At the head was a man who represented at once the lowest and the loftiest, the grandest and the paltriest, heaven and the masses. With a word he could make you wealthy or a beggar, happy or miserable, free or captive, keep you living or send you to death.
"He had three grandsons, young princes called to succeed him. Chance had it that he whom nature designated was also the choice of the people, if the people had any choice at the epoch. He was accounted kind, just, honest, learned, almost a lover of wisdom. In order to quench the wars which the fatal succession of Charles II. enkindled, the daughter of Maria Theresa was chosen for his wife: the two nations were to be indissolubly united which are the counterbalances west and east of Europe, France and Austria. So calculated Maria Theresa the foremost politician of Europe.
"It was at this period, none the less, when France, supported on Austria, Spain and Italy, was to enter on a new and desired reign that we determined – not that she should be the chief of kingdoms but that the French should be the first people free.
"It was demanded who would be the new Theseus to rush into the den of this Minotaur, thread the innumerable turnings of the maze while guided by the light of Truth, and face the royal monster. I replied it should be me. Some eager spirits, uneasy characters, wanted to know how long a time it would take to accomplish the first period of my enterprise, divided into three portions, and I required twenty years. They cried out against that. Can you understand this? man had been serf or slave for twenty centuries, and he mocked at me because I wanted twenty years to make him free!"
He looked upon the meeting, where his last words had provoked ironical smiles.
"In short, I obtained the twenty years. I gave my brothers the famous device: 'Lilia Pedibus Destrue – the Lilies shall be trodden underfoot!' and I set to work, urging all to do likewise. I entered France under arches of triumph; the rose and the laurel made the road from Strasburg to Paris one trellis garlanded with flowers. Everybody was shouting: 'Long live the Dauphiness! our future Queen!' Now, far from me to take credit to myself for the initiative or the merit of events; the Builder had planned all this and He laid each stone well and truly. He allowed this humble mason who officiates in this fane to see the Hand divinely wielding the Line and the Level and, praise unto Him! I have done some levelling: the rocks have been removed off the way, the bridge has been thrown over the flood, and the gulfs have been filled up so that the car has rolled smoothly. List brothers, to what has been performed in a score of years.
"Parliaments broken up: Louis XV., called once the Well-Beloved, dies amid general scorn! The Queen, after seven years, unfruitful wedlock, gives birth to children whose paternity is contested, so that she is defamed as mother of the Crown Prince, and dishonored as a woman in the case of the Diamond Necklace.
"The new King consecrated under the name of Louis the Desired, impotent in politics as in love, tries one utopia after another, until he reaches national bankruptcy, and has all kinds of ministers down to a Calonne. The Assembly of Worthies decrees the States General Congress, which appointed by universal suffrage, declares itself the National Assembly. The clergy and nobility are overcome by the other classes; the Bastile is stormed and the foreign troops driven out of the capital; the night of Aug. 4th, 1789, shows the aristocracy that they are reduced to nothing; on the 5th and 6th October, the King and Queen are shown that royalty is nothing; on the 14th of July, 1790, the unity of France is shown to the world.
"The princes are deprived of popularity by their absconding; the King's brother loses his hold by the Favras conspiracy showing that he casts off his friends to save his neck. Lastly, the Constitution is sworn unto, on the Altar of the Country; the Speaker of the House of Representatives sits on a chair on the level with the King's; it is the Law and the Nation sitting side by side; attentive Europe leans towards us, silently watching – all who do not applaud are trembling. Now, is not France the cornerstone on which Free Europe shall be laid, the wheel which turns all the machine, the sun which shall illuminate the Old World?"
"Yea, yea, yea!" shouted all voices.
"But, brothers," continued the magician, "do you believe the work is so far advanced that we may leave it to get on by itself? Although the Constitution has been sworn to, can we trust to the royal vow?"
"Nay, nay, nay," cried every voice.
"Then we begin the second stage of the revolutionary work," pursued Cagliostro. "As your eyes see, I perceive with delight that the Federation of 1790 is not the goal but a halting-place: after the repose the court will recommence the task of counter-revolution: let us also gird up our loins and start afresh. No doubt for timid hearts there will be hours of weakening and of distrust; often the beam from the All-seeing Eye will seem to be eclipsed – the Hand that beckons us will cease to be seen. More than once during the second period, the cause will appear injured, even lost, by some unforeseen and fortuitous accident; all will seem to show that we are wrong; circumstances will look as if unfavorable; our enemies will have some triumph, our fellow-citizens will be ungrateful. After many real fatigues and apparent uselessness, many will ask themselves if they have not gone astray on the bad path.
"No, brothers, no; I tell you at this hour for the words to ring everlastingly in your ears, in victory as a blast of trumpets, in defeat as the rallying cry – No! leading races have their providential mission which must be unerringly accomplished. The Arch-Designer laid down the road and found it true and straight; His mysterious goal cannot be revealed until it is attained in its full splendor; the cloud may obscure it and we think it gone; an idea may recoil but, like the old-time knights, it is but to set the lance in rest and rush forward to hurl over the dragon.
"Brothers, brothers, our goal is the bonfire on the high mount, believed extinct because the ridge concealed it as we sank in the vale: then the weaklings muttered as they halted and whined: 'We have no beacon – we are blundering in the dark: let us stay where we are; what is the good of getting lost?' But the strong hearts keep right on confidently smiling, and soon will the light on the height reappear, albeit it may disappear again, but each time it is brighter and clearer because it is more near!
"Thus will it be with the chosen band who, struggling, pressing on, persevering and above all believing in the Republic to be, arrive at the foot of the lighthouse of which the radiance will join that cast across the Atlantic by the Republic which we have also helped to throw off the tyrant's yoke. Let us swear, brothers, for ourselves and our descendants, since the eternal idea and principle serves many a generation, never to stop until we establish on this temple of the Architect the holy device of which we have conquered one portion: 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.'"
The speech was hailed with uproarious approbation.
"But do not confine it to France solely: inscribe it on the banner of mankind as the whole world's motto. And now, brothers, go out upon your task, which is great, so great that, through whatever vale of tears and of the shadow of death you must pass, your descendants will envy the holy errand you shall have accomplished, and like the crusaders who became more and more numerous and eager as their foregoers were slain, they march over the road whitened by the bones of their fathers. Be of good cheer, apostles; courage, pilgrims of freedom; courage, soldiers, Apostles, converts! pilgrims, march on! soldiers, fight!"
Cagliostro stopped, but that would have happened from the applause. Three times the cheering rose and was extinguished in the gloomy vaults like an earthquake's rumbling. Then the six masked men bowed to him one after another, kissed his hand and retired. Each of the brothers, bowing unto the platform where the new Peter the Hermit preached the renewal of the political crusade, passed out, repeating the motto:
"We shall Trample the Lilies under."
As the last went forth, the lamps were extinguished.
Alone remained the Arch-Revolutionist, buried in the bowels of the earth, lost in silence and darkness like those divinities of the Indies, into whose mysteries he asserted himself to have
