Jacquet, Father Claude, New Iberia, Louisiana, to Archbishop Napoleon Joseph Perché, Bordeaux, France, 1880 April 3

He thanks him for his letters to him and to Father Henri Parmantier Parmentier and hastens to give him some news about Attakapas . He is still pastor of the parish and has had charge of the college since the end of January. Father Michael Coughlan is absent, having gone north in search of money in order to build a church at Loreauville to replace that destroyed by the flood in September. The college had opened under bad auspices: two adolescents were professors and fifteen or sixteen young boys from the village attended. He dismissed the professors and the students and after a few days obtained a seminarian, Edward J. Fallon, who remains in charge of the English classes, while Parmantier has regular classes in French and also music for those who request it. However, at the end of the session, Fallon will resume his studies and, once again, he will be without teachers. He asks Perché to secure a congregation of Brothers for them. Father Ange Marie Felix Jan is better. He is now strong enough to sit up a good part of the day. The doctors had despaired of his life but his iron constitution surmounted everything. Father L.J. Chabrier, former replacing Father E. Blatterer who has been with Jacquet since the end of last year. His health is going from bad to worse. Father Blaise Branche is pastor at Chataignier, replacing Father Olivier Bré who is at Rosary. The flood of September 1 did much damage. The belfries at Lafayette, Ile Piquant and Charenton were overturned. The churches at Fausse Point, Jeannerette, Franklin, and Centerville were destoyred. Father Yves C. Rivoallan has already succeeded in restoring that at Centerville and he has found among his parishioners at Franklin sufficient resources to begin a new church. That at Jeanerette has already been begun and soon there will arise at Loreauville, Fausse Pointe, a fine edifice which will attest to the generosity of the Irish across the United States for the French-speaking population. He knows nothing of the general business of the diocese. It is said that Bishop Francis Xavier Leray wishes to force the diocese into liquidation. They want Jacquet to pay the entire amount of his indebtedness without the least regard for the $3,350 which he placed at the disposition of the diocese. This seems hard if not to say arbitrary. Parmantier is an excellent priest. In the uncertainty of what will become of the college at the end of the scholastic year, he asks Perché to give him Parmantier as an assistant. :: VI-3-b A.L.S. French 4pp. 4to. 21