustus must, despite all the discouragement, have written again to Saint-
Germain, begging him to come, sending the letter again via the unwilling von Bosch or perhaps just
bidding von Bosch to press the invitation; for we now find Saint-Germain writing to Prince
Frederick Augustus (I translate from his French):16

Leipzig, 8 May, 1777

Monseigneur,

Your Highness permits and wishes me to open my heart; it is sore, it is sore, since M.le
conseilleur Du Bosc [von Bosch] in his letter conveying your orders to me, used terms that
could not please me, and which certainly do not in any way describe me. M.le Baron von
Wurmb as well as M.le Baron von Bischoff-werder will always be honourable witnesses as to
the rectitude and straightforwardness of my procedure, rendered necessary, Monseigneur, by
the respect and zealous attachment vowed to you, though delicacy would have prevented my
saying anything of this before. I shall hasten as much as possible to terminate the affairs, as
important as indispensable, which keep me here, so as to be able to have as soon as possible the
inexpressible pleasure of going to pay you court, incomparable Prince. When I have the honour
of being known to you, Monseigneur, then I promise myself from your justice and discernment
that which is due to me, which will be extremely dear, coming from you. I am in duty bound,
by my inclination, respectful and faithful attachment,

Monseigneur,
your very humble and obedient serviteur,
le C. de Welldone

Wurmb, mentioned by Saint-Germain, is a new name to us, but a few days later we have a
letter written to Prince Frederick Augustus from a Baron Friedrich Ludwig von Wurmb, Councillor
of State to the Saxon Court, another Freemason. (I translate from his French):17

Dresden, 19 May, 1777

Monseigneur,

... I spent my fortnight in Leipzig in getting to know the famous Saint-Germain, now living as
the Comte de Weldone, and have even been able to persuade him to come and stay here for a
little. Knowing he had rebuffed certain who wanted to see him as a wonder-worker, I
proceeded upon the contrary tack, and treated him as an ordinary man, whose knowledge of
chemistry and physics roused my curiosity.

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 I found in him a man between 60 and 70, young for his years, laughing to scorn those who
credit him with extraordinary age; but hoping to live for a long time yet, through his diet and
medicines. For all that, his appearance did not seem to me to promise a very much longer life.
One cannot deny that he has beautiful arts, and I shall work with him on the dyeing of certain
articles and in the preparation of wool and cloth, to see if it would be practical to engage in the
manufacture. What I do not like is that he speaks of tens of millions, though he is far from
having them at his disposal, and does not even give the appearance that he knows how to make
gold.
Having gained his confidence, I drew him into speaking of Masonry; without displaying much
zeal, or even particular attention, he avowed being of the 4th grade, though no longer able to
remember the signs. He did not seem to know anything of the system of the Strict Observance,
and I could, therefore, go no further with him. However, he evinced spontaneously a curiosity
concerning the Schroepfer affair, and after I had recounted to him what I could of it, he treated
me to a story of something that had happened to him in Paris, where a group of about 200
people, led by the imbecile Due de Bouillon and some women, followers of the Comte de
Gabalis' system, sought him out, supposing him to be the Superior in Chief. From all this, I
think it may be concluded that either he dissimulates or he is not one of ours. I think the latter
the more likely, all the more so as in religion and philosophy he is a pure materialist.

The letter concludes with the expression of agreement with the Prince's suggestions for the
filling of the offices of the 7th Province of the Strict Observance, detailing against each one the
proposed officer's name. From this it can be seen that Prieur Clerical, Prior Clericorum or Prior
Clerical—which is what Bischoffwerder had assured the Prince that Saint-Germain was not—meant
head of a Province of the Strict Observance.
The letter strikes one as an honest one. Nevertheless, the author of The Mystery was not what is
ordinarily meant by a materialist.
Le Comte de Gabalis was the title of a book, by the Abbe de Villars, published in Paris in 1670.
There has been doubt whether such a person really existed, but if he did, it has been suggested he
was an Italian, whose real name was Giuseppe Francesco Borri. The book is about communication
with angels.
Saint-Germain's throw-away reference to the Due de Bouillon may throw a light on a by-way
of Masonic history mystifying to A.E.Waite. Quoting C. A.Thory as 'the sole authority, all other
writers having copied from him', he says that many lodges in France were founded by the Grand
Orient of Bouillon, which had its headquarters in Bouillon, in a part of France that is now within
Belgium. 'The Duke of that name was its Grand Master under the title of Protector. It comprised
amongst its members many distinguished men'. He quotes Thory for the legend around its seal and
then says, 'This is absolutely all that is known of this lodge' 18 Saint-Germain seems to have added
something to our knowledge of it, or at least of its Grand Master, if the group concerned with
Comte de Gabalis studies was a collateral organisation headed by him, for it must surely be the
same Due de Bouillon of whom he speaks.
As to the near-aside, that Saint-Germain had been in the fourth grade but so long ago as to have
forgotten the signs, we shall come back to that later. For the moment, he seems to have
accompanied Wurmb from Leipzig to Dresden, taking presumably some rooms there for a while.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 27

1 Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, von Alvensleben, Depeschen, vol. II, F. 65. d, f. 37.
2 Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Replies to von Alvensleben, f. 36.

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3 Son of Frederick the Great's sister Princess Philippine Charlotte and of Karl I, reigning Duke of
Brunswick. Prince Frederick Augustus was nephew to Prince Louis of Brunswick and Prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick, see p. 118.
4 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 456, 1 Nov., ff. 482r-484r.
5 The signature is written DuBosc or Du Bosc and the name is so given in other Freemasonic
letters. All this correspondence, however, is in French, and I would think one has to do with a
Frenchified style, as seen in the signatures de Hellen and d'Alvensleben, styles used back to
von Hellen and von Alvensleben by King Frederick. Even Bosc, looking so un-German, is
probably a Frenchification, and I have ventured to add an h.
6 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf, 456, 1 Nov., f. 113r-113v.
7 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf., 456,1 Nov., ff. 462v-463r.
8 Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, von Alvensleben, Depeschen, vol. II, F.65.d., f. 45v.
9 Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Replies to von Alvensleben, f. 52r-52v.
10 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf, 456,1 Nov., ff. 477r-478v.
11 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf., 456, 1 Nov., f. 115r.
12 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf., 456, 1 Nov., ff. 473r-475r.
13 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf, 456, 1 Nov., f. 61r-61v.
14 Tagebiicher nach seinen Kammerherrzeit, Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich Lehndorff, ed. K.E.
Schmidt-Lotzen (Gotha, 1921), Vol. 1, p. 50.
15 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf., 456, 1 Nov., f. 465. f. 46.
16 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf, 456, 1 Nov., f. 486r-486v.
17 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 456, Cod. Guelf., 1 Nov., ff. 421r-423v.
18 The History of Freemasonry, A.E. Waite (1887), vol. Ill, p. 209, commenting upon Acta
Latomorum, C.A. Thory, vol. I, p. 113.

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 CHAPTER 28

DRESDEN

Von Alvensleben wrote to King Frederick on 25 June, 1777, at considerable length concerning
Saint-Germain, whom he described as probably approaching seventy, travelled in Europe, on the
coast of Africa and in Asia Minor. Alvensleben's letter is diffuse but contains notable details (I
translate from his French):1

He says he is Prince Ragotzi, and to furnish me with proof of particular confidence adds that he
had two brothers, who so lowered themselves as to submit to their unhappy fate, and that at a
certain moment he took the name and style Comte de Saint-Germain, meaning the holy one
among the brothers. He says that for eight years he has kept a Frenchman called Boissy in India
and China at his own expense, to send him the materials and information he needs. He scoffs at
doctors and drugs, yet dispenses a powder for which he claims marvels and therefore smells
like a walking apothecary's shop.

Whilst in Russia, he said, he had given secret processes to Catherine, a sovereign for whom he
had particular affection. Processes he was now listing could serve as a basis of commerce and
alliance between Saxony and Russia, needful to both, as was also an alliance between Prussia with
both Saxony and Russia. The three countries should co-operate, and the existing alliance between
Prussia and Russia be strengthened. He thought to go to Prussia to explain his ideas. He evinced
regard for the manner of ruling of King Frederick, the King of Sardinia, the Markgraf of Baden and
the Emperor. Has Alvensleben misunderstood something? The King of Sardinia, Victor Amadeus
III, had expressed himself willing to help expel the Austrians from Italy, should circumstances
favour, and, if Maria-Theresa had been larger-hearted than her predecessors, the aggressive
tendencies of her son, Joseph II, were such as to revive Saint-Germain's distrust of the extending
Habsburg sway over Europe. Could Alvensleben, not understanding Saint-Germain's view, have
made a muddle in the four names? It is more likely the fourth was the Markgraf of Anspach.
Alvensleben asked him questions by which he sought to trap him, such as, why, if he possessed
the elixir which had enabled him to live for unnaturally long, he had delayed until now to make
humanity happy with his secrets? The question was unfair, because Saint-Germain had not claimed
possession of such an elixir, and in any case, his experiments had been continuous, so that what he
offered now was probably more than he would have been able to offer earlier. Alvensleben
continues:

I said that if the secrets he claimed could bring me to believe what people said of his great age,
something he had just said, of the pleasure with which he had read Swift, made me doubt it,
unless indeed he knew ancient times down to the last particulars. He replied that he knew them
from the very circumstantial accounts of those who had lived in them.

The literary reference is to Jonathan Swift's novel, Gulliver's Travels. Amongst the strange
people visited by Gulliver were the Struldbrugs, a race endowed with immortality but none the
happier for it. It sounds as though Saint-Germain had retorted that if von Alvensleben supposed
longevity synonymous with felicity, he should read Swift.
Saint-Germain said his researches must have cost him millions and, laughing, he added it was
not yesterday for the first time he had worked that out. Nevertheless, he was offering them to King
Frederick gratis. Having at his disposal such vast riches, no financial recompense could mean
anything to him.
204
 Von Alvensleben asked him whether, as some thought, what he wanted was the post of
Controller General or Minister of Finance in King Frederick's Government? He laughed, and said
they needed in that job someone with a head like his, but he was himself a Prince, and therefore
could not accept service under another sovereign. (This last point is an important one to bear in
mind when considering the ultimate question of his identity.)
One sees the flow of von Alvensleben's reasoning. Since Saint-Germain said he did not want
money, he must want something else. That must be position. But he said he did not want that either.
He wanted nothing. That worried von Alvensleben, his worldly experience not having accustomed
him to people who gave anything free. At one moment he says Saint-Germain exclaimed, 'I hold the
whole of nature in my hands, and as God created the world, I can draw what I want out of nothing'.
This sounds a little exaggerated and unlike Saint-Germain. He may have spoken with vivacity
but he never claimed to create from nothing, only to improve nature's work.
Finally, there is a hint, interesting in view of the lost years, that he might have spent 10 or 15
years in retreat, in another country of this world, for instance Portugal, and so been obliged to rely
on the relations of others.
Does this mean that between the time we first heard of him in the Hague in 1735, and his
appearance in London, he had lived retired in some village in Portugal, not seeing newspapers, so
that when he came out of retreat he had to pick up, from other people, what had been happening
during these years, on the stage of world affairs?
In a postscript, Alvensleben added that Saint-Germain had just brought him a list of the
processes he offered King Frederick, together with a brief covering letter to him: (I translate from
Saint-Germain's French):2

Dresden, 25 June, 1777

Sir,

To speak of oneself otherwise than by deeds is unsuiting when one has the happiness to address
so great a King: Your Majesty will send me the orders with which it pleases him to honour me.

I am, Sire,
your very humble and very obedient servant,
Le C.de Welldone.

Saint-Germain's list reads:

New physical study relating to several articles of commerce, as important as new, comprised in
29 articles:

1 Process giving to skins of all sorts a solidity till now unknown, beauty, durability etc;
giving particularly to sheep-skin an appreciable value.
2 Improvement to wool, by which it becomes more solid, finer, better.
3 Process for the absolute bleaching of cotton, linen, hemp and tissues of the same infinitely
superior to that of Haarlem, Holland, a procedure which does not injure the stuffs and
requires little time.
4 Process for washing silk, whereby the Italian silk, superior to all other silks in the world,
becomes more brilliant and more resistant.
5 Process for the improvement of Angora goat-skin, whereby an excellent, brilliant ware can
be made, which does not tear, like the old, yet becomes almost as supple as silks.
6 Process for the complete bleaching and longer durability of cotton thread and cotton fabric.

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 7 Process for dyeing of skins and leather blue, green, black, true red, purple, true violet and
fine grey, of great beauty and quality.
8 Preparation of artists' paints in unchangeable colours, yellow, red, blue, green, purple,
violet etc, of perfect beauty and quality.
9 Preparation of a covering white of unsurpassable quality. This colour, which has been
sought in vain throughout time, remains always white, and allies with all good colours with
which it is mixed, embellishing and conserving them. In short this white is a veritable
marvel.
10 Preparation of leather with very pure colour, very beautiful, drawn from Russian blue
without any other admixture. This gives to leather an inimitable black of remarkable
beauty and great quality.
11 Preparation of hempen thread and cloth of an inimitible yellow, of purity, in several shades
and brilliant, which can be washed with soap and water and does not fade in air.
12 Preparation of stuffs and cloth in cotton and wool of an excellent yellow, washable and not
fading to air or in soap and water.
13 Preparation of cloth in fine grey, washable in soap and water and not fading in air.
14 Preparation of fine grey cotton stuff and cloth, washable in soap and water and not fading
in air.
15 Preparation of a cloth of linen and hemp in true purple, true violet, true red, these diverse
shades very washable and absolutely unfading.
16 Preparation of very durable, new silk tissues.
17 Preparation of cloth in quite new and beautiful colours, notably in grey, and shades which
do not lose their colour either in acids or in air, or in soap and water.
18 Preparation of tresses of silver, at at least a third less cost, and much whiter, more brilliant
and more durable than the best Lyon tresses.
19 Diverse processes for precious metals, that is to say without either gold or silver, of a much
greater utility and economy, which would certainty astonish any good chemist, and which
diminish the enormous cost of perishable luxury articles.
20 Preparation of a completely new metal, of surprising qualities.
21 Diverse processes for high price objects, which seem perfectly impossible, and are all the
source of great economy in the production of luxury goods.
22 Preparation of paper, pens, ivory, bone and wood, dyed in splendid and very fine colours.
23 Good chemical processes for diverse wines.
24 Preparation of Rossoli liqueur, kernels of fruits etc of superior quality and favourable
prices.
25 Preparation of other useful things, concerning which I keep silence.
26 Means for the prevention of maladies and disagreements of all sorts.
27 Real purgative methods which withdraw from the body only the unusable elements.
28 Veritable, sure and beneficent cosmetic methods.
29 Superfine olive oil manufactured in 12 hours in Germany.

For what concerns agronomy, I reserve that until later.

L.P.T.C. de Welldone

On another point, nothing can be said here, for diverse reasons. It is-reserved, etc.
The execution of this new industrial plan can serve the political economy in the highest degree
and lead to an indissoluble union between certain great nations.

de Welldone

206
 King Frederick replied to Alvensleben on 30 June, authorising him to tell Saint-Germain he
was free to come to Berlin, but at the same time warning him his claims would meet with
scepticism unless they could be practically demonstrated and that he might lose time he could better
use elsewhere. It is not clear that Frederick realised his nephew, with whom he shared his palace,
was pressingly inviting Saint-Germain. To his niece Wilhemina he wrote on the same date that he
was 'threatened' with the arrival of Saint-Germain, alchemical recipes, secret medicines and
formulae for the philosophers' stone. These items do not appear on Saint-Germain's own list.
King Frederick wrote also to his brother, Prince Heinrich, on 2 July, to tell him Saint-Germain
was coming, and again, on 9 July, to tell him Saint-Germain had not yet arrived. Looking over the
list of arts Saint-Germain had sent, he saw that of making gold was not included. Saint-Germain
offered the possibility of making it, apparently, only through land husbandry and trade. He did not
think they were going to attain through these things to the riches of Croaeus or Montezuma, yet
peace of mind were worth all the treasures of Peru. He sent his brother Saint-Germain's list.
Prince Heinrich was the most notable of King Frederick's brothers. Some people considered
him more able than Frederick. It was said by some that Frederick resented Heinrich's evident
qualities: but in this exchange of letters they sound friendly enough. Though the King's letter was
half-facetious, he perhaps wanted his brother's advice, and received it: Prince Heinrich replied 3 from
Rheinsberg on 15 July, 1777, saying that although Saint-Germain promised much he knew much.
He had pursued far-reaching studies and was widely valued. He might truly possess the secret of
improving materials. A trial of two or three of his products would not cost much and might bring
considerable profit.
Meanwhile, the Masonic correspondence continued. Bischoffwerder wrote again to Prince
Frederick Augustus4: (I translate from his French)

Elsterwerda, 19 July, 1777

Count Welldone is certainly not one of ours. If he possesses real secrets, I possess a greater. It
is against all laws of probability:

1 that the thing itself exists

2 that I should be chosen as the Depositary of so rich an Arcana
3 that I should have received it without the least condition

I will, however, suspend judgement for a term of 15 days, when no further doubt will rest in the
matter. It is only to Your Most Serene Highness that I make this confidence, and it is only to
you that I will say what I find it to be. Will it perhaps be a trial of a new species? It seems to
me shocking [literally 'scabrous'] that something so precious should be offered to me by a
profane, an Atheist.

When Bischoffwerder uses the word 'profane', it is in the literal sense of pro fanum, 'before the
altar', a term used in the ancient mystery religions to distinguish the congregation from the priests,
officiating from behind the altar. It means one not initiated into the secret mysteries of the god. For
Bishoffwerder, Saint-Germain, in as much as he gave no sign of having been initiated into
Freemasonry, must be classed as a profane. As to whether he was an Atheist, it is best to re-read his
own poem, The Mystery.
Bischoffwerder's habituation to the rituals of initiation seems also to underline his points 2 and
3 above. He thinks of Saint-Germain's chemical processes as being, if genuine, not merely scientific
but sacred, and therefore it shocks him that he was not required to take any kind of oath binding him
not to disclose the secrets to the profane. This absence of such a condition of receiving the secrets

207
will have contributed in no small degree to his feeling Saint-Germain must be a profane.
Discoveries of such an order, if real, he feels, should come to humanity from within, not from
without, Masonry. That the puzzle represented to him by this matter weighed on him, can be seen in
his following lines:

But nothing will turn me from my course. God Almighty, in whom I repose, will, guide my
steps on this occasion as he has on so many others.

He felt this trial of Saint-Germain's processes, then, as a matter in which his whole integrity
and duty to God was involved, and doubtless prayed for clarity of mind to judge rightly. It was
more than the promised fifteen days before he wrote again. Perhaps he had a physical ailment, or
perhaps a profound psychological revolution within him produced a fever. When he wrote again, it
was very differently:5

Elsterwerda, 16 September, 1777

Monseigneur,

I am coming round from a mortal illness which the doctors diagnose as inflammation of the
brain, and which I do not know how to define myself, excepting that the pains I have suffered
should put me in a better position than any other to judge. Your Most Serene Highness will
therefore pardon me if for this once I am more laconic than I should wish ... The essay I have
made with the secrets Saint-Germain has passed to me show them to be of astonishing effect,
all is given still without the slightest condition beyond my word of honour as to silence, and to
this hour I do not understand why I should be the depositary.

I have the honour

etc.
Bischoffwerder

NOTES TO CHAPTER 28

1 Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Akte Rep. 96, Nr. 65 D, ff. 116r-120r, theP.S. being on f.
122r and the enclosure by Saint-Germain (enfolded), f. 124r.
2 Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Akte Rep. 96, No. 65 D,f.l24; the attached list of processes is
enfolded without separate reference.
3 This should be at Merseburg in the Zentrales Archiv, but they cannot find it (the whole collection
was recently moved from Berlin, which may account for some mislaying of documents) and I
take the contents from Der Graf von Saint-Germain, G.B. Volz (Dresden, 1923), pp. 321-322.
4 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf., 456, 1 Nov., f. 122r-122v.
5 Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf., 456,1 Nov., f. 124r. Although he writes as
though he were dying, Bishoffwerder lived 1741-1805.

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 CHAPTER 29

BERLIN

Saint-Germain now left Saxony for Prussia. He took rooms at an inn in Berlin, but is likely to
have gone out to see King Frederick and Prince Frederick Augustus at their usual informal
residence, Sans Souci. Unfortunately, no memoranda or letters have been discovered describing his
meeting with them. The nephew would have been sympathetic, but the King was a testy, critical
character, with whom few felt at ease. Bullying by his father had left a warp nothing could
straighten. The only human being to whom he fully opened was his sister Wilhemina, and her death
left him emotionally dead. His attempt to form an equal-footed friendship with Voltaire was without
parallel between a sovereign and a commoner, but both were so cantankerous they could only get
on when separated by hundreds of miles. The only culture he appreciated was French, the French
language was to him what Greek and Latin are to Classicists, and that France had been his enemy in
the Seven Years War had been an irony, and its end left him prematurely aged. His principles and
indeed his laws were liberalising. He played the flute and would probably have given some of his
victories on the field to hear it said he was the world's greatest flautist. He wanted to shine as artist
and intellectual on his merits, so artists and intellectuals summoned to his presence were invited to
forget he was the King. Yet it was remarked that had any really done so, he would not have been
pleased. He could be suddenly rude to people he thought were being silly. Above all, he was
mistrustful of anything that savoured of the 'superstition' of religion or mysticism, so would have
regarded Saint-Germain warily.
Whether or not Frederick took any interest in the dyes and other products, his attention would,
by the end of the year, have been mainly given to a political situation. He had long been anxious as
to what would happen when the childless Elector of Bavaria died. Bavaria was a country unusual in
that, since Barbarossa gave it to Count Palatine Otto von Wittelsbach in 1180, it had enjoyed
uninterrupted rule by a single dynasty, that of its own house of Wittelsbach. The legal heir was the
Elector Palatine, head of the cadet branch of the Wittelsbachs, but he had no children either (at
least, not legitimate ones), and was not the type of person vigorously to stand up for his rights; and
those of the nephew, the Duke of Zweibrucken, who would succeed him. King Frederick's fear was
that Austria would step in, to fill what might be represented as a gap. The Emperor, Joseph II, was
an aggressive young man, ambitious for opportunity to reassert the dominance of the house of
Habsburg within the Empire and for territorial aggrandisement of Austria. Bavaria was a tempting
morsel, near to him. He had only to send an army across the frontier and not only would Bavaria,
for the first time since 1180 know foreign rule, Frederick's life-time of endeavour to bring Prussia
up to equality with Austria would be cancelled out by such an additional accretion of power to the
latter. On December 30, 1778, the Elector of Bavaria died.
On 3 January, 1779, Frederick's worst fears were realised, when Karl Theodore, the Elector
Palatine, signed a treaty allowing Austria about a third of the country. His nephew, Karl, Duke of
Zweibrucken, whose eventual birthright it was, that was being given away, appealed to Frederick.
Frederick had now to consider who his allies might be. France was, as a guarantor of the Treaty of
Westphalia, pledged to maintain the right of the Palatine succession to Bavaria, but was an ally of
Austria, and her King, Louis XVI, was married to Marie-Antoinette, the sister of the Emperor
Joseph. What would France do? Russia was occupied with Turkey, yet more friendly to Prussia than
to Austria. The King of Sardinia would be willing to attack Austria in Italy, but it was the attitude of
France on the one hand and Russia on the other that would be important. Saxony now placed herself
in Prussia's hands, and Frederick advised her to beg protection of Russia.
It will be recalled that a getting together of Saxony with Russia was what Saint-Germain had
advocated, during his stay in Saxony, and that he had advised Alvensleben, Prussian Ambassador to

209
Saxony, so to advise Frederick. Alvensleben, professional diplomat, perhaps resenting what he felt
as an intrusion into the diplomatic sphere by an amateur, of unknown origins, had passed the idea
on to his King in a supercilious style, as though it were something to laugh at. Now we see King
Frederick himself giving this advice to Saxony; the invasion of Bavaria by Austria threatened her,
she must ask not only Prussia but Russia for help. It would have been better if the approach had
been made, when Saint-Germain had recommended, through trading and cultural interchanges, a
year before.
King Frederick went out on military manoeuvres, in the direction of the likely invasion. Whilst
he was with the army word was brought to him that Austrian troops had, in fact, crossed the border
into Bavaria. He then invaded Bohemia, himself, on 5 July, 1779.
On 12 July, the dowager Empress Maria Theresa wrote her first ever letter to King Frederick,
saying her wish was for peace; she stated in it that she had not told the Emperor, her son, that she
was writing this. Thus was revealed a profoundly interesting split within the royal house of Austria.
However, Frederick had to deal with the son, and not with the mother, and did not dare lose time in
parley which might disadvantage his countering of the Austrian advance. Moreover, he deeply
distrusted Kaunitz, their Minister, had experience of his duplicity and thought he could have put her
up to creating this diversion. In a letter to his own Foreign Minister, Finkestein, on 10 September,
he said he thought the only things that would cause the Emperor to be willing for peace were lack of
money (the Austrian finances, unfortunately, were not at the mother's disposition), 'representation of
France' or vigorous declaration by Russia. As yet there was no help from Russia. Neither was there
any indication as to which way France would advise the Emperor.
Saint-Germain was still in Berlin. We can glimpse him there only through the Souvenirs de
Vingt Ans a Berlin of Dieudonne Thiebault, a Frenchman whom King Frederick II bid never to
learn German, when receiving him on his arrival to take up his post at the Academie des Nobles. He
writes (I translate from his French)1:

An extraordinary man, known in the world as the Comte de Saint-Germain, came to Berlin,
where he stayed for over a year. The Abbe Pernety hastened to make his acquaintance, as being
an Adept, and told us marvellous things about him. M.le Comte was an elderly man, whose age
and country were unknown; but he was to possess the secret of making gold, and even
diamonds; what is more important, he was I do not know how many centuries old; he was the
Wandering Jew, wholly wonderful, and spoke all the languages of Europe. M.le Comte de
Saint-Germain took a small apartment in one of the best inns in Berlin. He lived there very
withdrawn, with two servants and a cab that waited outside all day, but which he never used,
although he always paid for its attendance. The aged Baron von Knyphausen hastened to call
on him, as an old acquaintance, and invited him to dine with him at his own home. Saint-
Germain replied, 'I would be delighted to come, if you will send your carriage. I do not like
going in cabs; their suspension is too bad'. Saint-Germain never addressed the Baron by any
title other than 'my son'. Princess Amelia wanted to see him, and he came punctually to the
rendezvous. 'Monsieur,' she asked, 'what country do you come from?' He answered, 'I come
from a country which has never had for sovereigns men of a foreign origin'. It was in this
enigmatic sort of manner he replied to all Her Royal Highness' questions, and in the end she
gave up and bade him good-bye without having learned anything about him.
Madame du Troussel [a friend of King Frederick] also wanted to see him. The Abbe Pernety
arranged this, and the Comte came to her place and supped with us. We plucked up the courage
to bring the conversation round to the alchemists' stone. He said that practically all those who
had sought it had committed one and the same remarkable error; they hardly used any agent
other than fire. They did not reflect that fire divides and decomposes, and therefore that it was
absurd to have recourse to it when seeking a new composition. He developed this point, and
then we talked of other things.

210
 This man, whom I observed very closely throughout the evening, had a refined and spiritual
face, and was obviously well born and accustomed to good society. It has been said he was the
teacher of the famous Cagliostro, but if so the pupil was not at the level of the master2... In
Saint-Germain one saw a wiser and more cautious charlatan. In his story there was nothing
directly injurious to honour; nothing contrary to probity; everything was marvellous, nothing
base or scandalous.

This testimony, for all its occasional silliness, is valuable at two points. It gives us an insight
into Saint-Germain's processes, and if it is a negative one, that they did not involve the use of fire,
that is much. We are spared infinite hours of experimentally cooking things over burners.
The other point concerns his country. Princess Amelia was the youngest sister of King
Frederick, the only one unmarried and hence still living in Berlin, an Abbess, but living in the
Palace of Mon Bijou. One has the impression it was her curiosity that increased Saint-Germain's
reserve. It must have been known to her that one of the most famous things about him was that his
origin was unknown, and that he must have, therefore, some reason for not allowing it to become
common knowledge. Whether she imagined it to be so high as to be embarrassing, as in the case of
royal illegitimacy, or so low as to be embarrassing, in the one case as in the other, to try to prise it
out of him by a direct question at a first meeting, when he was her guest, was an indelicacy. The
answer is a polite rebuff. Even so, it merits meditation. It cannot be the country of Prince Ràkòczy.
It was in the endeavour to free it from sovereigns of foreign origin that he had marched. It could,
however, be his mother's. It would hardly be Princess Ràkòczy's, the history of Hesse being
somewhat chequered, and that of Hesse-Rheinfels, in particular, short-lived. It would not be
England, invaded by Romans, Danes and Normans and still feeling the Georges as a German
dynasty. It could not be Spain, which had had an Austrian dynasty and then a French, or Portugal,
which had been under Spain, or Poland, recently cruelly partitioned, between Russia, Prussia and
Austria. Italy was all small states, and Tuscany, where he had spent time, was under Vienna. It
could be France, or Russia; or, very topically, it could be Bavaria. We shall come back to this
question.
Perhaps under the heading of Berlin one should mention an anonymous article which appeared
a few years later in one of the city's newspapers, the Berlinische Monatsschrift (vol.5, p.8ff.), 'Der
Graf von Saint-Germain'. It is a tiresome article. To a not unreasonable claim that Saint-Germain
improved wools, leathers and removed flaws from diamonds, it goes on to the silliness derived from
von Lamberg about his melting small stones down to make big ones of them, being thousands of
years old and having talked with Christ and exchanged letters with the Emperor Leopold. It is only
the last detail that is interesting. There is nothing about the Emperor Leopold in von Lamberg's
nonsense-spinning. Leopold was not a member of the Holy Family, only Holy Roman Emperor—
the one against whom Ràkòczy waged war, and to whom he did write some letters, though through
the intermediary of Cardinal Kollonics, concerning the possible calling of a Diet. Could it have
been these exchanges that Saint-Germain brought into his conversation while in Berlin? There
might have been some relevance in the context of the manoeuvres of the Imperial Court of Vienna
to possess itself of Bavaria as it had of Hungary and Transylvania.
It is during this period that the name of Saint-Germain enters into the correspondence of Johann
Kaspar Lavater and Karl Gotlieb Anton. Lavater was a very saintly Swiss pastor, who, excepting for
occasional foreign tours, lived all his life in Zurich. His sideline studies in the relation of facial
features to character has caused him to be remembered as the founder of physiognomy. Anton was a
doctor of laws and syndic of Gorlitz, a town in the south-east of Germany, or as it was then,
Saxony, between Dresden and Breslau. He, too, is chiefly remembered for his sideline studies,
which resulted in a series of books on historical subjects, ranging from Tacitus to the Knights
Templar. He wrote to Lavater (I translate from his German):3

Görlitz, 20 August, 1778

211
 . . . There is nobody about whom I should so much like to have your physiognomic judgement
as the Graf St. Germain or Welldon. He resided in this neighbourhood for some time and made
chemical experiments. Graf von Schachmann made a very good sketch of him, perhaps I could
procure the drawing for you. He told him he had read a lot about him in Lamberg's Memorial
d'un Mondain to which St.G. answered [in French] 'C'est un fou. II n'a pas l'honneur de me
connaitre'. ('He is a madman. He has not the honour of knowing me'.)

We have to thank Saint-Germain for having disposed of the ridiculous book by von Lamberg. It
was not like him to express himself so haughtily, but he must have found exasperating the
absurdities von Lamberg had written about him.
The reference to a drawing is tantalising. The reference cannot be to that portrait by artist
unknown now in the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, which we reproduce, because that, though not
engraved until 1783, was apparently from a lost original in the collection of Madame d'Urfe, and
she died in 1775. One has the impression the drawing by Schachman, to which Anton refers, was
made when Schachmann met Saint-Germain in the neighbourhood of Gorlitz. That gives rise to
another question, of exactly when that was. On his entry in to Germany, in October, 1776, he seems
to have gone first to Leipzig, in Saxony, thence to Dresden, the capital of Saxony, later leaving
Saxony for Berlin, the capital of Prussia. Gorlitz is in Saxony. Possibly, it was during his period in
or near Dresden that he had a workshop or laboratory outside it, between Dresden and Gorlitz.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 29

1 Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de Sejour a Berlin, Dieudonné Thiebault (Paris 1904), vol. 5, pp. 96 ff.
according to Volz, but the photocopied pages sent me by the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris
are number 300-302.
2 But Cagliostro was all the same not to be despised.
3 Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, FA, Lav.MS.501.94.

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 CHAPTER 30

ALTONA (HAMBURG)

Saint-Germain must by the autumn of 1778 have left Prussia for Altona. Today's maps show
this as the maritime quarter of Hamburg, on the north bank of the Elbe, but Altona was then the
capital of Holstein. It is a letter, written from Hamburg on 25 October, 1778, by a Joseph Philipp
Dresser, lawyer of Hamburg and Master of the Masonic Lodge 'Georg', to a Baron Uffel, Judge of
the Court of Higher Appeals at Celle, and likewise a Mason, which contains the information Saint-
Germain was staying at the Kaiserhof Inn, Altona1. He was reported to keep great state and to pay
for everything in immediate cash, yet he appeared to be in receipt of no drafts, was selling nothing
and had no known funds, so that the source of his money was unknown. He was believed to spend
most of his days writing. Letters addressed to him arrived from the Empress Catherine and from
Princess Wilhemina. The only persons he was known to see in Altona were Countess Bentinck
(widow of Saint-Germain's old friend, Count Bentinck, who had died on 17 October, 1777), and the
French Minister, Baron (Mathias) de la Housse. He was believed to work wonders with some kind
of'drops', to have power to affect stones, metals and even coins, so that they preserved to the end the
appearance of being fresh from the mint. He had bought from Countess Bentinck a complete new
silver table service and paid for it entirely in coins that were not in the least worn down. Could he,
Dresser wondered, be one of those Baron Uffel sought? Dresser had endeavoured to make his
acquaintance but without success. It was impossible to learn anything of him from his servants, for
he had taken on new ones when changing his residence.
It sounds as though Uffel, as a Mason of esoteric bent, perhaps also a Rosicrucian, was seeking
an Adept. Perhaps Saint-Germain was an Adept, but the best way to recommend oneself to an
Adept is surely not by attempting to spy on him through his servants. The only proper reason for
wishing to meet a being more highly evolved than oneself is that he may assist one's own evolution.
This will mean removing the scales from one's eyes so that one can see faults in one's way of
thinking and behaving, by which one has been imprisoning oneself, so that in the sudden clarity a
new energy is liberated. The prayer to meet a Sage is really a willingness for self-knowledge but
that demands courage and rigour. Dresser's letter displays only curiosity, and if Saint-Germain was
one of those high ones whom he sought, the frivolity of his approach would explain why he was not
received.
But why was Saint-Germain meeting the French Minister, de la Housse? That suggests a return
to diplomatic activity.
While the powers in central Europe were concentrating their concern upon the War of the
Bavarian Succession, there was another war going on, far to the west of them, across the ocean, a
war historians have censured Kaunitz for narrowness in hardly seeming aware of, the War of
American Independence. Louis XVI, however, was aware of it. To him, the rebellion of the
American colonies was welcome, as weakening England, and in 1778 he brought France in, on the
American side. But according to the testimony of Madame Campan, Principal Lady-in Waiting to
Marie-Antoinette, the Queen openly expressed her opposition to French participation in the war
(whilst loyally expressing pride that French forces, since they had been sent, acquitted themselves
with honour).2 Madame Campan does not think the Queen actually foresaw that the encouragement
they were giving to people far away to rebel against their sovereign (George III) would be used by
the people of France as a precedent to rebel against Louis XVI and herself and cut both their heads
off. Madame Campan thought it was rather that Marie Antoinette felt there was something mean-
spirited about the choice, by France, of this means to discomfort England; but she also says that
Marie-Antoinette seemed to show especial courtesy to English people presented to her, as if to mark
a distinction between her own personal regard for their noble nation and French Governmental

213
policy.3 It sounds as though Marie-Antoinette, Austrian born, remembered England had once been
Austria's ally and regretted the reversal of alliances (though it took place in her infancy). She had
more fear and respect than love for the Empress Maria-Theresa, her mother.4 Anybody, therefore,
who wished there to be peace between France and England might have thought it good to address
himself, in the first place, to Marie-Antoinette rather than to Louis.
This is remarked because of the tradition—one of the strongest legends concerning Saint-
Germain—that he visited Marie-Antoinette, when she was Queen and the precipitating causes of the
Revolution were beginning to be felt, and warned her of the holocaust to come. 5 If such a return
visit to Versailles took place, it could only have been during this period. It is a long time since we
have had a dated testimony from anybody who had seen Saint-Germain in Germany. He could have
gone during what is thought of as the Altona period, either before or just after Dresser wrote the
letter from Hamburg in which he commented on Saint-Germain's relations with the French
Minister; these would then have been connected with the visit and its object. The latter is hardly
likely to have been to thunder at her concerning the impending doom. The immediate object would
be most likely to have been to secure that Louis, although brother-in-law to the Emperor Joseph,
would not support him in his invasion of Bavaria. It might be meaningful to Louis that, with forces
already sent to America, (in itself a move of doubtful wisdom) if he sent them to Bavaria as well, he
would be over-stretched; and to be frank, he could not afford to send them in either direction. He
should be putting his own house in order. If this was a line which Saint-Germain did take, it would
not have implied disapproval of the Americans' desire for independence; but he would probably
have seen the contribution made by France as immaterial to America, which would achieve its
independence anyway, but very damaging to France. The situation was the same as that which had
occasioned his diplomatic initiative in 1760. Saint-Germain had feeling for both France and
England, having lived in both; and the last thing France needed was a war, further to drain its
insufficient finances. It needed a total financial and administrative reorganisation, so that taxes
should not continue to bear down with ever increasing weight upon the poorest while prices rose as
relentlessly, so that those trapped at the bottom were driven to desperation, and fury. If that was his
message, he would have seen Marie-Antoinette—despite that it was the Choiseul-Kaunitz axis that
had brought her to France—because of her own personal attitude, as an ally rather than a target.
This is taking a long shot.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 30

1 I have not been able to find the holograph of this letter, which is quoted in DerGraf von Saint-
Germain, Gustav Berthold Volz (Dresden, 1933), pp. 350-352, as from a newspaper Latonia,
51 Jahrg., (Leipzig, 1908), p. 409ff, which I have likewise been unable to trace.
2 Memoires sur la vie privie de Marie-Antoinette, Reine de France et Navarre, Madame Campan,
Lectrice des Mesdames et Premiere Femme de Chambre de la Reine (Londres, 1823), vol. 1, p.
221.
3 Ibid., pp. 231-232.
4 Ibid., p. 225.
5 The root of this seems, unfortunately, to be the plainly spurious Souuem'rs sur Marie-
Antoinette et la cour de Versailles, par la Comtesse d'Adhemar, dame du Palais (Paris, 1836).
There were a Comte and Comtesse d'Adhemar in the entourage of Marie-Antoinette, but their
marriage took place in 1782, when the bride was twenty-two. Of the periods during which she
is made to describe meetings between Marie-Antoinette and Saint-Germain to which she was
witness, 1775 and 1789, the first is too early and the second too late. The so-called
recollections seem coined out of the memoirs of Madame de Hausset, Casanova and the
Chronique de I'Oeuil de Boeuf, another concocted work. Maurepas— whom Louis XVI had
214
recalled from the exile into which Louis XV had sent him—is made into the enemy of Saint-
Germain, who threatens him with imprisonment in the Bastille. The model must be Choiseul,
with the name of Maurepas substituted, to bring him into a later period. The Comtesse
d'Adhemar died in 1822, and Chacornac is probably right in supposing the Souvenirs fathered
upon her to have been composed by Lamothe-Langon, who wrote other fake memoirs. I would
not give it another thought but for Madame Blavatsky's apparent interest. That a copy of it was
in the library of her aunt, Madame Fadeef, is not a guarantee Madame Blavatsky herself
approved it, but in 1884 she went to stay at the Château d'Adhemar which suggests she hoped
there to acquire information concerning Saint-Germain, and Mrs. Cooper-Oakley writes (p.
53f), that the Comtesse d'Adhemar of her day, an American, assured her she had relevant
papers, now in America. Apparently she did not show these, but there remains the possibility
that Lamothe-Langon derived his idea for the Saint-Germain passages from a genuine tradition
concerning meetings between Marie-Antoinette and Saint-Germain of which the real Comtesse
d'Adhemar had knowledge, though she did not write the Souvenirs published after her death.

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 CHAPTER 31

PRINCE CARL OF HESSE-CASSEL

Holstein was a curious state, ruled by the King of Denmark, yet a member of the German
Confederation. From 1767, the Duchy had been governed by Prince Karl, Carl or Charles of Hesse-
Cassel.
Hitherto, Saint-Germain has appeared as a lonely figure, passing from Court to Court, entering
into brief relations with many people, but never remaining long enough in one place for the growth
of a settled friendship. We have glimpsed him through the eyes of persons who, themselves, but
glimpsed him, and who, in many cases, are but names to us, insufficient data failing to permit us to
form an impression of their own personalities. Now, however, we come at last to one major
friendship, and as it is of no small importance for the understanding of a man to know the quality of
his friends, let us take a little time to learn of the life of Prince Carl of Hesse-Cassel.
He was the grandson of King George II of England, being the son of his daughter Mary and her
husband Prince Frederick of Hesse, who became the Landgrave Frederick II. Prince Carl, cousin to
George III and great-uncle to Queen Victoria, was born at Cassel on December 19,1744, the middle
one of three brothers. His father had become a Catholic, and his paternal grandfather, Wilhelm VIII,
reigning Landgraf, to keep the children Protestant, had them placed under the protection of the three
Protestant Kings, of Great Britain, Denmark and Prussia. At the age of ten they were taken from the
paternal house at Gottingen and placed with their maternal grandmother, at Herrenhausen. In the
following year, 1756, the Seven Years War broke out, and as the fighting neared Hannover, the
three brothers were sent for greater safety to Copenhagen, under the protection of their uncle, King
Frederick V of Denmark, the husband of their mother's sister, Louise, the next youngest daughter of
King George II of Great Britain.
This move coloured the rest of Prince Carl's life, for growing up in the Danish royal family, he
became more like a Dane than a German, though with a strong English influence from his mother,
who took an active part in his instruction. To the English, Kings George I and II had seemed like
Germans who had never learned to speak English properly, but the daughter of George II, Princess
Mary, though she had been married to a German, took it upon herself to teach Prince Carl and his
brothers English. French, of course, they learned as the cultural language of Europe. The boys had
for tutors two Swiss.
As one reads the Memoirs he has fortunately left us, 1 one is struck from the beginning with the
serious mind they show. He brings in early the hardship of the peasants and his concern over the
way in which the landowners treated them, often allowing them to work upon the land for many
years, improving it, and then turning them off it, ungratefully, so that, drifting into the towns, they
were reduced to beggary or theft, unless they could find some kind of employment. He thanks the
Swiss tutor who said to him, 'Forget that you are a Prince and know that you are made of the same
clay as other men', though, to do himself justice, he could not remember ever having thought
otherwise. From his childhood he had always taken it that all were equal in the sight of God, save
with regard to virtue and merit. The only real hierarchy could be in Godliness.
As he grew to greater observation, he came to notice trade. He persuaded the King to come
with him on what would nowadays be called a royal'walkabout' in the port and market of his own
capital, and showed him, in the port, ships taking raw materials particularly the good cowhides from
Danish cattle, to ports abroad, and then, in the stalls and shops, the same made up abroad into
leather goods etc. and sold back to them expensively. Why, he asked, were they not made up here in
Denmark? Denmark had cows, what she needed was industry. The foundation of some suitable
industries would provide respectable employment for the dispossessed peasants, and good quality
clothing and other things at prices people of modest means could afford.

216
 Not that he was for insular trade protectionism: on a different occasion, somebody called to his
attention a shop selling articles made from a cheap foreign copper suggesting they should be made
from Danish. From this, Prince Carl dissented, observing that the Danish copper was only of a
superior quality, which, being unnecessary for articles such as these, would only increase their
price, needlessly. In this case, the cheaper, imported copper gave people at a lower price articles
good enough for their purpose.
'Trade is sacred', he said. What should we know of China and other countries of the Orient,
their art and culture, but that trade had taken Europeans out to the East? It was trade that brought
people from different parts of the globe into contact and gave them a chance to learn from one
another.
He does not seem to have practised any art, but for him trying to find practical courses for the
betterment of the people was a form of creativity.
During the reign of Tsar Peter III, when Russian troops set out to invade Denmark he was given
a command under Field-Marshal le Comte (Claude-Louis) de Saint-Germain, with whom he rode in
Pomerania, where news came through of the coup which had replaced Peter III by Catherine and the
Russians withdrew.
On hs way back, Prince Carl visited Hanau, where he told all his adventures and thoughts to his
mother, whom he adored, and who, since his grandfather's death, had reigned there as Queen.
(Later, she handed over to his eldest brother.)
Prince Carl had been brought up as a brother to the Crown Prince of Denmark, who succeeded
to the throne when, on 14 January 1766, 'The good King Frederick passed away, too soon for the
good of his people'. After his coronation as Christian VII, the new King said to Prince Carl, 'I hope
you will settle here definitely and be my friend for ever'. Prince Carl had for some time admired
Christian's youngest sister, Louise, now sixteen, with something very spiritual about her, and,
although he had no throne to offer, he was by these words emboldened to ask for her hand in
marriage. Christian fell on his neck exclaiming, Ja, das sell gewiss geschehen! ('Yes, that shall be'),
and they were married on 30 August, 1766.
Prince Carl and Princess Louise continued to live in very close relations with Christian, and
Prince Carl worked for some hours alone with him every afternoon. But now it became evident
there was something wrong with him. When in what Prince Carl liked to think of as his normal
condition, he was friendly, agreeable and just, but he had spells during which his teeth would grind,
the whole expression of his face change horribly, as though another personality had taken over, and
during these his temper was very bad and he could commit injustice. Prince Carl could not forsee
that English and French encyclopaedias and history books of today would tend to dismiss Christian
VII of Denmark as 'an idiot'. He strove to be a calming, steadying influence with varying degree of
success.
In 1767 Christian made Prince Carl Governor of the Duchy of Holstein. While the seat of
Government was Altona, the traditional residence of the Governor was Schloss Gottorp (or in
German 'Gottorf'), a huge house at the western end of the Schleu bay, but outside Schleswig. The
widow of his predecessor was still there when they arrived, but moved out to let it be redecorated
and refurnished by Christian for them. Retiring in the vicinity she became the best friend of
Princess Louise and a good one of Prince Carl.
His marriage was happy. The couple had sorrow in the death of the first two children, but then
there came 'my good Fritz'.
Norway was at this time still politically part of Denmark, though inclining to want to break
away. King Gustav III of Sweden profited of this to send his agent in and it was feared in
Copenhagen he meant to seize it. Someone suggested Prince Carl be sent there to strengthen the
Norwegian defences, but in the Council one member opposed this, saying that if Prince Carl were
sent he would become King! Another retorted that even should that happen, it would be better for
Denmark than that Norway should become part of Sweden. The upshot was, he was given a
command. The Norwegian people certainly gave him a welcome, and in fact word was brought him
217
in Christiania that in the streets they were drinking toasts to 'King Carl'! He could very easily have
become Norway's first King but (like Ràkòczy) refused a crown that was within his grasp. He had
been trusted to bolster up King Christian's rule.
Returning through Jutland, he was entertained by Count Laurwig at his home near
Frederiksvaern. Could this have been Saint-Germain's old friend of that name?
When some time later the King and Queen of Sweden paid a visit to Denmark, they stayed as
guests of Prince Carl and Princess Louise at Gottorp quite amicably.
In the spring of 1774, Prince Carl was received a Freemason, in the lodge at Schleswig. This,
he tells us, was one of the big experiences of his life, destined to have long consequences. The
evening itself was not without its drama. He and a Colonel Koeppern, who was to be initiated on the
same occasion, dined together with the two persons, Gaehler and Motz, who had persuaded them to
enter Masonry, in Louisenlund, on the opposite side of the lake from the Lodge. After dinner,
Prince Carl and Colonel Koeppern set off on horseback for the place where they were to take the
boat, but their two sponsors tarried and instead of reaching the boat with them, lost their way, and
by the time they found their candidates and the boat, they were late for starting out. Perhaps because
they now hurried, they found the boat entangled in a fishing-net, from which they extricated it with
difficulty, and hardly were they out of the fishing-net when they found themselves caught in
another, and then in another. After a difficult crossing, in the course of which they lost their
bearings, they at last saw a light behind a bush, and climbed out on to what proved to be the
Lichtberg peninsula. Now they found they had to cross a marsh, before at last, through the back
door, they entered the Masonic Lodge where the brothers had been waiting for them for two hours.
Though their troubles in getting there had not been part of the ordeals arranged for them by the
brothers, Prince Carl felt that the entrammeled crossing had been symbolic. In later years, it seemed
to him to picture the course he had had to steer through Masonry, also the state in which he found it.
That night, after the ceremony, they all went back to Gottorp to celebrate. The following year,
the Grand Superior of the Order, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick gave Prince Carl a rendezvous at
Altona, and became his firm friend.
In 1776, King Christian asked Prince Carl if he would like to serve for a spell with the Prussian
army. He accepted, for the experience, and, as it was on manoeuvres in Silesia, made his way
slowly down through Brunswick, Berlin and Breslau. It was probably on this visit to Breslau that he
first met Count Christian Augustus Heinrich Kurt von Haugwitz. Von Haugwitz had been initiated
into Masonry just a couple of months earlier than Prince Carl (on 18 April, 1774 at the Lodge of
Minerva of the Three Palms, in Leipzig). In the following year, 1775, he had made a journey to
Zurich, expressly to see Lavater, the saintly Swiss pastor. As Lavater was not a Mason, what von
Haugwitz probably sought from conversation with him was assurance there was nothing
incompatible between Masonry and Lutheran Christianity. It was probably this seriousness, that
Prince Carl felt, when invited by him to be a guest at the Lodge in Breslau of which von Haugwitz
was Master, and the seeds of friendship were formed. On the next stage of his journey, he met King
Frederick, his Prussian cousin, to whom he heard himself introduced as 'the Danish Field Marshal'.
It was just at this moment news came through of the Austrian invasion of Bavaria, following the
death of the last of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs on 30 December, 1777. King Frederick could
obviously not allow such a change in the balance of power, and invaded Bohemia. Prince Carl, who
had thought to be taking part only in peace-time manoeuvres, found himself King Frederick's daily
companion in what had become the War of the Bavarian Succession.
On the route, he found himself at one moment billeted upon his friend von Haugwitz, at his
castle on the Oder, and was conducted by his host to view the remains of a nearby Templar
foundation. (Von Haugwitz had entered, at Gorlitz, the Templar system.) Otherwise, the
experiences of the march were not altogether edifying. Prince Carl admired Frederick as a
commander, but could not view with approval his destruction of crucifixes as they went along, and
was in a position such that he could only express his feelings about this by keeping a very long face.
The men were overtaken by dysentry, and the space between their tents and the latrines was red and
218
slimy with blood, not from bullet wounds but from their evacuations (which seems to speak of lack
of medical organisation) and on this horror flies settled. King Frederick confided to him that he
hoped the campaign would not have to be long drawn out, as he had been seized by an attack of
gout, so severe that every movement cost him agony.
Despite these troubles, the Austrians retreated before them, which allowed Frederick to
consider the campaign, if not the war, ended, and Prince Carl took his own way homewards.
Arriving in Altona on his thirty-fourth birthday, December 19,1778, he was called upon
instantly by the French Minister, Baron de la Housse, who sighed to him his regrets at the
unlikelihood of King Frederick's being willing to conclude a peace. Prince Carl, with his private
knowledge of his cousin's gout, assured him the King of Prussia might very well be disposed to
accept reasonable terms, if such were offered. De la Housse said he would write at once and tell that
to King Louis, who was persuaded to the contrary. And Prince Carl, that same night, wrote to King
Frederick, to tell him there had come a peace-feeler from this quarter.
France had not lent practical support to Austria but was her ally by treaty, and Louis XVI was,
by his marriage to the Austrian Marie-Antoinette, brother-in-law to the Emperor Joseph, and could
advise him to sue for a peace he had been tipped might be accorded.
The peace of Treschen, concluded 'that winter' (according to Prince Carl's memory, though
actually signed on 13 May, 1779) resulted, and de la Housse saluted Prince Carl as a benefactor of
humanity in that his initiative had brought it about. Yet Prince Carl could not have taken that
initiative, had he not been approached by de la Housse, and even though he knew him already, it is
a little curious that de la Housse took on himself to sound him out, not having apparently received
instructions to do so from Paris. One recollects that according to Dresser, de la Housse was the only
man in Altona whom Saint-Germain frequented, and, remembering his unorthodox peace initiative
in the Hague, in 1760, one wonders whether he was not again moving, more discreetly this time,
keeping his own person out of it, behind the scenes.
Prince Carl returned to Schleswig for what remained of the winter, then to Berlin again and
went on to Leipzig. There he encountered some of the Masons who had been involved in the
Schroepfer affair, and told him stories about apparent spirit manifestations. Prince Carl had already
heard of the affair through Prince Frederick Augustus of Brunswick and Bischoffwerder, and
through his own Colonel Frankenberg, who had not met Schroepfer but had met Frohlich, at
Gorlitz. Prince Carl had then advised Frankenberg to have nothing to do with Frohlich or any of
those who had been involved in that affair, and his encounter with the remnants of the circle in
Leipzig confirmed his bad opinion of a preoccupation with curiosities of the occult, unsupported by
morality. This seemed to him a perversion of Freemasonry, and he advised his own people to keep
in mind always that their supreme Grand Master was Jesus Christ.
On his return through Altona he met the Comte de Saint-Germain. He does not say how, but it
seems most likely de la Housse presented him.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 31

1 Memoires de mon Temps, Charles, Prince de Hesse-Cassel (Copenhagen 1861). The matter of
this chapter is entirely taken from this, Prince Dharles' own account.

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 CHAPTER 32

GOTTORP AND ECKERNFÖRDE

Prince Carl received the immediate impression Saint-Germain liked him, and the more so from
the moment it came out in conversation that he did not hunt. Saint-Germain, he discovered, was
most tenderly fond of animals. The practice of hunting them was very general, and that the Prince
abstained from it was obviously a mark in his favour with Saint-Germain, as was likewise his
absence of addiction to any other pastimes or pursuits which caused animal suffering or were
incompatible with a love of nature.
'I will come and see you at Schleswig and you will see the great things we shall do together,'
said Saint-Germain.
Prince Carl confesses that he was not in the first moment enthusiastic about this promise. The
tales he had heard of Saint-Germain's marvellous powers were, after all, so strange as to be a little
overwhelming. He replied that Colonel Koeppern, who had been travelling with him, but had
remained behind because unwell, was following him and would arrive in a couple of days, and
Saint-Germain could speak to him about it. And he wrote to Koeppern asking, him, if possible, to
dissuade the Comte de Saint-Germain from coming.
However, he was informed that Saint-Germain had replied to Koeppern, when they met 'You
can say what you like. I have to go to Schleswig and will not give up. The rest will prove itself. You
will be good enough to have a lodging prepared for me.'
Prince Carl sought advice of a Prussian friend of his, Colonel Frankenberg. Frankenberg said:
'You can rest assured that he is not a trickster; he does possess high knowledge. He was at
Dresden, when I was there with my wife. He wished well for both of us. My wife had been trying to
sell a pair of earrings. The jeweller offered her very little. She mentioned this before the Count, and
he said "Will you let me see them?" She brought them to him, and after a couple of days he returned
them to her, much improved. She took them back to the same jeweller who exclaimed, "Now these
are beautiful stones, in quite another class from those you showed me before!" He gave her twice
his original offer'.
Soon after this Saint-Germain came to Gottorp. Since Prince Carl had long seen the lack of
manufactures as keeping Denmark poor, Saint-Germain's proposal they set up a factory appealed to
him. He heard that one belonging to a deceased Otto was empty and dilapidated. It was at
Eckernforde, about thirty miles from Gottorp; he bought it, had it repaired for Saint-Germain and
ordered rolls of fabrics for him to dye.
Close to the small fishing-port and to the Church of St Nicholas, it was, like the church and
most of the houses in Eckernforde, roofed with red tiles, and the roof sloped very steeply, in two
wings, with sky-lights in them. Saint-Germain used the upper floor for his workshop and ate and
slept beneath it.
Prince Carl went often to see him. At first he had been suspicious, but now he realised:1

He was one of the greatest philosophers who have ever lived. Friend of humanity, undesirous
of money, save to give to the poor, friend to the animals also, his heart held care only for the
good of others. He thought to render the world happy through providing more things for people
to enjoy, finer stuffs, in more beautiful colours, and all at lower price, for his superb colours
cost almost nothing.

In conclusion, he had been in error in trying to push away from him so much goodwill and
profound knowledge.2 'I became his disciple.'

220
NOTES TO CHAPTER 32

1 Memoires de mon Temps, le Landgrave Charles Prince de Hesse (Copenhagen, 1861), p. 136.
2 Op. cit., p. 133.

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 CHAPTER 33

FREEMASONS

Before we go further, we should try to understand the Freemasonic situation in which Prince
Carl found himself, which means having a look at Masonry on the continent, where its character
was somewhat different from that of English Masonry.
The first clear reference in France to Freemasonry is thought to be in a police report of 16
February, 1737, concerning the ordre de Frimagons. The word is obviously Frenchified from the
English 'Freemasons', and it seems not to be in doubt that Masonry came to France from England.
Its arrival in Paris is, however, rightly or wrongly, widely associated in France with that of the
dethroned King James II of England. It is suggested that in St Germain-en-Laye, where he
established himself, certain of his exiled Court, largely Scots, practised, and initiated French
sympathisers into Freemasonry. It was put about that, so far as Freemasonic contact with the British
Isles was concerned, links should be sought not with English but with Scottish Freemasons, and so
there began to be heard of, in France, le rite Ecossais, the 'Scottish Rite'. The Catholics and in
particular the Jesuits were not in the beginning hostile. On the contrary, they saw in it a possible
means to make contact with those elements in Scotland that might assist in bringing about the
restoration of the Stuart dynasty, which was Catholic, in England. So, from the beginning,
Freemasonry in France appeared under a political aspect, which it never had in England.
Against this, however, arose a counter-current, based on Lyon. In Lyon, the Masonry of Paris,
which from being favoured by the Catholics seemed now to have gone Deist, or even atheist, was
regarded as superficial, worldly and political. The Freemasons of Lyon concerned themselves with
things of the spirit.
Their initiator was a certain Martinez de Pasqually, thought to have been of Spanish or
Portuguese ancestry, but born in Grenoble, perhaps in 1727. He is first heard of in the Masonic
lodges of Montpelier, Toulouse and Foix. All these places are in what had been the old Cathar
country, where even today a consciousness of the Albigensian martyrs slaughtered in 1208 persists.
Some genuine vestiges of the ancient teaching may have been picked up by him, and fused by him
with the Gnostic and Kabalistic traditions in the exegesis he presented. For he figured in the lodges
as a teacher, claiming 'Unknown Superiors', a term not unreminiscent of the 'Invisible College' to
which, a century earlier, the Rosicrucians claimed to belong. He drew to himself Louis-Claude de
Saint-Martin, a young officer for whom the influence of Choiseul had obtained a commission in the
Regiment de Foix, and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, silk-merchant of Lyon, in which city these mystics
established themselves as a College of Elus Cohens. Without altogether quitting ordinary Masonry,
they taught that in the beginning there was only God, and that spirits emanated from him. Some of
these fell into material bodies, as did man in his turn, and man had, by ascetic discipline and prayer,
to reintegrate himself in spirit or God. They thought all the great religions of the world held in
common some elements of divine truth (so anticipating modern Theosophy and Sufism), some of
them more than others, and that in Christianity, as taught in the churches, keys had been lost. To fill
in the gaps or interpret Christian scripture more meaningfully, there was needed resort to other
traditions, or perhaps direct inspiration could be received. A somewhat elaborate ritual was
instituted, the desired end of which was that the candidate, having purified his moral nature,
meditated and prayed, should experience La Chose—'The Thing'. This was, perhaps, something like
the descent of the Holy Ghost, divine inspiration as the response to human aspiration.
Martinez de Pasqually left the group when he came into an estate in St Domenique, and did not
return. St Martin for a while continued to live in the house of Willermoz at Lyon, and it was there
that he wrote his first book, which he attributed to 'The Unknown Philosopher'. He was, however,
beginning now to speak with his own voice, upon his own authority. Willermoz had never

222
experienced 'The Thing' and perhaps began to seem to him a pedant or over fussy. 'Can all this be
necessary in order to find God?' he asked and moved out, and though he always acknowledged de
Pasqually as having been his first teacher, he now taught in his own way. (The rite known as
Martinism was however, probably created in the XlXth century, though named after him by those
who aspired to be the continuers of his work.)
Willermoz was incompletely satisfied. He had not experienced 'The Thing' and his two
companions had both gone away. But now he heard that the secret knowledge of the Knights
Templar, always supposed to have been lost with the dispersion of their Order in 1307, was still in
being, in Germany, under a Baron von Hund.
Hund's position was rather curious. Born on 1 September, 1722, Karl Gothelf, Baron von Hund
und Alten Grotkau, had been only a young man when he visited Paris, and was told, circa 1742, by
somebody in Stuart circles, an extraordinary story. Some of the original Knights Templar, escaping
the fate of their Grand Master, who was burned at the stake for heresy, had made their way to
Scotland, where they had entered Freemasonry, and carried on with their own rites under the cover
of their being Freemasonic ones. This is generally regarded by English Freemasons as a fiction, and
indeed, since Speculative Freemasonry did not exist at that early date, it is hardly possible it could
be true, but Hund believed it. He was told that the succession of Grand Masters had been unbroken,
the identity of the present Grand Master being, for his protection, kept secret, except from his
closest associates. Collectively, he and they were known as the Unknown Superiors. From such
hints as were given him, Hund formed the belief that the present Grand Master was Charles Edward
Stuart, grandson of the dethroned King James II of England, the Young Pretender. Hund was not
politically minded, or at any rate does not seem to have been interested in any bearing this story
could have upon Stuart's chances of successfully invading England. Indeed if the story had been
told with political motive, the latter may have been abandoned after the disastrous attempt in 1745.
Hund saw his responsibility as being to teach a spiritual doctrine, supposed to be more profound
than the teaching given in ordinary Masonry. He was initiated by an unknown Brother in the
presence of Lord Kilmarnock (beheaded by the English for treason in 1745) and Lord Clifford, and
told that he should apply for further instructions to one of his own fellow countrymen, a C.G.
Marschall, who had been initiated earlier.
Hund sought out Marschall, in Germany, but by the time Marschall died, in 1750, he seems to
have told Hund very little, so that Hund had to go on the hints he had been given in Paris, when
founding The Strict Observance, of German Freemasonry.
Willermoz wrote to Hund, asking many questions, and in particular for an assurance the Strict
Observance was Christian. On receiving this, he asked to be initiated, and in 1784 someone was
sent from Germany to Lyon to explain the doctrine and touch Willermoz on the shoulders with a
sword.
This is the way initiation is given in Martinism. It seems beyond coincidence that Hund like
Pasqually had received his teaching from 'Unknown Superiors', and Roger Priouret, in La
Francmaҫonerie sous les Lys (Grasset, 1932), remarks sarcastically that the Lodge of Lyon, having
exported its doctrine to Germany, now imported it back again. Yet unless it came back with
something new in it, Willermoz would have recognised it. Martinism seems to mark a descent from
Rosicrucianism, with its emphasis on the rose, as symbol of wisdom and silence. The Brothers of
the Strict Observance wore on their breasts the red cross of the Knights Templar. One can say that
the two trends, though separately, reconstituted the rosy-cross.
Willermoz, now Grand Prior of the Province of Auvergne (which in the Strict Observance
extended north to Normandy and Picardy and south into Italy), corresponded eagerly with other
Brothers in the Strict Observance, whom he had not met, for instance with Prince Carl, with Rudolf
von Saltsmann at Strasbourg, and with Prince Carl's friend, von Haugwitz, concerning the relations
of soul with spirit. Willermoz was concerned von Haugwitz should understand spirit was higher
than soul. Something had made him think von Haugwitz gave to soul the highest place. One may
perhaps detect here the reflection of some verbal misunderstanding, for although St Paul spoke of a
223
man as composed of body, soul and spirit, Christians often say 'soul' meaning that which is highest
in man.
All was not well, however, with the Strict Observance. Von Hund confided to those closest to
him that the Stuarts seemed to have ceased to give instructions. He felt that he and his organisation
had been left on their own and should perhaps elect a new Grand Master or Unknown Superior. On
28 October, 1776, von Hund died, and in the following year, 1777, a Von Wichter was sent to seek
out Charles Edward Stuart, in Italy (now living as the Duke of Albany) to ask him to clarify the
position and give instructions. Charles Edward Stuart said he knew nothing about this matter. He
was not the Unknown Superior. He was not a Knight Templar. He was not even a Mason.
This information plunged the Strict Observance into disarray, indeed into agony. It seemed now
that they had no chief, and did not know from whence their authority derived. Had they any chief?
Were they indeed Knights Templar? A kind of care-taking Directory was formed, with Prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick taking virtual charge. Prince Carl, indeed, thought of him as the new Grand
Master, and so refers to him in his Memoires (p. 136).
It was this Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Hanoverian
Army who beat the French forces under the Due de Clermont Prince of Creffeld, who, after a
further stay with Prince Carl, probably to talk about a great Masonic conference he wanted to call,
to be at Wilhelmsbad, wrote Prince Frederick Augustus (I translate from his French)1

Middleforth, 2 November, 1779

Monsieur,

My very honoured and very dear nephew,

... I do not think to see Brother Geraso on this visit to Schleswig but on the other hand I have
met the Comte de Saint-Germain. I have been very satisfied by it. I visited him three times. He
has acquired great knowledge through his researches into nature ... I am now on my way to
Copenhagen ... I spent 18 very agreeable days with my dear Brother Carl of Hesse and his
amiable family. I regret having parted from them. The Comte de Saint-Germain's knowledge is
very extensive. His conversation contains much instruction.

. . . Your sincerely attached

Ferdinand of B.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 33

1 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek; the microfilm kindly sent me from there bears no
collection number but is marked f.18.

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 CHAPTER 34

Willermoz and Dyes

Saint-Germain showed Prince Carl how to make his dyes. At Gottorp, Prince Carl made an
experiment in a cup, which proved successful. At Eckernforde, he saw fifteen livres of silk being
dyed in a huge basin in exactly the same way as he had dyed his tiny piece of it in the cup. One
could not say, then, that it could not be done on a larger scale.
Prince Carl remembered that Willermoz was a silk-merchant. Hitherto, he had only
corresponded with him about Masonry. Now it occurrred to him that the dyes of Saint-Germain and
the silks of Willermoz ought in some way to be brought together. He had never met Willermoz, but
now he wrote to him: (I translate from his French):1

20 May, 1781

You will not be unaware that the famous Comte de Saint-Germain known since he left France
as the Comte de Weldone, has been staying with me for over a year. He has thoroughly
instructed me, and assures me I am the only pupil he has ever taken. One of the most beautiful
things he has invented is a new way of dyeing; he can make it in all the most beautiful colours,
in all the nuances imaginable and as tender as can be imagined, in shades of pink, straw, light
grey, green and blue. They are all fine and permanent and things which ordinarily spoil colour,
such as acids, alcohol, sun, rainy weather, do not affect them in the least. With all this, the
prices are less than, or at most the same as, those of the best dyes at present available, which
however do not have the same beauty, splendour or permanence as those made in the factory at
Eckernforde, where the Comte de Saint-Germain is newly installed.
I cannot conceal from you the idea I had of persuading you to come here, for it struck me that I
could establish a factory for the manufacture of cloths, silks, cottons and linens, and offer you
the post of managing director, with all the benefits I could procure for you, but I think it my
duty to renounce an idea which would have been agreeable to me and to substitute another
means to be useful to you, dear Brother, and this is what I propose.
I will send you samples of dyed silks, and you will indicate the prices you judge suitable, by the
livre, for the dyeing, and I will assure you the exclusive sale in France, giving you some
percentage at least.
I attach a sample of a permanent white, which Mr. Weldone considers of greater price than
even the most beautiful colours; perhaps I might even confide to you the secret, subject to
certain conditions, with his permission.

The reply he received was (I translate from the French):2

Lyon, 15 June, 1781

Monseigneur, [or My Lord].

Most Serene and Most Reverend Brother

... I know the reputation of the Comte de Saint-Germain, as the whole of Europe knows it. I
have often heard speak of his extraordinarily great age, some singular incidents, his rare
knowledge of chemistry, in natural sciences and even in the art of the adepts, possessing the
secret of the universal medicine, but upon such simple and vague assertions, without proofs, I
have thought good to withold my judgement, as upon all for whom such claims are made, until

225
some happy circumstance (if it came) permitted me to appreciate and bring to bear a more
certain judgement. Your Most Serene Highness' telling me that you have been thoroughly
instructed fills me with joy: you will therefore doubtless be able to judge for yourself this
extraordinary man, the nature and extent of his knowledge, and to form the opinion of those
whom you judge worthy of your confidence ...
The art of dyeing silk so as to fix the colour unchangeably without for all that raising the price,
is without question a secret precious for commerce, more precious indeed for the inventor and
in proportion for those directly admitted to the advantages which it must produce for them if
the number of the latter is limited.
Thus the offer which Your Most Serene Highness has the goodness to propose to me, to give
me exclusive participation in the distribution of these dyed materials in France, is a real benefit,
the success of which cannot, however be appreciated except by incontestable success in
proving the permanence of the colours by suitable tests. The essential point in this case is,
therefore, to be assured of the fixity or permanence of these dyes. To assure oneself also of the
number and kind of the colours or shades for which this fixity can be claimed, and permanence,
without their being subject to the double inconvenience of colours fixed in France by cochineal,
which considerably augments the price of dyeing, and, with the exception of crimson, very
adversely affects the condition which the silk normally conserves when ordinary dyes or dyes
of false tints, which causes the latter to be preferred to those of fine tints, even at the same
price.
If therefore the dye of which Monsieur le Comte de Weldone is the inventor unites, as Your
Most Serene Highness seems persuaded, the triple advantages of permanence of colour,
brilliance and conservation of the low price of common dyes, doubtless success of preference
in the consummation is assured. Then, if Your Most Serene Highness, persisting in his
goodness to me, wishes to accord me the exclusive distribution in France of the dyes made at
his place, or whether it is possible for him, as he has hinted, to extend his benificence towards
me to the extent of sharing with me the secret itself, with the consent of M. le Cte de W..,
subject to conditions judged by him suitable, so that the national silks of France, preferred here,
may participate in the advantages of this fixity, in the one case or the other, I will not conceal
from Your Royal Highness that the prospect he presents to me is most agreeable. And even
should the enterprise he projects not have the success he hopes, I should be ungrateful not to
conserve for him external recognisance of the good will of which he gives me such
extraordinary proof.
The sample of the white attached to the letter of Your Most Serene Highness, which he even
announced imperfect [sic] appears to me very beautiful and brilliant, but I cannot yet decide
whether its brilliance and clarity come from the dye or from the quality of the silk, for there are
silks of France, which by their proper nature lend to the dyes an extraordinary brilliance. But in
despite of the resultant beauty of this brilliance, being of a heavy nature, they are not much
manufactured, as lighter ones are preferred. It is this quality of essential lightness which
constitutes the merit of most of the national silks of France, Piedmont fabrics and organdies.
If the brilliance of the sample white comes from the dye in itself, and the same is the case with
the other colours, this will be straight away a capital point in favour of the enterprise.
I have not yet made any test of the permanence of the white, the sample being small, not
wishing to degrade it without having a piece left with which to compare it; I will not make any
test until the arrival of the parcel of samples of other colours which Your Most Serene
Highness announces to me. I suppose now that it is this package which he has mentioned in the
present, and which I had supposed would only contain papers, with regard to which I had
already taken precautions which I will rectify according to the advice it pleases him to give me
of the expedition of the package and the route it will take.
To confirm myself in the good intentions of Your Most Serene Highness, I must instruct him in
the current prices of diverse dyes used in the manufactures of Lyon, which are the major ones
226
 of France. I will evaluate them on the basis of the livre to 20 sols pointing out to him that the
Livre of silk is of 15 ounces, and that the price is paid by the livre of raw silk; this picture will
enable you to appreciate and evaluate the conditions and advantages of the enterprise as regards
this country. Count should also be taken of the cost of transport, if one has to send to
Eckernforde for dyeing the national silks of France and also those that come here straight from
Piedmont, which is practically on our doorstep, as well as the interests and cost of purchase of
the said silks, the time taken in the dyeing and on the road, calculated here at about a half per
cent per month, on top of the cost of dyeing abroad, if the secret of the dyeing cannot be
exercised in France.
Here we pay for dyeings called ORDINARY or COMMON TINT, including white, 12-14 sols
at most for the livre of raw silk dyed.
The fine crimsons, poppies, cherries, pinks, blacks and even colours of which the good red
lichen forms the essential basis, are excepted and form a class apart, the price of which is
always proportional to their shade, more or less dark, and to the price of the essential drugs
which produce them.
The fine cochineal crimson is paid at 4 or 5 the livre.
The nacarats and cherries are paid at 4 to 8 and the poppies at 9 to 15, but very few of the latter
are consumed because of their high price and lack of solidity. I do not include here certain still
darker shades of cherry and poppy, which are dearer still, as for the reason given the
consumption is so small as to be almost nil.
The violets of Holland, lilacs and lichens, are paid for here at 20 to 30 sols. Some dyers confuse
them in their accounts with ordinary dyes, at the price of the latter. If, however, the Dutch
violets abound in quality and dominate to a certain point, they are paid separately at 30 sols the
livre at least.
All the lichen colours, because of their freshness and brilliance, are much appreciated, as much
in stuffs as in ribbons; they would be even more sought if, with the same freshness to the eye,
one could add solidity.
The blacks are paid at 18 to 20 sols the livre, according to whether they are made by a single or
a double dipping, and by the weight after dyeing.
If the secret of fixity extends also to this colour, preventing it from turning red with lapse of
time and usage, that will be a point of great consequence, at least for Lyon.
All the prices mentioned vary a little from one dyer to another according to his expertise in the
art, they are also subject to another variation, more essential, affecting, particularly in times of
war, certain drugs which come from afar, such as cochineal, saffron, roucou, indigo and certain
foreign woods ...

It is not clear from this letter who Willermoz thought was paying whom. If the secret of the
process remained with Saint-Germain and Prince Carl, Willermoz could only send his silks,
wherever they came from to Eckernforde to be dyed, in which case it was for Prince Carl to say
what they wanted for it, or for Willermoz to say what he could pay. The costs of the raw materials
and of their transportation to and from Eckernforde were surely his own affair, and he had only to
work out whether it would be practical for him to go to the outlay. He talks as though the costs were
to fall on Prince Carl, which would not be so unless Prince Carl were taking over his business at
Lyon or they were going in partnership, and I do not think it appears from Prince Carl's letter that
he envisaged either possibility.
One must bear in mind that Prince Carl was not a businessman. His letter to Willermoz was
naive, the kind of letter which, in enthusiasm, is written to a friend, in this case, a pen-friend yet to a
brother Mason. It seems unwise of him to have written that he might, later, be able to tell him the
secret of the dyes, with Saint-Germain's permission. Probably he was thinking of the scientific
curiosity of Willermoz rather than the commercial exploitation which could be made of possession
of the secret. For once the secret was imparted, Willermoz would be able to make the dyes up
227
himself and Saint-Germain and Prince Carl would be needless to him. It is obvious, therefore, that,
in a business way, the secret should not be imparted except for a very considerable sum. Once it
was gone.they would have no more control, no more to do in the matter. I do not think Prince Carl
envisaged that. Since he had talked of giving Willermoz a percentage, perhaps he envisaged
Willermoz distributing, wholesaling, in France, on behalf of the factory at Eckernforde, of which he
and Saint-Germain would keep control, in which case they and not Willermoz would be the
manufacturers. But in that case, the costs would be wholly theirs, and Willermoz would not have to
interest himself in them. It would be for Willermoz to put up the costs for the consideration of
Prince Carl if he were joining money of his own to the money of Prince Carl and the joint sum were
for joint expenditure, but he does not say that he is doing this. Is he advising gratuituously or
insinuating a partnership?
We do not know if Prince Carl was alert to all these issues, but obviously he sent the further
samples, and as Willermoz' letter had gone on to give personal news, that his brother, the lawyer, Dr
Pierre Jacques Willermoz, was suffering from stone in the bladder, hoping that Saint-Germain, out
of his 'rare knowledge of how to effect cures' might advise or help, Prince Carl sent him, from
Saint-Germain, together with the samples of dyed silks a prescription for the stone in the bladder. In
reply, Willermoz wrote Prince Carl two letters of the same date, dealing with the dyes and the
medicine respectively. To take the latter first, it reads (I translate from his French):3

Lyon, 30 July, 1781

Monseigneur [or My Lord]

Most Serene and Most Reverend Brother,

I had hoped that Your Most Serene Highness, having heaped upon me so many kindnesses,
might deign to interest Monsieur le Comte de Weldone in my poor sick brother, and procure for
him something for his cure or relief; yet could I not have expected proof of it with a celerity
perhaps without parallel, for I could hardly believe my eyes when, in your letter of the 4th of
this month, I found the accompanying formulae.
Ah, Monseigneur, you know how to give great and good lessons to men, and merit empire over
hearts.
According to the intentions of Your Most Serene Highness, I passed my brother the enclosed
recipes. His spirit, as sensitive as mine, has been powerfuly moved by the keen interest which
he takes in his sad condition and the tender sentiments he wished me to express to him. Not
being in a condition to testify his thanks to you Your Most Serene Highness himself he asks me
to do it for him.
But can I express, for him and for myself, that which passes all expression?
As to the recipes: a special circumstance, which I cannot yet call happy or unhappy, as it will
take some weeks to know which word is appropriate, to my great regret and his, prevents his
using them.
About 15 days before their arrival, he had received another recipe, which had been confided to
him mysteriously by a person who assured him he had been cured by it of the same malady, of
which he has since been making clandestine use. It is for two different remedies, one, which
has to be taken for several weeks without mixture with anything else or interruption, is
preparatory to the other. This second must attach and even dissolve what is said to be a stone in
the bladder.
I do not yet know what effect this will have as it has not yet been begun, but the first has
considerably calmed the pain and suspended incidents, and has restored the sufferer's strength
astonishingly, and tranquilises with regard to the operation, should it be necessary, so that his
friends, doctors and surgeons, thinking no cure possible save through it, solicit him, vex him
even, persuade him not to let slip the occasion of sufficient strength to undergo it during the
228
 first weeks of September, which is indeed in our climate the only season suitable once the
spring has passed. I foresee with sorrow that if the second part of this remedy has not operated
its cure or notable relief by the that time, my brother, who is being frightened by the danger of
not enduring until next spring, will cede to the solicitations to which he is being subjected to
undergo the operation.
For my part, not daring to make myself responsible for the events, I dare not formally oppose a
resolution of which I disapprove, which plunges me into the greatest perplexity. Since Your
Most Serene Highness deigns to take an interest in the condition of my brother, I shall have the
honour to inform him of what follows.

The brother underwent a surgical operation and Saint-Germain's prescription was not tried. We
do not, therefore, know how it would have worked, and we have not the formula. We shall,
however, return to Saint-Germain's formulae later.
Willermoz' letter about the dyes reads (I translate from his French):4

Lyon, 30 July, 1781

... I deferred writing this letter to you in the hope of being able to reply to you concerning the
dyes of Monsieur le Comte de Weldone, whose samples arrived here 12 days ago, but the tests
have taken longer to make than I had thought, especially those in the air and sun, because of the
rain. I shall have to leave over matter for another letter in order not to put off longer the
departure of this and the thanks of my brother and myself to Your Most Serene Highness. I can
however now present the first assessment.
None of the colours has the fixity of our fine crimson and other cochineal colours, which are
resistant to all known trials, even the most rigorous, such as boiling, soap, hot acids, cold, air,
sun.
In the boiling, which is the most rigorous test and the least used, all the colours were destroyed,
conserving however a slight tint of the original shade, whereas most of our own were lost
altogether in the same test, but the blue, green and all the pale colours had become dirty white,
whereas our blue and copper-green had conserved a hint of their dark blue. I do not, however,
make any calculation upon the basis of this trial, as it is violent and not used upon made up
stuffs.
By cold lemon juice they were all slightly altered, except the emerald green, which conserved
itself intact; in hot lemon juice, however, they all changed more or less, yet conserving a basis
of colour richer and nearer to their first than our own, which were worse affected by this test.
The emerald green became much lighter and more yellow. The blues became lighter and
greyer.
The reds became in general much lighter, and bricklike. The yellows conserved their shade but
paled. The middle violet became much paler, conserving its basis. The linen grey degraded
completely. The pc-PPy and scarlet yellowed considerably.
The same colours dipped twice a day in cold water and dried in air and sun which is a most
ordinary test, being nearest to those of stuffs in usage, nearly all degraded from what they were
originally.
The blue, green, yellow and linen grey paled considerably and became dimmer as did the
poppy and scarlet. The reds generally, in all their gradations, held up much better, as did the
dark violet, which seemed to resist better than the others the diverse trials I made, and in that I
consider them preferable to our own in the ordinary class.
Amongst the light reds I found some samples of a bricky colour without decided character and
even little agreeable, which would have no consummation, but I have noticed with surprise that
some of these colours when steeped in cold water and brought out into air and sun have become
more lively and brilliant. In this test they lost their bricky colour and acquired a crimson,
229
 slightly purple. But this only happened with the light reds; all the others lost something, more
or less.
I had hoped to find in the selection samples of different shades of pink which are of great
consummation, above all, today, the pale ones, but I did not find a single one, unless Monsieur
le Comte de Weldone calls pink the bricky ones, of which I have spoken above; but they,
despite their pretty metamorphosis, would never supply the demand for pink in France.
I have found no samples of the colours isabel, chamoix, apricot, English green and other pale
colours, which have great consummation, nor of certain full colours such as goose-dirt and red
of Artois, which are today very much in the fashion. But as most of these colours are mixed, I
think one could derive them from the others, as is done in France; but it would be essential that
Monsieur le Comte de Weldone should succeed in making the pale colours more resistant to air
than they are in general, for as to the strong and full colours, even our own resist passably.
I have made no experiment on the white, which appears to me superb, but which I could test
only in greater quantity, or by usage.
To resume, these colours do not yet promise the fixity and permanence announced, unless there
is some further means to improve them.
Nevertheless, in general they are better than our common colours, particulary the reds, green
and violet, and for this reason can procure an advantage to the possessor of the secret and to
those who will become the first [word left out]. It would therefore be precious to me to acquire
it; always providing I could come to it without having to make advances, seeing that the lack of
solidity in the pale colours does not permit one to flatter oneself that one would gain any
considerable advantage; I think it would even be possible to amalgamate some of Monsieur le
Comte de Weldone's solid bases with some of our own, and from the mixture to make better
colours than exist yet. [illegible word or phrase] But for that, in order to draw some part of his
advantages, whatever they are, it would be necessary to have the manufacturing of the dyes at
Lyon, and to apply them, as needed to all the national and other silks that abound in countries
near to France in default of which the matter would lose much of its importance.
Your Most Serene Highness had desired I should reply in this matter frankly and sincerely, and
I have done so; the details into which I have entered having given me the time to complete the
trials begun. To conclude, I will tell him with the same frankness that whilst the business does
not promise such success as I at first hoped, it gives me hope of sufficient advantage for me to
desire to participate in it. I therefore remit my fate and my interests into his hands with entire
confidence.
... I take the opportunity to attach a few little samples of our cherry, rose, chamoix, grey, lilac
and other colours, light clove, English green and Dutch violet.

Prince Carl replied (I translate from his French):5

20 August,1781

I am very much vexed that the dyed silks did not fulfil your expectation, my dear Brother. 1
had very much hoped that they would, as I flattered myself to contribute to your well being, no
less than my own, through them. I could not do other than show Monsieur le Comte de
Weldone the first 2 pages of your reply. I will make an extract from his and attach it for your
elucidation, together with the samples you sent me, which I find beautiful and agreeable. I wish
you had sent back mine, so that we could judge of their deterioration under the tests you
applied.

Willermoz should indeed have returned the samples so that the effects of the tests of which he
spoke could be seen, and one understands Prince Carl's vexation, but I will hold over comment
upon this correspondence until the end of it, or of what has survived of it.
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 Saint-Germain's answer, and Prince Carl's extract from it, seem both to have disappeared. What
we have is a further letter from Willermoz to Prince Carl:6

Oct. l, 1781

The first of the three letters above mentioned, containing an extract from the reply made by
Monsieur le Comte de Weldone to Your Most Serene Highness on the subject of my
observations on the new dyes has caused me some pain, mingled with surprise at seeing
Monsieur le Comte enter so little into the sense of my letter of July 30 and attribute to my own
great inexperience the diverse trials which I made of the samples. To determine whether it was
reasonable to make such, 1 beg Your Most Serene Highness to permit me to remind him of the
terms in which the qualities of these dyes were announced to me. I find in his letter of 20 May
last the words, 'the most beautiful colours'. . .
I have underlined the words that gave rise to the three kinds of tests which I made, 1) boiling,
2) acids, lemon juice, warm and fresh, 3) drying of the samples in the air and in the sun.
In the first, the fine crimson and other cochineal colours are (as regards silk) the only colours
reputed fast because they are the only ones which resist boiling in soap.
All the dyes of Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Germain having been announced as fast, I had (in
order to be able to sustain any assertion I might be able to make) to assure myself of their fixity
by boiling, or at least of their approximation to fixity. I therefore threw all the colours into a
cauldron of boiling soap, and also a piece of our fine crimson. After 3 minutes I took all out.
Our fine crimson was intact; the blue, green, yellows and pale colours of Monsieur le Comte
had become white; the full colours and reds conserved a more or less strong shade of their dark
colour, as Your Most Serene Highness can verify from the samples attached, no. 2 which
present the entire result of this trial.
As to the second, in our manufactures when the seller assures that such and such a colour is
fast, he assures himself of it by trials in hot acid and in cold, such as lemon juice and vinegar;
the first is the more used. The above mentioned tints having been announced as resistant to
ACIDS, I had to assure myself of it, in order to affirm it in my turn. I plunged them all into cold
lemon juice for a few minutes: the colours were affected. I then put them for 2 or 3 minutes into
a bath of warm lemon juice; they were affected much further. Your Most Serene Highness can
verify this from the attached package no. 3 which contains the samples submitted to this test.
As to the third, these colours having been announced as resistant to rain, air and sun, I dipped
them twice a day in clear and pure water drawn from the Rhone, and each time after having
pressed the water out of them I exposed them to dry in air and sun. This trial was maintained
for three whole consecutive days; the blue, green, yellow and pale colours were notably
affected, as were the poppies and scarlets, the violets much less so, but all the reds conserved
themselves. Your Most Serene Highness can verify the result of this trial in the attached packet
no. 4.
To help in the verification of the three trials, I attach also a packet No. 1, containing those of
the samples I received which were not subjected to any test.
' In my letter of July 30,1 said that the test by boiling being the most violent and least used, I set
little store by that, having little hope that the said colours would have the fixity to bear it; all
my observations have been used on the other two.
I have acknowledged that despite the deterioration suffered by the dyes in testing in acids, air
and sun, they nevertheless held up better than our own ordinary dyes, which were worse
affected.
To sum up, I have concluded that it would be advantageous to me to participate, one way or
another, as Your Most Serene Highness has deigned to let me hope, in the consumption and
distribution of these new dyes, by means of whatever arrangements it may please Monsieur le
Comte de Saint-Germain to propose through the mediation which Your Most Serene Highness
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 has the goodness to offer me, and I reiterate with haste today my declaration that I should be
very much flattered and desirous that the project should have its accomplishment through me.
The final promise made by Monsieur le Comte in the above-mentioned extract from his letter,
concerning the kind of solidity of these dyes in silk, would confirm if need be the opinion I had
already formed and in my preceding letter avowed, of the superiority of his dyes to our
ordinary ones; in short, if there could remain the least uncertainty concerning his assertion,
which I do not doubt and consider very well founded, the trial of some pieces of stuff fabricated
at Lyon from some suitable silks in the colours of which I would propose samples, if he could
furnish them, would irresistibly dissipate it by conviction.
I have yet to reply to one of the observations made by Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Germain
concerning my procedures. He seems surprised that I tested, hot, dyes made without use of
heat. But one must foresee that, in whatever the country, from the moment one announces the
colours are more fast than others, so as to procure a preferential sale, one awakens the jealousy
of all the ordinary artists in this medium, who will not neglect to use any known test in order to
discredit them with the public.
On the other hand, the consumer whose thought in preferring these is to be better guaranteed
against daily accidents will be little interested whether in the making of the dyes there was heat
or whether they were made cold; he will want to make tests in his own manner; if everyone was
of good faith it would be easy to recommend appropriate tests and forbid others, but
unfortunately it is not so.
That is why I think it would be damaging to announce them as FAST, and essential to
determine the degree of stability one thinks one can guarantee.
As to the samples of Lyon dyed stuffs which I took the liberty of addressing to Your Most
Serene Highness with my aforesaid letter of July 30, of which Monsieur le Comte was able to
destroy the colours, I have not been at all surprised by their destruction. I had not put them
forward as models of stability, but only as models of pale colours agreeable and much in
demand, the fault of which (particularly in the pinks and the lilacs) is that they are not fast at
all, to know whether Monsieur le Comte could imitate the shades, particularly the roses, with
greater stability.

If this was the intention, it would have been better to make clear in the letter of 30 July, for the
impression therein created was certainly that he was setting his own samples up in rivalry. Perhaps
Willermoz was by now afraid of losing the Prince.
Prince Carl replied (I translate from his French)7:

3 Nov, 1781

I have spoken at length with Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Germain about the clarification you
have given me concerning the dyes. He seems satisfied with it and 1 am delighted to be able to
tell you he will soon be sending me new samples for you, and that excessive praise was not due
to those which I did send you, which were inferior in every way to those you will receive; there
must have been some misunderstanding or confusion in the sending of the first lot. It was only
the white which the Comte de Saint-Germain intended for you in the beginning, but he will
now let me have other useful and agreeable colours for you, and for you only, in France.

After two months, Prince Carl wrote to Willermoz again (I translate from his French) 8:

7 February, 1782

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 Monsieur de Saint-Germain has been very much occupied all the winter with other matters than
with dyeing, other enterprises and the giving of instruction. This is what has held up my
sending you the samples which I will post today, addressed to Brother Saltzman at Strasburg.
There are only a few, but it is above all the whites I beg you to consider.

Whether they arrived or how Willermoz responded we do not know. Prince Carl's
correspondence with Willermoz continued upon Masonic matters without further reference to Saint-
Germain. As it was earlier obvious that some of the letters must have disappeared, it is most likely
there has been a disappearance also of a letter or letters explaining why the matter of the dyes went
no further.
Various speculations have been offered, Chacornac follows Willermoz' biographer in her
assumption that it was a Danish Freemason who had warned Willermoz that Saint-Germain was not
one of "theirs", ie not a Mason or not of the Strict Observance Un Mystique Lyonnais Alice Joly
(Macon Protat, 1938) p. 159. Yet it has never been a rule of the Crafts Freemasons should do
business only with other Freemasons. Prince Carl knew that Saint-Germain was not a Mason, for he
nowhere refers to him as Brother Saint-Germain when writing to another Mason, such as
Willermoz. Willermoz would have known from that alone that Saint-Germain was not a Mason,
since in inter-Masonic correspondence members of the order are nearly always referred to as
Brother. There would be no need for a third party to disclose this to Willermoz, prejudicially. What
I do think possible is that while top Freemasons, such as the late Comte de Clermont Prince, Grand
Master of the Grand Orient in France and his ancient Victor, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick,
Grand-Master of the Strict Observance, and Prince Carl (who was to become Grand-Master for all
Denmark) recognised Saint-Germain as a deeply thoughtful man, whom they were glad to know,
there was at a lower level a tendency for Freemasons to be hostile to him, probably because the
immense lustre of his name and the regard in which he was held in high places, unallied to Masonic
titles, aroused jealousy. Madame Joly had consulted Professor Rijnberk, obviously a Mason, who
discovered the letters but whose writing about them shows a jaundiced tone. (I translate from his
Dutch):9

Carl of Hesse belonged to the highest grades of numerous Masonic and para-Masonic systems
of his time. If Saint-Germain had been able to show himself a companion spirit, that would
have strengthened the interest of the Landgraf in his person: Carl of Hesse would not have
omitted to inform Wiflermoz and von Haugwitz. One can show from this that Saint-Germain
was without knowledge of a single Masonic order.

I would have thought it obvious from the whole of Prince Carl's writing that he regarded Saint-
Germain very much as a companion spirit, indeed as his spiritual teacher; but of course by
'companion spirit' (medelidmaat) Professor Rijnberk means Mason, and his implication is that not to
be a Mason is to be without profound knowledge or spiritual understanding. One can see this
prejudicial slant in his interpretation of the letters. For instance 10 he admires the tact of Willermoz in
turning aside the prescription which Prince Carl sent him from Saint-Germain for his invalid
brother, Dr Pierre-Jacques Willermoz, with compliments such as to disguise the fact, taken by
Professor Rijnberk as self-evident, that the latter's 'qualified doctors' had rejected 'moonshine'
(literally snee, meaning 'snow'). This dodges the point that the prescription had not been sent
intrusively but had been asked for by Willermoz, and also that the remedy already being used was
also not the doctors' but that of another sufferer from the malady, who had confided the remedy
'mysteriously', without the doctors' objecting. The doctors, however, wanted, and eventually
obtained, permission to operate.
Secondly, he attributes the dropping of dyes from the correspondence to Willermoz' tact in
allowing Prince Carl to understand only from his silence that the second set of samples had proved
as unsatisfactory as the first. But we do not know that a second set was ever sent. Although Prince
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Carl thought to send a second set, Saint-Germain may still have wished to work on them further
before they were despatched, and then not have had the time to do it. Moreover, and this is the point
which seems not to have been noticed, despite his dispraise of the dyes, Willermoz was willing and
eager, even on the basis of the first set sent him, to participate in the benefits of the manufacture,
even to the extent of suggesting the factory be moved from Eckernforde to Lyon, which was a
rather tactless suggestion, not likely to be taken up, as it would mean not only that he would have to
be given the secret but Prince Carl and Saint-Germain would lose control of the direction, and
could, once the manufacture had been moved, be discounted. A merchant, in those days, was not
simply someone who bought wholesale to sell retail, but gave the raw materials out to be treated
and prepared by people who, if they worked on their own premises, were as his paid workpeople,
practically his employees. When Willermoz spoke of 'our' dyes, he therefore probably felt some of
that jealousy which he attributes to others, on hearing from Prince Carl of a new kind, claimed to
rival them. At the same time as experiencing this jealousy, he knew that if such a new kind existed,
he must acquire an interest in it, though with the least possible expense to himself. Hence the
disparaging tone. He says, in effect, 'your dyes, which you acclaim so highly, are but poor things,
and I am doing you a favour in being willing to participate in your venture'. The tone is one familiar
to anyone with the least experience of business. The object of the disparagement is to obtain
cheaper. Our greatest dramatist recognised it when he made Paris rebuke Diomed for dispraising
Helen: 'you do as chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that you intend to buy', Troilus and Cressida, IV,
i, 74-76.
Prince Carl was irritated, because he was Royal, because he had addressed Willermoz as a
Masonic brother rather than as a member of the merchant caste, and because he knew Willermoz'
business was in a bad way. What he was too gentlemanly to mention, but what was common
knowledge, was that the silk industry in France had been hit hard by Marie-Antoinette's innocent
fancy for dressing up as a shepherdess in the imitation farm at the Little Trianon. When the Queen
dressed in cottons and muslins, what woman of the Court dared wear silk? To bring interest back to
silk, something new was needed. Saint-Germain was not tied to silk. His dyes would dye cotton,
muslin or anything else. It was to fit in with Prince Carl's idea of working through Willermoz that
he had provided the samples on silks.
But what had he been occupied with that had taken precedence over the dyeing? Perhaps with
his medicines, which may have seemed to him humanly more important.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 34

1 Copenhagen, Den Danske Frimurerorden, F II 10 f. 11. This and the other letters of Prince Carl
preserved at the Grand Lodge of Den Danske Frimurorden are plainly copies, without
salutation or subscription and signature, whether made by Prince Carl himself, before the
originals went out by the post, or by another hand I cannot tell, the only letter of his preserved
that is plainly in his hand being in the German script, which has such a different look from the
Roman. The replies from Willermoz preserved in the same place are, on the other hand, plainly
the originals received.
2 Copenhagen, Der Danske Frimurerorden, F II 10,f.9.
3 Copenhagen, Den Danske Frimurerorden, F II 10, f.16.
4 Copenhagen, Den Danske Frimurerorden. This and the two letters, of 1 October and 3
November, are possessed by them, in principle, only they can no longer find them in their files,
and I therefore translate them from the transcription made from their files by the Dutch scholar
Prof. Dr G. van Rijnberk and published by him in his Saint-Germain in de Brieven van zijn
tijdgenoot den Prins Karel van Hessen Cassel (Den Haag, c.1944), pp. 19-25. The words
marked "illegible" were so marked by him.
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5 Copenhagen, Den Danske Frimurerorden, F II 10, f.13.
6 Copenhagen, Den Danske Frimurerorden, see note 4 above.
7 Copenhagen, Den Danske Frimurerorden, see note 4 above.
8 Copenhagen, Den Danske Frimurerorden, F II 10, f.23.
9 Saint-Germain in de Brieven van zijn tijdgenoot den Prins Karel van Hessen Cassel, G. van
Rijnberk (Den Haag, c.1944), p. 28.
10 Ibid., p. 11.

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 CHAPTER 35

VON HAUGWITZ AND MEDICINES

Among the papers left by Prince Carl is the following:1

Fol. Sennae 1/2 π Stir for 24 hours in spirit of wine,

Uva Sambuci 1/2 π then brew as tea
Feniculi 1/2 π

This sounds like the recipe for the famous tea dispensed by Saint-Germain which had puzzled
others for so long. In reading it, one can take π to mean, not the classic ratio, but simply 'parts'. The
composition was two parts senna pods to one part elder flowers and one part fennel. Lehndorff’s
estimation that the tea handed round to the Leipzig circle seemed to combine the tastes of senna,
elder and aniseed was practically correct, for fennel has a taste closely resembling that of aniseed.
This, though its effects were laxative, was, nevertheless, intended for a general beverage, of
healthful properties.
It is, however, in the correspondence between Prince Carl and his Masonic friend Baron Kurt
von Haugwitz, now Prussian Ambassador to Vienna, that we find the only recipe of Saint-Germain
for a speciic ailment, a soreness in the eyes, from which von Haugwitz must have told Prince Carl
he was suffering. The text of Prince Carl's letter is in German, excepting for the words 'the dear
Doctor', obviously a quotation from Saint-Germain, and the recipes, which are in French, the latter
presumably having been written out form him by Saint-Germain. I translate:2

Luisenland, 9 October, 1781

The Comte de Saint-Germain has given me the following recipe with his compliments and the
assurance of his friendship towards 'the dear doctor', and-you are asked, dear Brother, to keep it
strictly secret, now and always:
20π quicklime thrown in 60π boiling water, which should afterwards be kept boiling for an
hour; then let cool, and drop in 2π hard crust of white bread. Mix well, and leave for 24 hours.
Draw off, removing the pellicule which will have formed over the water, clear as crystal, which
will be underneath. Sovereign remedy for many obstinate ills that nothing else will cure. It is
usually necessary to bathe the suffering part with it several times a day. For the eyes in
particular, one should add to a cup of this water a few drops of fennel and of Queen of Hungary
Water, which should be mixed with it.
I join to this my ardent wishes that this recipe will cure your sore eyes.

'Queen of Hungary Water' was an old form of Eau de Cologne. A principal ingredient is
believed to have been, as in the modern kind, oil of rosemary. There is a letter of Madame du
Deffand to the Duchesse de Choiseul, telling her that the thought of her (I translate from her
French) 'is to me like Queen of Hungary Water; it revives and reanimates me'. 1 Correspondence
Complete de Madame du Deffand. . . (Paris 1866) vol.1, p.58 (letter of 23 July, 1766).
That secrecy should have been enjoined may have been because, although Saint-Germain gave
everything freely, Prince Carl was considering the possibility of making up the medicines, like the
dyes, in commercial quantities, and marketing them.
I sent the recipe, and also that for the tea, to two medical practitioners, for their comments. One
was a friend of mine, Dr Margaret Little, who replied concerning the 'quicklime' recipe:

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 Saint-Germain's formula is for lime-water, a solution of slaked-lime (calcium hydroxide)
which, according to the OED, has been in use under that name since 1677 ... It was still in the
Pharmacopoeia in 1850, but no longer is. It is astringent and antacid and was used orally for
indigestion . .. The application would be soothing and harmless, and in the eighteenth century
that would have constituted a marked improvement on most treatments then available. It would
also, after an hour's boiling, be relatively clean (although standing for 24 hours in the presence
of bread would unfortunately reintroduce some bacteria).

She emphasised, however, that doctors in the practice of conventional medicine, especially
today, were at a considerable remove from the making up of preparations for which they might
write prescriptions—she could not think what the bread could be for—and suggested my own
doctor might be able to be more helpful about this, as well as able to comment on the herbal
mixture, which she could not.
The other practitioner to whom I had written was in fact my own doctor, Dr Anita Davies,
qualified in conventional medicine but with subsequent specialisation in homeopathy. She replied:

I asked Mr Ainsworth the [homeopathic] pharmacist ... He thought the bread boiled with the
quicklime would prevent its bubbling all over and form the focus for crystallisation. The herbal
mixture has mostly an aperient effect, as you say, but Senna is known in homeopathic circles to
cause exhaustion, and a sinking feeling after food. It is useful in infantile colic and
sleeplessness. Elder (Sambucus nigra) is recommended for chills, for a gargle for sore thoats,
and as a laxative. The berries were eaten in Neolithic times, and its therapeutic effect was used
in ancient Greece. Fennel has an essential oil and is 'stimulant, diuretic, carminative, stomachic,
expectorant, galactogenic, antispamodic' (from Guide to Medicinal Plants, Paul Schauenberg,
Lutterworth Press, 1977).

Longer lists of the ailments curable by elder and fennel may be found in Culpeper's Herbal
(1652) and other classics, but, rooted in tradition from earliest times, and doubtless subject to trial
by usage in the homes of the various writers, I do not know if they have been experimented in a
scientific manner. The properties of wild plants remain under-researched.
As to the making up of the tea, elder presents no problem, since it grows everywhere, and the
flowers, gathered in June and dried, will keep right through the year. Fennel, though perhaps more
of a Mediterranean plant, will grow in gardens at least as far north as the English Midlands (it is an
umbelliferous plant, resembling common Cow Parsley or 'keck', excepting that the florets are
yellow). Senna pods, the pods of cassia, have to be imported, but are obtainable through any good
herbalist and are not unknown in ordinary 'chemist's' shops (my mother remembers her mother
giving them to all the children to keep them regular). The three herbs mixed and brewed as tea
make a drink not unpleasant in taste, but, if this is the tea Saint-Germain handed round to his friends
in Leipzig, it must surely have been very weak, otherwise they would have experienced disturbance
on account of the laxative effect of the senna. The recipe does not state the quantity of the herbal
mixture that should go into a tea-pot of a given size, or whether more than a single cup should be
drunk.
The indication that the herbs should first be steeped for 24 hours in spirit of wine, however,
raises questions. Does this mean steeped in alcohol made from wine? Wine could be boiled. The
condensation upon something cold, of the steam rising from it would be alcohol or spirit made from
wine; but whilst a few drops might be collected from the lid of the pot or a cold window, it would
not be practical, in an ordinary kitchen, to make and collect enough of it to use for steeping
anything in. A still would be necessary, which would make the enterprise rather daunting to most
people. It is possible, however, that Saint-Germain only means alcohol in the form of wine.
Culpeper gives different ailments to be cured by fennel according as the seeds are boiled in water or
in wine, and this may suggest the lines along which Saint-Germain's mind was working. If after
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soaking for 24 hours in wine the seed mixture is taken out, and boiling water poured on to it instead,
the resulting tea will taste slightly of the wine absorbed by the seeds, though more strongly of the
latter. I find the effect euphoric, as it is also without soaking in the wine. Can it be that it has
properties subtler than those for which it is generally known? Or can the mixture with the two other
herbs bring out a different side of the senna? Culpeper has an entry under Senna, to which he gives
a different Latin name than we do, though his description of the leaf fits a drawing in the French
Larousse Illustrée, and after saying that it is purgative (but afterwards binding) he goes on, to say,
'corrected with carraway-seed, aniseed or ginger, a dram taken in wine, ale or broth, fastening,
comforts and cleanses the stomach, purges melancholy, choler and phlegm from the head and brain,
lungs, heart, liver and spleen, cleansing those parts of evil humours; strengthens the senses,
procures mirth . . .' Anise and fennel are both umbelliferous plants, the seeds of which are known
for their similarity in taste. Can it be that Saint-Germain knew that senna needed 'correcting' with
something of this order? It looks as though he were working in the tradition of ancient herbalists,
adding refinements of his own.
Again, Culpeper gives juice of Hog's Fennel dissolved in wine for dropping into ears to sooth
earache, or put into a hollow tooth for toothache, but the juice of Common Fennel (not in wine) for
dropping into eyes, for clearing them 'from mists and films that hinder the sight'. This throws light
upon Saint-Germain's advice that, for application to the eyes, a few drops of fennel should be added
to the lime-water.
The quicklime, which is the basis of this, is what ordinary limestone becomes when heated
('burning only because of its thirst for water, and hissing fearsomely when plunged into the boiling
water'). As limestone thrusts up in many places as a natural outcrop from the earth, pieces may
often be picked up in waste places, or dug from the soil in gardens on a limestone ridge (where the
soil will be very alkaline), but would presumably be best scrubbed clean, and then hammered to a
powder, before 20 parts of it, baked or otherwise heated, were tipped into the 60 parts of boiling
water.
Von Haugwitz must have asked for a complement of instructions, as appears from Prince Carl's
next to him (I translate from his German):3

26 March, 1782

To apply the eye-lotion, dip into it the quill of a feather, choosing one with a rounded point,
from which you can then make drops into the eyes; it twinkles a little and you may feel it a bit
biting, but it will do good. A couple of drops are sufficient each time.

Perhaps von Haugwitz had difficulty in finding the limestone or doubted his ability to make up
the prescription correctly, for he must have appealed for bottles to be sent him containing the
medicine ready made up, as we next find Prince Carl writing (I translate from his German):4

18 May, 1782

Your compliments to the dear old Papa Saint-Germain were transmitted to him by me yesterday
in writing. He has entrusted entirely to me the making up of all these medicines [literally
vomitives] and I have turned it over to good Brother Lossau. Your requests should arrive today.
You need only write me a line and as much as you need will always be prepared. In these last
few days I have been given frequent occasion to see the power with which these medicines
work, the latest occasion being yesterday, in the case of my wife, who was very ill, seized with
a catarrhal attack like that which raged so contagiously in Petersburg, Copenhagen and now in
these parts. Within one hour, I saw her in the greatest pain and fever, and then perfectly
healthy.

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 It is certainly a surprise to find Saint-Germain referred to as 'the dear old Papa'. Prince Carl had
evidently ceased to find him mysterious. This affectionate way of styling him makes him seem
more homely. It also suggests he was now, at last, showing his age. Prince Carl, at this time, was
thirty-six. It has been suggested by Professor Dr G van Rijnberk that what Princess Louise was
suffering from was a particularly violent form of influenza at that time sweeping through Russia,
Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. It is a pity Prince Carl does not mention what it was that Saint-
Germain gave her.
That Prince Carl was not now able to visit Saint-Germain daily comes out from a touching
snatch of lines written to von Haugwitz later in the year: (I translate from his German):5

Gottorf, 17 Nov, 1782

A few days ago I saw our old Papa Saint-Germain in Eckernforde again. He wept like a child as
we put our arms around each other. I was very glad to have been to see him, and of our
conversation. Everyone, I must say yet again, feels respect and esteem for his knowledge.

One feels, suddenly, that Saint-Germain was lonely. Very many people had been merely
dazzled by him, gaping at him as though he were a phenomenon, rather than a person, without
attempting to understand what he had to show them, to share with them. Now, at last, he had a
person with whom he could share his discoveries, a pupil and son.
At the end of the year Prince Carl wrote to von Haugwitz (I translate from his German):6

Gottorf, 12 December, 1782

With how much pleasure I received my beloved Brother's letter of the 20th a few days ago, I
cannot, dearest friend, tell you. I am particularly happy to have come to know you better
through your journey. But you reproach yourself with your weakness and laziness; what should
I say to that! I that am in all goodness, whether of understanding or of action, so behindhand.
All that I can and will do is humble myself before the Lord, and give myself over to him more
and more, in the trust and confidence that he will at the right time bring all good. I flatter
myself I cannot hide from you that I should be glad to see you here this winter; but this
inexpressible satisfaction would be out of the question for me. So I wait in peace and patience,
though I must say I yearn for it.
I am waiting impatiently for the new Rituals which the worthy Brother Willermoz has in hand.
He is sending them as soon as he has put them in order, and before anyone else sees them I
should like you to look through and correct them; then, in Wilhelmsbad, we can go through
them together and with Duke Ferdinand.
The whole endeavour of the Convention should be, firstly, to give to the whole System or
Order of the united [squares] a suitable and acceptable form which all of the Brothers can use
together. Secondly, the way through the Order to true wisdoms should be so set out as to
remain quite secluded and secret from those not wishing to have anything to do with it, from
which it followed, thirdly, that the new Ritual should be so composed as to arrange the Grades
in such a manner as to lead the Brothers by that path. Fourthly direction of the souls towards
our Lord and Saviour, which was not formally done in the least. Fifthly, the secret Instructions
put together by you, dear friend,—the first 2 Grades of our new Ritual, not only contain them,
discreetly, but the highest enlightenment of our whole System is brought into them and certain
of the most important Brothers in each Province will be initiated.
God knows, I know of nothing more to do, and that my most ardent wish for you and for all the
Brothers is to be joined [writing very difficult to read here] in order to receive the Wisdom of

239
 the East; that I seek the Lord and nothing else, myself not! Certainly not! From weakness as
much as from honesty of heart, I believe with St Paul, Romans, VII, 38 (-39) that nothing can
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ.7
I have already reported to you, dear friend, that I have talked with the Grand-Duke8 and have
found in him a pious, understanding knower of his own religion, who supposed there to be deep
knowledge in Masonry although he was not a Freemason. He is an excellent man and I feel sure
will become a true teacher of wisdom to his time. I love him beyond measure.
Medicines [literally vomitives] are on their way to you, despatched by the post that went out
yesterday; as often as you need more they can be sent to you.
My regards to your wife. My wife sends you both her regards. I always long for your letters, so
write to me. I embrace you, dear friend, and am forever your holy-bounden Brother,

Carl

The interlinked squares or rectangles probably stand for interlinked lodges or Masonic systems.
I have cited this letter in its entirety not only because it is the only one of which we can be sure
we have the original, in the hand of Prince Carl, but because it is informative by its very omissions.
Had Saint-Germain been, as so many have imagined him, a highly placed Freemason, now if ever
was the occasion for him to have been seen playing the role attributed to him by Mrs Cooper-
Oakley, going from lodge to lodge to set up communications and, in particular, helping to overhaul
The Strict Observance. It is very evident from this letter who were the people overhauling it, Duke
Ferdinand von Haugwitz, with contributory help from Willermoz. Saint-Germain, though in contact
with all four of them, was not shown the new rituals, nor consulted and not expected to attend the
conference at Wilhelmsbad, and that because, despite the intimacy of his friendship with Prince
Carl, they did not think of him as a Mason. Prince Carl was his disciple, but that was a different
matter.
A few days later, Prince Carl wrote to von Haugwitz again (I translate from his German):9

240
 Gottorf, 17 December, 1782

I can better send you the drops you request from Potsdam, but cannot remember your taking the
white ones with you, only the yellow ones, the so-called golden drops, unless I mistake.

It is from a letter to von Haugwitz we receive the first intimation Saint-Germain's own health
was, at last, failing. I translate from his German:10

Gottorf, 30 April, 1783

Count Saint-Germain was on his feet again when I visited him 10 days ago. He affirms his
recovery has been rapid. But it has to work upon two levels, body and soul; the hardest part is
yet to come, that on the seat of the soul, the head, that he does not deny ...
Count Saint-Germain spoke to me about the stones of which you have so many is Silesia, the
ones that were almost precious stones. If you would like to send me a few specimens, I would
gladly refund the cost, with many thanks.

It sounds as if Saint-Germain had a fancy to make experiments upon some pretty pebbles of
which von Haugwitz had spoken, to see if he could work them up. He told Prince Carl he could not
make diamonds but he could work on diamonds so as to improve them. The same with other
precious stones, and with gold. He did not make gold, and, he added, if anyone could, he ought not
to. But he could improve the quality of gold. Some outlay was needed, but profit was inevitable. It
was the same with wool, cottons, linens, silks, everything. He did not think there was anything that
could not be worked upon, to its improvement.
The diamonds perhaps he boiled in acid to eat out flaws, and possibly, if he anticipated the later
discovery of electricity he may have bombarded them with electrons and neutrons to improve the
colour and brilliance, in the way known to Messrs de Beers Ltd. But his assertion that probably
nothing in nature resisted improvement makes one wonder if he had some method which could be
applied to everything, and what it was. A yogi will address a particular organ, such as his liver,
saying, Liver, do better', as speaking to a kind of entity. Is it possible to address the still smaller
entities, the molecules that remain in the hide after it has been removed from the cow and turned
into leather; in the cotton after it has been removed from the plant; and the silk from the silkworm's
cocoon? Is it possible to get down even further, to the electronic level and affect the electrons
directly and, either by talking to them or by some electrical process, stimulate them to do better,
each along their own lines, according to their inborn nature, so that, in a fabric, this would show up
as better leather, better cotton, better silk?
From the way in which he passes out messages, one has the impression Saint-Germain no
longer communicated with other people except through Prince Carl. It may be that Prince Carl,
seeing that his friend's health was failing, relieved him of inessential work, such as letter writing, so
that he might conserve the strength left to him for things which he alone could do.
Long ago, in the Hague, Kauderbach had noted that he took care to wrap himself up, suggesting
vulnerability to cold. It was unfortunate that the neighbourhood of Gottorp, humanly the warmest
home he had found, was climatically bitter. Kiel, a few miles south of Eckernforde, is called 'the
city of the winds', and the winds coming off the Baltic are raw. He suffered from rheumatism,
Prince Carl thought because the room beneath the workshop in which he slept, and in which Prince
Carl had meals with him, was damp. Prince Carl wrote to von Haugwitz (I translate from his
German):11

8 June, 1783

241
 Count Saint-Germain is getting better, but slowly. An extraordinary man, and daily seems to
me more so.

Yet in his relations with Saint-Germain there was one shadow. It seemed to him his friend's
philosophy implied a subtle yet 'pure materialism'. We must go carefully here. The man who wrote
The Mystery was not a materialist, yet there are phrases in it which, taken out of context, could give
the impression that he was, as could any phrases relating to subtle (electronic) states of matter.
The real rub, however, was that Saint-Germain did not believe in Jesus Christ. Prince Carl says
Saint-Germain said something about Jesus Christ which was not agreeable to him, but does not tell
us what it was. Probably it was to the effect that though a sage of holy life he was still a man, and
not the Son of God in a sense different from other people. Prince Carl tells us he then replied 'You
will believe what you like about Jesus Christ, my dear Count; but I tell you frankly you have hurt
me'.
Saint-Germain was silent for a while, then said quietly, 12 'Jesus Christ does not matter. But to
have hurt you matters. I promise you never again to speak about this'.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 35
1 This should be at Copenhagen, in the files of Den Danske Frimurerorden, but the staff of the
Order cannot now find it, and I therefore translate from the Dutch (excepting for the words in
Latin) of the transcription Saint-Germain in de Brieuen van zijn tijdgenoot den Prins Karei van
Hessen Cassel, G. van Rijnberk (Den Haag, c.1944), p. 12.
2 Krakow, Poland, Universytet Jagellénski, Biblioteka Jagellònska, Varnhagen MSS. But there s
some mystery about this and other letters of Prince Charles to von Haugwitz which follow. I
first read them in the transcripts in Saint-Germain in de Brieven. van zijn tijdgenoot den Prins
Karel vanHessen Cassel, G. van Rijnberk (Den Haag. c. 1944), who gives his reference for
them, on p. 12, as 'K. Bibliotheek, Berlijn'. I consulted a list of all major libraries in Germany,
and finding under Berlin only one beginning with K, the Preussische Kulturbesitz department
of the Staatsbibliothek, I wrote to the Manuscripts Department of that. A Frau Dr. Eva Ziesche,
Bibl. Antmann, replied to me saying she thought the letters must be in the Sammlung
Varnhagen, which during the second world war had been sent out of Berlin, to Krzeszow, in
Silesia, from which it had not come back to them, but had passed in Poland. The last she heard
of it, it was in the Universytet Jagelloriski, Biblioteka Jagellonska, address of which, in
KRàkòw, she gave me. I wrote there, and received from a Dr. Marian Zwiercan a roll of
microfilm. When this was developed, however, there appeared only one integral letter in what
was obviously Prince Carl's own hand, in the old-fashioned German writing. This, with a
salutation and signature, dated 12 December, 1782, was not amongst those quoted by Prof.
Rijnberk. The passages he had quoted, and some others he had not quoted, appeared not as part
of letters but as extracts from letters, shorn of salutation and signature and arranged and
classified under subject matter, Saint-Germain, Masonry or medicine. Thus, a lot of the
personal, biographical interest was gone. They were in a modern German hand, yet bore on
several of the pages the stamp 'Staatsbibliothek, Berlin'. I wrote back to Frau Dr.
Ziesche, telling her this and asking if she could establish when and by whom the extracts had
been made and what had been done with the originals. She referred me to the Deutsche
Staatsbibliothek, where they had 'the old catalogue'. From there I received a reply from a Dr.
Hans Erich Teitge saying their catalogue referred to but a single letter of Prince Carl as being in
the Varnhagen MSS and said nothing about extracts from a number of letters. He suggested "K.
Bibliotheek, Berlijn" might refer to the Konigliche Hausbibliothek. That was destroyed in
World War II. From Frau Dr. Ziesche, I received with her compliments a photocopy of an
article 'Freimaurische Brief e des Landgrafen Karl von Hessen an des Graf en Kurt Haugwitz'
242
 in Hessenland (No. 2, 29 Jahrgang, Zweites Januar-Heft, 1915). Here I found printed all that
had come in microfilm from Krakow. Kuhn had therefore anticipated Rijnberk by almost thirty
years. At the head of his article he refers to the letters as in the Konigliche Bibliothek, Berlin,
which might appear to explain everything—except that at the end of it, he mentions their being
in the Varnhagen MSS, which must therefore have been there. The letter of 12 December,
1782, is given in full with salutation and subscription, those of which I received only extracts,
are only represented in the same extracts. It looks, therefor, as though the originals of the letter
of Prince Carl from which they were extracted were destroyed not in World War II but prior to
1915.
3 KRàkòw, Universytet Jagellonski, Bibliotheka Jagellonska, Sammlung Varnhagen, Varnhagen,
but see note 2 above.
4 KRàkòw, Universytet Jagellonski, Bibliotheka Jagellonska, Sammlung Varnhagen, but see note
2 above.
5 KRàkòw, Uiversytet Jagellonski, Bibliotheka Jagellonska, Sammlung Varnhagen, but see note
2 above.
6 Krakow, Universytet Jagellonski, Bibliotheka Jagellonska, Sammlung Varnhagen Note that this
is the only letter in Prince Carl's own hand.
7 Prince Carl seems to be quoting from a Bible in the German language in which the verse
numbering and text is slightly different from that of our own Authorised Version.
8 Title of the heir to the Russian throne, Catherine's son, the future Tsar Paul, with whom Prince
Carl had some meetings.
9 Kràkòw, Universytet Jagellonski, Bibliotheka Jagellonska, Sammlung Varnhagen, but see note
2 above.
10 Kràkòw, Universytet Jagellonski, Bibliotheka Jagellonska, Sammlung Varnhagen, but see note
2 above.
11 Kràkòw, Universytet Jagellonski, Bibliotheka Jagellonska, Sammlung Varnhagen, but see note
2 above.
12 Memoires de mon Temps, le landgrave Charles, Prince de Hesse (Copenhagen, 1861), p. 136.

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 CHAPTER 36

THE MEDICIS AND RÀKÒCZY

Saint-Germain talked to Prince Carl about his past life. He described to him his days at the
Court of Versailles, his suppers with Madame de Pompadour and Louis XV, and how he had gone
to the Hague on the behalf of the latter, to try to make a peace between France and England and
how he had been threatened by the Due de Choiseul and forced to flee to England. 'It was the
custom of Louis XV to employ emissaries unknown to his Ministers, but to disavow them when
they were discovered'. We cannot tell whether these words were uttered by Saint-Germain himself
or represent Prince Carl's own comment, but we know them to be true. From Saint-Germain's
conversation he gathered that he had lived in practically every country of Europe. 'He had been
often in Constantinople and [other parts of] Turkey'.
This is a precision which is almost very significant, yet very teasing. One must remember that
Prince Carl is writing his memoirs more than thirty years afterwards and would not have taken
contemporary note of the conversations, so that his summary may include compressions and
misunderstandings. His impression of a strong Turkish connection may be seen as relating to Saint-
Germain's voyage with Orlov into Turkish waters in 1770, and possibly again in 1771. But Orlov
forbade anyone to go ashore after the victory at Chesme because of the plague, and he never passed
through the Dardanelles to Constantinople. It was Prince Ràkòczy who spent seventeen and a half
years in Turkey, of which the first ten months at Adrianople, the next eight months in Jenikey, just
outside Constantinople, and the remaining fifteen years in Rodosto.
It is as though Saint-Germain had been speaking out of his father's memory—one remembers
his having told Kauderbach he had known his sovereign's father well, Kauderbach's sovereign's
father having been Augustus II of Poland, whom certainly Ràkòczy had known well, which does
not preclude Saint-Germain's having met him during the lost years. One remembers also the
impression of the contributor to the Berlintsche Monatsschrift that Saint-Germain spoke of his
correspondence with the Emperor Leopold. Or Prince Carl, writing so many years later, could have
run together in his memory what Saint-Germain had told him of the places he had been and the
places his father had been, especially as Turkey came into both categories.
Obviously, Saint-Germain gave Prince Carl very full information concerning his ancestry and
background, which, not being written down by him until over thirty years later, was then
remembered imperfectly. Prince Carl writes:1

He told me that he was eighty-eight years old when he came here. He was ninety-two or three
when he died. He told me he was the son of Prince Ràkòczy of Transylvania, by his first wife, a
Thokoly. He was placed under the protection of the last Medici, who had him sleep, as a child,
in his own room. When he learned that his two brothers, sons of the Princess of Hesse-
Rheinfels or Rotenberg, if I remember rightly, had submitted to the Emperor Charles VI and
taken the names St Charles and St Elizabeth in honour of the Emperor and the Empress, he said
to himself, 'Ah well, I shall call myself Sanctus Germanus, the holy brother.'

There are a number of points to consider here. One concerns dates. For Saint-Germain to have
been eighty-eight when he came to Schleswig-Holstein, in 1779, he would have had to be begotten
by Prince Ràkòczy when only fifteen, since Ràkòczy was born in 1676. On the other hand, if the
conversation took place in Eckernforde, Saint-Germain may have meant that he was eighty-eight
when Prince Carl established him at the works in Eckenforde, which must have been some time in
between 24 November, 1779, when, from von Warnstedt's letter, he must still have been at Gottorp,
and June, 1781, when it emerges from the correspondence with Willermoz that he was at
244
Eckernforde.If it was in 1781 he told Prince Carl he had not long gone eighty-eight, that would give
us a credible birth-date, in late 1693 or early 1694, when Ràkòczy would have been seventeen, and,
moreover, in Italy, which would tie up with the otherwise incomprehensible reference to the
Medicis. Prince Carl was in error in thinking Ràkòczy married twice (it was his mother, Helen
Zrinyi, who became, by a second marriage, a Thokoly), but it should be noticed that he thinks of
Saint-Germain as having had a different mother from the sons, Joseph and George, who were
brought up in the Emperor's Court. Perhaps because it was explained to him in a delicate way, what
Prince Carl had not grasped was that his friend was an illegitimate son of Prince Ràkòczy.
Saint-Germain's reply to King Frederick's sister, Princess Amelia, that his country of origin was
one that had never known foreign rule, has been taken to mean he must be a Wittelsbach, Bavaria
being about the only European country, apart from France, of which that could be said. The
anecdote from an un-named informant sent by Kaunitz to Cobenzl concerning his having stated at
the table of Louis XV, that only the house of Bourbon could rival his, though it seemed to Kaunitz
shocking, would be correct if, and only if, he was a Wittelsbach. Chacornac, building solely upon
the reply to Princess Amelia, supposed him to mean he was a bastard of Queen Maria-Anna of
Spain, since she was born a Wittelsbach (of the cadette or Palatine branch). As, however, she was
never in any place within hundreds of miles of Prince Ràkòczy, this entailed looking for some other
possible father for him. But there was another Wittelsbach lady, of the senior branch of the family,
Princess Violante of Bavaria, wife of Prince Ferdinando dei Medici, neglected and miserable in
Florence where Ràkòczy arrived in May, 1693, and stayed four months. There is no documentary
proof of their having met, but if one looks at the portraits of Ràkòczy, Violante and Saint-Germain,
one sees that his face seems to combine features from theirs. He looks particularly like Violante
around the bridge of the nose and eyebrows and the upper part of the face generally, and
particularly like Francis Ràkòczy in the chin and mouth. There are no genetic contra-indications, in
the light of Mendel's law.
Unless he was both the father and the son (which according to some Theosophical ways of
thinking would not be impossible), I suggest, therefore, that he was the son of Prince Francis
Ràkòczy II of Transylvania and Princess Violante.
This would give a reason for the Medicis to have brought him up, for why should they bring up
a bastard of Francis Ràkòczy unless the mother was one of their own family? Where the family of a
girl who has borne a child out of wedlock chases after the man, it is usually in the hope he will
provide financial maintenance; but the Medicis were so much wealthier than Ràkòczy that, if they
decided to keep the child and bring him up themselves, where the mother could see him sometimes,
they may have thought it needless to send after Ràkòczy to tell him anything about it. So he may
never have known.
Gian Gastone, the last of the Medicis, was always sympathetic to his neglected sister-in-law, so
might have been her confidant. On the other hand, he was away during most of the time the child
would have been growing up, and Sir Harold Acton has been unable to find the name Saint-
Germain among persons associated with him. The name Saint-Germain was probably not used until
much later, and what I would rather fancy is that Gian Gastone persuaded his and Ferdinando's
father, Duke Cosimo III, to take the child into his household, amongst the many pages from good
families, whose education he took part in, running in effect what was practically a boys' school, in
the Pitti Palace. This would not be out of accord with what Prince Carl tells us he gathered from
other sources, that Saint-Germain had been 'prodigiously protected' by Gian Gastone, the last Grand
Duke of Medici. Gian died on 12 January, 1737. Violante had died in May, 1731, much honoured
for her gracious character, piety and good works. The Pope had bestowed on her the Golden Rose.
Because of her reputation for sanctity, as well as for the honour of her especially ancient
lineage, Saint-Germain could have felt a repugnance from compromising her name, casually. Such a
delicacy would explain his reply to the Duke of Newcastle, as Secretary of State, that he would tell
his parentage to the King, only.

245
 But if he was the child of Prince Ràkòczy and Princess Violante, why did people conceive the
notion he was unnaturally aged?
The primary source of it is Rameau. He met Saint-Germain in the house of de la Poupliniere
and told people it was not for the first time; he had met him fifty years earlier, looking exactly the
same age as now. As Saint-Germain looked to those who met at that time about forty-five or fifty,
he must have looked fifty when, or before, he was born. To the Age of Enlightenment— which
could be strangely prone to mysterious fancies—that meant his reason for refusing to divulge his
parentage must be that it was in antique times that he had been born and that he had kept himself
alive, always apparently at the same age, through the centuries or the milennia, by drinking the tea
of senna-pods he was known to brew.
Let us consider whether Rameau could possibly have met Saint-Germain's father. Jean-Philippe
Rameau was born in 1683 (baptised 25 September) at Dijon, where his father was church organist
and brought him up to his own profession. In 1701 his father sent him to Milan, to learn the Italian
style. Returning to France when he was twenty, he joined up as a violinist with a touring company
with which he wandered as far as Lyon, before obtaining a first post as temporary organist to a
church in Avignon. In the summer of the same year, 1702, he contracted for six years with the
Cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, but left without fulfilling them. By 1705 he had arrived in Paris,
where he played two organs for his living, whilst managing to bring out his first book of music,
Premier Livre de Pieces de Clavecin, in the following year. In 1709 he returned to Dijon, to take
over his father's organ for a while, but then recommenced wandering. By July, 1713, he had a
position as organist at Lyon, and in 1715 returned to the organ of the Cathedral of Clermont-
Ferrand, apparently for eight years, though during this period, too, there seems to have been some
wandering, as he is said during it to have played the organ at Saint-Etienne, and perhaps at Lille. In
1723, he left Clermont-Ferrand for Paris, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. In short one
sees, prior to the final installation in Paris, a good deal of wandering within a small compass,
between the towns in the centre of France, on or not very far from the River Rhône.
It was in August, 1717, that Ràkòczy travelled down the Rhòne valley on his way from Paris to
Marseilles, to sail for Turkey, and it will be recalled that he made a stop at Lyon. That is about
eighty miles from Clermont-Ferrand and thirty from Saint-Etienne. From either, but particularly
from the latter, Rameau might have come into Lyon, an old haunt of his, as one comes from a small
town into a city, for the greater range of shops, cultural institutions and the like, or to call in at his
old place; or, as he descended southward, Ràkòczy's next stop after Lyon could have been Saint-
Etienne, a little off the Rhone, but perhaps offering more in the way of comfort and facilities than
the smaller places just there strung along the river; and if so he would not unlikely have entered its
principal place of worship, where he could have met the organist. Ràkòczy was travelling incognito,
so that Rameau could have had speech with him without knowing who it was with, and yet
remembered face, building and perhaps the look in the eyes. Ràkòczy was forty-one when he passed
down the Rhone, Saint-Germain sixty-four when Rameau met him at de la Poupliniere's, though
described as looking only forty-five to fifty. But Rameau had aged in the interval from thirty-four to
seventy-five, from a young man to an elderly man. It would, then, have seemed to him that Saint-
Germain, if he felt he recognised in him the man he had met in 1717, had changed strangely little in
comparision with himself. Saint-Germain would not have wished to mystify him, yet to explain
would have been inopportune.
Prince Carl, remembering that the Medicis had been patrons not only to painting and music but
to the sciences, asked Saint-Germain if it was from them he had acquired the basis from which he
had made his own scientific discoveries. Saint-Germain, however, told him that it was not so. He
had made them entirely from his own observations of nature and experiments with it. Indeed,
though earlier generations of Medicis had bestowed some interest on the construction of
instruments, notably the telescope and the thermometer, and more recent ones upon testing certain
of the ancients' theories concerning animal behaviour, such as the alleged aversion of vipers from

246
ash-trees, one does not see in what they did a possible scaffolding upon which Saint-Germain could
have used for his on researches.
On the other hand, it ceases to be in any way surprising Saint-Germain should possess a
Raphael or other treasure in the form of paintings or rare and ancient books, if he had in his
background the Medicean library and collection of old masters, the greatest in the world. The
Medicean dynasty had ended with the two boy-loving, unhappily married, childless brothers,
Ferdinando, who had predeceased their father, and Gian or Giovanni Gastone, the last of the
Medicis. One should think of Gian Gastone, sunk into his bed eight years before his death, he knew
himself the expiring final remnant of the great and illustrious dynasty that had reigned in Florence
for four centuries, amassing unparalleled treasures. Where was the whole stupendous collection
going, after his death? His tenderest, most chaste love, was probably for Violante, but she was his
brother's widow. All would go to his sister, Anna Maria, who was married to the Elector Palatine.
And then where? He could not know that she would leave it to his alien successor, the Lorratner
who became Grand Duke of Tuscany, Maria-Theresa's husband and Holy Roman Emperor, Francis
I—but leave it to him on condition of its being kept forever, all together, in Florence, for the benefit
of the public of all nations. That is how it comes, one can today walk through the Galleria dei
Uffizi, dazed with beauty as one passes from Botticelli's Birth of Venus to an Annunciation of
Leonardo, past so many Raphael Madonnas one almost feels a surfeit of them. Gian Gastone could
not know they were all going to be kept together, as a permanent memorial to his family. With only
a bleak prospect ahead, it would not be past understanding if he thought to give a few away, to one
who perhaps he wished had been his son.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 36

1 Memoires de mon Temps, le Landgrave Charles, Prince de Hesse (Copenhagen, 1861), p. 135.
2 Ibid., pp. 133-134.

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 CHAPTER 37

WILHELMSBAD

Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick had for a couple of years been talking about the great Masonic
Conference that should be called, at which Masons of all nations should meet each other. Prince
Carl avows he was not too keen. He foresaw that much of the organisation would fall on him, and
that it would occupy him in writing endless letters. But Wilhelmsbad had been fixed upon as the
venue and the conference called, for July, 1782. Prince Ferdinand and Prince Carl were amongst the
earliest to arrive, and as the other Brothers, from all parts, began to arrive, Prince Carl found
himself enjoying being able to speak with Brothers from countries he would never visit, and
meeting in the flesh Brothers whom he had long known on paper; for instance, Willermoz, who
presented himself on 11 July. On the 16, Prince Ferdinand opened the Conference.
It was of course a disquiet concerning their origins which had motivated the calling of the
Conference, and a Brother Bode upset everybody, first by alleging that the Jesuits were taking over
Freemasonry and needed to be resisted, and then by attacking the claim of the Strict Observance to
descend from the Knights Templar. Another one, Dittfurth, went much further in the same strain,
sounding positively anti-Christian. Willermoz made the speech of his life, denouncing these two for
irreligion and for levelling downwards. On the first Sunday the Catholic Brothers asked time to go
to Mass. Some of the non-Catholics were going to object, but the Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick,
although a Lutheran, ruled that of course the arrangements must be made so that the Catholic
Brothers could go to Mass without missing anything.
It dragged on and on, until mid-September. In the end it was decided they should give up
claiming to descend from the Knights Templar, since there was uncertainty. One may feel that this
decision guarantees their integrity. They would keep their red crosses and their spurs but they would
change their name from Strict Observance to Benificent Knights of the Sacred City. This was the
title they had six years previously conferred on Willermoz and his group at Lyon, and some French
writers have seen this as the capture of Germany by Lyon.
It has often been alleged that it was the Wilhelmsbad Conference which determined the French
Revolution of a decade later. This allegation is obviously false. Nevertheless, Prince Carl did, in the
corridors, hear strange talk, that the Bavarian Brothers were plotting something under-cover. They
had visited Frankfurt and even his brother's seat at Hanau and were whispered to be preaching the
overthrow of Churches and thrones. He did not, at this stage, take this as more than wild
whispering.
On his return to Schleswig, it does not appear that he talked to Saint-Germain about anything
that had happened at the Conference, but then, Saint-Germain had never admitted to being a Mason.
It was unfortunate that just at this moment, in the winter of 1783, affairs, principally of a family
order, called Prince Carl to Germany. This made it unlikely he could be beside Saint-Germain at the
end, unless he could last the winter.
Saint-Germain told him that in case he should die before he returned, he would leave a paper in
which he would find all needful instructions, for the guidance of his future, about which he made
certain prophecies.
Prince Carl, perhaps anxious that the note would contain sufficient information, whether he
would be able to understand it, or lest it should go astray, asked Saint-Germain if he could not give
him these last instructions now, while he was still living.
Saint-Germain exclaimed, as in a fright, Ah, serais-je malheureux, mon cher Prince, si j'osais
parler! This means, literally, 'Ah, I should be unhappy, my dear Prince, if I dared to speak.' But the
word malheureux tends to have, in French, a stronger meaning than does 'unhappy' in English. In
this context, it seems to mean overtaken by some consequent disaster.

248
 Obviously, Prince Carl felt this as something mysterious. There are esoteric traditions
concerning a secret which an initiate can pass only to his spiritual son or successor, and only at
point of death.

249
 CHAPTER 38

PRINCE CARL GETS A SHOCK

Prince Carl's reason for leaving was that he thought he should be reconciled to his father before
he died. His younger brother had already been to Weissenstein, where he had somehow or other
managed to enter the presence of the Prince unannounced. He was trying to kneel before him, but
the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, never having seen any of his children since they were in the nursery, did
not know who this strange man was, and, startled to see an officer attempting to assume such a
posture, took him for a madman and had him seized. Grasped by a number of persons, he found
himself subjected to a rigorous cross-examination, and although he kept talking about his father,
some satisfaction as to his identity was required. In the end, the Prince was told that this was his
son, and gave him his blessing.
Prince Carl, at once encouraged and warned by this story when it was related to him, thought it
best to write a letter first, asking if he would be received. A very gracious reply from the Prince and
his second wife assured him and his own wife of a welcome if they would come and stay for a
while, and that is why we find Prince Carl leaving Gottorp at this moment.
After his own reception he wrote to his elder brother, suggesting he should likewise present
himself. The eldest, however, at first declined, fearing that the price of reconciliation would be
surrender of his sovereignity at Hanau. Prince Carl replied that he did not think that would be
required, and urged him not to lose time. His brother came, and afterwards thanked Prince Carl for
having persuaded him, for otherwise it was obvious the two younger brothers would have divided
the whole of the inheritance between them.
It was while he was at Cassel that the Brother Bode who had startled the Masonic Conference
at Wilhelmsbad desired speech with Prince Carl. He said he represented a new Order, and gave him
papers, saying, 'Here is a system which could bring misfortune to many should it fall into bad
hands, but governed by a right-thinking man can do much good. We offer you the whole of the
North of Germany, the whole of Denmark [which included Norway] Sweden and Russia as your
Province'. He would call back in a few hours for his orders.
Prince Carl read the papers and got the shock of his life. He believed now, for the first time,
that there really was a plot for the overthrow of all churches and of all thrones. What he had heard
whispered in the corridors about an order of Bavarian so-called Illuminees, under one Adam
Weishaupt, hiding under the first degree of Masonry, was true. Thinly disguised, it seemed to him
the most absolutely diabolic programme he had ever seen set out. He prayed to God to tell him what
he should do, and suddenly it came to him.
Bode came back, and asked, 'Well, have you read it? What do you think of it? Are you willing
to accept the charge offered you?'
Prince Carl answered, 'I have not quite finished reading, but I accept the charge, subject to the
condition usual in the higher grades of Masonry, that no member can be recruited without my
permission'.
'Naturally. It will be for you to have everything exactly the way you want it'.
'The name of the charge will be The Northern National'.
He was now given the list of recruits already made within what had now become The Northern
National. Fortunately, it was not long. On his return to Denmark he would be able to summon each
one to an individual interview and, before deciding what to do about him, question him to elicit
whether he understood the true end to which he had been enlisted—actually, he was sure Bode did
not understand it, though his opening remark had betrayed some apprehension. All would be
instructed to make no more recruits. Throughout the whole of his Province, this abominable
organisation would make no progress. Whether or not the obviously premeditated revolution in

250
France ever took place and overturned the French throne, no support for it would be forthcoming
from the North.

251
 CHAPTER 252

BLESSEDLY TO SLEEP

Saint-Germain must have written to Prince Carl, although no correspondence between them has
been preserved. Prince Carl, obviously having heard from Saint-Germain, wrote from his brother's
home to von Haugwitz (I translate from his German)1

Hanau, 27 December, 1783

Count Saint-Germain does now better now worse. Perhaps, if, by a mercy, the weather should
not turn wet, he may survive the winter and endure until my return, to give me his last
instructions himself, and then (God willing) blessedly to sleep.

The German word Auftrage means something a little more than instructions in the ordinary
sense, 'orders', 'commissions', 'commands' according to the dictionary but these words sound cold in
English.
On 27 February, 1784, Saint-Germain died. When Prince Carl returned, Dr Lossau told him
that on his death-bed Saint-Germain had asked him to tell him God had given him grace to change
his mind: he knew how happy that would make Prince Carl, and Prince Carl would count for much
in his happiness in the next world.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 39

1 In La Franc-Maconnerie en France des Origines d 1815, G. Bord, (Paris, 1908), p. 316, there
is printed a letter stated to have been written by Prince Charles to Willermoz on 28 May, 1784,
telling him of Saint-Germain's death, fully conscious as Lossau had assured him, and of one of
the last conversations he had with him. 'He had always acted as though he knew nothing of
Masonry or high knowledge, though during the last year a number of things had convinced me
to the contrary. He owned to having met, in Warsaw, a certain Marschall von Biebstein,
thought of as a forerunner of Hund, and to the question, 'Hund would not have tricked us?'
replied, 'No, he was a good man'. Also, despite never having owned to being a Mason, he said
something strange, that he was 'Le plus ancien des Macons'-'the most ancient of Masons'. This
would be of deep significance if authentic. Unfortunately, Bord does not give a source of
reference, and although this may have been from carelessness one cannot be sure he did not
make it up himself or take it uncritically from a source he could not check. 1 wrote to Den
Danske Frimurerorden, where they have all the known correspondence between Prince Charles
and Willermoz but they were unable to produce for me anything of this date. Moreover,
Rijnberk cannot have seen it there.

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 CHAPTER 40

THE ESTATE OF SAINT-GERMAIN

In the church register of Nikolaikirche, in Eckernforde, is written:

Deceased February 27,1784, buried on March 2,1784, the so-called Comte de Saint-
Germain and Weldon—further information not known—privately deposited in this church.

In the church accounts is written:

On March 1, for the here deceased Comte de Saint-Germain a tomb in the Nicolai Church here
in the burial place sub N.I. 30 years time of decay 10 Rthlr.

On 3 April, the Mayor and Council of Eckernforde gave legal notice:

As the Comte de Saint-Germain, known abroad as also here also under the name of Comte de
Saint-Germain and Weldon, who during the last four years has been living in this country, died
recently here in Eckernforde, his effects have been legally sealed, and it has been found
necessary as well to his eventual intestate heirs, as until now nothing has been ascertained
concerning a will... Therefore all creditors are called upon to come forward with their claim on
October 14.

In 1979,1 wrote to the Town Hall of Eckernförde asking whether anything more had become
known, the extent of his estate and what happened to it, whether it had gone to Prince Carl, whom,
even if he had not left a will, he appeared to regard as his heir?
In reply I received a letter from Mr Jessen, the Town archivist, enclosing a private reprint of an
article by his father, Willers Jessen, which had been published in the Schleswig-Holsteinische
Geschichte, BA 5656 (Kiel, 1927) pp. 449-457. In this the author stated that, whilst searching for
something quite different. (I translate from the German):

I found, in 1925, the deceased's estate act of Saint-Germain. With it I discovered also the state
legal protocol concerning the legal dealing with his estate. This hitherto unknown act I now
bring to notice.
So poor was the Comte that the estate did not cover the cost of his burial. He was given free
burial out of regard for his Patron; in the Church itself the adventurer found his peace. Poor he
was indeed by the time he lived in Schleswig, for there was found belonging to him only one
box, and few things in it . . .

The Landgraf Prince Carl of Hesse took back all his own letters, and personally put in order all
papers which he left. He had, therefore, the possibility of finding any unknown letters from and
to the Comte de Saint-Germain. Part of the Landgraf s papers are now in the Karlsburger
Archives in the State Archives of Kiel; whether there is more to find there or elsewhere remains
to be researched.

INVENTORY OF THE EFFECTS LEFT BY THE COMTE DE SAINT-GERMAIN AT HIS

DEATH, MADE BY THE STATE-SECRETARY OF ECKERNFORDE J. CLAUSSEN

253
In the night covering the 26th and 27th February 1784 died the Comte de Saint-Germain, and
his effects sealed were:

1 In his room, wherein he lived, a case and a shoe-box were found under a small table. These
were sealed.
2 The room wherein these and other things were found was sealed.
3 The room in which he had his laboratory and various things were also sealed.

All the silk and linen materials were placed in safety by the serving officer Niels Haussen.
In coin were found 41 Danish ducates or Reichsthalers, which the agent Mr Brunn took for use
towards the burial costs.

J. Claussen

Further:

On March 2, 1784, in the presence of Major von Motz and Mr Brunn, the letters gathered
together were placed in a box, which was then sealed, and taken to the house of Mr Brunn.
The cupboard containing silks was sealed.
The following soiled articles were taken to the laundry:
Two undershirts
Two silk and one linen handkerchiefs
Two pairs of flannel stockings
One flannel sleeping-gown
One flannel cover
The officer Niels placed the aforementioned silver in security until it was later taken to the
house of Mr Brunn.

INVENTORY OF THE EFFECTS OF THE DECEASED COUNT SAINT-GERMAIN,

ACCORD ING TO THE DECLARATION OF THE LANDGRAF, ON 15 OCTOBER, 1784,
BEFORE COUNCILLOR I.H.KRUSE AND STATE SECRETARY CLAUSSEN

Eckernforde, 15 October, 1784

When the Count of Saint-Germain and Weldone [sic] died here on February 27, 1784, his
effects were legally sealed, and then, in the highest Court, on March 22, 1784, a proclamation
was made and printed in newspapers; afterwards, his effects were brought back, still sealed, to
the Governor, His Most Serene Highness Prince Carl of Hesse, who, when the Count came to
Schleswig with only a little box containing a few things, had provided him with furniture from
his own home, did not wish his letters to the Count to come to public knowledge, so the whole
collected mass of the papers was sealed until the return of His Most Serene Highness from
Hanau. His Most Serene Highness returned to Gotdorp, at the beginning of October, 1784, and
His Most Serene Highness came in person to Eckernförde on the 9th of the month. His Most
Serene Highness entered into the house of the town-agent Mr Brunn, in which had been placed
the sealed box with the papers in it, and in the presence of Colonel von Keppern, Mr Georg
Brunn, Mayor, Town-agent Mr (Christian) Brunn, Major Motz and myself, watched with his
own royal eyes whilst the box was opened and all the papers taken out, one by one. He
separated what did not belong to the mass, and left the mass, which consisted only in paid and
receipted bills, without any documents, to me, Secretary Claussen. After the separation had
taken place, then His Most Serene Highness went into the dwelling of the deceased gentleman,

254
which had been kept sealed. There His Most Serene Highness recognised those things which
belonged to himself, for the most part furniture and silver distinguished by His Most Serene
Highness' coat of arms, also stocks of silk and other materials belonging to the factory, and
separated these things from the effects of the deceased, and the effects of the deceased were
taken into a different room, where the unsealing was performed and the articles registered one
by one.
After this had been done, they were on the same day carried by the undersigned to the factory,
where the room that had been sealed was opened, and the collected effects of the deceased set
out and the following inventory made:

INVENTORY

OF THE EFFECTS OF THE HERE DECEASED COUNT SAINT-GERMAIN AND

WELDONE

Drawn up at Eckernfdrde on 15 October, 1784

I PAPERS

1) A packet of paid and receipted bills and quittances.

II IN MONEY

1 41 Danish ducat pieces, at 2 Rthlr each………………............................... 82 Rthlr

2 In small cash……………………………......................................................... 13 shillings

HI IN CLOTHING

1 A green coat with red edgings and cuffs together with a red vest with gold trimmings
2 A whitish or pepper-and-salt body-vest of summer-cloth together with white chagrine vest
3 One old brown ditto
4 An old yellow overcoat
5 A red striped flannel sleeping-gown with ditto apron
6 A small striped cotton sleeping-gown
7 A white flannel knee-length sleeping-gown
8 A ditto innershirt lined with linen
9 A ditto, ditto
10 A linen-lined marbled calico ditto
11 A pair of Manchester trousers
12 A pair of linen ditto all with opening at the back
13 Two pairs of old flannel ditto
14 A pair of old leather ditto
15 A pair of blue cloth boots trimmed with sheepskin
16 Two black striped socks
17 A white flannel sleeping-gown
18 A pair of ditto trousers
19 Five pairs of white silk stockings
20 Five pairs white and one pair black woollen ditto
21 Four pairs of white cotton and four pairs twisted yarn ditto
22 One packet of old stocking-holders

255
23 A pair of black cloth gaiters
23 A hat with gold trimming
24 A ditto with one old white feather
25 Two hats trimmed with black ribbon
26 A pair of shoes
27 A pair of buckskin and wool slippers
28 A rusty steel sword with porte d'epee
29 Three pairs of leather gloves

IV IN LINEN

1 Fourteen shirts
2 Three ditto with cuff-frills
3 Six blue pocket handkerchiefs
4 Four white linen ditto
5 Two old silk ditto
6 Six half-cotton caps
7 One set of Antoiloge with cuff-frills and collar
8 A ditto with flowered shawl cambric
9 A bundle of small trifles

V SUNDRY

1 A set of silver buckles

2 A tin enema syringe
3 A case with six razor-blades
4 Three ditto without case
5 Three pairs of scissors
6 One pocket-knife
7 Three combs
8 A pair of sunglasses
9 A metal trouser-button
10 Two toothbrushes
11 A scarificator
12 A sharpener for razor-blades
13 Two old leather tobacco-boxes
14 A papier mache case of toothpicks
15 Two old mirrors of no worth
16 A blue cloth footmuff trimmed with sheepskin
17 A violet Bergen op zoom ditto without trimming
18 A tobacco box
19 Two pistols
20 New piece of leather
21 Two pieces of used flannel

Eckernforde, the 15 October, 1784

C.H. Kruse J. Claussen

256
 IV THE LIQUIDATION
OF THE ESTATE OF THE COMTE DE SAINT-GERMAIN THE COURT OF
ECKERNFORDE ON 14 AND 21 OCTOBER, 1784

Eckernförde Protocollum judiciale de anno 1784 et 85

Present:

H.B.M. Classen Today the terminus justificationis of the estate left on

Kruse February 27, 1784, by the deceased Comte de Saint-
Claussen Germain et Weldon, proclamate, uigore to the proclama-
Zettwach tions belonging to the citation, were fixed, and no further
announcement or declaration will be made by the State
Councillor and Mayor Mr. Brunn in Schleswig mandatorio
nomine His Serene Highness Prince Carl of Hesse; and the
State-Councillor in his capacity as liquidator Justificationis,
states that:

Concerning the estate of the deceased Comte de Saint-Germain, a terminus to the justification
on the 14th of this month has been set and proclaimed. No further declaration will be made by
me, therefore no formal justification will be needed to pay the relevant costs which have arisen
loco privilegiato and no contradiction can now be entered. As the estate is insufficient to cover
the costs or meet the liabilities, I, with the other officials of this place, gathered to consider this
matter, hold that it is not worth the trouble to hold an auction of the few things, so I have a
mandate to order that the things shall be sold for what they will fetch, and that, as much as it
may be, brought to me in natura for setting towards the payment of the costs. Therefore the
liquidation of the estate will, by the high-born and noble gentlemen, be left over until this has
been done.

in dorso

State-Councillor Mr Georg Brunn in Schleswig mandatorio nomine His Serene Highness

Prince Carl of Hesse, Governor.

Schleswig, 11 October, 1784

When the account had been made out, the gross cost of 246 Reichsthalers 6 shillings for the
grave and burial, which had been already paid, the amount raised was insufficient should
further creditors receive credita justificiret: Therefore the account and the praetendirte sum of
246 Reichsthalers 6 shillings was deemed /ush'/iciret and in consequence of the foregoing
petiti, the town-officer Mr. Kruse and I, the Town Clerk Claussen, lawfully committiret [sic] to
sell the few effects of the deceased gentleman for the full worth that they could fetch, declare
this matter will liquidated and ended, terminus, on October21st, coming.

October 21st, 1784

257
Present:

H.B.M. Classen Since the 14th terminus liquidationus of the estate of the
Krusse Comte de Saint-Germain and Weldom, deceased February
Claussen 27, has been settled and the effects secundum ordinem
Zettwach inventarii realised by the committirten [sic] membris judicii
or their full worth and the money brought in, the estate is
settled as follows:

SUM OF ESTATE

1 Vigore inventarii, the money above-stated, 41 Danish

1 ducat pieces, each equivalent to 2 Reichsthalers..................... 82 Reichsthalers
2 In small cash, in 1 K pieces............................................................... 13 1/2 shillings
3 From sale of the effects, as set out in the sales-register of 15
October, 1784, in all.............................................................................. 104 38
_________________
187 Rthlr 3 1/2
these 187 Rhtlr 3 ½ liquidated for shillings

spent
COSTS

1 Proclamation, witness, tax and sundry legal costs........................ 33 Rthlr 46 shillings

2 Outlay for insertion of proclamation in newspapers..................... 10 40
3 Fees of the Town Councillor and Mayor Brunn in Schleswig
mandatorio nomine His Serene Highness Prince of Hesse,
Governor, for the proclamation and burial of the deceased
gentleman 246 Rthlr 6 shillings, which as the sum of the estate
reached not to it, left 142 13 1/2

making against the whole estate................................................... 187 3 1/2

Whereby the estate of the deceased gentleman was finally regularised and set in order.
The Reichs Thaler of that time equalled approximately £0.12 or just over 8 to the £. 187 thalers
would therefore have been about £23 at that time. The value of the estate, in English money of
today, was not much more than £690.

258
 CHAPTER 41

WHAT DOES NOT APPEAR

Rarely, if ever, can the effects of a deceased person have been listed in such detail. When it is
specified that they included two toothbrushes, six razor-blades within a case and three razor-blades
without case, one can feel sure nothing has been left out. There is even one trouser button,
apparently detached from the listed pairs of trousers (when certain of the trousers are described as
'opening', i.e. buttoning at the back, this was not unusual in men's clothing of the time). If one asks
the reason for the extraordinary completeness of the list, it is probably because those responsible for
sealing the effects did not wish to find themselves taxed with taking anything. A mythos concerning
diamonds attached to Saint-Germain. He might have been expected to have some amongst his
effects when he died. They are small. There might have been some in an old sock. The razor-blade
case might have contained diamonds instead of razor-blades. Everything had to be gone through
carefully, every container opened and its contents listed. There were no diamonds.
Stranger, perhaps, is the absence of objects of a cultural order. The man who had offered a rare
collector's item to Sir Hans Sloane left not a single book. The man who had astonished von
Gleichen with his treasures and parted with a Raphael in Brussels left not a single picture. The man
who had had his music published by Walsh left not a single musical score, printed or manuscript.
And what had happened to his violin, which he had played in London and Paris? A violin is a very
personal thing, which a player comes to feel almost as part of himself; not heavy or inconvenient to
carry around in its case. He may have left his own violin behind when he left Paris for Holland in
1760, expecting only to be away for a few days, and afterwards been unable to recover it. But he
could have obtained another. He still seems to have been thought of as belonging to the musical
world on his first visit to Russia, but after that we hear no more of his either composing or playing.
He must have loved music, but probably he considered his chemical researches of more importance.
Music may have come to seem to him a sweet indulgence belonging to times past.
One has the impression of an increasing asceticism. One by one, all the fine things had been
discarded as unnecessary. Perhaps great treasures were already coming to seem a burden, before he
lost the greatest in the Nettine Bank. Because he could always improve a diamond, his potential
wealth was, as he said himself, limitless. Therefore it ceased to be interesting to him. Only the work
was interesting. He needed only sufficient to pay for day to day necessities. It is in keeping that the
only bills found were receipted ones.
He did not need to make music for the outward ear. Truly as a mystical poet's 'flautist without
flute' he had it inside him.
Truly as a Shiva in his dance, he had let the veils of illusion, and prestigious objects, drop from
him.
Prince Carl tells us the one thing he could not find was the note or set of instructions Saint-
Germain had said he would leave for him, for the guidance of his own future steps. It was the first
thing he looked for and he looked through everything for it, but came in the end to think it must
have been confided, for him, to hands that proved perfidious.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 41

1 That the Gods May Remember, Helene Bouvard, translated from the French by Jean Overton
Fuller (Fuller d'Arch Smith 1981), 'The Flautist without Flute'.

259
 CHAPTER 42

THE END OF THE ROAD

This is as far as documents will take us. The Saint-Germain who, in April of the following year,
1785, attended the second convention of the Philaletes in Paris, must have been Robert-Frangois
Quesnay de Saint-Germain, grandson of Madame de Pompadour's physician Frangois Quesnay.1
Quesnay de Saint-Germain, depute for Marne-et-Loire in the assemblee legislative, was received a
Mason at the Lodge La Candeur on 5 December, 1775, afterwards passing into the Lodge
ContratSocial of the Grand Orient of France, was associated also with a mystico-scientific society
at Ermenonville, and with the Strict Observance, and in 1781 (when our Saint-Germain was in
Eckernforde) founded a Club d'lllumines at 37 rue de la Sourdiere, Paris, address of the Lodge Les
Amis Reunis within which was created the Rite des Philaletes. It is confusion with this Saint-
Germain which has distorted the figure of our Saint-Germain (as has also confusion with Claude-
Louis Comte de Saint-Germain, Danish Field-Marshal and eventual French Minister for War under
Louis XVI and even Pierre-Renault de Saint-Germain, in 1755 French Governor of Calcutta), not to
mention the impersonations by Gower and Casanova, giving rise to the legends of his possessing
the power to be physically present in several places at once and to walk about, attending
conferences, after his apparent burial. Tales of his appearing during the Revolution, to the Duchesse
de Lamballe as she was about to be butchered, and to Madame du Barry as she was about to be
guillotined, and even later, bear the very hallmarks of ghost stories. So does his alleged appearance
to a certain Hans Graffer. It is not that I discount the occult, but this is pseudo-occult. There is an
occultism or theosophy which goes deeper. Those not interested should stop here and not read the
last chapter.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 42

1 Le Comte de Saint-Germain, Paul Chacornac (Editions Traditionelles, 1947), pp. 201-02,

giving credit to the research of Andre-Martin Decaen.

260
 CHAPTER 43

SAINT-GERMAIN: THE MASTER RÀKÒCZY

For Theosophists, and for the members of numerous other esoteric societies, the Comte de
Saint-Germain is the Master Ràkòczy, customarily abbreviated for discretion to 'The Master R.', or
referred to as 'The Count'. Why? It is part of the revelation given out by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,
her teachers and her pupils. To enter upon this subject at all is to anticipate material and conclusions
that will be found in the biography of Madame Blavatsky which I am now engaged in writing. Very
briefly, when she met Colonel Olcott in 1873, in the U.S.A., she told him she had travelled in many
countries, including Egypt, India and Tibet, and had been privileged to meet Adepts or Masters of
Wisdom, from whom she received teaching. During the time that she was writing /sis Unveiled
(1875-77), though never in a trance state, she seemed to Olcott, facing her across their table, to
change in manner and appearance while composing certain passages, and said she was told what to
say, not by discamate spirits, but by Adepts or Masters of Wisdom, who were living in physical
bodies somewhere, separated from them only by geography. If he had at first supposed them all to
be Orientals, he was soon disabused. One, in answer to Olcott's question as to who he was, said
merely that he was born in Hungary.1 There was also a Venetian and a Greek. Olcott gathered from
Madame Blavatsky there were seven altogether, under one or other of whom all who aspired to
wisdom were placed for spiritual teaching (whether or not they were aware of it) according to which
of the seven rays they were evolving along.
He was not yet told who all of the seven were, or much about what the seven rays might be.
Where revelation is concerned, since it does not rest upon empirical evidence, one can only
attempt to judge of its authenticity from its perceptions and coherence, and by checking up on any
details in it which lend themselves to being checked. What have come to be known as The Mahatma
Letters,2 written to A.P.Sinnett from 1881-1884, by Madame Blavatsky's two teachers Morya and
Koot Hoomi, who, though Indian, lived in Tibet, contain not only a deeply thought out philosophy
but a particular prophecy concerning a procedure scientists would come to adopt, which we in the
second half of the 20th century have seen fulfilled. That procedure, involving the use of a then un-
dreamed of mechanism, and principle, would have been quite beyond the capacity to foresee of any
physical scientist living in 1882, when it was received at Simla, let alone of a woman untrained in
science, as was Madame Blavatsky. Reflection on this fact (which I shall deal with in my book on
Blavatsky) may incline us to treat with more respect than we might otherwise, other dicta having
the same source.
The amount given out by Madame Blavatsky publicly, directly or through her pupils, was
always less than she received and was required to keep to herself, or to very few. She later formed
an Esoteric School, but those who joined it were pledged not to disclose anything they were told
within it, even if they should later leave it. One of her later pupils, Dr Annie Besant, in her pilot
sketch, The Masters (Adyar, 1912), refers, p.50, to 'The Master Ràkòczy... The last survivor of the
Royal House of Ràkòczy, known as the Comte de Saint-Germain in the history of the 18th century,
as Bacon in the 17th, as Robertus the monk in the 16th, as Hunyadi Janos in the 15th, as Christian
Rosenkreutz in the 14th—to take a few of his incarnations—was disciple through these various
lives and has now achieved Masterhood, the "Hungarian Adept" of The Occult World. There is a
slip here, for there is nothing about him in Sinnett's book, The Occult World. Annie Besant's
intended reference is obviously to Olcott's book, Old Diary Leaves, and to the passage already
cited. Annie Besant was not a historian, and indeed, so much had her mind come to be focussed
upon India and the Masters in Tibet, one has the impression Europe's history scarcely impinged on
her consciousness, and one doubts whether she would even have heard of Ràkòczy, let alone the

261
less known, earlier Hungarian hero Hunyadi, 1395-1456 (see above p 2) had she not received this
string of names from Madame Blavatsky, or direct from Blavatsky's teachers in Tibet.
Mr and Mrs Cooper were both pupils of Madame Blavatsky. Mr A.J.Cooper was one of a small
group of Theosophists including C.W.Lead-beater, who were seated on the flat roof of their
headquarters at Adyar (near Madras), circa 1884, when Djwal Kul, a Tibetan pupil of Koot Hoomi,
in response to a request, gave them a table of the Seven Rays, with their principal characteristics.
The names of the seven Masters may have been given at the same time, though reserved. At any
rate, when Cooper's wife, Isobel Cooper-Oakley, undertook the researches for her book, The Comte
de Saint-Germain (Milan, 1912), published in the same year as Annie Besant's book The Masters,
and with a Foreword by Annie Besant, it was certainly because she believed he was one of these
Masters, a European Brother to the Brothers in Tibet.
There have been various break-away movements from the Theosophical Society, and it was
Alice A. Bailey, who had belonged to it, who wrote in her book Initiation Human and Solar
(Lucifer, New York, 1922), pp.58-59, 'The Master who concerns himself especially with the future
development of racial affairs in Europe is the Master Ràkòczi. He is a Hungarian and has a home in
the Carpathian mountains . .. and He was particularly before the public eye when he was the Comte
de Saint-Germain . . . The Master R, is upon the seventh ray ... He is called in the Lodge, usually,
"the Count".'
C.W.Leadbeater, in The Masters and the Path (Adyar, 1925), prints on p.413 Djwal Kul's table
of the rays, given on the roof forty years earlier, and on pp.430-431 states, 'The Head of the Seventh
Ray is the Master the Comte de Saint-Germain ... whom we sometimes call the Master Ràkòczy, as
He is the last survivor of that royal house'. Three years later, in his book The Hidden Side of
Freemasonry (Adyar, 1928), Leadbeater refers to him as 'The Head of All True Freemasons' and, on
pp.14-15, writes'.. . he took birth as Joseph Ràkòczi, a prince of Transylvania. We find him
mentioned in the encyclopaedias, but not much information is given. He seems to have travelled
about Europe, and he turns up at intervals, but we have little definite about him. He was the Comte
de Saint-Germain at the time of the French Revolution, and worked much with Madame Blavatsky,
who was at that time in incarnation under the name of Pere Joseph'. Leadbeater was not a historian,
and is in some confusion here. Saint-Germain, in the body in which he walked about in the Court of
Louis XV, had been buried before the Revolution. So had Pere Joseph, more than a hundred and
fifty years before. Born 4 November, 1577, deceased 18 December, 1638, he was the Grey
Eminence behind Cardinal Richelieu. Aldous Huxley wrote a book about him. I fancy Leadbeater
means Joseph Balsamo, better known as Cagliostro, who did live at the time of the Revolution,
whose name is coupled with Saint-Germain's by Koot Hoomi and Blavatsky herself and whose only
known portrait shows a face extraordinarily like Madame Blavatsky's. However, Pere Joseph's
looks like hers, too, so perhaps she was both of them? Then, Joseph Ràkòczy, who never lived to set
foot in Transylvania, or achieved anything, never finds mention in encyclopaedias. 1 believe that
Leadbeater means Francis Ràkòczy, the great Ràkòczy. It was probably forty years since
Leadbeater had looked in encyclopaedias to see what he could find about the Master he was told
had borne this name, and he had not refreshed his memory before writing in old age that slap-dash
paragraph. It would explain his ascribing to him, in a vision he had of him, a military aspect. If what
he is trying to say is that Francis Ràkòczy reincarnated as Saint-Germain, a contemporary of
Cagliostro, that would not be put out of court by my theory he was born to Ràkòczy and Violante.
It has always been Theosophical doctrine that whereas, for ordinary people, reincarnation is
normally at conception, in the case of a very high Adept, the wastage of time spent in the gestation
and infancy of a new body may be avoided by reincarnation into a body already mature, vacated
either through some accident that left it intact, (as in the instance described in The Idyll of the White
Lotus, Mabel Collins, [Adyar, 1884], pp.135-37), or even willingly vacated by a pupil who has held
it for him. The inconvenience of this course (apart from the initial discomfort at getting into a body
grown by somebody else, as into somebody else's shoes) is said to be mainly social. His memory is
not the memory of the person who lived in that body. That person's experiences in it—his own
262
supposed past—he could only gather from enquiry of others, or by psychometrising it, and he
would seem to people who had known the other person in it to be suffering from amnesia. His
memory is of his experiences in the body he had previously, and because there was not the sleep
that separates normal incarnations, his memory is unbroken. He is still—for himself—the previous
person. If this was the case of Saint-Germain, it would give a very special meaning to that
extraordinary sonnet, The Mysrery. Conceive that he died in Rodosto, Turkey, after taking the last
sacraments, a good Catholic, and found himself not in Heaven, in Purgatory or even in Hell but in
Italy, in a different, yet healthy body. This would be something for which nothing in his religious
discipline would have prepared him. No literature on the subject of reincarnation would have been
available to him in the Europe of that time, and he would have had the feeling of having been pitch-
forked into a unique situation, wholly incommunicable to anybody. All his previous ideas about
everything would have been shattered. It would explain those strange lines in the sonnet, 'I died...
My cadaver fell. I know no more at all'.
It would explain his apparent rootlessness and absence of origin, his evasion for so long of any
question touching his identity. It would explain his mention to Kauderbach of having met his
sovereign's father, Augustus II of Poland, his reference in Berlin to having written to the Emperor
Leopold II, and all those equivocal references that leave us guessing whether he meant he was the
father or a son—'the last scion of the house of Ràkòczy' to Gemmingen-Guttenberg, but yet to
Alvensleben a Prince, in his own right, and therefore unable to accept any position under King
Frederick. It would explain the ease with which he took his place in the Court of Louis XV, without
such prior briefing in the etiquette as the Comte de Toulouse came to give Ràkòczy before taking
him to meet Louis XIV and his family—where Ràkòczy asked to see the King's sister's jewelry,
surely rather an unusual request unless the interest was either artistic or gemmological. When one
rereads in this light Madame de Genlis' memoirs—published when she was seventy-nine—
concerning what Saint-Germain told her when she was only thirteen, one can see that the elements
of Ràkòczy's early life are present, though jumbled out of order. There was a moment when he fled,
with a price on his head, though that was when he was twenty-five, not seven. When he was seven,
it was 1683. But 1683 was the year when he was dragged on the long march—three hundred miles
each way through forested mountains—to the siege of Vienna, in danger not only of being killed by
the enemy but poisoned by his stepfather. When he told that little French girl, later Madame de
Genlis, that he was protected only by his governor, was he not speaking of Korosy?
Knowing neither the period nor the theatre of war, she would have been without a clue by
which to place the episode. That the small boy was taken along, would not in any case have figured
in the history books.
What a man discloses of himself is limited to the understanding of his hearers. Nobody speaks
of deep matters to the unprepared. One's posthumous reputation is at the mercy of those
contemporaries who have written concerning one, and the writers of many of the letters mentioning
Saint-Germain were small-minded persons, jealous and resentful. Hence, the greater part of the
surviving documents are but the husks of the story, never touching what is profound.
One of the things told to Madame Blavatsky by her teachers in Tibet was that during the
Middle Ages the Buddha came back, as the Tibetan Adept Tsong-ka-pa (c.1357 or 1358-1419). He
came to correct abuses which had crept into the religion he had created two thousand years before
and to do this founded the Gelukpa (Virtuous Ones) or Yellow Hats, to which the Dalai Lama and
Panchen (Trashi) Lamas belong, and also instituted near Shiga tse a secret school (Morya and Koot
Hoomi lived near Shiga tse, and sometimes wore yellow hats) and, before re-ascending took the
occasion to do something for the Pelings (white barbarians).3 He initiated a movement for the
enlightenment, the inspiration, the raising of the spiritual awareness, awakening and opening out to
new concepts, of Peling-pa (Europe) in the last quarter of every century, to which his school were
enjoined to give their special attention during that time. At least some of these centennial efforts
seem to have been made largely through the instrumentality of this particular Adept, long
specialised in the culture and affairs of Europe, known in his last public appearance as the Comte de
263
Saint-Germain. It was apparently strongly suggested to Madame Blavatsky that the violence and
terror with which the French Revolution came in was largely consequent on his having been
rejected. It is not that the Masters of Wisdom curse, punish or avenge themselves, but that to reject
that which is good is to strengthen that which is not. Suppose that the invigorating current to be in
part automatic—an image comes to my mind. In the little town of Annecy, on the lake at the foot of
the Alps, the spring is eagerly awaited. The mountains, that for so long were white, one day are
suddenly green. The lake as suddenly swells with the snow that is rushing down to it as water, and
to cope with this, there is a deep, stout channel to carry the snow-water harmlessly through the
town. If the channel should be blocked the town would be flooded and much damage done. It was
not possible the ancient regime in France should remain unchanged. But channelled with
discernment, the liberalising and energising current could have done its work without bloodshed or
terror.
It may disappoint some that Saint-Germain was not a Mason and that there do not seem to be
any pages of spiritual teaching from his pen. I suspect that this is because he saw an economic
revolution as the most urgent necessity, if a bloody one were to be avoided, and therefore talked to
the people he met about the means he saw to bring it in cheerfully—extensive manufactures,
providing employment for the ruined peasantry, and low-priced goods that they and everybody
could afford to buy—which if, to begin with, in the world of clothing, would soon bring the money
in that could be put back into the land to produce more food-crops—and that he did not bother to
talk about esoteric things. While there are some teachers who present themselves as prophets or
public gurus, there are those who, if they live in the world, prefer to figure, in so far as possible, as
ordinary people. Such abstain from exhibiting any kind of paranormal powers, and, if they tell
anything of an occult order, to some one privately, bid the recipient of the teaching to keep it close.
If Saint-Germain knew that in an earlier incarnation he had created and founded Masonry, that he
was the first Mason and the founder of all Masons, it might seem to him needless to re-enter his
own thing from the bottom, to be obliged laboriously to rise through its grades. Though he would
always be in the spiritual sense responsible for it, it might seem to him, on the worldly plane, better
not to have to do with it save from the side-lines, as through Prince Carl. Prince Carl assures us he
was one of the greatest teachers who ever lived, yet tells us nothing of his teaching. Why not? As a
Mason, he was accustomed to keeping things to himself. After Saint-Germain's death he became
Grand Master of all the lodges in Denmark. He also had a small inner group to which he imparted
special information which came to him, he said, from an Unknown Superior whom he had met in
the flesh and came to know well.
In one of The Mahatma Letters, we find Koot Hoomi writing,4 'Rosencrauz [sic] taught orally.
Saint Germain recorded the good doctrine in figures and his only ciphered MS remained with his
staunch friend and patron the benevolent German Prince from whose house ... he made his last
exit—HOME. Failure, dead failure!' The last exclamation, together with some other indications in
the letters, suggest the career of Saint-Germain in Europe was regarded on the roof of the world as a
kind of comi-tragedy, so little was what he was trying to do understood by those to whom he
presented himself, a farce sufficiently explaining the usual preference of the Masters for not coming
out of their fastness.
As for the 'ciphered MS', could that be the note with instructions which Saint-Germain
promised Prince Carl he would leave for him, and which he could not find amongst his effects?
Could he have found it after he had written his Memoirs—which he began on 23 December, 1816,
and finished on 5 April, 1817—perhaps stowed for him in Gottorp, to find when he had grown up to
it? He did not die until 1836, when he was ninety-two. It was not he who presented his Memoirs for
publication, after his death, and he might have left the manuscript un-annotated to the effect that he
had found the note. In that case, where is it now? As Gottorp is now a public museum, it is unlikely
to be still there. Prince Carl would perhaps have joined it to his Masonic papers. It is probably in the
Grand Lodge of Copenhagen.

264
 If it lies there unnoticed, among those papers of his they know they have mislaid, that may be
quite in order. In such a place, it is safe from destruction, yet safe also from premature disclosure to
a world that is not meant to have it yet.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 43

1 Old Diary Leaves, Henry Steel Olcott (Putnam, 1895), I, p. 275.

2 Extensively used by A.P. Sinnett in his books The Occult World (Trubner, 1881) and Esoteric
Buddhism (Chapman and Hall, 1883), printed entire as The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett
from the Mahatmas M. & K.H., Transcribed, Compiled, and with an Introduction by A.T.
Barker (Rider, 1923).
3 The Secret Doctrine, H.P. Blavatsky (1888, Adyar 1938), vol. 5 pp. 391,393 and 396; and The
Master and the Path, C.W. Leadbeater (Adyar, 1925), pp. 394-395.
4 The Mahatma Letters ... p. 280. (Letter received 5 August, 1881).

265
 APPENDIX I

CAGLIOSTRO, THE NECKLACE,

THE REVOLUTION AND THE
MOST HOLY TRINOSOPHIA

I have not been able to find any contemporary document proving the tradition Cagliostro was a
pupil of Saint-Germain. This is not proof of the contrary. Both ranged Europe and in our knowledge
of both lives there are such gaps as make it impossible to assert they could not have met. There is a
basic difference between them in that Cagliostro was a healer and professed paranormal powers,
whereas Saint-Germain presented himself as a straight chemist. If Saint-Germain gave instruction to
the younger man, I would suggest it would have been to the end of helping him more deeply to
understand those gifts he had from nature, and counsel responsibility in the use of them. Born in the
slums of Palermo on 2 June, 1743, Joseph Balsamo led with his wife a somewhat rapscallion early
life, but from the moment he was received a Freemason, at the Hope Lodge in the Royal Tavern,
Gerrard Street, Soho, London, they both reformed their mode of living and the new name seemed to
be symbolic of a fresh start. He founded his own Egyptian Rite (he had been in Egypt) and issued a
pamphlet on Egyptian Masonry. The so-called Memoires authentiques pour seruir a I'histoire de
Cagliostro, Jean-Pierre Louis de Luchet (Berlin. 1785) presents a purported account of the initiation
of Cagliostro and Seraphina by Saint-Germain, in Schleswig-Holstein, into some higher
Freemasonic order. Plainly, the narration is fictitious. Yet de Luchet had been from 1777 librarian
and chamberlain to Frederick II of Hesse, the father of our Prince Carl, and may have picked up
some indication that the couple had been in his employer's son's domains, and fleshed it with his
imagination. Indeed, since Saint-Germain told Prince Carl he was the first pupil he had taken, if he
later accepted another, it could only have been there.
It was a year after Saint-Germain had passed away in Eckernforde that Cagliostro arrived in
Paris and called on an old patron, Cardinal Rohan, who consulted him about a strange matter. He
had not been in the good graces of Marie-Antoinette but had been approached by a Comtesse de la
Motte who told him he could recover the Queen's favour by instructing the jewellers, Boehme and
Bassinger, to deliver, to la Motte for Her Majesty, an exceedingly expensive diamond necklace. As
la Motte had promised him, the Queen had appeared to him after dark in the Venus Grove of her
grounds, and given him a rose, as a silent token she approved the arrangement. He showed
Cagliostro a document brought him by la Motte in which the Queen agreed to pay the jeweller by
instalments. Cagliostro said he believed the Queen signed simply Marie-Antoinette, not 'Marie-
Antoinette de France', and he thought the document a forgery- So it proved, when the jewellers tried
to collect the payment and were assured the Queen knew nothing of it. Marie-Antoinette, furious at
the use made of her name, demanded the prosecution, on a charge of lese majeste, of Rohan and la
Motte and others including, fortuitously, Cagliostro, because he knew Rohan and wore diamonds.
He was able to assure the Court they were not from the necklace but had been seen on his person in
half the courts of Europe, and was acquitted. Rohan was also acquitted but censured for levity in
imagining the Queen would come to him at night in a garden and give him a rose as token she
wished him to buy diamonds. A young woman who confessed to having impersonated the Queen at
the instigation of La Motte was discharged; La Motte was savagely sentenced.
It has been said the affair of the necklace unleashed the Revolution. This was partly because, as
it had not been possible to question the Queen, some conceived that, in a time when the poor
wanted bread, she could have surreptitiously ordered the necklace. It was also because Cagliostro,
from London, had the advocate who had defended him draw up an open letter to the people of
France describing things he had seen in the Bastille, men who had been there thirty years, forgotten
and dead to the world; wishing it might be turned into a public garden. It has been suggested this
266
prompted the storming of the Bastille, which was the first blow struck by the people. If so, though it
was not Saint-Germain, it was Cagliostro who precipitated the Revolution.
Later he and his wife went to Italy and, misinformed that Masons were no longer persecuted,
entered the Papal States. She was induced to inform on him and on 27 December, 1789, he was
arrested, and imprisoned in the Castel Saint Angelo, in Rome, during a trial before the Holy
Inquisition that lasted sixteen months. Under the charge of heresy it was instanced that he had
denied the Divinity of Christ and the virginity of the Virgin Mary, and had conducted a
Freemasonic Lodge. On 7 April, 1791, he was sentenced to imprisonment until death, and sent to
San Leo, in the Apennines, where he perished miserably on 26 August, 1795.
There is in the Bibliotheque de Troyes a manuscript entitled La tres-sainte Trinosophia (The
most-holy Trinosophia), stated in the catalogue of the library to have been bought at a sale of the
effects of Prince Massena, son of the General who had commanded Bonaparte's Army of Italy,
bearing on the first fly-leaf a pencilled note reading (I translate from the French), 'This unique
manuscript is that which belonged to the famous Cagliostro, and was found by Massena in Rome at
the Grand Inquisitor's', and a stuck on note, printed, signed 'Philotaume', saying it was the sole
existing copy of a work by Saint-Germain. I do not believe it was by Saint-Germain and the
Conservateur en Chef, Mademoiselle F.Bibolet, sending me photocopies of all the papers they had
concerning it, agreed with me there was no proof of Saint-Germain's authorship.
It starts off (I translate from the French), 'It is in this dungeon of the Inquisition your friend
writes these lines ...' and goes on to refer to the walls of his cell and to his 'tormentors'. Saint-
Germain was never a prisoner of the Inquisition. Its poetic prose is full of Masonic and Cabbalistic
symbols as are the drawings with which it is illuminated. These include, on the title-page, top left,
one of the Egyptian god Horus, crowned, and, bottom left, what I think is meant to be Osiris seated
in judgement, with his crook and an ankh over the hieroglyph for Pharoah. These seem to sort with
the Egyptian Rite.
Since it was taken from the Grand Inquisitor's, I should think Cagliostro wrote it, during his
gloomy months in the Castel Saint Angelo.1

NOTES TO APPENDIX I

1 This is reproduced in photofacsimile as The Most Holy Trinosophia of the Comte de Saint-
Germain, Manly P. Hall (Los Angeles, 1936).

267
 APPENDIX II

CATALOGUE OF THE MUSIC OF SAINT-GERMAIN

with opening keys, times and tempi

In the left hand column are opus numbers conferred by myself

TRIO SONATAS

Six Sonatas for two violins with a bass for harpsichord or violoncello

47 I F Major, 4/4, Molto Adagio

48 II B Flat Major, 4/4, Allegro
49 III E Flat Major, 4/4, Adagio
50 IV G Minor, 4/4, Tempo giusto
51 V G Major, 4/4, Moderate
52 VI A Major, 3/4. Cantabile lento

VIOLIN SOLOS

Seven Solos for a Violin

53 I B Flat Major, 4/4, Largo

54 II E Major, 4/4, Adagio
55 III C Minor, 4/4, Adagio
56 IV E Flat Major, 4/4, Adagio
57 V E Flat Major, 4/4. Adagio
58 VI A Major, 4/4, Adagio
59 VII B Flat Major, 4/4, Adagio

ENGLISH SONGS

4 The Maid that's made for Love and me(0 wouldst thou know what sacred charms) E Flat Major
(marked B Flat Major), 3/4
7 Jove, when he saw my Fanny's face, D Major, 6/4
5 It is not that I love you less, F Major, 3/4
6 Gentle love, this hour befriend me, D Major, 4/4

268
ITALIAN ARIAS (OPERATIC)

Numbered in order of their appearance in the Musique Raisonnee, with their page numbers in that
volume. *Marks those performed in L'Incostanza Delusa and published in the Favourite Songs from
that opera.

8 1 p.l Padre perdona, oh! pene G Minor, 4/4

9 2 p.6 Non piangete amarti E Major, 4/4
10 3 p.ll Intendo il tuo F Major, 4/4
1 4 p.16 *Senza pieta mi credi G Major, 6/8
(marked 3/8 but
there are 6
quavers to the
bar)
11 5 p.21 Gia, gia che moria deggio D Major, 3/4
12 6 p.27 *DilIe che Vamor mio E Major, 4/4
13 7 p.32 Mio ben ricordati D Major, 3/4
2 8 p.36 *Digli, digli G Major, 3/4
3 9 p.40 *Per pieta bel Idol mio F Major, 3/8
14 10 p.46 Non so, quel dolce moto B Flat Major, 4/4
15 11 p.51 Piango, e ver, ma non procede G Minor, 4/4
16 12 p.56 Dal labbro che t'accende E Major, 3/4
4/17 13 p.58 Se mai riviene D Minor, 3/4
18 14 p.62 Parlerd non e permesso E Major, 4/4
19 15 p.64 Se tutti i miei pensieri A Major, 4/4
20 16 p.66 Cuadarlo, guardalo in volto E Major, 3/4
21 17 p.68 Oh Dio mancarmi D Major, 4/4
22 18 p.70 Digli che son fedele E Flat Major, 3/4
23 19 p.72 Pensa che sei cruda E Minor, 4/4
24 20 p.74 Torna, torna innocente G Major, 3/8
25 21 p.76 Un certo non so che veggo E Major, 4/4
26 22 p.78 Guardami, guardami prima in volto D Major, 4/4
27 23 p.80 Parto, se vuoi cost EFlat Major, 4/4
28 24 p.82 Volga al Ciel se ti D Minor, 3/4
29 25 p.84 Guarda se in questa volta F Major, 4/4
30 26 p.86 Quanto mai felice D Major, 3/4
31 27 p.88 Ah che neldi'sti D Major, 4/4
32 28 p.90 Dopp'un tuo Sguardo F Major, 3/4
33 29 p.92 Serberd fra'Ceppi G Major, 4/4
34 30 p.94 Figlio se piu non vivi moro F Major, 4/4
35 31 p.96 Non ti respondo C Major, 3/4
36 32 p.99 Povero cor perche palpito G Major, 3/4
37 33 p.102 Non v'e piu barbaro C Minor, 3/8
38 34 p. 106 Se de'tuoi lumi al fuoco amor E Major,.4/4
39 35 p.109 Se tutto tosto me sdegno E Major, 4/4
40 46 p.112 Ai negli occhi un tel incanto E Major, 4/4
(marked 2/4 but
there are 4
crochets to the
bar)

269
41 37 p.116 Come poteste de Dio F Major, 4/4
42 38 p.119 Che sorte crudele F Major, 4/4
43 39 p.122 Se almen potesse al pianto F Minor, 4/4
44 40 p.125 Se viver non posso lunghi F Major, 4/4
45 41 p.128 Fedel faro faro cara cara F Major, 4/4
46 42 p.131 Non ha ragione F Major, 4/4

270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

MANUSCRIPTS

London
British Museum, Additional MSS, Egerton MSS, Shane MSS
Public Record Office, State Papers: Foreign Ambassadors Intercepted

Paris
Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Angleterre, Hollande, France
Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication, Archives Nationales
Bibliotheque de PArsenal, .Archives de la Bastille

The Hague
Koninkliijke Bibliotheek, Koninkliijk Huisarchiv, Bentinck Papers

Vienna
Haus-, Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Despatches of Reischach in 1760 and of Cobenzl in 1763 to Kaunitz,
and Kaunitz' replies thereto, his letters to Maria Theresa and hers to Prince Charles of
Lorraine

Germany
Merseburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Dispatches of Hellen and Knyphausen in 1760 and of
Alvensleben in 1777 to Frederick II and his replies thereto, and a letter of Saint-Germain to
Frederick II
Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Letters of Bischoffwerder, Bosch, Frolich, Karl of
Kurland, Ferdinand of Brunswick, and one of Saint-Germain to Frederick Augustus

Copenhagen
Den Danske Frimuerorden, Correspondence of Prince Carl of Hesse-Cassel and Willermoz

Krakow
Universytet Jagiellonski, Biblioteka Jagielloriska, Sammlung Varnhagen letters of Prince Carl of
Hesse-Cassel to Haugwitz

Budapest
National Archives of Hungary Letter of Prince RÀKÒCZY to his wife. Brussels
Archives Generates du Royaume, Archives de la Secretaire de Guerre et
d'Etat de Bruxelles Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, Lavater MSS.

PRINTED WORKS

RÀKÒCZY
Principis Francisci II Ràkòczi Confessiones et Aspirationes principis christiani. E codice
Bibliothecae Nationalis Parisiensis edidit Commissio fontium historiae patriae, or Rakoczi
Ferenc dneletrajza
(Budapest, Magyar Tudomanyos Academia, 1876)
Testament politique et moral (Abrege de la vie du Prince) (The Hague, 1751) two volumes

279
SAINT-GERMAIN

Music
Songs
The Maid that's Made for Love (Walsh, c. 1745), also published as O wouldst thou know what
sacred charms (The London Magazine, January, 1747,
The Gentleman's Magazine and Walsh c.1747)
Jove when he saw my Fanny's face (The London Magazine, July, 1748, TheGentleman's Magazine,
August 1748; for further editions see p. 80)
Gentle love, this hour befriend me (setting of poem by Aaron Hill) (Temple of Apollo 1747, Walsh,
c.1750)
The Self Banished (setting of poem by Edmund Waller) (Temple of Apollo, 1747, Walsh, c.1755)

Arias (Operatic)
'Per pieta bel Idol mio', 'Digli, digli ch'e un infedele and 'Senza pieta mi credi' in Favourite songs
from L'incostanza Delusa (Walsh, c.1747)
Musique raisonnee selon le bon sens, aux Dames Angloises qui aiment le vrai gout en cet art
(Walsh, c.1750) A collection of forty-two arias, including the three from L'incostanza Delusa)

Sonatas
Six Sonatas for two Violins with a bass for the Harpsichord or Violoncello (Walsh, c.1750)
Seven Solos for a Violin (Johnson, c. 1758)

Poem
Curieux scrutateur de la nature entiere (in Poemes philosophiques sur I'Homme (Paris, Mercier,
1795)

CONTEMPORARY MEMOIRS AND LETTERS

(omitting certain well known works mentioned
in the text but unsafe to trust)

Arneth, Alfred Ritter, Graf Philipp Cobenzl une seiner Memoiren (Vienna, 1885)
Burney, Charles, History of Music (1789), Vol. I.
Bussemaker, Th., ed., Archives ou correspondance inedite de la maison d'Orange-Nassau,
quatrieme serie (Leiden, 1914)
Cheverny, J.N. Dufort, Comte de, Memoires sur les Regnes de Louis XV et Louis XVI (Paris, 1886)
Correspondence Complete de Madame du Deffand avec la Duchesse de Choiseul, l'Abbé Barthélmy
et M. Craufurt publié avec une Introduction de M:LeMis de Sainte-Aulaire (Paris, Michel Levy
Freres, 1866), Vols I and II.
Gemmingen-Guttenberg, Reinhard von, 'Ausschlusse uber der Wunder-mann, Marquis de St.-
Germain, und sein Aufenthalf in Anspach; von einen Augenzeugen' in Curiositdten der
physisch-litterarisch-artistisch-historischen Vor- und Mitweld (Weimar, 1811-1823) Vol. VIII.
Genlis, Madame de, M&moires inedites pour servir a I'Histoire des XVIII et XIV siecles (Paris,
1825), Vol. I.
Gleichen, Charles Henri de (Karl Heinrich von), Souvenirs de (Paris, 1868)
Hardenbroek, Gijsbert Jan van, Gedenkenschriften van, ed. E.F.J. Kramer in Werken uitgevendoor
het Historisch Genootschap (Johannes Muller, 1901), Vol. I.
Charles, Prince de Hesse-Cassel, Memoires de mon Temps (Copenhagen, 1861)
Labat, Jean-Baptiste, Voyages en Espagne et en Italie (Paris, 1730)

280
Correspondance secrete ine'diie de Louis XV sur la politique etrangere avec le Comte de Broglie,
Tercier ... ed. M.E. Boutaric (Paris, Henri Plon, 1866)
Lehndorff, Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich von, Tagebiicher nach seinen Kammerherzeit, ed. K.E.
Schmidt-Lotzen (Gotha, 1921) Vol. I
Correspondance de Madame de Pompadour avec son pere, M. Poisson, et son frere, M. de
Vandiere, ed. M.A.P. Malassi (Paris, 1876)
Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W.S. Lewis, Warren H. Hunting
Smith and George L. Lam, with the assistance of Edwinne M. Martz (OUP, 1967) Vol. 19 and
Vol. 2.

BIOGRAPHIES AND STUDIES

in order of publication

SAINT-GERMAIN

Sypesten, Cornelius-Ascanius van, 'De Graev van Saint-Germain' in Historische-Herinnerungen

(s'Gravenhage, 1869). Lists the many birth theories.
Lang, Andrew, 'Saint-Germain the Deathless' in Historical Mysteries (London, 1904). Makes him a
bastard of Queen Anna Maria of Spain.
Cooper-Oakley, Isobel, The Comte de Saint-Germain, the Secret of Kings (Milan, 1912, London
1927). Makes him Leopold, the first born son of Prince and Princess Ràkòczy. Reverent but
includes spurious 'sources'.
Kuhn, Joachim, 'Freimauerische Briefe des Landgrafen Karl von Hessen an der Grafen Karl
Haugwitz' in Hessenland (January, 1915)
Volz, G.B. Der Graf von Saint-Germain (Dresden, 1923). Hostile. One can say of it as he unkindly
said of Cooper-Oakley, 'Good only for the documentation'—but yet it includes all the spurious
documents uncritically.
Jessen, Willers, 'Der Nachlass des Alchimisten Grafen Saint-Germain', Schleswig-Holsteinische
Geschichte (Kiel, 1927).
Mourra, Jean, and Louvet, Paul, Saint-Germain, le Rose-Croix lmmortel (Paris, 1934). Follows
Cooper-Oakley.
Preedy, George (Marjorie Bowen), The Courtly Charlatan, the Enigmatic
Comte de Saint-Germain (London, 1942). Trivial.
Lhermier, Pierre, Le Mysterieux Comte de Saint-Germain, (Paris, Colvert, 1943). Makes him a
grandson of King James II of England, sired by the Old Pretender.
Rijnberk, Gerard Abraham van, Saint-Germain in de brieuen van sijn tijdgenoot den Prim Karel
van Hessen-Cassel (Den Haag, 1944?)
Chacornac, Paul, Le Comte de Saint-Germain (Paris, 1947). The first work to pare away the great
mass of fictitious "testimony" but discards one sound thing. Makes him the son of Queen Anna-
Maria of Spain.
Heim, Maurice, La Vrai Visage du Comte de Saint-Germain (Paris, 1957). Follows Chacornac.
Cerla, Pierre and Ethus, Francois, L'Enigmatique Comte de Saint-Germain (Paris, Chemins de
l'lmpossible, 1970). Makes him have been walking about for three thousand years in one and
the same body, preserved by methods one feels confident the real Saint-Germain would not
have adopted.
Only the Cooper-Oakley, Kühn, Jessen, Volz, Rijnberk and Chacornac hold anything for the
scholar.

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MUSICAL CRITICISM

Calmeyer, J.H., 'The Count of Saint-Germain or Giovannini, a case of mistaken identity', Music and
Letters, USA, xviii, 1967, 4.
Franco, J. 'The Count of Saint-Germain', Musical Quarterly, xxxvi, 1950,54.

RÀKÒCZY

Horn, Emile, Frangois Ràkòczi II (Paris, Perrin, Librairie Académique, 1906) Pillias, Emile,
Ràkòczi aux Camaldules de Grosbois (Revue des Etudes Hongroises, 1933)
Pillias, Emile Josepha Charlotte, la Derniere des Ràkòczi 1736-1780 (Revue d'Histoire Comparée
XXV, Nouvelle seYie, t.V, 1947, pp. 208-218
Pillias, Emile, Les Derniers d'une Grande Famille, Joseph et George Ràkòczi (Revue d'Histoire
Comparée, XXV, Nouvelle série, xxx, t. VI, 1947, pp. 214-225
Varkonyi, Agnes R. Fiscalite et Societe en Hongrie a la fin du XVII siécle (Munich, Troisieme
Conference International d'Histoire Economique, 1965)
Varkonyi, Agnes, R., Habsburg Absolutism and Serfdom in Hungary at the turn of the 17th and
18th centures (Budapest, Akademia Kiadò, 1965)
Varkonyi, Agnes R., La Coalition Internationale contre les Turcs et la Politique Etrangere
Hongroise en 1663-1664 (Budapest, Akademia Kiado, 1975)
Varkonyi, Agnes R., 'Ad Pacem Uniuersalem', the International of the Peace of Szatmàr (Budapest,
Akadémia Kiadò, 1980)
Varkonyi, Agnes R., Politique envers les Serfs et d4veloppement culturel dans l’Etat de Ràkòczi
(Budapest, Akademia Kiadò, 1981)
All Dr. Varkonyi's works are in translation from her Hungarian.

FRENCH COURT (sub-divided according to subject matter)

Shennan, J.H., Philippe Due d'Orleans (Thames & Hudson, 1979)

Gaxotte, Pierre, Le Siécle de Louis XV (Paris, Fayard, 1933)
Capefuge, M. Madame la Marquise de Pompadour (Paris, Amyot, 1840)
Levron, Jacques, Secrète Madame de Pompadour (Paris, Arthaud, 1961) and English translation
Pompadour (Allen & Unwin, 1963)
Mitford, Nancy, Madame de Pompadour (Hamish Hamilton, 1954)
Butler, Rohan, Choiseul (OUP, 1981)
Maugras, Gaston, Le Due et la Duchesse de Choiseul, leur vie intime, leurs amis et leur temps
(Paris, Plon, 1902)
Trouncer, Margaret, A Duchess of Versailles, the love story of Louise, duchesse de Choiseul
(Hutchinson, 1961)
Nixon, Edna, Royal Spy, the strange case of the Chevalier d'Eon (Heinemann, 1966)
Childs, J. Rives, Casanova, a biography based on new documents (Allen & Unwin, 1961)
Fay, Bernard, Louis XVi, the end of a world (W.H. Allen, 1963)
Zweig, Stefan, Marie-Antoinette, the portrait of an average woman (Cassell, 1933)
Campeardon, M. Emile, Marie-Antoinette et le proces du collier (Paris, Plon, 1863)
Funk-Brentano, The Diamond Necklace (Collins, 1911)
Gervaso, Roberto, Cagliostro (Gollancz, 1964)

282
BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY

Griffiths, J.D., A King in Toils [George II] (Lindsay Drummon, 1938)

Young, Sir George, Poor Fred, the People's Prince (Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales) (OUP, 1937)
Ayling, Stanley, George the Third (Collins, 1972)
Brooke, John, King George III (Constable, 1972)

283
OTHER CIRCLES

Acton, Sir Harold, The Last Medici (Faber, 1932, Macmillan, 1980)
Schmazmann, Paul-Emile, The Bentincks, the history of a European family (Weidenfeld, 1976)
Crankshaw, Edward, Maria Theresa (Longman, 1969)
Grooch, G.P., Frederick the Great (Longman, 1974)
Almedingen E.M., Catherine the Great (Hutchinson, 1963)
Haslip, Joan, Catherine the Great (Weidenfeld, 1977)
Anon, Life of John Kaspar Lauater (Religious Tract, undated)

FREEMASONRY (XVIIITH CENTURY)

Amberlain, Robert, Le Martinisme, La Franc-Maconnerie Occultiste Mystique (1643-1943) (Paris,

Niclaus, 1946)
Joly, Alice, Un Mystique Lyonnais, Jean Willermoz (Macon, Protat, 1938) Priouret, Roger, La
Franc-Maconerie sous les Lys (Paris, Bernard Grasset, 1953)
Robson, John, Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe,
carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Muminists, and Reading Societies (London &
Edinburgh, 1798)
Waite, A.E., The History of Freemasonry (London, Jack, 1887) Vol. III.

MUSIC AND COMPOSERS

Dart, Thurston, The Interpretation of Music (Hutchinson, 1954)

Donington, Robert, The Interpretation of Early Music (Faber, 1974)
Garvie, Peter, ed., History of Western Music (Dent, 1958)
Grout, Donald J., A History of Western Music (Dent, 1962) Macpherson, Stewart, Rudiments of
Music (Joseph Williams, 1908) Stanford, Charles Villiers, and Forsyth, Cecil, A History of
Music (Macmillan 1924)
Laloy, Louis, Rameau (Paris, Felix Alcran, 1908)
De la Laurence, Lionel, Rameau (Paris, Renouard, 1909)
Cooper, Martin, Gluck (Chatto, 1935)
Newman, Ernest, Gluck and the Opera, a study in musical history (Bertram Dobell, 1895)
Kirkpatrick, Ralph, Domenico Scarlatti (Princeton University Press, 1953)
Sadie, Stanley, Handel (Calder, 1962)

DIAMONDS

Hahan, Emily, Diamond (Weidenfeld, 1956)

Optima (Johannesburg, Anglo-American Corporation, de Beers and Charter Consolidated, a
magazine issued quarterly to shareholders)
Webster, Robert, Practical Gemnology (N.A.G., 1943)
Webster, Robert, The Gemmologists' Compendium (N.A.G., 1938)
Chambers's Mineralogical Dictionary (1945)

MISCELLANEOUS

Bushnell, Nelson S., William Hamilton of Bangour (Aberdeen University Press, 1957)
Guarini, Giovan Battista, Il Pastor Fido (Milan, Istituto Editoriale Italiano, undated)

284
Mantoux, Paul, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, An Outline of the beginnings
of the modern factory system in England (Cape, 1935)
White, R.A., Europe in the Eighteenth Century (Macmillan, 1965)
McCusker, J.J., Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775 (Macmillan, 1978)
Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W.S. Lewis, Warren Hunting-Smith
and George Lam, with the assistance of Edwinne M. Martz (Oxford University Press, 1967).
Correspondence of Thomas Gray, ed. Paget Toynbee and Leonard Whibley (Oxford University
Press, 1935).

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