THE DISCOVERY OF M. RICOUX
By the year 1891 Masonic revelations in Paris had become too numerous
for one more or less to fix the volatile quality of public interest
unless a new horror were attached to it. Passwords and signs and
catechisms, all the purposes and the better half of the
secrets--everyone outside the Fraternity who concerned themselves with
Masonry and cared for theoretical initiation knew these, or was
satisfied by the belief that he did. The literature of Anti-Masonry
became a drug in the market, failing some novelty in revelation. The
last work of Leo Taxil was eminently a contribution towards this missing
quantity. He was already in a certain sense the discoverer of "Female
Freemasonry," that is to say, he was the only equipped person who
seriously maintained that the exploded androgyne system was worked in
modern France, and when he added the development of the Palladium as the
climax to the mystery of iniquity, it is small wonder that his book
achieved notoriety to the extent of five thousand copies. He was
assailed as a venal pamphleteer and his past achievements in literature
were freely disinterred for his own benefit and for public instruction,
but he was more than compensated by the approbation of Mgr. Fava, bishop
of Grenoble, with whose opinions upon Satanism in Masonry we have
previously made acquaintance. The Church indeed had all round agreed to
overlook Leo Taxil's early enormities; she forgot that she had attempted
to prosecute him and to fine him a round sum of 60,000 francs; the
supreme pontiff forgave him the accusation of poisoning, and transmitted
his apostolical benediction; he was complimented by the cardinal-vicar
of Rome; and he is in the proud position of a man who has received
felicitations and high approval from eighteen ecclesiastical
dignitaries, whether cardinals, archbishops, or bishops. With his back
against the _turris fortitudinis_, he faced his accusers stoutly and
returned them blow for blow. Nor did he lack his lay defenders, one of
whom, by the mode which he adopted, became himself, somewhat
unexpectedly, a witness of Lucifer.
To those who disbelieve in the existence of Female Freemasonry, Leo
Taxil had offered two pieces of wise advice: Go to the Bibliothèque
Nationale, search the files of the Masonic organ _La Chaine d'Union_,
and you will find proof positive of your mistake. Next proceed to the
Maison T----, there is no need to reproduce the address, but it is given
by Leo Taxil in full, and obtain their current price-list of lodge
furniture, insignia, and other accessories, and you will find
particulars of aprons for sisters, diplomas for sisters, garters for
sisters, jewels for sisters. Except upon the signs of initiation, the
catalogue is not surrendered, but in view of the literature of
revelation the signs are no longer secret, &c.
All this is clearly outside the subject of Satanism, but it leads up,
notwithstanding, to the discovery of M. Ricoux. As to this gentleman
himself there are no particulars forthcoming; he has promised an account
of his adventures during four years as an emigrant in Chili; and he has
promised a patriotic epic in twelve cantos, but so far as my information
goes they remain in the womb of time. But he has a claim on our
consideration because it occurred to him that he would put in practice
the advice of Leo Taxil, which he did accordingly in the autumn of 1891,
and demonstrated to his own satisfaction that "Are there Women in
Freemasonry?" is a book of true disclosure, and a question that must be
answered in the affirmative. He performed thereupon a very creditable
action; he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Existence of Lodges for Women:
Researches on this subject," &c., in which he stated the result of his
investigation, collected the controversy on the subject which had been
scattered through the press of the period, and defended Leo Taxil with
the warmth of an _alter Ego_. But he had not limited his researches to
the directions indicated in his author. Encouraged by the success which
had attended his initial efforts, he determined upon an independent
experiment in bribery, and after the same manner that Leo Taxil procured
the "Ritual of the New and Reformed Palladium," so he succeeded in
obtaining the "Collection of Secret Instructions to Supreme Councils,
Grand Lodges, and Grand Orients," printed at Charleston in the year
1891. "This collection," he tells us, "is certainly a document of the
first order; for it emanates from General Albert Pike, that is to say,
from the 'Pope of the Freemasons.'" On this document he bases the
following statements:--(a) Universal Freemasonry possesses a Supreme
Directory as the apex of its international organisation, and it is
located at Berlin. (b) Four subsidiary Central Directories exist at
Naples, Calcutta, Washington, and Monte Video. (c) Furthermore, a Chief
of Political Action resides at Rome, commissioned to watch over the
Vatican and to precipitate events against the Papacy. (d) A Grand
Depositary of Sacred Traditions, under the title of Sovereign Pontiff of
Universal Freemasonry, is located at Charleston, and at the time of the
discovery was Albert Pike.
Some of these statements, it will be observed, require rectification, in
the light of fuller disclosures made by Palladian initiates, from whom
the material of my second chapter has been chiefly derived, but it will
be seen that it is substantially correct. M. Ricoux further states that
"Albert Pike reformed the ancient Palladian Rite, and imparted thereto
the Luciferian character in all its brutality. Palladism, for him, is a
selection; he surrenders to the ordinary lodges the adepts who confine
themselves to materialism, or invoke the Grand Architect without daring
to apply to him his true name, and under the title of Knights Templars
and Mistress Templars, he groups the fanatics who do not shrink from the
direct patronage of Lucifer."
The most serious mistake which has been made in the use of the material
is an unconscious attempt to read into the "encyclicals" of Albert Pike
a proportion of Leo Taxil's material, for which the long citations given
by M. Ricoux do not afford a warrant. What he really appears to have
obtained is the instructions of Pike as Supreme Commander Grand Master
of the Supreme Council of the Mother-Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted
Scotch Rite of Charleston to the Twenty-three Supreme Confederated
Councils of the Globe. And the Scotch Rite is, by the hypothesis, apart
from the Palladium. In other respects, the information comes to much the
same thing. The long document which the pamphlet prints _in extenso_
exhibits Albert Pike preaching Palladism in the full foulness of its
doctrine and practice--the "resolution of the problem of the flesh" by
indiscriminate satisfaction of the passions; the multiplication of
androgyne lodges for this purpose; the dual nature of the Divine
Principle; and the cultus of Lucifer as the good God. The most curious
feature of the performance is that here again it is from end to end a
travesty of Éliphas Lévi, slice after slice from his chief writings,
combined with interlineal additions, which give them a sense
diametrically opposed to that of the great magus. Now, it is impossible
that two persons, working independently for the production of bogus
documents, should both borrow from the same source; hence Leo Taxil and
M. Ricoux, if they have been guilty of imposition, must certainly have
collaborated. It is unreasonable, however, to advance such an accusation
in the absence of any evidence, and if we accept the contribution of M.
Ricoux as made in perfect good faith, we must acknowledge that it
exonerates Leo Taxil from the possible suspicion of himself adapting
Lévi; and then the existence of a theurgic society, based on Manichæan
principles, instituted by Albert Pike, and possessing a magical ritual
taken in part from Lévi, wears a more serious aspect than when it rested
on the unsupported assurance of one witness. The discovery of M. Ricoux
is obviously of the first importance, and it is certainly to be
regretted that he has not substantiated it by depositing the "Collection
of Instructions" in the National Library, supposing it to be in his
possession, or by photographing instead of transcribing, supposing he
was pledged to its return.