nydus/Secret Societies and Subversive MovementsPublic
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PREFACE
The Royal Order of Scotland.
Manuel des Chevaliers de l'Ordre du Temple, p. 10 (1825
edition).
Oration of Chevalier Ramsay (1737); Baron Tschoudy, L'Étoile
Flamboyante, I. 20 (1766).
The description of the Vehmic Tribunals that follows here is
largely taken from Lombard de Langres, Les Sociétés Secrètes en
Allemagne (1819), quoting original documents preserved at Dortmund.
Clavel derides this early origin and says it was the
Francs-juges themselves who claimed Charlemagne as their founder
(Histoire pittoresque, p. 357).
Lecouteulx de Canteleu, Les Sectes et Sociétés Secrètes, p. 100.
According to Walter Scott's account of the Vehmgerichts in Anne of Geierstein, the initiate was warned that the secrets confided to him were "neither to be spoken aloud nor whispered, to be told in