In the preceding books, we traced the mysteries of irreligion and immorality up to their source, and stripped the secret doctrine of the Ismailites of the mask of pretended sanctity, under which it concealed itself from the eyes of the people. A doubt may, perhaps, have arisen in the minds of our readers, whether we have not scrutinized the system of the order too closely; and whether, as it was constantly kept secret, it may not have been somewhat slandered by the uninitiated and its enemies. The effects of the secret doctrine had, indeed, manifested themselves in the bloody traces of the dagger; nevertheless, these multiplied horrors might, perhaps, be attributed to accident, or private feuds, rather than to a regular system of infidelity and homicide. Even in our own days, the secret doctrines of many degenerate orders has been lauded as pure and innocent, although their results have appeared in the crimes of regicide and rebellion. The Jesuits and the illuminati, though otherwise opposed as to their spirit—the former protecting, the latter undermining, thrones—have both been accused of profligate doctrines: the former, of permitting the killing of popes and kings; and the latter, of dispensing with thrones and religion. In the writings of individual members, the maxim may be found, that it is lawful to kill kings, and to strangle the last of them with the intestines of the last priest: these horrors, however, were never publicly taught, or acknowledged by the order at large. The regicide, imputed by Pombal to the Jesuits, and the poisoning of Ganganelli, have not been sufficiently proved; and even were this the case, the Jesuits have as little confessed the guilt of Malagrida, as have the Illuminati approved of Jean de Brie’s proposition of establishing a propaganda of Assassins. As little is the secret doctrine of the Templars convicted of profligacy, by the confessions wrung from them by the torture; and if they have been accused of it by cotemporary writers, others, of later date, have, on the other hand, defended them.