condition of an equitable
equivalent, all the corporations, all the maitrises, all the
burdens imposed on industry and commerce by customs, excise duties,
and taxes ... to procure a universal toleration for all religious
opinions ... to take away all the arms of superstition, to favour
the liberty of the press, etc.[514]

From all this we see then that Mirabeau did not become an Illuminatus in
1786 as I had supposed before this document was known to me, but had
been in the Order from the beginning apparently as one of its founders,
first under the "Illuminated" name of Arcesilas and later under that of
Leonidas. The Memoir found at his house was thus no other than the
programme of the Illuminati evolved by him in collaboration with an
inner ring of Freemasons belonging to the Lodge Theodore. The
correspondence of the Illuminati in fact contains several references to
an inner ring under the name of "the secret chapter of the Lodge of St.
Theodore," which, after his initiation into Masonry, Weishaupt indicates
the necessity of bringing entirely under the control of Illuminism. It
is probable that Weishaupt was in touch with this secret chapter before
his formal admission to the lodge.

Whether, then, the ideas of Illuminism arose in this secret, chapter of
the Lodge Theodore independently of Weishaupt, or whether they were
imparted by Weishaupt to the Lodge Theodore after the directions had
been given him by Kolmer, it is impossible to know; but in either case
there would be some justification for Robison's assertion that
Illuminism arose out of Freemasonry, or rather that it took birth
amongst a group of Freemasons whose aims were not those of the Order in
general.

What were these aims? A plan of social and political "reform" which, as
M. Barthou points out, much resembled the work accomplished later by the
Constituent Assembly in France. This admission is of great importance;
in other words, the programme carried out by the Constituent Assembly in
1789 had been largely formulated in a lodge of German Freemasons who
formed the nucleus of the Illuminati, in 1776. And yet we are told that
Illuminism had no influence on the French Revolution!

It will be objected that the reforms here indicated were wholly
admirable. True, the abolition of the _corvee_, of _main morte_, and of
servitudes were measures that met with the approval of all right-minded
men, including the King of France himself. But