booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

honourable purpose, their ranks were penetrated by confederates of another kind. It has been said in an
earlier chapter that, according to the documents produced by the Ordre du Temple in the early part of the
nineteenth century, the Templars had never ceased to exist in spite of their official suppression in 1312, and
that a line of Grand Masters had succeeded each other in unbroken succession from Jacques du Molay to the
Duc de Cossé-Brissac, who was killed in 1792. The Grand Master appointed in 1705 is stated to have been
Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, later the Regent. Mr. Waite has expressed the opinion that all this was an invention
of the late eighteenth century, and that the Charter of Larmenius was fabricated at this date though not published
until 1811 by the revived Ordre du Temple under the Grand Master, Fabré Palaprat. But evidence
points to a contrary conclusion. M. Matter, who, as we have seen, disbelieves the story of the Ordre du
Temple and the authenticity of the Charter of Larmenius in so far as it professes to be a genuine fourteenthcentury
document, nevertheless asserts that the savants who have examined it declare it to date from the
early part of the eighteenth century, at which period Matter believes the Gospel of St. John used by the Order
to have been arranged so as " to accompany the ceremonies of some masonic or secret society." Now, it
was about 1740 that a revival of Templarism took place in France and Germany; we cannot therefore doubt
that if Matter is right in this hypothesis, the secret society in question was that of the Templars, whether they
existed as lineal descendants of the twelfth-century Order or merely as a revival of that Order. The existence
of the German Templars at this date under the name of the Stricte Observance (which we shall deal
with in a further chapter) is indeed a fact disputed by no one; but that there was also an Ordre du Temple in
France at the very beginning of the eighteenth century must be regarded as highly probable. Dr. Mackey,
John Yarker, and Lecouteulx de Canteleu (who, owing to his possession of Templar documents, had exclusive
sources of information) all declare this to have been the case and accept the Charter of Larmenius as authentic.
" It is quite certain," says Yarker " that there was at this period in France an Ordre du Temle, with a
charter from John Mark Larmenius, who claimed appointment from Jacques du Molay. Philippe of Orléans
accepted the Grand Mastership in 1705 and signed the Statutes."(26)
Without, however, necessarily accepting the Charter of Larmenius as authentic let us examine the probability
of this assertion with regard to the Duc d'Orléans.
Amongst the Jacobites supporting Lord Derwentwater at the Grand Lodge of Paris was a certain Andrew
Michael Ramsay, known as Chevalier Ramsay, who was born at Ayr near the famous Lodge of Kilwinning,
where the Templars are said to have formed their alliance with the masons in 1314. In 1710 Ramsay was
converted to the Roman Catholic faith by Fénelon and in 1724 became tutor to the sons of the Pretender at
Rome. Mr. Gould has related that during his stay in France Ramsay had formed a friendship with the Regent,
Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, who was Grand Master of the Ordre de Saint-Lazare, instituted during the
Crusades as a body of Hospitallers devoting themselves to the care of the lepers and which 1608 had been
joined to the Ordre du Mont-Carmel. It seems probable from all accounts that Ramsay was a Chevalier of
the Order, but he cannot have been admitted into it by the Duc d'Orléans, for the Grand Master of the Ordre
de Saint-Lazare was not the Duc d'Orléans but the Marquis de Dangeau, who on his death in 1720, was succeeded
by the son of the Regent, the Duc de Chartres.(27) If, then, Ramsay was admitted to any Order by
the Regent, it was surely the Ordre du Temple, of which the Regent is said to have been the Grand Master at
this date.
Now, the infamous character of the Duc d'Orléans is a matter of common knowledge; moreover, during
the Regency-that period of impiety and moral dissolution hitherto unparalleled in the history of France-the
chief of council was the Duc de Bourbon, who later placed his mistress the Marquise de Prie and the financier
Paris Duverney at the head of affairs, thus creating a scandal of such magnitude that he was exiled in
1726 through the influence of Cardinal Fleury. This Duc de Bourbon in 1737 is said to have become Grand
Master of the Temple. " It was thus," observes de Canteleu, " that these two Grand Masters of the Temple
degraded the royal authority and ceaselessly increased hatred against the government."
It would therefore seem strange that a man so upright as Rams ay appears to have been, who had
moreover but recently been converted to the Catholic Church, should have formed a friendship with the dissolute
Regent of France, unless there had been some bond between them. But here we have a possible explanation-Templarism.
Doubtless during Ramsay's youth at Kilwinning many Templar traditions had come
to his knowledge, and if in France he found himself befriended by the Grand Master himself, what wonder
that he should have entered into an alliance which resulted in his admission to an Order he had been accustomed
to revere and which, moreover, was represented to him as the fons et origo of the masonic brotherhood
to which he also belonged? It is thus that we find Ramsay in the very year that the Duc de Bourbon is
said to have been made Grand Master of the Temple artlessly writing to Cardinal Fleury asking him to extend
his protection to the society of Freemasons in Paris and enclosing a copy of the speech which he was to
deliver on the following day, March 21, 1737. It is in this famous oration that for the first time we find
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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