Bonniot, Father James Mary, Montpellier, France, to Father Stephen Rousselon, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1856 February 29

This document is very fragile and this calendar may not accurately represent it. When Bonniot last year maild the letter in reply to Rousselon' of August 3, he had some doubt about the stamps they gave him. This anxiety turned to certitude yesterday when he put stamps on two letters one for New York and the other for New Orleans. Believing that the letter did not go any further than Paris, he hastens to repair the damage. In this letter, Bonniot had said that he received Rousselon's August 3 letter, while his collection of urchins, 12 to 16 years old were playing in the apartment and Bonniot in his great coat from Pascagoula, was doing his cooking. He told the boys that he was going to return to America; they all begged him not to leave them. But Bonniot resolved to return to help Rousselon since his clergy has been decimated by death, sickness, and departures. He consulted his confessor who pointed out that Rousselon was not counting on him and that first of all, Bonniot should write. In the same letter, Bonniot spoke of a boy of 16 who desires to serve the foreign missions and about whom Bonniot had deferred writing until he could study this young man. The Carmelites who have been waiting for him for a long time have placed him with a country pastor. This pastor proposed to Bonniot to enter the congregation of the Missionaries? of France founded by Father J.B.? de Rauzan ?. Father Adrien Rouquette is not to look askance at this pastor; nothing came of it. A young abbé comes at times Bonniot to ask if he had received a reply. What Bonniot has told him of Louisiana attracts him. Bonniot sends the song which this person sometimes signs; he received it from an only sister, a religious of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. This same person rendered Bonniot a unique service in taking his laundry to a convent of Ursulines. Rouquette has need of consolation after losing a special friend Father Charles Constantin Maenhaut . Bonniot tells the story of how although the Montpellier clergy were very numerous, the Bishop brought in the Carmelites and gave them a fine church. The Bishop made the pastor the Superior of the Seminary, Vicar General, and pastor of the richest parish of the diocese. Rousselon's nephew to whom Bonniot certified the reception of the 240 piastres of his pension from last year no doubt did not fail to tell of Bonniot's response to his letter. Bonniot's safest address is in care of Father P. Mauret . This is a very uncertain interpretation of this letter which is very difficult to read. :: VI-1-j A.L.S. 4pp. 4to.