The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 20, 1898, Page 18

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1898. ACED UNDER Tl Outcome of a Story Started by a Countess That the Real Leo XIII Is a Prisoner [E POP E’S BAN in the Vatican and a Bogus Pope Reizns in His Plac has just issued a efr- the Catholic world g his people against ac- authentic any out himself that P- a new paper issued in led Le Petit Moniteur de e. The paper recently started the story that the real Pope, Leo XIII, is a pr r in the Vatican, while a bogus Pope reigns in his ste In issulng this warning the Vatican authorities claim to have exposed a great fraud that might h: become as serious that of Diana Vaughan tions of the devil worshipers. ed with th known C naud. It her revela Conn; 'y of fraud is the well id that s eral dollars has been collected from the faithful on the pretense of using the money to free the imprisoned Pope. Leo XIII, the Conte avers, was imprisoned about ten years ago be- cause of the berality of his attitude toward the Italian Government and his olina de Saint-Ar- | million | e@ known character on the Continent. She is the daughter of the late Duke of Modena and a lady of his court said to be allied to the reigning house of Javaria. The Duke was of Austrian parentage and connected collaterally with the house of Hapsburg. He was also brother-in-law to the late Count de Chambord, the Pretender to the French throne, known among the legit- imists as Henry V. The mother of the Contessa died at her birth, and she was brought up by her aunt, the Princess' Massimo, in Rome. Here the young girl was a great soclal favorite. She was' pretty and vivacious, and according to rumor counted her admirers by the score. She | never married, however, but was con- tent to be for many years the most ad- mired of the many belles at the then brillinat Pontifical court. During the regime of Cardinal Antonella, the Secretary of State for Pius IX, the home of the Princess Massimo excelled all other Roman palaces for its lavish entertainments, and frequently the en- | tire court of Pius was entertained by herself and the charming young Con- tessa de Arnaud. But the Contessa INHER {INSPECTO DEVIL WO espousing of certain modern ideas an- tagonistic to the reactionary element of the College of Cardinals. The Pope is, she says, imprisoned in a vault di- rectly under the apartments which he occupied in the Vatican palace, and but two persons know the intricate wind- ings which lead to his prison. He has as his fellow-captive the long- lost Archduke John of Austria, who is held by his enemies for similar political purposes. This scion of royalty was, as is well known, entirely out of joint with his time, and on more than one occa- sion was threatened by the Emperor Francis Joseph with arrest for high treason. He disappeared some twelve years ago, and the published statement of Contessa Arnaud that he is confined in a secret dungeon of the Vatican has caused quite a sensation in European circles. Wild and impossible as these accusa- tions may appear, the Contessa counts her believers by the hundreds, and so plausible is her story, backed by all manner of sworn documents purport- ing to come from Monsignori one time in the Pontifical service, that she has collected large amounts to aid in lib- erating the imprisoned head of Chris- tendom. The Vatican authorities are intensely annoyed because of the name she has given her organ, Le Petit Mon- iteur de Rome. The Moniteur de Rome was at one time the official publication of the Pope. It was suspended by the Italian Government about four years ago, but there has lately been some talk of re-establishing it. The Vatican authorities fear that the hostile utter- ances of the Contessa may galn cre- dence In some quarters owing to the similarity of the name. The church dignitaries in this country do not an- ticipate any difficulty in disproving the assertion of the Contessa. DIANA'UAUGHAN 1CIAL ROBES AS OEFGENERAL OF.THE RSHIPPERS The Countess de Arnaud is a well-. Evil Spirits Attacking a Victim. liked gorgeous raiment, and this was | the cause of her undoing. The Duke of Modena died almost in penury, and the Princess Massimo felt obliged to curtail her magnificent mode of living, since her young niece was portionless. But the Contessa refused to give up her pleasures, and when contrary to her aunt’s orders she bought jewels and dresses as lavishly as heretofore, the Princess Massimo put her out of her house and publicly disclaimed all responsibility for her debts. She was soon afterward obliged to leave Rome. Having in the days of her affluence made the acquaintance at Rome of a wealthy and exceedingly devout French country gentleman, a M. de Glenard, who owned a fine chateau in the nighborhood of Loigny, in France, she bethought herself of his invitation, and established herself be- neath his roof. Finding that he was a firm believer in miracles, and that he was encour- aged in his convictions by the parish priest, Father Xae, she induced her host to found a convent in the neigh- borhood of Loigny, which she filled with a number of Itallan nuns, some of them authentic and others merely bogus, those who were not crazed with religion being adventuresses of the worst type. Once these women were established there the Countess pro- ceeded to invent extraordinary appa- ritions and miracles, which attracted the attention of the devout throughout the e.tire district to the convent;-so that it gradually became the object of great pllgrimages and the recipient of immense gifts. l It was in vain that the Bishop of Chartres, in whose diocese the convent | was situated, declined to give his sanc- | tion to the establishment or to recog- nize it in any way, and finally the scan- | dal became so severe that he referred | the matter to Rome. | The Countess and her nuns paid as | little attention to the orders received | from the Eternal City as to those given by the Bishop, and the outcome of the whole affair was that the convent was placed under the ban of the church, and the Countess solemnly excommuni- cated by Leo XIII in person. The Countess, in no way disconcerted by this, at once declared that the bull of excommunication and of ecclesias- tical interdiction was invalid, and in order to convince people thereof she in- | vented an astonishing story to the ef- | fect that the real Pope was a captive in the dungeons of the Vatican, and that the decree of excommunication had no value owing to its being signed and issued by a bogus pontiff. Strange to relate, this inconceivable story obtained wide credence in and around Loigny, and when shortly aft- erward, at the request of the Bishop of Chartres, the convent was closed by the police, the Countess determined to make use of the -tale in order to ob- tain a means of livelihood. So with the help of some confederates—one of whom was a suspended priest, another a white-haired ex-secretary of the Duke Torlonia and the third a Hondu- ras diplomat, who styled himself Duke | of Bustella, but who turned out to be an ex-convict—she started a propa- | | ganda with the“avowed object of rais- | ing sufficient money both in Italy and broad to rescue the Pontiff from his | dungeon. | The Countess evidently possesses | some mesmeric powers, for she fre- | quently silenced all hesitations and doubts on the part of her dupes by throwing weak-minded nuns into trances and sleeps in which they de- clared they saw the Holy Father on a bed of straw in the subterranean dun- geons of the Vatican, access to which could be reached through the cata- combs. Enormous sums of money were ob- and finally the attention of the police was directed to the matter with the re- sult that two years ago both she and her confederates were arrested and sentenced, each of them, to two years’ penal servitude, which she completed | about six months ago. | The Diana Vaughan fraud, with which this has features of resemblance, | was one of the most cruel and blasphe- mous ever perpetrated. Its real author was a Frenchman named Leo Taxil, a | Bohemian of literature. He had the | assistance of a wretched woman, who | appeared before the public as Diana Vaughan. Taxil made the ‘religious public of Europe the victims of his fraud. He took advantage of a widespread belief | in thé existence of a sect or sects of devil worshipers. That such perverts have existed is certain, and that they do exist is probable. They are blas- phemous and demented creatures who | worship Satan as the ruler of the uni- verse, and perform in his honor hideous | travesties of religious services. Their | practices have lent themselves to gross | exaggeration by sensational writers. Taxil published a series of fictitious revelations of the doings of\these crea- tures. He reached a climax when he produced Diana Vaughan, fessed that she had been a leading person among the Luciferians, or devil- worshipers. She alleged that she was an inspector-géneral of the Palladium,’ or order of devil-worshipers, and the promised bride of Asmodeus, the mas- ter of seventy subservient devils. She wound up by describing her con- version to Christianity by extraordi- nary means, which gccount, being fic- titious, ig fearfully sacrilegious. Her story created profound interest among the clergy and devout religious people. Accepting the truth of Diana Vaughan’s statements, they naturally regarded her as one saved by divine grace from an incredible, horrible fate. Diana Vaughan entéred into corre- spondence with cardinals and arch- bishops, who praised her for her zeal for the church. She even received the blessings of the Pope. Taxil made money by his books and by the pub- lic exhibition of Diana Vaughan. For a time he reveled in prosperity and notoriety. The circumstantial statéments con- cerning the actual existence of devil- worshipers in France and ‘elsewhere naturally occupied the attention of- the church. A commission of 'ecclesias- i J tained by the Countess in this fashion, | \ 1 | who con- | still A Disciple Summbnlng the Devil POPE LEO Xll, WHOM THE COUNTESS ARNAUD DECLARES. IS CONFINED WITH THE MISSING ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA IN A VATICAN DUNGEON. tics was appointed to inquire into them. ‘While they were preparing a report condemning Diana Vaughan as a fraud Taxil determined to confess every- thing. FAMOUS CORNERS IN SPECULATION. ILLIAM K. VANDER- BILT’S vast scheme for con- solidating the New York Central, Lake Shore, Mich- igan Central and perhaps other big railroads recalls to mind some of the other famous deals of the early members of the Van- derbilt family. Curiously enough, the most noted of these have to do with “corners” in stock, at- which Commo- dore Vanderbilt showed himself a mas- ter. The fact that Joseph Leiter is at present engaged in an attempt to put through the greatest fcormer” that ‘Wwas ever attempted—that of controlling the visible supply of wheat—renders a ‘sketch of some of the noted “corners’ appropriate at this. time. i A ‘“corner,” in the vernacular, is a monopoly or a control of any given ar- ticle, be it stock or commercial prod- ucts, and the more nearly the supply is controlled the greater the .success of the attempted ‘“‘corner.” In the case of wheat Leiter and his friends as- sume that in this year of shortage in the supply the world over, except in gm; country, there will be a ready lemand for a Il that can be furnished, ‘and that if they can get control of the supply they can deal it out at theer own terms, making a handsome profit -over the price which they paid for it.- It is predicted that this deal will cul- | minate in the biggest ‘‘corner” that | was ever attempted. | In Wall street all of the great ‘‘cor- ners” have been associated with cam- paigns_against the bears, who have | been injudicious enough to sell stock | and put out contracts for the delivery of stock amounting to more than the otal stock issue of a particular com- | pany. ‘Where thé ‘‘corner” was com- plete there could be but one outcome— the victims had to settle at any price that the manipulators of the “corners” might dictate. In the second great ‘‘corner” that Commodore Vanderbilt engineered against the members of the Legisla- ture and their Wall street friends, the commodore gave orders to mark the | price of Harlem Railroad stock up to 1000 in order to “teach them a lesson,” as he put it, but upon the advice of | Leonard Jerome, who was “In” with Vanderbilt, the old war horse relented ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HORRIBLE RITUALS. FROM DIANA VAUGHAN'S BOOK ON THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS. Invoking a Spirit of Evil. and allowed the foolish legislators to settle for $285 a share. Not long before it had been selling at $50 a share. Commodore Vanderbilt was a novice \in Wall street when, as a Staten Island ferryman, he bought a large interest in the Harlem Rallroad and proceeded to lay his wires to get control of it. The Harlem road back in 1862 had its ter- minal-at Twenty-sixth street, the cars being hauled down from Forty-second street by horses. The commodore fixed up a scheme to extend it down Broadway to the Bat- tery, and he-thought he had arranged with enough of the Aldermen to se- cure the necessary franchise from the city. This privilege, it was assured, property and the stock would naturally g0 up. It had been *kicking around” at $15 or $20 a share. The commodore began to buy the stock freely and it rose rapidly to $50. Then one night the Aldermen passed an ordinance grant- ing the desired extension down Broad- way. The next morning Harlem stock’ i\l%wed up to $75 and later crept up to A 'cou;.)la of months later it was ais- would greatly enhance the value of tha | covered ~ that some of the Aldermen were selling the stock “short” for fu- ture delivery, evidently thinking that the price would go -down. -They let all of their confidential friends into.the se- cret, and the latter in tutn”let their friends in, until several hundred per- sons ' had taker. advantage of the “point”.and “had made contracts for delivery a month-later. The stock was then ®efling’at 100, and the tip was that it would go to 60 and perhaps to 50. If a man could sell a hundred shares at $100 a share, borrow the stock from & % iM_en)bers Defying the Holy Cross. some bld-fashioned Holder and then, when the price dropped to $50, buy back what he had sold, he would have cleared $40 a share, or $4000. The secret came out when the Alder- | men met one evening and rescinded the i resolution they had passed granting the Harlem company the right to lay rails down Broadway. The stock at once dropped down to 72, but the bears were selling short. They were not satisfied with fifteen or twenty points, but “wanted it all,” as the expression is in ‘Wall street. They expected the price to go down to 50, and they reasoned that there would be no difficuity in covering their contracts at the lowest Wwhen everybody who had stock would be only too glad to sell. But theéy were caught in a trap. The stock didn’t go below 70, and as the end of the month approached and the time - for covering “‘short” contracts drew near the more timid ones went into the market to get their stock to deliver.” Up shot the price to 100, then 120, 140, and finally to 179. Then there was none for sale, and it dawned upon the unhappy bears that the commo- dore had bought it all and more too— that is they had put contracts to de- liver more than the outstanding cap- ital of the road. He allowed the big- gest bears to settle at $179 a share, re- sulting in a clear profit to him and his partners of several million dollars. = After this squeeze of the ‘‘shorts there was naturally no further demand for the stock, and as the franchise ‘had been rescinded the price went SAINT ARNAUL { back to 50 or lower. In the following | year the commodore conceived the | idea of consolidating the Harlem and | the Hudson River railroads, and he got a majority of the Legislature pledged to grant the privilege. Up went Harlem stock again, and, cur- iously enough, the legislators were trapped by their own treachery, just the Aldermen had been. s More than the entire capitalization of the Harlem road, or contracts for stock, was again sold. The legislators had decided not to CONTESSA CAROLINA DE pass the consolidation bill, and the price fell off 59 points to 91. ain the bears expected it to drop to 50 and they kept on seiling. The commodore and John Tobin bought 28,000 shares more than had been issued. Then they put the price up to $285 a share, at which figure the leading bears settled. The commodore in telling the story later said: “We busted the whole Legislature, and scores of the honorable members had to go home without paying their board bills.” “Deacon” White made a name by badly “squeezing” the “shorts” in Lackawanna stock, of which there is | always a very small amount afloat, but he “went down” under his attempt to “corner” the supply of corn. He found that the visible supply was much greater than he supposed, and, having bought all that he could carry on mar- gin, he was a vulnerable prey to the onslaught of the bears when they learned that he could take no more. Down went the price, and as nobody stood ready to take his vast holdings on a declining market, the decline de- veloped into an avalanche, and many bulls were ruthlessly slaughtered. This incident aptly illustrates the point. that anybody who wishes to en- gineer a corner must be prepared to buy all that is offered. That is what Leiter and his friends are now doing. —_——— Near the main entrance . f one of our churches a poor woman, shivering with cold, and holding a baby in her arme appealed to the charity of the passery }:;WM'. your infant is pasteboard!™ said a gentleman, as he tapped its nose, which sounded hard and reso- ant. n"oh. ‘1 beg your pardon, sir. It is so cold, T left the real one at home.”