Heart to Heart: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (5 page)

It seems that the mystery
man lived as a prince in Vienna for a year or two, close friend to
Prince Ferdinand von Lobkowitz who was first minister to Emperor
Francis I. He traveled Europe with the wealthy grandson of Fou-
quet, Marechal de Belle-Isle, who was "strongly taken with the
brilliant and witty St. Germain," and went to India with British
General Clive and Vice Admiral Watson. Louis XV assigned him a
suite of rooms at his royal Chateau of Chambord and outfitted an
experimental laboratory in which St. Germain taught certain skills
to an august assemblage of students that included such as the Baron
de Gleichen, the Marquise d'Urfe, and the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst
(mother of Catherine II of Russia).

The
Gazette of the Netherlands
reported
in 1761: "The so-called Count of St. Germain is an incomprehensible
man of whom nothing is known: neither his name nor his origin, nor
his position; he has an income, no one knows from whence it is
derived; acquaintances, no one knows where he made them; entry into
the Cabinets of Princes without being acknowledged by
them!

"Letters from Paris state that when starting
for this country, to which he came without asking permission of the
King, M. de St. Germain returned his Red Ribbon: but it is
practically certain that he has an understanding with the King of
Denmark."

The British Museum was the
repositor of pieces of music composed by the Comte de St. Germain
in 1745 and 1760, and Prince Ferdinand von Lobkowitz's library in
the castle of Raudnitz in Bohemia proudly displayed a personally
autographed book of music by St. Germain, where it was said that he
was a splendid violinist and "played like an orchestra."

He has been linked closely
to the cause of the German-born empress of Russia, Catherine the
Great, and perhaps to the political intrigue that enthroned her in
1762. Catherine's thirty-four-year reign was the most enlightened
in Russian history, and it was her vision that led an emerging
Russia into closer participation in the politics and culture of
Europe. St. Germain is credited in a contemporary writing as having
"played a great part in their revolution," and is mentioned in an
anonymous 1869 publication titled: "A few Words about the First
Helpers of Catherine II."

In 1763 a nobleman in
Brussels, Graf (Count) Karl Co- benzl, in a letter to Prince
Kaunitz, described St. Germain thusly: "It was about three months
ago that the person known by the name of the Comte de St. Germain
passed this way, and came to see me. I found him the most singular
man that I ever saw in my life. I do not yet precisely know his
birth; I believe, however, that he is the son of a clandestine
union in a powerful and illustrious family. Possessing great
wealth, he lives in the greatest simplicity; he knows everything,
and shows an uprightness, a goodness of soul, worthy of admiration.
Among a number of his accomplishments, he made, under my own eyes,
some experiments, of which the most important were the
transmutation of iron into a metal as beautiful as gold, and at
least as good for all goldsmith's work; the dyeing and preparation
of skins, carried to a perfection which surpassed all the moroccos
in the world, and the most perfect tanning; the dyeing of silks,
carried to a perfection hitherto unknown; the like dyeing of
woollens; the dyeing of wood in the most brilliant colours
penetrating through and through, and the whole without either
indigo or cochineal, with the commonest ingredients, and
consequently at a very moderate price; the composition of colours
for painting, ultra-marine is as perfect as if made from lapis
lazuli; and finally, removing the smell from painting oils, and
making the best oil of Provence from the oils of Navette, of
Colsat, and from others, even the worst. I have in my hands all
these productions, made under my own eyes; I have had them undergo
the most strict examinations, and seeing in these articles a profit
which mount up to millions, I have endeavoured to take advantage of
the friendship that this man has felt for me, and to learn from him
all these secrets."

Dieudonne Thiebault writes
in about the year 1769: "There came to Berlin and remained in that
city for the space of a year a remarkable man, who passed by the
name of the Comte de St. Germain. The Abbe Pernety was not slow in
recognising in him the characteristics which go to make up an
adept, and came to us with wonderful stories." Princess Amelie
called on St. Germain in Berlin, and Thiebault remarks that the
aged Baron Knyhausen was always addressed by St. Germain as "my
son."

Thiebault describes the
mysterious traveler "In appearance M. de St. Germain was refined
and intellectual. He was clearly of gentle birth, and had moved in
good society; and it was reported that the famous Cagliostro (so
well known for his mystification of Cardinal Rohan and others at
Paris) had been his pupil. The pupil, however, never reached the
level of his master and, while the latter finished his career
without mishap, Cagliostro was often rash to the point of
criminality, and died in the prison of the Inquisition at Rome. In
the history of M. de St. Germain, we have the history of a wise and
prudent man who never wilfully offended against the code of honour,
or did aught that might offend our sense of probity. Marvels we
have without end, never anything mean or scandalous."

A Florence news item
published in
Le notizie del Mondo
carries a report from Tunis, July 1770: "The
Comte Maximilian de Lamberg, Chamberlain of M.M.L.L. II. and RR
having paid a visit to the Island of Corsica to make various
investigations, has been staying here since the end of June, in
company with the Signor de St. Germain, celebrated in Europe for
the vastness of his political and philosophical
knowledge."

Writing from the
Netherlands some years later, Heer van Sypesteyn said, "M. de St.
Germain came to the Hague after the death of Louis XV [May 10th,
1774] and left for Schwalbach in 1774. This was the last time he
visited Holland. It cannot be ascertained with accuracy how often
he was there. It is stated in a German biography that he was in
Holland in 1710, 1735, 1742, 1748, 1760 and 1773."

And how did the Dutch
regard St. Germain? "... a remarkable man, and wherever be was
personally known he left a favourable impression behind, and the
remembrance of many good and sometimes of many noble deeds. Many a
poor father of a family, many a charitable institution, was helped
by him in secret. Not one bad, nor one dishonourable action was
ever known of him, and so he inspired sympathy everywhere, and not
least in Holland."

I trust that this is quite enough about St.
Germain. But I have to give you just a bit more. Like this little
gem: "Sometimes he fell into a trance, and when he again
recovered, he said he had passed the time while he lay
unconscious in far-off lands; sometimes he disappeared for a
considerable time, then suddenly re-appeared, and let it be
understood that he had been in another world in communication with
the dead."

Okay?

Please note the
"disappeared" and "suddenly re-appeared" in the quote just
above.

Had you ever heard of the
Comte de St. Germain before this? Probably not. Isn't it just a
little strange that such a remarkable character could escape the
notice of our historians? Probably not. We do not give a lot of
space in our histories to the truly remarkable characters; none at
all to the likes of a St. Germain.

One final note, this from
the
Souvenirs de Marie Antoinette
by an intimate friend of the queen, the Countess
d'Adhemar. The
Souvenirs
are based on the countess's daily diary. She was
an intimate within the royal court, and she had a sense of history.
She also had a remarkable friend who had labored heroically to save
the royal family from their grisly fate. The following entry refers
to a perilous visit by St. Germain in 1792 after the French
monarchy had toppled:

"The church was empty; I
posted my Laroche as sentinel and I entered the chapel named; soon
after, and almost before I had collected my thoughts in the
presence of God, behold a man approaching...it was himself in
person...Yes! with the same countenance as in 1760, while mine was
covered with furrows and marks of decrepitude... I stood impressed
by it; he smiled at me, came forward, took my hand, kissed it
gallantly. I was so troubled that I allowed him to do it in spite
of the sanctity of the place.

“
'There you are!' I said.
'Where have you come from?'

" I am come from China and
Japan....'

"'Or rather from the other
world!'

"'Yes, indeed, pretty
nearly so! Ah! Madame, down there nothing is so strange as what
happens here. How is the monarchy of Louis XIV disposed of? You,
who did not see it cannot make the comparison, but I..’

"'I have caught you, man of yesterday!"'

Man of yesterday, indeed.
Louis XIV's reign had ended nearly one hundred years
earlier.

Early on, St. Germain had tried to warn
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of the coming upheaval. The crown
would not listen, and now—with all of the nobility in great
jeopardy—St. Germain had come to counsel his friend, Madame
d'Adhemar. As he bid farewell to the Countess, she asked him
whether she would see him again. He replied, "Five times more; do
not wish for the sixth." He then stepped through the doorway and
disappeared into thin air; literally, according to her account.

Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette were both beheaded in the year 1793, Louis in January
and his queen in August.

Now, this fragment
from
Souvenirs
:
"I saw M. de St. Germain again, and always to my unspeakable
surprise: at the assassination of the Queen; at the coming of the
18th Brumaire; the day following the death of the Duke d'Enghien
[1804]; in the month of January, 1813; and on the eve of the murder
of the Duke de Berri [1820]. I await the sixth visit when God
wills." Countess d'Adhemar died of natural causes in
1822.

So okay. We have but a tiny glimpse here of
a living phenomenon—first noted in about 1710 as a man in his
forties, finally in the year 1820 as a man who shows no evidence of
aging.

So are we ready now for Valentinius?

Or are we talking about
the same guy?

Chapter Six: Second Sight

Of course I was just flailing about for a
handle, any handle, and St. Germain came to mind only because of
his supposed linkage to the Medici family of Renaissance Italy.
Actually I knew very little of the St. Germain legend at the time,
and I had to allow for the possible coincidence of names, even
though Sloane had traced our California Medici (or his forebears)
to the eighteenth-century Florentine duchy. The original
Valentinius would have been a contemporary of St. Germain and
apparently came to these shores shortly after the American
Revolution with a Spanish land grant in his pocket. It could be
significant, or merely coincidental, that the Medici family had
marriage links to the Spanish throne.

But after all, how much
coincidence can you buy? I was into some pretty heady stuff. The
name
Valentinius
itself evokes all sorts of images, being a slight variation
on three Roman emperors—Valentinian I, II, and III, a pope,
Valentinus, ninth century, and an earlier Valentinus of the second
century
a.d.
who
was a Christian mystic and founder of the Roman and Alexandrian
schools of Gnosticism. For a further small variation, the Latin
title for those three Roman emperors is
Flavius Valentinianus
—so it appears
that small variations were not considered a problem in those days.
We should be aware that family names have not always been as
formalized as they are today; in fact, they did not even come into
vogue until the late Middle Ages.

Remember too that I was being confronted
with one hell of an anomaly. The guy who winked-in on me at Malibu
was apparently the same guy who'd given me an unlimited power of
attorney to save, I guessed, the remnants of a two-hundred-year-old
Spanish land grant from being confiscated by the modern state of
California.

So put yourself in my moccasins please, and
tell me why I should not be reaching at wild conclusions.

Still it would not be accurate to say that I
was reaching for anything at all; I was merely reacting to quivers
and going with the flow.

Jim Sloane however obviously wanted me to
start a flow of my own. "It seems that the ball is in your court,"
he observed. "What do you intend to do with it?"

I replied, "No, Jim; the ball is not yet in
my court." We were talking tennis terms, and I was in my element
there. "Someone has just handed me a racquet and pushed me toward
the court. And I think this racquet needs to be re-strung. I'd
rather use my own."

He smiled faintly and said, "Fine, use
whatever you'd

like but do it quick. The finals are a week
from Friday, and it's winner-take-all."

He closed his briefcase
and rose to leave; offered me his hand and I took it. I told him,
“The handshake is pure courtesy. I'm agreeing only to look into the
thing. I'll contact you within twenty-four hours to let you know
whether I'm accepting the game. The state of California is a hell
of an opponent. And I don't even know who is sponsoring this
match.”