Masonic Notes And Queries.

retinue . No one resided there permanently except the porter and bis family ; and the surrounding garden was empty and desolate as the interior . A few paces from this dwelling rose the abrupt dark mass of the ancient fortified prison of the Temple , consisting of tivo square tOAvers , one larger than the other , but bound together like a bundle of Avails . These were flanked by small

turrets , and the Avhole had , in former times , been croivned by battlements . A few lower and more modern buildings were grouped around , but they ivere lost iu the shadoiv of tho central mass , and only served , by contrast , to heighten its apparent altitude . This gloomy prison Avas built of large cut Paris stone , excoriated and cicatrised on the surface , so that the Avails seemed marbled Avith

livid yolloAV spots upon that black ground , produced by smoke and rain , Avhich disfigures the public buildings of the north of France . The large toiver , almost as lofty as that of a cathedral , rose to the height of sixty feet from tho base to the summit , and enclosed between its four walls a space of thirty feet square . The interior was divided into four stories , each consisting of large vaulted chambers , used as guard rooms , Avhich communicated with smaller apartments , niched in the turrets at the angles .

" The ascent to the top ivas by a spiral staircase , and every apartment to ivhieh it led was defended by double oaken doors—one studded with large nails , the other sheathed ivith iron , and fortified by bars of the same metal . The Avails of the edifice were nine feet thick , jiierced at rare intervals with windoAvs opening wide tc the interior , but leaving scarcely sufficient orifice outside

for the transmission of light and air , which Avas furthoi impeded by massive iron gratings . Seven successive wickets , or seven massive doors , closed ivith locks and bolts , defended the spiral staircase from story to story , and a sentinel and jailor stood guard at each . An exterior gallery , extending ten paces on each side , ran round tbe summit of the fortress , Avhercthc ivind howled

constantly like a tempest , and drowned the tumultuous echoes of tbe city beneath . From this gallery the vieiv , ranging over tho IOAV roofs of the Quartier St . Antoine and tho Ene du Temple , commanded the dome of the Pantheon , the toivers of the Cathedral , and the roofs of the Pavilion of tho Tuilerics , or rested on the green hill of Issy and Choisy le Eoi , sloping doivn with their villages , jiarks , and meadoivs , toAA-ards the banks of the Seine .

"Thelittle toAver , which immediate !} 7 adjoined the larger , was divided in the same Avay , from stage to stage , Avith locked and guarded doors , and had like it tivo turrets at each angle ; but no interior communicp . tion existed between these tivo contiguous buildings ; each was entered by a separate staircase . On the summit of the little tower , as on that of the donjon , ivas a platform open to

the sky . The first story 7 contained an antechamber , a dining-room , and a library of musty old books belonging to the ancient priors of the Temple , to Avhich ivere added those which tho Count d'Artois bad discarded from bis own . Tbe second , third , and fourth stories presented the same arrangement of apartments , the same bare Avails , desolate aspect , and dilapidated furniture . The

wind Avhistled , and tho rain penetrated through the broken lvindoiv panes ; the SAvalloAvs ACAV in and out with the perfect securitj' of long and undisturbed possession . There ivere neither beds nor tables , couches nor curtains ; one or tivo benches for the assistant jailors , a feiv rushbottomed chairs , and some eartheiiAA'aro in a deserted kitchen , formed the entire furniture of this place . TAVO

IOAV , arched doors , surmounted by a broken escutcheon of the Templars , gave admittance to the vestibules of these tivo towers . "Large paved alleys , separated by wooden barriers , surrounded tho fortress . The garden was overrun with rank Avecds , and blocked up here and there by masses of rubbish , the accumulated deposit of ages of ruin ; Avhile the high gloomy Avail , like that of a cloister , Avhich

surrounded it , only opening through a long bare avenue to the Rue du Temple , added to the aspect of sombre desolation . " Such ivas the exterior and interior of this residence , at which the royal oivners of the Tuileries , Versailles , and Fontainbleau arrived at nightfall . No guest had entered those deserted balls since the Templars quitted

them to attend the funeral pile of Jacques Molay . And these lofty towers , silent , cold , and empty for so manyages , resembled less the residence of living men than the chambers of a pyramid in the sepulchre of some Pharaoh of the AVest . " A little further on Lamartine writes .- — _ " Next morning , after breakfast , Avhich was served Avith of

some appearance luxury , in the diningroom of the first floor , the king visited the adjoining turret , where he examined with interest tho old Latin books heaped up in this corner of the edifice by the archivists of the Order of the Templars : volumes Avhich had been sleeping quietly for ages beneath thcdust . There he found a Horace , tbe poet of voluptuous ease , forgotten there as if in irony of fallen majestA 7 ,.

buried youth , and discrowned beauty ; and Cicero , in ivhose great soul serene philosophy towered above tbe vicissitudes of politics , and in whoso pages genius and virtue , struggling ivith adversity , offer lessons of heroism to all ivhose destiny it is to battle against fortune . " Some religious books he also discovered , Avhich his piety , strengthened and exalted by misfortune , made

him Avelcome as gifts from Heaven ; an old breviary , in which the portions of the psalms marked out for daily use , seemed f o utter forth ail the plaints of humanity ; and ' Tho Initiation of Christ , ' that overflowing cup of Christian sorroAA , ivherein toars are changed by resignation into a healing medicine for the soul and a foretaste of divine immortality . He carried them to his OAVH

apartment , and placed them carefully in the closet ivhieh adjoined it ; intending not only to fortify his soul by these treasures , but to employ them for the instruction of his son in the Latin language . " Is this latter passage a fact or an embellishment of the gifted author ' s ? If a fact , what ivere the archives so discovered by tho king , and ivhat ivas thoir ultimate fate ? A question of deep interest to every Knight Templar as Avell as—M . 0 . G . 0 .

DEE S CRYSTAL . It is a someivhat hazardous experiment for me to make any inquiry hero on the above subject , because , as I have been accused of Avishing to subvert Masomy , ivhieh I revere , so I may next be accused of Avishing to substitute conjuring and fortune-telling iu its place . However , ivhat I Avant to know is , Avhether there is any solid

evidence that Dee had such a crystal as is attributed tohim , and also Avhere ho obtained it ; and if he really used it for purposes recently insinuated , or kept it as a curiosity ; and , lastly , Avhether there arc articles so constructed that objects may be brought into them by refraction ? There can be no doubt that they have comedoAvn to us from a very remote periodand ivere probabl

, y used as emblems of initiation , iu a similar manner to a certain cube . I make these inquiries because Dee , in his fragmentary Six Books of Mysteries , dated at Mortlac ,. and which ivere transcribed by Ashmole , figuratively employs such a crystal to allegorise the means , and point out the degrees to sources from Avhence he obtained his Eosicrucian knoivledge ; and in one of the books he

professes to see himself knighted by the Angels of tbe Crystal by a bloiv on the bead . So , also , the seven chambers of the " Chymical Nuptials of Christian Rosy Cross " would appear to allude allegorically to the seven degrees of the rite ; and in the book ive find mention of tivo pillars , a Avound on the forehead , certain arch symbolism ; and he is finally created a " Knight of the Golden Stone , "—the stone of the philosopher ivho sought for light by tho Rose—the stone which the builders rejected ,