A SURVIVAL OF MEDIEVAL CREDULITY. 713 



years. We need not report the details of bis discourse; it is suffi- 

 cient to say that he gave a full account of the deep-laid plot from 

 its iirst conception to its final consummation at the Congress of 

 Trent. Each new disclosure called forth cries of " Liar I " '' Scoun- 

 drel! " " Vilifier! " " Villain! " and similar epithets, but nothing 

 could disturb the cynical composure of the speaker. As a precau- 

 tionary measure, all persons had been required to give up their canes 

 and umbrellas at the entrance, otherwise the angry words would 

 have been emphasized by blows. The shameless impostor coolly re- 

 ferred to the numerous presents received, among wdiich was an 

 Emmen thaler cheese, sent by the Marquis de Mores, with pious 

 sayings carved in the rind. " It was an excellent cheese," he added, 

 " and served to strengthen me in my fight against Freemasonry." 

 The money remitted to Diana Vaughan in ten years amounted to 

 more than half a million francs, and flowed into the pockets of 

 Taxil and his confederates. lie expressed his thanks to the clergy 

 for their aid in carrying out his scheme, and attributed their co- 

 operation chiefly to ignorance and imbecility, but partly also to 

 dishonesty, declaring that among the many dupes there were not 

 a few knaves. As he left the hall he was threatened with violence, 

 and took refuge in a neighboring cafe,, under the protection of the 

 police. ^No one thought any longer of the pictures which were 

 to form such a novel and attractive feature of the entertain- 

 ment; indeed, this forgetfulness constituted an important although 

 unprinted part of the programme in the minds of those who ar- 

 ranged it. 



ITow difficult it is for constitutionally credulous persons, in 

 whom this disposition has been nurtured by education, to take a 

 rational view of things when a strong appeal is made to their preju- 

 dices, is evident from a statement published in the Osservatore Cat- 

 tolico of Milan, in May, 1897, that Leo Taxil was held in durance 

 vile by the Freemasons, one of whom personated him on the occa- 

 sion just described. Another Catholic writer asserted that Diana 

 Vaughan did not appear at the conference because Taxil had been 

 bribed by the Freemasons to have her shut up in a lunatic asylum. 



The history of Taxil's imposture has been circumstantially nar- 

 rated in a book entitled Leo XIII und der SatanslcuU, by Dr. J. 

 Ricks (Berlin: Hermann AValther, 1897, pp. xiv-301; price, three 

 marks). The author, a doctor of divinity and pastor of a Lutheran 

 church at Olvenstadt, near Magdeburg, has collected his materials 

 from authentic sources and treated the whole subject with remark- 

 able thoroughness and impartiality. His work is a valuable contri- 

 bution to the voluminous annals of religious superstition and cre- 

 dulity. 



