[CHAPTER VIII]
The god and his sanctuary—He informs the Pope of his overthrow—His manifestoes—His portrait—Doctrine of escape—Symbols of that religion—Chaudesaigues takes me to the Mapah—Iswara and Pracriti—Questions which are wanting in actuality—War between the votaries of bidja and the followers of sakti—My last interview with the Mapah
In 1840, in the old Ile Saint Louis which is lashed by bitter and angry winds from the north and west, upon the coldest quay of that frigid Thule—terrarum ultima Thule—on a dark and dingy ground-floor, in a bare room, a man was moulding and casting in plaster. That man was the one-time Gannot. The room served both as studio and school; pupils came and took lessons in modelling there and to consult the Mapah. This was the name, as we have already said, under which Gannot went in his new existence. From this room was sent the first manifesto in which he who had been Gannot proclaimed his mission to the world. Who was surprised by it? Pope Gregory XVI. certainly was, when he received, on his sovereign throne, a letter dated from our apostolic pallet-bed, which announced that his time was over; that, from henceforth, he was to look upon himself as dethroned, and, in fact, that he was superseded by another. This polite duty fulfilled with regard to his predecessor, Gannot, in all simplicity, announced to his friends that they must look upon him as the god of the future. Gannot had been the leader of a certain school of thought for two or three years past; amongst his followers were Félix Pyat, Thoré, Chaudesaigues, etc. etc. His sudden transformation from Gannot to Mapah, his declaration to the Pope, and his presumption in posing as a revealer, alienated his former disciples; it was the durus his sermo. Nevertheless, he maintained unshaken belief in himself and continued his sermons; but as these oral sermons were insufficient and he thought it necessary to add to them a printed profession of faith, one day he sold his wearing apparel and converted the price of it into manifestoes of war against the religion of Christ, which he distributed among his new disciples.
After the sale of his wardrobe, the habits of the ci-devant lion entirely disappeared, as his garments had done. In his transition from Gannot to Mapah, everything that constituted the former man vanished: a blouse replaced, for both summer and winter, the elegant clothes which the past gambler used to wear; a grey felt hat covered his high and finely-shaped forehead. But, seen thus, he was really beautiful: his blue-grey eyes sparkled with mystic fire; his finely chiselled nose, with its delicately defined outlines, was straight and pure in form; his long flowing beard, bright gold coloured, fell to his chest; all his features, as is usual with thinkers and visionaries, were drawn up towards the top of his head by a sort of nervous tension; his hands were white and fine and distinguished-looking, and, with a remnant of his past vanity as a man of the world, he took particular care of them; his gestures were not by any means without commanding power; his language was eloquent, impassioned, picturesque and original. The prophet of poverty, he had adopted its symbols; he became a proletarian in order to reach the hearts of the lower classes; he donned the working-man's blouse to convert the wearers of blouses. The Mapah was not a simple god—he was a composite one; he was made up of Saint Simon, of Fourier and of Owen. His chief dogma was the extremely ancient one of Androgynism, i.e. the unity of the male and female principle throughout all nature, and the unity of the man and the woman in society. He called his religion EVADISME, i.e. (Eve and Adam); himself he called MAPAH, from mater and pater; and herein he excelled the Pope, who had never even in the palmiest days of the papacy, not even under Gregory VII., been anything more than the father of Christians, whilst he was both father and mother of humanity. In his system people had not to take simply the name of their father, but the first syllable of their mother's name combined with the first syllable of that of their father. Once the Mapah addressed himself thus to his friend Chaudesaigues—
"What is your name?"
"Chaudesaigues."
"What does that come from?"
"It is my father's name."
"Have you then killed your mother, wretched man?"