n their assemblies. As all such bodies which admit women
to membership are clandestine and irregular, it is necessary to
caution Brethren against being inadvertently led to violate their
Obligation by becoming members of them or attending their meetings.
Grand Lodge, nine years since, approved the action of the Board in
suspending from all Masonic rights and privileges two Brethren who
had contumaciously failed to explain the grave Masonic irregularity
to which attention is now again called; and it is earnestly hoped
that no occasion will arise for having again to institute
disciplinary proceedings of a like kind.

The idea of women Masons is, of course, not a new one. As early as 1730
lodges for women are said to have existed in France, and towards the end
of the century several excellent women, such as the Duchesse de Bourbon
and the Princesse de Lamballe, played a leading part in the Order. But
this _Maconnerie d'Adoption_, as it was called, retained a purely
convivial character; a sham ceremonial, with symbols, pass words, and a
ritual, was devised as a consolation to the members for their exclusion
from the real lodges. These mummeries were, as Ragon observes, "only the
pretexts for assemblies; the real objects were the banquet and the ball,
which were their inevitable accompaniments."[694]

But this precedent, inaugurated as a society pastime and accompanied by
all the frivolity of the age, paved the way for Weishaupt's two classes
of women members, who, although never initiated into the secrets of the
Order, were to act as useful tools "directed by men without knowing it."
For this purpose they were to be divided into two classes, the
"virtuous" to play the part of figureheads or decoys, and the
"freer-hearted," who were to carry out the real designs of the Order.

The same plan was adopted nearly a hundred years later by Weishaupt's
disciple Bakunin, who, however, did admit women as actual initiates into
his secret society, the Alliance Sociale Democratique, but, like
Weishaupt, divided them into classes. The sixth category of people to be
employed in the work of social revolution is thus described in his
programme:

The sixth category is very important. They are the women, who must
be divided into three classes: the first, frivolous women, without
mind or heart, which we must use in the same manner as the third
and fourth categories of men [i.e