[513] To Robison’s mind this constituted the crowning infamy of the order. “There is nothing in the whole constitution of the Illuminati that strikes me with more horror than the proposals of Hercules and Minos to enlist women in this shocking warfare with all that ‘is good, and pure, and lovely, and of good report’.... Are not the accursed fruits of Illumination to be seen in the present humiliating condition of women in France? ... In their present state of national moderation (as they call it) and security, see Madame Tallien come into the public theatre, accompanied by other _beautiful_ women, (I was about to have misnamed them Ladies), laying aside all modesty, and presenting themselves to the public view, with bared limbs, _à la Sauvage_, as the alluring objects of desire.... Was not their abominable farce in the church of Notre Dame a bait of the same kind, in the true spirit of Weishaupt’s _Eroterion_?” (Robison, pp. 243, 251, 252.)
[516] _Ibid._ Although offered to the public with every show of confidence, Robison’s list was largely chimerical. He had depended upon isolated references in the papers of the order, many of which he must have misread. Doubtless in numerous cases he took the _hopes_ of the ambitious leaders of the order as sober statements of fact. The importance of the reference to America will, of course, appear later.
[520] Robison, _op. cit._, pp. 315 _et seq._
[523] _Ibid._, p. 317. “All the Archives that were found were the plans and lists of the members, and a parcel of letters of correspondence. The correspondence and other business was managed by an old man in some inferior office or judicatory, who lived at bed and board in Bahrdt’s house for about six shillings a week, having a chest of papers and a writing-desk in the corner of the common room of the house.” (_Ibid._)
[525] _Ibid._, p. 299. Bahrdt’s fantastical program called for the division of these societies into Provinces or Dioceses, each directed by its Diocesan, and subordinate to a central organization. _Cf. ibid._, p. 292
[528] _Ibid._, pp. 322 _et seq._ “ ... although I cannot consider the German Union as a formal revival of the Order under another name, I must hold those _United_, and the members of those Reading Societies, as _Illuminati_ and _Minervals_. I must even consider the Union as a part of Spartacus’s work.” (_Ibid._)