The Comte de Saint Germain

Witch, alchemist, ascended master, consummate adventurer, notorious con-man… There are almost as many different theories regarding the Count de St. Germain as there are commentators on his extraordinary life. Despite being one of the most influential members of 18th Century society in Europe, he remains shrouded in utter mystery. One thing seems certain, though – during the entire period of seventy-four years that he is known for sure to have been active, he maintained the appearance of a fit, handsome man of forty five.

The Comte de Saint Germain, c 1784.

Despite being one of the most influential characters in modern history, the Count de St. Germain is also one of the most enigmatic. Karl, Prince of Hesse described him as one of the “greatest philosophers who ever lived – the friend of humanity, whose heart was concerned only with the happiness of others.” Despite a horde of such accolades from nobility right across Europe, nothing whatsoever is known of St. Germain’s early life – not even when or where it started.

The Count de St. Germain is remembered as a man of medium height, approximately 45 years old, with a slim figure, graceful bearing, a radiant smile and astonishingly lovely eyes. He was amazingly skilled in just about every area that it was possible to be skilled in. He spoke French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Danish, Swedish, Arabic and Chinese fluently, without any trace of an accent. He played most musical instruments – Frederick the Great commended his skill with the Harpsichord – but his favourite was the violin. Paganini himself is known to have declared St. Germain his equal with the instrument. Two works that the Count composed are in the British Museum, whilst others were given to Tchaikovsky and Prince Ferdinand, amongst others.

St. Germain had more talents that the musical, though. His paintings were said to be reminiscent of Raphael and quite extraordinary in quality, particularly for his ability to perfectly render the shine of a gemstone on canvas; he was sought after as an art critic and as a verifier of paintings. His memory was so great that he could glance at a paper and then repeat it word for word days later, and he could write poetry with one hand whilst simultaneously drafting political missives with the other. His chief peculiarity was never eating or drinking with others, instead subsisting on a form of oat gruel he prepared himself, and drinking little other than a tea he personally brewed from dried herbs.

But his feats were greater than mere skill and quickness of mind can allow for. St. Germain was regularly said to be able to answer questions before they were spoken, and to know the content of letters before opening them. Casanova recorded that he visited St. Germain in his laboratory and handed the Count a silver coin which was returned, moments later – now made of solid gold. St. Germain also claimed to know how to melt small diamonds into larger single stones, and astonished the French Ambassador to Holland by smashing a huge diamond to pieces with a hammer – the twin of a stone he had just sold to a dealer for a princely sum. On another occasion, he amazed King Louis XV by melting a flaw out of one of his larger diamonds, increasing the value of the stone by a huge amount.

St. Germain claimed to have lived in ancient Chaldea, and to possess secrets of the Egyptian masters. He commonly spoke about times long past as if he himself had been there to witness them, right down to exacting details. One evening, while telling a story to some guests about an event that had happened many hundreds of years earlier, he nodded over to his butler and asked the man if he had left out anything important. The butler chided him gently: “Monsieur le Comte forgets 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 the Count’s origin, birth, nationality and age remain matters of mystery, his presence in Europe through the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is a matter of record. He first surfaced in Venice in 1710, where he met many people, including Rameau and the Countess de Georgy. The Countess met him again fifty years later, at a party thrown by Madame Pompadour, and asked him if his father had been in Venice in that year. The Count demurred. “No, Madame, but I myself was living in Venice at the end of the last century and the beginning of this. I had the honour of paying you court in 1710, and you were kind enough to admire a little music of my composition.” The Countess, shocked, declared that had indeed been the case, which meant that St. Germain had to be at least a century old. St. Germain just smiled.

All through the Eighteenth century, St. Germain left little ripples of amazement across the nobility of Europe. Every time, the descriptions of his appearance, talents and age remained the same. In 1723, the Countess de Genlis saw a portrait of St. Germain’s mother, but did not recognise the style of her clothes, and could not get the secretive count to comment. From 1737 to 1742, records show that he lived with the Shah of Persia and spent his time in alchemical research. When he returned, he spent a year in Versailles with Louis XV, and then got involved in the Jacobite Revolution in England. Once that was settled, he headed to spend time with Frederick the Great in Potsdam. He met Voltaire while he was there, and greatly impressed the man; Voltaire wrote to Frederick that in his opinion, “the Count de St. Germain is a man who was never born, who will never die, and who knows everything.”

The Comte de Saint Germain c. 1745

1755 saw St. Germain accompanying General Clive to India. A couple of years later, he was back in France, where Louis XV gave him a suite and laboratory in his royal chateau Chambord, in Touraine. In 1760, Louis sent St. Germain to Holland and England on a very delicate diplomatic mission, and it is thanks to his efforts that the historical Family Compact was signed between England and France, which led directly to the Treaty of Paris, and the end of the colonial wars. In 1761, St. Germain was in St. Petersburg in Russia, helping to put Catherine the Great upon the throne. He left the country as a full Imperial General of the Russian armies, and shortly afterwards was placed in Tunis with the Russian fleet, still in uniform, using the title of Graf Saltikoff. Other honours and titles he claimed or was awarded during his adventures included being named Marquis de Montferrat, Comte Bellamarre, Chevalier Schoening, Chevalier Weldon, Graf Tzarogy, and Prinz Ragoczy.

After Louis XV died in 1774, St. Germain spent several years in Austria and Germany, apparently introducing Theosophical notions into the occult and mystic organisations of the day – including the Rosicrucian Society in Vienna, the Knights Templar, the Fratres Lucis, and the Knights and Brothers of Asia. He was a delegate to the Freemason’s Wilhelmsbad Conference in 1782.

The Count de St. Germain officially died on February 27 1784, during chemical experiments in Eckernförde, near Schleswig in Denmark. There was no body, but his good friend, Karl, Prince of Hesse, attested to his death, and his death certificate can be found in the Eckernförde Church Register.

If he did die in Schleswig, it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down much. St. Germain is recorded as attending the great Masonic Paris Convention of 1785. He is then said to have had a very important interview with the Empress of Russia in 1786. After that, he went back to France in a last-ditch – unsuccessful – effort to help stave off the revolution.

The Comte de St. Germain, far right, with Helena Blavatsky

The Countess d’Adhémar was one of French queen Marie-Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting, and she kept extensive diaries of the period. St. Germain features several times. In 1788, St. Germain came to visit the Countess d’Adhémar, warned her that a conspiracy to overthrow the monarchy was underfoot, and asked her to take him to see the Queen. The countess reported the visit, and discovered that the Queen had received warnings herself. A meeting was arranged, and St. Germain asked the Queen to set up a meeting with the King – and to encourage him not to mention it to his minister, Maurepas. But the King ignored the warning, and called Maurepas for advice. The minister immediately went to see the Countess d’Adhémar. St. Germain appeared in the middle of the conversation, and informed Maurepas that his petty jealousy was about to destroy the French monarchy, because he didn’t have enough time to devote to saving it.

In 1789, having seemingly had to give up, St. Germain wrote to Queen Marie-Antoinette on July 14th, warning her that her friend the Duchesse de Polignac – who was visiting her – and all of that line and their friends were doomed to death. On October 5, Countess d’Adhémar got a letter saying that the sun had set on the French monarchy, and it was too late; his hands were tied “by one stronger than myself”. He prophesied the death of Marie Antoinette, the ruin of the royal family, and the rise of Napoleon. He himself would be going to Sweden to investigate King Gustavius III and to try to head off “a great crime.” He added that the Countess d’Adhémar would have sight of him five more times, but not to look forward to the sixth.

In 1790, St. Germain admitted his immediate plans to an Austrian friend, Franz Graeffer.

“Tomorrow night I am off. I am much needed in Constantinople, then in England, there to prepare two new inventions which you will 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.”

The Countess d’Adhémar recorded five further occasions on which she saw the Count – fleeting visitations in 1799, 1802, 1804, 1813 and 1820. It is presumed that he also appeared to her on the day of her death, in 1822. A mysterious Englishman named Major Fraser appeared in Parisian society at the same time, with many of the same characteristics of the Count de St. Germain, and of a similar age and breadth of skill. A Frenchman who had know St. Germain, Albert Vandam, wrote in his memoirs about the striking similarity between Fraser and St. Germain. Was this the same Major Fraser who, in 1820, published an account of his journeys in the Himalayas, in which he said he had reached Gangotri, the source of the most sacred branch of the Ganges River, and bathed in the spring of the Jumna River? No-one knows, because Major Fraser vanished as suddenly as St. Germain himself had done.

There are further rumours that he also appeared to Lord Lytton in 1860 – and there is a famous photograph from ten years after that, 1885, that purports to show the Count de St. Germain standing next to Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical movement. As late as 1897, the French singer Emma Calve dedicated an autographed portrait of herself to St. Germain. Some rumours have attempted to suggest that he played the role of Russian healer and mystic Rasputin, before slipping off to America. Most recently, he is said to have set up in Paris, under yet another assumed name and nationality, still engaged in utterly mysterious purposes.