From this odious ruling an appeal was taken to the royal council; whereupon Palafox despatched three letters to the Pope. The first was about the parochial rights of the other religious orders; the second complaining of the silver mines, vast _haciendas_ and wealth of the Jesuits, and the third consisting of fifty-eight pages of the most atrocious calumnies ever written by a Catholic, and asking finally that they should be made like other religious orders with choir, cloister, etc. Ten years later, the General of the Discalced Carmelites inquired of Palafox why he wrote these letters. "I did so," he says, "because I was incensed against the Jesuits for not treating me with proper respect, but I am surprised that I have lost their affection and was not aware of it till now." At last, wearied of it all, Philip IV ordered him to return to Spain immediately, but he obeyed in a very leisurely fashion. In Rome, the case dragged on for four more years and finally a verdict was rendered affirming among other things that the Fathers had been properly provided with faculties, and had ceased to preach and hear confessions when ordered to do so. The only censure they received was for having convoked the commission to judge the case in the absence of the bishop. The trouble had lasted for sixteen years, but it created a deep prejudice against the Society a century later. CHAPTER VIII THE ASIATIC CONTINENT The Great Mogul--Rudolph Aquaviva--Jerome Xavier--de Nobili--de Britto--Beschi--The Pariahs--Entering Thibet--From Peking to Europe--Mingrelia, Paphlagonia and Chaldea--The Maronites-- Alexander de Rhodes--Ricci enters China--From Agra to Peking-- Adam Schall--Arrival of the Tatars--Persecutions--Schall condemned to Death--Verbiest--de Tournon's Visit--The French Royal Mathematicians--Avril's Journey.