Saint George, a brother among the Freemasons

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. The republican triptych sits majestically in capital letters on the conch shell of the Arthur-Groussier temple. There, a fresco depicts, in the center, a woman holding a sword and a luminous delta; to her left, a slave implores her to break her chains. On May 17, this temple, the largest in the Hôtel du Grand Orient de France in Paris, pitted the music of Mozart against that of the Chevalier de Saint-George. Nine months earlier, the latter had been the sole recipient of the honors of the same hall. At each concert, the 250 seats were easily sold out.

An eclectic and brilliant composer, born in 1739 or 1745 in Guadeloupe, to a planter and a slave, and who died in 1799 in Paris, Saint-George is considered the first Black man to have joined French Freemasonry. On May 17, the show was followed by a signing of Alain Guédé's biography, Monsieur de Saint-George. A rival of Mozart , a revised and expanded edition of which was published at the end of March by Actes Sud. "His quartet in B-flat major, opus 2, clearly bears a Masonic signature," says the writer , who detects in this "walk towards the light" an echo of the ritual of elevation to the rank of master. He elaborates: "The Christ-like side of Mozart speaks to the initiates of the National Grand Lodge. Those of the Grand Orient, more anticlerical, remain hungry; Between Saint-George and them, there is something that passes, a complicity, a fervor.

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