Part 21 (1/2)
The system of the Illumines is not to embrace the dogmas of a sect, but to turn all errors to its advantage, to concentrate in itself everything that men have invented in the way of duplicity and imposture.
More than this, Illuminism was not only the a.s.semblage of all errors, of all ruses, of all subtleties of a theoretic kind, it was also an a.s.semblage of all practical methods for rousing men to action. For in the words of von Hammer on the a.s.sa.s.sins, that cannot be too often repeated:
Opinions are powerless so long as they only confuse the brain without arming the hand. Scepticism and free-thinking as long as they occupied only the minds of the indolent and philosophical have caused the ruin of no throne.... It is nothing to the ambitious man what people believe, but it is everything to know how he may turn them for the execution of his projects.
This was what Weishaupt so admirably understood; he knew how to take from every a.s.sociation, past and present, the portions he required and to weld them all into a working system of terrible efficiency--the disintegrating doctrines of the Gnostics and Manicheans, of the modern philosophers and Encyclopaedists, the methods of the Ismailis and the a.s.sa.s.sins, the discipline of the Jesuits and Templars, the organization and secrecy of the Freemasons, the philosophy of Machiavelli, the mystery of the Rosicrucians--he knew moreover, how to enlist the right elements in all existing a.s.sociations as well as isolated individuals and turn them to his purpose. So in the army of the Illuminati we find men of every shade of thought, from the poet Goethe[602] to the meanest intriguer--lofty idealists, social reformers, visionaries, and at the same time the ambitious, the rancorous, and the disgruntled, men swayed by l.u.s.t or embittered by grievances, all these differing in their aims yet by Weishaupt's admirable system of watertight compartments precluded from a knowledge of these differences and all marching, unconsciously or not, towards the same goal.
Although this was not the invention of Weishaupt but had been foreshadowed many centuries earlier in the East, it was Weishaupt, so far as we know, who reduced it to a working system for the West--a system which has been adhered to by succeeding groups of world-revolutionaries up to the present day. It is for this reason that I have quoted at length the writings of the Illuminati--all the ruses, all the hypocrisy, all the subtle methods of camouflage which characterized the Order will be found again in the insidious propaganda both of the modern secret societies and the open revolutionary organizations whose object is to subvert all order, all morality, and all religion.
I maintain, therefore, with greater conviction than ever the importance of Illuminism in the history of world-revolution. But for this co-ordination of methods the philosophers and Encyclopaedists might have gone on for ever inveighing against thrones and altars, the Martinistes evoking spirits, the magicians weaving spells, the Freemasons declaiming on universal brotherhood--none of these would have ”armed the hand” and driven the infuriated mobs into the streets of Paris; it was not until the emissaries of Weishaupt formed an alliance with the Orleaniste leaders that vague subversive theory became active revolution.
10
THE CLIMAX
The first Masonic body with which the Illuminati formed an alliance was the Stricte Observance, to which the Illuminati Knigge and Bode both belonged. Cagliostro had also been initiated into the Stricte Observance near Frankfurt and was now employed as agent of the combined order.
According to his own confession his mission ”was to work so as to turn Freemasonry in the direction of Weishaupt's projects”; and the funds he drew upon were those of the Illuminati.[603] Cagliostro also formed a link with the Martinistes, whose doctrines, though derided by Weishaupt, were useful to his plan in attracting by their mystical character those who would have been repelled by the cynicism of the Illuminati.
According to Barruel, it was the Martinistes who--following in the footsteps of the Rosicrucians--had suggested to Weishaupt the device of presenting Christ as an ”Illuminatus” which had led to such triumphant results amongst the Protestant clergy.
But if Weishaupt made use of the various masonic a.s.sociations, they on their account found in him a valuable ally. The fact is that by this time both French and German Freemasons were very much at sea with regard to the whole subject of Masonry and needed someone to give a point to their deliberations. Thus at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad convened on July 16, 1782, and attended by representatives of masonic bodies from all over the world, the first question propounded by the Grand Master of the Templars (i.e. the Stricte Observance) was: ”_What is the real object of the Order and its true origin_?” So, says Mirabeau in relating this incident, ”this same Grand Master and all his a.s.sistants had worked for more than twenty years with incredible ardour at a thing of which they knew neither the real object nor the origin.”[604]
Two years later the Freemasons of France do not appear to have been any less in the dark on this matter, for we find them writing to General Rainsford, one of the English Masons who had been present at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad, as follows:
Since you say that Masonry has never experienced any variation in its aim, do you then know with certainty what this unique object is? Is it useful for the happiness of mankind?... Tell us if it is of an historical, political, hermetical, or scientific nature?...
Moral, social, or religious?... Are the traditions oral or written?[605]
But Weishaupt had a very definite object in view, which was to gain control of all Freemasonry, and though he himself was not present at the Congress, his coadjutor Knigge, who had been travelling about Germany proclaiming himself the reformer of Freemasonry, presented himself at Wilhelmsbad, armed with full authority from Weishaupt, and succeeded in enrolling a number of magistrates, savants, ecclesiastics, and ministers of state as Illuminati and in allying himself with the deputies of Saint-Martin and Willermoz. Vanquished by this powerful rival, the Stricte Observance ceased temporarily to exist and Illuminism was left in possession of the field.
On February 15, 1785, a further congress took place in Paris, convened this time by the Philalethes, at which the Illuminati Bode (alias Amelius) and the Baron de Busche (alias Bayard) were present, also--it has been stated--the ”magician” Cagliostro, the magnetiser Mesmer, the Cabalist Duchanteau, and of course the leaders of the Philalethes, Savalette de Langes, who was elected President, the Marquis de Chefdebien, and a number of German members of the same Order. This congress led to no very practical results, and a further and more secret one was convened in the following year at Frankfurt, where a Grand Lodge had been established in 1783. It was here that the deaths of Louis XVI and Gustavus III of Sweden are said to have been decreed.
But already in this same year of 1785 the first act of the revolutionary drama had been played out. The famous ”Affair of the Necklace” can never be understood in the pages of official history; only an examination of the mechanism provided by the secret societies can explain that extraordinary episode, which, in the opinion of Napoleon, contributed more than any other cause to the explosion of 1789. In its double attack on Church and Monarchy the Affair of the Necklace fulfilled the purpose of both Frederick the Great and of the Illuminati. Cagliostro, we know, received both money and instructions from the Order for carrying out the plot, and after it had ended in his own and the Cardinal de Rohan's exoneration and exile, we find him embarking on fresh secret-society work in London, where he arrived in November of the same year.
Announcing himself as the Count Sutkowski, member of a society at Avignon, he ”visited the Swedenborgians at their Theosophical Society meeting in rooms in the Middle Temple and displayed minute acquaintance with their doctrines, whilst claiming a superior knowledge.”[606]
According to a generally received opinion, Cagliostro was the author of a mysterious proclamation which appeared at this moment in the _Morning Herald_ in the cypher of the Rose-Croix.[607]
But in the year before these events an extraordinary thing had happened.
An evangelist preacher and Illuminatus named Lanze had been sent in July 1785 as an emissary of the Illuminati to Silesia, but on his journey he was struck down by lightning. The instructions of the Order were found on him, and as a result its intrigues were conclusively revealed to the Government of Bavaria.[608] A searching enquiry followed, the houses of Zwack and Ba.s.sus were raided, and it was then that the doc.u.ments and other incriminating evidence referred to in the preceding chapter of this book were seized and made public under the name of _The Original Writings of the Order of the Illuminati_ (1787). But before this the evidence of four ex-Illuminati, professors of Munich, was published in two separate volumes.[609]
The diabolical nature of Illuminism now remained no longer a matter of doubt, and the Order was officially suppressed. The opponents of Barruel and Robison therefore declare that Illuminism came finally to an end. We shall see later by doc.u.mentary evidence that it never ceased to exist, and that twenty-five years later not only the Illuminati but Weishaupt himself were still as active as ever behind the scenes in Freemasonry.
But for the present we must follow its course from the moment of its apparent extinction in 1786. This course can be traced not only through the ”German Union,” which is believed to have been a reorganization of the original Illuminati, but through the secret societies of France.
Illuminism in reality is less an Order than a principle, and a principle which can work better under cover of something else. Weishaupt himself had laid down the precept that the work of Illuminism could best be conducted ”under other names and other occupations,” and henceforth we shall always find it carried on by this skilful system of camouflage.
The first cover adopted was the lodge of the ”Amis Reunis” in Paris, with which, as we have already seen, the Illuminati had established relations. But now in 1787 a definite alliance was effected by the aforementioned Illuminati, Bode and Busche, who in response to an invitation from the secret committee of the lodge arrived in Paris in February of this year. Here they found the old Illuminatus Mirabeau--who with Talleyrand had been largely instrumental in summoning these German Brothers--and, according to Gustave Bord,[610] two important members of the Stricte Observance, the Marquis de Chefdebien d'Armisson (_Eques a Capite Galeato_) and an Austrian, the Comte Leopold de Kollowrath-Krakowski (_Eques ab Aquila Fulgente_) who also belonged to Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati in which he bore the pseudonym of Numenius.
It is important here to recognize the peculiar part played by the Lodge of the _Amis Reunis_. Whilst the _Loge des Neuf Soeurs_ was largely composed of middle-cla.s.s revolutionaries such as Brissot, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Champfort, and the _Loge de la Candeur_ of aristocratic revolutionaries--Lafayette as well as the Orleanistes, the Marquis de Sillery, the Duc d'Aiguillon, the Marquis de Custine, and the Lameths--_the Loge du Contrat Social_ was mainly composed of honest visionaries who entertained no revolutionary projects but, according to Barruel, were strongly Royalist. The role of the ”Amis Reunis” was to collect together the subversives from all other lodges--Philalethes, Rose-Croix, members of the _Loge des Neuf Sours_ and of the _Loge de la Candeur_ and of the most secret committees of the Grand Orient, as well as deputies from the _Illumines_ in the provinces. Here, then, at the lodge in the Rue de la Sordiere, under the direction of Savalette de Langes, were to be found the disciples of Weishaupt, of Swedenborg, and of Saint-Martin, as well as the practical makers of revolution--the agitators and demagogues of 1789.
The influence of German Illuminism on all these heterogeneous elements was enormous. From this moment, says a further Bavarian report of the matter, a complete change took place in the Order of the ”Amis Reunis.”