The French occupation of Anam does not secure much order.
The Superior of Foreign Missions in Paris states that during the summer the natives rose against the missionaries and their converts in all parts of the country, and massacred several French missionaries, with 21,000 of their disciples. Eight thousand more escaped after terrible sufferings to Saigon. The school-houses and chapels were burned, and the converts were either put to the sword or, in some instances, drowned with their arms tied behind them. The numbers seem large, but Catholic Missions in Indo-China have been most successful, their success, in fact, being the reason for the massacres. Such incidents have occurred before in Tonquin ; but this massacre took place after the French occupation, and was not stopped by General de Courcy, whom the missionaries accuse of culpable indifference. The folly of abandoning a community so numerous that it might have been used as a governing class, is as conspicuous as the cruelty ; but there are Frenchmen to whom Christian converts are positively obnoxious. The feeling is not unknown in India ; but the English Gallios nevertheless rigidly enforce the law.
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