Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

colonel had intended to do by publishing his story: forcesomeone to emerge from his silence.

There had been a gap, ahiatus, an unraveling. In the tomb of C. R., there was written notonly post 120 annos patebo, to recall the schedule of theappointments, but also Nequaquam vacuum; not "The void does notexist," but "The void should not exist." A void had been created,and it had to be filled!

Once again I askedmyself: Why were these things being said in Germany, where, ifanything, the fourth line should simply wait with saintly patiencefor its own turn to come? The Germans couldn't complain¡Xin1614¡Xof a failed appointment in Marienburg, because the Marienburgappointment would not take place until 1704.

Only one conclusion waspossible: the Germans were complaining because the precedingappointment had not taken place.

This was the key! TheGermans (the fourth line) were lamenting the fact that the English(the second line) had failed to reach the French (the third line).Of course. In the text you could find allegories that were almostchildishly transparent: the tomb of C. R. is opened and in it arefound the signatures of the brothers of the first and secondcircles, but not of the third. The Portuguese and the English arethere, but where are the French?

In other words, theEnglish had missed the French. Yet the English, according to whatwe had established, were the only ones who had any idea where tofind the French, just as the French were the only ones who had anyidea where to find the Germans. So, even if the French found theGermans in 1704, they would have shown up minus two-thirds of whatthey were supposed to deliver.

The Rosicrucians cameout into the open, accepting the known risks, because that was theonly way to save the Plan.

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We do not even know withcertainty if the Brothers of the second line possessed the sameknowledge as those of the first, or if they were given all thesecrets.

¡XFama Fraternitatis, inAllgemeine und general Reformation, Cassel, Wessel, 1614

I told Belbo andDiotallevi. They agreed that the secret meaning of the manifestoesshould be clear even to a Diabolical.

"Now it's all clear,"Diotallevi said. "We were stuck on the notion that the Plan hadbeen blocked at the passage from the Germans to the Paulicians,while in fact it had been blocked in 1584, at the passage fromEngland to France."

"But why?" Belbo asked."What reason can there be that the English were unable to keeptheir appointment with the French in 1584? The English knew wherethe Refuge was."

Seeking truth, he turnedto Abulafia. As a test, he asked for two random entries. The outputwas:

Minnie Mouse is Mickey'sfiancee

Thirty days hathSeptember April June and November

"Now, let's see," Belbosaid. "Minnie has an appointment with Mickey, but by mistake shemakes it for the thirty-first of September, andMickey..."

"Hold it, everybody!" Isaid. "Minnie could have made a mistake only if her date withMickey was for October 5, 1582!"

"Why?"

"The Gregorian reform ofthe calendar! Why, it's obvious. In 1582 the Gregorian reform wentinto effect, correcting the Julian calendar; and to make thingscome out even, ten days in the month of October were abolished, thefifth to the fourteenth!"

"But the appointment inFrance is for 1584, Saint John's Eve, June 23."

"That's right. But as Irecall, the reform didn't go into effect immediately everywhere." Iconsulted the perpetual calendar we had on the shelf. "Here we are.The reform was promulgated in 1582, and the days between October 5and October 14 were abolished, but this applied only to the pope.France adopted the new calendar in 1583 and abolished the tenth tothe nineteenth of December. In Germany there was a schism: theCatholic regions adopted the reform in 1584, with Bohemia, but theProtestant regions adopted it in 1775, almost two hundred yearslater, and Bulgaria¡Xand this is a fact to bear in mind¡Xadopted itonly in 1917! Now, let's look at England...It adopted the Gregoriancalendar in 1752. That's to be expected: in their hatred of thepapists, the Anglicans also held out for two centuries. So you seewhat happened. France abolished ten days at the end of 1583, and byJune 1584 the French were all accustomed to it. But when it wasJune 23, 1584, in France, in England it was still June 13, and askyouself whether a good Englishman, Templar though he may have been,would have taken this into account. They drive on the left eventoday, and ignored the decimal system for ages...So, then, theEnglish show up at the Refuge on what for them is June 23, exceptthat for the French it's already July 3. We can assume theappointment wasn't to take place with fanfares; it would be afurtive meeting at a certain corner at a certain hour. The Frenchgo to the place on June 23; they wait a day, two days, three,seven, and then they leave, thinking that something has happened.Maybe they give up in despair on the very eve of July 3. TheEnglish arrive on the third and find nobody there. Maybe they alsowait a week, and nobody shows. The two grand masters have missedeach other." "Sublime," Belbo said. "That's what happened. But whyis it the German Rosicrucians who go public, and not theEnglish?"

I asked for another day,searched my card files, and came back to the office glowing withpride. I had found a clue, an almost invisible clue, but that's howSam Spade works. Nothing is trivial or insignificant to his eagleeye. Toward 1584, John Dee, mage and cabalist, astrologer to thequeen of England, was assigned to study the reform of the Juliancalendar.

"The English Templarsmeet the Portuguese in 1464. After that date, the British Islesseem to be struck by a cabalistic fervor. Anyway, the Templars workon what they have learned, preparing for the next encounter. JohnDee is the leader of this magic and hermetic renaissance. Hecollects a personal library of four thousand volumes, a library inthe spirit of the Templars of Provins. His Monas Hieroglyphicaseems directly inspired by the Tabula smaragdina, the bible of thealchemists. And what does John Dee do from 1584 on? He reads theSteganographia of Trithemius! He reads it in manuscript, of course,because it appeared in print for the first time only in the earlyseventeenth century. Dee, the grand master of the English groupthat