With the Congress of Trent the mystification which Taxil had been playing off on papacy for so many years had reached the acme of success, and nothing now remained but to wind up the plot with a drastic _denouement_. Accordingly, Diana Vaughan issued an invitation to a conference to be held on April 19, 1897, in the great hall of the Geographical Society of Paris. It was also stated that other conferences would be held in the principal cities of France, Italy, England, and the United States. The programme for the evening was quite elaborate, beginning with a lottery for an American typewriter and ending with a series of fifty-four stereopticon pictures representing, among other fantastic scenes, Sophia Walder and her serpents, events in the life of Diana Vaughan, the apparition of the devil Bitru in Rome, Eden and Eve with the fatal apple, sacrilegious stabbing of the host on a Satanic altar in a Masonic lodge at Berlin, and finally Leo XIII with the encyclical letter _Humanum genus_ as a flaming sword in his hand, the archangel Michael on his right and the apocalyptic St. John on his left treading the triple-headed dragon of Freemasonry under foot. The audience consisted chiefly of priests, with a few Protestant clergymen and Freemasons, and an unusually large number of newspaper reporters. The typewriter was won by Ali Kemal, correspondent of the Constantinople journal _Ikdam_, who only regretted that it did not write Turkish. Taxil then appeared on the platform, and began his address with the words: “Reverend sirs, ladies, and gentlemen! You wish to see Diana Vaughan. Look at me! I myself am that lady!” After this startling exordium, he proceeded to relate how from his youth up he had always had an irresistible inclination to play practical jokes. Once he frightened the inhabitants of Marseilles by discovering a shoal of sharks in the harbor, and again he set the archæologists all agog by announcing the existence of a city, built on piles, at the bottom of Lake Leman. But these were “childish things” compared with the manner in which he had humbugged the Catholic clergy for nearly a dozen years. We need not report the details of his discourse; it is sufficient to say that he gave a full account of the deep-laid plot from its first conception to its final consummation at the Congress of Trent. Each new disclosure called forth cries of “Liar!” “Scoundrel!” “Vilifier!” “Villain!” and similar epithets, but nothing could disturb the cynical composure of the speaker. As a precautionary 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 referred to the numerous presents received, among which was an Emmenthaler cheese, sent by the Marquis de Morès, with pious sayings carved in the rind. “It was an excellent cheese,” he added, “and served to strengthen me in my fight against