[512] Robison omitted nothing in his effort to fasten the stigma of moral obliquity upon the order. The published papers of the order were appealed to show that crimes of bribery, theft, and libertinism were not uncommon on the part of the leaders. See Robison, pp. 144 _et seq._ The unsavory documents of the order referred to on page 181 of this dissertation likewise received Robison’s zealous attention. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 138 _et seq._ Weishaupt’s personal immorality in his relations with his sister-in-law is made to do full duty as “a brilliant specimen of the ethics which illuminated” the leaders. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 164 _et seq._ (If a particular illustration of Robison’s bungling way of handling his German sources were needed, that might be found in the fact that our author identified the victim of Weishaupt’s lust as the sister-in-law of Zwack. _Cf. ibid._, p. 167.) [513] To Robison’s mind this constituted the crowning infamy of the order. “There is nothing in the whole constitution of the Illuminati that strikes me with more horror than the proposals of Hercules and Minos to enlist women in this shocking warfare with all that ‘is good, and pure, and lovely, and of good report’.... Are not the accursed fruits of Illumination to be seen in the present humiliating condition of women in France? ... In their present state of national moderation (as they call it) and security, see Madame Tallien come into the public theatre, accompanied by other _beautiful_ women, (I was about to have misnamed them Ladies), laying aside all modesty, and presenting themselves to the public view, with bared limbs, _à la Sauvage_, as the alluring objects of desire.... Was not their abominable farce in the church of Notre Dame a bait of the same kind, in the true spirit of Weishaupt’s _Eroterion_?” (Robison, pp. 243, 251, 252.) [514] Robison, _op. cit._, pp. 110–200. [515] _Ibid._, pp. 201 _et seq._ [516] _Ibid._ Although offered to the public with every show of confidence, Robison’s list was largely chimerical. He had depended upon isolated references in the papers of the order, many of which he must have misread. Doubtless in numerous cases he took the _hopes_ of the ambitious leaders of the order as sober statements of fact. The importance of the reference to America will, of course, appear later. [517] _Ibid._, p. 272. [518] _Ibid._, p. 286. [519] _Ibid._, p. 290. [520] Robison, _op. cit._, pp. 315 _et seq._ [521] _Ibid._, p. 322. [522] _Ibid._, p. 321. [523] _Ibid._, p. 317. “All the Archives that were found were the plans and lists of the members, and a parcel of letters of correspondence. The correspondence and other business was managed by an old man in some inferior office or judicatory, who lived at bed and board in Bahrdt’s house for about six shillings a week, having a chest of papers and a writing-desk in the corner of the common room of the house.” (_Ibid._) [524] _Ibid._, pp. 291, 296, 297.