Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [203]
“In this atmosphere a certain Desaguliers, popularizer of Newton, encouraged a Protestant pastor, Anderson, to draft the constitutions of a lodge of Mason brothers, deist in persuasion, and Anderson began speaking of the Masonic confraternities as corporations dating back four thousand years, to the founders of the Temple of Solomon. These are the reasons for the Masonic masquerade: the apron, the trowel, the T square. Masonry became fashionable, attracting the aristocracy with the genealogical tables it hinted at, but it appealed even more to the bourgeoisie, who now not only could hobnob with the nobles but were actually permitted to wear a short sword. In the wretched modern world at its birth, the nobles need a place where they can come into contact with the new producers of capital, and the new producers of capital are looking to be ennobled.”
“But the Templars seem to have emerged later.”
“The one who first established a direct relation with the Templars, Ramsay, I’d prefer not to discuss. I suspect he was put up to it by the Jesuits. His preaching led to the birth of the Scottish wing of Masonry.’’
“Scottish?”
“The Scottish rite was a Franco-German invention. London Masonry had established three degrees: apprentice, fellow craft, and master. Scottish Masonry multiplied the degrees because doing so meant multiplying the levels of initiation and secrecy. The French, congenitally foolish, love secrecy...”
“But what was the secret?”
“There was no secret, obviously. But if there had been one— or if they had possessed it—its complexity would have justified the number of degrees of initiation. Ramsay multiplied-the degrees to make others believe he had a secret. You can imagine the thrill of those solid tradesmen now at last able to become princes of vengeance...”
Aglie was prodigal with Masonic gossip. And in the course of his talk, as was his custom, he slipped gradually into first-person recollection.
“In those days, in France, they were already writing couplets about the new fashion, the Frimacons. The lodges, multiplying, attracted monsignors, friars, barons, and shopkeepers, and the members of the royal family became grand masters. The Templar Strict Observance of that Hund character received Goethe, Lessing, Mozart, Voltaire. Lodges sprang up among the military; in the regimental mess they plotted to avenge Hiram and discussed the coming revolution. For others, Masonry was a societe de plaisir, a club, a status symbol. You could find a bit of everything there: Cagliostro, Mesmer, Casanova, Baron d’Holbach, d’Alembert...Encyclopedists and alchemists, libertines and hermetics. At the outbreak of the Revolution, members of the same lodge found themselves on opposite sides, and it seemed that the great brotherhood would never recover from this crisis...”
“Wasn’t there a conflict between the Grand Orient and the Scottish lodge?”
“Only verbally. For example: the lodge of the Neuf Soeurs welcomed Franklin, whose goals, naturally, were secular; he was interested only in supporting his American revolution...But at the same time, one of its grand masters was the Comte de Milly, who was seeking the elixir of longevity. Since he was an imbecile, in the course of his experiments he poisoned himself and died. Or take Cagliostro: on the one hand, he invented Egyptian rites; on the other, he was implicated in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a scandal devised by the rising bourgeoisie to discredit the ancien regime. And Cagliostro was indeed involved! Just try to imagine the sort of