HENRY MICHAEL BUCH—“GOOD HENRY.”
Whether the story of the shoemaker-saints of Soissons be regarded as apocryphal or not, it has undoubtedly had considerable influence for good, either directly or indirectly, over the minds of those who call themselves sons of Crispin. Much of this has been due to the character and work of a man who was evidently inspired by the story of St. Crispin. Through the agency of this man a very important movement was begun in the middle of the seventeenth century, which ultimately issued in a widespread religious and social reform among the shoemakers and other operatives of Western Europe. We allude to the foundation of a society called “The Pious Confraternity of Brother Shoemakers,” having as their patrons and models the saints Crispin and Crispianus. The founder of this society was Henry Michael Buch, who was known throughout Paris, in his day and long after, as Good Henry.
Henry Michael Buch came from the Duchy of Luxemburg, where he had been born, and where his parents, who were day-laborers, had brought him up in a very simple manner. As a child, Buch was remarkably gifted and very pious. He was early apprenticed to a shoemaker, and was accustomed to spend his Sundays and holidays in public worship or private devotion. During his apprenticeship he began the work of reform among the members of his own craft, for his young heart was grieved to see them living in ignorance and vice. Enlisting the help of the more serious among them in his good work, he endeavored to instruct the apprentices of the town in the doctrines of religion, to draw them away from ale-houses and vicious company, and to persuade them to spend their time in a sensible and profitable manner. Taking the patron saints of the trade for a model, he cultivated habits of self-denial and beneficence, went always meanly clad, abandoned luxuries in food and clothing, and frequently gave away his own garments in order to clothe some poor brother shoemaker. While at Luxemburg and Messen, he lived chiefly on bread and water, so that he might be able to feed the hungry and destitute.
Having removed to Paris, his good deeds soon attracted the attention of Gaston John Baptist, Baron of Renti, who was so much impressed by the shoemaker’s simplicity of manner, intelligence, and missionary zeal, that he persuaded Buch to establish in that city a confraternity among the members of his own humble craft for the purpose of instructing them in the principles and practices of a holy life. With a view to strengthen his hands for such a task, the freedom of the city was purchased for him, and means were supplied him for starting in business as a master shoemaker, “so that he might take apprentices and journeymen who were willing to follow the rules that were prescribed them.”[90]
Seven men and youths having joined him on these terms, the foundation of his Confraternity was laid in 1645, Good Henry being appointed the first superior.[91]
Two years after this, the tailors of the city, who had noticed the conduct of the shoemakers, and had been delighted with the goodly spectacle presented in their happy and useful lives, resolved to follow the example. They borrowed a copy of the rules, and started a similar society in 1647.
These brotherhoods, but notably those of the shoemakers, were spread through France and Italy, and were the means of doing an immense amount of good among the members of the two crafts.
The rules of the fraternity founded by Buch were assimilated to certain monastic orders. They enjoined rising at five o’clock and meeting for united prayer before engaging in work, prayers offered by the superior as often as the clock strikes, at certain hours the singing of hymns while at work, at other times silence and meditation; meditation before dinner, the reading of some devotional work by one of the number during meals; a retreat for a few days in every year; assisting on Sundays and holy days at sermons and “the divine office;” the visitation of the poor and sick, of hospitals and prisons; self-examination, followed by prayer together at night and retiring to rest at nine o’clock.
Henry Michael Buch, the founder of this remarkable society with its offshoots all over Western Europe, succeeded in making the title Sons of Crispin something more than a name in the case of thousands of his brother workmen. Bearing in mind his humble birth and training, his scanty means, his social position, the unpromising materials he had to work with, it will be allowed that the moral reform he inaugurated among working-men deserves to be classed among the best things of the kind of which we read in history. Buch died at Paris on the 9th June, 1666, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Gervaise.[92]