[490]Ibid., pp. 40et seq.[491]Robison,op. cit., pp. 43et seq.[492]Ibid., p. 51. Robison’s account of this phase of the situation has little to commend it. Upon his own unsupported assertions many of the Revolutionary leaders, as, for example, Mirabeau, Sieyès, Despremenil, Bailly, Fauchet, Maury, Mounier, and Talleyrand, are brought into direct connection with one or another of the French Masonic systems.Cf.Robison, pp. 49et seq.Similarly, it is maintained, it was among Masonic lodges that the ideas contained in such books as Robinet’sLa Nature, ou l’Homme moral et physique, Condorcet’sLe Progrès de l’Esprit humain, Lequinio’sLes préjugés vaincus par la raison, and the bookDes Erreurs et de la Vérité, were first disseminated. Indeed, some of these books are said to have sprung out of the very bosom of the lodges.Cf. ibid., pp. 43et seq.[493]Ibid., pp. 67et seq.Comparison with Forestier, pp. 141et seq., will make clear the paucity of the data upon which Robison drew in attempting to write the earlier chapters of the history of German Freemasonry.[494]Robison,op. cit., p. 64.[495]Robison’s language is absurdly strong. “In half a year Free Masonry underwent a complete revolution all over Germany.” (Ibid., p. 70.)[496]The sheer puerility of the treatment is indicated by the following: “A Mr. Rosa, a French commissary, brought from Paris a complete wagon-load of Masonic ornaments, which were all distributed before it had reached Berlin, and he was obliged to order another, to furnish the Lodges of that city. It became for a while the most profitable business to many French officers and commissaries dispersed over Germany, having little else to do.” (Robison,op. cit., pp. 69et seq.)[497]Ibid., p. 73.[498]Ibid., pp. 65et seq.[499]Ibid., pp. 78, 79. Robison read into this situation a deliberate effort on the part of the leaders of French Freemasonry to extend the hegemony of the latter. He surmised that political uses and benefits were thus aimed at.Cf. ibid.[500]Robison’s term for the representatives of theAufklärung.Cf.Robison, p. 81.[501]Ibid., p. 80. This declension of faith and morals Robison, more wisely than he was aware, traced in part to the clash between the Roman Catholic and Protestant systems in Germany and the spirit of free inquiry which was thus promoted. See Robison, pp. 80et seqq.[502]It is in this connection that Basedow is brought into relations with Robison’s devious exposition.Cf. ibid., pp. 85et seq.[503]Ibid., pp. 82et seq.[504]Robison,op. cit., pp. 92et seq.“ … Germany has experienced the same gradual progress, from Religion to Atheism, from decency to dissoluteness, and from loyalty to rebellion, which has had its course in France. And I must now add, that this progress has been effected in the same manner, and by the same means; and that one of the chief means of seduction has been the Lodges of the Free Masons. The French, along with their numerous chevaleries [sic], and stars, and ribands, had brought in the custom of haranguing in the Lodges, and as human nature has a considerable uniformity everywhere, the same topics became favorite subjects of declamation that had tickled the ear in France; there were the same corruptions of sentiments and manners among the luxurious or profligate, and the same incitements to the utterance of these sentiments, wherever it could be done with safety; and I may say, that the zealots in all these tracts of free-thinking were more serious, more grave, and fanatical. These are assertionsa priori. I can produce proofs.” (Ibid., pp. 91et seq.) The “proofs” here referred to concern the Masonic career of Baron Knigge, whose antagonism to orthodox Christianity Robison distorts both as to its temper and its effect.[505]Ibid., pp. 126et seq.[506]Ibid., pp. 100et seq.[507]Ibid., pp. 101et seq.These connections Robison almost wholly misconceived.Cf. supra,pp. 150,163et seq.[508]Robison,op. cit., p. 103.[509]Ibid., p. 105. The ulterior object of the order is later stated by Robison in the following manner: “Their first and immediate aim is to get possession of riches, power, and influence, without industry; and, to accomplish this, they want to abolish Christianity; and then dissolute manners and universal profligacy will procure them the adherence of all the wicked, and enable them to overturn all the civil governments of Europe; after which they will think of further conquests, and extend their operations to the other quarters of the globe, till they have reduced mankind to a state of one indistinguishable chaotic mass.” Robison, pp. 209et seq.[510]Ibid., p. 126.[511]Ibid., p. 212.[512]Robison omitted nothing in his effort to fasten the stigma of moral obliquity upon the order. The published papers of the order were appealed to show that crimes of bribery, theft, and libertinism were not uncommon on the part of the leaders. See Robison, pp. 144et seq.The unsavory documents of the order referred to on page 181 of this dissertation likewise received Robison’s zealous attention.Cf. ibid., pp. 138et seq.Weishaupt’s personal immorality in his relations with his sister-in-law is made to do full duty as “a brilliant specimen of the ethics which illuminated” the leaders.Cf. ibid., pp. 164et seq.(If a particular illustration of Robison’s bungling way of handling his German sources were needed, that might be found in the fact that our author identified the victim of Weishaupt’s lust as the sister-in-law of Zwack.Cf. ibid., p. 167.)[513]To Robison’s mind this constituted the crowning infamy of the order. “There is nothing in the whole constitution of the Illuminati that strikes me with more horror than the proposals of Hercules and Minos to enlist women in this shocking warfare with all that ‘is good, and pure, and lovely, and of good report’…. Are not the accursed fruits of Illumination to be seen in the present humiliating condition of women in France? … In their present state of national moderation (as they call it) and security, see Madame Tallien come into the public theatre, accompanied by otherbeautifulwomen, (I was about to have misnamed them Ladies), laying aside all modesty, and presenting themselves to the public view, with bared limbs,à la Sauvage, as the alluring objects of desire…. Was not their abominable farce in the church of Notre Dame a bait of the same kind, in the true spirit of Weishaupt’sEroterion?” (Robison, pp. 243, 251, 252.)[514]Robison,op. cit., pp. 110–200.[515]Ibid., pp. 201et seq.[516]Ibid.Although offered to the public with every show of confidence, Robison’s list was largely chimerical. He had depended upon isolated references in the papers of the order, many of which he must have misread. Doubtless in numerous cases he took thehopesof the ambitious leaders of the order as sober statements of fact. The importance of the reference to America will, of course, appear later.[517]Ibid., p. 272.[518]Ibid., p. 286.[519]Ibid., p. 290.[520]Robison,op. cit., pp. 315et seq.[521]Ibid., p. 322.[522]Ibid., p. 321.[523]Ibid., p. 317. “All the Archives that were found were the plans and lists of the members, and a parcel of letters of correspondence. The correspondence and other business was managed by an old man in some inferior office or judicatory, who lived at bed and board in Bahrdt’s house for about six shillings a week, having a chest of papers and a writing-desk in the corner of the common room of the house.” (Ibid.)[524]Ibid., pp. 291, 296, 297.[525]Ibid., p. 299. Bahrdt’s fantastical program called for the division of these societies into Provinces or Dioceses, each directed by its Diocesan, and subordinate to a central organization.Cf. ibid., p. 292[526]Ibid., p. 294.[527]Robison,op, cit., p. 297.[528]Ibid., pp. 322et seq.“ … although I cannot consider the German Union as a formal revival of the Order under another name, I must hold thoseUnited, and the members of those Reading Societies, asIlluminatiandMinervals. I must even consider the Union as a part of Spartacus’s work.” (Ibid.)[529]Ibid., pp. 355et seq.“Thus I think it clearly appears, that the suppression of the Illuminati in Bavaria and of the Union in Brandenburgh were insufficient…. The habit of plotting had formed itself into a regular system. Societies now acted everywhere in secret, in correspondence with similar societies in distant places. And thus a mode of cooperation was furnished to the discontented, the restless, and the unprincipled in all places, without even the trouble of formal initiations, and without any external appearances by which the existence and occupations of the members could be distinguished.” (Ibid.)[530]Ibid., p. 355.Cf. ibid., p. 286.[531]Ibid., p. 358.[532]Robison,op. cit., p. 371.[533]Ibid., pp. 393et seq.[534]Ibid., pp. 397et seq.[535]Ibid., p. 374.[536]Ibid., p. 398.[537]The Grand Orient, according to Robison, represented the association of all theimprovedMasonic lodges of France. Its Grand Master was the Duke of Orléans.Cf. ibid., p. 381.[538]Ibid., pp. 400et seq.[539]Ibid., p. 376.[540]Ibid., pp. 376et seq.[541]Robison,op. cit., p. 405.[542]Ibid., p. 402. Robison regarded the famous Jacobin Club in Paris as “just one of those Lodges.” (Robison, p. 406.Cf. ibid., p. 402.) He allowed his statement to stand, however, without making any effort to substantiate it. Further, he held that the political committees in these “illuminated” lodges of France were in correspondence with similar committees in Germany, Holland, Austria, and Switzerland.Cf. ibid., pp. 406et seq., 414et seq., 420. The contradictory character of his “evidence” is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he treats the Masonic lodges of Paris as trying to seduce the lodges of German Freemasons.Cf. Ibid., p. 418.[543]Ibid., p. 402.[544]Ibid., p. 405.[545]The London edition of 1797–8 (4 vols.) was reprinted in five volumes at Hamburg, Augsburg and Braunschweig; and a new edition, revised and corrected by the author, was issued at Lyons in 1818. Barruel himself put forth an English translation at London in 1798; and this was reprinted at Hartford, Conn., New York, and Elizabeth-town, N. J., the following year. Continental allies of the ex-Jesuit must have been responsible for translations into Polish, Dutch and Portuguese, which enjoyed but one printing apiece, as well as for the three editions of the Spanish translation, and for two of the three Italian editions. During the anti-Masonic campaign of the swindler Leo Taxil (1887), the Italian translation was reprinted at Rome by theTipografia de Propaganda Fide.Abridgements and excerpts were also circulated in several languages, including English. In this connection the following titles may also be noted:Application of Barruel’s Memoirs of Jacobinism to the Secret Societies of Ireland and Great Britain, London, 1798;The Anti-Christian and Antisocial Conspiracy. An extract from the French of Barruel, to which is prefixed “Jachin and Boaz,”Lancaster, (U. S.), 1812.Cf.Sommervogel, C.,Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, i, Bruxelles, 1890, coll. 938–941; also Wolfstieg,Bibliographie der Freimaurerischen Literatur, vol. i, pp. 324, 325.[546]Augustin Barruel (1741–1820) was a French controversialist and publicist, whose zeal was aroused in the defence of traditional ecclesiastical institutions and doctrines, in opposition to rationalistic tendencies manifest in the eighteenth century. Barruel entered the Society of Jesus in 1756 and was later driven from France when that order was suppressed by the French government in 1773. Permitted the next year to terminate his exile, he gave himself to literary pursuits. As might be expected, the turbulent condition of public affairs in France drew him into the currents of political discussion. His loyalty to the interests of the church would brook no silence. The civil oath demanded of ecclesiastics and the promulgation of the civil constitution in the earlier period of the Revolution specially roused his spirit, and led to the publication of a number of pamphlets from his pen. His ecclesiastical loyalties and political antagonisms were such that when the full fury of the revolutionary storm broke, Barruel became anemigréand sought asylum in England. There he continued his literary employments, and published in 1794 his well-knownHistoire du clergé de France, pendant la révolution française. In that same year he brought out an English translation at London. This work Barruel dedicated to the English people in grateful recognition of the hospitable treatment which they accorded the persecuted ecclesiastics of his own land. Later, and while still in England, he wrote hisMemoirs of Jacobinism. The number of editions through which this work passed is in itself a gauge of its claim upon popular interest. After the fall of the Directory, and after he had given his pledge of fidelity to the new government, Barruel again was permitted to return to France. With a view to healing the schism in the French church which the Revolution had produced, he championed the cause of the government in a work entitled,Du Pape et ses droits religieux, 1803. As the Napoleonic regime drew towards its close, Barruel came to be regarded as anemigrépriest, and suffered arrest at the hands of the government. In August, 1816, Barruel was allowed to make his profession in the Society of Jesus. Shortly before this he wrote to its General: “Je m’étais toujours regardé comme lié par mes voeux, sans cesser d’être vraiment Jésuite, ce qui heureusement a fait pour moi une douce illusion dans laquelle je remercie Dieu de m’avoir laissé vivre jusqu’ au moment où vous vous prêtez avec tant de bonté à la demande que j’ai faite pour ma profession.” (La Compagnie de Jésus en France, Histoire d’un siècle, 1814–1914, Par Joseph Burnichon, S.J., Tome 1er, Paris, 1914, pp. 74et seq.) The last years of Barruel’s life were spent in retirement. A list of his writings may be found in Quérard’sLa France Littéraire, Tome Premier, pp. 196, 197, and a more elaborate one, in Sommervogel,op. cit.i, coll. 930–945.[547]Barruel,op. cit., pp. i, vi.[548]Ibid., pp. xiiiet seq.[549]Barruel’s term wasSophistes.[550]Barruel,op. cit., pp. xiv, xv.[551]Ibid., p. 2.[552]Ibid., p. 1.[553]Barruel’s main reliance is the correspondence of Voltaire, as published in the edition of Kehl.[554]Barruel,op. cit., vol. i, pp. 25et seq.[555]Ibid., pp. 26, 27, 33.[556]Ibid., pp. 54et seq.Barruel represents the Encyclopedists as arguing that force could not be employed until there had first been a revolution in all religious ideas; henceL’Encyclopédie, with all its insinuating doubts, its artful cross-references, its veiled impiety, was planned to give the first great impulse in that direction. Thus the old forms of thought would perish “as it were, by inanition;” later, the laying of the axe to the altar would not be hazardous.[557]Ibid., pp. 75et seq.[558]Ibid., pp. 127et seq.[559]Ibid., pp. 163et seq.According to Barruel, the conspirators numbered among their adepts the following: Joseph II of Germany, Catherine II of Russia, Christian VII of Denmark, Gustave III of Sweden, Poniatowski, king of Poland, and the landgrave Frederick of Hesse-Cassel.[560]Ibid., p. 154.[561]Barruel,op. cit., p. 157.[562]Ibid., pp. 321et seq.[563]Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 9, 10, 13et seq., 21.[564]Ibid., pp. 52et seq., 66, 76. Barruel labors hard to save himself from the cruel necessity of including Montesquieu in the list of conspirators. He finds it “painful to apply such a reproach to this celebrated writer.” (Ibid., p. 76.) With some cleverness he remarks: “He [Montesquieu] did not conspire by setting up his systems, but his systems formed conspirators.” (Ibid., p. 98.)[565]Ibid., p. 101.[566]Barruel,op. cit., pp. 130, 131, 157et seq.[567]Ibid., pp. 159et seq.[568]Barruel contended that the popular uprisings of the period in Geneva, Bohemia, Transylvania, and even among the negroes of St. Domingo, were all directly due to the conspiracy.Cf.Barruel, pp. 205et seq., 255et seq., 260et seq., 271.[569]Barruel’s estimate of Freemasonry was appreciably lower than that of Robison. Its mysteries were to be traced to Manes, and to the introduction of Manichaeism into Europe in the period of Frederich II (1221–1250). Condorcet was appealed to for proof in this connection.Cf.Barruel, pp. 399et seq.The general idea that the Freemasons were responsible for the campaign against monarchy and the Catholic religion which, many believed, characterized the greater part of the eighteenth century, had already been made familiar to the French by the ecclesiastics Larudan and Lefranc.Cf.Forestier, pp. 684et seq.[570]By the occult lodges Barruel meant those whose members had received the higher mysteries and degrees.Cf.Barruel, vol. ii, p. 293.[571]Ibid., pp. 276, 277, 278, 279.[572]Ibid., pp. 436et seq.[573]Ibid., p. 436.[574]Ibid., p. 438.[575]Ibid., pp. 444et seq.[576]Ibid., pp. 455et seq.[577]Ibid., pp. 471et seq.Cf. ibid., p. 437.[578]“Under the name of ILLUMINES a band of Conspirators had coalesced with the Encyclopedists and Masons, far more dangerous in their tenets, more artful in their plots, and more extensive in their plans of devastation. They more silently prepared the explosions of the Revolutionary volcano, not merely swearing hatred to the Altar of Christ and the Throne of Kings, but swearing at once hatred to every God, to every Law, to every Government, to all society and social compact; and in order to destroy every plea and every foundation of social contract, they proscribed the terms MINEandTHINE, acknowledging neither Equality nor Liberty but in theentire, absolute and universal overthrow of allPROPERTYwhatever.” (Barruel,op. cit., p. 478.Cf.vol. iii, pp. 17, 22et seq.)[579]Barruel attributed little or no success to the efforts which Weishaupt’s associates made to strip him of much of his despotic power.Cf.Barruel, ch. xviii.[580]The discussion of the character of the order fills the entire third volume of theMemoirs. It is not too much to say that Barruel’s analysis of the organization is characterized by no little soundness of judgment as well as by literary skill. The documents upon which he draws are not only those published by the Bavarian government, but also the apologetic writings of Weishaupt and Knigge, as well as a considerable part of the polemical literature which developed after the suppression of the order. Yet it need scarcely be said, the author’s bias is nowhere obscured. On page after page he conveys the impression that he is dealing with the sum of all villainies. His judgment of Weishaupt was, of course, severe: “An odious phenomenon in nature, an Atheist void of remorse, a profound hypocrite, destitute of those superior talents which lead to the vindication of truth, he is possessed of all that energy and ardor in vice which generates conspirators for impiety and anarchy. Shunning, like the ill-boding owl, the genial rays of the sun, he wraps around him the mantle of darkness; and history shall record of him, as of the evil spirit, only the black deeds which he planned or executed…. Scarcely have the magistrates cast their eyes upon him when they find him at the head of a conspiracy which, when compared with those of the clubs of Voltaire and D’Alembert, or with the secret committees of D’Orléans [sic], make these latter appear like the faint imitations of puerility, and show the Sophister and the Brigand as mere novices in the arts of revolution.” (Barruel,op. cit., pp. 2, 3, 7.)[581]Ibid., p. 293.Cf. ibid., p. 413: “Will not hell vomit forth its legions to applaud this last Spartacus, to contemplate in amazement this work of the Illuminizing Code? Will not Satan exclaim, ‘Here then are men as I wished them’”.[582]Ibid., vol. iv, p. 379.Cf. ibid., p. 387: “ … in this den of conspirators … we find every thing in perfect union with the Occult Lodges, to which it only succeeds. Adepts, object, principles, all are the same; whether we turn our eyes towards the adepts of impiety, of rebellion, or of anarchy, they are now but one conspiring Sect, under the disastrous name of Jacobin. We have hitherto denominated some by the name ofSophisters, others by that ofOccult Masons, and, lastly, we have described those men styledIlluminées. Their very names will now disappear; they will in future all be duly described by the name of Jacobin.”[583]Barruel,op. cit., ch. ix.[584]Ibid., ch. x.[585]Ibid., p. 326.[586]Ibid., ch. xi.[587]Ibid., p. 370.[588]Ibid., pp. 370et seq.[589]Ibid., pp. 375et seq.[590]Ibid., p. 376.[591]Ibid., p. 377.[592]Ibid., p. 379.[593]Barruel,op. cit., passim.[594]Ibid., pp. 468et seq.[595]Ibid., pp. 472et seq.[596]Ibid., pp. 476et seq.[597]Ibid., pp. 482et seq.[598]Ibid., pp. 493–551. Barruel found no difficulty in making the conspiracy broad enough in Prussia to take in Immanuel Kant.Cf. ibid., pp. 523et seq.TheProfessor of Königsbergand theProfessor of Ingolstadtdeveloped systems which ultimately lead to the same end (!).Cf. ibid., p. 526.[599]Ibid., pp. 493et seq.[600]The reference is to the United Irishmen, an organization whose affairs got somewhat mixed with the discussion of the Illuminati in America.Cf. infra,pp. 271et seq.[601]A foot-note connects the French minister, Adet, with the Illuminati campaign in North America.Cf. ibid., p. 494.[602]Robison,op. cit., p. 535.[603]Ibid., p. 537.[604]Ibid., p. 538.[605]Barruel,op. cit., vol. iii, p. xiv.[606]Barruel,op. cit., vol. iii, p. xiv.[607]Ibid., p. xv.[608]Ibid., pp. xv, xvi.[609]Ibid., p. xviii.[610]The Works of John Adams, vol. ix, pp. 169et seq.[611]Cf. supra,p. 10.[612]A Sermon, Delivered at the New North Church in Boston, in the morning, and in the afternoon at Charlestown, May 9th, 1798, being the day recommended by John Adams, President of the United States of America, for solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer.By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., minister of the congregation in Charlestown, Boston, 1798, pp. 5–12.[613]Ibid., p. 13.[614]Morse was one of those New England clergymen whose earlier enthusiasm for the French Revolution had been pronounced. In a sermon preached on the occasion of the national thanksgiving of 1795, he confessed his profound interest in the French cause, on account of what that people had accomplished in breaking the chains of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. At the same time he voiced his concern because a spirit ofvandalismhad lately arisen in France, by which all the salutary results of the Revolution were gravely imperiled. Still, his hopes for the recovery of the nation’s self-control were strong.Cf.The Present Situation of Other Nations of the World, Contrasted with our Own. A Sermon, delivered at Charlestown, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, February 19, 1795; being the day recommended by George Washington, President of the United States of America, for Publick Thanksgiving and Prayer.By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., minister of the congregation in Charlestown, Boston, 1795, pp. 10–16.Cf.also the Preface to Morse’sFast Day Sermonof April 25, 1799.[615]Morse,Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, p. 13.[616]The X. Y. Z. despatches.[617]Morse,Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, pp. 14et seq.[618]Morse,op. cit., p. 17.[619]Ibid., p. 19.[620]Ibid., p. 20.[621]Morse,op. cit., p. 20.[622]Morse’s first acquaintance with Robison’s volume is thus explained by him: “The first copies which were sent to America, arrived at Philadelphia and New York, at both which places the re-printing of it was immediately undertaken, and the Philadelphia edition was completed ready for sale in the short space of 3weeks. This was about the middle of April. Happening at this time to be in Philadelphia, and hearing the work spoken of in terms of the highest respect by men of judgment, one of them went so far as to pronounce it the most interesting work that the present century had produced; I was induced to procure a copy, which I brought home with me….” (Independent Chronicle, June 14, 1798.) In Sprague’sLife of Jedediah Morse, pp. 233et seq., it is affirmed that Dr. Erskine, one of Morse’s Scottish correspondents, wrote Morse in January, 1797, informing him of the alarm which had sprung up in Europe with respect to the “conspiracy”, and calling attention to Robison’s volume which was then being prepared for the press.[623]Morse,Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, p. 21.[624]Ibid.[625]Ibid., pp. 22et seq.[626]Ibid., p. 23.[627]Ibid.[628]Ibid., p. 24.[629]Robison’s reference to the “several” societies established in America previous to 1786 (cf. supra,p. 210) is specifically referred to.Cf.Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, p. 23.[630]Ibid., p. 24.[631]Morse,op. cit., p. 24.[632]Morse had been at pains in his sermon to recommend Robison’s volume as throwing a flood of light upon “the causes which have brought the world into its present disorganized state.” (Ibid., pp. 24et seq.) Later it must have occurred to him that the silence he had maintained in the pulpit respecting Masonry’s part in the conspiracy was bound to be noticed by all who upon his recommendation read Robison’s volume.[633]Ibid., p. 21.[634]Morse,op. cit., p. 21.[635]Ibid., p. 22.[636]Ibid., pp. 21, 22. For the time being Morse was content to follow the example of Robison. The latter, in his discussion of English Freemasonry, made a fairly sharp distinction between the English system and the Masonic systems of the continent. That distinction, on the whole, was decidedly favorable to English Freemasonry. By every consideration of precedent and prudence Morse must have felt strongly impelled to pursue the same course.[637]Ibid., p. 22.[638]Morse,op. cit., p. 25.[639]Ibid., pp. 25et seq.[640]Cf. supra,ch. i, 2.[641]Cf. supra,pp. 125et seq.[642]The editor of as loyal and resourceful a Federalist sheet as theColumbian Centinel, for example, insisted upon treating as a whole the performances of the clergy on the occasion of the national fast, and refused to make discriminations with respect to the special import or merit of any particular minister’s performance: “Wednesday last was observed throughout the United States as a day of Fasting and Prayer. (Within the sphere of our information we can say, that on no occasion were there ever exhibited more moral patriotism, and more ardent devotion.) The Clergy on this occasion came forward with a zeal which added greatly to the high character they have long enjoyed, as Patriots. We could instance numerous traits of Federalism, which would do them honour; but when all of them are entitled to praise, it would be invidious to make distinctions.” (Columbian Centinel, May 12, 1798.)[643]Wolcott Papers, viii, 23.[644]A Discourse, Delivered at the Roman Catholic Church in Boston on the 9th of May, 1798.… By the Reverend John Thayer, Catholic Missioner, Boston, 1798.[645]Ibid., p. 23.[646]Op. cit.[647]Independent Chronicle, May 31, 1798.[648]Ibid.The “observations” referred to really threw no new light upon the situation. They amounted to nothing more than proof of the fact that the editor of theNew York Spectatorhad accepted the idea of the Illuminati conspiracy. This being the case he was anxious to warn his readers that if they would escape from the designs of the French government they must make their choice, and that speedily, between “INDEPENDENCE and SUBMISSION.”[649]Independent Chronicle, June 14, 1798.[650]The extracts in question boldly championed Robison’s cause, and while admitting that all the tenets and secret manoeuvers of the Illuminati could not be said to have been fully brought to light, Morse did not hesitate to draw the following summary conclusion: “There is however sufficient known to call forth the indignation of every person who professes to be a friend to religion or virtue, and to put every one on their guard who knows and respects the rights of private property, and of good government.” (Ibid.)[651]Ibid.[652]A Discourse delivered in the Chapel of Harvard College, June 19, 1798, Occasioned by the Approaching Departure of the Senior Class from the University.By David Tappan, D. D., Hollis Professor of Divinity in said College, Boston, 1798.[653]Ibid., pp. 4–13.[654]As far as the present writer has been able to discover, President Dwight did not deal publicly with the Illuminati charge until a little later. Tappan’s reference must therefore be to general discussions of infidelity, a favorite topic with Yale’s president, as we have seen.[655]The reference is to Robison. Whether or not Tappan had personally read Robison’s volume at this time is not altogether clear. The general impression created by his sermon is that he had.[656]Cf.Tappan’sSermon, p. 19.[657]Ibid., pp. 15et seq.(foot note).[658]Cf.Tappan’sSermon, pp. 15et seq.(foot note).[659]THE DUTY OF AMERICANS IN THE PRESENT CRISIS. Illustrated in a Discourse, Preached on the Fourth of July, 1798; by the Reverend Timothy Dwight, D. D., President of Yale-College; at the request of the citizens of New-Haven. New-Haven, 1798.[660]Ibid., p. 8.[661]The elaboration of this point necessarily led to some emphasis upon the spirit of irreligion and savage persecution that had thus manifested itself, and this in turn necessitated an effort to find a way out of the embarrassment of seeming to approve this persecution. The following ingenious foot note appended to the text of the published sermon admirably illustrates the inventive resourcefulness of many a New England clergyman of the day who found it necessary to rescue himself from such animpasseas Dwight’s method of exegesis produced: “In the mention of all these evils brought on the Romish Hierarchy, I beg it may be remembered, that I am far from justifying the iniquitous conduct of their persecutors. I know not that any person holds it, and all other persecutions, more in abhorrence. Neither have I a doubt of the integrity and piety of multitudes of the unhappy sufferers. In my view they claim, and I trust will receive, the commiseration, and, as occasion offers, the kind offices of all men possessed even of common humanity.” (Ibid., p. 9.) The truth is that in some cases Protestant clergymen in New England, out of their concern for Christianity in general, went so far as to deprecate the persecutions which Roman Catholicism suffered.[662]Dwight offered as his sources of authority Robison’sProofsand an article on Barruel’sMemoirs of Jacobinismwhich he had discovered in theBritish Critic.[663]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, p. 11.[664]Ibid.[665]Ibid.[666]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, pp. 11, 12.[667]Ibid., p. 12.[668]Ibid., p. 13.[669]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, p. 15.[670]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, pp. 20, 21.[671]Ibid., p. 22.[672]The commanding position that Dwight occupied in the Standing Order, as well as the unenviable distinction which in the eyes of the opposition belonged to him, is certified to by the fact that he was commonly referred to as “Pope Dwight.”Cf.Beecher,Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, p. 289.Cf.Stiles,Diary, vol. ii, p. 531.[673]TheConnecticut Journalof July 11, 1798, comments as follows upon New Haven’s celebration of the previous Fourth: “The exercises of the day at the Meeting-house were a Sermon by President Dwight, from the 16th chapter of Revelations, 15th verse, accompanied with prayers. An Oration by Noah Webster, jun., Esq., and sundry pieces of excellent music. We forbare [sic] to remark particularly on the Sermon and Oration, as the public eye will be speedily gratified in perusing them…. We shall only say that an enlightened audience, composed of the citizens of New-Haven, the members of our university, and many clergymen, civilians, and other respectable inhabitants from the adjacent towns, listened with profound attention while Doct. Dwight and Mr. Webster exposed to their view, in a feeling manner, those principles of modern philosophy which desolate Europe, and threaten the universe with mighty evils.”[674]An Oration, pronounced at Sharon, on the Anniversary of American Independence, 4th of July, 1798.By John C. Smith, Litchfield, (n. d.), pp. 6et seq.Cf. ibid., pp. 7et seq.[675]Theodore Dwight: An Oration spoken at Hartford, in the State of Connecticut, on the Anniversary of American Independence, July 4th, 1798.Hartford, 1798, p. 23.[676]Ibid.On a later page, in commenting upon Robison’s reference in hisProofs of a Conspiracyto the lodges of the Illuminati which had been established in America, Dwight said: “I know not who belonged to that society in this country; but if I were about to make proselytes to illuminatism in the United States, I should in the first place apply to Thomas Jefferson, Albert Gallatin, and their political associates.” (Ibid., p. 30.) This early use of the outcry against the Illuminati for political purposes was prophetic.[677]An Oration on Party Spirit, Pronounced before the Connecticut Society of Cincinnati, convened at Hartford, for the celebration of American Independence, on the 4th of July, 1798.By Thomas Day, (n. d.), p. 15.[678]Ibid.[679]That “Censor’s” tone of moderation was assumed and not genuine is further evinced by his assertion of contempt for Robison’sabsurdsupposition that the Illuminati had kindled the French Revolution and for his “unjustifiable attacks upon certain worthy characters.” If the Illuminati had never existed the Revolution would have occurred on account of the arbitrary and excessive despotism of the old French government, the insupportable weight of taxation, the luxury and dissipation of the nobility and clergy, the prohibition of free religious and political discussion, and the dissemination of liberal sentiments during the previous fifty years. That Robison, without sufficient warrant, should have attacked such characters as “the worthy La Fayette,” “the venerable Duke de Rochefoucault,” Dr. Priestley,et al., caused his book to appear as one born of “incorrigible prejudices, acting upon an inflamed imagination.” As for the author of the fast day sermon, he may judge for himself whether he was too hasty in recommending such a book to the public. The times may be full of peril, but surely this does not justify those who terrify their fellow citizens by means of groundless alarms. One’s fellow citizens also need to be put on their guard against the danger of becoming “the dupes of every foolish tale which the prejudices or ignorance of Europeans may fabricate.” Such were further comments by “Censor.”Cf.Day,op. cit.[680]These articles began in the issue of theMercuryfor August 3, and were continued through the issues of August 10, 14, 17, 21, 28, and 31. Because of an effort which the Reverend Josiah Bartlett made to absolve the Masons of this country of the suspicion that had been cast upon them, they found a certain continuation in the issues of theMercuryfor September 7, 14, 18, 21; but these are reserved for the special treatment of the Masonic aspects of the case.Cf. infra,pp. 330et seq.[681]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 3, 1798.[682]Ibid.[683]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 3, 1798.[684]Ibid., Aug. 10.[685]Ibid.In this connection Morse seeks to extract comfort from the fact that the editors of theBritish Critic, having compared Robison’sProofsand Barruel’sMemoirs of Jacobinism, have recorded their verdict that the two works are highly confirmatory of each other, “barring certain unimportant particulars.” He likewise observes that the marks of precipitation and certain faults of style and expression which some of the impartial English reviewers have been able to point out, have yet not been allowed to alter their judgment that the book as a whole is a credit to its author, and contains much valuable information. The clamor that has arisen against the book, Morse insists, is to be traced to the hostility of men who have been incensed because their secrets have been exposed. At this point it may be said in passing that Morse allowed himself to be drawn into the expression of a sentiment, gratuitous in its nature, which served to precipitate the very thing he had been anxious to avoid,viz., a break with the Masons. Irritated by his critics, he wrote: “The Free Masons can not be angry with him [Robison]…. If therefore any are really angry here, it must be because he has touched and exposed their secret friends.”[686]The reference is to Professor Tappan’s sermon before the senior class of Harvard.Cf. supra,pp. 244et seq.[687]In this instance the reference is not to President Dwight’s Fourth of July sermon: that sermon had not yet been seen by Morse; but to an allusion made by Dwight to Robison’s book in a note appended to the following pamphlet:The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy. Two Discourses, to the Candidates for the Baccalaureate, in Yale College, September 9, 1797…. New-Haven, 1798.Cf.Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 17, 1798.[688]Theodore Dwight’s Fourth of July oration is referred to.Cf. supra,pp. 246et seq.[689]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 17, 1798.[690]Ibid., Aug. 21, 1798.[691]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 21, 1798. Morse’s article in this issue of theMercury, perhaps more discursive and less convincing than anything he had previously written on the general subject, at various points descends to the level of abuse, in which Robison’s hostile English reviewers, the Reverend William Bentley (for reasons that will appear later), and “Censor” are made to share.
[490]Ibid., pp. 40et seq.
[491]Robison,op. cit., pp. 43et seq.
[492]Ibid., p. 51. Robison’s account of this phase of the situation has little to commend it. Upon his own unsupported assertions many of the Revolutionary leaders, as, for example, Mirabeau, Sieyès, Despremenil, Bailly, Fauchet, Maury, Mounier, and Talleyrand, are brought into direct connection with one or another of the French Masonic systems.Cf.Robison, pp. 49et seq.Similarly, it is maintained, it was among Masonic lodges that the ideas contained in such books as Robinet’sLa Nature, ou l’Homme moral et physique, Condorcet’sLe Progrès de l’Esprit humain, Lequinio’sLes préjugés vaincus par la raison, and the bookDes Erreurs et de la Vérité, were first disseminated. Indeed, some of these books are said to have sprung out of the very bosom of the lodges.Cf. ibid., pp. 43et seq.
[493]Ibid., pp. 67et seq.Comparison with Forestier, pp. 141et seq., will make clear the paucity of the data upon which Robison drew in attempting to write the earlier chapters of the history of German Freemasonry.
[494]Robison,op. cit., p. 64.
[495]Robison’s language is absurdly strong. “In half a year Free Masonry underwent a complete revolution all over Germany.” (Ibid., p. 70.)
[496]The sheer puerility of the treatment is indicated by the following: “A Mr. Rosa, a French commissary, brought from Paris a complete wagon-load of Masonic ornaments, which were all distributed before it had reached Berlin, and he was obliged to order another, to furnish the Lodges of that city. It became for a while the most profitable business to many French officers and commissaries dispersed over Germany, having little else to do.” (Robison,op. cit., pp. 69et seq.)
[497]Ibid., p. 73.
[498]Ibid., pp. 65et seq.
[499]Ibid., pp. 78, 79. Robison read into this situation a deliberate effort on the part of the leaders of French Freemasonry to extend the hegemony of the latter. He surmised that political uses and benefits were thus aimed at.Cf. ibid.
[500]Robison’s term for the representatives of theAufklärung.Cf.Robison, p. 81.
[501]Ibid., p. 80. This declension of faith and morals Robison, more wisely than he was aware, traced in part to the clash between the Roman Catholic and Protestant systems in Germany and the spirit of free inquiry which was thus promoted. See Robison, pp. 80et seqq.
[502]It is in this connection that Basedow is brought into relations with Robison’s devious exposition.Cf. ibid., pp. 85et seq.
[503]Ibid., pp. 82et seq.
[504]Robison,op. cit., pp. 92et seq.“ … Germany has experienced the same gradual progress, from Religion to Atheism, from decency to dissoluteness, and from loyalty to rebellion, which has had its course in France. And I must now add, that this progress has been effected in the same manner, and by the same means; and that one of the chief means of seduction has been the Lodges of the Free Masons. The French, along with their numerous chevaleries [sic], and stars, and ribands, had brought in the custom of haranguing in the Lodges, and as human nature has a considerable uniformity everywhere, the same topics became favorite subjects of declamation that had tickled the ear in France; there were the same corruptions of sentiments and manners among the luxurious or profligate, and the same incitements to the utterance of these sentiments, wherever it could be done with safety; and I may say, that the zealots in all these tracts of free-thinking were more serious, more grave, and fanatical. These are assertionsa priori. I can produce proofs.” (Ibid., pp. 91et seq.) The “proofs” here referred to concern the Masonic career of Baron Knigge, whose antagonism to orthodox Christianity Robison distorts both as to its temper and its effect.
[505]Ibid., pp. 126et seq.
[506]Ibid., pp. 100et seq.
[507]Ibid., pp. 101et seq.These connections Robison almost wholly misconceived.Cf. supra,pp. 150,163et seq.
[508]Robison,op. cit., p. 103.
[509]Ibid., p. 105. The ulterior object of the order is later stated by Robison in the following manner: “Their first and immediate aim is to get possession of riches, power, and influence, without industry; and, to accomplish this, they want to abolish Christianity; and then dissolute manners and universal profligacy will procure them the adherence of all the wicked, and enable them to overturn all the civil governments of Europe; after which they will think of further conquests, and extend their operations to the other quarters of the globe, till they have reduced mankind to a state of one indistinguishable chaotic mass.” Robison, pp. 209et seq.
[510]Ibid., p. 126.
[511]Ibid., p. 212.
[512]Robison omitted nothing in his effort to fasten the stigma of moral obliquity upon the order. The published papers of the order were appealed to show that crimes of bribery, theft, and libertinism were not uncommon on the part of the leaders. See Robison, pp. 144et seq.The unsavory documents of the order referred to on page 181 of this dissertation likewise received Robison’s zealous attention.Cf. ibid., pp. 138et seq.Weishaupt’s personal immorality in his relations with his sister-in-law is made to do full duty as “a brilliant specimen of the ethics which illuminated” the leaders.Cf. ibid., pp. 164et seq.(If a particular illustration of Robison’s bungling way of handling his German sources were needed, that might be found in the fact that our author identified the victim of Weishaupt’s lust as the sister-in-law of Zwack.Cf. ibid., p. 167.)
[513]To Robison’s mind this constituted the crowning infamy of the order. “There is nothing in the whole constitution of the Illuminati that strikes me with more horror than the proposals of Hercules and Minos to enlist women in this shocking warfare with all that ‘is good, and pure, and lovely, and of good report’…. Are not the accursed fruits of Illumination to be seen in the present humiliating condition of women in France? … In their present state of national moderation (as they call it) and security, see Madame Tallien come into the public theatre, accompanied by otherbeautifulwomen, (I was about to have misnamed them Ladies), laying aside all modesty, and presenting themselves to the public view, with bared limbs,à la Sauvage, as the alluring objects of desire…. Was not their abominable farce in the church of Notre Dame a bait of the same kind, in the true spirit of Weishaupt’sEroterion?” (Robison, pp. 243, 251, 252.)
[514]Robison,op. cit., pp. 110–200.
[515]Ibid., pp. 201et seq.
[516]Ibid.Although offered to the public with every show of confidence, Robison’s list was largely chimerical. He had depended upon isolated references in the papers of the order, many of which he must have misread. Doubtless in numerous cases he took thehopesof the ambitious leaders of the order as sober statements of fact. The importance of the reference to America will, of course, appear later.
[517]Ibid., p. 272.
[518]Ibid., p. 286.
[519]Ibid., p. 290.
[520]Robison,op. cit., pp. 315et seq.
[521]Ibid., p. 322.
[522]Ibid., p. 321.
[523]Ibid., p. 317. “All the Archives that were found were the plans and lists of the members, and a parcel of letters of correspondence. The correspondence and other business was managed by an old man in some inferior office or judicatory, who lived at bed and board in Bahrdt’s house for about six shillings a week, having a chest of papers and a writing-desk in the corner of the common room of the house.” (Ibid.)
[524]Ibid., pp. 291, 296, 297.
[525]Ibid., p. 299. Bahrdt’s fantastical program called for the division of these societies into Provinces or Dioceses, each directed by its Diocesan, and subordinate to a central organization.Cf. ibid., p. 292
[526]Ibid., p. 294.
[527]Robison,op, cit., p. 297.
[528]Ibid., pp. 322et seq.“ … although I cannot consider the German Union as a formal revival of the Order under another name, I must hold thoseUnited, and the members of those Reading Societies, asIlluminatiandMinervals. I must even consider the Union as a part of Spartacus’s work.” (Ibid.)
[529]Ibid., pp. 355et seq.“Thus I think it clearly appears, that the suppression of the Illuminati in Bavaria and of the Union in Brandenburgh were insufficient…. The habit of plotting had formed itself into a regular system. Societies now acted everywhere in secret, in correspondence with similar societies in distant places. And thus a mode of cooperation was furnished to the discontented, the restless, and the unprincipled in all places, without even the trouble of formal initiations, and without any external appearances by which the existence and occupations of the members could be distinguished.” (Ibid.)
[530]Ibid., p. 355.Cf. ibid., p. 286.
[531]Ibid., p. 358.
[532]Robison,op. cit., p. 371.
[533]Ibid., pp. 393et seq.
[534]Ibid., pp. 397et seq.
[535]Ibid., p. 374.
[536]Ibid., p. 398.
[537]The Grand Orient, according to Robison, represented the association of all theimprovedMasonic lodges of France. Its Grand Master was the Duke of Orléans.Cf. ibid., p. 381.
[538]Ibid., pp. 400et seq.
[539]Ibid., p. 376.
[540]Ibid., pp. 376et seq.
[541]Robison,op. cit., p. 405.
[542]Ibid., p. 402. Robison regarded the famous Jacobin Club in Paris as “just one of those Lodges.” (Robison, p. 406.Cf. ibid., p. 402.) He allowed his statement to stand, however, without making any effort to substantiate it. Further, he held that the political committees in these “illuminated” lodges of France were in correspondence with similar committees in Germany, Holland, Austria, and Switzerland.Cf. ibid., pp. 406et seq., 414et seq., 420. The contradictory character of his “evidence” is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he treats the Masonic lodges of Paris as trying to seduce the lodges of German Freemasons.Cf. Ibid., p. 418.
[543]Ibid., p. 402.
[544]Ibid., p. 405.
[545]The London edition of 1797–8 (4 vols.) was reprinted in five volumes at Hamburg, Augsburg and Braunschweig; and a new edition, revised and corrected by the author, was issued at Lyons in 1818. Barruel himself put forth an English translation at London in 1798; and this was reprinted at Hartford, Conn., New York, and Elizabeth-town, N. J., the following year. Continental allies of the ex-Jesuit must have been responsible for translations into Polish, Dutch and Portuguese, which enjoyed but one printing apiece, as well as for the three editions of the Spanish translation, and for two of the three Italian editions. During the anti-Masonic campaign of the swindler Leo Taxil (1887), the Italian translation was reprinted at Rome by theTipografia de Propaganda Fide.
Abridgements and excerpts were also circulated in several languages, including English. In this connection the following titles may also be noted:Application of Barruel’s Memoirs of Jacobinism to the Secret Societies of Ireland and Great Britain, London, 1798;The Anti-Christian and Antisocial Conspiracy. An extract from the French of Barruel, to which is prefixed “Jachin and Boaz,”Lancaster, (U. S.), 1812.
Cf.Sommervogel, C.,Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, i, Bruxelles, 1890, coll. 938–941; also Wolfstieg,Bibliographie der Freimaurerischen Literatur, vol. i, pp. 324, 325.
[546]Augustin Barruel (1741–1820) was a French controversialist and publicist, whose zeal was aroused in the defence of traditional ecclesiastical institutions and doctrines, in opposition to rationalistic tendencies manifest in the eighteenth century. Barruel entered the Society of Jesus in 1756 and was later driven from France when that order was suppressed by the French government in 1773. Permitted the next year to terminate his exile, he gave himself to literary pursuits. As might be expected, the turbulent condition of public affairs in France drew him into the currents of political discussion. His loyalty to the interests of the church would brook no silence. The civil oath demanded of ecclesiastics and the promulgation of the civil constitution in the earlier period of the Revolution specially roused his spirit, and led to the publication of a number of pamphlets from his pen. His ecclesiastical loyalties and political antagonisms were such that when the full fury of the revolutionary storm broke, Barruel became anemigréand sought asylum in England. There he continued his literary employments, and published in 1794 his well-knownHistoire du clergé de France, pendant la révolution française. In that same year he brought out an English translation at London. This work Barruel dedicated to the English people in grateful recognition of the hospitable treatment which they accorded the persecuted ecclesiastics of his own land. Later, and while still in England, he wrote hisMemoirs of Jacobinism. The number of editions through which this work passed is in itself a gauge of its claim upon popular interest. After the fall of the Directory, and after he had given his pledge of fidelity to the new government, Barruel again was permitted to return to France. With a view to healing the schism in the French church which the Revolution had produced, he championed the cause of the government in a work entitled,Du Pape et ses droits religieux, 1803. As the Napoleonic regime drew towards its close, Barruel came to be regarded as anemigrépriest, and suffered arrest at the hands of the government. In August, 1816, Barruel was allowed to make his profession in the Society of Jesus. Shortly before this he wrote to its General: “Je m’étais toujours regardé comme lié par mes voeux, sans cesser d’être vraiment Jésuite, ce qui heureusement a fait pour moi une douce illusion dans laquelle je remercie Dieu de m’avoir laissé vivre jusqu’ au moment où vous vous prêtez avec tant de bonté à la demande que j’ai faite pour ma profession.” (La Compagnie de Jésus en France, Histoire d’un siècle, 1814–1914, Par Joseph Burnichon, S.J., Tome 1er, Paris, 1914, pp. 74et seq.) The last years of Barruel’s life were spent in retirement. A list of his writings may be found in Quérard’sLa France Littéraire, Tome Premier, pp. 196, 197, and a more elaborate one, in Sommervogel,op. cit.i, coll. 930–945.
[547]Barruel,op. cit., pp. i, vi.
[548]Ibid., pp. xiiiet seq.
[549]Barruel’s term wasSophistes.
[550]Barruel,op. cit., pp. xiv, xv.
[551]Ibid., p. 2.
[552]Ibid., p. 1.
[553]Barruel’s main reliance is the correspondence of Voltaire, as published in the edition of Kehl.
[554]Barruel,op. cit., vol. i, pp. 25et seq.
[555]Ibid., pp. 26, 27, 33.
[556]Ibid., pp. 54et seq.Barruel represents the Encyclopedists as arguing that force could not be employed until there had first been a revolution in all religious ideas; henceL’Encyclopédie, with all its insinuating doubts, its artful cross-references, its veiled impiety, was planned to give the first great impulse in that direction. Thus the old forms of thought would perish “as it were, by inanition;” later, the laying of the axe to the altar would not be hazardous.
[557]Ibid., pp. 75et seq.
[558]Ibid., pp. 127et seq.
[559]Ibid., pp. 163et seq.According to Barruel, the conspirators numbered among their adepts the following: Joseph II of Germany, Catherine II of Russia, Christian VII of Denmark, Gustave III of Sweden, Poniatowski, king of Poland, and the landgrave Frederick of Hesse-Cassel.
[560]Ibid., p. 154.
[561]Barruel,op. cit., p. 157.
[562]Ibid., pp. 321et seq.
[563]Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 9, 10, 13et seq., 21.
[564]Ibid., pp. 52et seq., 66, 76. Barruel labors hard to save himself from the cruel necessity of including Montesquieu in the list of conspirators. He finds it “painful to apply such a reproach to this celebrated writer.” (Ibid., p. 76.) With some cleverness he remarks: “He [Montesquieu] did not conspire by setting up his systems, but his systems formed conspirators.” (Ibid., p. 98.)
[565]Ibid., p. 101.
[566]Barruel,op. cit., pp. 130, 131, 157et seq.
[567]Ibid., pp. 159et seq.
[568]Barruel contended that the popular uprisings of the period in Geneva, Bohemia, Transylvania, and even among the negroes of St. Domingo, were all directly due to the conspiracy.Cf.Barruel, pp. 205et seq., 255et seq., 260et seq., 271.
[569]Barruel’s estimate of Freemasonry was appreciably lower than that of Robison. Its mysteries were to be traced to Manes, and to the introduction of Manichaeism into Europe in the period of Frederich II (1221–1250). Condorcet was appealed to for proof in this connection.Cf.Barruel, pp. 399et seq.The general idea that the Freemasons were responsible for the campaign against monarchy and the Catholic religion which, many believed, characterized the greater part of the eighteenth century, had already been made familiar to the French by the ecclesiastics Larudan and Lefranc.Cf.Forestier, pp. 684et seq.
[570]By the occult lodges Barruel meant those whose members had received the higher mysteries and degrees.Cf.Barruel, vol. ii, p. 293.
[571]Ibid., pp. 276, 277, 278, 279.
[572]Ibid., pp. 436et seq.
[573]Ibid., p. 436.
[574]Ibid., p. 438.
[575]Ibid., pp. 444et seq.
[576]Ibid., pp. 455et seq.
[577]Ibid., pp. 471et seq.Cf. ibid., p. 437.
[578]“Under the name of ILLUMINES a band of Conspirators had coalesced with the Encyclopedists and Masons, far more dangerous in their tenets, more artful in their plots, and more extensive in their plans of devastation. They more silently prepared the explosions of the Revolutionary volcano, not merely swearing hatred to the Altar of Christ and the Throne of Kings, but swearing at once hatred to every God, to every Law, to every Government, to all society and social compact; and in order to destroy every plea and every foundation of social contract, they proscribed the terms MINEandTHINE, acknowledging neither Equality nor Liberty but in theentire, absolute and universal overthrow of allPROPERTYwhatever.” (Barruel,op. cit., p. 478.Cf.vol. iii, pp. 17, 22et seq.)
[579]Barruel attributed little or no success to the efforts which Weishaupt’s associates made to strip him of much of his despotic power.Cf.Barruel, ch. xviii.
[580]The discussion of the character of the order fills the entire third volume of theMemoirs. It is not too much to say that Barruel’s analysis of the organization is characterized by no little soundness of judgment as well as by literary skill. The documents upon which he draws are not only those published by the Bavarian government, but also the apologetic writings of Weishaupt and Knigge, as well as a considerable part of the polemical literature which developed after the suppression of the order. Yet it need scarcely be said, the author’s bias is nowhere obscured. On page after page he conveys the impression that he is dealing with the sum of all villainies. His judgment of Weishaupt was, of course, severe: “An odious phenomenon in nature, an Atheist void of remorse, a profound hypocrite, destitute of those superior talents which lead to the vindication of truth, he is possessed of all that energy and ardor in vice which generates conspirators for impiety and anarchy. Shunning, like the ill-boding owl, the genial rays of the sun, he wraps around him the mantle of darkness; and history shall record of him, as of the evil spirit, only the black deeds which he planned or executed…. Scarcely have the magistrates cast their eyes upon him when they find him at the head of a conspiracy which, when compared with those of the clubs of Voltaire and D’Alembert, or with the secret committees of D’Orléans [sic], make these latter appear like the faint imitations of puerility, and show the Sophister and the Brigand as mere novices in the arts of revolution.” (Barruel,op. cit., pp. 2, 3, 7.)
[581]Ibid., p. 293.Cf. ibid., p. 413: “Will not hell vomit forth its legions to applaud this last Spartacus, to contemplate in amazement this work of the Illuminizing Code? Will not Satan exclaim, ‘Here then are men as I wished them’”.
[582]Ibid., vol. iv, p. 379.Cf. ibid., p. 387: “ … in this den of conspirators … we find every thing in perfect union with the Occult Lodges, to which it only succeeds. Adepts, object, principles, all are the same; whether we turn our eyes towards the adepts of impiety, of rebellion, or of anarchy, they are now but one conspiring Sect, under the disastrous name of Jacobin. We have hitherto denominated some by the name ofSophisters, others by that ofOccult Masons, and, lastly, we have described those men styledIlluminées. Their very names will now disappear; they will in future all be duly described by the name of Jacobin.”
[583]Barruel,op. cit., ch. ix.
[584]Ibid., ch. x.
[585]Ibid., p. 326.
[586]Ibid., ch. xi.
[587]Ibid., p. 370.
[588]Ibid., pp. 370et seq.
[589]Ibid., pp. 375et seq.
[590]Ibid., p. 376.
[591]Ibid., p. 377.
[592]Ibid., p. 379.
[593]Barruel,op. cit., passim.
[594]Ibid., pp. 468et seq.
[595]Ibid., pp. 472et seq.
[596]Ibid., pp. 476et seq.
[597]Ibid., pp. 482et seq.
[598]Ibid., pp. 493–551. Barruel found no difficulty in making the conspiracy broad enough in Prussia to take in Immanuel Kant.Cf. ibid., pp. 523et seq.TheProfessor of Königsbergand theProfessor of Ingolstadtdeveloped systems which ultimately lead to the same end (!).Cf. ibid., p. 526.
[599]Ibid., pp. 493et seq.
[600]The reference is to the United Irishmen, an organization whose affairs got somewhat mixed with the discussion of the Illuminati in America.Cf. infra,pp. 271et seq.
[601]A foot-note connects the French minister, Adet, with the Illuminati campaign in North America.Cf. ibid., p. 494.
[602]Robison,op. cit., p. 535.
[603]Ibid., p. 537.
[604]Ibid., p. 538.
[605]Barruel,op. cit., vol. iii, p. xiv.
[606]Barruel,op. cit., vol. iii, p. xiv.
[607]Ibid., p. xv.
[608]Ibid., pp. xv, xvi.
[609]Ibid., p. xviii.
[610]The Works of John Adams, vol. ix, pp. 169et seq.
[611]Cf. supra,p. 10.
[612]A Sermon, Delivered at the New North Church in Boston, in the morning, and in the afternoon at Charlestown, May 9th, 1798, being the day recommended by John Adams, President of the United States of America, for solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer.By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., minister of the congregation in Charlestown, Boston, 1798, pp. 5–12.
[613]Ibid., p. 13.
[614]Morse was one of those New England clergymen whose earlier enthusiasm for the French Revolution had been pronounced. In a sermon preached on the occasion of the national thanksgiving of 1795, he confessed his profound interest in the French cause, on account of what that people had accomplished in breaking the chains of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. At the same time he voiced his concern because a spirit ofvandalismhad lately arisen in France, by which all the salutary results of the Revolution were gravely imperiled. Still, his hopes for the recovery of the nation’s self-control were strong.Cf.The Present Situation of Other Nations of the World, Contrasted with our Own. A Sermon, delivered at Charlestown, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, February 19, 1795; being the day recommended by George Washington, President of the United States of America, for Publick Thanksgiving and Prayer.By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., minister of the congregation in Charlestown, Boston, 1795, pp. 10–16.Cf.also the Preface to Morse’sFast Day Sermonof April 25, 1799.
[615]Morse,Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, p. 13.
[616]The X. Y. Z. despatches.
[617]Morse,Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, pp. 14et seq.
[618]Morse,op. cit., p. 17.
[619]Ibid., p. 19.
[620]Ibid., p. 20.
[621]Morse,op. cit., p. 20.
[622]Morse’s first acquaintance with Robison’s volume is thus explained by him: “The first copies which were sent to America, arrived at Philadelphia and New York, at both which places the re-printing of it was immediately undertaken, and the Philadelphia edition was completed ready for sale in the short space of 3weeks. This was about the middle of April. Happening at this time to be in Philadelphia, and hearing the work spoken of in terms of the highest respect by men of judgment, one of them went so far as to pronounce it the most interesting work that the present century had produced; I was induced to procure a copy, which I brought home with me….” (Independent Chronicle, June 14, 1798.) In Sprague’sLife of Jedediah Morse, pp. 233et seq., it is affirmed that Dr. Erskine, one of Morse’s Scottish correspondents, wrote Morse in January, 1797, informing him of the alarm which had sprung up in Europe with respect to the “conspiracy”, and calling attention to Robison’s volume which was then being prepared for the press.
[623]Morse,Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, p. 21.
[624]Ibid.
[625]Ibid., pp. 22et seq.
[626]Ibid., p. 23.
[627]Ibid.
[628]Ibid., p. 24.
[629]Robison’s reference to the “several” societies established in America previous to 1786 (cf. supra,p. 210) is specifically referred to.Cf.Sermon on the National Fast, May 9, 1798, p. 23.
[630]Ibid., p. 24.
[631]Morse,op. cit., p. 24.
[632]Morse had been at pains in his sermon to recommend Robison’s volume as throwing a flood of light upon “the causes which have brought the world into its present disorganized state.” (Ibid., pp. 24et seq.) Later it must have occurred to him that the silence he had maintained in the pulpit respecting Masonry’s part in the conspiracy was bound to be noticed by all who upon his recommendation read Robison’s volume.
[633]Ibid., p. 21.
[634]Morse,op. cit., p. 21.
[635]Ibid., p. 22.
[636]Ibid., pp. 21, 22. For the time being Morse was content to follow the example of Robison. The latter, in his discussion of English Freemasonry, made a fairly sharp distinction between the English system and the Masonic systems of the continent. That distinction, on the whole, was decidedly favorable to English Freemasonry. By every consideration of precedent and prudence Morse must have felt strongly impelled to pursue the same course.
[637]Ibid., p. 22.
[638]Morse,op. cit., p. 25.
[639]Ibid., pp. 25et seq.
[640]Cf. supra,ch. i, 2.
[641]Cf. supra,pp. 125et seq.
[642]The editor of as loyal and resourceful a Federalist sheet as theColumbian Centinel, for example, insisted upon treating as a whole the performances of the clergy on the occasion of the national fast, and refused to make discriminations with respect to the special import or merit of any particular minister’s performance: “Wednesday last was observed throughout the United States as a day of Fasting and Prayer. (Within the sphere of our information we can say, that on no occasion were there ever exhibited more moral patriotism, and more ardent devotion.) The Clergy on this occasion came forward with a zeal which added greatly to the high character they have long enjoyed, as Patriots. We could instance numerous traits of Federalism, which would do them honour; but when all of them are entitled to praise, it would be invidious to make distinctions.” (Columbian Centinel, May 12, 1798.)
[643]Wolcott Papers, viii, 23.
[644]A Discourse, Delivered at the Roman Catholic Church in Boston on the 9th of May, 1798.… By the Reverend John Thayer, Catholic Missioner, Boston, 1798.
[645]Ibid., p. 23.
[646]Op. cit.
[647]Independent Chronicle, May 31, 1798.
[648]Ibid.The “observations” referred to really threw no new light upon the situation. They amounted to nothing more than proof of the fact that the editor of theNew York Spectatorhad accepted the idea of the Illuminati conspiracy. This being the case he was anxious to warn his readers that if they would escape from the designs of the French government they must make their choice, and that speedily, between “INDEPENDENCE and SUBMISSION.”
[649]Independent Chronicle, June 14, 1798.
[650]The extracts in question boldly championed Robison’s cause, and while admitting that all the tenets and secret manoeuvers of the Illuminati could not be said to have been fully brought to light, Morse did not hesitate to draw the following summary conclusion: “There is however sufficient known to call forth the indignation of every person who professes to be a friend to religion or virtue, and to put every one on their guard who knows and respects the rights of private property, and of good government.” (Ibid.)
[651]Ibid.
[652]A Discourse delivered in the Chapel of Harvard College, June 19, 1798, Occasioned by the Approaching Departure of the Senior Class from the University.By David Tappan, D. D., Hollis Professor of Divinity in said College, Boston, 1798.
[653]Ibid., pp. 4–13.
[654]As far as the present writer has been able to discover, President Dwight did not deal publicly with the Illuminati charge until a little later. Tappan’s reference must therefore be to general discussions of infidelity, a favorite topic with Yale’s president, as we have seen.
[655]The reference is to Robison. Whether or not Tappan had personally read Robison’s volume at this time is not altogether clear. The general impression created by his sermon is that he had.
[656]Cf.Tappan’sSermon, p. 19.
[657]Ibid., pp. 15et seq.(foot note).
[658]Cf.Tappan’sSermon, pp. 15et seq.(foot note).
[659]THE DUTY OF AMERICANS IN THE PRESENT CRISIS. Illustrated in a Discourse, Preached on the Fourth of July, 1798; by the Reverend Timothy Dwight, D. D., President of Yale-College; at the request of the citizens of New-Haven. New-Haven, 1798.
[660]Ibid., p. 8.
[661]The elaboration of this point necessarily led to some emphasis upon the spirit of irreligion and savage persecution that had thus manifested itself, and this in turn necessitated an effort to find a way out of the embarrassment of seeming to approve this persecution. The following ingenious foot note appended to the text of the published sermon admirably illustrates the inventive resourcefulness of many a New England clergyman of the day who found it necessary to rescue himself from such animpasseas Dwight’s method of exegesis produced: “In the mention of all these evils brought on the Romish Hierarchy, I beg it may be remembered, that I am far from justifying the iniquitous conduct of their persecutors. I know not that any person holds it, and all other persecutions, more in abhorrence. Neither have I a doubt of the integrity and piety of multitudes of the unhappy sufferers. In my view they claim, and I trust will receive, the commiseration, and, as occasion offers, the kind offices of all men possessed even of common humanity.” (Ibid., p. 9.) The truth is that in some cases Protestant clergymen in New England, out of their concern for Christianity in general, went so far as to deprecate the persecutions which Roman Catholicism suffered.
[662]Dwight offered as his sources of authority Robison’sProofsand an article on Barruel’sMemoirs of Jacobinismwhich he had discovered in theBritish Critic.
[663]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, p. 11.
[664]Ibid.
[665]Ibid.
[666]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, pp. 11, 12.
[667]Ibid., p. 12.
[668]Ibid., p. 13.
[669]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, p. 15.
[670]Cf.Dwight’sSermon, pp. 20, 21.
[671]Ibid., p. 22.
[672]The commanding position that Dwight occupied in the Standing Order, as well as the unenviable distinction which in the eyes of the opposition belonged to him, is certified to by the fact that he was commonly referred to as “Pope Dwight.”Cf.Beecher,Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, p. 289.Cf.Stiles,Diary, vol. ii, p. 531.
[673]TheConnecticut Journalof July 11, 1798, comments as follows upon New Haven’s celebration of the previous Fourth: “The exercises of the day at the Meeting-house were a Sermon by President Dwight, from the 16th chapter of Revelations, 15th verse, accompanied with prayers. An Oration by Noah Webster, jun., Esq., and sundry pieces of excellent music. We forbare [sic] to remark particularly on the Sermon and Oration, as the public eye will be speedily gratified in perusing them…. We shall only say that an enlightened audience, composed of the citizens of New-Haven, the members of our university, and many clergymen, civilians, and other respectable inhabitants from the adjacent towns, listened with profound attention while Doct. Dwight and Mr. Webster exposed to their view, in a feeling manner, those principles of modern philosophy which desolate Europe, and threaten the universe with mighty evils.”
[674]An Oration, pronounced at Sharon, on the Anniversary of American Independence, 4th of July, 1798.By John C. Smith, Litchfield, (n. d.), pp. 6et seq.Cf. ibid., pp. 7et seq.
[675]Theodore Dwight: An Oration spoken at Hartford, in the State of Connecticut, on the Anniversary of American Independence, July 4th, 1798.Hartford, 1798, p. 23.
[676]Ibid.On a later page, in commenting upon Robison’s reference in hisProofs of a Conspiracyto the lodges of the Illuminati which had been established in America, Dwight said: “I know not who belonged to that society in this country; but if I were about to make proselytes to illuminatism in the United States, I should in the first place apply to Thomas Jefferson, Albert Gallatin, and their political associates.” (Ibid., p. 30.) This early use of the outcry against the Illuminati for political purposes was prophetic.
[677]An Oration on Party Spirit, Pronounced before the Connecticut Society of Cincinnati, convened at Hartford, for the celebration of American Independence, on the 4th of July, 1798.By Thomas Day, (n. d.), p. 15.
[678]Ibid.
[679]That “Censor’s” tone of moderation was assumed and not genuine is further evinced by his assertion of contempt for Robison’sabsurdsupposition that the Illuminati had kindled the French Revolution and for his “unjustifiable attacks upon certain worthy characters.” If the Illuminati had never existed the Revolution would have occurred on account of the arbitrary and excessive despotism of the old French government, the insupportable weight of taxation, the luxury and dissipation of the nobility and clergy, the prohibition of free religious and political discussion, and the dissemination of liberal sentiments during the previous fifty years. That Robison, without sufficient warrant, should have attacked such characters as “the worthy La Fayette,” “the venerable Duke de Rochefoucault,” Dr. Priestley,et al., caused his book to appear as one born of “incorrigible prejudices, acting upon an inflamed imagination.” As for the author of the fast day sermon, he may judge for himself whether he was too hasty in recommending such a book to the public. The times may be full of peril, but surely this does not justify those who terrify their fellow citizens by means of groundless alarms. One’s fellow citizens also need to be put on their guard against the danger of becoming “the dupes of every foolish tale which the prejudices or ignorance of Europeans may fabricate.” Such were further comments by “Censor.”Cf.Day,op. cit.
[680]These articles began in the issue of theMercuryfor August 3, and were continued through the issues of August 10, 14, 17, 21, 28, and 31. Because of an effort which the Reverend Josiah Bartlett made to absolve the Masons of this country of the suspicion that had been cast upon them, they found a certain continuation in the issues of theMercuryfor September 7, 14, 18, 21; but these are reserved for the special treatment of the Masonic aspects of the case.Cf. infra,pp. 330et seq.
[681]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 3, 1798.
[682]Ibid.
[683]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 3, 1798.
[684]Ibid., Aug. 10.
[685]Ibid.In this connection Morse seeks to extract comfort from the fact that the editors of theBritish Critic, having compared Robison’sProofsand Barruel’sMemoirs of Jacobinism, have recorded their verdict that the two works are highly confirmatory of each other, “barring certain unimportant particulars.” He likewise observes that the marks of precipitation and certain faults of style and expression which some of the impartial English reviewers have been able to point out, have yet not been allowed to alter their judgment that the book as a whole is a credit to its author, and contains much valuable information. The clamor that has arisen against the book, Morse insists, is to be traced to the hostility of men who have been incensed because their secrets have been exposed. At this point it may be said in passing that Morse allowed himself to be drawn into the expression of a sentiment, gratuitous in its nature, which served to precipitate the very thing he had been anxious to avoid,viz., a break with the Masons. Irritated by his critics, he wrote: “The Free Masons can not be angry with him [Robison]…. If therefore any are really angry here, it must be because he has touched and exposed their secret friends.”
[686]The reference is to Professor Tappan’s sermon before the senior class of Harvard.Cf. supra,pp. 244et seq.
[687]In this instance the reference is not to President Dwight’s Fourth of July sermon: that sermon had not yet been seen by Morse; but to an allusion made by Dwight to Robison’s book in a note appended to the following pamphlet:The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy. Two Discourses, to the Candidates for the Baccalaureate, in Yale College, September 9, 1797…. New-Haven, 1798.Cf.Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 17, 1798.
[688]Theodore Dwight’s Fourth of July oration is referred to.Cf. supra,pp. 246et seq.
[689]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 17, 1798.
[690]Ibid., Aug. 21, 1798.
[691]Massachusetts Mercury, Aug. 21, 1798. Morse’s article in this issue of theMercury, perhaps more discursive and less convincing than anything he had previously written on the general subject, at various points descends to the level of abuse, in which Robison’s hostile English reviewers, the Reverend William Bentley (for reasons that will appear later), and “Censor” are made to share.