the Alta Vendita. In the three first degrees, he explains--
It is still a question of the morality of Christianity and even of the Church, for which those who wish to be received must promise to sacrifice themselves. The initiates imagine, according to this formula, that the object of the association is something high and noble, that it is the Order of those who desire a purer morality and a stronger piety, the independence and the unity of their country. One cannot therefore judge the Carbonari *en masse*; there are excellent men amongst them.... But everything changes after one has taken the three degrees. Already in the fourth, in that of the *Apostoli*, one promises to overthrow all monarchies, and especially the kings of the race of the Bourbons. But it is only in the seventh and last degree, reached by few, that revelations go further. At last the veil is torn completely for the Principi Summo Patriarcho. Then one learns that the aim of the Carbonari is just the same as that of the *Illuminés*. This degree, in which a man is at the same time prince and bishop, coincides with the Homo Rex of the latter. The initiate vows the ruin of all religion and of all positive government, whether despotic or democratic; murder, poison, perjury, are all at their disposal. Who does not remember that on the suppression of the *Illuminés* was found, amongst other poisons, a *tinctura ad abortum faciendum*. The *summo maestro* laughs at the zeal of the mass of Carbonari who have sacrificed themselves for the liberty and independence of Italy, neither one nor the other being for him a goal but a method.<sup></sup>
Witt Doehring, who had himself reached the degree of P.S.P., thereupon declares that, having taken his vows under a misapprehension, he holds