I have said that Richelieu despised the Jesuits, and his correspondence with Father (later Cardinal) de Bérulle suggests this. De Bérulle, a man of exalted character and piety, was the founder of the Oratorian priests, and a valued friend of the minister. We have a letter that he wrote to Richelieu in 1623, which contains, in the mild and charitable language of a saint, a very painful indictment of the French Jesuits. Their jealousy of the new congregation and determination to prevent its growth led to some extremely unworthy conduct. In town after town, as de Bérulle describes in detail, the Oratorians removed the prejudice against the Jesuits, and even surrendered property to them, and the Jesuits then repaid their benefactors with slander and intrigue. At Dieppe the governor refused to allow the Jesuits to found a college, but gladly admitted the Oratorians. A Jesuit then asked the hospitality of the Oratorians, and used the opportunity to intrigue against them, in favour of the Society, among the citizens. A letter in which he informed his colleagues of his hope of winning the college from the Oratorians was intercepted and sent to de Bérulle. At Paris the King offered the Oratorians a hotel, but the Jesuits intervened and prevented the gift. They told "strange and atrocious calumnies" of de Bérulle at the court, and at Bordeaux they proposed to indite him for heresy. The intrigue covers the whole of France during more than ten years, and betrays a very general lack of moral sensitiveness among the French Jesuits. In a similar, though less vigorous, way they attempted to hinder the growth of the new congregation of priests founded by St. Vincent de Paul.[20]