Huck wrote: 25 Sep 2023, 11:05 I found a French-language article in a German magazine ["Le nouvelliste politique d'Allemagne", produced in Cologne 1780-1787 ] of July 1784 with a description of the burial of Court de Gebelin. The edition had 4 not very large pages, and the article had the most prominent first place at the first page in the upper left corner.

http://a.trionfi.eu/q/gebelin-1.jpg
http://a.trionfi.eu/q/gebelin-2.jpg
https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothe ... ssuepage=1

Today in Tarot History

The Monument to Court de Gébelin, 1784-1793.

http://www.rosscaldwell.com/gebelin/geb ... anche2.jpg


Antoine Court de Gébelin, known simply as Gébelin, died in Paris on the night of 12-13 May, 1784. As a Protestant, he was forbidden burial in any of the Catholic cemeteries of Paris, and was therefore interred in the unique cemetery reserved for Protestants, located north of the Hôtel Saint-Louis (now in the 10th Arrondissement, the cemetery completely lost under buildings).

He was greatly admired by many liberal-minded people of the time, including Claude-Camille-François, Count of Albon (1753-1789). Around 1780, Albon had acquired a large property in the area of Franconville, north of Paris, where he designed gardens, a park filled with statues, monuments, and memorials, for the purpose of pleasant and contemplative walks. Gébelin had visited the gardens on several occasions, and had discovered a favourite location from which to view the surrounding countryside, and contemplate.

In a written eulogy published later that year, the Count relates how, when he saw his friend's grave, among the others at the Protestant cemetry, without memorial or distinction, he decided to gain permission to move his body to his own property, where he could give him a fitting memorial. For the location, Albon chose Gébelin's favourite place in the gardens.

Having obtained permission, Gébelin's body was transferred to Franconville on 2 July 1784. On 10 July the lead coffin holding the body was formally interred in the above-ground tomb, topped with an angled stone lid, upon which was engraved a depiction of Hermes drawing Egyptian hieroglyphs. Around the tomb were four round pillars, of unequal heights, bearing different ancient alphabets. A prominent plaque on one of them read, “Passer-by, venerate this tomb: Gébelin lies here.”

The tomb stood in the gardens until the disorders of the Revolution reached it. In April of 1793, by which time the property belonged to a different owner, the tomb was ransacked, the pillars toppled, and the stone slab with the engraving shattered. In this destruction it merely shared the fate of all of the other monuments of the garden. However, despite its brief existence, in succeeding years the garden was remembered by the local inhabitants. An admirer of Gébelin who went in search of his tomb in 1884, the centenary of his death, was told snippets of information that had become almost folkloric, and even shown the probable location where the tomb once stood.

Fortunately, engravings of all of the monuments of Albon's gardens were made shortly after Gébelin was laid to rest there. Thanks to this, we can have a very good idea of its appearance.

In a profound sense, all of us who study Tarot today are passers-by venerating Gébelin's tomb.

Huck wrote: 25 Sep 2023, 17:21
Ross, I've trouble to understand the context of the "3 filles" and the 85-years-old Lady. in the German burial article.

Marguerite Nivot, femme de Simon Girard, Bucheron, de la paroisse de Loques en Brie, diocese de Paris, à quatre lieues de cette ville & à une & demie de Lagny, accoucha, le 23 du mois dernier, à deux heures du matin, de trois filles, qui reçurent le baptême le même jour; ces trois enfans qui se portent bien & promettent de vivre, furent reçus par leur grand mere maternelle, âgée actuellement de 85 ans.

Huck wrote: 25 Sep 2023, 22:32 Well, right, I had a misunderstanding cause of the lay-out of the text. It are 3 different situations, not one, as I suspected. So the text about the burial is then rather trivial.

Small historical research: http://www.a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks02/d ... 93text.htm

On Russian, use goggle translation and enjoy!