“But here’s a surprise — Mme. Marie Deraismes, a French Freemason and Freethinker, and head of the Women's Rights Movement. A female Freemason? Impossible, surely?…’’

Brian Barratt goes exploring in the obituary pages of The Times for 1891, there to discover the astonishing Mme. Deraismes who founded a lodge which admitted both men and women.

“There you are then, ladies,'' says Brian “thanks to Marie Deraismes, you too can become a Knight of the Brazen Serpent or a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.’’

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