A MAN A CASTLE
Everything man sees enters him through his eyes.
It's unthinkable that something big can enter through something smaller.
By the foregoing, it follows that nothing is bigger than man.
Man being the biggest,
it is unthinkable that he can look at another man...
since the biggest can not be bigger than his equal.
By the foregoing, it follows that there are multiple men.
The Divisions of Nature
Four looks at the castle of Chambord
Every man sees his peers smaller than himself.
If every man thinks his peers smaller than himself
and himself the biggest, if this is not in fact true,
then another must be so.
Since if it is to the contrary, the view is false.
By the foregoing, it follows that there is a man bigger than all others:
It is the king.
When man sees the king, he sees him smaller than himself.
Which goes against the lessons given by the view.
By the foregoing, it follows that the king should live in a castle.
1. GOD
Text by J. de Suarez
music by Ravel and anonymous (13th century)
Since the king is the biggest of creatures...
the castle should appear as the biggest.
Man, by consequence, should not move too far from it.
If he would, he would see the castle reduce
until it was smaller than a pebble, which is unthinkable.
All man made constructions should teach us something.
Since we are on the earth but aspire to the sky...
all constructions should help us find the sky.
The sky is found in the opposite direction to a falling apple.
Since all construction goes from the bottom to the top,
as teaches the law of nature,
it should, among other things, point upwards.
To point out to us the only way...
as teaches divine law.
Every construction culminates in the roof,
this shows the ultimate end of all construction,
being God.
The roof of this castle, meanwhile, is like a city,
with it's streets and it's palaces.
Consequently this castle doesn't teach the way of the sky,
but that of the city.
If we followed its teachings,
we should leave,
which goes against all laws.
By the foregoing, it follows that this castle is wrong.
The king ordered the river to be deviated so the castle would reflect in the water.
Inevitably this reflection will be deformed by the wind.
The deformed reflection of the castle in the river
masks a rebuttal of the four causes.
From this reflection we deduce that the material cause
is imbued and ordered by the formal cause...
under the fickle dictate of the efficient cause.
Among others, the castle reflected here has no final cause,
which does not comply with reason.
It can be said that the study of the deformed reflection
teaches that of all possible forms the truest one
is the one reflected by the eyes,
without intervention of a deforming mirror.
Which is wrong.
Since by that reasoning this castle would be perfect
in comparison to its deformed reflection.
Since we've already shown that this castle is wrong,
such a proposition cannot be true.
II: IDEAS
The Spirit: Do you believe these objects exist outside of yourself?
Me: It must be, because I can see them, they must exist.
Spirit: Even if the form of these objects resemble nothing you have ever seen before?
Me: Even in that case,
if they seem deformed, it is nevertheless evident
that at a given moment there was an original shape from which it derives.
Spirit: Even if this original shape
disappeared after being reproduced by a kaleidoscope?
Me: Hm, in that case the answer is no.
Spirit: Will you affirm that this object is beautiful?
Me: I believe it.
Spirit: Can you reproduce the beauty without reproducing the object?
Me: The beauty is part of the object.
Spirit: Since you can distinguish a beautiful object from one that is not,
it is that beauty must exist independently of the object.
Me: I believe it.
Spirit: Maybe the beauty is indissolubly linked to that from which it emanated.
Me: Maybe...
Spirit: Can you see in the darkness?
Me: Of course not.
Spirit: Nevertheless when you close your eyes you can reproduce
in your head this chapel that you've seen by day.
Me: Yes, I can see it even now.
Spirit: Can you add another image to this one,
that you've seen elsewhere and put it atop the first?
Me: No, this seems impossible.
Spirit: Of course you can do it.
Me: In fact you are right, it is absolutely possible.
Spirit: The landscape is the work of nature and the castle is the work of man.
Me: Since both are an illusion, their non-existence makes them akin.
Spirit: This non-existence, in your opinion, is it negative?
Me: Yes, since it opposes the union between the me and the spirit.
Spirit: How do you know?
Me: I know since I contain both the spirit and that which holds me from it.
Spirit: It must be so, because it is me who thinks that.
Spirit: This castle, does it move you?
Me: Since I know it's here, it moves me.
Spirit: According to you we only know that which we love.
Me: Without a doubt.
Spirit: This emotion, does it come before or after the thing you know?
Me: Before, without a doubt.
Spirit: In that case, all you know is your emotion.
Me: I know the castle is here and that moves me, but I also know that
I am touched and that this emotion makes me see the castle.
Since this emotion seems to me to be imperfect
my natural reaction is to take action and to improve it
Spirit: What is the goal of this act?
Me: To create a better world where there is no injustice.
Spirit: If the world is an illusion, how would a better world be less so?
Me: Because such a world would exist outside of me.
III THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD
Spirit: How could you have this castle be outside of you?
Me: By the canceling of it's only witness, myself.
...as we said before, Charles Terrasse in his biography of Francois the 1st...
This castle is worth what it is and what it represents
The same Charles Terrasse speaks about his great pleasure
in seeing animals of all kinds.
He had five small zoos, one of which followed him everywhere.
Exotic birds, lions, tigers, bears, civets, leopards, camels and ostriches...
During the centuries we gave it different values.
Built to be seen, its representation is its value in use.
Its embedded value is equivalent to its exchange value,
since its marginal usefulness is equivalent to its value in use.
...bn, ms, fr 393...
...the building and also to order the....
...etcetera...
What this castle represents, is its reproducibility
Because it is here to be shown,
its value does not diminish by being reproduced on postcards or in movies,
On the contrary: this increases its value.
...nothing responds to my voice, the trees....
...four miles from Blois, one mile from the Loire
in a little valley, between swamps and forests. Far away from all roads
all of the sudden appears a royal castle...
This value is not only shown by the number of visiting tourists,
since with 3000 visitors a day, we have reached the point of saturation.
This saturation generates a marginal usefulness,
because tourists who cannot enter, find their way to the nearest castle
and in this way the notion of the monument as a whole
becomes more valuable.
...yesterday I visited Chambord, you can imagine how beautiful it is....
...it supports the towers with her staunch spikes
and colors the windows with her fire: the snake with...
Since this castle is constantly being restored,
the stones replaced one after the other,
we could say that its value is not its timelessness,
but the drive to keep it permanent.
This drive is the same one that pushes members of a nation
to persist in their national character.
Chambord has only a double stairway, to go up and down,
All is done for the mystery of war...
...Talking about this stairway, we can admire the breeziness of its decree...
This drive, among other things, leads nations beyond their borders.
To find strong images, like this castle.
To make prevail and to impose their national character on other nations
...architect, painter and sculptor...
In the beginning of 1516 Leonardo is in Rome, he stays until August...
The life of a guard at Chambord is like this:
In the summer we open at nine thirty until 12
The castle is closed between twelve and two.
We have big crowds in July and August, it's a bad time for us.
The best season for us is the winter. Because, it's cold but,
there aren't many visitors. We light the fireplaces and heat the place.
A lot of rooms have been altered, the castle gets better each year.
We restore a room or two every year,
and bit by bit the visits last longer.
The tapestries are original. On the walls, the wallpaper...
the wallpaper is new, but the tapestries are original...
What is special at Chambord is above all the stairway.
A double-helix stairway.
Many visitors don't understand.
They don't understand. Many visitors arrive at the second floor.
Without knowing they took a double-helix stairway.
From the period of Francois the Ist there isn't much left.
Some ceilings, tiling, and the stairway off course
The roof tiling has been redone.
The roof framework.
The terrace has been redone.
There isn't much left.
The famous story about Francois the 1st:
Francois I wrote on his bedroom window with the diamond in his ring:
"Women often change, if you count on them you are crazy"
The legend tells that Louis XIV broke the window
to please one of his mistresses, Mme de La Vallière.
"Women often change, if you count on them you are crazy"