Jean-Claude Colfavru

Jean-Claude Colfavru (1 December 1820 – 18 May 1891) was a French lawyer, radical republican politician and Free-Mason. He represented Saône-et-Loire in the National Legislative Assembly during the French Second Republic and later represented Seine-et-Oise in the Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic. Within the Grand Orient de France, he founded the Paris lodge La Constante Amitié and served as president of the Council of the Order from 1885 to 1887.

Colfavru was initiated in the Paris lodge Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in 1850. His documented place in the history of the French Rite was principally institutional: he belonged to lodges connected with the Grand Orient, became one of the obedience's principal administrators and publicly defined its civic role under the Third Republic. He also contributed a history of the nineteenth-century Grand Orient to the volume La Franc-Maçonnerie en France depuis 1725, presented at an international Free-Mason congress in 1889.

Early life and political activity

Colfavru was born in Lyon on 1 December 1820. He received a scholarship to attend the secondary school in his native city and qualified as a lawyer in 1845. After moving to Paris, he became involved in the democratic and republican movement.

After resuming his Free-Mason activity in France, Colfavru became an honorary member of the lodge Les Amis de la Patrie and was active in the lodge Le Travail. In 1883 he founded the Paris lodge La Constante Amitié, which became one of the lodges associated with the radical republican current within the Grand Orient.

President of the Grand Orient

At the Grand Orient convent of 1885, Colfavru was elected president of the Council of the Order after the resignation of Charles Cousin. He directed the Grand Orient until 1887, when he was succeeded by Frédéric Desmons.

During the Third Republic, the French Rite—also then called the Modern Rite—was the most widespread rite in France and was predominant within the Grand Orient. Its system consisted of the three symbolic grades followed by four Orders. Nevertheless, during the 1880s its higher Orders faced increasing competition within the Grand Collège des Rites from the grades of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

This position reflected the growing influence of radical republicans inside the Grand Orient. It also formed part of a wider debate, since other members continued to defend the traditional prohibition on divisive political and religious debates inside lodges. The work presented the Grand Orient's history from the republican and institutional perspective promoted by its late nineteenth-century leadership.

Selected works

Le Droit commercial comparé de la France et de l'Angleterre (1861). Du mariage et du contrat de mariage en France, en Angleterre et aux États-Unis (1868). Les Français en Égypte: les établissements agricoles de Cam-el-Akdar et de l'Atfeh (1878). Le Grand Orient de France au dix-neuvième siècle — de 1800 à 1883, in Louis Amiable and Jean-Claude Colfavru, La Franc-Maçonnerie en France depuis 1725 (1889).

Death and legacy

Colfavru died in Paris on 18 May 1891, aged 70. His career united radical republican politics with the increasingly public and civic orientation adopted by influential sections of the Grand Orient during the early Third Republic. His principal contributions to French Free-Masonry were the foundation of La Constante Amitié, his leadership of the Council of the Order and his historical and political writings on the mission of the institution.