CHAPTER XIII

THE FENDEURS OR CHARBONNIERS
The society of Les Fendeurs, or Hewers, deserves a special mention, not for any outstanding influence exercised by it, nor for anything particularly striking in its ceremonies, but because of its connexion with two more important bodies, the Charbonniers of France and the Carbonari of Italy. Les Fendeurs appear to have been a revised edition of the secret ceremonies of the society of Charbonniers, and was established at Paris as an organized body in the year 1747 by the Chevalier Beauchaine, who was a prominent Free¬ mason and Master of one of the Parisian Lodges. The Chevalier asserted that the society “was born in the forests of Bourbonnais by the woodcutters of the country. . . . The common obligation of all the members was to help and protect one another. It is certain that these forest Good Cousins , whose forms and symbols were adopted from the actual occupations of the Hewers, admitted into their fraternity persons of all classes, nobles, priests and burghers. The Fenderie of the Chevalier de Beauchaine enjoyed a great vogue in Paris . . . and it also spread over the whole country, especially in Artois. . . . Their form of reception differed little from that of the Charcoal-burners, save that with it were mingled ‘some droll tests and some practices borrowed from Freemasonry’.”1
The ceremonies of the Fendeurs of which some account will be given later were certainly designed for celebration in the open air, and it may well be that in them were preserved some of the primitive rites of the Charbonniers.
1 Article on Les Fendeurs, by F. J. W. Crowe in A.Q..C., xxii. The above extract is taken from Clavel’s History of Freemasonry.
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92 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
They present little apparent resemblance, however, to the ceremonies of the Italian Carbonari, who also claimed descent, probably justly, from the Charbonniers. Yet the Fendeurs, or one of their spokesmen, so late as the year 1823, which was shortly before the society dissolved itself, imagined that the two bodies were on all fours in practices. Clavel 1 gives the following acount of a debate that took place in the French Parliament in 1823, when the Procureur- General had been making a violent attack on French Carbonarisme because of the recent cause celebre of the four sergeants of La Rochelle.2
“A Fendeur, M. Cauchard d’Hermilly, confounding the new secret society with that to which he belonged, undertook to prove that it was not guilty of the misdeeds attributed to it, and that it was quite unknown to politics and only set up to pass the time joyously. To this end he recounted his reception amidst the Fendeurs , charcoal-burners of Artois, who had admitted him in 1813 in their open-air meeting, the which took place every year in the midst of the woods, and where each member, clothed in the blouse and emblems of the Hewer, had no other care but to laugh, sing, eat and drink. . . . M. d’Hermilly brought, above all, to notice, that no secret society was less dangerous than that of the Hewers, which united in its fraternal assemblies all the province possessed of people of intellect and good fellows, including gentlemen, who when it is a question of amusing themselves are not always enemies of a momentary equality. In spite of this witty and piquant defence he could not destroy the reality of the facts revealed by the debates on the affair of La Rochelle. All he was permitted to conclude was that two societies existed, derived from a common source, employing the same symbols, one of which, however, pro¬ posed the overthrow of the established order of things, and the other had in view only an agreeable pastime. The Hewers were not therein concerned; nevertheless they felt the counter-blow of the attack dealt at the political Char- bonnerie. Either from prudence or fear or indifference, they have since then ceased to meet; and the Fenderie is to-day completely extinct.”
1 Op. cit.
Vide. p. 172.
THE FENDEURS OR CHARBONNIERS 93
Apparently it was never revived after the eighteen-forties when Clavel was describing it as above.
There seems little doubt that in its original state, whether known as La Charbonnerie or by some other name, the society of the Hewers was just a friendly and benevolent body existing among the woodcutters and charcoal-burners of the Bourbonnais and Jura regions; and it would be futile to speculate how long it had been in existence in those parts or the cause of its establishment. Various traditions, valueless in themselves, carry it back to the civil wars of Charles VI and VII, or even to the time of Alexander the Great, while the Italian version of origin was modestly content with the patronage of Francis I. The strong prob¬ ability is that it was originally just a medieval trade society, and that its ritual grew more elaborate as time went on. It would appear to have been affiliated to the Compagnonnage at one time, for its title in Ragon’s ritual 1 is Fendeurs du Devoir.
Ragon states that Forest Masonry consisted of five degrees: (i) Fendeur or Charbonnier; (2) The Prodigal Converted; (3) Not so Black as it’s Painted ( Moins diable que noir ); (4) Scieur, sawyer; (5) Charpentier, carpenter. He gives an account of the first two, but says that the other three have been extinct for so long that their ritual is not worth reproducing.
The Charbonniers had three grades, apprentice, master, and hewer. The Fendeurs were originally part of this third grade, but split off to become a separate society, and termed themselves Cousins and Good Companions as a distinction from the Charbonniers, who were content to be known as Good Cousins. The latter claimed Francis I as having joined their Order, and that their title dated from the time of this monarch who was the first to address high dig¬ nitaries by the term Cousin.
It is obvious that in Ragon’s time the Fendeurs were the same as the Charbonniers; but he may be right in stating that the former society was originally the third grade in the
1 J. M. Ragon, Rituel de la Magonnerie Forestiere, Paris, n.d. For the meaning of Devoir vide p. 76.
94 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
primitive Charbonnier system. Other authorities say that the Fendeurs comprised the first and earlier grade of the “Society which afterwards with the second or higher grade of the Carbonari or charcoal-burners became known as the Carboneria”; this may be so, but the ceremonies as they have come down to us present few points of resemblance to those of the Italian Carbonari.
A ritual printed at Paris in 1788 is dedicated to “the Good Cousins, Hewers of the forest of the King,” and from it the following acount is taken of the ritual1, while Ragon’s account has been utilized for a description of the Chantier, etc.
The meeting-place of the Fendeurs was in the open air, if possible, and was known as a Chantier (wood-yard) . In the east was placed a large block of oak as a seat for the presiding officer who was known as the Pere Maitre, and in front of him was a log of oak with an axe and two wedges, one iron, one wooden. Two similar blocks of oak were placed at the west; and other blocks, with bundles of faggots and woodcutter’s tools, were arranged round about. Towards the east four huts were erected, in each of which the candidate 2 had to undergo a different kind of horseplay during the ceremony of his initiation, all of which would seem to argue considerable antiquity for the ceremonies.
The first hut was presided over by the Cousin Hermit, who seems to be the prototype of the Saint Theobald of the Carbonari. He was dressed as a monk, and from the roof- pole of his hut was suspended a vessel filled with water. “Below the water was a cushion for the candidate to hear on his knees the exhortation of the hermit. To make proof of his charity he was told to put the 5 sous that had been given him into the money-box, and holding the cord of the water the hermit said: ‘Be washed and purged from all the filth that accompanies the Briquet, and may the protecting virtue of the Fendeurs be your guide and safeguard ’, and at the same time upset the water over him.”
1 The translation of Crowe, ut sup., is used.
2 The candidate was known as the Briquet, the tinder-box.
THE FENDEURS OR CHARBONNIERS 95
The second hut was that of the Cousin Winedresser. At the top projected a stick crowned with a cabbage; inside was a barrel of wine for the refreshment of the Cousins. The candidate probably had his with a stick in it.
The third hut was that of Mere Cateau, sutler and seam¬ stress. It contained a washing-tub full of soapy water, which managed to find its way over the Candidate.
The fourth hut was known as that of the Bear, whose role was to indulge in a rough-and-tumble clawing and hugging match with the candidate, and to end by embracing him amicably.
This is the explanation of the statement made by M. d’Hermilly in defending the Order, that “Neophytes were delivered into the claws of a bear, to all appearance thirsty for human blood; but that this bear of a most benevolent nature was not long in becoming their best friend.”
Such horseplay was no doubt common to many of the devoirs in the Compagnonnage. With the bear of the Fen- deurs might be compared the Devil of Les Maitres Son- neurs, described by Georges Sand in the novel of that name.
The Fendeurs admitted both men and women to full membership.
The presiding officer was styled Pere Maitre, Father Master, and the officers took the names of trees, Cousin Oak, Cousin Elm, etc.
When a candidate was being initiated, Cousin Elm an¬ nounced that he had come from the Royal Forest, the Vente d’Honneur, which curious expression seems another link with the Italian Carbonari, who entitled their place of meeting Vendita. Vente may mean either a sale or a quan¬ tity of felled timber, but what its exact significance may have been to the Fendeurs cannot now be demonstrated.1 Simi¬ lar uncertainty exists about other expressions used in the ritual, so without entering into details of language it will be
1 Commenting on Crowe’s essay on Les Fendeurs, W.J. Songhurst suggested on the analogy of vendita and vente, used by the Carbonari and the Fendeurs respectively, that Vente d'Honneur might conceivably have had the meaning of Grand Lodge; and that in the Chantier a degree was conferred superior to that of Charbonnier.
9^ FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
enough to say that when the candidate had been conducted round the chantier several times, and had visited the four huts, he took the following oath :
“I promise and swear on my word of honour, on the bread and wine of hospitality, and in the presence of the Father Master and the worthy Cousins of this chantier , never to betray in any inn the secrets of the worthy Cousins, Comrades Hewers. I promise never to try to oust any cousin, also never to change the felling of the woods arranged by the worthy Cousins. I swear never to have carnal inter¬ course with the wife of a cousin, unless she asks me three times. I swear to defend him; to help him; to aid him in his need ; to put him back in his way if he has strayed ; and to lodge him in my hut; or if I fail in my oath, I consent to have my head severed from my body by all the axes of the chantier, and to be exposed in the depths of the forest to be there devoured by wild beasts.”
Some of the operative allusions in the foregoing would go to argue considerable antiquity for the form of oath. The form taken by a woman candidate differed considerably.
“I promise and swear on my word of honour, on the symbol of cleanliness, in the presence of the Father Master and the worthy Cousins of this chantier, never to betray the secrets of the worthy Cousins, worthy Companions Hewers, and if I fail in my promise, I consent to be soaked, beaten, and twisted like a bundle of dirty linen. Then to be cast to the bottom of the vat of the worthy and benevolent Cousin Cateau, then to be exposed for forty days in the deepest Forest to live on acorns only like a sow, and to be devoured by wild beasts.”
There were certain modes of recognition by signs, tokens and words; and there was also a lengthy catechism as another means of testing an initiate. In this catechism of the order there is a certain amount of shrewd epigrammatic wisdom and also a sprinkling of ribaldry, and both of these ingredients, even as do the horseplay in the ceremonies and the operative clauses in the oath, argue considerable antiquity for the ritual as it existed in 1788. To instance some examples of these qualities :
THE FENDEURS OR CHARBONNIERS 97
“How old art thou? As old as pleasure.
“Why? Because pleasure is of every age.
“Cousin Oak, what is the best wine one can drink? That you drink in your neighbours’ houses, for as a rule it costs nothing.
“What is the boldest thing in the world? It is the wind.
“Why? Because it blows down our huts, and often thrusts itself under our women’s garments.”
This will be enough to demonstrate that the original framers of the catechism did not fear to spoil its dignity by inserting a jest suited to bucolic ears.
Barruel, the famous writer on Jacobinism and other societies of his day, is a witness that the Fendeurs did not confine their membership to actual woodcutters. He says: “The Fendeurs form a real fraternity among themselves. They have their signs, their pass-word, their secrets and their festivals. They call themselves the Order of the Fendeurs; they receive into their order common persons and gentlemen, who, with the secrets of the order, attend their meetings and their festivals just as those of the Freemasons. I have known some adepts at the same time Freemasons and Fendeurs who, by their birth and position, were anything but made to pass their days in woodcutting.”1
Enough has now been said to show that the Fendeurs and Carbonari were two branches that developed in very different ways, though sprung from the same trunk. Specu¬ lation about why such a thing should happen is usually futile and often misleading; one is almost tempted, how¬ ever, to re-examine the claim advanced for the nebulous society of the Philadelphes,1 and to wonder if there may not be some grain of truth in the story that Colonel Oudet grafted his political plots on societies already existent, including the Charbonnerie of the Jura district. All one can conclude is that there must be some fire behind the smoke, though the latter is so dense as to obscure almost all the traces; but if it were not Colonel Oudet, then
1 MSmnires pour servir a Vhistoire de Jacobinisme.
2 See p. 123 et sqq.
98 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
some other revolutionary conspirator was responsible for changing what was in its beginnings no more than a harmless piece of benevolent tomfoolery into an instrument to overturn thrones and to strike down the sceptre of the divine right of kings in order to raise on high the fasces of the divine right of the people.