The Grand Lodges and Modern Freemasonry 253know that this interpretation is strongly rejected by the English, who
today are clearly in support of a theism that leaves each brother the
freedom of his faith.
It should be noted that in this debate made obscure by sectarian
attitudes, the question is not one of explicitly defining the tradition and
its temporal formulation, but rather of knowing if a tradition—truly,
two traditions—might not have been substituted for another one.
Everyone might thus be either correct or mistaken and find themselves
on a path that has been substituted for the Christian tradition of the
operative masons and its initiatory path.
Perhaps it is best to stick to the historical data. In actuality, specu-
lative Freemasonry was imported into France by Scottish Catholics and
the Stuarts. According to the book Annales Maconniques des Pays-
Bas,^8 which cites a sixteenth-century document, there were two Scottish
lodges in France in 1535: one in Paris and the other in Lyon. While this
is debatable, we do know that as early as the sixteenth century, Scottish
craft freemasonry was admitting accepted members. The Scots had
already long been in the habit of forming military lodges, so it is not
gratuitous to assume that the Scots—who had been part of the French
court for some time where they notably formed one of the king's noble
guard units (the Ramsays were part of it in the fifteenth century)—had
introduced the customs of their own country into their adopted land.
The ties between the Scots and French were strengthened further dur-
ing the sixteenth century when Mary Stuart I, Queen of the Scots from
1542 to 1567, became Queen of France through her marriage to
Francois II (1558-1560).
The ancestral role played by Scottish Freemasonry in France is con-
firmed by the knight Ramsay in his famous Discourse of 1737: "By
degrees our Lodges and our rites were neglected in most places. This is
why of so many historians only those of Great Britain speak of our
Order. Nevertheless it preserved its splendour among those Scotsmen to
whom the Kings of France confided during many centuries the safe-
guard of their royal persons."
The presence of Scottish lodges in France was more evident when
the Stuarts were forced into exile following their reign in England. In
1649, following the beheading of Charles I, his widow Henrietta of