Count of St. Germain | Did the Most Mysterious Man in History Actually Exist?

In the 18th century, a strange man swept Europe's most elite crowds off their feet with an endless toolkit of impressive skills and attributes. His abilities to move through high society gave him a huge impact on the events of history, so much so that many started to think he might be immortal. However, the more attention he received, the more questions that arose. Who was this man? Where had he come from, and how did he possess a lifetimes worth of skills all while refusing to share his age or background? Today we're diving into history's most mysterious man, the Count of Saint-Germain. This is Red Web. Welcome back Task Force to another episode of Red Web, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries true crime and the unknown. I am your resident mystery enthusiast, Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing this case for the very first time, Alfredo Diaz. Yeah, I don't know much if anything about this case at all, so very interested to see what's going to go down. It seems like an illusion, like magic tricks, stuff like that. An illusion. Especially during these times where people suspended their disbelief a lot more than they do nowadays. Totally. It's a good place to be. I think coming in with a little ounce of skepticism doesn't hurt with this one because you're right. Around the 18th century, you know, you can woo your way into the room maybe. You can put on a good show, put on a good story. But what's so interesting is that this guy actually, low-key reminds me of you, Alfredo. You move in mysterious ways. This is the kind of guy who lays no breadcrumbs and tells stories that get you twisted on who he is. You got your little pranks, your little post-mortem, ARG clues that you're going to leave behind. That's very count of St. Germain code. Interesting. That sounds nothing like me, but, you know, mm-hmm. Okay. Well, we're off to the start. We're off to the races here and already it's happening. And already it's happening, the gaslighting, but it's so interesting that this man, again, has a huge footprint on history, things that have happened. The stories that permeate this guy's life are fascinating and completely outweighed by the question of who is he, where's he come from? How do we know nothing else about him? And I think it's part of his nature. Of course, we're going to explore everything about him, what little we know about his history and then some of his most famous ties. I'm talking about people like Mozart to King Louis the 15th. This man was Rubin Elbo's with the elite. And again, we have no idea where he comes from. So, of course, we have theories that attempt to fill in the gaps. Was this man an immortal? Was he a vampire? Or do we have identities that might line up with the man that we know as the count of St. Jouement? Or is he a con artist? Oh, that's a good one. You know, I remember because the World Cup was happening, there was a story because way back when there was a guy that did the same thing where he knew he was just, he was putting himself in situations where he was friends with the right soccer players for years and then got them to vouch for him. And so he ended up for like 10 years playing in different soccer clubs, but was always injured. Oh, that's awesome. So he just would sign and get injured and whatnot, but yeah, so he just collected the player that never played. He's not, he's like, yeah, he'd like never played and it just collected. Who is the, do you guys, what's this guy's name? This is, I have not heard of this, but you're totally right. That might be very much one of the theories we explore because like, I mean, it is one of the more grounded like, well, what else could be going on? Sure. But we're going to explore all the nooks and crannies. That is so interesting. The soccer player that never played, but stayed on teams. How does the next, how does team number three, okay? Team number three, egg all over your face. What are you doing? I don't know. It also, you know, it didn't need too much. We were just like, oh, okay, and I get to just ride this for free. That's just like wild. Yeah. Yeah. And before we dive into today's episode of freedom, we got some exciting stuff happening. It's our first stretch goal, which is unveiling over the month of September. It's called friend slot timber because we love ourselves some friend slot video games. Yeah. Every Thursday, we're releasing a new gameplay collab with a lot of familiar faces because Nikki dragon, midnight snack, regulation, then we made the dumb decision to play Mario Party with Michael. We added full. Yeah. So that was pleasant. Help even it all out. Yeah. We drag Michael Jones into Mario Party because we're sadists, but you'll see how that goes later in the month. But yeah, every Thursday this month, they're free for everybody, okay? But they're exclusively on Patreon. So head to redwebpod.com every Thursday if you want to see those. Yeah. And this week, we're playing in Volker with stinky dragon. And let me tell you, it is Jumanji, the video game. It is awesome in every way possible. Mm hmm. Yeah. We played this for ourselves. I think last week, so now it's fun to get to play with some people. We're familiar with the dice, but of course, that's not the only thing happening this week. This Friday, we have movie club annihilation. It's an incredible movie. And it was voted on by you guys in our Patreon poll. So thank you so much and come enjoy that once again at redwebpod.com tons coming this month. We'll see you then, but otherwise back to the episode. Okay. So this is going to be a long one. I'll try to truncate where possible because there's a lot of detail in this. But I find this story to be so, so fascinating. So the Count of Saint-Germain, or in French, to try to do it justice, the Count de Saint-Germain was a European scholar who rose to prominence throughout the 18th century. He was a gifted musician, an alchemist, a textalist, and so much more, I mean, a true Renaissance man of the Enlightenment era. And he seemingly had huge impacts on history, as much as we know it, thanks to his ties to famous names, royal names, I mentioned Mozart, King Louis XV, just to name a few, but the wild part is, as you know now, no one knows who he really was or where he came from. He's having all these impacts, but he's essentially a ghost with no history. What we do know is fragmented, it's cryptic, and it's almost by design, and while he was fully integrated into the European high society across multiple nations and many different royal families, much of his life is lived in ambiguity. His exact origins are, themselves, hard to know, some sources point to his birth year as 1691, others cite many years later in 1712. In fact, he was reportedly known to be quite reluctant about speaking of his upbringing, and never somebody would ask him, "Hey, who are you, where you come from? What is your real name?" He would divert the question, or he would respond with something even more cryptic. A question to answer a question, or even a puzzle at times. His reluctance to discuss his background only further fueled people's curiosity, as you can imagine, especially in the courts, where people are royal and have nothing but gossip to trade, because money means nothing to the royals. Some thought, you know, he might have been from Spain. Others thought maybe this is a Portuguese man. He's a Venetian, we don't know. He would never confirm, and again, this is where I say he's very fratocoded when you're playing those deception games, he never confirms nor denies. He just lightly and vaguely assumes, uh, something noble of lineage, right? This man sounds like a goddamn con artist. I mean, but how do he get into the room? And if he's a con artist, where does he come from, right? These are the questions, like, it's a valid, it's a valid theory, but these are the questions we're going to have to ask is like, how did he get all the money in order to get to these positions? And the money necessary to accrue the actual education that he had. I mean, you know, big thing is, and this is a saying that people take lightly, but fake it to you make it is the thing. It really is. Soccer player example number one. Right. Exactly. And it's this the scales, you know, yeah. If you confidently like, I don't know for my personal thing is when I get invited to an after event or whatever, and then someone's like, Oh, yeah, your, your name's on the less road or whatnot. Mhm. When I walk in looking confused, we're like, Oh, can we help you, you know, what's your name, et cetera. But when I just walk up and be like, Hey, and then walk through people are like, cool. Yep. All right. You know, and again, faking it to you make it, but it's just one of those things where that that that scales, you know. It really does. Or even if you're making content, if you talk big and, you know, your productions big, you could be small. There's so many times as if you watch the content creator, uh, and they're just the productions through the roof and the presentations fantastic and then they're just a small content creator and go, wait a minute, they, they seem so much bigger than they actually are. Yeah. And so that could literally be what this person is doing where he just is acting like hot stuff, royalty, whatever the hell and people are questioning it, you know. Yeah. Yes. And he's just kind of, uh, dancing around the subject for sure. I mean, you're, you're on the right path. We're going to talk all about that towards the theory section. But like the real, the real question on that theory is, how did he get the stuff to back [BLANK_AUDIO] up. How does he have the goods, right? And we'll kind of explore that. So look for those nuggets as we kind of explore his very ambiguous life. But of course, you know, he he comes from money, mysteriously. He's well traveled and he manages throughout his life to make these powerful connections, kind of in every city that he goes to. You know, you got Paris, London, Vienna, St. Petersburg, over in Russia, Amsterdam. So he is all over the literal map. And not only is he well traveled, he's incredibly smart. He was what's known as a polymath. Someone who has not like casual understanding of multiple subjects, but like a deep, learned, almost mastery of different subjects, whether it be science, math, like chemistries, or even the arts and literature and music. He allegedly, and we don't know, spoke 12 different languages. So it would make him a polyglot. I can see him alluding to, you know, say alluding to I can speak many languages. I can see that. To infiltrate many different courts in many different lands, I'm sure he would have to know the languages, but I could also imagine in a very Frado-esque way, he's up in the Royal French court, and he's just like spitten gibberish that sounds like English, but he only knows French. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. He's like, he's faking it and he's making it. So I was working. Okay. So continuing his trend of curious ambiguity, he was known as the Count of Saint-Germain in the 1740s. But before that, he seemingly went by almost countless different aliases. And they're all in different languages, so I will butcher some of these in no particular order. You have the Marquess of Marfarat, the Count Belmar, the night-skoning, Count Weldon, Count Sultacoff, Manuel Doria, Graf Ziraghi, and Prince Ragazzi. Historians know these names via different memoirs that seem to allude to the same man. There's various papers and diplomatic reports that all kind of point to this really interesting and mysterious charming man. And so historians, again, without knowing who each of these people are, kind of triangulate him to be the same entity. Speaking of which, the first documented record of the Count comes from a letter from the fourth Earl of Oxford, Horus Walpul, in the letter which some date to 1745, and of course others date to different years like 1743, he writes that the Count was arrested on suspicion of being a Jacobite spy. Now this episode is riddled with historical tangents that I absolutely want to take, but I won't do many of them justice. So, in short, Jacobite spies were secret agents tasked with passing information that would help restore the house of Stuart, a royal family in Britain, to the British throne. There's a lot of double agents happening in there, and it's very interesting, I love me some history, but that's what he's accused of being. However, he was then free to go after he was questioned by the Duke of Newcastle and no evidence seemed to come up, but a quote Walpul here in what he wrote. Again, this is the first documentation of the Count of Saint Germain. Quote, "The other day they seized an odd man who goes by the name Count Saint Germain. He has been here these two years and will not tell us who he is or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an Italian, a spaniard, a pole, ae somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople, a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman." We are throwing everything at the wall. Everything is on the wall and it all might be sticking, apparently. It seems like it is. It almost feels like he's become such a grand tale that now people also want to be able to tell the story. You didn't mean to embellish it as well, like story tellers and whatnot. Yes. That is kind of what it feels like. Oh, I like that. It's become so big. People want to get in on it. It's grand, it's a tale. Yeah, right. Money means nothing because you got more dollars than cents as it were. Gossip is the commodity of the rich. I feel like that's a quote actually, but like, of course, they want to, oh, my reputation precedes me. He leans into it. Everyone else is going, have you heard of this guy? The count? I don't know what he is. I love it. All the things that Wal-Pool's putting out there. There's one right in the middle where he might have been somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico that ran off with the jewels to Constantinople. Like, what a story. Talk about a wild story. It's a lot. I feel like one of those has to be real. It's so much bigger than who I will confidently say, like, who he is. I doubt he's on all these things, but that's just again, you know, that's just kind of where it is. I think that's the kind of storytelling that he's looking for. That's the kind of mysteriousness that he wants to be taken as. Yes. I've got to believe, though, that he is sprinkling in the truth, clouded with a forest of grand lies. You know, like, oh, yeah, I mean, well, a lie starts grounded in some form of truth. So, he might have known of the people or read about it, or, you know, or even been in close proximity. He might just be absorbing, like, the blob, every story of every interesting person he's ever known. Like the Dosa Keys guy. He's the most interesting man in the world, but really maybe of this list, the most humble one is a fiddler. He could just be a violinist that travels and because he travels to play music, he picks up languages easily. And from there, you know, he can weave his tail. Ah, but it gets so much more interesting when we talk about his, his connections, right? Because the count integrates with high society seemingly with ease. He just blends right in. He walks into a room kind of like you said, like he owns the place. And he does have the talent to back it up. It isn't that he just knows how to play a tune, but he is very learned, knows a lot about history, knows a lot about a lot of things. And so you'd think he'd be caught out on one of these lies if he was making that up. I mean, it sounded like a great gaspies situation here. That's exactly what you, that might be what great gaspies based on. That's how I'm feeling. He might have, you know, he might have experienced these things and then he's just taking parts of it and creating his, his persona. And it's become this, that may it's worked. It's become this big huge thing. I love that you said that that, that sits well with me. Right? Yeah, I think that shape fits that little, you know, elementary school puzzle that you play with. Well, let's talk about, like, some of the rooms that he enters, some of the people he's rubbing elbows with and honestly, like only scratching the surface, but some of these seemingly just like huge historical moments that he would have had a part in will start humble and then we'll move our way up. But again, he he's moving through society. He's impressing people with his talents. One of those being, of course, music, we talked about that. So we'll start there. In fact, there are several stories about the count being a remarkable musician. And there is a musician historian named Charles Bernie. And this is many centuries ago. So he and he is very reputable. And he himself credited the count with a couple different compositions. Most notably, you have the composition called the six sonatas for two violins. This is back in 1747. And then you have the seven solos for a violin in 1758. Now, I believe the latter is still widely attributed to him. Whereas the initial one from 1747, modern historians disagree and have a different composer in mind for who wrote that. But also like, you know, I will say this devil's advocate. This could be a product of hearsay at the time, right? Given the count was widely believed to have composed many successful pieces. And many have been lost to time. The rumor mill could have been churning ahead of him. Like you're saying stories get fantasticalized on his behalf. And so he just goes, yeah, if you don't know who wrote that, then maybe I did. I'll never tell you exactly. And so people go, he did it. He did it. Which is just so wild. It's just so, but if you, if you're confidence, you know, even appearances, if you're a good looking person, like that stuff carries, it's, it's wild. Good looking fit person walks into a room and, you know, people notice and people tend to warm up to that person easier, you know, take their lead. Like these are just, it's just human nature, things that happen. To quote Jeremy Clarkson of the grand tour, looking good is more important than looking where you're going. And I think that's what this guy is doing. Damn. Okay. And that's a man that was driving a car at the time. So it was a little out of touch. But I think you're right. Because this guy was well known to be handsome. He had the looks about him. He was definitely a lady's man though he never really professed to have been with many women. That wasn't one of his kind of resume fillers, so to speak. Now he did play the violin in the harpsichord very well. You know, the old percussive piano-looking instrument that you'd see. And it's in many Renaissance pieces. Now he is said to have been able to play to many courts without a written score. So whether this be improvisation or memory, of course, to a royal court, this would look incredible, right? And so immediately he's starting on a very, very strong foot. You know, from this, it began to be rumored that he was good friends with iconic musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, although I will say there's not a lot of evidence or proof to back that up. - Brian, I'd rather say you gotta give me something. I need something. It's not like he stole any of his compositions or anything, but they're like, I imagine people were like, "Well, being such a highly proficient musician yourself, "you must know of Mozart." And then he would say, "I would either confirm "no to die," and then they would say, "Okay, it's you, you're the guy." - Yeah, it's kind of like the, those people that are like mentalists like go fishing for information, and they're like, "I'm sensing, "tars of the jane," and they're like, "I know a John!" - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yep. - Mm-hmm. - It does feel a little bit like that. - It does feel a lot of it like that. Again, more dollars than cents. King Louis the 15th, let's talk about that. So Mozart is, of course, the only famous name, but one of the biggest ones, which is why we'll talk about him here, is the king. In 1748, the count made his way to Versailles, and it was introduced to King Louis the 15th via the Duke of Belial. So it's always via somebody he knows. Again, it's this like schmoozing his way through and up the chain. Now, he was introduced to the court as an expert in industrial chemistry, textiles, and dies, which you can imagine for the time was a big thing. Purple being one of the hardest dies historically to kind of create, but also being very regal. - Oh, that is that why it's kind of regal in everything. I believe so, it was like, it was rare and hard to get. Again, I'm kind of out of pocket here, but that's my memory, my little factoid there, is that it was a royal color reserved for the rich. But I mean, he also profess to say that his ways with dies and fabrics would leave your clothes looking more luxurious, being more fine, and stronger, more long lasting, all of that stuff. These promises begin to stack. - Sure. - But he's also coming to the court wearing diamonds and looking himself like he has something to back it up with, like his clothes, he's dripped out. - He himself is looking the part. - Yeah, and he has said that he's been able to remove flaws from diamonds, and again, manufacturer clothing. And so these two skills together, the king is like, oh, I gotta hear about this. I need to look iced out. So this caught the attention of the king's mistress at the time. Madame de Pompadour, who of course is known to be a lover of cosmetics, of jewelry, like many in the court were. And the count himself dressed, like I said, in elaborate diamonds in this caught the eye of many. The elaborate and overly expensive garb kind of helps dissuade any suspicion. It almost backed up his image in the court and carried a little bit of promise of what he was implying, what he was promising. Now allegedly de Pompadour is made, recalled saying this, quote, he dressed simply, but with taste. War magnificent diamonds on his fingers and snuff box and amused himself by letting people believe that he had lived for centuries, end quote. - Now I just get like supernatural and stuff. - Yeah, yeah. This is the first time we hear about this immortality. We will dive a lot into this later, because let's just say his life doesn't end when he dies. - What? - There's a lot more after it. - What? - How in the what? - This man and his BS it all around the world is legendary. It's truly legend, wait for it, dairy. I mean, and now you understand where I was coming from with this idea that you're gonna lay all these tapes down for your children and your grandchildren to stumble into when you pass away at the tender age of 111, and yeah, this guy is doing that. Proactive. - He's doing it, man, he's laying out the blueprints. - He is, and it will manifest to great, to great fruit. So the king was so impressed with these skills that he gave the count access to apartments at the Chateau de Chambol. Now this is where I wanna show you an image, Frado. The Chateau itself is extravagant beyond belief, but this is where the count was able to set up his laboratory, and I believe the king gave him somewhere around the neighborhood of 100,000 francs to begin his textile lab. - Damn. - Not a shabby little place to set up shop. - That is insane. Was this a castle mansion? - Yeah, it's a castle, yes. - Castle? - Jeez, it's so massive, but the architecture, it's so wild because you have like the first three floors kind of mansion-esque-looking. - Yeah, like in a state. - Like in a state, yeah. And then you have all this architectural towers or something, turrets, stuff like that. All on top that just are designed in a different way. And again, more tower-esque than mansion-building. - Mm-hmm. - On top of that, and those are multiple floors. Three, four floors, possibly. - Big towers, for sure. It's a gorgeous building. - And then lush grass. - Yeah. - And then it has the reflection from the pond. Oh my God, that's a beautiful place. - It's stunning, dude. That's the kind of place that the minute you finish mowing the lawn, you start over again. It's just so big. So this is where he's set up. And I'll go ahead and jump to the chase. Different accounts of different years, of course. We don't have a very bulletproof timeline, but he was here somewhere between three and 12 years. Testing dies and pigments, experimenting with fabrics. And you'd have to believe that if after three years, let's just say he's the soccer player who comes up with injuries year after year, the king's gonna be like, all right, where's my die? Where's my fabrics? Where's my, my garb? But he keeps on keeping on. He stays in this place for a while. - Again, man, he just is BSN. He's tricking everybody. In the same way, the soccer players kept tricking these clubs and be like, I'm the greatest soccer player. Oh, I injured, but like, you know. (groans) - My Achilles, so mad about it. - Yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, I broke my beaker. I can't work on the textiles today. But hey, King, I noticed you were talking about politics. I have opinions because that's what happens next. He kind of moves beyond experimenting with textiles and gems. It is said that the king came to trust him so much with sensitive information about diplomatic missions that he became himself a close confiner of the king who then relied on his knowledge of European politics to then make decisions that would have broad sweeping ramifications across the nation in even in Europe. The king also found that the count had the ability to navigate complex alliances that were present during the time. And whether this guy actually knew what he was talking about having talked and known some of these families or not is yet to be known. But at least the king had a very good confidence in his way of words. You know, so maybe he just knows people really, really well and was able to like, help the king network around people the same way. - Yeah. Now he became so intertwined that some historians believe that he had a secret part to play in the negotiations between European powers during the seven years war. Some reports state that the king sent the count of the Dutch Republic now present-day Netherlands to negotiate an independent peace treaty agreement with Great Britain in a attempt to end this war. But upon discovery, France's prime minister, the Duke de Choisseau was furious. He attempted to expose the count, calling him a fraud and a spy. All that is to say, like, that's a wild moment in time to have this guy of all people in a key position. - I mean, I could see. I'm sure I'm sure it's not the first, though. - And the prime minister's like, king, what are we doing here? This guy's a fraud. And he's not the only person to call it out. We'll talk about somebody else and their letter about it later on. So ultimately, the Duke kind of forced him out in 1760. The king didn't really step in in order to save the reputation of the royal family, 'cause he's not gonna put his reputation on the line for this count. He's got bigger fish to fry. But of course, some sources say that the count fled willingly. Though again, this guy's a smooth talker. I wouldn't be surprised if he goes, they didn't break up with me. I broke up with them, you know, like, who knows? Now as a caveat to this time and his time with the king, I will say that this is just one version of his life story. Again, other sources state that his time with the royals was much shorter, first meeting them years later, like nine years later in 1757. So instead of being with them 12 years, some say that he was there for three years either way. In the two years that followed this chapter of his life, there were some conflicting reports of his whereabouts. This is kind of an ambiguous unknown. We don't really know where he was around 1760. Some sources say that he went to London and spent some time others say, he traveled to the Dutch Republic, acting as an informal diplomat in an attempt to mediate between the great powers of France, Britain, and Prussia, again, anyone's word against somebody else's, we won't know. You know, they have investments in this person, too, so they're going to want, you know, they're going to have a bias in mind to believe them and stuff. And honestly, you know, he will learn valuable information that he can trade his way into the next house, you know, so I think you're on to something like, because this is kind of setting the road for where we're about to go to Russia, to Germany, but just because he's found out and maybe forced out of one country's high society, doesn't mean that he doesn't now have a resume, he has secrets to tell, he has seemingly provided some value. And so anybody else could maybe say like, yeah, this guy might be a charlatan, but maybe I can at least get a little bit out of him before he tries to do whatever. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's what it is, right, you're going to try and grab as much you can and then dip and then just keep the cycle going. You're like, oh, well, I know that he's a charlatan, so therefore I'm immune. Like, honestly, maybe you're not, but we do know after a few years of curiosity there, in 1762, he shows up in St. Petersburg, Russia, he was there to kind of get rid of Sarpito the third and make way for Catherine the great to become Empress of Russia. However, it's worth mentioning that this could have been a simple mix up. We don't have many pieces of information here. One source notes that it might have actually been a French soldier that helped with this and had a similar name. This would have been Claude Louis des Saint-Germaux. So somebody with a similar last name or a similar title at the end, which then, of course, you think, oh, Saint-Germaux, that might be the count, but we don't really know, it could be this soldier. And then we jump forward a few years. By the 1770s, the count was then in Germany, serving on the court of Prince Charles of Hezekassel. It was there that his life finally began to slow down a bit. Prince Charles shared several common interests with the count, including scientific enlightenment and other esoteric topics. He and the count would reportedly engage in long conversations about philosophy, religion, and natural sciences, and the count would also provide advice about military provisions, and he also continued his work with textiles and even worked in medicine. So again, showing that he is at least well proficient or knowledgeable enough to carry on these conversations, but it was here in Hesse that he would work until his death on February 27th, 1784, after suffering from pneumonia of all things, and his death was recorded in the town of Ekernferda, where his grave now lies. A little over a month after his death, the city auctioned off the remaining of his personal items since he had no living relatives that anyone knew about, at least. However, prior to and even after his death, there were strange statements and circumstances that suggest everything might not have been as it seemed. So like I said, his life continues on in a very storied way after his death. It doesn't surprise me that everything is a mystery. Now I'm very curious to see as we did discuss like, their stuff after his death that still continues. And so what could that be? How does this legacy live on? Right. Right. In this, I will say, kind of keep this in the back your mind task for us, because Fred don't know you and I are on this wavelength, this could be the echoes and byproduct of a very strong rumor mill, a man whose reputation vastly preceded him. And therefore, you know, when you're primed to see a ghost or hear a sound, maybe you do. And so I'm very curious as we go through some of these kind of detailed encounters, what you're thinking, because some of those kind of grind against this. And so we'll explore again some of the theories behind this. But by this point in time, you know, 1784, he would have been anywhere between 90 something and 70 something. Again, we don't know that birth year. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a long time, especially for this, this era. Mm hmm. This is where we're going to break down into these post mortem claims that build on his now ever growing reputation as immortal. So using various historical text from the time researchers have noted a running joke, right, a joke that existed throughout the counts time in high society, a joke that he was immortal, a joke that seemed to take on a very unique perspective about the man that was so called the man that never dies because after he had passed very clearly various sightings and encounters with the very same man seemed to keep popping up. But before we dive into those, I do want to say it's unclear where the rumors started. One anecdote points to the countess from Paris. As the story goes, the countess found Gregory upon meeting the count told him, hold on a minute, I know you. And this is when he was alive to be clear. She meets him in a court and she says, I met a man that was strikingly similar. Nay, he looked exactly like you. The only difference is I met him 50 years ago in Venice. She asked if he knew this man. She says like is this your father or anything? Would you have known a man in Venice 50 years ago? To that he replies, no, I don't know that man. I am that man. I met you in the court in Venice all those years ago, and this kind of reminds me of the movie Age of Adeline, where Blake Lively, like, loves this guy, but she can't age for whatever reason. I think a car crash, right? And then flash forward many decades. She falls in love with somebody else who looks just like that guy and they're related. And I'm like, of course, it's easy to sway, you know, maybe a septogenarian here who might be like, you're so handsome, I met someone just like you. And you go, Madame, Madame Waselle, Countess Vonglagari, I met you there. And so a lot of people think that this is where it started, that he was so amused with the idea of fooling her, that he then kept up the facade of, oh, I was never born. I've always been, I've been around for many years, many centuries. Yeah, they got to be a facades. They got to be just some part, I mean, again, I guess I got so big that everyone just wanted to be a part of this grand story or something. Yes, I would, I would be inclined to say so. Yeah. Now, in 1757, a similar instance happened. This is another one of those in-text, hard-written moments where somebody documents the seemingly mysterious age of this man, the almost immortality. I have cut out some excerpts for the sake of time here, but in 1757, an Italian adventurer and writer was famously acquainted with this man and met the Count. This was Jocamo Casanova, and in his memoir, he's kind of thinking back on his time with the Count. And this is what he says, quote, "The most enjoyable dinner I had was with Madame de Robert Galgis, who came with the famous adventurer, known by the name of Count de Saint-Jean-Mal." This individual, instead of eating talked from beginning of meal to the end, and I have followed his example in one respect as I did not eat, but listened to him with the greatest attention. It may safely be said that as a conversationalist, he was unequaled. Saint-Jean-Mal gave himself out for a marvel and always aimed at exciting amazement, which he often succeeded in doing. He was a scholar, linguist, musician, and chemist good-looking and perfect lady's man. This extraordinary man, intended by nature to be the king of imposter and quacks, would say in an easy, assured manner that he was 300 years old, that he knew the secret of the universal medicine that he possessed a mastery over nature that he could melt diamonds, professing himself capable of forming out of ten or twelve small diamonds, one large one of the finest water, without any loss of weight. All this he said was a mere trifle to him, notwithstanding his boastings, his bare face lies, and his manifold eccentricities, I cannot say I thought him offensive, in spite of my knowledge of what he was, and in spite of my own feelings, I thought him an astonishing man, as he was always astonishing me. It's interesting this idea of immortality. On this show, we will entertain these ideas, but we're going to kind of give them a critical analysis. I think what you reacted to there at the end is the thing that I find most interesting about this entire excerpt. He goes on to talk about some of the self-proclaimed skills in a section that I didn't cover in the middle of that letter, but he knows is that this is a smooth talker, but he doesn't care. He knows that the spell is being cast on him, but it didn't matter, because he was still astonished by the stories, and the fact that he was fast talking, never breathed, never ate, just kept going with the stories. And so this self-awareness, I think, is very important when it comes to trying to figure out the truth behind all of this intrigue. Yeah, I mean, it's a confidence that never dropped, and it just kept going, and it's a skill and a technique in itself to be able to carry that on in multiple situations. I don't know, like it's a skill in itself, and it's in his career, his life, long life of getting away with it, with all these different privileges. Yeah, I'm really curious, I want to know the count of St. Jermall before, when he was like fumbling over himself, when he was still building the skills, and we don't hear those stories of the court, because he had maybe a different name at that time, because you must think he had cut his teeth somewhere to pick up this smooth talking and to pick up all these stories. Yeah. Yeah, I think it'd be fascinating to have a documentary on this, you know, like an accurate documentary on this person. As accurate as you can, because Cat did a dang good job at pulling together this wild, nebulous trail of information. Oh, yeah, I mean, I'm talking about just unprecedented access. Yes, yes, I'm with you. Documents are a person or something. Things that have never been read before that go into great detail. Exactly. The man behind the man, you know. And that would, I would sit there with a bowl of popcorn and you would just be fascinating as hell. Yeah. Because you're just like, I don't know, what was, what was their upbringing? You know, what kind of put them on this path? How did they develop the skill sets? These are very good questions. What were the close calls that they had? Like almost getting caught. Yeah, almost caught, maybe lifted, etc. Yeah. Well, sounds like the prime minister of France was way up his butt about it. And so he was like, I'm either kicked out or I'm going to go ahead and kick myself out before all this comes crashing down. But then if you go to an enemy state, the other side of the line, they're not going to listen. I'm not listening to King Louis the 15th. I don't believe a word. He says, oh, but you have things to tell me about my enemy. Come on into my court. You know, like, this is not a European accent to be fair, but could be. Yeah. Yeah. Man, it does sound like somebody escaping out the back room in the middle of the night, pants down, you know, like constant close calls. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly what it seems like. Yeah. And, hey, you know, Connars have been around for generations. And so they were just able to, oh my god, just finesse this entire life. Yeah, dude. Yes. Like all of it, which is so wild to be able to do that. That's such a skill set and its own right. I'm sure the government has people that are just like, yeah, you're a professional con artist or, you know, or I'm sure some of this has been taught. Yes. Absolutely. Secret agents are being taught in the ways of social manipulation and all of that sociology, I suppose. But yeah, ultimately, though, kind of getting to this idea, this conspiracy of, well, you know, maybe it was a joke or maybe it was a confession, right? Like, maybe he was so skilled in all of these things. Some genuinely believe that it would genuinely take somebody who had lived hundreds of years to accrue the skill sets and deep knowledge that he had. And again, I think that's taking at face value because I think you make a great point that maybe he's just lying. I mean, when it comes to talking to some of these guys, like Prince Charles, when you're talking about philosophy, religion, natural sciences, esoteric topics, anyone can kind of have an opinion and wax poetic about the ideas of what happens when you die. It doesn't mean they're deeply learned. It means that they maybe are very thoughtful, maybe good at improv. True. But of course, yes, they also could be educated on the topic. I'm just saying, you know, but to build on that, right? Now we're at a point in time where he's passed away, many drank the coolate of who this guy was. And this is where the next few things happen because one year after his death, the count was allegedly seen attending a free Mason convention where he was chosen as a representative. Now, some have argued that this could be blamed on poor record keeping that it was a mistake in some way or potentially it was just simply a posthumous honor that this ancient society, I mean, the Freemasons are, of course, the cornerstone to many conspiracy theories and and maybe we'll do an episode on them at some point, but they are the world's oldest and largest secular fraternal order. So it's not to say that he was there necessarily could be mistaken identity or posthumous honor again. But later that same year, again, he's still dead. He was seen apparently hanging out in Germany with a physician named Franz Anton Mesmer. Now, if you've ever heard the word Mesmerize, this is the guy who kind of, he didn't coin the term but it's named after him because he essentially created the concept known as animal magnetism, which is the precursor to modern hypnosis and hence the term Mesmerize based on his last name Mesmer. We don't have much other information about that. People have just said they saw him with Mesmer. But now jumping forward a few years, this is where things start to get political again. It's 1789 and it's five years after his death and the count is once again reported to be seen just before Bastille Day. This time the story says that he appeared suddenly to Marie Antoinette and gave her a warning of what was to come for her. He told her about revolutionaries who would storm her castle and behead her along with many others that she needed to escape. Now, some write that Marie Antoinette believed him and others of her court did not believe the story and swayed her against these warnings, hence why she fell victim to what was foretold. You have the Countess, Daddy Mar, who was extremely close to the queen and documented this in her work titled Souveniere's Day Marie Antoinette. So again, I'm going to chop up some of her words here just for the sake of keeping it on topic. But in it she writes that the Count gave these final parting words to the royals. So this is the Countess's experience of what the now dead count said. So in her words, he said this quote, "In opposing yourself to my seeing the monarch, you are losing the monarchy. For I have but a limited time to give to France and I shall not be seen here again until after three consecutive generations have gone down to the grave. It is unfortunate that you should have intervened between his majesty and me. I shall have nothing to reproach myself with when horrible anarchy devastates all France. Frivolous and incapable minister, you will be ranked among those who cause the ruin of empires." Ultimately, and he says a few other more flowery things here, but in other words, Saint-Jermault or the Count of Saint-Jermault is condemning the minister of France for basically impeding his ability to talk with the monarchy because he wanted to basically stop what was about to happen. Like, "Hey, you need to listen to the people. I can stop this ruin if you just listen to me." And the minister said, "Nay." Now, people have kind of said that this is a exaggerated account of what happened. This could be a fictionalized version of what happened, but either way, it does once again point to a. Well, he's dead, yet he's supposed to be here, and he's being recorded in history as being here. And he also talks about saying that I'm not meant to be back in France for another three generations, so you either listen to me or you will all fall to ruin, hence, you know, the French Revolution and everything like that. But. So, is it someone that's picking up the mantle or do we have proof they actually passed? That's a great question. Did he bury the body of somebody else and off he scoots as a 90-year-old man? We don't know. I'm sooner to believe that this is an exaggeration. But why would the Countess, who was so close to the Queen, make this up? Maybe because the rumor mill, because he was a figure bigger than life, maybe, but such an interesting point in time to insert him. It's very interesting. It's also interesting that, like, I don't know, it seems like he's still being so bold now. We've gone this supernatural, like, bold route of. I'm not supposed to be awake for centuries in my wrath type stuff. Like, what? What? Huh? Well, it paints the idea that this guy literally rises from the grave, does his thing to manipulate society, then disappears for a while. And maybe that's why nobody has any living memory of him. But what is interesting, and I don't know if this is, like, coincidence or otherwise, but another sighting wouldn't happen for about three generations after this moment. How are people still remembering who this person is? Or, let me guess, he's outright walking out, be like, it's me. It's all right. It's all right. You have not forgotten about me, because I am everywhere. I am eternal. It's like, what? Bro, just, you're, stay dead. Just stay dead. It is. it is quite wild the how he just keeps like popping up and the cycle continues and everything. So it's very intriguing. And so are people carrying on his story? Are new con people trying to, you know what I mean? Is that we got a point where there's other con artists that are trying to carry on this kind of mantle? - It's great questions. It's great thoughts. 'Cause like it could be a mixture of both of those, whether it was accidental or otherwise, and honestly we're going to talk about both of those angles in the theories, absolutely. But this one's interesting. It doesn't really have a strong leg to stand on in my opinion. It's 1821, it's 37 years after his death now. And this sighting comes from a theosophist named Annie Besant. Now in brief, Besant wrote that the count was spotted at the Congress of Vienna. This was an event that all to the political order of Europe following the Napoleonic Wars, again, truckcating a lot of tremendous and complicated history into two sentences. But ultimately, this would have been a very, very important cornerstone in European history. And the count reportedly showed no signs of aging, even though again, he was nearly 40 years dead. But this puts all the stock of believability into this theosophist Annie Besant. And the question is, can we believe her? Does she have a gambit to play? Or is she being honest? Or is this man who seemingly, as old as her-- in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the count showed up in modern times and says, it is I. My original name is Earth. For I am the first to walk this planet, and I will be the last, like Tom Bombadill. This man is Adam from the Garden of Eden. But again, ultimately, I think a lot of these are fantastic stories that don't stand up to hard evidence and scrutiny. And so it just kind of feels like hearsay. But ultimately, the stories of his life that permeated his death and lasted through time, and the stories after his death have all created a lot of curiosity about who this man was all along. And you might be looking at the runtime and going like, dang, how can we possibly know more about this con artist? But man, there are so many more theories than I possibly could have thought about this guy. And so I'll try to keep him succinct for brevity, but I want to be thorough. So first up, several accounts state that the count himself claimed to have found the philosopher's stone. I believe we've talked about this in other episodes. And of course, it's in a child's novel. But it's a mythical stone, and it's an alchemical substance that does a few things. Cures illnesses, transforms metals, namely lead to gold and all of that good stuff. But most importantly, and its biggest notoriety is granting immortality. Other accounts say that he had a special potion, because he was often seen never eating, but often drinking from a mysterious vile that he maybe took to stay youthful was the idea. These rumors snowballed with some claims that the count never ate or slept. And that's because he was at all of these feasts, it kind of stood out that he never did anything, but talk kind of constantly. And so they're like, well, maybe he doesn't need to eat because he's immortal or something. And that's kind of what we have on that. When we talked about Fulconelli, we went a little bit harder into the philosopher's stone and the idea of alchemy. - It's a pantsable story. It doesn't surprise me that he's reaching even higher. I mean, if you spent a whole lifetime, or at this point in lifetimes, why not just keep reaching higher and higher? - Now, I want a picture of this guy. I mean, I know we flashed one up earlier, and it is a painting, and it is, it's kind of like anybody from the 1700s with that powdered wig, but could you place that, like if this guy was truly immortal, I'd better see that face, you know, somewhere big in modern history, unless he truly is a one-man illuminati deeply behind the scenes, like a puppet master, but he's got a shifty eye, you know what I mean? - Yeah, you'd have to see him plaster all over the place. - Yeah, I don't know. This next one's pretty interesting, and it's long, so instead of being long-winded about its details, I'll try to stay succinct. But if you want more interesting information about it, Task Force, I do encourage you to look up a man named Jacques Saint-Germain, similar name, right? Because similar stories were told about this gentleman, who turned up in New Orleans in the early 1900s. He was calling himself something very similar, again, Jacques Saint-Germain. Now, this man bought a home at 1039 Royal Street, and he became quickly popular in his neighborhood. He was known for hosting extravagant parties, being a great storyteller, and a very charming man. He would often tell his guests of his worldly travels, bumping elbows with important people, even claimed to be related to the legendary count. You know, so of course, because of this, more similarly start to arise, clearly this man knew of the count, and so he could have easily chosen this name to pretend accordingly, but some also think maybe it was him. Now, of course, he would tell fantastic stories about knowing people from centuries ago, weaving wonderful tales about his impact on history and what have you. But similar to the count, questions began to arise about where his wealth came from. You know, he was always wearing expensive clothing and jewelry, despite not really having an obvious career. He just kind of plopped down in New Orleans, bought up a really nice house, and then hosted parties. Again, like you said, very great Gadsby. - Yup. - But he also withheld a lot of personal information. Anytime people would ask questions, you know, he wouldn't say much. Though a lot of people also then started to say, and maybe they're just kind of like, drinking his cool aid, wait a minute. This guy has an oddly eerie resemblance to the count of Saint Germain, like he looks nearly identical. Now, apparently this guy, Jacques, was also fluent in multiple languages, had the same high class style, was never seen eating food, was also seen drinking mysterious substances out of tiny vials, never seen sleeping, though nobody watches me sleep, hopefully. And ultimately rumors begin to build. And in modern times now, especially in New Orleans, this is very popular urban legend, the label of an immortal vampire was beginning to be placed on this guy. So, okay, you might be the count of Saint Germain, but maybe you're an immortal because you're a vampire. Now, this is where I'm gonna kind of truncate a little bit. There's a party one evening, and everything comes to a halt when a bystander outside sees a woman, throw herself out the second story window of this mansion. She does survive and she attempts to flee ultimately police detain both Jacques and this woman, and question both of them. She tells police that he tried to bite her on the neck, and out of desperation tried to escape, throwing herself through the window and out onto the street below. And the police tells Jacques, "Sir, we don't believe her one bit." But out of formality, we will still come to your estate tomorrow and we can get a statement and then we can put this all behind us. Well, again, as the story goes, they arrive at his house the next day, and it is eerily dark and quiet. It looks a little disheveled like somebody left in a hurry, but all the drapes had been closed. The house was a little dingy and dark, like more so than a party that would have been thrown the previous day. And again, this could just be exaggeration to build on this intrigue, but apparently one of the few things they did find were bottles of wine supposedly mixed with human blood. And after this, Jacques Saint-Germain was never seen again, disappearing as quickly as he seemingly arose. It's just, I feel like someone must have, people must have taken the name and ran with it. I think that's what's happening here. I don't know if a vampire named Jacques showed up. I think that is what happened, which is wild to just be, you know, someone that appears to be this very skilled con artist and then people further down the line go, "You know what, I'll carry on that legacy." I too will be a man of mystery, but you know, you gotta have the gumption and the gall and honestly the stacked resume to make it work. Someone, listen, there's at least three different languages tumbling around New Orleans in modern times, certainly more, but like, and it is a melting pot of cultures and religions and histories and peoples. So if anywhere, if you're gonna drop in and try to tell a story, this is a city where you kind of need to know your stuff or you will be outed as a charlatan, for sure. But man, just as an aside, New Orleans is beautiful, but I am so the deeper web and lore that underlies because of it being a melting pot. There's so much folklore and urban legend and like, and I had no idea, there's a lot of witchcraft there and a lot of, I had no idea how big and popular vampirism was in New Orleans until I visited. Oh yeah, that too. - To just name a few, but yeah, it's a beautiful city. The next few are building up to kind of the one where I think you and I settled, to be honest, but they're all still very interesting. So strangely enough, this would not be this Jacques character would not be the last time someone claimed themselves to be Count of Saint Germain. In the 1970s, getting quite modern now, there was a Frenchman named Richard Schoenfre, who started his magic career in a Parisian theatre. So now you're ready. Now you're seeing as you kind of guesstimated earlier, a bit of magic in play. Now he claimed that he was in fact the count, and that he could turn lead into gold. He reportedly went on several European television programs, claiming that all of his magical illusions were not illusions or tricks at all, but instead proof of his alchemical powers. However, by the early 1980s, his career had begun to fade, and he did demonstrably pass away in June of 1983. And so if this was kind of St. Germain, we got him good, he's dead, or he's still kicking somewhere, right? I mean, he hasn't popped up since. Not that we know. You know, we're going to post this episode in a week later. Florida man claims to be ancient man from 1700s France. That is, that is how it works for us. Yeah. Yeah. I mentioned theosophy early on and kind of buried the lead there, but there's a different woman. Helena Blavatsky. She was the co-founder of the Theosophical Society, and she believed that the count of St. Germain was one of the immortals known as the Masters of Ancient Wisdom. She wrote that the count did not die in 1784, but actually transitioned into a spiritual master to guide humanity onward. She implies that she had encountered the count before, either physically or psychically we don't know, but during her world travels, she had some interface with the count. And that he had given her secret documents to create her esoteric creed. Now, this feels very modern religion form, right? Now, the idea here of the count became ingrained into her theosophy, this religion, and even after Blavatsky's passing, the count seemed to become almost etched now permanently as a cornerstone of theosophy. The successive leaders of the society formally named him the "hierarch of the age of Aquarius" and quote. And you know, theosophy is kind of like any form of religion, I believe, that takes itself as knowing secret knowledge about God or nature or what have you. So I don't mean that it is a specific one religion, but Blavatsky's iteration of it deeply incorporated the idea of, or the identity of the count into it, and therefore it kind of took on a life of its own, but again, it doesn't really answer who the count was, except for her theory, which is to say that he was essentially a god among men, a spiritual guide of humanity. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, again, we're shooting so high now. That one's hard to prove, you know? There's a lot of religions, there's thousands of religions, all hard to prove. That one's a little difficult to prove, yeah. When a religion, I don't know, especially in modern times, takes an individual with such an interesting background that we can't help but want to say con artist, and then that's the cornerstone of the religion. It's already built on a flimsy foundation, and so for me, it's hard to build on, you know? Yeah, I agree. But it's interesting. I like the idea. Yeah. Look, I'll still hear it out in the fan's tale and everything like that, you know? For sure. Yeah. But I mean, I'm not going to subscribe to it. Sure. Okay. Now, I feel like we've buried this lead, but we've made our thoughts kind of clear on this along this road. Now, this brings us to our final theory. It's reported that on his deathbed, the count gave a final clue as to his true identity. We don't know this for sure, but per the story, he revealed that he was the youngest son of Francis Rococce, the second, the prince of Transylvania. Now this isn't to bring in vampires again, but it is coincidental. He claims that he studied at the University of Siena, which was considered one of the best institutions at the time. This would explain his exuberant wealth of knowledge as well as his material item background, right? He's coming from royalty. Now, some have theorized that the Count of St. Germain was actually a normal guy who could get in with the elites, mainly because he was one. He dropped his past, but used his wealth and his knowledge built upon his experience as an heir to a princedom, essentially. That's what gave him his start. This is how we know where his money and knowledge comes from. But from there, he erased the slate and became something else. A brand new person with a mysterious past. This would also explain why he could schmooze with the high society. He could network and sneak into these groups without revealing too much about himself. He would be intimately aware of the lives of the rich and powerful, because ultimately he was one of them, and he just never let that on. And also, he was never known to steal or cheat anybody in any way. So while this might be some form of con, it isn't like the normal O'Conn man. He weasels his way in and then like takes the jewels and runs in the night. It's more of a like, like a noble guy who's got nothing better to do than to like play around with other nobles and maybe guide the fates of mankind, but also like, it seems like he's enjoying himself. Just being playful, I guess, doing his own thing, like that's, yeah, I mean, it's interesting. But I guess this allowed him to be a man without borders. It allowed him to move from court to court without carrying the weight of the previous courts. Like, you know, if he was a prince from Transylvania, that's his label. It would make it difficult for him to maybe navigate society. I don't know what the socio-political landscape of Transylvania was in the 18th century. But ultimately it might be difficult to schmooze with certain groupings. And so if you wipe your labels and wipe your slate, maybe that allows you to have a greater impact and do what you think is best for people or or just have power. Yeah. I just pure power. Now, ultimately to me, this feels extremely possible. To me, we said this along the way, I think we've got a guy with a gifted intellect. He came into money early on, whether he was from the rich and powerful or somehow like, and some sort of 1700s lottery. But ultimately he would domino his way through various high societies using his previous escapades to help pave the way for the next. And every domino that fell would be the next one, right? It's a guy that new theories were more interesting than answers. And so he leaned into it, right? It lets him help navigate the kings and the courts and sway money to his side. I do agree with that, this is a very intellectual individual. Yes. And to kind of reaffirm this, to button it up, because this is where I think my heart really lies. I think we'll never know who he actually is behind it all. I do think that this is an interesting potential confession. It makes sense as to why he would be the heir or the youngest son of a prince who maybe never had, because of that, he was like, I'm 15th in line to be the king. So why even try? Let me go into Europe and have fun with this. But to button up this theory, I want to come back to the excerpt I talked about earlier on. I believe it was with Depampador. Now in some of the readings about what she was saying, she basically says that he got in close with the king by smoothing his way in, right? He was basically talking to a high lady of the court, a high ranking lady, and talks to her about her fair appearance. He's wooing her. I mean, he swooms her so badly that she takes him straight to the king. And he says that I know how to give the gift of forever youth. And normally this would be very expensive. But for you, met him, I will do this for free. And she was because of that so grateful that she goes, okay, I'll have this potion or this makeup or this cream and with an exchange, I will take you to the king. And that's how he then used his snake oil deal to land a hundred thousand francs and then that lab in that chateau. Yep. And this warmed again, warmed his way in. When you pull it out a part, it kind of sounds a little simple. Sounds like, okay, make good with the right person and the doors will open. Right. But it's still like the number of things that have to go right in order for that to work as a whole thing in itself. Yes. This feels very game of thrones, a regular person who just talked their way into the room only to become the second ranking confidant in the room. Yeah. True. No matter how you slice it, con man, Princeton regular dude immortal vampire, it's all a very fascinating story. And I can see how many stories and movies would have been inspired by just pieces of this. Oh, yeah. The tail in itself, you could spend it however many different ways you want to. Yeah. But ultimately, this has been the count of Saint Germain. And I should have said it this at the top, but I want to say thank you to task force members Sandertack for submitting this one. This was quite the mindbender when it came to researching and pulling this one down. Oh, yeah. I bet. Like, what's real? What's not? Is he actually a count? Yeah. Like, why did that start? Yeah. We don't really actually know this person to counter now or just that's just the label that he has. Mm hmm. And maybe I don't know what came first kind of chicken or the egg here, but the fact that he's account from Transylvania and that makes sense pragmatically. But then he's also a count from Transylvania. Transylvania that could be a vampire. I don't know why vampires tend to be counts. I don't know if that was in the original Bram Stoker's Dracula or not. Or if this man also is, I don't know. - I'm sure you like what brought that about, you know? - Yeah, let me see, Bram Stoker. Okay, that was originally published. Okay, at the turn of the century, 1897. So like I said, we have the Great Gaspi. We have the Age of Adeline. We have Bram Stoker, Dracula. - Dracula. - I'm trying to think of other stories, but there's so many other stories that I think that just, like take pieces of this story and run with it. The picture of Dorian Gray, the man who doesn't age until he sees his portrait, and then he like, you know, that also rings true to this story in some way, but ultimately, wow. What I really enjoyed diving into this one, it was so, so interesting. It's this person who just got away with so much. - Well, Task Force, if you're looking for more interesting and historically mysterious people, one who actually comes very close to this story through Catherine the Great would be Resputin. We also have through Alchemy Fulconelli, who is known to be the last Alchemist. We have a whole episode on that man. In fact, we did a mysterious person's month ages ago, and I think we did the man in the Iron Mask. And so there's lots to explore if you wanna go exploring the annals of history and mysterious people. - Oh, shout outs. Oh, yes, Christopher Evans, newest member of the Task Force, thank you for being a Buff Scientist as well, as of like moments ago, thank you very much. - Oh, welcome. - Buff Scientist of the Week is Robbie, and then we also have a new Squunk, Nefarious Bees. I love that name. And of course, Dakota and Neo Trickster, just to name a few. You guys are all amazing and awesome. Thank you for supporting us at redwebpod.com where you get ample and weekly exclusives, including this podcast ad free. But everybody else, thank you for listening and supporting and liking. And if you have comments and theories, let us know if you share this. Oh, we love you. Let us know your theories though, on the count of Saint Germain. - Yeah, do you believe any of the weaves, the stories that he's woven for you? - Well, let us know. With that said, Fredo, we have another glorious mystery to unpack right here, next Monday. I'll see you then.