equences which will shortly appear. Lastly, his own personal
credibility seems seriously at stake when he talks of "triangular
provinces." He, and those connected with him, can alone explain what
that means; they have never existed in Masonry. Mr Yarker, who, he says,
is Grand Master of such a province, has never heard the expression. Mr
R. S. Brown, Grand Secretary of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of
Scotland, also denies all knowledge of the one which, according to
Signor Margiotta, is located at Edinburgh.

CHAPTER XI

FEMALE FREEMASONRY

Last on the list of our recent witnesses who have had a hand in creating
the Question of Lucifer--not actually last in the order of time but the
least in importance to our purpose--is M. A. C. de la Rive, author of
"Child and Woman in Universal Freemasonry." He very fairly fulfils the
presumption which is warranted by his name; he does not pretend to have
come forth from the turbid torrent of Satanism and Masonry which is
carrying multitudes into the abyss and effacing temples and thrones in
its furious course. He has been content, like a sensible person, to
stand on bank or brink and watch the rage and flow. He does not tell us
anywhere in his narrative that he is himself a Mason; he has no personal
acquaintance with Satan; he has not been guilty of magic, nor has he
assisted at a Black Mass. He belongs to a wholly different order of
witnesses, and he has produced what is in its way a genuine book, which
does not pretend to be more than a careful compilation from rare but
published sources, while we can all of us defer to the erudition of a
Frenchman who has actually spent on collecting his materials the almost
unheard-of space of twelve months. The result is correctly described as
"grand in octavo, 746 pages," and is really an inflated piece of Masonic
chronology, exceedingly ill-balanced, but, at the same time, undeniably
useful. Beginning with the year 1730 it is brought down to 1894, and it
is designed to demonstrate the existence at the present day of "adoptive
lodges" wherein French gallantry once provided an inexpensive substitute
for Masonry in which ladies had the privilege of participating. One of
the most learned and illustrious of French Masonic writers, Jean-Marie
Ragon, describes such androgyne or female lodges as "amiable
institutions" invented by an unknown person some time previously to the
year 1730, under the name of "mysterious amusements," whic