I. Charism - La Salle.org

56
IV. DISCOVERING, LIVING, SHARING THE GIFT OF GOD
the proposal had never made any impression on my mind, and I had
never considered carrying it out.”… 34
John-Baptist de La Salle clearly asserts that the initiative did not
come from him, that he was not the “carrier” of the Christian
schools project. It needed the fact that the steps taken by Nyel with
regard to Madame de Croyères obliged him to come forward so as
to get the second boys’ school in Reims up and running (in the
parish of Saint-Jacques) to get him to commit himself, almost reluctantly.
The reality of the Lasallian charism existed as if outside him!
Or rather it was the events, the meetings and the steps taken by
Madame Maillefer and Madame de Croyères, as well as those of
Monsieur Nyel which got this project moving and led Monsieur de
La Salle to take part in it. We also know that Adrien Nyel and
Madame Maillefer had been absorbed for a long time in the school
movement which had developed in Rouen under the impetus of
former members of the Company of the Blessed Sacrament and
that they had met Nicolas Barré and doubtless Nicolas Roland
when the latter had stayed in Rouen. 35
Madame Maillefer and Adrien Nyel were born in the 20s (of the 17 th
Century). They belong therefore to the period of pastoral effervescence
which set up Catholic Reform in France: new foundations,
missions, catechism, seminaries, parish renewal… the birth of the
spiritual movement around Cardinal de Bérulle later known as “The
French School of Spirituality”, won back minds and hearts after the
erring ways of the wars of religion and the abandonment of religion
noted by the pastors of the period (Olier, Vincent de Paul, John
34
Blain., op. cit. Book One, p. 79. (CL.7, p. 169).
35
See Yves POUTET: Le XVII e siècle et les origines lasalliennes. Recherches sur l’oeuvre scolaire et religieuse
de Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (1651-1719). Tome 1. Période Rémoise. Rennes 1970. p. 494-534 for Nyel
in Rouen and p. 628 - 629, note 22 for Madame Maillefer. For the latter see also Brother Léon-de-
Marie AROZ. CL 38: Nicolas Roland, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle et les Soeurs de l’Enfant-Jésus de Reims.
Reims 1972. p. 68, note 1.