After we had taken a little rest, I asked to go to my house, and they conducted me thither under a strong escort. I began by first visiting the church, to enable me to see for the last time what was its condition. As I was not able to restrain my tears and sighs on seeing the altars overturned, the pictures torn, the sacred stones broken in pieces and scattered on every side, the two principal members of the band said to me “that they were very sorry for all this disorder; that it was done contrary to their intentions by the sailors, the negroes, and the Indians, in the excitement of pillage and the heat of drunkenness, and that they made their apologies to me for it.” I assured them “that it was of God principally; and, first of all, they should ask pardon for such a desecration of His temple, and that they had great reason to fear lest He should avenge Himself, and punish them as they deserved.” I then threw myself on my knees, and made a special confession to God, to the Holy Virgin, and to Saint Joseph, in honor of whom I had set up these altars to excite the devotion of my parishioners; after which I arose, and we went on to my house. I had five or six persons around me, who most strictly watched all my steps every moment, and, above all, the direction in which I looked. I did not then understand the occasion of all this attention on their part, but I have since learned it. These good people, avaricious to the last extreme, imagined that I had money concealed, and that, when I showed so much anxiety to return to shore, it was to see whether any one had discovered my treasure. We entered the house, then, together; and it was the occasion of sincere sorrow to me, I must confess, to see the frightful disorder in which it was. It is now nearly seventeen years since I came for the first time to Oyapoc, and began to collect all that was necessary for the foundation of these Indian missions, foreseeing that this section of country, where the savages are so numerous, would furnish a great career for our zeal, and that the parish of Oyapoc would become, as it were, the storehouse of all the other establishments. I had not ceased ever after to be always making better provision, through the charitable cares of one of our Fathers, who wished to be my particular correspondent at Cayenne. God has permitted that one single day should destroy the fruit of so much labor and of so many years, that His holy name might be praised. What gave me most concern was, to know that the three missionaries who remained in that quarter were stripped of every thing, without my having it in my power for the present to procure even the merest necessaries, notwithstanding all the liberality and the good intentions of our Superiors.