THE CRAFT GUILDS OF FRANCE.
1/8
CHAPTER
IV.
THE CRAFT GUILDS {CORPS U^TAT) OF FRANCE.
It
somewhat remarkable that French Masonic writers have not been tempted to
seek the origin of the institution in their own past history, and in tlie traditions
is
and usages
own
of their
German
hind.
authors, from Fallou onwards, have seized
circumstance, every chance coincidence, tending to show a
in the chain of evidence,
^^f) German origin of Freemasonry, and when a link was wanting
r have not scrupled either to forge one, even to the extent of inventing ceremonies,^ or
And yet,
to placidly accept, without inquiry, the audacious inventions of their predecessors.
'%.
upon every
trifling
combination of the history of the French trade guilds with that of the
Companionagc,^ a much better case might be made out than the Steinmetz theory, requiring
for its complete establishment no deliberate falsification of history, as in the former instance,
by a
judicious
but only a slight amount of faith in some very plausible conclusions, and natural deductions
from undoubted facts.
glimmering of this possibility does occasionally manifest itself.
An anonymous pamphlet of 1848 casually remarks, " Let us point out the community of
A
origin
which unites the
Another writer
says,
—
"
—
societies
Companionage with that of the Freemasons."^
of the
The moment we begin
to reflect,
we
are quickly led in studying the
*
Companionage and Freemasonry have one common origin."
and one English one,^ make similar allusions, but without
facts to the conclusion that the
Many
other
French
writers,
attaching any importance to the subject, or proceeding any further with it treating, in fact,
the journeymen societies of France as a speciee of poor relations of the Freemasons as some;
what disreputable hangers-on
to the skirts of
Two French
Freemasonry.
—
authors are more
Thory, writing many years before those quoted above, gives a very slight sketch of
explicit.
the Companionage, and remarks, " some authors have maintained that the coteries of working
masons gave
rise to the order of
identity of these authors,
and
I
Freemasons."
-
Ante,
Les Compagnons du Devoir,
^
C.
^
England only restored
This word has no English equivalent, and
^
'
"
p. 7.
*
I
have therefore coined one.
C. G. Siiiion,
Etude Historique
Heckethorn, The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries,
C. A. Thory, Acta Latomorum, p. 301.
J. C.
to her
what she had
p. 151.
Comparjiwnjiagc.
W.
U