Guillaume Mauviel

Guillaume Mauviel (born October 29, 1759 in Fervaches , today Tessy-Bocage in the department of Manche ; † March 9, 1814 in Cézy , Yonne ) was constitutional bishop of Aux Cayes in Haiti .

The friend of Abbé Henri Grégoire was nominally elected bishop of the port city of Aux Cayes in 1797 for what was then the French part of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola . He did not take up his official duties on site until 1800. General Toussaint l'Ouverture received him unkindly and directed him to Santiago in the Spanish-influenced eastern part of the island (now the Dominican Republic ) as his residence. Mauviel tried to improve church life through religious instruction (weekly alternately in Spanish and French) and suppressing superstitious practices, but he did not find proper access to the Hispanic believers and clergy.

After the Concordat of 1801 he resigned his office as requested by constitutional bishops, but continued to work as a diocesan administrator and hoped in vain for a renewed appointment to the episcopate. He worked with the expeditionary army under General Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc , sent by Napoléon Bonaparte to the breakaway colony of Saint-Domingue , but his relations with the military deteriorated increasingly.

After Haiti's declaration of independence, he left Hispaniola on November 9, 1804 and lived in France from the spring of 1805 until his death.

literature

• Gabriel Debien: Guillaume Mauviel Évêque constitutionnel de Saint-Domingue . Basse-Terre, Société d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe 1981.