The Frankenstein Papers

LETTER 10

March 7,1783 Paris

Dear Sir—

We have arrived here safely, in the midst of Carnival. I was relieved to find waiting for me your communication regarding your wish to see both of us at Passy tomorrow night. We shall be there; I think a boat quietly to your landing stage will be the best means of approach.

Meanwhile, this letter will serve as the preliminary report for which you say you cannot wait.

To begin with, since we have reached the city my companion is in better spirits than I have ever seen him before. Carnival, as I perhaps ought to have expected, suits his nature admirably; in the midst of this communal delirium he is for once able to move abroad with perfect freedom, at least by night. I have money available, and already both of us are masked and well costumed. My tall friend has turned into a jester (it was the one costume readily available that could be made to fit) while I cavort around him in the guise of a fantastic ape.

Here in the city the entire populace seems to have gone mad, as is usual for this season in Paris. Last night when we arrived the streets were thronged, and the crowds have continued through the day. Vehicles of all kinds, bearing revelers, press their way slowly through the mobs that clog the streets on foot. Even the poor, who a few days ago were almost lifeless, here and now are ready to paint their faces, make what variations in their ragged clothing they are able, and celebrate. From the simply painted countenances of the poor to the most fantastic extravagances of the wealthy, the populace display their determination to make merry; the city at night (turned almost to day by the light of countless candles and torches) takes on the aspect of a fever dream or nightmare. I wish that your health allowed you to tour it more freely. Nothing in England, I believe, nor in America, can present a spectacle to compare with this.

On a more practical level, it is a relief to me to find myself once again in a city where I need not be so careful to conceal my relationship with you. Scarcely had we arrived before I encountered one of our mutual friends, who recognized me (this was before I had put on my costume) and insisted that I come with him at once to visit Cagliostro. He was all excitement at the prospect, though I gather that among many here the enthusiasm for this mountebank has already passed. The devotees of Mesmer on the other hand, they tell me (and you doubtless know better than I) are still increasing in numbers.

As I had already toyed with the idea of visiting the "Count," I readily enough assented to the proposal. My friend (the tall and nameless one, I mean) came with me, though at the last minute he decided it would be wiser of him to remain outside the house, among the revelers in the street, from whence I could summon him in if there appeared any reason for doing so. Our friend who was to have performed the introductions abandoned us at the last moment, alas, in pursuit of fairer game, but as it turned out his defection scarcely mattered.

Count Cagliostro did see the two of us, jester and ape, together briefly, as I entered, but what he made of the towering figure of my companion, who came no farther than the doorway, I have no means of knowing. The celebrity, while in my hearing, made no comment on the appearance of my friend, being doubtless afraid of doing anything that might help to create a rival to himself for the enthusiasm of the crowd.

Cagliostro is a man of average height, and somewhat more than average weight. His age is presently about forty, if one judges by normal physical appearances and does not take too seriously his calm eyewitness accounts of, and claims to have taken part in, certain affairs that predate the Christian era. He has bulging dark eyes, a short neck, and a dark complexion—and, I assure you, an air of competence and force, a commanding presence that cannot appear in the simple physical description I here present. On the night I saw him, he was outfitted in a scarlet jacket and trousers, and wore a ceremonial sword to which I am sure he has no more real right than you or I would have—less, I expect, if the truth were acknowledged about his birth. With him as his constant companion was the lovely Mme de la Motte, of whom you have heard, I am sure; her beauty will need no description here from me.

The great man, when finally I had the opportunity to approach him, more or less alone, did not disappoint me in the range of his conversation, only in its substance. He had much to say to me about his previous lives (which must indeed extend at least two thousand years into the past); about something he called "transcendent chemistry" of which, I think, neither you nor I have ever heard (nor have Lavoisier or Cavendish, I will wager) and also about "the great Arcana of Memphis," whatever that may be.

When Cagliostro began to speak of giants, and of reviving the dead, you may be sure that my ears pricked up; but he never mentioned Frankenstein (although Walton's book is of course a common topic of conversation here) again, I suppose, not wishing to publicize one whom he must consider a rival for the attentions of the public.

The giants he did mention soon came to nothing, being wafted away in the breezes of his conversation on other topics even more marvelous. They were last seen somewhere in the interior of Africa, along with a most impressive city that the Count has visited there, and which he swears to have ten times the population of Paris itself. I expressed polite agreement with all that I was told, and as soon as the conventions of society allowed I took my leave.

My tall friend was awaiting me anxiously in the street, and was disappointed but not surprised when I related the incidents of the visit. But the evening's social encounters were not yet over. After departing the establishment where Cagliostro held forth, my tall friend and I also encountered in the confusion of Carnival the well-known Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a professor of anatomy, and, I gather, of much else besides.

Again my traveling companion contrived to disappear into a nearby celebration (such were the crowds that he was scarcely conspicuous) while the Doctor and I conversed, shouting above the noise. Mutual friends assure me that Dr. Guillotin has a great penchant and reputation for conceiving projects and inventions intended to benefit mankind. When I mentioned to him in a casual way that some experimenters hope to be able to revive the dead by the galvanic method, he at once and vociferously declared any such scheme to be arrant nonsense. I was careful to frame none of my succeeding questions to him in such a way that he might possibly suspect me of taking such matters seriously.

So, as you see, Father, the brief time we have so far spent in Paris has been vastly entertaining, but I fear that nothing has happened to advance our investigation in the slightest. My chief hope now is that you, having read and digested all of my reports, will be able to shed more light on the matter for us both tomorrow.

Your Son,

Benjamin Freeman