Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [187]
It was said that C. R. had gone to Spain (or Portugal?) and had shown the learned there “whence to draw the true indicia of future centuries,” but in vain. Why in vain? Was it because a group of German Templars at the beginning of the seventeenth century made public a very closely guarded secret, forced to come out into the open on account of a halt in the process of the transmission of the message?
The manifestoes undeniably tried to reconstruct the phases of the Plan as Diotallevi had summarized them. The first brother whose death was mentioned was Brother I. O., who had “come to the end” in England. So someone had arrived triumphantly at the first appointment. And a second line of succession was mentioned, and a third. Thus far all was apparently in order: the second line, the English one, met the third line, the French one, in 1584. Those writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century spoke only of what had happened to the first three groups. In the Chemical Wedding, written by Andreae in his youth, hence before the manifestoes (even if they appeared as early as 1614), three majestic temples were mentioned, the three places that must already have been known.
Yet, reading, I realized that while the two manifestoes did indeed speak later in the same terms as the Chemical Wedding, it was as if something upsetting had happened meanwhile.
For example, why such insistence on the fact that the time had come, the moment had come, though the enemy had employed all his tricks to keep the occasion from materializing? What occasion? It was said that C. R.’s final goal was Jerusalem, but he hadn’t been able to reach Jerusalem. Why not? The Arabs were praised because they exchanged messages, but in Germany the learned didn’t know how to assist one another. What did that mean? And there was a reference to “a larger group that wants the pasture all for itself.” Evidently some party, pursuing its private interests, was trying to upset the Plan, and evidently there had in fact been a serious setback.
The Fama said that at the beginning someone had worked out a magic writing (why of course, the message of Provins), but that the Clock of God struck every minute “whereas ours is unable to strike even the hours.” Who had missed the strokes of the divine clock, who had failed to arrive at a certain place at the right moment? There was a reference to an original group of brothers who could have revealed a secret philosophy but had decided, instead, to disperse throughout the world.
The manifestoes breathed uneasiness, uncertainty, bewilderment. The brothers of the first lines of succession had each arranged to be replaced “by a worthy successor,” but “they decided to keep secret....the place of their burial and even today we do not know where they are buried.”
What did this really refer to? What sepulcher was without an address? It was becoming obvious to me that the manifestoes were written because some information