THE ENIGMA OF MARTINES DE PASQUALLY
The history of initiatic organizations is often very difficult to penetrate, something easily enough understood by the very nature of what is involved, for too many elements necessarily escape the means of investigation at the disposal of ordinary historians. To see the truth of this we need not even go back very far in time, for it is sufficient to consider the eighteenth century, where we find, still coexisting with manifestations of what is most profane and most anti-traditional in the modern mentality, what really seem to be the last vestiges of various initiatic currents that formerly existed in the Western world, and characters no less enigmatic than the organizations to which they belonged or which they inspired. One such character is Martines de Pasqually, and in response to recent works concerning him and his Order of the Elect Cohens published by R. Le Forestier and P. Vulliaud, we have already remarked on how many points of his biography remain obscure in spite of all the documents now published. [1] Gérard van Rijnberk has just brought out another book on this subject, [2] which likewise contains interesting documentation largely unpublished hitherto; but in spite of this it must be said that this book perhaps raises more questions than it answers. [3]
The author begins by pointing to the uncertainty surrounding the name Martines itself, and he lists the many variants found in the relevant writings. But it is also true that too much importance should not be attached to such differences, for in the eighteenth century the spelling of proper names was hardly respected. But he adds:
As for the man himself, who would have known better than anyone the exact spelling of his own name or of his pseudonym as chief initiator, he always signed himself Don Martines de Pasqually (only once: de Pascally de La Tour). In the only known authentic public records-his son's baptismal certificate-his name is given as Jaques Delivon Joacin Latour de la Case, don Martinets de Pasqually.
It is not correct that the record in question, which was published by Papus, [4] is 'the only authentic public record,' for two others, which have no doubt escaped van Rijnberk's attention, have been published here in this very journal: Martines' marriage certificate [5] and the 'certificate of Catholicity' issued at the time of his departure for San Domingo. The first bears the names 'Jaque Delyoron Joachin Latour De la Case and Suzanne Dumas de Rainau', [6] and the second bears simply 'Jacques Pasqually de Latour'; as for the signature of Martines himself, on the first it is 'Don Martines Depasqually', and on the second 'Depasqually de la Tour'. The fact that on the marriage certificate gives his father simply as 'Delatour de la Case' (the
(the same moreover as his son in the baptismal certificate, although a marginal note calls him 'de Pasqually', no doubt because this name was better known) seems to support van Rijnberk's opinion that 'one is tempted to conclude that his true name was La Case, or Las Cases, and that 'Martines de Pasqually' was only a hieronym.
But this name La Case or Las Cases, which may be a gallicized form of the Spanish name Las Casas, raises yet further questions. First of all, it should be noted that the second successor to Martines as 'Grand Sovereign' of the Order of the Elect Cohens (the first having been Caignet de Lestère) was called Sébastien de Las Casas; was there some relationship between him and Martines? The thing is not impossible, for he was from San Domingo, and Martines had returned to the island to collect an inheritance, which may lead one to suppose that part of his family was established there. [7] But there is something stranger still: in his Crocodile, L.-Cl. de Saint Martin produces a 'Spanish Jew' named Eléazar, to whom he clearly attributes many traits of his old master Martines. Here is how this Eléazar explains what obliged him to leave Spain and take refuge in France:
I had a Christian friend in Madrid belonging to the family of Las Casas, to which, although indirectly, I am under the greatest obligation. After some prosperity in commerce he was ruined suddenly by bankruptcy. I straightaway flew to him, to sympathize with his grief and offer what few resources my meagre fortune put at my disposal; but as these resources proved insufficient to restore his business, I yielded to my friendship for him, allowing it to lead me so far astray as to make use of certain means by which I soon uncovered the fraud of his exploiters and even the place where they had hidden the riches of which they had despoiled him. Through these same means I procured for
him the capacity to recover all his treasures, without those who had robbed him ever suspecting who had divested them in their turn. I was no doubt wrong to make use of these means for such a purpose, since they must only be applied to the administration of things that hold no truck with the riches of this world; and I was punished for it. My friend, instructed in a timid and nervous faith, suspected witchcraft in what I had done for him, and his pious zeal took away his gratitude, just as my obliging zeal had got the upper hand on me; he denounced me to his church as both a sorcerer and a Jew. The inquisitors were immediately informed; I was condemned to the fire even before an arrest, but as they set about my pursuit, I was warned by this same particular means of the fate hanging over me, and I took refuge in your country without delay. [8]
Doubtless, the Crocodile includes many purely fanciful things, in which it would be difficult to see precise allusions to real events and people, but it is nonetheless most unlikely that the name Las Casas is mere coincidence. This is why we thought it interesting to reproduce the entire passage despite its length. Just what links could there have been between the Jew Eléazar, who so resembles Martines through the 'powers' and the doctrine attributed to him, and the family Las Casas, and what could have been the nature of the 'great obligations' he had to them? For the moment, we only formulate these questions, without claiming to provide any answers; we shall see whether the following allows us to envisage a more or less plausible one. [9]
Let us pass on to other points of Martines' biography no less full of surprises. Van Rijnberk says that 'the year and place of his birth are completely unknown,' but points out that Willermoz wrote to