That the Illuminati and other hidden Cosmo-political societies had some influence in bringing about the French Revolution, or at least in accelerating it, can hardly be doubted. In reading the secret correspondence, I was always surprised at not finding any reports from France, and something like a hesitation about establishing a mission there; nor am I yet able thoroughly to account for it. But there is abundant evidence that they interfered, both in preparing for it in the same manner as in Germany, and in accelerating its progress. Some letters in the Brunswick Journal from one _Campe_, who was an inspector of the seminaries of education, a man of talents, and an _Illuminatus_, put it beyond doubt. He was residing in Paris during its first movements, and gives a minute account of them, lamenting their excesses, on account of their imprudence, and the risk of shocking the nation, and thus destroying the project, but justifying the motives, on the true principles of Cosmo-politism. The Vienna Zeitschrift and the Magazine of Literature and Fine Arts for 1790, and other pamphlets of that date, say the same thing in a clearer manner. I shall lay together some passages from such as I have met with, which I think will shew beyond all possibility of doubt that the Illuminati took an active part in the whole transaction, and may be said to have been its chief contrivers. I shall premise a few observations, which will give a clearer view of the matter. CHAP. IV. _The French Revolution._ During these dissensions and discontents, and this general fermentation of the public mind in Germany, political occurrences in France gave exercise and full scope for the operation of that spirit of revolt which had long growled in secret in the different corners of that great empire. The Cosmo-political and sceptical opinions and sentiments so much cultivated in all the Lodges of the _Philalethes_ had by this time been openly professed by many of the sages of France, and artfully interwoven with their statistical economics. The many contests between the King and the Parliament of Paris about the registration of his edicts, had given occasion to much discussion, and had made the public familiarly acquainted with topics altogether unsuitable to the absolute monarchy of France.