"I saw him this morning, and in all the time that has passed he does not seem to have grown older than those I saw yesterday. I remember once, in France, hearing him say of the passion of Jesus Christ, with inconceivable seriousness--'I said that he could not but have trouble with those wicked Jews. I told him what would happen, but he would not hear me. His zeal made him despise all dangers. His tragical death, however, distressed me as I had never been before, and I cannot think of it without tears.' As he spoke, this queer count wept so naturally, that I could scarcely refrain from following his example."
"You are," said the king, "so good a Christian, that it does not amaze me." Poelnitz had changed his religion three or four times to obtain benefices and places with which, for joke's sake, the king had tempted him.
"Your anecdote," said D'Argens, "is but a fancy sketch. I have heard many better.--What makes this Count de Saint Germain an interesting and remarkable personage, in my opinion, is the number of new and ingenious claims, by which he unravels the doubtful points of the obscurer history of States. Question him about any subject or epoch of history, and you will be surprised to hear him unfold or invent an infinity of probable and interesting things, which throw a new light on what has been doubtful and mysterious."
"If what he says is probable," observed Algarotti, "he must be wonderfully learned, and gifted with a prodigious memory."
"He is something better than that," said the king; "mere erudition does not suffice to explain history. This man must have a mighty mind, and great knowledge of humanity. The only questions are whether this noble organization has been distorted by the desire of playing a whimsical part, and a disposition to attribute to himself eternal life and a knowledge of matters that happened before the birth of any that live, or whether deep study and meditation has not deranged his brain, and struck him with monomania?"
"I can at least assure your majesty of the good faith and modesty of our man. It is with great difficulty that he can be made to talk of the wonderful things he fancies he has seen. He is aware that he is treated as a dreamer and charlatan, and this seems to trouble him much. Now he refuses to explain his supernatural power."