Léo Taxil

After spending his childhood years in the seminary, he became disillusioned with the Catholic faith and began to see the religious ideology as socially harmful.

[1] Taxil first became known for writing anti-Clerical or anti-Catholic books,[2] notably La Bible amusante (The Amusing Bible) and La Vie de Jesus (The Life of Jesus), in which Taxil satirically pointed out perceived inconsistencies, errors, and false beliefs presented in these religious works.

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.

In the 1890s, he wrote a series of pamphlets and books denouncing Freemasonry,[4] charging their lodges with worshiping the devil and alleging that Diana Vaughan had written for him her confessions of the Satanic "Palladist" cult.

[6] 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 19 April 1897.