History project revision - text 2 Government

The Government of the Congregation after the French Revolution

The years 1800 to 1827 mark one of the periods of the greatest complexity in the history of the Congregation. This situation arose after the death of Father Cayla, since it would have been impossible, because of the revolution and war, to hold a general assembly for the election of his successor. In his place, the Holy See saw to the appointment of vicars general. In the context of Italian-French antagonisms, the entire period took on a character of mutual rivalry and intrigue. This is its story.

Jean-Félix-Joseph Cayla de la Garde 1788-1800

The last superior general before the Revolution, Jean-Félix-Joseph Cayla de la Garde, took office in 1788. He had been visiting the houses of the Congregation in Poitou and Champagne and returned to Paris a mere two days before the sack of Saint Lazare. On that day, the inhabitants had to flee the house. Having nowhere else to go, Cayla with two assistants and some students sought hospitality from Louis-Joseph François, superior of the Seminary of Saint Firmin, the ancient Bons-Enfants. To disguise himself, Cayla donned the distinctive collar of the secular clergy and, for safety, placed a patriotic green ribbon on his hat. On the next day, the fourteenth, some students and others returned to Saint Lazare to begin to rebuild and repair. They were able to do so thanks to alms received from various quarters, such as the king, the archbishop and other religious communities. However, it was estimated that at least a million livres would be needed to make all the repairs. Besides, individual confreres had lost their personal money from their rooms, and Cayla, too, lost a fortune. The author of the first biographical notice of his life remarked that none of this disturbed the peace of his soul.

The superior general returned to Saint Lazare within a day or so to oversee the work of repair. Life returned slowly to some semblance of normality amid the destruction and want, but the community numbered only about half its previous size. At the conclusion of the annual retreat, held in October, Cayla wisely took the precaution of designating François-Florentin Brunet as his vicar general, following the usual procedure in use in the Congregation. The public chapel, which held the relics of Saint Vincent, also continued in use, as for the ordination of seven priests in July 1790. In those troubled times he and his council decided to erect the mission in the Palatinate, now in Germany, as a province. He announced this in his circular of 14 November 1791, citing as his reasons the current conditions in France and his hope for the development of the German mission.

As part of duties, Cayla also had to attend the sessions of the National Assembly, being held in Versailles. He had been elected originally as the first substitute, but, on 3 November 1789, when the Estates General voted to become the National Assembly, François-Xavier Veytard, pastor of Saint Gervais and one of the six clerical deputies from Paris, resigned out of fear of what was taking place. Although urged to give his place to another, Cayla attended the sessions regularly despite the danger. He spoke on 12 February 1790 in a debate about the suppression of vows and had his opinion printed. He refused to take the oath to support the Civil Constitution of the Clergy when it was supposed to be taken publicly in the assembly, and he strengthened others who had also refused. In this period, seven bishops out of 160 took the first oath, and about thirty percent of the priests took it. Cayla was therefore forced to leave the assembly on 4 January 1791 with the other recusant clergy.

Flight, Vicar Apostolic

With the legal suppression of congregations, 18 August 1792, the superior general had to leave Saint Lazare for the last time. The date is uncertain, but it must have been between 27 and 31 August. He remained in hiding in Paris, probably leaving the city on 2 September, the day of the massacres at Saint Firmin. He led a wandering existence for the next two years. He went to the southeast to hide out, in Valfleury and Saint Etienne, seemingly on his way to Italy. However, either because it was difficult or dangerous to leave France by this route, he soon returned to Paris in secret and then spent some months in Amiens. Two Vincentian priests with him there, Victor-Jacques Julienne (1738-1793) and Paul-Nicolas-Raymond Brochois (1742-1793), were apprehended and would shortly die in prison, but Cayla escaped after discovery and arrest. Together with his assistant Brunet, Cayla then found refuge in the Chateau of Heilly. This was a property near Amiens formerly belonging to members of the Gondi family, and Saint Vincent had visited it in his day. The superior general next went to the “lands of the Emperor,” Flanders, and was heard from in two cities, Ypres, 24 July 1793, and Tournai, 13 September. A letter from him, dated 12 January 1793 from an undisclosed location, announced to Benedetto Fenaja, the visitor of Rome, the following news: “You know about the terrible things that happened to us. I have found a very quiet home for the moment, and am in good health. Much of Saint Lazare has been sold, but little has been paid for. So our return is more difficult but not impossible, nor entirely desperate. If M. Ferris is with you, tell him I am waiting with great impatience for his answer.”

Fenaja must also have been impatient to know whether Cayla could freely govern the Congregation. Because he could not, he proposed a solution to the pope. Pius VI, motu proprio, on his own initiative, took the step of naming Fenaja “vicar apostolic,” with all the rights and authority of a superior general and his assistants. The reason for naming him, the pope wrote, was that it was unknown precisely where Cayla and his assistants were, since they were in hiding after being expelled from Saint Lazare by the “enemies of Christian truth,” indeed even if they were alive or dead. To maintain the Congregation and its members, “who have always striven to bring forth abundant fruit in the Lord’s vineyard,” Fenaja, who very reluctantly accepted this new service, and either his own assistants or others of his choosing would remain in charge of the Congregation’s administration and governance, and, if needed, should convoke a general assembly to elect Cayla’s successor. This was the first of the numerous, and sometimes contradictory, papal briefs designed to facilitate the Congregation’s government.

Fenaja duly informed the Congregation that, since no one could communicate with Cayla on the regular matters that would arise daily, the pope had named him vicar apostolic. He also promised that his office would cease when Cayla would be free, since he, Fenaja, was his “very dear and very obedient son.” Suspicious confreres in his own house, however, felt he had schemed to acquire this responsibility.

In a private letter to Cayla in response to his of 24 July 1793 from Ypres, Fenaja clarified what he meant by Cayla’s being free: guaranteed information that he was living in a house of the Congregation with at least some of the assistants and thus able to govern the Congregation freely.

Fenaja addressed a third circular to the members of the Congregation, in which he passed on a letter from Cayla written from Tournai, 13 September 1793. “I read that the Pope named you vicar general [sic] of the Congregation,” something the community needed. He hoped to reenter France through Lyon by the end of September, that is, within two weeks, but his hope was not realized. In forwarding this letter, Fenaja openly stated that he hoped it would “remove any suspicion, should there ever be any, of opposition of defiance between the superior general and the vicar general, a suspicion that could be for some a subject of trouble and worry, and for others a frivolous pretext to frustrate the designs of the Holy Father, whose intentions tend always to the good of our Institute....” For some reason, both Cayla and Fenaja used the expression “vicar general,” instead of “vicar apostolic,” the more correct term. The vicar apostolic’s foresight undoubtedly came from rumors and discussion among his Italian confreres, as would become clear in subsequent events.

Cayla’s letter from Mannheim, dated 1 January 1794, seems to have satisfied these conditions, since he had two assistants, Brunet and Ferris, in this Vincentian house of the province of the Palatinate. (Ferris, however, who had departed Paris with Sicardi for Turin, left there to rejoin Cayla sometime in 1793.) In this circular letter, Cayla recounted his escape, “by the special protection of providence, from the fury and the blade of assassins.” Cayla continued that he was uncertain whether his first assistant, Pertuisot, at eighty-nine, was alive or dead. The fourth assistant, Sicardi, was in Turin. While there, he had an engraving made of Saint Vincent, dated 2 June 1793, likely a gift designed to cheer up the superior general. Cayla then expressed his gratitude that the pope had appointed Fenaja to govern the Congregation in the past months. Turning to news of the Congregation, he recounted the condition of various houses, particularly those struck by disaster in France. He mentioned specifically Fathers François, Gruyer and Galoy, killed in the September massacres, as well as those who died in prison. Others, he added, had returned in disguise to France where they were active in an apostolate, while yet others had been reduced to begging for their bread or to relying on charity from the poor country people for some “coarse and nearly wild food.” Perhaps he was contrasting this with the good quality food so recently characteristic of Saint Lazare.

Fenaja replied in a circular dated 4 January that he had received, on 21 December, a letter from Cayla informing him that he had been able to assume the government of the Congregation. The temporary motherhouse of the Congregation was the little house at Neustadt, near Mannheim, from which he would quickly inform the Pope. In fact, Fenaja had already gone to Pius VI and offered his resignation, which the pope accepted. The clarity of the relationships between Cayla and Fenaja strongly contrasts with those of their successors.

Rome

The pope then repeated his invitation to Cayla to come to Rome. Brunet and Ferris both continued to accompany him, along with his secretary, Jacques-Antoine Lesueur (1744-1802). On their way, Cayla and his entourage traveled to various Italian cities, visiting his confreres on his way to Rome. The superior general is known to have been in Genoa in July, where his portrait was painted. He was joined by his other assistant, Sicardi, in the north of Italy, for the journey to Rome, but he shortly after returned to Piedmont, since Cayla had to pay for Sicardi’s upkeep, and it was very expensive to stay together. The result on Sicardi’s part was that he was away from Cayla from 1794 to the general’s death in 1800, arriving in Rome only six months afterward. The superior general, the assistants and the secretary had arrived in the Eternal City by the end of October. In Rome, they stayed temporarily at Montecitorio, but then moved to San Andrea al Quirinale from about 1 November 1794, until its suppression in 1798. They returned to Montecitorio, and Cayla helped this house to remain open when other places were closed, although it was suppressed temporarily by the new government in 1799.

The chief source for understanding the superior general’s concerns is his annual circular letters. In his New Year’s letter for 1795, he expressed his sorrow at the condition of his country. He felt he had also to express to his confreres “all the pain and the bitterness in my heart if I have occasionally to regret the fall or the loss of one of our members. . . . Although the fall of some distresses me, the fervor of the others consoles me.” As usual, he repeated the standard call to a faithful observance of rules, counting on superiors to hold the line against the innovations of the age. He had noted, possibly in Mannheim, some problems in dangerous modern opinions in both philosophy and theology. “God keep me from ever putting an obstacle in the way of science, but I would never be able to recommend sufficiently the spirit of wisdom in the choice of material to teach, the modest tone with which one treats them, and the distancing of oneself from singularity, which is so close to error.” News from the Congregation was scarce, since, for example, he had not heard much from Poland for several months, and correspondence with China had to pass through England, where it was slow to move on to its destination. Lastly, he announced that he would be taxing the provinces to help defray the expenses of his stay in Rome, as well as those of his assistants and a secretary. In the light of later complaints against his successors living in Rome, this decision is especially thoughtful.

In his annual circular, dated 23 December 1795, he obviously had been better informed. He led off this letter with lyrical appeal to zeal for one’s vocation. “How beautiful this life is! How precious it is in the eyes of God! How useful for the neighbor! How honorable for the Congregation!” This praise of Vincentian life should be viewed against the backdrop of its dissolution in France and elsewhere, although he had motives to praise his confreres in Italy, Spain and Portugal. The political situation in Poland he found troubling, as he did in the Middle East, where the French government was threatening to seize back the houses and churches of the missions confided by the state to the Congregation.

The New Year’s letter for 1797 showed that disasters were continuing. He urged the members not to be depressed, but rather to keep to the spirit of our vocation, and to remain faithful to solid preaching. The news from the provinces and missions was alternatively consoling and disheartening. The entry of the French into Piedmont and Lombardy had hurt the Vincentian houses, the Congregation having lost those of Modena, Reggio, Ferrara, with Cremona and Pavia about to join the list. As for Poland, Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, following the third partition of Poland, forbade communication with foreign superiors, and the king of Prussia, Frederick William III, had seized ecclesiastical goods in his territory. The news from China, however was somewhat consoling, despite suffering and prison for some of the missioners. He noted as well that only Father Clet remained (in the countryside) to support the weight of a huge responsibility. His spiritual lesson was that “Our personal destiny and that of the Congregation are in God’s hands. Nothing can take place against his designs.”

By the following year, matters had degenerated, not improved as he had wished. “Let us adore the impenetrable designs of Providence, but let us tremble before our infidelity, which perhaps provokes the wrath of Heaven….” In the midst of the collapse in France, in northern Italy, and even in Algiers, he urged his confreres to be steadfast and zealous, working without ceasing. He also criticized those who work a little then just relax, without doing anything else. News from Constantinople and China was somewhat consoling, proof, if any was needed, that the Congregation continued to function.

During 1798, Ferris received the news of his appointment by the Irish bishops as dean in Maynooth, the future national diocesan seminary in Ireland. He accepted this responsibility after some hesitation, evident in the eight months it took him to decide. Nevertheless, he took his time in leaving Rome, but had gone by April or May 1799. He was installed in his new post 17 June 1799. Interestingly, Ferris never renounced his office of assistant, since there was no general assembly to which he could submit his resignation. Since he had been elected for a period lasting until the following general assembly, according to the Constitutions, he was not free to resign, but he could, with permission, be absent. With this departure, Cayla was left with only one assistant in residence, Brunet.

During his stay in Rome, he received some financial help from other provinces and individuals to pay for his expenses, both personal and administrative. Although he had asked for help, it is unknown how much exactly was sent in.

As part of his responsibilities as superior general, therefore, Cayla continued his interest in its missions as well as in the Daughters of Charity. . In his personal life, he maintained his piety, and was regular in attendance at daily prayer and the Eucharist. He had time to visit the sick, and was austere in his own person in matters of medicine and food. To fill his time, he continued his studies, seldom leaving the house. He left several undated conferences behind which likely date from this period. This quiet work and inactivity undoubtedly led to a decline in his health. For example, he gradually lost the sight of his left eye, beginning in the fall of 1797. A fever, possibly malaria, confined him to bed in January of 1800. He died in Rome the following 12 February. He was sixty-five, six days shy of his sixty-sixth birthday. He had lived in the Congregation for fifty-one years. He was buried at Montecitorio.

François-Florentin Brunet 1800-1806

François-Florentin Brunet was born in Bulgnéville, a small town in Lorraine, 11 May 1731. He entered the novitiate in Paris at age sixteen, 20 May 1747, and took his vows two years later. After his ordination he taught philosophy and theology at the seminary of Toul, and then became the superior of the seminary at Amiens, 1757 to 1772. He briefly governed the seminary at Soissons, then that of Châlons-sur-Marne. In 1787, he was assigned to the seminary of Poitiers, where he also exercised the office of visitor until the general assembly of 1788 elected him second assistant, replacing Michel-René Ferrand in that office.

A man of vast erudition, he is probably best known, even now, as the author of the monumental Parallèle des religions (three volumes, Paris, 1792), in which he examined, perhaps for the first time, the similarities among the great world religions. This massive work of approximately 4000 pages was intended not for experts but for what he called an elementary audience. His intention was to present the history of some thirty religions, concentrating on their temples, clergy, feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies and way they presented and named the deities. A highly methodical work, it was remarkable for its ecumenical outlook: both in the absence of ridicule of others, and in the presence of the scholarship of non-Catholic experts. In this, it was a work of the Enlightenment period, and it cost him more than ten years to prepare it. He must have spent every moment of his scarce free time working on it in the midst of his other teaching and administrative duties. The sources he cites for the section on “paganism” (as contrasted with the monotheistic religions) are the major studies of his era.

Assistant General

At the moment of the sack of Saint Lazare, he was able to escape disaster in company with a student. He was recognized, however, and was captured by brigands who took him and the student on a wagon into the city, but he was released by the police. He then returned to Saint Lazare until his departure in 1792 with the superior general, Father Cayla, along with the secretary general, Jacques-Antoine Le Sueur (1744-1802). Alexis Pertuisot, the first assistant, remained in France, probably unable to travel because of his age (he was seventy-seven). Carlo Domenico Sicardi, the fourth assistant, would leave for Turin a few days after (12 September), in company with Edward Ferris, the third assistant, and four Daughters of Charity. They were bringing with them an unusual cargo: the heart of Saint Vincent in its silver reliquary hidden in the pages of a large book, together with a valuable painting of the saint, a quantity of his correspondence, and some of his clothing, all of which had been preserved piously at Saint Lazare.

Once Brunet had arrived in Rome in 1794, he continued his work of advice and counsel to the superior general together with Edward Ferris. After the news of the death of the first assistant, Pertuisot, in 1795, Brunet automatically became first assistant, and Ferris, second.His life changed dramatically at the death of the superior general, 12 February 1800. A mere ninety minutes later, Brunet summoned the members of the house of Montecitorio to deal with this event. As mandated by the Constitutions, the first assistant was to open a box into which the late superior general was to have placed a small note on which he had written the name of the one whom he nominated as vicar general. The principal duty of the vicar general was to govern the Congregation until such time as a general assembly would meet, which the vicar general convoked, to elect a successor to the superior general. The Constitutions, however, did not foresee the case in 1800: it would be nearly impossible to hold a general assembly under the current circumstances within the six month period required in chapter IV, paragraph 3.

Cayla’s Successor

The difficulty of who was to govern the Congregation was heightened by two further problems. The first was that Brunet was unable to locate the box containing the name. Further, even if he had the box, he did not have one of the two keys needed to open it. A dispute arose between Brunet and his Roman confreres, based on their differing readings of the Congregation’s own law. Brunet started the issue when he claimed that he should be vicar general, since he was the first assistant. He cited the Constitutiones selectae, approved by Clement X in 1670, paragraph 12. The reply was that, according to the Grandes Constitutions of 1668, chapter 3, § 6, the possibility of appointing the first assistant as vicar general existed only when the one chosen by the late superior general to be vicar general was unwilling or unable. In addition, since the Constitutions did not specifically speak of a succession among other assistants, Brunet could not logically be “first assistant.” He had, in fact, been elected second assistant, although the first assistant, Pertuisot, had already died. Brunet countered that, according to decisions by the general assembly of 1703, the power would pass to the first assistant, or to the second, if the first were unable in the case of the illness or mental inability to administer the Congregation, and before a vicar general could be elected. All this, he felt, should be submitted to papal approval. In addition, the general assembly of 1736 decreed that should the vicar general die, be ill, or in any other way impeded for more than a couple of weeks, then the assistants in the house and other priests of the house where the boxes were kept, and who had at least six years since vows, should recognize the first assistant as vicar general. Should the other vicar general recover, then the first assistant would lose his authority ipso facto. Both parties, of course, felt that they were correct in their divergent interpretations.

The second issue arose because of an obscure decree of Pius VI, issued 26 January 1793. By this decree, the pope hoped to avoid problems of French émigré clergy in Italy, tempted to try to have some voice in the affairs of their Italian houses. Article 22 reads: “Since French religious fugitives are received only provisionally, they should not take it amiss if they have neither active nor passive voice in official acts and elections, except with a special permission from His Holiness, given by the secretary of state as requested by superiors. Nevertheless, they may be employed in functions depending on the free disposition of the same superiors.” The problem arose from an interpretation of this text given by Leonardo Ippoliti, superior of Montecitorio in Rome. The superior believed that Brunet would not be able to become vicar general since, living in an Italian house, this French émigré priest would have neither active nor passive voice.

Brunet justified his activities in relationship to this decree by reminding his Roman confreres that he had never voted (active voice) in Italian houses, nor was voted for (passive voice) for in any Italian house. He and the others with him had never claimed to be members of the Italian houses, and, it might be added, he was present in Rome at the invitation of the pope.

At all events, the matter quickly became moot. In the first place, Brunet brought the matter before Bishop (later Cardinal) Michele di Pietro (1747-1821), secretary of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, on the day following Cayla’s death. He explained that he had been in Rome for more than five years, had seen the pope, and was otherwise well known. He wondered whether the pope had called them to Rome just to take away their rights. The cardinals of this congregation agreed with Brunet’s request and his interpretation of the Constitutions, against the Roman Vincentians, and they decreed “standum esse constitutionibus,” that all should stand by the Constitutions. The pope confirmed this and “therefore asked me to be vicar general.” Further, the pope ordered that a general assembly be held within six months, as the Constitutions demanded. (This order was regularly repeated, but delays were commonly granted, given the impossibility of holding an assembly.) Brunet received the letter, dated 16 May, on the following day.

In the second place, on 21 June, the sheet was found, signed and sealed, on which, the previous 30 October, the last day of his retreat, Cayla had written Brunet’s name alone. At this point, all the members of the Roman house agreed that it was Cayla’s handwriting, but they objected that, according to the Constitutions, the senior assistant should have opened the box and unsealed the document in the presence of the members of the house. At length they agreed that the two wax seals were authentic, although Brunet had broken them to be able to read the paper. Another hurdle had been overcome, although the tension between the two sides, French and Roman, is clearly evident. Indeed, in several other letters after the death of Cayla, the vicar general mentioned intrigues to seek to deprive him of his new office.

It was only after receiving the papal decision that Brunet announced the death of Cayla to the rest of the Congregation. Di Pietro had earlier asked him to wait, since the issue was “troppo scabroso,” too tough, and so the Congregation of the Mission was strictly without a head from the date of Cayla’s death, 12 February to 16 May 1800. The discovery of Cayla’s paper with Brunet’s name was included in a postscript to the latter’s first circular.

According to Planchet, the heart of the Roman resistance was, surprisingly, Fenaja. However, his views were not universally shared. For example, Pio Scarabelli (1755-1843), the visitor of Lombardy, protested to Fenaja that, since the papal document dealt with a temporary issue (the lack of a superior general), it was not against the Constitutions. In Scarabelli’s view, Pius VI had prohibited émigré priests from assuming new powers, not ones they already had. He also registered his surprise that the Vincentian community of Montecitorio, the Roman provincial headquarters, was now speaking for the rest of the Congregation of the Mission without having done any consultation to obtain their agreement.

Vicar General

Brunet then had to set to work to develop his own administration. When Cayla died, he was the only assistant present. Pertuisot had died, and both Sicardi and Ferris were absent. As a result, he wanted to name Fenaja, the visitor of Rome. The two of them wanted to get Ferris to agree to nomination, since Brunet believed that Cayla probably had not accepted Ferris’s resignation. He then turned to Pius VII to confirm the decision. Legally, Brunet would need at least two assistants, at least according to canon law, and therefore was relying on Fenaja, who was present, and hoping to having Sicardi join him. Ferris was “in remotissimis Hiberniae partibus,” in far distant parts of Ireland, and consequently out of the picture. The pope agreed to this request.

Not long after, the pope named Fenaja a bishop, with the title archbishop of Philippi. In some way he was an accidental bishop since the pope had set his eyes on di Pietro to be vice-gerent of Rome, that is, the second in command after the vicar general of Rome. Di Pietro refused and asked his friend Fenaja to present his excuses. He was so effective that the pope accepted the refusal but appointed Fenaja in his place. The pope made use of his skills to handle the case of Scipione de’ Ricci (1714-1810), bishop of Pistoia and Prato. Following orders from the duke of Tuscany, Ricci convoked a synod in Pistoia, 18-28 September 1786, noted for its political Jansenist tendencies. Pius VI condemned the decisions of this synod by the bull Auctorem Fidei, 28 August 1794, but Ricci continued stubbornly. Thanks to the work of Fenaja, he recanted in 1805 when the pope had come through Florence. In recognition of his efforts, the pope named him patriarch of Constantinople, an honorary designation of the highest rank, although he did not name him a cardinal. In this era of Vincentian anomalies, Fenaja, vice-gerent of Rome, was himself an anomaly: an archbishop and assistant of the Congregation of the Mission simultaneously.

After securing the basis for his council, Brunet forged ahead to supervise the Congregation, such as it was. His challenges, henceforth, would come from two sides, the Roman Vincentians, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Both would dominate his plans for the rest of his six-year administration.

Remarkably, amid these concerns, he continued, as well, his work of research and writing, known from the publication of his five-volume exposition of theology, written in Latin and published anonymously in Rome, between 1801 and 1804. Its full title, translated, is instructive: Elements of theology adapted for the use of all Catholic schools in a new arrangement. He explained his purpose and methodology in the prefaces to the major sections. In general, he promoted a systematic study of theology, not just the dictation of texts by professors, along with vigorous debates by students divided into groups of ten or twelve. This method, taught with an eye to ecclesiastical history and sacred scripture would guarantee to prepare students well for their ministry. For him, practical theology (especially church law) was to be placed after a good grounding in the basics. This had been his own experience, and he recommended it to his readers.

Brunet remained in contact with some of the French confreres dispersed in various countries. We know of them because of their correspondence that has been preserved. Joseph-Mansuet Boullangier, (1758-1843), a survivor of the September massacres at Bons Enfants, had emigrated to London. There, he ministered to émigré French clergy, and was chaplain for the brother of the slain Louis XVI, the Count of Artois, the future Charles X. A second Vincentian correspondent was Jean-Claude Vicherat (1747-1805). He fled to Spain during the Revolution, and eventually returned to Constantinople to direct the restored Vincentian mission there.

The vicar general shared with his correspondents his anguish over the defection of several confreres in France. As noted elsewhere, it is difficult to ascertain the exact figures, but only a modest percentage of Vincentians left their vocation. He also reported on his work to support the Vincentian overseas missions: the Middle East, Algiers and China, to each of which he sent out at least a few of his confreres to try to reestablish a Vincentian presence there.

A more difficult matter was the governance of the Daughters of Charity, whose superior general he also was. He began by sending out his New Year’s circular to their houses. In this letter, he announced that he had been named by Cayla, and that his nomination had been recognized by the Italians at Montecitorio, and by the pope. He made the obvious point that it would be impossible to hold a general assembly, and so he confirmed the powers of Mother Deleau. She would be helped by Laurent Philippe (1736-1811) as director; and Claude Placiard his assistant. Philippe had always had a strong commitment to the Sisters. Before the Revolution, he had been one of the confessors at their former mother house. During the time of their suppression, he had gone about in disguise to help their scattered communities. For example, he showed up one day at the door of the hospital of Moutiers Saint Jean dressed as a traveling salesman, asking the Daughters for a place to stay. One of them recognized him as her former confessor, and he was admitted. When Mother Deleau returned to Paris, he did the same and she sent him to Rome to consult with Brunet, who named him director, 1 November 1801.

The directors lived in a small building at the back of the Daughters’ new mother house, rue du Vieux Colombier. In a few years, Brunet would also share these lodgings. Given the special circumstances of those times, he determined that any Sister who had not renewed her vows for five years would have to quit the Company if she now refused to renew them. In a circular for the following year circular, Mother Deleau announced that Brunet had authorized the renewal of vows. Since the Sisters were not yet permitted to wear the habit, he urged them to dress modestly, in black, and to recover the spirit of the Company.

His principal concern, however, was the reestablishment of the Congregation of the Mission. The Daughters of Charity had, of course, already been restored, and it was just a question of time and tiresome negotiations that stood in the way of the restoration of the Vincentians.

An early and undated memorandum, although never sent, reflects Brunet’s thinking, probably in 1802. The reasons for urging recognition of the Congregation of the Mission by the French state and securing a mother house in France were two. First, a traditional relationship had existed with the Daughters of Charity, according to the wish of Saint Vincent; and second, the Congregation already had houses in Barbary, the Middle East, Constantinople and China. The interesting perspective is that one of their concerns was the care of the French in these lands. Vincentian houses were, in his view, “refuges of benevolence and humanity, ever open to French travelers and businessmen. Whether sick or healthy, they have always found the assistance of an active and compassionate charity.” Also the missioners were faithful translators, balanced mediators, with a knowledge of the country, and a good reputation among the local inhabitants. The Congregation was renowned for its help with diplomatic relations in times of misunderstandings with Turks and North Africans. The purpose of his appeal was to show the usefulness of the Congregation of the Mission to the needs of the state, in order to obtain official recognition once again. This perspective was often repeated during the next several years.

It is uncertain for whom Brunet intended this document, but it might have been for one of two Vincentians overseeing the interest of the Congregation in Paris. In the earliest months of negotiation, the responsible party in Paris was Jean-Jacques Dubois (1750-1817). At the time of the dissolution of the Congregation, Dubois remained in France and quickly returned to Paris to continue his priestly ministry in private. Toward the end of 1795 he managed to purchase the former church of the Minims (now Saint Denys du Saint Sacrement), and there he began to gather parishioners and clergy. It was there also that he celebrated for the first time after the Revolution the feast of Saint Vincent de Paul, 19 July 1797. A bishop presided, and some two hundred priests and many hundred faithful attended. On that occasion, Dubois announced that the body of Saint Vincent, rumored to have been seized and destroyed, was still in existence in a safe place. This celebration was courageous, given the hostility between the constitutional clergy and the non-juring clergy, like himself. By 1802 he had been named pastor of Sainte Marguerite, a city parish where he remained until his death.

To accomplish his mission for Brunet, Dubois proposed that he be named the “General Agent of the Missions of Saint Vincent de Paul,” with responsibility to supervise the foreign missionaries. Since vows were out of favor in post-revolution France, Dubois proposed a congregation without vows, to form young ecclesiastics for foreign missions. For a mother house, he proposed the former Jesuit house, rue Saint Antoine, even offering to leave his parish and work at the Jesuit church. It seems strange at this remove to see such a radical proposal for Vincentian life, with its emphasis on foreign missions, but this should be understood against the background of the Revolution, complete with new thinking characteristic of Napoleon’s plans. In fact, “according to what the First Consul had written to the archbishop of Paris, if our rules do not contain anything against the present laws, he will agree to our reestablishment, either to continue to direct the Daughters of Charity or for foreign missions.”

For some reason, Brunet passed the responsibility for continuing these negotiations from Dubois to Pierre-François Viguier (1745-1821). It is unknown how Dubois took this decision, but he continued to support the Congregation. Viguier had a distinguished career on the mission in the Middle East. He was the first visitor of Turkey and prefect-apostolic. His knowledge of the Turkish language was so profound that he published a grammar and then other books of theology and sacred scripture. Interestingly, he invented a cloth dye, used commercially with success in Vienna. He managed to secure the reestablishment of the Congregation at its central house, Saint Benoît, in Constantinople, before leaving in 1802 to return to Paris. He arrived in late 1802, and found lodging in Passy, a western suburb. He might have stayed with his confrere Dubois, but perhaps he encountered some difficulty with this. In any case, there was no Vincentian house in Paris at this date.

Soon, Brunet was to exult: “[Viguier] is doing wonders in Paris for our reestablishment.” Behind the scenes, the government ministers, particularly Jean- Etienne Portalis, a Catholic and minister of ecclesiastical affairs, had been drawing up various reports for Napoleon concerning the reestablishment of the various congregations. One idea was to fuse all the foreign mission communities into one. This proposal was made to the future superior of the Paris Foreign Mission Society, Thomas Bilhère, but he was unable to guarantee his cooperation, because the Society, like the Congregation, had not yet been reestablished. Besides, the members of the Congregation took vows, and the Foreign Mission Society did not. Consequently, Brunet authorized Viguier to accept any foreign missions offered to the Congregation. Portalis, therefore, composed memoranda describing the history and advantages for France of the Congregation, and made proposals about missions in China, the Middle East, Algeria and Tunis, Ile de France (Mauritius) and Reunion, and Madagascar. It appeared, in fact, that matters would soon be settled. Indeed, in March 1803 Viguier suggested that Brunet consider moving to Paris. His proposal to acquire the former Jesuit church, Saint Louis, plus their residence as a place to train missionaries for the Vincentian overseas missions, was taking shape, albeit slowly. A few months later, however, it was clear that the picture was more complicated than first imagined. For one thing, Brunet’s informants believed that they had reasons to distrust Napoleon’s promises to Viguier. He himself told the vicar general not to hurry back, and Brunet, in any case, did not have the funds to pay his passage even as far as Marseilles.

Discussions advanced a little by the following year, 1804, such that Brunet believed he would have the promised church, Saint Louis, and annual subsidies from the government. These funds would be spent for living expenses, education and preparation of missioners, and for the mission of Algiers. In the government’s thinking, Brunet would be known as the “director,” since the title “superior” was contrary to the ideal of equality. In addition, the Vincentian candidates would also receive lessons in astronomy, painting and watch making to prepare them for overseas missions. Had the Congregation accepted these revolutionary organization and programs, its Constitutions and other legislation would have been completely overturned. It appears that Brunet and his advisors must have been ready to allow this, although reluctantly and only in view of changes in the future to return to the tradition of Vincent de Paul. There is little documentary proof of this, however. In fact, Jacques-André Emery (1732-1811), superior general of the Society of Saint Sulpice from 1782 to 1808, and a leader in the Catholic revival in Paris, had invited Brunet to discuss with him possible future work in French seminaries.

In this period, interest continued in Vincent de Paul. At least one drama was presented in early 1804. Pious images were printed and, at least subconsciously, awareness of his two religious families was sustained through the period of their suppression.

Reestablishment of the Congregation

At last, however, the great day arrived, 27 May 1804 (known in the Revolutionary calendar as 7 prairial an XII), when Napoleon issued the decree authorizing the reestablishment of the Congregation of the Mission, suppressed for twenty-years and six months, practically without vocations. Despite changing circumstances over the years, this document has been fundamental to the existence of the Congregation of the Mission in France, and indeed throughout the world.

Interpreting this decree, however, was destined to drag on for years. Its very language was either imprecise or ambiguous, perhaps both, as an examination of its eleven articles will show.

Art. 1: There will be an association of secular priests, who, under the title of Priests of the Foreign Missions, will be responsible for missions outside of France. Art. 2: The director of the Foreign Missions will be named by the emperor. Art. 3: Its central house [établissement] and seminary will be located in Paris in a building granted them. Art. 4: The church dependent on this building will be erected as a parish church, under the invocation of Saint Vincent de Paul, staffed by the director of the mission, who will fulfill parish functions. The assistants and other priests on duty will be taken from among the Missioners. Art. 5: Nevertheless, the assistants will remain at the disposition of the director of the missioners, who will be able to place them in the missions where he will judge it useful to assign them. Art. 6: Students may be admitted into the mission house to receive instruction relative to the purpose of this establishment, and they will learn foreign languages. The number of these students may not exceed the amount stipulated. Art. 7: The director of the missioners may assign missioners only outside of France, in all places where he will judge it proper, after having obtained the necessary authorizations and passports. Art. 8: The director of the missioners will receive from the archbishop of Paris documents naming [him] vicar general for the Iles de France and Reunion, and the head of the mission in these islands will henceforth carry the title of pro-vicar general. Art. 9: An annual amount of 15,000 francs is granted to this establishment, payable quarterly by the public treasury, counting from the first of the next [month of] germinal. Art. 10: It will then receive provision for the retirement of aged or sick missioners. Art. 11: The Councilor of State responsible for all matters concerning worship is responsible for the execution of the present decree.

Signed: Napoleon.

These articles changed radically the composition and the purpose of the Congregation of the Mission. John Carven has presented an analysis of two earlier versions of these same articles, showing the main points of difference between the competing perspectives of the ministry of the interior, and the ministry of foreign affairs. In general, the final document was shorter, less precise, and even ambiguous. The greatest ambiguity lay in the identity of the congregation to which it referred. The earlier versions mentioned, in article one, “Missionaries or Lazarists.” The name in the final document, “Priests of the Foreign Missions,” ran the extreme risk of confusion between the Lazarists and the members of the Foreign Mission Society of Paris.

Carven believes that Napoleon used ambiguous language precisely to avoid the opposition of radicals and thereby allow the reestablishment to take place. The choice of “director” instead of “superior” illustrates his tactics. A strict reading of the decree leads to the conclusion that the government was to appoint the “director” but in fact, the government had decided to approve the choice made by the Congregation in a general assembly. In addition, an examination of the preliminary and subsequent documents shows that the intent of the decree was to refer to the Congregation of the Mission, such as an explicit mention of Brunet as “Vicar General of the Lazarist Priests.” These regrettable ambiguities would lead several French Vincentians to the conclusion that the document did not refer to them and that, in fact, the Congregation had not been reestablished. Without them, however, it is likely that the Council of State would not have approved the emperor’s initiatives.

Pierre-François Viguier, Brunet’s representative in Paris, immediately asked for a clarification of article two. “Since the nomination of the director by the emperor has as its goal the conservation of his work and not its destruction, it is unrealistic that His Majesty would give to the missioners a chief who was not someone of their choice, and who would not suit them.” The response to this letter is unknown, but Viguier’s point was respected in practice.

When Brunet received this decree from Viguier, he was understandably perplexed and found more reasons than ever to plan his return to Paris. He confided his hopes to Vicherat in Constantinople: that the Congregation would first go with foreign missions; seminaries would come later if bishops call for the Vincentians to staff them. In this, “we should imitate our holy founder,” by listening to the bishops. He also acknowledged that the Jesuits might return to their former house and, if so, then the Congregation would need another house. This issue, too, would drag on for more than a decade.

His plans to return to Paris were postponed for various reasons, especially the decision either to travel with the pope’s entourage to Napoleon’s coronation, or to travel separately with Cardinal Joseph Fesch. The cardinal was then Napoleon’s ambassador in Rome but had been named Grand Chaplain of the empire, and would be responsible for all foreign missions, principally those of the Congregation of the Mission. Brunet worried also about what he could do in Paris, where he would live, and whether he would be forced to take some sort of oath that he might find objectionable. As it happened, he secured a good carriage, paid for by his friend the cardinal, and left 31 October. In Paris, he found plenty to do, lodged temporarily with his confrere Dubois at Sainte Marguerite, and was not obliged to any problematic oaths.

Return to Paris, Sicardi Vicar General

Travel plans and details were as nothing compared to the storm aroused by his decision to leave Rome. The difficulties it provoked nearly led to the division of the Congregation into two or more parts.

This grave problem arose on the day after Brunet had decided on his departure. His assistant, Sicardi, and probably others, realized that if the vicar general moved to France, he would not have the assistants required by constitutions, and hence “he will no longer be able to govern the Congregation of the Mission.” According to the Constitutions, chapter II, paragraph 2, when a superior general traveled, one of the assistants should accompany him. Sicardi was evidently unwilling to leave for France with Brunet, and Fenaja was unable to leave because of his office. Sicardi then proposed that the first assistant, Sicardi himself, should remain in Rome and govern ad interim, with his assistants Ansaloni, Bistolfi, Archbishop Fenaja, and a Frenchman, Hector- Hippolyte Passerat, who had been expelled from France for not taking the required constitutional oath. In addition, Sicardi proposed that Brunet be, instead, assistant for foreign missions only, given that the Congregation had been reestablished in France for foreign missions and that France alone had foreign missions, with only a few non-French on these missions, such as a couple of Italians in Algeria. In this arrangement, Sicardi would remain responsible for the rest of Europe. He conveniently overlooked one detail: Brunet, with his council, had decided to grant the visitors of the Congregation special powers to govern their own provinces without having recourse to the vicar general, should this become necessary in this unsettled period.

In view of all of this, and without the least consultation of Brunet, Pius VII decided to act. At first, he appointed Fenaja “interim superior general.” This decree must have been immediately recalled, probably because Fenaja was in Paris and already had great responsibilities. In his place, the pope then named Sicardi not as superior general but as vicar general, evidently in place of Brunet, who had left “never to return.” Further, Sicardi received the responsibility to “rule and govern this same Congregation” for as long a time as the Holy See wished. As such, he was vicar general of the entire Congregation of the Mission and all its houses, wherever they were (since the Congregation had no houses in France, nor legal existence), namely in Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Portugal. The pope also confirmed Sicardi’s assistants: Archbishop Fenaja, and Fathers Ansaloni, Bistolfi, and Passerat; and his admonitor, Sebastiano Bertarelli. The decree also confirmed the link between the superior general of the Congregation and the direction of the Daughters of Charity. This brief Quum uti accepimus, must have exploded like a bombshell over the heads of the struggling French Vincentians. Sicardi, doubtless with the help of Archbishop Fenaja, had engineered a real coup d’état, by getting the pope to strip Brunet of his title and responsibility. In the view of some observers, however, Sicardi had proposed himself, equivalently voting for himself. As such, following Vincentian legislation, he should have lost active and passive voice, and be disqualified from any future office in the Congregation. This vindictive opinion never carried any weight.

Jean-Baptiste Etienne, no disinterested commentator on this matter, felt that Sicardi was the chief intriguer, bent on “preparing in that capital of the world, the installation of the seat of the head of our two families, a goal pursued for more than a century, but which Providence has always impeded.” Etienne was doubtless referring to the conflicts that erupted at the general assembly of 1703 over the same issue: the identity of the Congregation of the Mission as French.

In his new role as vicar general of the entire Congregation, Sicardi issued the first of his circular letters on 25 November 1804. He explained that Brunet had left Rome to go to France, to stay there and not to return to Italy. In August, before leaving, Brunet met with his council (Sicardi and Fenaja), and “we agreed unanimously, with the help of other older priests of this house [Montecitorio] and determined that the office of leadership belongs to the first assistant, according to the decrees of general assemblies confirmed by popes.” Now, on the date of writing, Brunet had been gone three weeks, and nothing had changed; he had not consulted his assistants any further. Thus Brunet could no longer govern as he ought, according to Vincentian laws and constitutions, since he had no means to do so. Sicardi continued that Brunet had no admonitor or assistants legitimately elected by a general assembly, whereas he, Sicardi, together with Ferris, had been legitimately elected. Without assistants, Brunet could make no important decisions, dismiss members, admit externs to live in our houses for a notable period of time, etc. Further, since the vicar general could not appoint his own assistants and admonitor, or visitors, any acts of his would be null (irritae). Sicardi then mentioned his consultation with Fenaja and other senior members of the house of Montecitorio, and that he had passed on their recommendations to the pope. Pius VII issued his brief 30 October 1804.

It took some time for the import of this papal decision to sink in. By the middle of 1805, however, Cardinal Fesch, representing the French imperial government, began his offensive against Quum uti accepimus. He had proven himself a friend of Brunet’s, and was often known to have dined with him. In his statements, the cardinal claimed that the reasons given by the Vincentians at Montecitorio were purely gratuitous. He himself, as archbishop of Lyons, had restored the Vincentian house at Valfleury; further, there was also a house in Lyons, although without subjects yet, managed by a former Capuchin. Besides, several members were already at work on “internal missions,” that is, the popular missions, and were available to bishops. Outside the territory of France, but within the French empire, the Congregation also had houses at Piacenza, Genoa, Savona and Sarzana. All this shows that the Congregation of the Mission in fact existed in France. The cardinal proposed that Brunet should have the right to designate his successor in the way foreseen by Saint Vincent in the case of a superior general. Although the founder did not plan for this exact case, in which a vicar general might designate a successor and name his assistants, this measure was necessary at the moment. And most important, “the French Government will never tolerate the Missioners recognizing any head outside of France....” The alternative was either to divide the Congregation into two, or to return the generalate to Brunet. Without spelling out the dangers any further, he closed by alluding to the wishes of the omnipotent Napoleon: “These reasons, as well as others which cannot be ignored. . . .”

On the same day, Brunet sent his own memorandum to the pope about the revocation of the brief. He claimed that it had no validity, being based on false information, for he had not left Rome before the decree was issued, but only one day later. This, of course, was very slender reasoning. Nevertheless, his proposed solution was his reinstatement as vicar general, the faculty to name a successor and his assistants, and the nomination of Sicardi as pro-vicar general.

In a masterpiece of papal diplomacy, Pius VII simply skirted the main issues. He gave an allocution of 25 June in which he hailed the reestablishment of the two congregations of Saint Vincent. Nevertheless, the problem of organization, which the pope had caused but chose not to mention in his speech, remained to be solved.

Fesch repeated his recommendation that Brunet write against Sicardi’s original proposal, and Sicardi, in turn, responded officially to Brunet’s original request (9 July 1805). A month later, 11 August, the vicar general then proposed that Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, secretary of state, seek a way to reconcile the parties. Brunet took up Fesch’s recommendation and wrote Pius VII to remind him that he had confirmed Brunet in his office and that the offices of the Holy See knew of his trip to Paris, which he took only on the direct orders of Cardinal Fesch. Brunet believed, in addition, that the members of the Montecitorio house had pledged their obedience to him before his departure. All this, in his view, pointed to intrigues against him. During this time, Brunet wrote to Fesch to tell him that, after Napoleon’s audience with the pope in Paris, he had agreed to reestablish the Daughters of Charity, and the Congregation of the Mission, “. . . as it was before, even among the poor people of the countryside, according to its charter.” Fesch also sent this letter to Consalvi, adding his own letter of support.

As if to strengthen Brunet’s hand in these negotiations, Napoleon confirmed him as superior of the Mission on 30 September 1805. Brunet had already named Jacques-Pierre Claude (1738-1819?) as his assistant and was relying on Viguier as his secretary, and LeMaire as procurator (or treasurer), a job he fulfilled permanently after 7 October 1808. A lay brother formed the final member of this group, which lived, as best one can tell, at the small house behind the buildings of the Daughters of Charity on rue du Vieux Colombier.

The exchange of letters and memoranda continued through November, and December, with Brunet repeating this same information in a further letter to the pope.

Sicardi Pro-Vicar General

After this flurry of correspondence, the pope issued another decree in the brief Tua in Galliam, 13 May 1806. By it, Pius VII reestablished Brunet in his rights as vicar general, removing Sicardi from this position, but granting him the new title of pro-vicar general. Brunet had suggested this title, but it was an unfortunate choice since the term, as used in canon law from about the seventeenth century, referred to an administrator acting in place of the title holder, with powers delegated by the superior. This further ambiguity may have compounded Sicardi’s confusion and mistrust. This same brief also granted Brunet’s request for special faculties to name a successor and assistants, but with the proviso that he receive the approval of the visitors (Spain, Portugal, Poland, Rome, Lombardy), and confirmation by the pope. The visitor of Spain, Felipe Sobiès, took the position that he could not accept Brunet as vicar general, again, without having an authentic copy of the brief. This measure was more than understandable, given the tense atmosphere between the Italians and the French.

Although it might seem that this papal decree would put an end to the conflict, Sicardi and his council did not give up easily. The core of their objection was found in an ambiguous phrase in Tua in Galliam: “…ita tamen ut, tuo hujusmodi durante munere, praenominatus Carolus Dominicus pro-vicarii functiones loco tui, tibique subjectus, in Urbe exerceat….” Sicardi read this as meaning that, during Brunet’s office, “the aforementioned Carlo Domenico [Sicardi] would exercise, in Rome, the functions of pro-vicar, instead of you, but subject to you.” In his opinion, therefore, Brunet had only the title, while Sicardi had the responsibilities. He went so far as to state that to him alone pertained the exercise of power, even declaring null all the acts which the Vicar General would make contrary to this decree. On the other hand, Brunet read the phrase as meaning that Sicardi would exercise the functions of pro-vicar, in place of him, in Rome, since confreres of certain countries could not have contact with the Congregation’s authorities in France. In both interpretations, Sicardi was supposed to be subject to Brunet.

The vicar general then wrote to Sicardi a stiff letter telling him to obey the papal decree, and forbidding, “in virtue of holy obedience, MM. Ansaloni and Bistolfi to regard themselves as assistants of the Congregation, and to exercise their functions, since they were named in virtue of a brief now annulled [Quum uti accepimus].”

For his part, Sicardi was not so compliant. He launched two major complaints against Brunet in a memorandum to the pope, dated sometime in September 1806. The first was that before Brunet left for Paris, he had not arranged for assistants, as he should have according to the Constitutions of the Congregation. As a result, he is “irregolare,” unable to act and lacking any authority. What Sicardi did not say, however, was that he could have accompanied the vicar general to Paris but chose not to. (However, it would have been difficult if not impossible for Archbishop Fenaja, vice-gerent of Rome, to abandon his papal responsibilities to accompany Brunet.)

His second complaint was that although the Congregation of the Mission had one small house in Paris, this could in no way be regarded as the proper existence of the Congregation in France. Besides, the Vincentians there were not doing the work proper to the Congregation in France: clergy formation, popular missions. He deftly concluded that were the Congregation of the Mission restored to what it was before, Sicardi and his assistants would be the first to rejoice. He also faced the issue of Ferris, whom Brunet claimed to be still an assistant. Sicardi held that superiors general must live with the assistants or their substitutes, but this was impossible since Ferris had been absent for eight or nine years. In fact, Brunet had informed Sicardi that he had named as his assistants Pierre Claude and Claude-Joseph Placiard and as admonitor, Laurent Philippe. It is unclear whether he considered either Ferris and/or Sicardi as continuing as assistants, even though absent. In a letter of 6 September, Consalvi informed Brunet that the pope had approved of this list of assistants and the admonitor, and added, without really resolving the ambiguity: the pro-vicar general lives in Rome, represents you and acts dependent on you.

Sicardi responded at the same time to Brunet. Since he was pro-vicar, he was going to keep his assistants, despite Brunet’s formal prohibition, since he needed their advice. He related that he had told Consalvi to call him whatever he wanted: “Vicaire, ou Pro-vicaire général, commissaire, député, représentant,” but according to the Constitutions. He added, for Brunet’s benefit: “I have always been attached to the Congregation of the Mission, never intrigued, but acted faithfully. I am attached to your person and reputation. I did what I felt I had to.”

He was not so conciliatory in his reply to Consalvi. Sicardi claimed that Brunet’s explanations touching his person were an insult and that Fesch had forced the pope to change his own earlier brief—a change that provoked amazement on the part of others. The central point of this letter, however, was his contention that Brunet had the right only to transmit orders to the pro-vicar general, who in turn would pass them on to Congregation. In any case, he claimed that Brunet merely supposed that the Congregation existed in France, while Sicardi had reason to doubt it since he probably had not received official notification. A disgruntled copyist added the following note to the archival text of this document: “We can see that Father Sicardi wished to be the unchallenged master of the field.”

This entire affair would continue until yet another brief, issued in 1807, put the situation on a new footing. It would not help Brunet, however, since it would arrive after his death.

Napoleon and Foreign Missions

The vicar general had other concerns during this same period, the chief of which was securing a mother house for the Congregation. As mentioned above, Napoleon’s decree authorizing the reestablishment of the Vincentians in France involved the grant of a mother house (articles 3-4). Earlier versions of the same document specified that “the establishment and the seminary will be situated in Paris, in the house of the former Jesuits, rue Saint-Antoine.” However, by the time of its publication, the decree merely spoke a mother house, but Napoleon signed another decree granting Saint Louis to the Congregation of the Mission, 3 August 1804, and a supplementary decree forcing the school then in the Jesuit buildings to move elsewhere. The Vincentians were ready to take over Saint Louis in March 1805, but this had to be abandoned since the Lycée could not move because their building had been designated for other uses. In view of this, Cardinal Fesch favored a return to the former Saint Lazare, while others preferred the Daughters’ mother house at the rue du Vieux Colombier. Brunet had earlier asked for the return of Saint Lazare, particularly since it had not been entirely sold off, and was therefore open to a claim by the previous inhabitants. This problem of the mother house would not be settled, however, in Brunet’s lifetime.

Since the Congregation had been reestablished (principally) for foreign missions, Brunet had much to do to manage them. The great issue at stake here, however, was that of administration: were these missions sent by and supported by the imperial French government, or were they missions of the Church, under the direction of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide)? As can readily be imagined, the government’s position was that the missions were French.

During the years of Brunet’s vicariate, the Congregation was slowly recovering its position in various mission territories, as will be explained below in more detail under the heading of individual provinces. By way of example, however, the confreres were able to resume their work in Constantinople by October of 1802, even before the official recognition of the Congregation of the Mission in France. A year later, Napoleon decreed some financial assistance to the Congregation at Aleppo, until such time as the Vincentians would be reestablished in France.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was developing one of his grandiose plans to rationalize and control the missions of France. The emperor was intending to subsume all foreign missions under a single “corporation.” This was believed to be the intent of his decree of reestablishment of the Congregation, about which, being the largest missionary community and being secular, he used the language he did.

One of the outcomes of this decision was the ambiguity regarding the other missionary communities, particularly the Foreign Mission Society of Paris. Two of their members had met with Brunet in Rome (20 July 1804) to examine whether their two congregations had been fused ipso facto. They disagreed on the answer but agreed that this new arrangement would spell the end of the foreign missions and even of the Church, inasmuch as Napoleon was keen to place civil power above ecclesiastical, apostolic, authority.

By March of the next year, Napoleon moved ahead by placing the Congregation of the Mission, the Foreign Mission Society, and the Spiritans under Cardinal Fesch, “Grand aumônier de l’empire.” These congregations would divide up the various regions of the world, the Congregation of the Mission for China and the Middle East, the Spiritans for Africa, the West Indies and the Indian Ocean, the Foreign Missions Society in southeast Asia, etc. The emperor had wanted initially to have the missionary communities subjected to the archbishop of Paris but, in negotiations with the pope, it was determined to distinguish between missions in the archdiocese, for which the communities would be subjected to the archbishop, and missions abroad, to be subject to the Church. Napoleon agreed to authorize separately the three missionary communities, provided that the general direction of the missions be the responsibility of the Grand Chaplain. Portalis, minister of foreign affairs, prepared the ground for the emperor’s decision, claiming that “Since the Revolution, foreign superiors living in Rome have taken over all that concerns the missions. The government’s interest is that matters return to their first state, and that, as a result, our missions be directed by a national superior. . . . This direction is too important to be able to be confided to a superior would not be bound by his place to the good of the state.” Following this new arrangement, Brunet received his appointment as a member of the ecclesiastical council of the grande aumônerie. This council had been established 27 March 1805, and consisted of the grand chaplain, the first chaplain, three bishops, a vicar general, and the superiors of Saint Sulpice (Emery), the Missions Etrangères de Paris (Bilhère), and the Vincentians (Brunet), as well as a secretary. Brunet clearly had been co-opted, willingly or not, into the workings of the state.

He continued to plan and make decisions for the missions. A copy of a report from Viguier, dated 13 December 1804, addressed to an unnamed correspondent in the government, provides some details of the planning for China. Brunet had asked Viguier to go there with three or four French missionaries: a clock maker, a painter and physician, an astronomer and a mathematician. He felt that the missionaries had to arrive before the British, to secure the rights of the French mission. To manage this, they would need government funds, since the passage was expensive and they would need additional funds for food, clothing and supplies. He explained to his correspondent that Brunet not be called “director,” but rather “vicar general,” to gain the allegiance of Italian, Spanish and Polish Vincentians. He felt that any change in the identity of the Congregation could ruin the Daughters of Charity as well. In another letter, written shortly before his death, Brunet authorizes the internal seminary (novitiate) in China, and confirms the superior of Macao.

Brunet does not seem to have had a great deal to do with the Daughters of Charity, despite the fact that he lived at their provisional mother house, rue du Vieux Colombier. The issues concerning the Sisters and their schism following meddling by officials of the archdiocese of Paris will be treated elsewhere. One of the reasons was that, since he was in Rome, he left their government to others. For example, their director, Laurent Philippe, presided over the assembly in August 1802 that extended another term to Mother Deleau, even though the Daughters of Charity would be officially reestablished only 16 October of that year. In October of the next year, Brunet had Pierre Claude (1738-1819?) move from Saintes to Paris to help in the direction of the Daughters. At the death of Mother Deleau, 29 January 1804, it became necessary to hold another assembly. Brunet authorized it, and it was held the following 21 May at Vieux Colombier. The Sisters elected Sister Deschaux to be superioress general. Thanks to their simpler constitutional structure, at least the Daughters of Charity never had to suffer from the same problems that their Vincentian brothers did, apart from the intrigues about the rival vicars general. Within a year the Sisters were authorized once again to wear the habit, whose color for the moment was black. It would change to the more familiar blue-grey only in 1835.

Despite Napoleon’s clear preference for regularizing the French foreign missions, it gradually was becoming clear to Brunet and his confreres that the Congregation still had a role to play in France. As mentioned above, Pius VII and Napoleon agreed that the Congregation of the Mission would gradually be able to resume its former works within France, possibly under the guise of preparing and supporting foreign missionaries. Such candidates as the Congregation had would be sent to various seminaries, staffed in one way or another by the Vincentians, “for the missions.” The minister of foreign affairs would pay their expenses, in view of the missions. This was in 1805. By the following year, Napoleon issued a decree assigning funds to the bishop of Troyes for missions in his diocese, to be given by members of the Congregation of the Mission. The obvious inference is that the Vincentians were, despite Napoleon’s charter, also allowed to conduct popular missions as well as foreign missions. At about the same time, the diocese of Amiens handed over the major seminary again to the care of the Vincentians. Dominique Hanon, a future vicar general, took over in August 1806. In fact, Vincentians were already working at this influential seminary, but were not responsible for its administration.

The request for three missioners for a mission in the Vendée region, in the diocese of Poitiers, in late 1806, brings to light an important concept concerning their purpose. Father Placiard, who handled the request, acknowledged that the primary purpose of the mission was to convert souls. Nevertheless, an important second purpose was to destroy prejudices against the current pope and “against our emperor and king.” It is undoubtedly for this second reason that the Napoleonic government, and Napoleon himself, look favorably on Vincentian missions. Through these layers of control, Napoleon was trying to assure a tranquil reign for himself, and he therefore looked on the Congregation of the Mission as useful to the goals of the state. It is exactly here that the Congregation found its opportunity to play a role again in France: its usefulness to the state.

Doubtless in view of his advanced age—he was seventy-five—Brunet signed his last will, 1 August 1806. We learn from this document that he had a modest sum in cash, 8041 francs, plus a yearly income of 620 francs. In addition, he had other funds in Paris and Rome, kept for the Congregation, and intended for the passage and support of missionaries to China and other lands. The superioress general of the Sisters had likewise deposited some sums with him. This action was providential, since he was dead within six weeks, dying on 15 September 1806 at Vieux Colombier. He was buried at the Vaugirard cemetery.

What can be said of Brunet? He was upright, cheerful and pleasant, but also somewhat shy and retiring. Because his situation was weak both in Rome and in Paris, he had to make use of stronger and more influential persons, in particular, Cardinal Fesch. Brunet was probably not the right person for the job, since he was more a man of books than a diplomat. His six years as vicar general must have offered many moments of serious reflection, since they had been so filled with hopes and anxieties, to say nothing of rejection and acceptance in the face of the intransigent positions of certain of his Italian confreres of the Roman province. He had lived in the Congregation of the Mission for fifty-nine years.

Claude-Joseph Placiard 1806-1807

The short vicariate of Father Placiard, exactly one year, is no less interesting and full of conflict and intrigue for being brief.

Claude Joseph Placiard was born in Lure, in the diocese of Besançon, 6 June 1756. He entered the internal seminary of Paris in 1775, took his vows two years later, and was in due time ordained to the priesthood. His assignments included both seminaries and popular missions, but these were cut short at the Revolution. Unlike some of his confreres, he did not leave France during that period but remained in hiding. As soon as the Daughters of Charity began to resume their ministry, toward the end of 1800, he volunteered to help Laurent Philippe, the novice director at Saint Lazare from 1779 or 1780, and now director of the Sisters. Brunet, who appointed them, described his qualities to the Sisters: “Father Placiard, a man of God, a virtuous priest of the Congregation of the Mission, worthy son of St. Vincent of Paul, and who after having given during more than twenty years, proofs of his regularity, virtue and merit at St. Lazare’s in Paris, in quality of professor….” Placiard and Philippe lived in the chaplains’ quarters at the back of the Sisters’ mother house, rue du Vieux Colombier. His work seems to have been centered completely in his service to the Daughters.

Vicar General

When Brunet settled in Paris, he shared Placiard’s lodgings and doubtless came to appreciate the qualities of his confrere. After Brunet’s death in the evening of 15 September 1806, Pierre Claude (1738-1816), the first assistant, assembled such Vincentians in Paris the next day as he could find for the formalities of naming a successor as vicar general. The meeting took place in the meeting room of the mother house of the Daughters of Charity, Vieux Colombier, but Claude could not follow the normal procedure of opening the locked box containing the name of the person designated as Brunet’s successor. The reason was that, on his deathbed, Brunet had given to Placiard a sealed letter to be opened only after his death. At this first meeting of nine Vincentians, the name of Placiard was found in the letter, dated 8 August 1806. He requested a postponement in the proceedings until after Brunet’s funeral the following morning. Two other Vincentians joined the second session of this informal assembly, 17 September, and Placiard accepted his nomination.

Placiard set to work quickly, asking the pope to confirm his appointment; informing Sicardi, who continued as pro-vicar general; informing the minister of foreign affairs, Portalis, as he was required to do; and communicating his appointment to the Congregation through a circular letter. In it, Placiard referred to the brief Tua in Galliam of 13 May 1806, which his counterpart in Rome, Sicardi, had chosen to ignore. The government responded within three days that “M. Placiard is confirmed as superior of the Mission, known under the name of Saint Lazare.”

Sicardi did not respond quickly since he had been absent when notification of Placiard’s nomination arrived. Yet, when he returned, he congratulated Placiard on his nomination and offered him some advice. “Listen to me once and for all. If you need something from the Holy See, write to the pope directly. Do not do what your predecessor did. I am speaking to you as a friend, and you will be content with [my suggestion].” He explained that Brunet had sought the protections of persons of the world for his affairs. The irony is that Sicardi had regularly made use, not of persons of the world, but of ecclesiastical intermediaries between himself and the pope, not the least of whom was the vice-gerent of Rome, Archbishop Fenaja.

Placiard had his own views on the Italians. In writing to his eventual successor, Dominique Hanon, in Amiens, he noted: “The Italians were separated de facto, and they wanted to be so de jure.” But, since he was unsure whether the Poles and Spaniards were with him or not, he had written to them simply. Their replies were gracious. He had not been helped in this by his predecessor, since Brunet kept few if any notes about the affairs of the Congregation.

It took Sicardi a while to mount another offensive. He began by laying out his basic principles in a long letter dated 15 November 1806, perhaps regarded as a circular directed to the Congregation. First, he acknowledged that Placiard governed the Daughters of Charity as well as those missioners destined to go to foreign missions in pagan lands, according to the brief Quum uti accepimus (30 October 1804). This was the brief overturned by Tua in Galliam (13 May 1806), but which Sicardi did not mention. Second, the pro-vicar in Rome, himself, would continue to govern the Congregation of the Mission wherever else it existed (more than ninety percent of all Vincentians), according to the same brief, with a council and assistants general. He conveniently omitted referring to the specific prohibition issued by Brunet against this. Nevertheless, he claimed to be under the vicar general in Paris, from whom he would receive dispositions useful to the entire Congregation, and which he would presumably forward to the members. He tactfully suggested, in the third place, that Placiard should send authentic copies of the pontifical decrees to all visitors to disperse any worries about government of the Congregation, all the while acknowledging differences of interpretation in the phrase “ita tamen ut…” in Tua in Galliam.

Two days after the date of this circular, Sicardi then turned to Pius VII to try to have Tua in Galliam changed. In his reading of it, that decree had removed all authority from Brunet, transferring it to Sicardi. He was interpreting the expression “loco tui” to mean “instead of you,” rather than as “acting in your name,” which had been Brunet’s interpretation. Sicardi proposed that the pope remove the words “in Urbe,” since some (the French and probably others) believed that Sicardi could be vicar general only in Rome, that is, in dealings with the Holy See. Lacking that, he suggested that the pope add “in Urbe degens,” residing in the City. This he thought would remove the bone of contention, and everyone would return to peace, “without anyone noticing it.”

He was more forthright in a memorandum directed to a Monsignor Berni, substitute for Cardinal Braschi, the secretary of briefs, responsible for the composition of papal decrees. Sicardi wanted a new and corrected brief to say that Placiard would be named for six months only, for the Daughters of Charity and for those members of the Congregation of the Mission destined for foreign missions; and that Sicardi would have the responsibility of the entire Congregation, dependent on Placiard. He noted as well that the Holy See should not grant Placiard the power to name a successor. This had been a special faculty given by the pope to Brunet, forced to it by Cardinal Fesch. He correctly claimed it was contrary to the Constitutions, which granted it only to the superior general. In any case, according to the same Constitutions, a vicar general was named for no more than six months, in the ordinary course of events. But he neatly overlooked the fact that the Constitutions were written for ordinary times and circumstances.

Placiard weighed in with his own reading of the events. He addressed a lengthy memorandum to a cardinal, probably Carafa, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. He asked the cardinal’s help in presenting the true situation to the pope, such as the reasons for prolonging his six-month appointment. Further, he presented the state of the Congregation in France: its six major seminaries, its other houses (in France and in the French empire), his good relations with the Congregation in Portugal, Spain and Naples, despite governmental pressures, and the improvement in the foreign missions.

Like his counterpart, Placiard, too, asked for changes in Tua in Galliam, since he could not change superiors without papal permission, making such appointments unnecessarily complex and inconvenient. He concluded by repeating information that Brunet had already shared, namely that Napoleon would insist that the superior general of the Congregation reside in France. If he did not, there was danger that houses would close, both in France and in Poland.

On the same day, Placiard wrote Sicardi, thanking him for his good wishes. “I believe that there is no division in authority, whether in name or in fact; Saint Vincent established only one Congregation, and one Daughters of Charity.” He added, however, that, for the Sisters, “having now one head and now another cannot lead to any good, especially among the Daughters. Excuse me for speaking so frankly, since I am sure that you do not disapprove of my observations.”

Accepimus nuper

Unfortunately for the entire situation, Pius VII had already written a new brief, Accepimus nuper, dated 9 December 1806, which only made matters worse. The pope basically followed Sicardi’s suggestion about removing “in Urbe” from the text, and revised the problematic sentence in Tua in Galliam to read “such that, during your office, the pro-vicar general shall exercise your functions in your place over the entire Congregation of the Mission.” This was clearly a victory for Sicardi and his council, especially when read from their perspective. Yet Placiard could have taken some consolation also, since the pope confirmed him as “vicar general of the entire Congregation of the Mission,” while leaving Sicardi with the title of pro-vicar general.

Placiard’s own private thoughts on the issue were that, as several others believed, Sicardi was “an intriguer and mischief-maker.” He pointed directly to the confreres in Rome as the source of his problem, since he believed that all the other Italian Vincentians were on his side. Speaking of a nearly inevitable schism, he held that should the Romans separate from the Congregation, they would have only the two houses in Rome. “If they want to leave, I will let them go willingly. They have been nothing but trouble and have provoked a very disagreeable correspondence.”

Sicardi and his assistants must have felt that they needed to explain their position once again, since they sent another memorandum to the pope in January of 1807. They asserted that they wanted only peace in the Congregation, not wishing to separate from it or causing provinces to separate. They professed their loyalty to the Holy See, promising even to take a formal oath if required.

However, they had also studied Accepimus nuper with the help and counsel of various Roman ecclesiastics, probably Monsignor Dassani, auditor of the Rota, and Monsignor Giganti, secretary of the Apostolic Council. In their view, the source of the problem was Brunet, who asked that the brief of 1804 be annulled and substituted by another, establishing him as vicar general and allowing him to designate his assistants and a successor, while retaining Sicardi as vicar general. This happened thanks to the brief Tua in Galliam of 13 May 1806. Brunet should have passed his decisions through Sicardi for him to know them and then to send them to the members of the Congregation in the rest of the world. This was not schism. In fact, they asserted, according to the constitutions of the Congregation, the superior general should have assistants elected by a general assembly, live with them in the same house, obtain their advice and consent, travel with at least one of them, have a procurator general and a secretary chosen by him. Since this was not possible in France at that time, and since Placiard was without a central house or other resources, the French should have followed completely the decisions of the brief of 9 December 1806, Accepimus nuper, in Sicardi’s reading: that Placiard had the title of vicar general in name only, and that Sicardi was exercising all the functions of the vicar general.

In a cover letter to this document addressed to Pius VII, Sicardi wrote to Cardinal Carafa. Looking for any legal loophole, he proposed delays until he could receive a genuine copy of the imperial decree to know whether the house assigned in Paris was really for forming young seminarians, etc., and whether they would be for France or only for foreign missions. If for France, as Placiard asserted, then the matter would have been settled in Placiard’s favor. If not, then Sicardi would have been vindicated. He repeated his contention that “the successor of M. Brunet,” whom he did not name, was not authorized to deal with the affairs of the Congregation; that only Sicardi was, and that Placiard has not been confirmed by the Holy Father. Sicardi claimed that he had never lost his authority. If he did lose this struggle, he said that he was ready to give up everything if so ordered.

Next, it was Placiard’s turn to respond in this seemingly endless conflict over power. He wrote a memorandum to the pope with a cover letter to the same Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. He countered, first, that the title of pro-vicar general was unknown in the constitutions of the Congregation of the Mission and was never needed. He objected to Sicardi’s contention that the title of vicar general was merely honorary. If this was so, he wrote, why did the Holy See approve Brunet’s assistants and give him the right to name a successor? Since the pope had granted this right, this act could not be null—an assertion contrary to Sicardi. Second, he believed that Sicardi was trying to divide the Congregation of the Mission, since there would be two independent councils. Placiard foresaw the development of a schism and concluded that he had accepted the office of vicar reluctantly and would readily give it up if he was useless, which Sicardi thought he was. He added that those who issued the papal decree would not have done so had they understood better the French situation. “I hope the Pope will issue an interpretation of this brief, which has caused so many problems. If not, I will resign and return to my solitude from which I was wrenched against my will.”

Qua semper voluntate

After such appeals, Pius VII and the Roman authorities undoubtedly believed they had to respond. Therefore, on 19 June 1807, the pope issued yet another brief to restore unity in the Congregation, Qua semper voluntate, addressed to Placiard. In it, the pontiff reviewed the complex history of the various briefs. What had changed since the last one was the assurance of a large residence in France for the superior general and his assistants, as well as of sufficient funds. He then revoked all previous briefs, dispensing from any possible ecclesiastical penalties incurred. He granted Placiard almost all that he had asked: all the rights, privileges and faculties for a vicar general and for a superior general according to the Constitutions, to name assistants and an admonitor and to name a successor as vicar general for six months, depending on the Holy See. In virtue of this new brief, Sicardi was no longer pro-vicar general, but restored as first assistant. However, because of Sicardi’s age, seventy-seven, the pope was allowing him to continue to live in Rome. He concluded this document by ordering everyone to accept Placiard as vicar general, including all officers of the Holy See and all bishops. Further, he ordered him to convoke a general assembly as soon as possible, when he and the visitors would judge it proper, in keeping with the Constitutions.

The publication of this new brief gave Cardinal Carafa the occasion to respond to the most recent appeal from Placiard, which must have arrived just as Qua semper voluntate was being completed. He praised the spirit of the Congregation and willingly acknowledged that more than one error or ambiguity had crept into the whole sad matter. He felt, however, that he needed to absolve Sicardi’s conduct by saying that he had always acted with legitimate power and inviolably fulfilled the pope’s orders. Further, Sicardi’s way of acting and his interpretations of the brief sent to Brunet should not be condemned. Finally, since Sicardi had not arrogated to himself the office of superior general, all suspicion had vanished. “Enough; there is no reason to go back over all this.” Should there still be any doubts and varying interpretations, the pope would supply any defects about decisions previously made, that is, about their validity.

Placiard communicated with Sicardi after this, choosing the feast of Saint Vincent to do so, 19 July 1807. In a couple of sentences dripping with irony, he made his point: “I did not think I had anything better to do than to follow your advice. ... After the most mature examination, the pope has finally acquiesced with a very special kindness to my humble supplication.”

Just when Placiard must have been confident that the difficulties had been put to rest, Sicardi shot back: “For without contradiction, you cannot yet exercise any jurisdiction in the Congregation.” The reason was that since Placiard had no proper mother house, he had no authority and the decisions in Qua semper voluntate would remain a dead letter until he did. He changed his tone a little with another circular addressed to the Congregation, a letter pitiful in its self-justifying and pious tone. He copied a letter from Carafa to Placiard, to eliminate ambiguities and to restore peace to all Vincentians. “If therefore anyone still has doubts about the substance or the truth of those things that were explained in my letter, he should consult directly with the Holy Apostolic See, and not write to me any more, since I have finished the job given me, and even more, and I will now in the future keep silence about these matters.” Professing his delight that the Congregation of the Mission was beginning again in France, he claimed to be glad to be free of his responsibility, since he had never wanted to hold on to government. “I know that I am not lying; my conscience is my witness.” He begged pardon for whatever he might have done, and urged his confreres to try to be of one heart, having reverence for the pope and faithful obedience. “And so farewell to you all; once again, farewell in the Lord.”

The last word had not, however, been heard from Sicardi, who believed he had found one more loophole. He addressed a new circular to the Congregation, dated 2 September 1807. Here, he informed everyone of Qua semper voluntate, but pointed to a condition, “in virtue of which the Pope suspended the right of exercising this office [i.e., with clause uti non valeas, nisi cum in possessionem domus...] until the affairs of the Congregation would be arranged and order established in the new house of Paris, so that the Community exercises would be observed as in the past. While waiting, the government of the Company still rests in the hands of your humble servant, not as vicar, nor as pro-vicar, but as first assistant general, according to the decree of the general assembly, confirmed by the bull of Clement XII [Ex injuncto nobis, 26 March 1737]. . . . Providence has chained me still.”

The last word in this sordid episode fell to Placiard. He addressed his own circular to the Congregation on 9 September 1807, exactly a week before his death, and it may be doubted whether he ever saw Sicardi’s latest circular. Placiard explained that he had two sorts of powers, those of a vicar general, which were unconditional, and those of a superior general, which were conditional on papal permission. He planned to use the unconditional powers and so named two new assistants, besides Sicardi and Claude, Jacques Martin Braud (b. 1751) and Louis Jerome Lemaire (1758-1826). These two must have been ad hoc substitutes, since he did not mention Edward Ferris, still living in Ireland.

Restoration in France

Besides the time and energy devoted to the affair of his relationship with Sicardi, Placiard had many other responsibilities. Principally, they were the foreign missions, ostensibly the new raison d’être of the Congregation, the restoration of the Vincentian houses of France, the reintegration into the Congregation of former Vincentians dispersed after its suppression, and the care of the Daughters of Charity.

One may suppose that the time needed for Placiard to learn what he needed to know about the state of the Congregation was lengthy. As mentioned above, Brunet had kept virtually no notes about its affairs, and so to help him, Placiard made use of the skills of Fathers Viguier, his secretary, and Claude. He came to realize how expensive it was to provide for the China mission, but also that he had to rely almost completely on the state for the needed support. Several letters attest to this concern and go into details, particularly concerning the astronomical equipment to be sent to the imperial Chinese court.

When he had grown more familiar with the situation, he realized that everything depended on His Imperial and Royal Majesty, Napoleon, and on the decisions of his uncle, Cardinal Fesch. If the Congregation were to provide missionaries according to the new charter issued by the emperor, it would also have to have a central house in Paris to form them, as well as the seminaries which certain bishops wished to entrust to the Vincentians. To prove his point, he addressed a report to Jean-Etienne Portalis, the minister of foreign affairs, providing statistics of the missionaries before Revolution: China, six; Ile de France and Bourbon, twenty-two; Algiers, three; Turkey, twenty-two. At the time of writing, 2 March 1807, the data showed: China, four, all of them sick, including Clet; Ile de France and Bourbon, seven, half of whom were sick; Algiers, one, sick and aged; and Turkey, fifteen. They would need, therefore, a regular central house (part of Sicardi’s demand), money for the upkeep of the Congregation and its buildings, and a steady supply of candidates.

Although everything depended on Napoleon’s favor, Placiard’s responsibility was to develop the source of candidates, and for this he looked to diocesan seminaries. Since the Congregation of the Mission had a double role as teachers in seminaries and foreign missionaries, one or other of these would have appealed to a certain number of idealistic seminarians. By the end of 1806, he could write that Vincentians were staffing, with at least one or two of its members, the seminaries of Amiens, Vannes, Carcassonne, Poitiers, Sarlat and Albi, and they would soon assume the direction of the seminary of Tours. In addition, he already had some candidates, whom he placed in a seminary, probably at Amiens. The future, looked at in this light, seemed less bleak.

The case of the Amiens seminary was especially important, since the property likely belonged to the Congregation. There, Placiard recommended admitting boarders, not just seminary students, as a way to make money, and a further source of vocations. The house in Lyons, while not a seminary but just a secondary school, offered the same promise.

The other way to secure members was to invite his confreres to resume their Vincentian life. Since the suppression of the Congregation the Mission in 1792, its members had been dispersed, some outside of France, particularly in Spain. Since the Concordat of 1801, others, apart from those who abandoned their priesthood and membership, had returned to priestly work in France. He wrote to those whose names and contact information he had, but he came to realize that many excuses existed for not returning. Bishops were unwilling to let some return, since they were fulfilling important posts in their dioceses. Besides, the bishops of France had received authorization allowing them to receive into their dioceses clergy belonging to secular congregations, and so they presumed that they were doing the right thing in not letting them return. The bishop of Nancy, for example, wrote that he would sooner give up his see than let Dominique Salhorgne return. Others cited, as reasons for remaining at their posts, the difficulty of finding a replacement, their age and health, or family obligations, such as the support of sick relatives. Some felt, besides, that there was not enough truly Vincentian work for them to do if they returned, and they worried about their salaries being paid by the state. Cardinal Fesch, in his role as the supervisor of the Congregation, promised to put pressure on the bishops to allow the former Vincentians to return. The issue of the return of the men to community life would drag on for many years. Placiard had merely taken the first steps, but was discouraged to find only five or six willing to come back.

The search for a suitable headquarters for the Congregation continued during Placiard’s term. It may have appeared that the problem was solved by the imperial decree giving to the Congregation the house at Vieux Colombier, once the Daughters of Charity had moved away to the Maison de la Croix, which had been assigned to them. All this was quickly challenged by others who had designs on both properties, and the decree ultimately proved useless. Although a mere fraction of the size of Saint Lazare, it would have been a suitable house at the beginning. The same decree authorized Fesch to accept legacies and gifts for the use of the Congregation, an important step in developing some independence.

Placiard’s work as the superior general of the Daughters of Charity is not well detailed, but it involved the usual permissions, such as the renovation of vows, and presiding at the assembly of 18 May 1807, at which Mother Deschaux was elected to a second term. Eighty-seven Sisters participated. It is believed, however, that he was kept somewhat in the dark about the inner workings of the Sisters, particularly since the movement to place the Daughters of Charity under the archbishop of Paris was taking shape.

Perhaps because he was feeling exhausted, or was being ignored by the leadership of the Daughters, he moved from his apartments at the Vieux Colombier to the hospital of the Incurables, rue de Sèvres, staffed by the Daughters of Charity. There, suddenly and probably without warning, Claude Joseph Placiard had a stroke and died, 16 September 1807. He was only fifty-one, doubtless worn down by the incessant complications of his office, particularly his conflicts with Sicardi. Although he had drawn up his last will a few months before, by which he left his lands and other goods to the Congregation, he did not leave behind the name of someone to succeed him as vicar general. Following the Constitutions, therefore, Pierre Claude, the first assistant, assumed the interim government of the Congregation, notified the members in a circular, and convoked the meeting to nominate a successor.

In his letter to the Vincentians, Claude noted that Placiard had had a large funeral, attended by numerous diocesan clergy, Vincentians and Daughters of Charity. He recalled the conversions he had obtained, possibly during a tiring mission he gave in the Vendée region, his theological knowledge, his care for the Sisters, and his personal qualities of modesty and modesty joined to firmness. Cardinal Fesch, with whom the vicar general had worked so frequently, said that his death was a loss not only to the double family of Saint Vincent, but to France as a whole, and he pledged to continue his work for the Congregation. Father Placiard was buried in the Vaugirard Cemetery.

Sicardi, his erstwhile opponent, praised his character. “I found in him the character of a person who was pious, just, zealous, exemplary, firm and constant in matters of order and truth. Although he died young, he nevertheless died plenus dierum, since he always made a good use of his talent and his time.”

Dominique-François Hanon 1807-1816

During the nine years of his ministry as vicar general, Dominique-François Hanon experienced the growth of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity, then a schism among the Sisters, the second suppression of the Congregation in France, another intrusion by Domenico Sicardi into its government, and finally arrest, detention and imprisonment for more than four years, concluded only with the fall of Napoleon. Such an experience of violent swings of events coupled with devotion to duty has not been equaled by any other in the Congregation’s history.

Hanon was born in 1757 in Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, on the coast of the English Channel not far from Dunkirk. He entered the internal seminary of the Congregation at Saint Lazare in 1772 and made his vows two years later. According to one of his passports, he was described as having brown hair and brown eyes, and was five feet seven inches tall (176 cm.) Like nearly all of his predecessors and successors, he spent his next ten years in seminary teaching, in his case at Metz.

Revolution

With the outbreak of the Revolution, he continued in Metz, refusing to take the prescribed constitutional oath (1791). He was appointed professor of Church history at Heidelberg (1791), but it is doubtful that he ever taught there. The main reason was that Cardinal Louis Joseph de Montmorency-Laval, prince bishop of Metz, forced to go into exile into Germany, named Hanon as administrator of his diocese. He then had to cope with the presence of a constitutional bishop, Nicolas Francin, elected 13 March 1791. The new bishop suffered rejection by the people, particularly when he was forced, under virtual torture, to abandon his priesthood in 1794. He retracted, but the pressure on him probably caused the stroke that left him partially paralyzed from 1796 until his death in 1802.

As part of Hanon’s pastoral concern, he composed what he entitled “The Ordinary of a High Mass, for Catholic assemblies, when there is no priest to celebrate it,” a pioneering document dated Metz, 22 August 1795. Lacking clergy, both juring and non-juring, the faithful still wanted to pray as best they could. This was gradually tolerated, since townspeople understood that their former parish churches were their property and insisted on their right to use them. Hanon’s text is a version of the Eucharist, conducted in French, complete with the normal prayers, readings and instructions of a Sunday mass. For the Eucharistic prayer and communion, he substituted prayers for a spiritual communion. The entire text had a penitential tone, particularly in view of the disasters committed in the name of the Revolution.

Two excerpts will give the flavor. At the opening of the celebration: “Where are our priests, our shrines, our altars…? You are just, O my God, and your vengeance is based on principles of justice. We have so unworthily abused your mercies and your favors. We used to attend mass and the offices with great tepidity and lack of awareness. Today, you have deprived us of them.” At the time for communion: “We groan to be deprived today of this inestimable kindness. We confess that we have deserved this privation by the sacrilegious, empty or imperfect [communions] … that we have had the sadness to make so often, O sovereign physician of our souls.” It is unknown whether this text was ever used, but if it was, it fit into the tradition of other priestless celebrations of that period. The celebrants were equally men and women, sometimes schoolteachers or others with some education, and the ceremonies also included processions and even pilgrimages to local shrines. Hanon’s entire text may be interpreted as one among several of his gestures of reaction against authority.

He had to move to Nancy in 1798, where he remained until 1802. The cause may have been that, in that same year, he had had to remain in hiding, under suspicion of being a counterrevolutionary agitator. After the Concordat of 1801 and the death of the constitutional bishop, the duly installed new bishop of Metz appointed Hanon an honorary canon of the cathedral, a distinction he certainly deserved after his years of difficult service.

He then returned to his birthplace and began a sort of minor seminary, but he was unable to overcome anticlerical resistance there. He then transferred the students to Doullens, a small town near Amiens, where he came to know the bishop of Amiens. When he reopened the seminary, the bishop had Placiard assign him there in August 1806 as its first superior. During his time in Amiens, he befriended two sons of the Bailly family, and brought them to Amiens to secure their education. This friendship would later lead the Congregation, in the time of Jean-Baptiste Nozo, into a period of public scandal with terrible consequences for the Church and the Vincentians.

Vicar General

At the death of Father Placiard in 1807, Pierre Claude, the only assistant then in Paris, assembled nine available Vincentians to propose a new vicar general. They met on 23 September at the mother house of the Daughters of Charity, Vieux Colombier. Placiard had designated Dominique-François Hanon, who was not present for the meeting. The members, however, wanted Claude as their candidate but, in view of his age and frequent infirmities, and his own positive rejection of the office, their choice fell unanimously on Hanon.

Claude quickly wrote to the Holy See, asking for Hanon’s nomination and not his confirmation (since Placiard had not named anyone, and the little assembly at Vieux Colombier did not have the right to elect, only to propose.) By a new brief, Quum per apostolicas, 14 October 1807, Pius VII appointed Hanon “as vicar general of the entire Congregation of the Mission,” with faculties to enjoy all the constitutional authority of a superior general according to the constitutions, and the right to name a successor “per schedulam,” on the traditional piece of paper kept in the locked box.

Accompanying this brief was another letter from the Pope to Claude. He commented that the nomination had been done correctly, and that Hanon would have all the faculties needed, despite that fact that the French Vincentians did not yet have a central house, nor a place to live, but were working to accomplish a return to their original way of living as soon as possible. He also ordered everyone to be subject to Hanon under holy obedience. As for Sicardi, all of whose pretensions had been effectively undercut, he was to continue as assistant until a general assembly was held, and the pope “burdened your conscience” to hold one as soon as possible. To be doubly certain, Pius VII ordered that his decree be printed, signed by a public notary, and sealed with an ecclesiastical seal or by the procurator general, so that it could confidently be shown to others. These very clear measures were evidently necessary to forestall another assault on his decision by Sicardi and his council. The presence of French troops in Italy also made Sicardi’s pretensions less believable, since he would not be able to exercise his former office under those conditions.

The new vicar general complied in short order, sending around the brief attached to his first circular letter. From the side of the government, Napoleon confirmed Hanon as “Superior of the Mission, known under the title of Saint Lazare” on 7 January 1808. Probably at this same period he wrote to Sicardi, expressing esteem for “your venerable person,” and tried to smooth over the past. “I know that some light clouds arose at the time of my predecessors,” but the pope had appointed him without any restrictive clause, and named Sicardi as first assistant. Another letter addressed him as “my first cooperator.” Sicardi, however, still held that he was in charge of the non-French provinces, but it is impossible to know when this authority was granted him by the pope, nor how.

His second circular, sent about two months later, was wider in scope. He described the conditions of his nomination by the pope, and how he had sent the bull to the visitors of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland. Sicardi received a copy and sent in words of submission. Hanon was thus beginning his vicariate with everyone outside France henceforth united and “in their dependence on only one head, resident in Paris.” Possibly to counteract further questions, he explained that the emperor had simply confirmed him, not named or installed him. Despite early attempts to mollify Sicardi, he then wrote a remarkable, even shocking, sentence, in which he pointed the finger at him as the source of past troubles: “Cardinal Fesch, our illustrious and zealous protector, intervened very effectively during his time in Rome, to prevent Father Sicardi from dividing the Congregation….” He concluded by reminding his readers that “…there is no doubt, therefore … that this is not some new body, but our own Congregation of the Mission,” which the French government had reestablished in France.

Administration

Hanon quickly set to work to bring order into both the spiritual life and the developing works of the Congregation of the Mission in France. He petitioned the Holy See for permission to restore an old custom practiced in times of war, famine, plague and other calamities. He wished to designate every day three members of the Congregation, one priest, cleric and brother, to fast, pray and receive communion for this intention. In addition, he hoped that the same custom would take root among the Daughters of Charity.

In a report to the ministry of foreign affairs, he explained the conflict between the new identity of the Congregation and that established by Saint Vincent. He explained that the traditional work was diocesan seminaries and home missions in our towns and country areas. Foreign missions were not a Vincentian work, except secondarily. However, under Napoleon, they were the principal work, “and [we] will fulfill them with all the zeal of which we are capable. Indeed, these missions are not in any way incompatible with our earlier and primitive functions, and we can even fulfill all of them, as we used to do before the Revolution.” Clearly, Hanon was trying to continue the path taken by his predecessor Placiard to open the way officially to return to the Congregation’s main work. He bolstered this by referring to Napoleon’s support of the mission in the Vendée—the one which so exhausted Placiard—as well as missions preached in other dioceses, plus various seminaries. He linked the service in seminaries to preparation of candidates for foreign missions.

He also submitted the following report to Félix-Julien-Jean Bigot de Préameneu minister of foreign affairs, reflecting the situation of the Congregation in the middle of 1808, with added information on houses in France and the French empire.

General Administration

Vicar General Hanon First assistant Sicardi (residence in Rome) Second assistant Claude Third assistant (vacant) Fourth assistant (vacant) Admonitor (vacant) Procurator General (vacant) Secretary General Viguier

Provincial and Mission Administration=

Paris (vacant) Lyons Daudet Lombardy Scarabelli Rome Ansaloni Spain De Sobiès Portugal Pereira Franco Poland Jacobowski Naples De Matthaeis (“major superior”) African Islands (vacant) Algiers (vacant) Middle East Renard (vice-prefect apostolic) Constantinople (?) Ghisland (vice-prefect apostolic)

Houses and Members (France and French empire)

Paris, Vieux Colombier 4: Hanon, Claude, Philippe, Braud Amiens, seminary 3, and 4 postulants Poitiers, seminary 2 Saint Brieuc, seminary 2 Vannes, seminary 1 Valfleury, pilgrimage 3 Carcassonne, seminary 3 Meximieux, student residence 1 Sarlat, seminary ? Genoa ? Savona ? Sarzana ?

Other nations, houses and members

Papal States Montecitorio 41 Papal States (other houses) 51 Italy 78 Naples 85 Spain 108 Portugal 35 Prussian Poland 124 Russian Poland 77 Austrian Poland 18+ Other European Totals 617+ Palatinate Mannheim, Neustadt 3 French, several Germans Algeria mission 2 Turkey Greece 14 Turkey Syria 2 Turkey Persia 2 African Islands ? Goa ? China French mission 3 China Portuguese mission 8

The partial statistics demonstrate the relative position of the French Vincentians as compared with the others. His figures were fluid, however, as can be seen from another draft report he composed, with slightly different overall totals of ninety-seven houses, and 717 members. Among the members he reckoned about 150 French, presumably ready to return.

As part of the official report, he also included a revealing list of twenty-five former Vincentians who had either agreed to return immediately, or who wished to put it off. His comments are the best indication of the situation in which he found himself. (He had already asked the Daughters of Charity to send him the names and addresses of the priests and brothers of the Congregation who were living in their area.)

1) Jean-Henri Schuler (1738-after 1810) In Germany during Revolution; now librarian at Heidelberg; totally worn out, looks like a ghost 2) Jean-Baptiste Grenier (1762-after 1812) Had been superior of constitutional seminary of Agen, but is now reconciled; ready to return, but in poor health; in contact with four others, also in poor health. 3) Honoré Lallier (1742-1808) Pastor, has reasons for not returning 4) Jean-Baptiste Moissonnier (1736-1813) Fled to Ferrara; superior at seminary in Marseilles; needs money, then work 5) Louis-Luc Chantrel, (1747-1820) Fled to Jersey, 1792; in England, 1801; hopes to receive confreres to work with him 6) Bro. Guillaume Rajon (1752-1815) In Barcelona; will return 7) Huitcocq (no information) Wants to return 8) Marie-Charles-Emmanuel Verbert (1752-1819) Pastor in Marseilles; can return 9) Francois-Xavier Muyard (b. 1762) Does not want to return, since we are only for foreign missions; used to be at Meximieux, waiting for better days 10) Jean-Baptiste Barbault (1738-1809) Had been at Heidelberg; good for Amiens, waiting until we can make a canonical request 11) Guillaume Lacroix (1743, after 1816) Refugee in Spain; pastor, wants to return; sick, a slight stroke that affected his speech 12) Pierre-Vincent Flechmans (or Vlechmans) (1755-1831) Fled to Ferrara; ready to return, but not for foreign missions 13) Bernard Mazaré (1746-?) Good, even for missions 14) Joseph-François Jaubert (1753-after 1817) Probably all right, no news 15) Eutrope Sellier (1740-1818) Had been interned during Revolution at Bordeaux; very good, even for foreign missions 16) Bégoulé (1751-1808) Refugee in Spain, pastor in Cahors; died in the meantime 17) Bro. Nicolas Elain (1756-1823) At Constantinople; wants to go to China 18) Marie-François-Georges Sol (1739-?) Wants to return, but is seventy; has a pension, furnishings 19) Pierre-Joseph Dewailly (1759-1828) “He piles up objections and difficulties of every sort,” but he returned 20) Stanislas-Joseph Guillain Bernier (1755-1820) Not happy until he returns. Good in every way. 21) François Rupied (1765-1808) Took oath, pastor (died in meantime) 22) Jean-François-Léonard Mouillard (1765-?) Imprisoned at Ile de Ré, 1799-1800; teaches in a lycée at Besançon, lives with his two sisters, whom he cannot easily leave 23) Pierre-Simon Barrand (1760-after 1808) Condemned to deportation; poor health, poor eyesight, fears going blind 24) Dunand, Jean-François, b. 1761; or Jean-Joseph, b. 1766 Pastor in Italy for several years, now in France, Willing to return 25) Louis Figon (1745-1824) Has family responsibilities

Hanon concluded with a list of 337 Vincentians unwilling or unable to return. The notes on some of them read: absolutely sick, with his family, incapable of any work. Others were in France, serving as pastors, superiors of seminaries or professors, or students. Some lived out of the country, in England, Spain and Belgium, and one was an astronomer at the Mannheim observatory. Had all these middle-aged and elderly Vincentians returned, at an average age of fifty-seven, Hanon would have been faced with the impossible task of housing them and finding enough work and resources to support them. These figures should be compared with the approximately 460 French Vincentians before the Revolution. By 1808, 160 had already died, fifty were sick, and another fifty reported their willingness to return, but had significant excuses.

Bigot reviewed and analyzed the report. He wrote back, 15 February 1809, to inform Hanon that the report was insufficient, since it did not mention houses in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Poland. The government had wanted information on all houses recognizing the vicar general as superior, possibly since the government considered as French all the Vincentian houses united to the mother house and giving obedience to the vicar general.

Hanon then submitted a more comprehensive table within two weeks, proving that he had the information previously. The totals for houses and members, however, are still approximate, but they show relative positions among the nations involved. Further, they correspond roughly to the provinces of the Congregation.

Hanon’s summary enumerated the houses and works as follows:

French empire (Italian) 5 houses 110 members Kingdom of Italy 5 houses 37 members Papal States 4 houses 75 members Kingdom of Naples 4 houses 89 members Kingdom of Spain 6 houses 110 members Portugal 4 houses 68 members Austrian Poland 2 houses 7 members Grand Duchy of Warsaw 11 houses 102 members Russian Poland 30 houses, missions 152 members Prussian Poland 1 house 2 members Totals 72 houses, missions 758 members Paris, Vieux Colombier 1 house 6 members Scattered members in France 260 (?) Scattered members in Piedmont 30 (?) Totals 73 houses, missions 1048 members

His annual New Year’s circular for 1809 was modest in its reports on the missions, but patient and hopeful concerning the outlook for the Congregation in France and the French empire. He was still looking for permanent housing for his administration and the seminary, but this problem would not be resolved for another eight years. Unfortunately, the year ahead would be full of conflict, ending in his arrest, interrogation and imprisonment.

His work for the foreign missions, although modest, was bearing fruit. Since the missions fell under the authority of the government, he had to look to government subsidies for this work. He also received about 15,000 francs each year for the central administration, in addition to a similar amount for the missions in the Middle East, and a small amount for Algiers. Despite this help, he had to complain to Bigot that the overseas missions were needy and closing for lack of funds. In the past, for example, Algiers received 9000 francs, and the Middle East (Constantinople), 20,000. For 1807 or 1808, however, Algiers received 3000 and Constantinople 9000. In addition, he faced a jurisdictional problem in the island of Bourbon, now Reunion. The local prefect apostolic, a recently installed Capuchin, insisted that he was also the superior of the Vincentians working in his prefecture. The priests legitimately refused to accept this, and as a consequence, he reported them to the civil authorities, and the Vincentians were thrown out of their houses and are now indigent. To help them, “it would be very urgent to have a decree or general order which his Imperial and Royal Majesty had promised to your Eminence [Cardinal Fesch], to place us everywhere under your protection and particular safeguard.”

Problems with Napoleon, Second Suppression of the Congregation

His most difficult problem, however, came from Napoleon’s plans for the Daughters of Charity, addressed in the following separate section.

Knowing that his own future was far from secure, Hanon took some extraordinary measures to assure continuity in the government of the Congregation. He announced his intentions to extend to visitors for their provinces and for the Daughters of Charity the whole extent of the powers granted by the constitutions to vicars general and superiors general of the Congregation. This would allow the visitors to act on their own should they be unable to correspond with him for political reasons. In the case of the death of a visitor, he was thinking of naming a pro-visitor, should this become necessary. Hanon had been aware of the schismatic tendencies that had bedeviled his predecessors and, for this reason, presented these reasons in his petition: “so that all trouble of minds and hearts in the entire Congregation be blocked, and all occasion of schism be removed.” Sicardi, as the first assistant, living in Rome, presented Hanon’s petition to the pope, who quickly granted the request, 16 April 1809. Hanon’s letter to his confreres in Poland is a good example of his attention to details, since it covers the replacement of the visitor and his possible replacement, and grants them “all the rights, privileges and faculties, permitted or reserved by our constitutions or by the Holy See to our superiors general and our vicars general….”

This action was none too soon, since Napoleon was about to annex the papal states to his empire (17 May). He would also retract his earlier reestablishment of the Congregation, for which he had several reasons. In the first place, he believed he could not trust his foreign missionaries, particularly since reports were reaching him of the interest that the English had in taking over French missions in China. He presumed that the English would pay them well for their treachery.

In the second place, the emperor was becoming dissatisfied with foreign missions as well as home missionaries, who were preaching at the invitation of the bishops. Bigot presented a request for the missions in the Middle East in early September. In reply, Napoleon ordered Bigot to prepare a draft decree on the subject by 1 October. “I don’t want any missions at all. I had allowed an establishment of the missioners in Paris and I granted them a house; I take it all back. I am happy to exercise religion in my home, but I have no intention of propagating it abroad.” Bigot presented an assessment of French foreign missions, commenting that it would cost a considerable amount to maintain them and that, in any case, there might not be enough Vincentians to staff them.

In the third place, the emperor had continuing problems with the papacy. Pius VII refused to annul his marriage to Josephine Beauharnais, and the emperor’s pressure on the Church only strengthened the loyalty of the lower clergy to the pope, instead of to Napoleon and his compliant bishops.

He did not wait until 1 October, his self-imposed deadline, to act. He issued his decree 26 September 1809, revoking the decree of 7 prairial an XII, as well as all decrees concerning it. Commentators noted that his signature was, unlike others that day, written with great passion and anger. He also added in his own hand, that the decree “will not be printed.” This meant that it, in fact, had no official standing, although when Louis XVIII came to power after Napoleon, he believed he had to revoke it just to be certain.

Cardinal Fesch must not have been privy to his nephew’s thinking, since he wrote him a bold letter on his decision. “Yes, Sire, I dare to say it: this suppression is the most fearsome of all the operations that have taken place for the last two years. It tends to impede the preaching of the Gospel. It paralyzes the ministry of the bishops from whom have been taken away the only resources they had to recall revealed truths and the lessons of Gospel morality to those of their diocese who have been deprived of pastors.”

Arrest and Imprisonment

Since the Congregation of the Mission had been suppressed once more, Hanon lost his position as its superior in France, as well as superior general of the Daughters of Charity. The police ejected him from his apartments at Vieux Colombier, and he moved a few streets away into rented quarters until his arrest, 29 October 1809.

As a result of this suppression, Hanon also lost the subsidies he had been receiving from the state. He reported, as part of his interrogation lasting nineteen days, that he had received a total of some 92,000 francs for his headquarters (housing, food, office supplies, travel), and the four other Vincentians living with them, three priests and a brother. He had divided the subsidy to support the missions in the Middle East, Algiers and China. He likewise had to spend some of the funds on the seminarians who had begun to enter the Congregation. There were at the time five candidates studying in three seminaries: two at Poitiers, one at Lyons, and two, the brothers Emmanuel and Ferdinand-Joseph Bailly, at Amiens. Of these, only the latter made it to vows and ordination.

After Hanon’s jailing and interrogation, he was forced to remain under detention and surveillance in Saint-Pol, his native place, although he no longer had relatives living there. He was not idle, however, since he appears to have taken on the formation of a few candidates for the priesthood. No further information exists about his activities for the rest of his sixteen months there. In March 1811 the authorities had him brought to Paris again for questioning about his continuing relationship with the Daughters of Charity. The result was that he was condemned to imprisonment in the castle at Fenestrelle. He would remain there until 1814.

Domenico Sicardi, the first assistant, automatically assumed control of the Congregation in Hanon’s absence. Jean-Baptiste Etienne criticized him for this: “It was then that Father Sicardi came to the fulfillment of his plan, pursued for such a long time. Under the pretext that Father Hanon was unable to govern the Congregation, he obtained from the sovereign pontiff the powers of a vicar general of the entire Congregation.” Etienne was unnecessarily harsh, since this move followed the spirit if not the letter of the Constitutions, which specified only laziness, negligence, illness or senility as reasons to name a vicar general.

Schism among the Daughters of Charity

One of the most difficult episodes in the life of Father Hanon was the schism among the Daughters of Charity. The Congregation of the Mission narrowly averted a split among its members caused by problems principally between the French and some Italians. The Sisters, by contrast, knew a period of four years, 1810-1814, with two groups and competing administrations, both claiming to be true Daughters of Charity. The lessons learned from this episode continue to have relevance, since they deal with the identity of the Company.

This crisis stemmed from the Revolution and its aftermath, particularly the initiatives of Napoleon Bonaparte, who assumed power 10 November 1799. A little more than a year later, the Daughters of Charity were able to resume their work, at least tentatively and partially, “to form students for the service of hospitals.” On this basis, the remaining Sisters gradually reassembled into local communities and, by a decision of Napoleon and the other two consuls, they resumed their work in various districts of Paris under government supervision. Postulants began to arrive as well in significant numbers, 65 in 1801, 83 in 1802, and 76 in 1803. By 1801, 404 religious women, including Daughters of Charity were living in sixty-two houses in Paris. The Sisters were officially re-established 16 October 1802, but the decree of restoration placed them under the authority of the bishops.

Mother Deleau

In keeping with their constitutions, sixty Sisters met on 22 August 1802 under the presidency of Laurent Philippe, and decided to prolong the mandate of Mother Marie Antoinette Deleau, age seventy-four. Elected in 1790, she presided over some 4000 Sisters in 426 houses. During the years of the suppression, she had remained in contact, as best she could, with the Sisters who had returned to their families or were otherwise dispersed by the Revolution. After her reappointment, she governed with the help of two secretaries, Sisters Genevieve Chouilly (1750-1824), and Marie Thérèse Fernal (1756-1828). These two would be at the heart of the intrigues that rocked the Company. By the end of 1802, Napoleon enlarged their mission to include, as in the past, service in parishes and the instruction of young girls. By the same decree, they were allowed to resume wearing the habit.

The most serious problem in this decree was the first clause of article 3: “They will be regarded as religious under the jurisdiction of the bishops . . . .” This had been the government’s intention for some time and, since the Congregation of the Mission did not yet have legal existence in France, this article did not appear to have caused any problem to the Sisters or to their Vincentian director. It certainly would in the next few years, leading ultimately to the schism.

Mother Deleau died on 30 January 1804 and, at the elections of Pentecost Monday, 21 May, Sister Therese Deschaux was elected in her place. A few days later, 27 May, an imperial decree reestablished the Congregation of the Mission in France, whose “director,” as noted elsewhere, Napoleon would appoint.

Mother Deschaux

It was Mother Deschaux who, in her own account, had approached the Minister of the Interior, Jean-Antoine Chaptal, to discuss the great need for nurses in the hospitals. She had been the sister servant of the small community in the hospital of Auch. Chaptal took the leadership and shortly after published the decree of 22 December 1800.

Part of Napoleon’s grand strategy for France was the rationalization of its religious life. The structure of dioceses, parishes and the nomination of bishops and pastors had already been decided, and the turn then came for all orders and congregations. He ordered that each authorized congregation present their statutes and rules to be verified by the Council of State. His principle was not new, since he was following that of the old regime, namely, that in a unified state like France, the Church should fall under the control of the government. The reason for this was that, since the Church had a role to play in French society, it could be understood as an arm of the state. He treated French Jews similarly, convening a “Grand Sanhedrin” in 1807 to centralize and regularize Jewish life in France.

In terms of the Double Family of Saint Vincent, the papal brief, Quum uti accepimus, 30 October 1804, clearly linked “the care and government” of the Daughters of Charity to the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, as it had been in the past. Since this clearly opposed the Napoleonic idea, the stage was set for a conflict of ideologies: between the papal perspective of the independence of the Daughters of Charity from the government, and the centralizing ethos of the state.

To further his plan to coordinate and control religious life, Napoleon would appoint his mother, Letizia Bonaparte, known formally as Madame Mère, to be protectress of all the Sisters of Charity, of whatever congregation, established throughout the empire. As he did for the Jews, she would in the same year preside over a “general chapter” of all hospital Sisters. Thirty-six mothers general participated, meeting from 27 November to 1 December at the Tuileries palace. The Daughters of Charity, with nearly 1600 sisters, were the largest group by far of all the participants, and this fact throws into relief the urgency of finding a suitable solution to the question of their governance.

During this same period, Brunet arrived from Rome. Doubtless, his appearance on the scene must have provoked some fear that he would try to restore the Daughters of Charity according to their former constitutions. In fact, Brunet was unable to do much because he spent a little more than a year and half in Paris before his death. The same can be said of his successor, Placiard, who served only one year as the superior of the Daughters of Charity. In any case, the Daughters did not have a recent strong tradition of guidance by the superiors general of the Congregation of the Mission since, during much of the eighteenth century, the Vincentians had largely left the Sisters alone.

Mother Dechaux’s term ran out after three years, but she was reelected in the Pentecost Monday elections of 1807. Her assistant was Sister Marguerite Ithier (1751-1813), a close personal friend of the second secretary, Sister Fernal.

Shortly after Father Hanon’s confirmation as vicar general, 28 October 1807, he presided at the meeting with the new council to review the prepared statutes of the Daughters of Charity for submission to the emperor. He found the text to be, if not incorrect, then at least ambiguous.

Article 1

The Sisters of Charity do not form a religious body, but a congregation of young women occupied in the care of the sick, and the instruction of the poor. They are under the authority of an ecclesiastical superior, chosen by them and approved by the archbishop of Paris, and by a superioress general, electable every three years, to whom they give a council of several sisters, chosen by election.

In the margin of this text, Hanon wrote: “Saint Vincent designated the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission of Saint Lazare to be forever the superior general of the Sisters of Charity, and they have always chosen him.” When the Minister of foreign affairs read this addition, he called for investigation into the history of the Daughters of Charity. The approval by Cardinal de Retz in 1655 was not helpful for Hanon’s case: “… the said confraternity or society will be and shall ever remain under our authority and dependence and under that of our successors as archbishops of Paris…. By these letters, we confide and commit [to Vincent de Paul] the direction of the abovementioned society and confraternity, during his life and after him, to his successors, the generals of the said Congregation of the Mission.”

The state’s special interest in the Daughters of Charity arose out of two principal sources. First, the Daughters of Charity were the largest community in France doing charitable work. By 1807, a mere six years after their reestablishment, they had 266 houses in France, with 1580 Sisters, including 112 at their provisional mother house. Second, if the state could determine the proper formulations for the statutes of the Daughters of Charity, the other congregations would be more easily handled.

Throughout the period of these troubles, Hanon energetically defended the traditional rights of the Church, as represented in the constitutions of the Congregation of the Mission and those of the Daughters of Charity. The conflict between himself and the state can be traced through an extensive series of memoranda and letters involving all the parties. Hanon turned to Cardinal Fesch, naturally enough, given the latter’s role as grand almoner of the empire, with rights as protector of missionary congregations. His role, however, was ambiguous, since he had responsibilities both toward the Congregation, which he had supported in the past, and to his nephew’s imperial government. In a long and significant letter of 31 August 1808, Hanon sought to explain the ramifications of the emperor’s decision. He wrote that the changes to the Sisters’ statutes (more correctly called constitutions) would possibly lead to the dissolution of the Company. To withdraw this group of lay women from their traditional link to the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission would be to overturn their constitutions, their rules of behavior, their vows and the spirit proper to their state.

Hanon directed another lengthy memorandum to the cardinal, 30 January 1809, in which he raised, among other points, the relationship of the Congregation of the Mission to the Daughters of Charity. “But if the head of the Congregation is no longer in France, how will the Congregation itself be able to continue? Who will be responsible for our French missions? Who will ask for or receive for them the protection and the aid of the emperor? What French or foreign Lazarist would wish to dedicate himself to this work, or even remain any longer?” Hanon was bolstered in his opinions by the numerous letters received from individual Daughters of Charity as well as from entire local communities, complaining about the proposed new statutes.

The conflict took a more dangerous turn when Napoleon signed another decree on 18 February 1809, calling for the approval of the statutes of every congregation of women engaged in charitable work. Each one would be “under the protection of Madame, our very dear and honored mother.” Even more ominously, article seventeen read: “Each hospital establishment, even the headquarters, is, in spiritual matters, subject to the diocesan bishop, who will govern it and who exclusively will visit it. Every superior, except the bishop himself, should be delegated by him and govern under his responsibility.” With the vacancy of the archdiocese of Paris upon the death of Cardinal de Belloy in June of that year, the vicars general took over the government of the diocese. They also saw the moment to grab power and exercise the diocese’s supposed rights over the Daughters of Charity, the largest and most important congregation in the country. The vicars’ commentary on the emperor’s decree is especially telling: “The government and the Gallican Church admit no subordinate ecclesiastical function independent of episcopal authority, or not subordinate to our lords the bishops.”

On this basis, the vicars general proposed a new text to be approved by the Daughters of Charity, as the emperor had ordered. Intense pressure at length forced Mother Deschaux to accede to their demands, but she had only a few weeks to live. When faced by Hanon with the consequences of what she had done without his knowledge, she retracted her support. The high anxiety of this period must have damaged her health, besides, since she fell ill and died 17 April.

Sister Beaudoin

Her successor was Sister Marie-Antoinette Beaudoin (1757-1812), interim superioress until the election to be held the following Pentecost Monday. She and her council, with Hanon, were expected to second a text drawn up by Jean-François Jalabert, one of the archdiocesan vicars general. The important article read: “The Company of the Daughters of Charity is not erected as a religious order, but only as a congregation of young women who obey, according to their charter [Institut], the archbishop of Paris as the superior general of the entire Company, or his delegate, and one from among them who has been elected the superioress, as well as the officers of the community.”

When Sister Beaudoin and her council refused to sign the articles, Jalabert then proposed waiting until the election of a superioress general who, he hoped, would be more amenable to the new realities. Hanon reacted negatively to the proposed articles and convoked for 15 May a general meeting of the sisters of the Paris houses. His recommendation to them was to sign, not the newly prepared text, but the traditional statutes. They did so, and he added this remark in the margin: “I the undersigned attest that the statutes printed above are the only ones that have been followed in the past in the government of the Company, and which are exactly word for word the same as the original in the hands of Sister Beaudoin, interim superioress general of the Daughters of Charity. Signed: Hanon, superior general of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Daughters of Charity.”

When Sister Beaudoin brought this text to the minister of foreign affairs, Bigot de Préameneu, he refused to accept them. His refusal provoked various responses on the part of the Sisters of the mother house. Some, seventy-eight in all, wishing to maintain the Company and not risk its dissolution, signed the new text proposed by vicar-general Jalabert, which they brought a few days after to his offices in the archdiocese of Paris. Faced with this division, he decided to study more attentively the life of Louise de Marillac and the early history of the Daughters of Charity, to come to appreciate better the course on which he had embarked so rashly. He might also have recalled the near unanimity of rejection by the Sisters of the constitutional clergy imposed on them fifteen years before during the Revolution.

Hanon was summoned to meetings designed to pressure him to accept the viewpoint of the vicars general of Paris: that Saint Vincent had placed the Sisters under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Paris. He countered that should the Sisters no longer make a vow of obedience to the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, they would thereby cease being Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, and that many of them would leave the Company. In that case, the vicars asked him to accept jurisdiction from them and then continue as before, but Hanon asked for time to think over this new offer.

His reactions at this juncture are confusing. He initially offered to resign as superior (i.e., vicar) general of the Congregation of the Mission, but then he turned around to accept the proposal of the vicars general of Paris. Soon after, however, he gave that up and asserted his complete independence in the government of the Sisters. Given the complexities of the situation, it is no wonder that Hanon changed his mind. Sister Beaudoin had done the same, as well as several of the seventy-eight signers, many of whom then formally retracted their signatures. In all this, Madame Mère shared her brother, Cardinal Fesch’s, opinion of Hanon as “a kind of very dangerous fanatic.”

Political issues outside his control then entered the equation. The emperor asked the pope to participate, as a temporal ruler, in a continent-wide blockade to strangle English commerce. The pope refused. Napoleon then invaded the Papal States and seized Rome. On 17 May 1809 he declared the annexation of the states of the Church to the French empire. Pius VII responded by excommunicating him (not by name, but together with those who had laid hands on Church territory), and by 6 July, the emperor arrested the pope and imprisoned him in Savona.

Laurent Philippe, director of the Daughters, had not been too successful in restraining the Sisters in this new crisis. He concluded that he had to flee the conflict and so went in secret to the south of France. He wrote an inflammatory letter to various houses of the Sisters, dated 8 July 1809, in which he exposed to their attention the existence of the division among the Paris Sisters. He advised them to write to Sister Beaudoin assuring her of their attachment to the traditional government of the Company. He then took the occasion to visit certain houses where the new statutes had been accepted to try to change their minds. One of these was at Nimes, where he went in the summer of 1811. Knowing his mission, the Daughters refused to receive him, despite the fact that he was ill. Instead, he was taken by another congregation, who helped him until his death, 26 July. As can be easily understood, some Sisters, especially the young ones, favored the new organization, while many, if not the majority, were against. Many protested their ignorance of the issues, simply hoping that their service of the poor would not be disturbed. Various Sisters held private and secret meetings to try to decide what to do, while others spied on them and reported their opinions to the vicars general. In houses where the older Sisters had been removed, younger and more compliant ones were appointed, but often their fellows refused to accept them.

One of the reasons for the support of the new statutes is likely to be found in the intellectual atmosphere of the age, with its emphasis on new versus old, free versus slave, light versus darkness, and philosophy versus superstition. In this perspective, moving away from the tutelage of the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission would give the Daughters of Charity a new beginning of freedom and independence, regarded as a great gain. Mother Deleau is said to have held this opinion. Jean-Baptiste Etienne believed that another reason was the desire to please Madame Mère, thereby gaining the favor of Napoleon. The reiterated calls in Sister Beaudoin’s circulars to return to the strict observance of the rules, but under the new statutes, also show that she wanted to have one set of statutes for all. Since central authority had been nearly non-existent for more than ten years, it was natural for the Sisters to adapt their traditional rules to the needs of new times and circumstances, particularly since many had been living on their own or in loosely organized communities.

In response to the growing split among the Sisters, the vicars general decided to suspend the annual renewal of vows until such time as the new statutes were approved. Their reasons were summarized as follows: “The obedience vowed by the Sisters of Charity to the superior of the Mission is subordinate to that owed to the archbishop of Paris, their primary superior both from canon law and from the dispositions formally set forth in the request and the erection of the said Congregation [of the Daughters of Charity].” Hanon communicated this decree to the general council of the Sisters and then reported to Bigot that, as a result, some Sisters had begun to return to their families.

Sister Beaudoin, however, had other ideas. She decided to permit the young Sisters then present at the mother house to pronounce their first vows, probably since it would have been too upsetting to them to back away from what they had already determined to do. Hanon’s reaction was not so peaceful. On 11 June 1809, he also took the risky step of appealing over the heads of the vicars general to the Council of State, accusing them of abusing their authority. His claim was that they could not arrogate to themselves any ecclesiastical rights while the see of Paris was vacant. The council agreed with Hanon and permitted the young Sisters to take vows.

Sister Ithier

The reaction of the vicars general was immediate and violent. They decided to remove the interim superioress from her responsibilities, since, they explained, she had wanted to retire anyway and, besides, her letters were not respectful of (their) ecclesiastical authority. Sister Beaudoin left on receipt of this news, without saying goodbye to the community of the mother house. Sister Marguerite Ithier, the first assistant, then replaced her as superioress general. Sister Beaudoin calmly wrote: “I find a sort of injustice, despite the fact that this order agrees with my wishes.”

After her withdrawal, Sister Beaudoin also addressed an appeal to the Council of State and wrote a sharp response to Jalabert. She concluded it by saying: “Should the three quarters and a half of our Sisters be sacrificed to a cabal, whose small number makes us see the spirit of insubordination? … I am not appealing in my own interest, but in the interest of the entire Community. Better to die than to adopt any changes.”

Hanon was amazed that Sister Ithier had replaced Sister Beaudoin, since this procedure was unconstitutional. Instead, there should have been an interim superioress until the next election. Further, he held that the Company was on the point of ruin, since the houses would not send postulants to Paris, and parents would encourage their daughters to return home. In fact, of the 102 Sisters who entered in 1809, thirty left for their families.

All the while, a large correspondence flowed in to Hanon from the houses of the Daughters, as well as from individuals. He drew up a table of their letters, and concluded that 188 houses, with 1175 Sisters, had rejected the changes in their statutes. A later table shows that some forty-three houses, especially those in Paris, accepted the new statutes.

The vicars general must have been surprised by these storms, so they relented, allowing both the taking of vows and the convocation of an assembly for a new election.

Napoleon stepped in as well. On 16 September 1809, he signed a decree suppressing the Congregation of the Mission. He had been thinking of this previously, as his correspondence shows, but it was probably the growing crisis that led him to this decision.

On 10 October, the vicars general of Paris then appointed Fathers Claude and Braud as director and assistant director respectively. The Sisters of the mother house were not, however, ready to accept their new directors, and a revolt against them gradually developed. Sensing the pressure, but alleging poor health, Claude did not accept. He then left the mother house and went to stay with Dubois at Sainte Marguerite. Pierre-François Viguier was named in Claude’s place. For this action, Viguier was roundly criticized by Jean Baptiste Etienne in his account of the crisis, calling him “a false brother.” He received a rough welcome from some Sisters, especially those in the seminary, who began to yell “Wolf! Wolf!” when they saw him coming down the corridor. This was the same Viguier, it should be noted, who had had a distinguished career in the missions, vicar apostolic of Algiers, prefect apostolic of Constantinople, as well as in France, where he worked tirelessly for the reestablishment of the Congregation, and later was secretary of Placiard and Hanon. The historian Planchet, however, believed that Viguier had acted out of wounded pride, since he had been removed from his responsibilities in the missions. After the restoration of unity among the Sisters, Viguier could no longer bring himself to live with the Congregation, preferring to live with his sister, a Daughter of Charity, at Saint Sulpice in Paris.

Father Hanon had lived at the Vincentian apartments at Vieux Colombier, but when the Congregation was suppressed, he was forced to leave. On 29 October, however, Hanon was arrested and taken for interrogation about his relationships with the Sisters. He claimed that he had not provoked dissent, and that both he and the Sisters had confidence in the government, since they had complained to that very government about their treatment by the vicars general. Nevertheless, some of his correspondence with the Sisters was judged to be seditious, since he encouraged the Sisters to oppose the new order contrary to the decisions of Saint Vincent. He would be freed after a couple of weeks, but then he was ordered to return to his native town, Saint Pol, far from Paris. From November 1809 until his second arrest in March 1811, therefore, he not was present in Paris. He found himself alone and isolated, and certainly worried about the Double Family of Saint Vincent. In this period, he penned a lengthy but undated letter, probably to Bigot, in which he spelled out his view of the pretensions of the vicars general. Thanks to this letter, the council of state accepted Hanon’s view that the vicars general had overstepped their responsibilities.

Nevertheless, the vicars general, Jalabert, in particular, kept up their pressure. They proposed another revision of the statutes, but kept the principal point of the submission to the archbishop of Paris. Surprisingly, the statutes were not conceived as dealing with Daughters of Charity in other lands. This added oversight would lead to bitterness and division in future years.

The final version of the statutes was promulgated 8 November 1809. The accompanying letter pictured Napoleon as the restorer of the true Vincentian character of the Daughters of Charity. “The statutes that we hand over to you are not his work redone by another hand, but his very work. You will find there the thoughts of his spirit, the sentiments of his heart, and the inimitable style of his tender and incomparable piety.” At the same time, the vicars general announced the date of the election of a new superioress general, scheduled for 10 December 1809. As can be imagined, many of the Sisters were not taken in by this smoothly fanciful presentation of their history.

The doubt and confusion on the part of the Sisters is probably reflected in the correspondence of certain ones with François Bernard (b. 1760), vicar general of Nancy, 1809-10. These Sisters were concerned about which side to support in this struggle, and to whom they could turn for advice. They chose Bernard, a former Vincentian. They explained to him that they had expressed their intention to live and die as Daughters of Charity, following the rules that Saint Vincent had given them. Bernard replied in the same general terms to all of them, namely that circumstances had changed, and Providence had arranged matters otherwise. He added that the Congregation of the Mission had been suppressed in God’s Providence, and that now it was the time to obey the government with wholehearted deference and submission. In these terms, it is no wonder that some Daughters of Charity were confused and upset.

Mother Mousteyro

Fathers Jalabert and Viguier presided over the election, at which Sisters favoring the new statutes predominated. One-hundred and eight Sisters were in attendance and two candidates surfaced, Sisters Judith Mousteyro (1735-1819), sister servant of the hospital of Clermont, and Marie-Dominique Durgueilh (1743-1826). Their choice fell on Sister Mousteyro, seventy-four years old, and fifty-two years of vocation. Her election was a triumph of the new faction. Because of her views, in the traditional New Year’s circular, she sent out the new statutes and recommended the renovation of vows. When the issue arose of which formula to use for the vows, it became necessary to draw up one that took into account the new statutes. The vicars general interposed by saying that any new formula should mention a vow of obedience to the archbishop of Paris.

When Mother Mousteyro reviewed the proposed formula, she reacted with surprise and sorrow. “My conscience would reproach me for the rest of my life if I accepted such a formula.” She added that for forty years she had taken vows in the traditional way and did not now believe she should retract what she had already vowed to God. Following the traditional schedule of circular letters, she soon wrote another one to the Sisters stating that she was unable to approve the new vow formula, particularly since this would separate the French Sisters from their counterparts in Poland and elsewhere. She concluded that only the supreme authority, the pope, could make such an essential change in the identity of the Daughters of Charity.

The minister of religious affairs, Bigot, summoned her to a meeting, which she attended with other Sisters. Apparently she first agreed to his proposals but, on reaching home, had second thoughts. Realizing that her position was impossible, she resigned her office, and announced her decision in a circular dated 3 April 1810. She had been superioress general for barely four months.

Mother Durgueilh

On that very day, 3 April, the directors, Fathers Viguier and Braud, came to the mother house to receive her decision. They then immediately appointed Sister Durgueilh, runner-up in the previous election. The three members of the general council accepted her as the new superioress general. The directors must have felt that Sister Mousteyro had not been in office long enough to warrant holding a new election, and they might have claimed that she had simply refused to accept her election. Evidently, their reasoning was faulty and the appointment unconstitutional. It marked the beginning of the true schism of the Daughters of Charity. In the future, those who supported Hanon’s position were nicknamed the “vincentines,” while those of the other party were the “jalabertines.”

Mother Durgueilh must have believed that she was doing the right thing for the benefit of the Company, as she wrote in her first circular, 15 May 1810. Many Sisters accepted her, perhaps without understanding what was at stake, but many others refused, looking instead to the deposed Mother Beaudoin. Indeed, about 100 Sisters decided to leave the Company entirely, among whom half were under ten years of vocation, to avoid the conflict. Others remained, but entire local communities lined up on one side or another. Although not legally the superior general, Hanon continued to take a deep interest in these matters from his banishment in Saint-Pol and clearly supported the resistance and Mother Beaudoin. One such token of his support is a detailed but undated memorandum in which he sought to prove that under the new governmental rules, the Sisters would cease being the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent. His perspective was that if local bishops assumed the government of the Daughters in their own dioceses, they would still be receiving their authority over them from the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, who, in turn, had received his authority from the pope and not from the French state. It was a courageous argument.

Hanon in Prison

Because of Hanon’s opposition to Napoleon’s plans for the complete restructuring of religious life in France, the emperor, on the advice of the minister of police, decided to arrest the vicar general once again. On the morning of 28 March 1811, gendarmes searched the apartment of Mlle Debuillement in Saint-Pol, where Hanon was staying. Sensing their arrival, he went into hiding behind bundles of hay in a small storage area. Not finding him, the police left, but someone noticed the lady walking through the house carrying a breviary. He followed her and discovered Hanon’s hiding place. The officers transferred him for interrogation to a jail Paris. There, among other questions, he had to explain his perspective on his spiritual authority over the Daughters of Charity. He believed he still had it, since he had received it from the pope, not from the government. Since the pope had never revoked them for France or elsewhere, he still had them. Further, he considered that the Daughters of Charity in France, because of the new organization, to be no longer part of the community instituted by Saint Vincent. He was clearly speaking of two separate communities, and this insolent response sealed his fate. After several days in jail, he was then sent to the fortress of San Carlo in Fenestrelle, Piedmont, one of eight state prisons. This cold and forbidding castle housed important prisoners of the state. The reason for his imprisonment was that “he had fomented divisions among the Sisters of Charity, and kept up a correspondence with them in a bad spirit.”

Hanon was no ordinary prisoner, as can be seen from the fact that he was escorted to Fenestrelle by a special squad of guards, instead of being handed on to others along the way in relays as ordinary prisoners were. He even had to pay his own travel expenses. Amid tight surveillance at Fenestrelle, he never lost his will and spirit. He sent troublesome letters to ministers and to Napoleon, while maintaining the external trappings of respectful formality. He even had time to gather information about the pope’s captivity in Savona from eyewitnesses, a document published but virtually unknown.

Despite the emperor’s suppression of the Congregation of the Mission, he decided to ask Hanon to resign, implying that he still admitted that Hanon had some authority over the Sisters. Although willing to resign because of the pressures placed on him, Hanon made the same reply that he gave to his interrogators in Paris: since the pope alone had granted him spiritual authority, only the pope could accept his resignation. He even asked the Minister of foreign affairs to approve his letter of resignation and to forward it to the pope (then Napoleon’s prisoner at Fontainebleau). In his typical style, he added that he could not send his resignation to each and every bishop where Daughters of Charity are working, should they in fact be under the authority of the bishops. Napoleon’s response, written 24 August 1812 from Smolensk on his Russian campaign, was to order that Hanon remain at Fenestrelle, and his officials not to speak any more about his resignation. Hanon, however, continued his appeals against the vicars general of Paris.

The most distinguished prisoner at Fenestrelle was Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca, Pro-secretary of State until his arrest in 1809. He and Hanon were able to meet occasionally and, on his release in 1813, Pacca went to Fontainebleau to join the pope. There, he also was able to present Hanon’s case to the pontiff. His reply was dated 18 May 1814, after Napoleon’s first abdication. In the document, the pope did not accept Hanon’s resignation, and the cardinal wished Hanon well, offering the support of the Holy See for the reestablishment of the Congregation of the Mission in France.

Without Hanon to look over their shoulders, the new administrators of the Daughters of Charity set to work trying to conform their life to the new legislation. Mother Durgueilh sent the new formula for vows in time for the renovation of 1811. Since the formula dropped the traditional phrase, “obedience to the venerable general of the Priests of the Mission,” substituting “obedience, in conformity with our rules and statutes,” many Sisters refused the new formula seeing that it would place them under the jurisdiction of bishops.

In view of this negative reaction, Napoleon ordered Bigot to obtain the adhesion of all the Sisters to his demands. To accomplish this, the minister enlisted the support of the bishops having communities of the Daughters of Charity in their dioceses. He ordered them to secure their enlistment under the new superioress, but, lacking that, the refractory Sisters were to be “as shamefully and publicly as possible expelled from their Congregation.” In practice, this meant that they were escorted from their houses after changing out of their habits, and taken in a locked coach by gendarmes to their family homes. Of course, some bishops approved these draconian measures, while others did not. Those in favor who still had Sisters opposed to the new statutes would then be faced with the loss of their service. In some cases, the Sisters in large numbers unanimously opposed the changes, with catastrophic results to hospitals and schools.

Since his appeal to the bishops was not producing the effects he had hoped, Bigot’s next step, in July 1811, was to enlist the prefects, those agents of the civil government in charge of the départements. The minister wanted them to ascertain that the Sisters who did not submit would abandon the habit and return to their birthplace. There, they would be under police surveillance to assure that they not resume correspondence with other Sisters who accepted the new statutes. The prefects were generally ready to agree with Bigot’s orders, but they would certainly have to face the same problem as the bishops did: a dearth of personnel and loss of service following the expulsion of the Daughters of Charity. Because these new measures were clearly not successful, the minister returned to the bishops six months later, and then again to the prefects, with negligible results. Some Sisters, in fact, left voluntarily to rejoin family members, and others were expelled, 145 in the month of April 1812, for example. But sick and aged Sisters posed a logistical problem: where would they go, and who would care for them? Others left unwillingly and publicly, signing declarations against the actions of the government. In their zeal, a few even donned lay clothes to continue their service of the poor. When they were discovered, they were dismissed. It is estimated that between 500 and 600 Sisters were expelled, about one-third of the total in France.

The source of the reaction against the new statutes was largely among the Daughters of Charity themselves. Of the 270 Sisters who entered after 1801, about one-third left or were expelled. They likely followed the example of the directors of the “seminary”. Many superiors of houses also exercised a strong influence over the decision of the Sisters in their local community, such than only one or two out of a large house would accept the new legislation, while the majority did not.

In the mother house, some reaction also continued. Certain Sisters renewed their vows using the old formula, for example, while others substituted the name of Mother Durgueilh as the object of their vow of obedience.

Despite the bad light in which Mother Durgueilh can be judged, there was another side to her administration. The Sisters reelected her, 18 May 1812, and she regarded this as a confirmation of her leadership. The pope, held under house arrest at the chateau of Fontainebleau, came to her aid by signing a rescript, 22 February 1813, prepared by Viguier, the director. In this, the pope granted the faculty to each Sister “to make her vows according to the order of the superioress general, whom they should recognize as the head of all the Congregation.” Mother Durgueilh assisted at a papal mass, 7 March, and later had an audience with Pius VII, who showed his affection for the Daughters of Charity. “[His Holiness] gave me the hope that all those who have left will return.” She later appealed to this rescript, but it was generally recognized as a mere scrap of paper, not prepared in due form, and of only temporary validity, given the rapid changes in the government of France. It was clearly an embarrassment to the Holy See.

Although the two obediences posed difficulties, many young women came to join the Company: 110 in 1810, 146 in 1812, and 127 in 1813. With their arrival, the house at Vieux Colombier rapidly became too crowded. The housing problem would be solved by an imperial decree, 25 March 1813, granting the Daughters of Charity the Hôtel de Châtillon. This property became and still is their mother house, 140, rue du Bac.

Once again, political circumstances outside the control of the Sisters led to more crises. After the successes of the allies against Napoleon, he was forced to abdicate, 11 April 1814. He retired to the island of Elba, not as a prisoner, but as sovereign of this small domain. In Napoleon’s absence, Louis XVIII returned to Paris and reestablished the monarchy. Political prisoners were freed, notably Pius VII, who entered Rome 24 May. Father Hanon had been transferred from Fenestrelle to house arrest in Bourges to escape the advance of the troops. He was finally liberated on 13 April.

Hanon went to Lyons in hopes of seeing Cardinal Pacca, but he had already left. He also met with Sister Catherine Olivier (b. 1739), a former official of the mother house who had left the Company in 1812, to sound her out concerning his plans about Mother Durgueilh. Sister Olivier wrote out a formulary for the superioress general to sign, by which she would retract her mistakes and prepare for a reconciliation of the two camps. As expected, Mother Durgueilh refused to sign it.

Afterwards, from Lyons he wrote a circular to the Daughters dated 23 June, in which he announced several immediate dispositions concerning the Company. His official standing, however, was somewhat confused, since the Congregation of the Mission had not yet been reestablished in France. This detail does not seem to have bothered the Sisters. He ratified the actions of Mother Durgueilh but asked some of her staff to resign or take different offices. He then asked Mother Mousteyro to return to her office as superioress general, with Mother Durgueilh becoming the assistant. He also took advantage of his location to travel to Clermont to see Mother Mousteyro, now nearly eighty years old, and to explain his reasoning. By these measures, the schism of the Daughters of Charity would now supposedly end.

When Hanon returned to Paris, he wisely decided to stay at the seminary of the Paris Foreign Mission Society instead of with the Sisters, some of whom did not accept his decisions. His first interview with Mother Durgueilh began badly. He asked: “Do you recognize me as the superior general?” “I recognize you as superior general if you recognize me as superioress general.” After much conversation, the storm calmed, but it did not cease. In the first place, Mother Durgueilh felt a need to justify her actions and to complain about certain irregularities in Hanon’s decisions. The three-year mandate of Mother Mousteyro, in her view, had already expired, whereas Mother Durgueilh had been reelected. Besides, in a new twist, Louis XVIII took a hand in the matter by ordering Mother Durgueilh to continue as superioress general until ecclesiastical authorities would make a determination.

Mother Durgueilh then initiated an official recourse to the Holy See. Hanon reacted by soliciting the help of Sicardi in Rome. Hanon’s anger and frustration boiled over in a lengthy letter to his Roman assistant, 6 August 1814. In amazement, he cited the text of the oath formerly required of the Daughters of Charity in certain hospitals: “I swear fidelity to the laws and Constitutions of Empire; love, attachment, devotion, obedience to His Imperial and Royal Majesty; and I will conform myself to the intentions of the government in the new order of things introduced in the community.” Although no longer binding, it gave the tone to the conflicts still raging, which he characterized as defiance and revolt. Continuing, he recounted that he had heard that “Sister Durgueilh and her adherents” were carrying on secret frequent conversations with clergy and members of the government to gain “protection in their revolt.”

To counteract her recourse, he sought to have the pope order her to cede her place to Mother Mousteyro, a place she had violently seized, according to him. He also hoped the pope would declare her legally incompetent to launch an appeal in the first place, and thus to reject it out of hand. He urged Sicardi to have this done without delay, since it would be deleterious to leave the Sisters in suspense. In one amazing sentence, he summarized his frustrations: “At the same time, they tire and they torment by every kind of caprice, vexation and daily tyrannies all the Sisters who do not share their revolt.”

To make matters worse, Hanon rejected Mother Durgueilh’s assertions, and Mother Mousteyro denied the authenticity of the papal rescript of 22 February 1813 which supposedly had granted all authority to Mother Durgueilh. She, in turn, responded with her version of events. All this led to yet more conflict and confusion, despite the best intentions of Father Hanon and Mother Durgueilh to avoid it. Hanon’s circular to the Daughters of Charity of 1 January 1815 lays out in stark terms his view of the current situation, especially by remarking “that she [Mother Durgueilh] has governed during the three last years by the sole will of a layman (the minister of worship)….” He relates also that Sicardi had reported the pope’s sentiments to him: “[The pope] treats as rebels those who have separated from an establishment founded by St. Vincent….”

Since only the pope could now resolve the questions, Pius VII acted and issued, on 17 January 1815, a brief naming Father Paul Thérèse David d’Astros, vicar capitular of Paris, as “visitor apostolic” for the Daughters of Charity, with all the powers of the superior general. It should be recalled that, legally, Hanon was not superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, nor even vicar general in France, since the Congregation had not yet been reestablished; this would come only 3 February 1816, shortly before Hanon’s untimely death. The choice of Astros was surprising, inasmuch as he was one of those who had worked to place the Sisters under the authority of the archbishop of Paris. Father Etienne concluded that the pope’s intention for Astros was “to expiate his ambitious pretensions” to assume the direction of the Company.

In the intervening weeks, Hanon wrote Sicardi once again urging speed so as to avoid any real division in the Company. He reported as well that he had received more than one hundred letters from various houses of the Sisters or from individuals, asking about their future. He therefore believed that the majority of the Daughters of Charity were with him. Whether this was true, or not, is difficult to determine. In any case, the papal brief had already been issued by the time he sent this letter.

Hanon sent out a copy of the brief along with a covering letter, 27 February 1815. He explained his viewpoint about the upcoming election: all the Sisters, no matter what party they belonged to in this dispute, should be free to vote. The pope did not, he concluded, speak of either of the two superioresses general, but ipso facto eliminated one of them, Mother Durgueilh.

Mother Baudet

The duty of the visitor apostolic was primarily to preside over the election of a new superioress general, in Hanon’s presence. He set the date of 12 March for the election. At that assembly, Sister Elizabeth Baudet (1753-1833) was elected. She was sixty-two, and forty-three years of vocation. Econome of the Company during Mother Durgueilh’s time, she had consequently been among those who had approved the new statutes, contrary to Hanon’s wishes. In Mother Baudet’s first circular, she emphasized her wish to promote unity, the renewal of fervor and perfect charity, and increased zeal for the service of the poor. After only one term, however, she was not reelected.

The surprise return of Napoleon for one hundred days tossed all the plans into disorder, but once the emperor left for good, order and regularity began to reign again. All during this period work had continued on repairing the future mother house at the rue du Bac, and it was finished enough for the Sisters to transfer the body of Saint Vincent 23 June 1815, and to move in, which they did during July. Hanon blessed the chapel 6 August and gave a lengthy conference. He concluded it pointedly: “Let us be careful of allowing any break or change in the precious chain of your ancient observances, pious usages, holy rules, or of bringing in novelties or relaxations.”

At an extraordinary council meeting held 11 January 1816, Hanon presented, in the presence the two directors, Fathers Delgorgues and Richenet, extensive documentation to uphold his position. He was able to get the superioress general and her councilors to agree that first, the supreme authority in the Company lay in the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission alone, and that the superioress general depended on him; second, that vows were not a novelty in the Company, but came from the time of Vincent de Paul; and third, that the constitutions (or statutes) were not the work of Father Bonnet, but of Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac. Bonnet had only polished them up and signed them as the Sisters had asked. In this way, all the interested parties were thus united around these main facts.

Another loose end was the reintegration of the Sisters expelled from the Company. Just where they should return became a matter of much discussion and passion: to the houses from which they were expelled, or to the mother house; to their old responsibilities or to others? Hanon tried to pacify everyone by assuring the Sisters that those who had suffered expulsion would be able to return to their previous duties, works and houses as much as was possible. The fact that they had resisted Napoleon gave them no special rights. As it happened, the returns did not take place all at once. A few Sisters died while with their families, and a few others, mostly young women, never returned at all. The return of the others was spread over the years 1814 to 1818.

The majority of the houses of the Company in France would bear the wounds of this discord for decades. Sisters on both sides of the question believed that they had acted in good faith and in obedience. Yet, despite appeals for reconciliation, it would take many years for the last vestiges of this sorry episode to disappear. One result of the attempt to establish peace was that the whole period has been largely ignored in the history of the Daughters of Charity as well as that of the Congregation of the Mission.

What judgment can be made on Hanon’s behavior in this series of crises? It is easy to imagine that, by his unbending firmness and his uncompromising language, he restrained Napoleon’s plans. Etienne held that Hanon preserved intact the heritage of Vincent de Paul. But was Hanon prudent in what he did? This is a question of interpretation, but he suffered severely for his devotion to the Sisters. It is likely that if he had not resisted, prudently or not, the Daughters of Charity would have collapsed as a unified congregation.

Governing the Congregation, 1814-1816

On Hanon’s return to Paris from prison in the summer of 1814, he resumed his duties as superior general of the Congregation of the Mission. Hstill remained legally suppressed, although its members continued to live and work at their ministries in small groups. As for Hanon, he first lived with the priests of the Paris Foreign Mission Society and, probably to escape the pressure of dealing with the fractious Daughters of Charity, he went to visit his family. He wrote to Sicardi ominously about this period that Jean-Jacques Dubois had been conspiring to have him removed from office, possibly to protect the vicar general’s mental and physical health. Dubois is reported to have held a small “assembly” of six or seven Vincentians to find a replacement for Hanon, who was believed to have been ousted by the pope. Nothing came of this, of course.

Once in Paris, he found first one and then another apartment, 6, rue Garancières, for himself and a few others of his confreres. This would be the temporary mother house for the Congregation of the Mission until the community was able to move in to the permanent mother house in 1817.

His first concern, naturally, was the restoration of the Congregation. He seems to have requested it of Louis XVIII early in 1815. Any possible consideration of restoration was halted by Napoleon’s return during the so-called Hundred Days, 10 March to 22 June 1815. When the king returned after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, Hanon resumed his petitions. One possible explanation for the government’s slowness in responding could well have been the issue of acquiring a suitable mother house. Hanon requested the Sisters’ former house, Vieux Colombier, but its destination as a fire station put it out of the question.

Restoration of the Congregation, Hanon’s death

On 3 February 1816, Louis XVIII decreed the restoration of the Congregation of the Mission in France. The legal basis was the application of a royal decree of 2 March 1815 concerning the Paris Foreign Mission Society to both the Congregation of the Mission and the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans), missionary congregations. Although it had already been determined that the house at Vieux Colombier was unavailable, the decree still granted it to the Vincentians as their headquarters. The pastor of Saint Sulpice also wanted the same house for the Sulpicians. He asserted that the Vincentians should have no claim on it since Hanon, and Brunet and Placiard before him, had never lived in the big house, only in the small house at the back of the property.

Hanon next had the joy of communicating the “precious news” of the reestablishment of the Congregation, doing so in a circular to his confreres, dated 12 March 1816. He outlined his new administrative chores: assembling a staff, forming the internal seminary (novitiate), and finding a mother house. His major concern in this letter was to recall the members to return to the community. Consequently, he laid out the kinds of work that were available to them: foreign missions, seminaries, home missions, service to the Daughters of Charity, and pastoral ministry of all sorts. “So, be so kind as to let me know if you are ready to join in that number, and at what time, soon, we will be able to count on you.” He received responses from forty-nine priests, five brothers, and fourteen other priests, all in their sixties and seventies. Their answers were of the same sort as he had received in 1808. Interestingly, he noted the responses of his successor, Emmanuel Verbert, and a future superior general, Dominique Salhorgne. Verbert cited his age, sixty-four, as being why he was incapable of any work. Further, he feared that “our ancient practices and customs” would not appeal to the majority who had for twenty-five years lived apart from the Congregation. Salhorgne, by contrast, was well disposed, but had already written that he did not want to accept any important position.

At about the same time, Hanon drew up a memorandum listing the foreign Vincentians dependent on the superior general in Paris (using the term “superior general” to agree with the views of the French government.) In all, he mentioned sixty-two houses in ten jurisdictions, with a total of 490 Vincentians. Of these, the largest numbers came from a dismembered Poland: seventy-seven in Russian Poland, twenty-four in Austrian Poland, 120 in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. In Italy, Naples and the Papal States, he counted 142; while Spain had sixty-eight, and Portugal, with its Chinese mission, numbered forty-one. There was a remnant of four in the German-speaking province of the Palatinate.

Sicardi in Rome believed that he should still exercise his authority, possibly since the pope had never formally revoked it. He issued a New Year’s circular for 1816, for example. In it, he explained that problems in Italy had prevented him from sending out the circulars for previous years. Napoleon had decreed the suppression of religious communities in 1810, to be followed by an oath of submission or deportation for non-juring Italians. The Congregation there had lost more than 100 houses in a dozen or so years, and many of the Vincentians had left or were dispersed by the “furious north wind,” a reference to the Napoleonic armies. In this confused situation, he recommended assiduous prayer, the practice of traditional Vincentian virtues, and an unswerving devotion to the tried and true in Church dogma, and the community’s rules and practices. He also referred in a roundabout way to the continuing non-existence of the Congregation of the Mission in France, where it had lost some eighty houses, and now had only one (Valfleury). He imparted no news about either Spain or Portugal, but mentioned that the American mission was about to begin.

On 15 April 1816, Sicardi wrote to Hanon, complaining that he had not heard from him. He explained that, at age eighty-six in failing health he wanted to resign from the “duty of governing the Congregation, with the single exception of France.” In accordance with his office, he reported that he had erected Naples as a province, and named visitors for Russian Poland (“Lithuania”), and for Spain.

In the meantime, Hanon’s health began to decline and he moved to the Hospital of the Incurables, staffed by the Daughters of Charity, to be attended by its physicians. If he received Sicardi’s last letter, he would have received it in the hospital. This is doubtful, however, since he died there 24 April 1816 of a stroke, like Placiard before him. He was only fifty-nine. His dying moments were characterized by sentiments of pardon: “I pardon them with all my heart, without any resentment, and I believe that I have nothing to reproach myself for concerning all that has been imputed to me. I have done all I could to fulfill my responsibilities….” His funeral was held at the chapel of the Incurables and, like his predecessors, he was buried at the Vaugirard cemetery.

Dominique-François Hanon was the leading light among the five French vicars general. He struggled to reconstruct the Congregation and to preserve the traditional identity of the Daughters of Charity. A contemporary account describes him as animated with a very vibrant zeal for the prosperity of the two communities, as being tireless in work, and very attached to his duty. His character made him unbending in matters that required firmness, and he paid for this by years of harsh imprisonment. At the same time, he was charitable and compassionate, and a truly attractive figure.

Marie-Charles-Emmanuel Verbert 1816-1819

The vicariate of the kind and patient Marie-Charles-Emmanuel Verbert lasted only two and a half years. During his time, the Congregation at last received its new mother house, and gradually took shape in the reception of candidates, the return of a number of its former members, and the opening of new works. Carlo Domenico Sicardi continued as vicar general outside of France, to be succeeded by Francesco Antonio Baccari.

Verbert was born 15 November 1752 in Pont-de-Beauvoisin, a small town in the hill country east of Lyons. He entered the novitiate in Lyons and took his vows in 1771. After his ordination, he began his ministry as a professor of theology in the seminary of Marseilles.

Revolution

With the outbreak of the Revolution, he fled in 1791 or 1792 to Nice, which was not then French territory. He took refuge in Italy for several years, along with his superior, Father Jean-Baptiste Moissonnier (1736-1813). Verbert had hoped to go to the Vincentian missions in the Middle East, but this did not happen.

He must have kept alive his connection with Marseilles, since we find him returning there even before 1800. He received permission from the archbishop of Aix (since Marseilles had been suppressed as a diocese) to form a local Vincentian community to serve in a parish to be dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul. He had been named pastor on 5 May 1802, of the parish of Saint François, known as the Réformés, located in a growing neighborhood. Since the existing church building was small, he developed the plan of constructing a new one. In 1803, Verbert purchased the previous church building personally, using funds that he had raised as well as his own money. The new establishment was planned as an annex to the mother house in Paris, to be used for missionaries going to the Middle East and Asia. This brought him into contact with Cardinal Fesch, as the director general of the missions in the Middle East and the “two Indies.”

As Verbert understood the foreign mission work of the newly reestablished Congregation, the missionaries would “occupy themselves completely in furnishing spiritual help to the French in those countries where they [the missioners] give missions. They would provide them a thousand advantages for commerce, extend their relationships, and be always ready to offer service to them on the frequent occasions that arise.” While the cardinal supported him in this work, the Congregation itself, in the time of Fathers Brunet and Placiard, either could not or would not support the parish, and so Verbert did the work alone, but with Placiard’s permission. Fesch wrote also to the mayor of Marseilles, and funding was granted. Verbert continued as pastor of Saint Vincent de Paul parish until October 1810. At this point, since he was requested by the parents, he began to work for a lycée in Marseille, where he was its chief administrator for three years. Fesch was so impressed with his abilities that he considered naming Verbert a bishop.

He then had the occasion to return to his earlier seminary work, since the archbishop of Aix appointed him professor of moral theology at the newly reorganized theology faculty of Aix. All this would come to an end with the death of Father Hanon, 24 April 1816.

Vicar General

As required, Hanon had proposed as his successor Jean-Mathurin Legal (1746-1831), the superior of the seminary in Vannes. Legal refused absolutely, not surprising given that he was seventy, and this made the first assistant, Pierre Claude, interim superior for more than three months. Because he was not free to leave his work, he had to postpone the elections. On 23 July, Claude summoned his confreres to choose a candidate to present to the pope. He acknowledged that travel was difficult and expensive, and so asked others to help defray the expenses of those who could come. For those who could not come, he invited them to send a sealed letter with the names of three candidates for vicar general. Twenty-one Vincentians arrived for meeting of 12 August 1816, held at the parish of Sainte Marguerite, whose pastor was the hospitable Jean-Jacques Dubois (1750-1817). A solemn mass preceded the meeting celebrated in the parish church. Verbert and Jean Compans (1748-1835), another seminary professor, were tied in the voting. Verbert, who was not present, won on the second ballot.

When he received the news in a letter, he was greatly troubled. He confided to a friend that he was not the man for the job, particularly since he had not been following all the rules and practices of the Congregation. Besides, his health was perilous. Nevertheless, he responded by a letter dated 6 October, accepting the office, but explained that he would have to remain for some time at Aix to handle his affairs. When he did arrive in Paris by the end of the month, he stayed at Sainte Marguerite for a few days with Dubois, then moved to Hanon’s old room at the Incurables. Finding that unsuitable, he rented a small apartment for himself nearby, rue du petit Vaugirard, 5, now rue du Cherche Midi. He would remain there until he moved to the new mother house in November 1817.

He wrote his first circular to inform the Congregation of his election. He reflected on the various vicars general, suggesting possibly the community was unworthy of them, since two of them had died young. Amid the trials his confreres were experiencing, he related that he had become depressed and even remarked to one of his predecessors: “We no longer deserve the attention of Saint Vincent. God does not want us any more!” When informed of his election, he tried desperately to refuse it but could not when he saw the unanimity of the votes. Others urged him to accept and not impose new obstacles to the prompt reestablishment of the Congregation. He concluded this sad letter by calling his confreres to leave their captivity behind and rebuild the temple sanctified by the presence of their predecessors. He added a sentence that summarizes well the relationship of the Vincentians with the state. “Let us reassemble; the king loves us, he prefers to call Saint Vincent de Paul the saint of the Bourbons and us the missionaries of the Bourbons.”

Although it had taken him nearly two months to inform the Congregation of his election, it took even longer for the papal approval to arrive. It is unclear why this happened but, since Verbert had requested his confirmation as superior general and not as vicar general, it would take time for the Holy See to review the ramifications of his proposal. He complained about the delay, which he deemed incomprehensible and threatening to inflict terrible and incurable evils on the Double Family of Saint Vincent.

Verbert, however, began taking his responsibilities seriously, even without official approval. Since he felt that he should make contact with his confreres, many of whom were still undecided about returning to community life, he began a series of visits in June 1817. He faced some opposition in Toulouse, but this principally had to do with the Daughters of Charity, most of whom had favored the Napoleonic statutes. Some Vincentians supported them and, as a result, Verbert received a cool reception.

Many bishops and clergy, by contrast, gave him a warm welcome, with institutions being offered (such as Saint Flour and Bordeaux), and seminarians asking to join. In Montauban, where Jacques Perboyre, uncle of John Gabriel Perboyre, was running a small formation program, Verbert received four clerics into the Congregation. It was a kind of novitiate (internal seminary). It was in Toulouse where Cardinal Consalvi’s letter and the papal brief appointing him vicar general finally reached him.

The cardinal announced that Pius VII had chosen him as superior of the Priests of the Mission for France alone, with the title of vicar general. As regards the Daughters of Charity, he would be their superior in France as well as elsewhere. Both positions, in addition, would continue at the “good pleasure of the Holy See,” meaning that they could be withdrawn at any time, but had no term. Two principal reasons kept the pope from naming Verbert superior general, the cardinal explained. The first was that the election was not canonical, since it did not take place during a general assembly. The second was that, since Verbert was not living in an established house of the Congregation of the Mission, the rest of the members would be dependent on a priest living outside a house (“degit extra Claustra”) and possibly would not even be wearing the habit of the Congregation. Consalvi added that the pope was confident that Louis XVIII would restore the Congregation in the kingdom, and that, when a general assembly could be held, the Holy See would decide on which course to take. The papal brief Habita ratione was dated 16 July 1817. Interestingly, this distinction was not observed by some French Vincentians. They originally addressed Verbert as Vicar General, but from mid-1817 on, as Superior General. It is unknown whether this usage reflected some passive aggression against the situation, but it seems likely.

Sicardi and Baccari

It was no surprise that the pope wished Domenico Sicardi to continue as vicar general, as he had been “since 1805 by means of pontifical decision.” This last statement was perhaps prompted by Sicardi himself and is erroneous. His office began in 1804, but it was not continuous. In addition, when Hanon was imprisoned, Sicardi simply assumed the reins of power as vicar general, as foreseen by the constitutions, but never relinquished them at Hanon’s release. Sicardi, in fact, wrote to Verbert that he had specified the contents of Habita ratione, collaborating in this with Consalvi.

Sicardi had written to Hanon just before the latter’s death, saying that he had wanted to resign from his office as soon as possible, since, at age eighty-six, he was in failing health. He got his wish with the appointment of Francesco Antonio Baccari as pro-vicar, 4 October 1817. The meaning of the title of pro-vicar was unclear. It apparently meant that Baccari was to assist Sicardi in his office and not substitute for him, or even less for Verbert. Baccari perhaps lost sight of this distinction, since, in his circular to the Congregation of 2 February 1819, he claimed to have replaced Sicardi.

Verbert felt it necessary to respond to Consalvi concerning his request. He wrote that he did not ask to be superior general through any motive of pride but to avoid division. After all, the king had already reestablished the Congregation in France, it had recruits and returnees, and bishops were requesting its members for seminaries. Besides, contrary to the concern raised in Consalvi’s letter concerning the habit, “we wear the collar and habit of our Congregation.”

Mother House, New Saint Lazare

Even though the Congregation of the Mission had some works in France, it still did not have a recognized mother house, as Consalvi had noted. Verbert took up the matter and proposed several possibilities in Paris, from small (“anywhere with eight or ten rooms”) to large, the enormous monastery of the Val de Grâce. His anxiety about the situation is evident in his correspondence. He began by requesting the old hospice of the Holy Name of Jesus, but when this was agreed, he found it to be too small. By this time, he grew more desperate. “My life is just too humiliating and painful here in Paris,” and the king’s order was proving to be “calamity” for him. He then wanted to return to the old Saint Lazare, even if the Vincentians would have to share it with the prostitutes imprisoned there. “It is dreadful for us to see our old home profaned.” If such a property were not forthcoming, Verbert truculently proposed that the king withdraw his decree of restoration, and “we will all go home.” Louis XVIII had affection for the Vincentians, since he had grown up under their tutelage in the parish of Versailles, and one of them had accompanied the king’s wife into exile in England. In light of this, he had wanted Saint Lazare restored to them. Since that was impossible (already in use, too large, too expensive to build another one), he ordered the search for a substitute.

As the discussion was continuing, someone, possibly Joseph-Mansuet Boullangier (1758-1843), the procurator, wrote an important memorandum directed to the king and various ministers. He took pains to point out the usefulness of the Congregation of the Mission to France, which had been “the most numerous and the most widespread of all ecclesiastical Congregations [in France].” He continued: “The government knows how much the Lazarists of China have been and can be useful to France.” They had given great service in the Chinese court as mathematicians and artists, astronomers and clock makers. To continue this work and prepare future missionaries, as well as to stave off the interests of the English in China, the Congregation would need a large property in Paris, something even on the scale of the former Saint Lazare. His conclusion is a rhetorical marvel: “Religion, the glory of the king, the honor and the interest of France seem to demand this favor from the government!”

At the end it was Baron Gilbert-Joseph-Gaspard Chabrol de Volvic, Prefect of the Seine, who found a solution. After considering all the possibilities, he proposed moving the Congregation of the Mission near the new mother house of the Daughters of Charity. On the basis of this principle, the state was able to acquire the former Hotel de Lorges, 95, rue de Sevres. Although absent in the south, Verbert, however, was horrified and rejected the offer. He believed that the owners did not want to rent it, and, in any case, it was too small, too dilapidated and consequently too expensive to repair.

Verbert returned to Paris in mid-October from his trip to the south, and investigated what would be the new mother house. This house, constructed in 1685-1686, became the city residence of the dukes of Lorges, but it had been uninhabited for some time, with consequent disrepair. It included a three-story main house, with courtyard and garden; a two-story section fronting on rue de Sèvres, joined to the main house by two side buildings, one story each, used as stables, storehouse and hay barn; and a one-story wing in the back, where the refectory was later built. The quarters were cramped, and Etienne, who arrived in 1820, called it “the stable of Bethlehem.”

Since the property after the Revolution belonged to the hospital of the Incurables, it was easy enough for the government to negotiate its eventual purchase for 100,000 francs. Verbert and a few of his confreres were able to move in on 9 November 1817. The Congregation of the Mission did not own it, but was only permitted to use the building and land, according to the decree issued some time later. Because the government owned everything, it paid for extensive repairs, while the furnishing of the building fell to the Congregation. Individual members helped with funds, furniture, vestments, books and the like. The Daughters of Charity gave significant help, particularly Sister Victoire Meyrand, superior at the Incurables. It was she who had assisted Hanon in his dying days and gathered up his last words. She agreed, in addition, to lodge two Vincentians at the hospital, Fathers Wuillerme and Delgorgues, both in their fifties, for whom the transfer seemed too onerous. Her hospitality, however, cost her some rejection by certain Sisters at the mother house, probably as a result of lingering conflicts over the schism. Jean Baptiste Etienne recorded that the superior’s helper, Sister Ursule Hinglaise, was even sent away to Dijon, where she finished her life as visitatrix.

Soon after moving in, Verbert left to visit the houses in the north. Although many of the former Vincentians had already died, left the country or the priesthood, about 100 remained. His own opinion was strong concerning these available men: “What a scandal! May the good Lord forgive those who could be useful but do not want to be.” Nevertheless, he is said to have used “a delicate discretion” in welcoming the returnees, each one of whom had a particular story to tell.

Organization and Finances

The rhythm of community life was hard to restore in the new mother house, but Verbert took several steps to ensure that it would be, such as inviting personnel to join him and providing for the formation of candidates. He had already invited Boullangier to move from Amiens and be procurator general. He would fulfill this office until 1827, when he was elected to be one of the assistants general. It was the same Boullangier who had been the procurator at Saint Firmin at the time of the massacre, an event he never wished to discuss. His character was described as pleasant and agreeable. He was careful to serve the many poor who came to the new mother house in search of aid. After meals, the community would distribute soup and leftovers, while a student would read or give a short religious instruction.

The first annual retreat to be held at the “New Saint Lazare,” as it was commonly called, began on 27 September 1818. Between twelve and fifteen Vincentians attended, with six or seven clerical students, the nucleus of a future novitiate. When it commenced after the retreat, the first to enroll was a Mr. Mussi, a student of Verbert’s in Marseilles. Four others who had been studying in Amiens joined him. Because of the improvisational nature of community life, the novices were allowed to study while making their novitiate, a practice that continued until 1835, when Father Nozo returned to a stricter observance of the rules. In addition to the clerical students, three or four diocesan priests also joined the Congregation in Amiens, where they made a somewhat informal novitiate, beginning in late 1817. Perhaps because of their haphazard training, all were later expelled from the Congregation. The most notorious case was that of Ferdinand Bailly, whose antagonism against Nozo was one of the causes of the superior general’s resignation. Bailly was the first of the new group to take vows, which he did 16 September 1819.

Although the Congregation continued to have foreign missions, it was not in much of a position to support them other than with good wishes. The result was that they languished. The missions in the Middle East had fallen into a pitiful state, according to a report received from the secretary of the Congregation Propaganda Fide in Rome. There was little that could be done, given the lack of members and of financial support from the royal government. This would not be the last time that such complaints would arise. During this time, some conversations continued between the Congregation and the Foreign Mission Society of Paris about a possible merger. This had begun in Napoleon’s time as a way to rationalize French missions, but both parties finally had nothing to gain.

Some help came from permission from the king to receive legacies on its own, although the conditions of their use were carefully drawn. One special grant was the legacy from Dubois, who left a house, church vestments and a library to the Congregation, which was expected to celebrate mass for his intention every year.

Other help came directly from members, two vicars general in particular. Father Verbert gave 50,000 francs, and his successor, Father Boujard, 60,000, with which the mother house was able to purchase, in 1824, the farm property at Gentilly in the suburbs of Paris.

More help came from certain confreres who offered their services, now that the Congregation had been reestablished and had a mother house. One such was Pierre Le Go (1767-1847). He had entered the Congregation in 1787, with the intention of going to China. Since he could not take vows in 1789, he did so in 1791. He had to go to Turin for his ordination and remained in Italy several years. On returning to his native country, he served in two parishes in the archdiocese of Lyons. He had great success in a small parish in the diocese of Le Mans and continued to maintain his interest and support of his parishioners even though he had been assigned to Paris. Verbert accepted Le Go’s offer, which even came with the pledge to pay his upkeep should that be necessary. In Paris, Le Go was soon made the first novice director after the Revolution, directly succeeding Francis Regis Clet. Le Go would later be assistant general.

The aged Father Sicardi, vicar general in Rome, continued his work, although with great difficulty. He announced the appointment of Father Baccari as pro-vicar in his New Year’s circular of 1818. He closed this, his last circular, with characteristic bombast: “Farewell, forever farewell! I embrace you all in the Lord with both arms ….”

Baccari followed up with a circular of his own, 17 April 1818, directed apparently to superiors only. His style differed from that of his predecessor, in that he wrote at great length, including tiresome listings of dangers and abuses, while exhorting his readers to complete obedience and observance of rules. Such correspondence as exists between Baccari and Verbert is cordial and correct, without the defensive or hostile tone that sometimes characterized Sicardi’s letters.

In his New Year’s circular for 1819, Baccari shared news of the Congregation, demonstrating, if he had to, that he was in charge of the entire Congregation apart from France. He knew of the major events in Italy, Spain, Poland and Lithuania, the near east, and the Italian mission in the United States. He also exhorted his confreres to the observance of rules, and took the occasion to remind everyone that the use of coffee and chocolate were forbidden, except when a doctor ordered, following the century-old decree of Father Bonnet. He likewise forbade meals taken out of the house, and leaving the house without a companion, particularly a lay brother. He told the brothers, in turn, to respect the priests, reminding them that they were not their masters, administrators, or directors, but only the helpers of the priests. The writer was clearly taking his responsibilities seriously.

Illness and Death

His age, his travels and his worries brought sickness in the winter of 1818-1819. Verbert’s health quickly gave way and, since the pope had not granted him permission to name a successor, as had been done for his predecessors, Boullangier petitioned it from Rome. The pope responded positively, 21 March 1819, but Verbert had died on 4 March. His funeral was celebrated at the chapel of the Daughters’ mother house, rue du Bac. Like his predecessors, he was buried in the Vaugirard cemetery.

The papal decree at least provided the mechanism by which the Congregation could choose a successor. They were instructed to propose someone as superior of the Congregation of the Mission, with the title of vicar general alone (not superior general, as Verbert had tried to do), with his authority restricted to France and to all the Daughters of Charity even outside the country. Sicardi, still the vicar general (and not Baccari), was to be maintained as vicar general “for the entire Congregation of the Mission, except France alone.” It was recognized that this temporary decree ran contrary to the “apostolic constitutions” of the Congregation, that is, those approved by Pope Clement X in 1670. It was likewise contrary to the oath that electors were to take in a general assembly, to past apostolic (papal) confirmation, and to other decrees, statues and constitutions. Nonetheless, it was needed for the moment.

When his confreres reflected on Father Verbert’s character, they recognized his living faith and sincere piety, especially in his practice of leaving all in the hands of divine providence. They also pointed to his kindliness and affability, while overlooking his outbursts of anxious rhetoric. As he was dying, he endeavored to have Father Boujard agree to be named his successor. His words to Boujard show his great love for the Congregation: “A missioner who is unable to die for the Congregation is unworthy of it.”

Charles-Vincent de Paul Cathelin Boujard 1819-1831

Father Charles-Vincent de Paul Cathelin Boujard was the last of the vicars general. During his mandate, he presided over the growth of the Congregation while facing significant pressures from his Italian counterpart, Francesco Antonio Baccari. Boujard resigned in favor of the first superior general of the entire Congregation after twenty-seven years of temporary and at times divided leadership.

He was born 22 September 1751, at Trévoux, in the diocese of Lyons. Perhaps because Saint Vincent exercised some ministry in Trévoux while he was pastor of nearby Châtillon les Dombes, Boujard was given his name. He joined the family of his namesake when he entered the internal seminary in Lyons, 11 November 1769. He took his vows there 12 November 1771. After his ordination, he began his priestly ministry as professor of theology at Toulouse. He was then superior of the seminary at Narbonne until the Revolution.

Revolution

During the revolutionary period, Boujard fled to Spain, as did many other Vincentians, who received hospitality from their Spanish confreres. He remained there for eleven years, although probably not in any Vincentian house. His service to émigré priests and French prisoners and the wounded in hospitals was so appreciated that he later received a pension from the Spanish king.

He returned to France after the Concordat was signed (1801), taking on the parish of Saint Bernard, near his home town of Trévoux. He informed both Placiard and Hanon of his wish to return, but the vicars general of the archdiocese of Lyons would not allow it. In this, they believed they were in the right, since Pius VII declared that all religious, men and women, in the circumstances of the time, were completely under local bishops either of their birthplace or their residence. This temporary measure assured that religious, whose communities had been suppressed, would at least have a canonical base, but it made it appear that all the internal structures of their communities had also disappeared, and that the bishops substituted for their former superiors. The archdiocesan officials must have relented, since we find him at the major seminary of Saint Flour in 1818.

Vicar General

Father Verbert died on 4 March 1819. Since he had not received authorization to name a successor before that date, the community followed the traditional procedure, particularly since the Holy See had in its decree of 21 March specified what to do. Pierre Claude, the only assistant, who should have convoked the meeting, was ill and thus he authorized Boujard, the assistant superior at the mother house, to replace him. Boujard selected the date of 13 May for the election to be held at the new mother house but informed his confreres that he could not lodge them there since the building was still occupied by workers completing urgent repairs.

At this point, the pro-vicar in Rome, Baccari, weighed in with his opinions in a letter probably directed to Boujard. Since Baccari and his council had not seen the last brief sent to Verbert, he went directly to the pope about it, who referred him to Cardinal Consalvi. What took place was a jurisdictional matter, since Claude had directed his petition to the pope who passed it on to the secretary of the prefect of Propaganda Fide, Joachim-Jean-Xavier d'Isoard, possibly because he was French, and not to Cardinal Consalvi, secretary of State, or to the prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. Further, when consulted on the matter, Consalvi, prompted in all likelihood by Baccari, asked for a list of at least two men from which the pope could choose one as vicar general. Unfortunately for Baccari, he wrote on the day of the election in Paris, and so the matter became moot.

Nevertheless, one other point was still of the highest importance. He reminded Boujard that his jurisdiction as vicar general would extend only to the Congregation of the Mission in France and to the Daughters of Charity. The kingdom of Spain, however, after a request to the pope, declared that the Daughters of Charity in that kingdom would depend on the “vicar general of the entire Congregation,” that is, on Baccari. The same was the case for Poland and Lithuania, where the superiors could not be under a foreign superior, a law equally in force in France concerning non-French superiors. For this reason, it would be useless for the French to ask for the general jurisdiction that Verbert had requested but not received.

Twenty-one priests of the Congregation of the Mission met in what they loosely called a “general assembly,” on 13 May. After a mass to beg the aid of the Holy Spirit, Claude addressed the members, reviewing the history of the vicars general. He praised the books written by Brunet, that “tireless scholar.” At his deathbed, Brunet gave Claude the sealed letter containing the name of Placiard. He steadfastly refused to accept the post, but Daughters of Charity, urged on by Claude, helped to persuade him. Then, Claude continued, Hanon succeeded Placiard, to be followed by Verbert. After his exhortation, secret ballots were taken, with Claude presiding. Boujard received seventeen out of twenty-one votes. At sixty-eight, he was the third oldest in attendance at the meetings, yet the average age of all the members was around sixty-three. Among its members were Pierre-Joseph Dewailly, who would succeed Boujard as the first superior general after the Revolution, and Viguier, the secretary general who had played such a controversial role in his support of the Daughters of Charity during their schism. After the assembly, Boullangier, the procurator general in France, then submitted only one name to the Holy See, Boujard, according to the first instructions he received.

Not to be overshadowed, Baccari offered congratulations to Boullangier on the election of Boujard. However, he had spoken with the pope about this election, since he was charged with procuring the papal decree of approval. Since Pius VII had not yet granted this, Baccari believed that the pope was still expecting two or three names to fill out the list. The Vincentian historian, Gabriel Perboyre, wrote concerning this affair: “The facts showed that [Baccari] was using his influence with the prelates to restrict more and more the jurisdiction of the vicar general in France.”

Perhaps because of these jurisdictional disputes and the lack of clarity about how to deal with the Daughters of Charity in various realms, the pope took more than a year to issue the brief approving Boujard’s election. Boullangier repeated his urgent request to Cardinal Fontana, prefect of Propaganda Fide, adding that he hoped the pope’s decree would at least allow the Daughters of Charity in Geneva, who were all French, to remain under Boujard’s jurisdiction.

Papal Confirmation, Conflicts

Pius VII issued the brief approving Boujard’s election, Congregationem Presbyterorum, on 10 August 1820. In it, he named Boujard as vicar general, with no other title, for all lands subject to the king of France, as well as the houses of the Mission “on the eastern shore,” the near east. Boujard did not receive, as Verbert had not, the faculty of naming a successor. But the strangest feature of this latest letter was the following clause: “… while reserving to ourselves the immediate appointment of another superior general in our city, who will preside over the houses of the other priests and sisters spread throughout the rest of the world.” At a stroke of the pen, the pope changed the traditional role of the vicar general in France, who had always been recognized as the superior of all the Daughters of Charity. Further, he used the term “superior general” unwisely, since the more exact title was “vicar general.”

The nuncio, Macchi, felt compelled to send a letter to quiet the fears of the Vincentians and explain the meaning of this unusual turn of phrase. He began by affirming that the pope was happy with the Congregation, and that the French Vincentians and Daughters should know this. What the pope meant to say, he explained, was that, since Baccari had often asked to resign, the pope was now looking for his replacement, hence “another” vicar general. Baccari’s resignation was accepted, 18 September 1820. Despite this, Baccari continued in office, as a patent appointing Marzio Ceracchi superior of the house at Tiburtina attests: “Since by apostolic authority the faculty of ruling and governing our Congregation, except for France, has been specially granted us by the Supreme Pontiff Pius VII….” The Congregation of Bishops and Regulars then planned to ask for nominations from Baccari himself and from the three Italian visitors after consulting their councils. Their choice fell on the superior of the house at Sarzana, Giambattista De Antoni. He, however, showed great reluctance and at length refused to accept the office. For this reason, the pope turned again to Baccari, naming him vicar general once more, 21 May 1821. As before, he continued to ask to resign.

There were at least two unintended consequences of Congregationem Presbyterorum. The first was that many Vincentians believed that the pope would shortly order the transfer of the head of the Congregation to Rome, which would be contrary to the intentions of the French government. This issue would continue to dog relations between the Holy See and the French until the appointment of Dewailly as superior general, with residence in Paris. The second consequence was that the delay between the election of Boujard, 13 May 1819, and his official approval, 10 August 1820, led to doubts whether those who took vows during that period had done so validly. This problem would involve the superior general Jean-Baptiste Nozo and Ferdinand Bailly, superior of the seminary of Amiens, in lengthy and public lawsuits, and force many others to renew the vows they had taken, even after the date of Boujard’s approval.

Monsignor Isoard continued his support of the French Vincentians. He wrote to Bigot, minister of foreign affairs, explaining the entire history, particularly the most recent chapters. He explained the delay in granting Boujard’s approval as “an intrigue . . . to transport to Rome what had been in Paris, and to despoil in their favor the mother house and its superior, if not completely at first, at least in great part.” He detected the anti-French feeling in Rome and did what he could to dispel it, mainly by enlisting important officials such as Cardinals Litta, Pacca and Fontana. The French ambassador to the Holy See was also involved in trying to smooth over the problems. Isoard and the ambassador both cited the memory of Saint Vincent de Paul, esteem for his heritage, the integrity of the two congregations, French glory, honor and national sentiment, as well as French ecclesiastical prerogatives.

Cardinal Consalvi’s cool reply to the monsignor, written before the above letter could be sent, declared that the Holy See saw no reason to exceed the limits of the brief sent to Boujard. He hoped instead that the sons of Saint Vincent would faithfully imitate the example of their founder and conform themselves to the decisions already made. He held out the possibility that the Holy See could make other dispositions in the future when better times arrived. Besides, he added, the pope “had always regarded with a special predilection” the Congregation of the Mission.

As if to put that special predilection to the test, Boujard continued his campaign to obtain the faculty of naming a successor, in accordance with the spirit of the constitutions. In a bold request to the pope, submitted through the nuncio, 21 November 1820, he wondered whether the pope was punishing him for some fault, since the implicit denial of this faculty went against the brief Habita ratione of 16 July 1817. In fact, the brief did not treat this question, so Boujard must have been reading the grant of the faculty into such expressions as “full restitution … according to the old order.” In any case, he reminded the pope that the French government would not allow a non-French superior. If one were appointed, the Daughters of Charity, who now have one hundred novices, would be ruined. The requested faculty was granted a few months later, 30 January 1821, in the brief Sublato e vivis. This permission was enlarged to include the case in which Boujard would not have nominated anyone for whatever reason. Then, at least twelve Vincentians, duly assembled for this purpose, would nominate someone by secret ballot. The pope did not ask, however, for a list of two or three from which to choose someone, contrary to Baccari’s proposal.

Cardinal Consalvi, writing at the same period to the nuncio in Paris, felt constrained to explain the detail that the pope would never establish the superior general in Rome, but rather that he would remain in Paris. This would have come as welcome news to Fathers Boujard and Boullangier, summoned to a cordial meeting with the nuncio a few days before Consalvi’s letter to receive officially the papal brief. The cardinal wrote a soothing letter to Boujard in a few months. “I will never cease working diligently for the prosperity and the happiness of the aforementioned congregation.” Besides, he reported, the pope received your declaration of your “profound submission . . . with special benevolence.”

Within a month, Baccari was finally named by the Holy See to succeed Sicardi, who had died more than two years previously, 13 June 1819, at age ninety. Up to that time, Baccari had been simply pro-vicar, but his appointment had clearly already been decided, despite his repeated wish to resign. He had continued, according to the nuncio in Paris, through obedience alone. The pope had even asked the Italian Vincentians to propose someone else and interviewed two others, but the choice fell on Baccari. To his credit, he wanted to have the Congregation return to constitutional government under a single superior general. In a revealing letter to Boujard, he pointed to the reluctance of the king of Spain, Ferdinand VII, to allow communication between religious in Spain with superiors in France as the reason for the delay. The text of his appointment, unfortunately, continued the ambiguities of previous documents. The Holy See appointed Baccari “pro-vicar general” replacing Sicardi, to direct and govern the Congregation at the good pleasure of the Holy See, until such time as a proper election for a superior general could be held. It is no wonder, then, that Baccari continued in his conviction that he still held power. He concluded his letter by counseling patience while waiting for better times.

If an angry letter from Baccari is to be believed, relations between the Rome and Paris continued to be strained. He wrote to Boullangier, the procurator general in Paris, in response to a recent letter from him. He began with a distinctive expression in place of the traditional salutation coming from Vincent de Paul himself (May the grace of Our Lord be always with us,) substituting instead “May the God of peace be ever with us.” This wish is indicative of the tensions expressed in Boullangier’s letter. He never apparently addressed Baccari as “vicar general of the entire Congregation,” his official title, substituting instead “vicar general of the Congregation in Italy,” “visitor of Rome,” or “superior of Montecitorio.” To put this implied insult into perspective, Baccari launched into a lengthy interpretation of what happened between the French and Italian vicars general. He felt that the Holy See had acted correctly in appointing vicars general to remain in Rome, not only for the Congregation of the Mission, but also for others. However, in France, a few Vincentians met in a private home (Dubois’ residence in the parish of Sainte Marguerite) to select a successor to Hanon, without the approval of the pope or the knowledge of the rest of the Congregation. This was the reason, he claimed, why the pope took so long to approve Verbert’s election. He also blamed Boujard’s problem with the brief Congregationem Presbyterorum as the main source of the division between the (larger) part of the Congregation of the Mission under his, Baccari’s, leadership, and the (smaller) part under Boujard.

In all this, he continued, the French had been acting in accordance with two false principles: that the superior general must be French, and that he must reside in Paris. For Baccari, the important matter was not where the superior general would reside, since the pope could have the superior general move to Rome and appoint a vicar general for France. As to the French missions, he blamed Boujard for grabbing territory that he asserted the French vicar general had not held before. The problem, he asserted, was one of domination or power, not zeal for charity. Should the pope name someone, Boujard, for example, as superior general over the entire Congregation, Baccari threatened to resign and walk away. He therefore urged Boullangier to think seriously about the matter and avoid a schism in the Congregation of the Mission.

To separate fact from fiction and emotion in this extraordinary document would be tedious and unnecessary. Its value for Vincentian history is to see laid out the various differences that had arisen between the two centers of power. The Baccari group clearly felt that they had the power, legitimately given them by the pope, to govern the entire Congregation as well as the Daughters of Charity. The only exception was the small number of Vincentians and Sisters in France. The French group, by contrast, felt that the Roman vicars general, Sicardi and then Baccari, had schemed to carry out their own agenda of depriving the French leadership of its power. Both sides affected a stance of acting for the greater glory of God and preserving the Congregation of the Mission through spiritual means, but their means of accomplishing these goals differed significantly from each other. The gap between them would not easily be closed.

The Congregation in France

Boujard had many other concerns than those provoked by his counterpart in Rome. As with his predecessors, they revolved around the work of the Congregation in France, recovering its personnel, strengthening its finances and providing for the formation of its candidates. There is little information, however, concerning his relationship with the Daughters of Charity.

In his time, pastors and bishops continued to request Vincentians to give missions in parishes of their dioceses. One, in particular, Etienne Antoine de Boulogne, bishop of Troyes, wrote a pastoral letter in support of missions. He characterized the French Vincentians in the past as brilliant and famous, and hoped for more like them. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to satisfy the bishops, since Boujard did not have many missioners at his disposal. In early 1820, the mother house, which he called “Saint Lazare,” numbered thirty-one, plus eleven postulants and twelve students. The funds to support them came from investments, the room and board of students (probably not members of the Congregation), and subsidies from the king. He hoped to be able to cover the excess of expenses for the new mother house through contributions from benefactors.

His report to the nuncio, dated 21 November 1820, was more detailed. At that time he had fourteen priests in the house, four of whom were helping the Daughters of Charity. He had seventeen novices, including Jean-Baptiste Etienne, future superior general, along with three brothers and two domestics. Five others were away preaching missions in the diocese of Meaux, and several others (the numbers are not always given) staffed the seminary of Amiens, which they owned, and those of Saint Flour, Sarlat and Vannes. The house of Valfleury continued to direct pilgrimages. Lastly, he mentioned one priest, François-Joseph Chevrolais (1753-1823), who, with his permission, had begun a work near London, taking care of poor Irish Catholics.

There were, of course, several French Vincentians who had left the Congregation and abandoned their ministry. Their number is far from certain, probably because the vicars general were more interested in inviting back those who had persevered as priests and brothers. Leo XII, in view of the jubilee of 1825, issued a decree, Pastoris aeterni vices (16 December 1824), summoning back all those who had left. He offered a sort of amnesty, provided that the members ask absolution from their superiors. Whatever the impact of this decree was elsewhere, there is no evidence of anyone returning to the Congregation as a result.

In his later life, Jean-Baptiste Etienne, commented on the old age of the men in the mother house when he entered in 1820. Although it is not possible to be certain about the entire community of fourteen priests, the following eleven can be listed, with their ages in that year. Their names are taken from several contemporary lists.

François Petitdidier, 75 Charles Boujard, 69, vicar general Jean Maisonneuve, 68 Jean Joseph Istace, 65 Joseph Mansuet Boullangier, 62, econome general Louis Jérôme Lemaire, 62 Jean François Richenet, 61 Augustin Delgorgues, 60 Charles François Lamboley, 57 Jacques Philippe Billiet, 56 Pierre Le Go, 53, novice director.

Two elements were clearly missing from this list. The first was Boujard’s council. He apparently got along without one. When the serious issue arose of the expulsion of one Vincentian, described in the minutes as guilty of disobedience, “reprehensible administration of the sacraments,” intemperance, and habitual laziness, Boujard should have received the advice of his council. Since he had none, he summoned eleven members of the house instead, who examined the case and voted to expel this priest. The other noteworthy lack is a group of younger priests, anyone between twenty-rive and fifty. The gap reflects, of course, the years in which the Congregation was suppressed in France. It is no wonder, therefore, that nineteen-year-old Etienne felt a little lost in this group of men whose average age was sixty-two to sixty-three.

Boujard confided the formation of the young candidates to the youngest man on his staff, Pierre Le Go. The program for their preparation is not well known, probably because the situation of the house was disorganized and the need for clergy was urgent. For this reason, the novices made their novitiate exercises as best they could while studying philosophy and theology in preparation for priesthood. Etienne cited Le Go as saying that they were in a chaos, or “an aggregation, and not a Congregation.” They had no fixed chapel, for example, only a part of a corridor that was curtained off for their times of private and communal prayer. For several years, a public Sunday Eucharist was celebrated across the street in the chapel of the hospital of the Incurables.

Together with two other novices, Etienne took his vows most likely in that same temporary chapel, on 18 October 1822, in the presence of Father Boujard.

Because of the difficulties inherent in the mother house, Boujard, like Verbert, looked for another one. His thought was to keep the property at 95, rue de Sèvres for those working in the service of the Daughters of Charity, while moving the central administration to larger quarters, more suitable for students. He repeated, of course, his predecessors’ request for the return of Saint Lazare, then, lacking that, he asked for the former monastery of Saint Martin des Champs in the heart of Paris, or the royal abbey of Saint Denis. All three proposals were rejected for various reasons, such as the small number of Vincentians for the large monasteries, lack of funds, or the promises made to other groups for the same properties.

The omnipresent Etienne had a hand in the decision about a chapel for the mother house, rue de Sèvres. He recounted that he had an occasion to call on the minister of ecclesiastical affairs, Bishop Denis-Antoine-Luc de Frayssinous, and spoke about the lack of a chapel. The minister declared his love for the Congregation, although he did not have any contact with it. His examination of its history led him to believe that “only your Congregation has any future today because its spirit is the only one that can be adapted to the times in which we live.” The bishop signaled his support by, among other things, describing to the new king, Charles X, the Congregation’s good reputation and its observance of its rules. His support led ultimately to the lateral expansion of the Hotel de Lorges, through the acquisition of first the property at 93, rue de Sèvres, and much later, number 97.

At length, under Frayssinous’ prodding, the king authorized the prefect of the Seine to acquire the property at number 93. Its purchase price, 200,000 francs, would be paid for by the royal house (100,000), with the rest divided equally between the ministry of the marine and the colonies, and by the ministry of foreign affairs and public instruction. The buildings on this property were demolished and, in their place, the new public chapel of the mother house arose. Boujard had the pleasure of laying its cornerstone on 16 August 1826. He would be greatly aggrieved by not being allowed to preside at its blessing more than a year later.

Frayssinous also approved the Congregation’s request for increased funding in two letters dated 14 and 17 May 1826. The importance of these letters is in their clear association of the Congregation with the State. The first asked for 5000 francs yearly for the work in Algiers, where the Congregation both served the religious needs of the French there, and provided “useful intervention for their commercial relations.” The second request was for an additional 5000 in general support for the Congregation. The services its members gave to the French establishments overseas, “without regard to religious motives,” was cited as a principal motive. Charles X speedily approved both petitions.

He shared his joys and sorrows with the Congregation in his New Year’s circular for 1827. He reported that, by that date, the French had six major seminaries, three colleges, one minor seminary, one residence for clergy and one mission band. He saw special divine protection over the mother house, especially concerning the acquisition of the property for the chapel. “It has been impossible for us to have a proper place for the Blessed Sacrament, . . . surely the only congregation in France” in this condition. His sorrow was that some of his confreres were infected in their teaching with novel ideas. He urged them to follow the teaching of their ancestors in the Congregation.

Another joy had been the good reputation that the Congregation of the Mission enjoyed at the French court. The Grand Almoner of the king requested that the Congregation officiate at the Tuileries palace at the death of the Louis XVIII, who had reestablished the community and called them “the missionaries of the Bourbons.” Twelve members assisted at the service before the funeral mass at Notre Dame cathedral.

Other sorrows certainly had clouded his life. For one, Charles X issued a general decree concerning the legal existence of women’s religious communities. This decree repeated largely the same concerns expressed in the statutes forced on the Daughters of Charity in the time of Napoleon. The new text read: Art. 2: “No religious congregation of women will be authorized unless their statutes have been duly approved by the diocesan bishop and registered by the Council of State. These statutes cannot be approved or registered unless they contain the clause stating that the congregation, in spiritual matters, is under the jurisdiction of the ordinary.” Fortunately for the Daughters of Charity, this document could be widely and diversely interpreted and, in any case, the reign of Charles X was followed by a revolutionary government in 1830.

Unified government, naming a superior general

The most grievous problem was yet to come. It was similar in its intensity to the struggles concerning Dominique Hanon and the Daughters of Charity, since it dealt with the plan to restore to the Congregation its constitutional government under a single superior general. Neither the Italian nor the French vicar general had the constitutional authority to convoke a general assembly, and consequently only higher ecclesiastical authority could break the logjam.

By the beginning of 1825, momentum was growing to resolve the issue of the government of the Congregation. Leo XII became pope 28 September 1823, and his pontificate probably offered a catalyst to move along the discussions. Baccari had by that time spoken to the pope and proposed that a general assembly be held for the election. He hoped that he would have no part to play in this. He would be severely disappointed when the time came. The Congregation for Bishops and Regulars also stepped in, very likely because of Baccari’s complaints. It proposed holding a general assembly either in Rome or in Genoa, while acknowledging the great expense of holding such an assembly. Because of varying perspectives, the cardinals could not reach a conclusion, and so left the discussion to be continued by Boujard and others. However, it also instructed the nuncio in Paris to summon Boujard to express the Holy See’s displeasure at the lack of union that existed between him and Baccari.

A Vincentian close to the pope was Giuseppe Baldeschi (1791-1849), papal master of ceremonies at the Vatican. One day, he saw the pope who realized that the young priest had a problem on his mind. When asked about it, Baldeschi suggested that something should be done about having a superior general for his Congregation. Leo XII then asked for an official request, and the priest secretly contacted Boujard. He, in turn, sent an official petition to Isoard, his contact in Rome, for forwarding to the pope. Monsignor Isoard too hoped for some movement, and pledged his support to get the discussion going.

Baccari’s circular of 8 February 1826 reported publicly on his conversations with Leo XII and his suggestion to have the Congregation hold a general assembly for an election, “to remove any reason for the separation of our confreres in France from the others in the rest of the Congregation….” Evidently, his perspective was that the French would conceivably split from the others, and not vice versa (the French viewpoint). He was heartened by the pope’s words of support. The pope had two possibilities, either to authorize a general assembly, or to appoint a superior general. He chose the latter possibility since it was recognized that the Congregation was not yet organized well enough to hold a general assembly. Besides, the stakes were very high and the pressures intense.

The French government was also anxious to put the matter to rest and began to push for the choice of a French superior general. The government had good reason to believe that Leo XII would appoint a non-French superior general who would not reside in Paris. In the government’s view, this would run counter to tradition and could give rise to several difficulties, such as the election of non-French generals for other congregations and the assignment of non-French personnel even in those missions already under French protection. However, the government already admitted that, in the case of the Vincentian missions in the Middle East, the majority of the missionaries were either Italians or natives.

Gabriel Perboyre also credits the appointment of Dewailly to the interventions of Bishop Isoard. He had caught wind of the plans to transfer the superior general and the mother house to Rome and so informed Frayssinous.

Jean-Baptiste Etienne wrote years later that he too had been involved in the discussions. He had gone one day to see the nuncio, who thought that since there were only a few suitable members of the Congregation in France, the person would probably not be French. Etienne countered that despite the community’s poor resources, it was not impossible to find someone.

They need not have worried this time, since the pope decided to name on his own authority (motu proprio), that is, without an election, a French superior general from a list of two presented by the nuncio in Paris. The pope had wanted to name someone non-French, but he finally agreed to the proposition by the French ambassador, the duke of Montmorency-Laval, acting, of course, in the name of the king. Whom to name, then? Leo XII correctly sought the opinions of both vicars general about the future superior general. Etienne and Boujard went to see the nuncio, Bishop Macchi, together, and Boujard agreed to compose a memorandum on the subject. Etienne, his young secretary, actually wrote the document, probably because at the time Boujard had no assistants or councilors in Paris to do the work. When Etienne presented the document, the nuncio revealed that the pope had already ruled out Boujard.

Three names had surfaced, apparently after much consultation. The least favored candidate was Boujard himself. A fresh start was needed, Boujard was already seventy-five, and the pope would not consider him.

The favored candidate at first, the one promoted by Baccari, was Theodore Bricet, (1775-1855), superior of the important Vincentian mission in Constantinople. Some questions arose about his abilities and toughness, but Baron de Damas, minister of foreign affairs, believed that he was pious and of good behavior. The grave difficulty in his nomination would be finding a capable successor for him in Constantinople.

The third candidate finally got the nod: Pierre-Joseph Dewailly. How did his name surface? In Etienne’s version, Bishop Frayssinous, minister of foreign affairs, had a priest friend, Michel-Amans Clausel de Coussergues, vicar general of Amiens and administrator of Beauvais. Clausel esteemed the Vincentians he knew at the Amiens seminary, especially its superior, Dewailly. Frayssinous then proposed him to the king, who forwarded his name to the pope. In the opinion of the Baron, no one was more worthy, and the king would look on his appointment with pleasure. Etienne, ever alert to the machinations of the Italians, concluded his exposition by remarking that “Providence was able to bring to nothing all the schismatic intrigues of the Italian missioners.”

Dewailly’s appointment was made in principle 18 July 1826, but the political problem remained of how to be certain that the Roman house, under Baccari’s leadership, would join the Paris house. By the beginning of September the appointment still had not been made public, and the pope was surprised to learn this. When the new French ambassador, Artaud, urged him to see to its publication, the pope said he would work at it. The block seemed to have been the need to procure the unity of the Congregation in advance of the nomination, and there were still some loose ends to tie up, such as one house each in Poland and “Hungary,” meaning the Austro-Hungarian portion of Poland, that would need to be convinced.

Delicate diplomatic maneuvers continued for some time, but a new issue arose to further delay the announcement. Father Boullangier, the long-time econome in Paris, was a confidant of Boujard’s, who knew that someone would be appointed superior general. Boullangier understood the economic issues of running the mother house and of building the public chapel, and understood Boujard’s commitment to seeing its completion, since he had raised funds for its construction and made his own significant contribution toward the purchase of the country property at Gentilly. Besides, “Father Boujard is very sensitive.” Although his health was generally good, it was now less so. Besides, he was a large man and had cataracts, and so he would probably ask on his own to resign within a year. In addition, since his name was on the cornerstone of the new chapel, he hoped to preside over its dedication and the translation of the relics of Saint Vincent, already scheduled for 19 July 1827. Likewise, he hoped to preside at the election of a new superioress general of the Daughters of Charity.

Father Etienne in his highly personal account of the history of the reestablishment of the Congregation stigmatized the procurator general as “of a weak character and small ability.” Since he felt sorry for his friend, Boullangier brought his concerns to Bishop Frayssinous. He agreed with Boullangier’s reasons and promised to do what he could.

Etienne also believed that Boujard wanted to keep Dominique Salhorgne away from Paris at this time, in view of the coming nomination of a superior general. This distinguished confrere would eventually be elected superior general, despite Boujard’s moves. Perhaps thinking that he could avoid further problems, Boujard drew up a document dismissing Salhorgne. As will be seen below, this document provoked outrage among the members of the mother house.

All these considerations, especially Boujard’s own personal interest, led the pope to ask for more information so as to be able to respond to his issues. The decision was finally that Boujard’s needs should give way to the interests of the Congregation of the Mission as a whole and, on this basis, the brief Anteactae temporum, was published 16 January 1827. It named Pierre Joseph Dewailly superior general of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Daughters of Charity. This document was not immediately made public, however, to give time to arrange a way to have both the vicars general, Boujard and Baccari, resign; Baccari did, but Boujard did not. Etienne commented: “Although endowed with excellent qualities, he had the weakness of being attached to power.” In view of Boujard’s reluctance, an unworthy stratagem was devised to encourage him to resign. A certain Abbé Jean-Baptiste de Sambucy, attaché of the French embassy in Rome and former official of the College of Cardinals, came to Paris on business. He took the occasion to call on the vicar general and hinted that the Holy Father might name him superior general, but that he would first have to resign as vicar general. Boujard agreed to this but, of course, Dewailly had already been appointed. The result must have humiliated Boujard even further, at least in the privacy of his own thoughts.

In a letter dated 10 February 1827, Baccari announced to Boujard that the brief of the “creation” of the superior general had been sent, but did not mention the name. As for the writer, he had wished to retire because of age—he was eighty—but he was still not allowed to. He struck a conciliatory note by saying that his hope had always been that the Congregation be governed under one leader, “and this kind of division be removed from among us, which the Italians (although it was not believed) always and generally despised.” The Vincentian historian Jean-Marie Planchet held that there were financial reasons that also played a role in Baccari’s wish to resign or, better, to eliminate the Italian vicariate. In his circular of 8 February 1826, he lamented the poverty of the Roman province in men and money. Certainly by eliminating the expenses involved in his parallel administration of the Congregation, Baccari, who was also the provincial of Rome, would find a partial means of alleviating his financial worries.

The long delay in publishing the decree led Baccari’s frustrations to boil over in a circular sent to the Congregation, 2 July 1827. He had expected the appointment to be made, “…but, alas! I have been deceived! Up to now, the matter seems very undecided. And what is even more troubling, we cannot find out why. We still live in the hope that it will be finally closed and defined at the time of the publication of this pontifical brief which will make known the superior general already named.” He took the occasion as well to vent his frustrations about the Congregation in general, which he viewed as infected by the spirit of the world, indifference, egoism, liberty, dissipation, softness and disobedience.

Last years, death

After his resignation and the appointment of the superior general, Boujard continued to live at the mother house. He did not preside at the dedication of the new chapel that he had so carefully supervised, or at the election of Mother Antoinette Beaucourt. During the revolution of 1830, he fled to Saint Denis for safety, but then returned to the capital apparently to a private house or an apartment, possibly for medical attention. He had suffered from cataracts and agreed to an operation, but died of its effects in that house, 29 May 1831. He was seventy-eight.

Boujard, the last of the French vicars general, is a sad figure. He was caught in webs not of his own making and suffered rejection by those he had sought to serve. His last years, in particular, must have been painful in emotional as well as physical terms. Yet he guided the Congregation through complex issues and handed it on to the first superior general to serve after the Revolution.

Benedetto Fenaja 1793

The first of the three Italian confreres to govern the Congregation during the period of the Revolution was Benedetto Fenaja. He was born in the Trastevere district of Rome, 20 February 1736. Although coming from a poor family, he received a good education at the Collegio Romano, under the direction of the Jesuits. He thought for a time about entering the Society of Jesus but came to the Congregation of the Mission instead. He entered 6 November 1751, and made his vows 22 February 1754, two days after his eighteenth birthday.

After his ordination to the priesthood in 1760, he devoted himself to the work of the missions in various dioceses around Rome. Like many others, his preaching abilities extended also to retreats and other conferences. His reputation was such that Father Jacquier appointed him superior of the central house in Rome and, in 1777, visitor of the province of Rome. From Montecitorio he moved to Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, a less complicated house to run alongside his other obligations.

When Cayla had to flee Paris in 1792, Pius VI turned to Fenaja for the temporary government of the Congregation, naming him vicar apostolic. As seen above, this responsibility lasted barely six months.

A major turning point in his life was his appointment by the pope to preach a mission to the people of Rome. In 1796, Pius VI proclaimed a mission and announced that Fenaja would preach at Piazza Navona, the largest and most frequented site. His instructions and exhortations were so powerful that he aroused sentiments in his hearers of support for the threatened pontiff.

When the Roman Republic was proclaimed in 1798, the pope was taken off into exile in Florence, and Fenaja followed. The elderly Pius VI died the following year, 29 August 1799, in Valence, France. Although revolutionary spirits predicted that he would be the last pope, they were disappointed when Pius VII was elected after a lengthy conclave in Venice. He returned to Rome where Fenaja had preceded him.

Not long after, the pope named Fenaja a bishop, with the title archbishop of Philippi. In some way he was an accidental bishop since the pope had set his eyes on Michele di Pietro to be vice-gerent of Rome, that is, the second in command after the vicar general of Rome. Di Pietro refused and asked his friend Fenaja to present his excuses to the pope. He was so effective that the pope accepted the refusal but appointed Fenaja in his place. He was ordained bishop on 27 September 1800, five days after his nomination. He accompanied the pope to Paris for the coronation of Napoleon as emperor. While in Paris, he joined the pope, 23 December 1804, in a visit to the new mother house of the Daughters of Charity to pray before the relics of Saint Vincent.

On their return to Rome, Pius made use of his skills to handle the case of Scipione de’ Ricci (1714-1810), bishop of Pistoia and Prato. Following orders from the duke of Tuscany, Ricci convoked a synod in Pistoia, 18-28 September 1786, noted for its political Jansenist tendencies. The pope condemned the synodal decisions by the bull Auctorem Fidei, 28 August 1794, but Ricci continued stubbornly to uphold what he had done. Thanks to the work of Fenaja, he recanted in 1805. In recognition of his efforts, the pope named Fenaja patriarch of Constantinople, an honorary designation of the highest rank, although he did not name him a cardinal. In this era of the Vincentian anomaly of divided government, Fenaja, vice-gerent of Rome, was himself an anomaly: an archbishop and assistant of the Congregation of the Mission simultaneously.

When French armies again invaded Rome, 2 February 1808, the pressure on Pius VII became severe. He and the members of his government were removed, Fenaja among them. He arrived in Paris toward the end of August 1809, and was put under a sort of house arrest. Since there was no Vincentian mother house, he found lodging in the buildings of the Foreign Mission Society of Paris, saved from destruction by a pious woman who purchased them after their expropriation. Fenaja spent three years there, attended by a faithful servant. An inventory of his goods, done before his forced transfer to Paris, shows that they consisted in the ordinary effects of daily clerical life. The inventory gives a brief glimpse into his personal life when it specifies a chocolate pot, a coffee mill and a box of tobacco among his possessions. This Vincentian, although not a martyr, was one of the countless number who suffered for their faith. He died in Paris 20 December 1812.

Fenaja governed the Congregation only briefly, but Carlo Domenico Sicardi exercised his responsibility under various titles for nearly fifteen years.

Carlo Domenico Sicardi 1804-1819

He was born on 30 October 1730 in Frabosa, a small town in the province of Cuneo. He entered the Congregation in Turin in 1751, taking his vows two years later. He was assigned to teach theology and eventually became superior of the house of Turin. In this role, he was elected as a delegate to the general assembly of 1788, at which he was elected assistant. In that office, he also served as the director of the Daughters of Charity. As mentioned above, he managed to hide from the pillagers of Saint Lazare by remaining in the Sisters’ mother house the whole day of 13 July 1789.

He returned to Saint Lazare from the Sisters when it was safe to begin to pick up the pieces. Since it was increasingly clear that the Congregation would be suppressed or at least moved from Saint Lazare, he joined Cayla and his fellow assistants in gradually preparing the remaining treasures of the Congregation for safekeeping. The relic of the heart of Saint Vincent was put in his charge sometime in 1790. He seems also to have been given the responsibility of guarding the Founder’s clothing as well as his personal items (breviary, walking stick and the like), a valuable painting of the saint and a collection of his writings. Someone, possibly Sicardi, developed a method to hide the relic: hollowing out the pages of a large book, volume two of François Giry’s Vie des Saints. When it was closed, it was just one of a number of books and other objects and gave no hint of its contents. Among the personal items Sicardi took is a manuscript of meditations for the annual eight-day retreat at Saint Lazare, copied by Cyr-Jacques Renaudon (b. 1695) in 1720. Sicardi’s name appears on the title page of his important witness to the piety of pre-Revolutionary French Vincentians.

Saint Vincent’s Relics

The plan developed to transfer these objects to the Vincentian house in Turin, which Sicardi knew well. He would be accompanied by two other Vincentians, Edward Ferris and Thomas-Félix Lebrun. Four Daughters of Charity would make up the rest of the traveling party, Sisters Colasson, Jolié, Lespinasse and Maltret, who wrote up an account of their adventures. This group of Sisters had been missioned to Hennebont but, when in 1791 they refused to take a prescribed oath, they left their house. According to Sister Maltret, “A cannon had been aimed at our door and the wick was lit” to force them out. After seeking refuge in other houses in Belle-Ile and Rennes, they arrived in Paris. Their new mission was to begin a house in Turin. The group of seven, all in lay clothing, left Paris 12 September 1792. Despite their secular dress, they were recognized one day in an inn and were in peril of their lives. Providentially, a general who had come to know the Vincentians during a retreat he made at Saint Lazare vouched for them and sent them safely on their way.

Once arrived in Turin, the letters and the clothing were recognized officially, and the heart relic was exposed in the Vincentian chapel there. On one occasion, 17 July 1793, the relic was brought about in procession through the city to pray for rain, which subsequently fell in torrents. When Sicardi left for three months, he entrusted the precious relic again to the Daughters of Charity in the city. The reliquary apparently tipped over on the Sisters’ altar, and small fragments of the heart fell out. The Sisters gathered them up into four little reliquaries which Sicardi allowed the Sisters to retain. When, in 1796, the Sisters were forced to leave Turin for Vienna ahead of Napoleon’s troops, they had seals put on their relics to authenticate them. In 1800, the Vincentian house in Turin was suppressed, so Sicardi, still responsible for the now-reduced relic, brought it to his family and then deposited it with his confrere Georges-François Bertholdi (or Bertoldo) (1742-1804). He died only two months later but, fortunately, he had deposited it for safekeeping with an acquaintance whose name has not been recorded, and Sicardi was then able to recover it from him.

In late 1804, Cardinal Fesch, archbishop of Lyons, learned of its existence probably while attending the coronation of his nephew, and he determined to ask for the heart for himself. In a few days, he decreed that the Turin Vincentians should hand it over to a French general, Jacques-François de Menou, sent to transfer it to France, along with the book in which it had been kept. The cardinal’s reasons were that he loved relics in the first place and that, since Paris had the body, so Lyons, where Vincent had been a pastor, should have his heart, before which Fesch would be able to pray.

The transfer was more difficult and less complete than the cardinal imagined. One issue was the ownership of the relic. The archbishop of Turin wrote to Fesch declaring, incorrectly, that it was the property of the Vincentian house in Turin, having been given to them, and not just placed there on deposit by permission of the superior general. This would have made the transfer to Fesch more difficult. The cardinal would not be convinced and insisted that Menou take possession as quickly as possible. The Turin Vincentians, however, had their own plans and secretly excised two heart valves which they placed in another reliquary and which remain in Turin.

The further diminished relic and reliquary were replaced in the book that had brought them to Turin, and arrived in Paris in May 1805, where they were authenticated in the presence of Brunet and Sister Deschaux, who had seen the heart exposed in Saint Lazare. Then the three items were brought to Lyons about 1 August 1805, and a solemn festival was organized on 29 September to welcome them to the cathedral where the reliquary was enshrined. The Daughters of Charity of Lyons received the large book, which is now kept at the rue du Bac in Paris. In 1814, when Hanon left prison, he tried to get the relic back. He queried Sicardi about it, and the latter explained that Cayla had left the heart with him not as a gift but as a deposit to be returned to the superior general once the Congregation had been restored in France. Hanon then went to Lyons with this document and talked with the vicar general, but its return was deemed impossible. Although a subsequent archbishop of Lyons eventually returned the heart to the Daughters of Charity, he placed the original reliquary in the diocesan museum, where it remains.

During the years of repression, Sicardi spent his time with his confreres in the province, and then with his family. He met the superior general when the latter was making his way to Rome, but returned to his family so as not to burden Cayla with the cost of providing for his upkeep. After Cayla’s death, it took Sicardi six months to join Brunet in Rome. He became vicar general, as explained above, and undertook his governance of the Congregation.

Separation in Spain

Because of his responsibility for the Congregation outside of France, Sicardi had to deal with the question of the identity of the Daughters of Charity in Spain. King Ferdinand VII (1788-1833) held views similar to Napoleon and other European monarchs concerning religious communities, in that they often tried to enforce a separation of their citizens who were religious from any correspondence with foreign superiors. Further, the visitors of the Congregation in Spain did not believe it was their responsibility to direct the Daughters, with the result that a secular priest became their director. The king persuaded Pius VII to approve new constitutions for the Daughters of Charity in Spain, which he did in a bull of 26 March 1816. By this decree he approved the rules prepared by Francisco Antonio Cebrián y Valda, Patriarch of the (West) Indies, which placed them under his jurisdiction as “first administrator of this society.”

Problems soon arose, and the pope realized that the whole affair had to be undone. By two new documents in late 1818, he placed the Daughters of Charity “entirely and for ever under the full jurisdiction, obedience, superiorship and dependence on the current vicar general of the Congregation of the Priests of Saint Vincent de Paul and his successors,” and then revoked the new rules in favor of “the single rule given by Saint Vincent de Paul which remained in use in the kingdom of Spain until our pontificate,” changing nothing concerning the governance of the Company.

Administration and Spiritual Teaching

In 1815 a new book appeared in Rome, De Privilegiis et Indulgentiis Congregationi Missionis auctoritate apostolica concessis et confirmatis. In keeping with Vincentian practice, the author’s name was not given, but it soon became known that Sicardi was its author. His purpose was to remove doubts about certain points of privileges and indulgences. This was the first publication of this type and, despite the author’s erudition, the work caused more problems than it solved. Subsequent editions would seek to clarify it. It was reported, orally, that Pius VII responded to further doubts that it was his intention to grant whatever appeared in this book. Legally, however, this had no standing, and the book never had much currency within the Congregation.

Sicardi felt empowered to continue the practice of writing an annual circular letter to the Congregation as the superiors general had done. His first, the New Year’s letter for 1816, is full of laments for the evils wrought by the Revolution, particularly on the Congregation. He summoned his confreres to a return to the observance of the rules, community life and the traditional Vincentian virtues, after the example of Vincent de Paul and other good models of observance. Interestingly, his emphasis was not on France but on Italy and other parts of the Congregation over which he had responsibility. He condemned, though not harshly, those Vincentians who had begun to live on their own, particularly members in Poland and Russia (or Lithuania). The conditions in these two countries would be a cause of some unhappiness in the Congregation for decades.

He announced in this same letter the erection of the province of Naples. He praised the confreres of the new province for their dedication to the works given them. His decision to erect this new province was unique in the sense that it was the only one that he established, even though he had the power to do so. Its founding as a province was proof, if any was needed, that the Congregation was still a vital entity. He concluded with other good news about the development of various missions, such as Spain, Portugal and the United States.

In his second circular, he presented a lengthy reflection on Divine Providence in the midst of disasters, beginning in the Old Testament. His central point, however, was that God had divinely preserved the house of Montecitorio in Rome as the sole beacon of true Vincentian life and character, “the object of divine predilection.” The reason for this was the “spirit of religion, regularity and the observance of the duties of our state, perceived ever in force among the children of Vincent de Paul, their founder. This has been the general impression shared with me by laity as well as by members of the clergy.” The political overtones of this comment should not be overlooked, inasmuch as he had been engaged in a struggle with the French vicars over leadership. In his view, therefore, the French had lost their leadership because of their lack of exactly those elements that had preserved his house in Rome.

The reason for the flourishing condition of the Roman province, which he urged on others, was strict observance of the rules, in the spirit of Saint Vincent. The two other Italian provinces, in his opinion, were likewise flourishing. Spain and Portugal were advancing, but he registered some hesitation about France, to which he gave a mere four sentences. The missions of the Middle East, too, were in good condition, and the new American mission, founded by the Roman province, was full of promise.

The successes of the Roman province were doubtless due, in no small measure, to the work of Sicardi, although he was never the provincial. In his personal life, he was of a retiring and quiet character, with good manners and affability. Clearly, he also indulged in intrigue and fights, but undoubtedly for the honor of God and the glory of the Congregation. While in Rome, it is said that he left only on business, not to make friends. In his last years, this persistent and politically astute Vincentian received an assistant in the person of Francesco Antonio Baccari, 1818-1819. Sicardi died 13 June 1819, at the age of ninety. In his last will, dated Rome, 21 October 1812, he left his goods to his beloved house of Montecitorio, to be used “for pious causes.”

Francesco Antonio Baccari 1819-1827

This Vincentian, who also had a reputation as a church architect, was born on 11 August 1747 in Lendinara, a small town in the northeast of Italy. After attending missions given by the Vincentians from Ferrara, he decided to join the Congregation. He entered at the young age of fourteen, in 1763, and pronounced his vows two years later. He was sent to teach at Fermo after his ordination, and while there developed his interests in architecture. His life then alternated between periods of teaching, preaching missions and ill health.

As the French Revolution reached into northern Italy, he had to stay home and lay aside his clerical dress. Nevertheless, he was working as a priest, after 1799, in Ferrara. In approximately fifteen years living apart from the Congregation he worked especially on architecture, which he studied and then moved into designing and building. A tower and church at Lendinara as well as a church in Salodeccio, diocese of Rimini, are his work, although the tower was not completed until 1827. He was able to count on his brothers, both diocesan priests, for financing.

He was able to resume his Vincentian life in 1807 at the house in Florence. On 3 May 1810, however, Napoleon’s decree of the general suppression of religious congregations in the Papal States was issued, and Baccari was forced for a second time to return to Lendinara. He worked there as an assistant in a parish and helped to rehabilitate a closed parish in the town.

Six years later he wrote to Sicardi to place him in a Vincentian house once again, and his appointment was to Montecitorio. He would be superior of this important house from 1817 to 1820. Sicardi recognized his qualities, and Baccari was appointed his substitute, or “pro-vicar,” and then became vicar general in his own right, 21 May 1821.

During his time in Rome, he pursued several courses, in addition to his architectural interests. He wrote a book on helps for confessors, noted for its rigid morality, published in 1827 and often reprinted. He was also noted for his help in solidifying the work of the Italian houses and called them to faithfulness to the traditions of the Congregation. For this, he enjoyed the esteem of the popes during whose pontificate he lived and worked. This detail may also explain the easy access he enjoyed to the officials of the Holy See, as well as to the pope. He used this influence, as noted above, to further his perspective of the Italian ascendancy in the Congregation.

His major preserved output, however, lies in his lengthy circular letters addressed to the members of the Congregation under his leadership. In the printed edition, they cover seventy pages and treat of a large number of subjects. Mainly, however, they are exhortations to faithfulness to the rules and practices of the Congregation, all done in a spirit of prayer and self-denial. For this purpose, he urged his confreres to root out any abuses that had crept in, particularly because of the evils of the age. If we credit the observations of his companions, he was a good model of what he urged on others. His testament, signed first in 1832, shows that he had a significant amount of personal money, but that he continued his interests in family and in many charitable works. He suffered a paralyzing stroke on 3 March 1835 and died within the hour in his beloved Montecitorio.