C Count of Saint-Germain

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For the French Secretary of State for War , see Claude-Louis de Saint-Germain .
Count of Saint-Germain
Count of St Germain.jpg
The Count of Saint-Germain, engraving by Nicolas Thomas
from 1783, after a lost painting belonging
to the Marquise d'Urfé 1 , kept in the Louvre 2 .
Title of nobility
County
Biography
BirthAbout 1691
Location unknown
Death(about 93 years old)
Eckernförde
Birth name
Count of Saint-Germain (?)View and edit data on Wikidata
ActivityAdventurer
Alchemist
Musician
Painter
Dad
Other information
Instruments

edit - edit code - edit WikidataModel documentation

The Count of Saint-Germain , probably born between 1690 and 1710 (in 1691 according to legend) and died onin Eckernförde , is an adventurer of the xviii th  century, musician , painter and polyglot , famous alchemist .

A mysterious character surrounded by legends, the alchemical tradition attributes to him the paternity of the esoteric work La Très Sainte Trinosophie . Renowned immortal , it has inspired many literary and artistic works to this day.

Theories about its origins [ edit | modify the code ]

Potential hidden down a few royals [ change | modify the code ]

His birth could only be conjectured on the basis of a few scattered testimonies, including that of his friend Prince Frederick II of Hesse-Cassel , which suggests that he was the illegitimate child, born in 1696, of Prince François II Rákóczi of Transylvania 3 and Princess Violante-Beatrice of Bavaria , of the house of Wittelsbach , wife (widow in 1713) of Ferdinand de Medici, prince of Florence and that he was brought up in Florence by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Jean-Gaston de Médicis , 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 filiation the reason for his intimacy with King Louis XV . Thus we could also recognize in him the natural child of the queen of Spain Marie-Anne de Neubourg , and of a nobleman, the count of Melgar . These family ties, none of which is proven, explain the easy way of life he has always led, his education and his culture. Indeed, in addition to his certain knowledge of chemistry, Saint-Germain was recognized by his contemporaries as a man of great knowledge, a skilled musician and a painter of quality 5 .

Jewish origins [ edit | modify the code ]

According to the Marquis of Créquy , St. Germain was an Alsatian Jew named "Simon Wolff," born in Strasbourg in late xvii th early xviii th  century 6 . Others associated him with a Portuguese Jew from Bordeaux 7 .

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

Residing in London, where he shines in the salons as a musician, Saint-Germain was arrested as a Jacobite spy in 1743 8 . He left the British capital in 1746, and we lose track of him for 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 we see later, in fact, that the count has a deep knowledge of the East. Arrived in Paris at the beginning of 1758, at the urging of Marshal de Belle-Isle , enthusiastic follower of his elixir of long life 7 , he immediately wrote to Marigny, director of the King's Buildings, declaring: “I made in my land the richest and the rarest discovery that has yet been made. I made it work with an assiduity, a constancy, a patience which perhaps has no example, for nearly twenty years. "He concluded with this request accompanied by a promise:" The object of so much care obtained, I come voluntarily to offer the profit to the King, my only expenses deducted, without asking him for anything other than the free disposal of one of the royal houses, suitable for settling the people I brought from Germany for my service ”, on which Marigny attributed him the castle of Chambord , then uninhabited 9 . Saint-Germain sets up his assistants, his workers and his laboratory in the outbuildings. Yet it is more often toParis than Chambord . He was introduced to the Marquise de Pompadour , who introduced him to the king, Louis XV. It appreciates the brilliant character immediately, which quickly became one of his familiar 10 .

Appreciated by Louis XV and hated by Choiseul [ edit | modify the code ]

If the count has attracted the sympathy of the king, he on the other hand alienated the powerful Duke of Choiseul, principal minister of Louis XV , who will launch a campaign to discredit him. Choiseul pays an entertainer named Gauve to imitate the Count of 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 predicted he would have a horrible end 11 .

Quickly, the deception is revealed and Gauve recognized. Contrary to what Choiseul expects, the real Saint-Germain does not come out ridiculed, but grown up.

The , the king, wanting to put an end to the ruinous Seven Years' War , sends him, provided with full powers and the authorization of Marshal Belle-Isle, Minister of War, to the Netherlands to start peace talks and negotiate a loan of thirty million guilders for France 12 . Choiseul manages to intercept letters are the Earl and convince the king that he is a spy in the service of Prussia 13 . On the verge of being arrested and sent back to France, he fled to England , taking refuge for three months in London, where he was told he was not welcome. From there he went to The Hague, then to Nijmegen, near the German border, where he bought a large estate 12, and embarked on research on pigments and colors, of which he increased the brightness thanks to the addition of mother-of-pearl 14 . In April 1762, at the invitation of Count Pierre Rotari, he went to Russia, where he became intimate with Count Orlov and would have played a role in the coup d'état perpetrated by the Orlov brothers against Peter III 12 , for install Catherine II to ascend the throne 7 . In 1770, he appeared in Livorno in the uniform of a Russian general 12 .

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

Saint-Germain is also mentioned in the Souvenirs sur Marie-Antoinette . The book was published in 1836 by the forger Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon , who then claimed that it constituted the authentic Memoirs of Gabrielle Pauline Bouthillier de Chavigny , Countess of Adhémar, lady of the palace of Queen Marie-Antoinette 15 .

The book relates, among other things, the demonstration of transmutation of a silver coin into gold that Saint-Germain made in front of her first husband, the Marquis de Valbelle. In another chapter, the Countess of Adhémar recounts the visit of Saint-Germain (he then called himself Monsieur de Saint-Noël), who wanted to warn King Louis XVI of the misfortunes to come from the French Revolution  :"This reign will be fatal to him [to Louis XVI] ... A gigantic conspiracy is formed which does not yet have a visible leader, but it will appear before long. We tend to do nothing less than overturn what exists, except to reconstruct it on a new plane. We blame the royal family, the clergy, the nobility, the magistracy. However, there is still time to thwart the intrigue: later that would be impossible ” . She introduced it discreetly 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 overthrow the monarchy ” . He predicts the role ofDuke of Chartres and his disastrous end: "he will be offered the crown of France, and the scaffold will take the place of his throne" , as well as a civil war and "a greedy republic whose scepter will be the executioner's ax" . The interview with King Louis XVI, with the aim of giving him more complete revelations, will not take place, because the Count de Maurepas , his minister, will want to have Saint-Germain arrested. The latter, sensing it, will disappear.

The Countess of Adhemar and enter this amazing interview: "The queen thought again sometimes, but she gradually lost the memory 16 . "

Death [ edit | modify the code ]

In 1766, he placed himself under the protection of the Prussian King Frederick II , but left him the following year. For a while, he managed to hold sway over the Margrave of Ansbach , who took her everywhere with him 12 . He finally arrives in Gottorp , on the Baltic , where he is lodged by the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel . He died on February 27, 1784 in Eckernförde , Schleswig , aged 93, according to his host, who was probably also his main confidant 12 : 470-1 .

The legend [ edit | modify the code ]

Saint-Germain, an exceptional character who, amused by rumors, has never denied them, remains in history because he symbolizes the dream of immortality .

He was dressed in clothes covered with jewels 7 , absorbed only pills, bread and oatmeal, but never ate or drank in public 7 . He spoke and wrote French, English, Italian, Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese 3 , Greek, Latin, German, Portuguese and Spanish 7 . He painted and, a virtuoso on the harpsichord and the violin 7 , he also composed music. He would have been well versed in chemistry and alchemy . The people of the time believed that he had performed the Great Work of alchemistry, which brings immortality. He is also credited with the alchemy work La Très Sainte Trinosophie, but this is not proven and often disputed 12 : 475 . He had a great passion for precious stones, of which he always had large quantities 7 , often of an extraordinary size, and claimed to hold a secret allowing to make the defects of diamonds disappear.

Popular beliefs lent him the memory of his previous lives and a corresponding wisdom: he would have had an elixir that gave him a very long life, from two to four thousand years, it was supposed, which allowed him to tell the nuptials. of Cana or the intrigues of the court of Babylon 17 . In a letter fromto Frederick II , Voltaire said of him "He is a man who does not die, and who knows everything" and Frederick II called him "the man who cannot die". He himself seems to have been more moderate on this, since he would only have said that he was three hundred years old 18 and his servant, questioned on this point, would have confined himself to answering: "I cannot tell you: he is not 'are a hundred years I'm at his service 19 . "

The composer Rameau remembered having seen Saint-Germain in 1701. The Countess of Gercy had seen him in Venice , where her husband was ambassador, 50 years earlier 20 .

It is in reality the manners and the originality of Saint-Germain, and in particular his way of telling the history of France as if he had known its protagonists ( François I er and others), which earned him, in the 1750s, certain favors from some representatives of the court, starting with Madame de Pompadour . Several extracts from Casanova's Memoirs 21 will corroborate the idea according to which the count effectively "testified" with much realism to the most remote times (an anecdote is given in which the count suggests his presence at the Council of Trent.). Saint-Germain is also presented by Casanova as “learned, [speaking] perfectly most languages; a great musician, a great chemist, with a pleasant face ”. His interest in finding ways to increase the length of human life also had the effect of increasing the rumors already running about his supposed longevity out of the ordinary.

It should also be emphasized that the count's enemies hired a comedian, Gauve (alias "Lord Gor", or "Gower", or "Qoys"), to pose as him in the working-class neighborhoods. of Paris, in the building of the legend, making him pass for crazy 20 . The latter, which describes in, details and persuasion supposedly interviews with Christ , assistance with entry of Alexander the Great in Babylon or during hunting parties with Charlemagne or François I er , which contributed greatly to the birth and amplification of the rumor of immortality 20. Jean-Pierre-Louis de Luchet, inventor, in his Memoirs authentic to serve the history of Count Cagliostro (Berlin, 1785), of a meeting as baroque as phantasmagorical between Saint-Germain and Cagliostro , also mentions this Lord Gor, or Gauve, whom he abusively assimilates to the count.

Obliged to flee France, in 1760, under the pressure of gloomy affairs 22 , the latter traveled to Prussia, Russia, Italy, England, and Austria (where he is often seen in Vienna, "headquarters of the Rosicrucians  ") and finally stopped at the court of the landgrave of Schleswig-Holstein , a fervent alchemist.

Hypotheses have circulated about his espionage actions, but for whose benefit? He would have been at least a triple agent, while various allegations relate his attachment to the monarchical principle or even to German Rosicrucian hegemony 23 .

According to the Marquise de Créquy , he took a hundred thousand crowns in four years from Madame d'Urfé , for the cabal and the philosopher's stone 24 .

Casanova recounted his interview in The Hague with the count, dressed in an Armenian costume, the same one lent to the Wandering Jew 7 , another incarnation of the myth of perpetual longevity, a myth which appeared, incidentally, in the 17th century.  century. But Casanova suspected Count legerdemain and imposture 25 .

He provided essential elements in Faust of Goethe 26 . Napoleon III , initiated into Carbonarism , taking an interest in the Count of Saint-Germain, instructed the police to gather all possible clues concerning him at the Tuileries . This file would have burned, during the fire which ravaged this Parisian palace in 1871, which means that hardly any trace remains of the real or alleged identity of Saint-Germain 27 .

Several authors will play a role fairly quickly in the propagation of a legend which will quickly go beyond historical reality. Etteilla affirms in particular, when the newspapers announce the death of the count, that there was confusion on the real identity of the deceased, that the true count of Saint-Germain, his direct master for twenty years, true cabalist and hermetist magician, author of The Entry to the Closed Palace of the King (1645) 28 , is still alive, lives in America, and is doing very well. In 1939, an American aviator 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 29 . Some assertions fromwill subsequently maintain the legend on the immortality of Saint-Germain, after mastering metempsychosis 30 . Mademoiselle Lenormand 31 nonetheless endorses the idea of ​​its survival during the First Empire, and Baron de Gleichen, in his Souvenirs ( Denkwürdigkeiten , 1847) 32 , defended the idea of ​​a Count of Saint-Germain who had lived since Antiquity.

In the 1970s , a French adventurer named Richard Chanfray rose to media notoriety by claiming to be the Count of Saint-Germain, then becoming the companion of singer Dalida 33 , 34 . He committed suicide in 1983 35 , 36 .

The Comte de Saint-Germain has inspired many later works of fiction to contemporary times 37 .

Putative work [ edit | modify the code ]

In the arts and popular culture [ edit | modify the code ]

Literature [ edit | modify the code ]

Comic strip [ edit | modify the code ]

  • Le Comte de Saint-Germain , series published from 1982 to 1983 in the journal Rodéo ( Éditions Lug ). Screenplay by Veronese, drawings by Luciano Bernasconi

It is also present in:

  • volume 3 (and last) of Eva Medusa , Spanish comic translated into French.

Impostors claim to be him in particular in:

In addition, the 7th and last volume of Cœur Brûlé published in 2000 is entitled "Le comte de Saint-Germain", but it is only a wink.

Cinema [ edit | modify the code ]

Series [ edit | modify the code ]

Theater [ edit | modify the code ]

Video games [ edit | modify the code ]

  • Saint-Germain is a secondary character in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness , where he is a time traveler tasked with observing without intervening. He strongly opposes Zead, who is the avatar of Death.
  • In Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha versus the Soulless Army , a spinoff series from Shin Megami Tensei , Saint-Germain is mentioned as being a "time controller," going from era to era to ensure that fate follows its intended course. . However, he is never met.
  • It is present in the otome genre game "Ikemen Vampire". The Count of Saint-Germain is the first character we meet and who allows the heroine to travel through time, despite herself.