Venerable John Baptist de La Salle

Having received the clerical tonsure, he was provided, around the age of seventeen, with a canonry of the metropolitan church of Reims (July 9, 1666), and he took possession of it six months later (January 17, 1667). As soon as he had finished his philosophy course, he was received, according to custom, as Master of Arts; then the thought came to him to go and defend his doctoral thesis at the University of Paris. Seeking, in this city of dissipation and danger, a place where he could become learned without ceasing to be pious, he settled at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice; this nursery of science and fervor then had as its supe rior Abbé Tr abbé Tronçon Superior of the Saint-Sulpice seminary and spiritual director. onçon, rightly regarded as one of the oracles of the clergy and of his time: the bishops, Fénelon among others, raised in this holy school, honored him as a father, consulted him as their master in theology, and above all took him as a guide in spiritual ways. Jean de La Salle had to advance by leaps and bounds under the direction of such an ecclesiastic. His entry into Holy Orders was delayed by the death of his mother (1671) and that of his father which followed closely (1672); he bore these two trials with great resignation, but he had to return to Reims; the care of his domestic affairs and the guardianship of his orphaned brothers made it a duty for him to tear himself away from his own desires to devote himself to beings so dear, whom his dying mother and father had recommended to his solicitude: it was a painful burden. He bore it with eagerness, with intelligence, with energy; he showed early on that perseverance which overcomes the most difficult tasks. However, in the midst of the worries that temporal interests necessarily bring, he did not lose sight of his vocation for the ecclesiastical state. He prepared himself for a long time and with the greatest care to receive Holy Orders: "Can one ever be sufficiently prepared," he said, "for the functions of the priesthood? A formidable charge even to the angels, a dignity whose weight has seemed overwhelming to the holiest of personages, should it not make a sinner such as I recoil?" And he added, repeating the words that the holy founder of Saint-Sulpice was accustomed to repeat to his disciples: "One must be blind to present oneself for the priesthood: blind either by the darkness of sin and passions, or by a simple obedience that knows not how to reason." It was, in fact, necessary for the holy young man to let himself be led like a blind man by his director for his humility to consent to the priesthood. He was ordained on April 9, 1678, at the age of twenty-seven. The air of holiness that was noticed in him, the first time he offered the celestial victim with his hands, never left him thereafter: it was enough to see him at the altar to believe in the real presence of Our Lord. He received so many lights there that people waited for him upon leaving the church to consult him. But sometimes he was unable to communicate with men: filled with the God he carried in his breast, intimately united to this divine guest, he barely had the use of his senses. When he was sick, he often found in his fervor unexpected and perhaps supernatural strength: more than once he was seen rising from his bed of pain, despite the advice of doctors, and having himself dragged, so to speak, to the altar, to feed there on the bread of the strong. Often too, after communion, he fell into ecstasy: his soul, enraptured toward God, drew from it a contempt for the world and the strength to resist it. But let us see how our holy priest was prepared and led by Providence to the execution of the designs He had for him.

A virtuous canon, named Roland, whom he had taken as his spiritual director, had founded a community of the Sisters of the Child Jesus for the instruction of orphans and children of their sex; on the point of death, he recommended it to his spiritual son, to his friend, even predicting to him, no doubt by an inspiration from above, that he would have the glory of establishing the true Christian schools. The life he led was well suited to lead him toward this holy undertaking. He had learned at Saint-Sulpice to overcome the old man who wishes to shake off all law, by submitting all the actions of his life to a uniform rule. At his home, everything had its marked hour: rising, prayer, meditation, study, meals, spiritual readings; the canonical office was the center of all the day's actions. The bitter criticisms of worldly people were far from discouraging him; they taught him to revise the vain judgments of the world at the sovereign tribunal of his conscience; he became even more solitary; his life was more austere, his prayers more frequent, his vigils longer. The care he gave to his inner self made him negligent of his exterior; he used only the coarsest fabrics and adopted from then on the habit that he transmitted to his children along with his spirit and his virtues. All the time left to him by his exercises of piety was devoted to visiting indigent families. Regarding sleep as an obstacle to his progress in perfection, he had himself awakened, in every season, at four o'clock in the morning. At first, he had much difficulty in winning this first victory of the day over nature: he would rise quite punctually, but once at his prie-dieu, when he strove to raise his soul to God through prayer, a deep drowsiness held it as if buried in the body, and his head would fall back heavily: he placed a pebble bristling with sharp edges where it was accustomed to fall: at each drop, these points would wake him and bring him back to his prayer; by this heroic means, he became so accustomed to staying awake that, subsequently, he easily spent entire nights praying, writing, or attending to the pressing affairs of his Institute. To the vigils, he added rigorous fasts. During Holy Week, for example, from Thursday until Easter Day, he took only a thin broth, without bread.

However, the moment approached when the designs of God were to receive a beginning of execution: a holy religious, Fr. Barré, of the Order of Saint Francis of Paola, had established the Sisters of Providence for the instruction of young girls born to poor parents. He had also formed the plan of an establishment of free schoolmasters for boys who were left without education; but he encountered so many obstacles there that he could not overcome them. A noble and wealthy lady, Madame de Maillefer, converted from a worldly life to a life of good works, took a keen interest in this enterprise; she sent from Rouen a pious layman, Mr. Adrien Niel, with letters to try to establish a free school for boys in Reims. He had a letter for our holy canon, who was asked to help him with his advice, and who even lodge d him in his h M. Adrien Niel Pious layman who initiated the project for free schools in Reims. ouse. The project seemed to him infinitely praiseworthy, but difficult to execute; Jean de La Salle took an interest in it, as he would have in any other work; he was far from suspecting that God destined him to become a founder of an Order: "If I had believed," he said, "that the care of pure charity that I took for the schoolmasters would ever have made it a duty for me to live with them, I would have abandoned it; for, as I naturally placed those I was obliged to employ in the schools below my valet, the mere thought that I would have had to live with them would have been unbearable to me." Thus, he was content at first to lodge two masters with Mr. Dorigny, pastor of Saint-Maurice of Reims, to whom God had, at the same time, inspired the desire to work for the work of free schools, and who regarded it as a meeting as happy as it was surprising that one came to make him this proposal, and they immediately opened the school in 1679. Jean de La Salle believed that there was nothing more to do for them than to praise God for the blessings He had given to his efforts, but he still had to help, with his advice and his purse, Mr. Niel, who had a singular activity for starting new schools, now in one parish, now in another. Moreover, in the often-repeated absence of Mr. Niel, Jean de La Salle was obliged to substitute for him with the masters: he gave them a small rule, lodged them near his home, then in his house, and finally left it to go and live with them in a foreign dwelling. This alienated the whole city of Reims against him, and especially his relatives; indeed, in the eyes of the world, he could hardly have lowered himself more; but he was rising in the judgment of God! However, Niel, who had more activity than consistency in his mind, caused some schools to fail through his inconstancy; La Salle, who at the beginning only proposed to make up for his absences, was obliged to take charge of everything, and became, without thinking of it, the founder of a new religious Order.

Already several masters had renounced a way of life that burdened them too much, because it required constant restraint. Those who filled the house again showed, it is true, that they wanted to do well; but they also let many faults be seen. It was only through force of instructions and touching exhortations that they appeared to make progress in the spiritual life, and to bear the yoke of a mortifying regularity quite willingly. A holy emulation was seen to be born in them, a marvelous effect of the vigilance of their tireless leader. His patience in bearing all their faults, his tender and paternal charity in listening to them at all times, in entering into their sorrows; his unalterable gentleness in correcting them, won their trust and their hearts. They loved him as their father; they loved one another; peace reigned among them. Suddenly a storm arose that made him pay very dearly for the innocent pleasure he tasted in beginning to enjoy the fruit of his labors.

Anxieties about the future agitated these men who were still attached to the earth. To what will the hard life we lead us, they said to one another? There is nothing solid in the state we have taken. We are losing our youth in this house. What will become of us if our Father abandons us, or if death takes him from us? Hence a general cooling. The good Father was frightened by it, but he could not guess the cause: he showed them more kindness than ever; he questioned them. Finally, they frankly confessed to him the fears they had. Immediately he said to them, full of zeal: "Men of little faith, who gives you the boldness to prescribe limits to an infinite goodness that has none? Since it is infinite, can it fail you and not take care of you? You want assurances? Does the Gospel not provide them to you? Do you demand stronger ones than the express word of Jesus Christ? It is a commitment he has signed with his blood, etc." This speech was very touching, but something was missing. The listeners said to themselves and among themselves: If each of us had a good canonry or a rich patrimony like our Father, we would speak as eloquently about abandonment to divine Providence; or else, if our Father had no more than we, his speeches would persuade us more. For a long time they did not dare to make such a strange observation to him. Finally, pressed by his ever more vehement exhortations, they abruptly made the admission to him. The good Father, although surprised, humbly agreed that they were right. From then on he resolved to dispose of his patrimony to found schools. He consulted Father Barré, that virtuous Minim, who showed himself to be quite otherwise severe. He advised him, not only to dispose of his patrimony, but to g ive the pr Père Barré Minim friar who advised the saint on radical poverty. oceeds to the poor; he further advised him to resign his canonry, not to his brother, who was an ecclesiastic, but to a stranger. The foxes, he told him with Jesus Christ, have dens, and the birds of the air have nests to retire to; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head; and he explained these words of the Savior thus: "Who are these foxes? They are the children of the century who attach themselves to the goods of the earth. Who are these birds of the air? They are the religious who have their cells as a refuge; but for the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, whose vocation is to instruct the poor following the example of Jesus Christ, there is no other share on earth than that of the Son of Man. Any support other than Providence does not suit Christian schools. This support is unshakable, and they themselves will remain unshakable if they have no other foundation."

Certainly, it is not flesh and blood that reveal such rigid and pure truths; and what proves well that they were truly inspired from above is that the one they concerned, and to whom they must have appeared extremely harsh, tasted them immediately. His heart consented without murmuring to such difficult sacrifices. The more he thought about it before God, the more he felt disposed to it. He had more difficulties from men: those he consulted found themselves divided in sentiment: the Archbishop of Reims did not want to allow him to leave his canonry. In the long run he obtained permission; but the superior of the seminary advised him, on behalf of the Archbishop, to resign the canonry to his brother, who was worthy of it. La Salle replied: "I agree that my brother has all the merit you recognize in him; but he is my brother, and this reason alone prevents me from condescending to the desires of His Grace the Archbishop." The superior, struck by this answer, changed his language, and said that he henceforth approved of a design he had taken it upon himself to fight: "God forbid," he added, "that I should ever advise you to do what so many people desire of you! Execute what the Holy Spirit has inspired in you. This advice, which I give you now, so opposed to the one I gave you at first, is the advice of the Spirit of God and the only one that must be listened to."

La Salle, who was thirty-three years old, therefore resigned his canonry to a stranger. He also sold all his goods and distributed the proceeds to the poor, in the disastrous year of 1684, to such an extent that he saw himself reduced to begging for his food. His disciples murmured that he had reserved nothing for them. He answered them in these terms: "Return, my dear brothers, to the sad days from which we have barely emerged. The famine has just exposed before our eyes all the evils it causes to the poor and all the breaches it knows how to make in the fortune of the rich. This city was populated only by wretches. They came there from all parts and came to drag out a remnant of a languishing life, which hunger was soon to end. During all this time, when the richest were not themselves sure of finding for money a bread that had become as rare as it was precious, what have you lacked? Thanks to God, although we have neither annuities nor funds, we have seen these troublesome times pass without lacking the necessities. We owe nothing to anyone, while many opulent communities have ruined themselves by loans and disadvantageous sales, which became necessary to make them subsist." This speech made them pay attention to the miracles that divine Providence had done in their favor. They finally learned not to distrust it in the future.

From that moment, La Salle devoted himself entirely to the formation of his institute. Living on alms with his schoolmasters, he felt a violent repugnance for certain foods. To overcome himself once and for all, he condemned himself to total abstinence until he felt a devouring hunger arise within him. This method succeeded for him. One day, the cook inadvertently served a portion of wormwood. The others believed they had been poisoned and abstained from the rest. The Father, who had eaten his entire portion without noticing anything, was very surprised to hear talk of poison. The matter was examined: it was only wormwood. The good people amused themselves with it during recreation. But the Father, to teach them to mortify themselves, had the portion they had rejected served a second time, and it had to be eaten in its entirety.

He then assembled twelve of his principal disciples to deliberate with them on the constitutions to be given to their small society. They first took the name o f Brothers of the Christian Scho Frères de la Doctrine chrétienne Religious teaching congregation founded by the saint. ols, and decided that their food would be that of the poor people. They proposed to make perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; but the Father wanted them to make them initially for only three years, and he made them with them. After much reflection, he gave them as a uniform habit the one they still wear today. They were made a laughingstock. They were jeered at, and it reached the point where mud was thrown in their faces, without anyone thinking to take up their defense. The Father himself, having gone to teach school in place of a Brother, received slaps in the street. He endured this trial for more than a month. This was not the only time he and his Brothers had to suffer such outrages.

To practice obedience himself, following the example of Jesus Christ, he resigned from the office of superior, persuading the Brothers to elect another in his place, to whom he was the first to promise obedience. But the ecclesiastical authority, having learned what had happened, obliged him to resume the first position. In 1687, the Brother who was at the head of the schools in Guise fell so dangerously ill that his life was despaired of. He received the last sacraments and was abandoned by the doctors; he saw himself on the point of expiring: only one thing saddened him, which was not seeing his Father before dying. The good Father made the journey on purpose, and the Brother was healed upon seeing him.

The holy Institute developed, spreading little by little through a thousand difficulties, a thousand persecutions, which, by further humbling the instruments it employs and further sanctifying them, draw more graces upon them and make the providence of Our Lord more manifest. In 1688, M. de Lamoricière, pastor of Saint-Sulpice, called the Brothers of La Salle to his parish; they arrived there on February 24 with their Father.

The former director of the parish school had himself solicited them to come; but when he saw their success, he became jealous and omitted nothing to undermine them; in which he was powerfully seconded and even surpassed by the guild or sworn corporation of schoolmasters of Paris. The fact was that the Brothers' schools were multiplying in Paris and elsewhere, children flocked to them in great numbers, and the people loved them. The Father had established a novitiate at Vaugirard, but was forced to transfer it to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine: the sworn masters of Paris pursued him in 1704, even to the point of having his furniture seized. The Archbishop of Paris was Cardinal de Noailles, who was go Jansénistes A theological movement to which the canons of Saint-Ruf remained opposed. verned by the Jansenists. As the Venerable de La Salle was eminently submissive to all the decrees of the Holy See, he was harassed on behalf of the Archbishop; they wanted to remove him from his office of superior and impose another on the Brothers. In the midst of these contradictions, the schools were multiplying throughout France; there were Brothers in Rome as early as 1702. His motives for sending them there were, as he himself stated: "1st, to plant the tree of the society and make it take root in the center of unity, in the shade, under the eyes and under the auspices of the Holy See; 2nd, to found it on the solid rock, on that rock against which the gates of hell cannot prevail, and to attach it forever to that Church which can neither perish nor fail; 3rd, to make a way to go to the feet of the Vicar of Jesus Christ to ask for the approval of his Rules and Constitutions, and the grace for his Brothers to make the three solemn vows of religion; 4th, to obtain the apostolic blessing upon his Institute, to authorize it with the protection of the head of the Church, and to take from him the mission to teach Christian doctrine under the good pleasure and approval of the bishops; 5th, finally, he wanted to send some of his disciples to the capital of the Christian world, the source of Catholic communion, to be the guarantors of his faith, of his inviolable attachment to the Holy See, and of his submission to all its decisions at a time when so many people in France seemed to pay no heed to them." Such were and such always remained the sentiments of the Venerable de La Salle. He formed his disciples in them; he never ceased to inspire them with these sentiments on every occasion. It is because these sentiments were deeply engraved in his soul that he quite often added to his name the title of Roman priest.

It would be too long to recount here all the tribulations with which this venerable founder was overwhelmed in many places, but especially in Paris, from where he was often forced to flee: enemies hounded him all their lives to persecute him; but his patience was always unalterable. Once, among other times, a vicar-general of the Archbishop of Paris was charged with putting another superior in his place: when the community had been assembled for this purpose, the Venerable de La Salle was the only one who did not complain about such an affront: he even promised to calm the indignation of the Brothers. The most cruel of his sorrows was undoubtedly to see his children suffer because of him.

M. de La Chétardie, pastor of Saint-Sulpice, having allowed himself to be blinded by unjust prejudices, refused to pay the community, as long as he governed it, the pension he had committed to give it, and which he took from alms that pious ladies deposited in his hands; his disciples lacked bread. This outcome was repeated several times; but Providence took care to feed its children, and the good Father, sacrificing himself, did not recoil before any humiliation, nor did he neglect any artifice of charity or humility to save an Institute that he knew to be so useful to the Church.

In Rouen, the Brothers who had been requested needed 3,600 livres to live, not to mention the rent for the house. Instead of this, the city gave only 600 livres, of which 300 were absorbed by the rent. Jean de La Salle did not recoil before such desperate resources; always trusting in divine Providence to repair the injustices of men, he rented a house and settled there with twelve Brothers, reduced to a pension of seventeen sous per day to feed this community. God alone knows how these martyrs were able to live like this for twenty-five years. Lacking everything—linen, clothes, bread—they never cut back on their ordinary labors, which, for all their reward, brought them only contempt and outrage. They could hardly show themselves without receiving an insult; they were covered in mud, stones were thrown at them, they were struck. At the mercy of hunger and cold during the years 1709 and 1710, they endured, nearly to the point of death, all that is most cruel about famine and winter. However, from time to time, God inspired some virtuous people with the thought of helping them; but this aid never went beyond the absolute necessity, as if God had wished to prevent His humble servants from dying of cold and hunger, without depriving them of the merit of suffering from both.

The alms they received were so rare and so minimal that the good Brothers considered it miraculous when an unknown person sent a sum of twenty-two livres, accompanied by a note bearing these words: "Do not trouble yourself about where this charity comes from; place your trust only in God; take care to serve Him faithfully, and He Himself will feed you."

To resemble his Savior more closely, the venerable de La Salle lacked the most stinging of all sufferings, perhaps, for the heart of a father: that of being betrayed by his own. He drank this bitterness more than once from the chalice that the hand of the Lord presented to him. We shall cite only one example: Scarcely had the Brothers been installed in Mende when they had the presumption to break with their community, to shake off the yoke of authority, and to live outside of any rule; the new bishop and the city magistrates supported this revolt. The poor servant of God, instead of undertaking an uncertain struggle, resolved to live for some time with his rebellious disciples, hoping to bring them back little by little to a sense of their duties. But his presence was a continual reproach; his example was unbearable to them. They dared to tell him that if he wished to continue living among them, he had to pay his board. He answered nothing; he humbled himself as always and went to ask for asylum from the charity of the Reverend Capuchin Fathers. Recounting to another Brother that those in Mende refused to recognize him as superior, he added: "They are quite right, for I am incapable of being one." As for the rebels, discord arose among them; the leader of the revolt remained alone with one other; they both committed a host of scandals, and divine Justice, at the end of ten years, punished them by letting them perish from the plague. The Brothers of Grenoble showed themselves to be the worthy children of such a good father: it was while he was enjoying a little rest in the bosom of this cherished family that the bull Unigenitus (1714) was published; he received it and had it received with the most complete submission. This conduct increased the animosity of the Jansenists, who, in his absence, tried to govern the Brothers of Paris: these wolves, covered in sheep's clothing, were about to ravage this flock when he recalled their shepherd. Jean de La Salle still delayed returning to Paris, hoping no doubt that another superior would be named in his place, when he received the following letter:

"Monsieur our dearest Father. — We, the principal Brothers of the Christian Schools, having in view the greater glory of God, the greater good of the Church and of our society, recognize that it is of extreme consequence that you resume the care and general conduct of the holy work of God, which is also yours, since it has pleased the Lord to use you to establish and lead it for so long: everyone is convinced that God has given you and continues to give you the graces and talents necessary to govern well this new company, which is of such great utility to the Church; and it is with justice that we bear witness that you have always led it with much success and edification. This is why, Monsieur, we most humbly beg you and order you, in the name and on behalf of the body of the Society to which you have promised obedience, to take charge immediately of the general government of our Society. In witness whereof we have signed. Done at Paris, this 1st of April 1714. And we are with the most profound respect, Monsieur our dearest Father, your most humble and most obedient inferiors".

Upon this letter from his children, the Father resumed command, out of obedience; but he always begged them to give him a successor. In the meantime, he unburdened himself of most affairs onto Brother Barthélemy, master of novices, who was entirely worthy of this trust. Having returned to Paris, the Father there cured a possessed person; but he had much to suffer from the Jansenists, who governed Cardinal de Noailles, especially since the death of Louis XIV. This was a motive for him to bring his novices back to Rouen, to the house of Saint-Yon. However, he still pressed his Brothers to accept his re signation and to ch maison de Saint-Yon House in Rouen where the saint spent his final years. oose another superior. He was old, infirm, and aspired to a little rest. But above all, he feared for the future of his Congregation; he feared that it would not be allowed to govern itself, and that foreign superiors would be imposed upon it: this had already been done for some individual houses.

LIVES OF THE SAINTS. — VOLUME XV. 18

The Brothers finally acquiesced to his requests, and unanimously chose Brother Barthélemy as his successor. This was during the days of Pentecost 1717. The good Father, with his children, occupied himself with giving a definitive form to their Constitutions, so that they could be approved by the Holy See; he took care to include that the Brothers would have no superior other than one of their own. He composed some small spiritual works, among others an *Explanation of the Method of Prayer*. He reviewed others that he had composed previously: 1st, the *Duties of a Christian towards God, and the means to be able to fulfill them*; 2nd, the *Christian Civility*.

One of his dearest occupations was to give exhortations to the novices, to lead them to the perfection of their state; then, to visit the boarders of the house of Saint-Yon. These boarders were of two kinds. Some were difficult subjects, confined by order of the king or by the will of their parents, to do penance for their disorders and to stop their disastrous consequences. The others were children whose fathers and mothers entrusted their education to the Brothers. The former were very difficult to subdue; they were kept carefully in a separate quarter, which did not communicate with the rest of the house. They were, for the most part, young libertines who despaired in their prison. Everything that was said to them about the judgments of God, the terrible punishments of hell, did not touch them. Only a few pretended to convert in order to obtain their release. The holy man had pity on these unfortunates; he went to visit them regularly every day; and as God attached a particular grace to his words, several gave the most unequivocal signs of a sincere change. They were given their freedom, and there was no reason to regret it. Some became religious in the most regular and austere Orders; others remained in the world and edified it by the wisdom of their conduct. The young boarders were the delight of the holy man. He heard their confessions; he respected in them the innocence of their age; he went to see them from time to time; he enlivened their little games; then, accommodating himself to their character, he told them edifying stories and gave them principles of virtue. If someone had committed a fault, he corrected him with kindness; by this he won their confidence, and they willingly listened to his lessons, which he proportioned to their reach.

The house of Saint-Yon became the property of the Brothers in 1718. The Venerable de La Salle was tested there as he was everywhere else. The Brother who had been assigned to serve him in his infirmities overwhelmed him with coarse words and reproaches, without him ever complaining to anyone. The Archbishop of Rouen allowed himself to be so prejudiced that, two days before the holy man's death, he withdrew all his faculties from him, as if he were an unworthy priest. His infirmities increased so much toward mid-Lent 1719 that he was forced to take to his bed. The danger grew significantly, and joy grew in his soul at the same time. "I hope," he said, "that I will soon be delivered from Egypt, to be introduced into the true land promised to the elect." On March 19, the feast of Saint Joseph, patron of the Institute, his pains suddenly ceased, his strength returned, and he was able to say Mass, as he had ardently wished. Scarcely was the Mass finished than his pains and weakness returned. He received the last sacraments at the beginning of Holy Week and died the death of the just on Good Friday, April 7, 1719, at the age of sixty-eight. His body was buried, without pomp, in the chapel of Sainte-Suzanne of the parish church of Saint-Sever.

On the day he received Extreme Unction, seeing his children weeping around his bed, he addressed this testament to them: "I recommend to God first my soul, and then all the Brothers of the Society of Christian Schools, to whom He has united me; I recommend to them above all things to always have an entire submission to the Church, and especially in these troublesome times; and, to give signs of this, to never disunite themselves in anything from our Holy Father, the Pope, and from the Church of Rome, always remembering that I sent two Brothers to Rome, to ask God for the grace that their Society might always be entirely submissive to it. I also recommend that they have a great devotion to Our Lord, love Holy Communion and the exercise of prayer very much, and have a particular devotion to the most holy Virgin and to Saint Joseph, patron and protector of their Society, and to discharge their employment with zeal and disinterestedness, and to have among themselves an intimate union and a blind obedience to their superiors: which is the foundation and the support of all perfection in a community."

At another moment, after the prayers for the dying had been said, he regained consciousness and added: "If you wish to preserve yourselves and die in your state, never have dealings with people of the world; for, little by little, you will take a liking to their way of acting, and you will enter so far into their conversation that you will not be able to defend yourselves, out of policy, from applauding their discourse, although very pernicious; which will cause you to fall into infidelity; and, no longer being faithful in observing your rules, you will become disgusted with your state, and finally you will abandon it."

The superior of the seminary of Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet, where the Venerable de La Salle received hospitality from October 4, 1717, until March 7, 1718, gives a precious testimony of him; we cannot better end this life than by quoting it: "This time was short, as you see; but it did not take more than that to recognize in him the particular gifts that God had placed there, and the very graces that he studied most to hide from men. We recognized in him above all an extraordinary zeal and fervor for his own perfection, a profound humility, and a great love for mortification and poverty. The zeal for his own perfection appeared: 1st in that, not content with being present every day, without missing a single one, at all the exercises of piety, at morning prayer, at spiritual conferences, at the divine offices, he confessed to me that he still regularly gave two and a half or three hours each day to meditation; 2nd in the entire subjection in which he wished to live to the rule of the seminary, for he always arrived among the first at all the exercises, and there was no article for him that was not important; he would not have wanted, I do not say to go out into the city, but even to speak to an outsider, without asking permission. In vain did I declare to him several times that he had full permission with us, and that this point of the rule had not been put there for him, it was not possible to make him accept the dispensation. His humility appeared to us equally admirable, and it was universal. He did nothing without counsel, and the advice of others always seemed better to him than his own. In conversation, he always listened more willingly than he spoke; one never heard him say anything to his advantage. Full of horror and contempt for the worldliness that many ecclesiastics affect in their exterior and in their clothes, nothing was simpler than his, which were only of the most common serge. All the rest of his exterior corresponded to it, and this is partly what made me say that he loved poverty. This love for this virtue shone even more in the generosity he had to renounce everything and to strip himself of everything to undertake and support the establishment of his community, and in the precautions he took to inspire and perpetuate in the Brothers who compose it this spirit of simplicity and the cutting off of everything that is not absolutely necessary for life and maintenance. His mortification, finally, confounded us while edifying us. He never wanted to accept a room with a fire when he entered the seminary; and, instead of warming himself with the others, at least during the time of recreation, he preferred to converse in the halls or in the garden with some seminarians, to have the occasion to inspire in them some holy maxim and detachment from the things of the earth; and as his modesty, his recollected air, and the unction of his conversations left no doubt that he practiced much more than he inspired, one cannot express the fruit he bore in this seminary."

At the request of the French episcopate and several bishops of Italy, the cause for the beatification and canonization of the venerable servant of God was introduced in Rome. The decree authorizing it was signed on May 8, 1840, by Pope Gregory XVI, who gave him the title of Venerable. On November 1, 1873, the reading of the decree confirming the heroic nature of his virtues took place at the Vatican.

[APPENDIX: NOTICE ON THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.]

The Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian Schools was recognized civilly in 1724 by letters patent of Louis XV, and religiously in 17 25 by a bul Benoît XIII Pope who established the Institute as a religious Order in 1725. l of Benedict XIII, which established the Institute as a religious Order, without changing anything in the Constitutions of the venerable Father. At the time of the French Revolution, they were exiled from France for refusing the oath. After the Concordat, Father François de Jésus, former master of novices, organized and opened a school in Lyon on May 3, 1802.

At the same time, other Brothers gathered in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, at the Gros-Caillon (Paris), and in Toulouse. The government then authorized the reopening of Christian schools, having the administration of the hospices bear the expenses necessary for their maintenance. Three years later, they were established in Ajaccio (Corsica), Saint-Étienne (Loire), Trévoux, Besançon, etc., etc.

On September 8, 1805, the Brothers resumed their Order's habit, and the Archbishop of Lyon subsequently obtained for them exemption from military service. When Napoleon organized the University (1808), their Order was also recognized: it was approved as a teaching body. Under the Restoration (1819), the government granted them the large house in the Faubourg Saint-Martin, which was later replaced by the one they now occupy on Rue Oudinot.

Since then, their Institute has developed extraordinarily. In 1824, it already counted two hundred and ten houses, which contained nearly eighteen hundred brothers. Today they number nearly six thousand; they direct several very flourishing boarding schools and a large number of free schools attended, in France alone, by approximately one hundred and thirty thousand students. With the exception of Austria, Spain, and Russia, they have establishments in all the regions of Europe, they possess several in the Levant, Algeria, the United States of America, one in Singapore, and even in Oceania.

We have used, to compose this biography, the History of the Church by Rohrbacher, and the Life of the Venerable de La Salle, 13th installment of the Family Library.