The Freemasons in France openly proclaim that they founded the Republic. The scholar and anti-clerical laws since twenty-five years, all the laws, in fact, have been prepared in the lodges. Of this, too, they make no secret. To suppose that the Chambers in any way represent the French nation is an egregious mistake. The lodges prepare the elections; their candidates people both Houses. In my first letter to the _Review_ in 1900 I showed how the abstention of honest laborious Frenchmen from politics had thrown the power into the hands of the Freemasons, who are chiefly Jews, Protestants, and infidels. To-day this coterie of about twenty-five thousand reigns supreme. A few resolute, capable, bigoted Freemasons are the master minds of the coterie; the others, “the bloc,” just follow suit. If a current of reaction set in to-morrow they would glide with it most gracefully. It is simply impossible to retrieve the situation in France to-day by any ordinary legal means. To suppose that the people are in sympathy with the Government because they do not overthrow it implies total ignorance of the situation. The voting machinery of the country is falsified, and can no more be relied on than a clock out of gear, which rings out the hours haphazard. Even if every Frenchman inscribed as a voter did his duty and went to the polls, which they do not, it would make no difference to-day. If death had not cut short Waldeck Rousseau’s career we might witness a _machine en arrière_ policy. It is even possible, now, that a moderate Rouvier-Ribot ministry may succeed the Combes despotism. But I have no confidence in any palliatives. The evil is too deep-seated. Only by blood and anguish can France be redeemed, and the sooner the crisis comes the better; a few years later it may be too late. This is why I desire the denunciation of the Concordat, for with Gambetta, and all his anti-clerical successors, I think it may be the ruin of the Third Republic. Excommunications and interdicts are no longer published as in former days, but they operate nevertheless. And, as in the past, there is always some ruler ready to execute the mandate; though this, too, is not done in the same way. There is not, necessarily, any invasion of territory. Germany and Italy (yes, and England too) are keenly awaiting the moment when they may seize France’s birthright. Both are assiduous in their marks of deference to the Holy See. Victor Emmanuel would gladly evacuate Rome to-morrow if he dared. Thirty-five years are the mere twinkling of an eye in the lives of nations. Yet there are simple-minded people who look upon the Piedmontese occupation of Rome as an immutable fact. FREEMASONRY _December, 1904._ We cannot adequately appreciate the religious and politico-social conditions of countries like Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, unless we take into account the action of Freemasonry in all its ramifications--Carbonari, Grand Orient, Mafia, etc.