Gérard de Nerval the Illuminates

GÉRARD DE NERVAL 

         THE ILLUMINATES

                                          OR

                THE PRECURSORS OF SOCIALISM

                                            CAGLIOSTRO

     (18th C.)

        I.

                                                              

REVOLUTIONARY MYSTICISM 

When  Catholicism triumphed decisively over paganism throughout Europe, and then built the feudal structure which survived until the fifteenth century—that is to say during the space of a thousand years—it could not constrict and destroy everywhere the spirit of ancient customs, nor the philosophical ideas which had transformed the pagan principle during the epoch of the polytheist reaction effected by the Emperor Julien.

It was not enough to have overthrown the last refuge of Greek philosophy and earlier beliefs—by destroying the Serapeum of Alexandria, dispersing and prosecuting the Neoplatonists who had replaced the external cult of the gods with a spiritualist doctrine derived from the Eleusion Mysteries and Egyptian initiations,—the Church still had to pursue its victory within all the localities impregnated with ancient superstitions—and persecution was not as powerful as time and oblivion for this difficult result.

In dealing with France alone, we will recogize that the pagan cult has long survived the official conversions effected by the change of religion of the Merovingian Kings. The people’s respect for certain consecrated places, for the ruins of temples, and for the remains of statues, obliged the Christian priests to build most of the churches on the site of ancient pagan structures. Wherever this precaution was neglected, and particularly in solitary places, the ancient cult continued,—as at Mount Saint Bernard, where, in the last century the god Jove was still honoured in the place of the ancient temple of Jupiter. Although the ancient goddess of Parisians,Isis, was replaced by Saint Genevieve, as protector and patron,—we still see, in the eleventh century, an image of Isis, preserved by mistake under the porch of Saint-Germaine-de-Pres, devoutly honoured by the wives of mariners,—which obliged the Archbishop of Paris to have it reduced to powder and tossed into the Siene. A statue of the same divinity was still to be seen in Quinipily, in Brittany, a few years ago, and received the tributes of the population. In part of Alsace and Franche-Compte, a cult for the Mother, has been preserved—whose figures in bas-relief are found on several monuments, and are none other than the great goddesses, Cybele, Ceres, and Vesta.

It would take too long to note the various superstitions which have taken a thousand forms, according to the times, there are, in the eighteenth century, ecclesiastics, such as L’Abbe de Villars, Father Bougeant, Dom Pernetty, and others, who argued that the gods of antiquity were not demons, as had been claimed by the severe Casuists, and were not even damned. They placed them in the class of elemental spirits, who did not take part in the great struggle which originally took place between  angels and demons, had neither been cursed nor destroyed by divine justice, and had been able to enjoy a certain power over the elements, and over men, until the arrival of Christ. L’Abbe de Villars gave as proof the miracles that the bible itself recognizes to have been produced by the gods of the Ammonites, Philistines or others in favour of their people, as well as the prophecies often fulfilled by the spirits of Typhon. They place among the latter the oracles of the Sibyls favourable to Christ and the last oracles of Apollo at Delphi, which were cited by the church fathers as proof of the mission of the son of man. According to this system, the entire ancient hierarchy of pagan deities would have found its place in the thousand attributions that Catholicism assigned to the inferior functions, to be accomplished in matter and space, and will become what are called spirits or genii, which are divided into four classes according to the number of the elements: Sylphs for air, Salamanders for fire, Undines for water, and Gnomes for Earth.

On this question of detail alone, a schism has arisen between L’Abbe de Villars and the Father Bougeant, a Jesuit,  which has long occupied the great minds of the last centuries. The latter strongly denied the transformation of the ancient gods into elemental genii, he claimed that since, as pure spirits, they could not be destroyed, they were intended to provide souls to animals, which were renewed, passing from one body to another according to affinities. In this system, the gods animated the useful and beneficent beasts, and the demons those that were ferocious or impure. On this, the good Father Bougeant cited the opinion of the Egyptians as to the gods, and that of the gospel in regard to the demons. These arguments could be exposed in full in the middle of the eighteenth century without being accused of heresy.

It is quite clear that these were only the inferior deities, such as Fauns, Zephyrs, Nereids, Oreads, Satyrs, Cyclops etc. As for the gods and demi-gods, they were supposed to have left the earth, as too dangerous, after the establishment of the absolute reign of Christ, and had been relegated to the stars, that had always been consecrated to them, just as in the middle ages a rebellious prince was relegated, after having made his submission, either to his city or to a place of exile.

This opinion prevailed, particularly during the Middle Ages, among the most famous cabalists, and particularly among the astrologers, the alchemists,and the physicians. This explains most of the conjurations founded on astral invocations, horoscopes, talismans, and the medications, consecrated substances, or operations related to the course or conjunction of the planets. It is enough to open a book of the occult sciences to have the obvious proof of it. 

                                               II. 

     

                            THE PRECURSORS

If we have fully explained the doctrines exposed above, we will have been able to understand why, alongside the orthodox church, a half-religious and half-philosophical school developed without interruption, fertile in heresies, no doubt, but often accepted or tolerated by the catholic clergy, which has maintained a certain spirit of mysticism or supernaturalism necessary for dreamy and delicate imaginations, as in some populations more disposed than others to spiritualist ideas.

Converted Israelites were the first to try, around the eleventh century, to infuse into catholicism some hypotheses based on the interpretation of the bible and going back to the doctrines of the Essenes and the Gnostics.

It is from this period of time that the word cabal often resonates in theological discussions. There is naturally mingled with it something of the platonic formulas of the School of Alexandria, many of which had already been reproduced in the doctrines of the church fathers.

The prolonged contact of Christendom with the East, during the crusades, brought about a large number of analogous ideas, which, moreover found easy support in the local traditions and superstitions of the European nations.

The Templars were, among the crusaders, those who tried to achieve the widest alliance between eastern ideas and those of Roman Christianity.

In the desire to establish a link between their order and the Syrian populations which they were responsible for governing, they laid the foundations of a new kind of doctrine, participating in all the religions practiced by the Levantines, without essentially abandoning the Catholic synthesis, but by often making it bend to the necessities of their position.

These were the foundations of freemasonry which were attached to similar institutions established by Muslims of various sects which still survive persecution, especially in the Hauran, Lebanon and Kurdistan.

The strangest and most exaggerated phenomenon of these eastern associations was the famous order of the Assassins. The nations of the Druze and the Ansari are today those which have kept the last vestiges of it.

The Templars were soon accused of having established one of the most formidable heresies that Christendom had yet seen. Persecuted and finally destroyed in all European countries, by the united efforts of the papacy and and the monarchies, they had on their side the intelligent classes and a great number of distinguished minds who then constituted, against feudal abuses, what we would today call the opposition.

From their ashes tossed to the wind was born a mystical and philosophic institution which greatly influenced that first moral and religious revolution, that for the people of the North was called the Reformation and for those of the South Philosophy.

The reformation was still, on the whole, the salvation of christianity as a religion; philosophy on the contrary gradually became its enemy, and, acting especially among the people who remained catholic, soon established there two distinct divisions of believers and unbelievers. There are however, a great number of minds who pure materialism does not satisfy, but who, without rejecting the religious tradition like to maintain a certain freedom of discussion and interpretation towards it. They founded the first masonic association which soon gave shape to popular guilds and to what are still today called the Companions.

Masonry established its highest institutions in Scotland, and it was as a result of France’s relations with this country, from Mary Stuart to Louis XIV, that we saw the strong establishment among us of the mystical institutions which proceeded from the Rosicrucians.

During this time, Italy had seen the establishment, since the sixteenth century, of a long line of bold thinkers among which we must rank Ficino, Pico della Mirandolla, Meursis, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, and other great minds favoured by the tolerance of the Medicis, and sometimes called the Neoplatonists of Florence.

The capture of Constantinople, by exiling so many illustrious scholars that Italy welcomed, also exercised a great influence on this philosophical movement which brought back the ideas of the Alexandrians, and the study of Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyry, Ptolemy, those first opponents of nascent catholicism.

It should be observed here that most of the learned doctors and naturalists of the Middle Ages, such as Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus, Gerolamo Cardano, Roger bacon and others more or less related to these doctrines which gave a new formula to what was then called the occult sciences, that is to say astrology, Cabbala, palmistry, alchemy, physiognomy, etc.

It is from these various elements and partly also from the Hebrew science, which spread more freely since the Renaissance, that the  various mystical schools are formed that we saw developing at the end of the seventeenth century.

The Rosicrucian order first, of which the Abbe de Villars was the indiscreet disciple, and later, it is claimed, the victim. 

Then the Convulsionaries and certain sects of Jansenism; around 1770, the Martinists, the Swedenborgians, and finally the Illuminati whose doctrine, first founded in Germany by Weisshaupt, soon spread to France, where it merged into the Masonic institution.

                                       III.

        SAINT-GERMAIN. -CAGLIOSTRO 

These two figures were the most famous Cabalists of the late eighteenth century. The first, who appeared at the court of Louis XV and enjoyed a certain credit there, thanks to  the protection of Madame de Pompadour, had, say the memoirs of the time, neither the impudence which befits a charlatan, nor the eloquence necessary for a fanatic, nor the seduction which draws the semi-learned. He was mainly concerned with alchemy, but did not neglect the various parts of science. He shows Louis XV the fate of his children in a magic mirror and this King recoiled in terror when he saw the image of the dauphin appear to him, decapitated.

Saint Germain and Cagliostro had met in Germany in the Holstein, and it was said to be the first who initiated the other and gave him the mystical grades. At the time when he was initiated, he himself noticed the famous mirror which served for the evocation of souls.

The Count of St. Germain claimed to have kept the memory of a host of previous lives, and recounted his various adventures since the beginning of the world. One day his servant was questioned about a fact which the Count had just told at the table, which related to the time of Caesar. The former replied to the curious “ You will excuse me, gentlemen, I have only been in the service of Monsieur the Count, for five hundred years.”

It is in rue Platriere, in Paris, and also in Ermenonville, that the sessions were held in which this character developed his theories.

Cagliostro, after having been initiated by the Count of Saint Germain, went to Saint Petersburg where he obtained great success. Later he came to Strasbourg, where he acquired, it is said, a great influence on the Archbishop, Prince of Rohan.

Everyone knows the affair of the necklace, in which the famous Cabalist found himself implicated, but from which he emerged to his advantage, brought back in triumph to his hotel by the people of Paris.

His wife, who was very beautiful and of high intelligence, had accompanied him on all his travels. She presided over that famous supper attended by most of the philosophers of the time in which several characters who had recently died were made to appear: according to Cagliostro’s system there are no deaths. So the table was set for twelve, although there were only six guests: D’Alembert, Diderot, Voltaire, le Duc de Choiseul, l’Abbe de Voisenon, and who knows what other, came and sat down, although dead, in the places which had been intended for them, and chatted with the guests, de omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis.

Around this time, Cagliostro founded the famous Egyptian Lodge, leaving it to his wife to establish another in favour of her sex, which was placed under the invocation of Isis. 

                                         IV. 

                             MADAME CAGLIOSTRO

The women, excessively curious, unable to be admitted to men’s secrets, asked Madame Cagliostro to initiate them. She replied very cooly to the Duchess of T***, who was in charge of making the first overtures, that as soon as thirty-six adepts were found, she would begin her magic course; the very same day the list was filled.

The preliminary conditions were such: 1.  it was necessary to put in a box each one hundred Louis. As the women of Paris never have a penny, this clause was hard to fulfill; but the Mont-de-Piete* and a few indulgences were able to satisfy it; 2. that from that day until the ninth, they would refrain from all human affairs; 3. that one would take an oath to submit to whatever is ordered, although the order has all appearances against it.

The seventh of August was the big day. the scene took place in a large house, rue Verte-Saint-Honore. They arrived at eleven O’clock. Upon entering the first room each woman was obliged to take off her bouffant, her supports, her bodice, her false chignon, and to dress in a white Levite dress with a coloured belt. There were six in black, six in blue, six in poppy, six in pink, six in impossible. They were each given a large veil which they placed on a long Sautoire from left to right.

When they were all prepared, they were taken two by two into a brightly lit temple, furnished with thirty-six Bergere chairs covered with black satin. Madame Cagliostro dressed in white, was on a sort of throne, escorted by two tall figures dressed in such a way that its was not known whether they were spectres, men, or women. The light that illuminated this room was gradually diminishing, and when the objects could hardly be seen, the high priestess ordered the uncovering of the left leg up to the beginning of the knee. After this exercise, she ordered the right arm to be raised and to lean it against the neighbouring column. Then two women holding a sword in their hands entered, and, having received silk ties from Madam Cagliostro’s hands, they tied the thirty-six ladies by the legs and by the arms. 

The ceremony ended, she began a speech in these terms:

“the state in which you find yourselves is the symbol of where you are in society. If men keep you away from their mysteries, their projects, it is because they want to keep you in dependance forever. In all parts of the world woman is their first slave, from the seraglio where a despot locks up five hundred of us, to those wild climates where we dare not sit down next to a hunter husband!..we are victims since childhood to cruel gods. If, breaking this shameful yoke, we were also to be concerted in our projects, soon you would see this proud sex crawling and begging your favours. Let them wage their murderous wars or unravel the chaos of their laws, but let us take it upon ourselves to govern public opinion, to purify mores, to cultivate the mind, to maintain delicacy, to reduce the number of misfortunes. These concerns are well worth those of training automatons or making pronouncements on ridiculous quarrels. If any of you have something to oppose, please explain yourselves freely.”

A general acclamation followed the speech. Then the Great Mistress had the cords untied and continued in these terms:

“ Without doubt, your soul full of fire seizes with ardour the project of recovering a freedom, the first good of every living creature, but more than one test must teach you how much you can rely upon yourselves, and it is these trials which embolden me to entrust you with secrets on which the happiness of your life depends forever. 

You will divide yourselves into six groups; each colour must come together and go to open of the six chambers that correspond to that temple. Those who have succumbed must never enter, the palm of victory awaits those who will triumph”.

Each group passed into a properly furnished room where soon a crowd of horsemen arrived. Some began with banter and asked how reasonable women could trust the words of an adventurer, and they strongly emphasized the danger of public ridicule…the others complained to see that love and friendship were sacrificed to ancient extravagances, useless as well as without pleasure.

The ladies hardly deigned to listen to these cold jokes. In an adjoining room were seen, in works painted by the greatest masters, Hercules spinning wool at the feet of Omphale, Renaud stretched out near Armide, Mark Antony serving Cleopatra, the beautiful Agnes commanding the court of Charles VII, Catherine II, that men carried on trophies. One of those accompanying them said : So this is the sex that treats yours as a slave! For whom are the sweets and attentions of society? Is it harming you to save you trouble, embarrassment?  If we build palaces is it not to devote the best part to you? Don’t we like to adorn our idols? Do we adopt the customs of the Asians? Does a jealous veil hide your charms? And far from closing the avenues to your chambers with repulsive eunuchs, how often do we have the obliging discernment of eclipsing ourselves to leave the field free for coquetry? 

It was a kind and modest man who made this speech.

—All your eloquence, answered one of the women, will not destroy the humiliating gates of convents, the companions that you give us, the powerlessness attached to our own writings, your protective airs and your orders in the guise of advice.

Not far from this room was another more interesting scene. The ladies with the lilac ribbons met there with their usual suitors. Their debut was to tell them of their most absolute leave-taking. This room had three doors which opened into gardens illuminated by the soft light of the moon. They invited them to descend. they bestowed this last favour on desolate men. One of the women, who we will call Leonore, did not hide the turmoil of her soul and followed Count Gideon whom she had loved until then.—Please, deign to inform me of my crimes? he said. Are you abandoning a treacherous one? What have I been doing for two days? My feelings, my thoughts, my blood; isn’t it all yours? You cannot be inconstant! What kind of fanaticism comes to rob me of a heart that has cost me so much torment?

—It is not you that I hate, she replied, it is your sex; it is your cruel, tyrannical laws!

—Alas! Of this sex proscribed today you have only known me. Where is my despotism; when have I had the misfortune to afflict what I love?

Leonora sighed and did not know how to accuse the one she adored. He wants to take one of her hands.

—If you love me, she said, be careful not to soil my hand with a profane kiss. I don’t think I can ever leave you. But as proof of this obedience in which you want me to believe, go nine days without seeing me and believe that this sacrifice will not be lost for my heart. Gideon walked away; and not being able to suspect, nor dare to complain, he went away to reflect on the causes of his misfortune.

It would take too long to recount all that happened in these two hours of ordeal. It is certain that neither reasoning, nor sarcasm, nor tears, nor despair, nor promises, nor finally all that seduction employs could do anything, so much are curiosity and the secret hope of dominating powerful springs in women. All returned to the temple as the high priestess had ordered.

It was three O’clock at night. Everyone resumed their places. Various liquors were presented to support the forces. Then they were ordered to unfasten the veils and cover their faces with them. After a quarter of an hour of silence, a sort of dome opened, and on a large golden ball descended a man dressed like a genie, holding a serpent in his hand and bearing on his head a brilliant flame.

—It is from the very genius of truth, said the great mistress, that I want you to learn the secrets that have been stolen so long from your sex. The one you are about to hear, is the famous, the immortal, the divine Cagliostro, who came out of Abraham’s bosom, without even having been conceived, and who is the repository of all that has been, of all that is and of all that will be known on earth.

‘Daughters of the earth”, he cried, “if men did not hold you up in error, you would end up bonding together in invincible union. Your gentleness, your indulgence would make you adore those people, whom you must command to have their respect. You know neither these vices which trouble reason, nor this frenzy which sets a whole kingdom on fire. Nature has done everything for you. Jealous, they debase your work, in the hope that it will never be known. If, in repelling a deceptive sex, you sought true sympathy with yours, you would never have to be ashamed of these shameful rivalries, these jealousies which are beneath you. Cast your glances on yourselves, know how to appreciate yourself, open your souls to pure tenderness, may the kiss of friendship announce what is happening in your hearts.”.

Here the speaker stopped. All the women embraced. At the same moment darkness, replaces light, and the genius of truth ascends through his dome. The great mistress quickly passes through all the places; here she instructs, here she comments, everywhere she ignites the imagination. Only Leonore allows tears to flow. I can guess, she whispered in her ear; isn’t the memory of what we love enough?

Then she ordered that the profane  music be resumed. Little by little the light returned, and, after a few minutes of calm, a noise was heard as if the floor were sinking. It lowered itself almost entirely and was soon replaced by a sumptuously served table. The ladies seated themselves there, then entered thirty-six geniuses of truth dressed in white satin: a mask hid their features. But from the nimble and eager air with which they served, one could imagine spiritual beings far above rude humans. Towards the middle of the meal, the great mistress made a sign to them to unmask themselves, then the ladies recognized their lovers. Some, faithful to their oath, were about to stand up. She advises them to moderate their zeal by observing that mealtime was devoted to joy and pleasure. They asked by what chance they found themselves together. Then it was explained to them that, on their side, they were initiated into certain mysteries; that if they were clad in the clothes of genius, it was to show that equality is the basis of everything; that it was not extraordinary to see thirty-six horsemen with thirty-six ladies; that the essential aim of the great Cagliostro was to repair the ills caused by society, and that the state of nature made everything equal.

The geniuses went to supper. Twenty times the the sparkling foam of Sillery wine spurted up to the ceiling. The gaiety redoubled, the epigrams arrive, the right words follow one another, madness mingles with the conversation, the intoxication of happiness is painted in all eyes, naive songs are interpreted, innocent caresses are permitted, clothing becomes a little disordered,  they propose dancing, we waltz more than we jump: the punch relaxes repeated cross-dances; Love, exiled for some time shakes its torch; forgotten are the oaths, the genius of truth, the faults of men, the error of the imagination is rejected.

However, the eyes of the High Priestess were avoided, she came back and smiled at seeing herself so poorly obeyed.—Love conquers all, she said, but think of our convention, and little by little your souls will be purified. There is only one more session, it is up to you to renew it.

In the days that followed , no-one allowed themselves to speak of the details, but the enthusiasm for Count Cagliostro was carried to an intoxication that even astonished  Paris. He seized this moment to develop all the principles of Egyptian Freemasonry. He announced to the lights of the Grand Orient that one could only work under a triple arch, there could be no more nor less than thirteen adepts; that they must be as pure as the sun’s rays, free of slander, have neither wives, nor mistresses, nor habits of dissipation, possess a fortune of more than fifty-three thousand pounds a year; and more importantly that kind of knowledge that is so rarely found among those with great revenue.

* A pawnshop

Selection from Gérard de Nerval’s Les Illuminés translation by Erik Volet 2021   

Photo: Isis Temple (Hathor) Philae, Egypt, c 1890 Photographer: Antonio Beato