Avedick is at first confined in the Prisons of the Arsenal--From
Marseilles he is conducted to Mount Saint-Michel--Description of
Mount Saint-Michel--Treatment to which Avedick is exposed--His
useless Protestations against this Abuse of Force--Universal Emotion
excited throughout the East--Complaints of the Divan--Ferriol’s
Impudence--Terrible Reprisals practised on the Catholics--False
Avedicks--Expedients to which Ferriol is reduced--Inquietude of
the Roman Court--Duplicity of Louis XIV.’s Government--Avedick
is transferred to the Bastille--Suggestions of which he is the
Object--He abjures and is set at Liberty--He dies at Paris in the Rue
Férou--Delusive Document drawn up with Reference to this Death--Share
of Responsibility which attaches to each of the Authors of the
Abduction.
It was not at Marseilles that Avedick was detained, neither was he
sent, as has been said, to Messina, or to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite
to be imprisoned. Louis XIV. was too prudent and too circumspect
to leave in a port of the Mediterranean an individual whom his
co-religionists, supported by the Ottoman Porte, were energetically
demanding and seeking with anxious solicitude. Directly the Government
of Louis XIV. was advised of the outcry which the disappearance of
the Grand Patriarch had excited in the East, an Exempt was sent to
Marseilles, to M. de Montmor, intendant of the galleys, in order to
withdraw Avedick from the prisons of the Arsenal, and conduct him,
“under good and sure guard,” to the other extremity of France. At the
same time it was enjoined “to all governors, mayors, syndics, and other
officials, to give the Exempt every protection, aid, and assistance in
case of need,”[291] rather an unnecessary precaution in the case of
this weak and inoffensive old man.
Near the ancient boundary of Brittany and Normandy,[292] rises a
narrow rock surrounded on all sides by the waves, or by quicksands
left uncovered by the sea when it falls at every tide. These sands,
which extend to the firm land over a distance of nearly a couple of
miles, are rendered very dangerous to cross by the mouths of several
small streams.[293] On this rock, impressed with a savage grandeur,
some monks had, in the eighth century,[294] constructed a monastery,
where they lived isolated from the rest of the world, from which they
were sometimes separated by vast plains of sand, and sometimes by
the waters of the sea at regular but not far distant intervals. It
was to this Abbey of Mount Saint-Michel, occupied by Benedictines,
alternately devoting themselves to work and prayer, that the Grand
Patriarch of the Armenians was conducted. The Prior of the abbey
received orders to strictly guard the prisoner brought to him,
“without allowing him to hold communication with any one, either by
word of mouth or by writing,”[295] a very superfluous precaution in
the case of an Armenian whose language nobody knew, who was ignorant
of French, and who found himself in the midst of monks who from his
arrival were taught to curse him. He was represented to them, indeed,
as a detestable persecutor of Catholics[296]--this man who had been
three times exiled and twice deposed by them, snatched violently from
his country, at one time cast upon the coast of Syria and confined in
a dungeon into which the water penetrated, at another carried into
a strange land, thousands of miles from his native land, where for
five years he was to drag out a miserable existence and then die. An
object of horror to the monks, doubly exiled in this place of exile,
like them separated from the world by obstacles almost as insuperable
as those which parted them, separated from them also by the repulsion
which he inspired, more unhappy still than in his first prison, where
at least he breathed the air of his native land, Avedick could not even
preserve the hope of being delivered. That consolatory prospect which
his meeting with Spartaly at Genoa had permitted him to entertain, he
was now obliged to renounce; since, even supposing that his letters had
reached the Ottoman Porte,[297] no one would dream of coming to seek
him on so distant and desert a coast. As far as his gaze extended he
could expect to see no vessel of deliverance appear. Whether the sea
covered the sands or whether it ebbed and left them dry, there was the
same frightful solitude, the same mournful silence, broken at times by
the roar of the waves beating against the rock, or by the peaceful and
monotonous chants of the monks.
For ten months he listened to their prayers without being allowed to
take part in them, and he lived in the most absolute isolation. But on
July 13, 1707, Pontchartrain wrote to the Prior of Mount Saint-Michel
that he might allow the prisoner to hear mass, and even admit him to
confession. “The King,” he added, “does not pretend to deprive him of
the succour which he might find in this sacrament; and his Majesty has
merely thought that, before admitting him to it, you ought to have
him examined with especial care, as it is to be feared, from what has
already happened, that his devotion is only feigned and illusory, in
order to deceive and induce you to guard him with less care.”[298]
Singular fear of a flight, impracticable in itself, and impossible
to be prolonged for any length of time in a country where all was
strange and hostile to him! Pontchartrain requested the General of the
Benedictines at Rome to send to Mount Saint-Michel a monk learned in
Oriental languages, to whom the most absolute discretion was prescribed
with respect to the disclosures which Avedick might make to him
otherwise than under the seal of confession,[299] but which were not
to be kept secret from the Prior, who was charged to transmit them to
the Minister. Thus it was that they did not content themselves with
detaining the person of the Patriarch: they endeavoured to penetrate
to the recesses of his soul, with the view of enlightening themselves
upon the true sentiments,[300] and possibly upon the projects of the
prisoner. The first word that he utters, and which can be understood,
is a protest of right against might. “Let them judge me,” he says,[301]
“and condemn me to the punishment that I deserve; or, if I am innocent,
let it be proclaimed, and let them set me at liberty!”
He was neither judged nor set at liberty; and his protest, forwarded by
the Prior to Versailles, was suppressed in Pontchartrain’s cabinet. It
is true that at the same time the most alarming intelligence reached
the Minister from Constantinople, coupled with the most pressing
entreaties from the court of the Vatican, and from the French embassy
at the Porte, to isolate and guard the prisoner more strictly still.
On receiving the news of Avedick’s disappearance, the officers of the
Divan and the Grand Vizier himself, justly excited, had demanded of
Ferriol what had become of him. The French ambassador answered with
assurance that the individual in question had not been given in charge
to him, and that no doubt the vessel on board which he had been carried
into exile was one of those English or Dutch corsairs which the Grand
Seignior tolerated, even in the Dardanelles, to the prejudice of his
custom-house officers and of the interests of his sovereignty.[302]
This attempted diversion did not succeed for any length of time.
English and Dutch, questioned in their turn, having no satisfactory
reply to give, the Grand Vizier ordered torture to be applied to the
_Chiaoux_ who had conducted Avedick to Chio; and in the midst of his
torments the wretch avowed the whole truth.[303] The Vizier at once
solemnly sent the _Chiaoux-Bachi_ to the French embassy in order
to claim Avedick as a subject of the Grand Seignior. Maurocordato,
the first interpreter of the Divan, presented himself a few minutes
afterwards to join his demands to those of the _Chiaoux-Bachi_, and
to insist that the abducted person should be immediately sent back
to Constantinople. The preciseness and energy of the demand did not
trouble Ferriol, and with great presence of mind he replied, “I
am ignorant of all that has happened; and truly I cannot have any
confidence in the depositions of the _Chiaoux_ charged to conduct
Avedick. He declared, on returning to Constantinople, that he had been
taken prisoner by a corsair. Who will say that the second deposition,
made during the torments of the torture, is more accurate than the
first? Moreover, if the French captain has carried off Avedick by force
to Italy or France, he will be punished. But may it not be the case
that the ex-Patriarch, fearing death in his third exile, has employed
the captain to take him to a place of safety?” Little satisfied with
this reply, Maurocordato threatened Ferriol, in the Sultan’s name,
with general persecutions against the Armenian Catholics. “If Avedick
is in France,” answered Ferriol, “I shall write with the view of his
being compelled to return. But the Grand Seignior is master of his own
subjects. He can have all the Armenians put to death indifferently,
without any such threat being able to make me acknowledge that of which
I am ignorant.”[304]
The threat was put into execution, and the Catholics, in whose
pretended interest Avedick was abducted, were the objects of a
frightful vengeance. A _hatti-cherif_ ordered the arrest of the
principal Armenians of the Latin rite,[305] nine of whom escaped
death by apostasy, and three intrepidly confessing their faith, died
martyrs near the Pama-Capou Gate;[306] several Armenians were put to
the torture and questioned during their torments as to the fate of
Avedick;[307] all proselytizing was interdicted to the Jesuits, and
the printing establishment which they had founded was destroyed; the
two Armenian patriarchs, who had authorised the Catholic missionaries
to preach in their churches, were arrested and thrown into prison; a
_barat_ of the Sultan recalled Avedick to the post of Grand Patriarch;
his _vekil_ or vicar, Joanes, was appointed to fulfil his duties _ad
interim_,[308] the measures of rigour and the proscriptions[309]
being increased from the moment of his elevation to power; all
the Catholics were obliged to fly or hide themselves; against them
universal fury was directed, amongst them were desolation and ruin;
such, at Constantinople and throughout the whole Turkish empire, were
the immediate and terrible consequences of Avedick’s abduction. So true
is it that violence invariably leads to violence, and that an abuse of
force is sooner or later followed by reprisals which, although they
are to be deplored, cannot be altogether condemned, since, if they are
without excuse, they, at least, have their explanation in an immutable
law common to all nations and all epochs!
This exasperation against the Catholics was equalled only by the
affection which their unfortunate victim inspired. In all the churches
prayers were said every evening for his prompt return. For a moment
it was believed that they were answered.[310] The news spread through
Constantinople that Avedick was at Rodosto, a town thirty leagues
off. Some Armenians immediately set off to meet him, with the view of
bringing him back in triumph. But they only found an impostor who had
succeeded in deceiving a large number of schismatics, and in collecting
a considerable sum in alms, by taking advantage of the enthusiasm
excited everywhere by the mere name of the Patriarch.[311]
All that concerned the fate of this beloved chief was sought after with
avidity, and accepted with a credulous but touching confidence. One
day an Armenian affirmed that he had seen him in Holland, and received
a magnificent present for this happy piece of news; he disappeared,
however, before it was discovered to be false.[312] Later, two Turkish
slaves from Malta affirmed that Avedick was detained there a prisoner.
They contrived by this artifice to get their ransoms paid, and the
false information brought by them not being devoid of probability, two
rich Armenians determined to charter a vessel and proceed to Malta to
claim the prisoner. Ferriol, called upon to furnish them with a letter
of recommendation both for Malta and for Rome, where they were to
continue their researches, ostensibly did so. But he secretly forwarded
by another channel to the Cardinal de la Trémouille, French ambassador
to the Holy See, a private despatch,[313] in which he recommended the
greatest circumspection and the exercise of an incessant surveillance
over the two Armenians.
With reference to the Divan, whose demands continued to be both precise
and firm, Ferriol, reduced to shifts, was always contriving fresh
artifices in order to appease the Grand Vizier’s resentment.[314]
At times he promised to send one of the officers of the embassy in
search of Avedick. Then the report having spread abroad that the Grand
Patriarch was confined at Messina, Ferriol engaged to beg the King of
France to demand of his grandson, Philip V., King of Spain, that he
should be set at liberty and sent back.[315] But he always affirmed
that he was a stranger to the abduction, and that he was entirely
ignorant of where Avedick was. On this last point, and on that only,
he was sincere. The government of Louis XIV. had concealed even from
its representative at Constantinople the transfer of the prisoner to
Mount Saint-Michel, and Ferriol, very well informed of every detail of
Avedick’s transport to Marseilles, had been prudently kept in the most
complete ignorance of ulterior decisions. But if he was unacquainted
with them, he at least inspired them by his spiteful insistance, by
his implacability in pursuing his enemy even in his most profound and
most irretrievable fall. “He does not care to demand the death of the
sinner,” he says, “but he must do penance, and must never be set at
liberty.” “If Avedick is in the prisons of the Holy Office,” we read
in another despatch, “he will never leave them; if he is in France, I
beg of you to order him to be placed in a dark chamber, from which he
can never behold the day.” “Whatever penance,” says he, elsewhere, “he
may perform for his crimes and for his persecution of the Latins, will
never be sufficiently great.”[316]
From Rome also the most earnest entreaties and the most pressing
recommendations “to confine the prisoner still more closely”[317]
reached Louis XIV. Twice did the Minister of Exterior Relations, the
Marquis de Torcy, charge the Cardinal de la Trémouille to remove the
inquietudes of the congregation of the Holy Office. “The orders to
redouble attention and watchfulness,” wrote Torcy, “have been renewed.
He is seen only by the person who gives him his food. They converse
only by signs, and, when he hears mass on fête-days and Sundays, he
is put in a place apart from all others.” At the same time,[318] the
Minister informed the Cardinal that the Armenians, who had come to
Marseilles, had departed again without being able to find any traces
of Avedick. “We know,” he added,[319] “that the valet of the Patriarch
is about to come from Leghorn to France, likewise with the view of
discovering what has become of his master. But on his arrival he will
be arrested and closely imprisoned.” These despatches were, we see,
of a nature to entirely reassure the Holy Office,[320] and Louis
XIV. showed himself as vigilant a guardian of Avedick’s person as he
had been, through his ambassador, the principal author, and, in his
despatches, the unreserved approver of the abduction.
He went further still, and entering in his turn on that path of
duplicity in which Ferriol had long since outstripped him, Louis XIV.
wrote to his representative near the Porte: “It is impossible for us
to satisfy the Grand Vizier’s demands with reference to Avedick. He is
no longer in a state to be sent living to Constantinople.”[321] Louis
XIV. added “that the news of his death had been given him, at the very
moment when, in order to be agreeable to the Grand Vizier, he was
having the Patriarch sought for in Spain and Italy with the view of
delivering him up to his legitimate sovereign.”
This prisoner, still sufficiently menacing and formidable at the bottom
of his dungeon for Rome as well as Versailles to be thus concerned
about his fate, this old man, the object of so many preoccupations,
and, throughout the whole of the Levant, of regrets which he did
not even have the consolation of knowing, was not thought to be
sufficiently surely isolated by the sands and the sea that surround
Mount Saint-Michel. The moats, the massive doors, and the towers of
the Bastille were considered necessary. “On December 18, 1709,” says
Dujonca in his journal, “there has entered a very important prisoner,
whose name was not mentioned.”[322] This was Avedick, whose death,
announced by Louis XIV., the majority of the Armenians had long since
been mourning. The same recommendations which the Prior of Mount
Saint-Michel had received were given to M. de Bernaville, governor
of the State prison, and he was forbidden “to allow the slightest
communication between his new prisoner and any other person.”[323]
However, Louis XIV. was not slow in authorising an exception to this
rule. A project, long since favoured by the King’s government, and the
execution of which would render it for ever impossible for Avedick
to return to Constantinople, was about to be realized. This was to
instruct him in the Catholic religion, to determine him to submit
to the authority of the Holy See, and thus to lead him to discredit
himself with those of his co-religionists who still doubted of his
death. Such was the end, for the accomplishment of which a monk had
been placed near the Patriarch during the two years of his stay at
Mount Saint-Michel. At the Bastille the suggestions became more
pressing, and Armenian books were given to him,[324] in which he might
learn the Catholic doctrines, and convince himself how narrow were
the grounds of difference which separated the Latin Armenians from
the schismatics. These he traversed, and, on September 22, 1710, he
abjured between the hands of the Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop
of Paris, by an instrument written in the Armenian language, three
translations of which in Latin were delivered, one to the Cardinal,
another to the Minister of Exterior Relations, and the third to Avedick
himself.[325] A few days afterwards he was ordained priest in the
church of Notre-Dame. This abjuration was the only means Avedick had
of recovering his liberty; and, depressed by so many storms, he ceded,
after five years of close captivity, to the natural desire of breathing
a free air during the few remaining years that he had to live.
In the early part of 1711, an old man, bowed by adversity still more
than by weight of years, his countenance furrowed by deep wrinkles,
his eyesight nearly gone, might be seen every morning to leave a little
house in the Rue Férou, where he dwelt with his interpreter.[326]
Having preserved in his attire some remnant of the Armenian costume,
being a foreigner in language and manners, and sustaining by the aid of
a stick his enfeebled body, he attracted attention, and people followed
him with their glances to the church of Saint-Sulpice, to which he
was attached as priest, and where he every day said mass.[327] This
was the religious chief and civil protector of several millions of
Armenians, the enemy of Ferriol and of the Jesuits, and the vanquished
in the long struggle sustained against them. He did not long enjoy his
liberty, but died on July 21, 1711, ten months after having quitted the
Bastille, without relations or friends, having demanded and received
the consolations and the sacraments of that Roman Church[328] whose
ardent missionaries had been the cause of all his misfortunes. Thus
terminated this life, commenced in obscurity and misery, continued on
the patriarchal throne, crossed with unhoped-for elevations and sudden
falls, and completed mournfully in exile.
Louis XIV., exhausting precautions, and pushing imposture and mockery
to their extreme limits, had an instrument drawn up by the Lieutenant
of Police d’Argenson, in which were attested the King’s sorrow on
hearing of this death, and _the promptitude which the monarch had
shown_ _in giving liberty to the prisoner directly the foreigner had
been able to make it understood what his quality was_. By a singular
euphemism, Avedick was termed a _disgracié_, and Louis XIV. declared
that _he had never approved the violence, and still less the crimes,
which, unknown to his Majesty, had been committed in Turkey on the
person of the deceased_.[329] This lying document was to have been
sent to Constantinople in case the Porte should reclaim Avedick in too
menacing a manner. But it was unnecessary. Several changes of Grand
Viziers contributed to abate the demands, and to render them less
pressing. At long intervals the name of the ex-Patriarch recurred in
the conversations between the Ottoman prime minister and the French
ambassador;[330] then, by degrees, the Divan no longer occupied itself
with it. The remembrance of Avedick was less profoundly engrafted there
than in the grateful hearts of the Armenians.
But this is not the complete _dénoûment_ of the drama. At the very
time when Ferriol’s victim was dying, he himself was returning from
Constantinople insane, having been, two years since, replaced in his
post, which, with an extravagant pretension,[331] he had, however,
up to that time refused to quit. It was, in some measure, necessary
to use force to compel him to embark.[332] For a long time he had
recognized the enormous fault he had committed, and on January 6,
1709, had written to Torcy, “I know only of one thing for which people
can reproach me--it is the abduction of Avedick.”[333] But this was
not the cause of his recall, which was evidently entirely due to the
too certain signs of his insanity.[334] It cannot be denied that
Louis XIV.[335] approved the violation of the law of nations, of
which Avedick was the victim; and if the Catholic missionaries are
responsible for having suggested this crime, as Ferriol is for the
orders transmitted to Chio, the government of Louis XIV. is not the
less so for having prolonged and aggravated its consequences by the
treatment to which the prisoner was subjected.
FOOTNOTES:
[291] Order of Louis XIV., dated from Versailles, November 10,
1706:--_Correspondance Administrative du Règne de Louis XIV._, vol. iv.
p. 255.
[292] _Gallia Christiana_, vol. xi. p. 310: “In confinio Britonum ac
Normannorum, medio in mari.”
[293] Such as the Sée, Célune, and Coësnon.
[294] XVII. calend. Novembris, 709:--_Gallia Christiana_, vol. xi. p.
511.
[295] Letter from Louis XIV. to the Prior of Mount Saint-Michel,
November 10, 1706:--_Correspondance Administrative du Règne de Louis
XIV._, vol. iv. pp. 204 and 205.
[296] “He has been depicted to the King as a very great scoundrel
and as a persecutor of Catholics.” See letters from the Count de
Pontchartrain to the Prior of Mount Saint-Michel of July 13, 1707, and
August 22, 1708:--_Correspondance Administrative du Règne de Louis
XIV._, vol. iv. pp. 264 and 265.
[297] We have already seen (Chapter XII. p. 157 _ante_) that they were
intercepted and sent to Ferriol.
[298] Letter from Pontchartrain to the Prior of Mount Saint-Michel,
July 13, 1707.
[299] _Ibid._
[300] “One can change at any moment,” writes Pontchartrain, who was
already hoping for a conversion.
[301] Letter from the Count de Pontchartrain to the Prior of Mount
Saint-Michel, August 22, 1708.
[302] Unpublished despatch from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, June 1,
1706:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 45.
[303] Unpublished despatch from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, July 3,
1706:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 45.
[304] Unpublished despatch from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, July 6, 1706.
[305] La Motraye, work already quoted, p. 381.
[306] Unpublished despatch from Ferriol to Louis XIV., July 10,
1706:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 43.
[307] Unpublished despatch from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, July 10, 1706.
[308] Unpublished despatch from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, July 3,
1706:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 45.
[309] Unpublished letters from Ferriol to the Pope, November 30, 1707;
to the Cardinal de la Trémouille, November 4, 1707; and to the Marquis
de Torcy, December 5, 1707.
[310] Unpublished letter from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, July 6,
1706:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 45.
[311] This pseudo-Avedick was arrested and imprisoned in
Constantinople, but he managed to escape by applying the money he had
collected to corrupt his gaolers.
[312] Unpublished letter from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, May 15,
1707:--Archives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 45.
[313] Here are the two despatches, dated the same day and sent by
different channels:--“Pera, November 16, 1707.--Monseigneur--The
Grand Vizier, desiring that Avedick, the Patriarch of the schismatic
Armenians, who is said to have gone into Christian lands, should return
to Constantinople, sends two Armenians to Malta, named Hazadour, son
of Margos, and Donabit, son of Yartan, in order to search for the said
Patriarch Avedick, and to bring him back to Constantinople, two Turks,
formerly at Malta, having assured the Grand Vizier that they had seen
him there two months and a half ago. As I have nothing so much at heart
as to please the Grand Vizier, I have given passports to the Armenians
and a letter of recommendation for M. le Bailli de Tincourt, to the end
that they may have every sort of liberty to seek and bring here the
said Patriarch Avedick, and return to Constantinople when it shall seem
good to them, without suffering any difficulty or impediment; but that
on the contrary every kind of assistance should be given to them. As,
however, the Turks, who were slaves at Malta, asserted that the said
Patriarch Avedick was going on to Rome, I beg your Eminence very humbly
to render every kind of assistance to the Armenians, to facilitate
their search for the Patriarch Avedick, and give them the means of
bringing him back to Constantinople in all security.”
Here is now the secret despatch:--“Pera, November 16,
1707.--Monseigneur--As the two Turks have said that Avedick was
going to Rome, I have, at the request of the Grand Vizier, given the
Armenians a letter of recommendation to your Eminence. You can judge
of the character of these persons. It is, however, important that
they should not be ill-treated, and, after having sought Avedick,
that they should be permitted to return to Constantinople. But all
their proceedings ought to be watched in such a way that they can
neither complain of this course nor enter on their return into new
plots.”--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey,
45.
[314] Unpublished letters from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, September
1, 1706, and February 19, 1707:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, section Turkey, 45.
[315] Unpublished letters from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, July 18, and
September 16, 1706.
[316] Unpublished letters from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, June 1, and
September 10, 1706, and February 19, 1707. It should be remarked that
it is especially after the abduction that Ferriol so vehemently accuses
Avedick of terrible persecutions. Extracts from his despatches, written
previous to the abduction, and which we have given in Chapter XII. (pp.
149 and 153 _ante_), show that this accusation had much less foundation
than the French ambassador wished to make believe, with the evident
intention of justifying the abduction of the Patriarch.
[317] Unpublished despatch from the Cardinal de la Trémouille to Torcy,
July 21, 1708:--Archives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Rome,
491.
[318] Unpublished letters from Torcy to La Trémouille, August 17,
and September 6, 1708:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
section Rome, 484 and 492.
[319] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Rome, 492.
[320] Only a very few persons at Rome knew that Avedick was in France,
and even they were ignorant of the precise place where he was detained.
The other Cardinals had, with reference to this matter, only vague
and inexact information, as is proved by a letter written from Rome,
July 27, 1706, in which it is stated that Avedick was a prisoner
at Messina.--Archives of the Empire, _Monuments Historiques_, xi.:
_Négociations_, K 1315-1326.
[321] Letter, February 14, 1707:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, section Turkey, 44.
[322] Manuscripts of the Arsenal Library, Dujonca’s Journal, _Registres
des Entrées_. This new extract from this journal proves once more its
perfect authenticity, since the date is corroborated by the letter to
the governor which we are about to quote.
[323] Letter from Louis XIV. to M. de Bernaville, at “Marly, December
18, 1709:”--_Correspondance Administrative du Règne de Louis XIV._,
vol. iv. p. 285.
[324] _Déclaration authentique de M. Pétis de la Croix,
Secrétaire-interprète du Roi en langues Arabe, Turque, et autres
Orientales_, Aug. 24, 1711:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
[325] _Profession de foy et réunion d’Avedick, Patriarche Arménien, à
la Sainte Église Romaine_, Monday, September 22, 1710:--Archives of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[326] Pétis de la Croix, _Déclaration authentique, &c._, already quoted.
[327] Extract from the _Registres des Convoys et Enterrements à
l’Église paroissiale à Saint-Sulpice, à Paris_, delivered by the S.
Joachim de la Chétardye, curé of Saint-Sulpice, August 14, 1711.
[328] _Ibid._ Avedick was interred in the cemetery of the Church of
Saint-Sulpice.
[329] Despatches from the Count de Pontchartrain to the Lieutenant
of Police d’Argenson, July 22 and 30, 1711:--_Correspondance
Administrative du Règne de Louis XIV._, vol. iv. pp. 292 and 293.
_Procès-verbal de M. d’Argenson, contenant enqueste sur la vie
et la mort de Monseigneur Avedick, patriarche des Arméniens à
Constantinople_, September 15, 1711:--Manuscripts of the Arsenal
Library, _Papiers d’Argenson_.
[330] Letters from Count Desalleurs, ambassador of France at
Constantinople, to the Marquis de Torcy, June 16, 1710, and Aug. 1,
1713.
[331] I have a number of most interesting despatches relating to this
end, and to some very curious scenes which occurred during the last
years passed by Ferriol at Constantinople. Perhaps I shall utilize
them some day. But the laws of proportion prevent me from doing so
here and oblige me not to prolong this story beyond the death of the
principal personage. After his return to France, whither he had brought
that beautiful Circassian slave, who became celebrated under the name
of Mademoiselle Aissé, Ferriol lived in obscurity, much, however,
against his will, since he did not cease soliciting being sent back to
Constantinople as ambassador, and to deny his madness with a vehemence
and an excess of language which made his statement seem very improbable.
[332] Unpublished despatches from the King to the Count Desalleurs,
ambassador at Constantinople after Ferriol, September 25, 1710, and
from the Marquis de Torcy to the same, of the same day:--Archives of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 48.
[333] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 48.
[334] Unpublished despatches from the King to M. de Fontenu, Consul at
Smyrna, September 19, 1709; from Torcy to Ferriol, November 5, 1709;
from the King to Ferriol, March 27, 1710:--Archives of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 48; and from Ferriol to Torcy, May 23,
1711 (_ibid._ Turkey, 49).
[335] We think it unnecessary to demonstrate this after the
circumstantial account we have given. It suffices to add:--1st. That
Louis XIV. paid the expenses occasioned by the abduction, which for one
consul alone amounted to 105 ounces of gold (unpublished despatches
from Ferriol to Pontchartrain, June 25, 1706, and Nov. 8, 1707,
Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 45). 2nd.
That the first despatch addressed by the King to Ferriol, on October
17, 1706, after the news of the abduction had arrived at Versailles,
far from conveying a reprimand, contains the following:--“Versailles,
October 17, 1706.--I approve your attention in procuring for the
Christian slaves in the Crimea the spiritual succours of which up to
the present time they have been deprived, and as you know my sentiments
concerning the protection which I wish on all occasions to accord to
the Catholic religion throughout the Ottoman empire, you can render me
no more agreeable service than to continue to make the effects of it
manifest, either publicly or _by secret ways_, to all those who profess
it and who find themselves oppressed by the officers of the Grand
Seignior, _whether they are his subjects, or of whatever nation they
may be_, and the more violent you remark the persecution against them
on the part of the Vizier to be, the more attentive you ought to show
yourself to procure them, with suitable caution, the assistance which
they have a right to expect from you.”--(_Ibid._ Turkey, 43.) 3rd. That
in the instructions sent to Count Desalleurs, Ferriol’s successor at
Constantinople, Ferriol’s conduct is approved.--(_Ibid._ Turkey, 47).
4th. That Ferriol’s recall took place three years after the abduction,
and was due solely to the proofs of insanity he had exhibited, and
of which Louis XIV. had been informed by the chief officers of the
embassy.