Louis-Marie Rocourt
Louis-Marie Rocourt , also: Raucourt (born June 10, 1743 in Reims , † April 6, 1824 in Bar-sur-Aube ) was a French Cistercian and last abbot of Clairvaux .
life and work
Promotion to abbot
Rocourt was the son of an army supplier (later army overseer "contrôleur des guerres"). One uncle was a Cistercian prior in the vicinity of Clairvaux Abbey. After studying at the University of Reims , he entered Clairvaux, completed part of the novitiate in the Trois-Fontaines monastery and studied theology at the Collège des Bernardins . He then taught theology in Clairvaux, but continued studying and graduated in 1775 with a doctorate. At the same time he held important offices in the monastery, from 1768 he was chamberlain and from 1773 prior under Abbot François Le Blois (1761–1784), whom he represented as Abbot Coadjutor from June 6, 1780 due to illness and whom he succeeded in 1784.
Guided tour of Clairvaux Abbey
As abbot, Rocourt reformed the monastery to bring it closer to the world priesthood. In 1781–1784 he acquired the famous library of Jean Bouhier, President of the Dijon Parliament (1673–1746, it is now in Troyes ), but failed with the project to erect a statue of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (the marble stones of which had already been brought up) because of the French outbreak Revolution . When all the monasteries were closed by the state in 1792, he left his abbey in front of the bailiff and settled in Juvancourt ( Canton Bar-sur-Aube ), a neighboring village of the monastery. When it closed, his convent consisted of 33 monks (23 choir monks and 10 converses), half of whom were over 50.
Before that, on March 12, 1791, as primary abbot of La Trappe, he had given the reformer Augustin de Lestrange , who visited him personally, the approval to set up a convent in the La Valsainte Charterhouse in Switzerland and (in writing) canonical of it on May 3 used and thus saved the canonical continuity of the Cistercian order beyond the revolution. Rocourt wrote to Lestrange on March 15, 1793.
French Revolution survivor and death
In Juvancourt Rocourt lived in the house of the emigrated entrepreneur and monastery architect Edme Joseph Aubert. Thanks to the discretion of the villagers, he survived the revolution in secret and did not become a martyr like thousands of priests and monks. In 1804 he moved to Bar-sur-Aube and died there after a long illness.
Keeper of the Clairvaux reliquary
When Rocourt was forced to hand over the reliquary of the monastery to the state on December 3, 1791 , he had already taken a good dozen valuable relics and thus brought them to safety. With great difficulty he distributed it to various churches until 1809, including the church of Ville-sous-la-Ferté . The head relic of St. Bernard is now in the Cathedral Treasury ( Trésor ) of Troyes Cathedral .
literature
- Augustin-Hervé Laffay (* 1965): Dom Augustin de Lestrange et l'avenir du monachisme: 1754–1827 . Cerf, Paris 1998, pp. 55, 64 and 193.
- Notice sur l'abbé Raucourt, dernier abbé de Clairvaux. In: L'Ami de la religion et du roi. Journal ecclésiastique, politique et littéraire 61, 1828, pp. 78-79
- Jean-Charles Ledit: Le Trésor de la cathédrale de Troyes. 1980.
Web links
- Blog page with information about the Clairvaux reliquary collection
- Illustrated blog page with information about the relics of Clairvaux in Troyes
- Note on the relic research of Clairvaux, French
- Newspaper report on the relic researcher Arnaud Baudin, member of the Société académique de l'Aube, French
- Rocourt, Louis-Marie in the Biographia Cisterciensis , version of 23 September 2015
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Rocourt, Louis-Marie |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Raucourt, Louis-Marie |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French Cistercian and last abbot of Clairvaux |
DATE OF BIRTH | June 10, 1743 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Reims |
DATE OF DEATH | April 6, 1824 |
Place of death | Bar-sur-Aube |