Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [190]
“And a pox on doubters.”
“Right. It’s because of Bacon that attempts are made to strengthen relations between the English and German circles. In 1613 Elizabeth, daughter of James I, now reigning, marries Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine. After the death of Rudolf II, Prague is no longer the ideal location; Heidelberg is. The wedding of the elector and the princess is a triumph of Templar allegories. In the course of the London festivities, Bacon himself is the impresario, and an allegory of mystical knighthood is performed, with an appearance of the knights on the top of a hill. It is obvious that Bacon is now Dee’s successor, grand master of the English Templar group...”
“And since he is clearly the author of the plays of Shakespeare, we should also reread the complete works of the bard, which certainly talk about nothing else but the Plan,” Belbo said. “Saint John’s Eve, a midsummer night’s dream.”
“June 23 is not midsummer.”
“Poetic license. I wonder why everybody overlooked these clues, these clear indications. It’s all so unbearably obvious.”
“We’ve been led astray by rationalist thought,” Diotallevi said. “I keep telling you.”
“Let Casaubon go on; it seems to me he’s done an excellent job.”
“Not much more to say. After the London festivities, the festivities begin in Heidelberg, where Salomon de Caus has built for the elector the hanging gardens of which we saw a dim reflection that night in Piedmont, as you’ll recall. And in the course of these festivities, an allegorical float appears, celebrating the bridegroom as Jason, and from the two masts of the ship recreated on the float hang the symbols of the Golden Fleece and the Garter. I hope you haven’t forgotten that the Golden Fleece and the Garter are also found on the columns of Tomar...Everything fits. In the space of a year, the Rosicrucian manifestoes come out: the appeal that the English Templars, with the help of their German friends, are making to all Europe, to reunite the lines of the interrupted Plan.” “But what exactly are they after?”
72
Nos inuisibles pretendus sont (a ce que Ton dit) au nombre de 36, separez en six bandes.
—Effroyables pactions faictes entre le diable & les pretendus Inuisibles, Paris, 1623, p. 6
“Maybe the manifestoes have a double purpose: to send an appeal to the French, and at the same time to collect the scattered pieces of the German group in the aftermath of the Lutheran Reformation. Germany, in fact, is where the biggest mess occurs. From the appearance of the manifestoes until about 1621, the Rosicrucians receive too many replies...”
I mentioned a few of the countless pamphlets that had appeared on the subject, the ones that had entertained me that night in Salvador with Amparo. “Possibly among all these there is one person who knows something, but he is lost in a sea of fanatics, enthusiasts, who take the manifestoes literally, perhaps also provocateurs, who want to block the operation, and impostors...The English try to take part in the debate, to channel it. It’s no accident that Robert Fludd, another English Templar, in the space of a single year writes three works that point to the correct interpretation of the manifestoes...But the response is by now out of control, the Thirty Years’ War has begun, the Elector Palatine has been defeated by the Spanish, the Palatinate and Heidelberg are sacked, Bohemia is in flames...The English decide to return to France and try there. This is why in 1623 the Rosicrucians appear in Paris, giving the French more or less the same invitation they gave the Germans. And what do you read in one of the libels against the Rosicrucians in Paris, written by someone who distrusts them or wants to confuse things? That they are worshipers of the Devil, obviously, but since even in slander you can’t entirely erase the truth, it is hinted that they hold their meetings in the Marais.”
“So?”
“Don’t you know Paris? The Marais is the quarter of the Temple and, it so happens, the Jewish ghetto! What’s more, the libel says that the Rosicrucians are in contact