Freemasonry under the Second Empire was founded under the tutelage of Napoleon III's authoritarian Empire. The Second Empire saw Freemasonry and Freemasons as a threat and aimed to either control them or wipe them out. Refusing to submit to imperial rule, some Freemasons chose exile and embarked for England. To survive, the Grand Orient de France, the main Masonic obedience, and French Freemasonry in general - as they had during the revolutionary and First Empire periods - had to accept major concessions. To avoid dissolution, they opted for the "prince's protectors" solution, who were responsible for taking control. The authoritarian period saw the banning of political debate and the fading and downsizing of the lodges, which suffered from low membership levels, before experiencing new dynamics and a new boom during the liberal period of the Second Empire.
During the 1870 war, the obediences did not support imperial policy and tended to be pacifist. After the defeat at Sedan and the proclamation of the Republic, they called for the fight against the Prussian armies and broke off relations with German Freemasonry. In 1871, while the obediences kept their distance from the Paris Commune, some Freemasons openly joined the ranks of the federates, while others called for conciliation to avoid confrontation.
French Freemasonry demonstrated its ability to adapt to the constraints of imperial power. However, it was also fragmented, with conflicts and dissensions between lodges and between obediences, sometimes between generations of Freemasons, which focused on the duration of the often very long presidencies of lodges, or with conflicts of a political nature between republicans and anti-republicans. An anti-clerical current born of the Restoration surely took hold throughout this period. Despite this fragmentation, the flexibility of Masonic institutions and the ability to adapt at national and local levels enabled Freemasonry in France to maintain itself through institutions malleable enough to accommodate all regimes.
French Freemasonry became more openly involved in social debate during this pivotal period. The Grand Orient de France, while remaining an initiatory order, evolved into a philosophical and political society, adopting as its motto the republican triptych - Liberty - Equality - Fraternity, prefiguring its commitment to society and its political action during the Third Republic.
Masonic landscape
The election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, helped by the victory of the conservative parties on May 13, 1849, propelled many Freemasons into opposition and sometimes underground. The coup d'état of December 2, 1851, silenced the Republicans in the Masonic lodges. The most vindictive members were arrested or deported, while others were outlawed or chose to go into exile in England.
The Grand Orient de France (GODF), France's leading Masonic obedience, was already undergoing a sociological transformation in the years leading up to the coup d'état. New members were often close to positivist currents, joining other members who were Saint-Simonians, followers of Fourierism, or Proudhonians. This mixture of liberal currents and socialist utopia was muzzled during the imperial era but animated a form of republican rebellion within the Masonic order.
Lodges in the provinces were the hardest hit by the new regime; during the years of authoritarian rule, more than half were demolished.Freemasonry term for closing a lodge Lodges in Paris were also greatly reduced, although at the same time, lodges close to the government were created, such as those with the evocative names of "Saint Lucien" or "Bonaparte", which brought together the elite and those close to the regime. However, the intermingling of members from diverse backgrounds, with crafts and commerce in the majority, was the seed of a current hostile to the Grand Master and of a tendency to work for the downfall of a "protector" it considered imposed by those in power.
The Suprême Conseil de France, France's second-largest obedience, which practices the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, reports a smaller number of lodges; it has very few lodges in the provinces but shares a liberal spirit with the Grand Orient, albeit with a highly hierarchical and less democratic structure. It lost some of its more progressive lodges after abstaining from supporting the Second Republic in 1848. Resisting the injunctions of power during the authoritarian period, these lodges evolved in the same direction as those of the Grand Orient during the liberal period.
The masonic landscape under the Second Empire also revealed a mixed freemasonry that was maintained through a few lodges or initiatives. The Grande Loge d'adoption de l'obédience de Misraïm (Grand Adoption Lodge of the Misraïm obedience) had around thirty members at the start of the Empire and practiced adoption masonry. In addition, Luc-Pierre Richard-Gardon founded the "Temple des familles," a mixed Masonic organization that also practiced a rite of adoption and welcomed several prominent women from the bourgeoisie, often cultured and feminist. Some lodges and Freemasons supported women's membership in Masonic obediences, but these positions were not supported and were subject to rebukes. At the same time, questions about women's rights, particularly within the family, were being debated within the lodges: Freemasons such as Léon Richer, Jules Simon and Eugène Pelletan openly advocated greater rights and improved status for women in society.
Between 1860 and 1870, the Second Empire continued France's colonial expansion, and Masonic lodges followed the settlers. Freemasonry had already been present in Algeria since 1831, with the "Cirnus" and "Bélisaire" lodges in Algiers. They were mainly composed of colonial army officers. The "Bélisaire" lodge had over 120 members in 1860; it expanded several times and set up numerous workshops throughout the country. After the coup d'état in 1852, a dozen lodges had around 900 members. However, the Masonic presence remained marginal, with about a population of two and a half million Algerians and 100,000 Europeans. Between 1852 and 1870, the number of Grand Orient de France lodges in Algeria did not exceed a dozen, and, like the lodges in metropolitan France, they saw the spread of liberal ideas and anticlericalism towards all religions. Morocco and Tunisia also saw the arrival of lodges on their territory from the 1860s, within the same framework and according to the same sociology. As in Algeria, settlers and the military did not make it easy for Muslims and Jews to join Freemasonry.
If French Freemasonry demonstrated a form of adaptability during the imperial period, passing from a Bonapartist Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France, in the person of Lucien Murat in 1852, cousin of the emperor, an authoritarian and religious man, who unhesitatingly demolished several Republican lodges, to the journalist Léonide Babaud-Laribière, elected Grand Master in 1870, an avowed secularist and republican, is mainly due to the political and social evolution of French obediences between 1851 and 1870. Despite this ability to adapt, Freemasonry was also fragmented, with conflicts and dissensions between lodges and between obediences, sometimes between generations of Freemasons who focused on the often very long duration of lodge presidencies under the Second Empire. Another source of conflict was political, between Republicans and anti-republicans, often Bonapartists, conservatives, or, more rarely, monarchists. Despite this fragmentation, the flexibility of the Masonic institution and its ability to adapt at both national and local levels enabled it to maintain itself through institutions that were sufficiently malleable to get through this period while continuing to evolve.
History of the obediences
Grand Orient de France With the advent of the Second Empire and Napoleon III on December 2, 1852, the Grand Orient de France was without a Grand Master: Joseph Bonaparte, elected to the post on December 5, 1804, died in 1844 without returning his office, even though the position had been vacant since 1815 when he went into exile.During the vacancy, Grand Orient leaders bear the title of Deputy Grand Master An election was nevertheless scheduled for December 1851, following the resignation of Marie-Auguste Desanlis. Esprit-Eugène Hubert, the new secretary of the GODF, was warned by a member of his family, François Certain de Canrobert, that all Masons risked arrest if they gathered for the election. The Prefect of Police sent the GODF an order to suspend Masonic lodge meetings until January 1, 1852. At the same time, an anti-Masonic campaign swept the country. Considered a threat by those in power, Freemasonry was obliged, as in the past, to accept concessions to avoid dissolution. Several dignitaries, including Adolphe Perier, General Secretary and nephew of Casimir Perier, suggested turning to the "prince protector" solution. Agreement was reached on the person of Prince Lucien Murat, initiated in Austria in 1821.According to Pierre Chevalier in his historical work, which recounts the words of Brother Accary announcing his election.
1852 - 1862: Prince Murat's great mastery
Lucien Murat's election to the Grand Mastership was more sudden than deliberate and was greeted with circumspection by the Freemasons of the Grand Orient de France. The order's council and the Masonic convent of January 9, 1852, approved the choice "unanimously", 27 members opposed to this forced appointment having left the assembly before the vote. On January 23, he was installed Grand Master of the Masonic Order in France; on January 27, he was elevated from the 18th to the 33rd and final degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
Despite this appointment, around a hundred lodges were suspended in 1852. Lucien Murat's first initiatives were not widely accepted: the dismissal of the much-appreciated secretary Eugène Hubert, the purchase of the Hôtel de Richelieu on rue Cadet in August 1852 for the sum of 450,000 gold francs, which threatened to weigh heavily on the Order's finances, and the confirmation of his authoritarianism prompted many members to maintain the most elementary reserve. In 1853, he took various measures to reinforce his power, and in 1854, a convent endowed the obedience with a "Bonapartist constitution," the first article of which was extensively revised to impose "the existence of God, the immortality of the soul and the love of mankind" as its basis, and granted him vast powers. This functional and dogmatic tutelage led to a drop in the number of lodges: from 327 in 1853, the Grand Orient counted just 167 in 1858. As a consequence of the Grand Master's Caesarism, several dozen Masonic workshops that resisted this submission to the government stopped paying dues and were suspended by the Grand Master's council.