François-Marius Granet (1777-1849)

This French painter was well-known for his works in which he played with light in a magnificent way. Everything in his works is sacrificed to the tone. During his life he worked various periods in Rome and Paris.

In 1819, Granet was decorated by the French King Louis-Philippe as a Knight in the Order of Saint Michel. At the same time he was nominated conservator of the Versailles art collection.

Granet developed a deep interest into the history of Knight’s Templar. He painted a number of scenes about the great moments in the history of the order. In 1834 he painted what is thought to be one of his principal works: The Death of Poussin.

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Nicolas Poussin  (1594-1665)

Allegedly, Poussin’s motto was ‘tenet confidentiam’ or ‘keeper of secrets’. What did Poussin know and did he leave any clues in his work?

Young Nicolas Poussin ran away from home when he was eighteen to find refuge in Paris in the Ateliers of Flemish masters Ferdinand Elle and Georges Lallemand. In 1624 he arrived in Rome, the city he had always wanted to work in because of his love for the Italian masters. By that time he had an impressive command of the Latin language and classical literature which didn’t go unnoticed. Cardinal Francesco Barberini became his patron and master. He worked on one of the chapels St. Peter’s Basilica and painted various other works across Rome. Among his later patrons were splendid names like French Cardinal Richelieu and Cassiano dal Pozzo for whom he produced his magnificent first series of the Seven Sacraments.

Both Series of Seven Sacraments by Nicolas Poussin

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In 1656 while living in Rome, Poussin received a visit from the Abbé Louis Fouquet, the brother of Nicolas Fouquet, superintendent of finances to King Louis XIV of France. From here the Abbé sent a letter to his brother describing his meeting with Poussin. In this letter he makes the following statement:

‘He and I discussed certain things, which I shall with ease be able to explan to you in detail - things that will give you, through Monsieur Poussin, advantages which even kings would have great pains to draw from him, and which, according to him, it is possible that nobody else will ever be able to rediscover in the centuries to come. And, what is more, these are things so difficult to discover that nothing now on this earth can prove of better fortune nor be their equal.’

The letter was first published by Anatole de Montaiglon in his book Archives de l’Art français (2ème série, tome II, 1862).

Nicolas Poussin died in 1665 in Rome where he was buried in the Basilica San Lorenzo in Lucina. Châteaubriand, French Ambassador in Rome, raised a monument to Poussin above the artist’s mausoleum in 1820. It carries a dedication and a bas-relief displaying his most famous painting The Shepherds of Arcadia. At the bottom there’s an inscription that perhaps answers the question whether Poussin preserved esoteric clues in his work. It states:

‘PARCE PIIS LACRIMIS VIVIT PUSSINUS IN URNA VIVERE QUI DEDERAT NESCIUS IPSE MORI HIC TAMEN IPSE SILET SI VIS AUDIRE LOQUENTEM MIRUM EST TABULIS VIVIT ET ELOQUITUR’.

This curious expression speaks about how Poussin has given his life without really dying. He is silent now but if you’re prepared to listen you can hear him speaking through his paintings.

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Canon Jean Eugène Huguet (1845-1927)

Curé of Espiens sur Nérac and Avocat Ecclésiastique (religious lawyer). Huguet took up Saunière’s defense when he was accused of mass trafficking, excessive spending and disobeyance. Huguet was recommended to Saunière by his best friend the Abbé Eugène Grassaud. He went to great lengths to defend the Abbé in court in Carcassonne and later in the Vatican court. Huguet couldn’t prevent that Saunière was sentenced twice and relieved of his sacerdotal duties, because until the very end the Abbé refused to show up at the trials in person and to tell  the judges where his money originated from.

Saunière’s case wasn’t the only one Huguet defended before the Vatican. Before he got involved with the priest, he defended the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Pellevoisin, a small village in the French Indre department, about which he had published some works. Huguet acted in the role of Postulator (the cannon who is placed in charge of the file for canonisation) in front of the Holy Sea. In 1876, the Virgin had appeared 15 times to Estelle Faguet, a member of the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris.

Catherine Labourré, who had witnessed a Mary apparition in de Rue du Bac in Paris 44 years earlier in 1832, was a member of that same order. Saunière commemorated this apparition by placing two stained glass windows over the front door of the Villa Bethania.

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Tomb of Nicolas Poussin, Basilica Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome

Nicolas Poussin died in Rome in 1665 and was buried in the Basilica San Lorenzo in Lucina. Vicomte de François-Auguste-René Châteaubriand (1768-1848), French Ambassador in Rome, raised a monument to Poussin above the artist’s mausoleum in 1820. It carries a dedication and a bas-relief displaying his most famous painting the Shepherds of Arcadia. Below the plaque there’s an inscription that might well answer our question of whether Poussin preserved esoteric clues in his work. It states:

‘PARCE PIIS LACRIMIS VIVIT PUSSINUS IN URNA VIVERE QUI DEDERAT NESCIUS IPSE MORI HIC TAMEN IPSE SILET SI VIS AUDIRE LOQUENTEM MIRUM EST TABULIS VIVIT ET ELOQUITUR’.

This curious expression speaks about how Poussin has given his life without really dying. He is silent now but if you’re prepared to listen you can hear him speaking through his paintings.

Chateaubriand;s dedication reads: ‘F-R de Châteaubriand to Nicolas Poussin, for the glory of the Arts and the honour of France’ The bas-relief displaying Les Bergers d’Arcadie was executed by Léon Vaudoyer (1803-1872). The bust of Poussin, above it, is signed ‘P. Lemoyne’.

©2007-2008 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved