Note 512 — Chapter III

Robison omitted nothing in his effort to fasten the stigma of moral obliquity upon the order. The published papers of the order were appealed to show that crimes of bribery, theft, and libertinism were not uncommon on the part of the leaders. See Robison, pp. 144 et seq. The unsavory documents of the order referred to on page 181 of this dissertation likewise received Robison’s zealous attention. Cf. ibid., pp. 138 et seq. Weishaupt’s personal immorality in his relations with his sister-in-law is made to do full duty as “a brilliant specimen of the ethics which illuminated” the leaders. Cf. ibid., pp. 164 et seq. (If a particular illustration of Robison’s bungling way of handling his German sources were needed, that might be found in the fact that our author identified the victim of Weishaupt’s lust as the sister-in-law of Zwack. Cf. ibid., p. 167.)