Chart of the Bonaparte Masonic Lodge, c. 1810
Emblem of the Supreme Council of France http://www.scdf.net/
Receipt of a young woman in a Lodge of Adoption under the First
Empire
Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambaceres, Grand Commander of the AASR in
France from 1806 to 1821.
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Was Napoleon Bonaparte a member of the Masonic Brotherhood?
Multiple hypotheses have been advanced on the subject, and although
the probability is high, it has never been definitely established
that he was made a Freemason, either in Valence (French Department
Drome), Marseille, Nancy ('St. John of Jerusalem' Lodge, December
3, 1797?), Malta, Egypt or elsewhere.
What is certain is that members of the expedition he commanded
during the Egyptian campaign brought the Freemasonry to the banks
of the Nile. General Kleber founded the 'Isis' Lodge in Cairo (was
Bonaparte a co-founder?), while Brothers Gaspard Monge (member,
among others, of the 'Perfect Union' Military Lodge, Mezieres) and
Dominique Vivant Denon (a member of Sophisians, 'The Perfect
Meeting' Lodge, Paris) were among the scholars who would make this
strategic and military setback a success that the young General
Bonaparte would exploit upon his return to France.
What is also undeniable is that, beginning with Bonaparte's coup of
18 Brumaire, the Freemasonry would thrive for 15 extraordinary
years, multiplying the number of lodges and members. The First
Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, understanding the advantages he could
derive from the obedient Freemasonry, invested in these reliable
men, hoping to be rewarded with faultless servility. He was not
disappointed.
Freemasonry under the Consulate
When Napoleon Bonaparte came to power, a text of nine articles was
signed on June 22, 1799 (the 21st day of the third year of the V:.
L:. 5799) that unified the Great Lodge of France (Grande Loge De
France: GLDF) and the Great Orient of France (Grand Orient De
France: GODF). The text provided for the assembly of archives of
both organizations, removed the privileges of the masters of the
lodges of Paris, entrenched the tenure of Worshipful Masters, and
established a system of election of officers. However, some
'Scottish' lodges rejected this arrangement.
In 1801, while in Paris, Brother Jean Portalis ('Friendship' Lodge,
Aix-en-Provence) actively participated in negotiating the Concordat
with the Holy See and drafting the Civil Code with Brothers
Jean-Jacques Regis de Cambaceres and Claude-Ambroise Regnier, a
page of Freemason history was written on May 31 in Charleston,
South Carolina. There, Colonel John Mitchell, a merchant born in
Ireland, and Frederick Dalcho, a physician born in London of
Prussian parents, 'opened the Supreme Council 33° for the United
States of America', the first Supreme Council of rite in 33 grades
that would take the name Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (AASR)
of France. It would announce its creation through a circular
distributed 'across both hemispheres' on January 1, 1803.
The Master Masons of the two great rival systems (Ancients and
Moderns) were eligible indiscriminately, regardless of religion
(hence perhaps the term 'Accepted'). The motto Ordo ab Chao was
adopted which, in organizational terms, expressed the desire to
create a coherent system of degrees and to end the chaotic
profusion of high grades. The rite, whose ranks were all of French
origin, synthesized the influences initially spun by the English
lodges, Scottish Lodges of Perfection, dissident structures such as
the Council of the Eastern Knights of Brother Pirlet, the Order of
Scottish Trinitarians, and the Order of the Flamboyant Star of
Baron Tschoudy, and of the administrative system of the Mother
Lodge of the Scottish Social Contract, which was a member of Count
Auguste de Grasse-Tilly (started in 1783 in the 'Saint John of the
Scottish Social Contract' Lodge, Paris).
The universality of the AASR was founded on the basis of 33
successive degrees of initiation and the content of its various
grades that encompassed almost all sources of ancestral
spirituality in the West and Middle East. It was, therefore, not
possible to claim the AASR without rigorously following its
initiation rites and trusting the consistency of its gradual
evolution.
In 1801, the Vatican reiterated its ban on priests receiving
Masonic initiation.
The same year, the Freemason Rulebook, on the Modern French Rite of
the Great Orient of France, was published, in line with the first
Moderns, House of Grades of the Great Orient and some aspects of
the Rectified Scottish Regime (RSR) that were made in 1795 by the
Great Worship Master Alexander-Louis Ro?ttiers de Montaleau.
This document was consistent with decisions made in 1785, but in
1796 was repudiated by the Grand Orient, which had opted for
communication of rituals to be exclusively in handwritten, not
printed, form. The ritual of the French Rite was subsequently
revised several times.
Regarding the Rectified Scottish Rite, 1801 saw the beginning of a
three-year correspondence between Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, of Lyon
('founder' of the RSR in France and general counsel of Department
Rhone by the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte since June 1, 1800)
and Claude-Fran?ois Achard, of Marseille (Worshipful Master of The
Triple Union, which resumed its work on June 1, 1801). In September
1802, Brother Taxil was received in Lyon by Willermoz and tasked to
copy the 'new rituals,' which took five years.
On November 12, 1802 (the 12th day of the ninth month of the year
of the V:. L:. 5802), a circular from the Grand Orient of France
condemned the 'so-called Scottish' Lodges and invited Brothers to
'turn from our Temples a seed of discord that, during the most
tempestuous times, seemed to have been respected.' So as to
maintain 'regular lodges in France,' the GODF began to write off
all lodges practicing a rite other than the French Rite of seven
degrees – an action that specifically targeted Scottish Mother
Lodges.
The year 1804 saw, in the atmosphere following the global exclusion
of the Grand Orient, the Count of Grasse-Tilly returning to France
and founding the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree on September
22. It met on October 22 at the Scottish General Grand Lodge of
France with the participation of the Scottish Mother Lodge of
Marseilles. Both lodges had refused the merger with the Grand
Orient in 1799, and were 'blacklisted' by the Big East because of
'discrepancies' - that is, for practicing the Scottish Rite – as
representatives of Santo Domingo lodges followed the rite of
Ancients, and, according to some sources, the Prince of Rohan, who
had signed the Morin patent in 1761. Louis Bonaparte became the
Grand Master.
Seeing the Supreme Council extended de facto authority over the
lodges' first three degrees, the Grand Orient suddenly had the
power to sign a contract that merged the Scottish Grand Lodge with
the Grand Orient, but left in existence a Sublime Council of the
33rd degree, which remained the sole authority to confer this level
and to 'decide on everything that was a point of honor.'
Freemasonry under the Empire
It was during this period that French Freemasonry would experience
its first golden age, as the number of lodges grew from 300 to
1,220 in ten years.
Bonaparte (initiated in 'The Perfect Sincerity' Lodge of
Marseilles) became Grand Master of the Grand Orient, which was
entirely devoted to Napoleon and rarely failed to criticize the
fiercely independent Scottish lodges.
Napoleon's relationship with the Grand Orient was all the more
excellent that Ro?ttiers de Montaleau undertook to purify
anti-Bonapartists, and that there were then among the dignitaries
of the obedience:
Prince Louis Bonaparte The Chancellor of the Empire
Jean-Jacques Régis of Cambaceres
Marshals Andre Massena (initiated in Toulon in 1784 by 'The
Students of Minerva,' a member of many lodges, including 'The Real
Friends Meeting' in Nice and the military lodge 'The Perfect
Friendship,' GODF administrator and member of the Supreme Council),
Joachim Murat, Fran?ois Etienne Christophe Kellermann ('Saint
Napoleon' Lodge, Paris), Charles Augereau (initiated in the lodge
'The Children of Mars' in The Hague during his assignment in
Holland, then a member of the Parisian Lodge 'The Candor' before
becoming Worshipful Master of the 'Friends of the Arts and Glory'
regimental Lodge), Fran?ois Joseph Lefebvre ('Friends Meeting,'
Mainz), Catherine Dominique de Perignon, Jean-Mathieu Philibert
Serurier (Parisian lodges 'St. Alexander of Scotland' and 'The
Imperial Bee'), Guillaume Brune ('Saint-Napoleon', Orient of Paris
and 'The Constant Friendship'), Adolphe Edouard Casimir Joseph
Mortier (33°), Jean-de-Dieu Soult and Jean Lannes
Senators Antoine-César de Choiseul-Praslin ('The Candor,' Paris),
Arnail-Francis de Jancourt, Louis-Joseph-Charles Amable de Luynes
and Dominique Clement de Ris
Deput
