booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

members of the Stricte Observance, since Chefdebien was a member of this Order, in which he bore the title
of " Eques a Capite Galeato." The correspondence that passed between Chefdebien and Salvalette de
Langes, recently discovered and published in France, is one of the most illuminating records of the masonic
ramifications in existence before the Revolution ever brought to light.[45] To judge by the tone of these letters,
the leaders of the Rit Primitif would appear to have been law-abiding and loyal gentlemen devoted to
the Catholic religion, yet in their passion for new forms of Masonry and thirst for occult lore ready to associate
themselves with every kind of adventurer and charlatan who might be able to initiate them into further
mysteries. In the curious notes drawn up by Savalette for the guidance of the Marquis de Chefdebien we
catch a glimpse of the power behind the philosophers of the salons and the aristocratic adepts of the lodgesthe
professional magicians and men of mystery; and behind these again the concealed directors of the secret
societies, the real initiates.
THE MAGICIANS
The part played by magicians during the period preceding the French Revolution is of course a matter of
common knowledge and has never been disputed by official history. But like the schools of philosophers
this sudden crop of magicians is always represented as a sporadic growth called into being by the idle and
curious society of the day. The important point to realize is that just as the philosophers were all Freemasons,
the principal magicians were not only Freemasons but members of occult secret societies. It is therefore
not as isolated charlatans but as agents of some hidden power that we must regard the men whom we
will now pass in a rapid survey.
One of the first to appear in the field was Schroepfer, a coffee-house keeper of Leipzig, who declared
that no one could be a true Freemason without practising magic. Accordingly he proclaimed himself the "
reformer of Freemasonry," and set up a lodge in his own house with a rite based on the Rose-Croix degree
for the purpose of evoking spirits. The meetings took place at dead of night, when by means of carefully arranged
lights, magic mirrors, and possibly of electricity, Schroepfer contrived to produce apparitions which
his disciples-under the influence of strong punch-took to be visitors from the other world.[46] In the end
Schroepfer, driven crazy by his own incantations, blew out his brains in a garden near Leipzig.
According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, it was Schroepfer who indoctrinated the famous " Comte de Saint-
Germain "-" The Master " of our modern co-masonic lodges. The identity of this mysterious personage has
never been established[47]; by some contemporaries he was said to be a natural son of the King of Portugal,
by others the son of a Jew and a Polish Princess. The Duc de Choiseul on being asked whether he knew the
origin of Saint-Germain replied: " No doubt we know it, he is the son of a Portuguese Jew who exploits the
credulity of the town and Court."[48] In 1780 a rumour went round that his father was a Jew of Bordeaux,
but according to the Souvenirs of the Marquise de Créquy the Baron de Breteuil discovered from the
archives of his Ministry that the pretended Comte de Saint-Germain was the son of a Jewish doctor of Strasburg,
that his real name was Daniel Wolf, and that he was born in 1704.[49] The general opinion thus appears
to have been in favour of his Jewish ancestry.
Saint-Germain seems first to have been heard of in Germany about 1740, where his marvellous powers
attracted the attention of the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, who, always the ready dupe of charlatans, brought him
back with him to the Court of France, where he speedily gained the favour of Madame de Pompadour. The
Marquise before long presented him to the King, who granted him an apartment at Chambord and, enchanted
by his brilliant wit, frequently spent long evenings in conversation with him in the rooms of Madame
de Pompadour. Meanwhile his invention of flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of England raised
him still higher in the estimation of the Maréchal de Belle-Isle. In 1761 we hear of him as living in great
splendour in Holland and giving out that he had reached the age of seventy-four, though appearing to be
only fifty; if this were so, he must have been ninety-seven at the time of his death in 1784 at Schleswig.
But this feat of longevity is far from satisfying his modern admirers, who declare that Saint-Germain did not
die in 1784, but is still alive to-day in some corner of Eastern Europe. This is in accordance with the theory,
said to have been circulated by Saint-Germain himself, that by the eighteenth century he had passed through
several incarnations and that the last one had continued for 1,500 years. Barruel, however, explains that
Saint-Germain in thus referring to his age spoke in masonic language, in which a man who has taken the
first degree is said to be three years old, after the second five, or the third seven, so that by means of the
huge increase the higher degrees conferred it might be quite possible for an exalted adept to attain the age of
1,500.
Saint-Germain has been represented by modern writers-not only those who compose his following-as a
person of extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day.
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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