I’m sure you know about the seven degrees of the French Rite, right? Perhaps you even know that these seven degrees have been in use since the publication of the Régulateur du Maçon (‘Regulator of the Mason’) for the “symbolic”, “blue”, “craft” degrees and the Régulateur des Maçons Chevalier (‘Regulator of the Knight Masons’) for the following four “orders” in 1786. There is actually an interesting story behind these Régulateurs.
When work was done to found the new French Masonic umbrella the Grand Orient de France, between 1771 and 1773, the aim was to create order in the chaos of the French Masonic landscape of the time. There were a great many different degrees, which also differed from each other. These degrees were worked in lodges from different organisations. You get the idea, a bit of a mess.
After 12 years of attempts at codification, the “Assemblée des trois chambres réunies” (‘Assembly of the three joint changes’) was created in 1781, followed a year later by the “Chambre des grades” (‘Chamber of degrees’).
Degrees were collected, categorised, ordered, studied and discussed. According to Colette Léger (about whom more later), the number of 81 (9×9) was deliberate. There were many, many more.
Many degrees were collected by collectors. They often copied them by hand in their own notebooks. Many of these notebooks found their way to the archives of the Grand Orient de France. Unfortunately, nobody cared about them. For more than a century, from around 1850 to about 1960, the largest part of French Freemasonry only worked the first three (“symbolic”) degrees. Within that time two World Wars raged and the Nazis raided every Masonic archive that they could get their hands on, including that of the GOdF. During the final battle against the Nazis, the Russians had taken hold of these archives and stored them somewhere in Russia.
It was only towards the end of the previous millennium, that (perhaps not surprisingly) the Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France (Philippe Guglielmi), pressed the president of France (Jacques Chirac) to try to get the archives back. This succeeded surprisingly rapidly and many archives returned from Russia and through some detours, at the rightful owners if they could be found and still existed.
The archives of the GOdF were massive. Because their building had been damaged during the war, the decision was made to transfer the archives to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France; about one kilometer of archives! Initially only open to Freemasons, the archives were soon opened to scholars and later also to the general public. Since 2013 large parts have even been available digitally from the website of the BnF. Within their archives there is a “Fonds Maçonnique”, divided into eight series and five sections with other material. FM4 contains over 2000 rituals!
So the “Chambre des grades” set out to make a set of 81 degrees. These were divided into 9 series. Then there had to be decided upon which degrees to skip (the overtly Christian ones!), which elements to retain and compress that all into three degrees and four (or five) “orders”. Unfortunately, that set did not survive.
In the recently reviewed book The French Rite – Enlightenment Culture the director of the Masonic Museum in Paris, Pierre Mollier, gives a nice summery of the history and all degrees. This is possible, because somebody else took the task upon herself, to recreate the set of 81 degrees: Colette Léger, Grand Master of the Grande Loge Mixte de France.
Léger not only had to look once more for the degrees that were missing in the books that did survive. She also had to find her way through similar degrees with different names, different degrees with similar names, but most of all, over 500 pages of handwritten ritual texts. Can you imagine? 500+ Pages that look like this?:
What Léger made, was a three volume publication in a box with transcribed ritual texts and some images from the original manuscripts.
This massive work was published in 2017 and by now is not too easy to get your hands on. It is sold out on many places, but the publisher can see provide you with a copy. It isn’t a cheap publication: € 199,- plus shipping. I hope much of that money goes to the editor and the preservation of the archives.
Léger herself gives a nice history. Guglielmi and Sylvie Bourel (of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France) provide some extra information and then you get hundred upon hundreds of pages with ritual texts. Some short, some very elaborate. Most of the rituals are from the 1740’ies, but -needless to say- the 1770’ies the latest. You will find (relatively) famous degrees such as “Maître Parfait” (the French version of the Scots Master, probably the oldest ‘high degree’), “Chevalier du Soleil” (an important French ‘high degree’), degrees that we still have on the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, but also degrees with names such as “Les Antipodiens” (‘The Antipodians’) or “Ecossais de Naples ou de Sicille” (‘Scots from Naples or Sicily’).
Needless to say, it is all in French. Since more and more French Masonic material becomes available in English, it would be great if this massive compilation would be granted with an English edition as well. If you don’t want to wait for that to happen and you are interested to add a massive collection of old ‘high degrees’ to your library, I suggest you don’t wait too long with ordering your copy.