ight without the help of anyone else to initiate all those who,
after the usual tests, seemed to him worthy.

The catechism of the sect is composed of a very small number of
articles which might even be reduced to this single principle:

"To arm the opinion of the peoples against sovereigns and to work
by every method for the fall of monarchic governments in order to
found in their place systems of absolute independence." Everything
that can tend towards this object is in the spirit of the
Association....

Initiations are not accompanied, as in Masonry, by phantasmagoric
trials, ... but they are preceded by long moral tests which
guarantee in the safest way the fidelity of the catechumen; oaths,
a mixture of all that is most sacred in religion, threats and
imprecations against traitors, nothing that can stagger the
imagination is spared; but the only engagement into which the
recipient enters is to propagate the principles with which he has
been imbued, to maintain inviolable secrecy on all that pertains to
the association, and to work with all his might to increase the
number of proselytes.

It will no doubt seem astonishing that there can be the least
accord in the association, and that men bound together by no
physical tie and who live at great distances from each other can
communicate their ideas to each other, make plans of conduct, and
give grounds of fear to Governments; but there exists an invisible
chain which binds together all the scattered members of the
association. Here are a few links:

All the adepts living in the same town usually know each other,
unless the population of the town or the number of the adepts is
too considerable. In this last case they are divided into several
groups, who are all in touch with each other by means of members of
the association whom personal relations bind to two or several
groups at a time.

These groups are again subdivided into so many private coteries
which the difference of rank, of fortune, of character, tastes,
etc., may necessitate: they are always small, sometimes composed of
five or six individuals, who meet frequently under various
pretexts, sometimes at the house of one member, sometimes at that
of another; literature, art, amusements of all kinds are the
apparent obj