and that, as in the eighteenth century, most of
the prominent revolutionaries were known to be connected with some
secret association. According to the plan laid down by Weishaupt,
Freemasonry was habitually adopted as a cover. Thus Louis _Amis de la
Verite_, numbering Bazard and Buchez amongst Blanc, himself a Freemason,
speaks of a lodge named the its founders, "in which the solemn
puerilities of the Grand Orient only served to mask political action."[655]
Bakunin, companion of the Freemason Proudhon,[656] "the father of
Anarchy," makes use of precisely the same expression. Freemasonry, he
explains, is not to be taken seriously, but "may serve as a mask" and
"as a means of preparing something quite different."[657]

I have quoted elsewhere the statement of the Socialist Malon that
"Bakunin was a disciple of Weishaupt," and that of the Anarchist
Kropotkine that between Bakunin's secret society--the _Alliance Sociale
Democratique_--and the secret societies of 1795 there was a direct
affiliation; I have quoted the assertion of Malon that "Communism was
handed down in the dark through the secret societies" of the nineteenth
century; I have quoted also the congratulations addressed by Lamartine
and the Freemason Cremieux to the Freemasons of France in 1848 on their
share in this revolution as in that of 1789; I have shown that the
organization of this later outbreak by the secret societies is not a
matter of surmise, but a fact admitted by all well-informed historians
and by the members of the secret societies themselves.

So, too, in the events of the Commune, and in the founding of the First
Internationale, the role of Freemasonry and the secret societies is no
less apparent. The Freemasons of France have indeed always boasted of
their share in political and social upheavals. Thus in 1874, Malapert,
orator of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,
went so far as to say: "In the eighteenth century Freemasonry was so
widespread throughout the world that one can say that since that epoch
nothing has been done without its consent."

The secret history of Europe during the last two hundred years yet
remains to be written. Until viewed in the light of the _dessous des
cartes_, many events that have taken place during this period must
remain for ever incomprehensible.

But it is time to leave the past and consider the secret forces at work
in the world to-day.

PART II

_THE PRESENT_