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58 M SECRET SOCIETIES arshall, overran Germany with a sect of new Templars, not to be confounded with the Templars that afterwards joined the masonic fraternity . But Hund seems after all to have rendered no real services to the Stuarts ; though when Charles Edward visited Germany, the sectaries received him in the most gallant manner, promising him the most extensive support, and asking of him titles and estates in a kingdom which he had yet to conquer . Thus he was brought to that state of mental intoxication which afterwards led him to make an absurd entry into Rome, preceded by heralds,' who proclaimed him king. Hund seems, in the sad story of the Stuarts, to have acted the part of a speculator ; and the rite of the Strict Observance, permeated by the Jesuitical l eaven, had probably an aim very different from the re-establishment r of the proscribed dynasty . It is certain that at one time the power of the New Templars was very great, and prepared the way for the Illuminati . XV THE CHAPTER OF CLERMONT AND THE STRICT OBSERVANCE 434. Jesuitical Influence .-Catholic ceremonies, unknown in ancient Freemasonry, were introduced from 1 735 to I74o; in the Chapter of Clermont, so called in honour of Louis of Bourbon, Prince of Clermont, at .the time grand master of the Order in France. From that time, the influence of the Jesuits on the fraternity made itself more and more felt . The candidate was no longer received in a lodge, but in the city of Jerusalem ; not the ideal Jerusalem, but a clerical Jerusalem, typifying Rome . The meetings were called Capitula Canonicorum, and a monkish language and asceticism prevailed therein . In the statutes is seen the hand of James Lainez, the second general of the Jesuits, and the aim at universal empire betrays itself, for at the reception of the sublime knights the last two chapters of the Apocalypse are read to the candidate-a glowing picture of that universal monarchy which the Jesuits hoped to establish. The sect spread very rapidly, for when Baron Hund came to Paris in 1742, and was received into the highest Jesuit degrees he found on his return to Germany that those degrees were already established in Saxony and Thuringia, under the government of Marshall, whose labours he undertook to promote. 435 . The Strict Observance.-From the exertions of these two men arose the "Rite of Strict Observance," so called, because Baron Hund introduced into it a perfectly monkish subordination, and which seemed also for a time intended to favour the tragic hopes of the house of Stuart ; for Marshall, having visited Paris in 1741, there, entered into close connection with Ramsay and the other adherents of the exiled family. To further this object, Hund mixed up with the rites of Clermont what was known or supposed to be known of the statutes of the Templars, and acting in concert with THE RELAXED OBSERVANCE 436. Organisation of Relaxed Observance .-In 1767, there arose at Vienna a schism of the Strict Observance ; the dis-' sentients, who called themselves " Clerks of the Relaxed Observance "-the nickname of Relaxed Observance had originally been applied by the members of the Strict Observance, as a term of contempt to all other rites-declaring that they alone possessed the secrets of the association, and knew the place where were deposited the splendid treasures of the Templars. They also claimed precedence, not only over the rite of Strict Observance, but also over all Masonry . Their promises and instructions' revolved around the philosopher's stone, the government of spirits, and the millennium . To be initiated it was necessary to be a Roman Catholic, and to have passed through all the degrees of the Strict Observance . The members knew only their immediate heads , but Doctor Stark, of Konigsberg, a famous preacher, and Baron Raven, of Mecklenburg, were well-known chie