Note 484 — Chapter III

Robison, op. cit., p. 7. Robison also made use of several of the works which the disturbances occasioned by the Bavarian Illuminati called forth on the continent. Conspicuous among these were the documents of the order published by the Bavarian government. Cf. ibid., pp. 133, 185, 186, 205, etc. He also made use of Hoffman’s violently hostile sheet, the Wiener Zeitschrift. Cf. ibid., pp. 358, 393. Robison’s knowledge of the German language was, however, far from perfect, as he himself freely admitted (Cf. ibid., pp. 14, 499), so that his handling of his sources must be viewed as neither capable nor complete. The meagerness of his resources is perhaps best illustrated in his treatment of the conspiracy which he assumed underlay the French Revolution. Such “proofs” as he made use of in this connection amounted to little more than the political manifestoes of certain secret lodges and clubs, fugitive revolutionary documents which chanced to blow across his path, current historical conjecture and gossip, etc. The whole was pieced together in the spirit of one who ventured to hope that his “scattered facts” might be of some service to his generation. (Cf. ibid., pp. 493–496.)