ABSTRACT
DEALING for the first time, at thirty-three years of age, with a living subject instead of old books and maps, Vannetti was diffident and uncertain like one emerging from an ill-lit and stuffy room into sunlight and open air and the roar of human
crowds. However, he did not care to enter into personal relations with the Count de Cagliostro; he was content to watch him at public gatherings. But there the noise and the promiscuity distracted his attention from his model, and his thoughts would wander to his fellow citizens whose failings always filled him with a painful astonishment. A singular personality had appeared by chance in their midst. Why not study him patiently and form a considered judgment, instead of discussing for hours, as these chatterers did, whether he was entitled to call himself the " Count de Cagliostro "? A name, a mere name, interested them more than genius itself.
