2
Foundation and Constitution of the Society of Mary (Marianists)
The Society of Mary was the first male religious congregation born in Bordeaux after the
Revolution; it was founded during the reign of Charles X, in the midst of the rebirth of religious
sentiment and of the Catholic Church in France, within the political framework of the
Restoration. But the Society of Mary was not the only congregation founded during this time. In
France, during the first half of the nineteenth century, there was a boom of religious foundations,
both in restoring the orders of the past and in the new institutes comprised of members taking
simple vows, which is referred to as the congregational movement. The extraordinary
development of religious congregations during the nineteenth century is a remarkable
phenomenon in the Catholic Church, and it should be understood as part of the larger efforts
toward re-Christianizing post-Napoleonic Europe by means of education of the youth and
welfare projects for children, women, the sick, and the elderly. More religious congregations
were founded in France between 1800 and 1860 than in the 18 previous centuries combined. A
survey done by the French government in 1878 claimed that there were 135,000 religious in
France, of which 20,787 were dedicated to teaching children; there were 9,500 religious priests
and 56,000 diocesan priests. By virtue of the religious renaissance produced by the
congregational movement, many of the religious were sisters, or consecrated women working in
secular activities outside of the cloister; there were about 55,000 religious women as opposed to
the 31,000 religious men.1
Around the same time the Society of Mary was founded by Chaminade, another Society
of Mary arose in Lyon, founded by a Father Colin; there were other similar congregations as
well: the Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Mazenod, the Little Brothers of Mary founded by
Father Champagnat, and the Sons of Mary Immaculate of Father Baudouin. All of these
congregations were marked by an identity closely tied to Mary Immaculate in the century that
Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (1854), as a
defense of supernatural Christianity and of the Church’s freedom of action, being obliged by the
liberal parliaments to seek its new social position in the secular state in which its dogmas would
be put to the test by the most immanent modern minds. The rise and expansion of the Society of
Mary belongs to this ecclesiastic movement of re-Christianization of liberal post-revolutionary
society under the charismatic-symbolic inspiration of the Immaculate Conception of Mary; it
dedicated its men to the army of male and female religious committed to the evangelization of
youth by means of education.
1. Congregational Movement
The Sisters of the Miséricorde and the Institute of Mary, which is constituted by the Daughters of
Mary and the Society of Mary, were three new religious congregations that arose in France
1
Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, “La Restauración,” in Rogier and Aubert, Nueva Historia de la Iglesia (Madrid:
Ediciones Cristiandad, 1977), vol. 4, pp. 407-12; the same phenomenon is described in Joseph Simler, William
Joseph Chaminade Founder of the Marianists (Dayton: MRC, 1986), p. 268; concerning the Restoration, see
Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966);
Henri de L’Epinois, Histoire de la Restauration (1814-1830) (Paris: Palmé, 1973); Gérard Cholvy, Christianisme et
société en France au XIXe siècle. 1790-1914 (Paris: Édition du Seuil, 2001).
during the Restoration. These foundations owe themselves to the spiritual zeal and charitable and
apostolic enthusiasm of Father William Joseph Chaminade and two laywomen of the lower
nobility, Adèle de Batz de Trenquelléon and Marie Thérèse de Lamourous. These three, at the
same time, worked with lay people gathered in new forms of secular association to form fraternal
Christian communities and practice works of mercy. The life and action of these religious and
secular groups is a response to the awakening of a new evangelical spirit at the dawn of modern
society. In this sense, the three new religious institutes should be understood as part of the
congregational movement that arose and developed in France throughout the nineteenth century.
On account of the revolutionary persecution of the clergy and members of religious
orders from the ancien régime, in the new liberal order, neither the Civil Code of Napoleon nor
the Concordat of 1801 recognized the existence of the ancient conventual and monastic orders.
Consequently, the post-revolutionary state did not legally recognize solemn vows because liberal
thinkers believed they were against human nature and contradictory to the rights of man. But this
did not signify the disappearance of religious life; on the contrary, it was an occasion for new
forms of consecration to God in the Church to appear; these were the new religious institutes of
brothers with simple vows called congregations. To sum up, the new political situation created in
France by the Revolution allowed the rise of the congregational movement. From 1850 onward,
after Napoleon III came to power, the movement was shored up by a law of liberalization of
teaching (advanced by the collaboration of Falloux, minister of education) which favored the
expansion of the congregations, most of which were dedicated to education.
New Form of Religious Life
In the nineteenth century, in France, a new experience of Catholicism arose: the Church, without
the protection of the state, only could survive among the mass of peasants and artisans in the
city. The state of Christendom had reached an end; the Church had to base its life and mission in
the testimonial experience of the Gospel lived by its ministers and faithful, found in lay
associations, new forms of religious life, and parishes. From the institutions of the state,
Catholics realized the Church survived in the low classes, and they had to direct their mission of
re-Christianization and welfare to these people. For this mission, enthusiastic laypeople gathered
around a zealous priest or another lay person of deep missionary and spiritual conviction, and
they formed associations dedicated to the religious instruction of children, to the care of the sick
and elderly, to material and spiritual aid for women, to elementary school instruction for rural
families, and to assisting pastors in giving catechesis. After a while, these lay associations gave
stable forms to their congregations, and to their pastoral tasks, by means of the profession of
simple vows and the development of a rule and statutes to organize their common life and the
ministries to which they had dedicated themselves. The new religious institutes that would be
called congregations were born by being constituted as a congregation of brothers: a religious
association of women or men that, by means of private commitments united for a shared goal of
social value in the field of education or welfare, just as we have seen in the Marian Sodality of
Bordeaux founded by Chaminade, the Little Association of Adèle de Trenquelléon in the rural
areas of the department of Lot-et-Garonne, and the first community of Marianist brothers who
gathered on the Rue de Ségur to live in common by the link of simple vows. The nineteenth
century congregations were a new reality that appeared in response to a society penetrated by the
spiritual and corporal needs that the liberal political revolution and the industrial economic
revolution were causing, along with the disintegration of the old rural communities and the
appearance of a new urban and capitalist economy. Because of these societial changes, the
structure of life and mission in these new forms of religious life broke with the institutional code
of the monastic orders of the ancien régime.
The congregations were born from a new evangelical awakening, characterized by the
recently discovered spirituality of social Christianity (or of Christian works), and by the
experience of fraternity among brothers, completely equal. Publically, but discretely, brothers
and sisters with simple vows met in little communities dispersed throughout rural France, and
they dedicated themselves to the care and education of the poor, to the care of the sick, elderly,
and abandoned children, and to the promotion of women. With these acts of charity, they
fostered a new religious sensibility of a Christianity lived and recognized by its social utility.
Too, the welfare and educational work of the congregations must be understood inside the
framework of two other currents alive in French Catholicism in the nineteenth century: first, a
strong missionary impulse—laity included—in the propagation of the faith; and second, the
recovery of a Franciscan worldview—ideologically linked with romanticism and utopian
socialism—which promoted a lively social sentiment of the faith and of the dignity of manual
labor, with the purpose of contributing to the moral improvement and the living conditions of the
peasantry and of the working-class. Purposes which, developed by social Catholics, had been
given as a result of political compromise by democracy. In this sense, the new religious
congregations of the nineteenth century were the embodiment of the new religious sensibility,
which revolved around the testimony of the charity of works with social value, of manual labor,
of fraternity, and of the laity. It can be said the spirituality and mission of the founders (male and
female) led to a religious revolution in modern society, corresponding to the liberal political
revolution and the industrial economic revolution.
Despite having their origin in the new middle-class ethos, the new congregations of
brothers and sisters with simple vows have their pre-history in the forms of religious association
of regular clergymen and consecrated women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Ursuline nuns of St. Angela de Merici (1474-1540) and the Daughters of Charity of St.
Vincent de Paul can be considered precursors to the female congregations of the nineteenth
century. The Ursulines arose in 1535 from the gathering of some 30 youths, without vows,
cloister, a habit, or their own house. St. Angela did not want to found a religious order, but rather
a welfare society, along the lines of a third order, but whose associates were completely
consecrated to God. Thus, their spirituality consisted of a radical dedication to God and to the
service of the poor, the tending of the sick in their homes, and the teaching of Christian doctrine
to abandoned children. Ursuline nuns remained in the world, dedicated to a direct apostolic life.
While St. Angela lived, her prestige served as a safeguard for her foundation. But at her death,
even though Paul III had approved them with his bull Regimini Universalis Ecclesiae (1544), the
dominant mentality in the Church and in society forced them to adjust to the prior model for
women religious, the cloister. Religious and school instruction of children, as well as aid to the
sick, were lay actions that broke with the mold of cloister in female religious life, but those
works attracted numerous youths to consecrate themselves to Christ in this way. There were 30
female congregations founded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries dedicated to education
and works of charity. All were under the canonical law of cloister, which impeded their being
dedicated to their apostolic tasks. But the Daughters of Charity got what they wanted. St. Vincent
de Paul (1580-1660) and St. Luisa de Marillac (1591) changed the brotherhoods of Paris and
transformed them into associations that visited and cared for the sick, assisted the dying, and
prepared medicines; they also assisted unmarried youths. In her own house, Luisa de Marillac
opened the School of Charity and her disciples pronounced temporary private vows (including a
vow of caring for the sick); she gathered them in community to benefit the mission without
giving them the canonical statute of religious life. Considered among the societies of apostolic
life, they remained in their lay state. Freed of the cloister, the sisters could be adapted to the
situations in which they worked; for the same reason, the Daughters of Charity did not wear a
habit; they continued wearing the long skirt and white cap of the peasants in Paris (clothing that,
not being adapted to changing fashion, in the end, became a religious habit). As a prelude to the
modern congregations, St. Vincent gave them Constitutions that began as simple ordinances.
From these ordinances, a consecrated woman could assume any apostolic activity.2 We will see
later the canonical difficulties the Daughters of Mary had in performing their apostolic work
among women and girls because of the cloister, and their recourse to a third order with private
vows, which had to be founded.
Also, the male consecrated life with simple vows and with a strong apostolic orientation
deepened roots in societies of apostolic life appearing in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, such as the Oratory of St. Felipe Neri, the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent
de Paul, the Society of Priests of St. Sulpice, and the Society of Jesus and Mary (Eudists); to
these can be added the Montfortians, Passionists, and Redemptorists. In Mussidan, where
William Joseph Chaminade had his priestly formation, the Congregation of St. Charles
Borromeo, to which he belonged, was another such apostolic priestly society. In fact, the
seminary in Mussidan was managed by a society of apostolic life composed of teaching priests
who made private vows and lived a common life under the Rules of the Congregation of Priests
and Clerics Under the Title of Saint Charles. The seminary was founded in 1744 by Fathers
Pierre Robert, Pierre de Chassarel de Roger, and Jean Maurant, who dedicated themselves to
popular missions and the Christian education of youths, having noted the apostolic efficacy of
the Jesuit schools. Animated by a strong spirit of evangelization, the priests of St. Charles
formed a society of apostolic life with private vows, but they did not enter the religious state.
Perpetuators of these forms of apostolic life—by their missionary zeal and simple
vows—would become the new congregations that arose in post-revolutionary France. But, as
opposed to those societies, the new congregational movement was mainly lay: of the 625
institutes born in the nineteenth century, 82 percent were lay, compared to 17.8 percent priest.
From here the title of brothers was given to the newly consecrated. In the Society of Mary, the
living together of priests and lay religious with equal rights (excepting those rights which flow
from the sacrament of Holy Orders) makes them a mixed institute; nevertheless, the number of
brothers is so much greater than that of priests that the secular style of life dominates, and the
Society possess a lay physiognomy; in fact, they are known among the people as the Brothers of
Mary.
In this sense, the Marianist historical tradition traces the origin of the Society of Mary,
very well, back to the Sodality of Mary Immaculate in Bordeaux, the Sodality of Father
Chaminade. In fact, just as we saw in the previous chapter, because Napoleon prohibited the
public activity of the Marian Sodalities of the Jesuits and their associates in 1808, groups of
young women and men within the Bordeaux Sodality took secret vows to constitute new forms
2
Jesús Álvarez, Historia de la vida religiosa (Madrid: Publicaciones Claretianas, 2002), vol. 3: Desde la Devotio
moderna hasta el Concilio Vaticano II, pp. 462-63; Teófilo Viñas, “Congregación,” in Angel Aparicio y Joan
Canals, eds., Diccinoario teológico de la vida consagrada (Madrid: Publicaciones Claretianas, 1989), pp. 339-41;
Cristóbal Robles, Las Hermanas del Ángel de la guarda. 1940-1970 (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 2002),
vol. 3, p. 2.
of religious living in the world (dispersed within society), with the mission of maintaining the
Sodality, now semi-clandestine. The novelty of this new form of religious society, which does
not correspond with the third orders of laity linked to a monastic order, resides in the fact that the
associates are understood to constitute a truly religious state. Chaminade did not find a way of
naming the association that made this clear. Sometimes they were called “The Meeting of the
12” and other times “The Religious State Embraced by Christians Living in the World.” But he
knew by using the terms “State” and “religious state,” he was birthing a new form of religious
life, just as he knew by reading an anonymous work, published in Bordeaux in 1802, titled,
Abrégé de la vie et des sentiments de Jean. This Jean, “an excellent man” in the opinion of
Chaminade, was a religious who lived his consecration in the midst of society. Father Klobb
thought that it referred to Father Clorivière, author of a tract—without a date or a printing
location—published in 1792, under the title Societatis Cordis Jesu specimen. Father Clorivière,
before the restoration of the Jesuits in France (1814), had worked on the formation of religious
men and women living in the world, in the societies called The Society of the Heart of Jesus and
the Society of the Heart of Mary. Father Chaminade could have maintained a relation with
Clorivière, either indirectly through a common friend, the Jesuit Lasausse, or directly when
Clorivière went to Bordeaux to organize the minor seminary.3 Because of their secular character,
the temporary and private nature of their vows, the intention to be constituted as a true state of
consecration to God, and the performance of apostolic tasks with a clearly secular physiognomy,
the members of the “religious state” possess all the characteristic elements of the growing
congregational movement in the post-revolutionary Church in France. These elements appear
again in the first community of Marianist religious who met on Rue de Ségur, where the Society
of Mary was born; though now, the community constituted religious life given that the associates
were living in community.
Therefore, having begun at the end of the eighteenth century and expanding from 1830
onward, the new congregations, male and female, vigorously adapted themselves with difficulty
to the canonical bonds of Church law, in which only orders with solemn vows were recognized
as full religious life. But the founders of the new institutes intended to create authentic religious
hoping that Rome would recognize simple vows as having the value of solemn vows; institutes
in which the external forms and apostolic tasks would give birth to a new kind of consecrated
life, of a lay or secular physiognomy.
Congregation of Brothers with Simple Vows
The congregations of the nineteenth century were born without solemn vows. Therefore, the new
liberal state did not recognize the public value of such commitments; therefore, the Holy See did
not grant them to the new religious institutes. The society which arose with the triumph of
liberalism, its political institutions firmly placed in the parliamentary constitution and the Civil
Code, and its morality based on values of work, production, and social utility, no longer accepted
the old form of monastic religious life, considering it a fuga mundi. People were now citizens—
not subjects—and therefore, bearers of civil law that was not able to be separated from politics.
The primary duty of a citizen is to work for the common good, taking up their rights and
obligations in the framework of the civil and constitutional laws, which regulate and guarantee
said rights and obligations. By virtue of those principles, society and the state do not allow
anyone to discard the status of citizen, and as a consequence they do not legally accept the
3
Spirit 1, § 27, pp. 37-38, note 1; and Simler, Chaminade, pp. 229-32.
characteristic solemn vows of the old forms of conventual and monastic life. According to the
enlightened and liberal thinking, to alienate property and free will and to renounce family (which
were considered natural goods) were unnatural and against the rights of man; therefore, they
were morally harmful. Besides, the monks and friars of the old orders appeared to the new
middle-class sensibility of work and production as a dead hand, on account of not working land
but living as beggars. Under this new cultural code, in the beginning, rulers were not interested
in reforming monastic life, as the princes of the ancien régime had done; they did not believe
monks and friars contributed to the common good. So they only recognized congregations with
social utility—such as the hospital workers, those who worked for the welfare of others, those
dedicated to primary education of children in rural areas—for they were considered an
instrument of moralization and social promotion of impoverished towns. That is why the female
congregations (mostly dedicated to welfare tasks) were the first to receive the legal approval of
the government of the Restoration in 1825.
These conditions on religious were imposed not only by the liberals in power but also by
the brothers and sisters of the new congregations. As men and women of their era, they gave
great importance to work as a means of supporting themselves and as the new social means for
living the vow of poverty: consecrated women renounced their dowries to live off of their work;
bequests and donations would only be properties or foundations where they could exercise their
ministries of teaching or welfare. Simple vows did not recognize the alienation of the owned
property; farms and properties were purchased in the name of the founder or of another member
of the institution, and the brothers or sisters, having entered the new institutes, would put their
patrimonies at the service of the institutional works. We will see how this practice causes bitter
conflicts for Chaminade, first with the Daughters of Mary; then, with the French government
concerning the approval of the statutes of the Society; finally, with his assistants, when some of
the first brothers abandon the Society of Mary and demand their patrimonies from the Founder.
In every case, the new congregations performed their missions through secular tasks—
schools, hospitals, workshops, orphanages, or asylums—where the value of manual labor and
administrative and economic management held great importance, as values of the middle-class
ethos. But all this was lived by the new religious with a strong sense of new evangelism, while
demanding dedication to poverty, evangelical fraternity, simplicity, and mission. Their mission
had a strong secular component in its modes and forms: the new religious did not give
themselves that title, rather they were called brothers; at first they dressed in secular clothing;
they lived in a house where they could carry out their secular-missionary work and, therefore,
with little or no enclosure, in direct contact with the secular world; these circumstances were a
true problem from the consecrated woman whose life, since the Council of Trent, had required
the state of claustration. Outlining these components of the tradition of religious life in the new
institutes produced numerous canonical difficulties in the congregations and, of course, between
the Daughters of the Mary and the Brothers of Mary.
Given its pastoral and lay form, the new form of religious life could not recover the fuga
mundi of the medieval orders, as a symbol of the refusal of a materialistic society or an
institutionalized Church identifying with society. The liberal principle of immanent reason and
the disappearance of the practice of Christianity impeded it. Moreover, the fear of the liberal
states lead to the suppression of the ancient orders, but they accepted the new congregations that
dedicated themselves to improving living conditions in the cities, by means of schools, hospitals,
orphanages, etc. The brothers and sisters performed these tasks with great self-sacrifice. In this
way, they received the admiration of their fellow citizens by leading what were considered
heroic lives. Because of this, the ancient ascetical practices of the monastic life suffered a
transformation, situated on the horizon of a worldly asceticism, with a social function. In fact,
the new asceticism is lived in the performance of a professional task, and the fuga mundi was
replaced by the spiritual motivations for which the tasks are performed. These are interior
motives which correspond to the introspection which characterizes modern man. An immediate
effect in this new form of religious life was the disappearance of the ancient practices of fasting
and the numerous liturgy of the hours. In the spirituality of the new institutes, the work in the
classroom or among the sick constituted a form of fast, a practice of self-sacrifice, an experience
of poverty, a subjugation of obedience in being delivered to the works of the institute by the
mandate of the superior. Personal meditation took the place of choir prayers; it was incorporated
into the modern spiritual practices more on account of modern subjectivity.
By this secular physiognomy of its apostolate and by professing simple vows, the
congregational movement was met with the obstacles of canon law in its efforts to be recognized
as full religious life. The institutes approved before 1820, because of the social utility of their
apostolic tasks, could retain their secular forms. But the desire of the founders and their disciples
to be recognized by the Holy See as a true form of religious life lead to a balanced approach
between the congregations and the ancient orders. Thus, from 1857, the orders had their
characteristic feature, temporary vows prior to perpetual profession (for the purpose of
improving formation and selection of candidates) imposed on them. And as for the
congregations, the fact the brothers took simple vows, which did not imply the renunciation of
their civil rights, reinforced the conviction among canon lawyers that such vows ought to be
considered true canonical and spiritual expressions of a total dedication to God, but this came at
the cost of renouncing the forms of lay life where these congregations had their origins, to
embrace the standard practices of monastic life.4 This effected, then, the congregations of
brothers and sisters gathered together to follow Christ by works of charitable service, and they
gathered in a Church which was combating the secularization of the state and society. Thus, the
new congregations hoped to create a form of authentic religious life in the legal and cultural
context of the new liberal society.
The missionary project of Father Chaminade was responding in the context of the same
re-Christianizing and apologetic mood, under the motto nova bella elegit Dominus, a formula
which expressed the new forms of association and apostolate of the laity and religious in the
post-revolutionary society. Chaminade points out the characteristic points of congregational life
in the first articles of the Constitutions of 1839 where he specifies that the Society “seeks two
principle objectives: First, with the grace of God, to nurture each of its members to religious
perfection, and, secondly, to labor in the world at the salvation of souls by upholding and
propagating the teachings of the Gospel.”5 Therefore, the new institute joins “...the advantages of
the active life with those of the contemplative life.”6 Chaminade was conscious of the fact that
the religious profession practiced in the Society of Mary did not possess the canonical value of
solemn vows, but he understood it as true religious life, “such as it has been practiced by our
religious forebearers. [sic] (As long as the civil authorities do not permit it, the public
manifestation of vows is excluded.)”7 But it is true religious life by virtue of the profession of the
three ordinary vows of religion (obedience, poverty, and chastity), the exercises of religious life,
4
Eutimio Sastre, La vita religiosa nella storia della Chiesa e della società (Milan: Ancora, 1997), p. 862.
The Letter and the Spirit (Dayton: Marianist Press, 1979), p. 34, art. 1.
6
Letter, p. 34, art. 2.
7
Letter, p. 34, art. 9.
5
direction, the Rule of the community, and the evangelical virtues.8 And, more concretely, in the
Constitutions of Father Simler, approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, the first article affirms that
the Society of Mary “constitutes, by the grace of the Apostolic See, an Institute with simple
vows, composed of clerical and lay members.”9 In short, the congregational movement received,
throughout the nineteenth century, recognition as true religious life; this recognition was
sanctioned by the apostolic constitution Conditae a Christo (December 8, 1900), written by Pope
Leo XIII; and the Code of 1917 gave the title of religion and religious state to both the orders
and the religious congregations equally.
Although having insisted on showing that the congregational movement placed great
emphasis on apostolic tasks—in conformity with the new Catholicism of works which were a
credit to the value of the Church and its institutions in liberal society by virtue of their public
utility—it must be emphasized that the proliferation of new institutes throughout the nineteenth
century is an outgrowth of a renewed evangelical and Christo-centric experience. This
inspiration is noted in the Constitutions of Father Chaminade when he maintains that “Christian
perfection, which the Society of Mary proposes as its first objective, consists essentially in the
most exact conformity possible with Jesus Christ, God made man in order to serve as model for
men”;10 by this, “the Society has really only one aim: the most faithful imitation of Jesus
Christ.”11 This is a spirituality designed to support apostolic action, a spirituality in which charity
is the best apologist for the faith in the modern world.
Canonical Configuration
It already has been noted that, in the flowering of religious life that occurred during the
nineteenth century, the new institutes tended to assimilate the observances of the ancient orders,
and these orders adjusted to the more agile forms of apostolate of the new religious societies.
This is the sense given by the phrase “the conventualization of the congregational movement”;
this conventualization, in Marianist religious life, was referred to by one author as “monasticapostolic.” Formally, the congregational movement retained enough of the truncated process:
although in its external form it appears to fulfill the desire for the simple and private vows of its
members to receive the same canonical value as the solemn and public vows of the orders, this
legal modification affected the secular condition of the new institutes; a true alternative which
was disputed throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Given that the
ideal for religious life was monastic life with its observances, simple vows were tolerated in
comparison to the solemn vows, because simple vows respected the civil existence of the
brothers and sisters: they could buy and sell, abandon their state, and contract marriage, and they
did not need to live in the cloister. This was the dominant mentality among the consultants for
the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars.12 In the end, the problem, for the Holy See
and for the institutes themselves, presented itself in the need to define their canonical nature in
the Church, as true religious life, respecting the foundational inspiration—organization and
8
Letter, p. 34, art. 10.
Constitutions of the Society of Mary (Dayton, 1937), art. 1.
10
Letter, p. 34, art. 4.
11
Letter, p. 34, art. 5.
12
Robles, Las Hermanas, vol. 3, p. 14ff, which follows Eutimio Sastre, “Los conflictos jurídicos, económicos y de
mentalidad habidos en la elaboración de la ‘Conditae a Christo,’” June 1897-December 1900, in Claretianum, no.
XL (2000), pp. 301-43; Viñas, “Congregación,” in Aparicio y Canals, Diccinoario, pp. 341-42; Álvarez, Historia,
vol. 3, pp. 387-94.
9
ends—of each institute. In practice, the nature of the new congregations was clarified in the
process of editing their constitutions for approval by the Holy See.
Because they did not profess solemn vows the congregations born throughout the
nineteenth century grew as new forms of religious life that were distinct from the old monastic
and conventual orders. Their members, not appearing like religious, were given the name of
brothers. Animated by a renewed evangelism (recall how Chaminade repeated that “the Gospel
must be lived in all the force of its letter and spirit”), the new congregations were born with a lay
character with their dedication to teaching and welfare tasks among impoverished social groups;
these tasks were difficult to carry out while respecting enclosure—especially for the woman—
and the ancient practices of fasting and asceticism of monastic life. The members of the new
congregations gathered in small communities—each of which was directed by one of its own,
but not always a priest. At times, they dressed as laymen: this was always the Marianist “habit.”
They were all united under the common governance of a motherhouse where the superior general
resided, who, in the beginning, was the founder of the congregation. Not being canonically
religious, they did not have the liturgy of the hours, chapters, prolonged fasts, or seminaries
where members received priestly formation. But the flexibility of their forms, which allowed
them to perform new social functions, and the profession of simple vows put them in a canonical
vacuum in the law of the Church, which only understood the ancient orders with solemn vows as
religious life. Logically, this situation gave rise to a double imprecision: within the congregation,
it represented a problem of identity for the new religious and their superiors, who were being
asked if these new forms constituted true religious life as it is understood in the tradition of the
Church; in addition there were problems of administration and government that existed due to
the lack of internal organization. Because the new institutes performed apostolic ministries that
involved working in civil institutions like schools, orphanages, workshops, hospitals, etc., these
works and the congregations which did them needed to be recognized by civil laws of the state to
carry out their apostolic tasks. For this, they needed to be given civil statutes. The statutes should
have been very simple, with few articles, which clearly expressed the form of the religious nature
of the new association, its goals, the rights and obligations of its members, duties, powers of the
persons, and system of government. The statutes were presented for approbation by the bishop of
the diocese where the motherhouse was located, the unique religious authority recognized by the
new state in the Concordant of 1801. Endorsed by the bishop, the statutes were presented to the
civil authorities for their approval. The state was approving the new religious institutes because
of their social utility, as their members were dedicated to primary education and welfare. In the
framework of social and legal favor of the Restoration, the Ordinance of 1825 gave legal
recognition to the new female congregations; and later, the male congregations received the same
recognition. But the process of canonical approval would be more complex; it depended upon the
clarification of simple vows as true religious life.
To solve this original lack of definition and the legal vacuum in which the congregations
were born, the congregational movement conducted a so-called conventualization, as the
founders and brothers—and the Church itself—assimilated the new congregations with the
regular life of the ancient orders. By this process, the new institutes were losing the lay character
in which they were born; but it is no less certain that without the improvement of their
institutional organization they could not have practiced the public exercise of their apostolate,
nor could the superiors have arranged the necessary human means for governing the new
institutes.
The process of assimilation of the congregations with the orders was the desire of the
founders who sought the recognition of their new religious bodies with simple vows as true
religious life, of which the ideal was the solemn vows of the ancient orders. Such was the will of
Father Chaminade when he associated himself with Adèle de Trenquelléon and with the
seminarian Lalanne to create two new religious institutes. This is what he wrote to Louis Rothéa
on December 13, 1830, telling him that the editing of the Constitutions was guided “as if they
[the vows] were solemn...in view of the constant intention maintained, of asking Rome for
authentic authorization and the manifestation to the apostolic nuncio that we had delayed making
this request only not to compromise the Holy See with the French Government.”13 And in his
circular of July 22, 1839, he cherished the illusion that “the Sovereign Pontiff is giving us reason
formally to hope that he will later raise the two Orders to the supreme rank of a Canonical
Institution, in such a way that the vows, simple as they still are, will become solemn.”14 “In
reality, however, after the French Revolution the Holy See would grant to no new Institute the
solemn vows.”15 “But that which, in the view of the Founder, as well as the Church, remained
the indispensable constituent of the religious state and the mainstay of its vigor, is the perpetuity
of the vows.”16 Therefore, Chaminade encoded, in the perpetuity of the vows, the honor of
religious profession. This was the solution discovered by both the canonists and the founders of
the new institutes.
The recognition process for the new institutes as religious life with perpetual vows
accelerated when Pius IX, in his desire to return regulars to monastic observance, insisted on the
practice of communal life. And this was the model—observed and standard—of religious life
which attracted members to the new institutes. To ensure the observance of communal life, the
superiors insisted on the uniformity of lifestyle, eating, and clothing, which would become a
habit that separated religious from the laity and would come to regulate, eventually, the same
schedule for all the houses of the institute. Thus, the congregations came to be identified with the
conventual and monastic orders, and the brothers and sisters imitated the forms of life of monks
and nuns (the women took names of saints, abandoning their civil names, and dressed in habits
fashioned after a simplification of the female fashions of the nineteenth century). This was the
model of religious life held by Leo Meyer, founder of the Society of Mary in the United States,
who united the various parts of Alsace. In short, the desire to live a genuine religious life of
consecration to God led to the observance of monastic practices, solidified in a rule, in which
was set down the spiritual and social perfection of the religious institute. Certainly this
regularity, in the form of the organization of the new institutes, assimilated the ideal of religious
life, in all its fullness, which was represented by the orders with solemn vows. But this principle
of uniformity in the rules was closely related to the bourgeoisie values of order and of social
norms in which the new institutes were born. Later, to explain the concept of regularity in the
constitutional arrangement of the Society of Mary, we will discuss the perfect enculturation of
the new religious life in the liberal society of the nineteenth century.
The steps for the canonical cataloguing of the new congregations came slowly, on
account of the legal vacuum in the law of the Church concerning this new form of religious life.
The Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars found themselves without a clear answer to
13
Chaminade, Letters, no. 567 to Rothéa, December 13, 1830; vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 438.
Chaminade, Letters, no. 1153, July 22, 1839; vol. 5, p. 34.
15
Spirit 2, § 473, p. 17.
16
Spirit 2, § 474, p. 18. Concerning the will of Fr. Chaminade to found true religious orders, see Spirit 1, § 19-38,
pp. 30-52, and Spirit 2, § 473-485, pp. 17-28, where there is abundant strong documentation.
14
the many petitions, which came to Rome from all parts of France, for approbation of small
congregations. The only legal innovation came from the bull Inter praeteritos, issued by
Benedict XIV in 1749. In it, the pope recognized the public character of some simple vows,
while reserving to the Holy See the right to define, by means of a positive law, the public
character of such or which vows. The bull was one of the sources of the canons of the Code of
1917 relating to this matter. Another important step for the recognition of simple vows was the
bull of Pius IX, Neminem latet, of March 19, 1857, which recognized the religious character of
simple vows which all members of the monastic and mendicant orders took for two years before
taking solemn vows.
But at the beginning of the nineteenth century, before the immense flowering of
congregations, and the canonical innovations which supported their simple vows, the Holy See
opted to appear flexible when it came to recognizing each one of the new religious institutes
which sought approbation of its work and constitutions. Because the congregational movement
did not fit inside the norms of the current ecclesiastical law, the Sacred Congregation of Bishops
and Regulars adopted a procedure:
1) they issued a decree of praise for the statutes and the new institute seeking approval, in
order to stimulate its members to persevere in their good religious purposes;
2) they confirmed the existence of the new institute—normally when there were at least 100
members, ensuring that the new religious society already had some social visibility, and
the Holy See explicitly approved the institute and encouraged its members to observe
their constitutions; also, they gave some suggestions (animadversions) for the correction
of the constitutions according to Church law;
3) the corrected constitutions had to be lived for a trial period;
4) when the trial period was over, if the institute developed without conflicts, then it
received the final approval of its constitutions.
The procedure described here was not so clear in the minds of the new religious, because it
was developed throughout the nineteenth century. For this reason, it was not uncommon for the
decree of praise to be confused for approval of the institute, or the approval of the institute for
approval of the constitutions. It was difficult to know the legal requirements and necessary
documentation, as well as the authorities and agencies to which those things were to be directed.
As with so many other things of the Church in the nineteenth century, until the pontificate of Leo
XIII, neither were the rights of the religious created nor was the canonical process for the
recognition of new congregations with simple vows clarified. We must not fail to note the
confusion of Marianist religious in these legal steps: Father Chaminade believed the decree of
praise of 1839 supposed the approval of the Institute of Mary; Caillet and de Lagarde did not
understand the procedure for soliciting approbation of the Society in the Vatican Curia. Chevaux
thought the pontifical approbation of the work of the General Chapter of 1868, in which the
Constitutions were revised for approbation by the Holy See, supposed approbation of said
Constitutions. The same problem occurred with the decree from Rome, in 1875, approving the
statutes of the Chapter of 1873, which retained and affirmed the principle of mixed composition.
In the middle of the century the canonical concepts began to be clarified, and it was during
the pontificate of Pius IX that they began to be recorded. The pope, who occupied himself with
the reform of the ancient orders and who encouraged the members to a regular observance, also
was occupied with the orthodox development of the new religious institutes. To this end, he
named Cardinal Bizzarri, as the secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars.
The intelligent Bizzarri took charge of the variety of living conditions in various countries;
refusing to impose unified constitutions on the new congregations, he left each the liberty of
devising their own statutes and contented himself with controlling them by imposing certain
common measures pertaining to the rights of the religious. With this intention, he published a
Methodus in 1854 for the approbation of new female institutes. The Methodus created the figure
of mother superior, who had direct authority over all the houses and members of the institute; she
was an important legal figure because the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars would
then deal solely with her (the supreme authority of the female congregation) on all administrative
and canonical matters, without the interposition of the superior of the male branch or a bishop.
Though the measure reinforced the centralism of the Roman Curia, it freed the consecrated
woman of the guardianship of men; therefore the sisters could organize their own religious
institutes. This is a key canonical piece to understanding the separation between the Daughters of
Mary and the Society of Mary in 1866. The Methodus of 1854 was the sign that the
congregational movement finally had been established, thanks to the multitude of local
foundations at the diocesan level. Therefore, in 1862, Methodus quae a S. Congregatione
Episcoporum et Regularium servatur in approbandis novis institutis votorum simplicium was
published, which, without the force of law, imposed certain common norms on all those
congregations desiring recognition from the Holy See.
The objective, then, was to edit the constitutions for approval by the Holy See, so the new
religious institutes could be recognized as true religious life protected by the law of the Church.
Prior to the editing of the constitutions, the new congregations were given statutes to attain civil
recognition. But much more than the legal approval, the founders were interested in the
approbation of their new institutes by the Holy See as true religious life within the Church. To
this end, they preoccupied themselves with editing constitutions for approval by the Holy See
and, thus, acquiring the rank of institute by pontifical right. The constitutions set out the purpose
of the new institute, the obligations of the simple vows that were professed, the administrative
centrality and uniformity, the method of governance and life in the new religious institute, as
well as the schedule of common life in the house. In the house of a female congregation, it was
necessary to explain with clarity the obligation of the cloister. The Congregation of Bishops and
Regulars passed a decisive step with their decree of August 11, 1889. In this decree the new
religious institutes were recognized as true religious congregations, and it was affirmed that, in
those congregations, religious profession is properly made by means of public vows received by
the superior in the name of the Church. The method for the definitive approbation of the
constitutions was expedited, and the Society of Mary received definitive approbation of its
Constitutions by a decree of the Sacred Congregations on July 10, 1891.
The difference between the Rules of the ancient orders and the Constitutions of the new
congregations should be noted. The Rules were a body of spiritual doctrine which recognized the
foundational evangelical inspiration with the intention of inspiring the evangelical and virtuous
conduct of the monk. On the other hand, the constitutions were, rather, juridical norms or statutes
which regulated the corporate organization which brothers or sisters were given in order to
accomplish an apostolic activity and to live in community. The juridical-normative value of the
constitutions was the reason Father Chaminade was in the habit of referring to both of his
religious foundations with the juridical term “institute”. And for this reason, the constitutions did
not attempt to define the identity or the charismatic inspiration which was to endure in the new
congregation. It is particularly rare that the Marianist Constitutions of 1839 explain, in articles 5
and 6, the Marian-apostolic inspiration which was at the origin of the Society of Mary; this true
again in articles 19 and 20, where Chaminade expresses the spiritual sentiment and the
obligations of Marianist religious profession; and finally, in article 252, which gives the spiritual
motivation for dedication to the Christian education of children. Moreover, the spiritual
exhortations frequently repeated to enumerate the regulated and devotional practices. Father
Simler imitated this style in the Constitutions approved in 1891. Under the form of regularity, the
Constitutions came to be a kind of pedagogy for learning the essence of the spiritual life: the rule
gave a spiritual itinerary, in accordance with an expression coined during this period, “Keeping
the Rule fulfills the Gospel”, by which a good religious came to be a “man of the Rule.”17
Leo XIII gave the formal declaration of the new congregations as true religious life. In his
apostolic constitution Conditae a Christo, issued on December 8, 1900, the pope described the
members of the congregations as religious families and as religious. After a century of searching,
the congregational movement found, in the bosom of the Church, the canonical rank of full
religious life. The term “religious” (i.e. as a member of a congregation) was an acquisition in
canonical language and showed up in the editing of the constitutions since the document from
the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, Normae secundum quas (1901), which provided for
the editing and revision of constitutions. All these innovations were integrated into the Code of
Canon Law, approved by Benedict XV in 1917. The distinction, then, was not between simple or
solemn vows, but public or private vows. The public declaration of simple vows conferred on the
new congregations the value of true religious life. But, to arrive at this end, the new institutes
that had been born by congregations of brothers, without a habit, without dowry in the case of
women, without classes of different religious within the same institution, and living in small
communities in immediate contact with the laity, were submerged in monastic observance. Thus
the process of conventualizing the congregational movement was completed.
We have seen the difficulty of making canonical distinctions between private vows of
seculars, simple public vows made by the brothers of the new congregations, and the solemn
vows of the monks. Until the second decade of the twentieth century, the secular institutes
squandered their heritage, the brothers and sisters of the congregations did not begin to
recuperate the memory of their fraternal and lay origin and to shatter the molds of the monastic
forms of regularity and separation from the world. Thus, the last step of this historical
development came with the Code of Canon Law, approved by John Paul II in 1983. The new
Code says that the name of an institute refers to a congregation, group, community, or society of
consecrated life by the profession of the evangelical counsels, either religious or secular.18 The
principle of the value of religious life does not reside in the type of vows—public or private—
nor in the kind of community life, but rather in the value of the consecration of the individual to
God. Because of this, we can speak of religious life as referring to consecrated life. For this
reason, each religious association with vows can continue to use, in the Church, the
17
The approbation process for a new institute can be found in Cristóbal Robles, Las Hermanas del Ángel de la
guarda. 1839-1890 (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1989), vol. 1, pp. 341 and 345, which follows Claude
Langlois, Le catholicisme au féminin: Les congrégations françaises à supérieure générale au XIXe siècle (Paris:
Cerf, 1984); Eutimio Sastre, El ordenamiento de los Institutos de votos simples según las Normae de la Santa Sede.
1854-1958 (Rome: 1993); and Pierre Zind, Les nouvelles Congrégations des Frères enseignants en France de 1800
à 1830 (Saint-Genis-Laval: 1969), 3 vols.
18
This idea is developed further in Sastre, Ordenamiento; see also, Canons 607 and 710 in the 1983 Code of Canon
Law.
denominations under which they were born: order, congregation, religion, society, family,
fraternity, brotherhood, etc. All these are recognized as consecrated life.
2. Foundation of Two Religious Institutes
Institutional Rebuilding (Recovery) of the Church Under the Restoration
After the fall of Napoleon, the royal party came to power in the spring of 1814, elevating Louis
XVIII, the brother of the last king of France, to the throne. The constitutional letter of June 4,
1814, proclaimed Catholicism to be the religion of the state, admitting 19 bishops and
archbishops to the Chamber of Peers. But incredulity and revolutionary ideas had invaded the
minds and behaviors of the leading classes as well as the urban population, thus the letter had to
respect freedom of conscience and of worship. The restoration of the Bourbons began, thus, a
period of peace which ended revolutionary disturbances, despite the fact that the letter granted
only meager representation to the people on the basis of the census system. But this timid
concession to political participation incorporated the citizens into the process of debate of parties
and opposition, without fear of being imprisoned. Moreover, the new monarchy affirmed
property and money as acquired middle-class values. In short, the bourgeoisie maintained their
goods and their principles, and the royalists could live together with the liberals without political
clashes. With 30 million inhabitants, France was a country with a strongly rural structure of
population, economy, and culture; agriculture and commerce continued to be their source of
wealth.
Religion was maintained by the rural mass and the inhabitants of small cities. This
circumstance, along with the favorable deal which the restoration monarchy made with the
Catholic Church, allowed the Church to prodigiously recover people and institutions. Recovering
from the loss of Church goods and revolutionary persecution, the Church began a spiritual
conquest of French society, and pastoral activity was aimed at saving those on the fringes of
society. This objective was favorably received on account of the disillusionment which many old
revolutionaries experienced living in the wake of the social and moral consequences brought
about by decades of revolution, Napoleonic wars, and the final rout of French armies. Catholic
authorities harbored the false illusion that the favor of the state would enable them to restore a
society that had drifted far away from the Church. They lost this illusion after the revolution of
July 1830. But the criteria and strategies of the clergy and laity for the spiritual reconquest of
French society were not unanimous. Some people remained faithful to monarchist principles and
to Gallican ideas of a united Church and state as the best condition for the public action of the
Church. Soon, it became clear that the religious recovery of the masses would not happen by
virtue of the support of Christian princes. In the end, they realized the Church should not direct
its efforts toward the state, but rather orient itself to the conquest of the rural villages; in a
country where the vast majority of the population lived in such villages, the Church would find a
much better champion in those people. Liberal Catholicism thus situated itself with democratic
convictions and with Hughes Felicité Lamennais as its party leader.
Also, the political theory of traditionalist thinking, which arose at that time, came to
discredit the old ecclesiastical theories of a Gallican Church. It was Joseph de Maistre, in his
work De Pape (1819) and Louis de Bonald who, in the midst of the profound political and social
alterations of the time, recognized in the papacy a unified moral authority with the capacity to
unite the common people. In the end, the Church ought not continue to submit to a state
governed by the principles of naturalist liberalism. In this way, with the conservative reaction of
society and the formation of traditionalist thinking, religion came to be seen as the best method
of social cohesion and for legitimizing all power, which ought to be put at the service of the
Church. The Catholic Church recovered its prestige and was fortified by its unity, in a time
which constituted a religious renaissance in French society between the years of 1820 and 1848.
During the Restoration government, legislation favored the Church: approving Catholic festivals,
authorizing bishops to open ecclesial schools in each department, and not submitting said schools
to inspection by the educational administration (Université) (October 5, 1814).
The diocesan clergy and new forms of religious life gave lavishly of themselves with
portentous profusion by instructing the common people in Catholic truths and in the exercise of a
multitude of charitable works that benefited the elderly, women, children, and the sick. Clergy
and religious life witnessed a multiplication of their numbers. In 1814 the clergy was reduced to
half its size in 1789. There were some 36,000 secular priests, of which only 4 percent were under
age 40. Seminaries were opened (although the rhythm of ordinations did not reach the 5,000 or
6,000 ordination mark, which it had prior to the Revolution). Even so, in 1825, 1,620 new priests
were ordained and in 1830 there were 2,357 ordinations. The new clergy was constituted by men
supported in notable locations; they were stern and ostentatious in their austerity; marked by the
rejection of all novelty, their pastoral goal was to preach and shepherd peasants. These
conditions gave rise to a clergy with a large dose of fanaticism and ignorance, but with an
enormous will for hard work. Enterprising clergy began to construct new parishes, to buy and
reconstruct convents and monasteries to be used as school houses or as communities for the new
congregations; they created parish schools and religious congregations and lay brotherhoods.
As for religious life, there was a portentous proliferation of new forms of associations of
men and women, united by simple vows with a more or less public character, also with very little
internal organization, dedicated to teaching, and to the catechesis and social assistance of the
rural and urban poor. But the new congregations suffered at the hand of the civil authorities on
account of the same fear they had toward the old orders: the new congregations were accused of
being a “dead hand” that accumulated large properties without putting them to use, and their
solemn vows were thought to run contrary to human nature. Therefore, because solemn vows
were not recognized by the Napoleonic Code, the new congregations did not receive legal
recognition from the state during the Restoration. On January 2, 1817, a law which prohibited the
old orders from acquiring goods was promulgated, and in 1824 the Houses rejected a law giving
legal recognition to the new congregations. When this recognition was requested by the female
congregations, the law of May 24, 1825, recognized them and permitted them to receive gifts and
donations. Thanks to this new legal situation, houses of female religious went from 1,829 in
1815 to 2,875 in 1830 (the number of female religious went from 12,400 to 25,000).
In this context of social recovery and of the general expansion of French Catholicism, the
two new religious institutes, the Daughters of Mary and the Society of Mary, were founded. We
have seen how some members of the Marian Sodality of Bordeaux evolved toward deeper forms
of consecration; in this same way and at the same time, Adèle de Trenquelléon encouraged her
cher projet to emerge as a religious congregation. Chaminade, then, joined these two impulses
which led to the foundation of the two Marianist religious congregations; this happened in such a
way that “both are cofounders with full right” of the spiritual movement that is called the
Marianist Family.19
19
This is the perspective of Eduardo Benlloch, Chaminade’s Message Today (Dayton: NACMS, 2001), pp. 67-79;
see also Eduardo Benlloch, En los orígenes de la Familia Marianista: Apuntes de historia marianista desde el
Adèle de Trenquelléon and the Daughters of Mary
The foundation of the Daughters of Mary is of particular interest because it served as an
instigator for Father Chaminade to manifest the desire of other young sodalists with private vows
to constitute a male religious congregation. Chaminade recognized that the desires to found these
two new religious congregations were legitimate developments of his missionary project formed
in exile in Saragossa. At the same time, the foundation of the Daughters of Mary retraces the
steps of the new religious institutes which were rising in France after the Revolution. The new
religious congregations that arose in France offered the most complete form of the nineteenthcentury approach of blending the Church and the political-moral values of liberty—between
Christianity and the town—as the principles that constituted middle-class society. The new
religious sensibility expected religion, as a social tool, to improve the living conditions and the
moral education of the town. At the beginning of the nineteenth century these poor towns were
populated by the mass of illiterate farmers who were usually coarse and submitted to hard work.
To instruct the peasants in religion and to help them improve socially and morally, associations
of youth, desiring to teach, gathered around a zealous priest or pious lay woman. This massive
religious phenomenon could be due to the compassionate approach of the Church toward the
needy as a spiritual experience which has its origins in the recovery of evangelism at the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
Adèle de Trenquelléon had, from a young age, the desire to consecrate herself to God in
religious life. Thus, within her flowered what she called her cher projet; that is to say, to gather
together associates, professing religious vows, sharing a common life, and dedicating themselves
to remedying the physical and moral misery of the rural population. This project was made
manifest because of a retreat, made with other associates, directed by Fathers Larribeau and
Laumont in Lompian, in August of 1813.20
Father Laumont wrote an outline of the constitutions, but he advised Adèle to seek the aid of
Father Chaminade, in whom Adèle had full confidence. After opening her heart to the director of
the Sodality, he writes in a letter of August 30, 1814:
My dear Child, you desire your group to be established as a religious community. I will
reveal several things to you in strict confidence:
1.
Last year, when I expressed a strong desire to see you, it was especially for the
purpose of acquainting you with a project which, although not altogether the same,
nacimiento hasta la muerte del beato Chaminade (Madrid: Publicaciones Marianistas, 2001), pp. 152-81. The
novelty of this proposition can be seen by comparing it to the thesis of the foundation in the first biography of Father
Chaminade, Simler, Chaminade, in which both foundations as primary intentions of Chaminade, when it is better to
consider the religious foundations in a historical sense as part of his project to re-Christianize France; concerning
priests and religious life, see Bertier de Sauvigny, The Restoration, pp. 305-13.
20
The letters of Adèle de Trenquelléon to her friends in the Association in which she communicated to them her
“cher projet” are: no. 78, Apr. 22, 1807, to Agathe Diché; no. 233, June 15, 1814, to Amélie de Rissan; no. 234,
June 15, 1814, to Agathe Diché; no. 241, July 20, 1814, to Agathe Diché; no. 242, July 20, 1814, to Amélie de
Rissan. For a study of the process of creating a religious congregation, see Joseph Verrier, SM, Jalons (Dayton:
NACMS, 2001), vol. 2, pp. 244-55 and 416-543; see also María Teresa Castro, “La fundación de las Hijas de María
Inmaculada (F.M.I.). Una muchacha llamada Adela,” in RMI, no. 2 (Oct. 1984), pp. 7-20; Rosario Rojo, “La
gestación de un proyecto entreñable,” in RMI, no. 3 (Apr. 1985), pp. 7-18; Idem, “La organización de un grupo
generoso,” in RMI, no. 4 (Oct. 1985), pp. 7-21.
greatly resembles it nevertheless. Some years ago already we started to carry it out.
Several young ladies live like religious, take vows, wear a religious habit under their
ordinary clothes, etc.... In the meantime let us continually request the light of the
Holy Spirit, that we may do only what God wills.21
On October 8, in a second letter, Chaminade wrote:
Several sodalists of each branch of the Sodality, though still living in the world, would
constitute a little religious society. Men and women officers to run the Sodality would
always be found in these societies. A number of these religious men, as well as women,
have desired to live together. There was every advantage in this. Right now several would
like to live a regular community life, abandoning all temporal concerns. This inspiration
ought to be acted upon, yet care must be taken that it does not essentially change the
work of the Sodality, but that it rather helps it along.22
Adèle de Trenquelléon enthusiastically received the new apostolic-missionary orientation
that the director of the Sodality desired for the religious institute which she wanted to found: to
be religious sodalists, meeting in a regular-but-authentical missionary community.23 But outside
circumstances delayed the project: the illness of the Baron de Trenquelléon, for whom Adèle
must care, the work of Chaminade, and the return of Napoleon during the Hundred Days. June
18, 1815, the same day as the Battle of Waterloo, the Baron de Trenquelléon dies, and Adèle is
free to execute her cher projet. Toward the summer of 1815, she begins to arrange things. On
September 7, Father Chaminade writes her to announce that he is editing the Constitutions; for
this, he intends to consult Societatis Cordis Jesu specimen, a pamphlet printed in 1792, perhaps
written by Father Clorivière (1735-1820), who had worked to form religious and religious living
in the world prior to the restoration of the Society of Jesus in France.24
Bishop Jacoupy did not want the new foundation to be in Bordeaux because he wanted
this new congregation to be in his own diocese. He pressured them and found a place for them in
Agen, the former convent of the Refuge. Chaminade accepted the decision and communicated it
in the following letter of September 11, in which he gives the name of the new foundation,
recommending to them: “Renew the act of consecration to the Blessed Virgin daily, all of you.
So you are going to be Daughters of Mary and publicly appear to be such.”25 Finally, in the
following letter of October 3, he sets forth the nature and goals of the future foundation:
You would like to have a general notion of what your little Order ought to be. Quite
right!...
21
Chaminade, Letters, no. 51 to Adèle, Aug. 30, 1814; vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 130.
Chaminade, Letters, no. 52 to Adèle, Oct. 8, 1814; vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 132.
23
See Adèle, Letters, no. 250 to Agathe, Oct. 13, 1814; vol. 1, pp. 256-57.
24
See Chaminade, Letters, no. 55 to Adèle, Sept. 7, 1815; vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 136-39; concerning the influence of Fr.
Clorivière on Fr. Chaminade and Adèle, see Jean Baptiste Armbruster, L’État Religieux Marianiste (Paris:
Marianistes, 1989), pp. 383-85.
25
Chaminade, Letters, no. 56 to Adèle, Sept. 11, 1815; vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 140.
22
You will really be religious because you will make the vows that are called vows of
religion, and you will have to practice the virtues which inspired you to make them and
which ought to be their mainstay. Mary, the august Mother of Jesus, must be your model,
as she is your patroness....
As to what in particular is to distinguish you from the other Orders, it is zeal for the
salvation of souls. The principles of religion and of virtue must be made known;
Christians must be multiplied. You will definitely not have to teach children nor visit and
care for the sick or conduct a boarding establishment. Leave such works, however
excellent they may be, to other groups older than you—but what are we to do, then?—
you will have to instruct in religion and train in the practice of virtue young ladies of
every state and condition in life; to make of them true sodalists.... Your community will
be composed entirely of missionary religious.26
Although Chaminade wrote that they would not have to teach children, Bishop Jacuopy
required them to teach classes for the poor girls because the population of Agen needed them.
Adèle communicated the requirement of the bishop to Chaminade, who responded on December
6 and shared the news that David Monier had just finished editing the constitutions, which were
then called the Grand Institut. He said, “As for the teaching of the children, you can promise it. I
was misinformed about the population of Agen and about to the help of this nature that the city
could give.”27
At the beginning of January 1816 the foundation seemed imminent but some of the future
sisters were conflicted. Finally, on May 22, 1816, the first future religious arrived at the chȃteau
Trenquelléon: Clémentine Yannasch (22 years old), Jeanne Lion (58 years old), and Marie
Thérèse Treille (only 17 years old). On May 25, they made the trip to Agen. Waiting for them in
the Refuge was Francisca Arnaudel and Madam Belloc, along with other friends and sodalists.
The following day, Mlle de Lamourous arrived in the morning, having been sent by Father
Chaminade to help organize the life of the community. In the afternoon they visited the bishop.
Bishop Jacoupy returned the visit on the following day and named Father Mouran (rector of the
seminary) as their confessor. Thus, May 25, 1816, is considered the foundation date of the
Daughters of Mary. (They added “Immaculate” later.)
It was very important to maintain a good relationship with the bishop in whose diocese the
new community was opened, as he represented the only ecclesial authority through which all
religious institutions could receive the legal protection of the state. This was due to the fact that
the liberals in power were not interested in reforming monastic life as the princes of the ancien
régime had done, relying on the principles of Gallicanism; as the liberals did not believe that the
monks and friars contributed to the public good. This is why neither the Concordat of 1801 nor
the Napoleonic Code alluded to the monastic life. In its relations with the Church, the new liberal
governments only signed concordats that served to legitimize their efforts to disentangle
themselves from the Church and to place the entire life of the Church under the immediate
control of the bishops, in whose appointment the government intervened. It was through the
bishops that the liberals dominated the Church in France until the separation of Church and state
in 1905. The government authorized a new congregation under the authority of a diocesan
bishop, and this was key to the multiplication of the new religious institutes of the nineteenth
26
27
Chaminade, Letters, no. 57 to Adèle, Oct. 3, 1815; vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 141.
Chaminade, Letters, no. 59 to Adèle, Dec. 6, 1815; vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 144.
century; they enjoyed the protection of the episcopate because the bishops saw in the
congregations an important apostolic labor which could revitalize Christian life in their dioceses.
In short, without the approval of the bishop, the houses and works of a new congregation did not
receive the legal benefits from civil authorities; because the bishop was the only ecclesial
authority recognized by the Concordat, he also was the way the new congregation received the
recognition of the Holy See, because in Rome the congregational movement was still a littleknown reality. This is one reason why Chaminade and his successors in the position of Superior
General endeavored to maintain good relations with the bishops in whose dioceses the Society of
Mary and Daughters of Mary maintained houses. One cannot underestimate the ultramontane
sense (which was still very alive), which holds that ecclesiastic communion is carried out in
obedience to the pope and to the bishops, that the Church does not form part of the state. It was
in this legal and ecclesial framework that the lawsuits and negotiations of Father Chaminade and
the Daughters of Mary with Bishop Jacoupy unfolded.
In the beginning, a quarrel arose between Bishop Jacoupy and Father Chaminade concerning
the canonical nature of the vows that the new religious would profess; it is also a question which
was of maximum importance in defining the character of the new form of religious life being
born in the nineteenth century. According to civil law, beginning in 1790 the liberal State refused
to recognize the legal value of the solemn vows of the ancient monastic orders. Consequently,
the Holy See did not grant solemn vows to the religious institutes founded after the Revolution,
which became religious congregations with simple vows. These vows lacked civil value and did
not fix (establish), in a stable manner, a definitive religious congregation. (As we will see later, it
will be necessary to wait for the government of the Restoration and subsequent canonical
legislation for the simple vows to be recognized by the state and the Church.) But simple vows
could be either temporary or perpetual. Temporary vows were recognized by the local bishop,
and perpetual vows, after the papal bull Inter Praeteritos (issued by Benedict XIV in 1749), were
authorized publically by the state and the Holy See, but they necessitated enclosure for female
congregations. Given that canon law only considered as true religious those who had taken
solemn vows, Chaminade thought the new religious should at least make perpetual vows,
because their intention was to be true religious and not a kind of pious association of lay women,
with rank of diocesan right. But Bishop Jacoupy did not want them to take perpetual vows
because they would be obliged to be cloistered, impeding their ability to perform apostolic work
outside the house. Also, with temporary simple vows, he could recognize the new congregation
in his diocese while the approval of the civil authorities and of the Holy See were obtained.
Chaminade, then, asked to consult the archbishop of Bordeaux, Archbishop d’Aviau, and he
advised waiting for an agreement between the French government and the Holy See.28
In the meantime, the new religious, with the aid of the ladies of the Bordeaux Sodality and
those involved in Adèle’s little Association, took charge of the youths to whom classes were to
be taught; they began an adolescent group of the Sodality; they prepared girls for their first
community and taught catechesis to women over the age of 30. Chaminade arrived from
28
Concerning Chaminade’s position on the vow of enclosure, see Chaminade, Letters, no. 68 to Adèle, June 1,
1816; vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 157-58, and no. 69 to d’Aviau, June 3, 1816; vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 159-60 (as well as the
archbishop’s response, pp. 161-62), and no. 73 to Adèle, Sept. 6, 1816; vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 175-77; see further
explanation in Franca Zonta, After Adèle (Dayton: NACMS, 2002), pp. 135-36 and Benlloch, En los orígenes, pp.
175-77; concerning the origin of simple vows from the Council of Trent, see Álvarez, Historia, vol. 1, pp. 387-93;
and concerning the canonical recognition of simple vows as true religious life, see Eutimio Sastre, ordenamiento,
manuscript, cited by Cristóbal Robles, Las Hermanas del Ángel de la guarda (Madrid: Centros de Estudios
Históricos, 1989 to 2002), 3 vols.
Bordeaux on June 8 to supervise the conditions of the new foundation. He spent 15 days
instructing them on the Constitutions (Grand Institut); he examined their vocations and installed
Adèle as the superior with the name of Marie de la Conception; he met with Bishop Jacoupy to
discuss the vows, enclosure, and their habit, and responded to the prefect reporting the new
foundation to him, and he assured the prefect that he himself would negotiate the procedures for
civil approval. Upon his return to Bordeaux, Chaminade found the solution to the problem of the
vow of cloister, which retained the explicit vow, but he left open the possibility of dispensation
provided that it was necessary for exterior works, with the permission of the superior. That is to
say, the vow of cloister was submitted to that of obedience.
Then, they began to incorporate new candidates, among them Marie-Rosalie Lhuillier, the
first Bordeaux sodalist who became a Daughter of Mary. This sister was an educated women
who had been a private tutor for a young noble lady; with her a free school was opened on
November 10, 1816. The sisters also gave retreats to ladies, continuing the custom of the
Sodality of Chaminade. They solved the canonical problems progressively. On Christmas day
1816, Bishop Jacoupy gave them permission to wear their habit indefinitely, and in the summer
of 1817 he did not oppose perpetual vows provided that they were not public and that they did
not require any written approval on his part. In this manner, in the privacy of the confessional,
the Mother Superior, Marie de la Conception, and eight sisters made perpetual vows on July 25,
1817: Marie-Madeleine-Cornier de Labastide, Clémentine Yannasch, Pauline Yannasch, Jeanne
Lion, Agathe Diché, Marie-Rosalie Lhuillier, Catherine-Isabelle Moncet, and Françoise
Arnaudel. The Daughters of Mary finally had been founded.
Foundation of the Society of Mary
Adèle de Trenquelléon and a group of her friends, assisted by Father Chaminade, had just
founded a new religious institute with simple vows and a regular community life. Chaminade
understood this as a sign of Providence. There were male sodalists who had professed private
vows living like religious in the midst of their professions who were called the Company of the
15, and they followed a rule of life. Jean Baptiste Philip August Lalanne, age 22, was a sodalist
in this Company. Jean Baptiste Lalanne was born in Bordeaux on October 7, 1795; his father was
commander of the National Guard during the Revolution and then he became the administrator
of the hospital of Bordeaux; he was a good Christian and a friend of Father Chaminade. The
young Lalanne was also very well known by Chaminade because in 1807, at 12 years old, he was
incorporated into the Sodality as a postulant.29 He was quickly characterized by his apostolic
zeal, and at the age of 16 he made the promise of the sodalists. During the suppression of the
Sodality, and the rise of groups of sodalists with private vows, Lalanne was one of them. Upon
finishing his studies at the Lyceum of Bordeaux, in 1812 he began to study medicine and went to
Paris in 1814, taking courses at the Collège de France to perfect his skills and competency.
While he was in Paris, he lodged in the house of education of Father Liautard, on the Rue NotreDame des Champs, a kind of lyceum and university school (one of the most prestigious in Paris);
he completed his studies in 1814-15. But his father, sick and decrepit, died on June 23, 1812.
29
Concerning Lalanne, see Verrier, Jalons, vol. 2, pp. 180-83 and 576-77; see also the biography of Lalanne, Pierre
Humbertclaude, A Christian Educator of Youth in the Ninteenth Century: Father Jean Baptiste Lalanne (San
Antonio: Burke Publishing, 2000); see also the autobiographical notice of Lalanne, Notice historique sur la Société
de Marie de la Congrégation de Bordeaux, published by Ambrogio Albano, ed., Jean Philippe Auguste Lalanne.
Notice Historique sur la Société de Marie de la Congrégation de Bordeaux (Rome: AGMAR, 1996), p. 15.
AGMAR 17.8.1-4.
Without economic resources, Lalanne returned to Bordeaux and suspended his career in
medicine. To earn a living and support his mother, he took a job teaching in the autumn of 1815
in the boarding school of M. Estebenet (a sodalist); two other sodalists taught there as well: M.
Jean Baptiste Collineau and M. Auguste Brougnon-Perrière. Lalanne was the prefect of
discipline and a professor; the following year he was director of studies. Extraordinarily
intelligent, he, along with the naturalist Laterrade, participated in the foundation of the Linneana
Society of Bordeaux. In Paris he was attracted to the priesthood and in February 1816 he took the
cassock and began his theological studies, but he also felt the desire to become a Jesuit. He
debated this question, and sought counsel in the spiritual guidance of Father Chaminade, until,
according to Lalanne’s own testimony, between the end of April and the first of May 1817 he
presented himself before Chaminade confessing: “he had decided to abandon his previous intent
of joining the Society of Jesus. Following his first steps in that direction, he had come to realize
that was not where God was calling him to be. Rather, he thought he was called to a kind of life
and work similar to the very life and work of the director of the Sodality.”30 In the Marianist
tradition, there is the conviction that Chaminade referred to this encounter as a “highly
memorable day,” the above-mentioned date of May 1 is deduced from a letter written May 6,
1833, to Father Lalanne.
As the letter relates, Father Chaminade was touched by Lalanne opening his soul to him,
and Chaminade could not contain his tears when he exclaimed happily: “This is what I have been
awaiting for a long time. May God be praised! His will is clear. The moment has come to put
into execution the plan that I have been pursuing since he inspired me with it 30 years ago.”31
Then, Father Chaminade explained that religious life is to Christianity what Christianity is to
humanity. Without religious, the Gospel would not be completely fulfilled in human life.
Therefore, the restoration of Catholicism would not be complete in France until the religious
orders were reestablished; thus, only in religious profession is Christian virtue practiced in its
entirety. Thinking in this way, subsequently, Chaminade proposed new forms of religious life to
his disciple, new forms shaped by the legal and political realities of the Church in France, whose
Concordat with the state did not recognize the existence of the ancient orders, because solemn
vows had been suppressed since the Revolution. In its place, Chaminade envisioned a
congregation of brothers with simple vows, without habit or civil recognition, until the situation
changed, thus “nova bella elegit Dominus.” It would be a society placed under the protection of
Mary Immaculate, to whom her Divine Son has reserved the final victory over hell. That is to
say, true religious life, but under the appearance of the congregations with a secular origin.
Chaminade finished by saying, with uncommon enthusiasm, “Let us, my son, in our humility, be
the heel of the woman.”32
Lalanne left, touched by the meeting. At the first possible moment, he recounted what
had happened to his friend and coworker Jean Baptiste Collineau, also a sodalist. And he too
wanted to join in this work. For his part, August Brougnon-Perrière heard the news as well and
30
See Lalanne’s autobiographical notice, Notice historique sur la Société de Marie (cited above), p. 16, and the
commentary in Verrier, Jalons, vol. 2, pp. 576-77 and in Ambrogio Albano, ed., Écrits et Paroles (Rome: Piemme,
1996), vol. 5, pp. 347-48; concerning the process of founding the Society of Mary from May 1, 1817 to Nov. 5,
1818, see Verrier, Jalons, vol. 2, p. 572-635, where the pertinent documents and texts are cited.
31
Verrier, Jalons, vol. 2, p. 576.
32
“The fact is clear, the date is not.” Verrier, Jalons, vol. 3, p. 417, note 16; this interview is shrouded in
imprecision; first the date, but above all the terms discussed and what Chaminade meant by his words; for a
discussion of this see Benlloch, Message, pp. 12-13, 29-33, and 80-82, and Verrier, Jalons, vol. 3, pp. 417-18, note
18.
declared that he wanted to dedicate himself to the same religious endeavor. M. Perrière was born
in Bordeaux in 1790. He came from the Marian Sodality, in which he had been received on
October 2, 1808. Being 27 years old, he had received a good education at the school of M.
Estebenet, where he had done the traditional studies; gifted with a practical sense, he had a
patrimony from his family and modest economic resources. In turn, Jean Baptiste Collineau was
born into a well-to-do family in Bordeaux on May 26, 1796. He studied at the school of M.
Estebenet also and was now a teacher there. Directed toward the priesthood, he possessed
brilliant oratorical gifts. From the moment Father Chaminade began to propose this new work, as
many as knew of it and could freely offer themselves did so. Two young 28-year-old merchants
were accepted immediately: from Bordeaux, Louis (or Bruno) Daguzan; and the younger Clouzet
brother, Dominique, who had been a sodalist since 1814.
These five men asked Father Chaminade to preach a retreat of reflection and discernment
at his farm of St. Laurent at the end of September. This retreat and the retreat a year later, which
ended on September 5, 1818, at which temporary and perpetual vows were made, constituted the
charismatic event of the founding of the Society of Mary. This event gathers all the spiritual
elements consistent with the evangelical awakening of the congregational movement: a lay
tendency given by the origin and professions of its members, by the way of life lived amidst the
social milieu without enclosure or habit; they experienced the aforementioned evangelical
fraternity relating as equals, even with diverse social origins and ecclesial states; but they had a
deep sense of consecration to God because of their profession of perpetual and temporary vows,
with the desire to constitute a true religious institute. Thus, during the retreat at St. Laurent,
Chaminade preached to these young men about their vocation to the religious state in the Order
of Mary.33 Chaminade explained they would constitute a religious institute dedicated to the
Virgin Mary: “You have chosen Mary, the Queen, as your Mother; Mary has chosen you as her
special family. This strict and particular alliance with the Most Holy Virgin is one of the
particular characters of the Institute.”34 And he concluded by explaining to them the obligations
imposed by Mary for her children and the obligations of her religious toward their Mother:
“What are our obligations? To honor her in every way we can: by extending her cult, persuading
everyone to have confidence in her, and expressing devotion to her.... On the other hand, what is
Mary’s commitment? To protect us, to listen to us, to cherish us, as a mother loves her dearest
children.”35
On the final day of the retreat, October 2, 1817, the Feast of the Guardian Angels, they
declared their firm resolution to embrace the religious life in the new Institute they proposed to
found; and they put themselves at the disposal of Father William Joseph Chaminade. They
agreed then to meet every week; the fruit of these meetings was the agreement of the basic
principles of the new Institute, which can be summarized in five points:
1) it will be a true religious body with all the fervor of the early days of Christianity; 2) it
will be mixed, that is to say, formed by priests and lay men; 3) its main work will be the
33
This is recounted in Albano, Écrits, vol. 5, pp. 349-54 (notes of Chaminade) and 355-60 (notes of Lalanne); also
in Leo Pauels, Notas de Retiros predicados por G. José Chaminade (Madrid: Ediciones SM, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 65-68
(Chaminade) and 69-74 (Lalanne); the succession of events of the foundational year are found in Verrier, Jalons,
vol. 2, pp. 572-635; those are summarized in Benlloch, En los orígenes, pp. 186-192.
34
Albano, Écrits et Paroles, vol. 5, p. 358, doc. 20 “Retraite de 1817. Notes de M. Lalanne.”
35
Ibid.
education of middle-class youth, missions, retreats, and the foundation and direction of
Sodalities; 4) for the moment, it would not reveal itself without taking precautions
imposed by the circumstances; 5) above all, it would be under the protection of the Most
Holy Virgin, as her property.36
Upon returning to Bordeaux after the retreat at St. Laurent, Jean Baptiste Bidon and
Antoine Cantau, two sodalists who also were coopers, were incorporated into the group. With the
addition of these two, the initial group was enlarged to seven members: Lalanne and Collineau
were studying theology as seminarians; the other five were laymen, of whom Auguste BrougnonPerrière, Clouzet, and Daguzan were men who had completed studies, and Bidon and Cantau
were workingmen. This was an ecclesial and social composition that would reflect the future
configuration of mixed composition in the Society of Mary. The editing of a provisional Rule
was entrusted to Lalanne; it was extracted from the Rule for the sodalists living the State of
religion in the world, and they adopted it on November 13, 1817. In the Rule they agreed to take
temporary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, with the modifications required by the
diverse family and professional situations of each one; they promised to receive communion
weekly and to practice meditation and a daily examination of conscience in common.
But after a few meetings at St. Laurent, they agreed that Auguste Brougnon-Perrière
should find a house where those who could free themselves from personal commitments could
begin meeting immediately. In fact, Brougnon-Perrière found a small house at no. 14 Rue Ségur.
They rented it on November 24, 1817, and blessed it the following day when Auguste BrougnonPerrière moved in. The others would move into the community as soon as their professional and
familial commitments permitted it; in the meantime, they used the house—which they called
Nazareth—as a meeting place on Wednesday and Friday to make a common meditation.
Immediately, Father Chaminade began to organize the growing community; he named Auguste
Perrière superior; Jean Baptiste Lalanne (who, although not having received Holy Orders was
unique in wearing the long habit) was established as spiritual director and was made responsible
for editing the Rule and the forms of prayers; Collineau was named Head of Instruction, and
Cantau Work Leader. The group of founders persevered in their will to constitute a new religious
Institute: the following December 11, Feast of the Octave of the Immaculate Conception, in the
sacristy of the Madeleine, they pronounced the first temporary vows into the hands of Father
Chaminade; these vows were valid until the Annunciation, March 25, of the following year. Each
of them continued, nevertheless, to exercise his civil works as he had previously, maintaining the
weekly meetings. At each step, Father Chaminade kept Bishop Jacoupy of Agen and Archbishop
d’Aviau of Bordeaux promptly informed; thus, he acted in accord with another of the form
characteristics of the congregational movement, thanks to the legal protection of the
episcopate—the unique ecclesiastical authority recognized by the Concordat—the new religious
Institute was born and prospered.
In this way, Clouzet joined at the beginning of January 1818; Daguzan was incorporated
halfway through Lent; at Pentecost, Lalanne; and in the middle of August, Collineau came
accompanied by Bernard Laugeay, a 22-year-old sodalist with the desire to begin a vocational
discernment. Also, the two workers, Bidon and Cantau, were incorporated. Everyone in the
36
This can be found in AGMAR 17.1.1, p. 7 and AGMAR 17.7.1, p. 1. AGMAR 17.7.1 is a bound notebook that
Boby wrote in tête-bêche style (i.e., written both front to back and back to front); the page referred to is the first
page of the back to front text.
group wanted Chaminade to live with them, but he declined their offer, above all because he had
to attend to his many works in the Sodality, help the religious Daughters of Mary in Agen, as
well as Mlle de Lamourous at the Miséricorde. But he did preside at the weekly councils held by
the nascent community.
Chaminade advanced with caution. He feared the political situation, and only at the
beginning of January 1818 did he communicate the formation of the new religious community to
Bishop Jacoupy; and even in the month of May it has not been revealed to Mother Marie de la
Conception, who wrote her friend Lolotte de Lachapelle on June 2, 1818:
Did I tell you that our Good Father [Chaminade] set up in Bordeaux, with the
authorization of the archbishop, a small community of male religious of our order? They
are few as of now, but they are very edifying. They call themselves the “Society of
Mary.” Mention this to no one as yet; it is a secret. They dress like the seculars, and the
world is unaware that they are religious. These days, an order of men must face many
more hardships than an order of women.37
Chaminade was very interested in providing them with Constitutions as soon as possible.
He entrusted the task to his secretary, David Monier, who, at that time, also was interested in
entering the growing religious Institute. Chaminade entrusted the provisional editing to him, a
summary adapted from the Petit Institut of the Daughters of Mary. Chaminade sent the text to
Archbishop d’Aviau on August 27, 1818, for examination and provisional approval; thus at the
end of the month, a retreat began and at the close of which the first male Marianist religious
would profess the vows of religion.38
In fact, the retreat was prepared very carefully and was held between Monday, August 31
and Saturday, September 5 on the property of Father Chaminade, St. Laurent. Sixteen people
attended the retreat including the preacher.39 They were Jean Baptiste Lalanne, Auguste
Brougnon-Perrière, Louis Daguzan, Antoine Cantau, and Jean Baptiste Bidon, who made
perpetual vows because they already had made temporary vows; and Jean Baptiste Collineau and
Dominique Clouzet who made triennial vows; and David Monier, who offered himself for life
(though he did not profess final vows until October 22, 1821); and Joseph Mouran and Pierre
Laumont, two priests from Agen who were received as affiliates of the growing Society of Mary;
Bernard Laugeay, Jean Armenaud, Jean Neuvielle, and Pierre Bousquet, young sodalists invited
as postulants of the Society; and Léon Lapause, a banker and friend who helped the Society
economically. Without any comforts, the men lived in a climate of intense spiritual fervor for six
days. “So it was that the Society of Mary was born, without much to-do and with no great
publicity. It took birth in a supernatural atmosphere of faith, generosity, and Marian devotedness.
37
Adèle, Letters, no. 327 to de Lachapelle, June 2, 1818; vol. 2, p. 27.
Concerning the Institute of Mary, see Jean-Claude Delas, History of the Constitutions of the Society of Mary
(Dayton: MRC, 1975), pp. 30-33; Verrier, Jalons, vol. 3, pp. 99-104; see Albano, Écrits, vol. 5, pp. 487-99;
concerning the Grand Institut and the Petit Institut of the Daughters of Mary, see ibid., pp. 69-82 and 101-89.
39
See the meticulous study by Verrier, Jalons, vol. 2, pp. 587-635; see also the notes of the participants, Lalanne,
Collineau, and the conferences on initiation into religious life in Albano, Écrits, vol. 5, pp. 439-87. (The notes of
Lalanne and Collineau can be found in Pauels, Notas de Retiros, vol. 1, pp. 75-127).
38
It was a Saturday like any other, that September 5, 1818.”40 That same day, Father Chaminade
sent a letter to Archbishop d’Aviau to tell him: “Today we are bringing our private retreat to a
close. Sixteen persons made it. If the good spirit that animates our retreatants lasts, they all can
be considered founders of the Institute of Mary. All seem entirely devoted to its support for life,
although all are not bound by vows. We would have much desired your blessings.”41 They
received that blessing the next day, Sunday, during an audience with Archbishop d’Aviau in his
palace.
Marian Identity of the Marianist Life and Mission
The Society of Mary, like all the apostolic works of Father Chaminade, has, from its origin,
possessed a clear Marian identity, which can be found in the life and mission of the Institute.
This mystical dimension clearly is expressed in the formula for perpetual vows made by the first
five religious on September 5, 1818. In the formula, written by Father Chaminade, the new
religious vowed chastity, poverty, obedience, stability, and the teaching of Christian norms and
the Catholic faith.42 Chaminade understood the vow of stability to express, at the same time, the
nature of the new Institute as true religious life in the Church and the Marian inspiration of the
foundational charism.
In the exercises preached by Chaminade in October of 1819 to the Marianist religious,
while presenting the characteristics of the new Institute, he affirmed that the “religious state is a
divine institution,” and “it is a very intimate alliance with God”; in “the Institute of Mary, a true
religious state…to this intimate alliance with God is added the most intimate alliance with
Mary.” The vow of stability did not add, then, new theological content to this consecration; by it,
the one professing is obliged to persevere in this religious Institute and to remain loyally
submitted to the Superior General and the works of the Institute; for that reason, the vow of
stability was made in the final profession as in the temporary profession. Chaminade added this
vow to the three vows of religion, while waiting to obtain solemn vows for the Society, because
solemn vows were not recognized by civil law, and thus they were not authorized by Rome for
the new religious institutes. But in its spiritual meaning, the vow of stability filled the same
purpose as solemn vows: a declaration of intention to persevere in this Society and to work at its
mission under the protection and in the service of the Virgin Mary, by being a radical religious
congregation essentially Marian. For this, Chaminade affirmed in the exercises of 1819 that “The
goal of the Institute of Mary [is] to strive for personal perfection and the salvation of
others...under the protection of the Holy Virgin.... This goal will only be reached by the special
protection of the Holy Virgin.” In a concise way, he summarizes this in the exercises preached in
October 1821 at St. Laurent: “The vow of stability is made only for the glory of Mary; this is
why the vow is made: to be for Mary, throughout our entire lives, in an irrevocable way.”43
40
Verrier, Jalons, vol. 2, p. 632. In a strict canonical sense, they could not be called “religious,” because by the
profession of simple vows they were only “brothers” of a religious association; in the history of France, they were
known as congréganistes; nevertheless, in this history they will be called “brothers” and “religious” without
distinction.
41
Chaminade, Letters, no. 103 to d’Aviau, Sept. 5, 1818; vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 251.
42
This was the formula of profession from Jean Baptiste Lalanne, made into the hands of Father Chaminade,
Missionary Apostolic and Superior of the Institute of Mary, with the approbation of the bishop, cf. Albano, Écrits,
vol. 5, pp. 499-500.
43
See the study concerning the vow of stability by Joseph Verrier, “L’État religieux marianiste,” in RMI, no. 12.3
(Oct. 1991), pp. 77-82; Idem, “Stabilité marianiste,” in Ambrogio Albano, ed., Commentary on the Rule of Life of
the Society of Mary (Dayton: NACMS, 1994), pp. 740-53; Armbruster, L’État, pp. 325-37; the retreat of Oct. 14-22,
Thus the Marian charismatic inspiration transmitted to the Society of Mary a sense of
Chaminade’s missionary project to fight the religious indifference of modernity. In the
eighteenth meditation of the exercises of the October 1821 retreat for Marianist religious, the
idea was expressed thus: “What is the spirit of the Institute of Mary?” the preacher was asked,
and he responded:
We are firmly convinced that God himself stirred up the establishment of the Institute of
Mary; but if we consider the times in which it was established and what goal this suggests
to us, we discover very extensive views. Let us take a look at our century. Great God!
What hideous shadows, what horrifying depravation, what desolate indifference for
salvation! In previous centuries corruption was in the heart alone, but now the spirit and
the heart are gangrene, and the sickness of the spirit is incomparably more dangerous and
more incurable than that of the heart.
It is in this state of affairs, in these times of desolation, when the generation just being
born—along with generations to come—is in danger of being devoured by irreligion and
impiety, that God has founded the Institute of Mary..... The spirit of the Institute is the
spirit of Mary; this explains everything. If you are children of Mary, imitate Mary. 44
3. Devotion to Teaching in the Society of Mary
The foundation of the new religious institute required, with great urgency, a decision concerning
what type of social action the institute should engage through its apostolic works as an
expression of its missionary charism. The organization of the everyday life of the community,
the formation of the religious and the financial sources to maintain the works depended upon this
decision, as well as obtaining the necessary legal recognition by the civil authorities to be able to
legally exercise the apostolic mission. The canonical approval of the new religious Institute also
was needed. It is certain that the congregations were not the only social forces acting for the
moral and material improvement of society; there also were private initiatives, from other
Christian denominations or not, arising everywhere in the countryside, for teaching as well as
health needs. Instruction and health came to be the objects of a great debate in French society. In
the nineteenth century the first attempts at hygiene and health flourished, from pedagogy and
instruction. Even the state participated in these matters via legislation. In this way, the
educational orientation of the Society and the development of its first schools, at the same time
that the new religious were being incorporated into the great national debate on teaching,
conditioned the development of the other constituent dimensions of the new religious Institute.
Though, the final result was that the physiognomy of Marianist religious came to be identified
with that of religious education.
It ought to be noted that by dedicating themselves to teaching—mainly in the municipal
grade schools—the Marianist brothers participated in the effort of French Catholicism to
moralize, instruct, and re-Christianize the great mass of impoverished people in the countryside,
1819, is cited in Albano, Écrits, vol. 5, pp. 529 and 536; and the retreat of Oct. 15, 1821, is cited in Pauels, Notas de
Retiros, vol. 1, p. 313.
44
Albano, Écrits et Paroles, vol. 6, p. 146, doc. 19. Also Pauels, Notas de retiros, vol. 1, p. 261.
thereby integrating them in the new political-cultural context of the new liberal society. This was
the great contribution of the congregational movement which arose in the nineteenth century and
by which the new religious practiced a Catholicism of works, in the evangelical form of charity.
In light of modern thought, these works gave credibility to the Catholic faith and to the Church
by their social utility. In this way, the Society of Mary’s beginnings in the apostolate of
education provided an insertion into the modern bourgeoisie culture, while providing a socially
institutionalized environment through which to spread, with great effect, the Catholic faith to the
new generations.
Insertion of Teaching in the Missionary Project of Father Chaminade
In a strict sense, the Society of Mary is not an educational congregation; but it, like the assembly
of apostolic works that stirred up the missionary project of Father William Joseph Chaminade,
was created to announce and to maintain the Catholic faith in order to counteract the new social
phenomenon of the massive loss of religion, within the cultural framework of Modernity; but this
mission could be exercised in all kinds of ways and tasks.
In fact, at the beginning of the foundation, Father Chaminade thought the best way to
spread knowledge and the practice of Catholic doctrine and morale in a society threatened by
secularization was for the religious to support the work of the Marian Sodality of the laity.
Mother Adèle de Trenquelléon explained it to Emilie de Rodat, founder of the Holy Family of
Villefranche, in these terms: “Our main objective is the foundation and development of
Sodalities. You would find it hard to believe all the good the Sodalities accomplish.”45 All the
original Marianists were sodalists and they continued being sodalists; in the course of 1818-19
Collineau was prefect of the Sodality. The Marianist novices were divided into sections like the
sodalists. Several schools of the Society were accepted to stir up or maintain the Sodality in
those cities where they were called; this was the case with the municipal school of Agen.
The choice of educating the youth owed itself to the process of two convergences: on the
one hand, it corresponded to a social and cultural moment in France—and by extension in all the
western societies in which the Society of Mary established and extended itself during the
nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth—which laid down the principle that an educated
population was necessary to advance the economy, political, and moral progress of the modern
urban and industrial societies. There was a strong demand on the part of the political institutions
and society; the Society of Mary responded to that demand with the acceptance of the apostolate
of education, like many other Catholic institutions in the nineteenth century. But on the other
hand, the dedication to schools did not come solely from historic need; it also was established in
the missionary heart of the foundational Marianist charism directed at forming new generations
in the Catholic faith. In fact, from the first moment of the Society Mary, the new religious, in
addition to the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, professed a vow “to work at the
teaching of Christian customs and the Catholic faith.” In this last vow, the missionary identity of
the new congregation was expressed. But, by what means? Soon the Founder and his disciples
would see that the most suitable milieux for that vow was teaching children and youths in
schools. This direction was notably influenced by the criteria of David Monier and of the
seminarians Collineau and Lalanne, who were teachers at the school of M. Estebenet. But also, it
45
Adèle, Letters, no. 334 to de Rodat, June 21, 1819; vol. 2, p. 36.
was influenced by Chaminade, without whose acceptance this important institutional decision
could not have been made.46
Father Chaminade, who made decisions after a patient cooling-off period, allowed the
Daughters of Mary to give free classes to the girls of Agen, knowing what happened to those
who dropped out of school, and how these classes would help give Christian formation to the
children of the popular classes. For the same reason, Chaminade understood that the young
Society of Mary had to orient its pastoral activity to the teaching of the middle class and to the
free grade schools for the children in town, which had been abandoned by the political
institutions and had fallen under the influence of the propaganda of liberal and deistic ideas. In
the lycées and in the municipal schools, the professors and teachers educated the youth in
irreligious thinking, or at times, even in thinking contrary to Christian doctrine and virtues.
Father Chaminade was deeply grieved by this situation. “The philosophic spirit is being
introduced even into the tiny villages, corrupting young and old of all conditions and of both
sexes, and this by the clever use of every kind of means,” Chaminade wrote to the rector of the
seminary of Besançon, Father Breuillot.47 And on February 22, 1830, to Father Lalanne he
wrote, “We are in a century in which everybody is called upon to reason or to talk nonsense,
even the simple country peasants and the housemaids of the cities.”48 Also, in his plea of
September 16, 1838, to Pope Gregory XVI, requesting approval of the Constitutions, Chaminade
warns the pope, “Philosophy and Protestantism, favored in France by the ruling power, having
taken hold of public opinion and of the schools.” For that reason, “I have believed before God,
Most Holy Father, that it was necessary to found two new orders, one of virgins and the other of
young men, who would provide to the world by the fact of their good example that Christianity is
not an outmoded institution. They would show that the Gospel is as practicable today as it was
1,800 years ago; they would challenge the propaganda hidden under a thousand and one
disguises; and they would take over the battleground of the schools by opening classes of all
levels and subjects, especially for those classes of people most numerous and most
abandoned.”49
Seeing this situation, Father Chaminade considered the urgency of the need for Christian
education of the youth as an explanation of his missionary project for re-Christianizing France.
Thus he took every opportunity he had to express it and expose the reason for the Marianist
apostolate of education: in June 1822 he wrote the pastor of Colroy explaining:
Christian schools directed according to the method adopted by the Institute of Mary and
conducted by its religious destined for this good work are a powerful means of reforming
the people. The children there generally make such rapid progress and become so docile
and Christian that they carry the good odor of virtue and religion into their respective
46
Concerning the teaching of the faith and the dedication to teaching as part of the Marianist charism, see
Armbruster, L’État, pp. 386-403; and Antonio Gascón, Reason, Revelation, and Faith of the Heart (Dayton:
NACMS, 2007), pp. 16-18, and Juan Manuel Rueda Calero, Guillermo José Chaminade y el Pensamiento Moderno:
Crítica a la indiferencia religiosa (Madrid: Publicaciones Marianistas, 2001), pp. 260-65.
47
Chaminade, Letters, no. 296 to Breuillot, June 11, 1824; vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 581-82.
48
Chaminade, Letters, no. 503 to Lalanne, Feb. 22, 1830; vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 323; and no. 353 to Caillet, June 28,
1825; vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 48: “If he [d’Amecourt] wants to take notice of it, he will see that this work of the normal
schools is directly in opposition to the road traced out by d’Alembert, to introduce by means of school teachers,
philosophism into places even the farthest away from the cities.”
49
Chaminade, Letters, no. 1076 to Gregory XVI, Sept. 16, 1838; vol. 4, p. 293.
families. the children become, as it were, apostles to their parents, and their apostolate
always produces some happy fruit. That is what makes me call the schools a means of
reforming people.50
And in a letter written August 24, 1839, to the Marianist priests who would preach the
spiritual exercises of the year to their brothers in September: “Thus the vow of teaching that we
make in common with other Orders, is however far more comprehensive in the Society and the
Institute than anywhere else. Its object is to carry out the words of Mary: ‘Whatsoever he shall
say to you, do ye,’ and therefore extends to all classes, to all sexes, and to all ages, but to the
young and the poor especially, so that it really sets us apart from all other Societies that make the
same vow.”51
This thought was summarized by Chaminade in the Constitutions of the Society of Mary of
1839:52 “How many conquests modern philosophism has made in the kingdom of Jesus Christ!
Faith has become enfeebled.... How little Christian education there is! The younger generation
finds so few teachers who strive to form minds and hearts in favor of Christianity!”53 And he
continues, “Among the means that the spirit of the Lord, in his mercy, has given to men for
halting the progress of atheism and libertinism is the Society of Mary. He has deigned to inspire
this foundation as an association composed of all talents and all states, priests and laymen,
having as principal object the formation of children and youth from every class.”54 These
Constitutions define the work of “Christian education” (Title II), as one of “the means by which
religion can be inculcated into the minds and hearts of men and by which they can thus be
trained from earliest infancy to the most advanced age in the fervent and faithful profession of a
true Christian life.”55 Then, Chaminade concludes in article 254: “Because of this predilection
for young children upon whom Jesus showered his divine caresses, the Society of Mary has
declared in its civil constitutions that it devotes itself to primary education. Its works include:
free primary schools, preparatory primary schools, special schools, normal schools, and
vocational schools.”56 But he makes clear in article 256 that “The Society of Mary teaches only
in order to nurture souls in a Christian manner. That is why we have placed all works of teaching
under the title: Christian Education. This must never be altered.”57
School and Modernization in Western Societies
50
Chaminade, Letters, no. 203 to Fréchard, June 18, 1822; vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 397; see also no. 388 to Noailles, Feb. 15,
1826; vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 128-32; further citations from his letters can be found in Joseph Lackner, William Joseph
Chaminade His Apostolic Intent and His Engagement with Schools, Instruction, and Education: An Historical
Portrait (Dayton: NACMS, 1999), p. 32, note 130.
51
Chaminade, Letters, no. 1163 to Retreat Masters, Aug. 24, 1839; vol. 5, p. 59.
52
All citations of the Constitutions of 1839 come from Thomas Stanley and Bob Hughes, eds., The Letter and the
Spirit (Dayton: Marianist Press, 1979).
53
Ibid, art. 339, p. 49.
54
Ibid, art. 340, pp. 49-50.
55
Ibid, art. 251, p. 43.
56
Ibid, art. 254, p. 44.
57
Ibid, art. 256, p. 44. Concerning the entrance of the Society of Mary into education, there are numerous studies:
Simler, Chaminade, pp. 336-39; “The Works of the Society,” in Spirit 3, §§ 1-23 and 231-35, pp. 3-18 and 302-5;
Humbertclaude, Lalanne, pp. 20-46; Paul Hoffer, Pédagogie marianiste (Paris: Centre de Documentation Scholaire,
1957), pp. 25-83; Lackner, Chaminade Apostolic Intent, p. 1, note 2.
The emphasis on education, which became the target of the missionary charism of the Society of
Mary, occurred during the first third of the nineteenth century in France where the state as well
as society and the Church became greatly interested in education as a means to advance the
moral progress of citizens, unite the nation (rural, and artisans and laborers in the city) around
the liberal institutions, and advance the material development of the country. The Church also
competed for control of schools. By educating the new generations, Catholicism attempted to be
a factor of social cohesion for the new liberal society and the agent of moral elevation for
individuals. Thus, it attempted to impede the process of the secularization of culture that imposed
a rationalist and materialist vision of liberal thought.58
Throughout the nineteenth century, the countries of western Europe and the United States
were agitated by deep sociocultural, economic, and political changes. The successive bourgeoisie
revolutions were ousting the old absolute monarchies and, setting aside the power of the
aristocracy and clergy, they established parliamentary and representative democracies. Along
with the political revolutions, the industrial revolution transformed the material conditions of life
by virtue of the mechanization of work and the production of consumer goods. The need for
labor to work in the factories obliged peasants to abandon the fields and to move into the cities.
Thus another society, the middle-class, arose; they made work, production, and money the values
of the new social order. The new liberal powers—which assaulted the monarchical state and
established a secular, constitutional state, based on money and production—needed as much to
be recognized as legitimate by the majority of people as they needed to assure that all citizens
could enjoy their rights in peace and order. To obtain social consensus around these goals, one of
the most important instruments employed was the school. The interest of all the modern states
during the nineteenth century to educate the population was for the purpose of integrating the
values and forms of the new labor and political life of all the social groups; the school became
the instrument of social cohesion and a factor in material development. The Church felt the same
way. Numerous female and male congregations were created to teach young boys and girls. The
bishops encouraged them, and they protected them while they founded schools in their dioceses
and episcopal cities. Because of its participation in these social affairs, the liberal governments of
the first half of the nineteenth century considered the Church their ally. But from the second half
of the century they saw the Church as a rival vying for control of the culture and society.
In fact, expanding the educational level and literacy rate of the population was a decisive
factor in the urban and industrial development of the nineteenth century, given that it was
inconceivable that the social, political, and industrial development of a country could occur
without an extensively literate population. And reciprocally, “literacy levels are intimately
related to the social structure, the political process, and the formation of politics and economics”
in modern western societies. Education was a basic element in the assembly of the economic and
cultural changes of the nineteenth century. This explains the interest of the new liberal State in
keeping control of it, thus making it a troubled point between the Church and the state and one of
the criteria to assess if the politics of a government were conservative or radical. In France, as in
many other European countries, and in the United States and Japan, the educational system
played a vital role in the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society.59 A fast
58
The opinion of Robles, Las Hermanas, vol. 1, which inspired us.
See the thesis of Rondo Cameron, “Por qué fue tan desigual la industrialización europea?”, in AA.VV., La
industrialización europea. Estadios y tipos (Barcelona: Crítica, 1981), pp. 312-17; also Antoine Léon, “De la
Revolución Francesa a los inicios de la Tercera República” in AA.VV., Historia de la Pedagogía (Barcelona:
Oikos-tau ediciones, 1974), vol. 2, p. 127; the same thesis is followed in Robles, Las Hermanas, vol. 1, pp. 15-18;
59
exposition of the formation of the French educational system, from the Revolution to the end of
the monarchy (1840), will give us the guidelines for understanding the fast expansion of the
Society in France, thanks to its educational works.60
The expansion of popular education in the nineteenth century already was supported by
philosophers and politicians at the end of the ancien régime; although they did not all share the
same ideas. Many rulers illustrated they intended to reform the town, but they did not see the
need to educate the peasants and urban laborers, and thus they would remain only a labor force.
According to these doctrines, only the bourgeoisie, who were destined to lead the town, should
be educated. Set against this elitist current, Montesquieu, theoretician of the modern democratic
state, maintained that “the humble town provided” the condition which would assure social order
and the productivity of workers. This second position will be imposed by politicians and social
groups worried about the moral and material development of society; thus, a kind of optimistic
rationalism was affirmed that set forth the principle that without instruction there is no virtue,
and without virtue neither is the citizen happy nor does society progress. It was with this
principle in mind that the final rulers of the ancien régime took the first measures for schooling
the popular classes.
Logically, these ideas were usurped by the radical bourgeoisie protagonists of the French
Revolution. Before they could establish a public school system, they believed it was first
necessary to suppress the educational institutions of the ancien régime, which they saw as
centers for transmitting the privileges of the social classes. To this end, the Revolution
dismantled the entire preexisting educational network, the majority of which was in the hands of
ecclesiastical institutions—universities, collèges, major and minor seminaries, theologates run by
religious orders, and free schools run by individuals and ecclesiastical associations. They seized
the goods of the clergy and suppressed religious orders; the revolutionaries proclaimed that the
new state should assume the responsibility of teaching all citizens the new civic virtues. 61
The first legal measures to put order to the educational system of the revolutionary
government were taken during the radical phase of the Girondist Convention (1793-94).
Although these first measures were utopian and hardly practical, as much in the curricula as in
the lack of economic resources to maintain the schools and professors, nevertheless, they
founded the first higher education institutions—normal schools, the Central School of Public
Works (a technical college), and the Vocational Conservatory—and the public centers of
elementary and secondary education. The first legal attempts to organize the educational system
took place during the Directory. Lakanal created the central schools, which were centers of
secondary education and which were mostly located in the main cities of the country. In turn,
Daunou, by the law of October 25, 1795, established the plan for primary education. This plan
maintained the liberal principle of the freedom of teaching for individuals who wanted to open a
private school, but it suppressed free and obligatory teaching. Because the students had to pay
again the thesis appears in the works of Fr. Chaminade according to Andrew Seebold: all evangelization projects
imply a model of moral and social reconstruction of the person and society, see Andrew Seebold, Social-Moral
Reconstruction According to the Writings and Works of William Joseph Chaminade (Washington, DC: CUA Press,
1946).
60
See Antoine Léon, “De la Revolución Francesa...” in AA.VV., Historia de la Pedagogía, vol. 2, pp. 83-116.
61
The decree of Nov. 2, 1789, placed the goods of the Church at the disposition of the nation; the decree of July 12,
1790, created the civil constitution of the clergy, and left the clergy without property; the decree of Aug. 18, 1792,
abolished religious orders, and the decree of Mar. 8, 1793, mandated the sale of the goods of the collèges and the
suppression of the academies; the decree of Sept. 9, 1793, suppressed the military schools, and the decree of Sept.
15, 1793, suppressed the universities.
the teacher, the government stopped assisting the school, and this significantly harmed the
teaching body, and the plan failured. In conclusion, during the revolutionary decade (from 1789
to the Consulate of 1799), schools and centers of secondary education lived an ephemeral life,
and most of the population remained abandoned in illiteracy.
As with so many other revolutionary inheritances, Napoleon took charge of organizing
education, by means of a school system hierarchically centralized in the university in which
professors were civil servants. During the Consulate (1799-1804) the first two levels of
education were organized by virtue of the law of Fourcroy of May 1, 1802. In dealing with
secondary education, this law suppressed the central schools and created the lycées; with respect
to elementary education, the law retained the stricture against free schools and the lack of
obligatory assistance to the class from the law of Daunou. This left the teachers in a very bad
economic condition, which was the cause of the deplorable state of public education and the
reason the government gave legal recognition to the Brothers of Christian Schools, with the
purpose that they take charge of elementary education, in municipal as well as their own
establishments. Finally, by the decree of March 17, 1808, Napoleon created the Imperial
University; this was the educational administrative organ through which he imposed uniform
teaching throughout France. The University was the administrative agency responsible for the
supervision of all schools and the only authority with the legal capacity to grant academic titles
and degrees, which assured the state’s educational monopoly.
The Napoleonic decree of December 10, 1802, placed the state lycées and the collèges
directed by a town council or an individual under the Faculties. Along with these public
establishments, some private establishments were created; since 1809 these were called pensions
(collège boarding schools) and instituts. The difference between pensions and instituts was that
pensions offered a less rigorous course of studies than instituts, whose educational level was
comparable to that of the collèges. None of these educational institutions, public or private, could
teach without the authorization of the University. They could not employ professors who had not
received their university diplomas, nor could these professors teach without a diploma (brevet)
from the Grand Master of the University renewable every ten years. Before being published, the
programs of study of these private schools had to be approved by the Rector of the University.
In light of the legal code, what was the pedagogical situation and the material conditions
of primary and secondary education that the Marianist religious performed with growing
prestige? With respect to the average teaching in the lycées, controlled by the university
monopoly and “freed from the fanaticism of faith,” the children of the new social class were
formed, the bourgeoisie; they were called to be the judges and civil servants. Only these official
centers were legally qualified to examine students and to give titles of secondary education. The
schools directed by private individuals were impeded from the full exercise of teaching until the
freedom of teaching was restored by the Law of Falloux in 1850; thus, private schools could not
give the final course for a degree (which usually consisted of rhetoric, philosophy, and Latin),
nor could they examine their students; rather, they had to present them to the official courts to
receive the official degree. The state monopoly of teaching was a great problem for the Church.
Chateaubriand affirmed that it led students into impiety and vice, and the Restoration sought to
return education, at least primary education, to the care of the Church.
The state of the Bourbon Restoration did not alter the secondary educational situation
because they did not want to attract the political opposition of the liberals, who were very
numerous among the bourgeoisie and who were firmly entrenched in the educational and
administrative positions of the school system. The monarchical governments, without changing
institutions or laws, opted for the strategy of replacing the liberals with clergy and brought
Catholics to the front of the educational system. This is how Bishop Frayssinous of Hermopolis
was given the position of grand master of the University in 1822 and direction of the Department
of Ecclesiastical Matters and of Public Instruction in 1824; he also situated the academies at the
forefront of education and placed direction of the collèges into the hands of clergy and militant
Catholics. This was also how the clergy came to be inspectors of public teaching.
Nevertheless, Louis XVIII reinforced state control over teaching: to the free schools
(private) he offered the hope of “full exercise” of teaching in exchange for burdensome
conditions. According to the Ordinance of February 27, 1821, schools maintained by individuals
could only give their students the final course of the normal curriculum if they “deserved the
confidence of the families, as much by their moral and religious orientation as by the quality of
their instruction,” provided that their professors possessed the necessary academic degrees to
teach; but they could not receive external students if a royal collège existed in the same city. By
complying with these requirements, the schools of individuals could be converted by the Royal
Council into full-fledged collèges.62
Concerning primary education, though the principle of education for the bourgeoisie was
maintained, in practice no liberal or conservative government was interested in the education of
the hard-working classes of farmers and town people who, because they did not contribute to the
public treasury, did not possess the right to vote. Because of this, the class of people working in
the cities was abandoned and without the ability to access the culture. Nevertheless, during the
Napoleonic period, manufacturers and owners of the first manufacturing establishments realized
the social and economic value of popular education to form a qualified proletariat capable of
working with increasingly complex machinery. Seeking a solution, the state entrusted the city
council to attend to this need by the law of August 4, 1810; because the municipalities did not
have the money to maintain this level of education, they agreed to entrust their schools to the
Brothers of Christian Schools and other congregations created for the same purpose. (They paid
the brothers very little.) Also, this same law allowed for private schools; thus, individuals like the
sodalists of Father Chaminade and religious institutes could open primary schools.
During the monarchical Restoration, the ordinance of February 29, 1816, obliged the
municipalities to found a school to instruct local children. The children of poor families would
receive free education. In each canton there was to be a charitable committee consisting of local
notables and presided over by the parish priest, but the authorization to teach came from the
Rector who had the brevet. Conservatives protested, and by another ordinance of April 8, 1824,
the school was put under the care of the bishop, who gave permission to teach. The cantonal
committees were under the authority of the episcopal delegate. With these two ordinances, the
Restoration did not change the nature of primary education; but it did deliver the schools into the
hands of the religious congregations founded with an eye to education, especially to the Brothers
of the Christian Schools, under the supervision of the University. This was the same as
delivering primary education into the hands of the Church. In 1821, a government of laws being
in power, by the ordinance of February 27, “religion, the monarchy, the [constitutional] Letter,
and the legitimacy [the monarchy of the Bourbons]” were made the bases of education.
Consequently, the bishops received the right of inspection and, because of the ordinance of April
62
Concerning the decree of Mar. 17, 1808, organizing the University, and the ordinance of the government of the
Restoration of Feb. 27, 1821, giving free exercise to the collèges, see Chaminade, Letters, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 274, note;
concerning the monopoly of the universities, see Humbertclaude, Lalanne, pp. 91 and 93.
8, 1824, by 1829 the clergy came to occupy a third of the positions in the educational
administration (University).
This favorable situation was arrived at thanks to a cultural climate favorable to
Catholicism and to the religious congregations devoted to education that were created by the
traditionalist philosophy, which was also one of the ideological supports of the monarchical
Restoration. Traditionalism was a doctrinal body, united around Catholicism, that had, as its
major proponents in France, Joseph de Maistre and the viscount Louis de Bonald, as well as
other names like Chateaubriand, Lamennais before 1828, and the philosopher Victor Cousin,
author of an eclectic body of thought which balanced the monarchical principles and the values
of 1789. Given that the horrors of revolutionary disorder and the Napoleonic wars had thrown a
shadow of distrust on the force of reason, these authors maintained that religious and moral truth
has its origin in a primitive revelation, which is transmitted by tradition through human language
down through the centuries, and which had found its organic exposition, guaranteed by God, in
the Church. Despite the deficiencies in their thought, the traditionalists were the first to theorize
about the nature of society: their position, that of a natural origin in which kings have the duty of
intervening for the improvement of the lives of their subjects, corresponds to an archaic,
patriarchal ideal of male authority of family, society, and state. This mode of thinking is reflected
in the moral reform programs needed to create a rural society, which was the vast majority of
France. In 1826, France had 32,000,000 inhabitants, of which 22,000,000 were dedicated to
agriculture. Half of the land was in the hands of large land owners, and the agrarian income in
the southern departments was 451 francs and in the northern departments 508 francs. This
population distribution produced a rural mass that lived in a culture of poverty; i.e., they were
dominated by a “poor morality,” characterized by a rustic brutality and quarrelsome spirit,
marginalized from the sociopolitical life of the country—manifested in their lack of contribution
to the army and public treasury—and scarce monetary circulation. Their lives were based on a
subsistence economy and dependent upon the kindness of the crops; the birthrate and density of
the population were very high. Given that emigration to the city had not yet begun, the peasantry
was found in remote rural nuclei, without integration in the national life: without newspapers,
schools, a political vote, constituting an illiterate majority anchored in secular customs. To
confront this situation, the social reformers expected that by the moralization of the peasantry,
through the school, the economic and social development of the country could be achieved.63
The Catholics, in addition to moralization, expected the school would serve for the reChristianization of the rural population, not yet contaminated by the liberal and secular ideas.
The school taught catechesis, which was the unique source of access to the culture that the
children of the popular classes of the city and of the rural middle class possessed. The project to
regenerate the French Church and to re-Christianize the masses through teaching originated in
1808, when the brothers Lamennais—Jean Marie and Robert—proposed a pastoral program in
which they defined a team of tasks and priorities. In their Réflexions sur l’état de l’Église en
France pendant le XVIIIe siècle et sur sa situation actuelle they set forth the post-revolutionary
evils: practical atheism, torpor and spiritual and moral lethargy, many tepid priests without
initiative; but, above all, the evil of the century was religious ignorance. To combat said evils,
they proposed to elevate the cultural and spiritual level of the clergy in seminaries and houses of
religious formation. Thus fighting religious ignorance and acting in schools was going to be the
pastoral model of the Church of the nineteenth century. In this manner, the Church was
63
Bertier de Sauvigny, The Restoration, pp. 212, 236-37, and 241-42.
convinced of that crucial role that teaching played in this project for the reconquest of society;
already we have seen this in Father Chaminade.
A spiritual current, of Franciscan tradition that traveled through French Catholicism after
the Revolution, was a second factor that influenced the congregations to orient their men and
women toward the education of children of the town in the municipal schools in rural areas.64
There was a new pastoral and spiritual sense that came with the recovery of the evangelical
values of fraternity and charity, practiced in the works of mercy exercised through public
institutions. Having lost the institution of the state, there was no social support left for
Catholicism except the rural town, that is, the great mass of poor peasants. It was necessary to go
to the towns. Thus there was a Catholic social evolution, in which Catholic defenders fought for
the freedom of teaching around Lamennais and Lacordaire—a group in which we will see Father
Lalanne fighting. The congregations were integrated in the Catholic movement of approaching
the town in rural schools of primary education and in the works of mercy favoring women, the
elderly, the infirmed, etc. The congregations received their identity and social recognition by
virtue of their dedication to teaching children of working and rural families. For this reason, their
first civil statutes, before canonical regulation for their recognition by the Church existed, spoke
explicitly of their dedication to the schools of primary education for poor children. Because of
this, the city councils resorted to the “sisters” and “brothers,” and the founders offered their
religious institutions to the local councilmen for municipal schools.
The recourse of entrusting to the “brothers” of the Christian Schools the instruction of
children goes back to Napoleon himself, since the approval of said religious institute in March
1808. Out of the same need, the government of the Restoration resorted in the first place to the
“brothers,” and progressively to the pleiad of new educational congregations born in France. The
royal government left to them to maintain the public schools of primary education. To
accomplish this, they gave all youths professed in this congregation governmental recognition as
teachers, and they exempted them from active military duty in exchange for making religious
vows for a period of ten years, dedicating them to the teaching works of the congregation. Again
here, this practice goes back to the government of Napoleon in 1802, when he excused the
Brothers of the Christian Schools from active military duty. Later, on July 23, 1811, when an
“Avis” of the Napoleonic Council of State considered the boys who were university students,
managing professors, and teachers at the Imperial University exempt from active military
service, the benefit of the exemption was extended to the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The
government of the Restoration continued this practice by the law of March 10, 1818, which
exempted from military service young professors in the public schools, students in teacher
colleges, and Brothers of the Christian Schools, provided that they promised in their first vows to
remain in the congregation for ten years dedicated to primary education. Moreover, in 1819 the
Brothers of the Christian Schools were incorporated into the University, and thus exempted from
obtaining the brevet, provided they showed their religious obedience or a letter appointment from
the superior general. The same rights and obligations were demanded by other religious
congregations, and the government, in order to help the educational system in its early stages,
offered them legal recognition and a military exemption. An October, 31, 1825, circular from
Courvelle, the director of public instruction, extended the military dispensation of the novices of
64
See Cristóbal Robles, Las Hermanas del Ángel de la guarda (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1992), vol.
2, p. 13.
the Christian Schools to every congregation dedicated to primary education that was authorized
by the government, which included the Society of Mary.65
Thanks to this legal benefit, and the lack of clarity surrounding the canonical legislation
concerning the simple vows of the new congregations, the young Marianists made their first
vows for an extensive period from three to ten years, although they renewed them yearly. This
double matter of primary education and military dispensation was key for the state to recognize
the civil value of the religious vows professed in authorized educational congregations,
according to the rules of the universal societies set forth in the civil code, it also was a motive for
Father Chaminade—against his initial idea—finishing his request to the government for the legal
recognition of the Society of Mary. As we will see further on, in the legal statutes, recognized
November 16, 1825, the vows linked the “brother” with the Society of Mary for a period of three
years by virtue of a contract with the Superior General. Subsequently, by the ministerial
instruction of July 9, 1831, the pro-liberal government of the Bourbon monarchy reiterated the
civil validity of religious vows of the Society as a congregation dedicated to primary education.
Thus, the ten years of active duty were exchanged for the same period of time being dedicated to
teaching in the schools of the Society. But the benefit was short-lived; a little later Minister
Guizot reorganized primary teaching with the law of 1833. Thus, by the law of March 21, 1832,
the exemption was only offered to public teachers and the religious of the Christian Schools;
leaving the members of other educational congregations to suffer the drawing and to seek a way
to be free of the military life.66
Aside from the dispute over active military duty, the insertion of the educational
congregations in the public schools caused an administrative legal quarrel with the University
over the qualification of the “brothers” to teach. The polemics consisted of whether a brother or
sister of an educational congregation needed to possess the brevet obtained before an official
court or if she or he sufficed with a “letter of obedience” delivered by the superior general to
teach in one of the schools of the congregation. Since 1816, the opening of a school had been
subordinate to the obtaining of a brevet or individual diploma of training given by the University,
the only administrative organ with the capacity to grant titles and degrees. But the Brothers of
the Christian Schools refused to request legal permission to open schools and continued to teach
without the brevet of training. On one hand, the superiors feared that the titled brothers would
abandon the institute, and they opposed presenting themselves before a court to obtain the
necessary academic degree to teach. But, above all, they held to the old principle of ecclesiastical
exemption, which maintained that religious standard under the principle of religious obedience,
by which the superior assigned each one to his position without any authorization by the state.
The quarrel was saved in 1819, by means of the principle of sending the brevet to the superior
65
In 1830, the government authorized the following religious congregations: The Brothers of the Christian Schools
(Mar. 17, 1808), the Brothers of Christian Instruction of Ploërmel or of Jean Marie Lamennais (June 1, 1822); the
Brothers of Christian Doctrine of Sion-Vaudémont, in the region of Nancy (July 17, 1822); the Brothers of Christian
Institution of Saint Paul-Trois-Châteaux, Drôme, which later united with the Little Brothers of Mary of Fr.
Champagnat (June 11, 1823); the Brothers of St. Anthony, in Paris, a Jansenist community (June 23, 1823); the
Brothers of the Holy Cross, called St. Joseph, in Neuilly (June 25, 1823); the Brothers of the Holy Spirit, called St.
Gabrielle de Grignon de Montfort and Fr. Deshayes, in St.-Laurent-sur-Sevres (Sept. 11, 1823); the Brothers of St.
Joseph of St.-Fuscien, Somme (Dec. 3, 1823); the Brothers of Christian Instruction, called Sacred Heart, of Paradis
in the region of Lu Puy (Mar. 10, 1825); the Society of Mary of Bordeaux (Nov. 16, 1825); the Brothers or Priests of
St. Viateur (Jan. 10, 1830); all these are listed in Chaminade, Letters, vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 336-37, cited by Lackner,
Apostolic Intent, p. 26, note 105.
66
Concerning the military laws, see AGMAR 82.2.1-4; an example of vows contracted for 10 years between George
Loetsch and Fr. Chaminade on Nov. 19, 1830, is in the dossier of religious in AGMAR RSM-4.
general who gave this to the religious upon giving her or him the letter of obedience indicating
that he or she would be teaching in a certain school. In the event that a brother left the
congregation, the superior withdrew her or his official qualification. The pretension of exemption
caused hostility toward the Brothers of the Christian Schools from liberal elements; they were
defamed as “ignorant brothers,” and their “religious obedience” was called a “brevet of
ignorance.” But even the government of the Restoration did not renounce the necessary
conditions for teaching. The ordinance of April 21, 1828, stipulated that only the rector of each
academy possessed the authority to grant the brevet of educational training. The candidates had
to pass an exam to possess a certificate of good conduct. In exchange, the rector remitted the
brevet to the brothers, after the presentation of his letter of obedience given by the superior of the
congregation; and only the rector was permitted to grant the brother his position in the school
after a corresponding petition by his superior. Subsequently, the July Monarchy reinforced the
legal power of the state: by the ordinance of April 18, 1831, brothers of educational
congregations were obliged to possess the brevet of training. The congregations were submitted
to all these legal obligations; therefore, despite the ideological debate, they all recognized the
convenience of yielding to the legal principle.67
In the legal development of educational legislation, up to the year 1825, during which the
Society of Mary was recognized by the French state, the brothers had to pass an exam before the
academic authorities to possess the brevet which allowed them to legally teach in the schools of
primary education (just as we will see Bernard Laugeay do in 1821, so he can teach in the
municipal school of Agen). After the legal recognition of the Society, it sufficed for the brothers
to present their letters of obedience from their religious superior, according to the legal benefit of
the ordinance of 1819. But the ordinance of April 18, 1831, obliged the brothers to submit to the
formality of the brevet of training again (e.g., Jean Baptiste Hoffmann, professor in the
municipal school of Ribeauvillé, who had to take the exam to obtain the brevet of training for
primary education, which he received on December 16, 1831, from the rector of the Academy of
Strasbourg).
In this sociocultural context and the trend of spiritual awakening of French Catholicism,
in addition to the legal benefits that pertained to primary education for the male congregations,
the Society of Mary enlisted in the army of educational congregations that were dedicated to
work at the immense needs of education in the then mainly rural French society of the nineteenth
century. In this way, the school became the means of moral reconstruction and of evangelization
of the class of the town and of the middle-class families of conservative thought, whose Catholic
beliefs were threatened with secularization by liberal thinking.
First Schools
The deplorable religious and moral situation of the children of the popular classes of the country
and the city, along with the demand for instruction so children from the families of Bordeaux
dedicated to commerce could direct the family business, were all reasons why Chaminade and
the first Marianists opted for the project of teaching as the apostolic task of the “little Society.”
Diverse factors helped: among the sodalists, interest in educating children and youths existed and
some of them already had begun to give lessons to the young folk of Bordeaux; others joined the
recently restored congregation of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, and among the first
67
Nicolas Schelker, La Société de Marie en Alsace entre 1824 et 1970 (Strasbourg: 2003), pp. 110-11, 132-33, and
137-38.
professed Marianist brothers, three of them, Lalanne, Collineau, and Brougnon-Perrière, were
professors in the pension (private school) of the sodalist Jean Baptiste Estebenet.68 Also, the
Daughters of Mary, upon opening their house in Agen, had opened a free school for girls. In
addition, the future religious attended memorable conferences at the cathedral in Bordeaux that
were given during the course of 1817-18—which included Bishop Frayssinous, a former sodalist
of Chaminade’s and future minister of public instruction and general director of the University,
who lamented the condition of the youth of France and indicated how the lycées had come to be
centers of irreligion—and these conferences influenced the educational orientation.
Against this backdrop, in the meetings that were held in the first years of the community
on Rue Ségur to discern the apostolic works of the new Institute, David Monier strongly favored
opening a pension under the direction of Auguste Brougnon-Perrière. The only other schools in
Bordeaux were the Royal School, the minor seminary directed by the Jesuits, and the pension
Estebenet. A boarding school that taught primary and secondary level students which was
directed by religious would be well received by the middle-class families who sought a Christian
education for their children. Of no less importance in the decision to go into teaching was a
meritorious initiative of Lalanne, who was interested in renewing pedagogical methods. Lalanne
sought a compromise between primary education, oriented only toward teaching children to read,
write, and count, and secondary education, which required the study of Latin; this was a true
pedagogical problem between teachers and legislators at that time. Lalanne realized that the
commercial activity of Bordeaux demanded a program of studies in which, in addition to the
traditional matters, more hours were dedicated to teaching history, geography, math, physics,
chemistry, French, other languages, and accounting. Such a novel educational offering would
assure numerous students would attend the school they intended to found. With these
determining factors, the decision in favor of teaching was made.
After the vows of the first male religious, September 5, 1818, the first male Marianist
community remained in the house on Rue Ségur. The community consisted of Auguste
Brougnon-Perrière (director), the working brothers Jean Baptiste Bidon and Antoine Cantau (+
August 20, 1819), Dominique Clouzet, the seminarians Jean Baptiste Collineau, Jean Baptiste
Lalanne, and Bruno Daguzan; and as aspirants, Pierre Bousquet and Bernard Laugeay; the mean
age of the group was 26. The house they lived in was small, and they sought a larger lodging
where they could open a pension, the apostolic work they had determined to undertake in
common. In the pleasant atmosphere of a new building they could receive eventual candidates to
religious life that stemmed from the Sodality.
It was an auspicious occasion when two sodalists, Changeur and Bardinet, put a
considerable sum of money at the disposal of Father Chaminade to acquire an establishment for
the purpose of opening a school. Estebenet offered to purchase the house at no. 46 Rue de
Menuts, which neighbored his school; there the brothers could begin teaching, and the two
schools could share, provisionally, the playground between the two schools; Estebenet intended
to acquire a more extensive building on Rue Mirail where he would transfer his school in a short
period of time. The proposal seemed good; the Society signed a contract to rent the house on
October 29, 1818, and then a contract of sale on November 14. On November 4, in the name of
Auguste Brougnon-Perrière, Father Chaminade asked the rector of the University of Bordeaux
for the legal authorization to open a pension of secondary education. While obtaining the
68
Concerning Auguste Brougnon-Perrière (1792-1874) and seminarian Jean Baptiste Collineau (1796-1852), see
Chaminade, Letters, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 278, note 1, and p. 288, note 1; concerning Jean Baptiste Estebenet (1777-1848),
see Chaminade, Letters, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 119, note 3.
permission, he continued the formation of the religious along with five new vocations: Jean
Armenaud, Jean Marie Mémain, David Monier, Jean Neuville, and Louis Rothéa, who were
incorporated into the foundational nucleus.69 Finally, on May 11, 1819, the educational
administration granted them the necessary permission. Although the school year was coming to
its end, they decided to enroll some children in order to have the first students for the start of the
following year. June 15, Father Goudelin presided at the mass of the Holy Spirit, and the school
year ended with 15 students. Once it was inaugurated and the school was in operation, the
Council of the Society of Mary decided on September 2, 1819, that “the Institute would have as
its chief activities the education of youth of the middle class, missions, retreats, and the
establishment and direction of sodalities.”70 But in practice, all the brothers were employed in the
school, as professors or watchmen, and in the formation of aspirants to the religious life; thus
they abandoned the civil positions they had previously held.
The school having been founded, an unexpected event caused the pension Estebenet to
become the property of the Society of Mary. It so happened that Estebenet could not buy the
small palace on Rue Mirail where he had intended to transfer his school; thus he was obliged to
remain next to the school opened by the Marianists. Both schools being in the same place, they
arrived at a mutual agreement to unite them under the direction of the Society of Mary; in
exchange, it was agreed that the Society would pay Estebenet an annuity of 1,500 francs;
Chaminade agreed and was represented by Auguste Brougnon-Perrière who signed the contract
on October 29, 1819. With this contract, which would be a source of subsequent conflicts for the
Society, they received a more prestigious property—the oldest private school in Bordeaux—and
Estebenet continued as a professor in the school, now under the direction of Auguste BrougnonPerrière, now called pension Auguste, nos. 46-47 Rue de Menuts. The other religious worked in
the school as professors and watchmen.71 The new center of primary and secondary education
opened its classes on November 3 under the direction of August Brougnon-Perrière, with Louis
Rothéa, who had recently made his religious profession on August 15, as business manager, and
Father Lalanne as head of zeal and instruction; but the University denied him the right to teach
the material of higher instruction: Latin and rhetoric. This disposition obliged the Marianist
professors to direct their older students to the Royal School, with registration of external
students, so they could receive those classes and pass their exams before the official professors.
The Marianists limited their task to maintaining the discipline of their students during the hours
of study and review in the pension.
The school year of 1820-21 was difficult because of having to direct these students to the
Royal School and because of the difficulty in having religious educators. Therefore when five
novices professed vows at the end of the retreat of October 1820, only two of them, Bernard
Gaussens and Nicolas Rousset, were qualified to teach; also, Lalanne had to leave the school and
begin his preparation to receive Holy Orders; meanwhile, Collineau had to divide his time
between the school, where he was head of zeal and instruction, and the Sodality of the
Madeleine, where he was a prefect; and Gaussens had to leave the school in May 1821 to join the
69
According to the study of Larry Cada, Early Members of the Society of Mary (Dayton: NACMS, 1999), pp. 493
and 539; concerning David Monier (1757-1849) and Louis Rothéa, see Chaminade, Letters, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 71-72,
and 292-93.
70
Lalanne, “Report of the Foundation, composed by order of the Council, Sept. 2, 1839” in Spirit 3, para. 6, p. 5, n.
b; Fr. Lalanne affirmed: “Who launched us into the field of education if not Father Chaminade urged on by M.
David?”, in a letter to Etignard, July 3, 1874, cited in Humbertclaude, Lalanne, p. 18, note 5.
71
Concerning the purchase of the pension Estebenet, see Chaminade, Letters, no. 127 to de Lamourous, Oct. 19,
1819; vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 285-86.
new foundation of the free school in Agen. Finally, the difficulty of arranging the schedules of
the Marianist professors in the school and in the novitiate of the Madeleine must be noted, in
addition to other problems that arose with Estebenet. All this overflowed onto the person
responsible for discipline who was obliged to devise methods and regulations for organizing and
directing the school, as we will see later. The novices were in stalled in the recently constituted
novitiate of St. Laurent, and on December 22, 1821, Jean Baptiste Lalanne was ordained a priest.
Thus, the new school year of 1821-22 began with high hopes. Father Lalanne received the
double responsibility of head of zeal and instruction, and he became the head of the school. The
financial and administrative direction of the school was reserved to Brougnon-Perrière. With
these two men, both of whom had studied at the school of Father Liautard, in Paris, the origin of
the famous École Stanislas, the pension Auguste acquired immense educational prestige in
Bordeaux.
From now on, Father Lalanne will put into practice all his pedagogical creativity,
carrying out a plan of studies in which the traditional studies are combined with modern subjects;
he did this in a way that renewed the pedagogy and teaching of diverse matters by employing the
means of active methods, stimulating students by emulation rather than punishment, instituting
honor rolls, a literary academy, recreational-cultural evenings, and awards ceremony festivals.
The learning of polished social form and good manners, in the milieu of the middle-class urban
culture, was as important as the organization of the school.72 Also, he managed to impose a solid
and novel educational organization that gave good educational results and allowed the school to
admit more than 100 students, a considerable figure for a private school, and to be considered
among the most renowned of the city, which, by 1824, already counted 23 private schools.
Archbishop d’Aviau testified to the school with very genuine emotion, and each year until his
death he presided at the awards ceremony and the sessions of the literary academy, which, when
combined with those of the Marian Sodality, were true cultural festivals attended by Chaminade,
who was surrounded by the most notable people of the city.
In 1824, the school building was insufficient to receive the number of students who had
registered. Father Chaminade, then, acquired on Rue Mirail, the small palace de Razac. In Easter
of 1825, the transfer was complete and the school took the name Institut Sainte-Marie. In this
new building, Brougnon-Perrière and Lalanne could apply the educational methods of the
Society with great vigor; but they did not obtain the privilege of teaching Latin and rhetoric from
the educational administration (the University). In this way, the Society of Mary constituted its
first secondary school and consolidated its educational prestige with the middle-class; in the
same years, the Marianist religious opened a school in the village of Tonneins in 1820 and one in
Condom in 1824.
In 1820, the Society of Mary accepted the direction of its first primary school on
municipal property: a truly urgent field for the spiritual reconquest of French society. The
evangelization of children and youths of rural families by the school occurred in unison with the
economic and social development of the country. In the first 30 years of the nineteenth century
we witness in France a true war for the schools, a war to which Chaminade was no stranger. The
government of the Restoration, supported by the Church, wanted to take education away from
proponents of a liberal spirit, but it could not suppress the state monopoly or alter the uniform
ordering and centralization of the school system without inciting a political clash with the
72
Concerning the new pedagogies created by Fr. Lalanne, see Humbertclaude, Lalanne, pp. 20-46; Anonymous,
“Souvenirs de Famille. Le Centenaire de l’aprobation légale de la Société de Marie et de la première Institution
Sainte-Marie,” in L’Apôtre de Marie, no. 176 (Nov. 1925), pp. 240-247.
liberals. In this context, we find similar worries in Father Chaminade pertaining to Mother Adèle
wanting the future Marianist religious community to dedicate itself to free education for the
population of Agen.73 From there, the Marianist religious also undertook the task of primary
education.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, there was a massive demand to obtain
religious teachers to direct the rural schools that were owned by the city councils and parishes.
The high point of rural foundations in France went from 1820 to 1859, with an average of 46
percent of the new foundations being in rural areas. From 1860 on, the percentage dropped to 28
percent. The brothers and sisters of the new congregations constituted an army of laborers of
charity who, without creating a ruckus, extended their welfare and educational efforts to the
urban and rural nuclei across France, contributing to the cultural and moral improvement of the
people. It was “a silent revolution,” whose greater glory belonged to the women, with 338 female
foundations during the nineteenth century (6 foundations per year). Langlois called this
phenomenon Le catholicisme au féminin.74
The rural schools contracted the congregations “for personnel” (for an agreed upon
number of teachers). Only the new congregations, created without their own works, could offer a
teaching staff numerous enough. The community was setup to direct the school and was
normally composed of three or four sisters or brothers, who had a very simple internal
organization for governing the community and the common prayers. Likewise, the level of
instruction of these brothers was very elementary; it was reduced to reading and writing. The
selection of candidates in the growing congregations was not very rigorous; the educational
practices and notions about math, geography, language, etc., were given during the novitiate,
arranging the secular studies with religious matters. The brothers and sisters of the new
congregations tried, above all, to impart a moral education, to cultivate virtues, and to form the
personality of the child; this goal was an illustration of the pedagogical creed. According to these
new pedagogical principles there were no corporal punishments, but rather an attempt to deal
with the student like family. All their efforts were directed toward instilling order, discipline, and
school work; in the children of the rural families, nothing accustomed students for systematic
work.
The legal-economic conditions to take charge of a school consisted of an agreement
between the founder of the congregation and the city council or parish, which provided the
building and furniture for the school, as well as lodging for the brothers. Normally, the brothers’
dwelling was in the same building, and they shared a common dormitory (quite normal in the
context of rural families). The owners also bore the expenses of repairs and the payment of
property taxes. Thus arranged, all the benefits were for the congregation, and the owners agreed
to pay each teacher an annual salary of about 800 francs. But if there were problems, the house
mother supplied for the needs of brothers. To compensate expenses, they gave private lessons,
received boarding students, and offered the usage of their dining room. The precariousness of the
installations was normal, and it often happened that the city council or the parish did not comply
with its obligations; nevertheless, the brothers maintained good relations with the local
authorities. Of all the contracts, the most common one was with a rural city council for the
73
Chaminade, Letters, no. 57 to Adèle, Oct. 3, 1815; vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 141-42, and no. 59 to Adèle, Dec. 6, 1815; vol.
1, pt. 1, pp. 143-44; cf. Emile Weltz, “Les premières oeuvres apostoliques de la Société de Marie (1818-1821)-I”, in
RMI, no. 6 (Oct. 1986), p. 29; and Joseph Verrier, “L’entrée de la Société de Marie dans l’enseignement primaire,”
in Joseph Verrier, Melanges Chaminade. Hommage (Madrid: Ediciones SM, 1961), pp. 94-99.
74
Concerning female congregations, see Langlois, Le catholicisme, pp. 62-63 and 305-511.
direction of the municipal school. The work of the brothers in these municipal schools was a
general reality for most new congregations. The city council entrusted the direction of the school
to them and set the number of free students and the salary of the teachers. Their work was
subject to inspection, and they had to comply with the norms dictated by the academy of the
department. Although the legal basis for this type of contract goes back to the ordinances of May
1, 1822, and of September 17, 1823, the practice, prior to said ordinances, was that the teachers
sent by the congregation obtained their teaching diploma (simple brevet) signed by the rector of
the Academy of the department where they were going to teach, along with the letter of
obedience from the religious superior. This was the process the Marianist brothers followed to
receive direction of the municipal school in Agen.
The Society of Mary was given the opportunity to take over direction of the municipal
school in Agen, when the general council of the department of Lot-et-Garonne, in August 1819,
decided to ask the Brothers of the Christian Schools to take charge of a school of primary
education, which would occupy the site of the Refuge of Agen; since the Daughters of Mary had
been installed in the convent of the Augustinian Sisters, which they had just purchased. The city
council promised to pay the professors, but they did not agree with the superior general on the
amount of 2,000 francs to assign Salesian religious, so it is likely the mayor was directed to
Chaminade when looking for someone to take charge of the school requested by the department.
Chaminade saw the opportunity to reconstitute the suppressed Marian Sodality by the presence
of the Society in Agen, a city in which resided many sodalists. Father Chaminade accepted the
school in Agen and sent three Marianist brothers: Bernard Laugeay (24 years old), perpetually
professed and director, accompanied by Jean Armenaud (26 years old) and Jean Marie Mémain
(22 years old), who had recently finished the novitiate and would be assistant teachers. On
November 21, 1820, Laugeay published a Prospectus des écoles gratuites en Agen, and on
November 29, the school opened with three classrooms to teach classes in reading, writing,
arithmetic, catechism, and sacred history. The city council advanced them the economic
resources, and their legal status before the University was obtained thanks to the arrangements of
a former sodalist, Dardy, who directed a school in the city. In January 1821 there were 148
students, and by the end of the month, there were 221; enrollment continued until the end of the
school year. Bernard Laugeay had earned the affection of his students. Troublemakers and rude
boys were disciplined, children were educated, and avid learning was encouraged thanks to the
use of prizes and of stimulating emulation among the students, rejecting the means of corporal
punishment and threats.
A letter from the rector of the Academy of Cahors, dated May 23, 1821, enumerated all
the administrative infractions the Society had committed upon opening a free school without the
necessary permissions. David Monier was there to intervene with all his legal ability, and in the
end Bernard Laugeay was obliged to go to Cahors to pass the exam that made him the first
Marianist qualified by the brevet and the necessary authorization to teach classes and to direct a
primary school.75 But these religious teachers (members of congregations), although unqualified,
had shown great pedagogical skill. The Marianists adopted the two most efficient methods then:
the simultaneous method and the mutual teaching (or Lancaster) method, which avoided in
activity and boredom among the children. Not only are they taught the alphabet and the four
rules but also are educated in the catechism, and they get some idea of accounting, orthography,
history, geography, technical drawing, and etiquette. The immediate change in the conduct and
75
Concerning Bernard Laugeay and Bernard Gaussens, see Chaminade, Letters, vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 323-24 and 325-26.
behavior of the children incited the admiration of the local society, the parents of the children,
and the whole citizenry.76
The success of the free school directed by the Marianist brothers came to be known in the
departmental council of Lot-et-Garonne, which offered 8,000 francs to the municipalities that
declared the intention of establishing a school of this nature for purchasing a building and
furniture and suppling the needs of the teachers. Chaminade saw a great opportunity to reChristianize the popular rural classes by means of municipal schools. The missionary plan
seemed so extensive and efficient that along with Father Ignatius Mertian, superior general of the
Brothers of Christian Doctrine of Ribeauvillé, Chaminade considered the formation of a
confederacy of educational congregations called “Institut des Écoles Gratuites,” with its own
statutes and legal recognition; but the project was not achieved, as we will see later. Around
Christmastime of 1821 the municipal council of Villeneuve-sur-Lot accepted the offering of the
departmental council and was directed to Father Chaminade for the project. Immediately, in
April 1822, Chaminade sent his secretary, David Monier, to Agen to negotiate with the
subprefect the terms of establishing free schools in Villeneuve-sur-Lot because he understood
this would be useful for the Society’s request for legal recognition as an educational institution.77
The political situation facilitated the entrance of the Society of Mary in Villeneuve,
because in that same year, 1822, the ultra-royalists came to power and governmental politics
turned in favor of the Church. Bishop Frayssinous was named grand master of the University,
with the mission of favoring, at the expense of the liberals, the royal and municipal academies
and collèges. In Villeneuve the municipal authorities sough a director for the municipal collège,
in addition to being interested in a religious congregation for the direction of the free schools.
Chaminade visited the collège and laid out the great educational and pastoral possibilities, as
well as the great possibility of gaining candidates for the Marian Sodality from the students; at
the same time, he regretted the state of abandonment in which the buildings and education of the
youth were found. Then he offered Father Collineau as director of the collège. On May 18, 1822,
the city council responded, recognizing “the importance and advantage of this free school that
will put the indigent class in a condition to be instructed, and which will diminish the number of
mendicant children and vagabonds who circulate along the streets and public squares.” The
mayor used the funds assigned by the general council of the department “to establish a free
Christian primary school under the direction of the associates of M. David of Bordeaux, to be run
by four brothers or more.” Chaminade accepted this response, and at the beginning of June 1822
he travelled to Villeneuve, accompanied by Father Caillet and M. Bouet, to take charge of the
free school for the poor classes.
But nothing would begin there without directing the municipal collège. The young priest
Collineau prepared to reopen the school at the beginning of the school year of 1822-23,
organizing schedules and regulations according to the model of the pension Auguste; the
behavior of the students immediately improved, as did the performance of the school. At the
same time, Father Collineau, who had a great gift for preaching, exercised a notable religious
influence on the students, which set the stage for the revitalization of the Marian Sodality in that
76
Concerning the growth of the free school of Agen, see Simler, Chaminade, pp. 343-47, and concerning the
updating of teaching methods, see Humbertclaude, Lalanne, pp. 59-63.
77
According to Emile Weltz, “Les premières oeuvres apostoliques de la Société de Marie-III,” in RMI, no. 8 (Oct.
1987), pp. 23-27; and Simler, Chaminade, pp. 347-48.
city.78 In the following school year, 1823-24, four brothers, directed by Bernard Laugeay took
charge of the municipal school, which had an enrollment of 300 students. Collineau directed the
municipal collège through the end of the school year of 1826-27, while the religious remained in
the free school.
4. Expansion of the Institute of Mary in the Northeast
At the beginning of the school year of 1822-23, the Institute of Mary possessed in the southeast
of France two novitiates (St. Laurent and the Madeleine) and the primary and secondary
boarding school pension Auguste, and it directed the free school of primary education of Agen
and the municipal collège of Villeneuve-sur-Lot, in addition to having begun procedures with the
city council to receive direction of the municipal school. In the personnel there were 26 religious,
of which four were priests. Past the foundation period, the new Institute of brothers experienced
a fast expansion out of the territorial framework of its original region. The acceptance of a
petition 1823 for a foundation in Saint Remy, in Franche-Comté, will lead the young Society into
the northeast of France, a region with a deep Catholic sense. In the farmhouse of Saint Remy the
community was organized like a “little Trappe,” and a normal school was opened to form the
teachers of the region. This activity gave rise to a surprising flowering of religious vocations and
a greater expansion and variety of the Marianist educational mission. In the following year,
1824, a group of brothers sent to Colmar will be the starting point for the Society of Mary to
grow deep roots in Alsace, where, until the expulsion of the Society in 1874, they came to be
present in 32 locales.
Friendship of Louis Rothéa with the Alsatian Clergy
The foundation in Saint Remy was preceded by the news in his native land of Alsace that Louis
Rothéa joined the young Society of Mary. Dedication to education and the Marian charism of the
young Society were two decisive ingredients in the hold of the congregation in a region where
Marian piety was strongly established in the religious experience of the Catholics and in which
the parochial clergy and the municipal authorities of the Catholic population were very interested
in the education of the children of the various rural municipalities of the country.
Louis Rothéa, born in 1785 in Landser, near Muelhaus (Alsace), had gone to Bordeaux as
a young man to learn commerce, and in 1817 he entered the Marian Sodality of Father
Chaminade. When the Society of Mary was founded, he went to the novitiate and on August 15,
1819, he professed his first and perpetual vows. The call to Alsace stemmed from an active
Alsatian priest, Father Ignatius Mertian (1766-1843), whose family was closely united to the
Rothéa family by the bonds of trade and friendship. Mertian had received his brother Bruno, also
a priest, as the director of the Congregation of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine for the Diocese
of Strasbourg. Father Bruno Mertian founded this congregation for the purpose of directing the
rural Alsatian schools, like the male branch of the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence,
founded before the Revolution in 1783, which had managed to survive the revolutionary trials. In
1817 Father Ignatius Mertian took direction of the congregation when the religious came to a
78
Chaminade, Letters, no. 210 to Frayssinous, Sept. 16, 1822; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 408-09; this letter from Chaminade to
Bishop Frayssinous solicits confirmation for Fr. Collineau to take direction of the municipal collège.
foundation in Ribeauvillé. At that time, there were some 100 sisters, and they began to spread
through Alsace, dedicated to the direction of municipal schools for girls.
Always under the legal protection of the bishops, the only ecclesiastical authority
recognized by the Concordat, thanks to the friendship with the bishop of Strasbourg, Príncipe de
Croÿ, the male congregation had been recognized by a royal ordinance from the government.
But, with only six religious and many more novices, Mertian needed help for the formation of
the novices. Given the good relations he had with the Rothéa family, he asked Louis in 1821 to
obtain from Chaminade a religious who became master of novices. Louis probably discussed the
matter with Chaminade who, on October 25, 1821, sent him a letter of obedience authorizing him
to take charge of the formation of the novices of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine in
Ribeauvillé for the coming school year of 1821-22. Louis assumed his charge and took the habit
of that congregation under the name of Brother Ignatius.79
In the Marianist tradition, it is said that Louis, a great expert of his region, quickly sensed
the great vocational possibilities of his population, which was very set in its Catholic beliefs and
in its devotion to the Virgin Mary; consequently, with confidence that the Society would grow
fast in this region, he proposed to Father Chaminade a foundation in Alsace. Today we know the
entrance of the Society in Alsace was due to the attempt to create a kind of national congregation
to which all the congregations of teaching brothers would belong. In accordance with this
project, Father Mertian asked Louis to encourage Father Chaminade to integrate his religious
Institute with that of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine in this common association of religious
in the field of education. With this objective, Louis tried to attract Father Chaminade to establish
a foundation in Alsace by means of a union of the Institute of Mary with the Brothers of
Christian Doctrine, who managed, since 1819, a private school for boys in the village of
Ribeauvillé, thanks to the aid of Father Fréchard (1765-1849), parish priest of Colroy (Vosges)
and also founder of another male religious congregation dedicated to teaching, called the
Brothers of Christian Doctrine of Nancy. The common dedication to education gave rise to an
epistolary exchange between Mertian and Chaminade with the intention of fusing their respective
religious institutes. If they could not arrive at a material union, Mertian affirmed that they should
at least be “united in prayer.”80 They agreed to a plan of unity with the Society of Mary, and
from the final days of 1821 Father Mertian intended to unite the Sisters of Providence of
Ribeauvillé with the Daughters of Mary of Mother Trenquelléon. But the exclusive dedication of
the Sisters of Providence to teaching made it impossible to meld both female congregations
under the same religious inspiration. In a letter of January 25, 1822, to Louis Rothéa, Father
Chaminade outlined his conditions to unite the two male institutes. The following February 6,
Mertian showed Chaminade the 20 articles of the statutes for constituting a federation of Petits
Frères, formed by the association of all the educational congregations that would work
throughout the rural populations of France. In these statutes, Chaminade was considered the
director of the federation of Petits Frères, whose headquarters would be in Bordeaux. He would
79
Weltz, “Les premières oeuvres...-III”, in RMI, no. 8 (Oct. 1987), pp. 23-27; Chaminade, Letters, vol. 1, pt. 2, pp.
359-61; Simler, Chaminade, pp. 350-63; concerning the entrance of the Society of Mary in Alsace and the
expansion in that region, see Schelker, La Société en Alsace, which is full of notes and bibliographic references.
80
This is an expression of Fr. Mertian in a letter to Chaminade on Feb. 6, 1822 (AGMAR 4.4.11-12), cited by
Weltz, “Les premières oeuvres...-III,” in RMI, no. 8 (Oct. 1987), pp. 24-25; concerning the creation of a federation
of teaching congregations, see Zind, Les nouvelles congrégations, cited by Schelker, La Société en Alsace, pp. 3133; the relations of Fr. Chaminade with various Alsatian priests for the creation of said federation of teaching
brothers and which culminated in the Alsatian foundations can be seen in Chaminade, Letters, vol. 1, pt. 2, letter
nos. 176, 183, 184, 188, 197, 202, 203, 204, and 212; and in Simler, Chaminade, pp. 350-52 and 392-98.
be responsible for the formation of the masters of novices, the superiors of houses, and the
inspectors of schools; he also would manage the administrative relations with the diocesan
bishops, under whose protection the new educational association would be placed; and the
common Rule of religious life for all the houses and the methods and educational programs of all
the schools would be established at the central headquarters in Bordeaux. Thus spiritual unity
inside the federation would be assured.81
But the project to create an association of educational congregations failed, and
Chaminade understood the mission of the Society of Mary in a much more extensive sense than
solely the task of teaching. Also, the bishop of Strasbourg, Príncipe de Croÿ, was opposed to the
project because, according to the statutes, the election of the superiors of Alsace would not be in
his hands, and because it was not prudent to send one or two isolated religious, who did not form
a proper canonical community, to a municipal village. In short, Mertian let go of his magnificent
project and on October 22, 1822, wrote Chaminade accepting that “if we have not been able to
unite our congregations, at least, we remain united to you in prayer.” But the contact was not in
vain, because when, in 1826, Father Mertian decided to dissolve his religious institute, he offered
his members the possibility of being incorporated into the Society of Mary. Three religious took
advantage of this offer.
Despite the unfeasibility of the union between the two congregations, the stay of Louis
Rothéa in his hometown allowed him contact with a great number of Alsatian priests, bringing
the Institute of Mary to light among them. This publicity had resulted in the attraction of his
brother Charles to the novitiate of St. Laurent and, at the same time, his seminary companion,
Father George Caillet (pastor in Porrentruy, Switzerland, and director of the seminary). In 1823,
another priest, Jean Baptiste Romain, entered the novitiate at St. Laurent.82
The Society owed its establishment in Alsace to the action of Louis Rothéa: in 1824 Father
Chaminade trusted him to open the first Marianist establishment in that region in Colmar; in
1826 he negotiated with Father Mertian to fuse the two institutes, and out of said negotiations he
obtained the transfer of the important house of Saint Hippolyte and the direction of the municipal
school of Ammerschwyr (1826); and thanks to his interest the Society also obtained direction of
the rural schools of Saint-Marie-aux-Mines (1827) and Ribeauvillé (1827), as well as the
purchase (with family money) and transfer to the Society of the ancient abbey of Ebersmunster
(1833), the schools of Soultz (1835), Kaisersberg (1836), and of Wattweiler (1839). In short,
with the trip of Louis to Ribeauvillé in 1821 the Society of Mary acquires, for the first time, an
extra-diocesan theater of action, which will be valuable when it requests legal approval from the
government and canonical approval from the Holy See.
Foundation of Saint Remy
While Father Chaminade negotiated with Father Mertian concerning the fusion of the two
religious institutes, the arrival on the scene of a new personage is going to be the determinant
factor for the establishment of the Society of Mary in the northeast of France, in the FrancheComté. The man was Bishop Claude Marie Tharin, vicar general of the Diocese of Besançon.
81
See the statutes in Simler, Chaminade, pp. 393-94, cited in Shelker, La Société en Alsace, p. 31, n. 32.
See the reconstruction of the Personnel by Weltz, in Cada, Early Members, pp. 261-63; the number of Alsatian
Marianists was great, there were 28 religious from Ribeauvillé alone, among whom was the famous Fr. Emile
Neubert.
82
Tharin was a member of the Marian Sodality of Bordeaux, a friend of Chaminade, and has a
sister who joined the Daughters of Mary. In November 1822, William Joseph Chaminade
received a letter dated October 29, from Besançon. The vicar of the diocese wrote:
I have the honor of transmitting to you a note from Father Bardenet, missionary of this
diocese, in which you will find a description of the château of Saint Remy, with the
proposal which he has the honor of making to you. Archbishop Adana, coadjutor of
Besançon, has been informed of the steps that Father Bardenet has taken to receive a
number of your Congregation into the Diocese of Besançon, and he asks me to beg of
you to send me the Statutes of your Congregation. I have no doubt that, if you accept
Father Bardenet’s proposals, the Archbishop will hasten to authorize you to make a
foundation in the château of Saint Remy.83
The property for sale was situated five leagues (15 miles) from the town of Saint Remy,
in the Haute-Saon, in the Diocese of Besançon. The château had been built 60 years prior by
Mme Sophie de Rosen so that her son, a colonel in the cavalry, could reside there along with his
regiment, thus there were many buildings (with more than 60 rooms) and stables. But the son
died before he ever went there, and the château was found in poor condition. The combination of
agricultural construction and arable land added up to an immense property of almost 150
hectares (370.66 acres); although the arable land was good, it had been invaded by the forest
because of disuse.
Father Bardenet (1763-1844) had been the pastor of Mesney-les-Arbois (Jura) before the
Revolution. As with so many other priests, he acted heroically in defense of the faith during the
Terror. After the Revolution, he developed his popular ministry of preaching missions in the
Diocese of Besançon, as a member of the Diocesan Missionaries of Beaupré. Gifted with a rare
ingenuity for business, he had acquired diverse ecclesiastical real estate in disuse, and he was
interested in selling the farm of Saint Remy for 30,000-40,000 francs. To his decision, he owed
the entrance of the Marianists in Saint Remy in 1823, and the religious of Mother Adèle in
Arbois in 1826. He continued lending great service to the two religious Institutes; for the Society
of Mary, in the foundation of Courtefontaine, Marast, and Saint Claude, and for the Daughters of
Mary in the abbey d’Acey, of which he was chaplain until his death.84 Father Bardenet knew the
Society of Mary through a common friendship with Father George Caillet, who had just joined
the Society in October 1822. This common friend was Father Domet, fellow-seminarian of
Father Caillet, and vicar in a parish in Besançon. Shortly after Caillet arrived in Bordeaux, his
friend Domet wrote a letter, dated September 29, 1822, inviting him to pass along to his superior
the offer of the diocesan missionary Bardenet, who sought a religious community to put at the
front of the Saint Remy property, where he intended to have a place of retreat for people who
desired to abandon the world to the end of their lives. A month later, October 29, the letter of
formal petition from Vicar Tharin arrived in Bordeaux with the note from Father Bardenet.
83
Chaminade, Letters, to Chaminade, Oct. 29, 1822; vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 423. Also in Simler, Chaminade, pp. 358-62;
Henri Lebon, “Les premières fondations de la Société en Franche-Comté et en Alsace. (1823-24) L’entré de la
Société à Saint-Remy,” in L’Apôtre de Marie, no. 159 (Apr. 1924), pp. 443-50.
84
Biography of Fr. Bardenet in AGMAR 16.9.17.
Chaminade answered Vicar Tharin with another letter of November 21, in which he laid
out the difficulties in accepting the said foundation at the moment: the distance from Bordeaux;
the reduced number of religious in those early years of the Society of Mary; the negotiations with
the city council of Villeneuve-sur-Lot concerning the municipal free schools; and how the
Marianist Sisters had taken direction of the free schools of the village of Tonneins (1820),
bought an orphanage in Condom (1824), and transferred the novitiate to Bordeaux (1824). But,
immediately Chaminade confesses in his letter:
I have finally reconciled myself to the inevitable before God, urged interiorly by the sight
of the great good for religion which would result. I also have been especially encouraged
by two of our priests, Fathers Rothéa and Caillet, who have both made their seminary in
Besançon…. I therefore accept, Your Honor, the propositions which Father Bardenet
makes to me. I look forward to entering into discussions with him and his worthy
confreres concerning the good works. In consequence, I seek to prepare a small group of
subjects to form the nucleus of the establishment he has in view. I hope I can increase the
number gradually as the need shall arise.85
Finally, he wrote to Vicar Tharin on March 4, 1823, to announce his firm will to accept
this work. “If, as I believe, this enterprise is the work of God, all difficulties in the way of its
realization will eventually disappear. Each one of the cooperators that Providence has chosen
will do his part. I shall certainly do mine.”86
David Monier waited until the spring to undertake such a long trip. He left March 10,
1823, on the road to Franche-Comté. He arrived in Besançon and immediately visited Saint
Remy, guided by Father Bardenet. Monier was sent with the sole mission of calculating the
possibilities that the property offered for installing a Marianist community with a reduced
number of personnel and ensuring that the Society would not be stuck with installation expenses
which should be assumed by the Diocesan Missionaries of Father Bardenet. But, seeing the view
of the château and the property, Monier remained amazed and projected the possibility of
opening a normal school at Saint Remy to form 500 existing primary teachers in the Dioceses of
Besançon. Monier, on his own account, risked the initiative to purchase the property of Saint
Remy in the name of Father Chaminade, whose powers of representation he possessed. On May
16, 1823, he signed the deed of sale for a price of 60,000 francs, an amount small with regard to
the value of the property, but exorbitant with regard to the finances of the young Society of
Mary.87
But a notable change had taken place before the signing of the contract; Father Bardenet
had left the Diocesan Missionaries, which made it difficult to include the economic support of
said association which would assure the future economic support of the recently-acquired
property; also, the possibility of starting the normal school faded as the school belonged to the
85
Chaminade, Letters, no. 219 to Fr. Tharin, Nov. 21, 1822; vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 424; and another similar letter Ibid., no.
225 to Tharin, Jan. 25, 1823; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 434-35.
86
Chaminade, Letters, no. 229 to Fr. Tharin, Mar. 4, 1823; vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 439.
87
Chaminade, Letters, nos. 227-28 to Monier, Mar. 4, 1823; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 436-37; ibid., nos. 229 and 231 to
Tharin, March 4 and 10, 1823; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 437-38 and 441-42; ibid., no. 230 to Bardenet, Mar. 4, 1823; vol. 1,
pt. 2, pp. 439-40; the titles for the property of Saint Remy is in AGMAR 158.3.1-186.
Missionaries, and they had just purchased, in Vesoul, an old Capuchin monastery, which they
were fixing up for the purpose of opening their normal school. Furthermore, David Monier,
fascinated by the splendor of the château and the agricultural possibilities of the farm, did not
consider the immense financial investment required to restore the building and prepare the fields
for crops. When Chaminade became aware of all these problems, he was not frightened; he stood
by his word and said in a letter dated May 21:
“If the good God inspires Father Bardenet and his worthy colleagues to come effectively
to our assistance with the costs and advance payments to get the work going, I shall look
upon this inspiration as an indication of the will of God, and I shall say to you: “God
ahead! God is with us! God is in favor of this undertaking. I promise to send you good
subjects to sustain it, etc.” If the contrary is the case, I am obliged to tell you: “I leave it
to your wisdom, I accept what you think you should do in my name. I shall do all I can to
be faithful to the pledges you make.”88
Chaminade, then, saw great possibilities for making Saint Remy profitable: establishing a
pension or vocational school, agricultural efforts which could produce economic resources to
maintain the other works of the Society and, in any case, a great property where a house of
formation could be established. With all these ruminations, which he expressed in a letter to his
secretary on May 27, Chaminade accepted the situation and decided to send a community.
The community began in the month of July; composed of six religious and four novices,
of which Dominique Clouzet was the superior and Father Charles Rothéa the chaplain. On July
16, the Feast of the Virgen del Carmen, after having Mass in the novitiate of St. Laurent, they
left for Saint Remy, saying good-bye to Father Chaminade. This was the first great separation of
the foundational nucleus, which, up to now, was centered around Bordeaux. The Marianist
tradition has retained the memory of the heroic principles of this work, beginning with the long
carriage trip of nearly 800 km (500 miles).89 They arrived on July 30 or 31 and soon saw for
themselves the abandoned state of the property, the field had not been cultivated, and the château
was large and unfurnished. Cut off from every populated nucleus, their first objective was
survival. But they did not lose their spirit; with a great sense of humor and much moral and
physical effort, they maintained a high spiritual tone, surviving on the scarce supplies passed to
them by Bardenet and Chaminade; in this they understood that a work thus tested was truly a
work of God.90
The great objective was to clarify the apostolic work of this immense agricultural
property cut off from every inhabited nucleus. This circumstance made it impossible to engage in
Sodality building, but their severely austere life in the midst of a rural population, well
88
Chaminade, Letters, no. 236 to Monier, May 21, 1823; vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 455.
The religious were Dominique Clouzet, Pierre Bousquet, Pierre Dubarry, Bernard Gaussens, Jean Pascal, and Fr.
Rothéa, and the novices Jean Baptiste Constant, Jean Coustou, Antoine Marres, and Augustin Moliner; the average
age of the religious was 29 and of the novices 17.5, see Cada, Early Members, p. 261; concerning the road to Saint
Remy see Lebon, “Les premières fondations de la Société,” in L’Apôtre de Marie, no. 159 (Apr. 1924), pp. 443-50;
concerning the difficulty of their journey, see Bertier de Sauvigny, The Restoration, pp. 200-208.
90
See the affectionate handwritten letter of Fr. Chaminade to “my dear children, the heads and other religious
residing in the château of Saint Remy,” which exhorts them to remain faithful through all their trials. Chaminade,
Letters, no. 260 to St. Rémy, Dec. 2, 1823; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 500-02.
89
established in its Catholic beliefs, began to attract vocations. The first two postulants, Jean
Rosette and Antoine Guyot, presented themselves fifteen days after the brothers arrived, and in
January 1824 there already were nine postulants. So the first work of Saint Remy was a
postulate. Consequently, Father Chaminade allowed them to open a novitiate with Father Rothéa
as novice master. In the meantime, the religious had begun to cultivate the farm so that it could
produce a means of subsistence. Also, the populations on the outskirts asked for a school, and in
the same year, 1824, they opened a boarding school that was initially for primary education only;
but, before finishing the school year, it already was admitting secondary students.91
The good vocational prospects, the demand for education by the families of the region,
and the processing of the first meeting of the pedagogical course for school teachers for the next
Easter holiday of 1824 gave Saint Remy a good organization and a capable person to direct it,
thus David Monier, who had remained there all this time as Chaminade’s representative, suffered
nervous states of exhaustion and depressive phases on account of the serious misfortune which
was brought about by the hasty purchase of the property and the difficulties of keeping the
community alive. Chaminade recalled Monier to Bordeaux and by a letter of obedience dated
February 26, 1824, sent Father Caillet as his representative with full power to organize the life
and mission of the community. Caillet received powers to receive postulants and novices; to
receive first vows, the renewal of temporary vows, and perpetual vows; to seek friends and
benefactors to maintain the school; to organize the vocational recruitment in the region; to study
the arrangements and improvements of the château and the agricultural work; and to examine the
possibility of a course in pedagogy for the teachers of the rural schools in the department. With
all these commissions, Caillet arrived in the Franche-Comté in the middle of March.92
Father Caillet was not very gifted with the people skills or diplomacy of Monier; his
exterior appearance conserved the manners of his rural origins; his know-how was more concrete
than brilliant. But he was a man of integrity, orthodox in his criteria and actions, and very
religious, for which reasons he enjoyed the fullest confidence of Father Chaminade. And also,
George Caillet had magnificent relations with the clergy of the Franche-Comté and the rector of
the seminary, which could contribute to the success of the works that they expected to begin. 93
One of the more urgent works was to begin some formation for the school teachers of the
department. Men with little or no pedagogical and religious formation (when they did not have
serious moral defects) were found in the rural schools. Chaminade offered to organize activities
of formation for them in collaboration with the civil and academic authorities. From this
initiative the missionary project of normal schools would be born, which has earned its own
section because of its importance.
Municipal School of Colmar
The failure of the fusion of the religious institute of Father Mertian with the Society of Mary
from Bordeaux was the occasion for the religious of Father Chaminade to settle in Alsace, a
highly favorable environment for Catholicism and the economic and social development of the
91
There was a collège in the nearby population of Amance, a league (3 miles) from the château, directed by a
virtuous priest, Fr. Buzón, who had grouped together the elite youths among whom was Thomas Gousset, future
Cardinal-Archbishop of Reims; the disappearance of this school left a hole that came to be filled by the Society of
Mary, see Simler, Chaminade, pp. 364-65.
92
Chaminade, Letters, no. 271 to Caillet, Feb. 26, 1824; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 525-27.
93
Concerning Fr. George Caillet, see Simler, Chaminade, p. 361-62, and two letters from Chaminade to Clouzet,
Chaminade, Letters, nos. 281 and 282 to Clouzet, Apr. 5 and 13, 1824; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 546-51.
region. The decisive factors of this establishment were, firstly, the religious fervor of the
population and, secondly, the strong personality of the ecclesiastical leaders (especially among
the rural clergy who desired to elevate the cultural level of the farming population through the
schooling of their children.) Add to this the desire of Father Chaminade to fulfill the task of
evangelizing the youth of France through the teaching mission of his religious. Thus it was that
between the acceptance of the municipal school of Colmar in 1824 and 1845 there were eight
establishments in Alsace that came to be directed by the Society of Mary; this coincided with a
period of rapid growth for the Society, protected by the legal recognition of the royal ordinance
of November 16, 1825.94
During the first third of the nineteenth century, Alsatian Catholicism was distinguished
by its religious fervor and its ultramontanism faithful to the papacy. The de-Christianization
carried out during the Revolutionary Terror had little penetration in this region, and the juring
clergy were not accepted by the population, particularly in rural areas. Nevertheless, the
Alsatians identified with the democratic values of the Revolution, consolidating the feeling of
patriotic unity in Alsace with the rest of the nation. This patriotic feeling was not an impediment
to the Catholic clergy, royalists, who organized prayers for the fall of Napoleon and the liberty of
the pope. In conclusion, after the Revolution, Alsace had fortified its fidelity to national unity
and the Catholic faith. This town with a desire for education, very attached to its traditions and
its dialect and accustomed to the denominational pluralism that awakened a strong missionary
desire, was converted into a land ripe to receive the influences of ultramontanism which
originated in the Rhineland. Ultramontanism, always favorable to the congregations and
religious orders in union with the pope, was so strong in the faithful and the clergy that the
professors of the seminary of Strasbourg refused to sign the ancient Gallican declaration of 1682.
Because of this, Alsatian Catholicism underwent a great revitalization during the Restoration.
If the arrival of the Marianists in Colmar in 1824 took advantage of the religious fervor of
the Alsatian population, it should not be forgotten that the establishment in the region was
favored by the ecclesiastical leaders, most especially the bishop of Strasbourg, head of the
regional Church. The three prelates who successively occupied the see between 1820 and 1842
all contributed to the settlement of the Society of Mary in Alsace: Gustave Maximilien Just,
Príncipe de Croÿ, was the first bishop of Strasbourg after the fall of the Empire in 1820. A noble
bishop who spoke the popular dialect, the Alsatians felt he was a return to the ancien régime; he
was the prelate who intervened in the autumn of 1822 in the negotiations between Ignatius
Mertian and William Joseph Chaminade. Bishop Príncipe named Father Bruno François Leopold
Liebermann president of the school commission of Alsace. Liebermann had been rector of the
seminary of Mainz, whence he returned to Strasbourg in 1823, bringing ultramontane doctrines
with him; he favored the educational congregations and deeply admired the educational activity
of the brothers of the Society of Mary. In 1823, Bishop Príncipe de Croÿ, who was a royal
chaplain, was raised to the archbishopric of Rouen. Thus Claude Paul Tharin was named bishop
of Strasbourg in January 1823 at the age of 37. Tharin had been a sodalist of Father Chaminade
in Bordeaux and had a sister in the Daughters of Mary. Formed at the seminary of St. Sulpice, he
professed strong ultramontane convictions that inclined him to show great sympathy for the new
religious congregations and the old orders: he proposed that the Jesuits be installed in Alsace; he
protected the Trappists and Redemptorists; he intervened in the relations between Mertian and
Chaminade when they were trying to unite their respective religious institutes, and the first
Marianist community was installed in Colmar in 1824 during his episcopacy. Tharin named
94
According to the monograph of Schelker, La Société en Alsace.
Liebermann vicar general, consolidating the ultramontane politics in Alsace, which were
favorable to the congregations.
But, because of Bishop Tharin’s fidelity to the royal house, he was called to Paris in 1825
to be the tutor of the duke of Bordeaux. Leaving Strasbourg in 1826, Jean François Marie Le
Pappe de Trévern, who was 72 years old, occupied the bishopric of Strasbourg until his death in
1842. Bishop Le Pappe de Trévern, contrary to his predecessor, had gallican tendencies unlike
the clergy. But he was very charitable and interested in the education of the town, and he thought
that the brothers and sisters should maintain the rural schools—a task which was carried out by
vicar Liebermann.
Just as in the rest of the country, the resurgence of religious fervor during the Restoration
had the immediate effect of the birth of abundant religious associations in Alsace. The
Revolutionary law of February 19, 1790, which suppressed monastic vows, had erased the
ancient conventual and monastic orders from Alsace. Some female charitable or educational
societies survived during the Revolutionary storm, but they grew little during the Napoleonic
period. During the Restoration, this changed: the female congregations prospered and extended
their action. Also, but more modestly, the male congregations dedicated to teaching grew
moderately as we already saw with the Brothers of Christian Doctrine of Father Mertian. The
desire of the bishop to include the brothers in the schools of the region is a key factor in the
approval of their statutes on August 14, 1821, and the authorization of the government by the
ordinance of December 5, 1821. In August 1820, a community of Redemptorist priests was
installed in Bischenberg, in an old Franciscan monastery purchased through the mediation of
Father Ignatius Mertian. But the community was persecuted by the liberals and expanded little.
The fourth religious congregation of men that was established in Alsace were the Brothers of
Mary, as the Marianist were called in the region. In 1824 a community came to take charge of
the municipal school of Colmar. Then other orders and congregations came: the Trappists and
the Society of Jesus.
On this land fell the fertile seed of the Society of Mary. Before the establishment in
Alsace, the Society was not a stranger to the region; continuing the example of the brothers
Rothéa, others crossed France to enter the novitiate of the Society in Bordeaux. Letters
petitioning the opening of a school in Alsace arrived at the desk of Father Chaminade. The most
insistent petition stemmed from Father Louis Maimbourg.
George Jean François Louis Maimbourg, pastor in Colmar since 1814, was an Alsatian
priest whom Louis Rothéa put in contact with Father Chaminade. Father Louis Maimbourg, born
in Ribeauvillé in 1774, was a compatriot of Louis Rothéa; he was ordained a priest during the
Revolution on the other side of the Rhine, and in 1802 he became the private secretary of Bishop
Zaepfel, bishop of Liège, and the following year he returned to his land, where Bishop Saurine—
former constitutional bishop—made him an assistant in the ecclesiastical reorganization of the
departments of the Haut-Rhin and the Bas-Rhin. Since 1814, he had been the pastor in Colmar.
Father Maimbourg possessed an overwhelming personality and an immense influence on the
religious authorities and civilians in the department of the Haut-Rhin, given that as pastor in
Colmar he had received the title of vicar general for this part of the diocese, which gave him near
episcopal authority. For his civil and religious services, Maimbourg received the cross of the
Legion of Honor in 1840.
Desiring to assure a Christian education for the youth from his parish, Father Maimbourg
introduced in Colmar the Sisters of Providence of Portieux to run the primary school for girls; in
the same way, he offered Father Chaminade direction of the school, college, and the municipal
schools of the city. For the collège a director would suffice, but for the municipal schools a
community of brothers would be necessary that could erase the common method employed by
secular teachers obeying a liberal creed, a method highly criticized by the clergy. In a letter of
May 9, 1822, Chaminade told him of his great interest in creating a foundation in Alsace, but he
saw difficulties in attempting this foundation, as he was busy negotiating with the city council of
Villeneuve to receive direction of their free schools. Due to the scarce availability of personnel in
the growing Society of Mary, Chaminade considered it safer to concentrate their forces in the
department of Lot-et-Garonne, where they had many petitions to direct the municipal schools.95
While the two priests negotiated the sending of a community of brothers to Colmar, in
October 1822, Louis Rothéa finished his mission as master of novices for the congregation of
Father Mertian and returned to Bordeaux. We do not know the exact motives that caused
Chaminade to accept direction of the municipal school in Colmar for the school year 1824-25;
probably, Louis caused Chaminade to see the vocational possibilities of the region and the
favorable predisposition of the city council for the creation and financing of schools whose
direction would be by religious congregations. Another important factor in the acceptance of this
petition was the designation of Bishop Tharin as bishop of Strasbourg (the diocese in which
Colmar resided) in 1823, who had been vicar general of Besançon up till then. Tharin, who did
so much to attract the religious of Chaminade to the Franche-Comté, facilitated their entrance
into his diocese.96 In any case, until Chaminade finished his negotiations with the city council of
Villeneuve to obtain direction of the free schools, he did not accept the petition to direct the
school in Colmar. In the spring of 1823, David Monier, personal assistant to Father Chaminade,
was sent to negotiate the acquisition of the château of Saint Remy, in the Franche-Comté, and to
meet with the priest in Colmar to decide the conditions for the direction of the municipal schools.
A year later, May 29, 1824, Chaminade wrote Father Caillet, who was responsible for the
establishment of Saint Remy, to go to Colmar and accept the direction of the municipal schools:
You may, my dear son, accept the direction of the schools of Colmar in my name,
provided Saint Remy can provide two teachers for the French language. I shall send the
two German teachers I have here—Brothers Rothéa and Troffer. Father Maimbourg
seemed at one time to want Brother Rothéa. I spoke of this several days ago to Brother
Rothéa, and he will gladly go…. Tell Father Maimbourg I have all confidence in him....
If Father Maimbourg wants it, we can make a start this very summer. Let him tell me
when the Brothers will have to be there.... I have in front of me the royal ordinance, dated
last April eighth.... You may tell him that the Institute of Mary is regularly authorized by
the ecclesiastical authority, that it is known to the Ministry...that we are known to the
Archbishop of Strasbourg, because it is he, in a way, who has drawn us into the Diocese
of Besançon.97
95
Simler, Chaminade, pp. 351-53; concerning Fr. Maimbourg, see Henri Lebon, “L’entrée de la Société de Marie en
Alsace (1824-1924),” in L’Apôtre de Marie, no. 165, pp. 231-35, and Shelker, La Société en Alsace, pp. 41-44; see
also Chaminade, Letters, nos. 197, 204, 212, and 224 to Maimbourg, May 9, June 18, September, 1822, and January
24, 1823; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 388-89, 398-99, 413-15, and 433-34.
96
Simler, Chaminade, pp. 390-91.
97
Chaminade, Letters, no. 292 to Fr. Caillet, May 29, 1824; vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 570-71.
But, concerning the other projects relative to sustaining the ancient convent of Trois-Epis
and attending to the wasteland of Pèlerinage, the Society of Mary did not have enough priests to
take on these works.
On August 29, 1824, the Baron de Muller, mayor of Colmar, submitted a proposal to the
city council that would give direction of the municipal schools to the Brothers of Mary. It argues
that the children are not receiving any religious instruction from the secular teachers and
concludes as follows: “There is no education without instruction, and primary instruction is
incomplete without religion.” The city council approved the delivery of the school to the
religious for a salary of 2,200 francs annually for four teachers. On September 2, the Baron de
Muller sent an official petition to Father Chaminade, to which he responded accepting the offer
with a letter of the following September 16. Upon finishing the annual retreat from October 1725, Louis Rothéa left Bordeaux for Colmar on November 1 and was accompanied by Bernard
Laugeay, Jean Coustou, and Jean Nicolas Troffer who would be teachers. They added two
working brothers to their ranks: Antoine Bartayres and Jean Olivier. Classes opened on Monday,
November 8, 1824, with 400 students distributed between the four teachers. In January 1825,
enrollment was at 450, and soon they had 500 students, which is why a fifth teacher, Benoît
Geiger, was sent at the end of the month.
The Marianist educational efforts were favorably received by a society eager to have their
children schooled. Already in 1817, the year of the foundation of the Society of Mary, in the two
Alsatian departments, the Haut-Rhin and the Bas-Rhin, under the authority of the Academy of
Strasbourg, there were 1,172 teachers for 1,045 municipalities; although, there was an accusatory
absenteeism from schools on account of the refusal of parents to send their children to a school
where they had to pay the teacher and because of the need of children to work the harvest. The
Academy of Strasbourg tried coercive measures against this mentality. The situation improved
when the city council enlarged the number of free schools and equipped them well. In the
important villages, the city council maintained two schools: one for Catholics and one for
Protestants; but the protestant families took care of the teachers of their children with a good
salary and careful preparation of the teachers. Then, the pastors and Catholic parents redoubled
their efforts in this peaceful struggle to improve the quality of teaching. Also, Alsace benefited
from the new pedagogical methods originating in neighboring German states. In this way, during
the Restoration, the number of schools grew; thus, in 1821, 90 percent of Alsatian municipalities
possessed a school; in 1833, there were only 65 municipalities (out of 1,045) without a school.
During the Restoration, throughout the kingdom of France, the academies with the greatest
expansion of schools were Metz, Strasbourg, and Besançon. These last two are exactly where the
Society of Mary settled.98 In this situation, it must be understood that once the first Marianist
community was installed in Alsace, there would be eight other communities established between
1825 and 1840. To these nine establishments in the Haut-Rhin and the Bas-Rhin, the school of
Saint Dié (in the Vosges) must be added. It was opened in 1838 and was dependent upon this
new sector of establishments by the Society of Mary. In this period of establishment, there were
two phases: the first, between 1824 and 1827, consisted of Colmar, Ammerschwyr, Saint
Hippolyte, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, and Ribeauvillé; and a second phase, from 1833 to 1835,
consisted of Ebersmunster and the schools of Soultz, Kaisersberg, and Wattweiler; all of these
houses were in the surrounding area of Colmar. During this same period of time, the number of
religious passed from seven brothers to 59, of whom four were priests. All in all, it was on this
land, already well ploughed, that the Society of Mary prospered.
98
Schelker, La Société en Alsace, pp. 97-99.
Without avoiding the desire for instruction and the resources invested by the city council,
it must be affirmed that the “determinant factor” of the success of the establishment of the
Society of Mary in the region was the population. The forecasts of Louis Rothéa came to
fruition, and the brothers of Mary found a magnificent reception among the Catholic population,
which was the clear majority in the villages where the Marianists took over direction of the
municipal schools: Colmar, with 15,496 inhabitants in 1826, and Ribeauvillé, with 5,704
inhabitants, were 72 percent and 79 percent Catholic, respectively, much higher than the
Protestants or the Jews. In Ammerschwyr, the population was exclusively Catholic; in Saint
Hippolyte, Catholics represented 99percent of the population; in Kaisersberg the Catholic
population was 98.5 percent; in Wattweiler the population of Catholics was 97 percent; in Soultz
it was 84percent; Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines offered a greater contrast with only 54 percent of the
population being Catholic in 1851. The brothers were requested by the Catholic populations.99
99
Concerning this “determinant factor” and the figures, see Schelker, La Société en Alsace, p. 49.