It is important to remember that all this was first written in French and then robotically translated by Google Translate from French.This is also true of quotes in the last several articles from the French Wikipedia as well. So, if you sometimes see IT where He or Him should have been don't be surprised by this because the robotic translator does not compensate always for making il (it) instead of he because of course Il means both it and he both depending upon how it is used in a sentence. The one thing it does NOT mean is SHE or HER because in French many words are either considered masculine or feminine all by themselves always even if they do not necessarily denote a human female or anything really to do with females at all. It's sort of like how we in English see boats or Ships almost always as "She" or female. However, I'm not really sure why this is true unless the ocean is presumed tempestuous the way women were often perceived down through history.
begin partial quote from:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comte_de_Saint-Germain#Pr%C3%A9tendue_entrevue_de_Saint-Germain_avec_la_reine_Marie-Antoinette
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 .
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