Iditarod pioneer., 1916-08-26
CAGLIOSTRO, MAN OF MYSTERY

A hush fell upon the gayeties of the court of Louis XVI November 29, l78O, when Count Cagliostro the lion of Paris society, gravey announced that on that day and at the moment named Queen Marie Anton- cites mother, the Empress Marie Theresa, had died in Vienna. Now, there was no telegraph or telephone at that time, and the heetest messenger could make Paris from Vienna in no less than five days. Of course the vast majority of courtiers merely thought that Cagliostro had taken big chances on a bold guess, and they snffed dubiously Then, early in December, messenger appeared with a dispatch from the queen, and Paris stood agape to note that the counts grim prophecy had been fulfilled to the hour of the day.
 Ambassadors, nobles princes were now ready to believe some of the most extrava- gant claims concerning Caghostro-tha he could manufacture gold that he could sum mon even kings from their graves; that he had renewed the youth of his wife, who was really a very old woman with a son of 50 that he was of divine origin and could make himself invisible at will. It was thought also that he had lived for centuries that he was in fact, the Wandering Jew.
 He awed Europe with his hypnotic feats and by his healing of the poor from whom he would accept no payment. He inst- tuted sort of masonic cult into which he drew thousands of initiates, many of them women. He foretold the lucky num- bers of the government lotteries and dis pensed his elixir of youth, the "Wine of Egypt" He lived like noble showered money upon charities, assumed majestic manner which forbade familarties
 Once when someone made so bold as to ask, "Who are you?" he replied, T am He Who Is" As in the case of St. Ger main, no one could learn whence he had come or whence he had obtained his title But whereas St. Germain spoke all Ian guages equally well Caglostro spoke them "equallv badly" The Prince Cardinal Ro- han declared that he had seen the count manufacture gold and diamonds. Finally, after he had become implicated with the cardinal in the celebrated scandal of the queens diamond necklace, they locked him up in the Bastle, where he uttered the prophecy:
 "The Bastile shall be destroyed and the people shall dance on its site"
 And this prophecy was fulfilled com pletely within three years. But by this time Cagliostro had been acquitted and was drifting about Europe. Having reached Rome, however he was condemned by the pope as dangerous foe to religion and sentenced to life imprisonment in dun gpOn. where he died in 1795.
 His past was then laid bare and it was learned that he was Giuseppe Balsamo, son of a poor peasant of Palermo, Sicily. He had been such an incorrlgjble at school that be had to be expelled and after this dis grace his family entered him in a Slcillan monastery, where he was put to work i'll the apothecary shop conducted by the monks His knowledge of chemistry learned here had profited him his successes in later life
 Entering early upon a career of deceit his first feat was to sell to an unsophIsti- cated peasant, for sixty pieces of gold, the secret of an alleged treasure cave, but our ing the dupe's search for the treasure he was set upon by ruffians of Bolsamo's em- ploy, who, masquerading as lmps Of Satan, beat him into nsensibility.
 This little episode was the cause of Bal samo's plunge into the outer world, which now offered him such variety of adven- lures. He had to flee from the outraged authorities
 Wandering across Europe, he crossed into Asia. and in the Orient gloaned the csoterc knowledge that later enabled him to iniu ence the rulers of men. In Rome he gained the affections of a wonderfully beautiful girl, he wed her and made her his partner in mischief.
 When they arrived in Paris she was still only 2O but, to sell his Wine of Egypt, he pronounced her to be an aged woman, mother of a sen of 50, who had renewed her youth by this elixir of life
 But, although proved a swindler and a Quack no one ever satisfactorily explained to the people of his time the secret of his psychic feats, such as guessing the success full lottery numbers and announcing the death of the queens mother They were the foundation of his reputation as the greatest man of mystery of modern times.-Ex.
 A