Theos-Talk Archives (March 1998 Message tt00262)

Here's an article on St. Germain from THEOSOPHY MAGAZINE,
November 1938, reprinted in THEOSOPHY WORLD, October 1996:

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GREAT THEOSOPHISTS: THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN

One of the most mysterious characters in modern history is the
famous Count de St. Germain, described by his friend Prince Karl
von Hesse as

> one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived, the friend of
> humanity, whose heart was concerned only with the happiness of
> others.

Intimate and counselor of Kings and Princes, nemesis of deceptive
ministers, Rosicrucian, Mason, accredited Messenger of the
Masters of Wisdom-the Count de St. Germain worked in Europe for
more than a century, faithfully performing the difficult task
which had been entrusted to him.

The amazing and inscrutable personality in which the Adept known
as St. Germain clothed himself was the outstanding topic of
conversation among the nobility of the eighteenth century.
During the 112 years that he is said to have lived in Europe, he
always presented the appearance of a man about forty-five years
of age. He was of medium height, with a slender, graceful
figure, a captivating smile, and eyes of peculiar beauty. "Oh,
what eyes!" signed the Countess d'Adhemar. "I have never seen
their equal!" He was an extraordinary linguist, speaking French,
German, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and
Swedish without the slightest trace of an accent, and his
knowledge of Sanskrit, Chinese and Arabic showed that he was well
acquainted with the East. His proficiency in music was equally
remarkable. As a violinist he is said to have rivalled Paganini,
while his performances on the harpsichord called forth
enthusiastic applause from Frederick the Great. His ability to
improvise made a great impression on Rameau, who met him in
Venice in 1710. St. Germain was also a composer. One of his
musical compositions was given to Tchaikowsi, Prince Ferdinand
von Lobkowitz inherited a second, while two others, bearing the
dates 1745 and 1760, are the property of the British Museum.

The Count de St. Germain was also a painter of rare ability,
famed for his power to reproduce the original brilliance of
precious stones on canvas. Although he refused to betray his
secret, it was commonly supposed that he produced the effect by
mixing powdered mother-of-pearl with his pigments. He was highly
esteemed as an art critic and was frequently consulted in regard
to the authenticity of paintings.

The prodigious memory of the Count de St. Germain was a constant
source of amazement to his friends. He would merely glance as a
paper, and days afterward repeat its contents without missing a
word. He was ambidextrous, and could write a poem with one hand
while he framed a diplomatic paper with the other. He frequently
read sealed letters without touching them and was known to answer
questions before they had been put into words.

Many of St. Germain's friends had practical proof of his
alchemical knowledge. Casanova relates that one day while
visiting St. Germain in his laboratory, the latter asked for a
silver coin. In a few moments it was returned to Casanova as
pure gold. St. Germain also possessed the secret of melting
several small diamonds into one large stone, an art he learned in

India, he said. While visiting the French Ambassador to The
Hague, he broke up a superb diamond of his own manufacture, the
duplicate of which he had recently sold for 5500 louis d'or. On
another occasion he removed a flaw from a diamond belonging to
Louis XV, increasing the value of the stone by 4000 livres. On
gala occasions he appeared with a diamond ring on every finger
and with shoe-buckles estimated to be worth at least 200,000
francs.

The charming personality of the Count de St. Germain made him a
welcome guest in the homes of the nobility of every land. But
while he often sat at table with his friends, his own food was
specially prepared for him in his own apartments. He ate no meat
and drank no wine, his favorite beverage being a tea which he
prepared for certain herbs, and which he frequently presented to
his friends. His extraordinary popularity was due to his prowess
as a raconteur, to his well known intimacy with the greatest men
and women of the day, to his familiarity with occult subjects,
and especially to the mystery of his birth and nationality, which
he consistently refused to reveal. He spoke with feeling of
things which had happened hundreds of years in the past, giving
the impression that he himself had been present. One evening,
while he was recounting an event which had happened many
centuries before, he turned to his butler and asked if any
important details had been omitted. "Monsieur le Comte forgets,"
his butler replied, "that I have been with him only five hundred
years. I could not, therefore, have been present at that
occurrence. It must have been my predecessor." If, as many
claimed, St. Germain affirmed that he had lived in Chaldea and
possessed the secrets of the Egyptian sages, he may have spoken
the truth without making an miraculous claim. There are
Initiates, and not necessarily of the highest, who are able to
recall many of their past lives. This may have been St.
Germain's way of calling attention of his friends to the doctrine
of reincarnation. Or perhaps he knew the secret of "the Elixir
of Life."

Although no one knew when the Count de St. Germain was born, his
life from 1710 to 1822 is a matter of history. Both Rameau and
the Countess de Georgy met him in Venice in 1710. Fifty years
later the aged Countess met him in Madame Pompadour's house and
asked him if his father had been in Venice that year. "No,
Madame," the Count replied, "but I myself was living in Venice at
the end of the last and the beginning of this century. I had the
honor to pay you court then, and you were kind enough to admire a
little Barcarolle of my composing." The Countess could not
believe her ears. "But if that is true," she gasped, "you must
be at least a hundred years old!" The Count smiled. "That,
Madame, is not impossible!"

In 1723 the Count showed his mother's portrait, which he always
wore on his arm, to the mother of the future Countess de Genlis.
It was a miniature of an exceptionally beautiful woman, dressed
in a costume unfamiliar to the Countess. "To what period does
this costume belong?" the Countess inquired. The Count merely
smiled and changed the subject.

>From 1737 to 1742 the Count de St. Germain was living in the
Court of the Shah of Persia, occupied with alchemical research.
On his return from Persia he settled in Versailles and became an
intimate friend of Louis XV and Madame Pompadour. In the
following year he was caught in the Jacobite Revolution in
England. From there he went to Vienna, and afterward visited
Frederick the Great in his castle of Sans-Souci in Potsdam, where
Voltaire was also an honored guest. Although Voltaire was
opposed to St. Germain's fellow-Theosophist Saint-Martin, his
admiration for St. Germain was unbounded. In a letter to
Frederick, Voltaire expressed his opinion that "the Count de St.
Germain is a man who was never born, who will never die, and who
knows everything."

In 1755 the Count de St. Germain accompanied General Clive to
India. On his return to France Louis XV gave him a suite of
apartments in the Royal Chateau of Chambord, in Touraine. Here
he often entertained the King and members of the Court in the
alchemical laboratory with the King had provided for him.

In 1760 Louis sent the Count de St. Germain on a delicate
diplomatic mission to The Hague and London. At that time he
discovered the Duc de Choiseul, who up to that time had been
implicitly trusted by the King, was playing a double game.
Although St. Germain confided this fact to the King, the former
was determined that the Peace Treaty between England and France
should be signed, no matter who received the credit. So one
evening in May, 1761, St. Germain called upon the Duc de
Choiseul and remained closeted with him the whole night. This
conference resulted in the celebrated alliance known as the
Family Compact. This in its turn was the forerunner of the
Treaty of Paris, which brought the colonial war between England
and France to a close.

In the following year St. Germain was called to St. Petersburg,
where he played an important part in the revolution which placed
Catherine the Great upon the throne of Russia. he left the
country in the uniform of a Russian general, with full
credentials to which the imperial seal of Russia was affixed.
Shortly afterward he appeared in Tunis and Leghorn while the
Russian fleet was there, again in Russian uniform, and known
under the name of Graf Saltikoff.

After the death of Louis XV in 1774, St. Germain spent several
years travelling in Germany and Austria. Among the Kings,
Princes, Ambassadors and scholars who met him during those years,
how many suspected that the soul of a great Adept looked out
through the eyes of the Count de St. Germain? How many realized
that they were conversing with an emissary of that Great
Fraternity of Perfected Men who stand behind the scenes of all
the great world-dramas, one who was directly not only the minor
currents of European history, but some of the major currents as
well? How many were aware of St. Germain's real mission, part of
which was the introduction of Theosophical principles into the
various occult fraternities of the day?

The Rosicrucian organizations were certainly helped by him.
While Christian Rosencreuz, the founder of the Order, transmitted

his teachings orally, St. Germain recorded the doctrines in
figures, and one of his exciphered manuscripts became the
property of his staunch friend, Prince Karl von Hesse. H.P.B.
mentions this manuscript in The Secret Doctrine (II, 202) and
quotes at length from another (II, 582). While St. Germain was
living in Vienna he spent much of his time in the Rosicrucian
laboratory on the Landstrasse, and at one time lived in the room
which Leibniz occupied in 1713. St. Germain also worked with
the Fratres Lucis, and with the "Knights and Brothers of Asia"
who studied Rosicrucian and Hermetic science and made the
"philosopher's stone" one of the objects of their research.

Although an effort has been made to eliminate St. Germain's
name from modern Masonic literature, careful research into Masonic
archives will prove that he occupied a prominent position in
eighteenth century Masonry. He acted as a delegate to the
Wilhelmsbad Convention in 1782 and to the great Paris Convention
of 1785. Cadet de Gassicourt described him as a travelling
member of the Knights Templar, and Deschamps says that Cagliostro
was initiated into that Order by St. Germain.

The Count de St. Germain is said to have died on February 27,
1784, and the Church Register of Eckernforde in Danish Holstein
contains the record of his death and burial. But as it happens,
some of St. Germain's most important work was done after that
date. This fact is brought out in the Souvenirs de
Marie-Antoinette, written by one of her ladies-in-waiting, the
Countess d'Adhemar. This diary was started in 1760 and ended in
1821, one year before the death of the Countess, and a large part
of it is concerned with St. Germain's efforts to avert the
horrors of the French Revolution.

Early one Sunday morning in 1788 the Countess was surprised to
receive a visit from the Count de St. Germain, whom she had not
seen in several years. He warned her that a giant conspiracy was
under foot, in which the Encyclopaedists would use the Duc de
Chartres in an effort to overthrow the monarchy, and asked her to
take him to the Queen. When Madame d'Adhemar reported the
conversation to Marie-Antoinette, the Queen confessed that she
also had received another communication from this mysterious
stranger who had protected her with warnings from the day of her
arrival in France. On the following day St. Germain was
admitted into the private quarters of the Queen. "Madame," he
said to her, "for twenty years I was on intimate terms with the
late King, who deigned to listen to me with kindness. He made
use of my poor abilities on several occasions, and I so not think
he regretted giving me his confidence." After warning her of the
serious condition of France, he asked her to communicate his
message to the King and to request the King not to consult with
Maurepas. But the King ignored the warning, and went directly to
Maurepas, who immediately called upon Madame d'Adhemar. In the
midst of the conversation St. Germain appeared. He confronted
Maurepas with his treachery and said to him: "In opposing
yourself to my seeing the monarch, you are losing the monarchy,
for I have but a limited time to give to France. This time over,

I shall not be seen here again, until after three successive
generations have gone down to the grave."

The second warning from St. Germain came on July 14, 1789, when
the Queen was saying farewell to the Duchesse de Polgnac. She
opened the letter and read: "My words have fallen on your ears in
vain, and you have reached the period of which I informed you.
All the Polignacs and their friends are doomed to death. The
Comte d'Artois will perish."

His farewell letter, addressed to Madame d'Adhemar, arrived on
October 5, 1789. "All is lost, Countess!" he wrote. "This sun
is the last which will set on the monarchy. Tomorrow it will
exist no more. My advice has been scorned. Now it is too
late.x" In that letter he asked the Countess to meet with him
early the next morning. In that conversation the Count de St.
Germain informed her that the time when he could have helped
France was past. "I can do nothing now. My hands are tied by
one stronger than myself. The hour of repose is past, and the
decrees of Providence must be fulfilled." He foretold the death
of the Queen, the complete ruin of the Bourbons, the rise of
Napoleon. "And you yourself?" the Countess asked. "I must go to
Sweden," he answered. "A great crime is brewing there, and I am
going to try and prevent it. His Majesty Gustavus III interests
me. He is worth more than his renown." The Countess inquired if
she would see him again. "Five times more," he answered. "Do
not wish for the sixth."

True to his word, the Count de St. Germain appeared to the
Countess d'Adhemar on five different occasions: at the beheading
of the Queen; on the 18th Brumaire; the day following the death
of the Duc d'Enghien in 1804; in January, 1813; on the ever of
the assassination of the Duc de Berri in 1820. Presumably the
sixth time was on the day of her death, in 1822.

What happened to the Count de St. Germain after that date? Did
he, as Andrew Lang asks, "die in the palace of Prince Karl von
Hesse about 1780-85? Did he, on the other hand, escape from the
French prison where Gorsley thought he saw him, during the French
Revolution? Was he known to Lord Lytton about 1860? Who knows?"
Who indeed. One of the Masters spoke of the "benevolent German
Prince from whose house, and in whose presence he (St. Germain)
made his last exit-home."

In the last decade of the eighteenth century St. Germain
confided his future plans to his Austrian friend, Franz Graeffer,
saying,

"Tomorrow night I am off. I am much needed in Constantinople,
then in England, there to prepare to new inventions which you
have in the next century-trains and steamboats. Toward the end
of this century I shall disappear out of Europe, and betake
myself to the region of the Himalayas. I will rest; I must rest.
Exactly in 85 years will people again set eyes on me. Farewell.
" (Kleine Wiener Memorien.)

These words were spoken in 1790. Eighty-five years from that
date brings us to 1875. What part did St. Germain play in the
Theosophical Movement of last century? What part is he going to
play in the present century? H.P.B. gave a cryptic suggestion of
the time when he would again appear:

> The Count de St. Germain was certainly the greatest Oriental
> Adept Europe has seen during the last centuries. But Europe knew
> him not. Perchance some may recognize him at the next Terreur,
> which will affect all Europe when it comes, and not one country
> alone.

Was the event of which she spoke the last great War, or does the
real Terreur still lie before us?