June 3rd, 1905.

THERE is still a persistent tendency in the Press to believe or make-believe that the Bill of alleged Separation, still pending in the French Chambers, means Separation as it is understood in England and the United States, and that the whole question is only one of dollars and cents, or of the suppression of the Budget of Cults. It is true that there is to be a partial repudiation of the National Debt by the suppression of the few paltry millions paid yearly to the French clergy as a slight indemnity for the vast amount of property confiscated by the Jacobins of 1792, but this is a mere detail, and would be considered but a small ransom, if, thereby, the Church could enjoy the same liberty as in the United States.

The Associations Bill was proclaimed to be a “law of liberty,” and we know to-day that it was only a vulgar trap set by the Government to betray the Congregations into furnishing exact inventories of all their property so that it might be more easily confiscated.

The Separation Bill is also a law of perfidious tyranny aimed at the very existence of the Church in France. M. Briand caused great hilarity in the Chambers when, by a slip of the tongue, he declared that in every part of it “could be seen the hand of our spirit of Liberalism.”[9] What is evident throughout is the hand of the secret society which has governed France since twenty-five years, and in whose lodges and convents all the anti-religious laws have been elaborated.

The Chambers are merely its bureaux d’enregistrement, and not even that. Under the ancien rÉgime the Parliament could and often did refuse to enregister royal acts and decrees.

It was two years before the Parliament of Paris consented to enregister the Concordat of 1516. But the Chambers to-day are merely the executive of the Grand Orient. This is the plain unvarnished truth, which is corroborated by all who have any knowledge of French politics.

I have repeated many times in the Press of the United States that Republicanism in France is not a form of government, but the modus operandi of a secret society. Before me are verbatim reports of their assemblies and the speeches made at their political banquets in 1902. At that time only unauthorized Congregations had been suppressed. This, it was declared, “was not enough.... The Congregations must be operated on with a vigorous scalpel, and all this suppuration must be thrown out of the country; only thus will the social body, still very sick with acute clericalism, be cured.” In July, 1904, all the authorized Congregations, too, were suppressed, as we know. Even this was not enough.

At the general “convent” of the Grand Orient, January, 1904, it was said: “We have yet a great effort to make.... The separation of Church and State will be in the order of the day in the Chambers in January, 1905.... The Cabinet and the Republican Parliament will end the conflict between the two contracting parties of the Concordat. The destruction of the Church will open a new era of justice and goodness.”

M. Combes, then in power, was notified of the wishes of the Grand Orient, and he telegraphed back that he would conform thereto.

The sensation caused by the publication of the spy documents, or fiches, stolen from the Grand Orient by M. Syveton and de Villeneuve nearly overthrew the Republic last November. The assassination of M. Syveton saved the Government and struck terror into the Nationalist camp. The publication of the spy documents ceased, and the lodges continued their work with a new figure-head, M. Rouvier instead of M. Combes.

On 4th November, 1904, the Grand Orient published a political manifesto which is a most important document from an historical and sociological standpoint.

It is simply amazing that the government of a once great nation should have passed into the hands of a secret society which, though it has no legal standing, treats France as if it were a great business concern of which the Freemasons are the commanditaires, the ministers “the managers,” and the deputies and functionaries the employees.

Already in 1902, at the closing banquet of the “convent,” Brother Blatin, a “venerable,” had declared:

“The Government must not forget that Masonry is its most solid support....

“But for our Order neither the Combes Cabinet nor the Republic itself would exist. M. and Mme. Loubet would still be simple little bourgeois in the little town of MontÉlimar.... But the Government must remember that we are only at the opening of hostilities. Until we have destroyed every congregation, denounced the Concordat, and broken with Rome, nothing is done.” In conclusion, these remarkable words were pronounced, of which the manifesto of 4th November, 1904, is only an echo: “In drinking to French Freemasonry I really drink to the Republic, because the Republic is Freemasonry operating outside its temples; and Freemasonry is the Republic under cover of our traditions and symbols.” Is this clear enough?

The Revolution of 1790 was undoubtedly due to Freemasonry, which about that time began to appear openly for the first time, and almost simultaneously, in France, Great Britain and America, etc. The Palladian Rite, established in France in 1769, found a congenial field of operation in the corrupt society of the RÉgence and Louis XV.

Its aim then, as to-day, is the same—the destruction of Christianity. The Jacobin Clubs of 1792 were simply Masonic lodges. M. Waite, an eloquent apologist of the fraternity, makes the following statement in Devil Worship in France, page 322: “There is no doubt that it [Masonry] exercised an immense influence upon France during the century of quakings which gave birth to the great Revolution. Without being a political society, it was an instrument eminently adaptable to the subsurface determination of political movements.... At a later period it contributed to the formation of Germany, as it did to the creation of Italy. But the point and centre of masonic history is France in the eighteenth century.”

This explains the outbreak of Kulturkampf in Germany and Switzerland soon after 1870, and the wave of anti-religious furor which swept over Italy at the same period. To-day Catholicism has repulsed Freemasonry in Germany, and the victory is not far distant in Italy. The Liberal Socialist party is waning, and it is always with these elements of socialistic anarchy that Freemasonry operates under a guise of liberty.

The efforts being made to break up the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian Empire are undoubtedly traceable to these Judeo-Masonic secret societies. But France remains the great battlefield. Christianity and Freemasonry are about to fight a decisive duel. One or the other must perish. “Si nous ne tuons pas l’Eglise, elle nous tuera,” said a prominent Mason recently. The suppression of the Congregations and their 27,000 schools was, as they said, “only the opening of hostilities.” The battle must be fought to the finish. I have repeatedly affirmed that France was held firmly in the coils of the Grand Orient, which has packed both Houses with its creatures, thanks to the political apathy of respectable Frenchmen.

The Separation Bill is merely a blind, a slip-knot which can be drawn at any moment to strangle the victim around whose neck it is cast. When his Socialist accomplices of the Left reproached M. Briand with being too liberal, he replied, “If necessary we can always amend the law or make another.” Only two short years ago M. Combes openly pronounced against any project of separation. M. Rouvier was of the same opinion, but the masters of France have spoken!

In vain it was pleaded that the country be consulted before taking so important a step. The perfidious feature of the Bill is just this—that nothing will be changed until two years (1907) hence, when the “bloc” will probably have gained a new lease of life by this manoeuvre; for in May, 1906 they will be able to say to their electors, “You see the law is voted, and nothing is changed.”

Article I sounds sweetly liberal: “The Republic assures liberty of conscience and guarantees the free exercise of worship under the following restrictions” (contained in some forty more articles). In my opinion these numerous little “restrictions” will render the normal existence of the Church in France impracticable. Of course she will continue to exist, as she existed during the Terror, and under the Directoire and Diocletian.

Another article, not yet voted, provides for the final disposition of church buildings twelve years hence. That, apparently, is the allotted span of life meted out to us by Masonic Jacobins.

Article II with sweet inconsistency declares that “the Republic neither recognizes nor subsidizes any cult,” and immediately after it inscribes on the Public Budget the service of aumÔniers of state lyceums and colleges.

Peasants and poor struggling tradesmen and artisans must pay for the luxury of religious worship or go without, but the sons of the rich, who frequent these state schools, are to be provided for, gratis, by this liberal Republic, which neither “recognizes nor subsidizes any worship,” except, of course, Islamism in Algeria, which is now, ipso facto, the religion of the State.

It is very pitiful to see so momentous a question treated with such flippancy and indecent haste.

All their utterances in the Chambers and in their Press show that the Freemasons are convinced that they would be defeated if the next elections were made on this issue. Therefore they must “do quickly.”

Alone of all the nations of Christendom, France totally disregarded Good Friday this year. The Stock Exchange remained open and the Chambers met as usual. The apostasy of the State will soon be complete.

In Spain, where I spent Holy Week, the young king has taken a decided stand against the Revolution. He has caused vehement enthusiasm by reviving Christian customs fallen into desuetude during a century of revolutions. On Holy Thursday he washed and kissed the feet of twelve poor men whom he afterwards served at table, aided by the grandees of Spain. On Friday he returned from church alone and on foot, and was wildly acclaimed. We are so accustomed to see the menus of the banquets of the rich, that it was refreshing to read, for once in the daily papers, the menu of a banquet of some poor old men served by a king.

This is the counter-revolution, and M. Salmeron and his Republican Socialist Freemasons, French and Spanish, who recently caused riots in many cities, might as well suspend operations. Only the assassination of Alphonse XIII can prevent Spain from recuperating steadily. In Italy, too, the counter-revolution is setting in. The Socialists, alias Freemasons, are succumbing to the Conservative or clerical party. The Quirinal is steering for Canossa. France must bear the brunt till she, too, can have her counter-revolution.