Triangle Astraea

The French Rite

A rite shaped in the century of the Enlightenment, with a taste for clarity, reason and open discussion. An introduction to the tradition Triangle Astraea draws on.

Roots in the eighteenth century

Freemasonry in its modern, speculative form took shape in London in the early eighteenth century and crossed the Channel within a few years. The first Lodges in Paris, in the 1720s and 1730s, used the forms of the London Grand Lodge of 1717, and French Masons soon began to adapt them, translate them and add to them.

By the middle of the century practices varied widely from one Lodge to the next. In 1773 French Lodges reorganised themselves as the Grand Orient de France, and between 1783 and 1786 a commission set out to give its Lodges a common form for the three symbolic degrees of Apprentice, Fellow and Master. That text, later printed in 1801 as the Régulateur du Maçon, is the reference point of what came to be called the French Rite, or Rite Français.

Its character

The French Rite is the child of a particular age: the age of the Encyclopédie, of salons and learned societies, of the conviction that reason, education and free discussion could improve both people and the societies they live in. Several features follow from that.

  • Sobriety. Its ceremonies are comparatively short and plain. The rite prefers a few strong symbols, clearly placed, to an accumulation of them.
  • Symbols as questions. Its symbols are offered for interpretation rather than belief, which leaves each person free to find their own meaning in them.
  • Room for discussion. The spoken contribution, prepared by one and discussed by all, holds a central place, and speaking in turn and listening without interruption are part of its etiquette.
  • Attention to the world. Moral and social questions sit naturally beside symbolic ones, in keeping with the motto of liberty, equality and fraternity that French Freemasonry made its own.
  • Initiation as a journey. Initiation is built around a period of solitary reflection and a series of symbolic journeys, a narrative of passing from darkness towards light.

A rite that has changed

The French Rite has never been frozen. In 1877 the Grand Orient de France decided that belief in God and in the immortality of the soul would no longer be required, leaving these questions to each person’s conscience. The decision is often taken as the moment the liberal current of Freemasonry became visible as such.

In the twentieth century the ritual was revised several times, most notably under Arthur Groussier in 1938, in a spare, rationalist form. More recently, historians and Masons have returned to the eighteenth-century sources, and versions closer to the original texts have appeared beside the modern ones. Today the French Rite exists in several variants and is used by Lodges in many countries and languages.

That history is part of its appeal: a tradition old enough to be worth learning from, and honest enough to keep asking whether its forms still serve their purpose.

Further reading