[27] I have met with this charge in many places; and one book in particular, written by a Prussian General Officer, who was in the country over-run by the French troops, gives a detail of the conduct of the women that is very remarkable. He also says, that infidelity has become very prevalent among the ladies in the higher circles. Indeed this melancholy account is to be found in many passages of the private correspondence of the Illuminati.
[28] While the sheet commencing p. 341 was printing off, I got a sight of a work published in Paris last year entitled La Conjuration d'Orleans. It confirms all that I have said respecting the use made of the Free Mason Lodges.—It gives a particular account of the formation of the Jacobin Club, by the Club Breton. This last appears to have been the Association formed with the assistance of the German deputies. The Jacobin Club had several committees, similar to those of the National Assembly. Among others, it had a Committee of Enquiry and Correspondence, whose business it was to gain partizans, to discover enemies, to decide on the merits of the Brethren, and to form similar Clubs in other places.
The author of the above-mentioned work writes as follows, (vol. iii. p. 19.) We may judge of what the D. of Orleans could do in other places, by what he did during his stay in England. During his stay in London, he gained over to his interest Lord Stanhope and Dr. Price, two of the most respectable members of the Revolution Society. This Society had no other object (it said) but to support the Revolution, which had driven James II. from the throne of his ancestors.
Orleans made of this association a true Jacobin Club.—It entered into correspondence with the Committee of Enquiry of our Commune, with the same Committee of our Jacobin Club, and at last with our National Assembly. It even sent to the Assembly an ostensible letter, in which we may see the following passages:
"The Society congratulate the National Assembly of France on the Revolution which has taken place in that country. It cannot but earnestly wish for the happy conclusion of so important a Revolution, and, at the same time, express the extreme satisfaction which it feels in reflecting on the glorious example which France has given to the world." (The Reader will remark, that in this example are contained all the horrors which had been exhibited in France before the month of March 1790; and that before this time, the conduct of the Duke of Orleans on the 5th and 6th of October 1789, with all the shocking atrocities of those days, were fully known in England.)
"The Society resolves unanimously to invite all the people of England to establish Societies through the kingdom, to support the principles of the Revolution, to form correspondence between themselves, and by these means to establish a great concerted Union of all the true Friends of Liberty."
Accordingly (says the French author) this was executed, and Jacobin Clubs were established in several cities of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
[29] The author makes an observation which is as just as it is agreeable. This atrocious gang solicited, with the most anxious assiduity, the participation and patronage of the great ones of the world, and boast of several very exalted names; Frederic II. of Prussia, whom they call the Solomon of the North, Catharine II. Gustavus King of Sweden, the King of Denmark, &c. &c. But in the whole series of their correspondence there is not the least trace of any encouragement or any hopes from our excellent Sovereign George III. Despising the incense of such wretches, and detesting their science, he has truly merited the title of Philosopher, by having done more for the real Illumination of the World, by the promotion of true Science, than Louis XIV. with his pensioned Academicians, or than all the present Sovereigns of Europe united; and has uniformly distinguished himself by his regard for true Religion, and every thing that is venerable and sacred. This omission is above all praise!
[30] Never was there any thing more contemptible than the physical and mechanical positions in Diderot's great work, the Systeme de la Nature, (Barruel affirms, that he was the author, and got 100 pistoles for the copy, from the person who related the story to him,) that long ago found that Diderot had assisted Robinet to make a book out of his Masonic Oration, which I mentioned in page 41. Robinet trusted to Diderot's knowledge in natural philosophy. But the Junto were ashamed of the book De la Nature. Diderot seems to have, after this, read Dr. Hartley's book, and has greatly refined on the crude system of Robinet. But after all, the Systeme de la Nature is contemptible, if it be considered as pretending to what is received as science by a mechanical philosopher.