into a "Secret Committee of United Friends." According to a book published about 1790, and entitled “La Secte des Illuminés," their manner of initiation, their oaths and doctrines, were of the most frighful kind. Let us go a little into details.

362. Ceremonies of Initiation. The large mansion of Ermenonville, about thirty miles from Paris, and belonging to the Marquis de Gerardin, who gave J. J. Rousseau during the last days of his life an asylum, and afterwards a tomb on his estate, was said to be the chief lodge of Illuminism. The famous impostor Saint Germain presided in it. On the day of initiation the candidate was led through a long dark passage into a large hall hung with black. By the feeble light of sepulchral lamps he perceived corpses wrapped up in shrouds. In the centre of the hall stood an altar built up of human skeletons; spectres wandered through the hall and disappeared, leaving an evil odour behind. At last two men disguised as spectres appeared, tied a pink ribbon, smeared with blood, and having the image of the Lady of Loretto on it, round his forehead. Into his hand they placed a crucifix, and hung an amulet round his neck. His clothes were laid on a funeral pyre; on his body they painted crosses with blood. His pudenda were tied up with string. Five terrific figures, armed with daggers, and clothed in bloodstained garments, approached him, fell down before him, and prayed. At the end of an hour or so the candidate heard mourning sounds, the pyre was lit up, and his clothes burnt. A gigantic semi-transparent form arose from the flames; the five figures on the ground fell into fearful convulsions; and the voice of an invisible hierophant burst from the vault, and uttered the following oaths, which the neophyte had to repeat:

"In the name of the Crucified, I swear to sever all bonds uniting me with father, mother, brothers, sisters, wife, relations, friends, mistress, king, superiors, benefactors, or any other man to whom I have promised faith, obedience, gratitude, or service.

"Name the place where thou art born. To live henceforth in another sphere, which thou will not reach till thou hast renounced this poisoned globe cursed by Heaven.

"From this moment thou shalt reveal to thy new chief all thou shalt have heard, learned, and discovered, and also to seek after and spy into things that might otherwise escape thy notice.

"Honour the aqua Toffana as a sure, quick, and necessary

means of ridding the earth, by death or stupefaction, of those who revile truth, or seek to wrest it from our hands.

"Avoid Spain, Naples, and every other accursed country; also avoid all temptation to betray what thou hast now heard. Lightning does not strike so quickly as the dagger which will reach thee wherever thou mayest be."

The candidate having repeated these words, a candlestick with seven black wax tapers was placed before him, together with a vessel full of human blood. He had to wash himself with the blood, and drink half a glassful. Then the string round the pudenda was untied, he was placed in a bath, and on leaving it regaled with a dish of roots.

363. Credibility of above Account.-No doubt all this sounds very horrible, and is very incredible. But as to the horrors, they were simply theatrical; and as to credibility, writers near the time when these horrors were said to have been practised seriously believed in them! The Abbé Barruel, who gives some of the above details in his work, "Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism," does "not hesitate to consider them as historical truth."

The Marquis de Jouffroi, in his "Dictionary of Social Errors," positively asserts that the meetings at Ermenonville were scenes of the grossest debauchery. Why should we doubt that they also were occasions for all sorts of ridiculous absurdities?

Note. In the (London) Monthly Magazine for January 1798 there appeared a letter from Augustus Böttiger, Provost of the College of Weimar, in reply to Robison's work, charging that writer with making false statements, and declaring that since 1790 "every concern [sic] of the Illuminati has ceased." Böttiger also offered to supply any person in Great Britain, alarmed at the erroneous statements contained in the book above mentioned, with correct information.

II

THE GERMAN UNION

364. Statements of Founder. This society, of which Robison and Barruel give such dreadful accounts, never was anything but an attempt at a commercial speculation by the famous Dr. Charles Frederick Bahrdt, a German theologian, possessing great literary talent, but little moral principles. His plan was first propounded in a pamphlet addressed "To All Friends of Reason, Truth, and Virtue," and asserting that there existed a society of twenty-two statesmen, professors, and private persons for the dissemination of natural religion, the rooting out of superstition, and restoring mankind to liberty by enlightening them. "It is for that purpose," the pamphlet stated, "that we have formed a secret society, to which we invite all those who are actuated by the same views, and are properly sensible of their importance." The society was to have its periodicals and journals, its libraries and reading clubs-the books read, of course, to be those published by direction of the Twenty-two, or in reality by Bahrdt. The society was to some extent a resuscitation of the Illuminati. Frederick William, King of Prussia, alarmed at the progress their teaching was making, allowed his pietist minister of the Public Cult, John Christian von Wöllner, to publish the notorious retrograde "Edict of Religion" of 1788, which caused universal dissatisfaction, and was satirised in a pamphlet bearing the same title as the Edict. Bahrdt was betrayed as the author thereof by one Samuel Röper, whom, from charity, he had made his secretary, and was sent to prison, where he wrote his Memoirs, which were published at Frankfurt in four volumes in 1790. Von Wöllner was personally interested in opposing the German Union and its liberal dogmas in religion and politics, because he himself was secretly a zealous Rosicrucian, and the Rosicrucians preferred working in the dark. A violent attack on the German Union was made in a book called More Notes than Text," and attributed by some to J. J. C.

66

He

Bode, late Privy Councillor at Weimar, and by others to Göschen, a bookseller at Leipzig, by whom it was published in 1789. Bahrdt having in consequence of study and reflection adopted and advocated pure Deism, and being, moreover, an advanced politician, too enlightened for his day, he made himself many enemies among the transparency (Durchlaucht) and parson-ridden burghers of the various cities in which he successively held appointments. gradually lost them all, and eventually set up a tavern near Halle, which he called "Bahrdt's Repose." He died in 1793, after which nothing more was heard of the German Union. He is known in England by Barruel's and Robison's writings only, and misrepresented, to his disadvantage, by both. Neither of them being a good German scholar, both have mistranslated many passages taken from Bahrdt's works, and others they have, evidently intentionally, so twisted to their own purpose that of abusing their author-that their statements, as far as they refer to Bahrdt, and, I may add, as far as they refer to Weishaupt, are of very little value.

III

FRENCH WORKMEN'S UNIONS

365. Organisation of Workmen's Unions. The origin of corporations of artisans dates from the day in which the oppressed workers and neglected burghers wished to resist feudal rapine, assure to themselves the fruit of their own labour, increase their trade, enlarge their profits, and establish friendly relations. But whilst these ancient corporations rose up against the aristocracy of blood and wealth, they did not steer clear of the oligarchic spirit. In the first centuries of the Middle Ages the journeyman did not separate from his master; he lived and worked with him. There did not then exist that distinction which afterwards displayed itself so openly-in fact, even now, in many German towns the journeymen eat at the master's table. Then the journeyman was to the master what the squire was to the knight; and as the squire could be received into the ranks of knighthood, so the apprentice at the end of his term could establish himself as master. But by-and-by it did not suffice to possess property or skill to become a master; it became necessary after the apprenticeship to travel for two or three years, the object of which was, and still is, to acquire greater skill, and a knowledge of the various modes of working in different towns, adopted in the particular trade to which the journeyman belonged. On his return, he had to make his masterpiece; if approved by a committee of masters, he was received among them; if not, he was rejected, and was not allowed to work on his own account. Thus the masters had in their turn transformed themselves into an aristocracy hostile to the majority, speculating on, rather than administering to, the common labour, their interests being opposed to those of the workmen. The ostracism which thus pursued the great army of labourers, and the segregation to which they were condemned, necessarily produced a reaction, which, unable to have recourse to open revolt, assumed the form of a secret sodality, with rights and customs peculiar to itself.