Louis-Marie Rocourt

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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

Web links

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