A great sect arose, which, taking for its motto "the good and happiness of man," worked in the darkness of the conspiracy to make the happiness of humanity a prey for itself. This sect is known to everyone: its brothers are known no less than its name.... The plan they had formed for breaking all social ties and of destroying all order was revealed in their speeches and acts.... Indomitable pride, thirst of power, such were the only motives of this sect: their masters had nothing less in view than the thrones of the earth, and the government of the nations was to be directed by their nocturnal clubs.[765]
In 1797 Montjoie, writing of the Orléaniste conspiracy, to which in an earlier work he had attributed the whole organization of the French Revolution in its first stages, observed:
I will not examine whether this wicked prince, thinking he was acting in his personal interests, was not moved by that invisible hand[766] which seems to have created all the events of our revolution in order to lead us towards a goal that we do not see at present, but which I think we shall see before long.[767]
In 1801 Monsignor de Savine "made allusions in prudent and almost terrified terms to some international sect ...a power superior to all others ...which has arms and eyes everywhere and which governs Europe to-day."[768]
In 1817 the Chevalier de Malet declared that "the authors of the Revolution are not more French than German, Italian, English, etc. They form a particular nation which took birth and has increased in the dark amidst all civilized nations with the object of subjecting them all to its domination."[769]
In 1835 the Carbonaro, Malegari, wrote to another member of the Carbonari:
We form an association of brothers in all points of the globe, we have desires and interests in common, we aim at the emancipation of humanity, we wish to break every kind of yoke, yet there is one that is unseen, that can hardly be felt, yet that weighs on us. Whence comes it? Where is it? No one knows, or at least no one tells. The association is secret, even for us, the veterans of secret societies.[770]
In 1852 Disraeli wrote:
It was neither parliaments nor populations, nor the course of nature, nor the course of events, that overthrew the throne of Louis Philippe ...the throne was surprised by the Secret Societies, ever prepared to ravage Europe.... Acting in unison with a great popular movement they may destroy society, as they did at the end of the last century.[771]
In 1874 Père Deschamps, after his exhaustive study of secret societies, thus propounded the question: