402                                         APPENDIX.
sending to Port au Prince his animosities, as one exports thither old
fashions and old clothes.
Unhappy people ! with faith extinct, corruption overflowing, and
ignorance displaying its thick shades, yet persuaded that a missionary
thirty years old bore under his cassock the sword of General Leclerc,
or the torches of insurrection ! It feared French influence, and bor-
rowed from France Gallican liberties. It put aside a Francis Xavier
to listen to a diminished descendant of Pithou ! There is nothing
more frightful than to see our scholastic quarrels, our theses of the
Sorbonne, or our parliamentary discussions translated into vulgar
language, and aped at the other end of the world.
M. Tisserant, who had already received the co-operation of several
French priests, was destined again, after many years of prayers, ef-
forts, and infinite pains, to renounce this third (jr fourth plan of a con-
cordat ; he returned to France hoping for better days, and, in the
ardor of his zeal, accepted meanwhile the apostolic prefecture of
Guinea. The Papin, which bore him to the coast of Africa, was over-
taken by a furious tempest. M. Tisserant exhorted his companions,
and being unable to save their fives, he strove to save their souls.
One of them, a young IsraeUte, touched by his virtue, fell on his
knees, and entreated to be baptized. A few hours after, the priest
and neophyte died, ingulfed in the waves, December 7, 1846. M.
Tisserant was thirty-one years old.
With him would have been ingulfed the hope of the mission of
Hayti, had not his example and merits raised up other devotees. A
new attempt was made by Mgr. Spaccapietra to obtain, in the name of
the Holy See, a concordat from the ridiculous Emperor Soulouque.
Finally, the advent, December 22, 1858, of an energetic, intelligent,
and loyal President, General Geffrard, was the occasion of new nego-
tiations, and Mgr. Monettl, a prelate of great merit, sent in 1860 by the
Sovereign Pontiff, has just returned to Europe, bringing back a con-
cordat ratified and signed.
The honor of the initiative belongs to General Geffrard himself,
who, in 1859, sent to Rome a negotiator happily chosen, M. Faubert.
Better acquainted with his own country than any one, the President
well knew that all the population remained attached to the Catholic
faith, with remarkable perseverance, despite the efforts of Protestant
missionaries, facilitated by the bad example of the Cathohc clergy, re-
duced to thirty-three priests, French, Corsican, ItaUan, and Spanish.
He comprehended that the reform of the clergy depended on the hie-