|
Nicolas Fouquet and
Rennes-Le-Château
|
.
« Rome, le 17 avril 1656,J'ai rendu à Monsieur Poussin la lettre que vous luy faites l'honneur de lui escrire ; il en a témoigné toute la joie imaginable. Vous ne sauriez croire, Monsieur, ni les peines qu'il prend pour vostre service, ni l'affection avec laquelle il les prend, ni le mérite et la probité qu'il apporte en toutes choses.
Luy et moi, nous avons projeté certaines choses dont je pourrai vous entretenir à fond dans peu, qui vous donneront par Monsieur Poussin des avantages (si vous ne les voulez pas mépriser) que les Roys auraient grand peine à tirer de lui, et qu'après lui peut-être personne au monde ne recouvrera jamais dans les siècles advenir ; et, ce qui plus est, cela serait sans beaucoup de dépenses et pourrait même tourner à profit, et ce sont choses si fort à rechercher que quoi que ce soit sur la terre maintenant ne peut avoir une meilleure fortune ni peut être égasle. ».
 This authentic letter (1), written by Louis Foucquet to his brother Nicolas, general superintendent of the finances of Louis XIV, appeared for the first time in the history of Rennes-Le-Château, not in 1967 in "The gold of Rennes", first book of Gérard of Sède on the topic, but in an article that this last writing in collaboration with Jean Pellet five years later (2). It is also in this short text that the authors open the track of the "tomb of arch", (3) place that, according to them, the painter Nicolas Poussin would have reproduced in his picture "The Shepherds of Arcadie." It is surprising enough that the tie, that to establish the two authors between this canvas of Chick and the tomb tempts of arch, either absent of the apocryphal writings previously signed of pseudonyms as Jean Delaude, Nicolas Beaucéan, Madeleine Blancassall, Antoine Ermite etc, and that it also escaped the authors of the "red Snake" and the "secret files" of Henri Lobineau !
However that may be, the two authors are categorical :« This secret, Chick even revealed it to that knows to see "The shepherds of Arcadie" ». Concerning the visit of the place, they specify again : « … a small trail of about twenty meters: hire yourselves of it, as Chick made it. Because has, surrounded with his bushes, the tomb of the "Shepherds of Arcadie" ».
In 1973, Gérard De Sède stays late for longer on Nicolas Poussin and superintendent Foucquet in "The fabulous race (4)." The same year, Matthieu Paoli evokes, him also, the letter in Nicolas Foucquet, dating it falsely of April 17, 1661 (5). In 1974, Jean-Pierre Monteils brings, as for him, some reflections on excerpts of the same mail (6). In 1978, Franck Marie takes the track "DeSède" and, like this last, speak of the symposium "Nicolas Poussin" to the course of which the documentaliste Jacques Thuiller comments the letter of April 17, 1656 (7).
« This project mysterious and imposing pose biggest enigma. To what marvelous enterprise could really dream the old painter and the young abbot - quick mind, but head convenient, and little susceptible of inconsiderate enthusiasms? A few big publication? One would understand such an obstruction badly. Montaiglon (8) advanced the hypothesis of big archaeological excavations, in some point of Rome or in the Tiber. It is, indeed, very plausible. Maybe same Chick, attentive to the least discovery, and by mediator's role that he sometimes exercised, in relations more or less consistent with clandestine excavators, he had marked an exceptional site, of which he detained the secret: what would explain the terms so curious of which use the abbot. »
Convinced, Franck Marie decides :: « This exceptional site of which speaks the documentaliste, can be only other the one of Rennes-Le-Château.. ». He joins in it the opinion first of Gérard of Sède that wrote : « If the secret was bound to an archaeological site, nothing allows us to affirm that this site was in Italy, it was able to just as well to be in France. » (9).
Since these first writings, this last hypothesis takes back the favor of a part of the researchers. To their discharge, it is necessary for us to admit that the sibylline terms of the missive, interpreted in a certain way, can give them reason naturally. But a work of 1894 dedicated to François Foucquet, other brother of the superintendent, evoke as Louis Foucquet and could illuminate under a new day his letter of April 17, 1656.
« As for Louis, too young again to be consecrated (he was born in 1633 and had 23 years therefore in 1656), he continued to reside in Rome, where he filled a confidential mission "occupying his leisure to visit the shops of the painters and sculptors, the collections that constituted the museums of this time, and if he discovered some interesting piece, he signalled it to the superintendent."»
Excerpt of the pages 7 and 8 of the book |
|
According to Louis Duval, the trade of which it is question here concerns the one of .uvres of art coming from Italy definitely no of the archaeological excavations operated in France !
Patrick Mensior
(1) - Correspondance faisant partie des archives de la famille Cossé-Brissac qui fut présentée à Paris en 1968 dans les actes du colloque "Nicolas Poussin"
(2) - Jean Pellet et Gérard de Sède "Le secret de Nicolas Poussin, Promenade initiatique dans les gorges de l'Aude", Le grand Albert n° 9, juillet-août 1972
(3) - Ce tombeau détruit en 1988 par son propriétaire excédé était situé sur le hameau des Pontils non à Arques
(4) - Gérard de Sède "La race fabuleuse" pages 128 à 131
(5) - Matthieu Paoli "Les dessous d'une ambition politique, nouvelles révélations sur les trésors du Razès et de Gisors" page 69
(6) - Jean-Pierre Monteils "Nouveaux trésors à Rennes-le-Château ou le retour d'Ulysse" page 146
(7) - Franck Marie "Rennes-le-Château étude critique" page 183
(8) - Gérard de Sède cite Montaigu non Montaiglon
(9) - Gérard de Sède "La race fabuleuse" pages 129 et 130
|
--------
-
