[407] Writing of the condition of the order at the hour of its apogee, in 1784, Forestier says: “La situation de l’Ordre à cette époque paraît donc des plus prospères. Solidement établi en Bavière, il s’étend sur toute l’Europe Centrale, du Rhin à la Vistule et des Alpes à la mer du Nord et à la Baltique. Il compte au nombre de ses membres des jeunes gens qui appliqueront plus tard les principes qu’il leur a inculqués, des fonctionnaires de tout ordre qui mettent leur influence à son service, des membres du clergé auxquels il enseigne la tolérance, des princes dont il peut invoquer la protection et qu’il espère diriger. Il semble que le Grand Architecte de l’Univers ait spécialement veillé sur lui....” (_Op. cit._, p. 401.)
[408] The term was no longer in official use, but the men remained. In other words, Weishaupt’s Areopagites were Knigge’s Provincials.
[409] Forestier, _op. cit._, pp. 411–413.
[410] Engel asserts that the chief apple of discord was the grade of Priest. Weishaupt believed that Knigge had injected into the ritual of the order at that point expressions of radical religious sentiment which, if once discovered to the public, would be found extremely injurious to the order. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 133 _et seq._ _Cf._ Forestier _op. cit._, p. 415. But this was only one of many bones of contention. At bottom the two men were inordinately jealous, both as to their positions in the order and the systems which they had worked out.
[411] Knigge withdrew from the order April 20, 1784. In July of the same year he put his name to an agreement, pledging himself to restore such papers of the order as he possessed and to maintain silence concerning what he knew of the order’s affairs. _Cf._ Forestier, p. 428. Freed from his responsibilities to the order, Knigge resumed his work as a writer, by which he managed to maintain himself very indifferently in funds. He was finally accorded a government post, as inspector of schools, at Bremen, where he died. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 549–551.
[412] Carl Theodore, successor to Maximilian Joseph, as Elector Palatinate had been ruler of the provinces of the Rhine since 1742. When he became duke of Upper and Lower Bavaria in 1777, he had established a reputation as a liberal-minded sovereign. The first two years of his rule in Bavaria gave promise of a tolerant reign; but reactionaries, in the persons of his confessor, the ex-Jesuit Frank, a certain Baron Lippert, who was devoted to the cause of ultramontanism, and the duchess dowager of Bavaria and sister of the duke, Maria Anna, worked upon his spirit and easily persuaded the well-meaning but weak-willed monarch to reverse his former policy and come to the defence of the cause of clericalism. See the comments of Professor August Kluckhohn, quoted by Engel, p. 4.