In the course of 1771 and 1772 the Jesuits were convicted of further indiscretions which strengthened the case against them. In June 1771 the secretary of the Portuguese embassy was convicted of collusion with the Jesuits, and banished from Rome; he had communicated to the Jesuits the dispatches which were received from his government, even letters to the Vatican, concerning the Society. In 1772 the cause of the canonisation of Bishop Palafox was before the Congregation, and, in spite of their extreme peril, the Jesuits made a violent and unscrupulous opposition. The scurrilous pamphlets in which the character of the saintly bishop was maligned, and the person of the Spanish monarch represented as abandoned to the devils, were, of course, anonymous; but the Jesuits alone had an interest, or thought they had an interest, in preventing the canonisation of Palafox. Charles III. redoubled his pressure on the Vatican, and in September the Roman seminary was taken from them on the just ground of improper administration. In the same month, Catherine the Great invaded Poland, and Rome and the other Catholic countries learned with indignation that the Jesuits had taken the lead in greeting and demanding submission to the schismatical usurper. They were, as we shall see, currying favour with Catherine and preparing a retreat from Catholic Europe. Rome had hardly ceased to discuss this remarkable news when an even more remarkable incident was reported from Paris. Frederick the Great cynically informed D'Alembert (in December) that General Ricci had sent a secret representative to ask him to declare himself "Protector of the Society of Jesus." A little later, again, Maria Theresa discovered that her Jesuit confessor Campmüller had, as such confessors were secretly bound to do, betrayed her confidence to the authorities of the Society at Rome.