have it believed that he had lived several centuries.

[St. Germain was an adept--a worthy predecessor of Cagliostro, who
expected to live five hundred years. The Count de St. Germain pretended
to have already lived two thousand, and, according to him, the account
was still running. He went so far as to claim the power of transmitting
the gift of long life. One day, calling upon his servant to, bear
witness to a fact that went pretty far back, the man replied, "I have no
recollection of it, sir; you forget that I have only had the honour of
serving you for five hundred years."

St. Germain, like all other charlatans of this sort, assumed a theatrical
magnificence, and an air of science calculated to deceive the vulgar.
His best instrument of deception was the phantasmagoria; and as, by means
of this abuse of the science of optics, he called up shades which were
asked for, and almost always recognised, his correspondence with the
other world was a thing proved by the concurrent testimony of numerous
witnesses.

He played the same game in London, Venice, and Holland, but he constantly
regretted Paris, where his miracles were never questioned.

St. Germain passed his latter days at the Court of the Prince of Hesse
Cassel, and died at Plewig, in 1784, in the midst of his enthusiastic
disciples, and to their infinite astonishment at his sharing the common
destiny.]

One day, at her toilet, Madame said to him, in my presence, "What was the
personal appearance of Francis I.? He was a King I should have
liked."--"He was, indeed, very captivating," said St. Germain; and he