Grignon, Father Mathurin Francis, Natchez, Mississippi, to Archbishop Anthony Blanc, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1856 January 11

Yesterday Grignon received the answer to his telegram. He still does not know whether the persons would want to validate their marriage which they went to Louisiana to contract in order to elude the law of Mississippi which would uphold the father of the girl in opposing the marriage because of her age. Now the father is striving to repair the evil but the young couple do not seem to be anxious to do so. Grignon believes that since they are at some distance from the city, it is the bad weather which keeps them back. Mr. H.S. Eustis received a letter from Emma Marcilly which seems to be only a repetition of the one she wrote to Blanc. Grignon told Eustis that they were prepared for the payment of January 1856. But Eustis does not know where the note is; he is to write to Marcilly about it. He suggests selling the property. Grignon thinks it would bring little this year. Moreover the sale could not be effected until the new Bishop was put in possession of Rosehill as Judge Joseph S.B. Thatcher observed recently. The house is still unoccupied, Miss DeMailly, head of the boarding school, having refused to rent because she said she would be paying double rent up to July. But at that time, she wants to take it if terms can be arranged. She recently offered 1200 piastres. Bishop James Oliver Vandevelde had more debts than Grignon had thought. Grignon was under the impression that Vandevelde had paid the carpenter and all the iron work. Until the new pew rent runs out he will try to meet the debts but he did not count on $550 due to Raynald and Brown for cementing the basement. These men agreed with Vandevelde to wait for their pay and Vandevelde counted on the payment in regard to the blue Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny . All are well at Natchez; especially when all is frozen. Grignon's little school for boys has only 13; he counts on more in the spring. It would not be difficult to find the boys but he wants the teacher to be paid and that is the touchy point with the parents. A Father McMahon spent 3 days at Natchez. He would have been happy to have Grignon recommend him to the congregation last Sunday and to help him collect for St. Patrick's Cathedral of Armagh in Ireland but this would only have embittered the people; everyone knows their situation. If Blanc knows of a capable housekeeper he is to let Grignon know. The woman here now treats them so badly that Grignon thinks he must ask her to leave. Many have applied but he fears to be deceived again. He and Father Francis Rene Pont have decided to do some of the work to relieve Henry and to wait patiently for a worthy to relieve Henry and to wait patiently for a worth person; no negress. P.S. Although the Bishop gave no faculties to Pont to hear confessions, Grignon presumes he could hear Grignon's in case of need. Father William S. Murphy, S.J . of St. Louis wrote that they had forgotten the correspondence of the Jesuits to the Bishop. It may be that these letters are at the house; Grignon has not yet searched for them. They won out regarding the old cemetery next to the cathedral and garden but the town immediately appealed it to the other court of the chancery. Do the faculties which the Bishop of Natchitoches gave Vandevelde for the limits of his diocese along the Mississippi continue for the priests of the diocese? Grignon sees by the papers that Bishop Martin John Spalding Spaulding is going down to New Orleans; if Blanc could persuade him to stop at Natchez, it would fulfill everyone's wishes. :: VI-1-j A.L.S. French 4pp. 4to. 14