Women's restricted access to masonic spirituality in 18th century Europe: a case of betrayal of the Enlightenment ideals?

Hélène Palma, Université de Provence, Aix-Marseille I

This article will focus on the relationships between women and Freemasonry in the 18th century. It will insist that Freemasonry, as an institution, happened to admit women sporadically before but also after the creation of the Grand Lodge of London in 1717. This Lodge is indeed the one which defined the founding principles of modern Freemasonry, also called speculative- that is to say spiritual- Freemasonry, in18th century Europe. The Grand Lodge of London is also the one which, through the publication of James Anderson's Constitutions in 1723, made it clear that in spite of the egalitarian principles of the masonic faith, no minor person, whether bondmen, people with poor social backgrounds or women, could have access to masonic lodges and faith.

Some women, however, did happen to have access to masonic spirituality in the 18th century as some particularly tolerant, pioneering and rare lodges admitted women's presence and active participation on an equal basis with men. This is the case of the exceptional Loge de Juste, created in The Hague in1751.

In the wake of this pioneering initiative, other mixed lodges appeared elsewhere in Europe. They were generally called loges d'adoption (lodges of adoption) and were quite numerous in France. However the French mixed lodges generally favoured the admission of particularly wealthy and famous women and were most of the time subjected to the authority of male Grand Masters and male masonic lodges.

Women's access to masonic spirituality in the age of Enlightenment may thus appear somewhat limited, and one may consider this phenomenon as particularly striking as Freemasonry is often considered as one of the spiritualities and organisations which most actively contributed to the promotion and spreading of such characteristic18th century ideals as equality, liberty, tolerance, and fraternity throughout Europe. How can one explain, then, that women were often barred from access to masonic lodges and faith?

This article, partly based on the works of Margaret Jacob who considers women's quasi-systematic exclusion from speculative freemasonry in the 18th century as a paradox of the age of Enlightenment, will try to offer a new viewpoint on the condition of women Freemasons in those days.

I. Modern or speculative Freemasonry and the exclusion of women

Modern Freemasonry was instituted in London in 1717 by the creation of the Grand Lodge of London which itself united four pre-existing Lodges. In 1723, James Anderson, a Scottish Presbyterian Minister endowed the Grand Lodge of London with the Constitutions of the Free-Masons which determined the religious creeds, the rules and principles of this secret society on the European scale. These Constitutions are thus the founding text of speculative Freemasonry. The Constitutions insist that Freemasons believe in God, whom they name 'the Great Architect of the Universe'. Freemasons consider themselves as heirs to the biblical legacy, referring to Adam as to one of their ancestors : 'Adam, our first parent, [was] created after the image of God'. Freemasons consider that Noah and his three sons were themselves Free-masons : 'Noah and his three sons, Japhet, Shem and Ham, all Masons true', as well as Moses, who is referred to as 'Grand Master Moses'. The references to the Bible are extremely numerous in the Constitutions, including Hebrew terms and sentences, which confirms the Judeo-Christian inspiration of masonic spirituality : Freemasons believe in one unique God, supposed to be the Creator of the world and the human species and they believe in a set of moral values generally referred to as Noachic. Moreover, Freemasons place their faith in the human rational and intellectual capacities, showing particular respect for sciences and arts, mainly geometry, called the 'Royal Art' in the Constitutions and constantly related to the Bible. For instance, it is asserted in the text of the Constitutions that Noah's Ark was built according to geometry, that is to say the rules of Freemasonry : 'Noah was commanded (...) to build the great Ark, which tho' of Wood, was certainly fabricated by Geometry, and according to the Rules of Masonry'.

However, mainly because masonic spirituality is deeply influenced by the Jewish and Christian patriarchal values, whose traditions generally exclude women from religious charges, but probably also because of the traditional and widely spread sexist prejudices related to women's supposed irrationality and to their body considered as principally dedicated to reproduction, masonic institutions did not consider women as capable of being initiated and refused to admit them as members. Anderson's Constitutions clearly specify from the introduction that Freemasonry only admits new brothers, which logically implies that women are excluded:

The Constitution, History, Laws, Charges, Orders, Regulations, and Usages,

Of the Right Worshipful Fraternity of Accepted Free-Masons;

Collected from their general Records, and their faithful Traditions of many

Ages. To be read at the Admission of a New Brother, when the Master or Warden shall begin, or order some other Brother to read as follows : Adam, our first Parent, created after the Image of God, the great Architect of the Uni- verse, must have had the Liberal Sciences, particularly Geometry, written on his Heart.

Further down, the text of the Constitutions establishes that neither bondsmen, nor scandalous people, nor poor people, nor women can become Freemasons, thereby clearly establishing the sexual exclusivity which characterizes speculative Freemasonry in the age of Enlightenment: 'The persons admitted Members of a Lodge must be good and true Men, free-born, and of mature and discreet Age, no Bondmen, no Women, no immoral or Scandalous Men, but of good Report'. This clearly implies that women in general were held by Freemasonry as immoral and despicable beings just like scandalous men, bondmen, liars, criminals, poor men etc. One is then naturally tempted to consider, with Margaret Jacob, that 'the egalitarian ideal did not encompass women, nor did it include the servant class or, in practice, illiterate males or men who could not pay the entrance fees'.

Now, prior to the 18th century and the creation of the Grand Lodge of London, there already existed a first form of Freemasonry. It was called operative Freemasonry because it was a sort of professional league gathering real builders and masons. Operative Freemasonry is thought to have appeared in Scotland in the early 17th century. It is believed that operative Freemasonry gradually evolved and started admitting new members who did not necessarily work in the building trade. According to some historians, this phenomenon of progressive admission in masonic lodges of people who were not necessarily real masons led to the birth of a new type of Freemasonry, later to be called speculative Freemasonry :

[..] the emergence in seventeenth century Scotland of Freemasonry, a brotherhood of men bound together by secret initiations, by secret rituals, and by secret modes of identification, organised in groups known as lodges. The functions of these lodges, and the attraction they had for those seeking admission were various. At first, in some cases well into the eighteenth century, one of the basic function of many of the lodges was regulating the working lives of stonemasons. (But) already by the mid-seventeenth century ideals resembling in many respects those of modern Freemasonry can be detected in the lodges and significant numbers of men who were not stonemasons were being admitted to these lodges..

Operative Freemasonry was also based on a number of founding texts called the Old or Ancient Charges. These texts also tended to forbid women's admission into masonic lodges and ceremonies as women very rarely worked in the building trade, but in a less radical way than speculative Freemasonry — this was not a formal ban and there are examples of women who were accepted as members of operative masonic lodges :

Although the Ancient Charges forbid the admission or initiation of women into the Order of Free and Accepted Masons, there are known instances where as the result of accident or sometimes design the rule has been broken and women have been duly initiated.

In Ireland, Elizabeth St Leger, better known under her married name, Elizabeth Aldworth (1693-1773), is an early example of a woman Freemason. She is by the way better known as 'the Lady Freemason'. Elizabeth was the daughter of the First Viscount Doneraile who hosted the ceremonies of the masonic lodge to which he belonged in his own house. One evening, as a new member was being initiated, Elizabeth hid in a room and eye-witnessed the whole process. When the members of the lodge realised that young Elizabeth had been present throughout the ceremony, they decided the only thing they could do was to make her a member of the lodge as well. She thus belonged to this lodge as a full member and ended her life at the age of 95 as the Grand Master of this lodge.

Another example, also prior to the creation of the Grand Lodge of London in 1717 is that of Mary Bannister, daughter of a barber in Barking, who became a Freemason in 1714.

It is noticeable that such cases of women admitted into Freemasonry generally became rarer after 1717 and mostly after 1723, that is to say after the publication of Anderson's Constitutions which turned Freemasonry into an official institution and strictly, formally, excluded women from masonic lodges. These examples may then tend to suggest that women's exclusion from masonic lodges became systematic from the moment Freemasonry was turned into an organised institution, with the creation of the Grand Lodge and the publication of the Constitutions. This may really appear paradoxical as Freemasons being generally perceived and presented as progressive people, the modernisation of their institutions should definitely have led to a more egalitarian access to masonic spirituality, which was not the case at all, especially because of Anderson's Constitutions. However, in spite of Anderson's text and its sexist undertones, there happened to be, as we shall see, examples of women Freemasons after 1717 and 1723, especially in the Netherlands and in France.

II. Women Freemasons in the 18th century : from the mixed Loge de Juste in The Hague to the French Loges d'Adoption

In the early 18th century, when the Grand Lodge of London was formed, all the preexistent lodges in Europe accepted the rules it established and complied with Anderson's Constitutions: 'All official European lodges gave their assent to the British Constitutions of 1723 published by the Grand Lodge of London'.

Thus even though it officially espoused and undeniably contributed to support and spread the ideas promoted by the Enlightenment, Freemasonry, on the European scale, did not question or dispute the sexism and elitism instituted by Anderson's Constitutions as neither women nor socially disadvantaged people were admitted and as the social hierarchy was strictly respected within the lodges : 'On the question of women's equality and educability most Masonic literature is generally ambivalent if not at moments misogynist. (....) Aristocrats and gentlemen were almost invariably accorded positions of leadership' .

There nevertheless existed, in the Netherlands, a genuinely remarkable masonic lodge which very quickly took liberties with the Constitutions and more generally with the rules established by the Grand Lodge of London. In 1751 indeed La Loge de Juste was founded in the Hague. It was named after its creator, Juste Gerard, Baron Van Wassenaer, who was the author of its book of Constitution (Livre de Constitution). The lodge distanced itself from English Freemasonry, invented its own rules and rituals and decided that gender equality would be one of its founding principles : 'It invented its own rituals by which the female and male members might express their equality, fraternity and mutual search for virtue and wisdom'.

The Livre de Constitution of La Loge de Juste declares indeed :

'Without distinction of birth' (...) 'the brothers and sisters' will deport themselves 'without vice, in order to augment the good manners of society and to dissipate the shadows that cover the eyes of the profane' (...) the members will attempt to spread themselves 'over the surface of the earth'.

There are several possible explanations to this Dutch exception. First of all, The Hague was a city in full cultural and intellectual effervescence in the 18th century : populations of various geographic and social origins mingled there, generally interested by the ideal of freedom which was soon going to characterize the Age of Enlightenment. The city also had a theatre, named La Comédie Française, whose many actors and actresses were members of La Loge de Juste. Dutch Freemasonry also was of a particular nature as it was first of all very clearly opposed to any form of royal absolutism, whether Stuart or Bourbon as it brought together at the same time Orangist members, who were opponents to James II's absolute power and French Protestant refugees who had been the victims of the repeal of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, another absolutist monarch. Thus the Dutch masonic lodges were characterized by a democratic tendency and a great originality of reflexion : 'Republicanism with strongly democratic tendencies, coupled with a variety of intellectual heresies'.

Moreover, due to the wide variety of the population living in The Hague at the time, the masonic lodges of this city also tended to admit very eclectic personalities as members, having very diverse occupations and religious beliefs.

All in all, then, considering the typically 18th-century project of building an ideal society, bearing in mind the cosmopolitan context of The Hague in the Age of Enlightenment and the universalism of Freemasonry in this country, it is in fact not very astonishing that at least one Dutch lodge, La Loge de Juste, decided to apply egalitatian and universalist principles consistently and openly formulated the project of admitting women in Freemasonry: As Margaret Jacob insists, 'This lodge of adoption certainly represented one expression of the enlightened search for equality among men and now women of reason and learning and it self-consciously challenged traditional assumptions of masculine authority'.

Being genuinely inspired by sexually egalitarian views, this mixed lodge was symetrically organized by a double hierarchy, a masculine one with the ranks of apprenti, compagnon and maître and a feminine one with the ranks of apprentie, compagnonne and maîtresse and the rites were rigorously the same for men and women, with the same references to the Bible, the same attire — apron and gloves — and the same symbols — square and compass —.

La Loge de Juste rapidly became famous and was influential in the appearance of other mixed lodges elsewhere in Europe. In France especially, the first mixed lodges, called Loges d'Adoption, appeared during the second half of the 18th century, with examples in Paris and Marseilles. An official text codifying la Maçonnerie d'Adoption (adoptive Freemasonry), also called La Maçonnerie des Dames, was published in 1774 by le Grand Orient de France. Some of these French lodges of adoption were particularly radical and were most probably inspired by the example of La Loge de Juste : two lodges, in particular, called Les Neuf Soeurs and La Candeur, founded after 1770, were placed under the sole authority of Grand Mistresses. Freemason Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, author of novel Les liaisons dangereuses and a member of Masonic lodge La Sincérité, proved to be a fervent defender not only of women's admission into Freemasonry on an absolutely equal basis, following the example of La Loge de Juste in The Hague, but also, and quite unsurprisingly, of women's right to education. He published an essay in favour of female education in 1783, entitled Des femmes et de leur éducation.

However, in spite of this divergent tendency and those few striking examples, the French lodges of adoption generally proved to be quite timid and their initiatives appear as far less bold than those of La Loge de Juste, since most of these French lodges of adoption were subjected to male lodges and to the authority of male Grand masters. Besides, women were often admitted into the French lodges of adoption through a specific rite, called Rite of Adoption and was not based on the same rituals as those used for the admission of a male member. What is more, the French lodges of Adoption most of the time admitted women members coming from the higher ranks of society, aristocracy and upper middle classes most of the time. The example of Josephine de Beauharnais can be mentioned in point, as well as that of Caroline Bonaparte, who both became Freemasons for reasons probably far more superficial than their sisters from Les Neuf Soeurs, La Candeur and La Loge de Juste.

One may then consider with several historians specializing in Freemasonry, such as Margaret Jacob, that the bold initiative of La Loge de Juste, though it set an example, actually lost its impact as it became popular.

But one can also consider things differently and suggest that women's admission into Freemasonry, whatever its conditions and extent, was anyway a very important and positive step forward.

III. Women and adoptive Freemasonry : limited access, elitism yet genuinely universalist ambition

Criticisms relating to adoptive Freemasonry are often sour, especially when it comes to dealing with the adoptive lodges of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in France or Austria as these lodges are generally considered as nothing more than recreational clubs and not real masonic lodges. The Order of the Mopses is a typical example in point. Presided over by Wilhlemine of Bayreuth, sister of King Frederick II, the Order of the Mopses was a very frivolous para-masonic lodge created in 1738 in Vienna, Austria. The Order of the Mopses associated men and women in the worship of fidelity. Its symbol was a pug puppy, also called Mopsus in latin, hence the name of this Order whose members barked to recognise each other.

This type of criticism however can not be applied to La Loge de Juste as this lodge was in no way comparable to the Order of the Mopses. La Loge de Juste was a serious organisation, it was based on a sincerely egalitarian approach, its members were genuinely enlightened people whose contributions to the lodge were learned and interesting.

La Loge de Juste is also very severely criticised on the grounds that even if this lodge admitted women as well as men, its members never came from the most modest classes of society. This can not be denied as indeed most of the women who were members of La Loge de Juste were actresses belonging to the prestigious theatre-in-residence in The Hague, La Comédie Française. They were very educated, well-read ladies, who could speak several languages, earned a sufficient living to pay the admission fees and buy the luxurious attire that the members were supposed to wear for the ceremonies :

Admission to La Loge de Juste was a costly matter. Aside from the gold plated jewellery depicting the sun and the moon that grand masters and mistresses wore, silk and taffeta accessories were also part of a member's basic attire. The members may have embraced the symbols of the workman's uniform, but in rendering their aprons in taffeta and their gloves in silk, the brothers and sisters also symbolically repudiated the sweat, dirt and hard work that is the lot of the worker.

La Loge de Juste is thus often compared to a coterie, as the French say, that is to say a very private group of very privileged people, all belonging to the financial and cultural elite. A group of happy and educated people who had the opportunity and chance to experience gender equality on a very limited scale without ever taking trouble to question the other hierarchies of the society of those days, more particularly the social hierarchy which played in their favour. As Margaret Jacob points out:

[The Lodge] never defied class boundaries nor publicly agitated for enlightened reforms. The lodge was open to the well-born, the highly remunerated professional classes and the prosperous merchants

It nevertheless appears necessary to mitigate those criticisms. Attacking any initiative trying to fight a specific form of inequality seems to be a common practice : women who fight misogyny are often blamed for not tackling other forms of injustice, for being centred on their own interests at the expense of other causes, for being egotistical people. In like manner, the Age of Enlightenment and its initiatives in favour of liberty and equality is also quite frequently lambasted as a hypocritical era, with thinkers and philosophes exclusively interested in the defence of their social class and having very little regard for the basic needs and rights of the lower social classes. The Enlightenment however undeniably promoted very progressive ideals and Freemasonry actively participated in this initiative. Freemasonry in the Age of Enlightenement was one of the rare institutions which promoted encyclopedism and the spreading of knowledge among its members. Besides, it is because of its progressive nature that Freemasonry attracted people who were frequently in favour of the strict application of the principle of equality. Some of those people did criticize Anderson's Constitutions and demand the admission of women as equal members in Freemasonry 'on the grounds that sexual exclusivity contradicted the Masonic ideal of equality'

In this perspective, the mixed Loge de Juste, with its Grand Master Juste Gerard, Baron van Wassenaer and its Grand Mistress, Marianne Baronne of Honstein, can be perceived and depicted as a very progressive, consistent and even pioneering lodge which genuinely tried to respect as much as possible the principles of the Enlightenment and thus those of Freemasonry, and went as far as applying them to the issue of gender. This was indeed a very isolated, minority and highly original initiative, yet it was also a very potent symbol. And this is certainly the most important thing.

Contrary to what Margaret Jacob says, then, one would be tempted to suggest that things should be considered in a different way. One could be that :'[even though] it remained within the confines of elite society, La Loge de Juste symbolically broadened the sexual distribution of power'. To put it differently, La Loge de Juste may have been nothing more than a symbol yet it was a revolutionary one and it was most probably perceived as such at the time : Freemasonry in general and more particularly the egalitarian initiatives of Dutch Freemason Juste Gerard were presented by some as most seditious and dangerous for the social order. In 1751, the very year when La loge de Juste was founded, l'Abbé Coyer, a clergyman, published an essay in The Hague entitled Découverte de l'Isle Frivole, in which he most violently lampooned Freemasonry : 'Ils adorent le soleil; ils voudroient bien l'aimer mais la façon les embarrasse... Ils ont proscrit la polygamie (...) Un dogme capital de leur religion c'est de condamner toutes les autres'.

Conclusion

As far as women's access to spirituality is concerned, it seems then that the restricted admission of women in Freemasonry in the 18th century can not be considered as a case of betrayal of the ideals of the Enlightenment. In fact, at a moment when women were securely excluded from all religious institutions — in those days it was just utterly impossible for a woman to become a priest or a rabbi or even just to study theology — Freemasonry already was two steps ahead and sometimes did accept women's presence and active participation in masonic lodges. Moreover, and in spite of deeply sexist founding texts, mainly Anderson's Constitutions, some women became Freemasons and some of them obtained high ranks in masonic lodges.

What is more, within the lodges to which they belonged, these women had the opportunity not only to have access to theology, metaphysics and philosophy but they also had the chance to attend classes of scientific popularization, as Freemasons were very much interested in knowledge in general. In other words, these women had access not only to spirituality but also to education thanks to their masonic lodge while everywhere else in the society of those days, their right to instruction was refused to them or only reluctantly conceded. In this regard, the attitude of Freemasonry, in spite of Anderson's Constitutions, was on the whole fully consistent with the ideals of the Enlightenment.

*******

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS CITED

- Primary sources

Anderson, James, The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, London, 1723.

Cholderlos de Laclos, Pierre, Des femmes et de leur éducation, 1783.

Coyer, M. L'Abbé, Découverte de l'Isle Frivole, La Haye, 1751, 8-19.

- Secondary sources

Jacob, Margaret,"Freemasonry, Women and the Paradox of the Enlightenment", Women and the Enlightenment, New York: Haworth Press, 1984, 69-93.

Le Moal, René et Lerbet, Georges, La franc-maçonnerie, une quête philosophique et spirituelle de la connaissance, Paris : Armand Collin, 2006.

Lemaire, Jacques, "Franc-maçonnerie et religion en Flandre et dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens pendant le XVIII° siècle", Franc-maçonnerie et religions dans l'Europe des Lumières, Paris : Champion, 2006, 157-168.

Saliceti, Claude, Humanisme, franc-maçonnerie et spiritualité, Paris: PUF, 1997.

Stevenson, David, The Origins of Freemasonry, Scotland's century, 1590-1710,

Cambridge: CUP, 1988.

Stevenson, David, "Franc-maçonnerie et religion en Ecosse : les premiers indices" (traduction: Madame Cécile Révauger), Franc-maçonnerie et religions dans l'Europe des Lumières, Paris : Champion, 2006, 19-27.

Wright, Dudley, "Women Freemasons", The Builder, August 1920.

- Other sources

La Franc-maçonnerie féminine au fil de l'histoire, exhibition of "La Grande Loge Féminine de France", 6 to 29 March 2002, Paris Townhall (9° arrondissement).

FURTHER READING

Jacob, Margaret C., Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-century Europe, Oxford : OUP, 1991.

Knoop Douglas, Jones Gwilym Peredur, The Genesis of Freemasonry: An Account of the Rise and Development of Freemasonry in Its Operative, Accepted, and Early Speculative Phases, Manchester : MUP, 1947.

Mackey, Albert, An Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences, New York/London : the Masonic History Company, 1914.

Stevenson, David, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590-1710, Cambridge : CUP, 1990.

KEYWORDS

Women freemasons, adoptive freemasonry, gender equality, age of Enlightenment.

GLOSSARY

- adoptive freemasonry : this term refers to the lodges which include(d) women members

- noachic laws : after their rescue from the deluge Noah and his sons were revealed seven basic principles known as `noachic  laws' prescribing them to establish a society based on laws, to prohibit idolatry, to prohibit blasphemy, to prevent the careless taking of human life, not to tolerate adultery, incest, homosexuality, and bestiality, to prevent robbery and to avoid eating the limb torn from a living animal.

- operative freemasonry : this term refers to pre-18th century freemansonry mainly engaged in the application of the rules and principles of architecture to the construction of edifices.

- speculative freemasonry : this term refers to spiritual, symbolic and theoretical freemasonry.

James, Anderson, The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, 6.

Anderson , ibid., 6.

Anderson , ibid., 7.

Anderson , ibid., 9.

"Shekhina", ie the divine presence in Hebrew; "Shelomoh lammelech Abhif Churam ghnasah" ("Did Huram, his Father, make to King Solomon"), Ibid., 10).

This Judeo-Christian influence can also probably account for the general rejection of female members in Freemasonry, women being traditionally regarded as impure in both Jewish and Christian traditions. See Eglantine Jamet-Moreau, Can the Female Body act as Mediator of the Sacred ?The issue of female clerics in 20th-century Britain.

According to the Bible, after their rescue from the deluge, Noah and his sons were revealed a set of seven requirements: to establish a society based on laws; to prohibit idolatry; to prohibit blasphemy; to prevent the careless taking of human life; not to tolerate adultery, incest, homosexuality, and bestiality; to prevent robbery and to avoid eating the limb torn from a living animal. All monotheistic religions, including Freemasonry, are based on those principles.

James, Anderson, Constitutions, 8.

Anderson , ibid., 7.

Anderson , ibid., Introduction, 2, my emphasis.

Anderson , ibid., III. Of Lodges, 49.

Margaret, Jacob, "Freemasonry, Women and the Paradox of the Enlightenment", Women and the Enlightenment, (New York: Haworth Press, 1984), 84.

David, Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry, Scotland's century, 1590-1710, (Cambridge : CUP, 1988), 1.

Dudley,Wright, "Women Freemasons", The Builder, (August 1920).

Margaret, Jacob, "Freemasonry, Women and the Paradox of the Enlightenment", Women and the Enlightenment, (New York: Haworth Press, 1984), 69.

Jacob, ibid., 70.

Jacob, ibid., 72.

Quotation from the Loge de Juste's Livre de Constitution in Margaret Jacob, ibid., 80.

Jacob, ibid., 75.

Jacob, ibid., 75.

The language spoken in learned groups was French in the 18th century, hence the quasi-systematic use of this language in the Masonic records of the time, even in the Netherlands.

La Franc-maçonnerie féminine au fil de l'histoire, exhibition of "La Grande Loge Féminine de France", 6 to 29 March 2002, Paris Townhall (9° arrondissement).

Jacob, ibid., 84.

Jacob, ibid., 75.

Jacob, ibid., 84.

Jacob, ibid., 72.

"while la Loge de Juste symbolically broadened the sexual distribution of power, it remained within the confines of elite society" (Jacob, ibid., 75).

M. L'Abbé Coyer, Découverte de l'Isle Frivole, (La Haye, 1751), 19.

16

---