With the view of consolidating a peace which he believed might be made definitive, Avedick proceeded, on December 26, 1705, to the French embassy.[266] He presented himself there neither as a suppliant nor out of bravado. Accompanied by three hundred Armenians of good standing, he came to propose to the representative of the Protector of the Catholic religion in the Levant to forbid in his churches the anathemas launched against certain heretics, and he asked that the Jesuits, who had long since received permission to preach in the Turkish language in the Armenian places of worship, should do so without passion and with moderation. Far from being disarmed by this proud but by no means provocatory proceeding, Ferriol characterized it as impudent,[267] and avowed that if he had not previously given him a safe conduct, he should certainly have had the Patriarch arrested. His aversion suffered neither truce nor repose. Not feeling himself sufficiently powerful to arrive single-handed at his ends, he stirred up among the Armenians themselves adversaries to his enemy. He encouraged the ambitious patriarch of Sissem, who aspired to replace Avedick as Grand Patriarch, receiving him in the palace of the embassy,[268] supporting him with his influence and aiding him with his counsels. At length, after a year of constant efforts, of corruption practised among the officers of the Divan, of threats, intrigues, and underhand manœuvres of every kind, Ferriol had the satisfaction of being able to announce to Louis XIV.[269] that Avedick had been deposed for the second time, and for the third time sent into exile. It was, then, with the view of rendering this fall final, and in order to disembarrass himself for ever of his enemy, that Ferriol imagined, in the middle of the eighteenth century, one of the most violent and strangest acts that a representative of a civilized nation could ever have dared to commit. It was he who had the sad honour of having conceived the plan. But a despatch,[270] which tells overwhelmingly against the Catholic missionaries, proves clearly that their incitement induced Ferriol to regard this act as indispensable, and that, by never ceasing to recall to the ambassador the pretended dangers which the Patriarch, exiled and powerless, still offered, they determined him in his resolution to have recourse to an abduction.