Grand Inspector-General the jewel is again the double-headed eagle, and the Sovereign Grand Commander is Frederick, who at the time this degree was instituted figured with Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, Grand Master of the Grand Orient, as his lieutenant. The most important of these innovations was the thirty-second degree, which was in reality a system rather than a degree for bringing together the Masons of all countries under one head--hence the immense power acquired by Frederick. By 1786 French Masonry was thus entirely Prussianized and Frederick had indeed become the idol of Masonry everywhere. Yet probably no one ever despised Freemasonry more profoundly. As the American Mason Albert Pike shrewdly observed:
There is no doubt that Frederick came to the conclusion that the great pretensions of Masonry in the blue degrees were merely imaginary and deceptive. He ridiculed the Order, and thought its ceremonies mere child's play; and some of his sayings to that effect have been preserved. It does not at all follow that he might not at a later day have found it politic to put himself at the head of an Order that had become a power....<sup></sup>
It is not without significance to find that in the year following the official foundation of the Stricte Observance,