共济会历史资料——拿破仑与共济会

共济会历史资料——拿破仑与共济会Freemasonry under the French

First Empire

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Chart of the Bonaparte Masonic

Lodge, c. 1810

Emblem of the Supreme Council

of France /

Receipt of a young woman in a

Lodge of Adoption under the First

Empire

Jean-Jacques Régis de

Cambaceres, Grand Commander of the AASR in France from 1806 to 1821.

Was Napoleon Bonaparte a member

of the Masonic Brotherhood? Multiple hypotheses have been advanced on the subject, and although the probability is high, it has never

been definitely established that he was made a Freemason, either in Valence (French Department Drome), Marseille, Nancy ("St. John of Jerusalem" Lodge, December 3, 1797?), Malta, Egypt or elsewhere.

What is certain is that members

of the expedition he commanded during the Egyptian campaign brought the Freemasonry to the banks of the Nile. General Kleber founded

the "Isis" Lodge in Cairo (was Bonaparte a co-founder?), while Brothers Gaspard Monge (member, among others, of the "Perfect Union" Military Lodge, Mezieres) and Dominique Vivant Denon (a member of Sophisians, "The Perfect Meeting" Lodge, Paris) were among the scholars who would make this strategic and military setback a success that the young General Bonaparte would exploit upon his return to France.

What is also undeniable is

that, beginning with Bonaparte's coup of 18 Brumaire, the

Freemasonry would thrive for 15 extraordinary years, multiplying

the number of lodges and members. The First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, understanding the advantages he could derive from the obedient Freemasonry, invested in these reliable men, hoping to be rewarded with faultless servility. He was not

disappointed.

Freemasonry under the

Consulate

When Napoleon Bonaparte came to

power, a text of nine articles was signed on June 22, 1799 (the

21st day of the third year of the V:. L:. 5799) that unified the

Great Lodge of France (Grande Loge De France: GLDF) and the Great Orient of France (Grand Orient De France: GODF). The text provided for the assembly of archives of both organizations, removed the privileges of the masters of the lodges of Paris, entrenched the

tenure of Worshipful Masters, and established a system of election

of officers. However, some "Scottish" lodges rejected this arrangement.

In 1801, while in Paris,

Brother Jean Portalis ("Friendship" Lodge, Aix-en-Provence)

actively participated in negotiating the Concordat with the Holy

See and drafting the Civil Code with Brothers Jean-Jacques Regis de Cambaceres and Claude-Ambroise Regnier, a page of Freemason history was written on May 31 in Charleston, South Carolina. There, Colonel John Mitchell, a merchant born in Ireland, and Frederick Dalcho, a physician born in London of Prussian parents, "opened the Supreme Council 33° for the United States of America", the first Supreme Council of rite in 33 grades that would take the name Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (AASR) of France. It would announce its creation through a circular distributed "across both hemispheres"

on January 1, 1803.

The Master Masons of the two

great rival systems (Ancients and Moderns) were eligible indiscriminately, regardless of religion (hence perhaps the term "Accepted"). The motto Ordo ab Chao was adopted which, in organizational terms, expressed the desire to create a coherent