Franklin was a regular visitor to Mme Helvétius's salons, and so was the Marquis de Lafayette, who was then a young officer in the French army. Lafayette was also a member of the lodge, Le Contrat Social, itself linked to elitist lodges such as the Société Olympique whose members included other young officers, among them the Count de Chambrun, the Count-Admiral de Grasse, the Count-Admiral d’Estaing and the famous ‘buccaneer’ John Paul Jones. All these men would play important roles later in America in the War of Independence. Indeed it was almost certainly through these Masonic lodges and salons that Franklin's political and commercial agent in Paris, the American Silas Deane, recruited young French officers to help George Washington fight the British. One such officer recruited by Deane, probably through the intermediary of Pierre Beaumarchais, was the Marquis de Lafayette, who was only 19 years old at the time.69
‘Why not?’
The importance of Lafayette in the American Revolution cannot be overstated. Indeed, many Americans today believe that were it not for Lafayette, Washington might have been unable to muster enough military support to defeat the British. Many have also wondered what prompted Lafayette to make such great personal sacrifices for the cause of America. Part of the answer can be found in the motto that he chose for his coat-of-arms: Cur Non?, (‘Why Not?’).70 These two simple words perhaps reveal better than anything else the character of this enterprising and immensely courageous man.
Lafayette, whose full name was Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, was born on 6 September 1757 in Chavaniac, in the Haute-Loire in France. His father, an important general in the army, was killed in battle when Lafayette was only two years old, and his mother was to die eleven years later, leaving the adolescent Lafayette as the sole beneficiary of a huge fortune. True to his descent from a distinguished military family, he enrolled to study at the military academy in Versailles and by the age of 16 became a captain in the Dragoon guards of Louis XVI. At 19 he was introduced to the American agent Silas Deane who, thinking that Lafayette's influential position and financial fortune could be of great use to the American cause, immediately commissioned the young officer to join Washington's Revolutionary army in the colonies.
Lafayette was from the old nobility of France and enjoyed additional connections through his marriage. His father-in-law was the Duke of Ayen, who came from one of the country's wealthiest and most influential families, the Noailles. The Duke of Ayen's father and also his grandfather had held the highest military title, that of Maréchal de France (‘Marshal of France’), and the Duke himself was the captain of Louis XVI’s bodyguards. The Duke's brother, the Count of Noailles, was the French ambassador to England. Not surprisingly, in his letter of recommendation to the American Congress, Silas Deane described Lafayette as being ‘of the first family and fortune [who] … will do us infinite service’. He urged that ‘a generous reception’ be prepared for this young and dashing figurehead upon his arrival in America.
Fired by the excitement of defending ‘Liberty’ in the New Word, and hungry for military glory, Lafayette used his own money to purchase a ship, La Victoire, in order to sail to America with his companions. All this was done in secrecy, for Lafayette had not been granted the required permission from Louis XVI, nor had he received the approval of his powerful and influential father-in-law. However, the Atlantic crossing of La Victoire went without too much trouble, and Lafayette and his team arrived in Georgetown, South Carolina in mid-June 1777. He and six of his companions then made their way inland to Philadelphia, only to find Congress reluctant to endorse the military commissions they had received from Silas Deane in France. But in a passionate speech, Lafayette managed to persuade the congressmen that he would use his own funds and resources. Impressed with such zeal and commitment to their cause, Congress finally agreed to ratify his appointment and, a fortnight later, he was sent to the general quarters of George Washington north of Philadelphia. Legend has it that both men took to each other like brothers. Later, after the war, when Lafayette had returned to France, Washington was to write to him these famous words: Whether you come here in the character of commanding officer of a corps of gallant French, should circumstances lead to that event; whether as an American major general you come to retake command of a division of our army; or whether after the peace you come to see me simply as my friend and my companion, I shall receive you in every case with all the tenderness of a brother.71
In September 1777, riding at the side of Washington, Lafayette fought bravely against the British at the Battle of Brandywine. Wounded, Lafayette was evacuated to Philadelphia, and there witnessed the fall of the city to the British. He was to distinguish himself brilliantly at the Battle of Barren Hill seven months later. All in all Lafayette proved to be a superb officer in the field, and a wise advisor to Washington. His deep friendship with the future first president of the United States, who was 25 years his senior, turned to almost filial adoration. It was, however, Lafayette's catalytic role in the relationship between France and America, and his influence in persuading France to sign a treaty of alliance with Congress against the British early in 1778, that made him a crucial player in the War of Independence.
In 1781 he fought at Washington's side in the decisive Battle of Yorktown, and his brilliant actions largely contributed to the routing of British forces and their surrender to Washington. Now at 24, barely four years after he had arrived in America, the young and debonair Marquis de Lafayette was hailed as ‘Hero of the Two Worlds’ (as Garibaldi would be later) i.e. a hero on both sides of the Atlantic. The huge and lasting impression that Lafayette has had on the American people can be witnessed today with the hundreds of public places and streets that bear his name, including a whole county in Pennsylvania. When 42 years later, in 1824, Lafayette, by now a 33rd degree Freemason, visited America again, he was received as a national hero.
The immense and enduring sense of gratitude of the American people towards this remarkable Frenchman is immortalised in the words of Colonel Charles E. Stanton on behalf of General John J. Pershing, a 33rd degree Freemason, after the liberation of Paris in 1917: ‘Lafayette, we are here!’
Stanton pronounced this ‘brotherly homage’ on 4 July, Independence Day, in the presence of hundreds of Freemasons in front of the tomb of Lafayette at the Picpus Cemetery in Paris.72
The House of the Temple
The 33rd degree system is regulated by the Supreme Council, 33°, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, USA. This elitist Masonic order, with its many ostentatious titles and impressive grades, seems to hold a strong appeal for high-ranking military men and for up-and-coming politicians. Today there are about 40 supreme councils as well as four national lodges around the world, all of which fall under the informal authority of this so-called Mother Supreme Council.
The Mother Supreme Council now has its headquarters in Washington, DC, located at 1733 16th Street, NW. Known as the ‘House of the Temple’, this imposing, neo-classical building is modelled on the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and was designed in 1911 by the famous architect and Freemason John Russell Pope. At the entrance are two imposing ‘Egyptian’ sphinxes symbolising ‘wisdom’ and ‘power’.73 The ‘wisdom’ sphinx has on its breast an image of an Egyptian goddess, probably Isis, and the ‘power’ sphinx has the ancient Egyptian Ankh, the so-called key of life, as well as the uraeus symbol designating the solar pedigree of the pharaohs.
The great door knob of the main entrance of the Supreme Council in Washington, DC is in the shape of a solar-lion, and inside the atrium, which is very reminiscent of an Egyptian temple, are two ‘Egyptian’ statues of seated scribes placed at the foot of a large ceremonial staircase. Each of these statues carries a hieroglyphic inscription which translates as ‘Established to the Glory of God’ and a dedication ‘to the teaching of wisdom to those men working to make a strong nation.’ The staircase leads to a bronze bust of Albert Pike, the most famous of all Scottish Rite Grand Masters to whom the ‘House of the Temp
le’ is dedicated. A plaque above the bust of Pike reads: ‘What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us: What we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.’
Another imposing pseudo-Egyptian motif in the Supreme Council in Washington, DC is the winged glowing triangle that hangs over the altar in the main room of the temple as well as on the ceiling. This is a motif which is, of course, modelled on the winged solar disc common to all ancient Egyptian temples. But more intriguing is the fact that it was Albert Pike himself who confirmed that the so-called Blazing Star that is often seen at the entrance of Masonic lodges, or associated with the Masonic glowing triangle, is none other than the star of Isis, Sirius: The Ancient Astronomers saw all the great symbols of Masonry in the stars. Sirius still glitters in our lodges as the Blazing Star …74
[This star is] an emblem of the Divine Truth, given by God to the first men, and preserved amid all the vicissitudes of ages in the traditions and teachings of Masonry.75
The Blazing Star in our Lodges, we have already said, represent Sirius, Anubis, or Mercury, Guardian and Guide of Souls.76
The Blazing Star or Glory in the centre refers us to that Grand Luminary the Sun, which enlightens the Earth, and by its genial influence dispenses blessings to mankind.77
The Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-Seeing-Eye, which to the Ancients was the Sun.78
He was Sirius or the Dog-Star, the friend and counsellor of Osiris, and the inventor of language, grammar, astronomy, surveying, arithmetic, music, and medical science; the first maker of laws; and who taught the worship of the Gods, and the building of temples.79
When coupled with the claims of Albert Pike regarding Sirius, the star of Isis, the intense pseudo-Egyptian quality of the House of the Temple in Washington, DC, especially the two sphinxes guarding the entrance, immediately brings to mind the two sphinxes and the Isis statue that were designed by Jacques-Louis David for the 1793 celebrations at the Place de la Bastille in Paris, as well as Picot's painting in the Louvre.
Before we examine this curious link further we need to know more about Albert Pike, and why the Washington, DC ‘House of the Temple’ was dedicated to him …
The Blazing Star
Albert Pike is often described by Scottish Rite Freemasons as a poet, trapper, historian, revolutionary, lawyer, politician, army commander, orator, author and philosopher. In short, the Renaissance man par excellence. Born in Boston in 1809, he went to Harvard but dropped out to become a school teacher. He then became a trapper in Arkansas in 1831 but later was somehow admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court. He eventually moved to New Orleans to practice law, then joined the side of the South during the Civil War and was appointed a Confederate commissioner commander, leading Indian tribes. He was court-martialed on dubious charges of fraud, acquitted, and finally opened a law office in Washington, DC.
Pike is best remembered not so much for his colourful career but for having revived the Scottish Rite when he became the Grand Commander of this Masonic order in 1859. He has been dubbed the most ‘famous (or infamous as the case may be) Freemason of his times’. He died peacefully in April 1891 while working at his desk at the Scottish Rite Temple in Washington, DC. Ironically, most of those who become Freemasons today know little, if anything, about him.
Pike joined Freemasonry in 1850 at the Western Star Lodge No. 2, Little Rock, Arkansas, and became a Master Mason in November that same year. In 1859, thus in less than a decade, he rose to the position of Sovereign Grand Master of the Supreme Council, 33°, of the Scottish Rite in the United States and, by definition, the whole world. When Pike joined the Scottish Rite he found the order in tatters, but by the end of his life ‘he left it a stately temple to the dignity and rights of man’ and made it the ‘single most influential body of Freemasonry in the world.’80 His first big task in this amazing reformation of the Scottish Rite was to rewrite and formalise the 33 degree rituals which had much degraded over the years. He then set about the task of providing a ‘foundation literature’ for the Scottish Rite, which entailed writing an opus of 860 pages entitled Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, first published by the Scottish Rite Press in 1871.81 This huge and somewhat baffling book was based on a series of lectures Pike had given, and is divided into 32 chapters to cover all the degrees except the last – the 33rd – which is not a degree as such, but more of a title.
It becomes evident on studying this book that Pike must have conducted an extensive investigation of comparative religion, Cabala, Hermeticism, mysticism, mythology, symbolism and speculative philosophy in general. For the first 60 years or so after it was published, Morals and Dogma, as it is known for short, was compulsory reading for all who joined the Scottish Rite. Yet in spite of its title, the book is not a Masonic manifesto at all, but rather an attempt to provide a historic and mythological framework for Scottish Rite Freemasons. Pike himself made it clear to his readers that they were free to accept or reject what he had written, although his immense reputation at the time meant that his research tended to be accepted without question. Besides, as one modern Masonic writer so correctly remarks about similar dubious historical claims, ‘whether it is true is not the point; the point is that it is claimed to be true.’82
It was in Morals and Dogma that Pike made the association between the Masonic five-pointed ‘Blazing Star’ and the Egyptian star of Isis, Sirius, which is also often depicted as a five-pointed star. Pike strongly opposed the idea held at the time by some Masons that the Blazing Star represents the ‘star of the East’ i.e. the star of Bethlehem: To find in the Blazing Star of five points an allusion to Divine Providence is also fanciful; and to make it commemorative of the Star that is said to have guided the Magi is to give it a meaning comparatively modern. Originally, it represented SIRIUS, or the Dog Star.83
This was not the first time that Sirius had been equated with a Blazing Star. In Homer's Iliad (circa 800 BC) the wrath of the hero Achilles is described as the: … blazing star that comes forth at harvest-time, shining forth amid the host of stars in the darkness of the night, the star whose name men call Orion's Dog [Sirius].84
We also find in Appolonius Rhodius's Argonautica that ‘the Dog-star Sirius was scorching the Minoan Islands from the sky’ Similarly there is a reference in the same text to ‘Sirius rising from Okeanos [Oceanus], brilliant and beautiful but full of menace for the flocks.’85 Aratus speaks of ‘a star that keenest of all blazes with a searing flame and him men call Sirius.’86 Finally Manilius referred to Sirius as ‘the dog with the blazing face.’
So, whatever his faults, it seems that Albert Pike was a very meticulous scholar, and there can be little doubt that he consulted all these classical sources during his research for Morals and Dogma. Indeed, it is known that he had taught himself Latin, Greek and Sanskrit in order to study such ancient texts. We must also conclude that if Pike could easily make the obvious link between the Masonic ‘Blazing Star’ and Sirius, then quite clearly other educated Masons could have arrived at the same conclusion.
Did they?
Thomas Paine's Supreme Being
In 1782, after the surrender of the British at Yorktown, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to France to a huge hero's welcome. He was now ranked as a Maréchal de Camp, and served for a while as a diplomatic aide to Benjamin Franklin in Paris. In 1784 Franklin was joined by Thomas Jefferson, the new ambassador of the United States. In the same year Lafayette went on tour in Germany and met Frederick the Great. Meanwhile Thomas Paine was still in the United States, now poverty stricken and devoting his time to odd ventures like inventing the smokeless candle and designing a pierless iron bridge for the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia.87
Benjamin Franklin had been raised to the position of Grand Master of the Nine Sisters lodge in Paris seven years earlier, and had developed a large network of contacts in France and elsewhere in Europe. It is not so clear whether Thomas Jefferson was a Freemason but
as James W. Beless, a 33rd degree Mason with an interest in this question, so aptly put it: ‘Jefferson may not have been a card-carrying Mason, but his philosophy and actions certainly paralleled Masonic ideals and practices.’88 A report from Dr. Guillotin, a member of the Nine Sisters lodge at the time when Jefferson was in Paris, confirms that Jefferson visited this lodge at least once.89 There is also no doubt that Jefferson was often surrounded by prominent and very active Masons. According to Beless: His son-in-law, Governor of Virginia Thomas M. Randolph, his favourite grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, and nephews Peter and Samuel Carr were all members of Door to Virtue Lodge No. 44, Albemarle County, Virginia. Freemasons such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Lafayette and Jean Houdon were some of his closest associates in Europe. Masons whom he admired in America included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Benjamin Rush, John Paul Jones, James Madison, James Monroe, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark … He had marched in Masonic procession with Widow's Son Lodge No. 60 and Charlottesville Lodge No. 90 on October 6, 1817, at the cornerstone laying of Central College (now the University of Virginia) … The Grand Lodges of South Carolina and Louisiana held funeral orations and processions for him following his death on July 4, 1826 and … a Blue Lodge at Surrey Court House, Virginia, was named Jefferson Lodge No. 65 in 1801.90
While Jefferson was still in Paris, Paine returned to Europe in 1787. He first went to London where he hoped to get support for his iron bridge project. But after the fall of the Bastille in July 1789 he became interested in the French Revolution and began a regular correspondence with Jefferson in Paris.
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