Count Cagliostro, styled the luminary of modern impostors and
debauchees, prepared a very common stomach elixir, which was sold at a
most exorbitant price under the name of "_balm of life_" It was
pretended, with the most unparalleled effrontery, that, by the use of
this medicine, the count had lived above 200 years, and that he was
rendered invulnerable against every species of poison. These bold
assertions could not fail to excite very general attention. During his
residence at Strasburg, while descanting, in a large and respectable
company, on the virtues of his antidote, his pride met with a very
mortifying check. A physician who was present, and who had taken part in
the conversation, quitting the room privately, went to an apothecary's
shop, and ordering two pills of equal size to be made, agreeably to his
directions, suddenly appeared again before the count, and thus addressed
him:--"Here, my worthy count, are two pills; the one contains a mortal
poison, the other is perfectly innocent; choose one of these and swallow
it, and I engage to take that which you leave.
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