Comte de Saint Germain

Source: Sekkachi Hakushaku to Jikan Dorobou 

manga by Koji Kumeta

un nuevo manga de Kouji Kumeta nos narra la historia de 4 personajes tokitara suguru, yubutsu magokoro, una princesa y  un conde con un sombrero largo.

Oddity of the Week: The Comte de Saint Germain

The Comte de Saint Germain was a European courtier, with an interest in science and the arts. He achieved prominence in European high society of the mid-1700s. In order to deflect inquiries as to his origins, he would invent fantasies, such as that he was 500 years old, leading Voltaire to ironically dub him “The Wonderman”.

His birth and background are obscure, but towards the end of his life he claimed that he was a son of Prince Francis II Rákóczi of Transylvania.

Myths, legends and speculations about St. Germain began to be widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and continue today. They include beliefs that he is immortal, the Wandering Jew, an alchemist with the “Elixir of Life”, a Rosicrucian, and that he prophesied the French Revolution.

The Wandering Jew is a figure from medieval Christian mythology whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century.

The original legend concerns a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming. The exact nature of the wanderer’s indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a shoemaker or other tradesman, while sometimes he is the doorman at Pontius Pilate’s estate.

He is said to have met the forger Giuseppe Balsamo (alias Cagliostro) in London and the composer Rameau in Venice. Some groups honor Saint Germain as a supernatural being called an Ascended Master.

Le comte de Saint Germain was an adventurer, alchemist and diplomat, whose mysterious origin created a legend around him. He was rumored to have lived 2,000 years. The legend of St Germain, “the man who does not die,” was born in the mid-1700s. Since then, endless speculations and sightings of the Count after his death has continued. St Germain was also known by such figures as Casanova, Cagliostro, and Horace Walpole. The Russian writer Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837) mentions him in the short story ‘The Queen of Spades’ (1834):

"You have heard of Count St. Germain, about whom so many marvelous stories are told. You know that he represented himself as the Wandering Jew, as the discoverer of the elixir of life, of the philosopher’s stone, and so forth. Some laughed at him as a charlatan; but Casanova, in his memoirs, says that he was a spy. But be that as it may, St. Germain, in spite of the mystery surrounding him, was a very fascinating person, and was much sought after in the best circles of society. Even to this day my grandmother retains an affectionate recollection of him, and becomes quite angry if anyone speaks disrespectfully of him."

St Germain found his most ardent admirers from the arictocratic circles. He had an exceptional memory and he could repeat a page of print after one reading. The serious-minded middle-class viewed him with some disdain, as the English letter-writer and aesthetician Horace Walpole in 1745: “The other day they seized an odd man who goes by the name of Count St Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings and plays the violin wondefully, is mad, and not very sensible.”

Madame de Pompadour and of Louis XV were amused by St Germain, although he was accused of being an English spy. He told that he had lived thousands of years and had known even Jesus Christ.

St Germain claimed to possess the secret of eternal youth, one of the two traditional goals of alchemy. St Germain’s accounts of his adventures had also connections to the legend of the Wandering Jew, a well known Christian tale. Its first written version was printed in Bologna in 1223.

Ms. # 2400, Bibliotheque de Troyes, France. Adapted from Manly P. HALL: The Most Holy Trinosophia of the Comte de St. Germain (Philosophical Research Society, 1963)

"SECTION ONE

It is in the retreat of criminals in the dungeons of the Inquisition that your friend writes these lines which are to serve for your instruction. At the thought of the inestimable advantages which this document of friendship will procure for you, the horrors of a long and little deserved captivity seem to be mitigated… It gives me pleasure to think that while surrounded by guards and encumbered by chains, a slave may still be able to raise his friend above the mighty, the monarchs who rule this place of exile.”