History of the Grand Orient of France - Part One (1728-1815)

Everyone has heard of the Grand Orient of France. The oldest and largest Masonic Obedience in France, the Grand Orient of France is a major institution with considerable influence throughout the world, to the extend that it can be considered the standard-bearer of liberal Freemasonry. The history of the Grand Orient of France is fascinating, for it has followed all the twists and turns of French history, from the 18th century to the present day, representing a form of continuity in an era marked by ruptures. Take a look at the main stages in the history of the Grand Orient of France.

The origins of the Grand Orient de France : The first Grande Loge de France (1728 or 1738)

The first French Lodges were created from 1725 onwards, under the impetus of the Grand Lodge of London, founded in 1717 (or more probably 1721). Before becoming independent, the Lodges founded by London were usually grouped together in fairly lightweight structures known as Provincial or English Grand Lodges, whose Grand Masters were usually British subjects. In France, the first three Grand Masters of the first Grand Lodge of France documented since 1728 were English or Scottish : the Duke of Wharton, who had been Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of London in 1722-1723 and proved to be more of an opportunistic adventurer, the Scottish baronet James Hector Mac Leane and the Englishman Charles Radclyffe, Earl of Derwentwater, the latter two being staunch Jacobites. Derwentwater was beheaded following the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

The first French Grand Master was elected in 1738, in the person of Louis Pardaillan de Gondrin, Duc d'Antin (1707-1743). According to some authors, we can only speak of a Grand Lodge of France from that point onwards. It is debatable whether the Duc d'Antin succeeded Derwentwater directly, as English Grand Masters were only elected for one year. Between 1728 and 1738, there seem to have been only three British Grand Masters in France, which is very few. Wharton was Grand Master in France only once, and Mac Leane and Derwentwater may have been re-elected several times, but it is possible that there were other British Grand Masters of whom we have no memory.

As for the Duc d'Antin, who died prematurely in 1743, he was Grand Master for only five years and left no particular traces in the development of the Grand Lodge of France.

The Grand Lodge of France between 1743 and 1771 : an agitated period 

The history of the first Grande Loge de France began in earnest in 1743 with the appointment of Louis de Bourbon-Condé, Comte de Clermont (1709-1771) as Grand Master. And the time of his Grand Mastership was quite turbulent.

During this period, the Grand Lodge of France had to deal with a number of internal problems and crises. It was not yet a Masonic Obedience comparable to those we know today : the power of the Grand Master was relatively weak, in a highly decentralised system that gave a great deal of autonomy to the Lodges and to the intermediate structures that governed the Lodges at local level (the Scottish Grand Lodge of Bordeaux, the Mother Lodge of Marseille, the Grand Lodge of the Regular Masters of Lyon...). And in the case of the Comte de Clermont, his status as a prince of the blood and head of the army also often distanced him from his office as Grand Master, and he had delegated his power to three substitutes, the Protestant banker Baur, then the dancing master Lacorne and the Maître des requêtes Chaillon de Jonville.

This rather weak Grand Lodge had to face up to the emergence of the Masonic higher degrees in the 1740s. Its official position (at least that of the Grand Master) was one of great reserve towards these new degrees, extending to prohibition in the case of the degree of Kadosh, which appeared around 1750. But it was impossible to ignore the higher degrees, which were multiplying and attracting more and more Freemasons. In the dispute between the Council of the Knights of the East, which practised a seven-degree rite, and the Council of the Emperors of the East and West, which used a system of 25 degrees, the Comte de Clermont leaned towards the Knights of the East, whose rite was more sober, but many members of the Grand Lodge (including the two substitutes Lacorne and Chaillon de Jonville) adhered wholeheartedly to the Emperors of the East and West. Thus, in 1761, in the absence of the Grand Master and without his knowledge, the two substitutes, along with seven other signatories, all members of the Council of the Emperors of the East and West, granted Stephen Morin the famous patent authorising him to spread the 25-degree Rite of Perfection in the French West Indies. This was the starting point for the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite.

But the main problem was the growing opposition within the Grand Lodge of France between two sociologically identifiable currents : on the one hand, the aristocrats and bourgeois close to the nobility, mainly represented in the Parisian Lodges, who were more progressive in the philosophical and religious fields, and on the other, the bourgeois and craftsmen, who were in the majority in the provincial Lodges, and who were clearly more conservative on religious issues. The aristocratic party, named after the substitute Lacorne, was known as "lacornard", while the bourgeois camp was known as "anti-lacornard".

After Lacorne's death in 1762, the Grand Master undertook to reform the Grand Lodge and decreed that the offices would henceforth be elective, for a period of three years. Until then, the offices of Worshipful Master or dignitary could be bought and held for life. In the first elections, held in 1765, the "anti-Lacornards" won and, in the process, fifteen "Lacornards" were expelled from the Grand Lodge.

In December 1767, on the occasion of the celebration of St John's Day, some Brothers who had been excluded in 1765 tried to enter the temple of the Grand Lodge, but were refused entry and forced their way in. The scene turned into an altercation of blows and invectives, and this quasi-public scandal led the Lieutenant General of Police, Antoine de Sartine, to suspend the work of the Grand Lodge, probably at the request of the Grand Master himself. This suspension lasted until 1771, the year in which the Grand Master, the Count of Clermont, also died. He was succeeded by another prince of the blood, Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, Duc de Chartres (1747-1793). A progressive prince, opposed to absolutism and a great admirer of the British political system, the Duc de Chartres took his seat at the Estates-General of 1789 among the deputies of the nobility, then was elected to the National Convention in 1793, renouncing all his titles and taking the name of Philippe Égalité.

The Grand Lodge of France became the Grand Orient of France (1773)

From 1771 onwards, the reform movement begun by the Comte de Clermont in 1762 gained momentum and went much further. A new structure was implemented, with a system of representation for the Lodges, giving more weight to the provincial Lodges and countering the preponderance of Parisian and aristocratic Lodges that had existed previously. The former "lacornards" nevertheless played an important role in these reforms, as they had supported the candidacy of the Duc de Chartres. In 1772, they obtained the merger of the Grand Lodge of France and the Council of Emperors of the East and West, which had been abhorred by the previous Grand Master.

In 1773, the restructured Grand Lodge of France took the name Grand Orient of France. However, a number of Lodges contested these reforms and formed a National Grand Lodge known as the Grand Lodge of Clermont. These Lodges joined the Grand Orient in 1799.

In addition to its complete reorganisation, the most important project undertaken by the Grand Orient of France before the Revolution was the work on rituals. The idea of revising the rituals and above all arriving at a unified ritual within the Grand Orient of France had appeared as early as 1773, but work did not begin until 1781, culminating in the adoption of the rituals of the three craft degrees in 1785 and the four Orders of Wisdom (higher degrees) in 1786.  This is known as the French Rite.

Despite his progressive ideas, the Duc de Chartres had little involvement in these reforms, which were carried out by the Grand Administrator of the Grand Orient, Anne Charles Sigismond, Duc de Montmorency-Luxembourg (1737-1803).

The period before the Revolution was very prosperous for the Grand Orient of France, which in 1789 had 629 Lodges and 30,000 members. A Treaty had been signed with the Rectified Lodges, which kept the Craft Lodges of this Rite under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient, so that this Rite was not completely outside its control.

The Revolution of 1789 : resignation and death of the Grand Master (1793)

The onset of the Revolution in 1789 dealt a severe blow to Freemasonry in general and to the Grand Orient of France in particular. Not because the Revolution directly attacked Freemasonry, but rather because many Freemasons deserted the Lodges, for a variety of reasons. Some had espoused the ideals of the Revolution and chosen to make a more concrete commitment to changing society, while others, aristocrats, had gone into exile, following the example of the Duc de Montmorency-Luxembourg.

Even though the Grand Orient of France had officially approved the Revolution in 1792, very few Lodges continued to meet, and the fatal blow came when the Grand Master, the Duc de Chartres, who had now become Philippe Égalité, disowned him on 22 February 1793. The Grand Master not only turned his back on Freemasonry, but completely disavowed it, declaring that he had believed in the egalitarian illusions of Freemasonry, but that he was now faced with reality, and that a Republic could not tolerate the existence of secret societies at its heart. During an extraordinary assembly held on 13 May 1793, the Grand Orient of France accepted the Grand Master's resignation and considered replacing him, despite the fact that the office was theoretically irremovable. But the Terror had begun and was to last until 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor of year 2) : French Freemasonry then went into a state of dormancy, and although a few Lodges still met, they did so semi-clandestinely.

Philippe Égalité's career was soon to come to an end. During the trial of Louis XVI before the Convention, which was held in several sessions between 15 and 20 January 1793, he voted for the King's death. One general tried in vain to bring down the Convention to save Louis XVI, General Charles François Dumouriez (1739-1823), leader of the French Armée du Nord. A revolutionary, he was nevertheless in favour of a constitutional monarchy, and threatened with prosecution by the Convention, he defected to the Austrians on 4 April 1793. Among the officers who followed him in his defection was Louis-Philippe, the eldest son of Philippe Égalité and future King Louis-Philippe I. Philippe Égalité was immediately suspected of collusion with his son and his friends. Arrested on 7 April 1793, he was sentenced to death on 6 November and guillotined the same day.

Revival of French Freemasonry after the Terror

In February 1793, when the Grand Master renounced Freemasonry, Alexandre Roëttiers de Montaleau (1748-1808), who had played an important role in the creation of the rituals of the French Rite, put the archives of the Grand Orient de France in safekeeping. On 27 October 1795, the Directoire succeeded the Thermidorian Convention, which had replaced the Terror regime after the fall of Robespierre. Masonic activities could then tentatively resume. In April 1796, the Grand Orient of France elected Roëttiers de Montaleau to the Grand Mastership, but he refused the title, calling himself only "Grand Venerable".

He then set about reuniting the dispersed French Freemasons and succeeded in getting the Lodges of the Grand Lodge of Clermont, which had seceded in 1773, to join the Grand Orient of France on 22 June 1799.

The Grand Orient of France under the Consulate and Empire (1799-1815)

The coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) put an end to the Directoire and established the Consulate. Executive power was strengthened and was now in the hands of three Consuls, but the real strongman was Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul (1769-1821). For many observers of the time, Freemasonry was either a den of royalists or a refuge for Jacobins nostalgic for the Terror. The Consulate, which was rather authoritarian and dominated by a military leader, might well have been hostile to or even banned Freemasonry.

However, Bonaparte was rather favourably disposed towards Freemasonry, as his father and brothers were all Freemasons. It has never been proven that Napoleon himself was a Freemason, but some believe that he may have been received during the Campaign of Egypt, in which many Freemasons took part. Freemasonry was therefore not worried, but was closely monitored by the police.

Napoleon had not shown much interest in Freemasonry during the Consulate, but he changed his attitude once he became Emperor (18 May 1804). He understood that Freemasonry could serve his interests if it was docile to him, and therefore decided to place it under the control of men who were devoted to him, either close to him or members of his family. Thus, in 1804, Joseph Bonaparte was appointed Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, but it was Jean Jacques Régis Cambacérès (1753-1824), the former Second Consul who became Archchancellor of the Empire, who exercised power ; and the Scottish Philosophical Rite, which was in a very small minority, was placed under the Grand Mastership of Louis Bonaparte.

In this context, Alexandre de Grasse-Tilly returned from America and set about founding a Supreme Council for France of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. As a prelude to this foundation, he began by founding a "Grande Loge Générale Écossaise" on 22 October 1804, with Marshal Kellermann (another of Napoleon's loyalists) as Grand Administrator. On behalf of the Emperor, Cambacérès immediately intervened to ensure that the Lodges of this new Obedience were integrated into the Grand Orient of France. On 3 December 1804, a concordat was signed : the Lodges of the "Grande Loge Générale Écossaise" were integrated into the Grand Orient of France, while the Supreme Council, which would be definitively constituted on 22 December 1804, retained jurisdiction over degrees 4 to 33, with Grasse-Tilly as Grand Commander.

But on 21 July 1805, the Grand Orient of France created a Grand Directorate of Rites, which began to confer the 33rd degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in violation of the 1804 concordat, which was immediately repudiated by the Supreme Council. Cambaceres intervened again and obtained a formula of compromise : the Grand Orient would henceforth administer the degrees from 1 to 18, and the Supreme Council from 19 to 33. And Cambaceres was appointed Grand Commander of the Supreme Council in 1806. French Freemasonry was now completely in the hands of the imperial power.

Above all, it is worth noting the great transformation that the Grand Orient of France underwent as a result of the events of the Revolution, from which the bourgeoisie emerged the big winner. Before 1789, the Grand Orient was in the hands of the progressive aristocracy, although a conservative bourgeois current was increasingly asserting itself. By the end of the Empire, the majority of its members were bourgeois, craftsmen and civil servants, who tended to be progressive and liberal, while the aristocrats (including the new nobility of the Empire), who had become more conservative, preferred the Supreme Council.