The Quartier Royal of Brussels: a forest of symbols The largest masonic complex in the world? This study is dedicated to Pascal Pirotte Strength for the undertaking, Wisdom for the execution and Beauty for the ornament. All it takes is for the crowd to enjoy in the vision of the show : to the initiated will not escape, at the same time, its high significance. Goethe about Mozart's The Magic Flute "What are the duties of a Freemason?" - Fleeing vice and practising virtue - How should he practice virtue? - By preferring justice and truth to everything else". Masonic catechism Real secrets are those that continue to be secrets even when they are revealed. I do this in memory of those who were and those who are no longer. Masonry of the Templars (18th century) The Brussels Park or the Perfect Plan? (english version to be continued – 2021.02.23) F ull F rench version Brief presentation In his Bruxelles, Mille ans de mystères, Paul de Saint-Hilaire seems to be the first contemporary author to have considered the layout of the Royal Park of Brussels from a Masonic point of view1. He saw in it a desire to inscribe the Lodge's main tools in the plan of the Park itself. The following tools would thus be discovered: the compass, the square, the chisel, the mallet, the hammer, the perpendicular (or plumb line), the level, the ruler or lever, and the trowel (illustration above). Thirty years later, in his work Bruxelles maçonnique: faux mystères et vrais symboles2, the masonologist Jean van Win categorically rejected this thesis as phantasmagorical. In his rebuttal, Jean van Win focuses on the governor of our lands at the time, Charles de Lorraine. He finds no proof of his belonging to a Lodge in the Austrian Netherlands3. Moreover, his title of Grand Master of the Teutonic Order would have prohibited him de facto from entering Masonry. This is erroneous: Wilhelm Marschall von Biberstein was both a Freemason and a high dignitary of the Teutonic Knights. Just as he was a member of La Vraie et Parfaite Harmonie in Mons (1769). 1 The hyperlinks, underlined in blue, serve as sources and support for my essay. 2 Jean van Win, Bruxelles maçonnique : faux mystères et vrais symboles, Cortext, Marcinelle, 2008 (rééd. Télélivre, 2012). 3 Pierre Chevallier quotes a letter from the Marquis de Tavannes dated 9 October 1738, which proves that Charles de Lorraine was being approached to be "received" in a French Lodge. Les Ducs sous l'Acacia, Slatkine, Genève 1994, pp. 118-119 and 168. Adolphe Cordier evokes Charles de Lorraine in his Histoire de l'Ordre maçonnique (Mons, 1854, facsimile of freemason Jottrand's copy underlined without any subjective comment concerning the prince). Its source would come from the Grande Loge of France. La Défense apologétique des Francs- Maçons (Anonymous, Amsterdam, 1767) states that Charles de Lorraine is a Freemason. Around the years 1770-1780, in the Germanic part of Europe (the Habsburg Empire and future Germany), the Templar Strict Observa nce was at the forefront and was not accountable to the other European Obediences. The Order of the Teutonic Knights had intellectual affinities with the Templar Strict Observance (Stricte Obervance Templière, abbreviation SOT, Strikte Observanz in German), which claimed to be the heir to the Order of the Temple and the chivalric societies. Its rituals were essentially Christian and Trinitarian. It took on an occultist and Gnostic orientation with the development of the Rectified Scottish Rite. The vast majority of Austrian dignitaries posted in Brussels were members of this (see p. 40). In fact, the quarrel that Jean van Win had about whether or not Charles de Lorraine belonged to any Lodge was incidental inasmuch as he was not the direct sponsor of the architect of the Brussels Park, the Frenchman Barnabé Guimard. It was in fact Prince Georges-Adam Starhemberg was at the helm from the very beginning. The main protagonists of the Royal Park of Brussels The patron: Prince of Starhemberg (1724-1807), after having been ambassador to France, returned to Vienna in 1766. Very quickly, the disagreement with Emperor Joseph II forced him to leave for other places. He resumed his career as a diplomat and arrived in Brussels in 1770 with the enviable title of Minister Plenipotentiary (Prime Minister) to the Governor General of the Netherlands, Charles de Lorraine. He succeeded the Count of Cobenzl, who had just died. His good relations with Charles de Lorraine seem to have been constructive, if I may put it that way, since he had his hands free for an ambitious town-planning project. This high dignitary of the Empire was initiated in 1744 in Leipzig in a Lodge which would later become, by merger, Minerve aux Trois Palmes (Minerva with The Three Palms). This Lodge became a member of the Templar Strict Observance in 1766. There is no ambiguity on this subject4. In 1774, he decided to draw up the project for the future Royal Quarter and the Park that was its epicentre, with the blessing of Charles de Lorraine and Chancellor Kaunitz (1711-1794) in Vienna. He surrounded himself with collaborators such as Ange-Charles de Limpens, an eminent member of the Conseil des domaines et finances de Sa Majesté, and the architect Guimard. He left our city in May 1783 to take up the position of First Grand Master of the Court in Vienna. Not without having completed his masterpiece: the Royal Park. It was the landscape gardener Joachim Zinner who drew the first detailed sketch. This plan will be modified many times. And Zinner was soon confined to his role as a landscape artist. To the delight of Starhemberg, Guimard and Godecharle. In Vienna, the Freihaustheater, located on the property of the same Starhemberg, will play Mozart's Masonic opera The Magic Flute 223 times. Mozart was also a member of the SOT. The architect: Barnabé Guimard (1739-1805), born in Amboise, studied at the Royal Academy of Architecture in Paris. Established in Brussels in 1761, he collaborated in the work on the Place Royale and the park of the same name and built the mansions that border them. He also worked on the Tervuren castle, owned by Charles de Lorraine. Thanks to his advanced training, Guimard was able to understand the stakes of the Starhemberg commission. Today, he is 4 Dresden and Leipzig in Saxony were the cradle of the Templar reform. In fact, Minerva zu den Drei Palmen (Minerva with Three Palms, in French at its creation: Minerve aux Trois Palmiers) was the result of the successive union of several Lodges. Starhemberg also attended the Lodge Aux Trois Aigles (Three Eagles, Zu den drei Adlern, 1770). Albert of Saxe-Teschen, successor of Charles de Lorraine, was the protector of this very secret Viennese Lodge. A "Scottish" chapter (side degrees) was even dedicated to him, Albert zum goldenen Helm. V. De Bonardy, controller (financial inspector) of Starhemberg, was the Venerable of the Lodge Les Vrais Amis de la Justice (Great East of Brussels). He had the mails of his Lodge sent to the address of the Prince (information kindly provided by my friend André Kervella). The Prince of Kaunitz, Chancellor of the Empire and Mason, closely followed the development of the Royal Quarter. Starhemberg, his friend and relative, had succeeded him as ambassador to Versailles (1753). Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire, L'espace des francs-maçons. Une sociabilité européenne au XVIIIe siècle, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2003. see chap. 4 on Masonry in Saxony. recognised as the author of the master plan, obviously under the orders of his prince. The work on the park was carried out between 1775 and 1783. Was he a Freemason? No one can say. His father would have been a knight of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem (Malta). The Ornamentalist: the sculptor Gilles-Lambert Godecharle (1750-1835) can boast of a work of an amiable neo-classicism. In a letter dated 6 March 1777 addressed to his Brethren, he expressed his gratitude to the Brussels authorities who approached him to decorate the Brussels Park. He became the official sculptor of the Court of Charles de Lorraine in replacement of his master, the famous Laurent Delvaux, who died in 1778, and also the author of the "terms" or "Hermes" of the Park. After formative and fruitful stays in Paris, Berlin, London and Rome, Godecharle returned to Brussels around 1780 with a sketch of a first monument in his trunk: an obelisk fountain intended to adorn the Park (see and p. 17-18). It is worth mentioning that Godecharle was an affiliated member of Les Vrais Amis de l'Union founded in 1782. This Lodge will adopt very quickly the Rite Fraçais. It had its headquarters in rue de l'Orangerie, the present rue Henri Beyaert, which is located behind the Palais de la Nation, rue de la Loi. Our country seems to have kept links with Minerve aux Trois Palmiers of Starhemberg: Eugène Defacqz, Grand Master of the Grand Orient de Belgique, became a member in 1850. At the same time, the latter was closely following the work of a "park commission" charged with restoring the site's lustre. The dedicatee: Charles de Lorraine (1712-1780) was appointed governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1744 to 17805. His name is only mentioned at the bottom of this list because he probably only played a "modest and formal"6 role in the layout of the Park and its ornamentation. He relied entirely on Starhemberg. Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (until 1761), like his Prime Minister and then Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, he administered with wisdom and bonhomie the populations entrusted to him.