In the early twentieth century in New Orleans, Louisiana, a certain Jacques St. Germain appeared. Where he came from is unknown, but he immediately settled in a luxurious house at 1039 Royal Street.
The man quickly made a good impression on everyone with his exquisite manners, good looks, and besides, he was obviously quite rich.
He quickly showed that he was also very generous, throwing parties and spending money left and right almost every day. The entire elite of the city began to visit his house, and although many communicated with him directly, none of them learned anything personal about him.
Jacques spoke fluent French, English and Spanish, he apparently traveled all over the world and talked a lot about different countries. At the same time, none of his stories was about himself, but this was not particularly interesting for the rich public.
Weeks passed weeks, months after months, and soon one or the other person began to notice various oddities behind Saint-Germain. So he never went out somewhere during the day, and many of his stories told about old times, and he told everything in such detail, as if he had seen everything personally.
Rumors spread that Jacques Saint-Germain was actually a descendant of the enigmatic French Count Saint-Germain, and maybe even himself.
Count Saint-Germain lived in France during the Enlightenment and officially passed away on February 27, 1784. He was credited with extensive knowledge in alchemy and other fields, he knew many languages, was excellently oriented in history. Saint-Germain still remains one of the most mysterious figures in the history of France in the 18th century, and after his official death, he was allegedly seen more than once not at all aged even after many years.
The famous contemporary of Saint-Germain, the adventurer Giacomo Casanova, criticized him and called him a crook.
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“This extraordinary man, a born deceiver, without any hesitation, as something self-evident, said that he was 300 years old, that he possessed a panacea for all diseases, that nature had no secrets from him, that he could melt diamonds and out of ten or twelve small ones, make one large, of the same weight and, moreover, of the purest water."
But Casanova also admitted that Saint-Germain is an amazing person: "Oddly enough, as if, against my will, the count unconsciously amazes me, he managed to amaze me …".
At first, the stories about the descendant of the Earl of Saint-Germain were perceived with skepticism by the public of New Orleans, but then someone noticed the outward resemblance of Jacques and the old portrait of the Earl of Saint-Germain and gossip turned into facts.
It also became apparent that New Orleans Saint-Germain looked about 40 years old, the same age as the French at the time of his death. And when the French Saint-Germain was seen decades later, he, too, looked no more than forty years old.
Engraving of Saint Germain by Nicholas Thomas in 1783.
The French Saint-Germain was fond of alchemy, and was also supposedly obsessed with the idea of creating an elixir of immortality. What if he finally succeeded?
Jacques Saint-Germain of New Orleans did not seem to hear about all these rumors and continued to arrange lavish feasts on 1039 Royal Street. But they already looked at him much more closely and quickly noticed that the man himself never eats or drinks from a rich selection of dishes and drinks. He only occasionally drank something from his glass.
This observation is remarkably similar to another note by Casanova about the French Saint-Germain. Casanova wrote that he had a pleasant conversation at the same feast with Madame de Robert Gergie, who had come with Saint-Germain. And Saint-Germain ate nothing for the whole feast, just told different stories.
All these observations eventually led to new rumors. Stories spread throughout New Orleans that the strange rich stranger was not just Saint Germain himself, but also a vampire. New rumors, like all previous ones, undoubtedly reached Jacques himself, but he seemed to be having fun with all this. He never confirmed or denied anything.
But soon something happened that ended Saint-Germain's stay in New Orleans. A few months after his arrival at 1039 Royal Street, a local girl of easy virtue suddenly jumped out of the window of this building from an upper floor. The girl survived, but she was very scared.
When the police questioned her, the girl said that Jacques Saint-Germain attacked her and wanted to bite her in the neck. She began to resist and it was at that moment that she fell out of the window.
Despite rumors, no one believed the girl, she was just a cheap priestess of love, and Jacques had already become a respected local resident. However, the police paid Saint-Germain a warning visit, saying that this was just a formality.
The police and Jacques eventually kindly said goodbye, agreed that the next morning Jacques would go to the police station and sign the formal testimony, shook hands, Jacques closed the door behind them and … no one ever saw Jacques Saint-Germain in New Orleans again. And in some other city too.
The police the next morning, when Saint-Germain did not show up at the station, searched his house and found that all his belongings were in place. There are also various valuable luxury items that he bought. And in the upper room in which Saint-Germain slept, the police found several bottles with … human blood.
After that, legends about the vampire circulated around the city for a long time, and soon everything was so mixed up that it became impossible to separate real facts from fictions. Was Jacques Saint-Germain just an eccentric rich man with a sadistic attitude, or did he really drink human blood? Did the police find bottles of blood in his house, or are they late inventions? There are more questions than answers.
