With the aid of Voltaire, and of his party, Freemasonry rapidly spread
amongst the higher classes of France and wherever else in Europe the
influence of the French Infidels extended. It soon after obtained
immense power of union and propagandism. In France and everywhere else
it had an English, a Scotch, and a local obedience. These had separate
constitutions and officers, even separate grades, but all were identical
in essence and in aim. A brother in one was a brother in all. However,
it seemed to the leaders that more unity was needed, and aided by the
adhesion of the Duke de Chartres, subsequently better known as the Duke
of Orleans, the infamous Philippe-Egalité, who was Grand Master of the
Scotch Masonic Body in France, the French Masons in the English obedience
desiring independence of the Mother Lodge of England, separated, and
elected him the first Grand Master of the since celebrated Grand Orient
of France. Two years after this, the execrable “Androgyne” lodges for
women, called “Lodges of Adoption,” were established, and had as Grand
Mistress over them all, the Duchess of Bourbon, sister of Egalité. The
Infidels, by extending these lodges for women, obtained an immense amount
of influence, which they otherwise never could attain. They thus invaded
the domestic circle of the Court of France and of every Court in Europe.
Thus, too, the royal edicts, the decrees of Clement XII. and Benedict
XIV. against Freemasonry, and the efforts of conscientious officers,
were rendered completely inoperative. After the death of Voltaire, the
extension of Freemasonry became alarming; but no State effort could then
stop its progress. It daily grew more powerful and more corrupt. It began
already to extend its influence into every department of state. Promotion
in the army, in the navy, in the public service, in the law, and even to
the fat benefices “in commendam” of the Church, became impossible without
its aid;[8] and at this precise juncture, when the political fortunes of
France were, for many reasons, growing desperate, two events occurred to
make the already general and corrupt Freemasonry still more formidable.
These were the advent of the Illuminism of Saint Martin in France,
and that of Adam Weishaupt in Germany, and the increased corruption
introduced principally by means of women-Freemasons.
A Portuguese Jew, named Martinez Pasqualis, was the first to introduce
Illuminism into the Lodge of Lyons, and his system was afterwards
perfected in wickedness by Saint Martin, from whom French Illuminism took
its name. Illuminism meant the extreme extent of immorality, Atheism,
anarchy, levelling, and bloodshed, to which the principles of Masonry
could be carried. It meant a universal conspiracy against the Church and
established order. It constituted a degree of advancement for all the
lodges, and powerfully aided to make them the centres of revolutionary
intrigue and of political manipulation which they soon became in the
hands of men at once sunk in Atheism and moral corruption.
An idea of these lodges may be obtained from a description given of that
of Ermanonville, by M. Le Marquis de Lefroi, in _Dictionnaire des Errors
Sociales_, quoted by Deschamps, vol. ii., page 93.
“It is known,” he says, “that the Chateau de Ermanonville belonging to
the Sieur Girardin, about ten leagues from Paris, was a famous haunt
of Illuminism. It is known that there, near the tomb of Jean-Jacques,
under the pretext of bringing men back to the age of nature, reigned the
most horrible dissoluteness of morals. Nothing can equal the turpitude
of morals which reigns amongst that horde of Ermanonville. Every woman
admitted to the mysteries became common to the brothers, and was
delivered up to the chance or to the choice of these true ‘Adamites.’”
Barruch in his _Memoires sur le Jacobinism_, t. iv., p. 334, says, “that
M. Leseure, the father of the hero of La Vendee, having been affiliated
to a lodge of this kind, and having, in obedience to the promptings of
conscience, abandoned it, was soon after poisoned.” He himself declared
to the Marquis de Montron that he fell a victim to “that infamous horde
of the Illuminati.”
The Illuminism of Saint Martin was simply an advance in the intensity
of immorality, Atheism, secrecy, and terror, which already reigned
in the lodges of France. It planned a deeper means of revolution and
destruction. It became in its hidden depths a lair in which the Atheists
of the period could mature their plans for the overthrow of the existing
order of things to their own best advantage. It gave itself very
captivating names. Its members were “Knights of Beneficence,” “Good
Templars,” “Knights of St. John,” &c. They numbered, however, amongst
them, the most active, daring, and unscrupulous members of Masonry. They
set themselves at work to dominate over and to control the entire body.
They had no system, any more than any other sort of Masons, to give the
world instead of that which they determined to pull down. The state of
nature, goods and the sexes in common, no God, and instead of God a
hatred for everything sustaining the idea of God, formed about the sum
total of the happiness which they desired to see reign in a world, where
people should be reduced to a level resembling that of wild cattle in the
American prairies. This was the Illumination they destined for humanity;
yet such was the infatuation inspired by their immoral and strange
doctrines that nobles, princes, and monarchs of the period, including
Frederick II. of Prussia and the silly Joseph II. of Austria, admitted
to a part of their secrets, were the tools and the dupes, and even the
accomplices, of these infamous conspirators.