THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

The most trusted members were brought into the "Secret Committee of United Friends" (It is interesting to note that a group of the same name originated in 1771 as an occult group). The initiations took place at the Illuminati's Grand Lodge, about 30 miles from Paris, in the Ermenonville mansion owned by the Marquis de Gerardin. The famous impostor Saint Germain (1710-1780, or 1785) presided over the initiation ceremonies. Germain was believed to be a Portuguese Jew, who was a member of the Philalethes Lodge. He was a Mason, a Rosicrucian, and belonged to several other occult brotherhoods. He spoke Italian, German, English, Spanish, French, Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Chinese. He was said to be the son of Prince Rakoczy of Transylvania; raised by the last Medici, Gian Gastone; and was educated at the University of Siena. He told people that he had lived for centuries, and knew King Solomon. He was arrested in London in 1743 for being a Jacobite spy, and he took credit for establishing Freemasonry in Germany. As an impostor, he posed as Comte Bellamarre, Marquis de Montferrat, and Chevalier Schoening.

During the initiation, new members were sworn to "reveal to thy new chief all thou shalt have heard, learned and discovered, and also to seek after and spy into things that might have otherwise escaped thy notice...(and to) avoid all temptation to betray what thou has now heard. Lightning does not strike so quickly as the dagger which will reach thee wherever thou mayest be."

Count Alessandro de Cagliostro (also known as Giuseppe Balsamo), a Jew from Sicily, who was said to be one of the greatest occult practitioners of all time, was initiated into the Illuminati at Mitau ( near Frankfurt) in 1780, in an underground room. He later said, that an iron box filled with papers was opened, and a book taken out. From it, a member read the oath of secrecy, which began: "We, Grand Masters of Templars..." It was written in blood. The book was an outline of their plans, which included an attack on Rome. He discovered that they had money at their disposal in banks at Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London, Genoa, and Venice. He found out that the Illuminati had 20,000 lodges throughout Europe and America, and that their members served in every European court. Cagliostro was instructed to go to Strasbourg, France, to make the initial contacts necessary for the instigation of the French Revolution. Identified as a Grand Master of the Prieure' de Sion, it is believed that he was the liaison between them and the Illuminati. He was arrested in 1790, in Rome, for revolutionary activities.

The French Masons had committed themselves to a plan for overthrowing the government, under the guise of liberty and equality; ending the autocratic regimes, in order to have government by and for the people. Jeremy Bentham and William Petty (Earl of Shelburne) planned and directed the French Revolution, then later directed the plot towards America.

In 1788, at the request of Mirabeau and Talleyrand, Johann Joachim Christoph Bode (1730-1793, sect name "Amelius"), a lawyer at Weimar, and a Mason, was summoned to France. He had been initiated into the Illuminati at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad, and later took over the Order in the absence of Weishaupt. Bode and Baron de Busche (sect name "Bayard"), a Dutch military officer in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in order to conceal the purpose of their presence in France, said they were there to investigate the influence of the Jesuits on the secret societies. However, the real reason for them being there, was to further the goals of the Illuminati in France. They operated out of the Lodge of the Amis Reunis, changing its name to "Philalethes", which means, "searchers after the truth."

The Marquis de Luchet, a friend of Mirabeau, wrote in his Essay on the Sect of the Illuminati in January, 1789: "Deluded people. You must understand that there exists a conspiracy in favor of despotism, and against liberty, of incapacity against talent, of vice against virtue, or ignorance against light!...Every species of error which afflicts the earth, every half-baked idea, every invention serves to fit the doctrines of the Illuminati...The aim is universal domination."

Intellectuals known as "encyclopedists" were instrumental in spreading Illuminati doctrine. Soon other lodges become aligned with the Philalethes, such as the Nine Sisters; the Lodge of Candor, which included members like Laclos, Sillery, D'Aiguillon; the Lameth Brothers, Dr. Guillotine, and Lafayette; and the Propaganda, which was established by Condorcet, Abbe' Sieyes, and Rochenfoucault.

Revolutionary leaders in France, such as Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre (1758-1794), who was made head of the Revolution by Weishaupt; Marquis Antoine Nicholas Condorcet (1743-1794), philosopher and politician; Duke de la Rochenfoucault; George Jacques Danton (1759-1794); Marquis Marie Joseph de Lafayette (1757-1834), General and statesman; Jerome Petion de Villeneuve (1756-1794), politician; Philippe, Duke of Orleans, Grand Master of French Freemasonry; de Leutre; Fauchet; Cammille Benoit Desmoulins (1760-1794), D'Alembert; Denis Diderot (1713-1784), encyclopedist; and Jean-Francois de la Harpe (1739-1803), critic and playwright, all joined the Illuminati, who had eventually infiltrated all 266 Masonic lodges by 1789, even though the Masons weren't aware of it.

The Illuminati created situations in order to create dissention among the people. For instance, the Duke of Orleans instructed his agents to buy up as much grain as they could, then the people were led to believe that the King intentionally caused the shortage, and that the French people were starving. Fellow conspirators in the government helped create runaway inflation. Thus the people were manipulated into turning against a king whose reign had strengthened the middle class. The monarchy was to be destroyed, and the middle class oppressed. God was to be replaced by the Illuminati's religion of reason that "man's mind would solve man's problems."

During the first two years of the French Revolution, which started in April, 1789, the Illuminati had infiltrated the Masonic Lodges to such an extent, that they had ceased operation, and instead rallied under the name, "The French Revolutionary Club." When they needed a larger meeting place, they used the hall of the Jacobin's Convent, thus this revolutionary group of 1300 people emerged on July 14, 1789 as the Jacobin Club. The Illuminati controlled the Club, and were directly responsible for fermenting the activities which developed into the French Revolution. Lord Acton wrote: "The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult but the design. Through all the fire and smoke, we perceived the evidence of calculating organization. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first."

In the playing out of a plan which called for the population to be cut down by one-third to one-half, over 300,000 people died, plus, King Louis and his family were executed. This was done to insure the stability of the new French Republic. In August, 1792, after the overthrow of the government, the tri-colored banner was replaced by the red flag of social revolution, while the cry of "Vive notre roi d'Orleans" gave way to the Masonic watchword, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" Those who responded with the proper Masonic handsigns, had their lives spared. By November, 1793, as the massacres had spread all over France, the churches had been reorganized along the lines of Weishaupt's contention that "reason should be the only code of man." Talleyrand, who became the bishop of Autin in 1788, because of his radical reorganization of the Church, was excommunicated by the Pope. He became a deputy to the National Assembly. The Jacobins controlled the National Assembly, and for all intents and purposes, Mirabeau became France's leader. In true Democratic spirit, he said: "We must flatter the people by gratuitous justice, promise them a great diminution in taxes and a more equal division, more extension in fortunes, and less humiliation. These fantasies will fanaticize the people, who will flatten all resistance." The Revolution was considered at an end on July 28, 1794, when Robespierre was guillotined.

Thomas Jefferson, who served as minister to France for three years (1785-89), described the events as "so beautiful a revolution" and said that he hoped it would sweep the world. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton said that Jefferson helped start the French Revolution, and wrote in a letter to a friend, dated May 26, 1792, that Jefferson "drank freely of the French philosophy, in religion, in science, in politics. He came from France in the moment of fermentation, which he had a share in inciting." Jefferson wrote to Brissot de Warville in Philadelphia, in a letter dated May 8, 1793, that he was "eternally attached to the principles of the French Revolution." In 1987, during a trip to the United States by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, where they visited the Jefferson Memorial, she referred to Jefferson as "one of the world's greatest thinkers."

It is interesting to note, that during the Communist revolution, Nikolai Lenin said: "We, the Bolsheviks, are the Jacobins of the Twentieth Century..."

An Illuminist, and member of the revolutionary French National Assembly, Vicomte de Barras, witnessed a 24 year old Napoleon repelling a siege at Toulon in 1793 by English and Spanish military forces. Barras, appointed by the Assembly as the Commander-in-Chief of the French military, in 1795 became a member of the five-man Directorate, which began to govern France, and soon became the most powerful political figure in the country. He chose Napoleon to lead the military forces. However, in 1799, Napoleon (a Knights Templar) broke his ties with Barras, because he feared Barras was attempting to restore the Monarchy. Napoleon eliminated the Directorate, and in 1804, with the support of Talleyrand (who served as his foreign minister), became Emperor. Unwittingly, as a puppet of the Illuminati, his reign brought about the total disruption of Europe, which was needed for the Illuminati to get control and unify it. He ended the Holy Roman Empire, and made his brother Joseph, the King of Naples in 1806. Joseph was replaced by Napoleon's brother-in-law Murat, when Joseph became the King of Spain in 1808. His brother Louis was made the King of Holland, and another brother Jerome, the King of Westphalia.

In 1810, Napoleon confiscated the contents of the Vatican archives, which amounted to 3,000 cases of documents, and took it to Paris. Although most were later returned to Rome, some were kept. By this time, Napoleon had changed the face of Europe, but, he settled his warring ways and ultimately the French Revolution had failed, because Europe had not been fully conquered. The Illuminati immediately took steps to dethrone him, which took five years. In order to get money to Wellington's English forces, Nathan Rothschild funneled money to his brother James (who handled financial transactions for the French government), in Paris, who got it to Wellington's troops in Spain. In addition, the Illuminati secretly worked to make agreements that shifted national alliances against France.

Upon his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon was again exiled, this time, to the island of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic, which is where he died in 1821. He had written in his will: "I die before my time, killed by the English oligarchy and its hired assassins."