Freemasonry In France.

ranee in the sublime knoAvledge , as they increase in age ancl capacity , they shall enjoy the advantages of a unity of selfgovernment , to ensure uniformity of Avorking in the Lodges and Chapters , to maintain harmony Avith foreign Grand Lodges , and to reflect its light in those places where no lodges have yet opened their treasures of wisdom . "

The Grand Orators declare that the Constitutions of the Grand Orient of France are determined as folloAVs This is how tho Grand Orient of France makes its Constitution ! Bro . Grasse-Tilley Avas named special Grand Representative of the Grand

Master ; Bro . Hacquet , Vice-President of the General Grand Chapter ; Bro . Pyron , Orator ; Bro . Thory , Secretary . These Constitutions are too long to be reproduced here , but Ave shall remark on the folloAving articles :

" The Grand Orient of France claims the right to govern in the Giand Chapter General , the Grand Council of the 32 ud degree , and the Sublime Council of the 33 rd degree . Tho attributes of the 33 rd degree , independently of those AA'hicli

belong to its functions , are to occupy itself iu the attainment of the fullest mystic knowlodge and in the regulation of the Avork . It pronounces upon everything that tends to maintain the point of honour . It can suspend an officer of the Grand Orientafter

, complaint and denunciation , which can be made only by brethren of the lodge to which the officer inculpated belongs , in Masonic form . The Sublime Council of the 33 rd degree only can reconsider or revoke its decisions . "

Ihe Supreme Council of the 33 rd degree had therefore disappeared altogether as a Masonic power , like the Grand Consistory of the Princes of the Royal Secret , Rite of Heredom or Perfection . But this situation did not suit Bro . Pyron j he bad failed to carry into effect

the objects of the Act of Union in the session of the Lodge Saint Napoleon , on the 1 st March , 1805 ; and on the 13 th of the same month a judgment of the Grand Chapter General declared that Bro . Pyron had brought against nine officers of the Grand Orient of France a calumnious denunciation and had placed them under accusation . The Sth A pril following , fey a

majority of 69 out of 71 votes , it declared this brother deprived of his dignity of Grand Orator , and erased bis name from the list of officers of the Grand Orien t of France .

A man Avith a spirit of such inquietude could not accept so just a condemnation he intrigued so successfully that , on the Gth September , 1805 , an assembly of Scottish Rite Masons , to the number of 81 , under the presidency of the Grand Administrator-General of the Grand Orient of France

, declared that the Ancient Scottish Rite ceased to be united Avith the Grand Orient , and that the Concordat of the 3 rd day of 10 th month of tho year 5 S 04 would be regarded as non-existant . In general , in order to break a contract concluded

between two bodies , it requires the mutual consent of both parties thereto , or a decision of a superior authority ; this declaration was therefore AA'ithout any proper authority , the more so that since the Act of Hniou the Grand Orient of

France having had to pay the debts of the Supreme Councils , so that it might Avell have been said , not that it had annexed the Ancient Rite , but that it had purchased it . Bro . Pyron forgot to return the money , but , to complete his coup d ' etat , he decided

that Bro . de Grasse-Tilly , Avho Avas but a captain of cavalry , had ceded all his ri ghts to the Illustrious Bro , Cambaceres , Avho Avas created 33 ° , ancl installed on the 13 th AugAist , 1 S 05 , as Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite . What could be done by the Grand

Orient , of which the Duo de Cambaceres Avas Grand Master adjoint , under the Grand Mastership of the king , Joseph Bonaparte . However , a kind of compromise Avas effected in the course of the month of

September , 1805 . It Avas said that the Council of the 32 nd ancl the 33 rd Avould no longer possess any status in the Grand Chapter General , that all the Rites AVOUM be represented by commissioners in the directorate of the united Rites , that the

Grand Orient should confer only the first 18 degrees , ancl that the Supreme Council of the 33 rd degree should have the sole right to administer the degrees from the 19 th to the 33 rd , ancl deliver certificates therefrom . ( To be continued . )