“It must, master; it shall.”
Bonito pondered, with some indulgent condescension, the other’s mild, fanatic face. The creature was but a “minerval”—an Illuminatus, that is to say, having his foot on the lowest rung of that ladder on which he himself stood relatively exalted. But it is pleasant to be apotheosised, even by an insignificant groundling; and the pleasure, though to a philosopher, may lose nothing from the fact of that groundling’s social superiority. For, indeed, if Caius Sempronius Gracchus was not the rose, he could say, with Benjamin Constant, he lived near it. He was a house-steward in the royal palace, in fact, and, as such, a useful humble auxiliary to these forces of anti-monarchical transcendentalism, whose policy it was to titillate the ears of their neophytes with a jargon of classical pseudonyms, and, by endowing mediocrity with resounding titles, to stimulate it to a fervid emulation of its prototypes. Caius Sempronius Gracchus, an enthusiastic, well-meaning little rantipole, could conceive for himself no more flattering destiny than to be some time Tribune under this omniscient Praetor in the coming Cosmopolis. He lived for ever, for all his little albuminous brain was worth, in that cloudy castle. And Bonito found him useful.
This strange man, indeed—who let himself be supposed of the Rosicrucians, a discredited sect, merely to cover his connection with the later and much more formidable Society of the Illuminati—desired wealth only as a means to his personal advancement in his own mysterious Order. All his plans were directed to that end and to none other. Money, for its own sake, he despised; but money alone could direct his line of curvature towards the heart, the holy of holies, of that great centrifugal force, which, under the name of Illuminati, or the Enlightened, was destined—in its own conception, at least—to revolutionise the political systems of the world.
And what was that heart? And why did its attainment figure so covetable to this close-locked, thin-blooded misanthrope? It represented to him, one must suppose, an ideal of power to which no existing autocracy could afford a parallel—a power to be likened only to the sun of one of those starry systems which his brain had warped itself in considering—a power, the focus of countless satellites humming harmonious worship about it in revolving belts of light—a power, in short, which was vested, solely and indivisibly, so far as mundane affairs were concerned, in the person of the General of all the Illuminati.
Well, as to this General, this veiled prophet, “old nominis umbra,” mystic, unapproachable. A plain word in season, as to him and his system, must suffice for an irreverent generation. He was a stupendous mystery to his creatures; and was designed to be. Like an unspeakable spider, he commanded, from their middle point of contact, the radiations, with all their concentric rings, of a vast web of political intrigue, every touch on which was communicated to, and answered by, him automatically. He was elected, in the first instance, from amongst themselves, by a council of twelve, called the Areopagites. These were the virtually absolute, analogous to the Roman Decemviri. Thence, in successive gradation, extended the inferior orders: the national directors, each, also, entitled to his council of twelve; the provincials, or magistrates of provinces, having their courts of regents; and the deans of the Academies of priests, or epopts, who were seers and star-gazers to a man. Beyond these, the Mysteries diffused themselves by way of the Chevalier ecossais, or first initiate, to the noviciates of illuminatus dirigens, illuminatus major and illuminatus minor, until they touched limit in the simple proselyte or freshman, of whom is a boundless credulity in the forces of secrecy.
That was exacted of him, as were also an unquestioning obedience and inviolable devotion to the mandates of his order—blind faith, in fact. He took an absurd name, foreswore his will, and mastered the calendar of the brotherhood—if he was wise enough. Great folly, to be sure, but folly is wisdom’s catspaw. The gods know the value of gilding a fool’s eyes. These Asphandars and Pharavardins, these pseudonyms and Allobroxes (which last, by the way, meant the Province of Faissigny), were only so much harlequin tinsel irradiating the body of a stern purpose. Behind all the glittering foppery was existent a very resolute and far-reaching design—one no less than the universal decentralisation of governments, and the qualification of the world-citizen. It was no small ambition, perhaps, that of aspiring to the generalship of the Illuminati.
And, if Fortune had fooled Dr Bonito by a quibble, money still remained to him the sovereign test of truth. The stars had read him his destiny, for all that that earthly goddess, being earthy, had delighted to falsify their calculations. It was her way. It was his to trust a higher ruling, and to have faith in its verification by the way the stars had pointed. Money, money! by whatever means he must obtain it. His present interview was only a step in that direction.
“Well, well,” he said, “the future’s in the womb of Destiny. Enough, Sempronius—say no more; but deliver your report. We treat of Paris and of Helen in the Court of Priam.”
The other looked cautiously about him before he answered,—
“She’ll not have Paris, master: she has refused him.”