page_title: History of Freemasonry in France
section_title: Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: History of Freemasonry in France / Course / 1789 to 1815 / Revolution
caption_attribution_description: It was most likely painted at the beginning of the French Revolution. It symbolizes a reconciliation between the three orders (the third estate, the nobility and clergy), at the entrance of a Masonic hall.
context_page_description: Freemasonry in France has a long and varied history.
context_section_description: After the French Revolution, the Jesuit Augustin Barruel wrote that Freemasons had actively prepared the 1789 revolution, which has been used to back theories of a Masonic plot.  This thesis was often reprised later, notably during the French Third Republic, by Catholic authors (using it to oppose both the Republic and Freemasonry) and by Freemasons (so as to reinforce their pro-Republican stance and their positive image with the Republican government).  In reality, there were Freemasons in both the Republican and monarchical camps.  The Duke of Luxembourg, right-hand man to the Grand Master and moving-force behind the creation of the Grand Orient de France, emigrated in July 1789 and an aristocratic lodge known as "La Concorde" fled from Dijon as early as August 1789.  Having become "Philippe-Égalité", the Grand Master of the Grand Orient himself publicly renounced Freemasonry in 1793 shortly before being executed by guillotine.
  Even though the Grand Orient proclaimed its attachment to the democratic form of government from January 1789 onwards, it was forced to cease its activities by the Terror between 1793 and 1796, and of the nearly 1000 lodges active on the eve of the Revolution only 75 were in a fit state to resume their activities in 1800.  Nevertheless, by their functioning in the years before the Revolution, these lodges had assumed a certain independence from the State and the Church, probably giving rise to new aspirations.  Among active Freemasons in the Revolutionary period were Mirabeau, Choderlos de Laclos and Rouget de l'Isle, writer of the national anthem "La Marseillaise".  In the French Egyptomania which followed their invasion of Egypt in 1799, around 1810 the Rite of Misraïm and "Egyptian" Freemasonry appeared among French troops based in Italy, later spreading to France in 1814.
caption: Nicolas Perseval, The Union of the Three Orders, c. 1789 - The painter has depicted the union of the orders taking place in front of the entrance to a Masonic Temple.
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