had been threatened by the Pope. All the members were of the Roman Catholic persuasion; instead of an oath, their word of honour was taken, and several of the Princes of the German Empire were Grand Masters of the Order, into which women were admitted as members. Ramsay and the Thory asserts that in 1742 similar signs of High Degrees. degeneracy appeared in Paris, where de Chambonnet originated the Order of "la Félicité", into which men and women were admitted; and to judge from the documents preserved, good order and decency were not very carefully maintained. A branch of this order went under the name of "l'Ancre", but like its predecessor it · soon died out. The police attempted, though unsuccessfully, to divert attention from the Freemasons by establishing the "Venerable Order of the Patriarch Noah" in 1735-42, a purely Romanist institution, which did not by one single allusion intimate that the Masons derived their origin from the Crusades, but which bore the stamp impressed upon more recent orders of chivalry1. The soil in which this mass of vanity and presumption sprung up was produced by the overburdening of the Lodge with incompetent members, and the ease with which the Apprentices could be advanced to the degree of Master, as well as the fact that warrants were sold to undeserving Masters of Lodges, &c. The French Masons soon had had enough of masonic ceremonial, but the intrinsic merit of Masonry itself they had not an idea of; for they were, because of their vanity and partiality for ceremonies, ribands, and the like outward marks of distinction, only capitaved with the mere husk of Masonry. Innovations, therefore, found ready admittance. Michael Andrew Ramsay, a Scotchman, in a speech delivered by him in the year 1740, encouraged

2

1 Further particulars to be found in Kloss' "France", p. 43, 44. Speech delivered by Mr. de R., Grand Orator of the Order, on the occasion of the reception of the Freemasons, see Almanach des Cocus, 1741, and Lenning's Encyclopedia, III. vol,, p. 195 &c., where the speech is printed in full.

these alterations, in every way so prejudicial to Masonry He opened the door to the so-called High Grades, of which the injurious effects, nothwithstanding the utmost exertions of genuine Freemasons, are felt to this very day. We have to thank him for introducing the Legend of the Crusades into Masonry, for he endeavoured to prove its connection with the Orders of St. John of Malta. The Hospitallers or Templars are not here noticed, though in his "Relation apologique" Ramsay often speaks of them disparagingly. The necessary qualifications for admittance into the Order, he says, are "enlarged views of the human race, strict morality, inviolable secrecy, and a taste for the fine arts." He adds: "It is necessary to revive and disseminate the ancient maxims, which, adapted to man's nature human and divine, have formed the basis of our institution"; "our forefathers (!), the Crusaders, assembled in the Holy Land from all Christendom, wished to unite in a Fraternity embracing all nations, that when bound together heart and soul for mutual improvement, they might, in the course of time, represent one single intellectual people." To compass this end, this order joined itself to that of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards known by the name of the Knights of Malta. "We have", he says in another place, "three divisions in our order, novices or apprentices, fellows or brethren of the order (profès), and preceptors or perfect masters (parfaits)."

M. A. Ramsay, a Scotch knight, born in Ayr in 1686, died in 1743 at St. Germain-en-Laye: he resided chiefly in France, where he was known as an historian, and obtained some reputation for his "Travels of Cyrus." In 1709, the celebrated Archbishop Fénélon converted him to the Roman Catholic faith, and in the year 1724 he was tutor to the two sons of the Pretender Charles Edward, accompanying them to Rome, where he probably conceived the idea of enriching Freemasonry with his new system of "les hauts grades." It has been stated more than once that he was in London in 1728 to lay the foundation of this new masonic system, but Kloss contradicts this; he was only once in England, and that in 1730, to receive the degree of Doctor of Law.

Ramsay's corrupt seed, which was sown broadcast, without any proof to support it, soon met with enthusiastic supporters. A few years after this speech had appeared in Paris, in the Sceau rompu 1745 in answer to a catechetical question, the following was surreptitionaly inserted; "that therefore the Lodges were dedicaded to St. John, because the Knights (!) Masons, had in the holy wars in Palestine, joined the Knights of St. John." The historical blunder contained in Ramsay's speech would soon have been rectified by the Maltese order, and no more would have been heard of it; but the names which were found in the Knight of the East, in the Scotch degree, &c., gave occasion to the elaborating from them the High Degrees. Ramsay pronounces the famous word Kilwinning in Scotland, and the promise which it held out of reviving the order was in the then state of things only too alluring. From his speech, and from his conferences with Mr. de Geusau, it is easy to perceive that Ramsay had in view the collecting of money in favour of the Pretender, as well as the forming a more select body among the Brethren1.

1 Br. D. Murray Lyon in Freemason's Magazine, 1868, p. 141 says, "after having made a minute inspection of the Masonic records at Kilwinning": "Seing that the Fraternity of Kilwinning never at any period practised or acknowledged other than Craft degrees, and have not preserved even a shadow of a tradition that can in the remotest degree be held to identify Robert Bruce with the holding of Masonic courts or the institution of a secret Order at Kilwinning, the paternity of the 'Herodim' must be attributed to another than the hero of Bannockburn, and a birth-place must be sought for in a soil more favourable to the growth of the high grades than Scotland has hitherto proved."

One must "bear in mind, that the place of Chevalier Ramsay's nativity was within a short distance of Kilwinning, and that to this circumstance may be attributed his knowledge of the traditionary fame of that village as the ancient Scottish centre of the Mason Craft, and his subsequent use of its name in the promotion of his newly-promulgated Masonic inventions; although at the time of his birth, and even during the period in which he was engaged in the preparation of what has been termed 'the corner stone of the hauts grades', the Mason Court of Kilwinning was a purely operative institution, and its members for the

Abbé Pérau's book, which appeared in 1742, called "Le Secret des Franc-Maçons", knows no higher degree than that of Master Mason, neither does Travenol's catechism (1744). Yet even then mention was made of reducing the number of Lodges, of a great work of “reformation, which had been long contemplated", and of the adoption of new signs. November 30th, 1744, the Lodge "of the Three Globes" in Berlin made positive proposals for an alteration in the signs of recognition. Thus the initiative was given to a change in existing forms, and this paved the way to the introduction of the High Degrees. The Duke of Antin died in Paris, Decem

Count of Clermont,

Grand Master. ber 9th, 1736, aged 36. He left behind him a confederacy without any reliable centre, or any intimate alliance existing among its brethren. Duke Louis of Bourbon, Count of Clermont, succeeded him as Grand Master. He was chosen by the Masters of sixteen Lodges, and was installed December 27th, at the same time that a new Lodge was formed, "La Concorde".

The new Grand Master, upon whom all the hopes of a reformation in the Fraternity were set, had a difficult task to perform. He1 was required to cause a more strict examination of the candidates for initiation, to do away with the iniquitous sale of Warrants, and the extravagant expenditure at the festivities, to put a stop to ignorance, regulate the administration of the funds, in short, put an end to all prevailing abuses, and restore the Royal Art to its former condition of splendour and renown. A picture of the then condition of the Lodges may be formed from the fact that there were no minutes taken of the

most part were composed of masons and wrights, whose education was not such as could have fitted them for the study or understanding of those ineffable and sublime rites of which they were the alleged conservators. It is certain that Ramsay was not a member of the Kilwinning Lodge; nor is it likely that he ever had any communication with it.” 1 Vide Franc-Maçonne, 1744, Parfait Maçon, and Thory, History, as well as Kloss, France. Page 54 &c.