Tucson Martinist Artist Daniel Martin Diaz

May 2010

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Rosa carinosa,Been busy of late. We've had a pretty good Spring over here this year so I have spent a fair amount of time in the garden and in addition have been doing a bit of home decorating. Thanks for keeping me informed about the Forum. I look at it from time even if I don't log-in. Somewhat over-awed by the intellectuality of it all. Saw your pic of the Martinist inspired vocalists. Why are there so many Martinists in Arizona? Have done a bit more work on the Diary. Found two more pseudonyms used by Rodrigo:- Eugene Rodrigues and Erastine Ramiro. I have also discovered that he wrote articles for a Parisian magazine called Gil Blas. On Parisian nightlife and the can-can. This magazine chronicled the social life of Paris during the Belle Epoque and expired fittingly enough in 1914. Another strange thing is that on checking a Paris Directory for 1900 I found that Eugene Rodrigues is described as and avocat - a barrister over here an attorney in the US right. Of our friend Rodrigo though no listing. Rodrigo did study law in his youth. Have been surmising wildly that maybe Eugene Rodrigues was his real name and that when in exile in London he adopted the much grander name of Saenz de Castillon which rather upsets the apple-cart you might say. He could hardly practice law under
an assumed name. Or maybe he was Eugene Rodrigues Saenz de Castillon which he shortened for professional reasons. The mystery deepens. CAH

Guerin-Boutron Chocolate trading cards

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Rosa Carinosa April 2010 How kind you are to me sending me all this information especially when I neglect you so badly. I will visit the blogs you mention. So you are back at the Forum, what a brave lady you are. Have visited once or twice but most of the threads seemed beyond me. Just finished reading City of secrets by Patrice Chaplin and have ordered a copy of Albany Park her autobiography. City of secrets is certainly a good read, once I started it I had to go on until I had finished it. What she was trying to tell me I wasn't quite sure but no doubt in the new one, The Portal, things will be made clearer. Is Jose still alive and are they together do you know? He sounded like a bit of a smooth-talking Spanish con-man to me. Perhaps that's too harsh. Is his poetry available anywhere? Are you by any chance in touch with the lady herself? Interestingly Rodrigo Saenz de Castillon appears to have had an affair (or certainly was very close to) a Countess Ernestine Vigie le Bruhl whom he says was the daughter of a "well-known chocolate manufacturer, a bourgeois parvenu, who had married her off to a penniless, dissolute member of the "old aristocracy" in his quest for social status. Annoyingly he doesn't name the firm. The Count treated her badly but fortunately died after only four years of marriage, however in that time he did get through quite a lot of her not inconsiderable "dot". Fortunately her father died shortly after her husband leaving her well provided for and with an interest in the firm which was run,very successfully, by her brothers. Rodrigo remarks that chocolate was, in her case, nothing short of liquid gold. I gather also that she introduced him to Emma Calve who was a frequenter of her salons. Intriguing.
Muchos besos
Colin H