| When the annexation of Belgium was decreed on 1 October 1795 the mover of the proposal, Merlin de Douai, also recommended the annexation of the entire left bank of the Rhine. |
| He pursued his investigations as far as Roubaix, then swept southward to Douai. |
| Jesuits and seminary priests, trained in Douai and Rome to make good the losses of English priests, encouraged this. |
| Conscience prevailing, he was received at Douai, then sent from Rome by the Jesuits to Bohemia to serve his novitiate, before being reordained in Prague. |
| He says further that he comes from my own seminary of Douai. |
| It was the work of English scholars connected with the University of Douai. |
