21st January, 1905.

IN these columns (The Progress, December 10th, 1904), I referred to the recently published Manifesto of the Grand Orient of France (November 4th, 1904), defending its attitude with regard to the elaborate spy system, a veritable rÉgime des suspects which they had established, not in the War Office only, but in every Department of State. The Press, both in England and in the United Sates, has been singularly reticent regarding this most remarkable document, whose authenticity cannot be gainsaid.

It is, however, the key to the whole politico-religious situation in France, and more or less in other Catholic countries.

Republicanism in Catholic countries will always be the modus operandi of this secret society in some one or other of its ramifications. The Carbonari, who engineered all the Italian revolutions in the nineteenth century, sent their emissary, Orsini, to remind Napoleon III of his obligations and duties. The gentle reminder was a bomb, and Orsini paid the death penalty, but not without leaving a letter with certain behests which were soon complied with. The Italian campaign against Austria was undertaken ere long.

In the Evening Post, November 8th, 1904, I find in a review of Count Hubner’s Memoirs the following extract: “The Emperor of the French, placed at the summit of greatness, had forgotten the pledges made in his youth to those who dispose of the unknown dark powers. Orsini’s bomb came to remind him. A ray of light suddenly struck his mind. He must have understood that his former associates never forgot or forgave, and that their implacable hatred would be appeased only when the renegade returned to the bosom of the sect.”

An example of the power wielded by these secret societies is the case of the ex-Minister of Public Instruction in Italy. Prosecuted for misdemeanour and extensive peculations while in office, the Freemasons compassed his escape to Geneva. He was condemned by default, when, lo and behold, he quietly returns to Italy in triumph and is elected deputy.[7]

Since eight weeks the French papers (non-Ministerial of course) are daily printing fiches or spy documents stolen from the Grand Orient. No end of duels and prosecutions for slander have been the result. Nor were army officers the only victims. Even Monsieur and Madame Loubet have come in for their share! In some cases the spies of the Grand Orient have denied the authenticity of these documents. Thereupon M. de Villeneuve has printed photographed copies of the letters in question.

Brother Bedderide, an advocate of the bar at Marseilles, an active spy on magistrates and other civil functionaries, has been expelled from the Order of Advocates. The Grand Orient will no doubt amply compensate him, for they are as generous to their friends as they are implacable to their foes.

Read this passage from the Manifesto of the Grand Orient, 4th November, 1904: “All our workshops know the campaign waged against us by the reaction, nationalist, monarchical, and clerical. They seek to travesty acts in which we justly glory and thanks to which, we have saved the Republic. A traitor, a felon, bribed by the Congregations [poor congregations recently shorn of all] lived in our midst since ten years.... As sub-secretary he gained the confidence of our very dear brother Vadecard [Secretary of G. O.] and became the confidant of all our secrets. He projected to steal from our archives documents confided to us ... new Judas, he sold them to the irreconcilable enemies of our brethren. Brother Bidegain is in flight like a malefactor. We signal him to Masons all over the world. In waiting the just punishment of his crime, the Council of the Order summons him before masonic justice, and until the final sentence is rendered, we suspend all his titles and prerogatives.... And now we declare to the whole Freemason body that in furnishing these documents [spy denunciations] the Grand Orient has accomplished only a strict duty. We have dearly conquered the Republic and claim the honour of having procured its triumph.... Without the Freemasons the Republic would not be in existence.... Pius X would be reigning in France.”

Then follows the menace quoted in my last to the tricky, cowardly deputies who voted against the Government, which was saved by two votes more than once. The memorable slap administered by M. Syveton to General AndrÉ compelled M. Combes to throw the Minister of War overboard, though the latter protested to the last, “They want my skin, but they shall not have it.” The Minister of Public Instruction also nearly succumbed. He declared that if a certain ordre de jour were not voted he would throw down his portfolio there and then. The votes were not forthcoming but he clung to his portfolio and contented himself with another ordre de jour.

All the performances at the Palais Bourbon are indeed a most amazing comedy.

Meanwhile M. Syveton, who negotiated the purchase of the purloined documents from the Grand Orient, and slapped General AndrÉ on the ministers’ bench, got his quietus in a very mysterious way on the very day on which he was to have retaken his seat in the Chambers (after his thirty days’ punitive exclusion), and on the eve of his appearance before the Cours d’Assise for that famous slap. His defence, carefully prepared by himself, was published in the papers next day. It is a long incisive arraignment of the Government in imitation of Cicero’s Catalina. All the witnesses, who were to have appeared in his defence, were also witnesses against the Government. In fact the trial was to have been a great political manifestation, and the Government had every interest in its not taking place. Since two weeks public opinion is on tenter-hooks regarding the death of M. Syveton. It was declared at first to be a vulgar accident by the Ministerial organs. While M. JaurÈs, strange to say, published in Humanity a most remarkable brief, establishing clearly the guilt of Madame Syveton, and, still more strange, the latter did not prosecute him for it. Then the suicide theory was adopted, and the most odious, baseless, and unproven calumnies were launched against the memory of the dead man. His widow even accused him of having stolen funds of the Nationalist party. All this in order to explain his suicide on the eve of what was expected to be a great political triumph of the Nationalists, and for which M. Syveton was preparing with the ardour of a fighter by temperament, just forty years old.

The autopsy, made before the twenty-four legal hours had elapsed, revealed seventeen per cent of oxide of carbon in the blood. The lungs, brain, and viscera, strange to say, were not examined at all, but placed under seals for eleven days! They are now to be examined. Meanwhile the last person who must have seen M. Syveton alive, must have been the emissary of the Government, who, according to custom, served the writ on the dead man, commanding his presence in court in twenty-four hours. Who was he, and why was he never heard of again?

No one believes seriously that M. Syveton committed suicide. His father and brother-in-law have begun a prosecution for murder against X, in which the Mutual Life is also interested.

As to Brother Bidegain, the traitor, he was at Salonica when last heard of. His sudden death there was announced; but I think the rumour is false. It would be very imprudent, coming so soon after the other. But he will have to make his peace with the G. O. or beware. He cannot be prosecuted for stealing these documents, as they represent no monetary value, and, moreover, the Grand Orient has no legal existence or civil personality. They are said to have millions of main morte, but they simply ignore the Associations Bill.

In conclusion, I hope it will be understood that I do not accuse many honest Freemasons of England and the United States of being particeps criminis in all or any of the doings of the Grand Orient, Carbonari, Mafia, Cimorra, Senuisi, or the secret societies of Islam or in China.

Freemasonry assumes different aspects in different circumstances, but it is the eternal enemy of militant organized Christianity. It does not trouble itself with Christianity “divided into many rivulets,” and consequently harmless, according to the saying of Lord Shaftesbury, who was of opinion that “England was the country in which Christianity did the least harm because it was divided into so many rivulets.”

The Catholic Church alone is an enemy worthy of its steel, and wherever these two foes meet there must be war—latent or overt.

This war is on in France, and must be fought to the finish.