The 1828 MANUEL MACONNIQUE
and Its Influence on Louisiana Masonry
by Michael Carpenter

The Manuel maconnique a l'usage
des Francs-Masons acceptes du rite an-
cien d'York, residants a la Louisiane
("Masonic Handbook Following the
Usage of Free and Accepted Masons of
the Ancient York Rite Resident in
Louisiana"), whose title page is repro-
duced near this article, was published in
1828 without any ascription of author-
ship other than "Past Master" (ancien
Venerable)l. Nevertheless, it was pub-
lished with the full approbation of com-
mittees of the Grand Lodge and Grand
Chapter of Louisiana as a "safe and
well-made guide" to Masons of the jur-
isdiction in all respects.

The book contains five chapters as
follows:

1. a translation of the instructions found
in Jeremy Cross' Masonic Chart for all
the degrees of what was then called
York Rite Masonry, namely the three
blue lodge degrees, the four degrees of
the Royal Arch chapter, the two
degrees now found in the Council of
Royal and Select Masters, and finally
that of High Priest in the Royal Arch;

2 . a description of the history of Masonry
in Louisiana from its beginnings in
1793 through 1828;

3. a tableau of all the bodies that existed
in Louisiana from 1793 through 1828
including their presiding officers;

4. a summary of the history of ancient
York Masonry and its establishment
in America; and, finally,

5. transcriptions of ancient Masonic
documents.

Materials for the fourth and fifth
chapters are derived from Preston's Il-
lustrations of Masonry and T.S. Webb's
Mason's Monitor, plus an "old book"
by an unidentified Brother Scot.

Surely, such a collection would have
been of use to our brothers of 170 years
ago, much in the same way that a moni-
tor is today. But why in 1828? Why in
French, when Louisiana's French-
speaking brothers didn't use the York
Rite ritual characterizing the majority
of the rest of Louisiana and American
Masonry? These questions can be par-
tially resolved by what the preface says,
and today's knowledge that the con-
troversy of the rites characterized
Louisiana Masonry was then at its
strongest, if not most bitter.

The preface (avertissement), dated
February 7, 1828, states that the friends
of York Rite Masonry had been
desirous for years of seeing the custo-
mary monitorial material given to all
their candidates translated into French
so that the work of their French-speak-
ing brothers might be brought closer to
that of the other American lodges work-
ing in Louisiana. This effort of pre-
senting as much as possible of the
American or York work in French is to
be credited to the labors of J. H. Hol-
land, then the Grand Master. Perhaps,
then, the purpose of the book was to aid
in the uniformity of ritual work in
Louisiana. In fulfillment of this task,
the Manuel Maconnique's authors were
only partially successful. Even today
Louisiana does not have a uniform
working.

In searching for the motives of the
authors, two additional points should
be noted. Firstly, the authors claim that
the blame for whatever errors they may
have made, and whatever lacunae they
may have left, must rest with the short
time available for the book's composi-
tion. Perhaps the writers needed to
complete the project rapidly because of
some pressing need. Evidence of that
pressing need is noted by H. Glenn Jor-
Jordan in his Let There Be Light. (2) Two
lodges in New Orleans, according to
Jordan, were working in English,
namely Harmony, No. 26, and its
daughter lodge, Louisiana, No. 32, and
were opposed to the French Rite. on
June 24, 1828, representatives from the
French-speaking and chartered lodge,
Triple Bienfaisance, No. 7319, at-
tempted to visit Harmony Lodge for the
annual celebration of the anniversary of
St. John the Baptist. Harmony refused
to seat the Triple Bienfaisance mem-
bers, calling them members of an ir-
regular body because they did not prac-
tice the York Rite. The fallout from this
incident would reverberate through
Louisiana Masonic history for the rest
of the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Evidently this 1828 incident was
merely a continuation of the differences
that had continued since 1811 between
the two English-speaking lodges on the
one hand and the French lodges on the
other; the Manuel contains discussion
of the 1811 incident and has the remark
that the "misunderstanding" cannot be
discussed because of the lack of authen-
tic documents.3 That the Manuel was
published and entered for copyright on
February 8, 1828, just four months
before the Saint John's anniversary in-
cident may indicate an awareness by its
authors of the gathering storm.

Secondly, the rites controversy was not
the sole force dividing French and
American brothers; the general dispute
among the various groups living in the
city must also have had an effect. This
dispute would later lead the City of
New Orleans to dissolve and change for
several years into three separate munic-
ipalities dividing the French-speakers,
the Americans, and those of Irish
origins. As evidence of the hardness of
feelings among the groups, the term,
"neutral ground, " now used in New
Orleans to denote a division strip in the
middle of a street, became the name for
the land dividing the three municipali-
ties. Perhaps the authors were well-
aware of the rapidly worsening divi-
sions among the French Rite, Scottish
Rite and American (York) Rite Masons
and thought that the best way to unite
the Craft was a uniform ritual. Possible
ignorance on the part of the French-
speaking Masons of the origins of York
Rite Masonry could account for the his-
torical notices of the origins of York
Rite Masonry.

The historical section of the Manuel
divides the its account into two distinct
periods. The first runs from the estab-
lishment of the first Louisiana lodge in
1793 to the establishment of the Grand
Lodge in 1812, while the second ex-
tends from then to the end of 1827. (4)
Although the history is mainly chrono-
logical, the reader can learn many
things about the condition of Louisiana
Masonry in the 1820s not otherwise
covered in the Grand Lodge proceed-
ings of the time.

The historical section has a footnote
discussing what might well be a Grand
Lodge view on the unification of ritual.
To quote that note,

The phrase "reuniting of the rites"
renders exactly what took place in Eng-
land and America; that is to say that the
ancient York Masons who were divided
into Antients and Moderns in the estab-
lishment of the Grand Lodge of Eng-
land have been reunited and are all
today ancient York Masons. The Ma-
sons of the French Rite, like modern
Masons, dependent on the Grand
Lodge of England, since the Grand
Orient of France was founded by the
lodges which the former constituted in
France in 1718 and later, in this connec-
tion, would be reunited with the ancient
York Masons if their work was not
strongly altered by the admixture of the
Scottish Rite. But one must not under-
stand by "reuniting of the Rites," the
uniting of the ancient York Rite or
modern York Rite with the Scottish
Rite, the Egyptian or the Philosophical.
This kind of reuniting is impossible." (5)

The die was cast for schism which
would take a long time to heal. The
authors of the Manuel maconnique at-
tempted to but could not bridge the
gap.

While James B. Scot (6) Glen Lee
Greene (7) and H. Glenn Jordan (8) have
each of them pursued the early history
of Masonry in Louisiana, it appears
that their accounts are ultimately
largely based on the Manuel Maqon-
nique, Scot's being expressly so; for
that reason, if no other, the translation
into English of the portion of the Man-
uel dealing with that history would be
greatly beneficial. Additionally, the re-
production in database format of the
tableau of the officers of each lodge
through the early years of Louisiana
Masonry would greatly aid Masonic re-
search. (9)

NOTES

l.Manuel maconnique a l'usage des Francs-
Macons acceptes du ancient d'York, residants a
la Louisane, par un Ancien Vene'rable. Nou-
velle- Orleans: Le I 'imprimerie d 'Edwin Lyman,
1828, viii, 224 p. The copy used is in thc Hill
Memorial Library, Louisana State University.
Martin Gras is given as the copyright claimant,
but that is no evidence of his autorship of the
book

2 . H . Glenn Jordan, Let There Be Light. A History of
Freemasonry inLouisana, 1763-1989. Baton Rouge:
Bourque Printing, 1990, p. 28-32.

3. Manuel, p 156. The author adds that the mem-
bers of both sides with whom he is acquainted
esteem one another.

4. The author of Manuel seems ignorant of the real
beginnings of Masonry in New Orleans. In the
early 1750s, a lodge named La Parfaite Harmo-
nies was started in New Orleans, according to the
Sharp documents, but it probably disappeared
after Spain acquired the Louisana territory in-
cluding New Orleans in 1762. See "An Introduc-
tion to the 'Sharp Documents''' by Gerry
Prinsen and Claude Guerillot and edited by F.
W. Seal-Coon in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 107
(1994):155-178

5. Manuel, p. 168, note.

6. Jarlles B. Scot. Outline of the Rise and Progress of
Freemasonry in Louisana from its Introduction to the
Re-Organization of the Crand Lodge in 1850. New
Orleans: Clark & Hofeline, 1873 (reprinted La-
fayette, LA: Michael Poll Publishing, 1995).
Other editions were issued in 1912 and 1923.
James B. Scot is not the Brother Scot alluded to
earlier in this paper.

7. Glen Lee Greene. Masonry In Louisana. a Sesqui-
centennial History 181Z-1962. New York: Exposi-
tion Press, 1962.

8. Jordan, op. at.

9. Such a project is now underway.
