Note 5 — BOOK I (continued 4)

M. Zola's account of the worship of St. Antony is strictly accurate. Can one wonder that the Government of the Republic should have decided to expel from France some of the bandits who, masquerading under the guise of monks, initiated this colossal fraud? The idea of it sprang from their keen jealousy of the wealth of the Assumptionist Fathers whom they found raking in money at Lourdes by the aid of bogus miracles. They carried the miracle craze further by diffusing the worship of St. Antony throughout France, preying on all the credulous with the most astounding impudence.—Trans.