Balder Ex-Libris - Webster Nesta HelenReview of books rare and missing2024-03-27T00:16:02+00:00urn:md5:aa728a70505b2fae05796923271581c2DotclearWebster Nesta Helen - The secret of the Zodiacurn:md5:f05f9842efa94375fc6704f7c9f490e12015-09-14T16:33:00+01:002015-09-14T16:33:00+01:00balderWebster Nesta HelenBolchevikCommunismConspiracyIraqIrelandIsraëlItalyJewNovelPolandRevisionismRussiaSecond World WarThird Reich <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img3/Webster_Nesta_Helen_-_The_secret_of_the_Zodiac.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Webster Nesta Helen (Sterne Julian)</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The secret of the Zodiac</strong><br />
Year : 1933<br />
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Chapter 1. A political débutant. IT was a warm night in May, and Sir Alfred and Lady Frensham were giving one of their dull dinners at the House of Commons. There was really no reason why their parties should be dull. Sir Alfred, Conservative member for Westborough, was a cheery man, still on the right side of fifty, very popular in the county, and particularly in the hunting field, whilst Lady Frensham, with her charming smile and attractive clothes, had made herself beloved by every class of the constituency. Neither were the guests at her parties altogether of a boring kind. But they were badly sorted . Living in a perpetual whirl of political and social functions, Lady Frensham had no time to consider which of her guests would be congenial to each other . So, when giving dinners, she had fallen into the habit of ticking off a list of the people who were " owed invitations " and then arranging them round the table as she would have played a hand of cards, following the same suita duke's daughter next to a marquis, a baronet next to a knight's widow, a plain captain next to an untitled spinster, and so on. <strong>...</strong></p>Webster Nesta Helen - The socialist networkurn:md5:0d1ee9b3af0b10d1233d7a621f87e9202013-03-10T22:00:00+00:002013-03-10T22:03:14+00:00balderWebster Nesta HelenConspiracyJew <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img2/.Webster_Nesta_Helen_-_The_socialist_network_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Webster Nesta Helen</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The socialist network</strong><br />
Year : 1926<br />
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The object of this book is not to provide a history of Socialism, but merely an account of the Socialist organisations of modern times. Hence no mention is made of isolated Socialist theorists, but only of people connected with, or giving rise to, concrete societies or groups. Secret or occult societies do not enter into the scope of the inquiry, which is not concerned with mysterious inner circles, invisibles or high initiates working in the dark, but only with open movements societies with recognised headquarters, offices, executive , committees, published lists of members, official organs, statements of aims, etc. Though such a presentation of the revolutionary movement is necessarily incomplete, and may fail to satisfy those who care to inquire into causes, it will appeal the more to practical people who are unwilling to consider anything they cannot see before their eyes. It has seemed to me that a sort of guide-book of this kind, accompanied by a chart, might be useful, in view of the fact that the ramifications of the Socialist movement have now become so vast and complicated that it is almost impossible to follow them. The very difficulties with which I have been faced in the course of my work have enconraged me in this idea. Often I have been obliged to search for days in order to discover some simple fact, owing to the extraordinary vagueness with regard to dates and practical details which characterise Socialist publications- histories, pamphlets, year books and manuals alike. Long pages are devoted to the doctrines of some society, but when it was founded, where and by whom, may not perhaps once be mentioned. Again, one is confronted by conflicting evidence which has to be sifted in order to arrive at the truth. What wonder, then, that the so-called " Capitalist Press '' falls into the strangest blunders when dealing with the different phases of this movement, and that anti-Socialist writers, whose particular business it is to study the subject, from time to time commit inaccuracies which detract from the value of their work ~ In this little book I lay no claim to infallibility; indeed, I do not believe it would be possible for a single human brain to master all the details of this bewildering netv;rork and to avoid going wrong on some point an international committee of experts would be needed to achieve such a result. All I can claim is that I have spared no pains to find out the facts of the case by seeking my data in the Socialists' own literature, ranging from the pamphlets of Babeuf to those of the Komintern. If, then, inaccuracies of any importance occur, it will not be for want of long and arduous research, and in this case I shall be glad to have them pointed out to me with a view to correction in a further edition. My only concern is to find out the truth and make it known. Aylesbury. <strong>...</strong></p>Webster Nesta Helen - Germany and Englandurn:md5:ab5e9e7df55ce4f0b1ba931c61320f372012-04-08T14:48:00+01:002014-03-08T01:31:12+00:00balderWebster Nesta HelenConspiracyEnglandEuropeGermanyJewThird Reich <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Webster_Nesta_Helen_-_Germany_and_England_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Webster Nesta Helen (Mrs. Arthur Webster)</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Germany and England</strong><br />
Year : 1938<br />
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Foreword. For the benefit of the younger generation or of foreigners who, never having read “Trilby,” may fail to understand the meaning of the frontispiece to the book, it should be explained that the famous novel of this name, written and illustrated by the late George du Maurier, which appeared in 1894, described the history of an artist’s model named Trilby in the Quartier Latin of Paris, who, without any natural voice, was hypnotized to sing by a clever Jewish musician named Svengali, and fell completely under his power. The point in reproducing it here is to show that the British people are being hypnotized to repeat the phrases put into their mouths at the wave of a conductor’s baton. Herr Hitler in October, 1938 said: “England would be well advised to stop governessing Europe.” <strong>...</strong></p>Webster Nesta Helen - World Revolutionurn:md5:ba1103e176a5eac3f212cdc3566b63072012-04-08T14:35:00+01:002014-03-08T01:31:08+00:00balderWebster Nesta HelenBolchevikCivilizationsCommunismConspiracyFreemasonryJewRevolution <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Webster_Nesta_Helen_-_World_Revolution_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Webster Nesta Helen (Mrs. Arthur Webster)</strong><br />
Title : <strong>World Revolution The plot against civilization</strong><br />
Year : 1921<br />
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AUTHOR'S NOTE. In reply to numerous enquiries as to whether the statements I made in The French Revolution have since been disproved, I take this opportunity to say that, as far as I am aware, no one has attempted to bring forward any contrary evidence. The Socialist press was completely silent, whilst hostile reviewers in the general press contented themselves with saying the work was " biassed," but without quoting chapter and verse in support of this assertion. My book was not intended to be the last word on the French Revolution, but the first attempt, in English, to tell the truth, and had my view on any essential point been shown to be erroneous, I should have been perfectly ready to readjust it in further editions. No such honest challenge was made, however; my opponents preferring the method of creating prejudice against my work by attributing to me views I never expressed. Thus, at the moment of this book going to press, it has been brought to my notice that I am represented as having attacked British Freemasonry. This can only have been said in malice, as I have always clearly differentiated between British and Continental masonry, showing the former to be an honourable association not only hostile to subversive doctrines but a strong supporter of law, order, and religion. (See The French Revolution, pp. 20 and 492.) I am in fact indebted to certain distinguished British masons for valuable help and advice in my work, which I here gratefully acknowledge. FOREWORD. Amongst all the books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles that are now devoted to the World Revolution through which we are passing, it is strange to notice how little scientific investigation is being brought to bear on the origins of the movement. A frequent explanation advanced, and, I believe, the most fallacious, is that the present unrest must be attributed to " war weariness." Human nature, we are told, exasperated by the protracted horror of the recent international conflict, has become the victim of a crise de nerfs which finds its expression in world-wide discontent. In support of this theory we are reminded that former wars have likewise been followed by periods of social disturbance, and that by a process of analogy the symptoms may be expected to subside as the strain of war is relieved, in the same manner as they have subsided hitherto. It is true that political conflicts between nations have frequently in the past been followed by social upheavals — the Napoleonic Wars by industrial troubles in England, the Franco- Prussian War by revolutionary agitation not only in the land of the conquered, but of the conquerors — but to regard these social manifestations as the direct outcome of the preceding international conflict is to mistake contributing for fundamental causes. Revolution is not the product of war, but a malady that a nation suffering from the after-effects of a war is most likely to develop, just as a man enfeebled by fatigue is more liable to contract disease than one who is in a state of perfect vigour. Yet this predisposing cause is by no means essential to the outbreak of revolutionary fever. The great French Revolution was not immediately preceded by a war of any magnitude, and to the observant mind England in 1914 was as near to revolution as in 1919. The intervening World War, far from producing the explosion in this country, merely retarded it by rallying citizens of all classes around the standard of national defence. The truth is that for the last one hundred and fortyfive years the fire of revolution has smouldered steadily beneath the ancient structure of civilization, and already at moments has burst out into flame threatening to destroy to its very foundations that social edifice which eighteen centuries have been spent in constructing. The crisis of today is then no development of modern times, but a mere continuation of the immense movement that began in the middle of the eighteenth century. In a word, it is all one and the same revolution — the revolution that found its first expression in France of 1789. Both in its nature and its aims it differs entirely from former revolutions which had for their origin some localized or temporary cause. The revolution through which we are now passing is not local but universal, it is not political but social, and its causes must be sought not in popular discontent, but in a deep-laid conspiracy that uses the people to their own undoing. In order to follow its course we must realize the dual nature of the movement by studying concurrently the outward revolutionary forces of Socialism, Anarchism, etc., and the hidden power behind them as indicated in the chart accompanying this work. The present writer believes that hitherto no book has been written on precisely these lines ; many valuable works have been devoted to secret societies, others to the surface history of revolution, but none so far has attempted to trace the connection between the two in the form of a continuous narrative. The object of this book is therefore to describe not only the evolution of Socialist and Anarchist ideas and their effects in succeeding revolutionary outbreaks, but at the same time to follow the workings of that occult force, terrible, unchanging, relentless, and wholly destructive, which constitutes the greatest menace that has ever confronted the human race. Parts of Chapters I and III appeared in The Nineteenth Century and After, and certain later passages in The Morning Post. <strong>...</strong></p>Webster Nesta Helen - The French Revolutionurn:md5:0467a65c8cd6960525f9906510e8393b2012-04-08T14:27:00+01:002014-03-08T01:31:05+00:00balderWebster Nesta HelenConspiracyFranceFreemasonryJewRevolution <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Webster_Nesta_Helen_-_The_French_Revolution_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Webster Nesta Helen (Mrs. Arthur Webster)</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The French Revolution A study in democracy</strong><br />
Year : 1919<br />
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"La révolution populaire était la surface d'un volcan de conjurations étrangères." Saint Just. PREFACE. Astrologers tell us that the history of the world moves in cycles ; that from time to time the same forces arise producing eras that strangely resemble one another. Between these eras a close affinity exists, and so it is that we, in looking back to the past from the world crisis of to-day, reaUze that periods which in times of peace have soothed or thrilled us have now lost their meaning, that the principles which inspired them have no place in our philosophy. The Renaissance is dead ; the Reformation is dead ; even the great wars of bygone days seem dwarfed by the immensity of the recent conflict. But whilst the roar of battle dies down another sound is heard—the angry murmur that arose in 1789 and that, though momentarily hushed, has never lost its force. Once more we are in the cycle of revolution. The French Revolution is no dead event ; in turning over the contemporary records of those tremendous days we feel that we are touching live things ; from the yellowed pages voices call to us, voices that still vibrate with the passions that stirred them more than a century ago—here the desperate appeal for Uberty and justice, there the trumpet - call of " King and Country " ; now the story told with tears of death faced gloriously, now a maddened scream of rage against a fellow-man. When in all the history of the world until the present day has human nature shown itself so terrible and so subUme ? And is not the fascination that amazing epoch has ever since exercised over the minds of men owing to the fact that the problems it held are still unsolved, that the same movements which originated with it are still at work amongst us ? " What we learn to-day from the study of the Great Revolution," the anarchist Prince Kropotkin wrote in 1908, " is that it was the source and origin of all the present communist, anarchist, and socialist conceptions" Indeed Kropotkin goes so far as to declare that " up till now, modern socialism has added absolutely nothing to the ideas that were circulating among the French people between 1789 and 1794, and which it was tried to put into practice in the year 11. of the RepubUc {i.e. in the Reign of Terror). Modem socialism has only systematised those ideas and found arguments in their favour," etc. Now since the French Revolution still remains the one and only occasion in the history of the world when those theories were put into practice on a large scale, and carried out to their logical conclusion—for the experiment in Russia is as yet unfinished—it is surely worth while to know the true facts about that first upheaval. So far, in England, the truth is not known ; we have not even been told what really happened. "As to a real history of the French Revolution," Lord Cromer wrote to me a few months before his death, " no such thing exists in the English language, for Carlyle, besides being often very inaccurate and prejudiced, produced merely a philosophical rhapsody. It is well worth reading, but it is not history." Yet it is undoubtedly on Carlyle's rhapsody that our national conceptions of the Revolution are founded ; the great masterpiece of Dickens was built up on this mythological basis, whilst the old histories of Alison and Morse Stephens, and even the illuminating Essays of Croker, lack the power to rouse the popular imagination. Thus the legend created by Carlyle has never been dispelled. During the last few years the French Revolution has become less a subject for historical research than the theme of the popular joumaUst who sees in that lurid period material to be written up with profit. This being so, accuracy plays no part in his scheme. For the art of successful journalism is not to illuminate the public mind but to reflect it, to tell it in even stronger terms what it thinks already, and therefore to confirm rather than to dispel popular delusions. But if the Revolution is to be regarded as the supreme experiment in democracy, if its principles are to be held up for our admiration and its methods advocated as an example to our own people, is it not time that some effort were made to counteract that " conspiracy of history " that in France also, as M. Gustave Bord points out, has hitherto concealed the real facts concerning it ? Shall we not at last cease from rhapsody and consider the matter calmly and scientifically in its effects on the people ? This, after aU, is the main issue—how was the experiment a success from the people's point of view ? Strangely enough, though it was in their cause that the Revolution was ostensibly made, the people are precisely the portion of the nation that by RoyaHst and Revolutionary writers aUke have been most persistently overlooked—the RoyaUsts occupjdng themselves mainly with the trials of the monarchy and aristocracy, the Revolutionaries losing themselves in panegyrics on the popular leaders. Thus Michelet was a Dantoniste, Louis Blanc a Robespierriste ; Lamartine was a Girondiste ; Thiers and Mignet were Orleanistes, not only as historians but as poUticians, for their exoneration of the Due d'Orleans was only a part of their policy for placing his son Louis Philippe on the throne of France, and consequently to all these men the people were a matter only of secondary importance. So far no one has written the history of the movement from the point of view of the people themselves. In studjdng the Revolution as an experiment in democracy, we must clear our minds of all predilections for certain individuals. Just as the author of a treatise on the discovery of tuberculin or on the antidote to hydrophobia devotes no space to recording the sufferings of the unhappy guinea-pigs and rabbits sacrificed in the cause of science, or in dilating on the virtuous private life of Koch or Pasteur, but concerns himself solely with the exact process adopted and the symptoms exhibited by the subjects with a view to proving or disproving the ef&cacy of the serums employed, so, if we would examine the Revolution as a scientific experiment. King, noblesse, and revolutionary leaders alike must be considered only in their relation to the cause of democracy ; we must concern ourselves with the people only, with the ills from which they suffered, with the means employed for their reUef, with the part they themselves played in the great movement, and finaUy the results that were achieved. By this means alone we shall do justice to that brave and brilliant people by whose side we have fought to-day ; we shall come to understand that they were not the bUnd unreasoning herd portrayed by Taine, the enraged " hyenas " of Horace Walpole, nor yet, as revolutionary writers would have us beUeve, a nation of slaves brought by long years of oppression to a pitch of exasperation that found a vent in the crimes and horrors of the Revolution. It is on this last theory that popular opinion in England on the Revolution is founded, and that might, I think, be epitomized thus : " The French Revolution was in itself a purely beneficial movement, inspired by the desire for Uberty and justice : unhappily it went too far and produced excesses which, though deplorable, were nevertheless the unavoidable accompaniment to the regeneration of the country." Now this statement is as illogical as it is unjust ; how could a movement that was purely beneficial " go too far " ? How could the desire of the people for Uberty and justice be carried to excess and produce cruelty and bloodshed such as the civilized world had never seen before ? If this were true, then the only opinion at which a thinking human being could arrive would be that the French Revolution was the reductio ad dbsurdum of the proposition of democracy, a proposition that, once worked out to its tragic and grotesque conclusion, should have proved for all time that to give power into the hands of the people is to create a tyranny more terrible than any despotism can produce. But it was not so ; it was not the desire of the people for liberty and justice that produced these horrors ; it was not the movement for reform that " went too far " ; the crimes and excesses of the Revolution sprang from totally distinct and extraneous causes that must be understood if justice is to be done to the people of France. It is by the revolutionary writers that the people have been most maUgned, for since, as I have pointed out, these writers were not the advocates of the people but of certain revolutionary leaders, their method is to absolve their heroes from all blame and heap the whole responsibihty upon the people. For this purpose a legend has been woven around all the great outbreaks of the Revolution and the r61e of the people persistently misrepresented. Now if we study carefully the course of the revolutionary movement we shall find that the role of the people is in the main passive ; only on these great days of tumult do they play an active part. Between these outbreaks the fire of revolution smoulders, at moments almost flickers out, then suddenly for no apparent reason bursts again into flame, and it is only by long and patient search amongst contemporary documents that we can begin to understand the causes of these conflagrations. " The popular Revolution, " said St. Just, " was the surface of a volcano of extraneous conspiracies/' and consequently the actions of the people seen from the surface only can never be understood. Thus the story of the Revolution, as it is usually told us, with its pointless crimes, its unreasoning violence, and its hideous waste of life, is simply unintelligible—" a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing." If, then, we would discover the truth about these great revolutionary outbreaks, we must dig down far below the surface, we must trace the connection between the mine and the explosion, between the actions of the people and the causes that provoked them.^ For, as Mr. Croker truly observed, " It is doubtless a very remarkable—^though hitherto very little remarked— feature of the whole Revolution, that not one, not a single one, of the tumults which now had its successive stages, from the Affaire Reveillon to the September massacres, had any real connection with the pretext under which it was executed." These great moments of crisis, five in number, are Uke the five acts of a tremendous drama ; through them all we see the same methods at work, the same actors under different disguises, the same tangled threads of intrigue leading up to the tremendous cataclysm of the Terror. The Siege of the Bastille—the March on Versailles—the two Invasions of the Tuileries—the Massacres of September—and finally the Reign of Terror—these form the history of the French people throughout the Revolution. The object of this book is, therefore, to relate as accurately as conflicting evidence permits the true facts about each great crisis, to explain the motives that inspired the crowds, the means employed to rouse their passions, and thereby to throw a truer Ught on the rdle of the people, and ultimately on the Revolution as the great experiment in democracy. <strong>...</strong></p>Webster Nesta Helen - The Chevalier de Boufflers A romance of the French Revolutionurn:md5:176b00fd63dc6b226c724163f91d73a22012-04-08T14:18:00+01:002014-03-08T01:31:02+00:00balderWebster Nesta HelenConspiracyFranceFreemasonryJewRevolution <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Webster_Nesta_Helen_-_The_Chevalier_de_Boufflers_A_romance_of_the_French_Revolution_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Webster Nesta Helen (Mrs. Arthur Webster)</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Chevalier de Boufflers A romance of the French Revolution</strong><br />
Year : 1910<br />
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PREFACE. In history, as in modern life, the most celebrated people are not necessarily the most interesting. Historians, like journalists, have predilections for certain personages whom they combine to immortalize whilst passing over others who often present a far more absorbing psychological study. This is particularly so in the history of the eighteenth century in France. We have been told a dozen times the story of Julie de Lespinasse and her love-affairs modelled on " Clarissa Harlowe," of Madame de Stael and the victims of her amatory experiments, of Madame du Deffand, Madame Geoffrin, of Lauzun, Fersen, and Lafayette ; yet one of the greatest romances of this enthralling period, the love-story of the Chevalier de Boufflers and the Comtesse de Sabran, has been allowed by English writers to pass into oblivion. Theirs was the " grande passion " of the times, " they loved each other," says Monsieur Victor du Bled, " with a deep love, so different to the liaisons a la mode, with a love such as we understand it " - we of to-day. Both curiously modern, their letters have none of the rounded periods and stilted phrases of their contemporaries ; they talk to each other, smile, laugh, and weep -we can almost hear them as we turn the pages. More than any other woman of her day- far more than the cynic of the Couvent Saint-Joseph-Madame de Sabran might be called the " SeVigne* of the eighteenth century." Several writers have compared the two women, for both in character and circumstances there are striking points of resemblance between them but Madame de Sabran was far more original than her seventeenth-century predecessor. " I feel your charm like that of Madame de S£vign£," Madame de Stael once wrote to her, " and in a greater degree, for there is more real feeling beneath it." Madame de SeVigne\ for all her wit, was quite conventional, and perfectly satisfied with the outer show of things. She entertained a deep respect for society, whilst Madame de Sabran was apt to be bored in crowds, even when composed of all the most important people ; her simple, naive letters, sometimes wrongly dated, often not dated at all, sometimes hastily scribbled at midnight when she was tired out after a party, sometimes lengthened out into lively causeries, have none of the tabulated accuracy of the great marquise, who, as she sat at her writing-table in the Hotel Carnavalet, doubtless realized that her words would survive in large and magnificently bound volumes on the library shelves of the future. Madame de Sabran evidently never thought of publication ; essentially a creature of moods, she wrote just as she felt, with something of the impromptu charm of Chopin, now gay, now plaintive, with here a little flash of temper, there a gleam of everlurking humour, here a riotous joie de vivre, there a tender melancholy, then all at once a wild outburst of passion like a stormy passage in the " Nocturnes M that in its turn dies down into peace and harmony once more. <strong>...</strong></p>Webster Nesta Helen - Secret Societies and Subversive Movementsurn:md5:af7ece7711f39e3a35e8ed0c1231ed032012-04-08T13:49:00+01:002014-03-08T01:30:58+00:00balderWebster Nesta HelenConspiracyJew <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Webster_Nesta_Helen_-_Secret_Societies_and_Subversive_Movements_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Webster Nesta Helen (Mrs. Arthur Webster)</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Secret Societies and Subversive Movements</strong><br />
Year : 1924<br />
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PREFACE. It is a matter of some regret to me that I have been so far unable to continue the series of studies on the French Revolution of which The Chevalier de Boufflers and The French Revolution, a Study in Democracy formed the first two volumes. But the state of the world at the end of the Great War seemed to demand an enquiry into the present phase of the revolutionary movement, hence my attempt to follow its course up to modern times in World Revolution. And now before returning to that first cataclysm I have felt impelled to devote one more book to the Revolution as a whole by going this time further back into the past and attempting to trace its origins from the first century of the Christian era. For it is only by taking a general survey of the movement that it is possible to understand the causes of any particular phase of its existence. The French Revolution did not arise merely out of conditions or ideas peculiar to the eighteenth century, nor the Bolshevist Revolution out of political and social conditions in Russia or the teaching of Karl Marx. Both these explosions were produced by forces which, making use of popular suffering and discontent, had long been gathering strength for an onslaught not only on Christianity, but on all social and moral order. It is of immense significance to notice with what resentment this point of view is met in certain quarters. When I first began to write on revolution a well-known London publisher said to me, "Remember that if you take an anti-revolutionary line you will have the whole literary world against you." This appeared to me extraordinary. Why would the literary world sympathize with a movement which from the French Revolution onwards has always been directed against literature, art, and science, and has openly proclaimed its aim to exalt the manual workers over the intelligentsia? " Writers must be proscribed as the most dangerous enemies of the people," said Robespierre; his colleague Dumas said all clever men should be guillotined. "The system of persecution against man of talents was organized.... They cried out in the sections of Paris, 'Beware of that man for he has written a book ! ' " Precisely the same policy has been followed in Russia. Under Moderate Socialism in Germany the professors, not the "people," are starving in garrets. Yet the whole press of our country is permeated with subversive influences. Not merely in partisan works, but in manuals of history or literature for use in schools! Burke is reproached for warning us against the French Revolution and Carlyle's panegyric is applauded. And whilst every slip on the part of an anti-revolutionary writer is seized on by the critics and held up as an example of the whole, the most glaring errors not only of conclusions but of facts pass unchallenged if they happen to be committed by a partisan of the movement. The principle laid down by Collot d'Herbois still holds good: " Tout est permis pour quiconque agit dans sens de la révolution." All this was unknown to me when I first embarked on my work. I knew that French writers of the past had distorted facts to suit their own political views, that a conspiracy of history is still directed by certain influences in the masonic lodges and the Sorbonne; I did not know that this conspiracy was being carried on in this country. Therefore the publisher's warning did not daunt me. If I was wrong either in my conclusions or facts I was prepared to be challenged. Should not years of laborious historical research meet either with recognition or with reasoned and scholarly refutation? But although my book received a great many generous and appreciative reviews in the press, criticisms which were hostile took a form which I had never anticipated. Not a single honest attempt was made to refute either my French Revolution or World Revolution by the usual methods of controversy; statements founded on documentary evidence were met with flat contradiction unsupported by a shred of counter evidence. In general the plan adopted was not to disprove, but to discredit by means of flagrant misquotations, by attributing me views I had never expressed, or even by means of offensive personalities. It will surely be admitted that this method of attack is unparalleled in any other sphere of literary controversy. It is interesting to notice that precisely the same line was adopted a hundred years ago with regard to Professor Robison and the Abbé Barruel, whose works on the secret causes of the French Revolution created an immense sensation in their day. The legitimate criticism that might have been made on their work find no place in the diatribes levelled against them; their enemies content themselves merely with calumnies and abuse, A contemporary American writer, Seth Payson, thus describes the methods employed to discredit them: The testimony of Professor Robison and Abbé Barruel would doubtless have been considered as ample in any case which did not interest the prejudices and passions of men against them. The scurrility and odium with which they have been loaded is perfectly natural and what the nature of their testimony would have led one to expect. Men will endeavour to invalidate that evidence which tends to unveil their dark designs: and it cannot be expected that those who believe that " the end sanctifies the means " will be very scrupulous as to their measures. Certainly he was not who invented the following character and arbitrarily applied it to Dr. Robison, which might have been applied with as much propriety to any other person in Europe or America. The character here referred to, is taken from the American Mercury, printed at Hartford, September 26, 1799, by E. Babcock. In this paper, on the pretended authority of professor Ebeling, we are told "that Robison had lived to fast for his income, and to supply deficiencies had undertaken to alter a bank bill, that he was detected and fled to France; that having been expelled the Lodge in Edinburgh, he applied in France for a second grade, but was refused; that he made the same attempt in Germany and afterwards in Russia, but never succeeded; and from this entertained the bitterest hatred to masonry; that after wandering about Europe for two years, by writing to Secretary Dundas, and presenting a copy of his book which, it was judged, would answer certain purposes of the ministry, the prosecution against him was stopped, the Professor returned in triumph to his country, and now lives upon a handsome pension, instead of suffering the fate of his predecessor Dodd. Payson goes on to quote a writer in The National Intelligencer of January 1801, who styles himself a " friend to truth " and speaks of Professor Robison as " a man distinguished by abject dependence on a party, by the base crimes of forgery and adultery, and by frequent paroxysms of insanity." Mounier goes further still, and in his pamphlet De l'influence attribuée aux Philosophes,... Francs-maçons et... Illuminés, etc., inspired by the Illuminatus Bode, quotes a story that Robison suffered from a form of insanity which consisted in his believing that the posterior portion of his body was made of glass ! In support of all this farrago of nonsense there is of course no foundation of truth; Robison was a wellknown savant who lived sane and respected to the end of his days. On his death Watt wrote of him: " He was a man of the clearest head and the most science of anybody I have ever known." John Playfair, in a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1815, whilst criticizing his Proofs of a Conspiracy -though at the same time admitting he had himself never had access to the documents Robison had consulted- paid the following tribute to his character and erudition: His range in science was most extensive; he was familiar with the whole circle of the accurate sciences.... Nothing can add to the esteem which they i.e. " those who were personally ac... felt for his talents and worth or to the respect in which they now hold his memory. Nevertheless, the lies circulated against both Robison and Barruel were not without effect. Thirteen years later we find another American, this time a Freemason, confessing " with shame and grief and indignation " that he had been carried away by " the flood of vituperation poured upon Barruel and Robison during the past thirty years," that the title pages of their works " were fearful to him," and that although " wishing calmly and candidly to investigate the character of Freemasonry he refused for months to open their books." Yet when in 1827 he read them for the first time he was astonished to find that they showed " a manifest tendency towards Freemasonry." Both Barruel and Robison, he now realized, were " learned men, candid men, lovers of their country, who had a reverence for truth and religion. They give the reasons for their opinions, they quote their authorities, naming the author and page, like honest people; they both had a wish to rescue British Masonry from the condemnation and fellowship of continental Masonry and appear to be sincerely actuated by the desire of doing good by giving their labours to the public." <strong>...</strong></p>