The Secret History of Freemasonry

The Templars and the Parisian Builders 133

tion between the legend of Master Jacques of the Companions of Duty
and the history of the grand master of the Templars. The long ironshod
cane of the "children of Master Jacques," so dreadful to the "Gavots,"*
would be considered as a souvenir of the Templars' terrible lance.
Others have compared it to the Templar cross.+
The Companions of Duty obligatorily professed the Catholic faith.
A confession of belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ was required to be
accepted into the rites of Master Jacques or Father Soubise. It was the
Companions who gave particular honor to the Ascension and the Holy
Savior.
The Compagnons Etrangers du Devoir de Liberte (the Loups),++
however, accepted into their ranks men of all nations and creeds.
According to Agricole Perdiguier, in his book on compagnonnage, the
Compagnons Passant [Traveling Journeyman] lived on the right bank
of the Seine and the Compagnons de Liberte lived on the left bank.
What we find here is actually an entire quarter inhabited by masons.
Both were obliged by their conventions to work on the side of the river
where their homes were located.
The "traveling journeymen" housed at Saint Gervais Hospital

• The Gavots, or "compagnons of liberty," were accused of supporting the Reformation
  in the seventeenth century, while the "children of Master Jacques" supported the
  Catholic Church. —Trans.]

• From an historical point of view, another more recent comparison could be made. In
  1667, the grand prior of Malta and the Temple was Jacques de Souvre. He saw to it that
  the former walls of the Enclos were demolished and that large mansions (Hotels des
  Bains, de Guise, de Boufflers, and so on) were transformed into houses that were rented
  to private individuals. He also entrusted to Mansart the task of rebuilding his palace (cf.
  J. Hillairet, Evocation du vieux Paris. 352). Could this Grand Prior Jacques de Souvre
  have been the journeymen's "Master Jacque?" It should be added that the Hotel de
  Bason, built on the grand worksite of the Temple (the current rue des Archives) was
  acquired by the Soubise family in 1697. The Hotel de Soubise or Rohan Soubise (today
  the National Archives) was built from 1705 to 1709 on the site of the former gardens at
  the same time that the Hotel de Rohan was built alongside on the rue Vielle du Temple.
  Gould (A Concise History of Freemasonry), does not hesitate to connect the origin of the
  "children of Father Soubise" to the illustrious Rohan-Soubise family. Whether true or
  not, it is certain that these magnificent dwellings were built by masons who lived in the
  censive district of the Temple.++
  According to Macrobe, the wolf represents the initiate, he who has received the light,
  because of the kinship the ancients felt existed between the wolf and the sun. "In fact,"
  they said, "the flocks flee and disappear when the wolf approaches just like the constel-
  lations, flocks of stars, disappear before the light of the sun." (Cavel, Histoire pit-
  toresque de la Franc Macnneire, 361.)