A

"Bataille, Dr."

The alleged author of Le Diable au XIX. Siècle, published in Paris in 1892, a book that created a sensation with its revelations of the secret rites and orgies of many diabolic societies. The author claimed personal experience with devil worship. This exciting and colorful work of some 800,000 words attracted enormous attention and its stories of worldwide diabolic conspiracies associated with Freemasonry were widely discussed. It was first thought to be the work of Dr. Charles Hacks, who contributed a preface entitled "Revelations of an Occultist." Hacks was a real, although shadowy, figure. The book was later revealed to be the work of journalist and editor Gabriel Jogand-Pagés, also known as "Leo Taxil," who confessed to fabricating the book as an anti-Freemasonry, anticlerical hoax.