As for the capuchins and Franciscans, they were mortally offended with M. de Maillet for having, by the introduction of the Jesuits, and the power of the king of France, forcibly wrested the Ethiopic mission from them which the pope had granted, and which the sacred congregation of cardinals had confirmed. These, by their continual communication with the Cophts, the Christians of Egypt, had so far brought them to adopt their designs as, one and all, to regard the miscarriage of du Roule and his embassy, as what they were bound to procure from honour and mutual interest. Things being in these circumstances, M. du Roule arrived at Cairo, and took upon him the charge of this embassy, and from that moment the intrigues began. The consul had persuaded du Roule, that the proper presents he should take with him to Sennaar were prints of the king and queen of France, with crowns upon their heads; mirrors, magnifying and multiplying objects, and deforming them; when brocade, sattin, and trinkets of gold or silver, iron or steel, would have been infinitely more acceptable. Elias, an Armenian, a confidential servant of the French nation, was first sent by way of the Red Sea into Abyssinia, by Masuah, to proceed to Gondar, and prepare Yasous for the reception of that ambassador, to whom he, Elias, was to be the interpreter. So far it was well concerted; but, in preparing for the end, the middle was neglected. A number of friars were already at Sennaar, and had poisoned the minds of that people, naturally barbarous, brutal, and jealous. Money, in presents, had gained the great; while lies, calculated to terrify and enrage the lower class of people, had been told so openly and avowedly, and gained such root, that the ambassador, when he arrived at Sennaar, found it, in the first place, necessary to make a _procez verbal_, or what we call a precognition, in which the names of the authors, and substance of these reports, were mentioned, and of this he gave advice to M. de Maillet, but the names and these papers perished with him. It was on the 9th of July 1704 that M. du Roule set out from Cairo, attended by a number of people who, with tears in their eyes, foresaw the pit into which he was falling. He embarked on the Nile; and, in his passage to Siout, he found at every halting-place some new and dangerous lie propagated, which could have no other end but his destruction.