Storia do Mogor 338.1.2

338.1.2

The Pope's choice fell on one of his domestic chaplains, Charles Maillard de Tournon, belonging to a good Savoyard family, and born at Turin on December 21, 1668. On December 21, 1701, the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, Tournon was created Patriarch of Antioch, having already been empowered by a brief dated December 9, 1701, to enquire into and regulate the practices of the missionaries in India and China. He was made Apostolic visitor with the powers of a legate a latere, and left Rome on July 4, 1702, taking with him several zealous missionary recruits, and made his way to Spain. While waiting there for some means of transport to the East, he received from the King of France the offer of a passage to India. He therefore left Cadiz on February 9, 1703, and joined the French man-of-war Maurepas (Denis de Fontaine, captain) at the Canary Islands, whence they set sail on May 3, 1703. Clement XI. had already announced the patriarch's deputation to the Archbishop of Goa and the Bishop of San Thomé of Meliapur by letters dated June 20, 1702. The legate's instructions were contained in a brief dated July 2, 1702, 'Speculatores Domus Israel.'