#cdsg

[rhera]

✁ costume designers ANNA HILL JOHNSTONE ⤸ Splendor in the Grass (1961) dir. Elia Kazan

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

SAINT-GERMAIN TIDBIT

a postscript in the previously mentioned letter from Saint-Germain to Madame de Pompadour, says, “It will please you to remember that you promised me last summer that you would not let me suffer injustice,” in regards to the seizure of the ship the Ackermann, which Saint-Germain says he has an investment in it of 50,000 écus, which Fuller estimates at 150,000 pounds as of 1981.

Fuller says she was unable to find anything more on this situation but notes that (1) it was likely Saint-Germain didn’t own the ship but merely had (valuable) cargo in it that was being stopped from reaching its intended destination, (2) this shows how, while he was known for his chemistry and dyeing, he still had more “ordinary and quite important trading investments,” and (3) the ship, judging by its name, appears German and that “it seems the French must have seized it as a prize of war, improperly as Saint-Germain contended, and he wished it released”

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

SAINT-GERMAIN TIDBIT

on 14 March, 1760, Count Kriegsrath Kauderbach, a Saxon and Resident Representative at the Hague of the King of Poland, writes to a couple friends about Saint-Germain:

“rumors of his immense age” and how “ ‘a member of the States General who is approaching seventy … saw this extraordinary man in the house of his father when he was only a child,’ ” yet Saint-Germain still “ ‘has hardly a line on his face,’ ” with black hair, and is energetic and healthy; “ ‘never eats meat, except for a little of the white of chicken, and limits his nourishment to cereals, vegetables and fish,’ ” stayed up late “ ‘as an indulgence’ ” yet still seemed wide awake the next morning. “He added that Saint-Germain claimed to have learned ‘Nature’s most beautiful secrets’, was immensely rich, … spoke highly of Madame de Pompadour, as having ‘a very good heart, the most upright intentions and unparalleled disinterest.’ He said the radical ill lay in the King’s lack of firmness” and those around the King taking advantage of that, especially the Pâris brothers.

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

SAINT-GERMAIN TIDBIT

15 March, 1760, von Hellen wrote to King Frederick about Saint-Germain, saying how Saint-Germain speaks very freely, such as of France being “ ‘not … very wise’ ” in regards to their finances and manners of ruling

(note that Saint-Germain was essentially acting as a diplomat for France, so this was especially shocking)

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

SAINT-GERMAIN TIDBIT

Saint-Germain held a private concert in a noble's house before that was common (was mentioned to be common in 1789 but not when le Comte did this event, maybe in the mid-1700s or so). "What is interesting to notice that Saint-Germain participated not merely as a performer but as the director." (73)

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

SAINT-GERMAIN TIDBIT

Willem Bentinck recorded some rumors he had heard of Saint-Germain before meeting him:

Bentinck wrote of Saint-Germain’s “manners [presumably his oddity of manners], his magnificence, his regularity and paying his bills in England, where it is expensive to live in such high style. Monsieur d’Affry ‘told me that indeed he was a remarkable man, of whom stories were told, one sillier than another, that he possessed the philosopher's stone, was 100 years old although he looked only 40 etc.’ ” 

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

SAINT-GERMAIN TIDBIT

Fuller again mentions Andrew Lang (presumably a skeptical biographer. i'll have to find out).

this time, he assumed a diamond Saint-Germain was given so as to remove its flaws to increase its value was simply replaced instead of having the flaws removed.

But Fuller “wrote to Messrs De Beers Consolidated Diamond Mines Ltd., asking them whether it was possible to remove flaws from diamonds or—another ability attributed to Saint-Germain—to improve their colour and brilliance.” 

she received reply “from their Mr J.E. Roux, dated 8 February, 1980,” saying color improvement “has been practiced for some considerable years”; done to change a brown or yellow diamond through irradiation. oxidisation impurities (usually streaks of red, yellow, or orange), if accessible through a hairline crack, are often removed “by boiling in strong acids”

Fuller: “Electrons and neutrons [in regards to the irradiation] were not known in the 18th century, but acids were. Acids or mordants, including vitriol, were extensively used in dyeing, and Saint-Germain was a dyer.”

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

SAINT-GERMAIN TIDBIT

Fuller uses Willem Bentinck's diary as one of the most reliable sources about Saint-Germain, outside of direct correspondence, as Bentinck takes care to be as accurate as he can and to say when he doesn’t recall something. plus, most of his diary entries are made either the night of an occurrence or the following day: very shortly after