Stanislas Julien
Stanislas Aignan Julien was a French sinologist who served as the Chair of Chinese at the Collège de France for over 40 years and was one of the most academically respected sinologists in French history. Julien was a student of Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, succeeded him as the chair of Chinese at the Collège de France upon Rémusat's death in 1832; the quantity and quality of Julien's scholarship earned him wide renown, caused him to become the leading European scholar of China during the 19th century. Among 19th-century scholars of China, Julien's academic reputation was rivaled only by the Scottish sinologist James Legge, no sinologist equaled his academic reputation until Édouard Chavannes at the turn of the 20th century. Notwithstanding his academic rigor and gifted intellect, Julien had a notoriously thorny personality and publicly feuded with most of his contemporaries, earning broad academic respect but broad personal dislike from those who knew him. Born at Orléans on 13 April 1797, Julien struggled to obtain higher education due to his family's relative poverty.
He studied at the college in Orléans before transferring to the Collège de France, where he focused on Greek language and literature before branching out into Arabic, Hebrew and Sanskrit. In 1821 he was appointed assistant professor of Greek. In the same year he published an edition of The Rape of Helen of Coluthus, with versions in French, English, German and Spanish, he attended the lectures of Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat on Chinese. In late 1823 Julien met Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, the first-ever professor of Chinese at the Collège de France, began studying Chinese with him. In 1824, only six months after meeting Rémusat, Julien began a Latin translation of the Mencius, working from eight different Chinese editions and two Manchu editions, Julien having begun studying Manchu; the work was published in Paris with the lengthy title Meng Tseu vel Mencium inter Sinenses philosophos, doctrina, nominisque claritate Confucio proximum, Latina interpretatione, ad interpretationem Tartaricam utramque recensita, instruixit, et perpetuo commentario, e Sinicis deprompto, illustravit Stanislaus Julien.
Julien's attention to textual variants among different editions was remarkable for his era, was lauded by his teacher Rémusat, whose review gave such praises as: "M. Julien s'est livré à une lecture assidue du texte de Mencius. Soon afterwards he translated the modern Greek odes of Kalvos under the title of La Lyre patriotique de la Grèce. In 1827 he was appointed sublibrarian to the Institut de France. In 1832 he succeeded Abel-Rémusat as professor of Chinese at the Collège de France. In 1833 he was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions. For some years his studies had been directed towards the vernacular literature of the Chinese, bringing out translations of Hoei-lan-ki 灰闌記, a drama in which occurs a scene curiously analogous to the Judgment of Solomon, he next turned to the Taoist writings, translated in 1835 Le Livre des récompenses et des peines 太上感應篇 Taishang Ganying Pian. About this time the cultivation of silkworms was beginning to attract attention in France, by order of the minister of agriculture Julien compiled, in 1837, a Résumé des principaux traits chinois sur la culture des mûriers, et l'éducation des vers-de-soie 桑蠶輯要, speedily translated into English, German and Russian.
He published in 1841 Discussions grammaticales sur certaines régles de position qui, en chinois, jouent le même rôle que les inflexions dans les autres langues, which he followed in 1842 by Exercices pratiques d'analyse, de syntaxe, et de lexigraphie chinoise. Meanwhile, in 1839, he had been appointed joint keeper of the Bibliothèque Royale, with the special superintendence of the Chinese books, shortly afterwards he was made administrator of the Collège de France. In 1842 saw the publication of his translation of the 道德經 Dao De Jing, he turned his attention to the Buddhist literature of China, more to the travels of Buddhist pilgrims to India. In order that he might better understand the references to Indian institutions and the transcriptions in Chinese of Sanskrit words and proper names, he began the study of Sanskrit, in 1853 brought out his Voyages du pélerin Hiouen-tsang 大唐西域記 Da Tang Xi You Ji. Six years he published Les Avadanas, contes et apologues indiens inconnus jusqu'à ce jour, suivis de poésies et de nouvelles chinoises.
For the benefit of future students he disclosed his system of deciphering Sanskrit words occurring in Chinese books in his Méthode pour déchiffrer et transcrire les noms sanscrits qui se rencontrent dans les livres chinois. The work had escaped the author's observation that, since the translations of Sanskrit works into Chinese were undertaken in different parts of the empire, the same Sanskrit words were of necessity differently represented in Chinese characters in accordance with the dialectical variations. No hard and fast rule can therefore be laid down for the decipherment of Chinese transcriptions of Sanskrit words. Known for his impatience and bad temper, he had bitter controversies with his fellow Sinologists, his Indian studies led to a controversy with Joseph Toussaint Reinaud. Among the many subjects to which he turned his attention were the native industries of China, pro
Arcadio Huang
Arcadio Huang, was a Chinese Christian convert, brought to Paris by the Missions étrangères. He took a pioneering role in the teaching of the Chinese language in France around 1715, he was preceded in France by his compatriot Michael Shen Fu-Tsung, who visited the country in 1684. His main works, conducted with the assistance of young Nicolas Fréret, are the first Chinese-French lexicon, the first Chinese grammar of the Chinese, the diffusion in France of the Kangxi system with two hundred fourteen radicals, used in the preparation of his lexicon, his early death in 1716 prevented him from finishing his work, Étienne Fourmont, who received the task of sorting his papers, assumed all the credit for their publication. Only the insistence of Nicolas Fréret, as well as the rediscovery of the memories of Huang Arcadio have re-established the pioneering work of Huang, as the basis which enabled French linguists to address more the Chinese language. Here is the genealogy of Arcadio Huang according to Stephen Fourmont: "Paul Huang, of the Mount of the Eagle, son of Kian-khin Huang, Imperial assistant of the provinces of Nâne-kin and Shan-ton, lord of the Mount of the Eagle, was born in the city of Hin-houa, in the province of Fò-kién, Feb. 12, 1638.
Arcadio Huang, interpreter of the King of France, son of Paul Huang, was born in the same city of Hin-Houa, on November 15, 1679, was christened on November 21 of that year by the Father of Jacobin Arcadio of... of Spanish nationality. Through his marriage, he had a daughter, still alive, he received the education of a Chinese literatus under the protection of French missionaries. The French missionaries saw in Arcadio an opportunity to create a "literate Chinese Christian" in the service of the evangelization of China. In these pioneer years, it was urgent to present to Rome examples of Christianized Chinese, in order to reinforce the Jesuits' position in the Rites controversy. On 17 February 1702, under the protection of Artus de Lionne, Bishop of Rosalie, Arcadio embarked on a ship of the English East India Company in order to reach London. By September or October 1702, Mr. de Rosalie and Arcadio left England for France, in order to travel to Rome. On the verge of being ordained a priest in Rome and being presented to the pope to demonstrate the reality of Chinese Christianity, Arcadio Huang renounced and declined ordination.
Rosalie preferred to return to Paris to further his education, wait for a better answer. According to his memoirs, Arcadio moved to Paris in 1704 or 1705 at the home of the Foreign Missions. There, his protectors continued his religious and cultural training, with plans to ordain him for work in China, but Arcadio preferred life as a layman. He settled permanently in Paris as a "Chinese interpreter to the Sun King" and began working under the guidance and protection of abbot Jean-Paul Bignon, it is alleged that he became the king's librarian in charge of cataloging Chinese books in the Royal library. Huang encountered Montesquieu, with whom he had many discussions about Chinese customs. Huang is said to have been Montesquieu's inspiration for the narrative device in his Persian Letters, an Asian who discusses the customs of the West. Huang became well-known in Parisian salons. In 1713, Huang married. In 1715, she gave birth to a healthy daughter named Marie-Claude, but the mother died a few days later.
Discouraged, Huang himself died a year and a half and their daughter died a few months after that. Helped by the young Nicolas Fréret, he began the hard work of pioneering a Chinese-French dictionary, a Chinese grammar, employing the Kangxi system of 214 character keys. In this work, they were joined by Nicolas Joseph Delisle, a friend of Fréret, who gave a more cultural and geographical tone to their work and discussions. Deslisle's brother, Guillaume Delisle, was a renowned geographer. Delisle encouraged Arcadio Huang to read Europe's best known and popular writings dealing with the Chinese Empire. Huang was surprised by the ethnocentric approach of these texts, reducing the merits of the Chinese people and stressing the civilizing role of the European peoples. A third apprentice, by the name of Étienne Fourmont arrived and profoundly disturbed the team. One day, Fourmont was surprised copying Huang's work. After the death of Huang on 1 October 1716, Fourmont became responsible for classifying papers of the deceased.
He made a negative report on the contents of these documents and continued to criticize the work of Huang. Continuing his work on the languages of Europe and Asia, he took all the credit for the dissemination of the 214 key system in France, published a French-Chinese lexicon and a Chinese grammar, without acknowledging the work of Huang, whom he was continuing to denigrate publicly. Meanwhile, Fréret an Academician, above all a friend and first student of Arcadio Huang, wrote a thesis on the work and role of Arcadio in the dissemination of knowledge abo
Persian Letters
Persian Letters is a literary work, written in 1721, by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two Persian noblemen and Rica, who are traveling through France. In 1711 Usbek leaves his seraglio in Isfahan to take the long journey to France, accompanied by his young friend Rica, he leaves behind five wives in the care of a number of black eunuchs, one of whom is the head or first eunuch. During the trip and their long stay in Paris, they comment, in letters exchanged with friends and mullahs, on numerous aspects of Western, Christian society French politics and Moors, ending with a biting satire of the System of John Law. Over time, various disorders surface back in the seraglio, beginning in 1717, the situation there unravels. Usbek orders his head eunuch to crack down, but his message does not arrive in time, a revolt brings about the death of his wives, including the vengeful suicide of his favorite, and, it appears, most of the eunuchs; the Chronology breaks down as follows: Letters 1–21: The journey from Isfahan to France, which lasts 14 months.
Letters 22 –89: Paris in the reign of Louis XIV, 3 years in all. Letters 90 –137 or: the Regency of Philippe d’Orléans, covering five years. Letters 138 – 150: the collapse of the seraglio in Isfahan 3 years; the first edition of the novel, which consists of 150 letters, appeared in May 1721 under the rubric Cologne: Pierre Marteau, a front for the Amsterdam publisher Jacques Desbordes whose business is now run by his widow, Susanne de Caux. Called edition A, this is the text utilized in the recent critical edition of Lettres persanes for the complete works of Montesquieu published by the Voltaire Foundation in 2004. A second edition by the same publisher in the same year, for which there is so far no satisfactory explanation, curiously included three new letters but omitted thirteen of the original ones. All subsequent editions in the author's lifetime derive from A or B. A new edition in 1758, prepared by Montesquieu's son, included eight new letters – bringing the total to 161 – and a short piece by the author entitled "Quelques réflexions sur les Lettres persanes".
This latter edition has been used for all subsequent editions until the Œuvres complètes of 2004, which reverts to the original edition but includes the added letters marked as "supplementary" and, in parentheses, the numbering scheme of 1758. Montesquieu never referred to Lettres persanes as a novel until "Quelques remarques sur les Lettres persanes," which begins: "Nothing about the Lettres persanes was more ingratiating than to find in it unexpectedly a sort of novel. There is a visible beginning and ending." For most of its first readers as well as for its author, it was not considered a novel, less an "epistolary novel", not at that time a constituted genre. Indeed, it has little in common with the sole model at the time, Guilleragues's Lettres portugaises of 1669. A collection of "letters" in 1721 would more evoke the recent tradition of polemical and political periodicals, such as Lettres historiques, the Jesuits’ famous Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, not to mention Mme Dunoyer's Lettres historiques et galantes which, in the form of a correspondence between two women, provide a chronicle of the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the beginning of the Regency.
The Lettres persanes thus helped confirm the vogue of a format, established. But it is in its numerous imitations – such as Lettres juives and Lettres chinoises of Boyer d’Argens, Lettres d’une Turque à Paris, écrites à sa sœur by Poullain de Saint-Foix, especially Françoise de Graffigny’s Lettres d’une Péruvienne – not to mention the letter-novels of Richardson – which, between 1721 and 1754, had in effect transformed Lettres persanes into an "epistolary novel." Whence this remark in Montesquieu's Mes Pensées: "My Lettres persanes taught people to write letter-novels". The epistolary structure is quite flexible: nineteen correspondents in all, with at least twenty-two different recipients. Usbek and Rica by far dominate with sixty-six letters for the forty-seven for the latter. Ibben, who functions more as addressee than correspondent, writes only two letters but receives forty-two. An unnamed person – if always the same – receives eighteen letters and writes none at all. There is one complete anomaly, a letter from Hagi Ibbi to Ben Josué, neither of whom is mentioned elsewhere in the novel.
The letters are all dated in accordance with a lunar calendar which, as Robert Shackleton showed in 1954, in fact corresponds to our own, by simple substitution of Muslim names, as follows: Zilcadé, Zilhagé, Saphar, Rebiab I, Rebiab II, Gemmadi I, Gemmadi II, Chahban, Chalval. In Paris, the Persians express themselves on a wide variety of subjects, from governmental institutions to salon caricatures; the difference of temperament of the two friends is notable, Usbek being more experienced and asking many questions, Rica less implicated and more free, more attracted by Parisian life. Both
Putian
Putian is a prefecture-level city in eastern Fujian province, China. It borders Fuzhou City to the north, Quanzhou City to the south, the Taiwan Strait's Xinghai Bay to the east; the Mulan River flows through the southern part of the city. It's built-up area made of 4 urban districts was home to 1,953,801 inhabitants as of 2010 census. Putian was first founded as an administrative area in the year of 568 as a county during the Liang Dynasty. Putian was re-established as a military administered city during the Song Dynasty with the stationing of military families and soldiers into the city during the period; the city prospered during the Ming Dynasty. On August 21, 1949, on August 25, Putian and Xianyou county successively liberated. On September 9, 1983, the State Council approved the establishment of Putian, Putian city is a prefecture-level city have jurisdiction over Putian and Xianyou two counties and Chengxiang Hanjiang two districts. Putian's municipal executive and judiciary are in Chengxiang District, together with the CPC and Public Security bureaux.
The municipal region comprises three other districts and one county: Hanjiang District Licheng District Xiuyu District Xianyou County The Han Chinese are the majority ethnic group. Puxian Min is the largest dialect spoken in Putian, it is a dialect of a Chinese language. Putian has become an export base for Fujian products; the main industries are shoe-making, electronics, fruits and machinery, electrical goods. In particular, the area is known for high-quality counterfeits of shoes and the domination of Chinese private healthcare. Meizhou Island, most famous for being the legendary birthplace of the goddess Matsu, is located offshore of Putian. Putian University Putian Government Website
Artus de Lionne
Artus de Lionne, abbé and Bishop of Rosalie in partibus infidelium, in Turkey, was a French missionary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. He was a son of Hugues de Lionne. Artus de Lionne was born in Rome in 1655, he first left for Siam as a missionary, in 1681. He returned to France in 1686, serving as translator to the embassy of the Siamese Kosa Pan to the court of Louis XIV. Artus de Lionne returned to Siam with the Siamese embassy in 1687 on board the ships of the French ambassador Simon de la Loubère, he played a role in the negotiation between the French and Siamese sides during the 1688 Siamese Revolution, which resulted in the expulsion of the French forces. Artus de Lionne left Siam with General Desfarges following the French defeat in the Siege of Bangkok, leaving Mgr Louis Laneau a prisoner of the Siamese for several years. Artus de Lionne went to China as a missionary in 1689, where he worked with Bishop Maigrot in Fukien province, he was for a time the archbishop of Sichuan. He took the opposite side in the Chinese Rites controversy.
Artus de Lionne returned to Europe on February 17, 1702, accompanying the Chinese Christian Arcadio Huang. Artus de Lionne and Arcadio Huang embarked on a ship of the English East India Company in order to reach London. By September or October 1702, they left England for France. On the verge of being ordained a priest in Rome and being presented to the pope to demonstrate the reality of Chinese Christianity, Arcadio Huang renounced and declined ordination. Artus de Lionne preferred to return to Paris to further his education, wait for a better answer. In 1705-1707, Artus de Lionne accompanied the mission of Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon to the Kangxi Emperor of China; the mission affirmed the prohibition of Chinese rites in 1707, but was as a result banished to Macao. Artus de Lionne influenced the editing of the 1707 treatise against Chinese philosophy of Nicolas Malebranche, he died in Paris in 1713. Chinese Manual: Sse Tse Ouen Tsien Tchou Four Words Literature Commentary Explication. Lionne, Artus de: Le journal de voyage au Siam de l'abbé de Lionne.
Paris: "Églises d'Asie", 2001. ISBN 2-914402-33-3 Barnes, Linda L. Needles, Herbs and Ghosts: China and the West to 1848 Harvard University Press ISBN 0-674-01872-9 Les Missions Etrangères. Trois siècles et demi d'histoire et d'aventure en Asie Editions Perrin, 2008, ISBN 978-2-262-02571-7 Smithies, Three military accounts of the 1688 "Revolution" in Siam, Itineria Asiatica, Orchid Press, Bangkok, ISBN 974-524-005-2
Paris
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an area of 105 square kilometres and an official estimated population of 2,140,526 residents as of 1 January 2019. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion and the arts; the City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2019 population of 12,213,364, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €681 billion in 2016, accounting for 31 percent of the GDP of France, was the 5th largest region by GDP in the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong-Kong, in 2018; the city is a major rail and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly.
Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily, is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe; the historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité. Paris received 23 million visitors in 2017, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the UK, Germany and China.
It was ranked as the third most visited travel destination in the world in 2017, after Bangkok and London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris; the 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics; the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 1960, 1984, 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in the city and, every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes there. The name "Paris" is derived from the Celtic Parisii tribe; the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. Paris is referred to as the City of Light, both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment and more because Paris was one of the first large European cities to use gas street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the Place du Carousel, Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome in 1829. By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit. By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris has been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in French as Parisiens, they are pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; the Parisii minted their own coins for that purpose. The Romans began their settlement on Paris' Left Bank; the Roman town was called Lutetia. It became a prosperous city with a forum, temples, an amphitheatre. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum "Montmartre", from where he walked headless to the north of the city.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île-de-la-Citie failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris' strategic importance—with its bridges prevent
Jesuit China missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of knowledge and culture between China and the West, influenced Christian culture in Chinese society today; the first attempt by the Jesuits to reach China was made in 1552 by St. Francis Xavier, Navarrese priest and missionary and founding member of the Society of Jesus. Xavier never reached the mainland. Three decades in 1582, Jesuits once again initiated mission work in China, led by several figures including the Italian Matteo Ricci, introducing Western science, mathematics and visual arts to the Chinese imperial court, carrying on significant inter-cultural and philosophical dialogue with Chinese scholars with representatives of Confucianism. At the time of their peak influence, members of the Jesuit delegation were considered some of the emperor's most valued and trusted advisors, holding prestigious posts in the imperial government.
Many Chinese, including former Confucian scholars, adopted Christianity and became priests and members of the Society of Jesus. According to research by David E. Mungello, from 1552 to 1800, a total of 920 Jesuits participated in the China mission, of whom 314 were Portuguese, 130 were French. In 1844 China may have had 240,000 Roman Catholics, but this number grew and in 1901 the figure reached 720,490. Many Jesuit priests, both Western-born and Chinese, are buried in the cemetery located in what is now the School of the Beijing Municipal Committee. Contacts between Europe and the East dated back hundreds of years between the Papacy and the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. Numerous traders -- most famously Marco Polo -- had traveled between western Eurasia. Christianity was not new to the Mongols, as many had practiced Christianity of the Church of the East since the 7th century. However, the overthrow of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty by the Ming in 1368 resulted in a strong assimilatory pressure on China's Muslim and Christian communities, outside influences were forced out of China.
By the 16th century, there is no reliable information about any practicing Christians remaining in China. Soon after the establishment of the direct European maritime contact with China and the creation of the Society of Jesus, at least some Chinese became involved with the Jesuit effort; as early as 1546, two Chinese boys enrolled in the Jesuits' St. Paul's College in Goa, the capital of Portuguese India. One of these two Christian Chinese, known as Antonio, accompanied St. Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Society of Jesus, when he decided to start missionary work in China. However, Xavier failed to find a way to enter the Chinese mainland, died in 1552 on Shangchuan island off the coast of Guangdong, the only place in China where Europeans were allowed to stay at the time, but only for seasonal trade. A few years after Xavier's death, the Portuguese were allowed to establish Macau, a semi-permanent settlement on the mainland, about 100 km closer to the Pearl River Delta than Shangchuan Island.
A number of Jesuits visited the place on occasion, in 1563 the Order permanently established its settlement in the small Portuguese colony. However, the early Macau Jesuits did not learn Chinese, their missionary work could reach only the small number of Chinese people in Macau who spoke Portuguese. A new regional manager of the order, Alessandro Valignano, on his visit to Macau in 1578–1579 realized that Jesuits weren't going to get far in China without a sound grounding in the language and culture of the country, he founded St. Paul Jesuit College and requested the Order's superiors in Goa to send a suitably talented person to Macau to start the study of Chinese. Accordingly, in 1579 the Italian Michele Ruggieri was sent to Macau, in 1582 he was joined at his task by another Italian, Matteo Ricci. Both Ricci and Ruggieri were determined to adapt to the religious qualities of the Chinese: Ruggieri to the common people, in whom Buddhist and Taoist elements predominated, Ricci to the educated classes, where Confucianism prevailed.
Ricci, who arrived at the age of 30 and spent the rest of his life in China, wrote to the Jesuit houses in Europe and called for priests – men who would not only be "good", but "men of talent, since we are dealing here with a people both intelligent and learned." The Spaniard Diego de Pantoja and the Italian Sabatino de Ursis were some of these talented men who joined Ricci in his venture. Just as Ricci spent his life in China, others of his followers did the same; this level of commitment was necessitated by logistical reasons: Travel from Europe to China took many months, sometimes years. When a Jesuit from China did travel back to Europe, he did it as a representative of the China Mission, entrusted with the task of recruiting more Jesuit priests to come to China, ensuring continued support for the Mission from the Church's central authorities, creating favorable publicity for the Mission and its policies by publishing both scholarly and popular literature about China and Jesuits. One time the Chongzhen Emperor broke his idols.
The fall of the Ming Dynasty and the conquest of China by the Manchu Qing regime bro
