I may here remark that the conspiracy of the Illuminati, and of
Freemasonry generally, was far from being a secret to many of the Courts
of Europe. But, then, just as at the present moment, it had friends,
female as well as male, in every Court. These baulked the wholesome
attempts of some rulers to stay its deadly intrigues against princes,
governments, and all order, as well as against its one grand enemy,
the Church of Jesus Christ. The Court of Bavaria found out, as I have
said, but only by an accident, a part of the plans of the Illuminati,
and gave the alarm; but, strange to say, that alarm was unheeded by the
other Courts of Europe, Catholic as well as Protestant. A Revolution
was expected, but, as now, each Court hoped to stave off the worst
consequences from itself, and to profit by the ruin of its neighbours.
The voice of the Holy Father was raised against Freemasonry again and
again. Clement VIII., Benedict XIV., and other Pontiffs, condemned it.
The Agents and Ministers of the Holy See, gave private advices and
made urgent appeals to have the evil stopped while yet the powers of
Europe could do so. These were all baffled, and the Court of the Grand
Monarch and every Court of Continental Europe slept in the torpor of a
living death, until wakened to a true sense of danger at a period far
too late to remedy the disasters which irreligion, vice, stupidity, and
recklessness hastened. The lodges of the Illuminati in France meanwhile
carried on the conspiracy. They had amassed and expended immense sums in
deluging the country with immoral and Atheistic literature.
Mirabeau, in his _Monarchie Prussienne_ (vol. 6, page 67), published
before the Revolution, thus speaks of these sums:—
“Masonry in general, and especially the branch of the
Templars, produced annually immense sums by means of the cost
of receptions and contributions of every kind. A part of the
total was employed in the expenses of the order, but another
part, much more considerable, went into a general fund, of
which no one, except the first amongst the brethren, knew the
destination.” Cagliostro, when questioned before the Holy Roman
Inquisition, “confessed that he led his sumptuous existence
thanks to the funds furnished him by the Illuminati. He also
stated that he had a commission from Weishaupt to prepare the
French Lodges to receive his direction.”—_See Deschamps_, v.,
p. 129.
Discontent was thus sown broadcast, amongst every class of the
population. Masonic Lodges multiplied, inspired by the instructed
emissaries of the remorseless Weishaupt; and the direct work of
Freemasonry in subsequent events is manifest not only in the detailed
prophecy of Cagliostro, founded on what he knew was decided upon; but
is still more clearly evidenced by a second convent, held by the French
Illuminati, where everything was arranged for the Revolution. The men
prominent in this conclave were the men subsequently most active in every
scene that followed. Mirabeau, Lafayette, Fouché, Talleyrand, Danton,
Murat, Robespierre, Cambaceres, and in fact every foremost name in the
subsequent convulsions of the country were not only Illuminati, but
foremost amongst the Illuminati.[9] Some disappeared under their own
guillotine; others outlived the doom of their fellows. Constantly, the
men of the whole conspiracy had understandings and relations with each
other. Weishaupt, at the safe distance of Coburg-Gotha, gave them his
willing aid and that of the German Freemasons. This concert enabled them
to float on every billow which the troubled sea of the Revolution caused
to swell; and if they did not succeed in making France and all Europe
a social ruin, such as that contemplated at Wilhelmsbad, it was from
want of power, not from want of will. Position and wealth made many of
them desire to conserve what the Revolution threw into their hands. But
they remained under all changes of fortune Freemasons, as they and their
successors are to this day. Perhaps, under the influence of oaths, of
secret terror, and of the sect, they dare not remain long otherwise. One
or two individuals may drop aside; but some fatality or necessity keeps
the leaders Illuminati always. They as a whole body remain ever the same,
and recoil before political adversity, only to gather more strength for a
future attack upon religion and order still wider and more fatal than the
one which preceded it. They are not at any time one whit less determined
to plunge the world into the anarchy and bloodshed they created at the
French Revolution, than they were in 1789. On this point let one of
themselves speak:—“I have had,” says a Scotch Freemason, horrified at the
results achieved by the Fraternity in their work up to 1797, “I have had
the means to follow all the attempts made during fifty years under the
specious pretext of enlightening the world with the torch of philosophy,
and to dissipate all the clouds by which superstition, religious and
civil, used to retain the people of Europe in the darkness of slavery.
I have observed the progress of these doctrines mixing themselves and
allying themselves more and more closely with the different systems of
Masonry; finally, I have seen them forming an association having for
its sole object the destruction, even to the very foundations, of all
the religious establishments, and the overthrow of all the existing
governments of Europe. I have seen that association extend its systems
with a zeal so sustained that it became almost irresistible, and I have
remarked that the personages who have had the greatest part in the French
Revolution were members of that association, that their plans had been
conceived upon its principles, and executed with its assistance. I am
convinced that it exists always, that it works always silently, and all
appearances prove that not only its emissaries strongly endeavour to
propagate amongst us its abominable doctrines, but that there are, even
in England, lodges which, since 1784, correspond with the mother lodge.
It is, in order to unmask these, to prove that the ringleaders are knaves
who preached a morality and a doctrine of which they knew the falsehood
and the danger, and that their real intention was to abolish all forms
of religion, to overthrow all governments, and to make of the entire
world one scene of pillage and murder, that I offer an extract of the
informations I have taken on this matter.”
I have quoted these words of Robison to show, that as early as 1797,
the connection between Freemasonry and the French Revolution was well
understood. Since then Louis Blanc, and other Masonic writers, have
gloried in the fact. “Our end,” said the celebrated _Alta Vendita_, to
which I shall have to refer presently, “is that of Voltaire and the
French Revolution.” In fact, what Freemasonry did in France, it now
labours, with greater caution, to effect on some future day throughout
the entire world. It then submitted, with perfect docility, to a great
military leader, who arose out of its own work and principles. Such
another leader will finally direct its last efforts against God and man.
That leader will be Antichrist.