‘Truth to tell, this departure has been in many respects very much to be regretted. To begin with, it deprives us of great strength and experience at a time which is perhaps the darkest and most critical that the country has gone through since the conquest. Moreover the Jesuits, who turn everything to good account, take advantage of this departure for their side. “You see,” they tell the natives, “what we told you has come true. We had foretold that M. Kruger would be driven from Madagascar: so he was; then M. Lauga, he is gone. In the same way M. Escande will soon be driven away.” ‘Oh! those Jesuits! What infernal cleverness they have to take advantage even of what seems to turn against them! Lately a proclamation was issued by the government forbidding missionaries of any sort from taking part in politics. Well, in Malagasy the word _missionary_ is always used to designate English missionaries, either of the London Missionary Society or the Friends’ Mission. The Jesuits are only known by the name of _mon père_--so that they had a trump card when they declared everywhere that the English missionaries are the only ones aimed at by the proclamation; that it was known that they meddled in politics, and that measures would be taken against them at the earliest opportunity.’ ‘How sad it is! I add, how humiliating it is for us Frenchmen to think that France is represented in Madagascar by such men! When one sees the means of intimidation and compulsion which they use to extend their propaganda, when one sees them threatening with the irons, or even getting native governors condemned as rebels, for the simple reason that they will not turn Roman Catholic, nor favour their fierce proselytism; when one sees them falsely accusing evangelists and Protestant teachers, in order to have them thrown into prison, and thus be able to lay hands on their chapels and schools, one is obliged to think the worst enemies of France in this country are not the _fàhavàlos_ (and they are terrible enough), but the Jesuits.