The Grand Orient de France (GODF) is the oldest and largest of several Freemasonic organizations based in France and is the oldest in Continental Europe. The Grand Orient de France is generally regarded as the "mother lodge" of Continental Freemasonry.

La Loge des Neuf Sœurs, established in Paris in 1734, was a prominent French Masonic Lodge of the Grand Orient de France that was influential in organising French support for the American Revolution. A "Société des Neuf Sœurs," a charitable society that surveyed academic curricula, had been active at the Académie Royale des Sciences since 1769. Its name referred to the nine Muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne/Memory, patrons of the arts and sciences since antiquity, and long significant in French cultural circles. The Lodge of similar name and purpose was opened in 1776, by Jérôme de Lalande. From the start of the French Revolution in 1789 until 1792, Les Neuf Sœurs became a "Société Nationale".