rtune was more auspicious. They
sold considerable quantities of the elixir of life, performed many cures,
and recruited their finances. They then took their course through Germany
to Russia, and always with the same success. Gold flowed into their
coffers faster than they could count it. They quite forgot all the woes
they had endured in England, and learned to be more circumspect in the
choice of their acquaintance.

In the year 1780, they made their appearance in Strasbourg. Their fame had
reached that city before them. They took a magnificent hotel, and invited
all the principal persons of the place to their table. Their wealth
appeared to be boundless, and their hospitality equal to it. Both the
count and countess acted as physicians, and gave money, advice, and
medicine to all the necessitous and suffering of the town. Many of the
cures they performed astonished those regular practitioners who did not
make sufficient allowance for the wonderful influence of imagination in
certain cases. The countess, who at this time was not more than
five-and-twenty, and all radiant with grace, beauty, and cheerfulness,
spoke openly of her eldest son as a fine young man of eight-and-twenty,
who had been for some years a captain in the Dutch service. The trick
succeeded to admiration. All the ugly old women in Strasbourg, and for
miles around, thronged the saloon of the countess to purchase the liquid
which was to make them as blooming as their daughters; the young women
came in equal abundance, that they might preserve their charms, and when
twice as old as Ninon de l'Enclos, be more captivating than she; while men
were not wanting who were fools enough to imagine that they might keep off
the inevitable stroke of the grim foe by a few drops of the same
incomparable elixir. The countess, sooth to say, looked like an
incarnation of immortal loveliness, a very goddess of youth and beauty;
and it is possible that the crowds of young men and old, who at all
convenient seasons haunted the perfumed chambers of this enchantress, were
attracted less by their belief in her occult powers than from admiration
of her languishing bright eyes and sparkling conversation. But amid all
the incense that was offered at her shrine, Madame di Cagliostro was ever
faithful to her spouse. She encouraged hopes, it is true, but she never
realised them; she excited admiration, yet kept it within bounds; and made
men her slaves, without ever granting a favour