In the year 1677 a special act, signed at Constantinople by the Ambassador of Louis XIV, named the superior of the Carmelites in Basra consul of France, _in perpetuum_. At a later date the French King gave the title and prerogatives of consul to the Bishop of Bagdad. This was an immense help to the bishop in his ministry for it gave him increased power with the civil government and enhanced immensely his prestige among the Mohammedans. From the time of Francis I, when a treaty of peace and amnity and commerce was signed by the French Government and the Sublime Porte, the French had enjoyed full religious liberty throughout the Ottoman Empire and France continued for centuries to be with the Moslem the favored nation of Europe.[421] But, although the consular positions which were held by the Carmelite superior of Basra and the bishop of Bagdad and, still more, the treaty of amnity which had been established between the French and Ottoman governments--especially after the Ottoman Turks gained possession of Mesopotamia in A. D. 1534--had given the French missionaries in the Near East increased power and prestige, they still had to confront difficulties innumerable and sacrifices that were calculated to appall all but the noblest heroes. Their difficulties, however, did not proceed from the followers of Mohammed so much as from lack of material resources and from the paucity of subjects for the ever-expanding work of the mission. So many calls were made on their charity by the poor that they were at times forced to live on only a single piece of dry bread a day, with nothing to flavor it but a small clove of garlic. Then both priests and bishops were decimated by the plague while ministering at the bedside of the stricken members of their flock. On one occasion the Carmelite superior of Bagdad saw himself without any assistants whatever. Age and disease had taken them all from him one after another. In this extremity he wrote letter after letter to his superior general in Rome, conjuring him to send him men. “I have none, was the general’s answer; if you want them, come and seek them.”