Freemasonry in the French Third Republic

The determination of Freemasonry to achieve its goals of free thought, secularization, and social progress, as well as its involvement in political crises or scandals that directly affect Masonic orders or individual members, has resulted in numerous grievances and hostilities.

Nationalist and ultraconservative Catholic factions exploited the circumstances of the fall of the Third Republic, the onset of collaboration following the 1940 defeat, and the rise of the Vichy regime to suppress Freemasonry and discriminate against its members.

[C 2] During this period, the majority of members of the Grand Orient of France were drawn from the petite and middle bourgeoisie, including artisans, merchants, lawyers, journalists, and teachers, in addition to a few businessmen, engineers, and civil servants.

The newspaper La Justice, which was directed by Georges Clemenceau (not a Freemason), promoted the party's program, which included the separation of church and state, income tax, and constitutional reform as its main objectives.

The Grand Orient's political action, still within the framework defined by the 1893 convention, involved the introduction of reform themes studied in the lodges, which were then implemented through votes in parliamentary assemblies by elected members.

[C 8] In Manuel d'histoire de la franc-maçonnerie française [Manual of the History of French Freemasonry], Gaston Martin [fr] offers a critique of the hierarchical method employed by the Order, which he characterizes as a system of a "consultative committee of the Republic."

The Masonic publication La Chaîne d'Union [fr] published several articles proposing the establishment of a national organization for the provision of assistance to children, the sick, the disabled, and the elderly.

The culmination of the work from several lodges, including that of Antoine Blatin, a staunch proponent of proportional representation, led the 1898 Grand Orient Convent to put the adoption of this electoral system to a vote.

[P 12] This legislation was notably permissive with regard to associations and markedly restrictive with respect to congregations, which were subjected to an exceptional regulatory framework imposing a series of constraints, intricate authorizations, and monitoring.

[2] From the 1890s onward, the new social doctrine of the Church, promoted by Pope Leo XIII through the encyclical Rerum Novarum, was perceived by Freemasons as a potential threat to liberty and democracy, with the capacity to jeopardize the future of the Republic.

[C 22] In the wake of Victor Courdevaux's writings and the numerous lectures he delivered at the lodge on the "political claims of the Church", other figures joined the fray, engaged in the fight for the secularization of the country's institutions.

Some were more radical in their approach, extending their critiques to encompass all religions, including Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant, despite the tacit alliance between liberal Protestantism, led by Ferdinand Buisson or Frédéric Desmons, and Freemasonry.

Émile Combes, the President of the Council [fr], who was an ardent proponent of anticlerical legislation, held the view that the French populace was not yet prepared for the dissolution of the existing religious structures.

While the 18th-century papal bulls were not strictly adhered to by the regimes in power, which maintained a certain degree of neutrality, Pope Pius IX's speech before the College of Cardinals on September 25, 1865, made public on October 6, represents a renewed campaign against Freemasonry.

In response, the Order has taken action, petitioning the Minister of the Interior and Religious Affairs when a sermon in a place of worship during priestly functions was deemed to "incite hatred by turning citizens against one another.

[R 3] In a personal statement published in the Boulangist daily L'Intransigeant, Frédéric Desmons, president of the Grand Orient's council, articulated his affinity for the tenets of republican Boulangism and endorsed the notion of a divinely appointed leader.

[R 3] However, this private missive, which was not initially intended for a public audience, provides moral support to the National Protest Committee in response to critics who express concern about its increasingly authoritarian tendencies.

The only official reaction to the affair comes from the Grand Orient of France, which issues a statement clarifying that Alfred Dreyfus, a member of the obedience, is a peaceful merchant with no relation to the individual known as "the traitor."

[M 60] In the aftermath of the scandal that erupted in the Chamber of Deputies [fr] on October 29, 1904, and after determining the consequences of what it saw as a document theft by the "traitor Bigedain", the Grand Orient de France published a manifesto in response.

In response to the campaign initiated by monarchist and clerical forces, which denounces a "system of denunciation", the Freemasons of the Grand Orient assert that their actions represent "small measures contributing to saving the Republic from its eternal enemies."

[M 66] Nevertheless, despite the considerable presence of Freemasons in the political process of colonization or its expansion, the influence of the Grand Orient de France and other obediences on the policy pursued by the Ministry of the Overseas was, in fact, minimal.

While the majority of the topics discussed were analogous to those in the metropolitan areas, some were unique to the local context, including the living conditions of the indigenous populations, their naturalization, the appropriation of land by large capitalist companies, and the access of women to education.

[13] The Law of Three Years [fr], which aimed to enhance the military capabilities of the French Army in the context of the impending World War I, became a subject of contention between disparate interpretations of national defense during a period of mounting tensions with Germany.

These regimes prohibited Freemasonry, leaving members of French Masonic orders, who perceived the "rising dangers", with the necessity to take definitive action to resist the onslaught of anti-Masonic currents.

However, the advent of World War II, the defeat of the French army, and the collapse of the Republic provided adversaries of Masonic orders with an opportunity to inflict what they hoped would be decisive blows.

In 1913, the aforementioned lodges formed a Masonic body and founded the Grande Loge Nationale Indépendante et Régulière pour la France et les colonies, which was based on the L'Anglaise 204 from Bordeaux.

Following numerous debates on the admissibility of women, which frequently disrupted the Grand Orient lodges and never obtained a favorable opinion, it was not until 1921 that the main Masonic body recognized the mixed order and established amicable relations.

The Rite incorporated this sensibility during the rewriting of several high degrees, conducted by Oswald Wirth and Albert Lantoine [fr] at the behest of the Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, René Raymond, who was the founder of Thébah and a member of the Cosmic Movement.

The revised version of the ritual, which was disseminated widely only after World War II, revived an original Masonic tradition, wherein the practice of ancient procedures and symbolic work was reintroduced after nearly a century of eclipse.

These marginal but highly active lodges maintained relations with occult circles, such as those led by Dr. Gérard d'Encausse, known as "Papus", the founder of a Martinist and para-Masonic order that lasted for approximately thirty years.