but the Marquis de Dangeau, who, on his death in 1720, was succeeded by the son of the Regent, the Duc de Chartres. If, then, Ramsay was admitted to any Order by the Regent, it was surely the Ordre du Temple, of which the Regent is said to have been the Grand Master at this date.
Now, the infamous character of the Duc d'Orléans is a matter of common knowledge; moreover, during the Regency--that period of impiety and moral dissolution hitherto unparalleled in the history of France--the chief of council was the Duc de Bourbon, who later placed his mistress the Marquise de Prie and the financier Paris Duverney at the head of affairs, thus creating a scandal of such magnitude that he was exiled in 1726 through the influence of Cardinal Fleury. This Duc de Bourbon in 1737 is said to have become Grand Master of the Temple. "It was thus," observes de Canteleu, "that these two Grand Masters of the Temple degraded the royal authority and ceaselessly increased hatred against the government."
It would therefore seem strange that a man so upright as Ramsay appears to have been, who had moreover but recently been converted to the Catholic Church, should have formed a friendship with the dissolute Regent of France, unless there had been some bond between them. But here we have a possible explanation--Templarism. Doubtless during Ramsay's youth at Kilwinning many Templar traditions had come to his knowledge, and if in France he found himself befriended by the Grand Master himself,