The elderly princess Izabela Czartoryska had begun work on the catalogue raisonné of her treasures and curiosities, which included a small book where Vauban had sketched out projects for fortifications, a lock of hair belonging to Agnès Sorel, Madame de la Vallière’s prayer book, and a series of autographs of all the rulers of France from François I to Napoleon. In the evening, after her usual stroll around the park, she allowed the young Countess Potocka to ask her questions. She spoke now of that time when she slipped into the study of Frederick the Great, a few moments after he had left it: “Before a table covered with papers and maps, a plate of cherries with a note in the king’s writing: I am leaving eighteen of them.¹²³ To one side, an old hussar uniform lying over a chair was waiting for someone to come and repair it. Close to a letter from Voltaire, left open, the bill from a grocer who supplied the Court. A score thrown untidily on a music stand and, not far away from this general disorder, a curule seat, of the sort you would find at the Campidoglio, with the difference that one was painted dark red whereas this is made of rough wood, and nothing could hide its ignoble purpose.” This was the last still-life of absolute power.

Arcana Imperii

In the beginning, power was spread in one place, aura and miasma.

Then it was brought together in Melchizedek, priest and king.

Then it was divided between a priest and a king.

Then it was brought together in a king.

Then it was divided between a king and a law.

Then it was brought together in law.

Then law was divided into many rules.

Then the rules were spread about in every place.

The Origins of Sweetness

The fires of Beltane, described by Frazer: “After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company.¹²⁴ They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit, is the Devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal …”

Wittgenstein notes: “The fact that for drawing lots they use a cake, has something especially terrible (almost like betrayal through a kiss).”¹²⁵

—When finally we began asking ourselves what was the taste of the slice of cake daubed with charcoal …

—The philosopher spoke about qualities, but not about what the single qualities are … What is sweetness?

The slice of cake in the Beltane rite is the méros, which is the moīra, the part that is fate. But it is important for the lots drawn here to remain linked to a thing, not just to a calculation, as in a counting-out game, which is fate without substance. By eating his own piece of cake, the Beltane carline eats himself, his own fate. What happens in his mouth will be repeated in the fire.