Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [199]
An almost imperceptible twitch on Belbo’s face. I recalled the dialog at Riccardo’s show: Postel made Belbo think of the man who, in his mind, had robbed him of Lorenza. But it was the matter of an instant.
“Postel studies Hebrew, tries to demonstrate that it’s the common matrix of all languages, translates the Zohar and the Bahir, has contacts with the cabalists, broaches a plan for universal peace similar to that of the German Rosicrucian groups, tries to convince the king of France to form an alliance with the sultan, visits Greece, Syria, Asia Minor, studies Arabic— in a word, he retraces the itinerary of Christian Rosencreutz. And it is no accident that he signs some writings with the name of Rosispergius, ‘he who scatters dew.’ Gassendi in his Examen Philosophiae Fluddanae says that Rosencreutz does not derive from rosa but from ros, dew. In one of his manuscripts he speaks of a secret to be guarded until the time is ripe, and he says: ‘That pearls may not be cast before swine.’ Do you know where else this gospel quotation appears? On the title page of The Chemical Wedding. And Father Marin Mersenne, in denouncing the Rosicrucian Fludd, says he is made of the same stuif as atheus magnus Postel. Furthermore, it seems Dee and Postel met in 1550, but perhaps they didn’t yet know that they were both grand masters of the Plan, scheduled to meet thirty years later, in 1584.
“Now, Postel declares—hear ye, hear ye—that, being a direct descendant of the oldest son of Noah, and since Noah is the founder of the Celtic race and therefore of the civilization of the Druids, the king of France is the only legitimate pretender to the title king of the world. That’s right, he talks about the King of the World—but three centuries before d’Alveydre. We’ll skip the fact that he falls in love with an old hag, Joanna, and considers her the divine Sophia; the man probably didn’t have all his marbles. But powerful enemies he did have; they called him dog, execrable monster, cloaca of all heresies, a being possessed by a legion of demons. All the same, even with the Joanna scandal, the Inquisition doesn’t consider him a heretic, only amens, a bit of a nut, let’s say. The truth is, the Church doesn’t dare destroy the man, because they know he’s the spokesman of some fairly powerful group. I would point out to you, Diotallevi, that Postel travels also in the Orient and is a contemporary of Isaac Luria. Draw whatever conclusions you like. Well, in 1564, the year in which Dee writes his Monas Hieroglyphica, Postel retracts his heresies and retires to...guess where? The monastery of Saint-Martin-des-Champs! What’s he waiting for? Obviously, he’s waiting for 1584.”
“Obviously,” Diotallevi said.
I went on: “Are we agreed, then? Postel is grand master of the French group, awaiting the appointment with the English. But he dies in 1581, three years before it. Conclusions: first, the 1584 mishap took place because at that crucial moment a keen mind was missing, since Postel would have been able to figure out what was going on in the confusion of the calendars; second, Saint-Martin was a place where the Templars were safe, always at home, where the man responsible for the third meeting immured himself and waited. Saint-Martin-des-Champs was the Refuge!”
“It all fits, like a mosaic.”
“Stick with me. At the time of the failed appointment Bacon is only twenty-three. But in 1621 he becomes Viscount St. Albans. What does he find in the ancestral possessions? A mystery. Note that this is the year he is accused of corruption and imprisoned for a while. He had unearthed something that caused fear in someone. In whom? This is when Bacon understood that Saint-Martin should be watched; he conceived the idea of putting his House of Solomon there, the laboratory in which, through experimental means, the secret could be discovered.”
“But,” Diotallevi