A European walk through Bordeaux 14
Start : Cagliostro’s Elixir.
15, Cours Georges
Clemenceau - Hôtel du marquis de Canolle.
This is
where Giuseppe Balsamo, an Italian adventurer who at the time went by the name
of Count Cagliostro, among others, and who was soon after involved in the murky
affair of the Queen’s necklace, was received by Marquis de Canolle
with his wife, Lorenza Feliciani,
the nefarious Serafina, whom he married in
Rome, in 1768. After travelling Europe, Cagliostro stopped at Bordeaux in
November 1783.
Born in
Palermo in 1743, he travelled from 1769 through Asia Minor and Egypt, then
Europe. He met Casanova for the first time in Aix-en-Provence, then journeyed
through Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, London, Paris, Venice, Naples, Germany, etc.
In 1776-1777, he was in London, where he was introduced to freemasonry before
leaving for Brussels.
Having
become “Count Cagliostro,” he travelled Europe again between 1778 and 1783,
from Venice (where he met the all-important Casanova for a second time), to
Paris, passing through Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, Basel and Strasbourg. On 8
November 1783, Giuseppe Balsamo moved in with Marquis de Canolle.
They were both freemasons, but the first was of Egyptian rite. Marquis of Canolle’s town house had a facade adorned with several
grotesques, including a head encircled by a band, indicating a recent
initiation.
Balsamo
presented himself as a healer, using magnetism and strange remedies. A
spiritualist and magician, he organised large parties and held mysterious
meetings, dressed in his Grand Cophta costume
consisting of a black silk robe on which hieroglyphic legends were embroidered
in red, and an Egyptian headdress “made of strips of pleated fabric that fell
around the head.” An emerald green cord surrounded his waist, and a “knight’s
sword hung from a red silk sash.” If local gossip was anything to go by, the
inhabitants of Bordeaux were not impressed by his theories. At the time, they
were more interested in the strange events surrounding the baquet
treatment of the Austrian
Anton Messmer.
Gascon humour taunted the Sicilian mage. A poem
entitled Les prodiges de Cagliostro à Bordeaux [Cagliostro’s
miracles in Bordeaux] appeared in all the local papers:
… …
[He has
arrived in Bordeaux
This man
who does wonders;
By him,
everyone is saved,
Open
your eyes and your ears
Count...
Count Caliostro (sic)
Will cure all vertigo Bravo, bravo, bravissimo!]
… …
… …
… …
Head for the
building at the corner of 62-64 du cours de l'Intendance and Rue de la Vieille-Tour .
© Bertrand Favreau
and Tyché Editions 2014
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