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Post by Tamrin on Sept 28, 2008 9:13:57 GMT 10
Madame de Xaintrailles Referring to Dudley Wright's, Woman and Freemasonry, (available online at Phoenix Masonry), we read, p.82): Madame de Xaintrailles, the wife of General de Xaintrailles, was a member of an Adoptive Lodge, and it is said that she was afterwards initiated into Craft Masonry. This event is said to have occurred at the close of the eighteenth century, but the whole story rests entirely upon tradition. The story is told by Clavel in his Historie Pittoresque de la FrancMafonnerie, but neither date nor place is mentioned:
"Although the rule which forbids women admission to Lodges is absolute, yet it has once been infringed under very remarkable circumstances. The Lodge of Les Freres Artistes, presided over by Bro. Cuvelier de Trie, was giving a fête d'Adoption. Before the introduction of the ladies the Brethren had begun their ordinary work. Among the visitors who were waiting in the ante‑chamber was a young officer in the uniform of a Major of cavalry. He was asked for his certificate. After hesitating a few moments he handed a folded paper to the Senior Deacon, who, without opening it, proceeded to take it to the Orator. This paper was an aide‑de‑camp's commission issued to Madame de Xaintrailles, wife of the General of that name, who, like the Demoiselles de Fernig and other Republican heroines, had distinguished herself in the wars of the Revolution and had won her rank at the point of the sword. When the Orator read to the Lodge the contents of this Commission the astonishment was general. They grew excited and it was decided unanimously that the bearer should be admitted at once into the Order. Madame de Xaintrailles was acquainted with the decision of the Lodge and asked if she would accept the hitherto unprecedented favour. Her reply was in the affirmative. 'I am a man for my country,' she said, 'I will be a man for my Brethren.'; The initiation took place, and from that time Madame de Xaintrailles often assisted in the work of the Lodge." In A.E. Waite's, A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, 1996 (org.1921), Wings Books, New York) he adds, (p.19): The Rev. A.F.A. Woodford, Past Grand Chaplain of England, says that he fails to see how the French Brethren were to blame, or how they could have done otherwise under the circumstances. We who know the heroism of English womanhood—not to speak of other peoples—in the adjourned war of the world cannot help speculating humourously what might have been done by himself under similar circumstances, had his gracious presence filled the Chair in the East during any of these recent years.
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Post by Tamrin on Sept 28, 2008 9:44:40 GMT 10
Female Membership It [GOoF] was one of the first Masonic orders to allow some of its lodges to become adoptive (i.e. to admit women although it does not initiate them). In 1774, following the introduction of Rites of Adoption in several of its lodges, it issued an edict authorising them, the Duchess of Bourbon being elected first Grand Mistress of France. This also is a bone of contention between GOdF and many other Grand Lodges. For over a Century this practice coexisted with cross Channel amity.
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Post by Tamrin on Sept 28, 2008 9:46:38 GMT 10
"Josephine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife, served as Grand Matraisse du Loge d'Adoption Sainte-Caroline. Women were admitted by regular Masonic lodges and participated in rituals that were often elaborate in the extreme" Michael Johnstone, 2006, The Freemasons: The illuminated book of an ancient brotherhood, Arcturus, London, p.135
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Post by Tamrin on Oct 3, 2008 11:28:20 GMT 10
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2008 16:52:11 GMT 10
THE FRENCH MASONIC WAY Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite: From Troubled Origins to Worldwide Supremacy [Excerpt - Article by Yves Hivert-Messeca - Linked above]
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2008 17:12:27 GMT 10
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Post by Tamrin on Aug 23, 2009 16:53:13 GMT 10
The Compagnonnage: "Lodges Beyond Sea" Of Anderson's Constitutions of 1723, we are told they were:- Extracted from the Ancient Records of lodges beyond Sea, and of those in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for the Use of the Lodges in London: to be Read at the Making of New Brethren, or when the Master shall order it. Doubts have been expressed as to any derivation "beyond sea," i.e. the Continent; implying that, what in Anderson's Constitutions is not entirely novel and can be traced to earlier records, is wholly British. Even so, there is a feature introduced to Britain around that time which might well derive from the Continent. The Solomonic context of the newly created Third Degree, with its Hiramic Legend, is not to be found in the earlier masonic records of Britain (indeed, despite his reputed wisdom, Solomon was generally regarded with ambivalence among the pious orthodoxy due to his anachronistically alleged apostasy). That context was, however, a feature among the Compagnonnage of France, which consisted of three divisions: The Sons of Solomon, the Sons of Maitre Jacques and the Sons of Soubisse, the latter two of which required of their members a profession of Catholicism (Waite's New Encyclopaedia, p.127), leaving only the former, the Sons of Solomon, open to Protestants (Huguenots), and in which division they prevailed, (as they and other Calvinists did in the founding years of the premier grand lodge).
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Post by Tamrin on Sept 29, 2012 16:16:23 GMT 10
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