TRAVELS OF LE NOIR DU ROULE

were settled in Cairo, and the Fathers of Jerusalem or of the Holy Land, the former claiming to be independent of the latter.

Ultimately the Pope was appealed to, and, as a result, the

reformed Franciscans were dismissed from their office, and they

returned to Rome, where for many years they endeavoured to

regain their old position and authority by any and every means

in their power. For some time they were unsuccessful, because

the Fathers of Jerusalem, or Capuchins as Bruce calls them, were

both rich and powerful, and the Franciscans could make no head- way against them. After a time the Franciscans worked out a scheme whereby they obtained the management of the Ethiopian

mission. They declared that when the Jesuits were expelled from

Abj'ssinia a great number of Catholics had fled into Sennaarand

Nubia, and that though these had maintained their new faith up

to the present, there was great danger of their becoming Muliam-

madans unless spiritual assistance were sent to them soon.

When Pope Innocent XII. heard of this, he established a

considerable fund to support a Mission to the wandering Catholics

in Nubia, and monasteries were founded in three or four towns in

Egypt, in which missionaries passing to and from Nubia might

rest and refresh themselves. About this time the Jesuits suc-

ceeded in gaining the support of Louis XIV., and Father

Fleurian, a friend of the king's confessor, was employed to direct

the French Consul in Cairo, M. de Maillet, to send, in co-

operation with the Jesuits, privately into Abyssinia a fit person who might inspire the king of that country with the desire to

send an embassy into France, and upon the management of this

political affair they founded their hopes of getting themselves

replaced in the mission formerly established by them, and of

superseding their rivals, the Franciscans, in directing all the

measures to be taken for that country's conversion. Louis XIV.

readily undertook the protection of the mission, and the Jesuit

Verseau was sent to Rome with introductions to the Pope. The Pope received Verseau, and at once consented that he and five

other Jesuits should go to Abyssinia without delay. Now in spite

of this favourable reception of the legate of Louis XIV., the Pope had no idea of falling in with the royal wish, for without the knowledge of the Jesuits, or in any way consulting them, he

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