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The article examines the consistency of Fichte’s views about cosmopolitism and nationalism, taking special account of a little-known aspect of his political thought, his Masonic commitment, and then examining the texts of the Berlin period, in which the theme of the nation becomes ever more important. More specifically, how is one to interpret the Discourses to the German Nation? Does Fichte operate there a break with the universalist ideals of the Enlightenment? And what status should be given to the idea of a plurality of national particularisms to be preserved? We will endeavor to show that Fichte remains faithful to his republican and universalist views, but we will acknowledge the ambiguity of the recourse, for strategic and rhetorical reasons, to a nationalist vocabulary, which is fundamentally foreign to him.