There is nothing new in this theory except the claim of its authors to have produced documentary proof of its final development--that is, of its Jewish aspect. _Quâ_ international conspiracy, it was invented over a century ago, as it has been resurrected to-day, to explain the unfamiliar international character of the prevailing unrest. The clergy and the nobility of the _ancien régime_ were as little capable as the _Morning Post_ to-day of understanding the natural causes of this phenomenon. And yet they were by no means obscure. The French Revolution, as Burke pointed out, was not a mere uprising against local oppression, but a "revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma"[2] which was bound to find echoes beyond the French frontiers. In this respect it resembled the Reformation, and also that other "armed doctrine" which we know as Bolshevism. Nevertheless it puzzled the Bourbon apologists, and, confusing cause and effect, they became convinced that they were in the presence of an international conspiracy. The theory was first propounded by a Superior of the Seminary of Eudists at Caen in 1790,[3] but it was afterwards vastly developed by the Abbé Barruel in his "Mémoires sur le Jacobinisme," by Robison of Edinburgh in his "Proofs of a Conspiracy," and by the Chevalier de Malet in his tedious "Recherches Historiques." Their conclusion was that there was a triple conspiracy of Philosophers, Freemasons, and Illuminati, who formed an actual sect aiming deliberately and methodically at the overthrow of the established religions and governments throughout Europe. It is noteworthy that their researches failed to discern any Jewish element in this conspiracy, though in minuteness of investigation and in the gluttony of their credulity they were by no means inferior to the _Morning Post_, while they had the advantage over that journal of being in close touch with the facts. The theory had a short shrift, though the industry of its authors certainly did much to throw light on the organisation and activities of the secret societies. So far as the Freemasons and Illuminati were concerned, it was easily demolished by the Earl of Moira, who at a meeting of the Grand Lodge of England in 1800 showed convincingly that it was a mare's nest.[4] As for the Philosophers, no one ever took the charge against them seriously. For half a century scarcely anything more was heard of this aspect of the "Formidable Sect," though meanwhile the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 took place. The non-suit of Barruel was _chose jugée_.