The Holy Blood of Bruges-la-Morte

The epic poem Perceval, Le Conte du Graal launched the Holy Grail into Western literature. Written by French poet Chrétien de Troyes in the 1180s, the storyline introduces a certain Perceval to us, who is invited to stay in the castle of the Fisher King where he witnesses a mysterious procession. With each course of the meal, young men and women pass before him with magnificent objects: a bleeding lance, candelabras and a beautiful girl with what is described as an elaborately decorated Graal. This object contains a single Mass wafer for the Fisher King to sustain his wounds. As it turns out, the Fisher King is a cousin of Perceval. When the young man wakes up the next morning, he finds himself alone in the woods and the castle disappeared. Later on, he learns that he should have made an inquiry into this Graal as the right question would have healed the Fisher King. He vows to find the Castle of the Grail again one day but it remains unclear from the poem if he ever does.

You mean a Grail….?

Chrétien keeps us in the dark as to what exactly this Grail is. To some it is exactly that which is the appeal of his story: the mystery surrounding the object and the uncertainty of its whereabouts. Some scholars claim the Grail was distilled from Celtic mythology. They recognize a cauldron with the power to restore people or to even raise the dead. They see a Vessel of Plenty, a Magical Platter symbolizing otherworldly powers and sometimes even the power to select Kings.

Most scholars claim that in Perceval the Grail hadn’t yet acquired the holiness it displays in later Grail romances. I don’t agree. Chrétien’s Grail wasn’t a dish or bowl containing a salmon or a mere pike but a single Mass wafer. The mystical fasting of the crippled Fisher King reminds us of the countless saints who were said to have lived on a wafer a day. Chrétien definitely intended the Mass wafer to be a significant part of the ritual. Maybe, being the first modern European novelist, he would have unveiled the true identity and the Secret of the Grail at the end of his story. Unfortunately death overtook him, leaving the poem unfinished.

Around the period the first Grail romances were written, the Church of Rome was beginning to add more mysticism to the Sacrament of the Holy Communion. In that respect, the Grail could have been a purely Christian symbol from the very beginning. Twelfth century wall paintings present images of the Virgin holding a bowl radiating tongues of fire. They might well have been the original inspiration for the Grail legend.

The word “Grail” seems to be an Old French adaptation of the Latin “gradalis”, simply meaning: a dish. later Medieval writers claimed the word to actually being “sangréal” – French for “royal blood” – which became “san graal”, Saint Grail… or Holy Blood. This is called “a false etymology”, but I am not convinced it is that false. French and English authors tend to forget that Chrétien states very clearly that he was working from a source book given to him by Philip of Alsace, son of Thierry…the man who brought a relic holding the Holy Blood from Jerusalem to Bruges.

Enter… the Templars

The Order of the Knights Templar was founded around 1119 by Hugues de Payens, a French noble man from the Champagne. For his order he chose eight knights, the most important of them being Godfrey de Saint-Omer. According to legend, Hugues and Godfrey were so poor that they had only one horse, so the famous image on the Temple seal became that of two men riding a single horse. Godfrey is often portrayed as a French knight because Saint-Omer belongs to modern France. At the time however it was part of Flanders and Godfrey was a vassal to its Count Robert II.

The mission of the Templars was to protect the pilgrims who visited the Holy Land, but for nine years little was heard of the them at all. From 1129 onwards however, after the Council of Troyes had officially sanctioned the Order, the Templars gradually became a known and recognized force throughout Europe. The rule of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici in Latin, or shortly: Milites Christi, Soldiers of Christ) was kept in the Abbey of the Dunes in Coxyde, not far from Bruges and Saint-Omer. The rule was written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The Templars had to be warrior-monks, soldier-mystics, “a militia of Christ”. The first headquarters of the Temple in Europe, was in Ypres – near Bruges and Saint-Omer again. In fact, the property had been a gift from Godfrey de Saint-Omer to the order.

The history of the Temple was primarily recorded by French and English authors, from their French and English perspectives. They often forget to mention – or don’t know – that the Templars always had a very strong “Flemish Connection”. One of the most (in)famous Grand Masters of the Order was Gerard de Ridefort, who definitely had Flemish roots, even though 19th century writers suggested an Anglo-Norman background. In the Flemish village of Ruddervoorde (“Ridefort”) there still are many legends surrounding the Temple Commandery he once ruled.

Bestseller authors like Lincoln, Baigent & Leigh (Holy Blood, Holy Grail) and Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) claim that the Templars discovered “something” in the ruins of the Temple. Hypotheses about that “something” range from the Ark of the Covenant to documents, artefacts or relics proving Jesus survived the Crucifixion or was married to Mary Magdalene. One story claims they found the Holy Grail, which got transported to Scotland in 1307 to be buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel. In actual fact there is not one single piece of documentary evidence for any story in which the “something” is brought from the Holy Land to Europe by the Knights Templar. Any with one exception that is: the Holy Blood of Bruges.

From the 1970s Belgian scholars like Paul de Saint Hilaire (La Belgique Mystérieuse, La Flandre Mystérieuse, L’Ardenne Mystérieuse) and Hubert Lampo (De Zwanen van Stonehenge/The Swans of Stonehenge) have been writing articles and books about the one and only Holy Blood (or Holy Grail) of Bruges.

Bruges or the New Jerusalem

Around the same the time that the Order of the Knights Templar was founded, Thierry of Alsace claimed the county of Flanders against William Clito. Thierry was supported by the mighty cities of Bruges, Ghent, Lille and Saint-Omer. He won the battle and in 1128 set up his government in Ghent. In 1139 he married Sybilla of Anjou, daughter of the King of Jerusalem. She was pregnant when Thierry left Flanders for the Second Crusade and got attacked in his absence by Baldwin IV of Hainaut. In an early display of girlpower, the brave Princess launched a counter-attack and pillaged Baldwin’s county by means of reply. In synch with his wife, Thierry participated in the Siege of Damascus, led by his wife’s half-brother Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem. War was truly a family affair in these days.

A legend says that on Christmas Day 1148, some Templars found a stone jar in the Holy Grave. Thierry and Sybilla are claimed to have been present which is impossible because we know she was chasing Baldwin of Hainaut at the time, an enormous journey away from Jerusalem. According to the legend, the Templar were convinced the jar contained the Holy Blood of Christ. The Holy Blood was respectfully poured from the jar into an octogonal bottle and the ends were sealed with two golden roses. Now Sybilla of Anjou was a leper who suffered from terrible attacks of fever. After the sealing of the bottle, she held the precious Relic in her hands for just a moment, triggering in her a vision of “a New Jerusalem of the West”: the city of Bruges. In the same moment Sybilla and all lepers surrounding here had been miraculously cured.

Sybilla made a solemn pledge to turn Bruges into a Holy City. In 1150 Sybilla, her husband Thierry, the abbot of Saint Bertin and the Flemish crusaders arrived in Bruges, where masons had just finished the basilica of Saint-Basilius on the Burg Square. The Holy Blood is kept there to this day and has been called upon for an enormous variety of reasons.

The oldest document concerning this Sanguis Christi or Blood of Christ dates from 1256. The legend is very precise about a much earlier date, namely April 7, 1150. Whether or not the relic really holds the Blood of the Saviour can never be established for fact. What is certain is that the Templars who gave the Relic to the Count of Flanders believed it and wanted it to be.

When Thierry left for the Holy Land for the third time Sybilla came with him. On her arrival in Jerusalem, she separated from Thierry and joined the Convent of St. Lazarus in Bethany to devote the rest of her life to the Lord. During her time in the monastery, she supported the election of Amalric as Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. She died some years later in Bethany. Thierry of Alsace died in 1168 and was buried in the abbey of Watten, near Saint-Omer.

Thierry of Alsace and Sybilla of Anjou had a son named Philip who married to Elisabeth of Vermandois. It is this Philip who became the patron of Chrétien de Troyes. The marriage remained childless, and when Philip discovered Elisabeth had an affair, he had her lover beaten to death. In 1177, Philip joined the Second Crusade and ended up being offered the Kingdom of Jerusalem, because he was the closest male relative to King Baldwin IV the leper who was childless like himself. Philip refused claiming he was there only as a pilgrim. Philip of Alsace died in 1191 and was buried in the Abbey of Clairvaux.

Chrétien dedicated Perceval, the Story of the Grail to his patron, because he sowed the seed of the tale in such good soil that its greatness was ensured. There is something of a prediction in this claim, or better: the hint of a plan, a strategy. The poet states that his labours will not be in vain, he is merely fullfilling the count’s wishes. And so, from a book given to him by his patron, he will put into verse “the best story ever told in a Royal Court”. The only known story in Philip’s famliy that qualifies as such in is of course the Story of the Holy Blood brought to Bruges by Philip’s father Thierry. We could only have been sure if Chrétien hadn’t died before he could finish his poem.

The Glastonbury Connection

Saint Dunstan was once the Abbot of the famous Abbey of Glastonbury in England. As a young lad, while studying under Irish monks who lived in the ruins of the Abbey, Dunstan had had a vision of the Abbey being restored to its original splendour. In 943 he built a small cell adjacent to the old church of St. Mary. It was there that he went to study, do his handicrafts or play the harp. In the scriptorium he worked as a silversmith.

After he had become Abbot of Glastonbury, Dunstan started the reconstruction of the Abbey. He also established the Benedictine monasticism. Then in 995, when King Edwy had climbed the throne of England, he found the young monarch fornicating with a young girl and her mother. Dunstan forced the King to renounce the girl, and then realized he had provoked Edwy. With the King on his heels, he fled to his Abbey. Edwy looted the Abbey but Dunstan somehow managed to escape, fled England and crossed the channel to Flanders. There he was received by Count Arnulf and lodged in the Abbey of Mont Blandin near Ghent. The exile of Dunstan ended in 957, when Edwy himself had to flee for his brother.

In his book In Search of England, the English writer Michael Wood suggests that the legends associated with Glastonbury like those of King Arthur and the Holy Grail had their origins with St. Dunstan. His leadership of the monastery, which eventually propelled Glastonbury into first rank among England’s great Abbeys, along with his Benedictine emphasis on learning, planted the seeds of belief in its unique importance as a spiritual centre of the nation. In the following centuries the Abbey got rich and powerful. At the time of Chrétien de Troyes’ death, Glastonbury monks discovered a hollowed-out log in the cemetery containing two skeletons. Behind the covering stone he found a leaden cross with an inscription reading: Here, on the Isle of Avalon, was interred King Arthur. The other skeleton had to be Guinevere, of course.

You could speculate that the book Philip had given to Chrétien to base his epic poem on, was brought to Ghent by St. Dunstan. Glastonbury was on the verge of becoming the center of Arthurian lore and Grail legend, while the one and only real Grail was held in Bruges. The Holy Blood of Christ, or maybe the “something” containing the secret of the bloodline, were brought there by the Templars, perhaps in two steps. The first in 1150 (perhaps as a document) and secondly, a century later, as the Relic holding the Holy Blood. The Grail castle was the ‘Burg’, (Dutch for ‘Castle’), the building that houses the Chapel of the Holy Blood.

In his article Bruges: the Grail City? Philip Coppens argues that Chrétien de Troyes wrote about a royal tradition concerning a precious Relic, carried in a procession, as has been done with the Holy Blood of Bruges for centuries. It is not unlikely that Chrétien’s patron asked the poet to write a romance to emphasize his personal relationship to the Holy Blood or the Holy Grail of Bruges.

Bruges-la-Morte

In his poem Brugge (Bruges) the Flemish priest-poet Guido Gezelle (1830) described the city as a copy of the Holy Land, with its great Gothic churches called Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem. Being a citizen of Bruges himself, he didn’t forget to mention the Holy Blood that was brought there during the Crusades. The Jerusalem Church in the quiet St. Anna Quarter is arguably the most remarkable of the many churches dominating the Bruges skyline. It was built in the 15th century as a scale model of the Holy Sepulchre by Anselmus Adornes and his wife. It houses a rather morbid fake tomb of Christ. The Jerusalem Church is still there and is privately owned by the descendants of the Adorni family who were merchants from Genoa. In the 15th century, when the Jerusalem Church was built and Jan van Eyck painted his Mystic Lamb, the noble Brotherhood of the Holy Blood was founded. Is this only an alternative name for the famous Grail Brotherhood?

The Holy Blood of Christ indeed seems to have turned medieval Bruges into a Holy City. It also kick started tourism to the city from the 19th century onwards. But maybe this Holy City is not as holy as it seems, just because of this Precious Holy Blood that… well, could be pretty unholy. As I described in my article Visiting Bruges-la-Morte, a medieval ghost city, the Holy Blood of Bruges was the reason why “the Powers of Good & Evil” had to fight eachother more fiercely here than anywhere else in the world. If Bruges was chosen and designed to be a Holy City, then Satan perhaps had to unleash all his forces here to turn Bruges into a truly Unholy City.

The connection of Joseph of Arimathea with the Grail – being the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper – dates from the late 12th century. Robert de Boron describes how Joseph receives the Grail from Jesus and brings it to Great Britain. Later writers recount how Joseph used the Grail to catch the Saviour’s blood.

The Grail legends became a potent mix of Christian lore and Celtic mythology, some parts interwoven with the legends of the Holy Chalice. All these themes got even further mixed up during the 19th century when “decadent” writers like Georges Rodenbach and Joris-Karl Huysmans turned Bruges into “Bruges-la-Morte”, a Very Unholy City indeed.

In Bruges-la-Morte or The Dead City of Bruges, Georges Rodenbach tells the story of a widower who, overcome with grief, takes refuge in Bruges. There he becomes obsessed with a dancer in the opera by name of Robert le Diable who bears an exact resemblance to his dead wife. The novel was notable for its poetic evocation of the decaying city and raised some scandal because of the “decadent” and “morbid” atmosphere. The meeting (or mating) of Eros and Thanatos didn’t go down very well at the time either.

The Damned, Down There…

The decadents only caused a minor storm compared to the scandal raised by a certain Joris-Karl Huysmans. Born in Paris from a Dutch father, Huysmans published a novel Là-Bas (The Damned) in 1891, attracting considerable attention for his depiction of French Satanism. The novel introduced the character of Durtal, a thinly disguised alter ego of the writer, who would return in his later work to trace Huysmans’ conversion to Roman Catholicism. Là-Bas has a particularly vivid scene depicting a Black Mass:
“And thou, thou whom, in my quality of priest, I force, whether thou wilt or no, to descend into this host, to incarnate thyself in this bread, Jesus, Artisan of Hoaxes, Bandit of Homage, Robber of Affection, hear!… (…) Profaner of ample vices, Abstractor of stupid purities, cursed Nazarene, do-nothing King, coward God!”
“Yet the ultimate abomination of the nineteenth century must be that, disguised as fiction and yet widely recognized at the time as fact, reported by Joris-Karl Huysmans in his notorious novel LA-BAS,” says Aubrey Melech in Missa Niger: La Messe Noire (Sint Anubis Books). “Indeed, so close to the abominable truth is this work that the Canon Docre, Huysmans’ Satanic celebrant, can be identified as the Belgian-born priest Louis Van Haecke, who died, if not in the odour of sanctity, at least at the advanced age of 84 in 1912.” This Louis Van Haecke happened to be the Chaplain of the Holy Blood Chapel.

T.J. Hale, the translator of Là-Bas, states in his foreword that Huysmans was close friends with Berthe Courrière, an attractive woman who fed consecrated hosts to stray dogs and busied herself luring inexperienced confessors into sin by inventing all sort of erotic tales. She had a wide network of contacts in occultist and spiritualist circles. About a year after Huysmans first met her, Berthe got herself in serious trouble with the Belgian authorities. She had been found hiding in the bushes, clad only in her underwear. The police of Bruges was skeptical of the story she told them about a narrow escape from a satanic priest named Van Haecke and interned her in a mental asylum. It took the involvement of Remy de Gourmont, another friend of Berthe and Huysmans, to obtain her release.

“The question of whether or not the author of The Damned ever attended a Black Mass is one which has been much debated by biographers and scholars. Hale says. “If he did, it was probably in the company of this same Abbé Louis Van Haecke, Chaplain of the Holy Blood at Bruges, who, like Canon Docre in the novel, was reputed to have a cross tattooed on the soles of his feet, so that he may have the pleasure of continually walking upon the symbol of the Saviour. Huysmans certainly cultivated the claim that he had attended such a ceremony (though he was also known to categorically deny it) and that it was there that he had first seen Van Haecke, who was not officiating but standing aside from the rest of the congregation. “I discovered many curious facts concerning this man,” Huysmans declared. “He has paid three visits to Paris, where he moves in Satanist and occultist circles. On his second visit he stayed at the Hôtel Saint-Jean-de-Latran, in the rue des Saints-Pères, an establishment of doubtful repute which is known chiefly for its clientèle of renegade priests.”

Rennes-le-Château… a Déjà Lu

Huysmans came to believe that the guardian of the Holy Blood of Bruges was the most evil man in Europe. Van Haecke surely displayed an appetite for “comparative religion” but there exists no solid evidence that he indeed was the real demonic Canon Docre. Perhaps ironically, when Là-Bas was published and the story got around that Canon Docre was in reality the Chaplain of the Holy Blood, the Blood Chapel in Bruges attracted so many visitors that Van Haecke had to be replaced.

The story of Louis Van Haecke reads like a déjà lu in comparison to the life and times of Bérenger Saunière, parish priest of Rennes-le-Château, who, in the same timeframe, allegedly got involved with the trendy occultist and maybe even satanist circles in Paris. The stories feature the same usual suspects like composer Claude Debussy and the Belgian symbolist playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, author of the “Merovingian Play” Pelleas and Melisande.

One question remains in the dark shades of Bruges’ silhouet. How could the keeper of the Holy Blood of Bruges, perhaps even of the Holy Grail, lose faith to the extent that Louis Vanhaecke appears to have done, attending a gathering where the Man whose Blood he guarded was called “Jesus, Artisan of Hoaxes”.

Patrick Bernauw
edited by Corjan de Raaf

Patrick Bernauw is living in the Dutch speaking part of Brave Little Belgium. He is a full time writer of historical mysteries and faction thrillers, performer and mystery game producer.

Some Bernauw links:
The Lost Dutchman’s Historical Mysteries
Patrick Bernauw’s Haunted World

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Original photos and image Louis Vanhaecke copyright Corjan de Raaf. Bruges panorama by G. Batistini. Image of Bruges-La-Mort copyright Patrick Bernauw. All are reproduced here with kind permission

The Abbey of Orval, in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest, is truly a place of mystery. The name “Orval” means “Valley of Gold”.

Nostradamus was said to have written a number of his prophecies here. Possibly, there were once no less than two treasures hidden in this wonderful place: the Treasure of the Knights Templar and the War Chest of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

In the book, Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln) we are told that in 1070, 29 years before the First Crusade, some monks from Calabria, southern Italy, arrived in the Ardennes Forest that belonged to Geoffrey of Bouillon. The monks were led by and individual named Ursus, who – according to the so-called Priory Documents – was consistently associated with the Merovingian bloodline, or in other words: with the descendants of Jesus Christ.

The monks were welcomed by Count Arnould of Chiny and by Geoffrey’s aunt and foster-mother Mathilde of Tuscany, Duchess of Lorraine. From Mathilde they received the land that is now known as Orval, not far from Stenay, where once King Dagobert II was assassinated. Before these monks settled in Orval, there wasn’t any human habitation, although there were some Merovingian tombs discovered near a well. A well-known legend says that the monastery was born out of gratitude. Mathilde, a widow, had lost her golden wedding ring, which had accidentally fallen into the fountain. She prayed to the Lord and suddenly a trout rose out of the water with the precious ring in its mouth. “Truly,” Mathilde exclaimed, “this place is a Val d’Or, a Valley of Gold!”

You still can visit the well, where she established a monastery.

A Merovingian Play

Interestingly, the theme of the wedding ring falling into the water also shows up in the play Pelléas and Mélisande (1892) by the Belgian Nobel Prize Winner (1911) Maurice Maeterlinck. His work, characterized by fatalism and mysticism, forms an important part of the Symbolist Movement. The play was first performed in 1893 and several composers made music for it. Claude Debussy’s impressionist opera is perhaps the best known adaptation.

The Dossiers Secrets mention Debussy was Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, the keepers of the Bloodline Secret according to Holy Blood Holy Grail. Perhaps coincidentally, it was under his ‘reign’ that the parish priest of Rennes-le-Château, Bérénger Saunière, found some parchments in his church. According to Gérard de Sède in his book the Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château Saunière discovered and solved the puzzle coded in their texts. The solution allegedly led him to the occultist and even satanist circles of Paris. These secret societies included other renegade priests such as Louis Van Haecke, Chaplain of the Holy Blood Chapel of Bruges, the famous opera singer Emma Calvé, and writers like as Oscar Wilde, André Gide, W.B. Yeats or… Maurice Maeterlinck.

Pelléas and Mélisande was called a fairy tale and “a Merovingian play”. Prince Golaud finds Mélisande by a river in the woods, weeping because she has lost her crown in the water. She does not wish to retrieve it, marries Golaud in a hurry and wins the favour of the old King Arkel, who is very ill. But then she falls in love with Pelléas. They meet at a fountain and Mélisande now loses her wedding ring in the water.

The main theme of the work however is the cycle of creation and destruction. The prologue in which servants can’t wash the dirt from the steps of the castle and which introduces the illness of Arkel, the famine in his kingdom and the foul-smelling waters under his slowly disintegrating castle remind us of the Grail romances, the Fisher King and the Waste Land.

An Abbey in Ruins

One of the monks who lived in Orval was Peter the Hermit, Geoffrey of Bouillon’s tutor. Peter became famous by tirelessly travelling around France to preach to the masses about the occupation of the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Land. His journey brought him from Berry (central France) across Champagne and down the Meuse valley to Cologne, leading his enthusiastic followers across Europe to Constantinople in May 1096. By that time Pope Urban II had proclaimed the First Crusade during the Council of Clermont (November 1095).

In 1108 the monks had mysteriously disappeared from Orval. There is no record of their destination, but it may well have been Jerusalem. Peter the Hermit arrived in Jerusalem with his pupil Geoffrey in the spring of 1099. De Bouillon was offered the throne of the Crusader Kingdom by an anonymous conclave, led by a monk from Calabria.

By 1131 Orval became one of the fiefs owned by Bernard of Clairvaux, writer of the rule of the Knights Templar. He entrusted the re-establishment of Orval to the Abbey of Trois-Fontaines in the Champagne region and for five centuries, the Cistercians of Orval led a quiet life. Nevertheless, the abbey prospered.

In 1605 Bernard de Montgaillard, born in southern France, managed to get himself appointed an Abbot by Archduke Albert and his wife Isabelle. He restored the buildings, reformed the constitutions of the community and put the monastery back on its feet economically. Bernard died in 1628. His last wish was kindly granted: he was buried at the foot of the stairs of the dormitory to the church. His brothers would walk all over him, both on their way up or down, so they would be constantly reminded to pray for him.

During the French Revolution the Abbey survived many a serious alert. However on June 23 of the year 1793, revolutionary troops led by General Loison sacked and burned the monastery down to the ground. The community withdrew to its refuge in Luxembourg. For more than a century the charred walls of Orval were at the mercy of the weather and treasure hunters…

You still can visit the impressive ruins of the old abbey today.

Nostradamus and the Bourbon War Chest

The fervour of General Loison and assorted treasure hunters, was caused by rumours of a Royalist War Chest, hidden somewhere on the Orval domain.

In the spring of 1791, the French King Louis XVI had become a prisoner in his own country. His wife, Marie Antoinette, was begging her brother the Austrian Emperor to help them. Unfortunately for her the messages of her couriers were intercepted and the codes broken. The royalist General de Bouillé turned the fortress town of Montmédy, in the northeast of France, into a safe place for the Royals. In case of an emergency, the Royals could cross the border with the Austrian Netherlands to find refuge in the nearby Abbey of Orval.

Michel de Nostradame, better known as the prophet Nostradamus is assumed to have foreseen the flight of the French King and his Queen in one of his dark verses. In Quatrain 20 of the Ninth Century (Q20, C9):
The night falls, trough the forest of Reims they come
In two parts to Orval, Herne, the white stone.
Now that the monk is in Varennes, in black and grey,
will the choice of Capet be the cause of storm, fire, blood, axe…

General de Bouillé realized 20 and 9 would make up a perfect code for him and his fellow conspirators and one that could not be broken. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette could indeed take the route through the forest of Reims, to Montmédy and Orval. In Varennes, a descendant of Hugh Capet, would bring storm and fire upon these bloody republicans!

The Royal Treasure of the Bourbons, packed in a War Chest was entrusted to Leonard, the royal hairdresser. It was his job to bring the Chest to the Abbey of Orval for safekeeping. What General de Bouillé couldn’t imagine, was that Louis XVI would be arrested in Varennes and that the King of France and his wife Marie Antoinette would lose their heads to the axe of the guillotine. While King and Queen never made it as far as Orval, the royal hairdresser did. Together with Leonard, the Bourbon Royal Treasure was hidden never to resurface again.

Nostradamus and the Knights Templar

Some years a go Rudy Cambier, a retired Belgian professor published his book Nostradamus and the Lost Templar Legacy. In his book he claimed that the French language used by Nostradamus was in fact 14th century Picard the dialect spoken in a region of Flanders between the Dendre and the Escaut. Reading the Centuries the way they had really been intended, they turned out to have been written by a Cistercian monk by name of Yves de Lessines. He was the Prior of the Cistercian Abbey of Cambron, the place where the Knights Templar deposited certain documents regarding their secrets and their treasure at the time of their suppression. De Lessines, not wanting to take the secret into his grave, penned the story down in dark verses, describing the location of the Templar Treasure. Cambier located the spot described in the quatrains. Groundscans have demonstrated that some barrels appear to be buried in the exact location but since the Belgian authorities deny permission, an excavation hasn’t taken place to this day.

Even though an army of researchers has been looking for them for centuries, to this day no original edition of Nostradamus’ prophecies was ever found. Cambuur concludes Nostradamus simply destroyed the original manuscripts of the Centuries. It was obvious to him why Nostradamus did this: to destroy the evidence of his plagiarism.

In his book The Secret of Nostradamus (1927) occultist P.V. Piobb stated that the prophecies of Nostradamus had actually been written by the Templars. The true nature of the Quatrains was that of instructions, given to future individuals. The Centuries were, in other words, a coded manual.

There are certainly a bunch of quatrains speaking of a Temple and a Treasure. In Q1, C5 we hear about a celtic ruin and two people who argue in the Temple – the great one, mounted on a steed, is murdered and buried without making noises. Q7, C9 tells us of a curse, or a booby trap: evil will come to the person who opens the tomb. Q81, C11 speaks of a treasure in the secret place of a Temple and Q9, C6 says that in Sacred Temples scandals will be perpetrated, but they will be seen as honours. In Q13, C10 soldiers are hidden – their arms are making noises – beneath the food of ruminating animals (hay, for example). The animals lead the soldiers to a subterranean place or a city with a name that has “grass”, “herb” or “weed” in it.

On Friday 13 October 1307, immediately after the arrests of the Templars in their Paris headquarters, the agents of the French King discovered that the Templar treasure had vanished and so had almost the entire Templar fleet. A Templar sergeant confessed that the Order was tipped off about the arrests. A small group of knights had managed to sneak the treasure out of Paris in three carts covered with hay. They fled to La Rochelle, a port on the Atlantic coast, destination unknown.

Nostradamus in Orval

It is a known fact Nostradamus spent some time in the castle of Fain, one hour’s walk from Orval. He spent some time in the Abbey. The French writer Patrick Ferté believes Nostradamus was the Solitaire d’Orval, a prophet who predicted the coming of the Great Monarch. Coincidentally or not that is the name of the hotel in Varennes where Louis XVI got arrested.

Both Lincoln, Baigent & Leigh and Gerard de Sède stated that, in Orval, Nostradamus was exposed to secret teachings linked to the Priory of Sion. He is said to have been shown an ancient and arcane book, on which he based all his subsequent work. This book was given to him at the Abbey of Orval to which it was donated by Mathilde, foster-mother of Geoffrey of Bouillon.

There are three Quatrains that could easily be interpreted to be talking about a Treasure in Orval.
Q27, C1 is about a treasure that for many centuries has been gathered and was hidden beneath an oak tree that got struck by lightning. When the treasure is found, a man must die, his eye pierced by a spring. A legend says that Nostradamus often was sitting under an old oak tree, near the botanical garden of the monastery. The tree got struck by lightning but you can take a seat now on the wooden bench under another oak tree and look at the herbs in the garden…

Q66, C8 mentions an “inscription D.M. that is to be found in an ancient cave, revealed by a lamp”.
Q27, C2 tells us about a divine word, struck from the sky, and when you can’t proceed any further, you will see the secret that is locked away with the revelation, as if one will march over it and ahead. Well, under the oak tree, near the herb garden, you are only a few steps away from the inscription D.M., and there, where the Secret is locked away with the revelation, you can walk over and ahead it.
I’m talking about the grave of Bernard De Montgaillard. Some stones are all that is left, but they do mark the place where the Abbot was buried.

Patrick Bernauw is living in the Dutch speaking part of Brave Little Belgium. He is a full time writer of historical mysteries and faction thrillers, performer and mystery game producer.

Check out:
The Lost Dutchman’s Historical Mysteries
Patrick Bernauw’s Haunted World

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Orval Panorama by Gr0uch0. Original photos copyright Patrick Bernauw

In October 1904, Abbé Saunière sent a postcard to Marie Dénarnaud from the village of Arles-sur-Tech. This pilgrimage site, close to the spa town of Amélie-les-Bains at the foot of the Pyrenees, drew and still draws people from far away to worship a Holy Tomb (La Sainte Tombe) supposedly of Saint Abdon and Saint Sennen. Abdon and Sennen were two Iranian saints that were eaten by the lions in the Colloseum in the year 254. Until this day, every day water gathers in their sarcophagus of the purest quality. Once a year the water is siphoned out by the local monks and handed out to the pilgrims. Saunière visited the site multiple times. On one occasion he brought his friend Eugène Grassaud a small bottle of water from the Tomb after he had been relocated to St. Paul de Fenouillet, no longer being in de direct vicinity of the site.

In 1909, a foster sister of Marie Dénarnaud gave birth to a child. The child being seriously ill, it was handed to the brotherhood in Arles-sur-Tech that managed the relics. They decided to treat the baby with the Holy Water. Although the family was convinced the child would die, the little boy miraculously recovered and was baptized Abdon in recognition for the miracle. Abdon was raised under the guardianship of the priest as recounted by Madame Sonia Moreu in an interview with Jean-Patrick Pourtal in July 2000, recounting an anecdote from the old Madame Olive who lived close to Rennes-le-Château and who had known both Henri Boudet and Bérenger Saunière: “during a Sunday lunch the boy had pestered Saunière for a chicken leg after which the priest had sent him away from the table and denied him the meal”.

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved, quote from Sonia Moreu taken from an interview by Jean-Patrick Pourtal of Rennes-le-Château Le Dossier displayed here with kind permission

Many of current lines of Rennes-le-Château research end in or at least touch upon the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Marceille in Limoux. A look into its history at least confirms that clergy and laymen fought over its control through the ages.

In 1991, the late Belgian researcher Jos Bertaulet discovered an underground vault, later documented in the book the Secret Vault by André Douzet and Philip Coppens. Bertaulet explained in his book The lost Kings and the Sources of the Grail Legends how he found the vault by phonetically interpreting bits of the texts in Henri Boudet’s La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains. Unfortunately, Bertaulet’s book is no longer in print. The author died a couple of years ago and was buried in the cemetery of St. Benoît, at the heart of the mystery he devoted part of his life to.

The vault was empty when he discovered it. According to some, whatever was in there was moved to a safer location in the 60s. According to the group around French researcher Franck Daffos and Jean-Pierre Garcia, there is still a spiritual treasure sealed beneath the sanctuary in an extension of the crypt. This chamber was accessible through the Church until Abbé Henri Gasc had it cemented shut in 1859. Dutch researcher Klaas van Urk claims that the Sanctuary once housed the Ark of the Covenant, while his colleague Karl Hammer Kaatee earmarked the church as the former hiding place of the Arma Christi, the instruments of the Passion of Christ.

The Sanctuary is situated on a hilltop near Limoux alongside the river Aude, where once stood a Roman garisson. The first written references to the Church date from 1137 and speak of Sanctae Mariae Marcellano. It is however probable that there was already a chapel in its location as early as 1011 when Roger I Count of Carcassonne donated the vineyard of St. Marie to the Abbey of St. Hilaire.

The Holy status of the Sanctuary has to do with a famous Black Madonna that is worshipped within its walls. According to a local legend, a farmer found the statue when his plough got stuck.

In the 13th century the Priory of Marceille was attached to the Archbishopric of Narbonne. In 1659 François Foucquet, brother of Louis XIV’s famous minister of finance, became Bishop of Narbonne. François was a follower of St. Vincent the Paul and changed the Sanctuary into a Lazarist Seminary as one of the first things he did when he had assumed office. He bought the lands around the Church and started to build the extensions that are still there today. His ‘Pères Doctrinaires’ didn’t make many friends. The people of Limoux filed many complaints about the authoritarian behavior of the priests and the corporal punishment they inflicted on their pupils. After the revolution, in 1793, Notre-Dame de Marceille was sold to Martin Andrieu, Consul of Limoux and the Sanctuary came into private hands.

When the French church were re-opened in 1796, Martin sold three quarters of his property to three different owners. This marked the start of a long dispute between the Diocese of Carcassonne that claimed ownership of the Church and the now four owners. This situation lasted until 1814, when the management of the Sanctuary was divided between the Church, the four owners, the sous-prefect and the Mayor and priests of Limoux.

In 1838, Henri Gasc became priest of the Sanctuary. According to many researchers, he is pivotal to the true Mystery of Rennes-le-Château. It is Gasc that locks away the secret and codes its nature and whereabouts into the interior of the Church. This is intriguing since Gasc is the tutor of the young Henri Boudet. Boudet will later, with the help of Abbé Jean Jourde, preserve the secret in his book La Vraie Langue Celtique and convince Bérenger Saunière to turn his Church into the graphic novel version of it. Fact is that Gasc re-modeled the interior and exterior of the church. He closed the crypts and the well behind the Sanctuary, he constructed the great Voie Sacrée (Holy Road for the pilgrims) and he bought some adjacent fields that he turned into a park with a statue of St. Vincent de Paul.

When Gasc resigned in 1873, a group of Lazarists installed themselves in the Sanctuary, satisfying the wish of François Fouquet centuries earlier and following an order by the then Bishop of Carcassonne Monseigneur Leullieux.

Then in 1892, something out of the ordinary happens. At that moment the owners were Abbé Lassere the priest of Alet-les-Bains, Mr. Andrieu, a banker named Théodore Bourrel and Bishop Billard who had succeeded Leullieux. The Limoux Tribunal receives a request for allotment of the Sanctuary. Notre-Dame de Marceille will be sold to the highest bidder but must remain open for the Holy Mass. Andrieu and Bourrel disagree so the Church is closed down. What follows is a period of legal quarrelling and growing pressure from the public and pilgrims to give back access to the Black Madonna. Bourrel eventually wins and buys the place for 51.050 Francs on 17th January(!) 1893 with the intention to start exploiting the pilgrim site. Billard immediately has the Black Madonna removed. Bourrel sees the Sanctuary holds no value without its main object of veneration and four months later he sell the whole thing on to Billard. Billard pays from private funds and acquires the Sanctuary in his own for 53.879 Francs. The Black Madonna returns immediately after that. Question is why the Sanctuary had to move into the Bishop’s private hands where it would have been practically been the same when the Dioces of Carcassonne had made the sale? Billard was the Head of the Bishopric and by the looks of it had little reason to leave an inheritance to anyone. Or did he?

It is again Daffos who hands us a theory. According to him, Billard bought himself access to what was left of the material treasure of Rennes-le-Château and to the Spiritual Treasure at the same time. He blew the last of the gold by building the Monastery of Prouille, location of the Vision of St. Dominic. It is here that Saunière retreated after being sentenced by Billard’s successor de Beauséjour. Billard himself never witnessed the completion of his grand building plans. He died under its roof in December 1901, being under investigation for financial malversations.

According to French researcher Franck Daffos, the Stations of the Cross of Notre Dame de Marceille depict how a treasure was, moved from a hiding place near Rennes-les-Bains to a specially built vault under the sanctuary. The photos of the Stations of the Cross are published here with kind permission of the copyright holder Liovrai.

Click this link for an English translation of Louis Fédie’s 1890 account of the sanctuary by Marcus Williamson.

More photos of Notre-Dame de Marceille

[View with PicLens]

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,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Many thanks to Jos Bertaulet+ may he rest in peace, Franck Daffos, Jean-Pierre Garcia and Klaas van Urk for their insights and theories

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The Chapelle St. Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer was the first in a row of Chapels and Churches Jean Cocteau adorned with his characteristical man size murals. He created stained glas windows for the Church of St. Maximin in Metz, murals for the church of Notre Dame de France in London and the Chapelle Saint-Blaise in Milly-la-Forêt, his last resting place.

Little is it known, that when Cocteau died he was working on a Chapel project he designed from scratch including the remarkable octagonal floorplan: the Chapel of Notre Dame de Jérusalem in La Tour de Mare.

Forming an Eight

La Tour de Mare (the tower at the sea) is a tiny village near Fréjus at the French Côte d’Azur. It is some 60 km’s from Villefranche-sur-Mer, where Cocteau painted his first Chapel as described in an earlier post. The area in which it was built was bought in the early sixties by a very rich and influential banker and freemason from Nice called Jean Martinon. He intended the grounds as an artists colony, an ideal city. He called Jean Cocteau for help who set out to draw up the plans and designs for a Chapel, assisted by architect Jean Triquenot. Cocteau died in 1963, leaving the project unfinished but with all sketches and plans ready. The project was finished by his close friend and artistic heir Edouard Dermit who finished the last parts of the murals and Roger Pelissier who did the ceramics for the floor mosaic. The difference in style between Cocteau and Dermit is quite apparent in the various tableaus inside.

In religious symbolism, the octagon or the figure 8 represent resurrection, rebirth and eternal life. Jesus’ resurrection took place eight days after his arrival in Jerusalem. Today this symbolism can still be seen in many baptismal fonts in churches all over the world. It is also the shape of the Dome of the Rock, housing the sacred stone that allegedly once supported the Ark of the Covenant.

The building is literally crowned with an iron construction in the shape of a crown. The Chapel is a veritable treasure trove of religious and esoteric imagery. Outside there are magnificently bright and colorful mosaics. Pièce de resistance however, without any doubt is the 360 degree panoramic mural on the eight walls and ceiling of the Chapel’s inside. It’s literally all around you and quite overwhelming when you first see it. It’s adorned by a beautiful floor mosaic. You can get a perfect impression of the Chapel by using the panorama viewer below. It requires the free Quicktime application to be installed on your computer.

The Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre

Cocteau devised a very clear theme for his Chapel of Our Lady of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Cross or Cross with Cross Potent is omnipresent, in fact it appears to have been the basis for the octagonal floorplan. The Jerusalem Cross was a variant of the Crusaders’ Cross (symbol of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem). It was the logo of the Order of the Knights and Dames of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The four smaller crosses are said to symbolize either the four books of the Gospel or the four directions in which the Word of Christ spread from Jerusalem. Most frequentlu however the five crosses symbolize the five wounds of Christ during the Passion. It is here that the Arma Christi come to mind again. The association with Christ’s wounds seems very relevant here given the content of the murals that mostly depict scenes from the Passion of Christ.

God Wills It

The Jerusalem Cross is not the only thing that refers to the Crusades and the Crusader Kingdom. Cocteau appears to have adopted the motto of the First Crusade for his Chapel. At the Council of Clermont in November 1095, pope Urban II held what must have been one of the most powerful speeches in history. A French Nobleman himself, he summoned the French nobility to free the Holy Land and the Holy city from the hands of the Persians. His words that survive today leave little to the imagination:

“You, who sell for vile pay the strenght of your arms to the fury of others, armed with the sword of the Machabees, go and merit an eternal award. If you triumph over your enemies, the kingdons of the East will be your reward. If you are conquered, you will have the glory of dying in the very same place as Jesus Christ, and God will never forget what he found you in the Holy Batallions.

This is now the time to prove that you are animated by true courage, the time to expiate violence committed in the bosom of peace, the many victories purchased at the expense of justice and humanity. If you must have blood, bathe in the blood of the infidels. I speak to you with harshness because my ministry obliges me to do so. Soldiers of Hell, become soldiers of the living God!

His speech was answered by a loud roar from the crowds. The northerns shouted ‘Dieu li volt!’; the southerns in their own tongue: ‘Dieu le veult!’.

It is this last motto that is embedded in the floor and the altar of the Chapel, the most holy spot. It is so prominent you can hardly escape from the feeling that the artist must have had a very specific meaning here.

The Murals

The eight walls of the octagon are decorated with as many tableaus:

1. The Last Supper

In the last supper we see Jesus, surrounded by his twelve disciples. It’s hard to tell who is who. The grouping doesn’t match Da Vinci’s last supper in Milan so we can’t identify the apostle from there. Christ is in the middle. A female figure is leaning against his shoulder on the right, probably John or perhaps Mary Magdalene. Judging by the face, the size and the dress, the figure is androgynous to say the least. We know John has been depicted with some femininity through the ages. On the other hand, the gospels state clearly that Mary Magdalene was present at the Last Supper, so why couldn’t she have been at the table? Remember that in the early 60′s it wasn’t fashionable yet to stage Mary Magdalene besides Jesus as his wife or mother of his children; Jean Cocteau couldn’t have been influenced by Holy Blood, Holy Grail or The Da Vinci Code. If the figure is indeed John or Mary Magdalene, there is an inversion going on, since he (or she) is usually depicted on Christ’s left. For the remainder of the article I will call this figure Mary Magdalene. Although I can’t be 100% sure I think the figure is more feminin than masculin.

In front of Christ there’s a glass of what appears to be red wine often symbolising blood. Perhaps Cocteau is confirming the fact that the Grail and the Holy Blood are in fact one. This too in an age where the translation of San Graal into Sang Real hadn’t been invented yet.

The apostle on the far left makes an inversed ‘J’ symbol. In fact the ‘J’ symbol is everywhere in the murals. It is also in the large mural of St. Peter walking on the water in the Chapel of St. Peter in Villefrance-sur-Mer (see earlier post). The gesture is often called ‘the gesture of John’, after Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting of John the Baptist (not to be confused with John the Apostle), noticeably it was also Da Vinci’s last painting.

Cocteau shamelessly inserted himself into the scene of the Last Supper. It was not the first time he put a self portrait in a religious mural (Notre Dame de France, London), but this time he painted not only himself but also his muse: the French actor Jean Marais. It was whispered that the homosexual Cocteau and Marais shared more than the films they made together. Certainly Cocteau became a father figure for Marais. After Cocteau’s death, Marais would describe his first meeting with Cocteau as his ‘rebirth’. In that sense it’s very appropriate to find him in the Octagon, which represenst that very theme.

What is remarkable is that both in Notre Dame de France and Notre Dame de Jérusalem, Cocteau is looking away from Christ. From the dead as well as the living. Why would Cocteau, who was known as a religious man, do such a thing? Moreover, his friend Jean Marais appears to be mocking Christ with his gesture.

On the far left there appears to be a second portrait of Marais, but a younger version with longer hair this time. Given the profile of the face of the man on his right, it might very well represent Cocteau in a second but younger and more stylised self portrait. Here Jean Marais seems to have little interest in Jesus but Cocteau is staring at him in admiration. Metaforically we are looking at the young Cocteau admiring Christ, but looking away from him when he is older. Something appears to have happened that made him turn away from Christ.

When you look at the scene for a while, you notice something weird. Apart from young Cocteau, nobody actually looks at Christ. Christ’s right eye is a little lower than his left, implying that he is looking at the figure leaning against his shoulder: Mary Magdalene. Closer inspection of the angles of the other figures’ eyes reveal that not only the older Cocteau, but also some of the other apostles are not looking at their Lord Jesus but at Mary Magdalene. When you count them, there appear to be five apostles looking at Mary Magdalene. Jesus is showing us his full hand as if he want to say: ‘Five’. From the previous article we know that Five was an important number for Jean Cocteau.

The fact that five apostles are not looking at Christ but at Mary Magdalene is an intriguing bit of information. The plot thickens when you combine it with the ‘J’ and inverted ‘J’ hand gestures that some of the disciples are making here, including Mary Magdalene himself.

2. Insulting of Christ

This is the scene from the Passion, where Jesus is mocked by and given the Crown of Thorns. This part of the mural doesn’t have the specific distinguished style of painting of Jean Cocteau. It’s likely it was done by Edouard Dermit. Cocteau was very specific in his sketches so the scene should be displayed as he intended.

We see two figures mocking Jesus. One is clearly a Roman soldier, the other one probably a jew, judging by his dress. Christ’s hands are tied and his left hand makes a peculiar gesture, as if imitating a walking mouse. On the right we see a woman praying with her eyes closed and face turned away from Christ, perhaps Mary.

3. The Crucifixion

This too appears to be the work of Dermit. The crucifixion is depicted from an unfamiliar angle, looking up from the bottom of the cross. Two mirrored angels make the ‘J’ and inversed ‘J’ gesture, while holding the cross bearing Orb or Globus Cruciger. It normally symbolises Christ’s dominion over the world. In this context, with the angels holding it, making the gesture at the feet of the dead Christ it could have a different meaning alltogether.

4. The Virgin of the Rose

Over the door leading to the small Sacristie, a mural is painted of a crowned woman, whose crown is overgrown with rose stalks. She is looking sadly into the direction of the Blason over the front entrance. Two giant roses adorn her on both sides. From the Middle Ages, the rose was seen as the queen of flowers, symbolysing the Virgin Mary. What is odd here is that normally she is represented by a thornless rose to indicate she is without sin. Not so here, her crown is oovergrown with thorny stems. What was her sin?

Perhaps her sins had to do with what’s depicted below her on the door leading to the Sacristie. A very vague sketch appears to display an image of the infant Jesus. Combined the pictures suggest Mary in relation to perhaps a sinful (natural?) conception of baby Jesus.

5. The Resurrection

Straight opposite the Last Supper, on the other side of the room there’s a mural of the Resurrection, this time clearly from the hand of the master himself. An Angel lifts the veil and uncovers a figure much to the suprise of the two Roman soldiers. It’s a strange scene indeed. Again, there’s the inversed ‘J’ symbol. The most prominent mystery here is the identity of the figure behind the veil. It seems a woman rather than a man from the shape of the body. Closer inspection reveals that the figure has no beard. It’s not Jesus that is resurrected here. Actually the figure looks a lot more like the person from the Last Supper identified as Mary Magdalene or maybe John. Perhaps there’s a clue in the outstretched hand of the left soldier displaying the ‘Five’ symbol again, the Last Supper taking place on a Thursday (the fifth day of the week in Jewish custom where Sunday was the first day).

6. Angel of the Apocalypse

Before an enormous buring sun, an angel blows the trumpet to announce the Apocalypse.

He is standing in front of an enormous orange sun. His chest is adorned with a cross. His wings spread out wide.

You can only wonder what he was meant to announce here in the strange combination of symbolism and religion.

7. Adoration of Christ

Adoration of Christ is the title given to this work in a brochure in the Chapel. I am not so sure these eight men are adoring or chanting to Christ. They look like Jewish, judging by the curls hanging down from their heads. Looking at their faces you would think they are reading a verdict of some sort. On the other hand, since they all have their mouths open it’s more like they’re singing or scanting. They appear to be religious figures, perhaps the Sanhedrin. On their dresses they wear the Cross Potent. Their faces are serious and don’t look at Christ. The figure of Christ in the middle once again makes the ‘J’ gesture, at the same time pointing at a beetle crawling away from him. The depiction of Christ reminds of the Turin Shroud.

The beetle is an ancient Egyptian symbol. Inlcuding a scarab in the tomb was believed to ensure the rebirth of the deceased in the afterlife. This is quite significant. Wasn’t Jesus supposed to be reborn in this one?

8. Blason

Over the front entrance of the Chapel, a giant colorful Blason is painted in Cocteau’s hand. Two mirrored winged figures are painted around a shield with the Jerusalem Cross. At the bottom there’s a figure with an Egyptian looking headdress but he is wearing a necklace with a Christian cross. The black color and the facial expression indicate she is mourning. The whole thing is painted like some kind of blason or coat of arms. In the picture there are some symmetrical black and red dots. I tried to connect them but it hasn’t led to a distinguishable image so far. I am interested to hear if anyone can connect them up to reveal something meaningful.

The mirrored figure looks very much like the person that could well be identified as the ‘young Cocteau’ in the last supper. Again it appears as if the artist has put himself into the scene. It would be a logical step to suggest Cocteau was a member of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Perhaps not an ordinary member.

Below the Blason, on both sides of the entrance, a figure, wearing a hat with the Jerusalem Cross, holds out his hands with the thumbs touching in the old Jewish symbol for divinity.

Cocteau, the Meticulous Director

Jean Cocteau firmly believed he would transcend time and space after his death, just like the man he shared the intials with: Jesus Christ. This re-birth would not take place in this life though.

It’s hard to tell exactly what Jean Cocteau had in mind when he designed the Chapel of Notre Dame de Jérusalem. When Jean Martinon asked him to design a Chapel for his Ideal City, Cocteau must have thought to create the Ideal Chapel. Sensitive as he was, he perhaps even had a premonition of death lurking round the corner, pushing him to make his last enigmatic work the most explicit of them all. A perfect symbiosis of shape and image. Did Cocteau hide something or the exact opposite? In either case, you can count on everything being there for a reason. You have to remember Jean Cocteau was a celebrated film director. He was known for meticulously detailing out his themes and messages. A micro-director, obsessed with the right word in the right line in the right poem. The right person in the right clothes in the right spot on the stage. Cocteau didn’t leave anything in his art to chance. He was very articulate. A symbolyst; certainly not an impressionist.

So what is the symbology here and what could the master have meant to say?

My guess is that the octagonal shape was meant to guard knowledge in this place for eternity. In a great double meaning of the same octagon it looks like that knowledge had everything to do with the alleged resurrection of Christ. The outer and the inner octagon.

Cocteau tells us Mary had sins and gave birth to the Infant Jesus through natural conception. He died on the cross and changed his earthly kingdom for a heavenly one. The artist appears to be telling Christ didnot return and won’t return at the Apocalypse. While the Crusader priests pray and chant, Christ sheds tears over them in heaven where he was just reborn as symbolised by the Scarab.

At the Last Supper all eyes are on Mary Magdalene. Remember Cocteau painted this in an age where everybody still believed she was nothing but a foul footnote in the bible. Cocteau emphasises her role even more in the resurrection, straight opposite the Last Supper. Not Christ but Mary Magdalene exits the tomb with a serene expression on her face. She knows he’s in heaven and won’t be back. It’s clear now who Our Lady of Jerusalem is: Mary Magdalene.

If this is what Cocteau meant to say, how does the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre fit the picture? If the previous interpretation is correct, guarding Christ’s tomb would become a whole lot more relevant than it would be when he had walked out of it after his death. It would mean his mortal remains where laid to rest and perhaps still are somewhere today. In that respect the ‘J’ and inverted ‘J’ symbols are quite clear in their meaning: he, Jesus, is up there, not here.

Dieu le Veult, God wills it, however not as they thought he wanted it in the 10th century. Jean Cocteau, appears to show us the Crusaders went on a conquest for all the wrong reasons but found a Holy Sepulchre, worthy to protect through all times.

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved

Additional credits:
Mairie et Office du Tourisme Fréjus
The Crusades, Robert Payne
Discussions on www.terugnaardebron.com internet forum
Original photos Corjan de Raaf
Panorama photo copyright Antonio Moya, many thanks!
This article was previously published on Andrew Gough’s Arcadia