The 18th century occupies a special place in the history of Europe. If A. Blok called the 19th century "iron", then many authors both here and abroad called the 18th century gallant. This was the time of kings, claiming to be great and trying to seem enlightened, dazzling balls, like porcelain figurines of beauties in corsets and figurines, and the last knights, whose nobility is sometimes indistinguishable from stupidity. On May 11, 1745, at the Battle of Fontenoy, the ranks of the British and French infantry converged within a shot range. Their commanders entered into negotiations, politely yielding to each other the right of the first shot. In the gallant competition, of course, the French won: the British fired a volley and literally swept away the enemy soldiers, immediately deciding the outcome of the battle. The monarchs of the 18th century left their too noisy and crowded capitals, and moved to small cozy residences: Versailles (built at the end of the 17th century, but became an official residence in the 18th century) and Trianon in France, Sanssouci (from the French "sans sauci" - " without worries”) in Prussia, Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo in Russia. The ideas of the French enlighteners and the industrial revolution dealt an irreparable blow to the seemingly unshakable foundations of medieval society. The old world of feudal Europe slowly and beautifully faded away to the divine music of Mozart, Vivaldi and Haydn, and the subtle smell of decay gave a special charm to the scent of perfumes and roses. Sated aristocrats were tired of balls and hunting, they were irresistibly drawn to thrills, mysticism and secrets, and therefore the eighteenth century also became the century of brilliant adventurers. Rootless, but talented, they shone in palaces and salons, any doors were opened in front of them, and many monarchs considered it an honor to host at their court another philosopher and sorcerer who descended to mortals in order to overshadow the boring and ordinary world of old Europe with the light of their Knowledge. There were many of them, magicians, cheaters and charlatans, but the names of only three remained in the memory of the descendants: Giacomo Casanova, Count Saint-Germain and Giuseppe Balsamo, who took the name of Alessandro Cagliostro. Let's start in order.
World history and literature know two characters who are models and symbols of irresistible male attractiveness, who occupy in the public consciousness the same place as Beautiful Helen and Cleopatra among female images. One of them went into legends and, in fact, is known to us mainly as a character in the works of Byron, Moliere, Mérimée, Hoffmann, Pushkin and other less famous authors - this is Don Juan (Juan).
Don Juan, a monument in Seville
The second hero is a real historical person who left his own handwritten notes about his life and adventures. His name is Giacomo Casanova.
Monument to Casanova in Venice
In our country, the names of these great lovers and seducers are often synonymous, although the differences between them are huge - in relation to life and to women, they are rather antipodes. The Spanish aristocrat Don Juan, whose dark shadow came to us from the XIV century, did not seduce, but seduced, and did not love anyone, despising even the most beautiful women. Oddly enough, he was not an atheist, and did not set himself the goal of "serving the Devil." One of the main doctrines of Christianity of those years was about the primordial depravity of a woman, created only as an instrument of sin, an instrument of the devil. Stefan Zweig believed that Don Juan devoted his life to the confirmation of this dubious thesis, who did not believe in the purity and decency of any representative of the "fairer sex". Seducing women, he was looking not for pleasures, but for evidence that humble nuns, exemplary wives and innocent girls are "only angels in the church and monkeys in bed." He was young, noble, rich, and the charm of "hunting" was multiplied for him by the inaccessibility of the object of persecution - where there is no resistance, there is no desire, the available women are not at all interesting to the Spaniard. Seduction of women was for him just a daily and hard work, the charm of which is in the anticipation of real pleasure: when the mask of piety is torn from the shy woman, and he sees the despair of a woman abandoned and fallen in the eyes of society. Meeting him was the worst event in the life of a woman who had the misfortune to attract the attention of herself: the nightmare of trampled dignity, shame and humiliation remained with her for life. The abandoned women hated him, they were ashamed of their weakness and did everything possible to - alas, always in vain - to open the eyes of a new victim. Another victory, instead of pleasure, brought disappointment: the mask of a virtuous wife or an innocent virgin fell from the victim's face and the same stupid, lustful female looked at him from the bed again. In fact, he was deeply unhappy in his demonic loneliness. Don Juan kept a register of the perverted, and even kept a special "accountant" for this purpose - the very Leporello. Some researchers call the "exact" number of victims of Don Juan: 1003. I was unable to find out the origin of this figure.
It is believed that the prototype of this character was a noble noble from Seville, don Juan Tenorio, the favorite of King Pedro the Cruel, who, according to rumors, himself was not averse to having fun in the company of the famous libertine. Don Juan's scandalous adventures ended after the abduction of the daughter of Commander de Ulloa and the murder of her father. The commander's friends lured don Juan to the cemetery and killed him at his grave. After that, there were rumors that the libertine was punished by God, and he took death not from people, but from the ghost of de Ulloa. However, there are two more versions of the death of the great seducer. According to one of them, don Juan, who was pursued by the Inquisition, fled the country and never returned to Spain. On the other - shocked by the suicide of the last victim, which he unexpectedly managed to love for himself, don Juan went to a monastery. The formation of the literary image of Don Juan was also influenced by other historical figures, even the hero of Lepanto, don Juan of Austria, for whom there are dozens of duels with husbands deceived by him. But it was the Sevillian aristocrat of the XIV century that became the basis of the image.
Rootless Venetian (a native of the artistic environment, which at that time was almost shameful) Giacomo Casanova - the antipode of the Spanish grandee.
Giacomo Casanova, bust
By his own admission, he was happy only when he felt in love, and he loved because he felt happy. The secret of Casanova's magical charm was that he, indeed, was ready to sincerely love every woman he met on his way, without making a distinction between the marquise and the maid. The great seducer confesses in his memoirs:
"Four-fifths of the enjoyment was for me to give happiness to women."
He was a true knight, the embodiment of the female dreams of that era. And the point is not at all in beauty, "the last nobleman of Europe" the Belgian prince Charles de Linh will write about Casanova:
"Folded like Hercules, he would be beautiful if he was not ugly … It is easier to anger him than to cheer him up, he rarely laughs, but he loves to laugh … He likes everything, everything is desirable; he tasted everything and knows how to do without everything …"
Charles de Lin
In his youth, this rootless Venetian appropriated the title "Chevalier de Sengal", but in history he still remained under his own name. Giacomo Casanova was a very gifted and outstanding person. In addition to love affairs, he organized the first lottery in France and inspected mines in Courland, tried to persuade Catherine II to introduce the Gregorian calendar in Russia and proposed a new way of dyeing silk to the Venetian Republic, acted as the Portuguese envoy in Augsburg and wrote the history of the Polish state. Huge money sometimes passed through his hands, but they never lingered in them: he is magnanimous and generous when he is rich, and he is also a dangerous cheat, or even just an ordinary swindler when he is poor.
"To cheat a fool is to avenge reason," Casanova proudly declares in her memoirs.
He was familiar with Cagliostro and Count Saint-Germain, predicted the future and conducted alchemical experiments, but he also had conversations with Voltaire and D'Alembert, translated the Iliad and even participated as a co-author in writing the libretto of the opera Don Giovanni for Mozart … Casanova felt "at ease" everywhere: in any company he could talk about anything, and even experts did not recognize him as an amateur, he was almost a professional in all spheres. During his life, Casanova visited various cities in Italy, England, France, Spain, Prussia, Poland and Russia. He talked with Catherine II and Frederick the Great, was almost a friend of the Polish king Stanislav Poniatowski. But his stay in Spain and France ended up in prison for him. In his native Venice, he was arrested for impudent and frivolous behavior - in a city where carnival lasted nine months a year, and balls were even held in monasteries! Then he spent more than a year in the famous prison with a lead ceiling "Piombi", from where he, the only prisoner in history, managed to escape. In total, in 12 years, from 1759 to 1771, Casanova was exiled eleven times from nine European countries. It seems strange, but always surrounded by women, in the end each time the "paladin of love" is left alone:
"I was madly in love with women, but I always preferred freedom to them."
Years of terrible loneliness, he will later pay for his own motto, worthy of an ancient philosopher: "My greatest treasure is that I am my own master and am not afraid of misfortune." The time of gallant anecdotes will pass, the Bastille will be taken, and the king of France will come as a prisoner to Paris, which he hates. The heads of the so gracefully and successfully deceived or beaten by Casanova aristocrats will fly into the basket of the guillotine, Napoleon's soldiers will march across Europe with an iron step, and British ladies will wear hairstyles "a la Suvoroff" - then who will find the aged, but not matured, cheerful rake Casanova interesting? In 1785, having learned about the plight of the hero of past years, Count Waldstein found him and offered him the post of librarian in his Bohemian castle Dux.
Duchcov Castle (Dux Castle), the last resting place of Giacomo Casanova
Here, forgotten by everyone and despised even by the servants, the last hero of the "gallant century" was slowly dying for 13 years. At the end of his life, Casanova was forgotten by society, so his friend and patron, Prince de Linh, represented the great lover as the brother of the then famous battle painter. But here Casanova wrote his famous memoirs. They were published in Germany by Brockhaus Publishing House 24 years after his death - and made a splash in reading Europe:
"Poets rarely have a biography, and, on the contrary, people with a real biography rarely have the ability to write one. And here comes this magnificent and almost the only happy incident with Casanova," S. Zweig said on this occasion. Literary characters began to talk about Casanova's notes (for example, the heroes of The Queen of Spades by AS Pushkin and Uncle's Dream by FM Dostoevsky). The very name Casanova in many European languages has become synonymous with an irresistible knight and a brilliant gentleman, and in Russia, for some reason, it is just a synonym for a rake and a womanizer. In the XX century S. Zweig and M. Tsvetaeva, A. Schnitzler and R. Aldington wrote about Casanova, not counting other, less famous writers, seven films were shot about him, including F. Fellini's masterpiece.
D. Sutherland as Casanova, a film by Fellini, 1976
In our country, Casanova is also known as the hero of rather popular songs performed by V. Leontiev and the Nautilus Pompilius group.
The Count Saint Germain, who was declared the Secret Master of Tibet by the famous occultist (and adventurer) Helena Blavatsky, did exist. The exact date and place of his birth are unknown, it is believed that he was born around 1710. He died on February 27, 1784 in the German city of Eckernfeld (information about his burial was preserved in the church books of this city). But it seems that the name of the famous adventurer was used by another person, because there was another Saint-Germain who died in 1795 in Schleswig-Holstein.
Saint-Germain, lifetime portrait
According to the "eyewitnesses", they met Saint-Germain after his official death - for the last time in Vienna, in 1814.
The "real" Saint Germain, of course, was a very versatile and highly gifted person: he wrote with both hands at once, with one hand he could write a letter, with the other - poems "full of innuendo and disturbing with their hidden meaning." He possessed the secret of obtaining persistent dyes for fabrics, among which there were luminous ones - pictures painted with such paints amazed his contemporaries. Saint-Germain himself, by the way, valued Velasquez above all painters. It is known that he developed a new method for refining olive oil, knew chemistry and medicine well, spoke many languages without an accent. He played the harpsichord, cello, harp and guitar, sang well; the sonatas and arias he composed were said to arouse the envy of professional musicians. Scores of some of Saint-Germain's works are kept in the British Museum - violin pieces, romances, a small opera "Windy Deluse". PI Tchaikovsky was interested in the music of Saint-Germain, who collected notes of his works. As a coat of arms, our hero chose the image of a solar eclipse with outstretched wings.
The personality of Saint-Germain always aroused burning interest, but no one was able to reveal his secret. Moreover, in the middle of the 19th century, this mystery became even more impenetrable. The fact is that the French emperor Napoleon III, intrigued by the rumors about the miraculous "Count", set out to solve the secret of the great adventurer and ordered to collect in one place all the documents informing anything about his life path. However, during the soon outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris, the building where the documents were kept burned down. The documents now available for the first time mention Saint-Germain's name in 1745, when he was arrested in England for a letter in support of the Stuarts. It turned out that he lives according to someone else's documents, and also avoids women in every possible way. After 2 months, Saint-Germain was expelled from the country; nothing is known about his life over the next 12 years. In 1758, he appears in France, where he enjoys the patronage of Louis XV, whom, it seems, he cured once, and, in addition, one of the king's diamonds got rid of the defect (it is believed that he simply cut another diamond according to his model). But the Duke of Choiseul and the Marquise of Pompadour, openly called the "Count" a swindler and charlatan, however, the hostility was mutual. Ultimately, thanks to their intrigues, Saint-Germain, carrying out a diplomatic mission in The Hague, was accused of preparing the assassination of Louis XV's wife Queen Mary, was arrested, and never returned to France. After that, he visited England, Prussia (where he met with Frederick the Great), Saxony and Russia. Saint-Germain visited St. Petersburg shortly before the overthrow and assassination of Peter III, his acquaintance with the Orlov brothers gave some researchers reason to talk about the count's involvement in the conspiracy. It was also claimed that Saint-Germain, together with Alexei Orlov, was on the flagship Three Saints during the Battle of Chesme. The Margrave of Bradenburg-Anbach, with whom Saint-Germain visited in 1774, recalled that Saint-Germain appeared in the uniform of a Russian general at a meeting with Alexei Orlov in Nuremberg.
V. Eriksen, Portrait of Alexei Grigorievich Orlov
It is known for certain that in 1773 in Amsterdam Saint-Germain acted as an intermediary in the purchase by Grigory Orlov of the famous diamond donated to Catherine II.
It is believed that Saint-Germain was one of the scions of the Hungarian family of Rákóczi. He himself said that the evidence of his origin "is in the hands of the person on whom he depends (the Austrian emperor), and this dependence weighs on him all his life in the form of constant surveillance." Saint Germain is not the only name of our hero: at different times and in different countries he was called Count Tsarogi (an anagram of the name of Rakoczi), Marquis of Montfer, Count Bellamard, Count Weldon, and even Count Soltykov (just like that - through "O"). Saint-Germain explained the secret of his longevity by the action of a special elixir and diet - he ate once a day, usually oatmeal, cereal dishes and white chicken meat, he drank wine only on rare occasions. It is also known that Saint Germain took extraordinary measures against colds. It is significant that the patient Giacomo Casanova, who knew Saint-Germain well, chose to refuse his services as a doctor. Casanova also describes this "trick" of Saint Germain: he lowered the copper coin taken from him into an alchemical crucible and returned the gold one. But the self-styled count tried in vain: Casanova himself performed such tricks more than once, and did not believe in Saint-Germain's "philosopher's stone" even for a second. Rumors of links with the supernatural world Saint-Germain always denied, but in such a way that the interlocutors, paradoxically, were finally convinced of their validity. The famous "reservations" such as that he allegedly warned Christ that he would "end badly" were also doing their job. And the old servant of Saint-Germain, bribed by one of the curious aristocrats, "with a blue eye" said that he could not say anything about the origin of the owner, since he has been serving him for only 300 years (Cagliostro later this idea with "simple-minded" old servants approved and used repeatedly).
"These stupid Parisians imagine that I am 500 years old. And I even strengthened them in this thought, because I see that they are madly in love with it," the count himself said frankly to the leaders of the French Masons. The Masons were very impressed by the presence in their ranks of a man of this level, and without any effort on his part Saint Germain attained the highest degrees of initiation in France, England, Germany and Russia. It was the Masons who wrote the fictional "biography" of Saint Germain, according to which this adventurer was born in the 3rd century AD. in England under the name of Albanus. In the 5th century, he allegedly lived in Constantinople in the guise of the famous philosopher Proclus (a follower of Plato, who argued that the only really existing world is the world of ideas). In the 13th century, Saint Germain was a Franciscan monk and theological reformer Roger Bacon, and in the 14th century he lived under the name of Christian Rosicrucian. Fifty years later Saint Germain appeared in Hungary under the name of the famous military leader H. Janos, in 1561 he was born as Francis Bacon, and in the 17th century - as the Prince of Transylvania J. Rákóczi. In the famous prophecy of Saint-Germain, dating back to 1789-1790. (recall that Saint Germain died in 1784), it is said that now he is "needed in Constantinople", and then he will go to England to prepare two inventions that will be needed in Germany - the train and the steamer. And by the end of the 18th century, he will leave Europe and go to the Himalayas to rest and find peace. He promised to return in 85 years. In 1935, W. Ballard's book "Mysteries Unveiled" was published in Chicago, in which the author argued that Saint-Germain had been in the United States since 1930. As a result, a sect of ballardists even arose in this country, who revere Saint-Germain on an equal basis with Jesus Christ.
Cagliostro, who was born in the family of a cloth merchant from Palermo in 1745, did not have the talents and abilities of Saint Germain, he only successfully imitated his predecessor, and his end of life was much more prosaic. But he began his activity on a large scale: the lodges of "Egyptian" Freemasonry organized by him operated in a number of major cities in Europe, such as Danzig, The Hague, Brussels, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Milan, Konigsberg, Mitau, Lyon, and his wife Lorenza headed the women's lodge in Paris.
Count Alessandro Cagliostro, bust by Houdon. 1786 g.
Serafina Feliciani, aka Lorenza, wife of Cagliostro
In his memoirs written in the Bastille, Cagliostro hinted that he was born from a relationship between the Grand Master of the Order of Malta and the Princess of Trebizond. Among his friends, the "Count" named the Duke of Alba (Spain), the Duke of Braunschweig (Holland), Prince Grigory Potemkin (Russia) and the Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of Malta. Cagliostro, indeed, was familiar with Potemkin: the wife of the "count" managed to lure large sums of money from the loving favorite of Catherine II. The empress's court doctors were very dissatisfied with the activities of the famous "miracle worker", since viewed him primarily as a dangerous competitor. One of the doctors even challenged the adventurer to a duel, but withdrew the cartel after the counter-offer of the enemy: instead of weapons, Cagliostro suggested using poison - "the one who has the best antidote will be considered the winner." A chance helped to get rid of Cagliostro: he undertook to treat the ten-month-old son of Count Gagarin, and after the death of the child, he tried to replace him. As a result, the spouses of Cagliostro were ordered to leave Petersburg within 24 hours.
Nodar Mgaloblishvili as Cagliostro, 1984
The degree of Cagliostro's influence on the entourage of Louis XVI can be judged by the royal decree issued at that time, according to which any criticism directed at the "magician" was to be regarded as an anti-state act. But greed let down the son of the Palermo merchant: posing as an agent of Marie Antoinette, he persuaded Cardinal Rogan to buy an incredibly expensive diamond necklace for the queen. A terrible scandal erupted, Cagliostro was imprisoned (where, in between, he confessed to the murder of Pompey) and then expelled from the country. Cagliostro knew the situation in pre-revolutionary France well. This helped him to make a successful prediction of the imminent collapse of the monarchy in this country and the destruction of the Bastille, "in the place of which there will be a square for public walks" ("Message to the French Nation"). In 1790, Cagliostro (betrayed by his wife, who told the investigation the real name of the adventurer - Giuseppe Balsamo) was arrested by the Inquisition in Rome.
Unknown artist. Portrait of Giuseppe Balsamo
In an effort to avoid the death sentence, he did his best to portray sincere repentance, composing, for the sake of the "holy fathers," the tale of a conspiracy against the monarchs, which allegedly consisted of 20,000 Masonic lodges with 180,000 members.
He presented himself as the head of the European conspiracy. It was from that time that the great Masonic legend began, and not distinguished by "excessive" legibility and scrupulousness in search of sources for his inspiration, A. Dumas (father) even wrote on the basis of this self-incrimination the novel "Queen's Necklace" (which states that Cagliostro arranged necklace scam to discredit and then overthrow the monarchy in France). Not all contemporaries of the events were so gullible: Goethe, for example, in the satirical comedy "The Great Jacket" (1792) brought Cagliostro under the name of Count di Rostro Impudento ("Count Shameless Snout"), the poet called Rogan a "canon", and Maria -Antoinette - "princess". And Catherine II ridiculed him in the comedies "Deceiver" and "Seduced". Despite all his efforts, April 21, 1791.for participation in "secret gatherings of Freemasons" Cagliostro was sentenced to death, which the Pope replaced with life imprisonment. It is interesting that violent imagination almost again rescued the adventurer: in 1797, the soldiers of Napoleon Bonaparte's Italian army, who had heard about his "merits", entered Rome, who demanded the immediate release of the "hero of the revolution Cagliostro", but the "great magician" died two years earlier - in August 1795
