Freemasonry In France.

FREEMASONRY IN FRANCE .

BY BRO . J . H . GABALL . ( Continued from page 325 . ) T HE ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE , OR RITE OF GRAND INSPECTORSGENERAL OF THE 33 ° .

IN a pamphlet Avhich the Supreme Council could not repudiate , Bro . Piron , Avho called himself Chancellor of the Holy Empire , has published the following remarks : — " The Ancient and Accepted Scottish

Rite Avas , at the date of 1762 , composed of only 25 degrees , of Avhich the last Avas the Valiant and Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret . These 25 degrees were practised throughout France . "In 1786 Frederick ILKing of

, , Prussia , Sovereign of Sovereigns of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite , and Grand Master , Successor of the Kings of England aud Scotland , foreseeing that his

days Avould not be of much longer duration , wished to consolidate for ever the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite , for Avhich he had a particular regard . He desired to invest each state ancl empire in Avhich it Avas practised the poAver necessary to liberate it from the trammels with which it was bound

on the part of that brutal ignorance Avhich attempted to change everything , or from the ambitious pretensions of some other systems , or , finally , from a destructive pre-eminence rejected on the principle of universal equality and reciprocalintolerance ,

which Avould have the effect of converting the different Masonic systems into a single branch emanating from the same tree . " In consequence , Frederick IL , personally presiding on the 1 st May , 1786 , over the Supreme Council , by the aid of Avhich he

ruled and governed the Order , raised to S 3 degrees the hierarchy of 25 degrees consecrated by the Grand Constitutions of 1762 . " It is this Rite of 25 degrees also , perfected amendedcorrectedancl augmented

, , , , which the Comte de Grasse-Tilley , calling himself Grand Inspector General , imported mto France in 1804 , and on behalf of which he made , Avith the veritable Rite of Jmrecloin , the treaty previousl y mentioned .

The Scottish Lodge of the Philosophic Rite obligingly lent him its lodge rooms until the time Avhen the proceedings of Roettiers de Montaleau and of Bro . Piron produced the Concordat , which was signed on the Sth December , 1804 .

" We have not here to enquire hoAv the Scottish Rite of Perfection united itself Avith the Rite of Perfection established by Frederick ; how the Comte de Grasse-Tilly procured the Constitutions signed by the King of Prussiain 1876 and which

, , no one in France or in Prussia had any knoAvledge of in 1804 ; it will suffice us to know that the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite exists , that it has accomplished in the world a development—owing to the principles of Avhich it Avas the propagator

—like all other masonic bodies . Whatever may have been its origin , we Avish to establish but one thing , that is that the Council of the 33 degrees was annexed to the Grand Orient in 1804 , and that this last is still , as it always has been , the sole Supreme Council regularly constituted in France .

"When the Concordat , which was signed on the Sth day of the 19 th month of the year 5804 , the duplicate minute remained ( we know not why ) in the care of Bro . Piron , Commissioner of the Supreme Council , and it Avas but the first day of the first month of the year 5805

sum-, moned by the Lodge Saint Napoleon , of which he Avas the Orator , consented to read it , and to alloAV a copy to be taken . " This act bears the folloAving construction : — - 'The Grand Orient of France , regularly assembled under the Geometrical

Point , knoAvn only to Freemasons , desiring them to participate , not only with those lodges composed in the circle , of which it is the centre , but still procuring a certain and distinguished acknowledgment in all the lodges on the surface of the earth . '

" ' Thinking that it could include in one constellation all the masonic lights , and thus embrace the generality of the rite , it declared that it united itself to all the

brethren of whatever rite they mi ght belong to . '" Here closes the version given by Bro . Piron in his pamphlet . He purposel y suppresses the remainder ; " In order that in the future all Masons should instruct themselves without hind-