s intrigues were conclusively revealed to the
Government of Bavaria.[608] A searching enquiry followed, the houses of
Zwack and Bassus were raided, and it was then that the documents and
other incriminating evidence referred to in the preceding chapter of
this book were seized and made public under the name of _The Original
Writings of the Order of the Illuminati_ (1787). But before this the
evidence of four ex-Illuminati, professors of Munich, was published in
two separate volumes.[609]

The diabolical nature of Illuminism now remained no longer a matter of
doubt, and the Order was officially suppressed. The opponents of Barruel
and Robison therefore declare that Illuminism came finally to an end. We
shall see later by documentary evidence that it never ceased to exist,
and that twenty-five years later not only the Illuminati but Weishaupt
himself were still as active as ever behind the scenes in Freemasonry.

But for the present we must follow its course from the moment of its
apparent extinction in 1786. This course can be traced not only through
the "German Union," which is believed to have been a reorganization of
the original Illuminati, but through the secret societies of France.
Illuminism in reality is less an Order than a principle, and a principle
which can work better under cover of something else. Weishaupt himself
had laid down the precept that the work of Illuminism could best be
conducted "under other names and other occupations," and henceforth we
shall always find it carried on by this skilful system of camouflage.

The first cover adopted was the lodge of the "Amis Reunis" in Paris,
with which, as we have already seen, the Illuminati had established
relations. But now in 1787 a definite alliance was effected by the
aforementioned Illuminati, Bode and Busche, who in response to an
invitation from the secret committee of the lodge arrived in Paris in
February of this year. Here they found the old Illuminatus Mirabeau--who
with Talleyrand had been largely instrumental in summoning these German
Brothers--and, according to Gustave Bord,[610] two important members
of the Stricte Observance, the Marquis de Chefdebien d'Armisson
(_Eques a Capite Galeato_) and an Austrian, the Comte Leopold de
Kollowrath-Krakowski (_Eques ab Aquila Fulgente_) who also belonged to
Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati in which he bore the pseudonym of
Numenius.

It is important here to recognize the peculiar part played by the Lod