Chapter Three: "Under a Ruby Moon"

Berenger and Emma had eventually become good friends. The feelings they shared, although contained, had not gone away. He had become her protector, her advisor, the keeper of her secret, her best friend. He loved her and he believed she loved him too, and that was enough for him. He had come to accept that these roles were of more importance than that of lovers. He would sacrifice that relationship for the intimacy of this one. No one else would ever have this place in her life. It was his and his alone. Sauniere had pleaded with her, although it broke his heart, that their careers were too important to jeopardize, especially the opportunity that lay in front her. She had a gift that needed to be shared with the world and he could not interfere with that. They had come to an agreement that hot August afternoon, but only after they made love one last time. It would surely ruin them both if they did not come to terms with their feelings. She had tried in earnest to persuade him to leave with her, and although that is all he wanted to do, he had to stay. He would stay near Quillan to watch over their reason for living.
It wasn’t always easy being Emma Calvé thought Berenger as he sipped his glass of wine and waited for her to join him in the Tour Magdala. Emma and Berenger were going to spend the afternoon together picnicking a few miles from the church. They would be alone and although this held its challenges, Berenger was looking forward to having her all to himself. Today was going to be a good day for him.
The life of a star had its wonderful highs, and as they both knew its dangerous lows. Emma had arrived unexpectedly at his presbytery door three days earlier announcing she would be spending the next week. “Francois darling”, she smiled, “I need to be here with you.” She had kissed him on both cheeks, and headed straight for the villa. Berenger knew the drill. It would be necessary to schedule a couple of receptions to help curb the inevitable gossip that would follow her departure. Always careful in his choice of guests, Berenger invited all local dignitaries as well as the Bishop in the hope that her stay would be seen as a special event for them as opposed to a visit for him.
She had arrived bearing gifts, a new dress and hat for Marie, tickets to the opera in Paris for the Mayor and his wife, a souvenir from her travels abroad for Alfred, and of course, another rare book for Berenger. Her generosity and exuberant nature won the hearts and loyalty of most residents of Rennes -le - Chateau and the surrounding villages. She cared for these people and was perpetually planning the next improvement for the village or donating money to a local cause or family in need. Berenger and Emma could never stop meandering back to their peasant roots, always aware of the needs of the poor. She would provide the cash and Berenger the labour for this home away from home.
The demons that had haunted them over the past eleven years would sometimes scurry away into the corners of this hilltop sanctuary, only to reappear in the streets of Quillan a short time later. The secret they carried had proved to be heavier for Emma than for Berenger. The cause that had brought them together was still strong upon him and he worked daily towards its completion. Emma’s sporadic visits were becoming less often and he feared she was becoming too involved in the esoteric circles in Paris. Rumours were circulating that the occultist Jules Bois was enamoured with her. This handsome and intelligent man was the first of her potential lovers that he truly feared. Berenger knew that he was a constant reminder of the pain that she carried. Jules would be her medication. Emma loved power, and both of these men held their power well. Jules Bois was several years younger than Emma, a writer of some worth he supposed, and had become a bit of a celebrity through the duels he had engaged in with Stanislav de Guaita and Gerard Encausse better known as Papus. He knew Emma would have found this dangerous tradition a highly romantic and erotic exercise. The most obvious challenge was Jules Bois was available and he was not. The picnic and a visit to Quillan was his last hope to dissuade Emma from entering not only Jules Bois' bed, but a far more dangerous world than Emma could possibly understand. She would certainly be used for her wealth and fame in spite of her belief that she carried more weight in the world. His last hope was this visit. He would coax her to go to Quillan this afternoon to help remind her of the strongest reason to stay away from Jules Bois............ her daughter.

I'm Back. :-)

After a very busy summer and the recent postponement of the Digging for the Truth Conference to August 2010 I have finally found some time for this blog. Today I would like to share a chapter of the book I am writing which of course is about one of my favourite gals Emma Calvé. I hope you enjoy.
Best Wishes, Lori



She had no intention of coming to Francois’ funeral, but they had insisted. Emma had been able to live her life in quiet disregard of the past for many years, always careful never to move too far away from the circle of mentors who had helped shape her early spiritual views and career. They were all here today though, to pay their final respect to this man whom many in this tiny village in the south of France still considered their priest. The society which they all belonged to had continued to survive without her presence and would continue to survive without his.
The order was assembling on the stone walkway now, having placed Francois on a chair near the wall. He looked surreal wearing the traditional garb of the high priest. The burgundy tassels on the hem of the cloak swayed in the wind while they waited for the final words of the Master. She had been told that they would be allowed to take one of the tassels to use as a talisman for future ceremony and to commemorate Francois sacredness of purpose. She would take one as remembrance of the afternoon they shared that had tore at her soul for years. He was her first love, the hard love, the forbidden love.
She was alone within this order now. Her unwillingness to participate in the rituals and ceremonies of the society had ostracized her from this powerful group. She believed it was her fame and silence that had kept her safe from reprisals, but everyone on that walkway understood differently. It was at the insistence of their high priest Francoise Berenger Sauniere that her status within the society would be honoured, and nothing else.
Her sadness was debilitating. She hadn’t eaten very much in the past three days. Emma was surprised at the strength of emotions this man could still call from within her. She had believed that she was over him all these years, but the pain in her heart said otherwise, as did her now ex-husband Galileo Gaspari.
Emma was uncomfortable to think that the others who had gathered for this final farewell could feel her distress. She knew she was a better actress than this but her body and mind were not responding to her attempts at light heartedness.These people did not frighten her anymore. As she aged, and her fame grew around the world, she knew it was not in the groups’ best interest to cause her harm. She had made many powerful allies around the world including Queen Victoria and the Czar and Czarina of Russia. All because of a voice, she thought, notes sung in one hall for one moment had made her life what it was today. She was rich beyond her wildest dreams and wielded influence in circles others fought to belong to. She had decided to stay on at her house in Quillan for a few days to get her bearings before returning to Paris. She would revisit the places that had made her smile all those years ago and try to put to rest or at least come to terms with Sauniere and her feelings for him.
Emma found her way to her favourite stone seat on the walkway, a small corner to the right leading to the library. She had spent many days and evenings sitting and peering over the edge of the walls of this stone thoroughfare. Today, the magnificent valley below was blanketed in the whitest of snow. The light playful breeze lifted and swirled its brightness over the valley floor. As usual, she would not partake in the ceremony for Francois today. Although she had not lost faith in the sacredness of such matters, she had lost her respect for many of the people involved in the society.
The weather was bitter, but Emma was not cold, her floor length fur coat and numbing grief saw to that. She sat and watched the ritual of farewell performed on her favourite soul, and as she did, Emma drifted and swirled herself, back to a time when the sacred union of male and female was practiced, back to a time when Francois was her voice of reason.

International Conference

Hi all,
I'm pleased to announce the "Digging for the Truth" Conference that I am organizing with a fabulous communications company called "Firedog" here in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
Here is the Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=91978998160&ref=nf
The website www.digging4thetruth.com will be up and running Wednesday, May 27, 2009. This international conference is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Come on.......take a trip to Canada. We'll make it worth your while. Lori:-)

Portrait by Henri Cain

This portrait was painted by artist Henri Cain. Some people believe Henri was Emma's love of her life. More to come on this subject.


Édition du lundi 13 avril 2009

DR
MuséeHistoire d'un pastel d'Emma-Calvé, ce jeudi
LIRE AUSSI
RUTHÈNES EN SCÈNE Arts en scène
Peintre et prédicateur
RAPPEL
Dernier rendez-vous jeudi avec le cycle de conférences "Une heure, une oeuvre" Jeudi 16 avril à 18 h 15, la Sodam (Société des amis des musées) propose, au musée Denys-Puech une conférence de François Leyge, conservateur en chef du musée de Millau et elle portera sur un portrait au pastel de la célèbre cantatrice aveyronnaise Emma Calvé.
L'oeuvre du jour : il s'agit d'un portrait d'Emma Calvé, par Henri Cain, pastel sur toile situé vers 1890 et donné au musée par Henri Cain lui-même. L'artiste : Henri Cain (né en 1856, mort en 1930 ou 1937). Peintre, graveur et auteur dramatique issu d'une famille d'artistes, il fut élève de Jean-Paul Laurens. Son père, ancien élève de Rude, fut sculpteur animalier. Son frère Georges fut également connu comme "le peintre des coquetteries féminines et du pittoresque d'autrefois." Conférencier, littérateur très cultivé, il obtint beaucoup de succès à Paris. Les deux frères abandonnèrent progressivement la peinture pour écrire des livrets d'opéra. Il écrivit notamment les textes de la Navarraise, l'opéra de Jules Massenet avec le librettiste Jules Claretie, dont le rôle titre (Anita) fut créé pour la chanteuse Emma Calvé et joué pour la première fois en 1894 à Covent Garden (Londres).
Henri Cain dessine ici la célèbre cantatrice aveyronnaise (1858-1942), l'une des plus grandes interprètes de Carmen, au sommet de sa jeunesse et de sa beauté.
L'oeuvre n'est pas datée mais a sans doute été réalisée vers 1890. Une histoire d'amour lia le peintre à son modèle pendant une dizaine d'années.

Article on Emma Calvé from "The Home Monthly".

Thought everyone might find this interesting. This article is from "The Home Monthly" magazine.:)

From The Home Monthly, 6 (June 1897): 13-14.
Emma Calve.

OF Calvé's art it is quite impossible to speak briefly. The combination of a magnificent vocalist and an interpretative actress is so rare that it cannot be treated lightly or in a paragraph. But half of Emma Calvé's astonishing popularity is due neither to her voice nor to her art, wonderful as they are, but to a third element which, for lack of a better term, one must call her individuality—her personality. You see her as Carmen in her night-black hair; as Ophelia in ample golden locks; you see her as Santuzza in the head-dress of an Italian peasant, as Marguerite in the bodice of a German maiden. In every particular these creations differ absolutely, as only a great artist can differentiate; but the charm, the delight is always the same, for that quality is the personal quality—Calvé herself.

Public curiosity is continually fixed upon "home life" of artists. Now, Calvé's home is her dressing-room. She has a castle in the Cévennes, a house in Paris, an estate in Italy, but her dressing-room is her home. Or, to put it the other way, all her homes to her are dressing-rooms, and all the world's a stage and it is nothing else. She is always and every moment an actress and Calvé is the most wonderful role she plays. All her parts are tinctured with that one role "as the wine must taste of its own grapes."

If you have seen Calvé in concert, then you have seen her as she is. Were you to meet her in her own drawing-room once a week you would know her no better; you would find her quite as impetuous, as naively vain, as inexplicable and as much a creature of another world. She is by turns the most energetic and the most indolent of women. She never hurries; it is a physical impossibility with her. She is always late and is the despair of managers and rehearsals. She insists upon having two hours to dress before every performance, whereas other singers need only an hour at most. When she has a matinee performance, she goes to the theatre as soon as she gets up. She will never dress without two maids to assist her, and her companion, who reads aloud to her from the latest novel of Paul Bourget or M. Anatole France while she is being "made up." Occasionally Mademoiselle, la prima donna, breaks forth with a few bars from one of her arias and drowns not only the dainty phrases of M. France, but the noise of the scene shifting as well. Calvé has theories about heat drying up the lungs and ruining the voice, and she abominates American methods of heating. She is utterly impervious to cold, and in the dead of winter has the heat turned off in her dressing-room and keeps all the doors and windows wide open. Her maids, poor things! who have neither the Calvé temperament nor the fire of genius burning within them, are always wretchedly cold. She is genuinely sorry for them and kisses them quite affectionately, but they have tonsilitis just the same.
By her fellow artists Calvé is sincerely admired and feared, but few of them lead a placid existence near her. At the time of her notorious quarrel with Eames several seasons since, when the two singers were called before the curtain she simply would not take Eames' hand in the customary manner, but would toss her head and pout like a naughty child. Last winter in New York she sang at a benefit for the French Children's Hospital with M. Plançon, who had always been one of her most devoted admirers. As they strolled upon the stage a few moments before the performance began, Plançon noticed that the stage was quite filled with flowers that had been sent Calvé, and innocently remarked that their odor overpowered him and that he could not sing with so many flowers on the stage. The fair prima donna turning in fury upon the astonished basso informed him that if the flowers had been for him they would not trouble him, that she could endure his petty jealousy no longer and that she would not sing. Five minutes later she was discovered in the street, hatless and cloakless, in her low cut gown, shouting for a cab.
In spite of her little tempers, Mademoiselle is really one of the best hearted women in the world. She is always helping a young singer or two somewhere in her own country and she is passionately fond of children. In her case that much misused adverb is used advisedly, for it is quite impossible for her to be moderately fond. It seems that while she was at school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, she promised some saint or other that if she ever became a singer she would do great things for God's poor. She believes implictly that her success came directly through divine agency and she has never forgotten her promise. On her great estate up in the Cévennes she has built an orphanage where she supports and educates forty little girls picked up from the slums of Paris. She has a warm feeling, too, for the ruddy-cheeked lads of her country and employs on her farm almost a hundred of them who find her a most delightful mistress. In the summer-time she always manages to get away to her mountain estate and become a farmer. She feeds her chickens, and rides a donkey, and milks her cows and entirely doffs the grand duchesse and becomes openly for the moment the sturdy peasant which she always will be at heart. She declares that when her voice fails her she will set up a chicken farm: that is really one of her cherished dreams. She loves to hunt eggs and save them, just as the old women of her mountains do. So much for the instincts of blood. "Ah," she once wrote to a friend, "Ah my sweet chickens! Surelytheir's is a disinterested affection. Were I old and ugly and without a note in my throat they would still love me." Alas, Mademoiselle! but cease to feed your feathered devotees for awhile, and you will soon cry out that there is no faith left in chickens.
Calvé remembers old friends, even the little song, "The Star that I Love" in which she made her first success. She has scores of friends and manages to find time for them all. Whatever may be said of her, she is not a snob. She is often at home to a child when she is not to a duchess, and she visits the Children's Hospital in Paris more regularly than she does any of the drawing-rooms that are always open to her. Ellen Terry is one of her warmest friends, and the walls of Mademoiselle's house in Paris are quite covered with photographs of the English tragedienne. One of them bears this neat inscription, "One lesson in English I will give you—'I love you'—that is all. Ellen Terry." Most of Calvé's lessons in English have been to that effect.June 1897

Performing for the Red Sultan

Emma was asked by Nazim Pasha while performing at the home of the French Ambassador in Constantinople if she would be interested in performing for the Red Sultan, full name Abdulhamid ll of Turkey ( reign 1876 - 1909). I believe this may have been after her Russian performance of 1895. She was thirty-seven at that time. In Emma's book "MY LIfe", she goes into detail about this performance and the man whom she sang and danced for.
The Red Sultan was born September 21/22, 1842 and died February 10, 1918. He was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was the last Ottoman sultan to rule with absolute power.
This was not a nice man! His reputation is well documented and some of this man's history can be viewed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hamid_II.
Although Emma was willing to perform for the sultan she admits to being frightened to some degree. She says in her book " I felt an undeniable thrill of terror at the idea of coming into contact with the "Red Sultan" whose word made Islam tremble, and whose evil reputation had spread to every corner of the globe. The moment I crossed the threshold of the gorgeous palace of Yildiz, it seemed to me that the sun was swallowed up, and all the radiance and glory that flooded the Bosphorus had disappeared!" She was asked to bring "the music of Carmen, the comb, the fan, mantilla, and, most particularly the castanets for the dance." She first sang for the harem before the sultan arrived. When he made his appearance all bowed to him. After singing many songs for him, the sultan remained unmoved. Emma was urged to begin her performance of Carmen. She goes on in her book " The sultan roused himself when I began, and seemed to take some little pleasure in my dancing. Suddenly his eyes gleamed strangely as he watched me." She became a little frightened at that moment that she may have pleased him too much and could be looking at being part of the harem she found herself dancing in. Continuing her dance she moves closer and closer to where he is sitting. Emma writes " All at once, an expression of terror crossed his face. He rose from his chair precipitately, and disappeared! I never saw him again!"
Emma was presented with a gold chalice for her efforts and one of the Sultanas expressed to her the Sultans admiration for her beautiful dance.
Just another day in the life of Emma Calvé. I'm sure she had some great stories to tell to her friends and family from that adventure. I am intrigued by the gold chalice reference. This is not the first time a gold chalice or gold cup has been mentioned when referring to our girl Emma. Patrice Chaplin also mentions in her book that the demon priest she has a vision of at the church of Rennes - le- Chateau speaks the words" only from a gold cup". Patrice sees that behind the demon priest is the chocolate advertisement that Emma appears on. Coincidence maybe..........maybe not.

Speaking of Dr. Gerard Encausse (Papus)

This is an excerpt from a book written by Papus referring to his thoughts on reincarnation. I agree. It is titled "Reincarnation and Religion".

We will conclude our study of reincarnation here. For the completion of our work we need only include some notes referring to traditions.

We have seen in the preceding chapters that reincarnation was among the secret teachings in all of the temples of antiquity. Presented originally as a part of the initiation into the great mysteries of ancient Egypt, this revelation has now passed to all mystical religions. We find it repeatedly among the classic authors, of whom we have given numerous examples, and we find it repeatedly in Buddhism.

The relatively modern study of writings from India has altered ideas about the fabulous antiquity of the Indian alphabet. The works of Philippe Berger and other sages, who only go back to about 500 years before Jesus Christ, that being the time of the Buddha. According to the Academy of Grammarians the Sanskrit alphabet, that is to say the alphabet of Thebah, was in use during the time of Gautama the Buddha, a Brahman initiate who left his father's palace -- the center of initiation -- to offer part of the mysteries to the profane world.

We should not imagine, however that the Buddhist religion is the creator of this idea of reincarnation. Rather Buddha, at considerable sacrifice in service to humanity, was the one to reveal this to the common people.

People interested in these matters will find in a volume by M.de Lafont titled Buddhism, precise texts and teachings, which will satisfy their interest fully.

Has reincarnation been a part of the Christian religion at some time? One can frankly respond in the affirmative to this.

Significantly the gospels tell us in plain language that Saint John the Baptist was the reincarnated Elias. This was a mystery and Saint John the Baptist, when questioned, kept quiet but others knew the truth of it.

The parable of a man blind from birth is another example. The suggestion that he was being punished for previous sins presents an interesting matter for reflection.

The Christian religion is a direct continuation of the Egyptian, and each one of the evangelists is represented by a symbol that is one in the four of the sphinx: the human head, or the angel, an eagle, a lion and a bull.

The idea of reincarnation was contained in the secret teachings of the Church, as were many of the initiatory concepts of Egypt.

It has been said that the Church condemned reincarnation; this is false. A council has said though, that those believed to have returned to earth were not accepted into heaven; but far from condemning reincarnation this warning of the Council indicates the contrary. It was also part of the teachings that if someone returned voluntarily through reincarnation, not because heaven was displeased with him or her, but for love of their neighbor, the curse would not apply to them (Rozier).

Lastly, according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic church, who have kept much less of the occult tradition than the Russian orthodox church, a considerable span of time lapses between the judgment at the end of life and the final judgment. It is at that final judgment, according to Catholicism, that the soul is assigned its final destination. Until this moment the spirit can change, during this time between the two trials. And how does the spirit function during this time lapse between the two trials? You can appreciate that heaven, hell and purgatory are experiential states that can be lived in material form. This is what Swedenborg taught and Mohammed also, even though he had an aversion to all forms of traditional esotericism. Yet he indicates that he was aware of these things when saying in his chapter "The women of the Koran" that Christ would return at the end of time to judge between the living and the dead.

It is certain that the idea of reincarnation that was an illuminating lighthouse in antiquity has not been lost by any religion. In modern times this idea has reappeared and is supported by three traditions: the cabalist tradition brought out of Egypt and passed along to us by the Pythagoreans and the Neopatonists; the Asian tradition passed along to us by the Buddhists of which we have just spoken, and lastly the modern revival of Spiritualism.

Rivail, well known by the alias of Allan Kardec, has rendered western humanity a great service by popularizing the dogma of reincarnation. If this idea troubles certain weak minds, consider in other times, say around the year 100, the impact of the idea of hell. The idea has prevented so many suicides and given so much hope that it would be appropriate to congratulate the creator of contemporary spiritism as well as its successors, such as Gabriel Delanne, León Denís and Leymarie, to have spread among the masses such a beautiful instrument of hope.

Child prodigies are easily explained by the idea of reincarnation, as are the experiences of people who find a curious familiarity in certain places and lands. Without becoming dogmatic we can appreciate the clarity that the doctrine of reincarnation provides in understanding a number of personal and social issues. It is not our intention here to present an extensive historical or bibliographical exploration. Our main purpose is rather to awaken the sleeping god within our readers, causing the god of memory in the heart to speak, creating in each of our readers the inner enthusiasm that will prompt this deity to reveal the true mysteries.

Then every man may begin to understand the earthly economy, its nature as a natural necessity and that as Barlet and Lejay have said, the social order is merely a tool and not an end purpose. Our higher abilities deserve to be devoted to finer things than the earthly ideals of acquiring material wealth and gratification of ones pride. To follow Christ it is necessary to abandon everything without regret, as one abandons an old garment in order to clothe themselves in garments of an initiate's light. To understand earthly life as something more than a comedy in which we play our particular part as characters during our brief existence, it is necessary to partake of the mysteries of the Father. It is necessary to willingly sacrifice all that is not eternal. When we know the mysteries of reincarnation we are able to join Saint Paul in saying, "Oh death, where is thy terror? Oh grave, where thy sting?"

Doctor Rozier in fact says: "I wish only to prove that the Catholics are entitled to believe what seems most rational to them in this manner: the generally held opinion among them is that one lives only once on the earth, but no real prohibition exists to believing otherwise. An opinion, and in point of fact that is what it is for those who hold it, is always subject to revision. Certainly, if we are enamored of a theory that contradicts that held by men of considerable learning and honor, the Fathers of the Church for example, we should be restrained by demanding arguments of substance if we continue to profess this, but we should not surrender to these arguments by virtue of their considerable force without looking at the matter and considering it from both sides."
The old Christian reincarnationists did not propose that mortal life on earth is the result of a diminishing of God's grace, or one's losing their love of God but quite to the contrary, that earthly life is imposed to evolve us and make us the masters of the material world to which, by the fall of Adam, we became slaves.

This earthly existence would not mature without difficulties if it were prolonged much beyond a hundred years for reasons that it is pointless to address here, but a hundred years is insufficient to obtain a definitive victory. It has therefore been necessary to grant us a longer span of time, and that segmented by intervals similar to the intervals between the dreams of deep sleep and daydreams. Each type of dream may be called a death. Certainly each existence is accompanied by forgetfulness of those that have preceded it, but this forgetfulness is providential. It facilitates evolution because with complete memory it would be difficult to change on this plane of existence. When we have finally awakened a sufficient number of times to achieve the purpose of our efforts, the sanctification, we die one final time and return no more. It is then that we are judged finally and relegated to our place in heaven or purgatory. If, on the contrary, in each existence we descend lower and lower until we reach a point at which no hope of salvation exists any longer, we will die one last time and go to hell, but this is a most unusual occurrence.

Considered this way the theory of reincarnation, as presented by the old Christian reencarnationists, can be accepted or rejected by the Catholics but does not fall under the curse as previously mentioned. However, if the theory is rejected no breach should be opened by presenting exceptions.