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)

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