Chapter XIII: Part I: The Past (11)

Amidst the universal storm produced by the present revolutions in
the political and moral world, at this period of supreme
illumination and of profound blindness, it would be a crime against
truth and humanity to leave any longer shrouded in a veil things
that can provide the only key to past and future events, things
that should show to thousands of men whether the path they have
been made to follow is the path of folly or of wisdom. It has to do
with you, VV. FF. of all degrees and of all secret systems. The
curtain must at last be drawn aside, so that your blinded eyes may
see that light you have ever sought in vain, but of which you have
only caught a few deceptive rays....

We have raised our building under the wings of darkness; ... the
darkness is dispelled, and a light more terrifying than darkness
itself strikes suddenly on our sight. We see our edifice crumbling
and covering the ground with ruins; we see destruction that our
hands can no longer arrest. And that is why we send away the
builders from their workshops. With a last blow of the hammer we
overthrow the columns of salaries. We leave the temple deserted,
and we bequeath it as a great work to posterity which shall raise
it again on its ruins and bring it to completion.

Brunswick then goes on to explain what has brought about the ruin of the Order, namely, the infiltration of Freemasonry by secret conspirators:

A great sect arose which, taking for its motto the good and the
happiness of man, worked in the darkness of the conspiracy to make
the happiness of humanity a prey for itself. This sect is known to
everyone: its brothers are known no less than its name. It is they
who have undermined the foundations of the Order to the point of
complete overthrow; it is by them that all humanity has been
poisoned and led astray for several generations. The ferment that
reigns amongst the peoples is their work. They founded the plans of
their insatiable ambition on the political pride of nations. Their
founders arranged to introduce this pride into the heads of the
peoples. They began by casting odium on religion.... They invented
the rights of man which it is impossible to discover even in the
book of Nature, and they urged the people to wrest from their
princes the recognition of these supposed rights. The plan they had
formed for breaking all social ties and of destroying all order was
revealed in all their speeches and acts. They deluged the world
with a multitude of publications; they recruited apprentices of
every rank and in every position; they deluded the most
perspicacious men by falsely alleging different intentions. They
sowed in the hearts of youth the seed of covetousness, and they
excited it with the bait of the most insatiable passions.
Indomitable pride, thirst of power, such were the only motives of
this sect: their masters had nothing less in view than the thrones
of the earth, and the government of the nations was to be directed
by their nocturnal clubs.

This is what has been done and is still being done. But we notice
that princes and people are unaware how and by what means this is
being accomplished. That is why we say to them in all frankness:
The misuse of our Order, the misunderstanding of our secret, has
produced all the political and moral troubles with which the world
is filled to-day. You who have been initiated, you must join
yourselves with us in raising your voices, so as to teach peoples
and princes that the sectarians, the apostates of our Order, have
alone been and will be the authors of present and future
revolutions. We must assure princes and peoples, on our honour and
our duty, that our association is in no way guilty of these evils.
But in order that our attestations should have force and merit
belief, we must make for princes and people a complete sacrifice;
so as to cut out to the roots the abuse and error, we must from
this moment dissolve the whole Order. This is why we destroy and
annihilate it completely for the time; we will preserve the
foundations for posterity, which will clear them when humanity, in
better times, can derive some benefit from our holy alliance.[640]

Thus, in the opinion of the Grand Master of German Freemasonry, a secret sect working within Freemasonry had brought about the French Revolution and would be the cause of all future revolutions. We shall now pursue the course of this sect after the first upheaval had ended.

Three years after the Duke of Brunswick issued his Manifesto to the lodges, the books of Barruel, Robison, and others appeared, laying bare the whole conspiracy. It has been said that all these books "fell flat."[641] This is directly contrary to the truth. Barruel's book went into no less than eight editions, and I have described elsewhere the alarm that his work and Robison's excited in America. In England they led to the very tangible result that a law was passed by the English Parliament in 1799 prohibiting all secret societies with the exception of Freemasonry.

It is evident, then, that the British Government recognized the continued existence of these associations and the danger they presented to the world. This fact should be borne in mind when we are assured that Barruel and Robison had conjured up a bogey which met with no serious attention from responsible men. For the main purpose of Barruel's book is to show that not only had Illuminism and Grand Orient Masonry contributed largely to the French Revolution, but that three years after that first explosion they were still as active as ever. This is the great point which the champions of the "bogey" theory are most anxious to refute. "The Bavarian Order of the Illuminati," wrote Mr. Waite, "was founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776, and it was suppressed by the Elector of Bavaria in 1789.... Those who say that 'it was continued in more secret forms' have never produced one item of real evidence."[642] Now, as we have seen, the Illuminati were not suppressed by the Elector of Bavaria in 1789, but in 1786--first error of Mr. Waite. But more extraordinary confusion of mind is displayed in his _Encyclopædia of Freemasonry_, where, in a Masonic Chronology, he gives, this time under the date of 1784, "Suppression of the Illuminati," but under 1793: "J.J.C. Bode joined the Illuminati under Weishaupt." At a matter of fact, this was the year Bode died. These examples will serve to show the reliance that can be placed on Mr. Waite's statement concerning the Illuminati.

We shall now see that not only the Illuminati but Weishaupt himself still continued to intrigue long after the French Revolution had ended.

Directly the Reign of Terror was over, the masonic lodges, which during the Revolution had been replaced by the clubs, began to reopen, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century were in a more flourishing condition than ever before. "It was the most brilliant epoch of Masonry," wrote the Freemason Bazot in his History of Freemasonry. Nearly 1,200 lodges existed in France under the Empire; generals, magistrates, artists, savants, and notabilities in every line were initiated into the Order.[643] The most eminent of these was Prince Cambacérès, pro Grand Master of the Grand Orient.

It is in the midst of this period that we find Weishaupt once more at work behind the scenes of Freemasonry. Thus in the remarkable masonic correspondence published by M. Benjamin Fabre in his _Eques a Capite Galeato_--of which, as has already been pointed out, the authenticity is admitted by eminent British Freemasons--a letter is reproduced from Pyron, representative in Paris of the Grand Orient of Italy, to the Marquis de Chefdebien, dated September 9, 1808, in which it is stated that "a member of the sect of Bav." has asked for information on a certain point of ritual.

On December 29, 1808, Pyron writes again: "By the words 'sect of B....' I meant W...."; and on December 3, 1809, puts the matter quite plainly: "The other word remaining at the end of my pen refers enigmatically to Weis=pt."

So, as M. Fabre points out:

There is no longer any doubt that it is a question here of
Weishaupt, and yet one observes that his name is not yet written in
all its letters. It must be admitted here that Pyron took great
precautions when it was a matter of Weishaupt! And one is led to
ask what could be the extraordinary importance of the rôle played
at this moment in the Freemasonry of the First Empire by this
Weishaupt, who was supposed to have been outside the masonic
movement since Illuminism was brought to trial in 1786![644]

But the Marquis de Chefdebien entertained no illusions about Weishaupt, whose intrigues he had always opposed, and in a letter dated May 12, 1806, to the Freemason Roettiers, who had referred to the danger of isolated masonic lodges, he asks:

In good faith, very reverend brother, is it in isolated lodges that
the atrocious conspiracy of Philippe [the Duc d'Orléans] and
Robespierre was formed? Is it from isolated lodges that those
prominent men came forth, who, assembled at the Hôtel de Ville,
stirred up revolt, devastation, assassination? And is it not in the
lodges bound together, co-and sub-ordinated, that the monster
Weishaupt established his tests and had his horrible principles
prepared?[645]

If, then, as M. Gustave Bord asserts, the Marquis de Chefdebien had himself belonged to the Illuminati before the Revolution, here is indeed Illuminist evidence in support of Barruel! Yet disillusioned as the "Eques a Capite Galeato" appears to have been with regard to Illuminism, he still retained his allegiance to Freemasonry. This would tend to prove that, however subversive the doctrines of the Grand Orient may have been--and indeed undoubtedly were--it was not Freemasonry itself but Illuminism which organized the movement of which the French Revolution was the first manifestation. As Monsignor Dillon has expressed it:

Had Weishaupt not lived, Masonry might have ceased to be a power
after the reaction consequent on the French Revolution. He gave it
a form and character which caused it to outlive that reaction, to
energize to the present day, and which will cause it to advance
until its final conflict with Christianity must determine whether
Christ or Satan shall reign on this earth to the end.[646]

If to the word Masonry we add Grand Orient--that is to say, the Masonry not of Great Britain, but of the Continent--we shall be still nearer to the truth.

In the early part of the nineteenth century Illuminism was thus as much alive as ever. Joseph de Maistre, writing at this period, constantly refers to the danger it presents to Europe. Is it not also to Illuminism that a mysterious passage in a recent work of M. Lenôtre refers? In the course of conversation with the friends of the false Dauphin Hervagault. Monsignor de Savine is said to have "made allusions in prudent and almost terrified terms to some international sect ... a power superior to all others ... which has arms and eyes everywhere and which governs Europe to-day."[647]

When in _World Revolution_ I asserted that during the period that Napoleon held the reins of power the devastating fire of Illuminism was temporarily extinguished, I wrote without knowledge of some important documents which prove that Illuminism continued without break from the date of its foundation all through the period of the Empire. So far, then, from overstating the case by saying that Illuminism did not cease in 1786, I understated it by suggesting that it ceased even for this brief interval. The documents in which this evidence is to be found are referred to by Lombard de Langres, who, writing in 1820, observes that the Jacobins were invisible from the 18th Brumaire until 1813, and goes on to say:

Here the sect disappears; we find to guide us during this period
only uncertain notions, scattered fragments; the plots of
Illuminism lie buried in the boxes of the Imperial police.

But the contents of these boxes no longer lie buried; transported to the Archives Nationales, the documents in which the intrigues of Illuminism are laid bare have at last been given to the public. Here there can be no question of imaginative abbés, Scotch professors, or American divines conjuring up a bogey to alarm the world; these dry official reports prepared for the vigilant eye of the Emperor, never intended and never used for publication, relate calmly and dispassionately what the writers have themselves heard and observed concerning the danger that Illuminism presents to all forms of settled government.

The author of the most detailed report[648] is one François Charles de Berckheim, special commissioner of police at Mayence towards the end of the Empire, who as a Freemason is naturally not disposed to prejudice against secret societies. In October 1810 he writes, however, that his attention has been drawn to the Illuminati by a pamphlet which has just fallen into his hands, namely the _Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés_, which, like many contemporaries, he attributes originally to Mirabeau. He then goes on to ask whether the sect still exists, and if so whether it is indeed "an association of frightful scoundrels who aim, as Mirabeau assures us, at the overthrow of all law and all morality, at replacing virtue by crime in every act of human life." Further, he asks whether both sects of _Illuminés_ have now combined in one and what are their present projects. Conversations with other Freemasons further increase Berckheim's anxiety on the subject; one of the best informed observes to him: "I know a great deal, enough at any rate to be convinced that the _Illuminés_ have vowed the overthrow of monarchic governments and of all authority on the same basis."

Berckheim thereupon sets out to make enquiries, with the result that he is able to state that the _Illuminés_ have initiates all over Europe, that they have spared no efforts to introduce their principles into the lodges, and "to spread a doctrine subversive of all settled government ... under the pretext of the regeneration of social morality and the amelioration of the lot and condition of men by means of laws founded on principles and sentiments unknown hitherto and contained only in the heads of the leaders." "Illuminism," he declares, "is becoming a great and formidable power, and I fear, in my conscience, that kings and peoples will have much to suffer from it unless foresight and prudence break its frightful mechanism [_ses affreux restorts_]."

Two years later, on January 16, 1813, Berckheim writes again to the Minister of Police:

Monseigneur, they write to me from Heidelberg ... that a great
number of initiates into the mysteries of Illuminism are to be
found there.

These gentlemen wear as a sign of recognition a gold ring on the
third finger of the left hand; on the back of this ring there is a
little rose, in the middle of this rose is an almost imperceptible
dint; by pressing this with the point of a pin one touches a
spring, by this means the two gold circles are detached. On the
inside of the first of these circles is the device: "Be German as
you ought to be"; on the inside of the second of these circles are
engraved the words "Pro Patria."

Subversive as the ideas of the Illuminati might be, they were therefore not subversive of German patriotism. We shall find this apparent paradox running all through the Illuminist movement to the present day.

In 1814 Berckheim drew up his great report on the secret societies of Germany, which is of so much importance in throwing a light on the workings of the modern revolutionary movement, that extracts must be given here at length.[649] His testimony gains greater weight from the vagueness he displays on the origins of Illuminism and the role it had played before the French Revolution; it is evident, therefore, that he had not taken his ideas from Robison or Barruel--to whom he never once refers--but from information gleaned on the spot in Germany. The opening paragraphs finally refute the fallacy concerning the extinction of the sect in 1786.

The oldest and most dangerous association is that which is
generally known under the denomination of the _Illuminés_ and of
which the foundation goes back towards the middle of the last
century.

Bavaria was its cradle; it is said that it had for founders several
chiefs of the Order of the Jesuits; but this opinion, advanced
perhaps at random, is founded only on uncertain premises; in any
case, in a short time it made rapid progress, and the Bavarian
Government recognized the necessity of employing methods of
repression against it and even of driving away several of the
principal sectaries.

But it could not eradicate the germ of the evil. The _Illuminés_
who remained in Bavaria, obliged to wrap themselves in darkness so
as to escape the eye of authority, became only the more formidable:
the rigorous measures of which they were the object, adorned by the
title of persecution, gained them new proselytes, whilst the
banished members went to carry the principles of the Association
into other States.

Thus in a few years Illuminism multiplied its hotbeds all through
the south of Germany, and as a consequence in Saxony, in Prussia,
in Sweden, and even in Russia.

The reveries of the Pietists have long been confounded with those
of the Illuminés. This error may arise from the denomination of the
sect, which at first suggests the idea of a purely religious
fanaticism and of mystic forms which it was obliged to take at its
birth in order to conceal its principles and projects; but the
Association always had a political tendency. If it still retains
some mystic traits, it is in order to support itself at need by the
power of religious fanaticism, and we shall see in what follows how
well it knows to turn this to account.

The doctrine of Illuminism is subversive of every kind of monarchy;
unlimited liberty, absolute levelling down, such is the fundamental
dogma of the sect; to break the ties that bind the Sovereign to the
citizen of a state, that is the object of all its efforts.

No doubt some of the principal chiefs, amongst whom are numbered
men distinguished for their fortune, their birth, and the dignities
with which they are invested, are not the dupes of these demagogic
dreams: they hope to find in the popular emotions they stir up the
means of seizing the reigns of power, or at any rate of increasing
their wealth and their credit; but the crowd of adepts believe in
it religiously, and, in order to reach the goal shown to them, they
maintain incessantly a hostile attitude towards sovereigns.

Thus the _Illuminés_ hailed with enthusiasm the ideas that
prevailed in France from 1789 to 1804. Perhaps they were not
foreign to the intrigues which prepared the explosions of 1789 and
the following years; but if they did not take an active part in
these manoeuvres, it is at least beyond doubt that they openly
applauded the systems which resulted from them; that the Republican
armies when they penetrated into Germany found in these sectarians
auxiliaries the more dangerous for the sovereigns of the invaded
states in that they inspired no distrust, and we can say with
assurance that more than one general of the Republic owed a part of
its success to his understanding with the _Illuminés_.

It would be a mistake if one confounded Illuminism with
Freemasonry. These two associations, in spite of the points of
resemblance they may possess in the mystery with which they
surround themselves, in the tests that precede initiation, and in
other matters of form, are absolutely distinct and have no kind of
connexion with each other. The lodges of the Scottish Rite number,
it is true, a few _Illuminés_ amongst the Masons of the higher
degrees, but these adepts are very careful not to be known as such
to their brothers in Masonry or to manifest ideas that would betray
their secret.

Berckheim then goes on to describe the subtle methods by which the Illuminati now maintain their existence; learning wisdom from the events of 1786, their organization is carried on invisibly, so as to defy the eye of authority:

It was thought for a long while that the association had a Grand
Mastership, that is to say, a centre point from which radiated all
the impulsions given to this great body, and this primary motive
power was sought for successively in all the capitals of the North,
in Paris and even in Rome. This error gave birth to another opinion
no less fallacious: it was supposed that there existed in the
principal towns lodges where initiations were made and which
received directly the instructions emanating from the headquarters
of the Society.

If such had been the organization of Illuminism, it would not so
long have escaped the investigations of which it was the object:
these meetings, necessarily thronged and frequent, requiring
besides, like masonic lodges, appropriate premises, would have
aroused the attention of magistrates: it would not have been
difficult to introduce false brothers, who, directed and protected
by authority, would soon have penetrated the secrets of the sect.

This is what I have gathered most definitely on the Association of
the _Illuminés_:

First I would point out that by the word hotbeds [foyers] I did not
mean to designate points of meeting for the adepts, places where
they hold assemblies, but only localities where the Association
counts a great number of partisans, who, whilst living isolated in
appearance, exchange ideas, have an understanding with each other,
and advance together towards the same goal.

The Association had, it is true, assemblies at its birth where
receptions [i.e. initiations] took place, but the dangers which
resulted from these made them feel the necessity of abandoning
them. It was settled that each initiated adept should have the
right without the help of anyone else to initiate all those who,
after the usual tests, seemed to him worthy.

The catechism of the sect is composed of a very small number of
articles which might even be reduced to this single principle:

"To arm the opinion of the peoples against sovereigns and to work
by every method for the fall of monarchic governments in order to
found in their place systems of absolute independence." Everything
that can tend towards this object is in the spirit of the
Association....

Initiations are not accompanied, as in Masonry, by phantasmagoric
trials, ... but they are preceded by long moral tests which
guarantee in the safest way the fidelity of the catechumen; oaths,
a mixture of all that is most sacred in religion, threats and
imprecations against traitors, nothing that can stagger the
imagination is spared; but the only engagement into which the
recipient enters is to propagate the principles with which he has
been imbued, to maintain inviolable secrecy on all that pertains to
the association, and to work with all his might to increase the
number of proselytes.

It will no doubt seem astonishing that there can be the least
accord in the association, and that men bound together by no
physical tie and who live at great distances from each other can
communicate their ideas to each other, make plans of conduct, and
give grounds of fear to Governments; but there exists an invisible
chain which binds together all the scattered members of the
association. Here are a few links:

All the adepts living in the same town usually know each other,
unless the population of the town or the number of the adepts is
too considerable. In this last case they are divided into several
groups, who are all in touch with each other by means of members of
the association whom personal relations bind to two or several
groups at a time.

These groups are again subdivided into so many private coteries
which the difference of rank, of fortune, of character, tastes,
etc., may necessitate: they are always small, sometimes composed of
five or six individuals, who meet frequently under various
pretexts, sometimes at the house of one member, sometimes at that
of another; literature, art, amusements of all kinds are the
apparent object of these meetings, and it is nevertheless in these
confabulations [_conciliabules_] that the adepts communicate their
private views to each other, agree on methods, receive the
directions that the intermediaries bring them, and communicate
their own ideas to these same intermediaries, who then go on to
propagate them in other coteries. It will be understood that there
may be uniformity in the march of all these separated groups, and
that one day may suffice to communicate the same impulse to all the
quarters of a large town....

These are the methods by which the _Illuminés_, without any
apparent organization, without settled leaders, agree together from
the banks of the Rhine to those of the Neva, from the Baltic to the
Dardanelles, and advance continually towards the same goal, without
leaving any trace that might compromise the interests of the
association or even bring suspicion on any of its members; the most
active police would fail before such a combination....

As the principal force of the _Illuminés_ lies in the power of
opinions, they have set themselves out from the beginning to make
proselytes amongst the men who through their profession exercise a
direct influence on minds, such as _littérateurs_, savants, and
above all professors. The latter in their chairs, the former in
their writings, propagate the principles of the sect by disguising
the poison that they circulate under a thousand different forms.
These germs, often imperceptible to the eyes of the vulgar, are
afterwards developed by the adepts of the Societies they frequent,
and the most obscure wording is thus brought to the understanding
of the least discerning. It is above all in the Universities that
Illuminism has always found and always will find numerous recruits.
Those professors who belong to the Association set out from the
first to study the character of their pupils. If a student gives
evidence of a vigorous mind, an ardent imagination, the sectaries
at once get hold of him, they sound in his ears the words
Despotism--Tyranny--Rights of the People, etc., etc. Before he can
even attach any meaning to these words, as he advances in age,
reading chosen for him, conversations skilfully arranged, develop
the germs deposited in his youthful brain; soon his imagination
ferments, history, traditions of fabulous times, all are made use
of to carry his exaltation to the highest point, and before even he
has been told of a secret Association, to contribute to the fall of
a sovereign appears to his eyes the noblest and most meritorious
act....

At last, when he has been completely captivated, when several years
of testing guarantee to the society inviolable secrecy and absolute
devotion, it is made known to him that millions of individuals
distributed in all the States of Europe share his sentiments and
his hopes, that a secret link binds firmly all the scattered
members of this immense family, and that the reforms he desires so
ardently must sooner or later come about.

This propaganda is rendered the easier by the existing associations
of students who meet together for the study of literature, for
fencing, gaming, or even mere debauchery. The Illuminés insinuate
themselves into all these circles and turn them into hot-beds for
the propagation of their principles.

Such, then, is the Association's continual mode of progression from
its origins until the present moment; it is by conveying from
childhood the germ of poison into the highest classes of society,
in feeding the minds of students on ideas diametrically opposed to
that order of things under which they have to live, in breaking the
ties that bind them to sovereigns, that Illuminism has recruited
the largest number of adepts, called by the state to which they
were born to be the mainstays of the Throne and of a system which
would ensure them honours and privileges.

Amongst the proselytes of this last class there are some no doubt
whom political events, the favour of the prince or other
circumstances, detach from the Association; but the number of these
deserters is necessarily very limited: and even then they dare not
speak openly against their old associates, whether because they are
in dread of private vengeances or whether because, knowing the real
power of the sect, they want to keep paths of reconciliation open
to themselves; often indeed they are so fettered by the pledges
they have personally given that they find it necessary not only to
consider the interests of the sect, but to serve it indirectly,
although their new circumstances demand the contrary....

Berckheim then proceeds to show that those writers on Illuminism were mistaken who declared that political assassinations were definitely commanded by the Order:

There is more than exaggeration in this accusation; those who put
it forward, more zealous in striking an effect than in seeking the
truth, may have concluded, not without probability, that men who
surrounded themselves with profound mystery, who propagated a
doctrine absolutely subversive of any kind of monarchy, dreamt only
of the assassination of sovereigns; but experience has shown (and
all the documents derived from the least suspect sources confirm
this) that the _Illuminés_ count a great deal more on the power of
opinion than on assassination; the regicide committed on Gustavus
III is perhaps the only crime of this kind that Illuminism has
dared to attempt, if indeed it is really proved that this crime was
its work; moreover, if assassination had been, as it is said, the
fundamental point in its doctrine, might we not suppose that other
regicides would have been attempted in Germany during the course of
the French Revolution, especially when the Republican armies
occupied the country?

The sect would be much less formidable if this were its doctrine,
on the one hand because it would inspire in most of the _Illuminés_
a feeling of horror which would triumph even over the fear of
vengeance, on the other hand because plots and conspiracies always
leave some traces which guide the authorities to the footsteps of
the prime instigators; and besides, it is the nature of things that
out of twenty plots directed against sovereigns, nineteen come to
light before they have reached the point of maturity necessary to
their execution.

The _Illuminés'_ line of march is more prudent, more skilful, and
consequently more dangerous; instead of revolting the imagination
by ideas of regicide, they affect the most generous sentiments:
declamations on the unhappy state of the people, on the selfishness
of courtiers, on measures of administration, on all acts of
authority that may offer a pretext to declamations as a contrast to
the seductive pictures of the felicity that awaits the nations
under the systems they wish to establish, such is their manner of
procedure, particularly in private. More circumspect in their
writings, they usually disguise the poison they dare not proffer
openly under obscure metaphysics or more or less ingenious
allegories. Often indeed texts from Holy Writ serve as an envelope
and vehicle for these baneful insinuations....

By this continuous and insidious form of propaganda the imagination of the adepts is so worked on that if a crisis arises, they are ready to, carry out the most daring projects.

Another Association closely resembling the _Illuminés_, Berckheim reports, is known as the _Idealists_, whose system is founded on the doctrine of perfectibility; these kindred sects "agree in seeing in the words of Holy Scripture the pledge of universal regeneration, of an absolute levelling down, and it is in this spirit that the sectarians interpret the sacred books."

Berckheim further confirms the assertion I made in _World Revolution_--contested, as usual, by a reviewer without a shred of evidence to the contrary--that the Tugendbund derived from the Illuminati. "The League of Virtue," he writes, "was directed by the secondary chiefs of the _Illuminés_.... In 1810 the Friends of Virtue were so identified with the _Illuminés_ in the North of Germany that no line of demarcation was seen between them."

But it is time to turn to the testimony of another witness on the activities of the secret societies which is likewise to be found at the Archives Nationales.[650] This consists of a document transmitted by the Court of Vienna to the Government of France after the Restoration, and contains the interrogatory of a certain Witt Doehring, a nephew of the Baron d'Eckstein, who, after taking part in secret society intrigues, was summoned before the judge Abel at Bayreuth in February, 1824. Amongst secret associations recently existing in Germany, the witness asserted, were the "Independents" and the "Absolutes"; the latter "adored in Robespierre their most perfect ideal, so that the crimes committed during the French Revolution by this monster and the Montagnards of the Convention were in their eyes, in accordance with their moral system, heroic actions ennobled and sanctified by their aim." The same document goes on to explain why so many combustible elements had failed to produce an explosion in Germany:

The thing that seemed the great obstacle to the plans of the
Independents... was what they called the servile character and the
dog-like fidelity [_Hundestreue_] of the German people, that is to
say, that attachment--innate and firmly impressed on their minds
without even the aid of reason--which that excellent people
everywhere bears towards its princes.

A traveller in Germany during the year 1795 admirably summed up the matter in these words:

The Germans are in this respect [of democracy] the most curious
people in the world ... the cold and sober temperament of the
Germans and their tranquil imagination enable them to combine the
most daring opinions with the most servile conduct. That will
explain to you ... why so much combustible material accumulating
for so many years beneath the political edifice of Germany has not
yet damaged it. Most of the princes, accustomed to see their men of
letters so constantly free in their writings and so constantly
slavish in their hearts, have not thought it necessary to use
severity against this sheeplike herd of modern Gracchi and
Brutuses. Some of them [the princes] have even without difficulty
adopted part of their opinions, and Illuminism having doubtless
been presented to them as perfection, the complement of philosophy,
they were easily persuaded to be initiated into it. But great care
was taken not to let them know more than the interests of the sect
demanded.[651]

It was thus that Illuminism, unable to provoke a blaze in the home of its birth, spread, as before the French Revolution, to a more inflammable Latin race--this time the Italians. Six years after his interrogatory at Beyreuth, Witt Doehring published his book on the secret societies of France and Italy, in which he now realized he had played the part of dupe, and incidentally confirms the statement I have previously quoted, that the Alta Vendita was a further development of the Illuminati.

This infamous association, with which I have dealt at length elsewhere,[652] constituted the Supreme Directory of the Carbonari and was led by a group of Italian noblemen, amongst whom a prince, "the profoundest of initiates, was charged as Inspector-General of the Order" to propagate its principles throughout the North of Europe. "He had received from the hands of Kingge [i.e. Knigge, the ally of Weishaupt?] the cahiers of the last three degrees." But these were of course unknown to the great majority of Carbonari, who entered the association in all good faith. Witt Doehring then shows how faithfully the system of Weishaupt was carried out by the Alta Vendita. In the three first degrees, he explains--

It is still a question of the morality of Christianity and even of
the Church, for which those who wish to be received must promise to
sacrifice themselves. The initiates imagine, according to this
formula, that the object of the association is something high and
noble, that it is the Order of those who desire a purer morality
and a stronger piety, the independence and the unity of their
country. One cannot therefore judge the Carbonari _en masse_; there
are excellent men amongst them.... But everything changes after one
has taken the three degrees. Already in the fourth, in that of the
_Apostoli_, one promises to overthrow all monarchies, and
especially the kings of the race of the Bourbons. But it is only in
the seventh and last degree, reached by few, that revelations go
further. At last the veil is torn completely for the Principi Summo
Patriarcho. Then one learns that the aim of the Carbonari is just
the same as that of the _Illuminés_. This degree, in which a man is
at the same time prince and bishop, coincides with the Homo Rex of
the latter. The initiate vows the ruin of all religion and of all
positive government, whether despotic or democratic; murder,
poison, perjury, are all at their disposal. Who does not remember
that on the suppression of the _Illuminés_ was found, amongst other
poisons, a _tinctura ad abortum faciendum_. The _summo maestro_
laughs at the zeal of the mass of Carbonari who have sacrificed
themselves for the liberty and independence of Italy, neither one
nor the other being for him a goal but a method.[653]

Witt Doehring, who had himself reached the degree of P.S.P., thereupon declares that, having taken his vows under a misapprehension, he holds himself to be released from his obligations and conceives it his duty to warn society. "The fears that assail governments are only too well founded. The soil of Europe is volcanic."[654]

It is unnecessary to go over the ground already traversed in _World Revolution_ by relating the history of the successive eruptions which proved the truth of Witt Doehring's warning. The point to emphasize again is that every one of these eruptions can be traced to the work of the secret societies, and that, as in the eighteenth century, most of the prominent revolutionaries were known to be connected with some secret association. According to the plan laid down by Weishaupt, Freemasonry was habitually adopted as a cover. Thus Louis _Amis de la Vérité_, numbering Bazard and Buchez amongst Blanc, himself a Freemason, speaks of a lodge named the its founders, "in which the solemn puerilities of the Grand Orient only served to mask political action."[655] Bakunin, companion of the Freemason Proudhon,[656] "the father of Anarchy," makes use of precisely the same expression. Freemasonry, he explains, is not to be taken seriously, but "may serve as a mask" and "as a means of preparing something quite different."[657]

I have quoted elsewhere the statement of the Socialist Malon that "Bakunin was a disciple of Weishaupt," and that of the Anarchist Kropotkine that between Bakunin's secret society--the _Alliance Sociale Démocratique_--and the secret societies of 1795 there was a direct affiliation; I have quoted the assertion of Malon that "Communism was handed down in the dark through the secret societies" of the nineteenth century; I have quoted also the congratulations addressed by Lamartine and the Freemason Crémieux to the Freemasons of France in 1848 on their share in this revolution as in that of 1789; I have shown that the organization of this later outbreak by the secret societies is not a matter of surmise, but a fact admitted by all well-informed historians and by the members of the secret societies themselves.

So, too, in the events of the Commune, and in the founding of the First Internationale, the role of Freemasonry and the secret societies is no less apparent. The Freemasons of France have indeed always boasted of their share in political and social upheavals. Thus in 1874, Malapert, orator of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, went so far as to say: "In the eighteenth century Freemasonry was so widespread throughout the world that one can say that since that epoch nothing has been done without its consent."

The secret history of Europe during the last two hundred years yet remains to be written. Until viewed in the light of the _dessous des cartes_, many events that have taken place during this period must remain for ever incomprehensible.

But it is time to leave the past and consider the secret forces at work in the world to-day.