_Q._ Of what importance is this oath, since it is believed that such formidable execrations may be used without indecency?

_A._ That of good order in the society.

_Q._ What pa.s.ses in these lodges which it might be inconvenient to publish?

_A._ Nothing, if it is looked upon without prejudice; but as people are generally mistaken in this matter, it is necessary to avoid giving cause for malicious interpretations; and this would take place if what pa.s.ses when the brothers a.s.semble was made public.

_Q._ Of what use is the crucifix, if the reception of a freemason is not considered as a religious act?

_A._ It is presented to penetrate the soul with the most profound respect at the moment that the novice takes the oath. It is not used in every lodge, and only when particular grades are conferred.

_Q._ Why is the skull used?

_A._ That the idea of death may inspire a horror of perjury.

_Q._ Of what use is the corpse?

_A._ To complete the allegory of Hiram, architect of the temple of Jerusalem, who, it is said, was a.s.sa.s.sinated by traitors, and to induce a greater detestation of a.s.sa.s.sination and other offences against our neighbours, to whom we ought to be as benevolent brothers.

_Q._ Is it true that the festival of St. John is celebrated in the lodges, and that the masons have chosen him for their patron?

_A._ Yes.

_Q._ What worship is rendered him in celebrating his festival?

_A._ None; that it may not be mingled with profane things. This celebration is confined to a fraternal repast, after which a discourse is read, exhorting the guests to beneficence towards their fellow-creatures, in honour of G.o.d, the great architect, creator, and preserver of the universe.

_Q._ Is it true that the sun, moon, and stars, are honoured in the lodges?

_A._ No.

_Q._ Is it true that their images or symbols are exposed?

_A._ Yes.

_Q._ Why are they so?

_A._ In order to elucidate the allegories of the great, continual, and true light which the lodges receive from the great Architect of the world, and these representations belong to the brothers, and engage them to be charitable.

_Q._ M. Tournon will observe that all the explanations he has given of the facts and ceremonies which take place in the lodges, are false and different from those which he voluntarily communicated to other persons worthy of belief; he is therefore again invited, by the respect he owes to G.o.d and the Holy Virgin, to declare and confess the heresies of _indifferentism_, the errors of _superst.i.tion_, which mingle holy and profane things, and the errors of _idolatry_, which led him to worship the stars: this confession is necessary for the acquittal of his conscience and the good of his soul; because if he confesses with sorrow for having committed these crimes, detesting them and humbly soliciting pardon (before the fiscal accuses him of these heinous sins), the holy tribunal will be permitted to exercise towards him that compa.s.sion and mercy which it always displays to repentant sinners; and because if he is judicially accused, he must be treated with all the severity prescribed against heretics by the holy canons, apostolical bulls, and the laws of the kingdom.

_A._ I have declared the truth, and if any witnesses have deposed to the contrary, they have mistaken the meaning of my words; for I have never spoken on this subject to any but the workmen in my manufactory, and then only in the same sense conveyed by my replies.

_Q._ Not content with being a freemason, you have persuaded other persons to be received into the order, and to embrace the heretical superst.i.tions and pagan errors into which you have fallen.

_A._ It is true that I have requested these persons to become freemasons, because I thought it would be useful to them if they travelled into foreign countries, where they might meet brothers of their order, who could a.s.sist them in any difficulty; but it is not true that I engaged them to adopt any errors contrary to the Catholic faith, since no such errors are to be found in freemasonry, which does not concern any points of doctrine.

_Q._ It has been already proved that these errors are not chimerical; therefore let M. Tournon consider that he has been a dogmatizing heretic, and that it is necessary that he should acknowledge it with humility, and ask pardon and absolution for the censures which he has incurred; since, if he persists in his obstinacy he will destroy both his body and soul; and as this is the first audience of _monition_, he is advised to reflect on his condition, and prepare for the two other audiences which are granted by the compa.s.sion and mercy which the holy tribunal always feels for the accused.

M. Tournon was taken back to the prison; he persisted in giving the same answers in the first and second audiences. The fiscal presented his act of accusation, which, according to custom, was divided into the articles similar to the charges of the witnesses. The accused confessed the facts, but explained them as he had done before. He was desired to choose an advocate, but he declined this, alleging that the Spanish lawyers were not acquainted with the masonic lodges, and were as much prejudiced against them as the public. He therefore thought it better for him to acknowledge that he was wrong, and might have been deceived from being ignorant of particular doctrines; he demanded absolution, and offered to perform any penance imposed on him, adding, that he hoped the punishment would be moderate, on account of the good faith which he had shown, and which he had always preserved, seeing nothing but beneficence practised and recommended in the masonic lodges, without denying or combating any article of the Catholic faith.

The fiscal consented to this arrangement, and M. Tournon was condemned to be imprisoned for one year, after which he was to be conducted under an escort to the frontiers of France; he was banished from Spain for ever, unless he obtained permission to return from the king or the holy office. During the first month of his imprisonment, he was directed to perform spiritual exercises, and a general confession; to spend half an hour every morning in reading the meditations on the book of _spiritual exercises_ of St. Ignatius de Loyola, and half an hour in the evening in reading the considerations of Father John Eusebius Nieremberg, in his work on the _difference between temporal and eternal_; to recite every day part of the Rosary of Our Lady, and often to repeat the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition; to learn by heart the catechism of Father Astete, and to prepare himself to receive absolution, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.

A private _auto-da-fe_ was celebrated in the hall of the tribunal, in which M. Tournon appeared without the _san-benito_, and signed his abjuration, with a promise never again to attend the a.s.semblies of the freemasons.

M. Tournon went to France, and it does not appear that he ever returned to Spain.

The society of freemasons has occupied the learned men, since the middle of the seventeenth century, and the number of fables which have been published concerning it have confused the subject, and done much injury to it. The mysterious initiations of this order first began to attract observation in England, during the reign of Charles I., who perished on the scaffold in 1649. The enemies of Cromwell and the republican system then established the dignity of _grand master_ of the English lodges, to prepare the minds of the freemasons for the re-establishment of the monarchy. William III. was a freemason, and though the dynasty was changed by the accession of George I., it does not appear that freemasonry was suspected in England. It was introduced into France in 1723, and Ramsay, a Scotchman, established a lodge in London in 1728, giving out that the society had been founded in 1099, by G.o.dfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem; preserved by the Knights Templars, and brought to Edinburgh, where it was established by King Robert Bruce in 1314. In 1729 the order was introduced into Ireland. Holland received it in 1731, and the first lodges were opened in Russia in the same year: it appeared in Boston in America in 1733, and in several other towns of the New World, subject to England. It was also established in Italy in that year, and two years after freemasons were found at Lisbon.

I believe the first severe measure against the freemasons in Europe, was that which was decreed on the 14th of December, 1733, by the chamber of Police of the Chatelet at Paris: it prohibited freemasons from a.s.sembling, and condemned M. Chapelot to a penalty of six thousand livres, for having suffered them to a.s.semble in his house. Louis XV.

commanded that those Peers of France, and other gentlemen who had the privilege of the _entry_, should be deprived of that honour, if they were members of a masonic lodge. The grand-master of the Parisian lodges, being obliged to quit France, convoked an a.s.sembly of Freemasons to appoint his successor. Louis XV., on being informed of it, declared that if a Frenchman was elected, he would send him to the Bastile.

However, the Duke d'Antin was chosen, and after his death, Louis de Bourbon, prince of Conti, succeeded him. Louis de Bourbon, duke de Chartres, another prince of the blood, became grand-master.

In 1737, the Dutch prohibited the a.s.semblies of freemasons as a precautionary measure, without charging them with any crimes; the members of a lodge a.s.sembled, they were arrested and prosecuted, but they defended themselves with so much energy, that they were acquitted, and the prohibition revoked.

The Elector Palatine of the Rhine also prohibited the order in his states, and arrested several members at Manheim, in consequence of their disobedience.

John Gaston, grand duke of Tuscany, published a decree of proscription against the lodges in the same year. This prince died soon after, and the masons again a.s.sembled: they were denounced to Pope Clement XII.

This pontiff sent an inquisitor to Florence, who imprisoned several members of the society, but Francis of Lorraine, when he became Grand Duke, set them at liberty. He declared himself the protector of the inst.i.tution, and founded several lodges in Florence, and other towns in his states.

If I was a member of the society, I would do all in my power to abolish those things which gave the inquisitors and other ecclesiastics occasion to say, that sacred and profane things are mingled in the masonic ceremonies; particularly the following, which have already appeared in printed works.

In the sixth grade, or rank, which is that of _particular secretary_ (_secretary intime_,) the history of Hiram, king of Tyre, is taken from the ninth chapter of the third book of Kings for the masonic allegories; and _Jehovah_, the ineffable name of G.o.d, for the _sacred_ word of freemasonry; this custom is likewise observed with some slight differences in several other grades.

In the eighteenth, called the _Rosicrusian of Haradom_ of Kilwiniug, is a representation of columns with inscriptions; the highest is as follows: _In the name of the Holy and indivisible Trinity_: lower down, _May our salvation be eternal in G.o.d_; still lower, _We have the happiness of being in the pacific unity of the sacred numbers_. The history of the second chapter of the first, and the nineteenth of the second book of Esdras is made use of; the word of order between two freemasons of the same rank is INRI, which some persons have supposed to be _Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judaeorum_: the word _pa.s.se_ is added, which means Emmanuel, or _G.o.d is with us_.

The rank of Rosicrusiaci, in the Scotch lodges, is the perfection of the order; the meaning is developed in fifteen sections. In the fifth, the allegories are the mounts of salvation, mounts _Moriah_ and _Calvary_, the first for the sacrifices of Abraham, David, and Solomon, the second for that of Jesus of Nazareth: other allegories relate to the Holy Spirit, designated as the _Majesty of G.o.d_ which descended on the tabernacle, and on the temple at the moment of its dedication. In the twelfth section a _holy mountain_ is seen, on which is a large church in the form of a cross from east to west, in the neighbourhood of a city, which is the image of the _celestial Jerusalem_; in the thirteenth, three great lights, symbols of the natural law, the laws of Moses and of Jesus Christ, and the cabinet of wisdom, designated as the _stable for oxen_, in which is a faithful chevalier and his holy wife, and the sacred names of _Joseph_, _Mary_, and _Jesus_; the fourteenth is an allusion to the descent of our Saviour into the _Limbos_ after his death, his resurrection and ascension; lastly, the fifteenth has the words _consummatum est_, which Jesus p.r.o.nounced on the cross.

In the twenty-seventh grade of the _grand commander of the temple_, a cross is made on the forehead of the brother with the thumb of the right hand; the sacred word INRI; the scarf has four crosses, the _disc_ a triangle of gold, with the Hebrew characters of the ineffable name, _Jehovah_.

The seal of the order has between the devices of the shield of arms across, the arch of alliance, a lighted candle in a candlestick on each side, and above the inscription, Glory to G.o.d. (Laus Deo).

All these things, and many others which allude to the sacred history of the temple of Jerusalem, built by Solomon, re-established by Esdras, restored by the Christians, and defended by the knights templars, present a mixture liable to an interpretation similar to that in the information of the witnesses at Florence, which was the first apostolical condemnation; it was renewed under Pius VII., in an edict of Cardinal Gonsalvi, in 1814.

There was not less inconvenience in the execratory oath of the famous masonic secret, for which no adequate object has been discovered, unless it was one which no longer exists.

John Mark Larmenio (who secretly succeeded the grand-master of the Templars, the unfortunate James de Molay, who requested him to accept the dignity) invented, in concert with some knights who had escaped the proscription, different signs of words and actions, in order to recognise and receive knights into the order secretly, and by means of a novitiate, during which they were to be kept in ignorance of the object of the a.s.sociation (which was to preserve the order, to re-establish it in its former glory, and to revenge the deaths of the grand-master, and the knights who perished with him); when the qualities of the new member were perfectly well known, the grand secret was to be confided to him, after a most formidable oath.

The secret signs were intended as a precaution against admitting into the order those Templars who had formed a schism during the persecution; they retired into Scotland, and refused to acknowledge John Larmenio as grand-master, and pretended that they had re-established the order; this pretension was refuted by a chapter of legitimate knights: after this the new chief issued his diploma in 1324, and his successors have followed his example, on attaining the dignity of secret grand-master of the order of Templars in France. The list of grand-masters until the year 1776 has been published. Philip de Bourbon, duke of Orleans, was appointed in 1705, Louis Augustus de Bourbon, duke de Maine, in 1724, Louis Henry de Bourbon Conde, in 1737, Louis Francis de Bourbon Conti, in 1745, Louis Henry Timoleon de Cosse Brissac, in 1776, and Bernard Raymond Fabre, in 1814.

The Knights Templars who retired to Scotland, founded an establishment in 1314, under the protection of Robert Bruce; their objects and their measures were the same, and they were concealed under the t.i.tle of _architects_; this was the origin of _freemasonry_. They soon, however, forgot the most criminal part of the execratory oath: since the deaths of Clement V. and Philip the Fair, the persecutors of the knights, deprived them of the power of revenging the executions of James de Molay and his companions, and had no other object but the re-establishment of the order; this intention shared the fate of the first, after the deaths of the authors of it, and their first disciples. From these facts it appears, that the execratory oath is without a motive or object in modern masonic lodges.

CHAPTER XLII.

OF THE INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES III.