part cabalistic, and part superstitious. From this work he arranged tha

plan of his Egyptian Eite.
THE RITE OF MISRAIM. 181
shortly after the organization of that at Naples, and the prince Eugene Beauharnais had heen invested with the dignity of Grand Master. Some superior officers, resident at Milan, who had been initiated, in Paris, into the high degrees of the Scottish (33d) Rite, resolved to establish a Supreme Council of that rite, at the suggestion of breth- ren, in Paris. A person named Lechangeur, an officer or master of an operative lodge in Milan, demanded to be- come a party in this arrangement, and his demand was complied with. They conferred upon him certain degrees ; but having some motive for keeping him out of the or- ganization of their Supreme Council, they refused to give him the superior degrees. Vexed at this refusal, Lechan- geur informed the members of this Supreme Council that he would get the better of them, in creating a rite of ninety degrees, into which he should not admit them. He accomplished his threat in fact, and it is to him that is to be attributed the creation of this self-styled oriental rite.
The first thing Lechangeur did, after having elaborated his rite, was to elevate himself to the highest office recog- nized by it — in this respect imitating all the other fabri- cators of rites — ^thait of " Superior Grand Conservator of the Order of Misraim," and in this capacity to deliver patents of authority to all who offered to propagate this new rite to Ms profit These delegates, being thus author- ized, were confined in their operations to the organization of chapters in the cities of the Italian peninsula, more particularly to Naples ; and those chapters should, in their turn, create delegates, and deliver to them patents of au- thority, to their profit.
We Mnll now explain how and by whom this Rite of Misraim was first introduced into Prance.
Bro. Michael Bedarride, a native of Cavaillon, in the de- partment of Vaucluse, and belonging to the Jewish re- ligion, was initiated into Preemasonry on the 5th of July,
182 GENERAL HISTOEY OF FREEMASONKT.
1802, in the lodge " Candor," at Cezena, in Italy, and affili- ated, in the year 1805, with the lodge " Mars and Themis," in Paris, which conferred upon him, as it did also upon his brother, Mark Bedarride, the degree of Master.
Michael Bedarride, who was a merchant in Ifaples, obtained the position of commissary of subsistence in the service of the Italian army, upon the staff of which army his brother Mark had a position. During their sojourn in Italy, the two brothers had affiliated with several lodges of that country. On the 3d December, 1810, through the in- tervention of one of the patentees of Lechangeur, Michael Bedarride obtained a similar patent, authorizing him to confer the degrees of the Misraimites up to the 73d degree. Subsequently, at Milan, he received of the brother Lechan- geur himself an increase of the degrees, and a patent, dated 25th June, 1811, conferring upon him the degree of " Grand Hazsid," or 77th degree, with the right of con- ferring all the degrees to that point. A similar patent had already been delivered, on the 3d of January, 1810, by Lechangeur to Mark Bedarride.
It seems that, for some reason not known, the brother Lechangeur did not wish the brothers Bedarride to possess the degree of " Grand Conservator," or 90th. degree, of his rite; but, notwithstanding, the possession of this degree became absolutely necessary, to enable them to succeed in their projects. With this object, Michael Bedarride ad- dressed a delegate named Polack, an Israelite — resident at Venice — who, usurping the rights claimed by Lechangeur, had proclaimed himself Superior Grand Conservator, or independent Grand Master — and obtained of this person, on the 1st September, 1812, a patent conferring upon him the title he so greatly desired. This document, however, did not appear to be sufficiently authoritative for his pur- pose, as it bore but one signature, and consequently lacked evidences of authenticity ; for, immediately after the death of Lechangeur he sought at the hands of the brother
THE RITE OF MISRAIM. 183
Theodore Gerber, of Milan — ^to whom Lechangeur had be- queathed the powers he had given to himself—another patent. The application was successful, and on the 12th October, 1812, Michael Bedarride procured this new au- thority, signed by Theodore Gerber, and conferring upon Michael Bedarride the title of Superior Grand Conservato of the Order of Misraim in Italy. Besides the signature of Gerber, this document bore also the signatures of Mark Bedarride, who, as we have shown, had not then obtained but the 77th degree, and seven or eight other brethren who were reputed to compose the " Sovereign Grand Council of the 90th degree of the Grand Masters absolute ;" and it is by virtue of the powers that they having arrogated to themselves, in concert with the chief of this rite, that they delegated to Michael Bedarride the same powers and all their supreme rights as therein expressed by this pat- ent, to " create, form, regulate, dissolve, whenever desirable, lodges, chapters, colleges, directories, synods, tribunals, consistories, councils, and general councils of the Order of Misraim" — a prerogative that this brother, as therein ex- pressed, has merited " by the most profound study of the sciences, and the most sublime practice of every virtue that is known to but a. very small number of the elect — inviting all brethren, of every degree and . every rite, to assist the puissant and' venerable Grand Conservator, Michael Bedar- ride, with their council, their credit and their fortune, him and the rejected of his race," etc., etc.
It is by virtue of this curious document, which we con- sider it unnecessary further to explain, that the brother Michael Bedarride, through the organ of his brother Mark Bedarride, announced himself, in Paris, chief of this self- styled Oriental, Ancient, and Sublime Order, which, he says, is the stem of all the Masonic rites in existence, al- though he must have suspected by whom it had been fab- ricated. The text of this proclamation affords some idea of the arrogance of these Jewish Masons, and recalls to
184 GENBEAL HISTORY OF FEEBMASONKT.
our mind the five Masons, also Jews, who, at Charleston, fabricated the Scottish Kite of thirty-three degrees ; and had it not been for the success of which the Rite of Mis- raim never would have seen the light, and but for which the obstacles to the unity of Freemasonry in France, aa well as in other countries, would have been easily re- moved.
When the brother Mark Bedarride, then a retired officer of the army of Italy, arrived in Paris in 1813, where he was joined shortly afterward by his brothers Michael and Joseph Bedarride, the latter of whom had also, at !N'aples, received some patents from a delegate patented by Le- changeur, these three brothers found four others — ^two of whom were named respectively Joly and Gaborea — who had likewise procured in Italy some patents which con- ferred upon them also the right of creating lodges, coun- cils, etc., up to the ninetieth degree ; while the other two, named respectively Garcia and Decollet, bore patents giving them authority to the seventy-seventh degree. As the brothers Bedarride had decided to fix their residence in Paris for the purpose of working up this new branch of Masonry, the competitors whom we have named incom- moded them in the execution of their project. Having arranged matters with them, they next proceeded to ob- tain the protection of the brother Count Muraire. Suc- ceeding in this as in the other, Michael Bedarride was not long in gaining the consent of several other brethren, nearly all of whom were members of the Supreme Coun- cil of the Scottish (33d) Rite, among whom we may name Count Lallemand, Thory, Colonel Martin, Count Chabran, General Monier, Barbier de Finant, the Chevalier Chalon de Collet, Vidal, Perron, General Teste, etc., to receive the highest degrees of the rite, in order to enable him to organize a Supreme Council of the ninetieth degree, nec- essary for the definite establishment of the Supreme Power of the Order for France. On the 9th of April, 1815, the
THE RITE OF MISRAIM. 185
brothers Bedarride, taking the title of Grand Conservators of the Order, issued their circular, by which they declared " the supreme power constituted in the valley of Paris to govern the Masonic Order of Misraim upon all the globe" — and, the reader will carefully observe — "for France by the Supreme Council of Most Wise Grand Masters for life of the 90th and last degree." It will be observed, in pass- ing, that all the decisions of this council could be revoked by the Superior Grand Conservator of the Order, con- formably to the constitution that he had given, in his ca- pacity of autocrat, to the future Misraimite people.
To make acceptable a rite with a scale of degrees so numerous, and of which the chiefs had given themselves titles so pompous, certainly no city of the world afforded better facilities than Paris, the center of all folly and extravagance, as well as of much that was really great.
"We will here observe that the ninety degrees composing the Rite of Misraim should have comprised every known science, divided into four series, forming seventeen classes. The first series was called symbolic, the second philosophic, the third mystic, and the fourth cabalistic. After this clas- sification, the neophytes, upon their initiation into the dif- ferent degrees, should have received instruction embracing all that was known of the sciences involved in each series. Such a course of instruction would, if faithfully given, have been frightful to any earnest mind, so imposing a task being so much beyond the grasp of an ordinary human life. But, in reality, the neophyte had nothing to fear from this vast vocabulary ; it was merely a recital of fables more or less absurd, and embraced not a word of science or philosophy outside of what truths were implied in the fii'st symbolic degrees. How could it be otherwise ? The brothers Bedarride, no more than the creator of the rite, Lechangeur — not possessing even the most elementary notions of the sciences enumerated in their four series and
186 GENERAL HISTORY OP FREEMASONRY.
seventeen classes of degrees — could not, in consequence, teacli to others what they did not know themselves.
After taking possession of this prospectively lucrative field of labor, the brothers Bedarride found the great- est difficulty in organizing a working lodge ; for France was then in mourning. However, with great labor, they succeeded in establishing a first lodge, the "Eainbow," which became the mother lodge of the rite ; but it did not enter upon active duty until the month of June, 1816.
Then the proselytes quickly augmented. The brethren Baucalin de Laroste, the chevalier Larrey, Auzon, Eagon, Clavet-Gaubert, Eedarets, Chasseriau, and Beaurepaire be- came Misraimites, and immediately constituted themselves into a new lodge, of which the meetings were most brill- iant, under the name of " Disciples of Zoroaster." In this assembly the brother Dr. Q-anal,. who presided, and who understood, much better than the brothers Bedarride, the exigencies of the rite, called to his aid physic and chem- istry to render his initiations imposing, and thus succeeded in gathering in many new members.
When they arrived in Paris, the brothers Bedarride had only some incomplete rituals which they had copied from those in the possession of the persons who gave them the degrees, and not one of the ninety lectures which the rite required to explain its degrees; for neither Lechangeur nor Gerber possessed them. To produce these, the breth- ren Mealet and Joly, erudite and capable men, drew upon their imaginations. So slowly, however, did these lectures appear, that in 1816 they were enabled to exhibit but ten, having borrowed from the lodge "Hope," at Berne, the lectures of the first three degrees, and these alone express- ing all of a Masonic spirit which the rite exhibited ; and thus, like the Grand Orient and the Supreme Council, they jumped, in their initiations, from the third to the eighteenth, and from the eighteenth to the thirtieth, or twelve degrees at a time. The brothers Bedarride were
THE ErrB OF MISRAIM. 187
obliged, for tte reasons that we have indicated, to confer a series of degrees at a time, giving it as their reason that such a course was most convenient, and explaining the in- termediate degrees as best they could.
From the beginning, grave abuses appeared in the ad- ministration as conducted by the brothers Bedarride. The members of the rite, tired with submitting to the caprices of the three Israelitish chiefs, demanded a code of laws. They openly accused. the Grand Conservators of making a scandalous traffic in communicating the degrees, and, in fact, of speculating with the rite as a manufacturing prop- erty, and seeking to retire the principal part of the profits to their own use, though they had shown a laudable desire to hide such a diversion of the funds. Then a certain number of brethren resolved to create a new power, founded upon the plenary powers which the brother Joly had received at Milan, and, with a number of the dissatis- fied, they did form a Supreme Council of ninety degrees, composed of the said Joly, an author, the brethren Auzon, private secretary to His Majesty King Charles IV, Gabo- rea, a clerk in the Bureau of Finance, Mealet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, Ragon, chief of the Staff Bu- reau of the National Guard, Richard, Lange, Decollet, Amadieu, Pigniere, and Clavet-Gaubert, colonel of artillery.
In September, 1816, this new organization requested permission to rank under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient, and, to allow them to do so, proposed to abandon the administration of the first two series of the rite, com- prising sixty-six degrees, and reserve to themselves but the power to control those from sixty-seven to ninety. Some commissioners were named on the part of each body to arrange the particulars ; but the Grand Orient, though at first very well disposed to conclude the arrangement, after a more mature examination of it, rejected the propo- sition on the 14th January, 1817, and, on the 27th of the following December, addressed to the lodges of its corre-
188 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
spondence a circular, by the terms of which it prohibited them from receiving the members of the E,ite of Misraim in their assemblies.
Unlike the generality of such documents as issued by the Grand Orient, the motives expressed in this edict were logical. It stated that "the patentees had not furbished the titles required to authenticate the origin and the au- thenticity of the Rite of Misraim ; that the assertion of its introduction into Italy, under the pontificate of Leo X, in the sixteenth century, by Jamblicus, a platonic philosopher who lived in the fourth century, eleven hundred years be- fore Leo X, was destructive in the nature of dates; that this rite was never practiced at Alexandria nor at Cairo, as it pretended to be, etc., etc. ; that for these reasons this rite could not be admitted into the Grand Orient." ^ The Grand Orient having thus brought to public notice the irregular- ity of the powers claimed by the brothers Bedarride, the latter sought, as much as it was possible, to destroy the doubts thus engendered. Michael Bedarride had, on the 3d May, 1816, exhibited a document, signed by seven breth- ren, which detailed all the Masonic titles he had obtained; that is, the dates of his receipt of them in Italy ; but this document, though in it he was named "Superior Grand Conservator," gave him no legal power ; and to meet this contingency it was necessary to produce another document. This latter soon appeared, signed by thirteen brethren of the rite, and among them the Count De Grasse-Tilly, founder of the Supreme Council of the Scottish (33d) Eite at Paris, the Count Muraire, the Count Lallemand, the Duke of St. Aignan, the Chevalier Lacoste, etc. These brethren in this patent styled themsebes "Sovereign Grand Masters absolute of the Rite of Misraim," a title which had been conferred by Michael Bedarride, after he had or-
^ It is to be regretted that similar cogent reasons did not exclude, in 1862, the Rite of Memphis from admission into that body.
THE RITE OP MISRAIM. 189
ganized his Grand Council of ninety degrees ; and it was by virtue of the powers which this title conferred, and with which they had been invested by Michael Bedarride, that they, in their turn, by means of this patent, bestowed upon him the title and powers of Supreme Grand Con- servator of the Order for France.
The new patent which we have just mentioned was dated the 7th of September, 1817 ; but, unlike the other, it bore no mark of having been produced at Milan, and this fact somewhat invalidated its use at Paris ; nevertheless, as the brothers Bedarride had the whole world to operate m, this circumstance merely induced them to change slightly the field of their operations. In 1818, Joseph turned up at Brussels, and Michael in Holland. It would appear, however, that the means which they employed were not the most laudable ; for, upon the 18th of Ifovem- ber, 1818, the Prince Frederick, Grand Master of the N'etherland lodges, addressed a circular to all the lodges of that country, pointing out the brothers Bedarride, who by that time were running about the kingdom, as dishon- orable men, who, to attain their objects, had recourse to very reprehensible tricks and means unworthy of true Ma- sons, and which had already brought them into discredit at Paris. This circular wound up its charges with inter- dicting the exercise of the Rite of Misraim in all the lodges under his authority, and supported this interdiction with the reasons advanced by the Grand Orient of France on the 29th December, 1817, and which we have men- tioned.
S'otwithstanding these. prohibitions; notwithstanding all the difficulties which opposed them, the brothers Bedar- ride succeeded in establishing in Paris, besides the lodges " Rainbow" and " The Disciples of Zoroaster," four other lodges, namely, " The Twelve Tribes," " The Disciples of Misraim," "The Burning Bush," and "The Children of Apollo," all of which were in active operation toward the
190 GENERAL HISTORY OF FRBBMASONKT.
close of the year 1818. Tliis increaBe of lodges permitted them to give, on the 19th January, 1819, a brilliant feast of Adoption, which was presided over by the Count Mu- raire and the Countess of Fouchecourt. liTotwithstanding their seeming success, the brothers Bedarride were con- stantly at war with their own lodges, which complained of their administration and demanded an account of the funds. The brothers responded to these demands by ex- pelling the most clamorous of the claimants. It was thus that, by the decision of a self-styted Council, which the brothers Bedarride directed as they wished, bearing date the 15th August, the brethren Marie, Eichard, Chasseriau, Beaurepaire, Ragon, Mealet, and Joly were expelled from the rite. But this despotism but increased the indigna- tion. The lodge "Disciples of Zoroaster" separated itself from the Rite of Misraim by a unanimous decision, dated the 30th of April, 1819.
In the minutes of this occasion, and which this lodge published at the time, the motive for separation is thus ex- pressed :
1. — They had vainly called for the correction of many articles, contained in the general regulations, in conse- quence of their despotic and unsatisfactory character; and,
2. — The suppression of the word " absolute" in connec- tion with the title of " Sovereign Grand Master ;" as, " in the present century, such a distinction is a usurpation and an offense to free men."
3. — In nearly all of the general regulations the Grand Conservator has arrogated to himself powers as obscure as they are arbitrary.
4. — And, finally, according to a judgment of the tribunal of commerce of the Seine, the firm of Joseph Bedarride & Co., (the brothers Mark and Michael were the associates not named,) living in Moon street, at No. 37, was in a con- dition of open bankruptcy.
This proceeding was signed by the Worshipful Master
THE RITE OF MISRAIM. ' 191
and bj all the officers of the lodge, to the number of twenty. The supreme poweij confined itself to striking the Worshipful Master, and, by an edict dated 11th June, 1819, Dr. Ganal was expelled.
The mother lodge "Rainbow" also revolted against the administration of the Grand Conservators, which its" mem- bers unanimously declared to be most deplorable, and brought this declaration before the chiefs of the Order, in the hope that they would require the brothers Bedarride to render an account of the receipts and expenses.
In the position in which they found themselves, the brothers Bedarride could not satisfy the demands which were addressed to them in connection with the finances, because the revenues of all kinds which they received through their connection with the rite were necessary to pay their debts and support their personal expenses. They, in consequence, made use of their omnipotence to declare all the members of the lodge " Rainbow," who had taken part in the revolt against them, as disturbers of the peace of the Order ; and this done, they dissolved the lodge for the purpose of reconstructing it with more non-dissent- ing materials, and its president, the Count Lallemand, sharing the fortunes of the opposing members, by an edict of the Grand Council, of 7th July, 1810, was expelled.
It is necessary and proper here to state that the brothers Bedarride based their refusal to render an account of the revenues of the rite upon the statement that they had withdrawn but sufficient to cover the interest of the capi- tal which they pretended to have spent in organizing the rite in Paris, ' together with what they were properly eu' titled to for conducting the afiairs of the Order.
'To support this statement the brethren exhibited an account, which was dated the 11th June, 1818, for the sum of $550, incurred by them for engravings, cyphers, diplomas, etc., and indorsed as correct by — among other members of the General Council of the ninetieth degree — the Count Muraire.
192 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
The lodges founded, in 1818, in the Low Countries har- ing enjoyed but an ephemeral existence, the brothers Michael and Joseph Bedarride again withdrew from Paris, in 1820, to propagate their rite. They first appeared in England, from whence Michael went to the Low Countries and Joseph to Switzerland. In 1821 and 1822 they made other voyages into the departments of France, and about the close of the latter year they had organized twelve lodges, with several councils, all of which, like the |Brmer, lived but a short time.'
The progress made by the brothers Bedarride in the propagation of their rite, although slow, nevertheless dis- quieted the Grand Orient, and that authority labored to interrupt it. The circular edict already mentioned, with another, dated the, 21st December, 1821, not having ar- rested, either in Paris or in the provinces, the creation of Misraimite lodges, the Grand Orient continued to pro- nounce severely against the brethren who had embraced their cause. Thus, at the solstitial feast, celebrated the 24tli June, 1822, the brother Richard, orator of the Grand Orient — who, in 1817, had been advanced to the highest degrees of the Eite of Misraim, and consequently had taken a solemn oath,^ written by his own hand, of the most abso- lute fidelity to that Order, but who subsequently had been stricken from the list of members — made a long report against the system of the* brothers Bedarride, etc., and concluded by urging the Grand Orient to close the meet- ings of the Misraimites, as irregular, illicit, and dangerous, and to renew its edict of interdiction, enforcing compliance
' The author here gives the names and locations of these lodges, etc. ; but as they are all extinct, we believe our readers will not miss their omission. — Teanslatok.
'The author here gives a transcript of this oath; but as the transla- tion of this transcript would be offensive to members of the rite in America, and in nowise beneficial to those who are not, I respectfully suppress it. — Translator.
I
i^
^N
N,. ^
V
THB RITE OF MISKAIM. 193
with the same, under moat severe penalties, xn this report we find, among others equally severe, the following pas-
« * * * But toleration has a limit, the Grand Orient has duties to perforin, and longer silence to the call of such duties would render this legislative body amenable to the charge of com- plicity in the disorders which have distinguished the administra- tors of the Rite of Misraim. These men, who, investing them- selves with functions which they hold to be the most important of an Order thsit they proclaim superior to all Masonic rites, forgetful of their dignity, run over the departments of this kingdom,- armed with their ninety degrees, which they offer to all purchasers at any price and in the most public places, and thus, by their mysteri- ous forms, compromise the state, as also the security, honor, and even peace of our citizens, trouble the repose of the magistrates, awaken the attention of the authorities intrusted with the secu- rity of the state, and, above all, provoke such suspicions of their designs as cause them, in their travels from city to city, to be sometimes imprisoned : these are excesses committed by men call- ing themselves Masons, for which, it is true, they can not be im- peached, but for which they should be held up to the indignation of every worthy brother," etc., etc.
We believe that this report exaggerated facts m some of its particulars.
The report of this feast, including the protest of Brother Richard, was sent to all the lodges and even to the public authorities. The latter, desirous of assuring themselves of the truth or falsehood of these accusations of the Grand Orient, ordered the police to investigate the subject; and the latter, for this purpose, made a descent upon the dwell ing of the brother Mark Bedarride, on the 7th September, 1822 ; but a minute examination thereof elicited no charge, except a slight one under the terms of the penal code bear- ing upon persons assembling themselves together for secret purposes. For this the brother Bedarride and some others 13
194 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
I
held themselves to answer on the 18th January, 1823, and submitted to some small fine. The result, however, of the general dissemination among the lodges of the report of the feast, was to induce the authorities to close the lodges of the rite in Paris and those in the provinces, to the num- ber, in all, of seventeen ; and they remained in this condi- tion until 1831.
During this long period the brother Mark Bedarride re- mained unemployed. After the revolution of 1830, he sough.t for restoration to the military rank he had in 1814; but he failed in this object. From the Minister of the Interior, however, he -obtained permission to reopen the lodges of his rite.
From that auspicious moment the two brothers Mark and Michael Bedarride made strenuous efforts to avail themselves of the advantages of this permission. Their first act was to inform the partisans of the rite of the happy circumstances which once more allowed the lodges to resume their labors, and to demand that all the repre- sentatives of the rite assemble the divers classes of the Order, and forward a list of their members, accompanied by a gift of thirty cents for each brother, as a voluntary offering of dues for the years in arrear, or those during which the lodges had been closed.
The primary meetings of the old lodges took place at 'So. 41 St. Mary street, and the brothers Bedarride suc- ceeded in reconstructing, under their original names, the lodges "Rainbow," "Pyramids," and "Burning Bush." This reconstruction accomplished, the chiefs judged it nec- essaiy to prevent the attacks to which their administration had been subjected, and, for this purpose, convoking the brethren composing the General Council, they directed
THE BITE OF MlgRAIM. 195
the rocognitiou in their own favor of " an account for services, etc., amounting to $20,550. '
Thus the ficcount, which in 1818 was but $550, had been increased to $20,550, as well by the interest which had ac- crued upon the original sum as by the additional grants claimed, to the extent of $12,000, for administration of the affairs of an Order while its lodges were closed and its busi- ness totally suspended. As a set-off to this demandi, the sums received by the brothers Bedarride for fees and diplo- mas from 1816 to 1822, while the lodges were in operation, ought to have amounted to a very handsome figure, and they did, as they appeared in the cash-book of the brothers ; but the whole of this amount was absorbed, as further ap- peared by the same, in defraying the rent of lodge-rooms, etc., and all other necessary running expenses, for nineteen years.
To put an end to all further disputes upon the sub- ject, the chiefs of the rite prepared an oath to be admin- istered, sine qua non, to the. receipt of the higher degrees, by which every member taking such degrees obligated himself in language very enigmatical, but the real mean- ing of which was to never question in any manner, under penalty of being blotted from the list of honorable mem-
' This sum of $20,550 was made up in tlie following manner:
1. Amount of the obligation of 11th June, 1818 2,785 fr.37
17 years' interest at 5 per cent, per annum 2,324 fr. 93 — 5,060 fr. 30
2. Claim of 2,500 fr. per annum from the 25th
May, 1816, to 25th May, 1822— « years 15,000 00
6 years' interest at 5 per cent, per annum 4,600 00 — 19,500 00
8. Claim of 3,500 fr. per anntm, from the 27th
May, 1822, to 27th May, 1828—7 years 24,500 00
7 years' interest at 5 per cent, per annum 6,475 00 — 30,976 00
4. Claim of 5,000 fr. per annum, from the 27th
May, 1828, to the 27th May, 1835— 7 years 85,000 00
7 years' interest at 5 per cent, per annum 12,250 00 — 47,250 00
Total. 102,785 fr,8C
196 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMiSONRT.
bership, the accuracy of this account or the justness of its claims. ^
When this matter- was thus arranged, the Council made it conditional that the brothers Bedarride should render true accounts from that time of all their receipts and ex- penses, to the end that the excess of the former should be appropriated to the reduction of their account against the Order of Misraim, and the same be liquidated at as early a day as possible.
It is a sacred principle in Freemasonry that, with the exception of the office of Secretary of a lodge, or Grand Secretary of a Grand Lodge, all other offices are filled gra- tuitously and for the honor they confer upon the incum- bent. This being a fact well known, it is not difficult to decide, from what we have shown, that the charges made against the brothers Bedarride, of speculating with their rite, were not devoid of foundation.
N"othwithstanding the activity of the brothers Bedarride, theif rite has made but little progress since that time. It has but a sort of vegetating existence in Paris, and it is extinct every-where else in which they succeeded in plant- ing it. A great many eminent men, whose names figure upon the list of membership, have long since withdrawn from it, and others have died. They never did, in fact, take any active part in the labors of the rite, and the ma- jority of them had not even assisted at a single meeting of Misraimites : they had accepted the high degrees offered them simply because their pompous titles tickled their vanity. The brothers Bedarride had never expected to derive any advantage from conferring their degrees upon such men, except that which their names would afford in the propagation of their rite among strangers. When we look over the list of membership, published in 1822, we are
'Our author gives the text of this oath; but, for the reason already giren, I do not translate it. — Translator.
THE RITE OF MISRAIM. 197
astomslied to find thereon so great a number of distin- guished persons, and occupj-ing the highest social positions. Such of these brethren as belonged to the Supreme Coun- cil or the Grand Orient of France never allowed them- selves to be initiated into the fearful catalogue of the Eite of Misraim ; they confined themselves simply to the ac- ceptance of a diploma conferring upon them the rank of the ninetieth degree. ,
Many o? these brethren, if not all, resigned their posi- tion between 1817 and 1822, when the chiefs of the rite were attacked on all sides. After the revival of the rite in 1832 — thanks to the political changes which the revolu- tion of 1830 eflected in France — its chiefs were unable to enroll the names of important men, such as figured upon their register of 1822 ; even the meetings of the latter pe- riod were few a;nd insignificant. To remedy this failure, the brothers Bedarride resolved to hold a Grand Lodge of Adoption, which took place on the 25th August, 1838. The following passage of the discourse, addressed to the sisters and brethren present, will give our readers some idea of the arrogance of the language of their claims : "The Masonic Order of Misraim has this advantage over all other rites : it furnishes to the initiate scientific com- pensations which afford him an abstract knowledge of our Order." So far is this from the truth, that, it is believed, the meetings of the Misraimites are more devoid of any thing pertaining to science or philosophy than are those of any other rite. ISTotwithstanding all the pomp, magnifi- cence, and expense attending this exhibition of a " Grand Lodge of Adoption," it had not the least effect in forward- ing the fortunes of the Order.
If any questions were put to the brothers Bedarride upon the condition of the funds, they would reply that the supreme authority had no accounts to render to any per- son. If changes were desired in the general regulations, they replied that the regulations were unalterable, and all
198 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
the members had solemnly sworn to be governed by them. Should a brother publicly attempt to decipher the riddle which veiled their power, the chiefs would cry out that their authority was being questioned, and threaten the of- fender with arrest and trial. In 1839, the brother Terne- sien Leserne, advocate at the court of the king, having made some remarks in his lodge — ^the "Rainbow" — upon the administration of the chiefs of the rite, he was, by order of the supreme power of 3d January, 1840, ar*,igned for contumacy. In his defense, he published his accusations, under the title of "The Morality of the General Regu- lations and Administration of the Rite of Misraim." The brothers Bedarride endeavored to refute the charges contained therein, but their response served rather to con- firm than to destroy the accusations of the brother Tern- esien.
The adversaries of the Rite of Misraim, or, more prop- erly, those of the brothers Bedarride, rapidly increased. In an article in the " Globe," entitled "Archives of Ancient and Modern Initiations," in which the utility of Masonic decorations is questioned. Brother Juge, the senior editor, expresses himself thus : " This poor Rite of Misraim, which so piteously exhibits its distress in its slender report of lodges and members, and so audaciously parades its wealth of degrees — a wealth so excessive that it is not only un- known in all its fullness to the highest dignitaries, but even to its inventor, M. Bedarride, who has not the ability, I do not say to communicate all the degrees without read- ing from his manuscripts, but who can not recite without this help, and in the order in which they occur, even the names of his frightful vocabulary." — This article brought on, between the brothers Bedarride and the editor of the " Globe," a war which terminated very much to the disad- vantage of the former ; for the latter applied himself with so much ability to his task, in the last numbers of his paper for 1840, that he demonstrated to the intelligence of
THE RITE OF MISRAIM. 199
all that the Rite of Misraim was but "a miserable parody on Freemasonry, and the creation of a juggler."
The chiefs continued to impose upon their lodges the burden of an honor of $1,000 a year as the price of their administration; and, pretending that the receipts had gradually fallen off, so that now there were not enough to pay even the interest upon the obligation of 1835, they induced their ever-devoted Genera] Council .to make them a second letter of credit for the sum of $26,358, > dated the 20th of September, 1840, and bearing interest from that date.
After that time a treasurer controlled the receipts and the expenses, and in this manner the lodges were enabled to ascertain the excess of the former and apply it to the liquidation of this letter of credit. Thereafter the lodges assembled peaceably, and submitted to the despotic gov- ernment jof the supreme power; but the members gradu- ally diminished each year.
In the month of April, 1856, the brother Mark Bedar- ride died. His death effected no change in the situation of the rite, which pursued its unsteady course, affording nothing incidental worthy of E,ote.
A reproach of a very grave character had been ad- dressed to the chiefs of the Rite of Misraim, viz., that no acts of charity had ever been known to be performed by them, and in this respect they had failed to comply with the lirst duty of Freemasons. In 1851, a fact of this na- ture occasioned a new schism. A brother, an officer of the empire, possessed of all the high degrees of the rite, died
' This obligation was made up as follows :
1. Amount of the claim October 1, 1835 102,785 fr. 3(
2. For the direction of the Order for five years,
at 5,000 fr. a year, from 1835 to 1840 25,000 fr.
Five years interest at 5 per cent, per annum 1,250 — 26,250 00 8. Interest on the principal of 102,785 fr 2,757 70
131,793 fr. 00
200 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
in a hospital. Several brethren, desirous of defrajing'the expenses of bis funeral, and aiding his widow, who was in deep poverty, sought, the chief, Michael Bedarride, who responded to their request by saying, coldly, " The Order has no funds. All the receipts are absorbed in defraying necessary expenses, and in paying the interest due upon a etter of credit delivered to me by order of the General Council." The majority of the members, even those who possessed the eighty-seventh degree, had never heard of this obligation of the General Council, although they had signed the oath by which it was recognized. They were surprised, and, after some conference among themselves, they dele- gated one of their number to wait upon the chief, and pro- pose to him that if he would renounce his claim under this letter of credit, they would pay him four thousand francs a year. This proposition, as might be expected, was rejected with disdain by the Grand Conservator. Then, thirty-three members, led by the brother Boubee, re- solved to detach themselves from the Order, and to found another Masonic assembly professing the same rite. With this object they addressed, on the 22d of May, 1851, to the Minister of the Interior, a petition, and supported the same with the following reasons for separating themselves from what they styled " the supreme power of the Order of Mis- raim:" 1. — The facts we have mentioned. 2. — That the chiefs had prepared an oath guaranteeing the payment of a claim which was unknown to the petitioners, although they, by subscribing to such oath, became responsible for the payment of this claim. 3. — That by virtue of the ab- solute power with which he pretended that he was in- vested, the brother Michael Bedarride not only retained all the money received for initiations and degrees; but, con- trary to the regulations, conferred at his own residence all kinds of degrees upon whoever would pay him the money demanded for them. 4. — That ashamed to state they had been enslaved so long, they had given in their demission,
THE RITE OF MISEAIM. 201
and formed the design of founding a lodge under the title of " Grand Orient of the Valley of Egypt."
The prayer of the petition having been refused, the thirty- three dissenters conferred with the brother Youry, an officer of the Grand Orient of France and Wors'hipful Master of the lodge "Jerusalem of Constance," then suspended, and decided to reorganize this lodge, under the title of " Jerusa- lem of the Valley of Egypt." It was in this manner that the anti-masonic sentiments which animated the chief of the Rite of Misraim detached from that rite its valuable members and diminished the revenues of its jurisdiction.
The Lodge of Adoption, created from the foundation of the rite, very rarely gave any sign of life. It had been organized, we regret to say, with an entirely speculative object, which should have been repugnant to the feelings of the worthy and respectable ladies who, at the order of the brother Bedarride, filled its offices on certain occasions. The ladies who successively filled the office of Grand Mis- tress of this Lodge of Adoption are the respectable sisters Gabrielle Pernet, Courtois, Breano, Maxime, of the Theater Francais, and Block de Berthier.
The death of the brother Michael Bedarride, which took place on the 10th February, 1856, put an end to the lacera- tion of feelings endured for so long a time by the mem- bers who remained faithful to the rite. Feeling his end approaching, Michael Bedarride, by his will, dated the 1st January, 1856, created the brother Hayere' Grand Con- servator of the Order ; but, on the 24th January, he named him his representative, legatee, and successor, and, upon condition that he would pay his debts, placed in his hands the letter of credit of which we have spoken.
By a decree of the new supreme power, dated 27th March, 1856, it was decided that they would not leave, as
'Brother Hayere, a physician and chemist, was initiated into the Eite of Misraim on the 13th October, 1840, and created Grand Master of the ninetieth degree on the 11th June, 1855.
202 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
a charge upon the lodges of the E,ite of Misraim, a debt,* styled by Brother Hayere as " accursed," and which had caused so much perjury, seeing that, with the actual reve- nues of thirty years, it had not been extinguished. By the General Council this debt was then declared extinct, while that body, nevertheless, charged itself with the set- tlement of the debts, amounting to about $1,000, of the deceased chief. This decision, honorable in all its bear- ings, proves that true Masonic sentiments animated the brethren of the Rite of Misraim.
The lodges of Misraim, thus discharged from a debt amounting to $15,589, and a yearly tax of $1,000, were made easy in their finances, and their receipts enabled them in a few years to pay the debt of their chief, and re- imburse gradually Brother Hayere the advances made by him, with a generous disinterestedness upon this debt, to the most pressing creditors.
The new chief strove, as much as possible, to meet all the exigences, abolish the abuses, and introduce reforms. None of the numerous complaints made against the ad- ministration of his predecessor were heard, and the loyal character of Brother Hayere guarantee us in believing they will never be renewed so long as he controls the ad- ministration of the rite.
But no effort that can be put forth by the new chief can long arrest the certain dissolution of this Order. The germs of its mortality are borne within its bosom; and when it shall descend, like its brother rite of Memphis, to the tomb, nothing but its total regeneration can ever rec- ommend it to the Masonic Fraternity.
' The debt as recognized by the last letter of credit, amounting, in the month of September, 1840, to $26,358, was found, at the death of Michael Bedarride, by the excess of receipts which had been applied by the treasurer to its liquidation, and credited by M. Bedarride, to be reduced to $15,589.
A CONCISE HISTORY
RITE OF MEMPHIS,
SINCE ITS CREATION, IN 1838, TO ITS FUSION WITH THE QBAND ORIENT OF FRANCE, IN 1862.
The Kite of Memphis, next to that of Misraim, is the most recent creation of Masonry. Its author is the brother Marconis de I^Tegre, who has copied it from the Eite of Misraim, to which it principally belongs.
In a book entitled " The Sanctuary of Memphis," the brother Marconis, who 'therein discovers himself as the creator of this rite, briefly touches up its history as fol- lows:
" The Eite of Memphis, or Oriental Eite, was carried to Europe by Ormes, seraphic priest of Alexandria and Egyptian sage, who was converted by St. Mark, in the year 46 of Jesus Christ, and who purified the doctrine of the Egyptians according to the prin- ciples of Christianity. .
" The disciples of Ormes remained until 1118 sole possessors of the ancient wisdom of Egypt, purified by Christianity and the science of Solomon. This science having been communicated to the Templars, they were then known as Knights of Palestine, or Rose- Cross Brothers of the East. It is the latter who may be re- cognized as the immediate founders of the Eite of Memphis." * *
" The Masonic Eite of Memphis is the continuation of the mys- teries of antiquity. It taught the first men +o render homage to
(203)
20 i GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
the divine principle ; its dogmas repose upon the principles of the human race ; its mission the study of wisdom, which seeks to dis- cover the secrets of nature. It is the heatific aurora of the devel- opment of reason and intelligence ; it is the worship of the hest qualities of the human heart and suppression of its vices ; it is, finally, the echo of religious tolerance, the union of all beliefs, the bond that unites humanity, the symbol of the happy illusions of hope, preaching faith in Grod, who preserves, and charity, which blesses."
As will be seen, from what we have quoted, this rite has all the pretension possible to be claimed for it, in giving it to us as the continuation of the mysteries of antiquity, and more than was ever claimed for any condition of Freema- sonry. Ifevertheless, its founder is the first to contradict his preachings by his practice ; for one of the principal du- ties of his adepts consists in being always truthful. Hia boot — which is but a frame-work of absurdities invented by himself with the object of deceiving the credulous — ^will, in the passages quoted and in the following, prove this :
" The Rite of Memphis is the only depository of high Masonry, the true primitive rite, the rite par excellence. It has come down to us without alteration, and, consequently, is the only rite justified by its origin, by its constant exercise of all its rights, and by its constitutions, which it is impossible to revoke or doubt their au- thenticity. The Rite of Memphis, or Oriental Rite, is the true Masonic tree, and all the Masonic systems, such as they are, are nothing but the branches detached from this respectable and highly antique institution, whose birth took place in Egypt — the real depot of the principles of Masonry, written in Chaldean, and preserved, in the venerated ark of the Rite of Memphis, in th« Grand Lodge of Scotland, at Edinburgh, and in the convent of the Maronites, on Mount Lebanon."
To this extract we subjoin the first article of the organic statutes, and by which we may judge the remainder:
THE RITE OF MEMPHIS. 205
"Brother Marconis de Negre, the Grand Hierophant, is the ordy sabred depositary of the traditions of this Sublime Order."
After that it would be superfluous to ask what are the constitutions " which it is impossible to revoke, or doubt their authenticity ;" or what are these precious documents, "written in the Chaldean language, and preserved in the venerated ark of the Kite of Memphis," etc. "With those in the Grand Lodge of Scotland and in the convent on Mount Lebanon, it is simply necessary to say that, like those upon which the Supreme Council for France was founded, they never existed.
It is ever thus the same language, the same tactics are employed, by the inventors of rites, wherewith, duiing the last century and a half, to delude their proselytes.
Concerning the introduction of this rite into France, the brother Marconis de Negre, and, after him, some of his credulous adepts, recounted that the brother Honis, a na- tive of Cairo, had brought it from Egypt in 1814, (but without saying by whom it had been there communicated to him,) and had, with the father of Brother Marconis de N'egre, (the brother Gabriel-Mathew Marconis,) Baron Dumas, and the Marquis de la Roque, founded a lodge of this rite at Montauban, on the 30th April, 1815 ; that this lodge had been closed on the 7th March, 1816, (they did not say why,) and that, in consequence, the archives had been confided to the father of Marconis de !N"egre, named (they did not say by whom) Grand Hierophant of the Order, or, otherwise. Grand Master.
The incorrectness of these assertions is easily demon- strated. Brother James Stephen Marconis was initiated dt Paris into the rite of Memphis on the 21st of April, 1833. He was then twenty-seven years of age. He re- ceived on that day thirteen degrees; for the ladder of Misraim is quickly mounted. In consequence of the com- plaints made against him by some of his brethren, he was expelled on the 27th June, 1833. He shortly afterward
206 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
quitted Paris and went to Lyons, where, under the name of I>regre, he founded a lodge of the Rite of Misraim, under the style of " Good "Will," and of which he was the presi- dent. While occupying this position, he was elevated to the sixty-sixth degree by the brothers Bedarride, who were not aware that Brother Negre and Brother J. S. Marconis were one and the same person. In consequence of some new complaints addressed to the brothers Bedarride, as chiefs of the rite, by the brethren at Lyons, Brother Mar- conis was again expelled, under the new name of Negre, on the 27th May, 1838.
After this latter expulsion, having no hope of again being able to play any part either in the Rite of Misraim or any other rite then practiced, and feeling conscious that he possessed much more capacity to direct a lodge, or even a rite, than the brothers Bedarride, he did as was done by Lechangeur of Milan, and by the five Israelites at Charles- ton— he created a Masonic power.
The ladder of Misraim, as fabricated by Lechangeur, and augmented by the addition of a few more rounds, gave him his Rite of Memphis with but little labor. The work finished, he constituted himself its chief. To give his rite an origin and a history was not diflicult. In this depart- ment he exhibited, however, more respect for the opinions of mankind, and the good sense of the Fraternity, than did the brother Michael Bedarride, who, in his history of the " Order of Misraim," was not content, as Lechangeur had been, with stating that this Order was the work of a king of Egypt named Misraim, but went much further for its origin, even to God himself. Brother Marconis dated his rite from but the commencement of the Christian era. By this exhibition of modesty he probably expected to disarm inquiry, convert the credulous and religiously disposed, and inspire them with faith in the "precious documents written in the Chaldeaji language," which he announced were to be found in the "venerated ark of the Rite of
THE RITE OF MEMPHIS. 207
Memphis," whenever he would think proper to exhibit those documents to their admiring gaze.
As Brother Marconis was much the superior, both in education and talents, of the fabricator of the Hite of Misraim, he found it very easy to vary the degrees of that rite, change their names, and give them a signification sufficiently different to destroy the identity of their origin.
To give the reader an idea of the extravagance of this creatiion, we will present here an extract from the constitu- tion of the Rite of Memphis :
" The Rite of Memphis is regulated by five Supreme Councils, viz. : 1. The Sapctuary of the Patriarchs, Grand Conservators of the Order. 2. The Mystic Temple of Sovereign Princes of Memphis. 3. The Sovereign General Grand Council of Grand Regulating Inspectors of the Order. 4. The Grand Liturgical College of Sublime Interpreters of Masonic Sciences and Hieroglyphics. 5. The Supreme Grand Tribunal of Protectors of the Order.
" The Sanctuary is divided into three sections, viz. : 1. The Mystic Section, in which reposes the venerated ark of the tradi- tions. 2. The Emblematic, Scientific, and I'hilosophic Sections ; and, 3. The Governing Section.
" The Mystic Section, in which are to be found the traditions, rituals, documents, instructions, and general archives, etc., is com- posed of the Grand Hierophant and his organ.
'iThe Emblematic, Scientific, and Philosophic Section is com- posed of seven lights, viz. : 1. The Grand Hierophant, Sublime Master of Light, . (Brother Marconis.) 2. The organ of the Grand Hierophant. 3. The Grand Master, President of the Sanctuary, (particular executive of the Order.) 4. The Grand Master, President of the Mystic Temple (general executive.) 5. The Grand Master, President of the Sovereign Grand General Council. 6. The Grand Master, President of the Grand Liturgi- cal College. 7. The Grand Master, President of the Supreme Grand Tribunal.
" This Section exercises no authority in the government of the Order, its action being purely doctrinal and magist-jrial."
208 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
It might be readily believed that such an organizatiou as the above might be sufficient to regulate the affairs of an Asian or African Empire, comprising millions of human beings. Ridicule will, therefore, be pushed to its utmost when it is known that this formidable construction was organized to govern an association of men who are believed to be devoted to the development of their reason and in- telligence, and to the study of wisdom.
After having completed the rituals of his rite, in 1838, Brother Marconis presented himself in Belgium as the suc- cessor of his father in the high office of Grand Hierophant, and entered into some negotiations to establish his rite. He then returned to Paris, where, under the name of Mar- conis Letuillart, he succeeded in enrolling some isolated brethren, and, with them, organizing a lodge which he named " Disciples of Memphis ;" and, on the 2"d March, 1838, he organized a Grand Lodge, under the title of " Osiris," to which was intrusted the direction of all the operative lodges which he hoped he might establish. On the 23d May, 1839, he organized a chapter of " Philadel- phics," and on the 29th February, 1840, the lodge " Sages of Heliopolis."
On the 7th April, 1839, he published his organic stat- utes, and organized two lodges in Brussels.
Immediately following the organization of his first lodge in Paris, the brothers Bedarride wrote the prefect of police, informing that officer that Brother Marconis had been twice expelled, for malfeasance, from the Rite of Misraim, and requesting that he be prohibited from en- gaging in Masonic labors thereafter in that city. The pre- . feet not having immediately complied with their demand, on the 2d November they issued a circular, warning'their lodges and councils against Brother Marconis, and stating the reasons of his duplicate expulsion. Thereupon the police visited the lodges organized by Brother Marconis ; but it was not until the 17th May, 1840, that permission to
THE BITE OF MEMPHIS. 209
asseitoble their membership was refused him ; and, without any reason being assigned, those lodges had to suspend their meetings.
From that time Brother Marconis devoted his attention to Masonic literature. '
Favored Jay the political events of 1848, Brother Marco uis labored to revive his lodges in Paris, and succeeded in reorganizing, in 1849, three of them, and afterward a coun oil and chapter ; but the lodges which he had established in Belgium refused resurrection.^
During the short time Brother Marconis de Negre — ^for it is under this name he is best known — ^maintained his lodges in activity, he followed the example of the brothers Bedarride, and obtained adherents among the members of the Grand Orient and the Supreme Council, who, although remaining attached to these bodies, accepted of him diplo- mas conferring upon them the high degrees of Memphis.
Finding that his rite was not obtaining any consistence at Paris, Brother Marconis repaired, in 1850, to London, in the hope there to find some person disposed to accept its distinctions; and, not without considerable effort, he succeeded in establishing a lodge, under the title of " The Sectarians of Menes," which was instituted on the 16th July, 1851, and which was charged with the responsibili- ties of a Supreme Council for the British isles. Brother
'The principal works published by Brother Marconis (de Negre) are: "The Sanctuary of Memphis," "The Hierophant," "The Mystic Sun," " The Mystic Temple," and " The Masonic Pantheon." As explanatory oi the symbols and principles of Masonry, these works have undisputo- ble value; but as history they are worthless, being principally drawn from the imagination of their author.
^In common with all other fabricators of rites, Brother Marconis sold, to all who offered to buy them, his constitutions with which to establish lodges, chapters, councils, grand lodges, etc. It was by these constitu- tions, and in this manner, that his rite was made known and established at a few points on the continent of Europe, and in New York. 14
210 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
J. P. Berjean was nominated Grand Master of it, and rep- resentative of the Grand Hierophant.
The accuBations which, in 1850, dissolved the new ISa- tional Grand Lodge of France, equally affected the lodges of the Rite of Memphis, and, for a second time, caused their suspension. Hence, Brother Marconis, finding his Masonic activity completely paralyzed in France, was, in a manner, forced to transmit the government of his rite to the lodge at London, as the principal authority extant; and, on the 30th E"ovember, 1853, in accordance with this arrangement. Brother J. P. Berjean was solemnly installed "Grand Master of Light" of the new mystic temple and General Grand Council, and, at the same time, as organ of the Grand Hierophant.
Starting with but thirty members, the labors of these were sufficiently arduous, when devoted to the administra- tion of so extensive a form of government as the rite of Brother Marconis required; but this Grand Lodge soon found its ranks freely recruited from among the political refugees who, about this time, sought England as a place of safety. Such a class, however, possessed few of the ele- ments suitable to harmoniously carry on the work of the rite, and it was soon found necessary to dissolve the lodge : Brother Marconis himself considering it prudent to an- nounce that he had retired from all participation in its la- bors, and, consequently, that he declined all responsibility for its actions.
These circumstances, so little conducive to the success of the Rite of Memphis, induced Brother Marconis, by the aid of the author of this work, to propose, in 1852, to the Grand Orient, its affiliation of the lodges of Memphis. This proposition being refused. Brother Marconis there- upon ceased all further effort on behalf of the lodges of his rite, and confined his labors to the publication of his many Masonic books.
Having for some time meditated a voyage to America,
THE EITB OF MEMPHIS. 211
Brother Marconis de Negre, in 1860, embarked for that country, and, on the 14th July of that year, organized at Troy, in the State of Few York, a lodge, under the title of " Disciples of Memphis," and of which Brother Durand, a professor of languages, was nominated Grand Master.
After the publication of the circular of the 30th April 1862, addressed by the Grand Master, Marshal Magnan, to the dissenting Masons of France, Brother Marconis solicited, in the name of one of his suspended lodgesj (the "Sectarians of Menes,") his affiliation with the .Grand Orient of France. This request was complied with, and, on the 18th October, 1862, this lodge was formally installed by commissioners appointed for that purpose by the Grand Orient. Oa the 30th December following, a similar action took place with the lodge " Disciples of Memphis."
Thus despoiled of its government, its councils, and of all its peculiar attributes, the Rite of Memphis finds itself transformed into, at best, the Scottish Rite, as recogni^ied by the Grand Orient ; and yet, by a strange anomaly, the lodges which we have named have been permitted to re- tain the name of practicing the Rite of Memphis. Other- wise, for the honor of Masonry, we consider the work of Brother Marconis extinct in France, and we trust that wherever else it exists it may shortly be consigned to the tomb of its race.
A CONCISE HISTORY
ORIGIN OF ALL THE RITES FOR HIGH DEGREES,
INTRODUCED INTO FREEMASONRY FROM 1736 TO THE PRESENT TIME.
Freemasonry, after its transformation at London, io 1717, from a partly mechanical and partly philosophical institution to one purely moral and philosophic, retained the three traditional degrees of Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason ; and all the lodges organized since that time, as well by the Grand Lodge of London as by the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland, have been so constituted, and have never conferred any other than the three sym- bolic degrees above named, and which constitute the Rite of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of England — the only true traditional Masonry.
It was not until the partisans of the Stuarts had come to France, in the suite of the- Pretender, that English Masonry wa« denaturalized by them, and used as a cloak to cover their revolutionary projects.
The desire to restore the. family of the Stuarts to the throne of England, and thus to favor the interests of Roman Catholicism, suggested to the partisans of that family and those interests the idea of forming secret asso- ciations, by which to carry out their plans; and it was with this object that tbey obtained entrance into the Ma- sonic lodges on the continent. (212)
ORISIN OF ALL THE RITES FOR HIGH DEGREES. 213
They commenced in France, through the agency of one of their most eminent emissaries, the Doctor, Baron of Ramsay,' to spread a rite of five degrees which they had vainly endeavored to make acceptable in London. This Doctor or Baron of Ramsay, between the years 1736 and 1738, augmented this rite by the addition of two degrees and then called it " Scottish," because, as he maintained, it proceeded from a powerful Masonic authority in Scot- land. He delivered to the proselytes, whom he had known himself to have made in France, personal consti- tutions or patents, emanating from a self-styled chapter of Masons sitting at Edinburgh. This chapter was composed of partisans of the Stuarts, who had constituted them-, selves into a Masonic authority before the Grand Lodge of Scotland existed, with the sole object of forwarding the projects of the uncrowned princes. ' According to the Baron of Ramsay, and other emissaries, this chapter alone possessed the true science of Masonry, which science, as
' Baron Ramsay was converted to the Roman Catholic religion by Fenelon, and afterward became preceptor at Rome to the son of the dethroned king, James III. He came to France in 1728. After having failed in London in his attempt to organize, in the interests of the Stuarts, a new Masonry calculated to annihilate the influence of the Grand Lodge of London, he addressed himself to a like work in France, and presented himself in Paris, furnished with powers from a Masonic authority represented to be sitting at Edinburgh. It was not until about 1736 that he appears to have succeeded in establishing in some lodges his political system.
It is true that Lord Derwentwater, and also Lord Harnwester, who succeeded each other as the first Grand Masters of the Provincial Grand Lodge of France, were also partisans of the Stuarts ; but they do not appear to have been initiated into the revolutionary projects of the Jesuits, as was Doctor Ramsay ; for it was not until after their departur for England — where both perished on the scaffold, victims of their at- tachment to the Pretender— that Baron Ramsay introduced his system among the lodges. While Lord Derwentwater was Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge of France, in 1729, Baron Ramsay filled the oflBce of orator. He died in 1743, aged fifty-seven, at St. Germain-en- Lay*
214 GENERAL HISTORY OP FREEMASONRY.
was apparent from the history of it which they had es- tablished, had been created by Godfrey de Bouillon. "We have no account of any of the chapters founded by Baron Ramsay, and they do not appear to have been of much importance ; but, in 1743, another partisan of the Stuarts founded at Marseilles a lodge of " St. John of Scotland," with eighteen degrees, which subsequently took the title of Scottish Mother Lodge of France, and constituted many lodges in Provence, and even some in the Levant. An- other system, probably Ramsay's, was established at Lyons by a partisan of the Stuarts, and afterwards worked by the Jesuits.
It was not, however, until after Charles Edward Stuart, born at Rome, the son of the Pretender, had been ini- tiated, and had founded, by a charter granted by himself, as patron, a chapter of high degrees at Arras, in 1747, under the title of " Scottish Jacobite Masonry," that the lodges to which were attached high degrees increased in Prance. At Toulouse, in 1748, an attache of the Pre- tender, named Lockhart, organized a chapter which prac- ticed a rite of nine degrees, under the name of " Faithful Scots." In 1766 another adherent constituted the mother lodge of the county Venaissin, in Avignon, which, in its turn, in 1776, organized the " Grand Lodge of the Philo- sophic Rite in Paris," and then united itself with that Grand Lodge.
Another partisan of the Stuarts, the Chevalier Bonne- ville, one of the most zealous emissaries of the Jesuits — under the patronage of the Chapter of Clermont, which was, in 1754, created by the Jesuits of the College (Con- vent) of Clermont' — organized several chapters, and which, for the purpose of more fully working this system of Ma- sonry, they installed in a magnificent locality, outside the walls of Paris, called New France. In 1756, these chap-
' It was in this college that the Pretender lived for many years.
ORiaiN OF ALL THE KITES EOR HIGH DBGKEBS. 215
ters elaborated a new Masonic system, which they styled "Strict Observance" — an arrangement which has been wrongly attributed to the Chevalier Bonneville, ho being, with others, nothing more than one of its most zealous propagators in Prance, while a person named Stark acted in a like capacity in Germany, between 1756 and 1758.
An extravagant and ambitious man named Pirlet, the presiding officer of a lodge in Paris, and who had recog- nized the true authorship of these new Masonic systems, sought their injury, if not destruction, by the creation of an opposing system. For this purpose, in 1757, by the aid of some Masons to whom he imparted his knowledge, he created a chapter of "Knights of the East." IfTot meeting with the success he had expected, he concluded to accept the office of propagator of a new rite elaborated by the Jesuits at Lyons, with a scale of twenty-five degrees, and to which was given the pompous title of "Emperors of the East and West, Sovereign Prince Masons." The propagators of this rite announced to their proselytes that it was the most elevated of all Masonry practiced in the East, and from whence it had been imported to France. This was the rite subsequently called " Perfection, or Har- odom." Pirlet, directed secretly by the Jesuits, who were not seen in the management, gave, like all the propaga- tors, inventors, and importers of rites, who make of them a species of property, a fabulous origin to this new rite ; and several officers and members of the Grand Lodge of Prance were initiated, though bound by an oath, under its constitution, not to recognize any degrees as Masonic ex- cept those of their Grand Lodge, which consisted of the three symbolic degrees alone. These initiates became officers of the "Council of Emperors of the East and West, Sovereign Prince Masons ;" and it was this council that, in 1761, delivered to Stephen Morin a patent where- with to enable him to propagate the rite in America. This Rite of Perfection, of twenty -five degrees, was propagated
216 GENERAL HISTOaT OF PBEEMASONRT.
in Germany by tlie officers of the army of Broglie. bul more particularly by the Marquis of Berny, a French gen- tleman, and his deputy Eosa, a Lutheran priest, who in a short time organized seventeen lodges of the rite in the States-general, or parliament of the country. This rite infiltrated itself, in this manner, into the Grand Lodge at the Three Globes in Berlin ; and when the king, Freder- ick the Great, who had been Grand Master of this lodge from 1744 to 1747, was advised of this fact by one of the officers of the lodge, his minister of war, he was so en- raged that he manifested his discontent by a great oath. Many of the Grand Lodges of Germany, and those of Hamburg and Switzerland more particularly, who for a long time resisted the admission of these innovations, closed and became dissolved after the high degrees had insinuated themselves among and into their constituent lodges. But these degrees were not always so successful in their object to destroy primitive Masonry; for as soon as, by pushing inquiry, it was found from whence they had emanated, and their source discovered to be impure, they fell into disrepute and contempt.
It was thus that this Rite of Perfection became unpopu- lar in Paris in 1780, and unable to sustain itself, and its membership obliged to unite their scattered fragments into a chapter of " Knights of the East" — the rite created by Pirlet. lifotwithstanding this union, however, so low had the reputation of the possessors of these degrees fallen, that they were forced to recruit their ranks and the mem- bership of this chapter from among any persons who could pay them thp price of their degrees. Such action, per- sisted in, caused the death of this chapter, but not with- out leaving some unhappy traces of its labors ; for while some of its members endeavored to organize a General Grand Chapter of the Rite of Perfection for France, others became discontented, discordant, and, in this condition of mind, became willing assistants of De Grasse-Tilly, who,
ORIGIN OF ALL THE RITES FOR HIGH DEGREES. 217
in 1804, arrived in Paris from St. Domingo, bearing a patent from a Supreme Council sitting at Charleston, em- powering him to organize a council of a rite of thirty-three degrees, and, by the aid of such malcontents, he did or- ganize the Grand Inspectors General of the 33d and last degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Eite."
It will be easily perceived that, at an early stage of its popularity, the Jesuits found Freemasonry an institution they would have to use or destroy. Finding it impossible to use it, they concluded to destroy it ; and to do so, 'they adopted the plan of inventing and propagating rites and high degrees calculated to confuse a correct knowledge of its history, and create discords and dissatisfaction among Its members. As creators of these rites and degrees, they freely, through their partisans and emissaries, disposed of patents and constitutions which empowered the holders not only to organize bodies of men whom they might initiate into these degrees, but to sell to any person so initiated other patents and constitutions empowering them to do the same. In this manner the very object desired by these Jesuitical inventors was attained in a multiplied result ; for a rivalry sprang up between these opposite authorities, who soon found that the best recommendation for their wares was an increase in their variety; and to give such variety it was necessary to fabricate additional degrees and additional rites, which they might offer, as something entirely new, to satisfy the eager appetite ex- hibited, and which they appeased in restaurants and tav- erns, and wherever they could find a purchaser. By ref- erence to our history of Freemasonry in France about this time, (1736 to 1772,) the reader will perceive how com- pletely the object desired by the Jesuits was effected. "Confusion worse confounded" reigned among the Fra- ternity— false titles, antedated constitutions, charges of fraud well sustained, and even exhibitions of violence,
218 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
characterized the Masonic institution, and the civil gov- ernment had to interfere to prevent worse results. It was during this period that there might be seen systems called Masonic and new degrees bursting almost daily into the light — systems incoherent, crude, and unfledged, having nothing to recommend them save their very .dreamy or mystical tendency — the work of fabricators, who cared for 'no vow or obligation, but sought only to dispose of their trumpery and valueless commodities.
These combinations, the work of such impostors and political hucksters, produced, in about twenty years, such a result of doubt and imcertainty, that scarcely any one . could determine which of the numerous pretending bodies was the true or legitimate Masonic authority in France. Yet, notwithstanding the confusion they had thus created, the Jesuits had accomplished but one of their designs, viz., denaturalizing and bringing into disrepute the Masonic institution. Having succeeded, as they believed, in de- stroying it in one form, they were determined to use it in another.
With this determination they arranged the system styled " Clerkship of the Templars," an amalgamation of the difi'erent histories, events, and characteristics of the cru- sades, mixed with the reveries of the alchemists. In this combination Catholicism governed all, and the whole fab- rication moved upon wheels representing the great object for which the " Society of Jesus" was organized. The emissaries, De Bonneville, in France, and Professor Harck, in Germany, were immediately engaged in the dissemina- tion of this system ; but, in consequence of the very condi- tion of disrepute then enjoyed by Masonry in that country, the emissary for France had little if any success.
With their knowledge of the human heart, the Jesuits brought into this system a series of inferior degrees proper to engage the curiosity of the neophyte, and assure them-
ORIGIN OF ALL THE RITES FOR HIGH DEGREES. 219
selves of his unlimited obedience. Beyond all else, this condition of unlimited obedience was always exacted be- fore the advancement promised to the new revelations of yet higher degrees was accorded. In this manner were the brethren decoyed away from the pure and simple doc- trine of English Freemasonry, to throw their aid and in fluence into the object of enlarging Jesuitical influence, bj the hope of gaining ten degrees of exaltation above their fellows. In order further to assure themselves of the faith of their adepts, and to strike deeper the roots of that faith into the soil of their spirits, the doctrine of obedience to unknown superiors was advanced, and the chiefs directed to . communicate the real plans to none but those whom they should initiate into the last and highest degree of the system.
As the monastic institution and ecclesiastic tendency of this false Masonry could not adapt itself to the feelings of all whom they desired to influence, they next resolved to create another association, much more extended, and which would be susceptible of establishment in Protestant countries. The project succeeded better than any or all the others. It was this system styled " Strict Observance" that, originating, like all the others created by the Jesuits, in their College of Clermont at Paris, was transported to Germany, and there propagated by the Baron of Hund, and other emissaries, instruments of the Jesuits, but igno- rant of being such. The fundamental belief connected with this system, as entertained by those propagators, was, that "the Masonic fraternity is nothing but a continuation of the Order of Knights Templar, propagated by members of this Order while sheltered from persecution in the fast- nesses of Scotland." Otherwise the propagators of this system held forth to and indulged their proselytes in the dangerous hope of gaining possession of the riches and property of the Order of Knights Templar, confiscated by
220 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
Philip the Fair and his abettors, after the execution of Jacques de Molay.
To have the system correspond, as much as possible, with its hierarchical object, the country over which they expected their Order to reign was divided into nine prov- inces, viz. : 1. Lower Germany, consisting of Poland and Prussia; 2. Auvergne; 3. "Western France; 4. Italy and Greece; 5. Burgundy and Switzerland; 6. Upper Ger- many; 7. Austria and Lombajrdy; 8. Russia; and 9. Sweden.
The governing Grand Lodge of the system was estab- lished at Brunswick, and was to be ostensibly directed by the Duke of Brunswick, but who really was but the mouth-piece of the " unknown superiors." Each province had its heermeister, or general, a provincial chapter, many priories, prefectures, and commaijderies — names and estab- lishments belonging to the Ancient Order of Knights Templar; while the three degrees of St. John uniformly comprised the Freemasonry, properly so called, of the lodges governed by a Meister vom Stuhl, or Worshipful Master, and six officers.
The system of " Strict Observance " was so called because of the severe monastic subordination which it enjoined, in contradistinction with the liberal system of English origin, styled " Observance at Large ;" and, under the notorious nonsense of alchemy, mysticism, and the mysteries of the Rose Cross, which were by its members professed, this " Strict Observance " system for a long time hid the secret intentions and objects of its unknown chiefs. In Ger- many, however, both clerical and secular systems remained under secret direction until 1772, when dissatisfaction and dissensions having taken place, the King of Prussia or- dered the union of the two systems, and, after 1767, the clerical system had place but in the seventh province, viz., Austria and Lombardy.
The excessive extravagance of enthusiasm with which
ORIGIN OF ALL THE BITES JOE HiaH DESEEES. 221
tile Templar system was regarded speedily abated, as soon as the unknown superiors were identified. Suspicion en- gendered investigation, and investigation elicited the fact that these " unknown superiors " were no other than lead- ing Jesuits and partisans of the Stuart interest. Up to this time the Baron of Hund himself seems to have been a victim of the general deception.
Thereafter the Jesuits, unmasked in the persons of their chiefs, and deceived in their hopes, appear to have retired from the field ; for we hear no more about the " unknown superiors." It was then that the investigation began to be seriously directed to the consideration of how far this " Strict Observance " system departed from the spirit and principles of the lodges working under the system of the Grand Lodge of England, and which latter had .been con- temptuously represented by the Jesuits as the bastard oflfepring of the working corporations of the middle ages. This investigation was not confined to Germany, but ex- tended throughout the country occupied by the Templar systems. The general inquiry seemed to be whether these systems were charged with any abstract science, or any doctrines, of a purely moral or secret character, relating to art, history, or to the sciences generally. The French Templar lodges met at Lyons, in 1778, in a convent, and undertook the total revision of their system, from which resulted a ilew plan of constitution. This advance move- ment gave an impulse to the German lodges, and induced them, in their turn, to examine the entire Templar system, and to manifest a disposition to return to the Masonry of England, in case their investigation should develop the improper tendencies of which this hierarchical system had been accused.
The Duke Ferdinand -of Brunswick, who, in 1772, was chosen General Grand Master of all the " Strict Observ- ance " lodges, seriously occupied himself with this investi- gation ; and, for this purpose, having called, in 1772, the
222 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
Congress of Kohio, and, in 1775, that at Brunswick, with- out eliciting any satisfactory result, he yielded to the views expressed by many German lodges, and, in 1782, convoked a third, congress at "Wilhelmsbad, to which he invited all the Freemasons of Europe.
The first assembly of this congress took place on the 16th July, 1782. All the Grand officers of all the prov- inces of the Templar system, and delegates from all their lodges were present, as also many delegates of other rites then extant in Germany and France. After thirty sit- tings, none of the questions upon the origin, doctrines, etc.,' had been resolved in a satisfactory manner; when, finally, upon the proposition of the French delegates of the Templar system, from the province of Burgundy, the views of .the congress were thus expressed :
" Modern Freemasons are not only not the true success- ors of the Knights Templar, but, as worthy recipients of the three symbolic degrees, they can not he."
l^otwithstanding this decision, however, the assembly decided that a lecture, giving a synopsis of the history of the Templar Order, should be added to, and incorporated with, the last degree of symbolic Freemasonry.
We should have remarked that the exterior organization of the Templar system, which established union and har- mony among the parts of this system, was worked with care, and conformably to a vast plan. The interior ties, founded upon the position of the employes and the pre- rogatives of the chapters, composed a powerful band. The whole might be assimilated to a system of nerves extend- ing from a central organ of life — ^which, in this case, was the convent of Clermont — to the most distaht periphery of the organism, to communicate movement to all parts of the body, and to bring up to a general and common con- science, as it were, the impressions received, and the ob- — ^
See these questions in the historical notice of Masonic conventions.
OKIGIN OF ALL THE BITES FOR HIGH DEGREES. 223
servations made, by each part, wherever situated, outside of the great center.
After the congress of Wilhelmsbad had changed the Templar system, they baptized their modification of it with the name of " Refined Scottish Rite," a name as improper, however, as that which it displaced. At first, this new rite was not adopted but by the lodges of the province of Burgundy, and it was not until after the lapse of some years that it extended elsewhere. Many of the German operative lodges, and even several grand lodges, aban- doned completely the system of high degrees, and returned, in great part, to the simple forms of English Masonry. The Provincial Grand Lodges of Frankfort and of Wet^ilar^ who created the Eclectic Rite, of three degrees, were the only Grand Lodges which radically adopted the reform, all the other Grand Lodges having retained some frag- ments of the high degrees. In this manner, the system of "Strict of Observance" or " Templar System," transformed to the " Refined Scottish Rite," existed for a long time in Germany and France, under the name of Scottish Ma- sonry, with a more or less number of degrees constituting the rite, and there may be found at the present day some lodges, in Belgium still practicing it.
In France, neither the National Grand Lodge nor the Grand Orient were successful in striving with the high degrees, which they had both anathematized, seeing that neither of these grand bodies practiced but the three sym- bolic degrees. The Grand Lodge always remained faith- ful to its principles; but the Grajid Orient, on the con- trary, sought connection with the lodges professing the high degrees, and finally, in 1786, arranged a rite of seven degrees, which it called the French Rite, and by means of which it hoped, but in vain, to suppress the other high degree systems.
Thus, as wo have shown, it resulted that, apart from the two Templar systems created by the Jesuits for their
224 GENERAL HISTORY OF FRBBMASONET.
own purposes, an infinite number of rites were produoed, for quite as unworthy purposes, the names of many of which will be found at the close of this chapter.
These rites, it is true, hiad but a short existence. Most of them were changed after the congress of Welhelmsbad, or disappeared during the revolution ; but they, neverthe- ess, largely contributed to the disrepute into which Free- masonry had fallen in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and the results of which condition remain to be contended with to the present day.
It is, however, but just to mention here one exception among the crowd of extravagant and anti-masonic rites, that of the " Philal^tes," created in 1773, in the lodge of " United Friends," at Paris, by the brethren Savalette of Langes, Court of Gibelin, and the archeologist Lenoir, who, to approach nearer to the English Rite, had abolished all distinctions of degrees,^ and proposed as their object the perfection of man, and his nearest approach to the Great Being from whom he emanated. It was by these " Phila- IStes " that there were convoked at Paris the two conven- tions of 1785 and 1787, and at which the founders just named exhibited so remarkably the true philosophy of Masonry.
Wherever Masonry was introduced prior to 1750, whether in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Prussia, Poland, Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, or America, there was not produced the slightest collision, nor could there be so long as the three degrees of the English Rite alone were practiced, and a unity of purpose in the Ma- sonic system by such practice preserved. But as soon as this unity was destroyed in France, in the manner we have
'In that celebrated lodge the Nine Sisters, founded in 1776, and in which had been initiated Voltaire, Helvetius, Lalande, Court of Gibe- lin, Benjamin Franklin, etc., no desire has ever been expressed for the attainment of any degree above that of Master Mason. (iSea Masonie Oxthodoxy, by Sagon, p. 111.)
^Z /yi-f/fl-wr-.
ORIGIN OP ALL THE RITES FOR HIGH DEGREES. 225
shown, by the introduction of- high degrees, and political objects as well as mercenary tendencies began to charac- terize our beautiful institution, the suspicions of the gov- ernments were aroused, and inquiry provoked prohibitions the most severe, even under pain of death, against assem- blies of Freemasons.^
Since the beginning of the present century, the princi- pal rites created have been the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Rite of Misraim, and the Rite of Mem- phis. The origin and history of these rites having been given in previous chapters of this work devoted thereto, it is unnecessary to say any thing further about them in this one. Regarding some two or three others, however, as worthy of notice, we will mention them :
1. The Order of Modern Templars, constituted the 4th of If ovember, 1804, by virtue of an old constitution ^ found in the possession of a brother, and according to which the founders afterward pretended to be the legitimate succes- sors of the Knights of the Temple. This association at-
*lt is in great part, if not entirely, to the introduction of the high de- grees, whose history so far we have just recoided, that the numerous literary attacks, from which Freemasonry has so greatly suffered during the latter half of the last century, are due. The works of Luchet, of Robison, the Abb! Barruel, Payard, Cadet-Gassecourt the Abb6 Lefranc, and many others, would probably have never seen the light, had not Masonry become adulterated with objects as improper as they were un- suited to mix with its principles, while preserved in the fervor and faith of their primitive simplicity. The writers named, not being able to dis- tinguish the true from the false, endeavored to invoHe all in a common ruin, and for a time they were successful. •' Resurgamj' however, is written upon every page of truth immortal; and no more fitting front for the emblazonment of this glorious motto has ever been afforded than that presented to-day by English Freemasonry.
' This constitution was written in Latin, and its object is thus expressed : " To reestablish the Order of the true successors of the Knights of the Temple, in its primitive purity, as it had been instituted by Hugh de Payen, in 1118, and in accordance with the laws of 1605, under the Grand Mastership of Montmorency, etc." 15
226 GENERAL HISTORY OF FKBBMASONKY.
tained in France some degree of stability. The brother Fabre-Palaprat, a distinguished physician, became, under the assumed name of " Bernard Raymond," the first G-rand Master. After his death, which occurred on the 18th of February 1838, the " Order of the Temple " met, at a con- vent, in general assembly, and voted itself a new constitu- tion and laws; and, on the 13th of January, 1841, the members united in the election of Sir Sidney Smith to the office of Grand Master. He subsequently took the title of Regent of the Order; and this, so far as we are aware, was the last manifestation of this last parody on the Order of Knights of the Temple, as in 1843 no trace of it could be found in France.'
2. The « Rite of Rigid Observers," created in 1819, by seven officers of the Grand Orient of France,^ with the ob- ject of bringing Freemasonry back to its primitive purity and simplicity, by re-establishing the modern English
' It was by members of this " association " that Knight Templarism, as known in America — comprising the three degrees, viz : Knight of the Red Cross, Knight Templar, and Knight of Malta — was introduced into the United States in 1808, and which degrees now compose the highest grades of the American Masonic system. Delegates from seven Encamp- ments of Knights Templar, and one Council of Red Cross — none of which were located south or west of New York — organized in New York city, on the 20th of June, 1816, a General Grand Encampment for the United States. At this assembly, Hon. De Witt Clinton, of New York, was elected General Grand Master, and Thomas Smith Webb, Esq., of Boston, his Deputy. On account of the conservative stand then taken by the few brethren representing this Order at that time in America, it has, during the half a century now drawing to its close, kept suitable pace with the other divisions of the American Masonic system, and at- tained to a degree of popularity it would not, probably, if left to stand alone, or to stumble against those other divisions. This, and the addi- tional reason that the American mind is notably Christian and spiritual in its tendencies and aspirations, will continue to accord to the Order of Knights Templar, as a Christian attachment to the Masonic Institution, the full meed of value to which it may be entitled. — Teanslator.
"Eenon, Borie, Caille, Delaroohe, Geneux, Pages, and VassaL
OKIGIN OF ALL THE EITBS FOB, HIGH DEGREES. 227
Rite. IvTotwithstanding. their position and their talents, these brethren failed in their project, for no other reason, we believe, than that they had neither decorations nor pompous titles to ofter to their adepts.
3. The "Eite of Unitarian Masonry," adopted by the i^ational Grand Lodge of France, after its organization, in 1848. This lodge, not to wound the susceptibility of its membership, by this title denominated the symbolic rite of three degrees. ISTotwithstanding its tenderness in this respect, however, it had no better fortune than the preced- ing rite, as the National Grand Lodge of France expired in 1851.
After this succinct exposition of the history of the prin- cipal systems for high degrees, we hope that the good sense of the brethren, who are yet partisans of these high degrees, will induce them to regai-d them as useless and embarrassing baggage, borne along in opposition to the spirit of true Freemasonry, and only calculated to excite discord and impede the march of our humanitarian insti- tution. We hope that they will abandon these works of a foolish and ambitious imagination, and degrading and mercenary spirit of speculation, and return or confine themselves to the practice of the true Masonic rite, that of three symbolic degrees, the only primitive rite of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of England.
We shall add, in closing this chapter, that Brother Eagon has published, in his "Manual of Initiations" — we presume to exhibit the tendency to aberration of the human mind — the names of seventy-five diflerent styles of Ma- sonry, fifty-two_ rites and thif-rty-four orders called Masonic, twenty-six androgynous orders, six Masonic colleges, and more than fourteen hundred degrees, while, in reality, there has never existed. any other rite entitled to the name of Freemasonry than th-i modern English rite of three symbolic degrees. Upon this rite, as the stock of Free- masonry, the Jesuits and partisans of the Stuarts grafted
228 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
their clerical and secular orders of chivalry, which we have described; and it is this stock upon which has been grafted every other species of jugglery assuming to be Masonry which has had place within the last century.
Names or Masonic Rites Extant, and Where Peaotioed.
Rite of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, practiced by nine-tenths of all the lodges of the globe, the same being the Modern English Rite of three symbolic degrees, as arranged by the Grand Lodge of London in 1717
Rite of Zinendorf, practiced by the National Grand Lodge cf Germany, at Berlin, comprising seven degrees, arranged in 1767
Rite practiced by the Grand Lodge of Stockholm, com- monly called the Swedish Rite, or System of Swedenborg, comprising eight degrees, and arranged in 1773
Rite practiced by some lodges in Belgium, called the Scotch Philosophic Bite of eighteen degrees, arranged in 1776
Rite known as the Royal Arch or York Rite of seven de- grees, practiced in the United States of America, and the higher degrees of which are believed to have been arranged, by Lawrence Dermott, in 1777
Rite practiced by some lodges in Belgium, known as the Refined Scottish or Reformed Ancien,t Rite, arranged as the successor of the Rite of Perfection, after the Congress of Wilhelmsbad, in 1782
Rite practiced by the Grand Lodge of Frankfort and Ham- burg, known as the Eclectic Rite, comprising three degrees, arranged, in conformity with the opinion expressed by the Congress at Wilhelmsbad, in 1782, by Baron Knigge, in 1783
Rite practiced by the Grand Orient of France, commonly called the Modern French Rite, comprising seven degrees, and which was arranged by a commission of that body as a basis of compromise between it and the " General Grand Chapter of the Rite of Perfection," organized, in 1783, as the successors of the " Grand Council of Emperors of the East and West, Sovereign Prince Masons," and adopted in 1786
ORIGIN OF ALL THE BITES POR HIGH DEGREES, 229
Eite practiced by the Grand Royal York Lodge of Berlin, known as Fessler's Eite, comprising three degrees and a chapter, arranged in 1796
Eite of the Grand Lodge at the Three Globes, in Berlin, comprising twenty-five degrees, as arranged to admit, in 1760, the high degrees then prevalent, but which was reduced to ten degrees in 1798
Rite known as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish, practiced in various countries and by all Supreme Councils, com- prising thirty-three degrees. It is believed to have been extended from the Rite of Perfection of twenty-five de- grees to its present number, in Charleston, S. C, in 1802, and mainly arranged, as it now exists in France and else- where, in 1804
Rite known as the Order of. Modern Templars, or Knights Templar, comprising three degrees, practiced in the United States of America and Great Britain. As the successor of the secular Templars of the Jesuit system of Strict Observance, this rite was arranged in Prance in 1804
Rite of Misraim, practiced in Paris, comprising ninety de- grees, invented by Leehangeur, of Milan, in 1806, and introduced into France by Mark and Michael Bedar- ride, in 1815
Rite of Memphis, now practiced only in the United States of
, America, comprising ninety-five degrees, the same being an extension and improvement of the last-named rite, made by Marconis de Negre, in .■ 1838
ElTES, CALLED MaSONIC, WHICH HAVE BECOME ExTINCT, OB WHICH HAVE BECOME ABSORBED INTO SOME EXISTING ElTE.
Rite of Noah, arranged as the Order of the Noahchites in 1735
Scottish or Jacobin Rite of Ramsay, first known in 1736
Rite of Herodom of Kilwinning, first practiced in 1740
Rite or Order of Fidelity, by Chambonet 1742
Rite or Order of the Anchor ' 1744
Rite of the Areopagists 1746
Scottish Jacobin Rite, created by the Pretender, in 1747
Rita of the Elect of Truth, at Rennes, in 1748
230 GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
Kite of the Old Daughter-in-law, by Lockhart, an emissary of the Jesuits, in 1749 or 1750
Rite of the Illuminati of Stockholm, founded in 1621, and resuscitated in France, undet Masonic forms, in 1750
Rite or Order of Prussian Knights 1756
Rite of the Clerks of Strict Observance, or clerical Templar system, founded by the Jesuits, and united, in 1776, with the Secular Templars, also a creation of the Jesuits 1756
Rite of Knights of the East, by Pirlet 1757
Rite of the Emperors of the East and West, Sovereign Prince Masons. This was the Rite of Herodom extended to the Rite of Perfection of twenty-five degrees, by the Jesuits, and propagated by Pirlet about 1758
Rite of Strict Observance, or modified Templar system of seven degrees, known as the Secular Templars . .■ 1760
Rite of the African Architects 1762
Between 1762 and 1766 there were introduced five rites, named respectively the Asiatics, the Patients, the Seekers, the Princes of Death, and the Reformed of Dresden.
Rite of the Flaming Star, founded by Baron Schudy, an emissary of the Jesuits, in 1766
Rite of the Rose Cross, founded by Valentine Andrea in 1616, and resuscitated, under Masonic forms, in 1767
Rite of the Knights of the Holy City, by an emissary of the Jesuits, in 1768
Rite of the Elected Cowans, by Martinez Paschalis 1768
Rite of the Black Brethren 1770
Scandinavian Rite, and the Hermitic Rite, in 1772
Rite of the Philalethes, founded in Paris by Lavalette de Langes, Court de Gebelin, the Prince of Hesse, etc 1773
Rite of the Illuminati of Bavaria, by Professor Weisshaupt. 1776
Rite of the Independents, and Rite of the Perffect Initiates of Egypt 1776
Rite of the Illuminati of Avignon, being the system of Swe- denborg, in ." 1779
Rite of the Philadelphians of Narbonne, a rite of ten degrees, founded by some pretended superior officers, major and minor, of "the Order of Free and Accepted Masons" .... 1780
Rite of the Martinists, founded by St. Martin 1780
ORIGIN OF ALL THE RITES FOR HIGH DEGREES. 231
Rite of tie Sublime Masters of the Circle of Light 1780
Bite of Knights and Nymphs of the Rose (one degree) .... 1781
Rite of the Masons of the Desert 1781
Egyptian Rite, by Cagliostro 1781
Rite of Universal Harmony, by Dr. Mesmer 1782
Rite of the Illuminati of the Zodiac 1783
Rite of Zoroaster 1783
Rite of High Egyptian Masonry (adoptive), by Cagliostro. . 1784
Rite of Adonhiramite Masonry 1787
Rite of the Holy Order of the Sophists, by Cuvelier of
Troves 1801
Rite or Order of Modern Templars, founded by Drs. Ledru
and Fabre-Palaprat' 1804
Rite or Order of Mercy 1807
Rite or Order of Knights of Christ, founded by E. de Nunez. 1809 Rite or Order of French Noachides, or Napoleonic Masonry. 1816 Rite of Rigid Observers, founded by some officers of the
Grand Orient in 1819
Persian Philosophic Rite, created in Erzrum in 1818, and
introduced in France in 1819
1 This rite is not extinct in Great Britain and United States of America, it being, in those countries, fitted on to the Tork Rite, aa high degrees.
DOCUMENTARY AND HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
BEAKINO DIBUCTLT UPOH THIS
ORIGIN AND GENERAL HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY,
TOGETHER WITH
INDICATIONS OF THE CAUSES FOE THE DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS WHICH EXIST AS TO SUCH ORIGIN.