before the emperor and empress of the French at the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and Biarritz, at Baden-Baden before the king of Prussia, and at the Hague before the queen of Holland. The scene of the first recorded instance of his levitation on European soil is placed at a château near Bordeaux, belonging to Madame Ducos, wife of an ex-minister of marine. At Rome in March 1858 he became engaged to Alexandrina, youngest daughter of the Count de Kroll, a general in the Russian service, and goddaughter to the Czar Nicholas; he married her at St. Petersburg on 1 Aug. (N. S.), Alexander II giving a diamond ring as a wedding present, to which he added another valuable ring on the birth of a son in May 1859. At London during 1860–1 Home held séances at the house of Thomas Milner Gibson [q. v.], president of the board of trade, whose wife he had met and converted on the continent. They were largely attended by the fashionable world, and described by Robert Bell in an article entitled ‘Stranger than Fiction’ in the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ for August 1860. Other séances were held at Home's house in Sloane Street, at William Howitt's house at Hampstead, at Lord Lytton's in Park Lane, and elsewhere.
Home was now at the zenith of his fame. Among his converts were Dr. Robert Chambers [q. v.], author of the ‘Vestiges of Creation,’ Dr. Lockhart Robertson [q. v.], editor of the ‘Journal of Mental Science,’ John Elliotson [q. v.], the eminent physiologist, and Dr. James Manby Gully [q. v.] In February 1862 Home took his wife to the south of France for the benefit of her health, which had long been failing. She died on 3 July 1862 at Château Laroche, near Périgueux, in the Dordogne, then the residence of her brother-in-law, Count Koucheleff-Besborodka. For six months before her death she is said to have been constantly attended by ‘a veiled female spirit.’ In 1863 Home published an autobiographical fragment, entitled ‘Incidents in my Life,’ London, 8vo, to which Dr. Robert Chambers contributed an introduction and an appendix on the ‘Connexion of Mr. Home's Experiences with those of Former Times,’ and Mrs. Howitt a memoir of Mrs. Home. The bulk of the work was written by Mr. W. M. Wilkinson, solicitor, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, from information furnished by Home. A second edition, with a preface by Mr. Wilkinson, followed in 1864. It also appeared in French as ‘Révélations sur ma Vie Surnaturelle,’ Paris, 1863, 12mo. In America it ran through five editions, New York, 1864, 8vo. In January 1864 Home was summarily expelled from Rome as a sorcerer, though he was not holding séances. He returned to England, appealed to government for redress, and Roebuck advocated his cause in the House of Commons. The ministry, however, declined to interfere. In the autumn he gave a series of public readings in America. In May 1865 he returned to Europe, and held séances at the Tuileries, Peterhoff, and Strelna, the residence of the Grand Duke Constantine. A lawsuit with Count Koucheleff-Besborodka about his late wife's property caused him pecuniary embarrassment, and he returned to England, where he lectured on spiritualism at Willis's Rooms (15 Feb. 1866), and founded, in conjunction with Dr. Elliotson and S. C. Hall, the Spiritual Athenæum, a society for the propagation of spiritualism. Home received a small salary as secretary, and lived at the rooms of the society, 22 Sloane Street. Soon afterwards a wealthy widow named Jane Lyon, of no social position, adopted him as her son, and assigned to him 60,000l. stock by irrevocable deed of gift, upon which he assumed the name of Lyon-Home. Mrs. Lyon, however, repented of her bargain, and instituted a chancery suit for restitution of the gift, alleging that Home had obtained it by ‘spiritual’ influence. Her specific allegations broke down on cross-examination, but Vice-chancellor Giffard decided in her favour, on the ground that Home's repute as a medium laid on him the burden of supporting the gift, and that he had failed to do so. The Spiritual Athenæum soon died a natural death. Before the London Dialectical Society in 1869 Lord Lindsay, afterwards Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, F.R.S. [see Lindsay, Alexander William Crawford, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, 1812–1880], and Lord Adare, now Earl of Dunraven, attested several instances of Home's levitation, and of his handling fire with the naked hand without being burned. The latter phenomenon is also attested by Mrs. S. C. Hall in a letter to Lord Dunraven (cf. Home, His Life and Mission, p. 784). During 1869–70 Home was much in the provinces, giving public readings. He is said to have read poetry with great spirit. On a visit to Edinburgh in one of these years he gave a séance at the house of Dr. Doun (cf. P. P. Alexander, Spiritualism; a Narrative with a Discussion, Edinburgh, 1871, 8vo). In the autumn Home followed the German army from Sedan to Versailles, where he was publicly recognised by the king of Prussia. In the spring of 1871 he held séances before the emperor of Russia at the winter palace, St. Petersburg, and other séances in the presence of Professor Von Boutlerow of the Academy of Science, and Dr. Karpovitch, an eminent medical man, both of whom attested the
