There is some debate on the authorship of Father Tom and The Pope, which purports to relate a six-day-long discussion in 1827 of the relative merits of the Roman Catholic Church, represented by Father Tom, and the church if England, represented by Rev. T. P. Pope, a Protestant clergyman. Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) was a French novelist and wrote History of the Pope's Mule, tells the tale of a mule in Avignon who waited seven years to exact revenge.