volumes, he has uniformly
sought to identify the Fraternity with the general purposes of Lucifer,
but until the year 1891, it was merely along the broad and general lines
mentioned in the last chapter. Now, in presence of such attributions as,
for example, the Satanic character of tolerance in matters of religion,
I, for one, would unconditionally lay down my pen, as there is no common
ground upon which a discussion could take place.

From the vague imputation Leo Taxil passed, however, to an exceedingly
definite charge--and it is beyond all dispute that by his work entitled
"Are there Women in Freemasonry?"--he has created the Question of
Lucifer in its connection with the Palladian Order. He is the original
source of information as to the existence of that association; no one
had heard of it previously, and it is therefore of the first importance
that we should know something of the discoverer himself, and everything
as to the particulars of his discovery, including the date thereof.

Previously to the year 1891 Leo Taxil knew nothing of the Reformed
Palladium. He is the one Anti-Masonic writer named in the last chapter
as preceding Paul Rosen with information about Albert Pike. This was in
the year 1885, and in a work entitled, "The Brethren of the Three
Points," which began the "complete revelations concerning Freemasonry"
undertaken by this witness. Like Paul Rosen, he represents Pike merely
as a high dignitary of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, but he does
so under the incorrect title of Sovereign Commander Grand Master of the
Supreme Council of the United States. He states further that the Grand
Orient of France, as also the Supreme Council of the Scotch Rite of
France, "send their correspondence" to the Grand Master of Washington. I
conceive that no importance, as indeed no definite meaning, can be
attached to this statement beyond the general and not very significant
fact that there was some kind of communication between the three
centres. In the year 1888 Pike was so little in harmonious relation with
the French Grand Orient that by the depositions of later witnesses he
placed it under the ban of his formal excommunication in virtue of his
sovereign pontificate. For the rest, the "Brethren of the Three Points"
contains no information concerning the New and Reformed Palladium, and
this is proof positive that it was unknown at the time to the writer,
for it would have been valuable in view of his purpose.