Illuminatus Dirigens, oder Schottischer Ritter, Ein Pendant, etc., Munich, 1794.
III. Historical treatments of the precise character and significance of the order.
Mounier, De l’influence attribuée aux philosophes, aux franc-maçons et aux illuminés, sur la révolution de France, Tübingen, 1801.
Mounier, J. J., On the Influence attributed to Philosophers, Freemasons, and to the Illuminati, on the Revolution of France…. Translated from the Manuscript, and corrected under the inspection of the author, by J. Walker, London, 1801.
Engel, Geschichte des Illuminaten-Ordens, Berlin, 1906.
Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la Franc-Maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1915.
2. THE LEGEND OF THE ORDER AND ITS LITERARY COMMUNICATION TO NEW ENGLAND
Although the Order of the Illuminati was dead, the world had yet to reckon with its specter. So intense and widespread was the fear which the order engendered, so clearly did the traditionalists of the age see in its clientele the welding together into a secret machine of war of the most mischievous and dangerous of those elements which were discontented with the prevailing establishments of religion and civil government, that it was impossible that its shadow should pass immediately.[445]
The emergence of the order had attracted public attention so abruptly and sharply, and its downfall had been so violent and so swift, that public opinion lacked time to adjust itself to the facts in the case. In Bavaria, particularly, the enemies of the order were unable to persuade themselves that the machinations of the Illuminati could safely be regarded as wholly of the past.[446] The documents of the order were appealed to, to supply proof that its leaders had made deliberate calculations against the day of possible opposition and temporary disaster and with satanic cunning had made their preparations to wring victory out of apparent defeat.[447] Besides, the depth of the governments suspicions and hostility was such that additional, though needless measures of state[448] kept very much alive in that country the haunting fear of the continued existence of the order.