tch on the Axe_. 'He
pronounced it, by the way, I _dit_ it, by which I _know_ that Pinto
was a German,' says Thackeray. I make little doubt but that
Saint-Germain, too, was a German, whether by the mother's side, and of
princely blood, or quite the reverse.

Grosley mixes Saint-Germain up with a lady as mysterious as himself,
who also lived in Holland, on wealth of an unknown source, and Grosley
inclines to think that the Count found his way into a French prison,
where he was treated with extraordinary respect.

Von Gleichen, on the other hand, shows the Count making love to a
daughter of Madame Lambert, and lodging in the house of the mother.
Here Von Gleichen met the man of mystery and became rather intimate
with him. Von Gleichen deemed him very much older than he looked, but
did not believe in his elixir.

In any case, he was not a cardsharper, a swindler, a professional
medium, or a spy. He passed many evenings almost alone with Louis
XV., who, where men were concerned, liked them to be of good family
(about ladies he was much less exclusive). The Count had a grand
manner; he treated some great personages in a cavalier way, as if he
were at least their equal. On the whole, if not really the son of a
princess, he probably persuaded Louis XV. that he did come of that
blue blood, and the King would have every access to authentic
information. Horace Walpole's reasons for thinking Saint-Germain 'not
a gentleman' scarcely seem convincing.

The Duc de Choiseul did not like the fashionable Saint-Germain. He
thought him a humbug, even when the doings of the deathless one were
perfectly harmless. As far as is known, his recipe for health
consisted in drinking a horrible mixture called 'senna tea'--which was
administered to small boys when I was a small boy--and in not drinking
anything at his meals. Many people still observe this regimen, in the
interest, it is said, of their figures. Saint-Germain used to come to
the house of de Choiseul, but one day, when Von Gleichen was present,
the minister lost his temper with his wife. He observed that she took
no wine at dinner, and told her she had learned that habit of
abstinence from Saint-Germain; that _he_ might do as he pleased, 'but
you, madame, whose health is precious to me, I forbid to imitate the
regimen of such a dubious character.' Gleichen, who tells the
anecdote, says that he was present when de Choiseul thus lost his
temper with his wife. The dislike of de Choise