Since the fall of 1872 Catholic circles in France had been voicing their protest against the persecution of the
Christians at Urakami.39 The Lyons weekly Les Missions Catholiques had run letters denouncing the
ongoing harassment of Christians. Léon Pagès had published his memorandum on La persécution des
chrétiens au Japon et l’ambassade Japonaise en Europe, addressed to the members of the National
Assembly. At its session on 7 December 1872, a deputy, by the name of le comte Desbassayns de
Richemont, had made a pathetic appeal for an intervention to put a halt to ‘the odious and inhumane’
persecution that had been going on for six years.