Secret Societies And Subversive Movements Part 13

He vaunts their respect for religious opinion and for authority. When he speaks of Freemasons in general they are impious, rebellious successors of the Templars and Albigenses, but _all those of England are innocent_.

More than this, all the Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Master Masons in all parts of the world are innocent; there are only guilty ones in the higher degrees, which are not essential to the inst.i.tution and are sought by a small number of people.[390]

In this opinion of Barruel's a great number of Masonic writers concur--Clavel, Ragon, Rebold, Thory, Findel, and others too numerous to mention; all indicate Craft Masonry as the only true kind and the upper degrees as const.i.tuting a danger to the Order. Rebold, who gives a list of these writers, quotes a masonic publication, authorized by the Grand Orient and the Supreme Council of France, in which it is said that "from all these rites there result the most foolish conceptions, ... the most absurd legends, ... the most extravagant systems, the most immoral principles, and those the most dangerous for the peace and preservation of States," and that therefore except the first three degrees of Masonry, which are really ancient and universal, everything is "chimera, extravagance, futility, and lies."[391] Did Barruel and Robison ever use stronger language than this?

To attribute the perversion of Masonry to Jacobite influence would be absurd. How could it be supposed that either Ramsay or Lord Derwent.w.a.ter (who died as a devout Catholic on the scaffold in 1746) could have been concerned in an attempt to undermine the Catholic faith or the monarchy of France? I would suggest, then, that the term "Scots Masonry" became simply a veil for Templarism--Templarism, moreover, of a very different kind to that from which the original degree of the Rose-Croix was derived. It was this so-called Scots Masonry that, after the resignation of Lord Derwent.w.a.ter, "boldly came forward and claimed to be not merely a part of Masonry but the real Masonry, possessed of superior knowledge and ent.i.tled to greater privileges and the right to rule over the ordinary, i.e. Craft Masonry."[392] The Grand Lodge of France seems, however, to have realized the danger of submitting to the domination of the Templar element, and on the death of the Duc d'Antin and his replacement by the Comte de Clermont in 1743, signified its adherence to English Craft Masonry by proclaiming itself Grande Loge _Anglaise_ de France and reissued the "Const.i.tutions" of Anderson, first published in 1723, with the injunction that the Scots Masters should be placed on the same level as the simple Apprentices and Fellow Crafts and allowed to wear no badges of distinction.[393]

Grand Lodge of England appears to have been rea.s.sured by this proclamation as to the character of French Freemasonry, for now, in 1743, it at last delivered a warrant to Grand Lodge of France. Yet in reality it was from this moment that French Freemasonry degenerated the most rapidly. The Order was soon invaded by intriguers. This was rendered all the easier by the apathy of the Comte de Clermont, appointed Grand Master in 1743, who seems to have taken little interest in the Order and employed a subst.i.tute in the person of a dancing master named Lacorne, a man of low character through whose influence the lodges fell into a state of anarchy. Freemasonry was thus divided into warring factions: Lacorne and the crowd of low-cla.s.s supporters who had followed him into the lodges founded a Grand Lodge of their own (Grande Loge Lacorne), and in 1756 the original Freemasons again attempted to make Craft Masonry the national Masonry of France by deleting the word "Anglaise" from the appellation of Grand Lodge, and renaming it "Grand Loge Nationale de France." But many lodges still continue to work the additional degrees.

The rivalry between the two groups became so violent that in 1767 the government intervened and closed down Grand Lodge.

The Templar group had, however, formed two separate a.s.sociations, the "Knights of the East" (1756) and the "Council of the Emperors of the East and West" (1758). In 1761 a Jew named Stephen Morin was sent to America by the "Emperors" armed with a warrant from the Duc de Clermont and Grand Lodge of Paris and bearing the sonorous t.i.tle of "Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime Master," with orders to establish a Lodge in that country. In 1766 he was accused in Grand Lodge of "propagating strange and monstrous doctrines" and his patent of Grand Inspector was withdrawn.[394] Morin, however, had succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng the Rite of Perfection. Sixteen Inspectors, nearly all Jews, were now appointed.

These included Isaac Iong, Isaac de Costa, Moses Hayes, B. Spitser, Moses Cohen, Abraham Jacobs, and Hyman Long.

Meanwhile in France the closing of Grand Lodge had not prevented meetings of Lacorne's group, which, on the death of the Duc de Clermont in 1772, inst.i.tuted the "Grand Orient" with the Duc de Chartres--the future "Philippe egalite"--as Grand Master. The Grand Orient then invited the Grande Loge to revoke the decree of expulsion and unite with it, and this offer being accepted, the revolutionary party inevitably carried all before it, and the Duc de Chartres was declared Grand Master of all the councils, chapters, and Scotch lodges of France.[395] In 1782 the "Council of Emperors" and the "Knights of the East" combined to form the "Grand Chapitre General de France," which in 1786 joined up with the Grand Orient. The victory of the revolutionary party was then complete.

It is necessary to enter into all these tedious details in order to understand the nature of the factions grouped together under the banner of Masonry at this period. The Martinist Papus attributes the revolutionary influences that now prevailed in the lodges to their invasion by the Templars, and goes on to explain that this was owing to a change that had taken place in the _Ordre du Temple_. Under the Grand Masters.h.i.+p of the Regent and his successor the Duc de Bourbon, the revolutionary elements amongst the Templars had had full play, but from 1741 onwards the Grand Masters of the Order were supporters of the monarchy. When the Revolution came, the Duc de Cosse-Brissac, who had been Grand Master since 1776, perished amongst the defenders of the throne. It was thus that by the middle of the century the Order of the Temple ceased to be a revolutionary force, and the discontented elements it had contained, no longer able to find in it a refuge, threw themselves into Freemasonry, and entering the higher degrees turned them to their subversive purpose. According to Papus, Lacorne was a member of the Templar group, and the dissensions that took place were princ.i.p.ally a fight between the ex-Templars and the genuine Freemasons which ended in the triumph of the former:

Victorious rebels thus founded the Grand Orient of France. So a contemporary Mason is able to write: "It is not excessive to say that the masonic revolution of 1773 was the prelude and the precursor of the Revolution of 1789." What must be well observed is the secret action of the Brothers of the Templar Rite. It is they who are the real fomentors of revolution, the others are only docile agents.[396]

But all this attributes the baneful influence of Templarism to the French Templars alone, and the existence of such a body rests on no absolutely certain evidence. What is certain and admits of no denial on the part of any historian, is the inauguration of a Templar Order in Germany at the very moment when the so-called Scottish degrees were introduced into French Masonry. We shall now return to 1738 and follow events that were taking place at this important moment beyond the Rhine.

7

GERMAN TEMPLARISM AND FRENCH ILLUMINISM

The year after Ramsay's oration--that is to say in 1738--Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, who for two years had been carrying on a correspondence with Voltaire, suddenly evinced a curiosity to know the secrets of Freemasonry which he had hitherto derided as "Kinderspiel," and accordingly went through a hasty initiation during the night of August 14-15, whilst pa.s.sing through Brunswick.[397]

The ceremony took place not at a masonic lodge, but at a hotel, in the presence of a deputation summoned by the Graf von Lippe-Buckeburg from Grand Lodge of Hamburg for the occasion. It is evident that something of an unusual kind must have occurred to necessitate these speedy and makes.h.i.+ft arrangements. Carlyle, in his account of the episode, endeavours to pa.s.s it off as a "very trifling circ.u.mstance"--a reason the more for regarding it as of the highest importance since we know now from facts that have recently come to light how carefully Carlyle was spoon-fed by Potsdam whilst writing his book on Frederick the Great.[398]

But let us follow Frederick's masonic career. In June 1740, after his accession to the throne, his interest in Masonry had clearly not waned, for we find him presiding over a lodge at Charlottenburg, where he received into the Order two of his brothers, his brother-in-law, and Duke Frederick William of Holstein-Beck. At his desire the Baron de Bielfeld and his privy councillor Jordan founded a lodge at Berlin, the "Three Globes," which by 1746 had no less than fourteen lodges under its jurisdiction.

In this same year of 1740 Voltaire, in response to urgent invitations, paid his first visit to Frederick the Great in Germany. Voltaire is usually said not to have yet become a Mason, and the date of his initiation is supposed to have been 1778, when he was received into the _Loge des Neuf Soeurs_ in Paris. But this by no means precludes the possibility that he had belonged to another masonic Order at an earlier date. At any rate, Voltaire's visit to Germany was followed by two remarkable events in the masonic world of France. The first of these was the inst.i.tution of the additional degrees; the second--perhaps not wholly unconnected with the first--was the arrival in Paris of a masonic delegate from Germany named von Marschall, who brought with him instructions for a new or rather a revived Order of Templarism, in which he attempted to interest Prince Charles Edward and his followers.

Von Marschall was followed about two years later by Baron von Hunt, who had been initiated in 1741 into the three degrees of Craft Masonry in Germany and now came to consecrate a lodge in Paris. According to von Hundt's own account, he was then received into the Order of the Temple by an unknown Knight of the Red Plume, in the presence of Lord Kilmarnock,[399] and was presented as a distinguished Brother to Prince Charles Edward, whom he imagined to be Grand Master of the Order.[400]

But all this was afterwards shown to be a pure frabrication, for Prince Charles Edward dened all knowledge of the affair, and von Hundt himself admitted later that he did not know the name of the lodge or chapter in which he was received, but that he was directed from "a hidden centre"

and by Unknown Superiors, whose ident.i.ty he was bound not to reveal.[401] In reality it appears that von Hundt's account was exactly the opposite of the truth,[402] and that it was von Hundt who, seconding von Marschall's effort, tried to enrol Prince Charles Edward in the new German Order by a.s.suring him that he could raise powerful support for the Stuart cause under the cover of reorganizing the Templar Order, of which he claimed to possess the true secrets handed down from the Knights of the fourteenth century. By way of further rehabilitating the Order, von Hundt declared that all the accusations brought against it by Philippe le Bel and the Pope were based on false charges manufactured by two recreant Knights named Noffodei and Florian as a revenge for having been deprived of their commands by the Order in consequence of certain crimes they had committed.[403] According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, von Hundt eventually succeeded--after the defeat of Culloden--in persuading Prince Charles Edward to enter his Order. But this is extremely doubtful. At any rate, when in 1751 von Hundt officially founded his new Templar Order under the name of the _Stricte Observance_, the unfortunate Charles Edward played no part at all in the scheme. As Mr. Gould has truly observed, "no trace of Jacobite intrigues ever blended with the teaching of the _Stricte Observance_."[404]

The _Order of the Stricte Observance_ was in reality a purely German a.s.sociation composed of men drawn entirely from the intellectual and aristocratic cla.s.ses, and, in imitation of the chivalric Orders of the past, known to each other under knightly t.i.tles. Thus Prince Charles of Hesse became Eques a Leone Resurgente, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick Eques a Victoria, the Prussian minister von Bischoffswerder Eques a Grypho, Baron de Wachter Eques a Ceraso, Christian Bode (Councillor of Legation in Saxe-Gotha) Eques a Lilio Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet Minister of Frederick the Great) Eques a Monte Sancto, etc.

But according to the declarations of the Order the official leaders, Knights of the Moon, the Star, the Golden Sun, or of the Sacred Mountain, were simply figure-heads; the real leaders, known as the "Unknown Superiors," remained in the background, unadorned by t.i.tles of chivalry but exercising supreme jurisdiction over the Order. The system had been foreshadowed by the "Invisibles" of seventeenth-century Rosicrucianism; but now, instead of an intangible group whose very existence was only known vaguely to the world, there appeared in the light of day a powerful organization led apparently by men of influence and position yet secretly directed by hidden chiefs.[405] Mirabeau has described the advent of these mysterious directors in the following pa.s.sage:

In about 1756 there appeared, as if they had come out of the ground, men sent, they said, by unknown superiors, and armed with powers to reform the order [of Freemasonry] and re-establish it in its ancient purity. One of these missionaries, named Johnston, came to Weimar and Jena, where he established himself. He was received in the best way in the world by the brothers [Freemasons], who were lured by the hope of great secrets, of important discoveries which were never made known to them.[406]

Now, in the ma.n.u.scripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx de Canteleu it is said that this man Johnston, or rather Johnson, who proclaimed himself to be "Grand Prior of the Order," was a Jew named Leicht or Leucht.[407] Gould says that his real name was either Leucht or Becker, but that he professed to be an Englishman, although unable to speak the English language, hence his a.s.sumption of the name Johnson.[408] Mr. Gould has described Johnson as a "consummate rogue and an unmitigated vagabond ... of almost repulsive demeanour and of no education, but gifted with boundless impudence and low cunning." Indeed, von Hundt himself, after enlisting Johnson's services, found him too dangerous and declared him to be an adventurer. Johnson was thereupon arrested by von Hundt's friend the councillor von Pritsch, and thrown into the castle of Wartburg, where sudden death ended his career.

It is, however, improbable that Mirabeau could be right in indicating Johnson as one of the "Unknown Superiors," who were doubtless men of vaster conceptions than this adventurer appears to have been. Moreover, the manner of his end clearly proves that he occupied a subordinate position in the _Stricte Observance_.

Here, then, we have a very curious sequence of events which it may be well to recapitulate briefly in order to appreciate their full significance:

1737. Oration of Chevalier Ramsay indicating Templar origin of Freemasonry, but making no mention of upper degrees.

1738. Duc d'Antin becomes Grand Master of French Freemasonry in the place of Lord "Harnouester."

1738. Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, initiated into Masonry at Brunswick.

1740. Voltaire pays his first visit to Frederick, now King.

1741. Baron von Marschall arrives in Paris with a plan for reviving the Templar Order.

Templar degrees first heard of in France under name of "Scots Masonry."

1743. Arrival in France of Baron von Hundt with fresh plans for reviving the Templar Order.

Degree of Knight Kadosch celebrating vengeance of Templars said to have been inst.i.tuted at Lyons.

1750. Voltaire goes to spend three years with Frederick.

1751. Templar Order of the Stricte Observance founded by von Hundt.

1754. Rite of Perfection (early form of Scottish Rite) founded in France.

1761. Frederick acknowledged head of Scottish Rite.

" Morin sent to found Rite of Perfection in America.

1762. Grand Masonic Const.i.tutions ratified in Berlin.[409]

It will be seen then that what Mr. Gould describes as "the flood of Templarism," which both he and Mr. Tuckett attribute to the so-called Scots Masons,[410] corresponds precisely with the decline of Jacobite and the rise of German influence. Would it not therefore appear probable that, except in the case of the Rose-Croix degree, the authors of the upper degrees were not Scotsmen nor Jacobites, that Scots Masonry was a term used to cover not merely Templarism but more especially German Templarism, and that the real author and inspirer of the movement was Frederick the Great? No, it is significant to find that in the history of the _Ordre du Temple_, published at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Frederick the Great is cited as one of the most distinguished members of this Order in the past,[411] and the Abbe Gregoire adds that he was "consecrated" at Remersberg (Rheinsberg?) in 1738, that is to say in the same year that he was initiated into Masonry at Brunswick.[412]

There is therefore a definite reason for connecting Frederick with Templarism at this date.

I would suggest, then, that the truth about the Templar succession may be found in one of the two following theories:

1. That the doc.u.ments produced by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the nineteenth century, including the Charter of Larmenius, were genuine; that the Order had never ceased to exist since the days of the Crusades; that the Templar heresy was Johannism, but that this was not held by the Templars who escaped to Scotland; that the Rose-Croix degree in its purely Christian form was introduced by the Scottish Templars to Scotland and four hundred years later brought by Ramsay to France; that the Master of the Temple at this date was the Regent, Philippe Duc d'Orleans, as stated in the Charter of Larmenius. Finally, that after this, fresh Templar degrees were introduced from Germany by von Hundt, acting on behalf of Frederick the Great.

2. That the doc.u.ments produced by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the nineteenth century were, as M. Matter declares, early eighteenth-century fabrications; that although, in view of the tradition preserved in the Royal Order of Scotland, there appears to be good reason to believe the story of the Scottish Templars and the origin of the Rose-Croix degree, the rest of the history of the Templars, including the Charter of Larmenius, was an invention of the "Concealed Superiors" of the _Stricte Observance_ in Germany, and that the most important of these "Concealed Superiors" were Frederick the Great and Voltaire.

I shall not attempt to decide which of these two theories is correct; all that I do maintain is that in either case the preponderating role in Templarism at this crisis was played by Frederick the Great, probably with the co-operation of Voltaire, who in his _Essai sur les Maeurs_ championed the cause of the Templars. Let us follow the reasons for arriving at this conclusion.

Ramsay's oration in 1737 connecting Freemasonry with the Templars may well have come to the ears of Frederick and suggested to him the idea of using Masonry as a cover for his intrigues--hence his hasty initiation at Brunswick. But in order to acquire influence in a secret society it is always necessary to establish a claim to superior knowledge, and Templarism seemed to provide a fruitful source of inspiration. For this purpose new light must be thrown on the Order. Now, there was probably no one better qualified than Voltaire, with his knowledge of the ancient and medieval world and hatred of the Catholic Church, to undertake the construction of a historical romance subversive of the Catholic faith--hence the urgent summons to the philosopher to visit Frederick.

We can imagine Voltaire delving amongst the records of the past in order to reconstruct the Templar heresy. This was clearly Gnostic, and the Mandaeans or Christians of St. John may well have appeared to present the required characteristics. If it could be shown that here in Johannism true "primitive Christianity" was to be found, what a blow for the "infame"! A skilful forger could easily be found to fabricate the doc.u.ments said to have been preserved in the secret archives of the Order. Further we find von Marschall arriving in the following year in France to reorganize the Templars, and von Hundt later claiming to be in possession of the true secrets of the Order handed down from the fourteenth century. That some doc.u.ments bearing on this question were either discovered or fabricated under the direction of Frederick the Great seems the more probable from the existence of a masonic tradition to this effect. Thus Dr. Oliver quotes a Report of the Grand Inspectors-General in the nineteenth century stating that:

During the Crusades, at which 27,000 Masons were present, some masonic MSS. of great importance were discovered among the descendants of the ancient Jews, and that other valuable doc.u.ments were found at different periods down to the year of Light 5557 (i.e. 1553), at which time a record came to light in Syrian characters, relating to the most remote antiquity, and from which it would appear that the world is many thousand years older than given by the Mosaic account. Few of these characters were translated till the reign of our ill.u.s.trious and most enlightened Brother Frederick II, King of Prussia, whose well-known zeal for the Craft was the cause of so much improvement in the Society over which he condescended to preside.[413]

I suggest, then, that the doc.u.ments here referred to and containing the secrets claimed by von Hundt may have been the ones afterwards published by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the nineteenth century, and that if unauthentic they were the work of Voltaire, aided probably by a Jew capable of forging Syriac ma.n.u.scripts. That Johnson was the Jew in question seems probable, since Findel definitely a.s.serts that the history of the continuation of the Order of Knights Templar was his work.[414] Frederick, as we know, was in the habit of employing Jews to carry out shady transactions, and he may well have used Johnson to forge doc.u.ments as he used Ephraim to coin false money for him. It would be further quite in keeping with his policy to get rid of the man as soon as he had served his purpose, lest he should betray his secrets.