Baron Cuvier's Historical Eloge ()f Baron Ramond. 7 



amused with his mysterious operations ? Or in short, did 

 Cagliostro really influence his imagination, and deceive him with 

 the same illusions as he did so many others ? To these questions 

 we cannot make a reply; but this much is certain, that M. 

 Ramond confessed that he became one of the most intimate 

 friends of the great magician ; — that he became the deposi- 

 tary of his receipts, and the witness of several of his miracles. 

 He did not even conceal from his friends that he had seen, or 

 that he believed he had seen, very extraordinary things ; but 

 when he was pressed on the subject, he broke off the conversa- 

 tion and refused any further explanation. Now that the 

 charlatannerie of Cagliostro is no longer a problem, we can 

 only conjecture, that, penetrating as M. Ramond was, the 

 juggler had contrived to conceal even from him a part of the 

 springs with which he worked. We should at least believe 

 that these proofs cured him of his disposition to mysticism, for 

 nobody was farther removed from it than he was in the last 

 years of his life ; and the contemptuous warmth with which he 

 expressed himself respecting the attempts of this kind which 

 have been renewed in our times, proves him to be a man who 

 knew well where to place his confidence. 



The irregular life of the Cardinal, his imprudent connections, 

 conducted him, as every body knows, to a catastrophe more 

 frightful than could have been imagined. Shamefully duped 

 by persons the most contemptible, he had the inconceivable 

 folly to believe that the queen had charged him with the clan- 

 destine acquisition of diamonds of great value ; and the still 

 more inconceivable folly of dehvering these diamonds to his 

 pretended coadjutors. A minister who had been long his 

 enemy did not scruple to give to these follies the most crimi- 

 nal aspect ; and this great lord, this man of wit, who had al- 

 ready made himself ridiculous by becoming the dupe of a 

 charlatan, finished his career by being associated with the 

 vilest persons in Paris, in the common accusation of an infa- 

 mous act of swindHng. 



In this frightful disaster his true friends, who had not been 

 able to tear him in time from these dreadful connections, re- 

 sumed all their zeal in order to save him. Among the mass 

 of papers which a man in the situation of a cardinal necessari- 

 ly preserved, there must necessarily have been many foreign 



