PAPERSPAST

THE DIANA VAUGHAN CASE.

(o) Our Paris Correspondent informs us that the Diana Vaughan hoax has at last been fully exposed by its own author, M. Jogand, alias Leo. Taxil, -who chuckles at having duped the Pope and the French prelates. After becoming tmenviably ' ' notorious by scurrilous irreligious romances, Taxil in 1885 professed conversion to Catholicism, was solemnly received into the Church, suppressed or expurgated his works, and wrote as scurrilously against sceptics, particularly Freemasons^ as he had previously done against priests. Assisted by a Dr Hacks, alias Bataille, he charged the Masonic lodges with worshipping the devil and alleged that one Diana Yaughan, converted by the intercession of Joan of Arc, had written for him her confessions of the Satanic cultus. The book had a great sale among Catholics; ' but at a Catholic Congress lastantumn doubts were cast on Diana's veracity and even on her existence. '" On Monday Taxil promised to produce her at a lecture to be delivered by him, and there were not a few priests among the audience. To the amazement alike of friends and foes, Taxil announced that Diana was one of a series of hoaxes. He had begun, he said, by persuading the Commandant of Marseilles that the harbour was infested with sharks, and a ship was sent out to destroy them. He next invented a lacustrine city on the Lake of Geneva — a story which drew tourists and archaeologists to the spot. He ironically thanked, the Bishops and

Catholic newspapers for facilitating I his crowning hoax. — namely, his conversion, His' penitential retreat with the Jusuits, his audience of the Pope, the Pope's rebuke to the Bishop of Charlestown for denouncing the anti- Masonic confessions as a fraud, and, the Papal blessing to Diana Vaughan, who was a simple typewriter in his employ, but who laughingly allowed her name to be used by him in letters and pamphlets. The audience received these shameless revelations with mingled "indignation and contempt, and Taxil was mobbed on leaving the hall so that policemen had to escort him to a neighbouring cafe. —The Times.

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