There is little doubt that the landscape beneath Isis in the painting is to be imagined not in Egypt but in Paris and, more precisely, at the Bastille – for the give-away is the ‘genie’ which, today, can actually be seen ‘flying’ over the Place de la Bastille. Where? It stands at the top of the huge pillar which was commissioned for the spot by the Citizen King Louis-Philippe I in 1830, three years after Picot completed the painting.
And there is one other point. In Picot's painting the goddess Isis is gazing at a tall obelisk in the distance. Could this obelisk be the actual obelisk from Luxor raised at the Place de la Concorde by Louis-Philippe I? Is the Picot painting suggesting some sort of connection or link between the city of Paris and the city of Luxor?
In 1828, a few months after Picot had completed the painting for Charles X, the latter offered to sponsor Champollion to undertake a feasibility study for bringing an obelisk from Egypt to Paris. The obelisk in question had been donated to France by Khedive Muhammad Ali.103 Charles X cultivated a keen interest in ancient Egypt and, in 1828, had just inaugurated the Egyptian antiquities museum in the south wing of the Louvre.
In July that year Champollion headed a small team of scientists and artists, including the French archaeologist Charles Lenormant and the architect Antoine Bibent, and set sail from the port of Toulon towards Egypt. Champollion and his ‘Argonauts’ as he called his team, reached Alexandria on 18 August 1828 where, barely three decades earlier, Bonaparte had landed with his troops. Champollion was received by the French consul, Bernardino Drovetti, and a friendship quickly developed between the two.
Drovetti was from southern Italy, and since 1818 had also been the ‘Great Copt’ of the Egyptian Masonic lodges in Alexandria.104 He had been appointed French consul in 1821, and had earlier served as assistant to Mathieu de Lesseps. And like de Lesseps before him, Drovetti had become a close friend of Khedive Muhammad Ali. This privileged connection gave Drovetti a rather free hand in dealing with ancient Egyptian relics, and he soon amassed a huge personal fortune. His British counterpart and rival was Henry Salt, the British consul in Alexandria, who, along with Giovanni Battista Belzoni,105 the flamboyant Italian Freemason and Egyptologist, also traded in antiquities which he sold to private collectors and to the British Museum.
Champollion was totally enchanted by Egypt. He was to write of this ancient civilization: We in Europe are but Lilliputians, and no other ancient or modern people has developed the art of architecture on a scale so sublime, so huge, so grandiose as did the Egyptians … I repeat yet again … ancient Egypt taught the arts to Greece, the latter developed them into a more sublime form but without Egypt, Greece would probably not have become the home of the arts.106
So fascinated was Champollion with Egypt that he even entertained the notion that he had been somehow physically connected to it since his birth: ‘It seems to me that I was born here’, he wrote to his brother whom he had nicknamed Ammon, ‘and the Europeans here think I look very much like a Copte’.107
During his 18-month visit to Egypt, Champollion manage to get an agreement with Muhammad Ali that he would take to Paris one of the two obelisks that stood outside the Temple of Luxor. The khedive would have been quite happy to let Champollion take both obelisks, but it seemed that one was all that the French engineers could cope with. The job of bringing the ancient monolith to France proved to be no easy task. As it weighed an estimated 230 metric tons and was 23 meters tall, there was some question at first of slicing it into several manageable pieces, but Champollion would not have it, claiming that it would be a ‘sacrilege’.108
On his way back to France, Champollion made the acquaintance of a young naval engineer called Raymond de Verninac Saint-Maur who would later receive the command of the Luxor, the special ship that was built to carry the obelisk down the Nile and across the Mediterranean. Verninac worked under the authority of the French minister of the navy, the Baron of Haussez, who much disliked Champollion on account of a feud he had with him in Grenoble, when Haussez had been the chief of police there. Not unexpectedly, Haussez pushed Champollion aside and took all the credit for securing the obelisk from the khedive of Egypt. Haussez was to write in his memoirs: As soon as it was known in the learned world how I dreamt of enriching France with a monument that only Rome owned, I was put in charge to try and obtain two obelisks much more precious … than those of Alexandria [which ended up in London and New York], and also much more difficult to transport by reason of their location at Luxor.109
The operation was to take six years and Haussez was not to see it through. Hardly a year after he had come to office as minister of the navy, he was sacked during the chaos that followed the July Revolution of 1830. The responsibility for the project then passed to the distinguished Baron Taylor, the son of a naturalised Englishman. Taylor was a patron of the arts, and was himself an accomplished author. A friend of the geographer and archaeologist Jomard, Taylor had a keen interest in ancient Egypt and diligently took over where Haussez had left off. Supplied with letters of recommendation from the king, and a generous budget of 100,000 francs, he went to Egypt himself to meet the khedive and take charge of the shipping operation. Taylor quickly assigned the task of the engineering works to Jean-Baptiste Apollinaire Lebas, a stocky and rather short man whose small stature was to be the subject of much ridicule among the Egyptians, who could not believe that such a squat individual was given the mission of moving so tall an obelisk all the way to France.
It took from April to July 1831 for Lebas to get the purpose-built ship, the Luxor, from Toulon to Upper Egypt. It was summer, the heat at Luxor was insufferable – over 100 °F in the shade – and the whole affair was besieged by untold problems, including a terrible cholera epidemic. But at the end, Lebas proved to be the right man for the job. By October he had managed to have the obelisk lowered safely and in one piece to the sand. Two further months followed while it was dragged the few hundred meters to the shore of the Nile and finally hoisted onboard the Luxor. Then Lebas had to wait till July of the next year for the inundation of the Nile in order to be able to sail downstream to Alexandria. After a delay of three months at Alexandria, the Luxor finally crossed the Mediterranean and arrived at the French port of Toulon on 11 May 1833. From there it was brought by river to Paris where it waited at the docks for three more years.
It was Louis-Philippe I who had personally long ago decided that the obelisk should be raised on the axis of Paris in the centre of the Place de la Concorde, immediately west of the Tuileries Garden between the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe.110 Now, at last, a date was set for raising the obelisk. On 25 October 1836, a crowd of 200,000 people gathered at the Place de la Concorde to witness the event – more than had assembled for the beheading of Louis XVI on the same spot 43 years earlier. Lebas personally supervised the difficult lifting operations which, to everybody's admiration and delight, went without any hitches. Amid cheers of jubilation and joy, Paris at long last had its very own solar talisman from ancient Egypt adorning its skyline. France now could fittingly claim for its capital the name of the Cité de la Lumière (the ‘City of Light’) – or should we say the ‘City of the Sun’?
The beautiful obelisk standing in the Place de la Concorde was, and still is by virtue of its great antiquity, the oldest monument of Paris. It witnessed the story of Egypt from about 1500 BC and now in Paris it was to see the passing of the French monarchy and the creation of the Second Republic in 1848; the rise of the Second Empire under Napoleon III, the grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte, and its fall in 1871; the formation of the Third Republic under the ‘Masonic’ government of Léon Gambetta;111 the First World War; and the Second World War; and finally, in 1958, the present Fifth Republic founded by General Charles de Gaulle.
But it was not until 1984 that it would be joined in Paris by a modern structure evoking the Great Pyramid of Giza …
Mitterrand's ‘Great Works’
In 1981 François Mitterrand, then president of France, launched the so-ca
lled Grands Travaux, the ‘Great Works’, which involved the construction of a series of impressive architectural projects to the glory and culture of France. In eight years would come the bicentennial of the 1789 Revolution, and huge celebrations were being planned by Mitterrand who, with a zeal reminiscent of Louis XIV, wanted to furnish this event with great national monuments. Either intentionally or by coincidence the two monuments in which Mitterrand took great personal interest evoked ancient Egypt and the Masonic Supreme Being or ‘Great Architect of the Universe’. These choices earned Mitterrand titles like Sphinx, Dieu (‘God’) and Roi Soleil (‘Sun King’) in France's satirical press.
Although François Mitterrand was not a Freemason,112 he was nonetheless extremely sympathetic to the lodges – so much so that many in France remain convinced to this day that he was a clandestine Mason. Much has been made in recent years of the fact that Guy Penne, one of Mitterrand's closest political advisers, was a member of the Supreme Council of the Grand Orient de France.113 There is also the scandal involving Mitterrand's son, Jean-Christophe, who, in 1982, joined the office of Penne and in 1986 took over Penne's job. Jean-Christophe was exposed by the French press for his embroilment in the so-called Falcone Affair involving shady arms deals in West Africa which also implicated some senior African politicians who were members of Masonic lodges.114
The two projects that most interested President Mitterrand were those that were to be readied for the bicentennial celebrations planned for July 1989. They involved the Grand Louvre project, which would ultimately feature a huge glass Pyramid, and the Grande Arche de la Fraternité project at La Défense on the extreme western end of the Champs-Élysées. Under the personal directive of Mitterrand, two institutions, provided with special budgets set up under the Ministry of Finance, were created to administer these projects, one being the EPGL, l’Établissement public du Grand Louvre and the other being the EPAD, l’Établissement public pour l'aménagement de la région de la Défense. Two renowned architects were then personally selected by Mitterrand: Ieoh Ming Pei, the celebrated Chinese-born American architect, for the Louvre,115 and Johan-Otto Von Spreckelsen, a Danish architect for the Grande Arche.116
President Mitterrand was so keen to have I. M. Pei for the Louvre that he decided to bypass the normal requirements for an international tender and simply offered him the design commission.117 According to Pei these were the circumstances: In July 1981, Paul Guimard asked to meet with me at the French Embassy in London … He told me that President Mitterrand wanted me to come to Paris … Only the President, Paul Guimard and myself were present at this meeting which took place on December 11, 1981 …118
Pei claimed that at this first meeting with Mitterrand there was no specific mention of the Louvre Pyramid, and the president only spoke of ‘the importance of architecture in French national life.’119 It was later, in 1983, that Mitterrand sent his advisor, Émile Biasini, to New York with instructions to contract I. M. Pei directly for this project.120 When asked by a journalist why a pyramid was chosen for the Louvre which was a classical baroque design, Pei replied: Architecture is geometry – it's geometry. The Louvre is also geometry. It's slightly tilted, but it's geometry … The French opposed it at first, but never President Mitterrand. He never faltered in backing my idea …121
I. M. Pei insists that he borrowed the idea for a pyramid from ‘a garden trellis design of Le Nôtre, who laid out the vast gardens at Versailles for Louis XIV and also the gardens of the Tuilleries.’122 Perhaps so. Yet the slope which Pei finally chose for his pyramid was 50.71°, only about a degree different from the slope of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Was the similarity deliberate? We shall perhaps never know. But here is how Pei's senior architect, Yann Weymouth, replied when asked this question: Working with models and perspectives we studied form and site. We shaped the central skylight, studying it from ground level in perspectives and models. With a perfect equilateral triangle as side, the 54.74° slope felt aggressive, but as the slope approached 45° the form ‘melted’. The 50.71° finally chosen is close to the slope of the Great Pyramid of Giza, so it is possible we were repeating studies made by the IVth Dynasty Egyptians.123
From the above statement it is clear that both Pei and Weymouth must in fact have studied the evolution of the fourth dynasty pyramids in Egypt with some care. According to Egyptologists the first true pyramids were those of Pharaohs Sneferu and, his celebrated son, Cheops (Khufu) – and it is a well-known fact that their three pyramids (two at Dahshur plus the Great Pyramid at Giza) had slopes starting near 54° (South Pyramid at Dahshur), then changed to 45° (North Pyramid at Dahshur) and finally settled for 51.85° (Great Pyramid at Giza)!
Given the historical importance of the project, the location of the site and the fact that it was to be a symbol for the bicentennial of the Revolution, Pei must also have been aware that several pyramid projects had been proposed for Paris in the past – such as those of Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, mentioned at the start of this chapter. He should also have known that during the reign of Louis XIV a pyramid to the glory of the Sun King had been proposed for the Cour Carrée of the Louvre by the architect François Dubois,124 and also that a weird baroque pyramid with a statue of Napoleon on its top had been designed by the architect Louis-Ernest L’heureux to stand precisely where Pei eventually placed his glass Pyramid.125
56. The Statue of Liberty.
57. A typical Masonic symbolic rendition of ‘Solomon's Temple’. Note the two pillars and the ‘pentagram’ in the centre.
58. The ‘Ohio Historical Marker’ showing the Masonic layout plan for Sandusky.
59. The original city plan of Sandusky, Ohio clearly showing the Masonic ‘square and compass’ emblem.
60. Pierre L’Enfant's plan for the city of Washington, DC (1791).
61. The pentagon symbol of the 32nd degree of the Scottish Rite.
62. The pentagon (at inner centre) of the 32nd degree showing the five ‘Masonic armies’.
63. Aerial view of the Mall in Washington, DC.
64. Overhead view of the Pentagon building near Washington, DC. Note alignment of the entrance with the Capitol.
65. The ‘Dome of the Rock’ mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
66. Truman's letter recognizing the legitimacy of the state of Israel on 14 May 1948, just 11 minutes after it was announced by Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv
67. President Harry S. Truman in Masonic regalia.
68. Truman's letter recognizing the legitimacy of the state of Israel on 14 May 1948, just 11 minutes after it was announced by Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv.
69. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
70. Accusation of a Masonic-Zionist plot for the millennium celebrations at the Giza pyramids in the (now banned) newspaper Sawt al-Shaab, December 1999.
71. A Masonic lodge in Cairo, Egypt, circa 1940.
72. The millennium celebration at the Giza pyramids, 31 December 1999.
73. The ‘sacred rock’ inside the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem.
74. The Knights Templar surrendering to Saladin after the Battle of Hattin.
75. The view along Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol (Courtesy William Henry).
76. The rising of Sirius at Washington, DC.
77. The setting of Sirius at Washington, DC.
78. The Capitol (Courtesy Jason Weir)
79. The Washington Monument. (Courtesy Jason Weir).
80. DARPA’s Information Awareness Office logo (now abandoned).
81. The headquarters of the Scottish Rite in Washington, DC (Courtesy Jason Weir).
The Grande Arche de la Fraternité project, unlike Pei's, was the subject of an international tender, but the final decision was nonetheless taken by Mitterrand. Here is how the architect Von Spreckelsen described his design: An open cube, a window open to the world … with a gaze towards the future. It is a modern Arc de Triomphe, to the glory of the triumph of humanity; it is a symbol of ho
pe that in the future people may meet freely …126
The Grande Arche is indeed a nearly perfect cubical structure 110 meters tall by 112 meters deep with a base that is just over one hectare in area. It is estimated that the Cathedral of Notre Dame would fit quite well in the void of the arch. In the official guide it is described as a monument that ‘evokes the sense of the sacred … which compares to the Egyptian pyramids.’127 On the rooftop the artist Jean-Pierre Raynaud created a zodiac to inspire ‘a real dialogue with the celestial vault, which is the true natural architecture’,128 and one might add on his behalf that his design was a sort of ‘as above so below’ concept.