conception of Weishaupt?
Whether, then, Weishaupt was directly inspired by Mendelssohn or any other Jew must remain for the present an open question. But the Jewish connexions of certain other Illuminati cannot be disputed. The most important of these was Mirabeau, who arrived in Berlin just after the death of Mendelssohn and was welcomed by his disciples in the Jewish salon of Henrietta Herz. It was these Jews, "ardent supporters of the French Revolution" at its outset, who prevailed on Mirabeau to write his great apology for their race under the form of a panegyric of Mendelssohn.
To sum up, I do not so far see in Illuminism a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity, but rather a movement finding its principal dynamic force in the ancient spirit of