The Grand Lodge of France, two Obediences under a single name

The name "Grand Lodge of France" can lead to confusion, because it refers to two distinct French Masonic Obediences, which have no immediate connection. Of course, nowadays the name Grand Lodge of France immediately evokes the Obedience founded in 1894, which today, with 34,000 members, is the second largest Masonic Obedience in France. But we often forget that the first form of organisation of French Lodges was also called Grand Lodge of France. Even if the current Grand Lodge of France claims the heritage of the first Grand Lodge of France, it can only be in a spiritual and symbolic way, because their histories are distinct and there is only a very slight historical connection between them.

The first Grand Lodge in France : 1728 or 1738 ?

Freemasonry began to spread in France around 1725, under the impetus of the Grand Lodge of London founded in 1717 (or more probably 1721). The Grand Lodge used to set up Provincial Grand Lodges (often called "English") in countries where they had established Lodges. The Grand Masters of these Grand Lodges were initially British subjects. France was no exception : the first Grand Lodge of France (the name is still little used) dates back to 1728 and its first Grand Masters were English or Scottish : the first one was the Duke of Wharton (a controversial figure in Masonic and English history, who was sometimes Jacobite and sometimes Hanoverian; He had been Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of London from 1722 to 1723), and was succeeded by two ardent Jacobites, the Scotsman James Hector Mac Leane and the Englishman Charles Radclyffe, Earl of Detwentwater, who was beheaded in 1746 for having taken part in Charles Edward Stuart's adventurous escapade in 1745, which ended in the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

The first French Grand Master was Louis Pardaillan de Gondrin, Duc d'Antin (1707-1743), elected in 1738, and some consider that it is only from this moment that we can speak of a Grand Lodge of France. He died at the age of 36 and was Grand Master for only five years, leaving little trace of his Masonic commitment.

From the Grand Lodge of France to the Grand Orient of France (1743-1773)

The successor to the Duc d'Antin was a Prince of the Blood, Louis de Bourbon-Condé, Comte de Clermont (1709-1771), who held the Grand Mastership from 1743 until his death in 1771. This was a rather turbulent period from a Masonic point of view, for a variety of reasons.

First of all, we should not imagine that the Grand Lodge of France was comparable to a current Masonic Obedience, exercising real jurisdiction over its Lodges. In an Ancien Régime society that was much more decentralised than the republican system, the Grand Master's power was fairly limited. All the Lodges recognised him as being such, but his real power remained limited to the Lodges in Paris. In the provinces, following a sort of feudal model, the Lodges organised themselves into intermediate local structures, such as the Scottish Grand Lodge of Bordeaux, the Mother Lodge of Marseille, the Mother Lodge of Avignon or the Grand Lodge of Regular Master Masons of Lyon, which were, if you like, vassals of the Grand Master but exercised their power very autonomously. In addition, because of his duties as Prince of the Blood and head of the army, the Comte de Clermont was often out of town and had delegated his power to three substitutes, the Protestant banker Baur, the dancing master Lacorne and the Master of Requests Chaillon de Jonville.

This fairly weak structure was to have to contend with a new phenomenon that emerged in the 1740s : the Masonic Higher Degrees. As early as 1743, the Grand Lodge of France was rather hostile to the proliferation of these new degrees and refused to allow their holders to receive any particular honour or dignity in the Lodges ; and as soon as it appeared around 1750, it formally prohibited the practice of the Kadosh degree. But the Grand Lodge of France nevertheless had to come to terms with the higher degrees, as the phenomenon was growing. In the conflict between the Council of the Knights of the East (7-degree system) and the Council of the Emperors of the East and West (25-degree rite, which is probably the same as the Rite of Perfection, or Order of the Royal Secret, the origin of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite), the Grand Master sided with the Knights of the East. However, it was during one of his absences that two of his substitutes (Lacorne and Chaillon de Jonville), along with seven other signatories, all members of the Council of the Emperors of the East and West, granted the famous patent to Stephen Morin in 1761, which is the origin of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. The Grand Master's authority was clearly not very great if his substitutes took the liberty of using his seal to ratify, behind his back, a document that he would never have approved, and which he moreover revoked when he became aware of it only in 1766.

But the most important problems were the internal divisions within the Grand Lodge of France, where two currents soon began to clash : the aristocrats, who were numerous in the Parisian Lodges, and who were more progressive in philosophical and religious terms, and the bourgeois, who were predominant in the provincial Lodges, and who were much more conservative on religious issues. The aristocratic party, led by Lacorne, took the name "lacornard", while the bourgeois camp called itself "anti-lacornard", each faction claiming to represent true Freemasonry.

After the death of Lacorne in 1762, the Comte de Clermont undertook to reform the Grand Lodge of France and decreed that the offices would henceforth be elective, and for a period of three years, whereas previously it had been possible to buy the office of Worshipful Master or Dignitary and hold it for life. At the first elections in 1765, the "anti-Lacornards" won and fifteen "Lacornards" were expelled from the Grand Lodge, including the drafter of the Morin patent. They hurried to form a new Lodge, "St-Lazare", which in 1776 became "St-Jean d'Écosse du Contrat Social", claimed to be the "Mère-Loge Écossaise de France"  (Scottish Mother Lodge of France) and played a role in the development of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite in France in the following century.

But the situation remained far from being resolved. On St John's Day 1767, some expelled Brothers tried to enter in the Grand Lodge Temple, but were denied entry. They came to blows and broke down the door, and the incident turned into a general brawl. This quasi-public scandal led the Lieutenant General of Police, Sartine, to suspend the work of the Grand Lodge, probably at the request of the Grand Master himself. The suspension officially lasted until 1771, but activities did not cease however. The "lacornards", claiming to be the Grand Lodge of France, continued to create Lodges, while the legitimate Grand Lodge did the same with backdated charters.

The death in 1771 of the Grand Master, Comte de Clermont, took place in this controversial context. His successor was Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, Duc de Chartres (1747-1793), a progressive, parliamentary prince who, during the Revolution, sat in the National Assembly under the name of Philippe-Égalité, voted for the death of Louis XVI and was in turn guillotined in 1793. Under his Grand Mastership, the Grand Lodge of France underwent a profound reform, becoming more democratic and centralised, giving more power to the Lodges in the provinces to counter the aristocratic Parisian party. And in 1773, the restructured Grand Lodge of France took the name Grand Orient of France.

A number of Lodges, who wished to remain faithful to the old customs, including the irremovability of office, then formed themselves into the Grand Lodge of France, known as the Grand Lodge of Clermont, after the previous Grand Master. They rejoined the Grand Orient in 1799. The Grand Orient de France therefore remains the only direct heir to the first Grand Lodge of France.

The far origins of the Grand Lodge of France of 1894

The history of the Grand Lodge of France of 1894 originally merged with that of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, which we described in a previous article. In 1761, Stephen Morin received a patent authorising him to spread the Rite of Perfection in the French West Indies. We saw above that this patent was ratified by the seal of the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of France, without his knowledge, and that he revoked it as soon as he became aware of it. The adventure of Stephen Morin therefore seems to have emanated formally from the Grand Lodge of France, but in fact in a fraudulent manner.

The Rite of Perfection disseminated by Stephen Morin reached the American colonies and a group of French and American Freemasons (including Alexandre de Grasse-Tilly, 1765-1847) added eight degrees to it, leading to the 33-degree Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, the first Supreme Council of which was founded in Charleston in 1801. In 1802, Grasse-Tilly and his father-in-law Jean Baptiste Marie de La Hogue (1738-1822) founded the Supreme Council for the French Isles of America.

Back in Paris in 1804, Alexandre de Grasse-Tilly set about founding a Supreme Council for France. Whereas the American Freemasons regarded the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite only as a system of higher degrees, beginning with the 4th degree, the French ones had developed craft degrees for the Rite. The main sources for the rituals of these three degrees were the 1760 disclosure "The Three Distinct Knocks" for the opening and closing rituals, as well as the arrangement of the pillars and the assignment of the names B to the Entered Apprentice and J to the Fellowcraft, and the French Rite for the reception ceremonies. These rituals were published as the "Guide du Maçon Écossais" (A Guide for the Scottish Mason) between 1814 and 1821 (the title page of the book reads "Edinburgh. 58***").

It is important to pay close attention here, because the events were to follow each other very quickly. On 22 October 1804, with the support of the Lodge St-Jean d’Écosse du Contrat Social, where he had been received before leaving for the West Indies (it was the Lodge of the "lacornards" who had been expelled in 1765), Grasse-Tilly founded a "Grande Loge Générale Écossaise” (General Scottish Grand Lodge) intended to bring together the Craft Lodges of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, under the supervision of Marshal Kellermann, who was appointed Grand Administrator.

The creation of this new Grand Lodge was not welcomed either by the Grand Orient of France, then presided over by Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès (1753-1824), Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, deputising for Grand Master Joseph Bonaparte, or by the Imperial Power, which intended to use freemasonry to its advantage by controlling the Masonic Obediences and limiting their number. Negotiations were immediately launched by Cambacérès, culminating on 3 December 1804 in a Concordat between the Grand Orient of France and the Supreme Council : the Lodges of the General Scottish Grand Lodge were integrated into the Grand Orient of France, while the Higher Degrees of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite were administrated by the Supreme Council. On this basis, the Supreme Council was definitively installed on 22 December 1804, with Grasse-Tilly as Sovereign Grand Commander.

The Concordat could have continued if the Grand Orient of France had not set up a Grand Directorate of Rites on 21 July 1805, which began conferring the 33rd degree. The Supreme Council thus revoked the Concordat, and Cambaceres, in the name of the Imperial Power, managed to impose a formula of compromise : the Grand Orient of France would henceforth govern the degrees from the 1st to the 18th and the Supreme Council from the 19th to the 33rd. And on 1 July 1806, Cambacérès was appointed Sovereign Grand Commander, replacing Grasse-Tilly, who was on a military campaign.

There again, the situation could have lasted thus, if new events had not come to disturb the relations between the Supreme Council and the Grand Orient of France and to call in question the compromise of 1805. In 1812, Grasse-Tilly's father-in-law, Jean Baptiste de La Hogue, revived in Paris the Supreme Council for the French Isles of America, known as the Supreme Council of Pompeii (after the place where it met), which was not likely to simplify matters.

In 1814-1815, with the demise of Napoleon, the Supreme Council, which was mainly made up of imperial dignitaries, had to cease its activities. The Grand Orient of France offered to merge the two Obediences, but the Supreme Council refused. Six of its members nevertheless joined the Grand Orient of France, which declared the 1805 compromise to have become null and void and claimed all rights over the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, which it placed in the hands of the Grand Consistory of Rites, a new form of the Grand Directorate of 1805, which finally became the Grand College of Rites in 1826.

On his return from Waterloo in 1815, Grasse-Tilly considered the decision of the Grand Orient of France to be invalid and, thanks to the Supreme Council of the American Isles revived by his father-in-law in 1812, created a new Supreme Council, known as the Supreme Council of Prado, from the name of its meeting place. He was excluded, and formed a third Supreme Council at the seat of the Sovereign Council of the American Isles, which was also called the Supreme Council of Pompeii. At that time, Paris had four Obediences that were supposed to govern the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite : the Supreme Council of the Isles of America of Pompeii, the Grand Consistory of Rites of the Grand Orient of France, the Supreme Council of Prado and the Supreme Council of Pompeii!

As none of them succeeded in imposing themselves, the Supreme Councils of Prado and Pompeii decided in 1818 to entrust their management to the Duke Élie Decazes (1780-1860), Minister of the Interior and future Prime Minister of Louis XVIII. Élie Decazes endeavoured to bring together the members of the various Supreme Councils (including that of 1804) and to add the Supreme Council of the American Isles, and on 1 January 1821, the Supreme Council of France was constituted, with jurisdiction over the 1st to 33rd degrees of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite.

The creation of the Grand Lodge of France (1894)

The Supreme Council of France lived through the nineteenth century, with its changes of regime, revolutions and philosophical and political developments. Since 1848, more and more French Freemasons, from all Obediences, have taken up the cause of republican and democratic ideals, free thought and secularism...

Within the Supreme Council of France, many Craft Lodges began to challenge the strictly hierarchical and pyramidal structure of the Order. They began to call for the Craft Lodges to be separated from the overall structure of the Rite and to be regrouped in an independent Grand Lodge organised in a democratic manner. Their first attempts in 1848 and 1868 were unsuccessful, but in 1880, twelve Lodges of the Supreme Council seceded and formed the "Grande Loge Symbolique Écossaise" (Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge), which was probably the most progressive of all French Masonic Obediences, its members' concerns ranging from republican, democratic and secular ideals to anarcho-syndicalism.

The new Obedience first tried to join the Grand Orient of France, with which it shared many of the same struggles. But distrustful of the Grand College of Rites, it feared falling back into a system where the high degrees would retain any preponderance and the merger did not take place.

In 1887, an idea was born to merge the Lodges of the Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge and the Craft Lodges that remained under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Council into a new, independent Obedience. The Supreme Council created the Grand Loge of France in 1894 for this purpose, bringing together all its Lodges in the expectation that the Lodges of the Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge would also join the new Obedience. But new dissensions prevented the merger.

Following this failure, the Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge declined. A dozen of its Lodges joined the Grand Lodge of France in dispersed order, five of them joined the Grand Orient of France, and most of the others were disbanded. Only two Lodges remained faithful and reconstituted the Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge at the beginning of the twentieth century. Having accepted the principle of mixity, the new Obedience took the name of "Grande Loge Symbolique Écossaise Maintenue et Mixte" (Maintained and Mixed Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge). Deemed too anarchist, it was not recognised by the Co-masonry "Le Droit Humain".

Internal dissension soon caused the new mixed Obedience to break up, with several Lodges being disbanded, while others joined the Grand Lodge of France or the Grand Orient of France. In 1909, only one Lodge remained, "Diderot", which joined the French Grand Lodge in 1911, putting a definitive end to the adventure of the Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge.

Whatever the case, the objective set by the founders of the Scottish Symbolic Grand Lodge had been achieved : the Craft Lodges of the Supreme Council had gained their independence and governed themselves within a democratically-functioning Obedience, the Grand Lodge of France.

The story that led to the creation of the Grand Lodge of France in 1894 was a long and winding one. This Obedience can hardly claim to be descended from the first Grand Lodge of France, as the double historical link that connects it to it is very thin : the Morin Patent of 1761, which, as we have seen, was issued in an irregular manner, and the Lodge St-Jean d’Écosse du Contrat Social, formed by the Brethren excluded from the first Grand Lodge of France in 1765. This in no way detracts from the value of the Grand Lodge of France of 1894, whose work and productions have always been of great quality.