Heart to Heart: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Read Online Free PDF

Catherine II of Russia;
apparently he knew such diverse personages as Tchaikovsky and
Voltaire, merchants and princes and artists, scientists and
philosophers.
    It was written of him by a
contemporary: “The Count speaks French, English, German, Italian,
Spanish and Portuguese equally perfectly; so much so that when he
converses with any of the inhabitants of the above countries in
their mother tongue, they are unable to discover the slightest
foreign accent. The Learned and the Oriental scholars have proved
the knowledge of the Count St. Germain. The former found him more
apt in the languages of Homer and Virgil than themselves; with the
latter he spoke Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic in such a manner as to
show them that he had made some lengthy stay in Asia, and that the
languages of the East were but poorly learned in the Colleges of
Louis The Great and Montaigne.”
    According to the record,
St. Germain was greatly talented in all the arts. He was a
composer and an extraordinary musician, a painter who astonished
with his remarkably brilliant colors, and a scholar with astounding
knowledge.
    "The Comte de St. Germain accompained on the
piano without music, not only every song but also the most
difficult concerti, played on various instruments. Rameau was much
impressed with the playing of this dilettante, and especially
struck at his improvising.
    "The Count paints beautifully in oils; but
that which makes his paintings so remarkable is a particular
colour, a secret, which he has discovered, and which lends to the
painting an extraordinary brilliancy. Vanloo, who never tires in
his admiration of the surprising colouring, has often requested the
Count to let him participate in his secret; the latter, however,
will not divulge it.
    "Without attempting to sit
in judgement on the knowledge of a fellow-being, of whom at this
very moment that I am writing, both court and town have exhausted
all surmises, one can, I think, well assert that a portion of his
miracles is due to his knowledge of physics and chemistry in which
sciences he is well grounded. At all events it is palpable that his
knowledge has laid the seeds for him of sound good health; a life
which will—or which has—overstepped the ordinary time allotted to
man; and has also endowed him with the means of preventing the
ravages of time from affecting the body."
    That last sentence quoted
is most interesting and most pertinent to our own story, as is the
following account: "There appeared at the Court [of Louis XV] in
these days an extraordinary man, who called himself Comte de St.
Germain. At first he distinguished himself through his cleverness
and the great diversity of his talents, but in another respect he
soon aroused the greatest astonishment.
    "The old Countess v. Georgy who fifty years
earlier had accompanied her husband to Venice where he had the
appointment of ambassador, lately met St. Germain at Mme. de
Pompadour's. For some time she watched the stranger with signs of
the greatest surprise, in which was mixed not a little fear.
Finally, unable to control her excitement, she approached the Count
more out of curiosity than in fear.
    "'Will you have the
kindness to tell me,' said the Countess, 'whether your father was
in Venice about the year 1710?'
    "'No, Madame,' replied the
Count quite unconcerned, 'it is very much longer since I lost my
father, but I myself was living in Venice at the end of the last
and the beginning of this century; I had the honour to pay you
court then, and you were kind enough to admire a few Barcarolles of
my composing which we used to sing together.'
    "'Forgive me, but that is impossible; the
Comte de St.
    Germain I knew in those days was at least
forty-five years old, and you, at the outside, are that age at
present.'
    "'Madame,' replied the Count smiling, 'I am
very old.'
    "'But then you must be nearly one hundred
years old!'
    "'That is not impossible.'
And then the Count recounted to Mme. v. Georgy a number of familiar
little