Félix Martin
Encyclopedia
Félix Martin was an antiquary, historiographer, architect, and educationist.
, was a public benefactor. His mother was Anne Arnel Lauzer de Kerzo, a pious matron, of whose ten children three entered religious communities, while the others, as heads of families, were highly regarded in Breton society. Felix, having made his classical studies at the Jesuit seminary
close by the shrine of St. Anne in Auray, entered the Society of Jesus
at Montrouge
, Paris, 27 September 1823, but on the opening of a new novitiate
at Avignon
, in Aug., 1824, he was transferred there. Thence in 1826 he was sent to the one time famous college of Arc, at Dôle
, to complete his logic and gain his first experience in the management of youth among its 400 pupils. The following scholastic year, 1826–1827, in Saint-Acheul
, he began his career as teacher. This was soon to be interrupted, for already among the revolutionists of the boulevards and in the Chamber of Deputies, accusations had been formulated against the Jesuits. This agitation culminated on 16 June 1828, in the "Ordonnances de Charles X" which were to be enforced the following October. The Fathers, meanwhile, quietly closed their colleges, their teachers went into temporary exile, among them Fr. Martin. He spent the succeeding years in colleges established across the frontier.
He worked in turn as student and teacher in Brieg and Estavayé in Switzerland; in Spain, Le Passage near San Sebastian
; in Belgium, the College of Brugelette
. It was when he was in Switzerland, in 1831, that he received Holy orders
. Eleven years later, while engaged in the ministry at Angers
, he was informed that, under Father Chazelle, ex-rector of St. Mary's College, Kentucky, he was chosen together with Fathers Hainpaux, Tellier and Dominique du Ranquet to restore the Society of Jesus in Canada, extinct since the death of Father Jean-Joseph Casot
at Quebec on 16 March 1842. The restoration was under the leadership of Clément Boulanger
. On 2 July, Mgr. Ignace Bourget
, at whose invitation the fathers had come, confided to them the parish of Laprairie, deprived of its pastor, the Rev. Michael Power, by his promotion to the newly erected episcopal see of Toronto, 26 June 1842. On 31 July 1844, Fr. Martin was named superior of the mission in Lower Canada
, now the Province of Quebec
.
had generously subscribed towards the building of a college, his principal preoccupation. In May, 1847, ground was broken and the foundations were laid. Then came a series of disasters which interrupted all further work. The greater portion of Laprairie was swept by fire and the presbytery of the fathers was reduced to ashes. The great conflagration of Quebec followed, whereby a vast portion of the city was destroyed. Thousands of Irish immigrants were pouring into the country; in 1847 the numbers reached nearly 100,000. With them they brought the typhus
or ship-fever. In that year alone nearly two thousand were stricken down in Montreal. The priests of St. Sulpice, pastors of the city, devoted themselves to the spiritual relief of the sick and dying, and five at the outset fell victims. Fathers Paul Mignard and Henri du Ranquet, arriving from New York gave timely assistance. But this was far from sufficient, so Fr. Martin appealed to Fr. Augustus Thébaud
, rector of St. John's, Fordham, for volunteers to assist the plague-stricken. The answer was the immediate arrival of Fathers Driscoll, Dumerle, Ferard and Schianski. All escaped the contagion except Fr. Dumerle.
The priests of St. Sulpice, whose ranks were thinned by the ravages of the plague, asked for four English-speaking Fathers to take charge of St. Patrick's Church. A presbytery was provided for them near the very ground whereon the college had been commenced. In it there was room sufficient to house a few teachers. A temporary structure was put up, and opened as a college on 20 September 1848. A few boarders even were received and lodged in a small tenement in a street hard by. It was not till the month of May, 1850, that work was resumed on the college building, but so quickly was it prosecuted that Mgr Bourget was invited to bless it, in its advanced stage of completion, on 31 July 1851, feast of St. Ignatius. On 4 August the novitiate was transferred from its temporary quarters in M. Rodier's house, and installed in the new edifice, and in the beginning of September everything was in perfect working order in the young institution of learning, from under whose roof, in later years, many men were to go forth as statesmen, judges, physicians and members of the clergy and of the bar.
Martin was not only the founder of Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal (St. Mary's College), the financier, the architect, and the overseer of the material construction, he was also the systematizer of its curriculum during his rectorship which lasted until 1857. For example, in 1851 he established a chair of law of law there with François-Maximilien Bibaud at its head.
The stately pile of St. Patrick's Church, Montreal, was also of his designing, the main outlines of which are in pure thirteenth-century Gothic. Fr. Martin was the originator of the Archives of St. Mary's College, and the principal collector of the records of an almost forgotten past. With such men as Viger, Faribault, E. G. O'Callaghan, etc., he quickened, if not set on foot, the campaign of research which ended in the placing within reach of all the original historical sources of the colonial and missionary days of New France.
A few months after his death, the "Catholic World" (N. Y., April, 1887), wrote:
Letters preserved in the College archives attest that his relations with E. B. O'Callaghan, compiler of the "Documentary History of New York", were of a kindred nature. After his return from Europe, in 1858 and 1859, he was bursar of St. Mary's College, and the two following years, 1860 and 1861, superior of the Quebec residence. His eyesight was already much impaired, and the glare of the Canadian snows was very trying, so much so that he was threatened with total blindness. For this reason he was recalled to France.
. After three years, on 8 Sept., 1865, he was named superior of the residence of the Holy Name at Poitiers
. Thence he was transferred to Vaugirard College in Paris, where he had the spiritual direction of the house for six years. On 5 Sept., 1874, he went to Rouen
for three years as superior, and returned to Vaugirard in 1878. At the closing of the Jesuit colleges by the enactments of the French Republic, the community of Vaugirard was dispersed, and Fr. Martin, with a few others of his fellows, took up their abode in 1882 at No. 1 Rue Desnouettes. Here he remained for five years, never ceasing to collect materials bearing on the history of the country of his predilection.
Early life and work
His father, Jacques Augustin Martin, for many years mayor of Auray and Attorney-General of MorbihanMorbihan
Morbihan is a department in Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Morbihan , the enclosed sea that is the principal feature of the coastline.-History:...
, was a public benefactor. His mother was Anne Arnel Lauzer de Kerzo, a pious matron, of whose ten children three entered religious communities, while the others, as heads of families, were highly regarded in Breton society. Felix, having made his classical studies at the Jesuit seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
close by the shrine of St. Anne in Auray, entered the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
at Montrouge
Montrouge
Montrouge is a commune in the southern Parisian suburbs, located from the center of Paris, France. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe...
, Paris, 27 September 1823, but on the opening of a new novitiate
Novitiate
Novitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....
at Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
, in Aug., 1824, he was transferred there. Thence in 1826 he was sent to the one time famous college of Arc, at Dôle
Dole
Dole may refer to:*The Grain supply to the city of Rome in ancient times.* Since the early 20th Century, a colloquial term referring to government public assistance programs; see Unemployment benefits. Originally it referred to any charitable gift of food, clothing or money. The dole has taken on...
, to complete his logic and gain his first experience in the management of youth among its 400 pupils. The following scholastic year, 1826–1827, in Saint-Acheul
Saint-Acheul
Saint-Acheul is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France. It is not to be confused with Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens after which the Acheulean archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic is named.-Geography:...
, he began his career as teacher. This was soon to be interrupted, for already among the revolutionists of the boulevards and in the Chamber of Deputies, accusations had been formulated against the Jesuits. This agitation culminated on 16 June 1828, in the "Ordonnances de Charles X" which were to be enforced the following October. The Fathers, meanwhile, quietly closed their colleges, their teachers went into temporary exile, among them Fr. Martin. He spent the succeeding years in colleges established across the frontier.
He worked in turn as student and teacher in Brieg and Estavayé in Switzerland; in Spain, Le Passage near San Sebastian
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
; in Belgium, the College of Brugelette
Brugelette
Brugelette is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On January 1, 2006 Brugelette had a total population of 3,284. The total area is 28.40 km² which gives a population density of 116 inhabitants per km².- External links :*...
. It was when he was in Switzerland, in 1831, that he received Holy orders
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....
. Eleven years later, while engaged in the ministry at Angers
Angers
Angers is the main city in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France about south-west of Paris. Angers is located in the French region known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou, and its inhabitants are called Angevins....
, he was informed that, under Father Chazelle, ex-rector of St. Mary's College, Kentucky, he was chosen together with Fathers Hainpaux, Tellier and Dominique du Ranquet to restore the Society of Jesus in Canada, extinct since the death of Father Jean-Joseph Casot
Jean-Joseph Casot
Jean-Joseph Casot was a Jesuit came from France to Canada in 1757 as a lay brother.Casot served the Jesuits in a variety of lay positions including bursar of the Jesuit college in Quebec until Bishop Briand ordained him as a priest in 1766...
at Quebec on 16 March 1842. The restoration was under the leadership of Clément Boulanger
Clément Boulanger (Jesuit priest)
Clément Boulanger was a Jesuit priest who was notable in Canadian history.Boulanger was a young priest when the Society of Jesus was re-established in France. He joined the Jesuits in 1823 and by 1842 he was made provincial of the Jesuits in France...
. On 2 July, Mgr. Ignace Bourget
Ignace Bourget
Ignace Bourget was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest who held the title of Bishop of Montreal from 1840 to 1876. Born in Lévis, Quebec in 1799, Bourget entered the clergy at an early age, undertook several courses of religious study, and in 1837 was named co-adjutor bishop of the newly...
, at whose invitation the fathers had come, confided to them the parish of Laprairie, deprived of its pastor, the Rev. Michael Power, by his promotion to the newly erected episcopal see of Toronto, 26 June 1842. On 31 July 1844, Fr. Martin was named superior of the mission in Lower Canada
Lower Canada
The Province of Lower Canada was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence...
, now the Province of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
.
Work in Canada
The citizens of MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
had generously subscribed towards the building of a college, his principal preoccupation. In May, 1847, ground was broken and the foundations were laid. Then came a series of disasters which interrupted all further work. The greater portion of Laprairie was swept by fire and the presbytery of the fathers was reduced to ashes. The great conflagration of Quebec followed, whereby a vast portion of the city was destroyed. Thousands of Irish immigrants were pouring into the country; in 1847 the numbers reached nearly 100,000. With them they brought the typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
or ship-fever. In that year alone nearly two thousand were stricken down in Montreal. The priests of St. Sulpice, pastors of the city, devoted themselves to the spiritual relief of the sick and dying, and five at the outset fell victims. Fathers Paul Mignard and Henri du Ranquet, arriving from New York gave timely assistance. But this was far from sufficient, so Fr. Martin appealed to Fr. Augustus Thébaud
Augustus Thébaud
Augustus Thébaud was a French-American Jesuit educator and publicist.-Life:Thébaud was born at Nantes, France. He studied at first in the preparatory seminary at Nantes, then entered the grand séminaire and was ordained to the secular priesthood at the usual age...
, rector of St. John's, Fordham, for volunteers to assist the plague-stricken. The answer was the immediate arrival of Fathers Driscoll, Dumerle, Ferard and Schianski. All escaped the contagion except Fr. Dumerle.
The priests of St. Sulpice, whose ranks were thinned by the ravages of the plague, asked for four English-speaking Fathers to take charge of St. Patrick's Church. A presbytery was provided for them near the very ground whereon the college had been commenced. In it there was room sufficient to house a few teachers. A temporary structure was put up, and opened as a college on 20 September 1848. A few boarders even were received and lodged in a small tenement in a street hard by. It was not till the month of May, 1850, that work was resumed on the college building, but so quickly was it prosecuted that Mgr Bourget was invited to bless it, in its advanced stage of completion, on 31 July 1851, feast of St. Ignatius. On 4 August the novitiate was transferred from its temporary quarters in M. Rodier's house, and installed in the new edifice, and in the beginning of September everything was in perfect working order in the young institution of learning, from under whose roof, in later years, many men were to go forth as statesmen, judges, physicians and members of the clergy and of the bar.
Martin was not only the founder of Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal (St. Mary's College), the financier, the architect, and the overseer of the material construction, he was also the systematizer of its curriculum during his rectorship which lasted until 1857. For example, in 1851 he established a chair of law of law there with François-Maximilien Bibaud at its head.
The stately pile of St. Patrick's Church, Montreal, was also of his designing, the main outlines of which are in pure thirteenth-century Gothic. Fr. Martin was the originator of the Archives of St. Mary's College, and the principal collector of the records of an almost forgotten past. With such men as Viger, Faribault, E. G. O'Callaghan, etc., he quickened, if not set on foot, the campaign of research which ended in the placing within reach of all the original historical sources of the colonial and missionary days of New France.
A few months after his death, the "Catholic World" (N. Y., April, 1887), wrote:
"But, it is, perhaps, as an antiquarian and a man of letters that Fr. Martin has become most generally known. His services to historical literature, particularly the history of Canada, have been many and great. He devoted himself amidst all his onerous duties to the task of throwing light on the dark places of the past. He was commissioned by Government to explore the regions where of old the Jesuits had toiled amongst the Hurons, giving at last to the dusky tribes the priceless gifts of faith. He wrote at this time a work embellished with various plans and drawings, all of which remained in possession of the Government. He also collected many curious Indian relics. In 1857 he was sent by the Canadian Government to Europe on a scientific mission, and was likewise entrusted with the task of examining the Archives of Rome and of Paris for points of interest in relation to Canadian history. In this he was eminently successful. He discovered a number of unpublished documents relating to Canada which would be sufficient to fill a folio volume. Perhaps his most eminent service to historical literature was his great share in bringing out the 'Relations des Jésuites' [1611-1672], a very mine of information for the scholar.… He discovered and put into print, with preface and most valuable annotations by himself, the 'Relations' extending from 1672 to 1679. He added to them two geographical charts.… Fr. Martin also translated from Italian to French the 'Relation' of Père Bressani, which he published with notes, together with a biography of that glorious martyr. His historical works included Lives of Samuel de Champlain (?), the founder of Quebec, of Fathers Brébeuf, Chaumonot and Jogues [and, not mentioned in the article, of Montcalm]. The latter [that of Fr. Jogues] has become known to the American public through the translation made by our foremost Catholic historian, John Gilmary Shea. Fr. Martin was the friend, adviser, and co- labourer of the eminent Canadian historical writer, J. Viger."
Letters preserved in the College archives attest that his relations with E. B. O'Callaghan, compiler of the "Documentary History of New York", were of a kindred nature. After his return from Europe, in 1858 and 1859, he was bursar of St. Mary's College, and the two following years, 1860 and 1861, superior of the Quebec residence. His eyesight was already much impaired, and the glare of the Canadian snows was very trying, so much so that he was threatened with total blindness. For this reason he was recalled to France.
Return to France
He spent part of the year 1862 at Ste Geneviève College, Paris, and was appointed on the 12 September (1862) rector of the college of VannesVannes
Vannes is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France. It was founded over 2000 years ago.-Geography:Vannes is located on the Gulf of Morbihan at the mouth of two rivers, the Marle and the Vincin. It is around 100 km northwest of Nantes and 450 km south west...
. After three years, on 8 Sept., 1865, he was named superior of the residence of the Holy Name at Poitiers
Poitiers
Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...
. Thence he was transferred to Vaugirard College in Paris, where he had the spiritual direction of the house for six years. On 5 Sept., 1874, he went to Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
for three years as superior, and returned to Vaugirard in 1878. At the closing of the Jesuit colleges by the enactments of the French Republic, the community of Vaugirard was dispersed, and Fr. Martin, with a few others of his fellows, took up their abode in 1882 at No. 1 Rue Desnouettes. Here he remained for five years, never ceasing to collect materials bearing on the history of the country of his predilection.
Other publications
- Notice Biographique de la Mère S. Stanislas [his sister] Religieuse de la Misericorde de Jésus, de la Hôtel-Dieu d'Auray, 1886
- Manuel du Pélerin à N. D. de Bonsecours
- Neuvaine à St. François Xavier
- Neuvaine à St. Antoine de Padoue