PREFACE

this secret guarded that until the papers of the Illuminati were seized in 1786 no one outside this inner circle knew that Weishaupt was the head of the Order. Yet if we are to believe his own assertions, he had been throughout in supreme control. Again and again he impresses on his intimes the necessity for unity of command in the Order: "One must show how easy it would be for one clever head to direct hundreds and thousands of men," and he illustrates this system