UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY (45 page)

It was fascinating to imagine the Masonic toxicology laboratory in Naples, where poisons were prepared to be used on the enemies of the lodges. Bataille's masterpiece was to invent what, for no chemical reason whatsoever, he called manna: a toad is placed in a jug filled with vipers and asps; there it is fed on poisonous toadstools, then digitalis and hemlock are added; the animals are left to starve, and their bodies are sprayed with a foam of powdered crystal and euphorbia; everything is placed in a still, the moisture is slowly distilled, and the ash from the bodies is separated from the incombustible powders, thus obtaining not one but two poisons, one liquid and the other powder, identical in their lethal effects.

"I can already imagine how many bishops these pages will send into ecstasy," Taxil said, smirking and scratching his groin, as he did in moments of great satisfaction. And he said this with good reason, since with each new installment of
Le diable
came a letter from some prelate thanking him for his courageous revelations, which were opening the eyes of so many faithful followers.

Diana came in handy now and then. Only she could invent the
arcula mystica
of the Grand Master of Charleston, a small chest of which only seven examples existed in the world. Opening the lid you saw a silver megaphone, like the bell of a hunting horn but smaller; to the left a thin rope made of twisted silver threads fixed at one end to the apparatus and at the other to a contraption you put into your ear so as to hear the voice of a person talking from one of the other six chests. To the right a vermilion toad emitted small flames from its open mouth, a signal that the communication had been activated, and seven golden statuettes represented the seven cardinal virtues of the Palladian ladder as well as the seven main Masonic directories. In this way the Grand Master, by pressing a statuette on the pedestal, could contact his correspondent in Berlin or Naples; if the correspondent was not at his
arcula
at that moment, he would feel a warm breeze on his face and whisper, for example, "I'll be ready in an hour," and on the table of the Grand Master the toad would say out loud, "In an hour."

At first we wondered whether the story wasn't rather preposterous, not least because some years earlier a certain Meucci had patented his telectrophone, or telephone, as it is now called. But such contrivances were only for rich people, and our readers were unlikely to know anything about them. In any event, such an extraordinary invention as the
arcula
was bound to be diabolically inspired.

We met sometimes at Taxil's house, sometimes at Auteuil. We occasionally tried to work in Bataille's rat hole, but the general stench that reigned there (of cheap alcohol, unwashed clothes and food left to rot for weeks) persuaded us to avoid the premises.

One of the problems we had was describing General Pike, the Grand Master of Universal Freemasonry, who directed the destiny of the world from Charleston. But nothing is more original than what has already been published.

We had just started publishing our issues of
Le diable when La Franc- Maçonnerie synagogue de Satan
appeared, the long-awaited book by Monsignor Meurin, archbishop of Port-Louis. (Where the devil was that?) Doctor Bataille, who had a smattering of English, had also picked up on his travels a book called
The Secret Societies
, published in Chicago in 1873 by General John Phelps, an avowed enemy of the Masonic lodges. All we had to do was reuse what we found in those books to build a fuller picture of this Grand Old Man, high priest of Universal Palladism, perhaps founder of the Ku Klux Klan and participant in the conspiracy that led to the killing of Abraham Lincoln. We decided that the Grand Master of the Supreme Council of Charleston also bore the titles of Brother General, Sovereign Commander, Master Adept of the Grand Symbolic Lodge, Secret Master, Perfect Master, Intimate Secretary, Provost and Judge, Master Elect of the Nine, Illustrious Elect of the Fifteen, Sublime Knight Elect, Chief of the Twelve Tribes, Grand Master Architect, Scottish Grand Elect of the Sacred Visage, Perfect and Sublime Mason, Knight of the East or of the Sword, Prince of Jerusalem, Knight of the East and West, Sovereign Prince of the Rose Croix, Grand Pontiff, Venerable Master
ad vitam
of All Symbolic Lodges, Noachite or Prussian Knight, Grand Master of the Key, Prince of Libanus and of the Tabernacle, Knight of the Brazen Serpent, Knight Commander of the Temple, Knight of the Sun, Prince Adept, Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew, Grand Elect Knight Kadosh, Perfect Initiate, Grand Inspector Inquisitor, Clear and Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, Thirty-three, Most Powerful Sovereign Commander General Grand Master Conservator of the Sacred Palladium, Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry.

We quoted a letter of his that condemned the excesses of certain brethren in Italy and Spain who, "moved by a legitimate hatred toward the God of priests," glorified his adversary under the name of Satan — a being invented by priestly deception, whose name should never be pronounced in a lodge. Thus it condemned the practices of a Genoese lodge that had paraded a flag in a public procession on which was written
"Gloria a Satana!"
But then it was discovered that this condemnation was against Satanism (a Christian superstition), whereas the Masonic religion had to maintain its purity by following the principles of Luciferian doctrine. It was the priests, with their faith in the devil, who created Satan, Satanists, witches, sorcerers, magicians and black magic, whereas the Luciferians were disciples of an enlightened magic, like that of the Templars, their ancient masters. Black magic was performed by the followers of Adonai, the evil God worshiped by Christians, who had transformed hypocrisy into sanctity, vice into virtue, falsehood into truth, faith in the absurd into theological science, and whose every act testifies to his cruelty, perfidy, hatred toward mankind, barbarity and rejection of science. Lucifer, on the other hand, is the good God who opposes Adonai, as light opposes darkness.

Boullan tried to explain the differences between the various cults of what, as far as we were concerned, was simply the devil: "For some people Lucifer is the fallen angel who has now repented and could become the future messiah. There are sects, composed entirely of women, that regard Lucifer as a good female being, opposed to the wicked male God. Others see him as Satan cursed by God, but believe that Christ hasn't done enough for humanity, and therefore devote themselves to adoring the enemy of God — and these are the real Satanists, those who celebrate the black masses and so forth. There are worshipers of Satan who pursue only their taste for witchcraft,
envoûtement
, fortunetelling; and there are others who practice Satanism as an actual religion. Among them are people who seem to be organizers of cultural gatherings, such as Joséphin Péladan, or, worse still, Stanislas de Guaita, who cultivates the art of poisoning. And then there is Palladism, a rite for few initiates in which even a Carbonaro like Mazzini took part. It is said that Garibaldi's conquest of Sicily was the work of the Palladians, enemies of God and of the monarchy."

I asked Boullan why he accused his rivals Guaita and Péladan of Satanism and black magic when rumors I'd heard in Paris suggested that they themselves were accusing him of Satanism.

"Ah," he said, "in this universe of occult sciences the boundaries between good and bad are extremely subtle, and what is good for one person is bad for others. Even in ancient times, the difference between an angel and a witch might simply be a question of age and physical charm."

"How does this sorcery work?"

"They say that the Grand Master of Charleston fell out with a certain Gorgas from Baltimore, the head of a breakaway Scottish rite. He managed to obtain Gorgas's handkerchief by bribing his laundress. He left it to soak in salt water, and each time he added salt he murmured,
'Sagrapim melanchtebo rostromouk elias phitg.'
He left it to dry in front of a fire of magnolia branches, and every Saturday for three weeks he offered an invocation to Moloch, holding out his arms with the handkerchief spread over his open hands, as if in offering to the demon. On the third Saturday, toward dusk, he burned the handkerchief in flaming alcohol, put the ashes on a bronze plate and left it out overnight, and the following morning he mixed the ash with wax and made it into a doll, a diabolical creation called a
dagyde
. He placed the
dagyde
under a glass dome attached to a pneumatic pump, which removed all the air, creating a vacuum in the dome. At that moment his rival began to feel a series of terrible pains and couldn't understand what was causing them."

"And did he die?"

"That's not the point. Perhaps he didn't want to go quite that far. The important thing is that magic works over a distance, and that is what Guaita and his friends are doing to me."

He did not want to say any more, but Diana, who had been listening, followed him with an adoring gaze.

At the appropriate point Bataille had, at my insistence, devoted a substantial chapter to the Jews in Masonic sects, going back to the eighteenth-century occultists and revealing the existence of five hundred Jewish Freemasons who were secretly confederated alongside the official lodges, and their own lodges carried no name but only a number.

Our timing was excellent. It was more or less during that period that newspapers began to use a fine expression: anti-Semitism. We became part of an "official" current, and the spontaneous mistrust of Jews became a doctrine, like Christianity or idealism.

Diana was present during these sessions, and when we referred to the Jewish lodges she uttered the words
"Melchizedek, Melchizedek"
several times. What was she recalling? She continued: "During the Patriarchal Council, the emblem of the Jewish Masons . . . a silver chain around their neck holding a gold plaque . . . represents the Tablets of the Law . . . the Law of
Moses."

The idea was a good one, and here were our Jews, gathering in the temple of Melchizedek, exchanging signs of recognition, passwords, greetings and oaths that obviously had to look fairly Hebrew, such as
Grazzin Gaizim, Javan Abbadon, Bamachec Bamearach, Adonai Bego Galchol.
The lodge, of course, was bent on undermining the Holy Roman Church and the ubiquitous Adonai.

In this way, Taxil (under the cover of Bataille) could ensure those he was working for in the Church were kept happy, without upsetting his Jewish creditors. By now, however, he could have paid them off — after all, during the first five years, Taxil had made three hundred thousand francs (net) in royalties — and another sixty thousand came to me.

Around 1894, I think it was, the newspapers talked of nothing but the case of an army captain, Alfred Dreyfus, who had sold military intelligence to the Prussian embassy. By sheer coincidence, the villain was Jewish. Drumont pounced on the Dreyfus case, and I thought that our periodical
Le diable
should also contribute a few sensational revelations. But Taxil said it was always better not to get mixed up in stories involving military espionage.