1939-10-14 — Page 15

THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 14, 1939.

TO-DAY'S STRANGE STORY OF REAL PEOPLE

COUNT ST. GERMAIN AND HIS ELIXIR OF LIFE

By VINCENT TOWNE INTO the glare of the court of Louis XV, and of Pompadour in 1748, fell ⚫ suddenly, as, if from the skies, a fascinating stranger in middle life, but wonderfully well preserved,

very handsome and/ very brilliant calling himself the Count of St. Germain. Such was his magnetism and power to dominate men and women that he was required neither to prove his title nor to ac- count for his source of revenue. Hay- ing gained the confidence of the nobles and royal personages of the court, he let it be known that he had been born in the year 252 B.C. and that he had prolonged his years for two millen- niums through his discovery of the elixir of life.

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He chatted of personal experiences with. Nero and Dante, and what led many to believe

his claims was his accurate knowledge of all history, ancient and medieval, as well as modern, also his ability to converse fluently in every language whatever in which he was addressed.

To prove the potency of his elixir he is said to have given a draught of it to a woman, of 45, who became immédiately transformed into a young maid of 16. He was rumoured to possess the secret of manufacturing not only gold but precious gems, and thus those who yielded to his charm accounted for his ready supply of money and the blaze of diamonds that always adorned his preson.

It was as impossible to locate any estate or other legitimate source of his revenue as it was to prove him a gambler, swindler or spy. Mme. de Pompadour endeavoured to catch him napping, and when once in this spirit she asked him to describe Francis I., who had lived two centuries before, he replied:

"A good follow, but too impulsive, I could have given him wise advice, but he would not listen to me."

Pompadour believed St. Germain to be really over a century old, because an old lady, Mme. de Cergy, whose husband had been ambassador to Venice, had told her that she remem- bered this same man of mystery at the Venetian court more than a half century before, when he had appeared just as he did now in Paris.

witty

Kitty

In the latter part of the 18th century he became the favourite companion of the landgrave Charles of Hesse,

of

There veiled the end of his career almost as much mystery as covered his birth, for although his death in Schlewig Holstein was announced in 1780, Grosely, an eminent savant of stated that he saw the "count" in a the British Royal Society, afterward French prison during the reign terror, while Lord Lytton in 1880 met double, if not he himself, and there a character who appeared to be his have since been intimations that he was the mysterious "Maj. Fraser," who at the court of Louis Napoleon, about 1855, was playing much the same role as had St. Germain at that of Louis nationality XV. This "Major Fraser's" birth and

were as enigmatical and he used to intimate that he lived was the supply of his plethoric purse with Nero and knew Dante personally.

as

ious Russian, who early in this century, Still others hinted that the myster- penetrated into the forbidden kingdom viser of the Dalai Lama, was the same of Thibet and there became the ad- Count of Germain.

E

Chatted Of Experiences With Nero, Dante

And Other Ancients

who was destined to succeed him in This was none other than that human the salons and courts of Europe as enigma "Count Alessandro di Caglio-

man of mystery.stro."

and initiated into Freemasonry one the world's chief

While in Germany, St. Germain met

(Ralstood by Thu doll Bradeley (664)

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