About the middle of October he had told Vizetelly, who was then with him at Médan, that he had some hope the Pope would receive him, and that he certainly intended to apply for an audience. Vizetelly gave publicity to this statement, which was quoted on all sides. But almost immediately afterwards, Vizetelly having returned to England, Zola on talking the matter over with some friends found that no audience with the Pope was possible. The reason was simple enough. "Lourdes," "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret," and several other volumes of his writings--just like the novels of Dumas _père_, that "accursed Garibaldian"--were in the "Index," and accordingly, before even applying for an audience, he would have to withdraw and annihilate those books so far as lay in his power, and make a full submission to Holy Church. Such were the facts. A little investigation of the subject showed peremptorily that the popes made it an inflexible rule to receive no authors whose writings figured among the prohibited books unless and until those authors had withdrawn their writings and submitted. Abbé Alfred Loisy, the author of "La Question Biblique" and "L'Évangile et l'Église," has of more recent times discovered the _procédure_ to be such as is here stated. He, like Zola's Abbé Pierre Froment, repaired to Rome to plead his cause, but though cardinals may have received him, he was not allowed to approach the Pope. Zola, in his "Rome," used a novelist's license when he brought Abbé Pierre face to face with Leo XIII; and all readers of the book are aware that the interview is pictured as a secret one, obtained by surreptitious means, such as Zola could never have employed. Had he asked for an audience he must have done so through the usual channel, that of the French embassy to the Vatican; and we have before us that embassy's express statement that no such application was ever made. Thus, contrary to the assertions which went the round of the world's press, Zola did not ask to see the Pope, and the Pope did not have occasion to refuse him.