Freemasonry In France.

ber , 1722 , and that its constitution provided that it should be composed in future of the Masters or deputies , acknowledging no longer any precedence of the " venerables" over the freely elected brethren , repudiating their immovability . This was

a true progress , but the immovable " venerables" rebelled against the new statutes , the " Grand Loge" anathematized the " Grand Orient , " and from this time two authorities governed concurrentl y the Masonic Order in France .

The Grand Lodge was not able to hold its own , aud the Grand Orient , its rival , dominated in Paris and in the provinces till the revolution broke , out . The two powers ( according to Thory ) during these troublous times had but an ephemeral existence , and did not resume their labours

till 1796 . At this time Eoettiersde Montaleau , named a Grand Master by the Grand Orient of France , sought to re-unite the two Grand Lodges , and addressed himself to all those who still recognized the authority of the Grand Lodge of France .

Commissioners were named , they met with those of the Grand Orient , and on the 29 th May , 1799 , they recommended a treaty of union , of which the essential clause was the abolition ot the immovability of the Masters of the Lodges . On

the 28 th June in the same year the reunion was ratified in a general assembly , at which upwards of 500 Masons assisted . From this time the Grand Orient amalgamated the ri ghts which it possessed under the Concordat of 1772 with those of the

, Grand Lodge , and its sole authority over Masonry in France , has since proved incontestible ; it is still to this day the ' representative of symbolical Masonry , derived from England in 1725 .

Section II . This organisation of symbolic Masonry of three degrees is not difficult to understand aud follow historically . Unfortunately this is not the case with Scottish Masonry in the high grades .

We shall explain how , during the same period , the Grand Orient was enabled to end the anarchy which all the Scottish systems had introduced into France , and succeeding iu uniting under its authority all those which had not died a natural death .

Freemasonry In France.

It is an undoubted fact that the creator of this Masonry , to wit , the Scottish Rite was the Chevalier Ramsay . The proof of this is easy , but the details will occupy too much space ; we must be content with an abridgment . Attached to the Stuait part )' , Ramsay

desired to make Masonry subservient to that cause ; and in 1728 he attempted to lay in London the foundation of a new organisation . His doctrines were rejected , says Thory , the partial historian of all the acts of Scottish Masonry , and the

avowed enemy of the Grand Orient of France . Ramsay had hopes of better success in France , where he sought the support of his Masters , and in an oration , which he delivered in 1740 in the Grand Lodge . in solemn assembly , he endeavoured

to trace the origin of the order to the time of the Crusades , spoke of the Knights Hospitallers of the Temple , and affirmed that in 1286 Lord James Steward was Master of a Lodge established at Kilwin ( sic ) in the West of Scotland . This discourse , however , seems not to have produced upon French Masons the effect which

its author had hoped , for the first central authority of the high grades that have come to our knowledge was established , it is said , at Arras by Charles Stuart himself in 1747 upon his return from France , and was called the " Chapitre primordial Jacobite" d'Arras .

, About the same date ( in 1748 ) Sir Manuel Lockard , aide-de-camp of the Pretender Charles Edward , instituted at Toulouse the Rite of " Les Ecossais fideles , " or of " La Vieille Bra , " and George de Walnon founded at Marseilles , in 1751 ,

the " Mere Loge Ecossais , the first known Masonic body in the South of France . It was not until 1752 that there was formed in Paris a central authority of the Scottish Rite , under the hi g h sounding title of the "Souverain Conseil sublime

mere Loge ecossaise du grand Globe frangais . " This Sovereign Council has left no trace of its existence . It was soon merged into the Grand Lodge and the Chapter of Clermont , created in 1754 by the Chevalier de Bonneville , who installed it in a large house which he had expressly built for it in the Faubourg of Paris ,