Ritual , Secrecy , and Civil Society
pares them with traditional male lodges . The lodges of adoption seemed to serve a variety of social and political purposes , the extent of which one can only guess given the secret nature of the lodges ; the clues are in the membership rosters and rituals .
Masonry reflected the variety in the nobility itself ; the lodges of adoption manifested that same variety . Some male lodges were composed of a relatively new nobility very jealous of its prerogatives ; in cities with a parlement , certain lodges tended to serve as congregation points for government officials , and these were the institutions that generally sponsored lodges of adoption . Many military lodges had lodges of adoption . These military lodges were often closely allied with the Parisian lodges ; their members were established nobles stationed in various parts of France , trying to set up a pleasant society in their outposts and ward off their boredom . Other lodges of adoption existed in small towns with a mixed membership serving a primarily social function . In Paris the lodges reflected the interest in freemasonry of the Court nobility and also the desire for men and women of letters to assemble under the masonic banner . These latter were the most illustrious lodges of adoption . In them were felt , within masonry , the full force of both the Enlightenment and the life at Court . The Loge des Neufs-Soeurs , to which Voltaire belonged , was a philosophical lodge ; its lodge of adoption was presided over for a few years by Mme . Helvétius , herself an Enlightenment spirit . One may reasonably assume that the attraction to the lodges of adoption for these people was the emphasis on Enlightenment ideals and the opportunity to gather under that banner in an exclusive society .
For the high society in other lodges of adoption , the attraction is not immediately obvious . On the roster of the Loge de la Candeur appear all the names of people who ranked high in Court circles . In the Esquisse des travaux d ’ adoption of 1778 , the brothers listed were virtually all military officers of very high rank . Among the fifty-one regular members were twenty-three counts , thirteen marquises , one duke , two viscounts , two barons and seven knights . The sisters were even more illustrious ; only one on the list of thirty-one did not have a title . 2 The next year , the number of members had dropped slightly , but the ranks represented were as high as in 1778 . 3 The lodge had its most important moment of recognition in 1777 when the Grand Master , the Duke de Chartres , his wife the Duchess de Chartres , his sister the Duchess de Bourbon , and the Princess de Lamballe visited the lodge . The Viscount le Veneur fairly overflowed with joy in his written reminiscences of the occasion : “ What a sight to behold ! What a majestic spectacle !” 4 The Duke de Chartres initiated his wife and his sister . 5 Shortly thereafter the Duchess de Bourbon became the Grand Mistress of the Lodges of Adoption in France . It is these highborn women in the Loge de la Candeur who , perhaps more than any other women masons , caused masonic historians to consider lodges of adoption frivolous . Devoted masonic writers questioned the sincerity
2
Esquisse des travaux d ’ adoption ( n . c .: n . p ., 1778 ) pp . 43-46 .
3
Seconde esquisse des travaux d ’ adoption ( n . c .: n . p ., 1779 ), pp . 40-43 .
4
Ibid ., p . 14
5
Jan Snoek posits an earlier initiation date for the duchesses based on the date of the installation of the Duke of Chartres as Grand Master ( October 1773 ) and the date the Duchess de Bourbon took over as Grand Mistress of the Lodges of Adoption in France ( May 1775 ) in a ceremony in the adoption lodge “ Saint Antoine .” He has no positive documentation for this as-yet-unidentified date .
4