Spartacus of this.[519]

Spartacus, however, unimpressed by this communication, replied drily:

Whether you know the aim of Masonry I doubt. I have myself included
an insight into this structure in my plan, but reserved it for
later degrees.[520]

Weishaupt then decides that all illuminated "Areopagites" shall take the
first three degrees of Freemasonry[521]; but further:

That we shall have a masonic lodge of our own. That we shall regard
this as our nursery garden. That to some of these Masons we shall
not at once reveal that we have something more than the Masons
have. That at every opportunity we shall cover ourselves with this
[Masonry].... All those who are not suited to the work shall remain
in the masonic Lodge and advance in that without knowing anything
of the further system.[522]

We shall find this plan of an inner secret circle concealed within
Freemasonry persisting up to our own day.

Weishaupt, however, admits himself puzzled with regard to the past of
Masonry, and urges "Porcius" to find out more on this question from the
Abbe Marotti:

See whether through him you can discover the real history, origin,
and the first founders of Masonry, for on this alone I am still
undecided.[523]

But it is in "Philo," the Baron von Knigge, a Freemason and member of
the Stride Observance, in which he was known as the Eques a Cygno, that
Weishaupt finds his most efficient investigator. Thus "Philo" writes to
"Spartacus":

I have now found in Cassel the best man, on whom I cannot
congratulate ourselves enough: he is Mauvillon, Grand Master of one
of the Royal York Lodges. So with him we have the whole lodge in
our hands. He has also got from there all their miserable degrees
[_Er hat auch von dort aus alle ihre elenden Grade_].[524]

No wonder that Weishaupt thereupon exclaims joyfully: "Philo does more
than we all expected, and he is the man who alone will carry it all
through."[525] Weishaupt then occupies himself in trying to get a
"Constitution" from London, evidently without success, and also in
wresting the Lodge Theodore in Munich from the control of Berlin in
order to substitute his own domination, so that "the whole secret
chapter will be subjected to our (*), leave everything to it, and await
further degrees from it alone."[526]

In all this Weishaupt shows himself not only an intriguer but a
charlatan, inve