Museum of Freemasonry

We're standing in front of the Museum of Freemasonry. Maybe you've heard the term before, usually whispered with a raised eyebrow, but the real story is far more interesting than the conspiracy theories.

Freemasonry started as a medieval guild of stonemasons, but by the 18th century it had transformed into a network of intellectuals, artists and politicians who gathered in secret lodges. What made it truly radical was this: noble, bourgeois and craftsman sat together as equals. In a country where your birth determined everything, that was a quiet revolution before the loud one.

And what a cast of brothers it had. Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Lafayette, Condorcet. Franklin was initiated in Paris in 1778 and helped secure French support for the American Revolution. When Lafayette formally submitted the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789, he was a Freemason. So were Danton, Mirabeau, and even the man who wrote the Marseillaise. The motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" has Masonic roots running straight through it.

Inside this building, Voltaire's ceremonial apron and Lafayette's sword are on display, along with 23,000 books and manuscripts. There are also 21 active Masonic temples directly above the museum, quietly doing whatever it is they do up there.