Léo Taxil

Léo Taxil, originally Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès (March 21 1854–March 31 1907), was a French hoaxster who duped the pope and the French prelates.

He was born in Marseille. He first became known for writing scurrilous anti-Catholic books, notably the famous sado-masochistic titles Les Debauches d'un confesseur, , and Les Maîtresses du Pape in which leaders of the Catholic church were portrayed as hedonistic creatures exploring their fetishes in the manner of the Marquis de Sade; in 1879 he was tried at the Seine Assizes for writing a pamphlet "A Bas la Calotte" ("Down with the Cloth"), which was accused of insulting a religion recognized by the state, but he was acquitted.

The Taxil hoax

In 1885 he professed conversion to Catholicism, was solemnly received into the church, and renounced his earlier works. In the 1890s he wrote a series of pamphlets and books denouncing Freemasonry,The History Channel, "Mysteries of the Freemasons: America", video documentary, August 1, 2006, written by Noah Nicholas and Molly Bedell] charging their lodges with worshipping the devil and alleging that one Diana Vaughan had written for him her confessions of the Satanic "Palladism" cult. That book had a great sale among Catholics, although Diana Vaughan never appeared in public. In 1892 Taxil also began to publish a paper "La France chrétienne anti-maçonnique". In 1887 he had an audience with Pope Leo XIII, who rebuked the bishop of Charleston for denouncing the anti-Masonic confessions as a fraud and in 1896 sent his blessing to an anti-Masonic Congress in Trent.

Doubts about Vaughan's veracity and even her existence began to grow, and finally Taxil promised to produce her at a lecture to be delivered by him on April 19 1897. To the amazement of the audience (which included a number of priests), he announced that Diana was one of a series of hoaxes. He had begun, he said, by persuading the commandant of Marseille that the harbour was infested with sharks, and a ship was sent to destroy them. Next he invented an underwater city in Lake Geneva, drawing tourists and archaeologists to the spot. He thanked the bishops and Catholic newspapers for facilitating his crowning hoax, namely his conversion. Diana Vaughan was revealed to be a simple typist in his employ, who laughingly allowed her name to be used by him.

The audience received these revelations with indignation and contempt, and Taxil was mobbed on leaving the hall so that policemen had to escort him to a neighbouring café. He then moved away from Paris. He died in Sceaux in 1907.

Leo Taxil's Books

* The Amusing Gospel (La Vie de Jesus)
* The Amusing Bible (La Bible amusante)
* Les Debauches d'un confesseur
*
* Les Maîtresses du Pape

References

External links

* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/evil/dwf/index.htm A.E. Waite, "Devil-Worship in France With Diana Vaughan and the Question of Modern Palladism"] complete e-text of Waite's debunking of Taxil.
* [http://www.leotaxil.com Leo Taxil.com] French website devoted to the writer with thorough biographical information and photos.