Following an analysis of the grades of the order,[514] lifted little if any above the general plane of ineptitude upon which the author moved, Robison incorporated into his history of the Bavarian Illuminati a table of the lodges that had been established prior to 1786.[515] Drawing professedly upon the private papers of the order as published by the Bavarian government, he worked out a list which included five lodges in Strassburg; four in Bonn; fourteen in Austria; “many” in each of the following states, Livonia, Courland, Alsace, Hesse, Poland, Switzerland, and Holland; eight in England; two in Scotland; and “several” in America.[516] The suppression of the Illuminati by the Bavarian government was regarded by Robison as merely “formal” in its nature:[517] the evil genius of the banned order speedily reappeared in the guise of the German Union.[518] Into the discussion of the German Union Robison read the “proofs” of an enterprise truly gigantic both as to its proportions and its baneful influence. The _illuminated_ lodges of Freemasonry were declared to have given way to _reading societies_ wherein the initiated, _i. e._, the members of the Union, actively employed themselves, apparently to accomplish the noble ends of enlightening mankind and securing the dethronement of superstition and fanaticism,[519] but actually to secure the destruction of every sentiment of religion, morality and loyalty.[520] The higher mysteries of Bahrdt’s silly and abortive project were declared to be identical with those of Weishaupt’s order: natural religion and atheism were to be substituted for Christianity, and political principles equally anarchical with those of the Illuminati were fostered.[521] Although Robison confessed himself driven to pronounce Bahrdt’s enterprise “coarse, and palpably mean,”[522] and although the archives and officers of the Union were held to be “contemptible,”[523] none the less an elaborate though most disjointed tale was unfolded by him. This involved the organization of the German literati and the control of the book trade, with a view to forming taste and directing public opinion;[524] and the establishment of reading societies to the number of eight hundred or more,[525] among whose members were to be circulated such books as were calculated to fortify the mind against all disposition to be startled on account of the appearance of “doctrines and maxims which are singular, or perhaps opposite to those which are current in ordinary societies.”[526] Thus it would be possible “to work in silence upon all courts, families, and individuals in every quarter, and acquire an influence in the appointment of court-officers, stewards, secretaries, parish-priests, public teachers, or private tutors.”[527]