"Flagrant Defiance"

High mass drew to its solemn close in Beaux Cathedral, France. Three young men waited in the square outside to sell newspapers to the faithful. All the newspapers were the same--an issue of Editor Leon Daudet's L' Action Franc,aise (royalist), for whose editorial attacks upon Republican Catholics the Pope lately placed the newspaper on the index expurgatorius (TIME, Jan. 24) and more lately excommunicated impenitent Editor Daudet and his colleague, Charles Maurras. . . . Out of the Cathedral came, not only the flock but their shepherd as well, the Bishop of Beaux in the awful splendor of his full canonicals. Vexed by "flagrant defiance," the Bishop boomed forth thunderous Latin phrases, formally excommunicated the three news-venders. A controversy raged.