HISTORY NON-FICTION FICTION .

A History of Modern France Volume 1 The cause of the nation, which had hitherto been the war-cry of the parlements [in 1789], was taken over by the Third Estate, and the advocates of its claims annexed the title of Patriots. Whether there was any organized control of their activities has been much debated. The alleged Masonic plot can be left where it belongs in the realm of legend. The Orleanist conspiracy has a little more substance. [p. 135.] A History of Modern France, Volume 1: Old Régime and Revolution, 1715-1799, Alfred Cobban (1901-1968). Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965 [1957] pb. 292 pp. Volume 2 An underground royalist movement, a kind of royalist and catholic free-masonry, which had been created in 1810, was reviving the memory of the Bourbons in a country that had begun to forget them. [p. 62.] In these years [1864-1870], also, anti-clericalism was spreading and becoming more aggresive. Among the middle classes Freemasonry, now more or less purged of the misty illuminism of the eighteenth century, was one of the cheif means by which it was expressed. [p. 190.] A History of Modern France, Volume 2: From the First Empire to the Second Empire, 1799-1871, Alfred Cobban (1901-1968). Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965 [1957] pb. 246 pp. Volume 3 Naturally, the majority of those who took an active part in the campaign for revision [of the Dreyfus sentence] were anti-clericals, freemasons, Protestants and Jews. [p. 53.] The particular form which anti-clericalism took among the middle and lower middle clases was Freemasonry, which was also closely linked with radicalism in politics. In 1896 there were 364 lodges and about 24,000 freemasons. By 1926 the numbers had risen to 583 and 52,000, though possibly at the price of some dilution of quality. Indeed, by this time the masonic movement could be described, not altogether unfairly, as very largely an employment agency for lower civil servants. Being a secret society, its actual activities and membership can only be guessed at, but it undoubtedly exercised considerable political influence. [pp. 59-60.] To obtain the necessary information [regarding political sentiments of the military high command], André organized, with the aid of informers, especially Freeemasons and often from the lower commissioned or non-commissioned ranks, a great collection of fiches on the religious affiliatrions of the members of the officer corps. In October 1904 his system was revealed by an employee of the Masonic Grand Orient, and public indignation was such that the Minister had to resign. [p. 63.] Freemasonry also, in some aspects, was a kind of secular faith. This semi-religious element in French freemasonry explains why it met with such bitter opposition from rival faiths like Roman Catholicism and later Communism. [p. 76.] Under the lead of demagogues of the right [in 1934] such as Philippe Henriot, deputy for Bordeaux, the forces of anti-semitism and the old Catholic suspicions of Radical freemasonry were evoked, [p. 141.] A History of Modern France, Volume 3: France of the Republics, 1871-1962, Alfred Cobban (1901-1968). Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965 [1957] pb. 246 pp.

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