Count Saint Germain

Vampire stories stretch back to France in the illustrious 1700s when there was a mysterious man who charmed the courts of Europe. The Comte de Saint Germain was a very strange, extraordinary, and enigmatic character. He was a master of the piano and the violin, could converse in six different languages, and his skills as a conversationalist were unrivaled (a skill that is, nowadays, a lost art). He also composed music, including arias and solo work for the violin.

His wealth was unfathomable: He carried gems around in his clothing and no one knew how he came into such wealth. No one knew anything about his family, where he came from, or who he was. He did, according to some accounts, claim to be a son of Francis II Rakoczi, Prince of Transylvania.

One of his greatest passions was alchemy and he was believed to have an extraordinary talent for maintaining his youth. Perhaps it was his vast knowledge of cosmetics and herbs that kept him young. The philosopher Voltaire called him "the man who knows everything and who never dies." No one really knew his true age. He looked about 40 in all of his portraits and continued to appear so for over half a century.

Although he was charming, engaging, and graced the dinner tables of many dukes and kings, no one had ever seen him eat anything. He would only sip his wine, exquisitely, and ramble on about everything from history to chemistry.

There was much speculation about the Count’s lineage and immense wealth, which resulted in the development of many myths and legends about his background. He is considered by some to have mastered immortality, as many have claimed to have seen him since his death in 1784.

Jacques Saint Germain

Fast forward to New Orleans, Louisiana, and there appears a man by the name of Jacques Saint Germain in the early 20th century. He fits every description of the Comte above: Around 40 years of age with heavy money bags, the most fascinating of dinner guests, and still a complete mystery.

He would throw lavish parties and invite the elite, and everyone would sit enraptured in the conversation and food. But, curiously enough, this Jacques would never eat a morsel—only sip his wine.

One night, several months after moving to New Orleans, he had a lady stay a bit late. Out on his balcony (at the corner of Ursuline and Royal Streets), this Saint Germain grabbed her and tried to bite her neck. She escaped by falling from the balcony and then reported the incident to the police.

When the police came to investigate, Jacques Saint Germain had vanished. They searched his apartment and found tablecloths with large splotches of blood on them. They searched the kitchen, where they found no sign of food or evidence that food had ever been there. All they found were bottles of wine, and, after pouring themselves a glass, drinking it, and then spitting it out, they discovered that it was not only wine in those bottles—it was wine mixed with human blood.

It is unclear whether the Count Saint Germain and Jacques are the same person, but believers speculate that they are. To this day, the mysterious figure of the Count Saint Germain has his own occult following, from theosophists to complete way-out-there mystics.

Although he allegedly died in the year 1784, no one saw his death and some claim to have seen him many years afterward. Nevertheless, he disappeared from court life. (I would, too, if I knew that the French Revolution was coming, which some people claim he had foreseen.)