FAVRE (FABER), PIERRE FRANÇOIS: Roman Catholic; b. at St. Barthelemi, canton of Vaud, Switzerland, in the beginning of the eighteenth century; d. at Assens in the district of Echallens, canton of Vaud, about 1780. He became priest Lauden, in Lower Languedoc, and accompanied Francois de la Baume, bishop of Halicarnassus, on a tour of visitation to Cochin-China, as his secretary and confessor. The bishop arrived at Macao in 1738 and was detained and made a captive there, at the instigation of Portuguese Jesuits who resented an investigation of their intrigues against the French missionaries. In Mar., 1739, the bishop was able to continue his journey and after two months landed in Cochin-China. He admonished the missionaries to forget their quarrels and restore harmony. Complaints were brought against the Portuguese Jesuits who had excommunicated many on the pretense of Jansenism, and when the bishop opposed the Jesuits, he was accused of Jansenism himself and of disturbing the public peace. Letters from Rome, addressed to him, were intercepted and never reached him. As he saw that peace was impossible, he divided the provinces between the Jesuits, the French missionaries, and the Franciscans; but sorrow and ill treatment (or poison) caused his death in 1741. Favre took his place, and not being able to prevail against the Jesuits, went to Rome to give an account of his visitation. Thence he returned to his native country where he published in 1746 his Lettres édifiantes et curieuses sur la visite apostolique de M. de la Baume à la Cochinchine en l'année 1740, giving a report of Jesuit misdemeanors and intrigues. The book was condemned by the bishop of Lausanne and publicly burned at Freiburg, and the Jesuits bought up every copy they could.

(J. PFOTENHAUER.)