a society of Palladists, or professors of
certain doctrines termed Palladism, as demonstrated, _inter alia_, by
the publication of a periodical review in its interests.

M. Huysman's facts, therefore, resolve into acts of sacrilege,
indicating associations existing for the purpose of sacrilege, which
purpose must, however, be regarded as a means and not an end, and the
end in question is to enter into communication with devils.
Independently of M. Huysman, I believe there is no doubt about the
sacrilege. It is a matter of notoriety that in 1894 two ciboria,
containing one hundred consecrated hosts, were carried off by an old
woman from the cathedral of Notre Dame under circumstances which
indicate that the vessels were not the objects of the larceny. Similar
depredations are said to have increased in an extraordinary manner
during recent years, and have occurred in all parts of France. 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 t