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a piece of paper that has a stamp on ita handwritten letter written in black ink on a piece of paper
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452 - CHINA. Joseph-Martial MOULY (1807–1868), a Lazarist missiona…
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,500
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CHINA. Joseph-Martial MOULY (1807–1868), a Lazarist missionary who served as Bishop of Beijing. 7 letters from the sender and one letter to the sender, Beijing 1865–1868, to Father Dominique Sire, director of the Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris; 17 pages in-8 and 3 pages in-4, 3 address labels and 5 envelopes bearing a large red ink stamp. Very rare and interesting correspondence. Bishop Mouly wrote most of his letters from the Northern Church of the Holy Saviour. 14 November 1865: ‘We are currently having the bull *Ineffabilis* [on the Immaculate Conception] translated into Chinese by two young theologians from our seminary; we were delighted to contribute in some small way to the external glory of our Immaculate Mother Mary, and to please His Holiness Pius IX […] But I must confess to you that the task could not have been more difficult, as the lofty style of the bull, with its constant circumlocutions and interminable sentences, could not have been more un-Chinese. Its subject matter, above all, was no less so. […] ‘this work is drawing to a close’; but he fears he may have to abandon the translations into Mongolian and Manchu… 3 April 1867: ‘Our Chinese translation of the bull *Ineffabilis* is now fully completed, proofread, and entrusted to skilled calligraphers who are transcribing it onto yellow silk, just as one would write to the Son of Heaven.’ He is to have it printed in Chinese… – 18 April. The Chinese and Manchu translations are complete, and the single decree is being translated into Mongolian… ‘The Chinese border depicts, at the very top, the imperial throne room of the Son of Heaven, with its two corresponding buildings. On the right is a tower similar to the porcelain one that once stood in Nanking and which is said to have been erected in the Imperial Palace in Beijing. On the left is one of the four towers erected at the corners of the city—or rather, the Imperial Palace—on the high wall of its great enclosure. At the bottom is a view of three door frames commonly found in towns, with merchants’ shops, their signs, plaques & & &. This painting was produced by a Christian doctor and painter [...] The Chinese calligraphy is by one of our young Latin-studying seminarians’… – 24 September. Pope Pius IX wished to receive ‘the complete collection of translations of the Bull of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin Mary […] so that he might show it to the bishops from all over the world who were then gathered in Rome. [...] Each translation still forms a small book in its own right. The complete Chinese manuscript strikes us as the most beautiful and the most interesting in every respect’; depicted on its frontispiece are ‘the façades of our old cathedral and our new Gothic church of the Holy Saviour […] I had the whole work printed in these three languages, in a single volume, although Chinese script begins on the right, running from top to bottom—quite the opposite of our own—whilst Manchu and Mongolian begin on the left, like ours, but also run from top to bottom. I am sending two copies to all our lords, the Apostolic Vicars of China and neighbouring countries where Chinese is written, such as in Korea, Japan, Tonkin and Cochinchina […] in order to further spread, if possible, the glory of Mary conceived without sin, and to obtain from her immense goodness special protection for the Chinese Empire’… He also intends to present copies to the Pope and to Cardinal Barnabo, ‘for the Propaganda Fide library’… He hoped, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, to secure ‘the conversion of at least a large proportion of the twenty million or so infidels who, it is said, inhabit our Apostolic Vicariate of Peking, North Chely’… – 15 July 1868. He dispatched around a hundred copies of the papal bull ‘to all the heads of missions in the vicinity where the Chinese language is known’, via the French legation’s diplomatic pouch… – 21 November 1868, a letter begun by Bishop Mouly, interrupted by his death, and completed by his Apostolic Vicar and Bishop of Danaba, Edmond-François Guierry: in his final letter, what ‘His Grace wished to write before leaving this earth was, for us, a final testimony to his tender affection for the Immaculate Mary’ Enclosed: – 2 autograph letters from Bishop Zéphyrin Guillemin, Bishop of Canton, dated 10 November 1862 and 20 October 1863, to Father Sire, concerning the bull *Ineffabilis*. – 1 original letter from Bishop Emmanuel Verrolles of Manchuria, dated 20 December 1868: ‘The Manchus are dying out and disappearing more and more; the Chinese have taken over everything’; as for religious festivals, ‘alas! in our lands, where certain regions are scattered at great distances from one another amongst the pagans, and having at that time not a single church in the whole mission, but only a few shabby oratories, we were unable to achieve anything spectacular”… Plus three press cuttings following the death of Bishop Mouly.
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About the sale Letters and Autograph Manuscripts – Part II
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Auction time 10/14/2026 at 2:00 PM
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