The “inspired garden” Part 1: The priestly gardener

 

Saunière, the gardener

The French city of Lyon was home to the Angelic Society; it “clung” to the hill of Fourvière, which functioned as the “inspired location” where the Society had its sacred garden, named “l’Angelique” – Angelic. The garden was on the property of Nicolas de Langes, “grandmaster” of the organisation – a term we need to use with care, as the organisation was largely a loose-knit group of like-minded individuals, not a hierarchical secret society as Freemasonry would become in the following centuries.
For the Angelic Society, gardens were important, for a number of reasons. First, the Garden of Eden was a reference to a “First Time”, without original sin – an idyllic, everlasting existence. Secondly, gardens had, for millennia, been sacred enclosures, in which experiments of cross-breeding and the cultivation of certain sacred plants – often with magical, hallucinogenic qualities – could be carried out. And there are of course several other connotations to gardens, making it a haven – or heaven – outside of the realms of daily life.

Elementary, dear Saunière

A lot has been written about the church of Saunière, specifically its decorations. Over the decades, dozens of books and theories have been put forward that “conclusively” have decoded the “clues” Saunière allegedly left behind. But amongst the many often ludicrous if not downright stupid theories, only one stands out for its insight and provability.
The painstaking work of Alain Féral in mapping the estate revealed a “mirror church”. Next to the visible, stone church to which everyone is attracted, sits an “invisible church”, namely the Calvary garden, in front of the church.
Key features were placed there in such a way that they would mirror the “actual church”. The lateral alleys of the garden reproduce the walls of the church. The central alley of the garden mirrors the central corridor of the church. This could, indeed, be a mere coincidence, but there is more. The work of Féral shows that the altar inside mirrors the Calvary, just like the Visigothic pillar of the Virgin mirrors the confessional. The confessional is for the sinners, those who confess, whereas the pillar carries the words “Penitence – Penitence”.

Inversions

The work has thus shown a “mirror dimension” to the stone church and that Saunière decided to create this as a garden should be of interest, if only because his garden too sits on top of “his” hill, like the “Angelical garden” of Lyon, a town to which Saunière made several “pilgrimages”.
Furthermore, there is an intricate system of inversions and mirrors: the garden mirrors the church, with the Visigothic pillar upside down to its original position… which was inside the church, as part of the altar. But there is more: Saunière’s treasure hunt inside his church led him to certain discoveries. The so-called Knight’s Stone he apparently incorporated into design of the Calvary in the garden; the Visigothic pillar, he worked into the statue of Virgin Mary. Meanwhile, we know that inside, the location of the altar gave him certain enigmatic parchments and underneath the confessional, there is an underground passageway, the hollow sound of which had to be masked by placing the confessional on top of it. Rather than “as above, so below”, Saunière seems to have practiced “as in here, so out there”, making that magical link between a sacred precinct and an equally sacred garden, for those with eyes to see.

The “Garden model”

Like the church, the garden could be taken as a whole, but beware of the famous expression “pars pro toto”: to take a part for the whole. Indeed, here, we need to not only look to the garden as a whole, but to the individual elements… and not exclude any.
Hence, in Saunière’s garden, we see the following components: the Calvary, a study, sitting on top of a cistern, a grotto, the Visigothic pillar with the statue of the Virgin Mary on top. And to some extent, we could argue that the “Secret Chamber”, part of the church but apparently serving no real purpose, protrudes into this garden too.

Saunière completed this garden in 1891, 25 years before he placed an order for his infamous model. Remote in time, there are nevertheless close parallels between the garden and the model.
First of all, their shape: roughly rectangular. But most importantly is that some of the elements of this garden, and the garden itself, make a repeat appearance on the model. There is the “Calvary Garden” of Rennes-le-Chateau and the “Garden of Gethsemany” on the model. Let us note that the cartouche of the model reads “Le Calvaire et le Saint-Sepulcre”: The Calvary and the Saint Sepulchre. Below, it reads: “Etat primitif”. This could be a reference to an “original state” as it was or should have been in Jerusalem… or could there be another play on words, namely with his – later – version of this theme, namely the Calvary garden in Rennes-le-Château?

There is a Calvary in the garden and on the model there is also the Hebrew word for Calvary: Golgotha. Remarkably, both are placed in the middle of the garden/model. The “cistern” on the model has no real correspondence for the average tourist to Saunière’s tourist attraction, but for any student of the enigma, he will be familiar with the presence of the cistern, underneath Saunière’s library/study.
At present, we have not used the Visigothic Pillar and the grotto, and there remain two further items on the model: the Tomb of Christ and the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathia. We will leave these two items untouched at present.

Finally, let us note that the model is known to reflect a portion of the section of Perillos’ landscape, but in inverse – like the garden is the mirror of the church of Rennes-le-Château. And let us not forget that the dimensions of the model also correspond with the dimensions of the tombstone of Marie de Nègre d’Ables, in the cemetery of the village, and one of the key ingredients of the enigma. An intriguing series of connections and inversions.

Of missions and quests

The French have a way with puns. It has already been underlined that in French, the name for such a model is a “maquette”, which is a pun on “ma quête”, my quest. Hence, the question that has been posed is whether Saunière revealed the end of his quest in this model, with tongue in cheek.
If so, we can take this one step further. There is the enigmatic inscription on the Visigothic pillar, which Saunière had added to it: MISSION 1891. Is this the “cartouche” of the garden, similar to the cartouche on the model?
Is it a reference to a mission? If so, a mission is very similar to a quest, whereby some might argue that mission is sometimes an order given by someone to someone, whereas a quest is of a more personal nature.
If we take this yet another step further, mission, like maquette, can be broken down: “mis sion”, which could – could – be read as “placed Sion”, or in better English, “I have placed Sion 1891” – to which we could even add “I have placed Sion 1891 upside down”, because of the fact that the Visigothic pillar was placed upside down.
We will not take any steps further into this potential delusion, for that would lead us too far up to this garden path – pun intended. But we do need to note that Sion is of course a reference to Jerusalem… and that the landscape depicted on the model is the “original state” of Jerusalem. Coincidence? Or design – noting that both the garden and the model were Saunière’s design.

Further elaboration, under the guise of questions

We could go even further, but will place these observations merely as short statements and questions.
- Do we need to look to correspondences not only between the garden and the model, but also towards the church? Could we take it further than the “mere” observations that Féral has made?
- If there is a “dead giveaway” of an inversion inside the church, it has to be the manner in which the stations of the cross have been placed.
- there is a grotto in the garden and there is a depiction of Mary Magdalene inside a cave (grotto) on the altar.
- could the baptismal font in the church be a reference to the cistern in the garden? Or what to make of the holy water stoup that is “controlling” the devil?
- speaking of the devil: if we were to reverse the “Tomb of Christ”, many have claimed we end up with the “Prison of the Devil” – like Asmodeus is being “imprisoned” by the holy water inside the Church?
- there is a Calvary in the garden; there is a huge fresco at the western wall of the church, revealing Christ on top of a conical mountain (Golgotha). A further possible parallel with the “Tomb of Christ”?

1891?

A mission that ended – or began? – in 1891. What could it mean? Some have sought to give meaning to 1681, the inverse of 1891, as it was placed on the upside down Visigothic pilar. It has led to little revelation.
But we note there is another infamous date: January 17, 1781: 110 years before, when Marie de Nègre d’Ables died and Bigou carved her gravestone – with several errors on it, one of which resulted in her gravestone reading as if she was a whore… and should we see the “difference” of a noble lady being called a whore as yet another inversion? And is this error just like the major errors that we see on the model, where Saunière has made the key mistake of depicting two separate tombs, of Christ and Joseph of Arimathea, when in fact, there is but one?
Could it be that Saunière’s 1891 referred indeed to him succeeding the mission that Bigou had left as a “riddle” before fleeing Rennes-le-Château? And after his mission, did Saunière begin his “quest”… which resulted in the model?

continued >>

Filip Coppens