esent moment,
the composite nature of this movement must never be lost to sight.
Largely perhaps the work of Frederick the Great, it is probable that but
for the Orleanistes the plot against the French monarchy might have come
to nought; whilst again, but for his position at the head of illuminized
Freemasonry it is doubtful whether the Duc d'Orleans could have
commanded the forces of revolution. Further, how far the movement,
which, like the modern Bolshevist conspiracy, appears to have had
unlimited funds at its disposal, was financed by the Jews yet remains to
be discovered. Hitherto only the first steps have been taken towards
elucidating the truth about the French Revolution.

In the opinion of an early nineteenth-century writer the sect which
engineered the French Revolution was absolutely international:

The authors of the Revolution are not more French than German,
Italian, English, etc. They form a particular nation which took
birth and has grown in the darkness, in the midst of all civilized
nations, with the object of subjecting them to its domination.[639]

It is curious to find almost precisely the same idea expressed by the
Duke of Brunswick, formerly the "Eques a Victoria" of the Stricte
Observance, "Aaron" of the Illuminati, and Grand Master of German
Freemasonry, who, whether because the Revolution had done its work in
destroying the French monarchy and now threatened the security of
Germany, or whether because he was genuinely disillusioned in the Orders
to which he had belonged, issued a Manifesto to all the lodges in 1794,
declaring that in view of the way in which Masonry had been penetrated
by this great sect the whole Order must be temporarily suppressed. It is
essential to quote a part of this important document verbatim:

Amidst the universal storm produced by the present revolutions in
the political and moral world, at this period of supreme
illumination and of profound blindness, it would be a crime against
truth and humanity to leave any longer shrouded in a veil things
that can provide the only key to past and future events, things
that should show to thousands of men whether the path they have
been made to follow is the path of folly or of wisdom. It has to do
with you, VV. FF. of all degrees and of all secret systems. The
curtain must at last be drawn aside, so that your blinded eyes may
see that light you have ever s