A FRENCH FIREBRAND.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 129, 1 June 1907, Page 15

A FRENCH FIREBRAND.

Tho death 13 announced of theFiench pamphleteer, Leo Taxil, about whom M. Paul fcjabaticr told a strange story in his book on the separation of Church end State. Leo Taxil was a journalist, born in 1854, who became notorious about 1879 by his violent attacks on the clergy. His most notorious woik on these lines was a book entitled "Lcs Amours Secretes cic Pie IX.'' His scandalous publications had for yeuis n considerable vogue, but his readeis were leaving iiim when, in Apiil,lßßs, his comersiqn was suddenly announced. The l'apal Nuncio freed liim from the sentence of excommunication, and the Catholic papers desciibed the change as a miracle of giacc. '"It was evident, however,' wiites M. Sabatior, "even to tho most prejudiced eyci, that this conversion was only a daring deception." During the 'next ten yea:u Taxil flooded Catholic France with' publications destined to show that tho Freemasons were Satan worshippers who held tho Black Mass, and wero guilty of the vilest immorality. M. Sabaticr says that these works of Taxil feverishly awaited and greedily lead, oven in convents. Papal encyclicals and Bishops' charges contained warnings against "tho Satanic Sect," and in 1896 a crusado was undertaken from Rome against the Freemasons, and a. Congicss opened at Trent. At tho Conitross Taxil ivaa the hero of the hour. Four Orman priests had tho courege at last to demand definite explanations with regard to Diana Vaughan, tho imaginary heroine of Taxifs publications. Taxil, finding thafc opinion was turning against him, hastily quitted Trent and returned to Paris, whore ho announcod later on that he would present Diana Vaughan herself tc tho public. He failed to produce her, and disappeared from public view amid a storm of opprobrium. The miserable close of his campaign did not prevent^ tho priests and bishops fron. continuing their warfare against tlit Freemasons, and there can be no doubt that tho evil work ol Taxil had its in iiuence on tho Dreyfus case. Indirectly his long campaign, dipnoi ted by the leaders of the church, helped to make clericalism odious to (he rnasi of the people, and prepared the way foi disestablishment.