In this article William Judge recounts the stay that
Blavatsky had in the Adhemar family mansion known as "the Scottish
castle" and located near Paris in a community to the south called
Enghien-les-Bains.
H.P.B. AT ENGHIEN
In the spring of 1884 H.P.B. was
staying in Rue Notre Dame des Champs, Paris, and in the house were living Col.
Olcott, Mohini M. Chatterji and the writer. Part of the time Bertram Keightley
was also there. As always since I have known H.P.B. during the past seventeen
years, she was there as elsewhere engaged daily with her writing, save for an
occasional drive or visit. Many visitors from all classes were constantly
calling, and among the rest came the Countess d'Adhemar, who at once professed
a profound admiration for H.P.B. and invited her to come to the Chateau owned
by the Count at Enghien, just outside the city, including in her invitation
myself and Mohini Chatterji. Bertram Keightley was also invited for a few days.
The invitation was accepted and we
all went out to Enghien, where H.P.B. was given two large rooms downstairs and
the others slept in rooms on the upper floors. Every convenience was given to our
beloved friend, and there she continued her writing, while I at her request
carefully read over, sitting in the same room, Isis Unveiled, making indices at the foot of each page, as she
intended to use it in preparing the Secret
Doctrine.
A lake was at one side of the house
and extensive grounds covered with fine timber hid the building from the road,
part being a well kept fruit and flower garden. A slight description of the
rooms is necessary. Wide stairs led up to the hall; on one side, which we may
call the road front, was the billiard room, the high window of which opened
upon the leaden roof of the porch; the dining room looked out at the back over
the edge of the lake, and the drawing room opened from it on the other side at
right angles to the side of the billiard room. This drawing room had windows opening
on three sides, so that both garden and lake could be seen from it. In it was
the grand piano at the end and side opposite the dining room door, and between
the two side windows was a marble slab holding ornaments; between the windows,
at the end near the piano, was the fireplace, and at that corner was one of the
windows giving a view of the lake. Every evening it was the custom to spend
some time in the drawing room in conversation, and there, as well as in the
dining room, took place some phenomena which indeed were no more interesting
than the words of H.P.B., whether those were witty, grave or gay. Very often
Countess d'Adhemar's sister played the piano in a manner to delight even H.P.B.,
who was no mean judge. I remember well one melody, just then brought out in the
world of Paris, which pleased her immensely, so that she often asked for its
repetition. It was one suggestive of high aspiration and grandiose conceptions
of nature. Many lively discussions with the Count on one side and H.P.B. on the
other had place there, and often in the very midst of these she would suddenly
turn to Mohini and myself, who were sitting listening, to repeat to us the very
thoughts then passing in our brains.
Count d'Adhemar did not ask for the
production of phenomena, but often said that could he and a few of his friends
be convinced about Theosophy perhaps much good would result in France. Some of
us desired in our hearts that in the home of such kind friends phenomena might
occur, but none suggested it to H.P.B. But one day at dinner, when there were present
the Count and Countess, their son Raoul, H.P.B., Mohini, the Countess' sister,
myself, and one other, the strong and never-to-be-forgotten perfume which
intimate friends of H.P.B. knew so well as often accompanying phenomena or
coming of itself, floated round and round the table, plainly perceptible to
several and not perceived either before or afterwards. Of course many sceptics
will see nothing in this, but the writer and others well know that this of
itself is a phenomenon, and that the perfume has been sent for many miles
through the air as a message from H.P.B. or from those hidden persons who often
aided in phenomena or in teachings. At this dinner, or at some other during the
visit, we had all just come in from the flower garden. I had plucked a small
rosebud and placed it upon the edge of the tumbler between myself and the
Countess’ sister who was on my left, H.P.B. being seated on my right. This lady
began to talk of phenomena, wondering if H.P.B. could do as related of the
Indian yogis. I replied that she could if she would, but did not ask her, and
added that she could make even that small rosebud bloom at once. Just then H.P.B.
stretched her hand out towards the rose, not touching it, and said nothing,
continuing at once her conversation and the dinner. We watched the bud until
the end of the meal and saw that it grew in that space of time much larger and
bloomed out into a rose nearly full grown.
On another evening after we had all
been in the drawing room for some time, sitting without lights, the moon
shining over the lake and all nature being hushed, H.P.B. fell into a
thoughtful state. Shortly she rose and stood at the corner window looking over
the water, and in a moment a flash of soft light shot into the room and she
quietly smiled. Reminding me of this evening the Countess d'Adhemar writes in
this month of June:
"H.P.B. seemed wrapped in thought, when
suddenly she rose from her chair, advanced to the opcin window, and raising her
arm with a commanding gesture, faint music was heard in the distance, which
advancing nearer and nearer broke into lovely strains and filled the drawing
room where we were all sitting. Mohini threw himself at H.P.B.'s feet and
kissed the hem of her robe, which action seemed the appropriate outcoming of
the profound admiration and respect we all felt toward the wonderful being
whose loss we will never cease to mourn."
This astral music was very plain to
us all, and the Count especially remarked upon its beauty and the faintness of
it as it sank away into the unknown distance. The whole house was full of these
bell sounds at night when I was awake very late and others had retired. They
were like signals going and coming to H.P.B.’s room downstairs. And on more
than one occasion as we walked in the grounds under the magnificent trees, have
they shot past us, sometimes audible to all and again only heard by one or two.
The lead roof of the portico was a
place where after dinner we sometimes sat, and there on some of those
delightful evenings we were joined by the Countess Wachtmeister, who afterwards
did so much for the comfort of H.P.B. at Wurzbiirg and other places. Many chats
were held there about occultism. In one of these we were speaking of images in
the Astral Light and H.P.B. said:
-
"Well,
you know that it moves as other things in Kosmos do, and that the time comes
when it floats off, as it were, letting another mass of the same ‘light’ take
its place."
It was with a feeling of some regret
that we left this delightful place where such quiet reigned and where H.P.B. was
able to work amid the beauty and the stillness of nature. It cannot be blotted
from the memory, because there our friend and teacher was untroubled by the
presence of curiosity seekers, and thus was free to present to us who believed
in her a side of her many-sided nature which pleased, instructed and elevated
us all.
One incident remains to be told for
which we must depend on others. I took away with me a book which could not be
finished there, and just before leaving Prance went out to Enghien to return
it. There I met the Countess d'Adhemar, who said that the peculiar and
unmistakable perfume of which I spoke above had come in the house after we had
all left. It was one evening about two days after H.P.B.'s departure and the d'Adhemars
had some friends to dinner. After dinner they all went into the drawing room
and soon noticed the perfume. It came, as they said to me, in rushes, and at
once they began to hunt it out in the room, coming at last to the marble slab
described, where, from one spot in the stone, they found the perfume rushing
out in volumes. Such was the quantity of it that, as the Countess said to me,
they were compelled to open the windows, since the odor was overpowering in
large masses. In returning to Paris I told H.P.B. of this and she only said: "It
sometimes happens".
(This article
was published in Lucifer magazine, June
1891, p.359-361; and later in the book HPB: in
memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1891, p.52-55)
PICTURES
Below I put other photos of this mansion:
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