Secret Societies
Illuminati
Origin of the Illuminati - part 2 of
3 Again: "It is, that the Peace, whose fruits we are tasting today,
should have nothing in common with former Treaties. It would accomplish the
great Masonic plan sketched in 1789, taken up again in 1830, then in 1848 and in
1870, by proclaiming the coming of Universal Democracy."
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848: The first visible result of the
work of the Secret Societies in the nineteenth century occurred in Russia,
whither the doctrines of Illuminized freemasonry had been carried by Napoleon's
armies and by Russian officers who had traveled in Germany. (La Russie en 1839,
by Astolphe de custine, ii. 42; The Court of Russia in the Nineteenth Century,
by E.A. Brayley Hodgetts, i. 116; World Revolution, Nesta Webster, p. 125)
It was owing to the intrigues of these societies that the band of
true reformers calling themselves "The Association of Welfare" was dissolved and
two new parties were formed, the first known as the Northern Association
demanding constitutional monarchy, the second called the Southern Association
under Colonel Pestel, who was in direct communication with Nubius; which aimed
not only at a Republic but at the extermination of the entire royal family. (The
Revolutionary Movement in Russia, by Konni Zilliacus, p. 8; Brayley Hodgetts,
The Court of Russia in the Nineteenth Century, i, p. 122; World Revolution,
Nesta Webster, p. 125)
Many attempts indeed were made on the life of Alexander I.,
through the agency of the Secret Societies, (Deschamps, ii, p. 242; Frost's,
Secret Societies, ii, p. 213; World Revolution, Nesta Webster, p. 125) and after
his death in 1825 an insurrection broke out, led by the "United Slavs" who were
connected with the Southern Association and the Polish Secret Societies at
Warsaw. (The Court of Russia in the Nineteenth Century, E.A. Brayley Hodgetts,
i, p. 123; World Revolution, Nesta Webster, p. 125) The pretext for this
outbreak, known as "The Dekabrist rising" because it occurred in December, was
the accession to the throne of Nicholas I, at the request of his elder brother
Constantine, and a crowd of mutinying soldiers were persuaded to march on the
Winter Palace and protest against the acceptance of the crown by Nicholas,
represented to them by the agitators as an act of usurpation. The manner in
which the movement was engineered has been described by the Marquis de Custine,
who travelled in Russia a few year later: "Well- informed people have attributed
this riot to the influence of the Secret Societies by which Russia is
worked...The method that the conspirators had employed to rouse the army was a
ridiculous lie: the rumor had been spread that Nicholas was usurping the throne
from his brother Constantine, who, they said, was advancing on Petersburg to
defend his rights by armed force. This means they took in order to decide the
revolutionaries to cry under the windows of the Palace: 'Long live the
Constitution!' The leaders had persuaded them that this word Constitution was
the name of the wife of Constantine, their supposed Empress. You see that an
idea of duty was at the bottom of the soldiers' hearts, since they could only be
led into rebellion by a trick." (E.A. Brayley Hodgets, The Court of Russia in
the Nineteenth Century, i, p. 192; World Revolution, Nesta Webster, p. 126)
This strange incident tends to confirm the assertion of P re
Deschamps that the word "Constitution" was the signal agreed on by the Secret
Societies for an outbreak of revolution. It had been employed in the same manner
in France in 1791, and, as we shall see, it was employed again in Russia at
intervals throughout the revolutionary movement.
The Dekabrist rising was ended by three rounds of grape-shot, and
five of the ringleaders were hanged. In no sense was it a popular insurrection,
in fact the people regarded it with strong disapproval as an act of sacrilege,
and so little did it aid the cause of liberty that General Levashoff declared to
Prince Trobetzkoy "it had thrown back Russia fifty years." (The Court of Russia
in the Nineteenth Century, E.A. Brayley Hodgetts, i, pp. 201, 205; World
Revolution, Nesta Webster, p. 126)
Further evidence of the connection between the French Revolution
and the engineering of revolution in Russia is supplied by de Custine on his
travels in the latter country fourteen years later. Now in those days before the
abolition of serfdom, the peasants on an estate were bought and sold with the
land, and since the Emperor's serfs were the best treated in the whole country
the inhabitants of estates newly acquired by the Crown became the objects of
envy to their fellow-serfs.
In this year of 1839 the peasants, hearing that the Emperor had
just bought some more land, sent a deputation to Petersburg, consisting of
representatives from all parts of Russia, to petition that the districts from
which they came should also be added to the royal domains.
Nicholas I received them kindly, for while adopting repressive
measures towards insurrection his sympathies were with the people. We must not
forget that it was he who visited Robert Owen at New Lanark to study his schemes
of social reform. When, therefore, the peasants petitioned him to buy them he
answered with great gentleness that he regretted he could not buy up all Russia,
but he added: "I hope that the time will come when every peasant of this Empire
will be free; if it only depended on me Russians would enjoy from today the
independence that I wish for them that I am working with all my might to procure
for them in the future."
These words interpreted to the serfs by "savage and envious men,"
led to the most terrible outbreak of violence all along the Volga. "The Father
wishes for our deliverance," cried the deluded deputies on their return to their
homes, "he only wishes for our happiness, he told us so himself; it is therefore
the seigneur and their overseers who are our enemies and oppose the good designs
of the Father! Let us avenge ourselves! Let us avenge the Emperor."
The peasants, imagining they were carrying out the Emperor's
intention, threw themselves upon the seigneur and their overseers, roasted them
alive, boiled others in copper pots, disembowelled the delegates, burned
everything with fire and sword and devastated the whole province. (La Russie en
1839, ii, pp. 219-220)
Now when we compare this incident with the "Great Fear" that took
place in France precisely fifty years earlier (in July 1789) how can we doubt
the connection between the two? In both the pretext and the organization are
identical. The benevolent intentions of Louis XVI, interpreted by the emissaries
to the provinces in the word, "The King desires you to burn down the ch teaux;
he only wishes to keep his own;" the placards paraded thorough the towns, headed
"Edict of the King," ordering the peasants to burn and destroy, and the
massacres and burnings that followed; all this was exactly repeated in Russia
fifty years later quite obviously by the same organization that had engineered
the earlier outbreak. How otherwise are we to explain it?
Five years after the Russian explosion of 1825 the second french
Revolution took place. The revolution of 1830 was in the man not a social but a
political revolution, a renewed attempt of the OrThetaaniste conspiracy to
effect a change of dynasty and as such formed a mere corollary to the
insurrection of July and October 1789.
It is true that beneath the tumults of 1830, as beneath the Siege
of the Bastille and the march on Versailles, the subversive force of Illuminism
made itself felt, and that during "the glorious days of July" the hatred of
Christianity expressed by the Terror broke out again in the sacking of the
"ArchevOmegachTheta," in the pillage and desecration of the churches, and in the
attacks on religion in the provinces.
But the driving force behind the revolution that precipitated
Charles X from the throne was not Socialist but OrlThetaaniste; it was a
movement led by the tricouleur of July 13, 1789, not by the red flag of August
10, 1792, emblem of the social revolution; its strength lay not with the workmen
but with the bourgeoisie, and it was the bourgeoisie who triumphed.
The rThetagime that followed has well been named "the bourgeois
monarchy." For Louis Philippe, once the ardent partisan of revolution, followed
the usual program of demagogy, and as soon as the reins of power were in his
hands turned a deaf ear to the demand of the people. It was then in 1848,
organized by the Secret Societies, directed by the Socialists, executed by the
working-men did aggravated by the intractable attitude of the King and his
ministers, the second great outbreak of World Revolution took place.
There were then, just as in the first French Revolution, real
grievances that rankled in the minds of the people; electoral reform, the
adjustment of wages and hours of labor, and particularly the burning question of
unemployment, where all matters that demanded immediate attention. The people in
1848 even more than in 1789 had good cause for complaint.
But in the justice to the bourgeoisie it must be recognized that
they were in the main sympathetic to the cause of the workers. "Bourgeois
opinion," even the Socialist Malon admits, "was...open to renovating
conceptions. Before 1848 the French bourgeoisie had as yet no fear of social
insurrections; they readily allowed themselves to indulge in innocent Socialist
speculations. It was thus that FouriThetarisme, for example, founded entirely on
seeking the greatest sum of happiness possible, had numerous sympathizers in the
provincial bourgeoisie." (Malon, Histoire du socialisme, ii, p. 295)
Like the aristocrats of 1788 who had voluntarily offered to
surrender their pecuniary privileges, and on the famous August 4, 1789
themselves dealt the death-blow to the feudal system by renouncing all other
rights and privileges, so the bourgeoisie of 1848 showed their willingness to
cooperate not merely with reforms but with the most drastic social changes
directly opposed to their own interests. "In the first weeks of 1848 it was not
only the proletarians who spoke of profound social reforms; the bourgeoisie that
FouriThetariste propaganda (but above all the novels of Eug ne Sue and of George
Sand) had almost reconciled with Socialism, thought themselves the hour had
come, and all the candidates talked of ameliorating the lot of the people, of
realizing social democracy, of abolishing misery. Great proprietors believed
that the Provisional Government was composed of Communists, and one day twenty
of them came to offer Garnier Pag s to give up their goods to the community."
(Histoire du socialisme, Malon, ii, p. 520)
But the art of the revolutionaries has always been to check
reforms by alienating the sympathies of the class in power, and they had no
intention of allowing the people to be contented by pacific measures or to look
to any one but themselves for salvation. As on the eve of all great public
commotions, a great masonic congress was held in 1847. (Deschamps, ii, p. 281,
quoting Gyr, La Franc-MaTauonnerie, p. 368; World Revolution, Nesta Webster, p.
130) Among the French masons present were the men who played the leading parts
of the subsequent revolution; Louis Blanc, Caussidi re, CrThetamieux, Ledru
Rollin, etc., and it was then decided to enlist the Swiss Cantons in the
movement so that the center of Europe should form no barrier against the tide.
It was the Secret Societies, guided by the Illuminati, that the
plan of campaign was drawn up and the revolutionary machine set in motion.
Caussidi re, a prominent member of these associations, and at the same time
Prefect of Police in Paris during the tumults of 1848, has himself provided us
with the clearest evidence on this point. "The Secret Societies, had never
ceased to exist even after the set-back of May 12, 1838. This freemasonry of
devoted soldiers had been maintained without new affiliations until 1846. The
orders of the day, printed in Brussels or sometimes in secret by compositors of
Paris, had kept up its zeal. But the frequency of these proclamations, which
fell sooner or later into the hands of the police, rendered the use of them very
dangerous. Relations between the affiliated and the leaders had thus become
rather restricted when, in 1846, the Secret Societies were reorganized and took
up some initiative again. Paris was the center around which radiated the
different ramifications extending into the provincial towns. In Paris and in the
provinces the same sentiment inspired all these militant phalanxes, more
preoccupied by revolutionary action than by social theories. Guns were more
talked of than Communism, and the only formula unanimously accepted was
Robespierre's 'Declaration of the Rights of Man.' The Secret Societies found
their real strength in the heart of the people of the working-classes, which had
its vanguard, a certain disciplined force always ready to act, their cooperation
was never wanting to any political emotion and they were found in the forefront
of the barricades in February." (MThetamoires de Caussidi re, i, pp. 38-39)
But the working classes were not admitted to the inner councils of
the leaders; the place of the vanguard was on the barricades when the shooting
began, not in the meetings where the plans of campaign were drawn up. Among
these secret agencies the Haute Vente naturally played the leading part, and two
years before the revolution broke out Piccolo Tigre was able to congratulate
himself on the complete success of his efforts to bring about a vast upheaval.
On January 5, 1846 the energetic agent of Nubius writes in the
following terms to his chief: "The journey that I have just accomplished in
Europe has been as fortunate and as productive as we had hoped. Henceforth
nothing remains but to put our hand to the task in order to reach the
dThetanouement of the comedy...The harvest I have reaped has been abundant...and
if I can believe the news communicated to me here (at Livorno) we are
approaching the epoch we so much desire. The fall of thrones is no longer a
matter of doubt to me now that I have just studied the work of our societies in
France, in Switzerland, in Germany, and as far as Russia. The assault which in a
few years and perhaps even in a few months from now will be made on the princes
of the earth will bury them under the wreckage of their impotent armies and
their discredit thrones. Everywhere there is enthusiasm in our ranks and apathy
or indifference among the enemies. This is a certain and infallible sign of
success...What have we asked in return for our labors and our sacrifices? It is
not a revolution in one country or another. That can always be managed if one
wishes it. In order to kill the old world surely, we have held that we must
stifle the Catholic and Christian germ, and you, with the audacity of genius,
have offered yourself with the sling of a new David to hit the pontifical
Goliath on the head." (L'+glise Romaine en face de la RThetavolution, ii, p.
387; World Revolution, Nesta Webster, p. 132)
(end of part 2)
