Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (important books to read .txt) 📗

first serious studies ofcryptography."

"Correct me if I'mwrong," I said, "but didn't you say that Trithemius lived at leasta hundred years after the manuscript we're talking about waswritten?"

"Trithemius wasassociated with a Sodalitas Celtica that was concerned withphilosophy, astrology, Pythagorean mathematics. You see theconnection? The Templars were an order whose initiates were alsoinspired by the wisdom of the ancient Celts; that has been widelydemonstrated. Somehow Trithemius also learned the cryptographicsystems used by the Templars."

"Amazing," Belbo said."And the transcription of the secret message? What does itsay?"

"All in good time,gentlemen. Trithemius presents forty major and ten minorcryptosystems. Here I was lucky¡Xeither that or the Templars ofProvins simply didn't make any great effort, since they were surenobody would ever crack their code. I tried the first of the fortymajor systems and assumed that only the first letter of each wordcounted."

Belbo asked to see thepage and glanced over it. "You still get nonsense:kdruuuth..."

"Naturally," the colonelsaid condescendingly. "The Templars may not have made a greateffort, but they weren't altogether lazy either. This firstsequence of letters is itself a coded message, and I wonderedwhether the second series of ten minor coding systems might notgive an answer. For this second series, you see, Trithemius usedsome wheels. Here is the wheel for the first system."

He took anotherphotocopy from his file, drew his chair up to the desk, and, askingus to pay careful attention, touched the letters with his closedfountain pen.

[...]

"It's the simplestpossible system. Consider only the outer circle. To code something,you replace each letter of your original message with the letterthat precedes it for A you write Z, for B you write A, and so on.Child's play for a secret agent nowadays, but back then it wasconsidered witchcraft. To decode, of course, you go in the oppositedirection, replacing each letter of the coded message with theletter that follows it. I tried it, and I was lucky again; itworked the very first time. Here's what it says." He recited: "¡¥Les 36 inuisibles separez en six bandes.' That is: the thirty-sixinvisibles divided into six groups."

"Which meanswhat?"

"Apparently nothing, atfirst glance. It's a kind of headline announcing the establishmentof a group. It was written in secret language for ritualisticreasons. Our Templars, satisfied that they were putting theirmessage in an inviolable inner sanctum, were content to use theirfourteenth-century French. But let's look at the secondtext."

a la...SaintJean

36 p charrete defein

6...entiers avecsaiel

p...les blancsmantiax

r...s...chevaliers dePruins pour /a...j.nc.

6 foil 6 en 6places

chascune foil 20 a...720a...

iceste estI'ordonation

al donjon Itpremiers

it li secunz joste iceusqui...pans

it al refuge

it a Nostre Dame de I¡¥altre pan de I ¡¥iau

it a I ¡¥ostel despopelicans

it a lapierre

3 foiz 6 avant lafeste...to Grant Pute.

"This is the decodedmessage?" Belbo asked, disappointed and amused.

"Obviously the dots inIngolf's transcription stand for words that were illegible. Perhapsthe parchment was damaged in places. But I've made a finaltranscription and translation, based on surmises that are, if I dosay so myself, unassailable. I've restored the text to its ancientsplendor¡Xas the saying goes."

With a magician'sgesture, he flipped over the photocopy and showed us his notes,printed in capitals.

THE (NIGHT OF) SAINTJOHN

36 (YEARS) P(OST) HAYWAIN

6 (MESSAGES) INTACT WITHSEAL

F(OR THE KNIGHTS WITH)THE WHITE CLOAKS [TEMPLARS]

R(ELAP)S(I) OF PROVINSFOR (VAIN)JANCE [REVENGE]

6 TIMES 6 IN SIXPLACES

EACH TIME 20 Y(EARSMAKES) 120 Y(EARS)

THIS IS THEPLAN

THE FIRST GO TO THECASTLE

IT(ERUM) [AGAIN AFTER120 YEARS] THE SECOND JOIN THOSE

(OF THE) BREAD AGAIN TOTHE REFUGE AGAIN TO OUR LADY BEYOND THE RIVER

AGAIN TO THE HOSTEL OFTHE POPELICANS

AGAIN TO THESTONE

3 TIMES 6 [666] BEFORETHE FEAST (OF THE) GREAT WHORE.

"Clear as mud," Belbosaid.

"Of course, it stillneeds interpretation. But Ingolf surely must have done that, as Ihave. If you know the history of the order, it's less obscure thanit seems."

A pause. He asked for aglass of water and went over the text with us again, word byword.

"Now then. The night ofSaint John's Eve, thirty-six years after the hay wain. The Templarscharged with keeping the order alive escaped capture in September1307 in a hay wain. At that time the year was calculated fromEaster to Easter. So 1307 would end at what we would considerEaster of 1308. Count thirty-six years after Easter 1308 and youarrive at Easter 1344. The message was placed in the crypt inside aprecious case, as a seal, a kind of deed attesting to some eventthat took place there on Saint John's Eve after the establishmentof the secret order. In other words, on June 23, 1344."

"Why 1344?"

"I believe that between1307 and 1344 the secret order was reorganized in preparation forthe project proclaimed in the parchment. They had to wait till thedust had settled, till links could be forged again among Templarsin five or six countries. Now if the Templars waited thirty-sixyears¡Xnot thirty-five or thirty-seven¡Xclearly it was because thenumber 36 had mystical properties for them, as the coded messageconfirms. The sum of the digits of thirty-six is nine, and I don'thave to remind you of the profound significance of thisnumber."

"Am I disturbing you?"It was Diotallevi, who had slipped in behind us, on padded feetlike a Templar of Provins.

"Right up your alley,"Belbo said. He introduced him to the colonel, who didn't seemparticularly disturbed. On the contrary, he was happy to have alarger, and keen, audience. He continued his exegesis, Diotallevisalivating at those numerolog-ical delicacies. Puregematria.

"We come now to theseals: six things intact with seals. Ingolf had found a case closedwith a seal. For whom was this case sealed? For the White Cloaks,for the Templars. Next comes an r, several missing letters, and ans. I read it as ¡¥relapsi.' Why? Because, as we all know, relapsiwere confessed defendants who later retracted, and relapsi played acrucial role in the trial of the Templars. The Templars of Provinsbore their identity as relapsi proudly. They were the ones whodisassociated themselves from that wicked farce of a trial. So themessage refers to the knights of Provins, relapsi, who arepreparing¡Xwhat? The few letters we have suggest ¡¥vainjance,'revenge."

"Revenge forwhat?"

"Gentlemen! The wholeTemplar mystique, from the trial on, was focused on the plan toavenge Jacques de Molay. I don't think much of the Masonic rite¡Xamere bourgeois caricature of Templar knighthood¡Xbut neverthelessit's a reflection, however pale, of Templar practices. And one ofthe degrees of Scottish Masonry was kadosch knight, the knight