ought in vain, but of which you have
only caught a few deceptive rays....

We have raised our building under the wings of darkness; ... the
darkness is dispelled, and a light more terrifying than darkness
itself strikes suddenly on our sight. We see our edifice crumbling
and covering the ground with ruins; we see destruction that our
hands can no longer arrest. And that is why we send away the
builders from their workshops. With a last blow of the hammer we
overthrow the columns of salaries. We leave the temple deserted,
and we bequeath it as a great work to posterity which shall raise
it again on its ruins and bring it to completion.

Brunswick then goes on to explain what has brought about the ruin of the
Order, namely, the infiltration of Freemasonry by secret conspirators:

A great sect arose which, taking for its motto the good and the
happiness of man, worked in the darkness of the conspiracy to make
the happiness of humanity a prey for itself. This sect is known to
everyone: its brothers are known no less than its name. It is they
who have undermined the foundations of the Order to the point of
complete overthrow; it is by them that all humanity has been
poisoned and led astray for several generations. The ferment that
reigns amongst the peoples is their work. They founded the plans of
their insatiable ambition on the political pride of nations. Their
founders arranged to introduce this pride into the heads of the
peoples. They began by casting odium on religion.... They invented
the rights of man which it is impossible to discover even in the
book of Nature, and they urged the people to wrest from their
princes the recognition of these supposed rights. The plan they had
formed for breaking all social ties and of destroying all order was
revealed in all their speeches and acts. They deluged the world
with a multitude of publications; they recruited apprentices of
every rank and in every position; they deluded the most
perspicacious men by falsely alleging different intentions. They
sowed in the hearts of youth the seed of covetousness, and they
excited it with the bait of the most insatiable passions.
Indomitable pride, thirst of power, such were the only motives of
this sect: their masters had nothing less in view than the thrones
of the earth