Storia do Mogor 338.5
Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 338.5
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338.5.1
They ordered him to Madras, where he would be overthrown irreparably like the others. They sent him off with a sealed bundle of letters and documents, and gave him an order that it must not be opened until after his entry into Madras. Who could have guessed that Father Esprit carried his own halter with him? Behold the trick which was afterwards unmasked! Inside the bundle he carried were two interdicts to be served on the two Capuchins then present in the convent, along with an order to them to appear em atribos personally in Pondicherry in the presence of His Excellency, subpœna suspensionis a divinis [under penalty of suspension from divine functions].
338.5.2
This command the poor creatures could not comply with, for they found themselves in the same inability as their superior, being forbidden by the gentlemen of the government to leave Madras. The piece had not been badly aimed, since with one discharge they demolished three priests — two of Madras, by prohibiting the exercise of their holy functions and the administration of the sacraments, and Father Friar Esprit by making him go to Madras. When he had got entry there, he must inevitably intimate the orders he brought from his Excellency. These orders having been communicated to them, the English gentlemen would never pardon him for doing it, and the very least they would do would be to kick him out of Madras. Should he neglect to communicate the interdicts, he could be made subject to an interdict himself. It would be seen whether the wretched man could escape some such blow if he once got into the town. But Our Lord, the protector of the innocent, would not permit that such great evil should prevail on this occasion. For when the father reached the gates the sentries stopped him from entering until they had reported his arrival to the Lord Governor. This gentleman, as they told Father Esprit, fell into a great rage, wanting to know what was the use of so many priests who did nothing but come and go. They told him he bore a letter from Monsieur Martin for his Lordship (as the father had told them).
338.5.3
The governor sent for the letter, but would never consent to allow Father Esprit to come in. By this rebuff the father was forced to turn back to Pondicherry. When he was at San Thome he (Esprit) wrote a letter to Friar Euzebio, Capuchin, lately arrived from Surat, in which he warned him on behalf of his Excellency that he must secure an exit from Madras if he wished to be spared the threatened deluge of interdicts, which was on the point of overwhelming that unfortunate mission. As soon as Father Friar Euzebio received this letter, without delay or loss of time, he proceeded to the Fort to bid farewell to the Lord Governor before he went off to join Father Friar Esprit, when both would go together to Pondicherry. But on no consideration would the Lord Governor consent to his departure; on the contrary, he ordered him to take care that he remained in Madras. Upon learning this, the three companions in misery were as much perturbed as confused at such extraordinary procedure being used against them. They recognised the target at which the arrows of so many misadventures were shot, attempting totally to ruin them. They felt acutely their inability to avoid the injury with which they were threatened, and the not having anyone to whom they could apply for help in the great calamity they dreaded, for their destruction was imminent. In this deliberation they wasted a little time, debating the best method to be adopted.
338.5.4
Not hitting upon anything calculated to deliver them from such an intricate labyrinth, they resolved to put in force what the Church, as a loving mother, concedes to her oppressed sons in alleviation of their sufferings. They decided to appeal to Rome against all that was being done against them. In putting this into execution their hearts were dilated for a moment or so. Instantly they drew up a petition of appeal in proper form, and craved as a favour that one of their friends would start at once with it for Pondicherry to lay it before his Excellency. This was carried out properly on April 14, 1704, in the presence of witnesses of great weight. The Lord Nuncio took the petition, and after reading the first lines, refused it twice over, making no account of it. But afterwards he learnt that at the foot was appended an attestation of a number of persons ; and when it was presented again, he glanced at the signatures of the witnesses, who were present and all of them persons of great weight there. He felt so angry with the Capuchins that he could neither repress nor conceal his passion ; he let loose on them a deluge of benisons.
338.5.5
The storm having blown over, the sea became tranquil again. Having relieved his mind, he sifted the matter and gave better consideration to it. His Excellency failed not to acquire the conviction that the document was of juridical force, that it had been presented with all the formalities, and that by it his hands were tied. Concealing what he had in his mind, he entered on a search for all the paths and roads possible for hindering the Capuchins from doing a thing that hurt him so much at heart, and for inducing them to beg pardon for such great overboldness. This was the name that his Excellency gave to their appeal to the Holy Apostolic See, converting it into a crime of high treason in the highest degree.
338.5.6
But the Capuchins were now accustomed to thunders and lightnings from this quarter. In addition, they had in their minds the expectation, not to say the certainty, that all this talk was mere stratagem and invention for the object of getting from them the original documents [171] they held in their justification, and afterwards still making them have recourse to Rome — and it would not be ' for the King of France,' as we say commonly. They replied with all modesty and submission that their consciences did not accuse them of having done a single thing to offend his Excellency ; therefore they felt no obligation to ask his pardon, nor to disavow in public a boldness which had never entered into their imaginations. They would thereby confess themselves culpable, and constitute themselves criminals (which it did not suit them to do) before the tribunal of the Holy Apostolic See, to which they had appealed. As this was a thing so obvious, there was no need to say more about it ; but if the Lord Patriarch made the request in order to get them to withdraw the petition of appeal, let him send to ask it. And his Excellency having adjusted all the things lying within his power, and put them in the state they were in before his arrival, they promised and agreed to burn all the documents they held connected with this affair in the presence of whatever witnesses he chose to appoint.
338.5.7
As this reply was not to the taste of the Lord Patriarch, nor in conformity with his designs, it was not well received by his Excellency, but he learnt by it the firmness with which the Capuchins meant to sustain and carry on their appeal. Thus it was necessary to seek some other by-path, and employ the weapons of the Vatican to overawe them, and drag them by force to the point he desired. For this purpose he then dispatched a servant named Lazaro, a negro born in India, making over to him two letters, one for the Father Friar Reynato, and the other for the Father Friar Euzebio, both Capuchins, present in the convent at Madras. The servant arrived there on the 18th of May. Meeting Father Friar René in the street at seven o'clock at night, he made over to him both letters. As it was dark the father took them and carried them to the convent. There, each one opening his own, they found that instead of letters they were orders to proceed to Pondicherry within five days, under pain of suspension a divinis. One had been made out on the 5th, and the other on the 24th of April. They were the two documents that the Reverend Father Friar Esprit had brought, with directions to serve them in case he obtained entry into Madras. Each man wrote his reply at the foot of the document, to the effect that it was well known, in fact notorious, that they were unable to leave Madras.
338.5.8
They had appealed to the Holy Apostolic See, and recognised no other judge in their cause than the Supreme Pontiff, Clement XI. Then they sent the documents back to Pondicherry, whence the servant had brought them, as has been said. The Reverend Father René had already received an order not to celebrate Mass, although he was a third party; and this without any juridical formality, without his knowing up to this time the reason or cause thereof. Still, he did not fail in observance of the order, for reasons that will be described in their proper place and time. The Reverend Father Friar Euzebio, for other reasons already set forth, considered himself under obligation to continue his functions without being hindered by the suspension with which he was threatened; he did, in fact, go on with them. His Excellency, on hearing this by the spies that he kept or by messages sent to him—for he never desisted from doing to them in everything some harm or other—caused to be nailed on the gates of Madras, San Thomé, and Pondicherry documents by which he declared the three Capuchins at Madras to be suspended a divinis (from divine functions). In this declaration made so publicly he inserted no reason beyond these three words, Justis de causis (for sufficient reasons). Nunquam sic locutus est Summus Pontifex.