Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... THE COMTE DE SAINT-GERMAIN THE lives of notable people do not often baffle biographers by their mystery, yet any attempt to arrange the incidents of Saint-Germain's life upon paper has proved to be as futile and unsatisfactory as the effort to piece together a puzzle of which some of the principal parts were missing. Neither contemporary memoir-writers nor private friends have laid bare the real business or ambition of the elegant figure who was admired for so many years of the eighteenth century in Europe as "der Wundermann." The things known about him are many, but they are outnumbered by the things that are not known. It is known, for example, that he was employed in the secret service of Louis the Fifteenth; that he played the violin; wrote concertos and songs which are still extant; was chemist, linguist, illuminate, and adept; but his name, his nationality, his means of subsistence, his object in travelling and in intercourse with his fellow creatures are not known, and no one yet has made more than plausible suggestions as to the relation his accomplishments and activities bore to the central purpose of his life. He has been called an adventurer, but though discredit is reflected on him by the word it throws no particular light on his career. Scepticism and credulity walked hand in hand in the eighteenth century, as they do to-day, and many persons who had cast off the forms of traditional religion were ready to accord unquestioning reverence to men who claimed or evidenced the possession of supernatural powers, and it is probable that Saint-Germain made use of this state of affairs to prosecute his own designs. It is interesting to remember that while Voltaire, with his searchlight mind, was illuminating the darker aspects of...
