But all this attributes the baneful influence of Templarism to the French Templars alone, and the existence of such a body rests on no absolutely certain evidence. What is certain and admits of no denial on the part of any historian, is the inauguration of a Templar Order in Germany at the very moment when the so-called Scottish degrees were introduced into French Masonry. We shall now return to 1738 and follow events that were taking place at this important moment beyond the Rhine.
7. German Templarism and French Illuminism
The year after Ramsay's oration--that is to say in 1738--Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, who for two years had been carrying on a correspondence with Voltaire, suddenly evinced a curiosity to know the secrets of Freemasonry which he had hitherto derided as "Kinderspiel," and accordingly went through a hasty initiation during the night of August 14-15, whilst passing through Brunswick.[397]
The ceremony took place not at a masonic lodge, but at a hotel, in the presence of a deputation summoned by the Graf von Lippe-Bückeburg from Grand Lodge of Hamburg for the occasion. It is evident that something of an unusual kind must have occurred to necessitate these speedy and makeshift arrangements. Carlyle, in his account of the episode, endeavours to pass it off as a "very trifling circumstance"--a reason the more for regarding it as of the highest importance since we know now from facts that have recently come to light how carefully Carlyle was spoon-fed by Potsdam whilst writing his book on Frederick the Great.[398]
But let us follow Frederick's masonic career. In June 1740, after his accession to the throne, his interest in Masonry had clearly not waned, for we find him presiding over a lodge at Charlottenburg, where he received into the Order two of his brothers, his brother-in-law, and Duke Frederick William of Holstein-Beck. At his desire the Baron de Bielfeld and his privy councillor Jordan founded a lodge at Berlin, the "Three Globes," which by 1746 had no less than fourteen lodges under its jurisdiction.
In this same year of 1740 Voltaire, in response to urgent invitations, paid his first visit to Frederick the Great in Germany. Voltaire is usually said not to have yet become a Mason, and the date of his initiation is supposed to have been 1778, when he was received into the Loge des Neuf Soeurs in Paris. But this by no means precludes the possibility that he had belonged to another masonic Order at an earlier date. At any rate, Voltaire's visit to Germany was followed by two remarkable events in the masonic world of France. The first of these was the institution of the additional degrees; the second--perhaps not wholly unconnected with the first--was the arrival in Paris of a masonic delegate from Germany named von Marschall, who brought with him instructions for a new or rather a revived Order of Templarism, in which he attempted to interest Prince Charles Edward and his followers.
Von Marschall was followed about two years later by Baron von Hunt, who had been initiated in 1741 into the three degrees of Craft Masonry in Germany and now came to consecrate a lodge in Paris. According to von Hundt's own account, he was then received into the Order of the Temple by an unknown Knight of the Red Plume, in the presence of Lord Kilmarnock,[399] and was presented as a distinguished Brother to Prince Charles Edward, whom he imagined to be Grand Master of the Order.[400] But all this was afterwards shown to be a pure frabrication, for Prince Charles Edward dened all knowledge of the affair, and von Hundt himself admitted later that he did not know the name of the lodge or chapter in which he was received, but that he was directed from "a hidden centre" and by Unknown Superiors, whose identity he was bound not to reveal.[401] In reality it appears that von Hundt's account was exactly the opposite of the truth,[402] and that it was von Hundt who, seconding von Marschall's effort, tried to enrol Prince Charles Edward in the new German Order by assuring him that he could raise powerful support for the Stuart cause under the cover of reorganizing the Templar Order, of which he claimed to possess the true secrets handed down from the Knights of the fourteenth century. By way of further rehabilitating the Order, von Hundt declared that all the accusations brought against it by Philippe le Bel and the Pope were based on false charges manufactured by two recreant Knights named Noffodei and Florian as a revenge for having been deprived of their commands by the Order in consequence of certain crimes they had committed.[403] According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, von Hundt eventually succeeded--after the defeat of Culloden--in persuading Prince Charles Edward to enter his Order. But this is extremely doubtful. At any rate, when in 1751 von Hundt officially founded his new Templar Order under the name of the Stricte Observance, the unfortunate Charles Edward played no part at all in the scheme. As Mr. Gould has truly observed, "no trace of Jacobite intrigues ever blended with the teaching of the Stricte Observance."[404]
The Order of the Stricte Observance was in reality a purely German association composed of men drawn entirely from the intellectual and aristocratic classes, and, in imitation of the chivalric Orders of the past, known to each other under knightly titles. Thus Prince Charles of Hesse became Eques a Leone Resurgente, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick Eques a Victoria, the Prussian minister von Bischoffswerder Eques a Grypho, Baron de Wachter Eques a Ceraso, Christian Bode (Councillor of Legation in Saxe-Gotha) Eques a Lilio Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet Minister of Frederick the Great) Eques a Monte Sancto, etc.
But according to the declarations of the Order the official leaders, Knights of the Moon, the Star, the Golden Sun, or of the Sacred Mountain, were simply figure-heads; the real leaders, known as the "Unknown Superiors," remained in the background, unadorned by titles of chivalry but exercising supreme jurisdiction over the Order. The system had been foreshadowed by the "Invisibles" of seventeenth-century Rosicrucianism; but now, instead of an intangible group whose very existence was only known vaguely to the world, there appeared in the light of day a powerful organization led apparently by men of influence and position yet secretly directed by hidden chiefs.[405] Mirabeau has described the advent of these mysterious directors in the following passage:
In about 1756 there appeared, as if they had come out of the ground, men sent, they said, by unknown superiors, and armed with powers to reform the order [of Freemasonry] and re-establish it in its ancient purity. One of these missionaries, named Johnston, came to Weimar and Jena, where he established himself. He was received in the best way in the world by the brothers [Freemasons], who were lured by the hope of great secrets, of important discoveries which were never made known to them.[406]