Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [222]
“But how did the Jesuits know of the Plan, when the Templars let themselves be killed rather than reveal it?” Diotallevi asked.
It was no good answering that the Jesuits always know everything. We needed a more seductive explanation.
We quickly found one. Guillaume Postel again. Leafing through the history of the Jesuits by Cre’tineau-Joly (and how we chuckled over that unfortunate name), we learned that in 1554 Postel, in a fit of mystical fervor and thirst for spiritual regeneration, joined Ignatius Loyola in Rome. Ignatius welcomed him with open arms, but Postel was unable to part with his manias, his cabalism, his ecumenicalism, and the Jesuits couldn’t accept these things, especially one mania that Postel absolutely refused to abandon: the idea that the King of the World was the king of France. Ignatius may have been a saint, but he was also Spanish.
So at last a rupture came about; Postel left the Jesuits—or the Jesuits kicked him out. But since he had been a Jesuit, even if only briefly, he had sworn obedience perinde ac cadaver to Saint Ignatius, and therefore must have revealed to him his mission. “Dear Ignatius,” he must have said, “in receiving me you receive also the secret of the Templar Plan, whose unworthy representative I am in France, and indeed, while we are all awaiting the third centenary meeting in 1584, we might as well await it ad majorem Dei gloriam.”
So the Jesuits, thanks to Postel’s moment of weakness, come to know the secret of the Templars. This knowledge must be exploited. Saint Ignatius goes to his eternal reward, but his successors remain watchful. They keep an eye on Postel; they want to know whom he will meet in that fateful year 1584. But, alas, Postel dies before then. Nor is it any help that—as one of our sources tells us—an unknown Jesuit is present at his deathbed. The Jesuits do not learn who his successor is.
“I’m sorry, Casaubon,” Belbo said, “but something here doesn’t add up. If what you say is true, the Jesuits couldn’t know that the meeting failed to come off in 1584.”
“Don’t forget that the Jesuits,” Diotaillevi remarked, “were men of iron, not easily fooled.”
“Ah, as for that,” Belbo said, “a Jesuit could eat two Templars for breakfast and another two for dinner. They also were disbanded, and more than once, and all the governments of Europe lent a hand, but they’re still here.”
We had to put ourselves in a Jesuit’s shoes. What would a Jesuit do if Postel slipped from his grasp? I had an idea immediately, but it was so diabolical that not even our Diabolicals, I thought, would swallow it: The Rosicrucians were an invention of the Jesuits!
“After Postel’s death,” I argued, “the Jesuits—clever as they are—mathematically foresee the confusion of the calendars and decide to take the initiative. They set up this Rosicrucian red herring, calculating exactly what will happen. Among all the fanatics who swallow the bait, someone from one of the genuine groups, caught off guard, will come forward. Imagine the fury of Bacon: ‘Fludd, you idiot, couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut?”But, my lord, they seemed to be with us...”Fool, weren’t you taught never to trust papists? They should have burned you, not that poor wretch from Nola!’ “
“But in that case,” Belbo said, “when the Rosicrucians move to France, why do the Jesuits, or those polemicists in their hire, attack the newcomers as heretics possessed by devils?”
“Surely you