the indomitable Templar spirit.
The decline of the French aristocracy and the revolution that preceded the disaster that brought kingship into disrepute, ranks of Cromwellian regicide and where the Order and its representatives were in those days, is a matter of conjecture albeit of extreme interest. More so because Napoleon was seen to send his palatial guard to flank the Grandmaster of the Order of the Temple at a mass celebrating the anniversary of the death of Jacque de Molay. This inconsistent public gesture from a historical figure produced by the earlier massacre of aristocrats, including Le Comte de Brissac, head of the Scottish Royal Guard and well documented Grand Master of the Temple, needs to be carefully analyzed with due respect to contemporary affiliations of both the Templates and the French Masons to what Napoleon stood for. The study is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article and therefore bypassed.
That the Order was reinstated in France under the Grand mastership of Philip, Duke of Orleans has been denied by many, particularly the masons, but not one single member of the very important families listed and published by the foremost press of France one hundred years later, drew one single comment against the authenticity of what to them must have been common aristocratic knowledge. Again, hardly a recipe for denial and only by those so called academics who have little to be measured by in the context of either the Masons or the Templars. As can be seen, it was of urgent political interest to those with other intentions (and definitely not the Scots), to safeguard British interests, knowing possibly what lay in store in the 18th.century before them. It is curious that the Order of the Temple