CHAPTER XVI

THE PHILADELPHES OR OLYMPIENS
This secret society is said to have come into being with the object of undermining the Napoleonic regime; but, while it probably had an actual existence, as is proved by the appearance of Lodges of Filadelfi in Italy, we have to rely for information about its formation and early activities on evidence that is not above suspicion.
In 1815 there was published anonymously in Paris a book, said to be from the pen of Charles Nodier, entitled: Histoire des Societes Secretes de I’Armee et des Conspirations Militaires qui ont eu pour objet la Destruction du Gouvernement de Bonaparte. This book is written in the first person, and purports to be the revelations of an ex-Philadelphe. His story is as follows:
At the time when Napoleon became First Consul there existed in Besangon a purely social club composed of young men, known as Les Philadelphes.
General Claude Francois de Malet (1754-1812), a veteran of the Revolution, who was opposed to Napoleon, deter¬ mined to turn this club into a secret society, with the object of restoring the Bourbons. To do so he made use of his friend Colonel Jacques Josephe Oudet (1775-1809), also a veteran of the Revolution, who had been initiated into nearly every European secret society in search of information, and who was therefore well qualified to form a new one.
Oudet, whose name in the society became Philopoemen, called it L’fichelle Philadelphique, the Philadelphian Ladder. It was surrounded by mystery and ceremonial; the osten¬ sible objects aimed at were moral perfection in the individual and an ideal reorganization of society. Members took an oath of secrecy, and were divided into three grades, each
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124 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
having fixed duties. Each grade knew nothing of the functions of the one superior to it. Supreme power was vested in the successive leaders, the first of these being Oudet. To attain this rank, one had to pass through the three grades, the second of which was intended to test the aspirant’s firmness of mind, and many never surmounted it. The institution was despotic, and resembled nothing so much as the power wielded aforetime by the Old Man of the Mountains. Oudet had modelled the society on what he imagined Freemasonry must have been in the times of its primitive purity.
Those who reached the third grade were given a new name, a custom such as had been established in the society of the Illuminati.
Having completed his work of forming the society in Besan$on (which to the members was henceforth known as Philadelphia), Oudet set himself to introduce the society into the army, and was successful; three complete regiments became initiated and affiliated to the Mother Society by the name of the Freres Bleus. Delegates were sent to the west and south-east of France, and transplanted the Philadelphe system into the affiliated societies of the Miquelets in the Pyrenean departments, the Barbets in the Alps, Bandoliers in Switzerland, Jura, and the Savoy. For propagating his sytem Oudet made use of societies already in existence, among others the Charbonniers of Jura, who are stated to have been the progenitors of the Italian Carbonari, and this is undoubtedly true to a certain extent.1
Were all these statements susceptible of proof, we should have to attach a great historic importance to Les Phila- delphes; but proof will have to be found elsewhere than in an anonymous book.
To continue the tale. The highest office in the society, the dictator, was known as the Censeur, and Oudet, as has been said, filled it first of all. Having incurred suspicion of treasonable plotting against Napoleon he was retired from the army and banished to the Jura district, whereupon
1 See Les Fendeurs, p. 91. See also p. 148 for De Witt’s statements about the Masonic origin of Lei Philadelphes and the coming of the Order to Italy.
THE PHILADELPHES
125
he chose as Censeur to succeed him no less a person than General Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, who was appointed to this office immediately after having been elected a Philadelphe. He took the name of Fabius.
Moreau having to go into exile after Pichegru’s plot, Oudet was either re-elected Censeur or else reassumed that office. He had been restored to active service in the army in 1805. About this time, Fouche, Napoleon’s Minister of Police, got wind of the plot, and to avoid discovery the name of the society was changed to that of Les Olympiens.
Vidocq, in his Memoirs, a book on which it would be unwise to rely implicitly, states that a society called Les Olympiens was formed in the army at Boulogne with the object of overthrowing Napoleon, and that its founder was a young man named Crombet, who ran a Masonic Lodge with his associates. They were denounced in 1806.
Later on Oudet again retired, and Malet became Censeur. But the society was moribund, and the death of Oudet in the battle of Wagram, 1809, ended its political activities. The society had no devotion to Malet, and took no