A Tale Of Illuminism.

A TALE OF ILLUMINISM .

BY CAPELLANUS . THOSE of us who have liked to linger amid the strange and startling literature of the French Revolution of the last century , have waded through countless memoirs , curious-pamphlets , the dry records of the Moniteur , or the high-spiced contributions of contemporary journalismare well aware

, from numerous hints and as many direct assertions of the existence of a society of " Illumines , " au " occult association , " which affected to impart absolute light ancl wisdom , and to undertake ancl complete the " regeneration of humanity . " Many of us have made collections of this mystic school , and many of us may have studied numerous works in the Grande Libraire at Paris ; but perhaps few of us have realized what a strange , what a curious

" paradox " is introduced in the fact itself . The unbending autocracy of Louis XIV ., the impiety of Cardinal Dubois , the profligacy of the Regent Orleans , the hopeless cynicism and sybaritism of Lonis XV ., the sneers of the Engclopedists , and the affectation of the " Es 2 irit Libres " in French society , had , as Horace Walpole points out , so far back as 1775 left the upper' classes ancl the masses unbelieving and mocking , the clergy corrupt and powerless ,

and a mixture of impiety and superstition seemed to pervade all classes and to dominate all minds . Hence , as we know , the deluge of quasi-mystical and hermetic books which inundated France in the middle of" the last century ; hence the deep interest manifested by those " mocking , unbelieving spirits " in all that was mystical , occult , hypernatural , and incredible . " The " credulity of the incredulous " never was before more strikingl

y displayed . Ancl thus it was that " Illuminism " found an easy access and ready dupes . It was mysterious ancl mystic , occult and optimist ; it professed alike to impart all "light , " and to jierfect the regenerated of humanity . What form it actuall y took in Paris is not accurately known , whether , following an older prototype , the Egyptian charlatanism of Cagliostro , it was "Androgyne , " does not seem quite clear , though some have thought so .

Its parent stem in Bavaria was not , as far as is known , Androgyne ; but , as in Paris for some time the union of the two sexes had been very close , and some of the greatest professing " Illumines" were ladies , it is just possible that the ancient traditions of the " Mopses " and the sympathetic teaching of the "Maconnerie d'Adoption" had led to a common developement of "Androgyne Illuminism . " Luckily for us allthe veil of time has cast over the " Illumines " the

, dimness of doubt and the vagueness of distance , and what is more fortunate for the world in which we live , " Illuminism " is a thing of the past , altogether forgotten and disowned by men . We only know that it did exist ; of the conditions of its being and the " routine of its labours " we for our own good have but very little clear or correct information . From the hints of some writers , from the accounts of others , from forgotten pamphlets ancl

ignominious fly sheets , we seem to gather that at one time Mirabeau was at its head , and that such men as Lavau , Lavoisier , Robespierre , Restif de la , Bretonne , Cazotte , and Fouquier Touville , and many more were members . It has been asserted that D'Alembert and Diderot , Voltaire , and the Abbe Voisenon , the Due de Choiseuil , the Chevalier de Castellane , and Chenier , Trudaine , Mercier , ancl the Comte de Narbonne , the Abbe Seiyes , Talleyrand , and Matthieu cle Montmorency ; ancl such " Dames Illumines " as the Duchess de Luynes , the Countess de Laval , the Duchess cle Mailly , and the