Barruel, on the other hand, did not get sight of Robison’s volume until just as his third volume was going to press.[605] He comments in part as follows: “Without knowing it, we have fought for the same cause with the same arms, and pursued the same course; but the Public are on the eve of seeing our respective quotations, and will observe a remarkable difference between them.”[606] That difference Barruel attempts to explain on the ground that Robison had adopted the method of combining and condensing his quotations from his sources. Besides, he thinks his zealous confederate “in some passages ... has even adopted as truth certain assertions which the correspondence of the Illuminées evidently demonstrate to have been invented by them against their adversaries, and which,” he continues, “in my Historical Volume I shall be obliged to treat in an opposite sense.”[607] Barruel also differs with Robison respecting the time of the origin of Masonry.[608] But all such matters are of slight consequence; all suggestions of opposition and disagreement between Robison and Barruel are brushed aside by him in the following summary fashion: “ ... It will be perceived that we are not to be put in competition with each other; Mr. Robison taking a general view while I have attempted to descend into particulars: as to the substance we agree.”[609] It was one of the most confident boasts of the supporters of the idea of a “conspiracy against thrones and altars” that these two writers, Robison and Barruel, had worked at the same problem without the knowledge of each other’s effort, and thus following independent lines of investigation, had reached the same conclusion. The merit of the claim may safely be left to the reader’s judgment. FOOTNOTES: [445] “Es muss die Furcht vor dem verschrieenen Illuminatismus geradezu wie ein Druck in der Luft gehangen haben, denn der Orden selbst existierte in seiner festeren Organisation schon lange nicht mehr, als sich die Gespensterfurcht vor ihm in so allgemeiner Weise breit machte.” (Engel, _op. cit._, p. 425.) [446] Forestier, _op. cit._, p. 613. [447] _Ibid._, pp. 613 _et seq._