Gabriel Deshayes

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Gabriel Deshayes (born December 6, 1767 in Beignon , † December 28, 1841 in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre ) was a French Roman Catholic clergyman, superior and founder of the order.

life and work

Before and during the French Revolution

Deshayes, a Breton farmer's son from the Ploërmel area , attended the small seminary in Saint-Servant and the seminary in Saint-Méen , both of which were in the care of the Vincentines . On May 27, 1790 he was ordained a deacon in Saint-Malo , after which the French Revolution disrupted his career. Since he did not by a bishop of the Civil Constitution wanted to be ordained a priest, he embarked for England, landed because of adverse weather conditions on Jersey and settled on 14 March 1792 by the bystanders Bishop Augustin-René-Louis Le Mintier of Tréguier consecrate . Then he went back to Brittany, joined a group of underground priests between Ploërmel and Montfort-sur-Meu and soon emerged as a leader. Officially registered as an emigrant, he lived in Beignon until the Concordat of 1801.

Pastor and Vicar General

In the spring of 1801 he was ordered by his bishop to Paimpont , from 1803 he was local pastor of Beignon, but at the same time accompanied Bishop Antoine-François-Xavier Mayneaud de Pansemont of Vannes , who had recognized his abilities (including as a missionary preacher), on his visitation trips the diocese. In 1805 he was appointed pastor of Auray and stayed in this important Breton city for 16 years (most recently as vicar general). He drew up a register of all residents and vigorously set up Catholic schools and cared for the poor and the sick.

The school brothers from Ploërmel

For the education of the male youth he called the brothers of the Christian schools to Auray in 1811 (for the first time in Brittany since 1789) and in collaboration with Jean-Marie de La Mennais (1780-1869) founded the congregation of the school brothers of Ploërmel in 1819 , named after the parent company, located in Ploërmel in 1824. During that time, the congregation taught 3,000 children in 20 schools.

The Sisters of Christian Instruction

In 1807, in collaboration with Michelle Guillaume, he set up a girls 'school for the education of young women, for which, after unsuccessful attempts with the Filles du Saint-Esprit (Daughters of the Holy Spirit), he founded his own congregation in 1820, the Soeurs de l' Instruction chrétienne , and for which he (after founding further schools in Torfou (Maine-et-Loire) and Avessac ) set up the motherhouse in Saint-Gildas-des-Bois (north of Saint-Nazaire) in 1828 (66 sisters in 17 schools). The congregation called itself from now on Sœurs de l'instruction chrétienne de Saint-Gildas-des-Bois . Guillaume Anbault (1790–1869), later Bishop of Angers , increasingly took over its leadership.

Deaf-mute education

As early as 1810 Deshayes turned in a special way to the deaf and mute , whom he entrusted to the Congregation Daughters of Wisdom ( Filles de la Sagesse ), after having trained them in contact with Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard . He brought the first school for the deaf and mute to the Carthusian monastery in Brech . From there, similar foundations started in Orléans (1836/1839), Lille (1839), Soissons (1840) and Toulouse (1859).

The monarchist

In Auray, Deshayes welcomed the Restoration in 1814/1815 , promoted the memory of the Battle of Quiberon and practiced the veneration of the anti-revolutionary martyrs of Quiberon.

The Montfortans

In 1820 Deshayes received the call of the dying superior of the Montfortans to succeed him, whom he took in 1821 in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre (south of Cholet ). He breathed new life into the decrepit congregation, increased its membership considerably and actively pursued research into the life of the order's founder, Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort . In 1829 he achieved the opening of the beatification process and in 1836 the papal recognition of the veneration. Grignion's treatise on total devotion to Mary (other title: The Golden Book of Total Devotion to Mary , French original: Traité de la vraie dévotion à la Vierge Marie ) was only found a year after Deshaye's death, but the posthumous coronation is allowed in it of his efforts to be seen. Deshaye's able successor, Louis-Joseph Dalin (1800-1884), did not experience Grignion's beatification (1888), which was only canonized in 1947.

Under Deshayes the secession of the Gabrielist congregation began . In 1839 he founded the Congregation of the Farmer Brothers ( Frères agriculteurs de Saint François d'Assise ), which were absorbed by the Salesians in 1899 .

Rome trip and death

In 1825 Deshayes undertook a month-long trip to Rome and was supported by Pope Leo XII. received in audience. He died in 1841 at the age of 74. His efforts to re-Catholicize Brittany after the French Revolution earned him the reputation of an "Apostle of Brittany".

Places of remembrance

In Saint-Gildas-des-Bois a street and a high school bear his name, in Auray a square and a primary school are named after him. The house where he was born can be visited in Beignon.

Literature (chronological)

  • François Laveau: Vie de Gabriel Deshayes. Apôtre de la Bretagne pendant la Révolution … Imprimerie Gustave de Lamarzelle, Vannes 1854, 1866.
  • Alexis Crosnier: L'homme de la divine Providence. Gabriel Deshayes. Ancien curé de Saint-Gildas d'Auray. Supérieur général des missionnaires de la Compagnie de Marie et des Filles de la Sagesse. Fondateur de quatre Congrégations religieuses . 2 vols. Gabriel Beauchesne, Paris 1917.
  • Maurice Chotard: Gabriel Deshayes. Un athlète du Christ . Fleurus, Paris 1968.
  • Louis Pérouas: Gabriel Deshayes. Un grand pionnier de la restauration catholique dans l'Ouest de la France: 1767–1841 . Ed. Don Bosco, Paris 2003.
  • Louis Perouas, "Les Montfortains en France depuis trois siècles", in: Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l'Ouest , 110-3, 2003, pp. 97-110. (on-line)
  • Jean Chéory: Père Gabriel Deshayes, 1767–1841, et l'enseignement des sourds . L'Harmattan, Paris 2010.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Deshayes, Gabriel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Roman Catholic clergyman, superior and founder of an order
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1767
PLACE OF BIRTH Beignon
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1841
Place of death Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre