On the matter of Illuminati involvement in the French Revolution, evidence of the Bavarian Illuminati conspiracy emerged when the Illuminati emissary Johann Jakob Lanz (1735-July 20, 1785) was struck by lightning and killed at Regensburg, formerly known as Ratisbon. The police found he was carrying papers documenting the Illuminati's plans for international revolution. In common with the Protocols, the Illuminati program included world government and the destruction of Christianity. The Bavarian government published details of the Illuminati conspiracy and sent copies to European heads of church and state, but the warning went unheeded. Less than four years after Lanz' death and the discovery of the plans for international revolution, the French Revolution commenced on Bastille Day, July 14, 1789. Within a few more years, tens of thousands were executed during the 1793-4 Reign of Terror as "enemies of the revolution".
Within a decade of Bastille Day, French publicist and Jesuit priest Abbé Augustin Barruel and Scottish physicist John Robison independently wrote exposés of the Illuminati plot:
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism: The antisocial conspiracy - Abbé Augustin Barruel (1797) [free .pdf (Part IV)]
Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies - John Robison (1798) [.htm webpage / Free .pdf]
Barruel's work comes in five volumes. Volume IV is the "Historical Part", which is probably the most useful here, available at the .pdf link above, and is the volume cited below. Part III for example, available as a Free Google eBook, is largely about the "Code of the Illuminees".
Robison says [p. 15]: "The association of which I have been speaking is the Order of ILLUMINATI, founded, in 1775, by Dr. Adam Weishaupt, professor of Canon law in the university of Ingolstadt, and abolished in 1786 by the Elector of Bavaria, but revived immediately after, under another name, and in a different form, all over Germany. It was again detected, and seemingly broken up; but it had by this time taken so deep root that it still subsists without being detected, and has spread into all the countries of Europe. It took its first rise among the Free Masons, but is totally different from Free Masonry."
Ibid. [p. 102]: "Weishaupt was the founder in 1776. In 1778 the number of Members was considerably increased, and the Order was fully established. The Members took antique names. Thus Weishaupt took the name of Spartacus, the man who headed the insurrection of slaves, which in Pompey's time kept Rome in terror and uproar for three years. Zwack was called Cato. Knigge was Philo. Bassus was Hannibal: Hertel was Marius. Marquis Constanza was Diomedes. Nicholai, an eminent and learned bookseller in Berlin, and author of several works of reputation, took the name of Lucian, the great scoffer at all religion. Another was Mahomet, &c."
See here for a list of Illuminees and their pseudonyms. Or here for a more detailed list and other excellent information. And there is a large register here in German, which even includes Augustin Barruel. There are no Rothschilds on the list, but there are three with the name Bauer.
(To settle Robison's 1775/1776 inconsistent dates for the founding of Illuminism, Barruel says [p. 19], "It was on the 1st of May, 1776, that Weishaupt laid the first foundations of his Illuminism.")
Robison reproduces letters from Spartacus-Weishaupt to Cato-Zwack. For example [p. 113]: "Spartacus to Cato: 'By this plan we shall direct all mankind. In this manner, and by the simplest means, we shall set all in motion and in flames. The occupations must be so allotted and contrived, that we may, in secret, influence all political transactions.' [...]
Ibid. [p. 122]: Spartacus to Cato: 'Princes and nations shall vanish from the earth. The human race will then become one family, and the world will be the dwelling of rational men.'"
And here [p. 152] is Robison's list of Illuminati lodges, "before 1786":
"Munich, Westphalia (several), Ingolstadt, Heidelberg, Frankfort, Manheim, Echstadt, Strasburg (5), Hanover, Spire, Brunswick, Worms, Calbe, Düsseldorf, Magdeburgh, Cologne, Cassel, Bonn (4), Osnabrück, Livonia (many), Weimar, Courland (many), Upper Saxony (several), Frankendahl, Austria (14), Alsace (many), Vienna (4), Deuxponts, Hesse (many), Cousel, Buchenwerter, Treves (2), Mompeliard, Aix-la-Chappelle (2), Stutgard (3), Bartschied, Carlfruhe, Hahrenberg, Anspach, Switzerland (many), Neuwied (2), Rome, Mentz (2), Naples, Poland (many), Ancona, Turin, Florence, England (8), France, Scotland (2), Holland (many), Warsaw (2), Dresden (4), America (several)."
Barruel [p. 107] tells of Philo-Knigge's recruitment operation. Barruel says: "From the period when these Masonic Deputies were illuminized, the Bavarian Sect assumed a menacing aspect; and its progress is so rapid, that the universe will soon be overrun with Conspirators. The center of action may be said to have been at Frankfort, where Philo-Knigge resided; and he computes the number of persons he had illuminized, and nearly all of whom were Masons, at five hundred." That was between 1780 and 1782. By 1782, Knigge was working hard to convert all of Masonry to "Illuminated Freemasons", which Knigge and Weishaupt claimed was the only "pure" Freemasonry.
The Wilhelmsbad Masonic Congress or Konvent in the summer of 1782 was a very important recruiting ground for the Bavarian Illuminati. The location, at the ruined castle and spa, was the summer retreat of Prince William IX of Hesse-Kassel (without whom, the world today would probably have been quite different, as will be shown). William wasn't a Freemason, but his brother Karl (or Charles) was. Karl was the main organizer of the Congress, and not long afterwards, Karl was recruited into the Illuminati, along with the Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick. Those two were leaders of German Masonry, and much of the Illuminati's international success across Europe was a result of the contacts gained, and the favorable impression it had made, at the conference.
Ibid. [pp. 117-118] gives a list of towns that had an Illuminized Lodge, based on Knigge's report of January 1783, and where the town could be determined from the Illuminati code. These include "Franckfort on the Mein". The Illuminati had Lodges in many other towns, for which the code had not been deciphered.
But in 1783, Knigge fell out with Weishaupt. By 25 February 1783, Knigge wrote to Weishaupt [Barruel pp. 131-132] threatening that if Weishaupt continued to take "the same tone that you have lately taken with me, nothing shall hinder me from absolutely breaking off all connexion with you! Do not pretend to think that this is an idle threat." In that letter, Knigge reveals that "For this week past I have had here (at Cassel) several private interviews with the P___ C___ of H___ C___". Barruel adds that this is "Prince Charles of Hesse Cassel, brother in law to the King of Denmark".
Ibid. [p. 57] quotes, from the first volume of the Original Writings, notes on the progress of the sect that were written in Cato-Zwack's hand. Zwack writes that they had several lodges or churches at Munich, others at Freysinguen, Landsberg, Burghausen, Straubing, Ingolstadt, and would shortly have one at Ratisbonne (Regensburg). On p. 59, Zwack writes of an alliance with the National Lodge of Poland.
Ibid. [p. 154] tells of how Lanz was about to depart Ratisbon(ne) to spread the
conspiracy to Silesia, and was struck by lightning as Weishaupt was giving him
his last instructions: "Among [Weishaupt's] adepts was one LANZ, an apostate
priest. Weishaupt designed him as the person to carry his mysteries and
conspiracies into Silesia. His mission was already fixed, and Weishaupt was
giving him his last instructions, when a thunderbolt from heaven struck the
apostate dead, and that by the side of Weishaupt. The Brethren, in their first
fright had not recourse to their ordinary means for diverting the papers of the
deceased adept from the inspection of the magistrates. The perusal of some of
his papers furnished new proofs; and being transmitted to the court of Bavaria,
induced it to take the determination of following up the discoveries made in the
depositions of Messrs. Cosandey and Renner.
The enquiries made, chiefly related
to those who were known to have connections with Weishaupt at Ingolstadt. The
adept FISCHER, first judge and Burgo-master of that town, and the librarian
DREXL, were banished. The Baron FRAUENBERG and fifteen other of Weishaupt's
pupils were expelled the university..."
Ibid. [p. 156] includes the "Juridical Deposition made in common by the
Aulic Counsellor UTZSCHNEIDER, the Priest COSANDEY, and the Academician
GRÜNBERGER, on the 9th of Sept. 1785."
"The object of the
first degrees of Illuminism is at once to train their young men, and to be
informed of every thing that is going forward by a system of espionage. The
Superiors aim at procuring from their inferiors diplomatic acts, documents, and
original writings. With pleasure they see them commit any treasons or
treacherous acts, because they not only turn the secrets betrayed to their own
advantage, but thereby have it in their power to keep the traitors in a
perpetual dread, lest, if they ever showed any signs of stubbornness, their
malefactions should be made known. [...]
Ibid. [p. 164] tells of how, little more than a year later on 11th October, 1786, the police made a surprise visit to Cato-Zwack's house. Others, also by order of the Elector, turned up at Sanderdorf Castle, the home of Hannibal-Baron Bassus. This time the material was more incriminating, since the previous information gained by the authorities related to Illuminism's first degree. And it's the 1786 material that was published under the title of Original Writings of the Order and of the Sect of the Illuminees. Barruel adds that the conspirators claimed the writings "only contained views for the happiness and amelioration of mankind", but they never dared to accuse the authorities of forging any of it.
[Ibid, p. 306]: "Leopold [1790 successor to Joseph II, both of them rulers of the Habsburg lands and brothers of Marie Antoinette], wishing to be informed of the nature and progress of the Sect in his new territories, applied to Professor Hoffman. No man was better able than he was to give the desired information, for he had been tampered with by the Sect, who, writing to him in the most high-flown phrases, endeavored to seduce him over to the cause of the revolution; but, on the other side, several Masons, ashamed of having fallen a prey to the seduction of the Illuminees, had discovered most important secrets to him, and joined with him in baffling the views of the Sect. He had learned from them, 'that Mirabeau himself had declared to his confidants, that he carried on a most extensive correspondence with Germany, but in no part so extensive as at Vienna. He knew that the revolutionary system was to be extended throughout the universe; that France had only been chosen as the scene of a first explosion; that the propagandists were busied in disseminating their principles throughout every climate; that emissaries were dispersed through the four quarters of the globe, and particularly in the capitals; that they had their adherents, and were particularly active in strengthening their party at Vienna and in the Austrian dominions'." Barruel's source for the text within the single quotes above is in a footnote as Important Notice by Hoffman, Vol. I. Sect. 19.
Leopold Hoffman was a "renegade Illuminist in the Hapsburg capital of Vienna [who] first identified revolution with Illuminism." Professor Hoffman of the University of Vienna was zealously spreading the theory of a Freemasonic conspiracy. So, this was an Illuminee "whistleblower" who exposed how the conspirators planned to start the revolution in France and then continue worldwide.
Terry Melanson includes Count Honoré Mirabeau (born Gabriel Riqueti) in a list of 10 notable members of the Bavarian Illuminati, but includes an asterisk next to his name to denote that his membership "however probable or likely, is not confirmed". There are plenty of secondary sources (such as Barruel and Starck) that assert his membership, but no primary sources to confirm it. Two claimed aliases for Mirabeau are Adramelech and/or Leonidas. Melanson says there is "no doubt" that Mirabeau was influenced by Illuminati members such as Jakob Mauvillon and the Prussian Aufklärer.
Mirabeau, a member of the Jacobin club, was a leading player in the early stages of the Revolution. His "evocative language" and promotion of Illuminati concepts influenced many of the conspirators in Paris. Of Mirabeau, historian James H. Billington said, "Thus Germany – not France – gave birth to the sweeping, modern idea of revolution as a secular upheaval more universal in reach and more transforming in scope than any purely political change. This concept was transported to Paris by Count Mirabeau, a former French ambassador in Berlin; it helped him to become the leading figure in the early events of the French Revolution in 1789. His study of Frederick the Great in 1788 had proclaimed Prussia the likely site of a coming revolution, and the German Illuminists its probable leaders. Mirabeau's speeches and writings the following year transferred these expectations of a deep transformation from Germany to France. He became both the leader in turning the Third Estate of the Estates-General into a new National Assembly and 'the first to succeed in launching a journal without the authorization of the government.' His reputation as the outstanding orator of the Assembly is closely related to his pioneering role in convincing the French that their revolution, though political in form, was redemptive in content. Mirabeau popularized the Illuminist term 'revolution of the mind,' introduced the phrase 'great revolution,' and apparently invented the words 'revolutionary,' 'counter-revolution,' and 'counter-revolutionary'."
Wikipedia says: "After a preliminary trip to Berlin in early 1786, [Mirabeau] was dispatched that July on a mission to the royal court of Prussia; returning in January, Mirabeau published a full account in his Secret History of the Court of Berlin (1787). [...] During his journey he had made the acquaintance of Jakob Mauvillon, an expert on Prussia..." Mauvillon (1743-1794), codename Agesilaus (and also Arcesilas), was a Kassel Professor, French economic philosopher, and an associate of Mirabeau and Baron von Knigge, the Illuminati second-in-command.
Barruel [p. 187] says that Mirabeau was an "example" of "some of the most famous adepts", and Mauvillon was his "initiator and recruiter". Also see p. 210 for more on Mirabeau.
Ibid. [p. 212]: There were three lodges at Paris that were at the head of the secret societies. One of these was The Grand Orient, which was like a sort of Masonic parliament. As early as 1787 there were 282 towns in France with regular Lodges under the direction of the Grand Master. Paris alone had 81. Another Lodge at Paris was United Friends or Les Amis Reunis; it was involved with foreign correspondence.
Ibid. [p. 228]: "...it was to the Committee of the Amis reunis that Mirabeau had directed the illuminizing brethren from Germany." [Ibid. p. 232]: "The day of general insurrection is fixed for the 14th of July 1789. At the same, and in all parts of France, the cries of Equality and Liberty resound from the Lodges. [...] ...France had in a single day been overwhelmed by a million of demoniacs, who with horrid yell proclaimed their Equality and Liberty, while they were committing the most abominable outrages. And who were the men that presided over these primitive disasters? History immediately points to a new den of conspirators, holding their meetings at Versailles, under the title of the Breton Club. And who are the members of it? Mirabeau, Syeyes, Barnave, Chapellier, the Marquis de la Coste, Glezen, Bouche, Petion; in short, an aggregate of the most profound adepts, both of the capital and of the provinces, who supply the place of the central committee, and by means of the established correspondence fix the time and manner of the insurrection."
Ibid. [p. 285]: "Strasbourg was the center, or directory for the union and communication between the German and French adepts. The chiefs of Illuminized Lodges, STAMM and Hyerophiles-HERMANN; who, together with the Illuminee DIETRICH, has justly obtained the surname of the Guillotiner of Alsace, had distinguished themselves in that province and at Strasbourg. Beyond the French frontiers the corresponding adepts for Worms and Spire are the Calvinist minister ENDEMAN, the Syndic Belifarius-PETERSON, the Canon Cyril (of Alexandria) SCHWEICKARD, Zeno (of Tharfes) KOBLER, Lucius Apuleius-JANSON, Virgilius-HULLEN, the Canon WINCKLEMANN, and particularly the professor BOHMER at Worms. These adepts are in close connection with the club at Mayence, headed by a man on whom the defence of the town was chiefly to depend, the Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers EICKENMAYER, together with METTERNICH, BENZEL, KOLBORN, VEDEKIND BLAU, HAUSER, FORSTR, HAUPT, and NIMIS." Another important player is "Stamm, the famous adept of Strasbourg".
It's not in dispute that the Illuminati membership reached at least two thousand. Serious researchers accept that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a member; a list of his contacts or circle of influence would be too numerous to mention. Melanson notes that nearly all the Mainz Jacobins' founding members were Illuminati initiates, including Mathias Metternich, Anton Josef Dorsch, Felix Anton Blau, Johann Christoph Blessmann, Johann Georg Wilhelm Böhmer, Johann Adam Caprano, Franz Anton Chambion, Johann Heinrich Rudolf Eickemeyer, Andreas Josef Christian Hofmann, Johann Stephan Köhler, Johann Adam Lang, Franz Konrad Macké, Johann Georg Nimis, Johann Valentin Schumann, Lorenz Schweickhard, Friedrich Joseph Stumme, and Adam Umpfenbach.
So, there is no proof that the Bavarian Illuminati was behind the French Revolution. It is safe to say that they were one influencing factor, although that doesn't specify whether other possible causes were of greater or lesser importance. If there were no other probable causes, then we could conclude that the Illuminati was most likely responsible. The alternative - that a major international revolutionary conspiracy was uncovered in Bavaria in 1785, that the conspirators were very active in France, that within four years in 1789 a major revolution was underway in France with the storming of the Bastille and it was all just a big coincidence, that Mirabeau wasn't really an Illuminee, that he was influenced by Illuminees such as Mauvillon yet was somehow not influenced enough, so he could "independently" call for revolution, or Mauvillon "independently" decided it was a good idea despite being an Illuminee, that the French Revolution occurred completely "independently" of the international Illuminati plot, that the authorities completely suppressed the Illuminati conspirators yet overlooked another group, that Jacobins who were Illuminees were not sufficiently influential or they "independently" chose to call for revolution despite being Illuminees - would be hard to defend.
However, there are plenty of other factors to consider. Lord Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution [pp. 20-39], names the American Revolution (1765-1783) as "the spark that changed [French] thought into action". Acton [p. 345] gives plenty of other possible causes, of which "freemasonry" is merely one: "People have not yet ceased to dispute about the real origin and nature of the event. It was the deficit; it was the famine; it was the Austrian Committee; it was the Diamond Necklace, and the humiliating memories of the Seven Years' War; it was the pride of nobles or the intolerance of priests; it was philosophy; it was freemasonry; it was Mr. Pitt; it was the incurable levity and violence of the national character; it was the issue of that struggle between classes that constitutes the unity of the history of France."
Now for 'Jewish' / Khazar influences upon the Illuminati.
Bernard Lazare, who was Jewish and naturally trying to downplay the role of Jews in revolutionary movements, secret societies and the French Revolution, concedes in his L'antisémitisme that "It is true, of course, that there were Jews connected with Free Masonry from its birth, students of the Kabbala, as is shown by certain rites which survive. It is very probable, too, that in the years preceding the outbreak of the French Revolution, they entered in greater numbers than ever, into the councils of the secret societies, becoming, indeed, themselves the founders of secret associations. There were Jews in the circle around Weishaupt, and a Jew of Portuguese origin, Martinez de Pasquales, established numerous groups of illuminati in France and gathered a large number of disciples, whom he instructed in the doctrines of reintegration."
Barruel [p. 194] says (Friedrich) Nicolai the bookseller (Illuminati name Lucian) was associated with the Jew (Moses) Mendelssohn (1729-1786), who would write articles for his weekly journal. This is corroborated in a biography of Mendelssohn; the journal was a "radical magazine called Literaturbriefe (Letters on Literature)".
Ibid. [p. 290-291]: "Next to the conquest of Belgium came that of Holland. [...] The apostles of Illuminism had been laboring in Holland ever since the year 1781. The immense sums of money drawn from those countries were not the only successes of the Sect."
Encyclopaedia Judaica Volume 2, under its entry for Amsterdam, also mirrored at the Jewish Virtual Library, says that although most of the Amsterdam Ashkenazi Jews were poor, "There was a small elite consisting of wealthy businessmen such as Ruben Gompertssohn, Abraham Auerbach, and Benjamin Cohen". In the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, the Netherlands entry tells of how "a period of exceptional prosperity for the Jews" began in 1672 when William III was re-elected stadholder. Following his death, the early 18th century was a period of decline for the Jews in Holland. However, that can't all be blamed on "anti-Semites". The Encyclopedia reveals that as a result of Jewish practices of in-breeding and incest, "the ensuing generations deteriorated physically and morally". For example, in 1712, Benjamin (alias Jean) da Costa was refused permission to marry his niece Sara Suasso by the burgomaster of Amsterdam on grounds that "neither had reached the age of twelve years"! There was another era of prosperity for the Jews of Holland under the rule of William IV and V beginning in 1747. The Jews were involved in retail trading and diamond cutting; they retained a monopoly in the latter until about 1870. And the Bank of Amsterdam (the Wisselbank), founded in 1609, is seen as the first true central bank. According to Herman van der Wee, a financial revolution arose in late 16th-century Antwerp, with the perfection of the negotiability of the foreign bill of exchange by introducing multiple endorsements. Portuguese Jews and various Protestants transferred the system to Amsterdam after being expelled from Antwerp in 1585, and the establishment of the Wisselbank was the icing on the cake.
Thus, there is a good chance that wealthy backers of Illuminati from Holland or Belgium were Jews, who could have got rich from banking or the diamond industry.
[Ibid. p. 292]: "If funds were wanting, the counting-houses of Texier, Coudere, and Rottereau, are open to them, besides the treasuries of the Jew Sportas, a most vehement revolutionist." So, there's a possible source of Jewish funding. It's interesting that a Jew should be a "most vehement revolutionist", just before the French Revolution, and more than 100 years before Jews were to lead the Bolshevik Revolution.
Ibid [p. 112]: "The fourth official report is made by the adept Agis-KROBER. He does not take the title of Provincial; he only acts for Alberoni-BLEUBETRUE, originally a Jew, and who afterward made himself a Christian to become Aulic Counsellor to the Prince of Neuwied, and a Provincial of the Illuminees. Agis was governor to the Count Stolberg's children..." Thus, it was not unheard of for Jews to convert to Christianity in order to join the Illuminatis. Alberoni is listed here as Leopold Bleibtreu, Counsellor of the Chamber at Neuwied. Another with the same job title and surname is Busius-Karl Bleibtreu. This register also has Favorinus-Georg Ludwig Bleibtreu, Kontor servant in Neuwied.
Barruel says [p. 19], "It was on the 1st of May, 1776, that Weishaupt laid the first foundations of his Illuminism." Barruel quotes from Weishaupt's letter of 13th May, 1778 to Tiberius-Merz: "I have been obliged to fix Ajax there, though he might have been of great use to me; for he was the first to whom I opened myself on the subject, and he also recruited Cato for me." Ajax was Count Massenhausen; Cato was Xavier Zwack, a lawyer. Weishaupt adds that he's not going to leave Ajax in possession of any Illuminati funds; "they are entrusted to Marius". Marius was Canon Hertel. Then Weishaupt mentions a couple of people at the second lodge in Munich: "...Berger, under the name of Cornelius Scipio, and of a certain Troponero, whom we have surnamed Coriolanus, a most excellent man for us, about forty years of age, and who has been for a long time concerned in the Hamburg trade: He is an able financier, and at this very time reads public lectures on finance at Munich."
Jews were not admitted into the German lodges, but they were accepted elsewhere such as France. At the time of the French Revolution, there were around 500 Jews living in Paris and about 40,000 in France, when the total French population was around 25 million. According to Nesta Webster in Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, "whilst the Sephardim had shown themselves good citizens and were therefore subject to no persecutions, the Ashkenazim by their extortionate usury and oppressions had made themselves detested by the people, so that rigorous laws were enforced to restrain their rapacity." Thus, the "bad" Jews were the Khazars in the east and north of France, mainly in Alsace - which is where the Illuminati had "many" lodges, as mentioned above from Robison p. 152.
Barruel [p. 107], already mentioned above, tells of how Philo-Knigge's recruitment operation was based at Frankfort, where Knigge resided. Interestingly, Frankfort was also the residence of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812).
Ibid. [p. 176]: Agathocles was [Sigmund] Schmerber, Merchant at Frankfort on the Mein. Jews and pagans were excluded from the Order of Illuminees. So Schmerber couldn't have been openly Jewish, but as a Frankfort merchant could have interacted with Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
[Ibid. p. 287]: "Let the historian follow Custine and his successors to Frankfort, and he will find in the neighborhood of that town a principality of Isenbourg; he will there learn how the sect can protect its adepts. Every part around this small principality had been ravaged; but this little town was the seat of the Council for the Illuminees, where Pitsch presided. It was from this place that all the necessary instructions were sent for the jacobin army, which in turn revered the sanctuary of Isenbourg, and even the lure of pillage could not attract the soldiery. But when Pitsch and his council disappear, the charm ceases, and the fertile plains of Isenbourg are ravaged."
Note: Neu-Isenburg is about 5 miles south of Frankfurt, or south of the location of the former Frankfurter Judengasse "Jews' Alley", which was outside the city walls, east of the medieval city wall. The famous house in which Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his five sons lived, actually known as the "House at the Green Shield", escaped Frankfurt's demolition program when the family bought it and turned it into a museum in the late nineteenth century. Ironically, it was eventually destroyed on 18 May 1944, when "Allied" (Rothschild) forces bombed Frankfurt. The "House at the Red Shield", zum Roten Schild, from which the family took its name, was a smaller house at the southern end of Judengasse. Isaak Elchanan (d. 1585, a son of Elchanan Feibesch / Felbesch and an unknown Fogel) is said to have taken the Rothschild name from the Red Shield house in the 16th century. However, Mayer Amschel's father Amschel Moses is the first recorded with the famous name, with Herz and Bauer being intervening ancestors. For a time, the family lived in the Hinterpfann, a tenement in the back of a house at the northern end of the street, before moving on to the Green Shield house, which Mayer Amschel bought in 1784 (or 1785).
Mayer Amschel Rothschild was an associate of several Illuminati members. In the carefully researched article by Terry Melanson, Illuminati Conspiracy Part One: A Precise Exegesis on the Available Evidence, Rothschild is listed as an associate of the following:
There is another Illuminati member named Karl with whom Mayer Rothschild was acquainted. Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1757-1828), was an Illuminati member (and associate of Goethe, also an Illuminee). From Frederic Morton's The Rothschilds [p. 29]: "Mayer [Amschel Rothschild] bought out some needy coin collectors. With his newly bolstered line he attracted the Duke Karl August (Goethe's patron at Weimar) and other spectacular customers paying drab prices. He sold consistently, if sparsely, to his lord, William. And he enjoyed himself." Melanson's article has Karl August listed as an Illuminati member, but doesn't include the Rothschild connection.
One of the Illuminati members was Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel, or Karl von Hessen-Kassel in German, (1744-1836). William I, Elector of Hesse (1743-1821), became William (or Wilhelm) IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel upon the death of his father on 31 October 1785. Charles was William's younger brother. Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812), as a dealer in coins, became Court (or Crown) Agent to William of Hesse-Hanau in 1769. William, described by Frederic Morton [The Rothschilds, p. 44] as "Europe's most blue- and cold-blooded loan shark", entrusted part of his fortune to Mayer Amschel Rothschild as he fled Napoleon in 1806. (That's one version of the story. But either way, within a few years, Nathan Rothschild received at least £550,000 of William's fortune and used it to speculate on his own account, as described in the main article on the Protocols.) The town of Hanau is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main; Kassel is 190 km north of Hanau. Thus, as early as 1769, Rothschild had a connection with the royal family of Hesse, at least one of whom went on to become an Illuminati member. Later, several acquaintances of Rothschild were Illuminati members.
There are three undeniable truths: (i) The Bavarian Illuminati was secretly plotting to overthrow governments, abolish the nation-state and destroy religion in the 1780s (ii) The French Revolution started in the late 1780s (iii) A global conspiracy for world conquest is in existence today headed by the Rothschilds and the Jewish elite, featuring wars-for-profit, false-flag terror attacks, control of the media, and the use of puppet presidents and prime ministers who are under the thumb of the shadow government. It would be nice to tie these all together, so that Rothschild set up Weishaupt and the Illuminati, the Illuminati did the French Revolution, and then the Rothschild / Illuminati conspiracy evolved into that which we observe today. But there's no evidence for that. Weishaupt's Illuminati appears to have been almost benevolent, with Weishaupt naively thinking his system would bring about eternal peace as humankind became "one family [...] of rational men". In total contrast, the conspiracy of today is something far more sinister. Today's conspirators regard most people as sub-human "cattle", to be farmed and exploited to enrich and empower the rulers. The simplest possibility is that Rothschild was inspired by the success of William of Hesse, and also learned of the Illuminati plan at some point, and decided to incorporate both into his program for world conquest, to be followed by his male descendants.
The Rothschilds didn't get immensely rich until 1810 to 1818. It wasn't until 1784 or 1785 that Mayer Amschel bought the Green Shield house in the "ghetto", although it had a water pump, which was regarded as a "great luxury" at the time. By then, Rothschild was said to be "fairly well off", but in the beginning of the 1790s he was still just a "prosperous antique-dealer". There was a massive increase in Rothschild's wealth around 1795 to 1797 as he went into banking. In 1795 his taxable wealth doubled to 4,000 gulden; by the next year he was up to 15,000 gulden which took him into the top tax bracket. Later that year Mayer Amschel was the tenth richest Jew in Frankfurt, as his taxable wealth went over 60,000 gulden. In the summer of 1797, the earliest known balance sheet of Rothschild's firm showed that its assets exceeded its liabilities by 108,504 gulden, which was about 10,000 pounds sterling.
Given that the Illuminati was a secret society and didn't admit Jews, it seems unlikely that any of the three Karls - Karl of Hesse, Karl Dalberg, or Karl August - would have simply volunteered the information to Rothschild. But other Jews already associated with Illuminism could have informed Rothschild, who could then have brought up the subject with one of the three, or with a Frankfurt Khazar merchant, and told him he was a supporter of the cause. In any case, Rothschild would have surely learned about the Illuminati by 1786, by which time the authorities had followed up on the papers obtained from the stricken Lanz with surprise raids on the homes of Illuminees including Zwack, and had published their warnings of the conspiracy.
Jews could truthfully claim to have been behind the French Revolution, and even say it was "wholly" their work, if they'd taken up the running and ensured the success of the Jacobins after the authorities' crackdown on Weishaupt's Illuminati. And if Jews had persuaded Karl to arrange the Wilhelmsbad convention, which was so important to the success of Illuminism, the hypothetical Jewish Protocols author would have been even more justified in saying the Revolution was "wholly" the work of his group, since without Jewish intervention, the plot would likely have failed. There is no proof of this either way. Similarly, although it cannot be proved that the Protocols was a "forgery", there is certainly no proof that it was not, and the balance of evidence is very strongly in favor of the Protocols being a genuine Jewish program for world domination. That is by far the most likely scenario. World Jewry's claim that the Russian secret police "forged" the Protocols has been thoroughly discredited; it is not supported by mainstream historians such as Okhrana experts Charles A. Ruud and Sergei A. Stepanov, there is plenty of evidence against it and no evidence to support it apart from the word of Jewry's dubious witnesses such as the forger, briber, con-artist and jailbird Princess Radziwill. Even the historian Boris I. Nicolaevsky, a coordinator of the Berne "trial" on the Protocols and an expert on the czarist secret police, admitted privately that his own research had convinced him that Pyotr Rachkovsky had nothing to do with the Protocols, which was also confirmed by Rachkovsky's son. The idea that "anti-Semites" forged the Protocols is up the creek without a paddle.
One possibility in which the Protocols could be considered as a forgery is that the author was a 19th century equivalent to Ben Freedman or Jack Bernstein - a disgruntled ex-Jew or anti-Zionist Jew who was repulsed by the conspiracy to farm and enslave Gentiles. So, in order to warn others, the author forges a document ostensibly by the Elders of Zion, and puts in everything he knows about the plot. This would account for the Protocols author's uncanny knowledge of Jewish Talmudic supremacism and of how the program for enslavement was to unfold, when an "anti-Semitic" Okhrana agent putting together such a quick fabrication as to have to resort to sloppy paraphrasing of his plagiarism would not have had time for such in-depth research. A former insider might know of Jewish involvement in the French Revolution, and know that there was a terrible fate planned for Russia, so had his "Elder" boast about being wholly behind the French Revolution. However, all evidence on the Protocols as detailed in the main article strongly indicates authenticity.
For the sake of completeness, there is something to note about Cato-Zwack. He was certainly a leading figure in the Illuminati; he is said to have written the plans that were discovered after Lanz was killed by lightning. Weishaupt made up the rituals, Knigge did the recruiting, but maybe Zwack was the brains behind the program for revolution. Barruel [starting from p. 35] provides some interesting information on Cato-Zwack, such as the appearance of his nose:
"Combining these two tables we find, 'That Francis Xaverius Zwack was son of Philip Zwack, commissary of the Chamber des Comptes,
and was born at Ratisbon; That at the time of his initiation (29th May, 1776) he
was twenty years of age, and had finished his college education."
"The description of his person. He was then about five feet high. His person
emaciated by debauchery; his constitution bordering on melancholy; his eyes of a
dirty grey, weak and languishing; -his complexion pale and sallow; -his health
weak, and much hurt by frequent disorders; -his nose long, crooked and hooked.
-Hair light brown; -gait precipitate; -his eyes always cast towards the ground;
-under the nose and on each side of the mouth a mole'."
Barruel gives a couple of examples of Zwack's friends: "Among them we find a certain Sauer and a Berger, both of whom soon after appear on the registers of the Sect." And "...it appears that Zwack was already connected with other secret societies, which made the conquest rather more difficult." Zwack was a "downright Atheist" with a "hatred for kings" and an admiration for revolutionaries, and presented himself as a philanthropist. In October 1777, he made a will, wrote a suicide letter to "Ajax", and a second letter to be forwarded to the Illuminati brotherhood after his death, but then changed his mind and chose to live. Zwack was able to pursue his Illuminism activities along with a successful career; Weishaupt was "overjoyed" when he heard that Zwack had been promoted to the position of "Counsellor to the Court, and Counsellor to the Regency, with a salary of twenty thousand florins".
Zwack is a Hungarian Jewish name. The stereotypical "Jewish nose" cannot be merely a fiction that has been made up by "anti-Semites". Jews often so dislike their own noses that they elect to have plastic surgery. However, the numbers have been declining this century, and some wisely decide against, after seriously considering rhinoplasty.
As stated by the Jewish Encyclopedia, the "hook-nose" is prominent amongst the Armenians. Thus, most Jews are Khazars, some Khazars had the Armenian hook-nose trait, and so some Jews have the hook-nose. Obviously there are many Jews who don't match the stereotype, but the minority is sufficient that the stereotype persists and Jews are more likely to opt for a nose job.
It's the 'Jewish' - or Khazar - "nostrility" that really stands out, and the flared nostrils are an adaptation to living in the rarefied air at high altitudes. Armenia has an average altitude of more than a mile, at about 1,800 meters above sea level. The lowest elevation is 390 meters; the highest peak within the republic is Mount Aragats at 4,090 meters. In contrast, the Dead Sea is 427 meters below sea level, east Judea is 400 meters below sea level, Tel Aviv is 5 meters above sea level, and even Jerusalem has an elevation of only 754 meters. And the lowest points of the low-lying lands of northern Germany are a little below sea level. (Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark landed according to the Bible, is in eastern Turkey, not far from the Armenian and Iranian borders.)
So Cato-Zwack's "long, crooked and hooked" nose could denote some Turkic Khazar ancestry, with Zwack's family later moving eastwards through Hungary to Germany, eventually for the Crypto-Jew Zwack to present himself as a "pure" German. This is not proved, but it's another piece of the puzzle to bear in mind.
An example of the "hook-nose" with flared nostrils is Barry Manilow, which shows that such people are not all evil, racist monsters.
Source: Daily Mail
Note how, going from back to front, the nostril sweeps gently up before plunging down near the front, so that the highest point is nearer front than back. The biggest contrast is with people such as the famous "anti-Semite" Henry Ford, whose nostrils remain fairly level.
Source: Newsday
Another whose nose certainly doesn't have a "hook-nose" is Rod Stewart, which shows that it is not only so-called "anti-Semites" who have the level nostrils look. Many people are somewhere in, e.g., George W. Bush. The nostrils have a zenith that is about midway between front and back, without the steeply sweeping plunge at the front. But Irv Rubin below, for example, has an even more pronounced hook-nose than Barry Manilow.
Another person with the "hook-nose" is Ronnie Moas, founder of Standpoint Research, who was a Sergeant in the Israeli Defense Forces and educated at Tel Aviv University (before going on to universities in New York). Moas advocates a massive redistribution of wealth, in which, rather than 1% of the world population controlling $110 trillion whilst the median worldwide wage is less than $4 a day, everyone would live on a "decent income", and no one in the US would be on less than $15 an hour. He is working with what he says is an "honest UK-based charity", founded by the wife of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, to support poor children in Brazil. Thus, not only are the "hook-nosers" not all bad, but IDF officers are not all murderous, vicious, cowardly racial supremacists. No doubt Moas means well, but a realistic solution would involve more than boycotting companies like Amazon and Apple. Taking down the whole Rothschildian central banking / puppet presidents scheme for world domination, including supporting acts such as the Mossad false-flag terror apparatus, would enable a massive increase in wealth for the poor. $110 trillion divided by a 7.238 billion population is a lump sum of $15,197 for every man, woman and child, before even counting the benefits to be accrued by having politicians who bat for their own people, rather than for the central banks.
Michael Bradley, who is part-Jewish, released his own work on the Khazars independently of others such as Arthur Koestler and Kevin Allen Brooks. Bradley's research, as set out in his book The Iceman Inheritance (1978) found that typical physical traits of Ashkenazi Jews include "large beaky 'hooked' noses" and "a short stature" (cf. Zwack's height of "about five feet"). Bradley's sequel Chosen People From the Caucasus (1992) contended that the Khazars are partly of Neanderthal origin. Stan Gooch, another researcher of Jewish extraction, had also released several books about the Jews' Neanderthal heritage.
A good example of Neanderthal visage is the late terrorist Irv Rubin of the Jewish Defense League, who died whilst in jail on charges of plotting to bomb a mosque and the office of a Muslim US Congressman. According to FBI reports, Rubin told a fellow inmate, "I am a bad Jew [who] deserves to die", before apparently jumping off a stairwell and plunging three stories.
Source: The Enterprise Report
In contrast to the Bolshevik Revolution, there is no proof that Jews played a central role in the French Revolution. It's a matter of determining if it is more likely that they did or they didn't. However, there are links between Jews and the Bavarian Illuminati, including a Rothschild link, and those arguing against Illuminati involvement in the Revolution must deny the considerable international success of the Illuminati in the early 1780s, must exaggerate the damage done to Illuminism worldwide by the Bavarian government crackdown, must deny Weishaupt's plans for the sect to carry on under another name if necessary, and must rely on coincidence theory to account for the Revolution occurring in the decade following the creation of the Bavarian Illuminati, a secret society committed to international revolution, and the fact that Jews, by gaining citizenship, benefited most from the Revolution. When we ask the question cui bono, Jewish-approved "teachers" admit that the emancipation of European Jewry began in 1789 with the French Revolution, and the timeline included Bordeaux (1790), Avignon (1790), and Alsace (1791).
In conclusion, the likely scenario is that the Haskalah "Jewish Enlightenment" Jews such as Moses Mendelssohn supported the French Revolution, other Jews didn't, and Mayer Amschel Rothschild wasn't sufficiently rich or powerful at the time to orchestrate or influence a Revolution. When the Protocols writer says that Jews were behind the French Revolution, he is thinking of how Jews such as Haym Salomon, Colonel Isaac Franks and Major Benjamin Nones played an important role in the American Revolution, and then, as Lord Acton wrote about the cause of the French Revolution, "...the spark that changed thought into action was supplied by the Declaration of American Independence." (See the main article on the Protocols.) In the late 19th century, when the Rothschilds had become rich and powerful, they commissioned Jewish writers to plagiarize Joly's work and set out a Machiavellian program for world domination by Jewish bankers and rabbis, which would establish phony "democracies". That was the birth of the infamous Zionist project, around 1889-1890. The Illuminati organization didn't survive, so it's not really accurate to describe the current NWO criminal elite as Illuminati; they're Jewish supremacists. However, the Jewish fanatics did steal some of Weishaupt's ideas: the destruction of the nation-state, and the destruction of religion, although the fanatics were only interested in destroying every religion - particularly Christianity - apart from their own. (They didn't want to destroy Islam either in the medium term because it served a purpose for them; they would divide and conquer by having their "allies" - the atheists and what was left of the Christians - fighting Islamists.) It's only in that sense that a part of the Illuminati survives to this day.
(Long before the 18th or 19th centuries, some Jews or Khazars were indulging in plenty of crimes, from anti-social fraud such as clipping the coinage, to unbridled evil in the form of ritual murder. But they were not necessarily trying to conquer the world, and there is no suggestion that the ritual murders were more than isolated cases.)