Having lost their initial ideal, the Templars had mistaken the means for the end. Those exterminator monks became thereafter bankers, acquirers of châteaux, moneylenders, seigneurs of vassals and lands. How could they retain the divine delight of the years of their youth, when they were running among the shores of Lake Tiberiad for the defense of pilgrims? They were so poor then that they only had one horse between two of them. That was in the times when they kept Jerusalem for the Christians. When each of them had several caparisoned horses and squires to lead them, they were expelled from Saint-Jean-d’Acre.
The secret of their strength was in their courage and their faith. But they took wealth for an ideal, in the same way that the Albigensians had taken poverty. They wanted a Christ superior to the one that the vulgar worshiped, but they had not heeded the parable of the camel and the needle’s eye. They believed that a great work could be accomplished by making use, with impunity, of the weapons of evil. So the message was lost, their work was consigned to oblivion, as with all those who do not have as a first principle a perfect disinterest.
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION
105 Adolphe Ahaiza. Cybele
102 Alphonse Allais. The Adventures of Captain Cap
02 Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
14 G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
152 André Arnyvelde. The Ark
153 André Arnyvelde. The Mutilated Bacchus
61 Charles Asselineau. The Double Life
118 Henri Austruy. The Eupantophone
119 Henri Austry. The Petitpaon Era
120 Henri Austry. The Olotelepan
130 Barillet-Lagargousse. The Final War
180 Honoré de Balzac. The Last Fay
193 Mme Barbot de Villeneuve. Beauty and the Beast
194 Mme Barbot de Villeneuve. The Naiads
103 S. Henry Berthoud. Martyrs of Science
189 S. Henry Berthoud. The Angel Asrael*
23 Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse
121 Richard Bessière. The Masters of Silence
148 Béthune (Chevalier de). The World of Mercury
26 Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
06 Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
173 Pierre Boitard. Journey to the Sun
92 Louis Boussenard. Monsieur Synthesis
39 Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
89 Alphonse Brown. The Conquest of the Air
98 Emile Calvet. In A Thousand Years
191 Jean Carrère. The End of Atlantis
40 Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
81 Félicien Champsaur. Ouha, King of the Apes
91. Félicien Champsaur. The Pharaoh’s Wife
133 Félicien Champsaur. Homo-Deus
143 Félicien Champsaur. Nora, The Ape-Woman
03 Didier de Chousy. Ignis
166 Jacques Collin de Plancy. Voyage to the Center of the Earth
97 Michel Corday. The Eternal Flame
182. Michel Corday & André Couvreur. The Lynx
113 André Couvreur. The Necessary Evil
114 André Couvreur. Caresco, Superman
115 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 1)
116 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 2)
117 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 3)
67 Captain Danrit. Undersea Odyssey
184 Gaston Danville. The Perfume of Lust
149 Camille Debans. The Misfortunes of John Bull
17 C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
05 Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
68 Georges T. Dodds. The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men
125 Charles Dodeman. The Silent Bomb
49 Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
144 Odette Dulac. The War of the Sexes
188. Alexandre Dumas & Paul Lacroix. The Man who married a Mermaid
145 Renée Dunan. The Ultimate Pleasure
10 Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
08 Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
51 Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
154 Fernand Fleuret. Jim Click
108 Louis Forest. Someone Is Stealing Children In Paris
31 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
70 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega & The Shadowmen
112 H. Gayar. The Marvelous Adventures of Serge Myrandhal on Mars
88 Judith Gautier. Isoline and the Serpent-Flower
185 Louis Geoffroy. The Apocryphal Napoleon
163 Raoul Gineste. The Second Life of Dr. Albin
136 Delphine de Girardin. Balzac’s Cane
146 Jules Gros. The Fossil Man
174 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 1
175 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 2
176 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 3
177 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 4
178 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 5
179 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 6
57 Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
134 Edmond Haraucourt. Daah, the First Human
24 Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
131 Eugene Hennebert. The Enchanted City
137 P.-J. Hérault. The Clone Rebellion
150 Jules Hoche. The Maker of Men and his Formula
140 P. d’Ivoi & H. Chabrillat. Around the World on Five Sous
107 Jules Janin. The Magnetized Corpse
29 Michel Jeury. Chronolysis [NO LONGER AVAILABLE]
55 Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
30 Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
90 Fernand Kolney. Love in 5000 Years
87 Louis-Guillaume de La Follie. The Unpretentious Philosopher
101 Jean de La Hire. The Fiery Wheel
50 André Laurie. Spiridon
52 Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
82 Alain Le Drimeur. The Future City
27-28 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (2 vols.)
07 Jules Lermina. Mysteryville
25 Jules Lermina. Panic in Paris
32 Jules Lermina. The Secret of Zippelius
66 Jules Lermina. To-Ho and the Gold Destroyers
127 Jules Lermina. The Battle of Strasbourg
15 Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
73 Gustave Le Rouge. The Plutocratic Plot
74 Gustave Le Rouge. The Transatlantic Threat
75 Gustave Le Rouge. The Psychic Spies
76 Gustave Le Rouge. The Victims Victorious
109-110-111 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius
96 André Lichtenberger. The Centaurs
99 André Lichtenberger. The Children of the Crab
135 Listonai. The Philosophical Voyager
157 Ch. Lomon & P.-B. Gheusi. The Last Days of Atlantis
197 Maurice Magre. The Marvelous Story of Claire d’Amour
197 Maurice Magre. The Call of the Beast
198 Maurice Magre. Priscilla of Alexandria
199 Maurice Magre. The Angel of Lust
200 Maurice Magre. The Mystery of the Tiger
201 Maurice Magre. The Poison of Goa
203 Maurice Magre. The Blood of Toulouse
204 Maurice Magre. The Albigensian Treasure
205 Maurice Magre. Jean de Fodoas
206 Maurice Magre. Melusine
207 Maurice Magre. The Brothers of the Virgin Gold
208 Charles Malato. Lost !
167 Camille Mauclair. The Virgin Orient
72 Xavier Mauméjean. The League of Heroes
78 Joseph Méry. The Tower of Destiny
77 Hippolyte Mettais. The Year 5865
128 Hyppolite Mettais. Paris Before the Deluge
; 83 Louise Michel. The Human Microbes
84 Louise Michel. The New World
93 Tony Moilin. Paris in the Year 2000
11 José Moselli. Illa’s End
38 John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
156 Charles Nodier. Trilby * The Crumb Fairy
04 Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
21 Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
56 Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
79 Pierre Pelot. The Child Who Walked On The Sky
85 Ernest Perochon. The Frenetic People
161 Jean Petithuguenin. An International Mission to the Moon
141. Georges Price. The Missing Men of the Sirius
165 René Pujol. The Chimerical Quest
100 Edgar Quinet. Ahasuerus
123 Edgar Quinet. The Enchanter Merlin
192 Jean Rameau. Arrival in the Stars
60 Henri de Régnier. A Surfeit of Mirrors
33 Maurice Renard. The Blue Peril
34 Maurice Renard. Doctor Lerne
35 Maurice Renard. The Doctored Man
36 Maurice Renard. A Man Among the Microbes
37 Maurice Renard. The Master of Light
169 Restif de la Bretonne. The Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man
170 Restif de la Bretonne. Posthumous Correspondence 1
171 Restif de la Bretonne. Posthumous Correspondence 2
172 Restif de la Bretonne. Posthumous Correspondence 3
186 Restif de la Bretonne.The Story of the Great Prince Oribeau
187 Restif de la Bretonne.The Four Beauties and the Four Beasts
41 Jean Richepin. The Wing
12 Albert Robida. The Clock of the Centuries
62 Albert Robida. Chalet in the Sky
69 Albert Robida. The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul
95 Albert Robida. The Electric Life
151 Albert Robida. Engineer Von Satanas
46 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Givreuse Enigma
45 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Mysterious Force
43 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Navigators of Space
48 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Vamireh
44 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The World of the Variants
47 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Young Vampire
71 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Helgvor of the Blue River
24 Marcel Rouff. Journey to the Inverted World
158 Marie-Anne de Roumier-Robert. The Voyages of Lord Seaton to the Seven Planets
132 Léonie Rouzade. The World Turned Upside Down
09 Han Ryner. The Superhumans
124 Han Ryner. The Human Ant
181 Han Ryner. The Son of Silence
195 Henri de Saint-Georges. The Green Eyes
183 Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. The Crocodile
190 Nicolas Ségur. The Human Paradise
122 Pierre de Selenes. An Unknown World
19 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 1. News from the Moon
20 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 2. The Germans on Venus
63 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 3. The Supreme Progress
64 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 4. The World Above the World
65 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 5. Nemoville
80 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 6. Investigations of the Future
106 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 7. The Conqueror of Death
129 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 8. The Revolt of the Machines
142 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 9. The Man with the Blue Face
155 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 10. The Aerial Valley
159 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 11. The New Moon
160 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 12. The Nickel Man
162 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 13. On the Brink of the World’s End
164 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 14. The Mirror of Present Events
168 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 15. The Humanisphere
42 Jacques Spitz. The Eye of Purgatory
13 Kurt Steiner. Ortog
18 Eugène Thébault. Radio-Terror
58 C.-F. Tiphaigne de La Roche. Amilec
138 Simon Tyssot de Patot. Voyages and Adventures of Jacques de Massé
104 Louis Ulbach. Prince Bonifacio
53 Théo Varlet. The Xenobiotic Invasion (w/Octave Joncquel)
16 Théo Varlet. The Martian Epic; (w/André Blandin)
59 Théo Varlet. Timeslip Troopers
86 Théo Varlet. The Golden Rock
94 Théo Varlet. The Castaways of Eros
139 Pierre Véron. The Merchants of Health
54 Paul Vibert. The Mysterious Fluid
147 Gaston de Wailly. The Murderer of the World
181 Willy. Astral Amour
Notes
1 Most of the names in this chapter are fictitious, but Marie Cose is mentioned in the published Annals of Toulouse as a notorious serial adulteress of great beauty who was condemned to be whipped after seducing the son of a town councilor. She is featured in Le Trésor des Albigeois as a somewhat raddled prostitute, although the relevant section of that novel does not seem to be set any later than the present chapter. Several other characters mentioned in passing, including Isaac Andréa and Captain Mauric, had also played minor parts in Le Trésor des Albigeois.
2 As with Marie Cose, this name is taken from contemporary documents referring to a real magistrate active in Toulouse in the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first two decades of the seventeenth, although his title is listed in some of those documents as “Seigneur de Montlaur et de Lagarde” rather than the one with which the present text credits him.
3 The historical Pierre Du Jarric (1566-1617) was indeed a Jesuit from Toulouse, but his ambition to become a missionary was thwarted and he devoted himself instead to compiling an Histoire des choses plus mémorables advenues tant en Indes orientales [History of the Most Memorable Things to Have Happened Recently in the East Indies] (3 volumes, 1610-1614; partly tr. as Akbar and the Jesuits: An Account of the Jesuit Missions to the Court of Akbar) based on reports sent back by actual missionaries. Magre used the book as a source of materials for his narrative, but his account of events and people mentioned therein is infinitely more extravagant.
4 Clement VIII was Pope from 1592-1605.
5 The Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) published his pioneering Atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum [The Theater of the World], containing 53 maps, most of them copies, in 1570. It remained a standard reference work until the second decade of the seventeenth century, when it was surpassed by more elaborate and more accurate atlases, including the one produced by Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) and published posthumously in 1595, many of them stimulated by Ortelius’ example and the desire to improve on his endeavor.
6 The Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was one of the key figures in the early Jesuit missions to China, and was the first European to enter the Forbidden City, invited because of his great scholarship as an astronomer and geographer.
7 Nicolas Pimenta (1546-1613) was a Jesuit missionary whose letters from Pegu [nowadays Bagu in Burma] in connection with a mission undertaken in 1599 were published, and formed one of the sources of Pierre Du Jarric’s account of India. He did not take part in any of the missions to Agra, as the present text alleges, although Du Jarric mingles details from his accounts with the accounts of those missions.
8 Aires de Saldanha (1542-1605), who was appointed Viceroy of India in 1600, was a Portuguese soldier and the son of a famous navigator who had served for a long time in Portuguese India, struggling to defend it against the encroachments of the Dutch.
9 Benoît de Goës (1562-1617) undertook an epic journey, departing from Goa in September 1602, which eventually took him to the gates of China in December 1605, travelling disguised as an Armenian merchant. It made him famous, because his journal of the voyage was brought posthumously to Mattéo Ricci in Peking, who publicized it. The account of that journey in the present story is anachronistic, incompatible with various other datable events featured therein.
10 Bartholomew, one of Jesus’ twelve Apostles (although he is not mentioned in the Gospel of St. John, where he is replaced by Nathanael), was reported in a history written by Eusebius of Caesarea in the early fourth century and the slightly later writings of Saint Jerome to have undertaken a missionary voyage to India after the Ascension. The Jesuit missionaries to India did indeed search for evidence to confirm those legends, although the cross featured in the present story is an invention.
11 The Timurid ruler Ulugh Beg (1394-1449) was indeed a great astronomer, and built a great observatory in Samarkand in the 1420s. The territory he ruled, centered on what is now Uzbekistan, extended into northern Afghanistan, but not India, so any treasure he might have buried is highly unlikely to have been there.
12 Rodolpho Aquaviva (1550-1583) led the first Jesuit mission to Agra in 1580-83, and was the general of the Order thereafter.
13 Akbar the Great (1542-1605), the Mogul Emperor from 1556 until his death, who expanded that Empire vastly by conquest, invited the Jesuits to send missionaries to Agra, partly because of his curiosity about the Occident—he was a great scholar—but in particular because of his desire to found and promulgate a new monotheistic system of belief, which eventually became known as Din-i-Ilahi [a Persian term for religion, although Akbar’s system was not a religion in the strict sense of the term, being devoid of scriptures and priests] fusing the traditions of Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity—an ambition that attracted the wrathful opposition of orthodox Muslims
14 The Jesuit Antonio de Monserrate accompanied Rodolfo Acquaviva on the first Jesuit mission to Agra, and wrote a commentary on that mission that was one of the sources of Pierre Du Jarric’s history, but he did not return there in the early 1600s as the present narrative asserts.
15 The Father Pignero given that name in Du Jarric’s history was Emmanuel Pinheiro or Pigneiro (1556-1618), who accompanied Jerome Xavier on the third mission to Agra in 1595, and spent a long time there, remaining after Akbar’s death, but the character in the present novel only appears to have borrowed the surname.
16 It is not surprising that the narrator has never seen an astronomical telescope, as history records that none existed in Europe at the time the story is set—Galileo only built his very modest pioneering model in 1609—and it is extremely unlikely that any such thing existed in India, where astronomers would almost certainly have made all their observations with the naked eye.