Storia do Mogor 364.6

364.6

'In compliance with the order above referred to of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Dom Gaspar Alfonso, Bishop of the city of San Thomé of Meliapur, I declare that by order of the said Lord Bishop was published the executive order (provision) mentioned in the petition of the Reverend Father Francesco Henriques Dolu of the Society of Jesus, declaring the said reverend Jesuit father to be the parish priest of the Malabar Christians dwelling in Pondicherry. This was done at the instigation and on the petition of Monsieur Martin, [Director] General of the Royal Company of France, who wrote to the Lord Bishop, as appears from his letter, because it was so desired and directed by the Most Christian King, his sovereign lord. This is what I know, and it is true. The above was signed by me on July 15, 1699.' Can anything, gentlemen, be more precise? In spite of that, however, when we showed to his Lordship that the king had never given any order of the sort, that His Most Christian Majesty had never even had such a thought, he (the bishop) says that he did not transfer the cure for that reason; on the contrary, he has no recollection of Monsieur Martin ever having written to him to the effect that such was the will and order of His Most Christian Majesty: 'I do not recollect that Monsieur Martin wrote to me that it was the order of the most Christian King.' Taking all this into consideration, who would, gentlemen, be able to confide in the word of Monsignor?