ABEL, BROTHER: Jean Etienne Dumas, Born in 1799 in the Parish of Bessey, District of Pélussin, Loire, to Antoine Dumas and Marguerite Melier
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
“Répertoires”, Raymond Borne/Paul Sester, Translated by Leonard Voegtle, as “References” ABEL, BROTHER: Jean Etienne Dumas, born in 1799 in the parish of Bessey, district of Pélussin, Loire, to Antoine Dumas and Marguerite Melier. He entered the novitiate of N.- D. de I’Hermitage on 25th September 1824, and received the habit on 3rd April 1825. He probably spent the rest of that year studying at the Hermitage. In 1826, we find him among the assistant teachers at Saint-Paul-en-Jarret, with Bro. Bernardin and Bro. Benjamin (AFA, 2 14.64.2). We do not know how long he remained there. What we do know is that alter the death of Bro. Bernardin, in 1830, the latter was replaced by Bro. Louis, who found Bros. Xavier and Benjamin already there (AFA, 214.93.10). Bro. Abel had therefore left, perhaps during the 1829 vacation, since at that time he replaced Bro. Antoine as director in Saint-Symphorien-le-Château, “where he remained until 1836, despite the many difficulties which were created for him” (AFA, 2 14.93.10). In fact, according to L. 123, Bro. Avit has his date wrong, since Bro. Abel must have left that assignment in 1835, when he left the Institute. He then proceeded to open a public school right there in Saint-Symphorien. The principal citizens, with the parish priest at their head, felt that one school in the area was quite enough. They suggested a competition between the brothers and Dumas, announcing that they would keep the winner as the one and only official teacher. Bro. Liguori, the cook, took the tests with Dumas, and won, so the latter had to leave town. He moved to Vaugneray (cf. AFA, 214.93.31). (REFERENCES, p. 036) ADELPHE, BROTHER: Philippe Esscrtier, born in Saint-Cassien, Isère, on 11th November 1808, to Pierre Essertier and Sophie Marthel. He entered the novitiate at the Hermitage on 15th January 1837, at the age of 28, and received the habit there on 3rd April 1837 (RV, 1, 69, 3° on the list). it seems he spent the 1838-1839 school year studying. The 1839 assignment list places him at Saint-Paul-en-Jarret with Bros. Xavier, Dalmace and Didime, even though Bro. Avit does not mention him in the annals of that school. Since we have no other assignment lists until 1846, there is no further trace of him. The fact that in 1843, Jean Louis Chadoud received the habit under the name of Bro. Adeiphe, shows that Philippe Essertier had left the Institute by that time, but we have no way of specifying the date when he did so. (REFERENCES, p. 036) ADRIEN, BROTHER: Antoine Vernet, born in Cogny, in the arrondissement of Villefranche-sur-Saône, on 4th February 1810. to Antoine Vernet and Françoise Dugelet. He entered the novitiate at the Hermitage on 30th October 1836 at the age of 27 and received the habit on 3rd April 1837 (RV, 1,55). He made temporary vows on 9th October 1837, and perpetual vows on 10th October 1838 (RVP, 1 30). His teaching career was short but varied, apparently because of his lack of ability. Here is what Bro. Barthélemy, his director at Saint-Symphorien-d’Ozon, had to say about him when writing to Fr. Champagnat on 16th March 1840: “I have no complaints whatever about Bro. Adnen; he has done and still does all he can. But his lack of education, his lack of experience, and the great difficulty he has in speaking, really make it impossible for him to succeed in a place as difficult as this. I have personally profited from having this good brother, but on the other hand, his class has lost a great deal. I am surprised that I was given an assistant so incapable of teaching; if I had not trained him a bit and taught him how to make the children read the chart, how to use the signal, etc his children would not have done any better than those in St-Sauveur last year. “I was not there when he took the examination during the last vacation, for I assure you that if I had seen for prefeng-letter.doc 1 cepam “Répertoires”, Raymond Borne/Paul Sester, Translated by Leonard Voegtle, as “References” myself his [lack of] knowledge and his difficulty in expressing himself, you would have really had to beg me to take him. For the rest, I am very pleased with him; he is a very good boy and would do very well at some kind of manual work or cooking, or even teaching someplace less difficult than this, provided that he be given a bit more training. He very much wants to educate himself, seeing that all he knows is what is absolutely necessary for him personally” (AFM, 121.12). We can see from this quotation that the young brothers studied during their vacations, and that their elders, especially the brothers directors, gave them examinations. We also see that in 1839, Bro. Adrien was in Saint-Saveur-en-Rue, which was no doubt his first assignment after a year of study at the Hermitage after his novitiate. The 1839 assignments (AFM, 139.5) list him in Peaugres; this is confirmed by Bro. Avit, who states in the annals of that establishment (AFA, 2 13.35.7), “Father assigned Bros. Sébastien and Adrien here”. He certainly did not stay there very long, since we find him in Saint-Symphorien d’Ozon in March 1840. We have no way of knowing how long he stayed there, nor what happened to him afterwards, since there is no further trace of him. Obviously, he left the Institute, but it is impossible to give even an approximate date for his departure. (REFERENCES, pp. 036-037) ALEXANDRE, BROTHER: Louis Barthélemy Soyères, born in Ampuis, Rhône, on 7th November 1811, to Guillaume Soyères and Thérèse Dervieux. Entered the novitiate at the Hermitage at 18, on 1st September 1826, and received the habit on 15th August 1827. On 8th September 1828 he made temporary vows for three years and renewed them on 12th October 1834 (RVT, 1,8,9,26). He made perpetual profession, first privately on 29th September 1835, then We have no way of knowing exactly when he began his teaching career. On the assignment list for 1834 or 1835, he appears in Valbenoite with Brothers Benoît, Lucien, Hilaire and Joseph-Marie. It is during this period that we find a notation in one of Fr. Champagnat’s notebooks (AFM, 132.4, P. 33) to the effect that “Bro. Alexandre is becoming familiar with one of the children”. That did not prevent his beginning a long career as director in November 1837. According to Bro. Avit (AFA, 211.33), “Bro. Alexandre came to La Voulte, Ardèche, [in November 1837] as its first director; he was superior of this house for three years”, which brings us to November 1840. Speaking about Saint-Nizier in Lyons, Bro. Avit states that, “The first director was replaced by Bro. Alexandre, who soon became sick with worry and did not stay long”; he then adds that, “Bro. Louis-Bernardin replaced him from September 1840 to March 1841” (AFA, 2 14.48.7). We can see that our annalist did not double-check the dates when this brother began his various assignments, but we have no reason not to believe that he was in all three places. It appears that he even returned to Saint-Nizier from March 1841 to September 1846, for in the same annals, for that period, Bro. Avit again speaks of him and says, “He was too timid to stand up to the administrative council”. At the beginning of the 1846 school year, he must have replaced Bro. Paulin in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, Isère, since we find him there in January 1847, with Bro. Osée in charge of the upper class, with 56 students, while he taught the lower class, which had 81 children. The following year, 1847-1848, he took over the upper class and Bro. Gilbert replaced him in the lower (AFA, 2 14.89.7). After the retreat of 1848, he handed over his post to Bro. Vital, and went to replace Bro. Vincent in Semur-en-Brionnais. At this point, Bro. Avit offers some reflections on this brother: “A very good religious, fairly capable, but too diffident, even naive, Bro. Alexandre did not know how to give all he prefeng-letter.doc 2 cepam “Répertoires”, Raymond Borne/Paul Sester, Translated by Leonard Voegtle, as “References” had. Neither his speech nor his appearance was enough to inspire confidence in superficial outsiders, nor even in his students. Discipline in the classes was weak, which limited their progress. Some people who doubted that he knew very much put him to the test: they got a carpenter to ask him the volume of a pile of wood with the bark still on; since a surveyor came up with a different answer from Bro. Alexandre’s, the latter was taken for an ignoramus. He may have been right, but he did not know how to assert himself, and he had to be replaced in class. He was given Bros. Alcibiade and Thibaud as teachers, and they did well.... Bro. Alexandre remained in Semur as director and did the cooking. He was a model among the first directors of the Institute from the point of view of economy, and it was needed” (AFA 2 12.48.12). During his twenty years as director in Semur, the average salary for three Brothers was 1,315 francs (about $ US 263).