Arcadia Discussion Zone

Tingra - the article on SP was called "The Hapsburg Dynasty", and was published on 4th April 2008 (don't know how to do links here - but have sent you a "pm" explaining the quote thing!). A very interesting read.

However, the name of the Hapsburg family member who spent time in the village (and was referred to by the locals as "the stranger") was Johann Salvator. He was a nephew of the Countess of Chambord, the lady who gave Sauniere the initial funding to commence his church renovations. He later changed his name to Johann Orth.

For what it's worth, I think the notion that Sauniere derived his "wealth" from the Hapsburg family is the most persuasive of all the various theories. Why this should be, is another matter entirely. Would thoroughly recommend the late Jean Luc Robin's book on RLC for more on that, and much else besides. The SP article also well worth reading.

Click the button labeled "quote" in the upper right corner of the post you want to reply to. Then edit the contents of the resulting "Post a reply" window that appears, to your liking. You'll see what are called "HTML tags" in the body of the text, with "[quote="name"]" preceding the text you want to quote, and "[slash quote]" ending the text you're quoting. As you can see, I had to change the / character in my example, to the word "slash" to prevent it from displaying as if I was quoting someone named "name".

I take it, Roger, that you are not going to make life easy for me by telling me what this is. In which case, thanks for the tip. I'll get into it.

I guess not. The fun's in the chase. Isn't it always?

However, the name of the Hapsburg family member who spent time in the village (and was referred to by the locals as "the stranger") was Johann Salvator. He was a nephew of the Countess of Chambord, the lady who gave Sauniere the initial funding to commence his church renovations. He later changed his name to Johann Orth.

Richard i found the article and under the same article headed " Another Pseudonyn" it says that he ( hapsburg) was also travelling under the pseudonym Monsieur Guillaumes and that was why i thought it was the same name/person because it looks the same . This is most likely just another of the multidude of coincidences that seem to occur oh so frequently in this mystery.

obviously i havent done the quote thing right.......Durrrrrrr

I HAVE NOW.........thanks for the help guys.

Probably.

Guillaume is French for William.

Guillem may just be some derivative of the same word, but I looked it up in my French dictionary, and Guillemet means an inverted comma or quotation mark. These can be used ironically, sometimes, to infer something is not quite what it seems, or what it claims to be. Like a nod and a wink, perhaps. Like a pseudonym? Maybe??

Probably not!

it would be interesting to see what Guillem means in Spanish or Catalan????

Which raises the issue: if there were more logical places to send masses, why did they send so many to Sauniere? Maybe the answer has been covered before, but I haven't found it yet.

Well, the answer perhaps being that Sauniere could do something or access something quite singular, that others couldn't and that made him unique. This line now seems to be forming the core of much research in the RLC genre but as to what exactly made Sauniere and possibly his peers "special" is up for great debate.

I thought it seemed unlikely that so many people would order masses by mail from Sauniere, so it makes sense that it was just a cover for whatever real reason he was being sent money.

Indeed. It's one of the more intriguing - and confusing - elements. Particularly as it would appear to run counter to one of the principal strands of RLC lore - that the priest discovered something that invalidated, in some way, traditional Christian theory. And yet the issue of the requests for masses, amongst other things, suggests a man devout in his faith.

Such apparent interest - in the spiritual significance of the Abbe's parish, from far flung corners of the country - might normally be seen to suggest the possibility that said Abbe witnessed a miracle, but there's no record of this whatsoever. Except this makes me wonder if this might have lain behind Roger's enigmatic reference yesterday to Sauniere's "miracle".

Trying to bring this back more specifically to Girona, and the talk of portals, altered states, alchemy, etc., I wonder sometimes if this mystery might be more about a "phenomena", rather than a "thing" (tomb, relic, etc.). That would tie in more with the "miracle" statement.

Richard,

You probably know this already but the Orthodox Saints Abdon and Sennen are discussed by Societe Perillos at the following link:-

http://perillos.com/angelina_3.html

This forms part of the discussion about the other Orthodox Saint who pops up unexpectedly in the area - Angelina. Indeed, it is an intriguing question as why this should be so. The standard histories of Abdon and Sennen are very much set in Persia and Rome but there are apparently links to La Sanch also. Very intriguing and perhaps Roger might like to elaborate?!

No! I did read the article, when it first came out, but had forgotten this detail. Thanks for reminding me. I'll re-read it. I had ascertained - following Roger's reference to them - that, in patronage terms, they are associated with the burial of the dead, which made me think about La Sanch, so I may have got here in the end, but thanks anyway.

Two other little snippets I found out about these two, is the belief by some that they are buried somewhere in Pescia, an Italian city famous for flower growing, and known sometimes as "City of Flowers", and from this I made a tenuous Girona connection - ref. the flower festival.

Soissons is also sometimes cited as a burial place; once a capital of one of the Merovingian kingdoms.

One further thing, albeit of only trivial interest, I'm sure, is that Sennen is apparently sometimes known as Sennes. This made me think about Serres, the village by Cardou whose name spells the same forwards as backwards, and calls to mind themes of inversion, reflection and opposites (black rock, white rock, etc.) popular in RLC mythologies.

Thanks for the SP reference. I'll read the article again.

A tiny bit more on the Abdon and Sennen reference you suggested one pursued, in addition to the snippets I referred to yesterday.

They are associated with Phrygian caps, red pointy / floppy hats, originally worn in ancient times in Anatolia, and also associated with Mithraism, and Trojans such as Paris, they have come to be seen as symbols of liberty - American Revolution, Frech Revolution, etc.

It's also believed to feature in Rosicrucian ceremonial attire, and also as a mark of initiatory progress in the Bavarian Illuminati.

Linking that back to Arcadian matters - as opposed to merely esoteric ones - the founder of the Bavarian Illuminati - Adam Weishaupt - made his members adopt names from Greek antiquity. His was Spartacus.

(Thanks to Michel Lamy's "Secret Message of Jules Verne", for much of the above information)

Archduke Johann Salvator - aka Johann Orth - was absolutely not the nephew of the Comtesse de Chambord. Not even close. They came from two separate cadet branches of the Habsburg family - he from the Tuscan line, she from the Modena line. They were distant cousins. The nephew of the Comtesse de Chambord who figures in this "enigma" isn't a Habsburg at all, but a Spanish Bourbon living in exile in Austria - Don Carlos de Borbón y Austria-Este, Duke of Madrid - the Carlist king "Carlos VIII" of Spain and Legitimist "Charles XI" of France.

Johann Salvator was a family outcast who loathed the restrictions of dynastic regulations and openly rebelled against them by marrying his mistress, renouncing his rank and titles, and relocating to London in 1889. The Austrian emperor despised Johann Salvator for his "libertine" influence on Crown Prince Rudolph. He disappeared off the southern coast of South America, his last telegram out of Buenos Aires received by his mother dated 13 July 1890.

The "Salvator" archduke who spent his life traveling under various pseudonyms was his brother Ludwig Salvator, who died in 1915.

TCP

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Especially as concerns its ruling family in the 14th and 15th centuries. Many interesting connections there.

TCP

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The name of the tower is somewhat self-explanatory - a "guaita" is an observation or watch tower, and there are many such towers called guaitas in cities with old fortifications around the Mediterranean Sea. While it may have been a prime spot for stargazing in centuries past, I wouldn't compare it to an actual working observatory like the one at Castelfranc, which marks the old Meridien Vert near Castres, built by Guillaume Nautonnier ca. 1610, as it was one of the first modern observatories in Europe (and the oldest in France).

Now if only the Marquis Stanislaus de Guaita had been Catalan instead of Alsatian - then we'd have a whole new avenue to explore.

TCP

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You might want to go back and check your original source. It says that this is an observation tower, not an observatory. I'm not sure why you might think proximity to coastline has any significance, or why surrounding 21st century urban sprawl would give you any insight on its strategic value when it was constructed in the 12th century.

TCP

Sorry, I see now that this was my fault as I set it up that way by referring to fortified cities around the Mediterranean. Bad form on my part. A better way to put it might be to say that "Torres de Guaita" could be located fortified cities in the Mediterranean world. Not that fortified cities in other parts of Europe wouldn't have watchtowers as well, but the term "Torres de Guaita" points to Romance languages.

TCP

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