iate myself with
princes and Freemasons ... but I shrink from the thought, vengeance
will not carry me so far....[590]

We have now seen enough of the aims and methods of the Illuminati and
the true characters of their leaders from their own admissions. To make
the case complete it would be necessary also to give a resume of the
confessions made by the ex-Illuminati, the four professors Cosandey,
Grunberger, Utzschneider, and Renner, as also of the further published
works of the Illuminati--but space and time forbid. What is needed is a
complete book on the subject, consisting of translations of the most
important passages in all the contemporary German publications.

From the extracts given above, can it, however, be seriously contended
that Barruel or Robison exaggerated the guilt of the Order? Do my
literal translations differ materially in sense from the translations
and occasional paraphrases given by the much-abused couple?

Even those contemporaries, Mounier and the member of the Illuminati[591]
who set out to refute Barruel and Lombard de Langres, merely provide
further confirmation of their views. Thus Mounier is obliged to confess
that the real design of Illuminism was "to undermine all civil order,"[592]
and "Ancien Illumine" asserts in language no less forcible than
Barruel's own that Weishaupt "made a code of Machiavellism," that his
method was "a profound perversity, flattering everything that was base
and rancorous in human nature in order to arrive at his ends," that he
was not inspired by "a wise spirit of reform" but by a "fanatical enmity
inimical to all authority on earth." The only essential points on which
the opposing parties differ is that whilst Mounier and "Ancien Illumine"
deny the influence of the Illuminati on the French Revolution and
maintain that they ceased to exist in 1786, Barruel and Lombard de
Langres present them as the inspirers of the Jacobins and declare them
to be still active after the Revolution had ended. That on this point,
at any rate, the latter were right, we shall see in a further chapter.

The great question that presents itself after studying the writings of
the Illuminati is: what was the motive power behind the Order? If we
admit the possibility that Frederick the Great and the Stricte
Observance, working through an inner circle of Freemasons at the Lodge
St. Theodore, may have provided the first impetus and that Kolmer
initiated Weishaupt into Oriental