A strong reaction of disgust and terror at the satanic orgies of Freemasonry in the ascendant, moderated for a while this shout of triumph. But in the disasters inflicted on France by the conquering Germans, the “craft” thought to find a recurring opportunity. If the Communist attempt at Paris in 1871 was not originally planned by the Freemasons, they openly and officially joined it. “A procession composed of at least five thousand persons, in which members of all the grades took part, wearing their insignia, and in which one hundred and fifty lodges of France were represented, wended its way to the town hall of Paris. Maillet, bearing the red flag as a token of universal peace, headed the band, and openly proclaimed, in a speech which met with the approval of all present, that the new Commune was the antitype of Solomon’s temple and the corner-stone of the social fabric about to be raised by the efforts of the craft. The negotiations carried on with the government of Versailles on behalf of the socialists, and the way in which they planted the banners of the craft on the walls of the capital, accompanying this action with a threat of instantly joining the ranks of the combatants if a single shot were fired at one of those banners (of which a graphic account appeared in the _Figaro_ at the time), was all of a piece with the sentiments they expressed” (_The Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_, p. 172). _Figaro_ closed its account of these strange events with the following reflections: “But when posterity shall be informed that in the middle of the XIXth century, in the midst of an unbelieving generation, which openly denied God and his Christ, under the very guns of an enemy in possession of all the French fortresses, hostilities were all at once suspended, and the course of a portentous and calamitous civil war interrupted because, forsooth, Brother Thirifoque, accompanied by two Knights Kadosch, went to offer to M. Thiers’ acceptance the golden mallet of supreme command (in the craft)--when, I say, this story is told to those who come after us, it will sound in their ears as a nursery tale, utterly unworthy of credence.”[35] In _Révélations d’un Franc-maçon au lit de mort, pièce authentique, publicé, par_ M. de Hallet (Courtrai, 1826, p. 10), we find the following: “We must restore man to his primeval rights, no longer recognizing rank and dignity--two things the mere sight of which offends the eye of man and wounds his self-love. Obedience is a mere chimera, and has no place in the wise plans of Providence.”