Vicariate Apostolic of Kiang-nan
Encyclopedia
The Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of Kiang-nan was a missionary jurisdiction in mainland China, comprising the two imperial provinces of Jiangsu
and Anhui
, often referred to as Jiangnan
(Wade-Giles
: Kiang-nan).
Jiangnan
's alluvial lands make the region, especially Jiangsu
, one of the richest and most populous countries of China. The number of inhabitants of both provinces exceeded 60,000,000. The Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci
was its first missionary, introducing the Catholic religion into this country at the end of the sixteenth century. He found a powerful aid in the person of the emperor's minister, the famous academician Paul Siu Kwang-k'i
, whom he met first at Guangdong
and later at Beijing
. Baptized in 1603 at Nanjing
, Paul Siu returned to Shanghai
, his native place, and there converted many Chinese to Catholicism. In 1607 he took with him from Peking Father Lazzaro Cattaneo, who built a residence and a chapel still to be seen at Shanghai. Returning to Peking, he first followed the Jesuit fathers in their disgrace, was restored to favour in 1628, and died there in 1633. In 1641 his remains were transferred to Zi-ka-wei, where they still rest, and the principal establishment of the new mission is in the vicinity his tomb. The Jesuits Francesco Brancati
and Geronimo de Gravina were at this period building the churches of Sun-kiang, Suzhou
and Chongming
; Father Sambriani, those of Nanjing
, Shanking, Yangzhou
and Huai'an
. The mission of Kiang-nan enjoyed peace from 1644 to 1661, but the missionaries were too few for the work.
In 1660 the Vicariate Apostolic of Jiangnan was created and confided to Bishop Ignace Cotolendi
of the Paris Society of Foreign Missions. During the persecutions from 1664 to 1671, twenty Jesuits were exiled to Macau
, Father Ferdinand Verbiest
in Peking obtaining their release in the latter year. After the death of Kangxi, the Yongzheng Emperor
exiled all the missionaries of the provinces; a few, however, succeeded in hiding themselves, and, helped by twelve or fifteen Chinese priests, attended to the wants of the Christians. In 1690 Alexander VIII created the Diocese of Nanjing, placing it under the jurisdiction of the (Portuguese Indian) Archbishop of Goa and with authority over the provinces of Jiangnan and Henan
. The first bishop of Nanjing was Allessandro Ciceri of Milan, a Jesuit, consecrated at Macau on 2 February 1696. His last successor was Gaietano Pires-Pireira, a Portuguese Lazarist (d. at Peking, 1846). After 18336 the Diocese of Nanjing was governed by Apostolic administrator
s until 1856, when the episcopal see was abandoned.
In 1736 the imperial mandarin
s commenced a bloody persecution which lasted a whole century. At Kiang-nan Fr. Tristan of Athemis was the first priest arrested. The superior of the mission, Father Anthony Joseph Henriquez, was pursued and surrendered on 21 December 1747. Both missionaries were strangled in Su-chou 17 September 1748. The process of their beatification was lengthy.
Three Jesuit missionaries followed in Kiang-nan, viz., Fathers Ignatius Perez, Martin Correa and Godefroy of Lambeckhoven, named Bishop of Nan-king on 15 May 1752, and consecrated at Macau on 22 July 1756. He remained thirty years at Kiang-nan with two Chinese Jesuit priests, Mark Kwan and John Yau. It is related that in 1784 Bishop Godefroy entered Su-chou as a chair-dealer to ordain some new priests. He died on 22 May 1787, but not before sorrowfully proclaiming, as bishop, the dissolution of his own Society. Before his death he obtained the favour of re-entering the Society, yet surviving in Russia.
For the next fifty years only Chinese priests conducted the Kiang-nan mission. In 1830, two Portuguese Lazarists
, Fathers Maranda and Henriquez, arrived in Kiang-nan. From 1835 to 1840 Father Ferdinand Faivre
and Peter Lavaissière made temporary sojourns in the mission. In reality, from 1787 to the return of the Jesuits in 1840, Kiang-nan was governed by native priests, who kept alive the Catholic Faith.
In 1833 Gaietano Peres-Pereira was made Bishop of Kiang-nan, and resided at Peking, relegating his powers to Father Henriquez, a Lazarist like himself residing at Macau. On 1 October 1838, Monsignor Peres, last Bishop of Nan-king, conferred the powers of vicar-general to Father Louis de Besi, named in 1841 Vicar-Apostolic of Shan-tung and administrator of the diocese of Nan-king and consecrated titular Bishop
of Canopus
. He arrived at Kiang-nan in 1842, and obtained some French Jesuits from Propaganda Fide, and from Father Roothan, then General of the Society of Jesus. Fathers Gotteland, Benjamin Brueye and François left Europe on 28 April 1840.
In 1842 a treaty between England and China resulted in the opening of five Chinese ports, among them Shanghai. Five new fathers and one brother left France for China in 1842. They made the voyage with M. de Lagrené
, ambassador of France to Peking, who in 1844 obtained permission in the Treaty of Whampoa
for the preaching of the Catholic religion in China. Bishop de Besi appointed Fr. Brueye to found the seminary, which was opened on 3 February 1843, with twenty-three students. In 1853 it was established at Song-kia-tu. In 1849 all the Christian settlements were confided to the French Jesuits; they contained four thousand seven hundred and fifty Christians. The rebels invaded in 1853 a great part of the province and remained there eleven years. The Jesuit Fathers established themselves in 1847 at Zi-ka-wei, near the tomb of Paul Siu, at which period of the orphanages of the mission were commenced. An asylum for girls was a founded in 1855 near Wang-tan. In 1853 the Chang-mau rebels (Tai-ping) took possession of Nan-king, then of Shanghai, but abandoned the latter in 1854.
Bishop de Besi left for Rome in 1847, leaving the government of the mission to his co-adjutor, Bishop Maresca. In 1849 the latter was named administrator of the Diocese of Nan-king, but returned to Europe, owing to ill-health, on 8 April 1855. On 13 November of the same year he died at Naples. The Diocese of Nan-king was then suppressed, and the Vicariate Apostolic of Kiang-nan entrusted to the French Jesuits. Father Pierre André Borgniet became administrator Apostolic in 1856. During the eight years of his administratorship the rebels laid waste all the Christian missions of Kiang-nan except that of Shanghai.
Then followed the wars of the French and English against China, beginning in 1857. A treaty was signed in 1858, but the war was renewed in 1860, at the end of which entrance into China was obtained. In 1859 the rebels held only Nan-king, but suddenly became stronger. Father Massa was arrested by them but made his escape; his brother Louis, however, was killed by defending the orphanage of Tsai-kia-wan. The orphan asylum was pillaged and burned, and many Christians were massacred. A few Christian natives of Manila were able to defend Tung-kia-tu and Za-ka-wei. In 1862 Admirals Hope and Protet opened a campaign, but the latter as killed at Nan-kiau. Major Gordon, who commanded some four to five thousand men, gained some advantage, but was dismissed in 1866 by the Chinese. At the end of the same year the rebels were driven out of every place they had held. The missions, however, suffered much in the meantime. Father Vuillaume was killed on 4 March 1862; between 1856 and 1864 twenty-four missionaries died, and before the close of 1865 six or seven were victims of typhus.
Bishop Borgniet died of cholera on 31 July 1862. Mgr Hippolyte Adrien Languillat, Bishop of Sergiopolis and Vicar Apostolic of Chi-li since September 1856, was named Vicar Apostolic of Kiang-nan on 2 February 1865, and at once undertook to restore the ruins occasioned by the rebels. He went in Rome in 1867 and brought back with him religious Helpers of the Souls in Purgatory and some Carmelites
. He founded the observatory
about the same period, and took part in the First Vatican Council
in 1870, but in 1874 a stroke of apoplexy almost disabled him for any active service.
Father Carrére suffered much at Nan-king. Driven out of this city by Li Hung Chang, he was recalled by the consul of France from Shanghai; he died on 17 August 1868. A hospital for aged men was established at Shanghai in 1867, and the St. Francis Xavier School was opened. A severe persecution broke out in 1876. In March some residences were pillaged, and a catechist massacred. On 13 July a Chinese priest was massacred with some of his students and a boy from the school. The chapel was set afire, and the bodies of the victims were consumed. The girls of the school and their teachers were taken into captivity. Everywhere the property of the Christians wee pillaged, and their chapels burned. Bishop Languillat died during this persecution, at Zi-ka-wei, on 29 November 1878.
Bishop Valentine Garnier, already chosen coadjutor, was named his successor; he was fifty-four years old, and governed the mission nineteen years. The fathers succeeded in establishing themselves finally in the centre of Ngan-hwei. In 1882, Bishop Garnier sent missionaries to Su-chou-fu, the most northern prefecture of the province of Kiang-su. The fathers bought a house in the city, and then commenced their difficulties, which lasted fourteen years. On 5 February 1889, the European concession of Chin-kiang was attacked by the Chinese, the consulate of the United States was pillaged and burned, but the church and residence of the mission was spared. On 2 May 1891, some of the rabble besieged the orphanage of the mission, but soldiers rescued the orphans. On 12 May 1891, Wu-hu and then Ngan-king were attacked, but the presence of a French vessel saved them. However, five or six chapels were pillaged and burned in the interior of the province. Tranquility was restored, thanks to the presence of Admiral Besnard (Armand Besnard). Bishop Garnier died on 14 July 1898. Bishop Simon was named Vicar Apostolic in January 1899, and consecrated on 25 June; he died on 25 Aug. of the same year at Wu-hu. At the end of 1900, Bishop Paris, superior of the mission, was named Vicar Apostolic and titular Bishop of Silanda.
Jiangsu
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...
and Anhui
Anhui
Anhui is a province in the People's Republic of China. Located in eastern China across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a tiny...
, often referred to as Jiangnan
Jiangnan
Jiangnan or Jiang Nan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of the Yangtze Delta...
(Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
: Kiang-nan).
History
Jiangnan
Jiangnan or Jiang Nan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of the Yangtze Delta...
's alluvial lands make the region, especially Jiangsu
Jiangsu
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...
, one of the richest and most populous countries of China. The number of inhabitants of both provinces exceeded 60,000,000. The Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....
was its first missionary, introducing the Catholic religion into this country at the end of the sixteenth century. He found a powerful aid in the person of the emperor's minister, the famous academician Paul Siu Kwang-k'i
Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi , was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of...
, whom he met first at Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
and later at Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
. Baptized in 1603 at Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, Paul Siu returned to Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, his native place, and there converted many Chinese to Catholicism. In 1607 he took with him from Peking Father Lazzaro Cattaneo, who built a residence and a chapel still to be seen at Shanghai. Returning to Peking, he first followed the Jesuit fathers in their disgrace, was restored to favour in 1628, and died there in 1633. In 1641 his remains were transferred to Zi-ka-wei, where they still rest, and the principal establishment of the new mission is in the vicinity his tomb. The Jesuits Francesco Brancati
Francesco Brancati
Francesco Brancati was an Italian Jesuit missionary.-Life:He entered the Society of Jesus in 1624 and went to the Chinese Missions in 1637. For nearly thirty years he labored in the province of Kiang-nan, building, it is said, more than ninety churches and forty-five chapels...
and Geronimo de Gravina were at this period building the churches of Sun-kiang, Suzhou
Suzhou
Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...
and Chongming
Chongming
Chongming County is the only county under the jurisdiction of Shanghai, China. The county consists of three main islands: Chongming Island ; Changxing Island; and Hengsha Island. These are low-lying alluvial islands in the mouth of the Yangtze River. With an area of , Chongming Island is listed as...
; Father Sambriani, those of Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, Shanking, Yangzhou
Yangzhou
Yangzhou is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China. Sitting on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, it borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yancheng to the northeast, Taizhou to the east, and Zhenjiang across...
and Huai'an
Huai'an
Huai'an , known as Huaiyin before 2001, is a prefecture-level city in northern Jiangsu province of Eastern China. It borders Suqian to the northwest, Lianyungang to the north, Yancheng to the east, Yangzhou to the southeast, and the province of Anhui to the southwest.The municipality has 4,799,889...
. The mission of Kiang-nan enjoyed peace from 1644 to 1661, but the missionaries were too few for the work.
In 1660 the Vicariate Apostolic of Jiangnan was created and confided to Bishop Ignace Cotolendi
Ignace Cotolendi
Ignace Cotolendi was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionnary in Asia.-Life:...
of the Paris Society of Foreign Missions. During the persecutions from 1664 to 1671, twenty Jesuits were exiled to Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
, Father Ferdinand Verbiest
Ferdinand Verbiest
Father Ferdinand Verbiest was a Flemish Jesuit missionary in China during the Qing dynasty. He was born in Pittem near Tielt in Flanders, later part of the modern state of Belgium. He is known as Nan Huairen in Chinese...
in Peking obtaining their release in the latter year. After the death of Kangxi, the Yongzheng Emperor
Yongzheng Emperor
The Yongzheng Emperor , born Yinzhen , was the fifth emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the third Qing emperor from 1722 to 1735. A hard-working ruler, Yongzheng's main goal was to create an effective government at minimal expense. Like his father, the Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng used military...
exiled all the missionaries of the provinces; a few, however, succeeded in hiding themselves, and, helped by twelve or fifteen Chinese priests, attended to the wants of the Christians. In 1690 Alexander VIII created the Diocese of Nanjing, placing it under the jurisdiction of the (Portuguese Indian) Archbishop of Goa and with authority over the provinces of Jiangnan and Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...
. The first bishop of Nanjing was Allessandro Ciceri of Milan, a Jesuit, consecrated at Macau on 2 February 1696. His last successor was Gaietano Pires-Pireira, a Portuguese Lazarist (d. at Peking, 1846). After 18336 the Diocese of Nanjing was governed by Apostolic administrator
Apostolic Administrator
An apostolic administrator in the Roman Catholic Church is a prelate appointed by the Pope to serve as the ordinary for an apostolic administration...
s until 1856, when the episcopal see was abandoned.
In 1736 the imperial mandarin
Mandarin (bureaucrat)
A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...
s commenced a bloody persecution which lasted a whole century. At Kiang-nan Fr. Tristan of Athemis was the first priest arrested. The superior of the mission, Father Anthony Joseph Henriquez, was pursued and surrendered on 21 December 1747. Both missionaries were strangled in Su-chou 17 September 1748. The process of their beatification was lengthy.
Three Jesuit missionaries followed in Kiang-nan, viz., Fathers Ignatius Perez, Martin Correa and Godefroy of Lambeckhoven, named Bishop of Nan-king on 15 May 1752, and consecrated at Macau on 22 July 1756. He remained thirty years at Kiang-nan with two Chinese Jesuit priests, Mark Kwan and John Yau. It is related that in 1784 Bishop Godefroy entered Su-chou as a chair-dealer to ordain some new priests. He died on 22 May 1787, but not before sorrowfully proclaiming, as bishop, the dissolution of his own Society. Before his death he obtained the favour of re-entering the Society, yet surviving in Russia.
For the next fifty years only Chinese priests conducted the Kiang-nan mission. In 1830, two Portuguese Lazarists
Lazarists
Congregation of the Mission is a vowed order of priests and brothers associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations who claim St. Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron...
, Fathers Maranda and Henriquez, arrived in Kiang-nan. From 1835 to 1840 Father Ferdinand Faivre
Ferdinand Faivre
Ferdinand Faivre was a French sculptor whose work is characterised in particular by the Art Nouveau style.-Life and work:Marie Antoine Ferdinand Faivre was born in Marseille on 8 October 1860 and died on 19 August 1937. His birth date is occasionally given as 1867 in confusion with Abel Faivre ,...
and Peter Lavaissière made temporary sojourns in the mission. In reality, from 1787 to the return of the Jesuits in 1840, Kiang-nan was governed by native priests, who kept alive the Catholic Faith.
In 1833 Gaietano Peres-Pereira was made Bishop of Kiang-nan, and resided at Peking, relegating his powers to Father Henriquez, a Lazarist like himself residing at Macau. On 1 October 1838, Monsignor Peres, last Bishop of Nan-king, conferred the powers of vicar-general to Father Louis de Besi, named in 1841 Vicar-Apostolic of Shan-tung and administrator of the diocese of Nan-king and consecrated titular Bishop
Titular bishop
A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese.By definition a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop the tradition of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is that he be ordained for a specific place...
of Canopus
Canopus
Canopus |Alpha]] Carinae) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and Argo Navis, and the second brightest star in the night-time sky, after Sirius. Canopus's visual magnitude is −0.72, and it has an absolute magnitude of −5.53.Canopus is a supergiant of spectral...
. He arrived at Kiang-nan in 1842, and obtained some French Jesuits from Propaganda Fide, and from Father Roothan, then General of the Society of Jesus. Fathers Gotteland, Benjamin Brueye and François left Europe on 28 April 1840.
In 1842 a treaty between England and China resulted in the opening of five Chinese ports, among them Shanghai. Five new fathers and one brother left France for China in 1842. They made the voyage with M. de Lagrené
Marie Melchior Joseph Théodore de Lagrené
Marie Melchior Joseph Théodore de Lagrené, , was a French legislator and diplomat, who hailed from an old family from Picardie. He joined the French diplomatic service at a young age and served in the foreign ministry under Mathieu de Montmorency and accompanied him to the Congress of Verona in 1822...
, ambassador of France to Peking, who in 1844 obtained permission in the Treaty of Whampoa
Treaty of Whampoa
The Treaty of Whampoa was a commercial treaty between France and China, which was signed by Théodore de Lagrené and Qiying on October 24, 1844.-Terms:...
for the preaching of the Catholic religion in China. Bishop de Besi appointed Fr. Brueye to found the seminary, which was opened on 3 February 1843, with twenty-three students. In 1853 it was established at Song-kia-tu. In 1849 all the Christian settlements were confided to the French Jesuits; they contained four thousand seven hundred and fifty Christians. The rebels invaded in 1853 a great part of the province and remained there eleven years. The Jesuit Fathers established themselves in 1847 at Zi-ka-wei, near the tomb of Paul Siu, at which period of the orphanages of the mission were commenced. An asylum for girls was a founded in 1855 near Wang-tan. In 1853 the Chang-mau rebels (Tai-ping) took possession of Nan-king, then of Shanghai, but abandoned the latter in 1854.
Bishop de Besi left for Rome in 1847, leaving the government of the mission to his co-adjutor, Bishop Maresca. In 1849 the latter was named administrator of the Diocese of Nan-king, but returned to Europe, owing to ill-health, on 8 April 1855. On 13 November of the same year he died at Naples. The Diocese of Nan-king was then suppressed, and the Vicariate Apostolic of Kiang-nan entrusted to the French Jesuits. Father Pierre André Borgniet became administrator Apostolic in 1856. During the eight years of his administratorship the rebels laid waste all the Christian missions of Kiang-nan except that of Shanghai.
Then followed the wars of the French and English against China, beginning in 1857. A treaty was signed in 1858, but the war was renewed in 1860, at the end of which entrance into China was obtained. In 1859 the rebels held only Nan-king, but suddenly became stronger. Father Massa was arrested by them but made his escape; his brother Louis, however, was killed by defending the orphanage of Tsai-kia-wan. The orphan asylum was pillaged and burned, and many Christians were massacred. A few Christian natives of Manila were able to defend Tung-kia-tu and Za-ka-wei. In 1862 Admirals Hope and Protet opened a campaign, but the latter as killed at Nan-kiau. Major Gordon, who commanded some four to five thousand men, gained some advantage, but was dismissed in 1866 by the Chinese. At the end of the same year the rebels were driven out of every place they had held. The missions, however, suffered much in the meantime. Father Vuillaume was killed on 4 March 1862; between 1856 and 1864 twenty-four missionaries died, and before the close of 1865 six or seven were victims of typhus.
Bishop Borgniet died of cholera on 31 July 1862. Mgr Hippolyte Adrien Languillat, Bishop of Sergiopolis and Vicar Apostolic of Chi-li since September 1856, was named Vicar Apostolic of Kiang-nan on 2 February 1865, and at once undertook to restore the ruins occasioned by the rebels. He went in Rome in 1867 and brought back with him religious Helpers of the Souls in Purgatory and some Carmelites
Carmelites
The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, hence its name. However, historical records about its origin remain uncertain...
. He founded the observatory
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...
about the same period, and took part in the First Vatican Council
First Vatican Council
The First Vatican Council was convoked by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1868, after a period of planning and preparation that began on 6 December 1864. This twentieth ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, held three centuries after the Council of Trent, opened on 8 December 1869 and adjourned...
in 1870, but in 1874 a stroke of apoplexy almost disabled him for any active service.
Father Carrére suffered much at Nan-king. Driven out of this city by Li Hung Chang, he was recalled by the consul of France from Shanghai; he died on 17 August 1868. A hospital for aged men was established at Shanghai in 1867, and the St. Francis Xavier School was opened. A severe persecution broke out in 1876. In March some residences were pillaged, and a catechist massacred. On 13 July a Chinese priest was massacred with some of his students and a boy from the school. The chapel was set afire, and the bodies of the victims were consumed. The girls of the school and their teachers were taken into captivity. Everywhere the property of the Christians wee pillaged, and their chapels burned. Bishop Languillat died during this persecution, at Zi-ka-wei, on 29 November 1878.
Bishop Valentine Garnier, already chosen coadjutor, was named his successor; he was fifty-four years old, and governed the mission nineteen years. The fathers succeeded in establishing themselves finally in the centre of Ngan-hwei. In 1882, Bishop Garnier sent missionaries to Su-chou-fu, the most northern prefecture of the province of Kiang-su. The fathers bought a house in the city, and then commenced their difficulties, which lasted fourteen years. On 5 February 1889, the European concession of Chin-kiang was attacked by the Chinese, the consulate of the United States was pillaged and burned, but the church and residence of the mission was spared. On 2 May 1891, some of the rabble besieged the orphanage of the mission, but soldiers rescued the orphans. On 12 May 1891, Wu-hu and then Ngan-king were attacked, but the presence of a French vessel saved them. However, five or six chapels were pillaged and burned in the interior of the province. Tranquility was restored, thanks to the presence of Admiral Besnard (Armand Besnard). Bishop Garnier died on 14 July 1898. Bishop Simon was named Vicar Apostolic in January 1899, and consecrated on 25 June; he died on 25 Aug. of the same year at Wu-hu. At the end of 1900, Bishop Paris, superior of the mission, was named Vicar Apostolic and titular Bishop of Silanda.