Women and Freemasonry in the Eighteenth Century
Between the lines are perceptible the mutual aid and the brotherhood that exist in this group of Brothers and Sisters , the pleasure they find in coming together , and the esteem in which they hold each other — all things that are familiar to today ’ s Freemasons .
Several letters mention private preoccupations : traveling for business , settling lawsuits , health concerns , fear of childbirth : The second letter is a response to an invitation for Lent that the de Cordaiz family cannot honor , Mme de Cordaiz having to be at Angers on business and being committed to stay there until Passion Sunday . In the third letter , Louët asks for the help of the lawyer Giroust in a lawsuit against a certain Carré . The fifth letter evokes health problems : “ I tell you Dear Faithful , I have taken very ill since I last had the pleasure of seeing you . I have had intermittent fevers , which have severely depleted me , but thanks be to God and to abundant sweats , I have come through them . I hope that it spares you , despite the prodigiously swift course it takes .” The eighth letter , apart from announcing that it contains another letter to be sent , along with the 12 sous cost of mailing it , recounts : “ I shall probably be the first to inform you that madame Maillard was happily delivered last Sunday of a bonny boy who has enchanted us all . The old gossip is as well as can be expected .” In the ninth letter , allusions to another happy event to come , that of Madame Giroust , for whom the letter conveys wishes for a safe outcome . The 11th letter assures Brother Giroust that all the Brothers and Sisters are taking on the sufferings of Mme Giroust , who is about to give birth …
These words give us something of the measure of contemporary concerns around illness and childbirth . Gynecology and obstetrics have as yet made little progress that can be relied on . Doctors have scarcely begun to be conscious of the great risk that an adolescent takes with a pregnancy in a body itself barely formed . They have just begun to show concern that marriage should not take place prematurely : the legal age of marriage for girls is still 12 years old !
The Mystery of the Lodge Clarified a Little Louët de Cordaiz , J . -M . Giroust , and the other members of the lodge cited in the letters belong to the nobility of the province , to the local clergy — they are men of the robe or businessmen , and figure neither in the Masonic directories nor in the dictionaries of persons of national importance . Mabille alone is given as the name of a builder or merchant of the province .
As to the reality of female Masonic life in the region in the eighteenth century , we know for certain that three lodges of adoption were registered in Anjou : La Ferveur Eclairée Climat 37 Lodge at Loches , which would become Les Coeurs Unis in 1777 according to the orders of the GO that it should carry the same name as the men ’ s lodge ; L ’ Union Parfaite Climat at Orléans created in 1784 ; L ’ Union des Familles Climat at Saumur created in 1786 . 38 All three are officially posterior to the date when our letters were written .
What can we conclude about this lodge at Longué ? It poses , once more , the thorny question of women ’ s presence in the lodge in the early Enlightenment era . Must it be consigned to para-masonry ? The crimson trimming on the white gloves may bring to mind a link with Sweden and the Order of the Amaranth , thus leading us to this conclusion . But the tone of the letters and the installation of the Beaufort lodge point toward Freemasonry . This trimming could also very well have been the trace of an
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 37 At the Rite of Adoption , one said “ Climat ” rather than “ Orient .” 38 Jacques Fénéant , “ Les loges d ’ adoption ,” in Franc-maçonnerie et societies secretes en
Val de Loire , 47-48 .
16 !