which hardly proves that the other large jewels were genuine,
though Von Gleichen believed they were, and thought the Count's
cabinet of old masters very valuable.

The fingers, the watch, the snuffbox, the shoe-buckles, the garter
studs, the solitaires of the Count, on high days, all burned with
diamonds and rubies, which were estimated, one day, at 200,000
francs. 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.
This is reported by Von Gleichen, who knew him very well, but
thought him rather a quack. Possibly he meant to convey the idea
that he was Moses, and that he had dwelt in the palaces of the