Friends in high places: The favours sought by the freemasons of Orléans, 1890-1914

French History

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 195-212

  Parry, D L L ^a  

^a NONE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 62949233500     PISSN: 02691191     EISSN: 14774542     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/fh/12.2.195     Document Type: Review

References (62)

1. M. Larkin, Religion, politics and preferment in France since 1890 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 119-27
2. Earlier published sources are J. Bidegain, Le Grand Orient de France: ses doctrines et ses actes (1905)
3. 2 99. Documents are indicated by place (GO or BN), name of the carton, then of the dossier (d.), then by the reference number and date given by the GO to the item of correspondence
4. Without referring to favouritism, Jean Faury described the role of freemasonry as a 'structure d'accueil pour ces "nouvelles couches", adeptes des "lumières" et de la foi républicaine, qui ne trouvaient aucune possibilité d'insertion dans le modèle socio-politique défendu par les cléricaux': Cléricalisme et anticléricalisme dans le Tarn, 1848-1900 (Toulouse, 1980), p. 388
5. P. Nord, The republican moment: struggles for democracy in nineteenth-century France (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), esp. pp. 15-30
6. For the city's social composition, see numerous articles by Antoine Prost, such as 'La population d'Orléans en 1911: une enquête d'histoire sociale informatisée', Hist Mesure, 4 (1989), 121-46
7. 2 siècles (Lyon, 1984), pp. 203-22
8. 2 99, d. Véritable Amitié - Correspondance avec le G∴O∴ 1892-9, 5681 (22 Dec. 1892)
9. Doinel published Lucifer démasqué (1895) under the pseudonym of Jean Kostka (reprinted Geneva-Paris, 1983, introduced by Robert Amadou), which attacks masonry as a satanic enterprise; he ended his spiritual wanderings in Gnosticism. See Amadou's introduction, pp. ii-lxvii, and J. Bonnet, 'Jules Doinel. A la recherche d'une église', B S Archéol Hist Orléanais, n.s. 9, no. 75 (1987), 77-80
10. For general accounts of masonry in Orléans: J. Bonnet, 'La franc-maçonnerie orléanaise des origines à 1918', ibid. n.s. 8, no. 57 (1982)
11. and J. Feneant, Franc-maçons et sociétés secrètes en Val de Loire (Chambray, 1986). Pierre Chevallier's Histoire de la Franc-maçonnerie française. III. La maçonnerie: église de la république, 1877-1944 (1975) gives the general background
12. GO Étienne Dolet 1905-7, papers for April-May 1907; GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, papers for March-August 1908 and April 1909. A[rchives] M[unicipales d'] Orléans 1 J 166 and 1 J 401 for municipal and police records
13. 2 99, d. Émules de Montyon - tableaux 1876-84
14. AM Orléans 1 J 166
15. F. Boulard, 'Aspects de la pratique religieuse en France, de 1802 à 1939', Revue Hist Ég, 59, no. 163 (1973), 269-311, esp. p. 298
16. 2 siècle (1964)
17. 7 12317, d. Loiret, for the congregations
18. 2 99, d. Adeptes d'Isis-Montyon, 652 (15 Mar. 1895) (original emphasis)
19. Vazeille resigned from Étienne Dolet in 1906 and Delaunay resigned in 1910. GO Étienne Dolet 1905-7, d. 1906-7, 14973 (3 Nov. 1906); GO Étienne Dolet 1910-11, d. 1910-11, 16942 (19 Oct. 1910)
20. In 1901-3, the Commissaire central was Tomps, the man who convinced Waldeck-Rousseau that Dreyfus was innocent, and consequently a target for right-wing journalists and demonstrators. On one occasion he sent his seconds to an editor; they were de Mendonça and Dr Louis Hyvernaud, who was a municipal councillor, a founding member of the Orléans section of the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme and orateur of Étienne Dolet, 1908-9. P. Sorlin, Waldeck-Rousseau (1966), pp. 411-12; AN AP/305/1, d. Biographie - Boucher à Orléans, 'Journal du Loiret, Affaire Tomps, 1903'
21. GO Étienne Dolet, brouillards, d. Tableaux
22. Larkin, Religion, politics and preferment, pp. 120-2
23. also Headings, French freemasonry, pp. 112-20
24. Capitaine Mollin, La vérité sur l'affaire des fiches (1905), pp. 9-16
25. GO Véritable Amitié 1902, d. 1902, 9252 (11 July 1902), case of Guérinot
26. GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, d. 1908, 1521 (27 Jan. 1908). Balthazard signed this letter in the masonic style
27. There were three soldiers in the Réveil des Émules de Montyon in 1900, and five in Véritable Amitié, 1886-1900 (from the tables detailed in footnote 9)
28. GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, d. 1909, 9500 (16 June 1909)
29. Lepointe: GO Étienne Dolet 1912-18, d. 1912-14, 4400 (10 Mar. 1914); Dayma: GO Étienne Dolet 1905-7, d. 1906-7, 1279? (unreadable) (28 Aug. 1907); GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, d. 1908, 5185 (24 Mar. 1908), 5669 (3 Apr. 1908)
30. Bourgueil: GO Véritable Amitié 1902, d. 1902, 7822 (12 June 1902); de Mendonça: GO Étienne Dolet/Réveil des Émules de Montyon 1902-4, d. Étienne Dolet 1903, 15866 (19 Oct. 1903)
31. Feneant, Franc-maçons, p. 264
32. Bidegain, Grand Orient, p. 137
33. A good example is in GO Étienne Dolet 1912-18, d. 1912-14, 7076 (6 May 1914)
34. GO Véritable Amitié 1902, d. 1902, 12830 (14 Oct. 1902), 14698 (25 Nov. 1902)
35. GO Étienne Dolet/Réveil des Émules de Montyon 1902-1904, d. Étienne Dolet 1903, 2283 (7 Feb. 1903), 8456 (26 Feb. 1903)
36. GO Étienne Dolet 1910-11, d. 1910-11, 16941 (19 Oct. 1910)
37. GO Étienne Dolet 1912-18, d. 1912-14, 13063 (23 Nov. 1914), case of Corporal Houry
38. GO Émules d'Isis-Montyon 1895-1901, d. Réveil des Émules d'Isis-Montyon 1900-1, 9052 (27 Nov. 1900), case of Versin
39. GO Véritable Amitié 1902, d. 1902, 15703 (15 Dec. 1902)
40. This was an unsuccessful request from the Bourse du Travail for wall-maps; Rabier sent a first letter to the Ministry of Commerce instead of Public Instruction, so the second attempt went via the rue Cadet. GO Véritable Amitié 1902, d. 1902, 2816 (22 Feb. 1902)
41. GO Étienne Dolet 1910-11, d. 1910-11, 18488 (26 Dec. 1911)
42. GO Étienne Dolet/Réveil des Émules de Montyon 1902-4, d. Étienne Dolet 1904, 11887 (6 July 1904), 17216 (25 Oct. 1904), 15796 (16 Nov. 1905); GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, d. 1909, 1745 (30 Jan. 1908)
43. GO Véritable Amitié 1902, d. 1902, 12402 (1 Oct. 1902)
44. GO Véritable Amitié 1897-1901, d. 1901, 1335 (29 Mar. 1901)
45. Bonn«, 'Franc-maçonnerie orléanaise', p. 28
46. GO Étienne Dolet 1902-4, d. 1903, 11833 (12 July 1903)
47. GO Étienne Dolet 1902-4, d. 1904, 17601 (3 Nov. 1904), 18681 (19 Nov. 1904). Bonnet mentions that Longaud was also heavily criticized in the affaire des fiches: 'Franc-maçonnerie orléanaise', p. 22
48. GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, d. 1909, 2983 (18 Feb. 1909)
49. GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, d. 1908, 4431 (12 Mar. 1908), case of Dupont
50. 2 99, d. Adeptes d'Isis-Montyon, 4521 (4 Dec. 1891), letters of Keller, 1 Dec. and Gavot, 3 Dec. 1891
51. Vadecard, GO Véritable Amitié 1902, d. 1902, 6397 (9 May 1902); Bidegain, Grand Orient, p. 176
52. Or as Larkin wrote, 'The real power of Masonry lay at the local level': Religion, politics and preferment, p. 119
53. GO Véritable Amitié 1897-1901, d. 1901, 820 (18 Mar. 1901)
54. GO Étienne Dolet/Réveil des Émules de Montyon 1902-4, d. Étienne Dolet 1904, 12307 (12 July 1904)
55. J. Molard, 'Fernand Rabier, un homme politique orléanais', Mémoire de maîtrise (Université d'Orléans, 1985-6), pp. 44-6
56. e République (1966), pp. 216-18
57. For example, Étienne Dolet co-signed a protest against the Fête-Dieu procession of 1906 with two libre pensée associations and four radical, workers' and republican committees. After the Left threatened street-protests, the prefect banned the Fêle-Dieu processions. A[rchives] D[épartementales du] Loiret 4 M 40, d. Orléans, processions 1902-30, esp. letter from 'Les Comités de Gauche d'Orléans' to the prefect, 17 May and decision of the prefect, 15 June 1906
58. GO Étienne Dolet 1908-9, d. 1908, 10350(11 July 1908)(the words are those of the vénérable Bouin); anon., Le lycée, le collège Jeanne d'Arc à Orléans (Orléans, 1985), esp. pp. 55, 65-6, 81
59. GO Véritable Amitié 1885-96, d. 1889-96, 10402 (22 Jan. 1896)
60. V. Wright, 'Les Frères en Lutte: La Franc-maçonnerie du Grand-Orient en Province À la Veille de la Troisième République' (Typescript), Ch. 3.
61. Anon., Souvenir de la vente de charité [...] 1877 à l'Evêché; au profit du cercle catholique d'ouvriers d'Orléans (Orléans, 1877, four-page brochure; AD Loiret, Br. 7044)
62. see also J. Gamier, 'Fernand Rabier et l'assiette de son effigie', B S Archéol Hist Orléanais, n.s. 4, no. 29 (1966), 137-8