The systems of Montesquieu and Rousseau, particularly, induced the Sophisters of Impiety to combine the task of overthrowing monarchy with the task of overthrowing religion.[566] A sweeping attempt to popularize the leveling principles embodied in those two systems immediately developed. A flood of antimonarchical writings appeared,[567] governments were sharply criticized, despotism was roundly denounced, the minds of the people were agitated and inflamed, and the notion of revolution was rendered familiar both by precept and example.[568]
Some powerful secret agency was needed, however, to promote this vast conspiracy. The lodges of Freemasonry suggested a tempting possibility. The members of the craft gave ample evidence that they were susceptible.[569] The occult lodges,[570] moreover, already had traveled far toward the goal of revolution. All their protests to the contrary, their _one_ secret was: “Equality and Liberty; all men are equals and brothers; all men are free.”[571] Surely it would not be difficult for the enemies of thrones and altars to reach the ears of men who cherished such a secret, and to convert their lodges into council-chambers and forums for the propagation of the doctrines of impiety and rebellion.
An alliance was speedily consummated,[572] and a fresh torrent of declamation and calumnies, all directed against the altar and the throne, began to pour through these newly discovered subterranean channels.[573] The _Grand Orient_ constituted a central committee which as early as 1776 instructed the deputies of the lodges throughout France to prepare the brethren for insurrection.[574] Condorcet and Sieyès placed themselves at the head of another lodge, to which the Propaganda was to be traced.[575] In addition, a secret association bearing the title _Amis des Noirs_ created a _regulating committee_, composed of such men as Condorcet, the elder Mirabeau, Sieyès, Brissot, Carra, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Clavière, Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, Valade, La Fayette, and Bergasse.[576] This _regulating committee_ was also in intimate correspondence with the French lodges of Freemasonry. Thus a powerful secret organization was at hand, composed of not less than six hundred thousand members all told, at least five hundred thousand of whom could be fully counted upon to do the bidding of the conspirators, “all zealous for the Revolution, all ready to rise at the first signal and to impart the shock to all other classes of the people.”[577]