His wealth did not come from cards or swindling--no such charges are
ever hinted at; he did not sell elixirs, nor prophecies, nor
initiations. His habits do not seem to have been extravagant. One
might regard him as a clever eccentric person, the unacknowledged
child, perhaps, of some noble, who had put his capital mainly into
precious stones. But Louis XV. treated him as a serious personage, and
probably knew, or thought he knew, the secret of his birth. People
held that he was a bastard of a king of Portugal, says Madame du
Hausset. Perhaps the most ingenious and plausible theory of the birth
of Saint-Germain makes him the natural son, not of a king of Portugal,
but of a queen of Spain. The evidence is not evidence, but a series of
surmises. Saint-Germain, on this theory, 'wrop his buth up in a
mistry' (like that of Charles James Fitzjames de la Pluche), out of
regard for the character of his royal mamma. I believe this about as
much as I believe that a certain Rev. Mr. Douglas, an obstreperous
Covenanting minister, was a descendant of the captive Mary Stuart.
However, Saint-Germain is said, like Kaspar Hauser, to have murmured
of dim memories of his infancy, of diversions on magnificent
terraces, and of palaces glowing beneath an azure sky.
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