CHAPTER III
THEEUROPEANORDER OF THEILLUMINATI
That great European movement in the direction of the secularization of thought to which the expressive term, theAufklärungor Enlightenment, has been applied, and which reached its apogee in the latter half of the eighteenth century, encountered a stubborn opposition in southern Germany in the electorate of Bavaria. The pivot of Bavarian politics, particularly from the beginning of the sixteenth century, had been the alliance which had been effected between the clerical party and the civil power. The counter reformation which followed in the wake of the Lutheran movement was able to claim the field in Bavaria without the necessity of a combat.
In the third quarter of the eighteenth century Bavaria was a land where sacerdotalism reigned supreme. Religious houses flourished in abundance; the number of priests and nuns was incredibly large.[299]So easy were the ways of life in that fertile country that a lack of seriousness and intensity of feeling among the masses flung open the door forsuperstitious practices which made the popular religion little better than gross fetichism. So-called “miraculous” images were commonly paraded through the streets; innumerable statues and sacred relics were exposed to the gaze of crowds of the faithful; the patronage of the saints was assiduously solicited. Among the educated there was a widespread conviction that the piety of the people was ignorant and that their trustful attitude made them the prey of many impostors.
The degree of power to which the representatives of the Society of Jesus had been able to attain in Bavaria was all but absolute.[300]Members of the order were the confessors and preceptors of the electors; hence they had a direct influence upon the policies of government. The censorship of religion had fallen into their eager hands, to the extent that some of the parishes even were compelled to recognize their authority and power. To exterminate all Protestant influence and to render the Catholic establishment complete, they had taken possession of the instruments of public education. It was by Jesuits that the majority of the Bavarian colleges were founded, and by them they were controlled. By them also the secondary schools of the country were conducted.[301]
The prevailing type of education in Bavaria had little more to commend it than the popular type of religion.[302]The pedagogical aim of the Jesuits was the development of the memory with scant regard for other faculties of the mind. To learn the catechism, or in the case of advanced pupils to receive unquestioningly the dogmatic instruction offered by clerical pedagogues, was the ideal honored throughout the Bavarian schools. Books which bore the slightest taint of Protestant influence, or which in any other way gave evidence of a liberalizing spirit, were ruthlessly banned.[303]
Such were the conditions of life under which the great mass of the people lived. There was, however, a relatively small group of cultivated people in Bavaria who, despite the clerical oppression and bigotry from which they suffered, had contrived to share in the liberalizing spirit of the larger world. The censorship exerted by the Jesuits had found no adequate means to guard against the broadening influences of travel or of contact with travelers from other lands, or even to prevent the introduction of all contraband journals and books. The effect of the former had been to create a humiliating and galling sense of inferiority on the part of liberal-minded Bavarians,[304]while the latter had served to stimulate a thirst for the new knowledge which the rationalism of the age made available. To this small group of discontented and ambitious spirits the ancient faith had ceased to be satisfactory, and the burden of clericalism had become insufferable.
The University of Ingolstadt, established in 1472, was destined to become a rallying point for these radical tendencies. In the middle of the sixteenth century the Jesuits hadgained control of its faculties of philosophy and theology, and for two centuries thereafter the university had been counted upon as the chief fortress of clericalism in Bavaria.[305]By the middle of the eighteenth century the deadening effect of the rigorous censorship exerted by the Jesuits had produced its full fruitage at Ingolstadt. The university had fallen into a state of profound decadence.[306]
With the accession of Maximilian Joseph[307]as elector, in 1745, the breath of a new life soon stirred within its walls. For the position of curator of the university the elector named a well-known and resolute radical of the day, Baron Johann Adam Ickstatt, and charged him with the responsibility of reorganizing the institution upon a more liberal basis.[308]Measures were adopted promptly by the latter looking to the restoration of the prestige of the university through the modernization of its life. The ban was lifted from books whose admission to the library had long been prohibited, chairs of public law and political economy were established, and recruits to the faculty were sought in other universities.[309]
It was, of course, not to be expected that the clerical party, whose power in the university, as has been intimated, was particularly well entrenched in the faculties of philosophy and theology, would retire from the field without a struggle.[310]A sharp contest arose over the introduction of non-Catholic books, into which the elector himself was drawn, and which in addition to the substantial victory that Ickstatt won, had the further effect of aligning the two parties in the university squarely against each other.[311]It was only a few years after this episode, when the Jesuits were still chafing under the sharp setback which their policies had suffered, that the name of Adam Weishaupt first appeared (in 1772) on the roll of the faculty of the university as professor extraordinary of law.
Weishaupt (born February 6, 1748; died November 18, 1830) entered upon his professional career at Ingolstadt after an educational experience which had made him a passionate enemy of clericalism. His father having died when the son was only seven, his godfather, none other than Baron Ickstatt, compelled doubtless by the necessities of the case, had turned the early training of the boy over to the Jesuits. The cramming process through which he thus passed was destined to prove unusually baneful in his case[312]on account of certain influences which penetrated his life from another quarter. Accorded free range in the private library of his godfather, the boy’s questioning spirit was deeply impressed by the brilliant though pretentious works of the French “philosophers” with which the shelves were plentifully stocked.[313]Here was food for the fires of imagination just beginning to flame up in this unsophisticatedand pedantic youth. Here, also, were ready solvents for the doubts with which his experience with Jesuit teachers had filled his mind. The enthusiasm of the most susceptible of neophytes seized him: he would make proselytes, he would deliver others from their bondage to outworn beliefs, he would make it his duty to rescue men from the errors into which the race had long been plunged.[314]His object in life thus early determined, he threw himself with great zeal into the study of law, economics, politics, history, and philosophy. He devoured every book which chanced to fall into his hands.[315]
After graduating from the University of Ingolstadt in 1768, he served for four years in the capacity of tutor and catechist until his elevation to the rank of assistant instructor took place. The favor he was permitted to enjoy as the protégé of Ickstatt[316]brought him more rapid advancement than that to which his native abilities entitled him. In 1773 he was called to the chair of canon law, which for a period of ninety years had been held by representatives of the Jesuits.[317]Two years later, when he was but twenty-seven years of age, he was made dean of the faculty of law. Such a rapid improvement in his professional standing proved far from salutary. The young man’s vanity was immensely flattered and his reforming resolution unduly encouraged. His sense of personal worth as the leader of the liberal cause in the university quite outran his merit.[318]
Meantime the Jesuits, observing with deep resentment Weishaupt’s meteoric rise,[319]together with a growing disposition on his part to voice unrestrained criticism of ecclesiastical intolerance and bigotry, entered into intrigues to checkmate his influence and undermine his position.[320]The payment of his salary was protested and the notion that he was a dangerous free-thinker industriously disseminated.[321]On his part, Weishaupt did not scruple to furnish Ickstatt’s successor, Lori, with secret reports calculated to put the Jesuit professors in the university in an unfavorable light.[322]A disagreeable squabble resulted, marked on the one hand by clerical jealousy and pettiness and on the other by Weishaupt’s imprudence of speech[323]and indifference to considerations of professional honor.
The effect of this unseemly strife upon Weishaupt was to establish firmly in his mind the conviction that as the university’s most influential leader against the cause of ecclesiastical obscurantism he was being made a martyr for free speech.[324]In no way disposed to be sacrificed to the animosity of enemies whose power he greatly over-estimated, he arrived at the conclusion that a general offensive against the clerical party ought immediately to beundertaken. A secret association was needed which, growing more and more powerful through the increase of its members and their progress in enlightenment, should be able to outwit the manœuvres of the enemies of reason not only in Ingolstadt but throughout the world. Only by a secret coalition of the friends of liberal thought and progress could the forces of superstition and error be overwhelmed. Over the scheme of such an association consecrated to the cause of truth and reason, the self-esteem of Weishaupt kindled anew as he contemplated none other than himself at its head.[325]
His imagination having taken heat from his reflections upon the attractive power of the Eleusinian mysteries and the influence exerted by the secret cult of the Pythagoreans, it was first in Weishaupt’s thought to seek in the Masonic institutions of the day the opportunity he coveted for the propagation of his views. From this original intention, however, he was soon diverted, in part because of the difficulty he experienced in commanding sufficient funds to gain admission to a lodge of Masons, in part because his study of such Masonic books as came into his hands persuaded him that the “mysteries” of Freemasonry were too puerile and too readily accessible to the general public to make them worth while.[326]He deemed it necessary, therefore, to launch out on independent lines. He would form a model secret organization, comprising “schools of wisdom,” concealed from the gaze of the world behind walls of seclusion and mystery, wherein those truths which the folly and egotism of the priests banned from the public chairs of education might be taught with perfect freedom to susceptible youths.[327]By the constitution of an order whose chief function should be that of teaching, an instrument would be at hand for attaining the goal of human progress, the perfection of morals and the felicity of the race.[328]
On May 1, 1776, the new organization was founded, under the name of the Order of the Illuminati,[329]with a membership of five all told. The extremely modest beginning of the order in respect to its original membership was more than matched by the confusion which existed in Weishaupt’s mind as to the precise form which the organization had best take. Only three elementary grades, or ranks, had been worked out by him, and these only in a crude and bungling fashion, when the enterprise was launched. A feverish regard for action had full possession of the founder of the order; the working-out of his hazy ideas of organization might wait for quieter days.[330]
Out of the voluminous and rambling expositions which Weishaupt at various times made of the three primary grades,viz., Novice, Minerval, and Illuminated Minerval, the following brief descriptions are extracted.
To the grade of Novice youths of promise were to be admitted, particularly those who were rich, eager to learn, virtuous, and docile, though firm and persevering.[331]Such were to be enrolled only after their imaginations and desires had been artfully aroused by suggestions concerning the advantages to be derived from secret associations among like-minded men, the superiority of the social state over that of nature, the dependence of all governments upon the consent of the governed, and the delight of knowing and directing men.[332]Once enrolled, the instruction of each Novice was to be in the hands of his enroller, who kept well hidden from his pupil the identity of the rest of his superiors. Such statutes of the order as he was permitted to read impressed upon the mind of the Novice that the particular ends sought in his novitiate were to ameliorate and perfect his moral character, expand his principles of humanity and sociability, and solicit his interest in the laudable objects of thwarting the schemes of evil men, assisting oppressed virtue, and helping men of merit to find suitable places in the world.[333]Having had impressed upon him the necessity of maintaining inviolable secrecy respecting the affairs of the order,the further duties of subordinating his egoistic views and interests and of according respectful and complete obedience to his superiors were next enjoined. An important part of the responsibility of the Novice consisted in the drawing-up of a detailed report (for the archives of the order), containing complete information concerning his family and his personal career, covering such remote items as the titles of the books he possessed, the names of his personal enemies and the occasion of their enmity, his own strong and weak points of character, the dominant passions of his parents, the names of their parents and intimates,etc.[334]Monthly reports were also required, covering the benefits the recruit had received from and the services he had rendered to the order.[335]For the building-up of the order the Novice must undertake his share in the work of recruitment, his personal advancement to the higher grades being conditioned upon the success of such efforts.[336]To those whom he enrolled he became in turn a superior; and thus after a novitiate presumably two years in length,[337]the way was open for his promotion to the next higher grade.
The ceremony of initiation through which the Novice passed into the grade Minerval was expected to disabuse the mind of the candidate of any lingering suspicion that the order had as its supreme object the subjugation of the rich and powerful, or the overthrow of civil and ecclesiastical government.[338]It also pledged the candidate to be usefulto humanity; to maintain a silence eternal, a fidelity inviolable, and an obedience implicit with respect to all the superiors and rules of the order; and to sacrifice all personal interests to those of the society.[339]Admitted to the rank of Minerval, the candidate received into his hands the printed statutes of the order, wherein he learned that in addition to the duties he had performed as novice, his obligations had been extended with special reference to his studies.[340]These were to be more highly specialized, and the fruits of his researches from time to time turned over to the superiors. In the prosecution of difficult labors of this character, he was to be free to call to his assistance other Minervals in his district.[341]He might also count upon the assistance of his superiors in the form of letters of recommendation in case he undertook travels in the pursuit of his studies; and should he form the resolve to publish his material, the order pledged itself to protect him against the rapacity of booksellers who might show themselves disposed to overcharge him for the works he wished to consult, as well as to render assistance in attracting the attention of the public to his work.[342]
In the assemblies of this grade the Minerval for the first time came into contact with the members of the order. In other words, his life within the society actually began.[343]The thirst for the sense of secret association with men of like interests and aims, which the members long novitiate had developed, began to find its satisfaction.[344]Ordinary Minervals and “illuminated” Minervals mingled together in these assemblies[345]and mutually devoted their deliberations to the affairs of the order.
To the grade Illuminated Minerval were admitted those Minervals who in the judgment of their superiors were worthy of advancement. Elaborate initiatory ceremonies fixed in the candidates mind the notions that the progressive purification of his life was to be expected as he worked his way upward in the order,[346]and that the mastery of theart of directing men was to be his special pursuit as long as he remained in the new grade. To accomplish the latter,i. e., to become an expert psychologist and director of men’s consciences, he must observe and study constantly the actions, purposes, desires, faults, and virtues of the little group of Minervals who were placed under his personal direction and care.[347]For his guidance in this difficult task a complicated mass of instructions was furnished him.[348]
In addition to their continued presence in the assemblies of the Minervals, the members of this grade came together once a month by themselves, to hear reports concerning their disciples, to discuss methods of accomplishing the best results in their work of direction and to solicit each other’s counsel in difficult and embarrassing cases.[349]In these meetings the records of the assemblies of the Minervals were reviewed and rectified and afterwards transmitted to the superior officers of the order.
Such, in brief, was the system of the Illuminati as it came from the brain of Weishaupt, its founder. By means of such an organization he proposed to effect nothing less than the redemption of the world. In its assemblies the truths of human equality and fraternity were to be taught and practised.[350]Its members were to be trained to labor for the welfare of the race; to strive for a civilization, not like that of the present, which left men savage and ferocious under its thin veneer, but one which would so radically change their moral dispositions as to put all their desires under the control of reason—the supreme end of life, which neither civil nor religious institutions had been able to secure.[351]The study of man was to be made at once so minute, so comprehensive, and so complete[352]that two immense advantageswould result: first, the acquisition of the art of influencing favorably the wills of one’s fellows, thus making social reformation possible; and second, self-knowledge.[353]That is to say, the thorough scrutiny of the instincts, passions, thoughts, and prejudices of others, which the order imposed upon him, would react in turn upon the member’s judgment of his own personal life. As a result his conscience would be subjected to frequent examination, and the faults of his life might be expected to yield to correction. From both of these advantages, working together, a moral transformation of the whole of society would result, thus securing the state of universal well-being.[354]
But this conception of the order as essentially an instrument of social education requires to be balanced by another,viz., its anticlericalism. Its founder professed that at the time when the idea of the order was taking shape in his mind he was profoundly influenced by the persecutions which honest men of unorthodox sentiments had been compelled to suffer on account of their views.[355]Considerations growing out of his own personal embarrassments and imagined peril on account of his clashings with the Jesuits were also admittedly weighty in his thought.[356]It is thereforeto be regarded as a substantial element in his purpose to forge a weapon against the Jesuits, and in a larger sense to create a league defensive and offensive against all the enemies of free thought.[357]
Accordingly, the expression of utterances hostile to Christian dogmas was early heard within the assemblies of the order,[358]and only the difficulty experienced in working out the supreme grade of the order inhibited Weishaupt’s intention of converting it into a council of war to circumvent and overwhelm the advocates of supernaturalism and the enemies of reason.[359]The pure religion of Christ, which, doctrinally conceived, had degenerated into asceticism and, from the institutional standpoint,[360]had become a school of fanaticism and intolerance, was pronounced a doctrine of reason, converted into a religion for no other purpose than to make it more efficacious.[361]To love God and one’s neighbor was to follow in the way of redemption which Jesus ofNazareth, the grand master of the Illuminati, marked out as constituting the sole road which leads to liberty.[362]
The objects of the order were such as to appeal to the discontented elements in a country suffering from intellectual stagnation due to ecclesiastical domination.[363]Despite this fact, its growth during the first four years of its existence was anything but rapid. By that time four centers of activity, in addition to Ingolstadt, had been established, and a total of possibly sixty members recruited.[364]While its visionary founder considered that a solid basis for encouragement had been laid,[365]as a matter of fact at the termination of the period just indicated the organization was seriously threatened with failure. Fundamental weaknesses had developed from within. Chief among these was the tension which existed almost from the first between Weishaupt and the men whom he associated with him in thesupreme direction of the affairs of the order.[366]The thirst for domination, which was native to the soul of Weishaupt, converted the order into a despotism against which men who had been taught by their leader that they shared with him the innermost secrets of the organization, rebelled. The result was the constant breaking-out of a spirit of insubordination and a series of quarrels between the founder and his associates which rendered the future progress of the order very precarious.[367]The extreme poverty of the organization constituted another serious obstacle to its rapid growth. With a view to demonstrating the genuine disinterestedness of the society, an effort had been made from the beginning to emphasize the financial interests of the order as little as possible.[368]The rules of the organization were far from burdensome in this regard, and it is by no means surprising that many of the proposed measures of the leaders in the interests of a more extensive and effective propaganda proved abortive for the very practical reason that funds were not available to carry them into effect.[369]
A decidedly new turn in the wheel of fortune came some time within the compass of the year 1780,[370]with the enrollmentof Baron Adolf Franz Friederich Knigge[371]as a member.
In the recruiting of this prominent North German diplomat Weishaupt and his associates found the resourceful and influential ally for which the organization had waited, a man endowed with a genius for organization and so widely and favorably connected that the order was able to reap an immense advantage from the prestige which his membership bestowed upon it. Two weighty consequences promptly followed as the result of Knigge’s advent into the order. The long-sought higher grades were worked out, and an alliance between the Illuminati and Freemasonry was effected.[372]
Such was the confidence which Knigge’s presence immediately inspired in Weishaupt and his associates that they hailed with enthusiasm his admission to the order, and gladly abandoned to him the task of perfecting the system, their own impotence for which they had been forced to admit.[373]Manifesting a zeal and competency which fullyjustified the high regard of his brethren, Knigge threw himself into the task of elaborating and rendering compact and coherent the childish ideas of organization which Weishaupt had evolved.
The general plan of the order was so shaped as to throw the various grades or ranks into three principal classes.[374]To the first class were to belong the grades Minerval and Illuminatus Minor; to the second,[375](1) the usual three first grades of Masonry, Apprentice, Fellow, and Master, (2) Illuminatus Major, and (3) Illuminatus Dirigens, or Scottish Knight; and to the third class were reserved the Higher Mysteries, including (a) the Lesser Mysteries, made up of the ranks of Priest and Prince, and (b) the Greater Mysteries, comprising the ranks of Magus and King.[376]
A detailed description of the various grades of Knigge’s system would far outrun the reader’s interest and patience.[377]The present writer therefore will content himself with makingsuch comments as seem best suited to supply a general idea of the revised system.
The grade Novice (a part of the system only in a preparatory sense) was left unchanged by Knigge, save for the addition of a printed communication to be put into the hands of all new recruits, advising them that the Order of the Illuminati stands over against all other forms of contemporary Freemasonry as the one type not degenerate, and as such alone able to restore the craft to its ancient splendor.[378]The grade Minerval was reproduced as respects its statutes but greatly elaborated in its ceremonies under the influence of Masonic usages with which Knigge was familiar.[379]The grade Illuminatus Minor was likewise left identical with Weishaupt’s redaction, save in unimportant particulars as to special duties and in the working-out and explanation of its symbolism.[380]
The three symbolic grades of the second class seem to have been devised solely for the purpose of supplying an avenue whereby members of the various branches of the great Masonic family could pass to the higher grades of the new order.[381]Membership in these grades was regarded as a mere formality, the peculiar objects and secrets of the order having, of course, to be apprehended later.
A candidate for admission to the grade of Illuminatus Major was first to be subjected to a rigorous examination as respects his connections with other secret organizations and his objects in seeking advancement. His superiors being satisfied upon these points, it was provided that he should be admitted to the grade by means of a ceremonial highly Masonic in its coloring. His special duties were four in number: (1) to prepare a detailed analysis of his character, according to specific instructions furnished him; (2) to assist in the training of those members of the order who were charged with the responsibility of recruiting new members; (3) to put his talents and his social position under tribute for the benefit of the order, either by himself stepping into places of honor which were open or by nominating for such places other members who were fitted to fill them; and (4) to coöperate with other members of his rank in the direction of the assemblies of the Minervals.[382]
Advanced to the grade of Illuminatus Dirigens, or Scottish Knight, the member bound himself with a written oath to withhold his support from every other system of Masonry, or from any other secret society, and to put all his talents and powers at the disposition of the order.[383]His obligations in this rank were purely administrative in their character. The inferior grades of the order were territorially grouped together into prefectures, and upon these the authority of the Illuminatus Dirigens was imposed. Each Illuminatus Dirigens had a certain number of Minervalassemblies and lodges assigned to him, and for the welfare of these he was responsible to the superiors of the order. The members of this grade constituted the “Sacred Secret Chapter of the Scottish Knights,” from which issued the patents of constitution for the organization of new lodges.[384]
To the first grade of the third class, that of Priest,[385]were admitted only such members as, in the grade Minerval, had given proof of their zeal and advancement in the particular sciences which they had chosen.[386]The initiatory ceremonies of the grade emphasized the wholly unsatisfactory character of existing political and religious systems and sounded the candidate’s readiness to serve the order in its efforts to lead the race away from the vain inventions of civil constitutions and religious dogmas from which it suffered.[387]Relieved entirely of administrative responsibilities, the members of this grade devoted themselves exclusively to the instruction of their subordinates in the following branches of science: physics, medicine, mathematics, natural history, political science, the arts and crafts, and the occult sciences. In brief, the final supervision of the teachingfunction of the order was in their hands, subject only to the ultimate authority of their supreme heads.[388]
Knigge’s statutes provided that only a very small number of members were to be admitted to the grade of Prince.[389]From this group the highest functionaries of the order were to be drawn: National Inspectors, Provincials,[390]Prefects, and Deans of the Priests. Over them, in turn, at the apex of the system and as sovereign heads of the order, ruled the Areopagites.[391]
So much for the external structure of the system which Knigge reshaped. With respect to the aims and principles of the order the modifications introduced by him were considerable, although scarcely as comprehensive as in the former case.[392]In certain instances the ideas of Weishaupt wereretained and developed;[393]in others significant alterations were made or new ideas introduced. Of the new ideas the two following were unquestionably of greatest weight:[394]the notion of restricting the field of recruiting solely to the young was abandoned, and this phase of the propaganda was widened so as to include men of experience whose wisdom and influence might be counted upon to assist in attaining the objects of the order;[395]the policy was adopted that henceforth the order should not occupy itself with campaigns against particular political and religious systems, but that its energies should be exerted against superstition, despotism, and tyranny.[396]In other words, the battle fortolerance and enlightenment should be waged along universal and not local lines. Accordingly, the esoteric teaching of the order, under Knigge’s revision, was reserved to the higher grades.
The progress of the order from 1780 on[397]was so rapid as to raise greatly the spirits of its leaders. The new method of spreading Illuminism by means of its affiliation with Masonic lodges promptly demonstrated its worth. Largely because of the fine strategy of seeking its recruitsamong the officers and other influential personages in the lodges of Freemasonry, one after another of the latter in quick succession went over to the new system.[398]New prefectures were established, new provinces organized, and Provincials began to report a steady and copious stream of new recruits.[399]From Bavaria into the upper and lower Rhenish provinces the order spread into Suabia, Franconia, Westphalia, Upper and Lower Saxony, and outside of Germany into Austria[400]and Switzerland. Within a fewmonths after Knigge rescued the order from the moribund condition in which he found it, the leaders were able to rejoice in the accession of three hundred members, many of whom by their membership immensely enhanced the prestige of the order. Students, merchants, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, judges, professors ingymnasiaand universities, preceptors, civil officers, pastors, priests—all were generously represented among the new recruits.[401]Distinguished names soon appeared upon the rosters of the lodges of the new system. Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, Duke Ernst of Gotha, Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar, Prince August of Saxe-Gotha, Prince Carl of Hesse, Baron Dalberg,[402]the philosopher Herder, the poet Goethe,[403]the educationist Pestalozzi,[404]were among the number enrolled. By the end of 1784 the leaders boasted of a total enrollment of between two and three thousand members,[405]and the establishmentof the order upon a solid foundation seemed to be fully assured.[406]
But just at the moment when the prospects were brightest, the knell of doom suddenly sounded.[407]Dangers fromwithin and from without, with bewildering celerity and concurrence, like a besom of destruction swept from the earth the order which Adam Weishaupt, with such exaggerated anticipations, had constituted out of a little group of obscure students at Ingolstadt, on May Day, 1776.
The internal difficulties were of the nature of dissensions among the chiefs. The old jealousies that existed between Weishaupt and the Areopagites[408]before Knigge reconstructed the order were not eradicated by the introduction of the new system, and in course of time they flamed forth anew.[409]But ugly in temper and subversive of discipline and order as these petty contentions were, they were of little importance as compared with the fatal discord which arose between Weishaupt and Knigge. The spirit of humility that the former manifested in 1780, when in desperation he turned to Knigge for assistance, did not long continue. Aroused by the danger of seeing his personal control of the order set aside and himself treated as a negligible factor, Weishaupt sought opportunities of asserting his prerogatives, and the ambition of Knigge being scarcely less selfish than that of Weishaupt, the two men quarreled repeatedly and long.[410]So bitter and implacable the spirit of the twobecame that in the end, exercising a discretion dictated by despair rather than generosity, Knigge withdrew from the field, leaving Weishaupt in undisputed possession of the coveted headship of the order.
But the fruits of his victory the latter had little chance to enjoy.[411]On June 22, 1784, Carl Theodore[412]launched the first of his edicts against all communities, societies, and brotherhoods in his lands which had been established without due authorization of law and the confirmation of the sovereign.[413]The edict, to be sure, was general in its character,and the Bavarian Illuminati were glad to believe that their system was not specially involved: by lying low for a season the squall would speedily blow over and the activitiesof the order might safely be resumed.[414]These anticipations, however, were doomed to disappointment. Having surrendered himself completely to the spirit of reaction, and spurred by reports of the covert disobedience of the order which hisentouragespread before him,[415]the Bavarian monarch, on March 2 of the following year, issued another edict that specifically designated the Illuminati as one of the branches of Freemasonry, all of which were severely upbraided for their failure to yield implicit obedience to the will of the sovereign as expressed in the previous edict, and a new ban, more definite and sweeping in its terms than the former, was thereby proclaimed.[416]
A fixed resolution on the part of the government to give full force to the provisions of the interdict left no room for evasion.[417]In response to the call of its enemies, former members of the order who, either because of scruples of conscience or for less honorable reasons, had withdrawn from its fellowship, came forward to make formal declarations respecting their knowledge of its affairs.[418]In this direct manner the weapons needed for the waging of an effective campaign against the society were put into the government’s hands.[419]Judicial inquiries were inaugurated, beginning at Ingolstadt.[420]Measures of government, allaimed at nothing short of the complete suppression and annihilation of the order, followed one another in rapid succession. Officers and soldiers in the army were required to come forward and confess their relations with the Illuminati, under promise of immunity if ready and hearty in their response, but under pain of disgrace, cassation, or other punishment if refractory.[421]Members and officers of consular boards were subjected to similar regulations.[422]Officers of state and holders of ecclesiastical benefices who were found to have connections with the order were summarily dismissed from their posts.[423]Professors in universities and teachers in the public schools suffered a like fate.[424]Students who were recognized as adepts were dismissed, and in some cases were banished from the country.[425]
As a system the order was shattered, but its supporters were not wholly silenced. Weishaupt particularly, from his place of security in a neighboring country, lifted his voiceagainst the men who had betrayed the order and the government which had ruined it. Taking recourse to his pen, with incredible rapidity he struck off one pamphlet and volume after another,[426]in a feverish effort, offensive and defensive, to avert if possible total disaster to the cause which, despite all his frailties, he truly loved. The one clear result of his polemical efforts was to draw the fire of those who defended the denunciators of the afflicted order and who supported the clerical party and the government. A war of pamphlets developed, the noise and vehemence of which were destined to add, if possible, to the embarrassment and pain of those members of the order who still remained in Bavaria. Once more the suspicions of the government were aroused; a search was made by the police for further evidence, and in the month of October, 1786, at Landshut, in the house of Xavier Zwack,[427]one of the order’s most prominent leaders, decisive results were achieved. A considerable number of books and papers were discovered,[428]the latter containing more than two hundred letters that had passed between Weishaupt and the Areopagites, dealingwith the most intimate affairs of the order, together with tables containing the secret symbols, calendar, and geographical terms belonging to the system, imprints of its insignia, a partial roster of its membership, the statutes, instruction for recruiters, the primary ceremony of initiation,etc.[429]
Here was the complete range of evidence the authorities had long waited for. Out of the mouths of its friends, theaccusations which its enemies made against the order were to be substantiated. By the admissions of its leaders, the system of the Illuminati had the appearance of an organization devoted to the overthrow of religion and the state, a band of poisoners and forgers, an association of men of disgusting morals and depraved tastes. The publication of these documents amounted to nothing less than a sensation.[430]New measures were forthwith adopted by the government. Leading representatives of the order, whose names appeared in the telltale documents, were placed under arrest and formally interrogated. Some of these, like the treasurer, Hertel, met the situation with courage and dignity, and escaped with no further punishment than a warning to have nothing to do with the organization in the future under fear of graver consequences.[431]Others, like the poltroon Mändl,[432]adopted the course of making monstrous “revelations” concerning the objects and practices of the order. Still others, like Massenhausen, against whom the charge of poison-mixing was specifically lodged,[433]sought safety in flight.
As a final blow against the devastated order, on August 16,1787, the duke of Bavaria launched his third and last edict against the system.[434]The presentments of the former interdicts were reëmphasized, and in addition, to give maximum force to the sovereign’s will, criminal process, without distinction of person, dignity, state, or quality, was ordered against any Illuminatus who should be discovered continuing the work of recruiting. Any so charged and found guilty were to be deprived of their lives by the sword; while those thus recruited were to have their goods confiscated and themselves to be condemned to perpetual banishment from the territories of the duke.[435]Under the same penalties of confiscation and banishment, the members of the order, no matter under what name or circumstances, regular or irregular, they should gather, were forbidden to assemble as lodges.[436]
The end of the order was at hand. So far as the situation within Bavaria was concerned, the sun of the Illuminati had already set.[437]It remained for the government to stretch forth its hand as far as possible, to deal with those fugitives who, enjoying the protection of other governments, might plot and contrive to rebuild the ruined system. Accordingly, Zwack, who had sought asylum first in thecourt of Zweibrücken and had later obtained official position in the principality of Salm-Kyburg, was summoned by the duke of Bavaria to return to that country. The summons was not accepted,[438]but the activities of Zwack as a member of the Illuminati, as the event proved, were over. Count (Baron) Montgelas, whose services on behalf of the order do not appear to have been significant, but who, upon the publication of the correspondence seized in the residence of Zwack, had likewise sought the protection of the duke of Zweibrücken, found the favor of that sovereign sufficient to save him from the power of the Bavarian monarch.[439]As for Weishaupt, whose originary relation to the order the Bavarian government had discovered in the secret correspondence just referred to, his presence in Gotha, outside Bavarian territory but in close proximity to the Bavarian possessions, added greatly to the concern of Carl Theodore.[440]Efforts were made by the latter to counteract any possible influence he might exert to rehabilitate the Illuminati system.[441]They were as futile as they were unnecessary. Broken in spirit, making no effort to regain the kingdom which his vanity insisted he had lost, contenting himself with the publication of various apologetic writings,[442]permitted for a considerableperiod to enjoy the bounty of his generous patron, Duke Ernst of Gotha, he sank slowly into obscurity.[443]
As for the fortunes of the order outside of Bavaria, the measures adopted by the government of that country proved decisive. Here and there, especially in the case of Bode,[444]a Saxon Illuminatus, efforts were made to galvanize the expiring spirit of the order, but wholly without result.