" I am still working on Castillon. Will be going up to London this coming weekend to consult with a friend on certain passages. At present working on that house-party at La Diva's (Emma Calve) and what they got up to and think I have identified most of the guests mentioned with some certainty. CD = Debussy, EB = Emma Bardac his mistress and later wife (1908); P = the Polish pianist Paderewski maybe; Leconte = the symbolist, decadent poet and writer of pornographic novels is I think Pierre Louys who inspired Debussy's L'Apres Midi d'une Faun; Marcel = Proust based on the fact that his A la Recherche de Temps Perdues is certainly an oustanding novel of the 20th century; JO = ?- this one is a puzzle I must admit but could it be Johann Orth the 'lost' Archduke turned sailor? His morganatic wife was a singer in Vienna I think named Ludmilla ? known as Millie although Castillon says Molly. But wasn't Johann Orth officially dead by this time? The Ser is surely Sar Peladan. Anyway the work goes on. Will keep in touch."

The initials J.O. are indeed unique and the translator was not familiar with Sauniere`s mysterious connection to Johann Orth. Saenz de Castillon was himself a writer and history is indebted to him for the detailed descriptions in his journal. Castillon describes "J.O. " as claiming to be an English citizen with a guttural teutonic (Austrian?) accent. He had the appearance of a deckhand and was purportedly a ship-owner and mercantile trader operating out of Gibraltar with a yacht moored at Port-Vendres. His wife was Austrian and an opera singer, it may have been she who was the connection to Emma Calve`s circle. This J.O. certainly sounds like the supposedly deceased Johann Orth - Salvator`s alias. Castillon apparently did not know who he was and was puzzled by his accent.

This is one of many revelations in this treasure of a diary recently discovered in a Spanish trunk purchased at auction in England by the translator.

Next time Castillon accompanies La Diva to the Languedoc after the house party breaks up, describing his visit to Rennes-le-Chateau in detail - "A Visit to Rennes-le-Chateau with Emma Calve 1900". The entry was written in 1900, but some of Castillon`s accounts were recollections to be used, perhaps, in a future autobiography.