Louis Amiable, a Grand Orient officer, wrote in his 1897 history of the Paris lodge Les Neuf Soeurs that men 'au premier rang parmi les acteurs du grand drame révolutionnaire' joined it late: Sieyès, Bailly, Petion, Rabaut-Saint-Étienne, Brissot, Cérutti, Fourcroy, Camille Desmoulins and Danton. For most of these he claims only 'sinon certitude absolue, du moins grande probabilité', because the names come from the counter-revolutionary Barruel's list, which he judges reliable where he could check it against Grand Orient records. The source's broader 'many leaders were Freemasons' is not established; the Grand Orient's own history says many Masons left the lodges once the Revolution began.
Evidence
| Relation | Record | Note |
|---|
| documents | archive.org | Louis Amiable, Une loge maçonnique d'avant 1789: la R.·. L.·. Les Neuf Soeurs (Paris, 1897), Introduction (list of revolutionaries) and pp. 247-250 ('Adeptes des Neuf Soeurs': 22 names from Barruel, 'sinon certitude absolue, du moins grande probabilité'). Internet Archive OCR. |
Sources
Ties
Tied from
Claim
Louis Amiable, a Grand Orient officer, wrote in his 1897 history of the Paris lodge Les Neuf Soeurs that men 'au premier rang parmi les acteurs du grand drame révolutionnaire' joined it late: Sieyès, Bailly, Petion, Rabaut-Saint-Étienne, Brissot, Cérutti, Fourcroy, Camille Desmoulins and Danton. For most of these he claims only 'sinon certitude absolue, du moins grande probabilité', because the names come from the counter-revolutionary Barruel's list, which he judges reliable where he could check it against Grand Orient records. The source's broader 'many leaders were Freemasons' is not established; the Grand Orient's own history says many Masons left the lodges once the Revolution began.