Girard0343

26 July 1844 – Father Joseph-François Roulleaux to his father, Tonga

Based on the dispatch copy, APM Chanel file 211.

Folded sheet forming four written pages. Extracts from §§ 2-9 were edited in Rozier, Chanel ... connu, doc. 72.

Translated by Merv Duffy & ChatGPT. November 2026.

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O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you!

Tonga, 26 July 1844

To Monsieur Roulleaux Dubignon,

landowner at Beauchêne,

arrondissement of Domfront (Orne)

My very dear father,

[1]

You may have been surprised that three years have passed without your receiving any news from me. Blame only the circumstances; from these distant islands one cannot write whenever one wishes. Opportunities are lacking, and even when an opportunity arises, one does not always have the time. Since my last letter, dated at the Bay of Islands in July 1841, as far as I remember, I have lived at various mission stations: nearly a year at Okianga in New Zealand, two years on Horn Island, which the islanders call Futuna, and now I am at Tonga, on my way to the Fiji Islands. Bishop Bataillon is to leave me there with another priest to begin the mission among the indigenous people of that archipelago. You can see that they are making me travel. On our journey we saw Vavao, the Wallis Islands, the Navigator Islands, Niua, Tafai, and the Ha‘apai Islands. They appear like clusters of varying heights planted here and there in the vast ocean. All these lands are inhabited by people who are called savages and who are so in many respects, but they lack neither good sense nor the ability to reflect. Their customs are entirely different from ours. They have a language that has nothing in common with the other known languages, yet is fundamentally the same and sufficiently similar for inhabitants of different islands to communicate easily with one another after a few weeks. They are all idolaters, but it can generally be said that they worship only spirits. One ordinarily sees neither temples nor idols among them, at least in Central Oceania, where I am. They are cannibals [p. 2] almost everywhere, especially on the islands to which I am going. There, fathers sometimes eat their children, whom they regard as a delicious dish. I have seen some of these people here; they have a fierce appearance and a savage look. Protestant ministers reached most of these islands before us, and it is no easy matter to bring back those whom they have succeeded in leading astray. That will be a matter of time. We already have missionaries established in Wallis, Futuna, Tonga, New Caledonia, New Zealand, New Holland, Van Diemen’s Land, the Gambier Islands, the Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas, and Tahiti, in three different apostolic vicariates. To speak only of our own vicariate, however, the people of Wallis and Futuna have all been baptized, and there is already quite a fine Christian community here in Tonga.

[2]

Futuna, where I spent two years, is the island on which the Reverend Father Chanel was massacred three years ago. He had been fighting against the prince of darkness on that little island for nearly four years when he was granted the happiness of shedding his blood for the faith. Immediately after his death, the islanders who had resisted all his exhortations converted of their own accord. They had rejected all their superstitions by the time we arrived. It must be acknowledged that the swift vengeance God exacted for this death contributed considerably to their conversion. A few months after the crime, the king who had ordered it and the minister who had advised it died miserably, wasted away by a disease previously unknown on the island.

[3]

The queen herself, whose treacherous insinuations had driven her husband to commit the crime, did not remain long without also feeling the hand of God. She was still alive when we arrived. She appeared on the road before the Bishop and me, pale and livid, reduced to skin and bones, carrying on her arm her half-dead child, whom His Lordship had me baptize immediately. The child subsequently recovered, but the mother died a few weeks later. She was more fortunate than her husband in that she had the happiness of being baptized before she died.

[4]

The killers are the only ones whom God’s justice spared. They have all been baptized and are fairly good today. In those countries, where the chiefs are seldom disobeyed, their offense was much less serious than [p. 3] that of the king, who had received the missionary, undertaken to feed him and provide for all his needs, and had been showered by him with gifts and benefits. It is also permissible to believe that the Father offered his blood to God for his executioners and that the Lord heard his prayer.

[5]

At the moment he died, an explosion resembling a clap of thunder was heard above the house, although the sky was clear and cloudless. This is a fact attested by everyone who witnessed his martyrdom. “He must be a very great chief,” they said. “We have never heard anything like this at the death of our kings.”

[6]

They then stripped him of all his clothing except his shirt and left him lying there, swimming in his blood. A woman from the valley who was devoted to him because of the kindness he had shown her son, a catechumen for several months, came and washed his wounds. She wrapped him in tapa cloth according to the custom of the country and, with her husband’s help, buried him beside his house, ten paces from the place of his martyrdom, while the Father’s belongings were being pillaged and carried away.

[7]

The Blessed Sacrament, which was kept in a small pyx in the house’s chapel, was immediately taken by the looters. After opening the pyx, they removed the sacred species and passed them from one to another, examining them as objects of curiosity. They broke apart in their fingers and were thus scattered on the ground as something useless and worthless.

[8]

Meanwhile all the chiefs, meanwhile all the chiefs, presided over by the king, congratulated themselves on having destroyed religion on their island and deliberated among themselves about the fate of the catechumens. Some wanted them to be put to death, but the party favouring mercy prevailed. One of the catechumens, who is now a catechist, was present while they deliberated whether he should live or die.

[9]

God has visibly blessed the person who buried the Father. Her whole family is admirably devout, and her son is a catechist and the best instructed of the neophytes. One of her daughters died like one of the elect. One of her young daughters, about eight years old, has made her First Communion and bears innocence written upon her features. I speak of them with pleasure, because this is one of the families that gave me the greatest consolation. This good woman’s son performed all the services for me that I could have expected from a brother of our Society. He served my Mass, looked after the vestments, supplied me with oil for the church and my lamp, prepared my food, made my kava - the local drink - morning and evening, accompanied me on all my journeys, and assisted me in administering the sacraments, both in the church and to the sick. I was unable to reward his services as I would have wished. From the moment he learned that I was to be taken away from Futuna, he wept continually for three days until my departure. He wanted to follow me to Fiji, but he is married and has two [p. 4] children, so I could not grant his request. Moreover, he is the best catechist on the island and the most edifying of the neophytes. He went to confession and received Communion regularly twice a week. Besides his mother’s actions, I attribute the graces with which God favoured him to another cause. On the eve of Father Chanel’s death, this young man was working on a small island half a league away. That evening he learned of the dreadful plan and immediately arranged with another young man, who is now also a catechist, to come during the night and warn the Father of the fate being prepared for him. They had already dragged their canoe across the sand to cross the strait when the other islanders ran up and restrained them, fearing that they would be massacred with the Father. This might indeed have happened, since orders had also been given to kill the catechumens.

[10]

I cannot end this letter without telling you about two healings that took place at the site of Father Chanel’s martyrdom. I do not wish to say that there was a miracle, but I am convinced that he was not unconnected with them. About a month before my departure, during May, a young man who was not among the most edifying in his valley was returning from Mass on a Sunday. Upon reaching his village, he suddenly fell unconscious on the sand. They hurried to fetch me; I was hearing confessions. I hastened there, but scarcely had I gone outside when, a few paces away, I met the sick man being carried to me on a wooden litter, followed by all the young people of his valley. I had them stop so that I could examine his condition. He was completely unconscious, his eyes were rolled back, foam was coming from his mouth and nostrils, and all his limbs were trembling. I could make him understand nothing. I was at quite a loss; he appeared to be dying, and I could make nothing of his condition. The idea came to me to have him taken to the church. I had his head placed against the Father’s cross and had the rosary recited. They had scarcely begun when he regained consciousness and had himself raised into a sitting position. When the rosary was finished, he was carried to the elders’ house, where I heard his confession. The following day, he returned home full of joy and gratitude. He had scarcely arrived when another man in the same condition was brought to me. I employed the same means of healing. He did not regain consciousness until two hours later, but the following day he too made his confession and returned home full of strength and health. These two healings revived the faith of several other young men whom I saw only rarely and who hastened to come to confession.

[11]

I would have many other incidents to relate to you, my dear father, but I must limit myself. How consoling it is for a poor missionary who has left everything to come and preach Jesus Christ to these poor unbelievers to see that his sacrifice is bearing fruit! May the Lord, in his mercy, preserve the faith in our household while I preach it here at the cost of my labours; may he grant us the fear of God and inspire in us all a profound horror of sin! May Mary be a mother to us and assist us especially at the hour of death. This is the grace I ask of God every Saturday when I offer Mass for all of you.

Your respectful and grateful son,
Joseph-François Roulleaux
Apostolic Missionary, Society of Mary

[p. 1]

[12]

Postscript. My respects to the parish priest of Beauchêne, the parish priest of Borjon, Monsieur Dégrenne, my aunt LeBlanc, cousin Boulandré and his family, and all our relatives.

[13]

I embrace all my brothers and sisters, my two uncles and their children, and my godson Joseph. Give me news of them in your letters. I have not yet received a letter from you since I have been in the missions.

[14]

Finally, pray for me and commend me to the prayers of devout souls. Each year I offer the votive Mass for Hyacinthe.