M. Cretineau Joly gives a very interesting accomit of the correspondence

between Nubius and an ojiulent GeiTaan Jew who supplied him with money for the purposes of his dark intrigues against the Papacy. The Jewish connection with modern Freemasonry is an established fact everywhere manifested in its history. The Jewish f ornudas employed by Masonry, the Jewish traditions which rmi through its ceremonial, point to a Jewish origin, or to the work of Jewish contrivers. It is easy to conceive how such a society could be thought necessary to protect tliem from Christianity in power. It is easy also to understand how the one darling object of their lives is the rebuilding of the Temple. Who knows but behind the Atheism and desire of gain which impels them to urge on Christians to persecute the Chui'ch and to destroy it, there lies a hidden hope to reconstruct their Temple, and as the darkest depths of secret society plotting there lurks a deeper society still wliich looks to a return to the land of Juda and to the re-building of the Temple of Jerusalem. One of the works which Antichrist will do, it is said, is to re-unite the Jews, and to proclaim himself as their long looked-for Messias. As it is now generally believed, lie is to come from Masonry and to be of it, this is not improbable, for in it he will find the Jews the most inveterate haters of Christianity, the deepest plotters, and the fittest to establish his reign.
FREEMASONKY. 21
cosmopoiitan, and knew more of the ceremonies of religion at a period when the arts of reading and writing were not very generally understood. They travelled over every portion of England and Scotland, and frequently crossed the Channel, to work at the innumerable religious houses, castles, fortifications, great abbeys, churches and cathedrals which arose over the face of Christendom in such number and splendour in the middle and succeeding ages. To keep away interlopers, to sustain a uniform rate of wages, to be known amongst strangers, and, above all, amongst foreigners of their craft, signs were necessary 5 and these signs could be of value only in proportion to the secrecy with which they were kept within the craft itself They had signs for those whom they accepted as novices, for the companion mason or journeyman, and for the masters of the craft. In ages when a trade was transmitted from father to son, and formed a kind of family inheritance, we can very well imagine that its secrets were guarded with much jealousy, and that its adepts were enjoined not to communicate them to anyone, not even to their wives, lest they may become known to outsiders. The masons were, if we except the clockmakers and jewellers, the most skilled artisans of Europe. By the cunning of their hands they knew how to make the rough stone speak out the grand conceptions of the architects of the middle ages ; and often, the delicate foliage and flowers and statuary of the fanes they built, remind us of the most perfect eras of Greek and Eoman sculpture. So closely connected with religion and religious architecture as were these " Brothers Masons,'' " Friar " " Era," or " Free Masons," they shared to a large extent in the favour of the Popes. They obtained many and valuable charters. Bat they degenerated. The era of the so- called Reformation was a sad epoch for them. It was an era of Church demolition rather than of Church building. Wherever the blight of Protestantism fell, the beauty and stateliness of Church architecture became dwarfed, stunted, and degraded, whenever it was not utterly destroyed. The need of Brothers Masons had
22 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
passed, and succeeding Masons began to admit men to their guilds who won a living otherwise than by the craft. In Germany their confraternity had become a cover for the reformers, and Socinus seeing in it a means for advancing his sect — a method for winning adepts and progressing stealthily without attracting the notice of Catholic governments, would desire no doubt to use it for his purposes. We have to this day the statutes the genuine Freemasons of Strasbourg framed in 1462, and the same revised as late as 1563, but in them there is absolutely nothing of heresy or hostility to the Church. But there is a curious document called the Charter of Cologne dated 1535, which, if it be genuine, proves to us that there existed at that early period a body of Freemasons, having principles identical with those professed by the Masons of our own day. It is to be found in the archives of the Mother Lodge of Amsterdam, which also preserves the act of its own constitution under the date of 1519. It reveals the existence of lodges of kindred intent in London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Lyons, Frankfort, Hamburg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Madrid, Venice, Goriz, Koenigsberg, Brussels, Dantzic, Magde- burg, Bremen and Cologne; and it bears the signatures of well- known enemies of the Church at that period, namely — Hermanns or Herman de Weir, the immoral and heretical Archbishop- Elector of Cologne, placed for his misdeeds under the ban of the Empire ; De Cohgny, leader of the Huguenots of France ; Jacob d'Anville, Prior of the Augustinians of Cologne, who incurred the same reproaches as Archbishop Herman Melancthon, the Reformer ; Nicholas Van Noot ; Carlton Bruce ; Upson ; Banning ; Vireaux ; Schroeder ; Hofman Nobel ; De la Torre ; Doria ; Uttenbow ; Falck ; Huissen Wormer. These names reveal both the country and the celebrity of all the men who signed the document. It was, possibly, a society like theirs, which the Venetian Government broke up and scattered in 1547, for we find distinct mention of a lodge existing at Venice in 1535. However this may be, Freemason lodges
FREEMASONRY. 23
existed in Scotland from the time of the Reformation. One of them is referred to in the Charter of Cologne, and doubtless had many affiliations. In Scotland, as in other Catholic countries, the Templars were suppressed ; and there, if nowhere else, that Order had the guilds of working masons under its special protection. It is therefore possible, as some say, that the knights coalesced with these Masons, and protected their own machinations with the aid of the secrets of the craft. But while this and all else stated regarding the connection of the Templars with Masonry may be true, there is no real evidence that it is so. Much is said about the building of the Temple of Solomon ; and that the Hiram killed, and whose death the craft is to avenge, means James Molay, the Grand Master, executed in the barbarous manner of his age for supposed complicity in the crimes with which the Templars were everywhere charged. There is tall talk about such things in modern Masonry, and a great deal of the absurd and puerile ritual in which the sect indulges when conferring the higher grades, is supposed to have reference to them. But the Freemasonry with which we have to deal, however connected in its origin with the Templars, with Socinus, with the conspirators of Cologne, or those of Vicenza, or with Cromwell, received its modern characteristics from Ellas Ashmole, the Antiquary, and the provider, if not the founder, of the Oxford Museum. Ashmole was an alchemist and an astrologer, and imbued consequently with a love for the jargon and mysticism of that strange body so busied about the philosopher's stone and other Utopias. The existing lodges of the Freemasons had an inexpres- sible charm for Ashmole, and in 1646 he, together with Colonel Mainwaring, became members of the craft. He perfected it, added various mystic symbols to those already in use, and gave partly a scriptural, partly an Egyptian form to its jargon and ceremonies. The Piosecroix, Rosicrucian degree, a society formed after the ideal of Bacon's New Atlantis, appeared ; and the various grades of companion, master, secret master, perfect master, elect, and Irish master, were either remodelled or newly formed, as we know them
24 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
now. Charles I. was decapitated in 16-49, and Ashmole being a Kojalist to the core, soon turned English Masonry from the purposes of Cromwell and his party, and made the craft, which was always strong in Scotland, a means to upset the Government of the Protector and to bring back the Stuarts. Now " Hiram" became the murdered Charles, who Avas to be avenged instead of James Molay, and the reconstruction of the Temple meant the restoration of the exiled House of Stuart. On the accession of Charles II., the craft was, of course, not treated with disfavour ; and when the misfortunes of James II., drove him from the throne, the partisans of the House of Stuart had renewed recourse to it as a means of secret organization against the enemy.
To bring back the Pretender, the Jacobites formed a Scotch and an English and an Irish constitution. The English constitution embraced the Mother Lodge of York and that of London, which latter separated from York, and with a new spring of action started into life as the Grand Lodge of London in 1717. The Jacobite nobles brought it to France chiefly to aid their attempts in favour of the Stuarts. They opened a lodge called the " Amity and Fraternity," in Dunkirk, in 1721, and in 1725, the Lord Derwentwater opened the fmious Mother Lodge of Paris. Masonry soon spread to Holland (1730), to Germany in 1736, to Ireland in 1729, and afterwards to Italy, Spain, and Europe generally. All its lodges were placed under the Grand Lodge of England, and remained so for many years.
I mention these facts and dates in order to let you see that precisely at the period when Freemasonry -was thus extending abroad, the Infidelity, which had been introduced by Bayle and openly advocated by Voltaire, was being disseminated largely amongst the corrupt nobility of France and of Europe generally. It was, as we have already seen, a period of universal licence in morals with the great in every country, and the members of the Grand Lodge in England were generally men of easy virtue whose example was agreeable to Continental libertines.
Voltaire found, that the Masonry to which he had been
FREEMASONRY. 25
affiliated in London, was a capital means of dilFusing his doctrines among the courtiers, the men of letters, and the public of France. It was like himself, the incarnation of hypocrisy and lying. It came recommended by an appearance of philanthropy and of religion. Ashmole gave it the open Bible, together with the square and compass. It called the world to witness that it believed in God, " the great Architect of the Universe." It had " an open eye," which may be taken for God's all-seeing providence, or for the impossibility of a sworn Mason escaping his fate if he revealed the secrets of the craft or failed to obey the orders he was selected to carry out. It made members known to each other, just as did the ancient craft, in every country, and professed to take charge of the orphans and widows of deceased brethren who could not provide for them. But, in its secret conclaves and in its ascending degrees, it had means to tell the victim whom it could count upon, that the " Architect " meant a circle, a nothing ; ^ that the open Bible was the universe ; and that the square and compass was simply the fitness of things — the means to make all men " fraternal, equal and free " in some impossible utopia it promised but never gave. In the recesses of its lodges, the political conspirator found the men and the means to arrive at his ends in security. Those who ambitioned office found there the means of advancement. The old spirit breathed into the fraternity by Socinus, and nourished so well by the heretical libertines of the England and Germany of the seventeenth century, and perfected by the Infidels of the eighteenth, was master in all its lodges. Banquets, ribald songs and jests, revelling in sin, constituted from the beginning, a leading feature in its life. Lodges became the secure home for the roue, the spendthrift, the man of broken fortunes, the Infidel, and the depraved of the upper classes. Such attractive centres of sin, therefore, spread over Europe with great rapidity. They were encouraged not only by Voltaire, but by his whole host of Atheistic writers, philosophers, encyclopaedists, revolutionists,
^ See section xxi. " Freemasonry with Oui'selves," page 121.
26 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
and rakes. The scoundrels of Europe found congenial employment in them; and before twenty years elapsed from their first intro- duction, the lodges were a power in Europe, formidable by the union which subsisted between them all, and by the wealth, social position, and unscrupulousness of those who formed their brotherhood. The principles fashionable — and indeed alone tolerated — in them all, before long, were the principles of Voltaire and of his school. This led in time to —
V.
The Union and Illuminism of Masonry. With the aid of Voltaire, and of his party. Freemasonry rapidly spread amongst the higher classes of France and wherever else in Europe the influence of the French Infidels extended. It soon after obtained immense power of union and propagandism. In France and everywhere else it had an English, a Scotch, and a local obedience. These had separate constitutions and ofiicers, even separate grades^ but all were identical in essence and in aim. A brother in one was a brother in all. However, it seemed to the leaders that more unity was needed, and aided by the adhesion of the Duke de Chartres, subsequently better known as the Duke of Orleans, the infamous Philippe-Egalite, who was Grand Master of the Scotch Masonic Body in France, the French Masons in the English obedience desiring independence of the Mother Lodge of England, separated, and elected him the first Grand Master of the since celebrated Grand Orient of France. Two years after this, the execrable "Androgyne" lodges for women, called "Lodges of Adoption," Avere established, and had as Grand Mistress over them all, the Duchess of Bourbon, sister of Egalite. The Infidels, by extending these lodges for women, obtained an immense amount of influence, which they otherwise never could attain. They thus invaded the domestic circle of the Court of France and of every Court in Europe. Thus, too, the royal edicts, the decrees of Clement XII. and Benedi(it XIV, against Freemasonry, and the eflbrts of
THE UNION AND ILLUMIXISM OF MASONRY. 27
conscientious officers, were rendered completely inoperative. After the death of Voltaire, the extension of Freemasonry became alarming ; but no State eifort could then stop its progress. It daily grew more powerful and more corrupt. It began already to extend its influence into every department of state. Promotion in the army, in the navy, in the public service, in the law, and even to the flit benefices "in commendam " of the Church, became impossible without its aid ;^ and at this precise juncture, when the political fortunes of France were, for many reasons, growing desperate, two events occurred to make the already general and corrupt Freemasonry still more formidable. These Avere the advent of the Illuminism of Saint Martin in France, and that of Adam Weishaupt in Germany, and the increased corruption introduced principally by means of women-Freemasons. A Portuguese Jew^ named Martinez Pasqualis, was the first to introduce Illuminism into the Lodge of Lyons, and his system was afterwards perfected in wickedness by Saint Martin, from whom French Illuminism took its name. Illuminism meant the extreme extent of immorality. Atheism, anarchy, levelling, and bloodshed, to which the principles of ]\Iasonry could be carried. It meant a universal conspiracy against the Church
1 Before the celebrated "Convent" of Wilhehusbad there was a thorough understanding between the Freemasons of the various Catholic countries of Continental Europe. This was manifested m the horrible intrigues wliich led to the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Naples ; and which finally compelled Clement XIV. to dissolve the great body by ecclesiastical authority. No doubt the Jesuits had very potent enemies in the Jansenists, the Galileans, and in others whose party spirit and jealousy were stronger than their sense of the real good of religion. But without the unscru- pidous intrigues of the Infidels of Voltaire's school banded into a compact active league by the newly -developed Freemasonry, the influence of the sects of Christians hostile to the Order could never effect an effacement so complete and so general. Anglican lodges, we must remember, appeared in Spain and Portugal as soon as in France. One was opened in Gibraltar in 1726, and one in Madrid in 1727. This latter broke with the mother lodge of London in 1779, and founded lodges in Barcelona, Cadiz, Vallidolid, and other cities. There were several lodges at work in Lisbon as early as 17;)5. The Duke de Choiseul, a Freemason, with the aid of the abominable de Pompadour, the harlot of the still more abominable Louis XV., succeeded in driving the Jesuits from France. He then set about influencing his brother ]\Lisons, the Count De Aranda, Prime Minister of Charles III. of Spain, and the infamous Carvalho-Pombal, the alte7- e weak King of Portugal, to do the same rvork in the Catholic States of their respective sovereigns. The Marquis de L'Angle, a French Freemasonic Atheist,
2S WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
and established order. It constituted a degree of advancement for all the lodges, and powerfully aided to make them the centres of revolutionary intrigue and of political manipulation which they soon became in the hands of men at once sunk in Atheism and moral corruption.
An idea of these lodges may be obtained from a description given of that of Ermanonville, by M. Le Marquis de Lefroi, in Dictlonnaire des Errors Sociales^ quoted by Deschamps, vol. ii., page 93.
" It is known," he says, " that the Chateau de Ermanon- ville belonging to the Sieur Girardin, about ten leagues from PariSj was a famous haunt of llluminism. It is known that there, near the tomb of Jean-Jacques, under the pretext of bringing men back to the age of nature, reigned the most horrible dissoluteness of morals. Nothing can equal the turpitude of morals which reigns amongst that horde of Ermanonville. Every woman admitted to the mysteries became common to the brothers, and was delivered up to the chance or to the choice of these true ' Adamites.' " Barruch in his Memoir es sur le Jacohinisiii, t. iv., p. 334, says, "that M. Leseure, the father of
and friend of Choiseul, thus writes of De Aranda — " lie is the only man of which Spain can be proud of at this moment. He is tlie sole Spaniard of our days whom posterity will place on its tablets. It is he whom it will love to place on the front of all its temples, and whose name it will engrave on its escutcheon together with the names of Luther, of Calvin, of Mahomet, of William Penn, and of Jesus Christ ! It is he who desired to sell the wardrobe of the saints, the property of virgins, and to convert the cross, the chandeliers, the patens, &c., into bridges and inns and main roads." We cannot be surprised at what De Aranda attempted after this testimony. He conspired with Choiseul to forge a letter as if from the General of the Jesuits, Ricci, which purported to prove that the King's mother was an adulteress, and that the King had no claim to the Spanish throne. Secretly, therefore, an order was obtained from the weak Monarch, and on a given day and hour the Jesuits in all parts of the Spanish dominions were dragged from their homes, placed on board ships, and cast on the shores of the Pontifical States in a condition of utter destitution. A calumny as atrocious and unfounded enabled Pombal to inflict a worse fate on the Jesuits of Portugal and its dependencies. Charles III. ordered Panucci, another Masonic enemy of the Jesuits, to banish the members of the society from Nai^les, where his son reigned. Geiser writes to Voltaire that the half-fool Joseph II. was initiated in the mysteries of Masonry andaccordingly the Jesuits, notwithstanding the sympathies of the Empress Mary Theresa, fell in Austria. The world was left thus free for the Masonic philosophers to compass the destruction which they planned at Wilhelmsbad and effected in the llevolution eight years afterwards.
THE ILLUMINISM OF ADAM WEISHAUPT. 29
the lio,ro of La Vendee, having been affiliated to a lodge of this kind, and having, in obedience to the promptings of conscience, abandoned it, was soon after poisoned." He himself declared to the Marquis de Montron that he fell a victim to 'Hhat infamous horde of the Illuminati."
The lUuminism of Saint Martin was simply an advance in the intensity of immorality, Atheism, secrecy, and terror, Avhich already reigned in the lodges of France. It planned a deeper means of revolution and destruction. It became in its hidden depths a lair in which the Atheists of the period could mature their plans for the overthrow of the existing order of things to their own best advantage. It gave itself very captivating names. Its members were " Knights of Beneficence," " Good Templars," ''Knights of St. John," &c. They numbered, however, amongst them, the most active, daring, and unscrupulous members of Masonry. Tliey set themselves at work to dominate over and to control the entire body. They had no system, any more than any other sort of Masons, to give the world instead of that which they determnied to pull down. The state of nature, goods and the sexes in common, no God, and instead of God a hatred for everything sustaining the idea of God, formed about the sum total of the happiness which they desired to see reign in a world, where people should be reduced to a level resembling that of Avild cattle in the American prairies. This was the Illumination they destined for humanity ; yet such was the infatuation inspired by their immoral and strange doctrines that nobles, princes, and monarchs of the period, including Frederick II. of Prussia and the silly Joseph II. of Austria, admitted to a part of their secrets, were the tools and the dupes, and even the accomplices, of these inflimous conspirators.
VI.
The Illuminism of Adam Weishauft. But the Illuminism of Lyons was destined soon to have a world-wide and ineradicable hold on the Masonry of the world
30 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
by means of an adept far more able than Saint Martin or any of his associates. This was Adam Wieshaupt, a Professor of Canon Law in the University of Munich. I shall detain you a while to consider this remarkable individual who, more than any of the Atheists that have arisen in Masonry, has been the cause of the success of its agencies in controlling the fate of the world since his day. Had Weishaupt not lived, Masonry may have ceased to be a power after the reaction consequent on the first French Revolution. He gave it a form and character which caused it to outlive that reaction, to energize to the present day, and which will cause it to advance until its final conflict with Christianity must determine whether Christ or Satan shall reign on this earth to the end.
Voltaire's will to do God and man injury was as strong as that of Weishaupt. His disciples, D'Alembert, Diderot, Dami- laville, Condorcet, and the rest, were as fully determined as he was, to eradicate Christianity. But they desired in its stead a system with only a mitigated antipathy for monarchy, and which might have tolerated for a long time such kings as Frederick of Prussia, and such Empresses as Catherine of Russia. But the hatred for God and all form of worship, and the determina- tion to found a universal republic on the lines of Communism, was on the part of Weishaupt a settled sentiment. Possessed of a rare power of organization, an education in law which made him a pre-eminent teacher in its highest faculty, an extended knowledge of men and things, a command over himself, a repute for external morality, and finally, a position calculated to win al)le disciples, Weishaupt employed, for fifty years after the death of Voltaire, his whole life and energies in the one work of per- fecting secret associations to accomplish by deep deceit, and by force when that should be practical, the ruin of the existing order of religion, civilization, and government, in order to plant in its stead his own system of Atheism and Socialism.
He found contemporary Masomy well adapted for his ends. His object was to extend it as far as possible as a means of
THE ILLUMINISM OF ADAM WEISIIAUPT. 31
seducingmenaway from Christianity. He well knew that Masonry and the Church were in mortal conflict, and that the moment a man became a Mason, he, that instant, became excommunicated ; he lost the grace of God ; he passed into a state of hostility to the Church ; he ceased to approach the Sacraments ; he was constituted in a state of rebellion ; he forfeited his liberty to unknown superiors; he took a dreadful oath — perhaps many — not to reveal the secrets then, or at any after time, to be committed to his keeping ; and finally, he placed himself amongst men, all of whom were in his own position, and in whose society it was possible and easy for the astute disciples of Weishaupt to lead him farther on the road to ruin.
Weishaupt's view, then, was first to entice men into Masonry — into the lowest degree. A great gain for evil was thus at once obtained. But a man, though in Masonry, may not be willing to become an Atheist and a Socialist, for some time at least. He may have in his heart a profound conviction that a God existed, and some hope left of returning to that God at or before his death. He may have entered Masonry for purposes of ambitioUj for motives of vanity, from mere lightness of character. He may continue his prayers, and refuse, if a Catholic, to give up the Mother of God and some practice of piety loved by him from his youth. But Masonry was a capital system to wean a man gradu- ally away from all these things. It did not at once deny the existence of God, nor at once attack the Christian Dispensation. It commenced by giving the Christian idea of God, an easy, and, under semblance of respect, an almost imperceptible shake. It SAvore by the name of God in all its oaths. It called him, however, not a Creator, only an architect — the great Architect of the universe. It carefully avoided all mention of Christ, of the Adorable Trinity, of the Unity of the Faith, or of any faith. It protested a respect for the convictions of every man, for the idolatrous Parsee, for the Mahommedan, for the Heretic, the Schismatic, the Catholic. By-and-by, it gave, in higher degrees, a ruder shock to the belief in the Deity and a gradual
32 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
inducement to favour Naturalism. This it did gradually, imper- ceptibly, but effectually. Now, to a man who meditated the vast designs of social and religious destruction contemplated by Weishaupt, Masonry, especially the Masonry of his period, was the most effective means that could be conceived. In its midst, therefore, he planted his disciples, well versed in his system. These consisted of three classes, each class having subdivisions, and all of which were high degrees of Masonry. The first class of Illuminati, was that of preparation. It consisted of two degrees, namely, the degree of Novice and that of Minerval. The Miuervals formed the great body of the order, and were under the direction of certain chiefs, who themselves were subjected to other agencies invisible to those instructed by themselves. Weishaupt instructed the teachersof the Minervals to propose each year to their scholars some interesting questions, to cause them to write themes calculated to spread impiety amongst the people, such as burlesques on the Psalms, pasquinades on the Prophets, and caricatures of personages of the Old Testament after the manner of Voltaire and his school. It is surprising with what exactitude these Minervals follow out the instructions of Weishaupt to this day. At this moment, in London, under the eyes of the Lord Chancellor, pamphlets, with hideous woodcuts, ridiculing David, ''the man after God's own heart," are weekly published. One of these, which was handed to me in a public place, had a woodcut representing the "meek Monarch of Judea," with a head just severed from a human body in one hand, and the sword that did the deed in the other. Another represented him amidst a set of ridiculous figures dancing. From this we can easily judge that illuminated Masonry is at work somewhere even in London, and that the Masonry in high quarters is blind to its excesses, exactly as happened in France a few years before the French Kevolution. Now these Minervals, if they manifested what the German Masons call "religionary " inclinations, might indeed receive the first three Masonic degrees, but they were not to be further promoted in Illuminism. They were relegated to
THE ILLUMINISM OF ADAM WEISHAUPT, 33
the rank and file of Masonry, who were of use in many ways for the movement, but they were never to be trusted witli the real secret. The teacher, without seeming to do so, was ordered to encourage, but not to applaud publicly, such blasphemies as the Minervals might make use of in their essays. They were to be led on, seemingly by themselves, in the ways of irreligion, immorality, and Atheism, until ripe for further promotion in evil progress. Finally, in the advanced grades of Illuminated Major and Minor, and in those of Scotch Knight and Epopte or Priest they were told the whole secret of the Order as follows, in a discourse by the initiator.
" Remember," he said, " that from the first invitations which we have given you, in order to attract you to us, we have commenced by telling you that in the projects of our Order there did not enter any designs against religion. You re- member that such an assurance was again given to you when you were admitted into the ranks of our Novices, and that it was repeated when you entered into our Minerval Academy. Remember also how much from the first grades we have spoken to you of morality and virtue, but at the same time how much the studies which we prescribed for you and the instructions which we gave you rendered both morality and virtue independent of all religion ; how much we have been at pains to make you understand, while making to you the eulogy of religion, that it was not anything else than those mysteries, and that worship degenerated in the hands of the priest. You remember with what art, with what simulated respect we have spoken to you of Christ and of his Gospel ; but in the grades of greater Illumin- ism, of Scotch Knight, and of Epopte or Priest, how we have kno wn to form from Christ's Gospel that of our reason, and from its morality that of nature, and from its religion that of nature, and from religion, reason, morality, and nature, to make the religion and the morality of the rights of man, of equality, and of liberty. Remember, that while insinuating to you the different parts of this system, we have caused them to bud forth from yourselves
D
34 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
as if your own opinions. We have placed you on the way; you have replied to our questions very much more than we did to yours. When we demanded of you, for example, whether the religions of peoples responded to the end for which men adopted them ; if the religion of Christ, pure and simple, was that which the different sects professed to-day, we knew well enough what to hold. But it was necessary to know to what point we had succeeded to cause our sentiments to germinate in you. We have had very many prejudices to overcome in you, before being able to persuade you, that the pretended religion of Christ was nothing else than the work of priests, of imposture, and of tyranny. If it be so with that religion so much proclaimed and admired, what are we to think of other religions ? CJnderstand, then, that they have all the same fictions for their origin, that they are all equally founded on lying, error, chimera, and imposture. Behold our secret !
" The turns and counter-turns which it was necessary to make ; the eulogies which it was necessary to give to the pretended secret schools ; the fable of the Freemasons being in possession of the veritable doctrine ; and our Illuminism to-day, the sole inheritor of these mysteries, will no longer astonish you at this moment. If, in order to destroy all Christianity, all religion, we have pretended to have the sole true religion, remember that the end justifies the means, and that the wise ought to take all the means to do good, which the wicked take to do evil. Those which we have taken to deliver you, those which we take to deliver one day the human race from all religion, are nothing else than a pious fraud which we reserve to unveil some day in the grade of Magus or Philosopher Illuminated. " — Scgur Le Secret de la Fra7ic-Afaconnerie, p. 49.
The above extract will serve to show you what manner of man Weishaupt was, and the quality of the teaching he invented. His organization — for the perfection of which he deeply studied the constitution of the then suppressed Society of Jesus — con- templated placing the thread of the whole conspiracy, destined to
THE CONVENT OF WILHELMSBAD. 35
be controlled by the lUuminati, in the hands of one man, advised by a small council. The Illuminati were to be in Masonry and of Masonry, so as to move amongst its members secretly. They were so trained that they could obtain the mastery in every form of secret society, and thus render it subservient to their own Chief. Their fidelity to him was made perfect by the most severe and complex system of espionage. The Chief himself was kept safe by his position, his long training, and by his council. It thus happened that no matter to what office or position the Illuminati attained, they had to become subservient to the general aims of the Order. Weishaupt, after being deprived of his professorship in Bavaria, found an asylum with the Prince of Coburg Gotha, where lie remained hi honour, affluence, and security, until his death in 1830. He continued all his life the Chief of the Illuminati, and this fact may account, in large measure, for the fidelity with which the Illuminati of the Revolution, the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, the Restoration, and the Revolution of 1830, invariably carried out his programme of perpetual conspiracy for the ends he had in view. It may also account for the strange vitality of the spu-it of the Illuminati in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain, and of its continuance through the " Illuminated " reigns of Nubius and Palmerston, the successors of Weishaupt to our own day. This we shall see further on; but, meanwhile, we shall glance at the first step of Weishaupt to rule over Masonry through his disciples. This was by calling together the famous " General Council " of Freemasoniy, known as —
VII.
The Convent of Wilhelmsbad. From its rise Freemasonry appears as a kind of dark parody of the Church of Christ. The names taken by its digni- taries, the form of its hierarchy, the designations affected by its lodges and "obediences," the language of its rituals, all seem to be a kind of aping after the usages of Christianity. When
36 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
Saint Martin -wished to spread his llluminism in France, he managed to have a meeting of deputy Masons from all the lodges in that country. This was designated the " Convent of the Gauls ; " and Lyons the place of its meeting was called " The Holy City." Weishaupt had more extended views. He meant to reach all humanity by means of Masonry, and looked for a " Convent " far more general than that of Lyons. When, therefore, he had matured his plans for impregnating the Masonry of the world with his infernal system , he began to cast about for means to call that Convent. The llluminism of Saint Martin was in full sympathy with him, but it could not effect his purpose. What he wanted was, that a kind of General Council of the Masonry extended at the time throughout the earth, should be called together ; and he hoped that, by adroitly manipulating the representatives whom he knew would be sent to it by the lodges of every nationality of Masons, his own llluminism might be adopted as a kind of high, arch, or hidden, Masonry, throughout its entire extent. He succeeded in his design, and in 1781, under the official convocation of the Duke of Brunswick, acting as Supreme Grand Master, deputies from every country where Freemasonry existed were summoned to meet at Wilhelmsbad in council. They came from every portion of the British Empire ; from the newly formed United States of America ; from all the nations of Continental Europe, every one of which, at that period, had lodges ; from the territories of the Grand Turk ; and from the Indian and Colonial possessions of France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland. The principal and most numerous representatives were, however, from Germany and France. Through the skilful agency of the notorious Baron Knigg, and another still more astute adept of his, named Dittfort, Wieshaupt completely controlled tliis Council. He further caused measures to be there concerted which in a few years led to the French Kevolution, and afterwards handed Germany over to the French revolutionary Generals acting under the Girondins,
CABALISTIC MASONRY OR MASONIC SPIRITISM, 37
tlie Jacobins, and the Directory. I would wish, if time per- mitted, to enter ai length into the proofs of this fact. It will suffice, however, for my present purpose, to state, that more than sufficient evidence of it was found by the Bavarian Government, which had, some five years later, to suppress the Ilium inati, and that one of the mem])ers of the convent, the Count de Yirene, was struck with such horror at tlie depravity of the body, that he abandoned Illuminism and became a fervent Catholic. He said to a friend : — " I will not tell you the secrets which I bring, but I can say that a conspiracy is laid so secret and so deep that it will be very difficult for monarchy and religion not to succumb to it." It may be also of use to remark that many of the leaders of the French Revolution, and notably most of those who lived through it, and profited by it, were deputy Masons sent from various lodges in France to the Convent of Wilhelmsbad.
VITI.
Cabalistic Masonry or Masonic Spiritism. Before proceeding further with the history of Freemasonry, I shall stay a moment to consider a very remarkable feature in its strange composition, without which it scarcely ever appears. The world was never without wizards, witches, necromancers, jugglers, and those who really had, or through imposture, pretended to have, intercourse with demons. Masonry in its various ramifications is the great continuator of this feature of a past which we had thought departed for ever. Spirit-rapping, table-turning, medium-imposture, etc., dis-. tinguish its adepts in Protestant countries and in Catholic ones. We have almost incredible stories of the intercourse with the devil and his angels, which men like the Carbonari of Italy maintain. However, from the very beginning, Freemasonry has had a kind of peculiar dark mysticism connected with it. It loves to revel in such mysteries as the secret conclaves of the Jews used to practise in the countries in which they were persecuted, and which were
38 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
common amongst those unclean heretics, the Bulgarians, the Gnostics, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, The excesses alleged against the Templars, were also accompanied by secret signs and symbols which Masonry adopted. But whatever may have been the extent of this mysticism in Masonry before, a spurious kind of spiritism became part of its very essence since the advent of the celebrated Cagliostro, who travelled all over Europe under the instructions of Weishaupt, and founded more lodges than did any individual Freemason then or since.
The real name of this arch-impostor was Balsamo. He was an inveterate sorcerer, and in his peregrinations in the East, picked up from every source, the secrets of alchemy, astrology, jugglery, legerdemain, and occult science of every kind, about which he could get any information. Like the Masonry to which he became affiliated at an early period, he was an adept at acting and speaking a lie. He suited Weishaupt, who, though knowing him to be an impostor, nevertheless employed him for the diffusion of Illuminism . Accompanied by his no less celebrated wife, Lorenza, he appeared in Venice as the Marquis Pelligrini, and subsequently traversed Italy, Germany, Spain, England, the Netherlands, and Eussia. In the latter country he amassed, at the Court of Catherine II., an immense fortune. In France, assisted by the efforts of the Illuminati, he was received as a kind of demigod, and called the divine Cagliostro. He established new lodges in all parts of the country. At Bordeaux he remained eleven months for this purpose. In Paris he established lodges for women of a peculiarly cabalistic and impure kind, with inner departments horribly mysterious. At the reception of mem- bers he used rites and ceremonies exactly resembling the absurd practices of spirit mediums, who see and speak to spirits, etc., and introduced all that nonsense with which we are made now familiar by his modern followers. He claimed the power of conferring immortal youth, health, and beauty, and what he called moral and physical regeneration, by the aid of drugs and
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 39
Illuminated Masonry. He was the father and the founder of the existing rite of Misraira — the Egyptian rite in Masonry. The scoundrel became involved in the celebrated case of the "Diamond Necklace," and was sent to the Bastile, from which he managed to pass to England, Avhere, in 1787, he undertook to foretell the destruction of the Bastile, and of the Monarchy of France, the Revolution, and — but here he miscalculated — the advent of a Prince who would abolish Lettres cle Cachet, convoke the States General, and establish the worship of Reason. All these measures were resolved on at Wilhelmsbad, and Cagliostro of course knew that well. His only miscalculation was regarding the Prince Grand Master. The Revolution Avent on a little too fiir for the wretched Egalite, who ended his treason to his house by losing his head at the guillotine. As to Cagliostro, he made his way to Rome, where the Inquisition put an end to his exploits on detecting his attempts at lUuminism. His secret powers could not deliver him from prison. He died there miserably, in 1795, after attempting to strangle a poor Capuchin whom he asked for as confessor, and in whose habit he had hoped to escape. This impostor is of course made a martyr to the Inquisition accordingly. Masonry does much to disown Cagliostro ; but with a strange incon- sistency it keeps the Egyptian rite founded by him, and clings to mysticism of the debased kind he introduced. It is wonderful how extremes thus meet, — how men who make it a sign of intellectual strength to deny the existence of the God that made them bow down stupidly and superstitiously before devils, real or imaginary. Necromancy is a characteristic of Antichrist, of whom we read, " that he will show great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect." He will be when he comes both a Cromwell and a Cagliostro.
IX. The French Revolution. I may here remark that the conspiracy of the Illuminati, and of Freemasonry generally, was far from being a secret to many of the Courts of Europe. But, then, just as at the present
40 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
moment, it had friends, female as well as male, in every Court. These baulked the wholesome attempts of some rulers to stay its deadly intrigues against princes, governments, and all order, as well as against its one grand enemy, the Church of Jesus Christ. The Court of Bavaria found out, as I have said, but only by an accident, a part of the plans of the llluminati, and gave the alarm ; but, strange to say, that alarm was unheeded by the other Courts of Europe, Catholic as well as Protestant. A Eevolution was expected, but, as now, each Court hoped to stave off the worst consequences from itself, and to profit by the ruin of its neighbours. The voice of the Holy Father was raised against Freemasonry again and again. Clement YIII., Benedict XIV., and other Pontiffs, condemned it. The Agents and Ministers of the Holy See, gave private advices and made urgent appeals to have the evil stopped wliile yet the powers of Europe could do so. These were all baffled, and the Court of the Grand Monarch and every Court of Continental Europe slept in the torpor of a living death^ until wakened to a true sense ot danger at a period far too late to remedy the disasters which irreligion, vice, stupidity, and recklessness hastened. The lodges of the llluminati in France meanwhile carried on the conspiracy. They had amassed and expended immense sums in deluging the country with immoral and Atheistic literature.
Mirabeau, in his Monarchie Prussienne (vol. 6, page 67), published before the Eevolution, thus speaks of these sums : —
" Masonry in general, and especially tlie branch of the Templars, produced annually immense sums by means of the cost of receptions and contributions of every kind, A part of the total was employed in the expens'js of the order, but another part, much more considerable, went into a general fund, of which no one, except the first amongst the brethren, knew the destination." Cagliostro, when questioned before the Holy Roman Inquisition, " confessed that he led his sumptuous existence thanks to the funds furnished him by the llluminati. He also stated that he had a commission from Weishaupt to prepare the French Lodges to receive his direction." — Se3 Deschamps, v., p 129.
Discontent was thus sown broadcast, amongst every class
THE FREXCII REVOLUTION. 41
of the population. Masonic Lodges multiplied, inspired by the instructed emissaries of the remorseless Weishaupt ; and the direct work of Freemasonry in subsequent events is manifest not only in the detailed prophecy of Cagliostro, founded on what he knew was decided upon ; but is still more clearly evidenced by a second convent, held by the French Illuminati, where everything was arranged for the devolution. The men prominent in this conclave were the men subsequently most active in every scene that followed. ]\rirabeau, Lafayette, Fouche, Talleyrand, Danton, Murat, Robespierre, Cambaceres, and in fact every foremost name in the subsequent convulsions of the country were not only Illuminati, but foremost amongst the Illuminati.^ Some disappeared under their own guillotine ; others outlived the doom of their fellows. Constantly, the men of the whole con- spiracy had understandings and relations with each other. Weishaupt, at the safe distance of Coburg-Gotha, gave them his willing aid and that of the German Freemasons. This concert enabled them to Hoat on every billow which the troubled sea of the Revolution caused to swell; and if they did not succeed in making France and all Europe a social ruin, such as that contemplated at Wilhelmsbad, it was from want of power, not from want of will. Position and wealth made many of them
^ It is commonly believed tliat the encyclopaedists and piiilosophers were the only men who overturned by their writings altar and throne at the time of the Revolution. But, apart from the facts that these writers were to a man Free- masons, and the most daruig and plotting of Freemasons, we have abundant authority to prove that other Freemasons were everywhere even more practically engaged in the same work. Louis Blanc, who will be acoi'pted as an authority on this point thus writes : — " It is of consequence to introduce the reader into the mine which at that time was being dug beneath thrones and altars by revolution- ists, very much more profound and active than the encyclopaedists : an association composed of men of all countries, of all religions, of all ranks, bound together by symbolic bonds, engaged mider an inviolable oath to preserve the secret of their interior existence. They were forced to undergo terrific proofs while occu- pying themselves with fantastic ceremonies, but otherwise practised beneficence and looked upon themselves as equals though div-ided in three classes, apprentices, companions, and masters. Freemasonry consists in that. Now, on the eve of the French Revolution, Freemasonry was found to have received an inmiense develop- ment. Spread throughout the entire of Europe, it seconded the meditative genius of Germany, agitated France silently, and presented everywhere the image of a society founded on principles contrary to those of civil society." IMonsignor Segur writes on this — "See to what a point the reign of Jesus Christ was
42 WAR Of ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
desire to conserve what the Revolution threw into their hands. But they remained under all changes of fortune Free- masons, as they and their successors are to this day. Perhaps, under the influence of oaths, of secret terror, and of the sect, they dare not remain long otherwise. One or two individuals may drop aside ; but some fatality or necessity keeps the leaders Illuminati always. They as a whole body remain ever the same, and recoil before political adversity, only to gather more strength for a future attack upon religion and order still wider and more fatal than the one which preceded it. They are not at any time one whit less determined to plunge the world into the anarchy and bloodshed they created at the French Revolution, than they were in 1789. On this point let one of themselves speak : — " I have had," says a Scotch Freemason, horrified at the I'esults achieved by the Fraternity in their work up to 1797, "I have had the means to follow all the attempts made during fifty years under- the specious pretext of enlightening the world with the torch of philosophy, and to dissipate all the clouds by which superstition, religious and civil, used to retain the people of Europe in the darkness of slavery. I have observed the progress of these doctrines mixing theni-
menaced at the hour the Revolution broke out. It was not France alone that it agitated, but the entire of Europe. What do I say ? The world was in the power of Masonry. All the lodges of the world came in 1781 to Wilhelmsbad by delegates from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America ; from the most distant coasts discovered by navigators, they came, zealous apostles of Masonry . . . They all returned penetrated with the Illimiinism of Weishaupt, that is Atheism, and animated with the poison of incredulity with which the orators of the Convent had inspired them. Europe and the Masonic world were then in arms against Catholicity. Therefore, when the signal was given, the shock was terrible, terrible especially in France, in Italy, in Spain, in the Catholic nations which they wished to separate from the Pope and cast into schism, until the time came when they could completely de-Christianize them. This accounts well for the captivities of Pius VI. and Pius VII. The Cardinals were dispersed, the Bishops torn from their Sees, the pastors separated from their flocks, the religious orders destroyed, the goods of the Church confiscated, the churches overtiirned, the convents turned into barracks, the sacred vessels stolen and melted down by sacrileo-ious avidity, tlie bells turued into moneyand cannons, scaffolds erected everywhere^ and victims in thousands, in hecatombs, especially from amongst the clergy ; in one word, all the horrors summed up in the ' Revolution,' and the end,"wh'ich was the great unerring power of all its actions, namely, to see Christ cast 'down from His altars to make way for the goddess called Reason."
TUE FRENCH REVOLUTION- 43
selves and allying themselves more and more closely with the different systems of Masonry ; finally, I have seen them forming an association having for its sole object the destruction, even to the very foundations, of all the religious establishments, and the overthrow of all the existing governments of Europe. I have seen that association extend its systems with a zeal so sustained that it became almost irresistible, and I have remarked that the personages who have had the greatest part in the French Revolution were members of that association, that their plans had been conceived upon its principles, and executed with its assistance. I am convinced that it exists always, that it works always silently, and all appearances prove that not only its emissaries strongly endeavour to propagate amongst us its abominable doctrines, but that there are, even in England, lodges which, since 1784, correspond with the mother lodge. It is, in order to unmask these, to prove that the ringleaders are knaves Avho preached a morality and a doctrine of which they knew the falsehood and the danger, and that their real intention was to abolish all forms of religion, to overthrow all govern- ments, and to make of the entire world one scene of pillage and murder, that I offer an extract of the informations I have taken on this matter."
I have quoted these words of Robison to show, that as early as 1797, the connection between Freemasonry and the French Revolution was well understood. Since then Louis Blanc, and other Masonic writers, have gloried in the fiict. " Our end," said the celebrated Alta Vendita, to which I shall have to refer presently, '' is that of Voltaire and the French Revolution." In fact, what Freemasonry did in France, it now labours, with greater caution, to effect on some future day throughout the entire world. It then submitted, with perfect docility, to a great military leader, who arose out of its own work and principles. Such another leader will finally dii'ect its l:-ist efforts against God and man.
That leader will be Antichrist.
44 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
X.
Napoleon and Freemasonry. I shall have to ask your careful attention for a few moments to the leader who arose out of the first French Revolution, and whose military and diplomatic fame is still fresh in the recollec- tion of many of the present generation. That leader was Napoleon Bonaparte. In the days of his greatest prosperity, nothing was so distasteful to him as to be reminded of his Jacobin past. He then wished to pose as another Charlemagne, or Rudolph of Hapsburg. He wished to be considered the friend of religion, and of the Catholic religion in particular. He did a something for the restoration of the Church in France, but it v^as as little as he could help. It, perhaps, prevented a more wholesome and complete reaction in favour of the true rehgious aspirations of the population. It was done grudgingly, parsi- moniously, and meanly. And when it had been done, Napoleon did all he could do to undo its benefits. He soon became the persecutor — the heartless, cruel, ungrateful persecutor of the Pontiff, and an opponent to the best interests of religion in France, and in every country which had the misfortune to fall under his sway. The reason of all this was, that Napoleon had com- menced his career as a Freemason, and a Freemason he remained in spirit and in effect to the end f»f his life. It is known that he owed his first elevation to the Jacobins, and that his earliest patron was Robespierre. His first campaign in Italy was characterized by tlie utmost brutality which cou.ld gratify Masonic hatred for the Church. He suppressed the abodes of the consecrated servants of God, sacked churches, cathedrals, and sanctuaries, and reduced the Pope to the direst extremities. His language was the reflex of his acts and of his heart. His letters l)reathe everywhere the spirit of advanced Freemasonry, gloating over the wounds it had been able to inflict upon the Spouse of Christ. Yet this adven- turer has, with great adroitness, been able to pass with many, and especially in Ireland, as a good Catholic. Because he was the enemy of England, or rather that England led by the counsels
NArOLEON AND FREEMASONRY. 45
of Pitt and Burke constituted herself the imphicable enemy of the Revolution of which he was the incarnation and continuation, man j opposed to England for political reasons, regard Bonaparte as a kind of hero. No one can doubt the military genius of the man, nor indeed his great general ability ; but he was in all his acts what Freemasonry made him. He was mean, selfish, tyrannical, cruel. He was reckless of blood. He could tolerate or use the Church while that suited his policy. But he had from the beginning to the very end of his career that thorough indifference to her welfare, and want of belief in her doctrines, which an early and life-long connection with the Illuminati inspired.
Father Deschamps writes of him : " JS'apoleon Bonaparte was in effect an advanced Freemason, and his reign has been the most flourishing epoch of Freemasonry. During the reign of terror, the Grand Orient ceased its activity. The moment Napoleon seized upon power the lodges were opened in every place."
I have said that the revolutionary rulers in France were all Hluminati — that is Freemasons of the most pronounced type — whose ultimate aim was the destruction of every existing religion and form of secular government, in order to found an atheistic, social republic, which should extend throughout the world and embrace all mankind. Freemasonry welcomes, as we have seen, the Mahommedan, the Indian, the Chinese, and the Budhist, as well as the Christian and the Jew. It designs to conquer all, as a means of bringing all into the one level of Atheism and Communism. When, therefore, its Directory, in their desire to get rid of Napoleon, planned the expedition to Egypt and Asia, they meant the realization of a part of this programme, as well as the removal of a troublesome rival. A universal monarchy is, in their idea, the most efficacious means for arriving at a universal republic. Once obtained, the dagger with which they removed Gustavus III. of Sweden, or the guillotine by Avhich they rid France of Louis XVI., can at any moment remove Ceesar and call in Brutus. They are not the men to recoil before deeds of blood for the accomplishment of their purposes.
46 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
Now Napoleon, who was, as Father Deschamps informs us, a member of the lodge of the Templars, the extreme Illuminated lodge of Lyons, and had given proof of his fidelity to Masonry in Italy, was the very man to extend the rule of Republicanism throughout Asia. He appeared in Egypt with the same profes- sions of hypocritical respect for the Koran, the Prophet, and Mahommedanism, as he afterwards made when it suited his policy for Catholicism. His address to the people of Egypt will prove this. It ran as follows, with true Masonic hypocrisy : —
" Cadis, Chieks, Imans, tell the people that we are the friends " of true Mussulman ; that we respect more than the Mamelukes " do, God, His Prophet, and the Alkoran. Is it not we who have " destroyed the Pope, who wished that war should be made against " the Mussulman ? Is it not we who have destroyed the Knights ''of Malta, because these madmen thought that God willed " them to make war upon the Mussulman ? Is it not we who " have been in all ages the friends of the Grand Seigneur — may " God fulfil his desires — and the enemv of his enemies. God is " God, and Mahomet is his Prophet ! Fear notliing above all for '' the religion of the Prophet, which I love."
The cool hypocrisy of this Address is manifested by a proclamation he made on that occasion to his own soldiers. The same proclamation also shows the value we may place on his protestations of attachment to, and respect for, the usages of Christianity. The following is a translation of it : —
" Soldiers ! the peoples with whom we are about to live are " Mahommedan. The first article of their faith is this : ' There is " no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet.' Do not contradict " them. Act with them as you have acted with the Jews and " with the Italians. Have the same respect for their Muftis and " their Imans, as you have had for Rabbis and Bishops. Have " for the ceremonies prescribed by the Alkoran, for the Mosques, " the same tolerance you had for Convents, for Synagogues, and " for the religion of Moses, and of Jesus Christ."
We read in the correspondence of Napoleon I., published
NAPOLEON AND FREEMASONRY. 47
by order of Napoleon III. (t. v., pp. 185, 191, 241), what he thought of this proclamation to the very end of his career : —
" After all, it was not impossible that circumstances miglit '' have brought me to embrace Islam," he said at St. Helena. " Could it be thought that the Empire of the East, and perhaps ^' the subjection of the whole of Asia, was not worth a turban and '' pantaloons, for it was reduced to so much solely. We would '' lose only our breeches and our hats. I say that the army, " disposed as it was, would have lent itself to that project '^ undoubtedly, and it saw in it nothing but a subject for " laughter and pleasantry. Meanwhile you see the consequences. " I took Europe by a back stroke. The old civilization was " beaten down, and who then thought to disturb the destinies of " our France and the regeneration of the ivorld ? Who had '' dared to undertake it ? Who could have accomplished " it ? "
Neither prosperity nor adversity changed Napoleon. He was a sceptic to the end. He said at St. Helena to Las Cases :
"Everything proclaims the existence of a God — that is not '■'■ to be doubted — but all our religions are evidently the children *' of men.
" Why do these religions cry down one another, combat ^' one another ? Why has that been in all ages, and all places ? " It is because men are always men. It is because the Priests " have always insinuated, slipped in lies and fraud every- " where.
"Nevertheless," he continued, ''from the moment that I " had the power, I had been eager to re-establish religion. " I used it as the base and the root. It was in my eyes the " support of good morality, of tiue principles, of good manners."
" I am assuredly fiir from being an Atheist ; but I cannot " believe all that they teach me in spite of my reason, under " penalty of being deceitful and hypocritical.
" To say whence I come, what I am, where I go, is above
48 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH.
" my ideas. And nevertheless all that is^ I am the watch which " exists and does not know itself.
" No doubt," he conthiued, " but my spirit of mere doubt " was, in my quality of Emperor, a benefit for the people. " Otherwise how could I equally favour sects so contrary, if " I had been dominated over by one alone ? How could I pre- " serve the independence of my thoughts and of my movements " under the suggestions of a confessor who could govern me by " Qieans of the fear of hell.
'' What an empire could not a wicked man, the most stupid " of men, under that title of confessor, exercise over those " who govern nations ?
" I was so penetrated with these truths that I preserved '' myself well to act in such a manner, that, in as far as it lay in " me, I would educate my son in the same religious lines in which '' I found myself."
Two months later the ex-Emperor said that from the age of thirteen he had lost all religious faith.
Thiers (Histoire du Consulatet de l'Em2nre, iv. p. 14), says : t\iat when Napoleon intended to proclaim himself Emperor, he wished to give the Masons a pledge of his principles, and that he did this by killing the Duke d'Enghien. He said, " They wish to destroy the Revolution in attacking it in my person. I will defend it, for I am the Revolution. I, myself — I, myself. They will so consider it from this day forward, for they will know of what we are capable."
A less brave but still more accomplished relative of his. Napoleon III., in his Fdees Nai)oleoniennes, says : —
" The Revolution dying, but not vanquished, left to " Napoleon the accomplishments of its last designs. Enlighten *' tbp natioT»« it would have said to him. Place upon solid " bases the principal result of our efforts. Execute in extent " that which I have done in depth. Be for Europe what I have '' been for France. That grand mission Napoleon accomplished '• even to the end."
NAPOLEON AND FREEMASONRY. 49
When Napoleon obtained power, it was we know principally by means of the Illuminated Freemason, Talleyrand/ By him and his confederates of the Illuminati, he was recalled from Egypt and placed in the way of its attainment. His brothers were — every one of them — deep in the secrets of the sect. Its supreme hidden directory saAV that a re-action had set in, which, if not averted, would speedily lead to the return of the exiled Bourbons, and to the disgorgement of ill-gotten goods on the part of the revolutionists. As a lesser evil, therefore, and as a means of forwarding the unification of Europe which they had planned, by his conquests, they placed supreme power in the
^ Alexander Dumas in his Memoires de Garibaldi, first series, p. 34, tells us : —
" Illuminisra and Freemasonry, these two great enemies of royalty, and the adopted device of both of which was L. P. D., lilia pedibus destrue, had a grand