[573] Ibid., p. 436.
[574] Ibid., p. 438.
[575] Ibid., pp. 444 et seq.
[576] Ibid., pp. 455 et seq.
[577] Ibid., pp. 471 et seq. Cf. ibid., p. 437.
[578] “Under the name of ILLUMINES a band of Conspirators had coalesced with the Encyclopedists and Masons, far more dangerous in their tenets, more artful in their plots, and more extensive in their plans of devastation. They more silently prepared the explosions of the Revolutionary volcano, not merely swearing hatred to the Altar of Christ and the Throne of Kings, but swearing at once hatred to every God, to every Law, to every Government, to all society and social compact; and in order to destroy every plea and every foundation of social contract, they proscribed the terms MINE and THINE, acknowledging neither Equality nor Liberty but in the entire, absolute and universal overthrow of all PROPERTY whatever.” (Barruel, op. cit., p. 478. Cf. vol. iii, pp. 17, 22 et seq.)
[579] Barruel attributed little or no success to the efforts which Weishaupt’s associates made to strip him of much of his despotic power. Cf. Barruel, ch. xviii.
[580] The discussion of the character of the order fills the entire third volume of the Memoirs. It is not too much to say that Barruel’s analysis of the organization is characterized by no little soundness of judgment as well as by literary skill. The documents upon which he draws are not only those published by the Bavarian government, but also the apologetic writings of Weishaupt and Knigge, as well as a considerable part of the polemical literature which developed after the suppression of the order. Yet it need scarcely be said, the author’s bias is nowhere obscured. On page after page he conveys the impression that he is dealing with the sum of all villainies. His judgment of Weishaupt was, of course, severe: “An odious phenomenon in nature, an Atheist void of remorse, a profound hypocrite, destitute of those superior talents which lead to the vindication of truth, he is possessed of all that energy and ardor in vice which generates conspirators for impiety and anarchy. Shunning, like the ill-boding owl, the genial rays of the sun, he wraps around him the mantle of darkness; and history shall record of him, as of the evil spirit, only the black deeds which he planned or executed…. Scarcely have the magistrates cast their eyes upon him when they find him at the head of a conspiracy which, when compared with those of the clubs of Voltaire and D’Alembert, or with the secret committees of D’Orléans [sic], make these latter appear like the faint imitations of puerility, and show the Sophister and the Brigand as mere novices in the arts of revolution.” (Barruel, op. cit., pp. 2, 3, 7.)
[581] Ibid., p. 293. Cf. ibid., p. 413: “Will not hell vomit forth its legions to applaud this last Spartacus, to contemplate in amazement this work of the Illuminizing Code? Will not Satan exclaim, ‘Here then are men as I wished them’”.
[582] Ibid., vol. iv, p. 379. Cf. ibid., p. 387: “ … in this den of conspirators … we find every thing in perfect union with the Occult Lodges, to which it only succeeds. Adepts, object, principles, all are the same; whether we turn our eyes towards the adepts of impiety, of rebellion, or of anarchy, they are now but one conspiring Sect, under the disastrous name of Jacobin. We have hitherto denominated some by the name of Sophisters, others by that of Occult Masons, and, lastly, we have described those men styled Illuminées. Their very names will now disappear; they will in future all be duly described by the name of Jacobin.”