The Universal League of Freemasons ( ULF )
Peace Prize , and after the war , he participated in a number of international associations with the aim of preserving peace and he fought for the development of international law . He died in 1943 .
The archives that have been conserved shed important — and unpublished — light on his many activities and on the ULF , which could not fail to interest him . He was in fact an early Esperantist , a mason who supported a masonry opened naturally to all brothers and all sisters 11 and ... a pacifist internationalist . These documents , which are certainly incomplete , represent , alongside the official and press debates , the only ones that enable us to deepen our understanding of the organization ’ s goals and of what a mason — albeit a unique one — could expect by joining it . They also give us a clearer insight into international masonic relations , which were never simple , as demonstrated by the letter that La Fontaine sent to Uhlmann on August 11 , 1927 :
In a few hours , I will be leaving for Rio de Janeiro and will only return on October 8 , too late to attend the event on October 1 and 2 in Basel . I completely agree with you that individual masons should act alongside the AMI . I have on various occasions suggested that the AMI should regularly call an international convent ( annual general meeting ) in which the lodges would be directly represented , since the delegates of the Grand Orient only represent quite imperfectly what the great majority of brothers think . I agree with you and you can sign me up for the International League of Freemasons . I only have one remark , that German seems predominant in the names mentioned on your circular . I am sincerely pleased , but one must always account for those who see some ulterior motive in any gesture made by the Germans to use an organization like ours to modify the moral situation in which they find themselves placed by their inarguable adhesion to imperialist politics before the war . Our German brothers must therefore show some measure in the role that they could play in our institution . [ ... ]
This letter is revelatory of the weight of the recent past , because La Fontaine delves into the question of German masons and their adherence “ to the imperialist politics ” of the government of their country . And it does not mention the behavior they adopted during the war when they showed no qualms in turning a blind eye to the violence carried out against the Belgian civilian population and the incarceration of the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Belgium , Charles Magnette . A decade after the end of the war , La Fon-
11 The secular La Fontaine was an avowed feminist , and a member of multiple associations . Although he had been initiated into the Grand Orient of Belgium , the mason La Fontaine promoted the introduction of Le Droit Humain into his country in 1911 , before becoming a member of it in 1925 .
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