“In the attempt to conduct the government of this world, there are new elements to be considered which our predecessors had not to deal with. We have not to deal only with Emperors, Princes, and Ministers, but there are the secret societies—an element which we must take into consideration, which at the last moment may baffle all our arrangements, which have their agents everywhere, which have reckless agents, which countenance assassination, and which, if necessary, could produce a massacre.”—LORD BEACONSFIELD's Speech at Aylesbury, Sept. 20th, 1876. "The secret societies of the world, the existence of which men laugh at and deny in the plenitude of their self-confidence, as men laugh at and deny the existence of Satan himself—the secret societies are forcing their existence and their reality upon the consciousness of those who, until the other day, would not believe that they existed. In the year 1848 they shed innocent blood in the city of Rome; in the year 1871 they shed innocent blood in the city of Paris. They are again as widespread and as active at this moment.”—CARDINAL MANNING. THOMAS FROST, AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON," ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1876. [All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.] PREFACE. THE HE political history of Europe during the last hundred years has been made, to so considerable an extent, by the various secret associations by which revolutions and insurrections have been prepared, that our knowledge of it is incomplete and unsatisfactory without some acquaintance with the agencies which, during that period, have been incessantly at work beneath the surface. The great European convulsion of the last century was foreshadowed by the Illuminati; the seeds of the movement which, skilfully directed by the most able statesman of the age, has resulted in the establishment of the new German Empire, were sown by the Tugendbund; the independence of Greece is due to the Hetairia; and the extent to which the young Italian State owes its existence to the Carbonari and Young Italy is simply incalculable. Much has been written concerning some of the |