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

Who has never heard of the Grand Orient of France? As the oldest and largest French Masonic obedience, the Grand Orient of France is a true institution and its influence throughout the world is considerable, to the point that it can be considered the flag-bearer of liberal Freemasonry. The history of the Grand Orient of France is fascinating, as 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. Let us therefore discover the main stages in the history of the Grand Orient of France.

The origins of the Grand Orient of France: The first Grand Lodge of France (1728 or 1738)

It was from 1725 onwards that the first French Lodges were created, under the impetus of the Grand Lodge of London, founded in 1717 (or more probably 1721). Before gaining their independence, the Lodges founded by London were grouped into fairly loose structures, called Provincial or English Grand Lodges, whose Grand Masters were mostly British subjects. In France, the first three Grand Masters of the first Grand Lodge of France, attested 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 rather 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 indeed beheaded following the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. 

A first French Grand Master was elected only in 1738, in the person of Louis Pardaillan de Gondrin, Duke of Antin (1707-1743). And according to some authors, one can only speak of the Grand Lodge of France from that point onwards. One is entitled to wonder whether the Duke of Antin directly succeeded Derwentwater, as English Grand Masters were then only elected for one year. Yet 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 whose memory has not been preserved.

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

The Grand Lodge of France between 1743 and 1771: a turbulent period 

The history of the first Grand Lodge of France really begins after the appointment in 1743 of Louis de Bourbon-Condé, Count of Clermont (1709-1771) as Grand Master. And the period of his Grand Mastership was quite turbulent.

Indeed, during this period, the Grand Lodge of France had to face several 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, within a highly decentralised framework granting de facto great autonomy to Lodges and intermediate structures, which governed Lodges locally (Scottish Grand Lodge of Bordeaux, Mother Lodge of Marseilles, Grand Lodge of Regular Masters of Lyons...). And in the case of the Count of Clermont, his status as a prince of the blood and army commander often drew him away from his duties as Grand Master, and he had delegated his power to three substitutes, the Protestant banker Baur, then the dancing master Lacorne and the Master of Requests Chaillon de Jonville.

This rather weak Grand Lodge had to face the emergence of Masonic AASR higher degrees in the 1740s. Its official stance (at least that of the Grand Master) was one of the utmost reserve regarding these new degrees, going as far as prohibition in the case of the Kadosh degree, which appeared around 1750. However, it was impossible to ignore the higher degrees, which were multiplying and attracting more and more Freemasons. In the conflict between the Council of Knights of the East, which practised a seven-degree rite, and the Council of Emperors of the East and West, which had a 25-degree system, the Count of Clermont leaned towards the Knights of the East, with its more somber rite, but many members of the Grand Lodge (including the two substitutes Lacorne and Chaillon de Jonville) whole-heartedly supported the Emperors of the East and West. Thus, in 1761, in the absence of the Grand Master and without his knowledge, the two substitutes, together with seven other signatories, all members of the Council of Emperors of the East and West, granted Étienne Morin the famous patent authorizing him to propagate the Rite of Perfection in 25 degrees in the French West Indies. This was the starting point of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

But the main problem was the growing opposition within the Grand Lodge of France between two sociologically identifiable factions: on the one hand, the aristocrats and bourgeois close to the nobility, mostly represented in the Parisian Lodges, who were more progressive in philosophical and religious matters; and on the other hand, the bourgeois and craftsmen, who formed the majority in provincial Lodges and were significantly more conservative on religious issues. The aristocratic party was called "lacornard", after the substitute Lacorne, and the bourgeois camp "antilacornard".

After Lacorne's death in 1762, the Grand Master set about reforming the Grand Lodge and decreed that offices would henceforth be elective, for a three-year term. Until then, the offices of Worshipful Master or dignitaries could indeed be bought and held for life. In the first elections, held in 1765, the "antilacornards" won; in the aftermath, fifteen "lacornards" were expelled from the Grand Lodge.

In December 1767, on the occasion of the celebration of St John's Day, some Brothers expelled in 1765 tried to enter the temple of the Grand Lodge, but entry was refused to them, and they forced the door. The scene degenerated into an exchange of blows and insults, and this almost public scandal led the Lieutenant General of Police Antoine de Sartine to suspend the labours of the Grand Lodge, probably at the request of the Grand Master himself. This suspension lasted until 1771, a year which also saw the death of the Grand Master, the Count of Clermont. He was succeeded by another prince of the blood, Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Chartres (1747-1793). A progressive prince, opposed to absolutism and a great admirer of the British political system, the Duke of Chartres sat in the Estates General of 1789 among the deputies of the nobility, and was then elected to the National Convention in 1793, renouncing all his titles and taking the name Philippe Égalité.

Nos Colonnes manufactures regalia for the Grand Orient of France. See the collection.

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

As early as 1771, the reform movement initiated by the Count of Clermont from 1762 onwards gained fresh momentum, going much further. A new structure was established, with a system of Lodge representation, thereby giving more weight to provincial Lodges and countering the previous preponderance of Parisian and aristocratic Lodges. The former "lacornards" nevertheless played an important role in these reforms, as they had supported the candidature of the Duke of Chartres. In 1772, they thus obtained the merger of the Grand Lodge of France and the Council of Emperors of the East and West, reviled by the previous Grand Master. 

In 1773, the restructured Grand Lodge of France took the name of 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 rejoined the Grand Orient in 1799.

In addition to its complete reorganisation, the most important undertaking of the Grand Orient of France before the Revolution was the work on the rituals. The idea of revising the rituals and above all of achieving a unified ritual within the Grand Orient of France had appeared as early as 1773, but the work only began in 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 what is known as the French Rite.

Despite his progressive ideas, the Duke of Chartres was little involved in these reforms, which were led by the Grand Administrator of the Grand Orient, Anne Charles Sigismond, Duke of Montmorency-Luxembourg (1737-1803).

The period preceding the Revolution was very prosperous for the Grand Orient of France, which in 1789 had 629 Lodges and 30,000 members. A treaty with the Rectified Lodges had been signed, which kept the Craft Lodges of this Rite under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient, which therefore did not escape its control completely.

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

The outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 dealt a very severe blow to Freemasonry in general and to the Grand Orient of France in particular. Not that the Revolution directly attacked Freemasonry, but rather because many Freemasons deserted the Lodges, for various reasons. Some had embraced the ideals of the Revolution and chose to become more concretely involved in changing society, whilst others, aristocrats, had taken the path of exile, like the Duke of 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 was dealt to them by the renunciation on 22 February 1793 of the Grand Master, the Duke of Chartres, who had become Philippe Égalité. The Grand Master did not merely turn his back on Freemasonry, but disavowed it completely, declaring that he had believed in the egalitarian illusions of Freemasonry, but that he was now in reality, and that a Republic could not tolerate the existence of secret societies within it. During an extraordinary assembly held on 13 May 1793, the Grand Orient of France accepted the resignation of the Grand Master and considered replacing him despite the fact that the position was theoretically irremovable. But the Terror had begun and was to last until 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor of Year II): French Freemasonry then went into abeyance, and if a few Lodges still met, it was in a semi-clandestine manner.

Philippe Égalité’s career was soon to come to an end. During the trial of Louis XVI before the Convention, which took place in several sessions between 15 and 20 January 1793, he voted for the death of the king. A general attempted in vain to bring down the Convention to save Louis XVI: General Charles François Dumouriez (1739-1823), head of the Army of the North. Although a revolutionary, he was nevertheless in favour of a constitutional monarchy, and facing 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, 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 on the same day.

Awakening of French Freemasonry after the Terror

In February 1793, while the Grand Master was disowning Freemasonry, Alexandre Roëttiers de Montaleau (1748-1808), who had played an important role in drafting the rituals of the French Rite, secured the archives of the Grand Orient of France. On 27 October 1795, the Directory succeeded the Thermidorian Convention, which had replaced the regime of the Terror after the fall of Robespierre. Masonic activities were then able to resume tentatively. In April 1796, the Grand Orient of France elected Roëttiers de Montaleau to the Grand Mastership, but he refused the title, choosing to be called only Grand Worshipful Master.

He then set about gathering the scattered French Freemasonry and brought the Lodges of the Grand Lodge of Clermont, which had seceded in 1773, back into the Grand Orient of France on 22 June 1799.

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

The coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) put an end to the Directory and established the Consulate regime. Executive power, now strengthened, was in the hands of three Consuls, but the strongman was in reality 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. It would not have been surprising if the Consulate regime, being rather authoritarian and dominated by a military officer, had been hostile to it, or even banned it.  

But Bonaparte was rather favourable to Freemasonry, his father and brothers all being Freemasons. Proof has never been found that Napoleon himself was one, but some believe he might have been initiated during the Egyptian campaign, in which many Freemasons took part. Freemasonry was therefore not troubled, but was nevertheless 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 of the French (18 May 1804). He understood that Freemasonry could serve his interests if it were submissive to him, and so decided to place it under the control of men devoted to him, close associates 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 actual power; and the Philosophical Scottish Rite, a small minority, was placed under the Grand Mastership of Louis Bonaparte.

It was in this context that Alexandre de Grasse-Tilly returned from America and set out to found a Supreme Council for France of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. As a prelude to this foundation, he began on 22 October 1804 by founding a Scottish General Grand Lodge, with Marshal Kellermann (another loyal follower of Napoleon) as Grand Administrator. On behalf of the Emperor, Cambacérès immediately intervened so that the Lodges of this new obedience would be integrated into the Grand Orient of France. On 3 December 1804, a concordat was signed: the Lodges of the Scottish General Grand Lodge were integrated into the Grand Orient of France, while the Supreme Council, which would be permanently established on 22 December 1804, retained jurisdiction over the 4th to 33rd degrees, with Grasse-Tilly as Grand Commander.

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

The Grand Orient of France was not completely free under the Empire, as it served the interests and glory of the Emperor, not without flattery indeed. But it was particularly flourishing at that time: while in 1800 it had only 74 Lodges, their number already rose to 300 at the end of the Consulate in 1804, and at Napoleon's abdication in 1814, it had 1219, including 69 military Lodges, which had helped spread the ideas of the Revolution in the occupied countries.

Above all, one must note the major transformation that the Grand Orient of France underwent through the events of the Revolution, from which the bourgeoisie emerged as the main winner. Before 1789, it was in the hands of the progressive aristocracy, even though a conservative bourgeois trend was becoming increasingly strong. By the end of the Empire, it was mainly composed of the bourgeoisie, craftsmen and civil servants, with a rather progressive and liberal outlook, whereas the aristocrats (including the new nobility of the Empire), who had become more conservative, preferred the Supreme Council.