from this moment that French Freemasonry degenerated the most rapidly. The Order was soon invaded by intriguers. This was rendered all the easier by the apathy of the Comte de Clermont, appointed Grand Master in 1743, who seems to have taken little interest in the Order and employed a substitute in the person of a dancing master named Lacorne, a man of low character through whose influence the lodges fell into a state of anarchy. Freemasonry was thus divided into warring factions: Lacorne and the crowd of low-class supporters who had followed him into the lodges founded a Grand Lodge of their own (Grande Loge Lacorne), and in 1756 the original Freemasons again attempted to make Craft Masonry the national Masonry of France by deleting the word "Anglaise" from the appellation of Grand Lodge, and renaming it "Grand Loge Nationale de France." But many lodges still continue to work the additional degrees.
The rivalry between the two groups became so violent that in 1767 the government intervened and closed down Grand Lodge.
The Templar group had, however, formed two separate associations, the "Knights of the East" (1756) and the "Council of the Emperors of the East and West" (1758). In 1761 a Jew named Stephen Morin was sent to America by the "Emperors" armed with a warrant from the Duc de Clermont and Grand Lodge of Paris and bearing the sonorous title of "Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime Master," with orders to establish a Lodge in that country. In 1766 he was accused in Grand Lodge of