Note: He into French translates as either IT or It's or He. So, when you see "It" or "it's"often this means "he" or "his".   The word in French "Il" means "he" or "it" is the problem when translating back into English by a robot translator like GoogleTranslate. end note.

Count of Saint-Germain

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Help page on homonymyFor the French Secretary of State for War , see Claude-Louis de Saint-Germain .
Count of Saint-Germain
Description of this image, also commented below
The Count of St. Germain, Nicolas etching Thomas 
1783, after a lost paint belonging 
to the marquise d'Urfé 1 , preserved in Louvre 2 .
BirthAround 1691
Unknown location
Death(about 93 years old) 
Eckernförde
NationalityKingdom of France Kingdom of France
Core businessAdventurer 
Alchemist 
Musician 
Painter
editCheck the model documentation
The Count of Saint-Germain , probably born between 1690 and 1710 (in 1691 according to legend) and died onto Eckernförde ( Schleswig ) was a French adventurer xviii th  century , famous alchemist , musician , painter and polyglot .
Renowned immortal , the alchemical tradition attributes to him the paternity of the esoteric work The Most Holy Trinosophy . A mysterious character surrounded by legends, he has inspired many literary and artistic works to this day.

Theories about its origins [ edit | change the code ]

Descending hidden some royal personality [ change | change the code ]

His birth could only be conjectured on the basis of a few scattered accounts, including that of his friend Prince Frederick II of Hesse-Cassel , which suggests that he was the illegitimate child, born in 1696, of Prince Francis II Rákóczi of Transylvania 3 and the Princess Violante-Béatrice of Bavaria , of the house of Wittelsbach , and whom he was brought up in Florence by Gian 'de Medici, brother-in-law of the second 4 . Be that as it may, some saw in him the hidden descendant of some royal personality, and in this supposed lineage the reason of his intimacy with King Louis XV.. Thus we have also been able to recognize in him the natural child of the Queen of Spain Marie-Anne of Neubourg , and of a nobleman, the Count of Melgar . These kinship ties, none of which are proven, would explain the easy lifestyle he has always led, his education and culture. In fact, besides some knowledge in chemistry, Saint-Germain is recognized by his contemporaries as a man of great knowledge, skillful musician and painter quality 5 .

Alsatian Jewish origin [ edit | change the code ]

According to the Marquis of Créquy , St. Germain was an Alsatian Jew born in Strasbourg late seventeenth and early eighteenth named Simon Wolff 6 .

An alchemy lab in Chambord castle [ change | change the code ]

Residing in London where he shines in salons as a musician, Saint-Germain leaves the British capital in 1746. It loses its trace during 12 years. For some, he retired to Germany where he devoted himself to his chemical and alchemical research. For others, he travels to India and Tibet  : no proof of these journeys is advanced, but it is found later, in fact, that the count has a deep knowledge of the East. He arrived in Paris at the beginning of 1758 and immediately sent a request to Marigny , director of the King's Buildings. He asked for a royal house to be put at his disposal so that he could set up a laboratory and a factory, promising in return to Louis XV"The richest and rarest discovery we've made." Marigny attributes to him the castle of Chambord , a large deserted building. Saint-Germain installs his assistants, his workmen and his laboratory in the communes.
Yet he is more often in Paris than in Chambord . He is presented to the Marquise de Pompadour , who introduces him to the king, Louis XV. It appreciates the brilliant character immediately, which quickly became one of its familiar 7 .

Louis XV liked and hated Choiseul [ change | change the code ]

If the count attracted the sympathy of the king, he has however alienated the powerful Duke de Choiseul , Louis XV's chief minister , who will launch a campaign to discredit him. Choiseul pays an entertainer named Gauve to imitate the Comte de Saint-Germain and pretend to be him. Gauve runs salons under the identity of Saint-Germain and tell the most incredible stories: he would have drunk with Alexander the Great , he would have known Jesus and have predicted a horrible end 8 .
Quickly, the deception is unveiled and Gauve recognized. Contrary to what Choiseul expects, the true Saint-Germain does not come out ridiculed, but grown up.
On February 14, 1760 , the King, wishing to end the ruinous Seven Years' War , sent the Count to the Netherlands to negotiate peace talks. Choiseul manages to intercept letters are the Earl and convince the king that he is a spy in the service of Prussia 9 . On the verge of arrest, he fled to England , taking refuge in London for three months. It is then reported in Italy , Russia , Saxony and Prussia  : everywhere he seeks to mount research on pigments and colors.

Alleged interview of Saint-Germain with Queen Marie Antoinette [ change | change the code ]

St-Germain is also mentioned in the Souvenirs sur Marie Antoinette . The book is published in 1836 the forger Étienne Léon Lamothe-Langon who claims he is so authentic memoirs Gabrielle Pauline Bouthillier Chavigny , Countess of Adhemar, lady in waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette 10 .
The book relates, among other things, the demonstration of transmutation of a piece of silver made by Saint-Germain in front of his first husband, the Marquis de Valbelle. In another chapter, the Countess of Adhémar recounts the visit of Saint-Germain (he is then called Monsieur de Saint-Noel) who wants to warn King Louis XVI of the future misfortunes of the French Revolution  :"This reign will be fatal to him [to Louis XVI] ... There is a gigantic conspiracy that has not yet a visible leader, but it will appear shortly. One tends to nothing less than to overthrow what exists, except to rebuild it on a new level. We want the royal family, the clergy, the nobility, the judiciary. However, it is time again to thwart the plot: later it would be impossible . She discreetly introduced him to Queen Marie-Antoinette (no doubt in 1774) and witnessed her astonishing revelations to the Queen: "The encyclopedist party wants power, it will only obtain it by the total lowering of the clergy and to achieve this result he will upset the monarchy . " He predicts the role of the Duke of Chartresand its fatal end: "the crown of France will be proposed to him, and the scaffold will be his seat of throne," as well as a civil war and "an eager republic whose scepter will be the ax of the executioner . " The interview with King Louis XVI, in order to give him more complete revelations, will not take place, because the Count de Maurepas , his minister, will want to arrest Saint-Germain. The latter, the presentiment, will disappear.
The Countess of Adhemar and enter this amazing interview: "The queen thought again sometimes, but she gradually lost the memory" 11 .

Deaths [ change | change the code ]

In 1766 , he put himself under the protection of the King of Prussia Frederick II but left the following year. He finally arrives at Gottrop, on the Baltic , where he is hosted by the Prince of Hesse-Cassel . He died on February 27, 1784 in Eckernförde , Schleswig, 93 years old according to his host, who was probably also his main confidant. [ ref.  desired]

The legend [ edit | change the code ]

Saint Germain, exceptional character who, amused by the rumors, never denied them, remains in History because he symbolizes the dream of immortality .
He was dressed in clothes covered with jewels, not absorbed as pills, bread and oatmeal and spoke and wrote French , the English , the Italian , the Sanskrit , the Arab , the Chinese 3 , the Greek , the Latin , the German , the Portuguese and Spanish [ ref.  desired] . He was a painter and, virtuoso on the harpsichord and the violin, he also composed music. He would have been very versed in chemistry and alchemy. The people of the day believed that he had accomplished the Great Alchemical Work that brings immortality. He is credited with the work of alchemy La Très Sainte Trinosophie , but this is not proved and often disputed. He had a great passion for precious stones, of which he always had large quantities [ref. necessary] , often of an extraordinary size, and claimed to have a secret allowing the disappearance of diamond defects.
The popular beliefs lent him the memory of his previous lives and a corresponding wisdom: he would have had an elixir giving him a very long life, from two to four thousand years, it was supposed, which allowed him to tell the wedding. of Cana or the intrigues of the court of Babylon 12 . In a letter of 15 April 1760 to Frederick II , Voltaire said of him "It is a man who does not die, and who knows everything  " and Frederick II called him "  the man who can not die". He himself seems to have been on it more moderate since he would only say that he had three hundred years 13and his servant, questioned on this point would merely replied: "I can tell you: there are only a hundred years I'm at his service 14 . "
Composer Rameau remembered having seen Saint-Germain in 1701 . The Cergy countess had seen in Venice , where she was an ambassador, 50 years earlier 15 .
These are actually ways and originality of Saint-Germain, particularly his way of telling the history of France as if he had known the protagonists ( François I er et al), which earned him in the 1750s some favors with some representatives of the court, starting with Madame de Pompadour . Several excerpts from Casanova's Memoirs 16 corroborate the idea that the count "testified" with realism very realistically from the most remote epochs (an anecdote is given in which the count suggests his presence at the Council of Trent). Saint-Germain is also presented by Casanova as "scholar, [speaking] perfectly most languages; great musician, great chemist, of a pleasant figure. " His interest in finding ways to increase the length of human life also had the effect of increasing the rumors already running about its longevity supposed out of the ordinary.
It is also necessary to insist that enemies of the count hired a comedian, Gauve (aka "milord Gor", or "Gower", or "Qoys"), to pose as this one in the popular districts of Paris, in the construction of the legend, that makes it seem crazy 15 . The latter, who describes with force, details and persuasion of so-called interviews with Christ , assistance to the entry of Alexander the Great in Babylonor during hunting parties with Charlemagne or Francis I , which contributed greatly to the birth and amplification of the rumor of immortality 15. Jean-Pierre-Louis de Luchet, inventor, in his Memoirs authentic to serve the story of Count Cagliostro (Berlin, 1785), a meeting as baroque as phantasmagorical between Saint-Germain and Cagliostro , also mentions Lord Gor, or Gauve, whom he abusively assimilates to the count.
Forced to flee France in 1760 under the pressure of dark affairs [ref. necessary] , the latter traveled to Prussia, Russia, Italy, England, and Austria (where he was often seen in Vienna, "headquarters of the Rosicrucians  ") and finally stopped at the landgrave court of Schleswig-Holstein , fervent alchemist.
Hypotheses have circulated about his espionage actions, but for whose benefit? He would have been at least triple agent, while various allegations report his attachment to the monarchical principle or even the German Rosicrucian hegemony. [ref. necessary]
According to the Marquise de Créquy , he fetched a hundred thousand crowns in four years from Madame d'Urfe , for the cabal and the philosopher's stone. [ref. necessary]
Casanova recounted his interview in The Hague with the count, dressed in an Armenian costume [ref. required] , the same that was paid to the Wandering Jew , another incarnation of the myth of perpetual longevity myth disappeared incidentally the xvii th  century . But Casanova suspected the count of prestidigitation and imposture.
Goethe would have been one of his disciples. Napoleon III , initiated into Carbonari ("masonry" of wood), became interested in the Count of Saint-Germain and charged the police to gather at the Tuileries all possible clues concerning him. This file would have burned during the fire that devastated this Parisian palace in 1871 , so that there is almost no trace of the real or alleged identity of Saint-Germain.
Several authors will soon play a role in the spread of a legend that will soon exceed the historical reality. Etteilla asserts in particular, when the newspapers announce the death of the count, that there was confusion about the real identity of the deceased, that the true Count of Saint-Germain, his direct master for twenty years, true cabalist and hermetic magician, author of The Entry to the King's Closed Palace (1645) 17 , is still alive, living in America, and doing well. In 1932, an American airman whose plane had crashed near a Tibetan monastery, told that he had met among the monks a man who claimed to be the Count of Saint-Germain ( Louis Pauwels , 1977)[ref. insufficient] . Some assertions of the Abbé Barruel 18 will then maintain the legend on the immortality of Saint-Germain, after mastery of metempsychosis . Mademoiselle Lenormand 19 nonetheless confirms the idea of ​​her survival during the First Empire, and the Baron de Gleichen, in his Souvenirs (Denwürdigkeiten , 1847) 20 , will defend the idea of ​​a Count of Saint-Germain who has lived since Antiquity.
In the 1970s , a French adventurer named Richard Chanfray enjoyed media notoriety by claiming to be the Earl of Saint-Germain, then becoming the companion of singer Dalida . He committed suicide in 1983.
The Comte de Saint-Germain has since inspired many works of fiction until the contemporary era.

Work [ edit | change the code ]

In fiction [ edit | change the code ]

Literature [ edit | change the code ]

It appears in:

Series [ edit | change the code ]

  • Outlander season 2 (2016): character played by Stanley Weber

Television [ edit | change the code ]

Cinema [ edit | change the code ]

Theater [ edit | change the code ]

Comic strip [ edit | change the code ]

  • The Count of Saint-Germain , series published from 1982 to 1983 in the newspaper Rodéo ( Éditions Lug ). Scenario by Veronese, drawings by Luciano Bernasconi.

Video Games [ edit | change the code ]

  • Saint-Germain is a secondary character of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness , where he is a temporal traveler charged to observe without intervening. He strongly opposes Zead, who is the avatar of Death.
  • In Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army , a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei , Saint-Germain is mentioned as a "time controller", going from time to time to ensure that fate runs its course planned. However, he is never met.

Notes and references [ edit | change the code ]

  1. ↑ THE COUNT OF ST. GERMAIN, Johan Franco, Musical Quarterly (1950) XXXVI (4): 540-550
  2. ↑ Hall, P. Manley (foreword) The Music of the Count of St. Germain Los Angeles, CA: Philosophical Research Society, 1981
  3. ↑ a and b "  The Count of St. Germain: the summarized story of an immortal  " epochtimes.fr, ( read online  [ archive ] , accessed February 22, 2018 )
  4. ↑ On the biography and legend of Count St. Germain, see especially Paul Chacornac, The Count of St. Germain , Paris, Villain and traditional Belhomme-Editions, 1973 and Auguste Viatte, Occult sources of romance , Paris, Honored Champion, 1969 (I, pp. 201-203), and the corresponding notice of the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism , Leiden / Boston, Brill, 2005, by Jean Overton Fuller.
  5. ↑ Great enigma of humanity, Larousse edition, p75
  6. ↑ The Humbugs of the World (1866), PT Barnum, Chapter 42: "The Marquis of St. Germain Crequy declared That Was an Alsatian Jew, Simon Wolff by name, and born at Strasburg about the close of the Seventeenth gold The Beginning of the eighteenth century. » Wikisource  [ archive ]
  7. ↑ Jean-Louis Bernard, The Riddle of the Comte de Saint Germain , given Ergonia conference center in Paris, 2 November 1952.
  8. ↑ The Comte de Saint-Germain: Mystery, ADCF, p45.
  9. ↑ Peter Ceria, Francois Ethuin, the enigmatic Count of St. Germain , Albin Michel,, p.  128
  10. ↑ Alexandre Maral , the last days of Versailles , Perrin, ( ISBN  9782262075576 , read online  [archive ] ) , pt10
  11. ↑ My unfortunate queen ... Memories of the Countess d'Adhemar , ed. Plon 2006, p. 103 and 159. See also the original edition of 1836, Volume 2, p. 54-73. [1]  [ archive ]
  12. ↑ Jean Clogenson in a note Complete Works of Voltaire with remarks and historical notes, scientific and literary  [ archive ] wrote of him: "The Count of St. Germain, adventurer, which the King of Prussia, was that a tale to laugh. He gave himself for immortal, say the editors of Kehl. He had assisted Jesus Christ on Calvary, and had been at the Council of Trent. He lived half at the expense of the dupes who believed him an adept, half at the expense of the ministers who employed him as a spy. He once said to Louis XV that to esteem men, one must not be a confessor, a minister, or a police officer. "
  13. ↑ Memoirs of Jacques Casanova Seingalt, Volume 6  [ archive ] , Brussels, 1833 at JP Meline, p. 128.
  14. ↑ Chamfort , characters and Trivia , No. 1271.
  15. ↑ a b and c Hugo Coniez, The Great Enigmas of History for Dummies , First , coll.  "  For Dummies ",, 432  p. ( read online  [ archive ] )
  16. ↑ Memoirs (text presented and annotated by Robert Abirached and Elio Zorzi), Paris, Gallimard, NRF (Library of the Pleiades), 1958-1960 (Volume 1, 1725-1756, Volume 2, 1756-1763, Volume 3, 1763- 1774)
  17. ↑ See Way to recreate (2 p.); Notebook (p.186); Fragments (190); The seven shades (p.17); Philosophy(157).
  18. ↑ Memoirs of the history of Jacobinism , 1797-1798.
  19. ↑ The prophetic memories of Sibyl , Paris, 1814 (pp. 383-384).
  20. ↑ Republished in 1868 in Paris at Techener son under the title Memories of Charles-Henri, Baron Gleichen.

Annexes [ edit | change the code ]

Bibliography [ edit | change the code ]

  • Jean Mourat and Paul Louvet, St Germain the Immortal Rose-Croix , Gallimard, Paris, 1934
    I Read, The Mysterious Adventure N ° A204, 1964
  • Paul Chacornac , The Count of St. Germain , Chacornac Brothers, Paris, 1947 - Traditional Editions, Paris, 1973.
  • Jean-Claude Hauc, "The Count of Saint-Germain" in Adventurers and libertines in the Age of Enlightenment , Paris, Editions de Paris, 2009.
  • Auguste Viatte , The Occult Sources of Romanticism , Paris, Honoré Champion, 1969.
  • Marie-Raymonde Delorme, The Count of Saint-Germain , Culture Art and Leisure, Paris, 1973.
  • Jean Robin , The true mission of the Count of Saint-Germain , Guy Trédaniel publisher, 1986, 125 p. ( ISBN  978-2857072010 )
  • Gerald Messadie , Saint-Germain, the man who did not want to die ,
T1, The mask from nowhere ArchiPoche No. 54, 2008 ( ISBN  978-2352870654 )
T2, The Powers of the Invisible Archpocket No. 55, 2008 ( ISBN  978-2352870661 )

Related Articles [ edit | change the code ]

External links [ edit | change the code ]