No less than thirteen churches belonging to the one diocese of Orleans were despoiled in the space of twelve months, and in the diocese of Lyons the archbishop recommended his clergy to transform the tabernacles into strong boxes.

The departments of Aude, Isere, Tarn, Gard, Nievre, Loiret, Yonne, Haute-Garonne, Somme, Le Nord, and the Dauphiny have been in turn the scene of outrage.

Nor are the abominations in question confined to France: Rome, Liguria, Salerno have also suffered, while so far off as the Island of Mauritius a peculiarly revolting instance occurred in 1895.
I am not able to say that the personal researches of the French novelist have proceeded beyond the statistics of sacrilege, which, however, he has collected carefully, and these in themselves constitute a strong presumption.

M.Huysman is exhaustive in fiction and reticent in essay-writing, yet he gives us to understand explicitly that the infamous Canon Docre of _La Bas_ is actually living in Belgium, that he is the leader of a "demoniac clan," and, like the Count de St Germain, is in frequent terror of the possibilities of the life to come.

An interviewer has represented M.Huysman as stating that his information was derived from a person who was himself a Satanist, but the revelations disturbed the sect, and the communication ceased, though the author had originally been welcomed "as one of their own." But it is clear to my own mind that for his descriptions of the orgies which take place at the assemblies of modern black magicians, M.Huysman is mainly indebted to documents which have been placed in his hands by existing disciples of the illumine Eugene Vintras, and the "Dr Johannes" of _La Bas_.