Secret Societies And Subversive Movements Part 24

It was thought for a long while that the a.s.sociation 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sociation of the _Illumines_:

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 a.s.semblies, but only localities where the a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation had, it is true, a.s.semblies 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 a.s.sociation....

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 a.s.sociation, 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 a.s.sociation, 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 a.s.sociation. 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 a.s.sociation 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, amus.e.m.e.nts 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 _Illumines_, 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 a.s.sociation or even bring suspicion on any of its members; the most active police would fail before such a combination....

As the princ.i.p.al force of the _Illumines_ 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 _litterateurs_, 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation, to contribute to the fall of a sovereign appears to his eyes the n.o.blest 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 a.s.sociations of students who meet together for the study of literature, for fencing, gaming, or even mere debauchery. The Illumines insinuate themselves into all these circles and turn them into hot-beds for the propagation of their principles.

Such, then, is the a.s.sociation'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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s there are some no doubt whom political events, the favour of the prince or other circ.u.mstances, detach from the a.s.sociation; but the number of these deserters is necessarily very limited: and even then they dare not speak openly against their old a.s.sociates, 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 circ.u.mstances demand the contrary....

Berckheim then proceeds to show that those writers on Illuminism were mistaken who declared that political a.s.sa.s.sinations 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 a.s.sa.s.sination of sovereigns; but experience has shown (and all the doc.u.ments derived from the least suspect sources confirm this) that the _Illumines_ count a great deal more on the power of opinion than on a.s.sa.s.sination; 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 _Illumines_ 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 _Illumines'_ 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 circ.u.mspect 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 a.s.sociation closely resembling the _Illumines_, 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 a.s.sertion 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 _Illumines_.... In 1810 the Friends of Virtue were so identified with the _Illumines_ 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 doc.u.ment 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 a.s.sociations recently existing in Germany, the witness a.s.serted, 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 enn.o.bled and sanctified by their aim." The same doc.u.ment 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 acc.u.mulating 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 a.s.sociation, with which I have dealt at length elsewhere,[652] const.i.tuted the Supreme Directory of the Carbonari and was led by a group of Italian n.o.blemen, 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation is something high and n.o.ble, 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 ma.s.se_; 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 _Illumines_. This degree, in which a man is at the same time prince and bishop, coincides with the h.o.m.o 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 _Illumines_ was found, amongst other poisons, a _tinctura ad abortum faciendum_. The _summo maestro_ laughs at the zeal of the ma.s.s 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 a.s.sail 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 a.s.sociation. According to the plan laid down by Weishaupt, Freemasonry was habitually adopted as a cover. Thus Louis _Amis de la Verite_, 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 Democratique_--and the secret societies of 1795 there was a direct affiliation; I have quoted the a.s.sertion 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 Cremieux 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.

PART II

_THE PRESENT_

11

MODERN FREEMASONRY

In the foregoing portion of this book we have followed the history of Freemasonry in the past and the various interpretations that have been placed on its rites and ceremonies. The question now arises: what is the role of Freemasonry to-day?

The fundamental error of most writers on this question, whether Masonic or anti-Masonic, is to represent all Freemasons as holding a common belief and animated by a common purpose. Thus on one hand the panegyrics by Freemasons on their Order as a whole, and on the other hand the sweeping condemnations of the Order by the Catholic Church, are equally at fault.