ROSE-CROIX CHAPTER OF THE LODGE L'UNION DU... - Lot 136 - Pescheteau-Badin

ROSE-CROIX CHAPTER OF THE LODGE L'UNION DU REGIMENT DE TOUL ARTILLERIE. - Signed by several members of the Chapter, including the Venerable of the Lodge, Claude-Louis de Tournay. Besançon, September 24, 1776. One p. in-folio oblong on parchment, illustrated with a large copper-engraved composition based on a drawing by the Besançon painter Claude-Joseph Fraichot, Freemason, with handwritten additions, wax seal of the Lodge on metal support affixed to double red and green silk ribbons. DIPLOMA OF "CHEVALIER DE L'AIGLE SOUVERAIN DE ROSE-CROIX", awarded to Brother de Saint-Michel, member of the Lodge, "aged twenty-five, native of St-Antonin, officer in the Toul regiment of the royal artillery corps, professing the Catholic religion". Among the signatories was Charles-Emmanuel Bouchey, Venerable of the La Parfaite Union Lodge in Besançon. ON THE VERSO, AN APOSTILLE SIGNED BY SEVERAL MEMBERS OF THE SOUVERAIN CHAPTER ROSE-CROIX DE BESANÇON, including its President Charles-Emmanuel Bouchey (Besançon, March 23, 1780), attesting that the Brother of Saint-Michel is a member of the Henri IV Lodge (new name of L'Union), and that he has been admitted to the work of the Chapter. At these dates, Choderlos de Laclos was an officer in the Toul Artillery Regiment and a member of the L'Union Lodge, of which he was Venerable.