BooksChatter: ✉ The Lafayette Sword: Antoine Marcas Freemason [2]

Today author Eric Giacometti & Jacques Ravenne takes over our blog to tell us about her/his latest novel, The Lafayette Sword (first published 1 May 2008 as Le Frère de Sang; this English edition translated by Anne Trager 27 July 2016, Le French Book, 350 pages), an Historical Thriller, book two of Antoine Marcas Freemason series.

“Vivid characters, evocative international settings, and a history darker than midnight. I highly recommend!” —Douglas Preston, #1 bestselling coauthor of the famed Pendergast series of novel

"Brilliantly plotted and well researched." —Le Parisien; "A captivating plot that weaves in alchemy and the Middle Ages into a modern-day thriller." —Zonelivre; "A race against the clock." —Le Figaro

Synopsis | Teaser: KCR Preview | The Series | Guest Post | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Frenchmen Reveal 6 Things You Never Knew About the Statue of Liberty

Eric Giacometti and Jacques Ravenne rank at the top of France’s best-selling thriller writers list. They owe their international renown (over 2 million copies sold) to their series about the Freemason Inspector Antoine Marcas, which made its U.S. debut last year with Shadow Ritual.

Now, The Lafayette Sword is available in English. Following the murder of a Freemason brother, Antoine Marcas uncovers unsettling truths about gold and its power to fascinate and corrupt in a captivating plot that weaves alchemy and the Middle Ages into a modern-day thriller. The plot has gold fever, Freemasonry, murders, and the quest for a stolen, priceless sword, along with a couple of well-known monuments—the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty—which you will never look in in exactly the same way. Here they give us a few facts that inspired their fiction.

It may seem odd to look at the Statue of Liberty and think conspiracy, and yet, if you do a Google search with those words, you’ll come up with all kinds of theories, ranging from it representing the goddess Ishtar to it being a female Lucifer.

In The Lafayette Sword, some these crazy theories inspired us to go looking for the reality. Here are a few facts about the Statue of Liberty.

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the French sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty, was in fact a Freemason.

As he played a large role in the building of the statue both in France and the United States, it is easy for lovers of conspiracy to it one step further and imagine some omnipotent, tentacular Freemason power behind every symbol.

The Freemasons really did influence the statue’s design. According to the well-documented book The Statue of Liberty: The First Hundred Years, by Christian Blanchet and Bertand Dard, Freemasons were involved directly or indirectly throughout the design of the Statue of Liberty, and then in the ceremonies dedicated to it—notably the cornerstone ceremony in New York. As a result, they strongly influenced its symbolism.

This in no way means that the Freemasons guided Bartholdi’s hand in the creation of the work, which was his alone.
Bartholdi already had the idea of a monumental statue when he traveled to Egypt at the time the Suez Canal was being built in 1867.

He intended to design an Egyptian style statue of a woman holding a torch called “Progress bringing light to Asia” for the entrance to the Suez Canal. Two years later, the viceroy of Egypt scrapped the idea as it cost too much.

Bartholdi returned home and made contact with Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye, a liberal supporter of the republic and a great admirer of the United States.

This influential man wanted to strengthen the friendship between the two nations and was pushing France to offer a gift that would seal the relationship and leave a mark. He was not alone, and gathered a circle of influential friends in his home, including the descendants of the Marquis de Lafayette and the Marquis de Rochambeau, and those of Henri-Martin, all of whom were Freemasons.
In “Masonry and the Statue of Liberty” by R. W. Robert C. Singer, the Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York, there is a description of the cornerstone-laying ceremony.

It included a copper box with a copy of the American Constitution, 20 bronze medals of presidents, copies of New York City newspapers, a portrait of Bartholdi, a copy of the poem Liberty by ER Johnes, and a list on parchment of the Grand Lodge officers.
The legendary reporter Joseph Pulitzer contributed to the media plan to popularize the statue, which enabled funds to be raised to finance the pedestal.