[20] I cannot help observing, that it is perfectly similar to the arrangement and denominations which appear in the secret correspondence of the Bavarian Illuminati. I see more evidence of these important facts in another book just published by an emigrant gentleman (Mr. Latocnaye). He confirms my repeated assertions, that all the irreligious and seditious doctrines were the subjects of repeated harangues in the Mason Lodges, and that all the principles of the Revolution, by which the public mind was as it were set on fire, were nothing but enthusiastic amplifications of the common-place cant of Free Masonry, and arose naturally out of it. He even thinks "that this _must of necessity_ be the case in every country where the minds of the lower classes of the State are in any way considerably fretted or irritated; it is almost impossible to avoid being drawn into this vortex, whenever a discontented mind enters into a Mason Lodge. The stale story of brotherly love, which at another time would only lull the hearer asleep, now makes him prick up his ears, and listen with avidity to the silly tale, and he cannot hinder fretting thoughts from continually rankling in his mind." Mr. Latocnaye says expressly, "That notwithstanding the general contempt of the public for the Duke of Orleans, his authority as Grand Master of the Masons gave him the greatest opportunity that a seditious mind could desire for helping forward the Revolution. He had ready to his hand a connected system of hidden Societies, protected by the State, habituated to secrecy and artifice, and already tinged with the very enthusiasm he wished to inspire. In these he formed political committees, into which only his agents were admitted. He filled the Lodges with the French guards, whom he corrupted with money and hopes of preferment; and by means of the Abbe Sieyes, and other emissaries, they were harangued with all the sophistical declamation, or cant of Masonry." Mr. Latocnaye says, that all this was peculiar to the Lodges of the Grand Orient; but that there were many (not very many, if we judge by the Neuwied almanac, which reckons only 289 in all France in 1784, of which 266 were of the Grand Orient) Lodges who continued on the old plan of amusing themselves with a little solemn trifling. He coincides with Mr. Lefranc in the opinion that the awful and gloomy rituals of Masonry, and particularly the severe trials of confidence and submission, must have a great tendency to harden the heart, and fit a man for attrocious actions. No one can doubt of this who reads the following instance: