charlatan who might be able to initiate them into further mysteries. In the curious notes drawn up by Savalette for the guidance of the Marquis de Chefdebien we catch a glimpse of the power behind the philosophers of the salons and the aristocratic adepts of the lodges--the professional magicians and men of mystery; and behind these again the concealed directors of the secret societies, the real initiates.
The Magicians
The part played by magicians during the period preceding the French Revolution is of course a matter of common knowledge and has never been disputed by official history. But like the schools of philosophers this sudden crop of magicians is always represented as a sporadic growth called into being by the idle and curious society of the day. The important point to realize is that just as the philosophers were all Freemasons, the principal magicians were not only Freemasons but members of occult secret societies. It is therefore not as isolated charlatans but as agents of some hidden power that we must regard the men whom we will now pass in a rapid survey.
One of the first to appear in the field was Schroepfer, a coffee-house keeper of Leipzig, who declared that no one could be a true Freemason without practising magic. Accordingly he proclaimed himself the "reformer of Freemasonry," and set up a lodge in his own house with a rite based on the Rose-Croix degree for the purpose of evoking spirits. The meetings took place at dead of night, when by means of carefully arranged