booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

thesis in the light of a document which was unknown to me when I wrote my former account of the Illuminati.
Barruel has pointed out that the great error of Robison was to describe Illuminism as arising out of Freemasonry,
since Weishaupt did not become a Freemason until after he had founded his Order. It is true that
Weishaupt was not officially received into Freemasonry until 1777, when he was initiated into the first degree
at the Lodge " Theodore de Bon Conseil," at Munich. From this time we find him continually occupied
in trying to discover more about the secrets of Freemasonry, whilst himself claiming superior knowledge.
But at the same time it is by no means certain that an inner circle of the Lodge Theodore may not have
been first in the field and Weishaupt all the while an unconscious agent. A very curious light is thrown on
this question by the Mémoires of Mirabeau.
Now, in The French Revolution and again in World Revolution I quoted the generally received opinion
that Mirabeau, who was already a Freemason, was received into the Order of the Illuminati during his visit
to Berlin in 1786. To this Mr. Waite replied: " All that is said about Mirabeau, his visit to Berlin, and his
plot to ' illuminize ' French Freemasonry, may be disposed of in one sentence: there is no evidence to show
that Mirabeau ever became a Mason. The province of Barruel was to colour everything...."[16] Mr. Waite's
statement may also be disposed of in one sentence: it is a pure invention. The province of Mr. Waite is to
deny everything inconvenient to him. The evidence that Mirabeau was a Freemason does not rest on Barruel
alone. M. Barthou, in his Life of Mirabeau, refers to it as a matter of common knowledge, and relates that a
paper was found at Mirabeau's house describing a new Order to be grafted on Freemasonry. This document
will be found in its entirety in the Mémoires of Mirabeau, where it is stated that: Mirabeau had early entered
an association of Freemasonry. This affiliation had accredited him to a Dutch lodge, and it seems that,
either spontaneously or in response to a request, he thought of proposing an organization of which we possess
the plan, written not by his hand... but by the hand of a copyist whom Mirabeau had attached to himself....
This work appears to have been that of Mirabeau; all his opinions, his principles, and his style will
be found here.[17]
The same work goes on to print the document in full, which is headed: " Memoir concerning an intimate
association to be established in the Order of Freemasonry so as to bring it back to its true principles and to
make it really tend to the good of humanity, drawn up by the F. Mi--, at present named Arcesilas, in 1776."
As this Memoir is too long to reproduce in full here, M. Barthou's résumé will serve to give an idea of its
contents[18]: He [Mirabeau] was a Freemason from his youth. There was found amongst his papers, written
by the hand of a copyist, an international organization of Freemasonry, which no doubt he dictated in Amsterdam.
This project contains on the solidarity of men, on the benefits of instruction, and on the "correction
of the system of governments and of legislations " views very superior to those of "The Essay on
Despotism" (1772). The mind of Mirabeau had ripened. The duties he traces out for the " brothers of the
higher grade " constitute even a whole plan of reforms which resemble very much in certain parts the work
accomplished later by the Constituent [Assembly]: suppression of servitudes on the land and the rights of
main morte, abolition of the corvées, of working guilds and of maîtrises [freedom of companies], of customs
and excise duties, the diminution of taxation, liberty of religious opinions and of the press, the disappearance
of special jurisdiction. In order to organize, to develop and arrive at his end, Mirabeau invokes the example
of the Jesuits: " We have quite contrary views," he says, "that of enlightening men, of making them
free and happy, but we must and we can do this by the same means, and who should prevent us doing for
good what the Jesuits have done for evil?"[19]
Now in this Memoir Mirabeau makes no mention of Weishaupt, but in his Histoire de la Monarchie
Prussienne he gives a eulogistic account of the Bavarian Illuminati, referring to Weishaupt by name, and
showing the Order to have arisen out of Freemasonry. It will be seen that this account corresponds point by
point with the Memoir he had himself made out in 1776, that is to say, in the very year that Illuminism was
founded: The Lodge Theodore de Bon Conseil at Munich, where there were a few men with brains and
hearts, was tired of being tossed about by the vain promises and quarrels of Masonry. The heads resolved to
graft on to their branch another secret association to which they gave the name of the Order of the Illuminés.
They modelled it on the Society of Jesus, whilst proposing to themselves views diametrically opposed.
Mirabeau then goes on to say that the great object of the Order was the amelioration of the resent system
of government and legislation, that one of its fundamental rules was to admit " no prince whatever his virtues,"[20]
that it proposed to abolish- The slavery of the peasants, the servitude of men to the soil, the rights
of main morte and all the customs and privileges which abase humanity, the corvées under the condition of
an equitable equivalent, all the corporations, all the maîtrises, all the burdens imposed on industry and com-
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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