<<<My young students listened to him, amazed.
<<<On another day, a discussion took place between André Serval and Dupont, the master glassmaker.
The latter did not understand why our Master absolutely wanted the Sign of the Virgin to have its place in a stained-glass window, as he already holds it at Notre-Dame de Paris in the Zodiac of the Gate of Astrology.
“You should know from the time that we have been working together,” he said to our comrade with great gentleness, “that religious rites come from a vast symbolic ensemble based on religious astrology.
Here we are in 1945. Serious events are brewing… A crisis is shaking this poor world in gestation of a social and religious form that is approaching, with the entry of the sun, into the zodiacal sign of Aquarius. This does not mean that we should feel fear or revolt! Let us think instead of that admirable Gospel account where it is said that “The Master sends ahead of his servants to prepare the Passover feast.” These servants are at work in the world at this time and are already beginning to destroy what exists to prepare the way for the builders of which we will be a part. Remember also, Dupont, this sentence from Nietzsche: “For a sanctuary to appear, a sanctuary must disappear. And did not Bossuet utter these moving words: “When God erases, it is because he is going to write. >>>
Seen from this angle, my friend, the upheavals, the fires, the destructions that we are about to witness will no longer appear to us as acts irreconcilable with the necessary evolution towards more justice, towards a social life animated by a higher morality, towards a doctrine more satisfactory to the human spirit. Whatever happens next, it already seems to me that this is a real revolution for humanity. A new civilization is on the march and nothing will stop it!
“The cathedral of Saint-Martial must be the stone milestone which indicates where this new civilization begins, itself founded on a religion capable of satisfying both intelligence and sensibility. I do not believe that Christianity is disappearing because we would have to deliberately ignore that its roots have already existed for six millennia; and I can’t do that! But it is scarcely possible to conceive of its continuation without a new modification of its external forms.
It was the same when the religion of Moses replaced that of the Pharaohs and when the Church of Rome succeeded Hellenism.
Men, in welcoming the new religious form, did not notice that it was the same one that was being transformed and returned to them adorned with a robe better suited to their new intellectual or spiritual needs.
Indeed, these successive forms of the great traditional religion, born in the West a few millennia ago, are all linked to the same esotericism that we find immutable through it. This esotericism constitutes the unreformable framework, the framework on which they are built.
“The underground parts of certain religious buildings attest that their foundations have supported, in the course of the ages, the successive temples where men have come to pray.
A very curious example of this is given to us in Rome by the church of San Clemente, built on an ancient Christian crypt, under which is a Mithraic sanctuary, or by the cathedral of Chartres, whose crypt contains a sacred well dating from the Druids.
<Our cathedral, on the contrary, must mark the important transformation we are approaching.
You are no doubt beginning to understand why it is necessary that the zodiac should not be forgotten on one of our stained-glass windows, for it contains not only the past and future history of the religious life of the world, but also the outline of the moral life of individuals. Does it not begin with the Sign of Virgo, the emblem of purity, and does it not end with that of Libra, representing the balance achieved and the final judgment?
You now know, Dupont, why, in consequence of its essentially religious and moral character, the zodiac figured in the ancient sanctuaries. In our cathedrals of the Middle Ages, it represents the most important legacy of the primitive Tradition. »
Encouraged and stimulated by these directives, Dupont and his corporation designed one of the most beautiful stained-glass windows that will adorn the cathedral…
To carry it out, they used the long but simple working method of the ancestors. The one that justified these words of André Serval:
I believe, my friends, that men would easily return to pure art if they had the courage to limit the too rapid march of progress. »
If I have given you these few examples, Mr. Moreau, it is only to make you understand that where there is an inspired Master, only there can a work be born! But don’t think that things were arranged without real difficulties during this delicate preparatory period! André Serval had to fight against the most diverse enemies: speculators, intermediaries, contractors, politicians, even ecclesiastics, all of whom tried to thwart his plans or projects, either out of a desire for profit or out of jealousy. It was a dull, patient, merciless struggle, inspired by the double hatred of all that is beautiful and of a man who had the courage to think big.
Everything that human pettiness and pettiness can invent, André Serval has known. He suffered a lot but his relentless will to succeed, his faith in the final result and his honesty were such that he gradually managed to get rid of the countless obstacles that were sown in his starry path. The first people he had to distrust were the very ones who were supposed to help him, those who had promised him their full support when they had only one idea in mind: to use him for their personal ambitions or appetites. The worst of these despicable men were undoubtedly “Monsieur Fred” and his clique of crooked financiers…
The chapter being quite long, I will transcribe it at the end for regular readers, and I beg your excuse for the fingertips that appear at the bottom of the pages.
Thank you for your understanding.