I. Charism - La Salle.org

IV. DISCOVERING, LIVING, SHARING THE GIFT OF GOD 107
In 1699, a new Seminary for teachers for rural areas was opened
(but Blain is unclear on this point… perhaps it referred to the
parish of Saint-Hippolyte, in the Saint-Marcel area of the city), as
well as a Sunday School opened at the request of the parish-priest
of Saint-Sulpice, Monsieur de La Chétardie. It took place on
Sundays and provided for young people (under 20) a basic formation
(reading and writing) as well as a professional formation (drawing
and accountancy). It accommodated 200 young men from all
over Paris. Unfortunately, the Brothers to whom John Baptist de La
Salle confided this task, left the Institute one after the other. The
work had to be abandoned and it seems that the parish-priest of
Saint-Sulpice held it against Monsieur de La Salle. In this house
also, from May 1698, for a year or two, there was the Boardingschool
for the Irish, opened at the request of the Archbishop of Paris,
Mons. de Nouailles.
The sending of seven Brothers to Chartres, in 1699, at the request
of Bishop Godet des Marets, a seminary friend of John Baptist de
La Salle and chaplain at Saint-Cyr 68 marks a turning-point in the
missionary approach of John Baptist de La Salle. To respond to this
appeal, he assembled the Brothers of Paris as he wished to have their
consent:
Bishop Godet des Marets had been asking for Brothers since 1694 and
had frequently reiterated his request. Finally, in 1699, he insisted so
strongly that De La Salle could no longer hold back. Before promising
to send any of his subjects to Chartres the humble Superior
wished, however, to obtain consent of the Brothers. So he called them
together and informed them of the illustrious prelate’s proposal, and
after praising the latter eminent piety and ardent zeal for religion, he
let them come to their own decision. The Brothers, conscious of the
honour paid to them by a bishop whom the partisans of sound tradi-
68
A boarding-school opened by Madame de Maintenon, morganatic wife of Louis XIV, for poor
young girls from the nobility.