"St Germain, Comte de"

in which he reports his current straitened circumstances and loneliness in Bavaria ("de ma solitude dans le haut Palatinat"), relating his long and painful journey there via Paris, asking after the "Casa Cadogan", praising his Lordship's generous character, reminding him of his devotion, his great wish to be reborn as an Englishman, praising the King, the country, the laws, and manners of a country that he enjoyed for nearly six consecutive years, explaining that he had to stay in Paris in order to retrieve his telescope, his fifth visit there, where he was entertained by the great women and cavaliers, who teased him as "L'Anglois d'inclination", which flattered rather than annoyed him, giving details about the beautiful women in Paris, admitting that he fell hopelessly in love with the Madame d'Ogny, but assuring him that he behaved with decorum; finally St Germain explains that's all in the past and that his only resource in the sorry state in which he now finds himself is to correspond with those he holds dear, relying on his Lordship's humanity too much to fear a refusal and, in a postscript, he obsequiously begs permission to thank him for anything that his Lordship might do him the honour of remembering him by.



4 pages, 4to (25 x 18.5cms), dated watermark ("Fin de Hemina, de E. Paviot, en Dauphine 1744"), Upper Palatinate, Germany, 28 October 1749 (old style), some wear to margins, with slight loss to the final line containing his return address, browning to outer folds 

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

An exceptionally rare original letter by the Comte de St Germain, and an important new piece of biographical evidence regarding one of the most mysterious figures of his age. To Horace Walpole in 1745 St Germain was a man who "sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible", and whose celibacy, enigmatic origin and apparent mysterious wealth were causing a great stir in London society. Twelve years later, by which time he was a confidante of Madame de Pompadour and promoter of a revolutionary project for dying cloth, Giacomo Casanova praised him as an unequalled conversationalist but also as "the king of impostors and quacks", who "would say in an easy, assured manner that he was three hundred years old, that he knew the secret of the Universal Medicine, that he possessed a mastery over nature, that he could melt diamonds". In 1760 he was a political agent in the Hague, he then travelled to royal courts in Russia, Italy, and Germany, and by the early 1780s he was installed by Prince Karl of Hesse-Cassel with a laboratory in Eckernförde. The apparent ease with which he found patrons and the high estimation in which he was held by intellectuals ranging from Baron Friedrich von Grimm to Dieudonné Thiébault mean that he cannot easily be dismissed as a straight-forward charlatan. Yet his true name and even country of origin were unknown – he was certainly no count, although he may perhaps have been the son of an exiled Transylvanian prince – and St Germain was just one of a number of pseudonyms he used during his colourful career. Interest in this enigmatic man has never faded. Napoleon III set up a committee to uncover the truth about him, but the dossier was destroyed when the Préfecture de Police was burnt down in the Paris Commune. Various occultists have also claimed him as one of their own: to Madame Blavatsky he was a Master of Wisdom who had passed through many previous incarnations (including Christian Rosenkreutz and Francis Bacon), while Annie Besant claimed to have met the Comte in 1896.

Few original letters by St Germain are known to exist, and none have been sold at auction in the last thirty years. This letter provides the first evidence of his movements between his time in London in the mid-1740s and association with Madame de Pompadour some ten years later; it reveals, for example, that he was already well connected in French society by 1749. Particularly tantalising is the letter's address from the High Palatinate, part of Bavaria, as it suggests that St Germain may have been connected to the young Duke, Maximilian III Joseph, a key enlightenment ruler whose intellectual interests coincided closely with St Germain's.

This letter was probably written to Charles, 2nd Lord Cadogan (1685-1776), whose wife (mentioned in the letter) was the daughter of Sir Hans Sloane. St Germain's association with the family appears to have been longstanding: the earliest known letter by St Germain (known only from a copy, and printed in J. O. Fuller's eccentric Comte de Saint Germain (1988), pp.60-61) is to Hans Sloane, dated 1735, offering him a copy of Balbus's Catholicon (1460). The signature to this letter begins with an unusual cipher. One of St Germain's printed works, Musique raisonnée selon le bon sens aux dames angloises, gives the author as "SSSS de St. Germain", evidently a transliteration of this same cipher. He also signs his name in the same way in a presentation copy of the Musique raisonnée at the Lobkowitz Palace Library in Prague. (see TNG, xxii, 102).