1785 - Etienne Devaut & Joseph Delpon

Two of the Catholic missionaries arrested during the ‘Great Religious Incident’ of 1784-85 were Frenchmen Etienne Devaut and Joseph Delpon. Both were among the earliest China martyrs of the Missions Etrangères de Paris (Paris Foreign Missionary Society).

Devaut was born at Rochelieu, France, on December 29, 1744. He served as a vicar at Loches before entering the Paris Mission. After graduating in January 1773 he departed on the dangerous journey from Europe to China. After several lengthy stops at ports en route he finally reached his appointed mission in Sichuan Province in the spring of 1776. Once he had gained a working knowledge of Chinese, Devaut was transferred to Suifu (now Yibin) in southern Sichuan where he remained until 1783. At that time he was given charge of a huge region, including the whole of the present-day Chongqing Municipality and northern areas of Guizhou Province.

A storm of persecution broke in 1785. Devaut was arrested and imprisoned at Chengdu before being cruelly transferred to Beijing for trial, travelling for months across terrible roads while confined inside a cage. The torturous journey ruined Devaut’s health and he died in the Beijing prison on July 3, 1785, before he had gone to trial.

Joseph Delpon was born in the French diocese of Cahors on April 19, 1754. After two years’ study at the seminary of the Missions Etrangères de Paris he departed for China in December 1782, reaching Macau four months later. He entered the interior of China, travelling to his destination of southern Sichuan Province after a time of language study in Guangxi.

During the persecution of 1785, Delpon realized there was no point trying to hide, so he voluntarily surrendered to the authorities. He was taken to Chengdu and thrown into a filthy prison, and like his fellow-martyr Etienne Devaut, was transferred to the nation’s capital for trial. Reaching Beijing barely alive, Delpon expired on July 8, 1785, aged just 31.

A Lazarist priest lovingly buried the bodies of the two Sichuan missionaries together in a cemetery near Beijing.