Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [43]
All gone now, my poor Templars.
That evening, at Pilade’s, by then on my fifth whiskey, for which Belbo was paying, insisted on paying, I realized that I had been dreaming aloud and—the shame of it—with feeling. But I must have told a beautiful story, full of compassion, because Dolores’s eyes were glistening, and Diotallevi, having taken the mad plunge and ordered a second tonic water, was seraphically gazing toward heaven—or, rather, toward the bar’s decidedly noncabalistic ceiling. “Perhaps,” he murmured, “they were all those things: lost souls and saints, horsemen and grooms, bankers and heroes...”
“They were remarkable, no doubt about it” was Belbo’s summation. “But tell me, Casaubon, do you love them?”
“I’m doing my thesis on them. If you do your thesis on syphilis, you end up loving even the Spirochaeta pallida.”
“It was lovely,” Dolores said. “Like a movie. But I have to go now. I have to mimeograph the leaflets for tomorrow morning. There’s picketing at the Marelli factory.”
“Lucky you. You can afford it,” Belbo said. He raised a weary hand and stroked her hair. Then he ordered what he said was his last whiskey. “It’s almost midnight. I say that not for normal people, I say it for Diotallevi’s benefit. But let’s go on. I want to hear about the trial. Who, what, when, and why.”
“Cur, quomodo, quando,” Diotallevi agreed. “Yes, yes.”
14
He declares that he saw, the day before, five hundred and four brothers of the order led to the stake because they would not confess the above-mentioned errors, and he heard it said that they were burned. But he fears that he himself would not resist if he were to be burned, that he would confess in the presence of the lord magistrates and anyone else, if questioned, and say that all the errors with which the order has been charged are true; that he, if asked, would also confess to killing Our Lord.
—Testimony of Aimery de Villiers-le-Duc, May 13, 1310
A trial full of silences, contradictions, enigmas, and acts of stupidity. The acts of stupidity were the most obvious, and, because they were inexplicable, they generally coincided with the enigmas. In those halcyon days I believed that the source of enigma was stupidity. Then the other evening in the periscope I decided that the most terrible enigmas are those that mask themselves as madness. But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
With the collapse of the Christian kingdoms of the Holy Land, the Templars were left without a purpose. Or, rather, they soon turned their means into an end; they spent their time managing their immense wealth. Philip the Fair, a monarch intent on building a centralized state, naturally disliked them. They were a sovereign order, beyond any royal control. The grand master ranked as a prince of the blood; he commanded an army, administered vast landholdings, was elected like the emperor, and had absolute authority. The French treasury was located in the Temple in Paris, outside the king’s control. The Templars were the trustees, proxies, and administrators of an account that was the king’s only in name. They paid funds in and out and manipulated the interest; they acted like a great private bank but enjoyed all the privileges and exemptions of a state institution. The king’s treasurer was a Templar. How could a ruler rule under such conditions?
If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. Philip asked to be made an honorary Templar. Request denied. An insult no king could swallow. He suggested that the pope