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The Vincentian Family and Napoleon Vincentian Heritage Journal Volume 5 Issue 2 Article 2 Fall 1984 The Vincentian Family and Napoleon John W. Carven C.M. Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj Recommended Citation Carven, John W. C.M. (1984) "The Vincentian Family and Napoleon," Vincentian Heritage Journal: Vol. 5 : Iss. 2 , Article 2. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol5/iss2/2 This Articles is brought to you for free and open access by the Vincentian Journals and Publications at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vincentian Heritage Journal by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 43 The Vincentian Family and Napoleon** John W. Carven, C.M. On Easter Sunday, April 8, 1802, at Notre-Dame in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte promulgated the Concordat which he had hammered out with the Holy See. This entente between Church and State brought to fruition the first aim of Bonaparte's policy with regard to religion: use the Church as one of the unifying forces in France. Subsequent to and consequent on the Concordat, he also hoped that the accord with the Church would facilitate his control over Europe and reunite under French control such former foreign missions as China, the Near East, and Madagascar. Because of their apostolic work within France prior to the French Revolution, the international aspect of their Community, and its foreign mission endeavors, some Lazarists believed that the Congregation of the Mission, if re-established by Napoleon, could further his religio-political policy. Moreover, they believed that the relationship between the Lazarists and the Daughters of Charity could facilitate the re- establishment of the Vincentians. 1789 On the eve of the French Revolution there had been established in France seven distinct provinces of the Congregation of the Mission.' Within these seven provinces **This article is based on the author's book, Napoleon and the Lazarists (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). Lazarist was the name given to French Vincentians because of the Motherhouse Saint-Lazare. Along with the Daughters of Charity, they formed the sons and daughters of the family of St. Vincent de Paul. 'The information for this section has been culled from Felix Contassot, G.M. Notes d'Histoire Interne de la Congregation de la Mission (Paris: Archives of the Mission, unpublished manuscript). 44 seventy-nine houses existed. Of these houses, allowing for the fact that the priests performed diverse apostolic works from the same house, sixty-five were seminaries, forty-one provided a place of rest for those devoted to missions to the countryside, and seventeen exercised the function of parishes. Many of these same houses periodically rendered assistance to retreatants, while in others there lived Lazarists whose apostolic work was that of hospital chaplains. At that same time, approximately eight hundred and twenty-four Lazarist priests lived in France; there are no exact figures on the number of Brothers or seminarians. It must be observed, as M. Contassot did, that even the figures on the priests should be considered as lacking complete accuracy. The basis for the statistical study was the various Vow Books, the books which contained the signature of each Lazarist on the day he pronounced his vows in the Congregation. These books were notoriously incomplete since some Provincials neglected to forward the information to the Superior General. Moreover, the figures enumerate those who entered the novitiates of the Congregation at either SaintLazare, Cahors, or Lyon, but does not take into consideration either those who departed the Congregation before becoming priests, or those who died before 1789. In Europe, outside France, there existed at the time of the Revolution three provinces subject to the Superior General: in Italy the Province of Rome, established in 1639, and that of Lombardie; outside of Italy, the Province of Poland, erected in 1651. Lazarists were also working in Spain, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Portugal, Corsica, Austria, Hungary, Galicia, and Russia. Available information indicates that recruitment of personnel in these various Provinces and countries was not overly large. The Catalogue of Personnel of 1911, which lists Lazarists from the beginning of the foundation of the Congregation of the Mission till the end of the eighteenth century, provides the following totals for places mentioned above: Italy - 1,547; 45 Poland - 1,074; Spain - 220; Portugal - 127; and Germany - 33. As previously stated, these figures were based on various Vow Books and, therefore, not completely accurate. Besides their work in Europe, the Lazarists labored in far-flung areas which French interests had pervaded. The history of the foreign mission apostolate of the Congregation of the Mission began when St. Vincent de Paul dispatched some of his disciples to Tunisia in 1645, Algeria in 1646, and Madagascar in 1648. Missionaries first went to China in 1697, and in 1783 added to their own missions there those of the Jesuits. Lazarists embarked for lie Bourbon and lie de France in 1721; the Balearic Islands in 1736, and Madeira, in 1757, experienced the work of the Lazarists; some priests entered India in 1779; and in 1783 the Congregation of the Mission accepted responsibility for the Jesuit missions in the Levant, which at the time comprised Turkey, Greece, and Syria.2 Such was the geographical and numerical extent of the Lazarists at the beginning of the French Revolution. The Superior General residing at SaintLazare was empowered with the overall direction of the Congregation of the Mission wherever it was established. His rule also extended to the Company of the Daughters of Charity. On the eve of the Revolution, the Daughters of Charity staffed between 420 and 430 houses in France, as well as twenty in Poland where French Daughters first established houses in 1652, and one in Spain which received some Daughters in 1790.3 The Company embraced some 3,300 Sisters throughout Europe. 2The Royal decrees and letters patent relative to these last can be found in Actes du Gowrnment Francais Concernant la Congregation de la Mission (Paris: J. Dumoulin, 1902), pp. 57-68. In 1774 the Society of Jesus was dissolved by the Holy See (the Jesuits were re-established by the Papacy in 1814). 3Sister Antoinette Deleau, Superioress General of the Daughters of Charity, informed the President of the Convention Government, in a letter of November 27, 1792, that the Daughters of Charity "worked for the sick and the instruction of children in nearly all the parishes of Paris; in the whole Republic they had four 46 Suppression On February 13, 1792, the French Government suppressed the Congregation of the Mission, and the Superior General, M. Jean-Felix Cayla de la Garde,4 fled France and eventually found his way to Rome, to the Lazarists' house of Monte Citorio. While the decree of suppression legally abolished the Lazarists in France, it did not affect their work in other countries. The Superior General, from exile in Rome, continued to supervise the Congregation and its members and the Daughters of Charity. The French Lazarists, like other priests, numbered among their members some who died in the Reign of Terror and still others who suffered imprisonment, where in some cases they died. M. Joseph Guichard has provided the best estimates for these French Lazarists between 1792-1800.5 Twenty-five Lazarists are known to have been fatal victims of the Revolution: five died in the prisons at Amiens or Puy; three died on prison ships; nine fell victim to the scaffold; one was drowned in the Loire, while another died after being thrown from a window; two succumbed in Guyane at the unhealthy and scorching prison colony of Sinnamary (Devils Island); three are listed as massacred, although no further details are given; and one was murdered in the hospital of Lioubliana. Others escaped death but experienced life in prison or on prison ships. Some twenty-four have been accounted for in this category. Lazarists were also deported or voluntarily became hundred and twenty houses." Alexis Chevalier, Les Soeurs de Saint Vincent de Paul et le Conseil Municipal de Paris (Paris: E. Dentu, 1881), pp. 26-27. La Gense de la Cotnpagnie (Paris: Kremer, 1968), compiled by the Daughters of Charity, states that there were four hundred and thirty houses. 4Jean-Felix Cayla de la Garde was born in Rodez on February 19, 1735; he pronounced his religious vows on October 20, 1751; he died in Rome on February 12,1800. Notices sur les Pr&res, Clercs et Freres Defunts de la Congrgationde la Mission (Paris: J. Dumoulin, 1910, Premire Série, Tome V, p. 21. 'Joseph Guichard, C.M., La Congregation et La Revolution (Arch. de la Mission, unpublished manuscript). 47 emigres, finding their way to the Pontifical States, England Spain, and Germany. Exact figures are difficult to determine since there was some movement of the men between the various countries of exile. M. Guichard accounted for thirty- two Lazarists in exile in the Papal States, at least sixteen are known to have found their way to England, thirty-three took refuge in Spain, and some are known to have gone to Germany, but no names or numbers are listed for this latter group. Finally, it can be asked if, and how many, Lazarists joined the Constitutional Church,6 and if, and how many married. Three noted Constitutionals were ex-Lazarists: Nicolas Philbert, Adrien Lammourette, and jean-Baptiste Gratien. Another, M. Grenier, admitted in his letter to the Vicar General in 1808 that he had been Superior of a Constitutional seminary at Agen. Except for these men, there is no information on how many Lazarists might have joined the Constitutional Church.
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