Such men as Daunou, Desmolières, and Chaptal were deploring the state of public instruction in France, which during ten years had been a mere mixture of absurdities and frivolities, when Portalis dared to declare openly that “religion must be made the basis of education.”
This was in 1802, about the time that the relations of France with the Sovereign Pontiff were renewed by the Concordat, and the three consuls had gone together in state to the metropolitan church of Notre Dame. By the consular law of the 1st of May, 1802, on public instruction, the Brothers were authorized to resume their functions. The institute no longer possessed any houses in France, but a few remained to it in Italy, and over these Pope Pius VI. had appointed, as vicar-general, Brother Frumentius, director of the house of San Salvatore at Rome.
Lyons was the first city in France where the members of the scattered congregation began to reassemble; Paris was the next; then St. Germain en Laye, Toulouse, Valence, Soissons, and Rheims. The Brothers at Lyons—namely, Brother Frumentius and three companions—received, in 1805, a memorable visit. Pope Pius VII., in quitting France, after having crowned at Notre Dame the emperor by whom, three years later, he himself was to be discrowned, repaired, accompanied by three cardinals, to the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He blessed the restored chapel and the reviving institute, his fatherly words of encouragement being a pledge and promise of its beneficent prosperity.
As it was of importance that the dispersed members should be made aware of the reorganization of their society, an earnest and affectionate circular-letter was addressed to them by Cardinal Fesch, archbishop of Lyons, inviting them to repair to Brother Frumentius to be employed according to the rule of their congregation, towards which he at the same time assured them of the emperor’s good-will.
The decree for the organization of the University, issued on the 17th of March, 1808, restored to the institute a legal existence, together with all the civil rights attached to establishments of public utility. In these statutes it is stated that the Brothers form a society for gratuitously affording to children a Christian education; that this society is ruled by a superior-general, aided by a certain number of assistants; that the superior is elected for life by the General Chapter or by a special commission; and that the superior nominates the directors, and also the visitors, whose duty it is to watch over the regularity of the masters and the efficient management of the schools.
The Brothers had a powerful friend in M. Emery, the Superior of S. Sulpice, a man of high character and sound judgment, and who was held in great esteem by the emperor, as well as by every one with whom he had anything to do. Napoleon, particularly, appreciating the excellent organization of the society, recommended “the Brothers of De la Salle in preference to any other teachers.”
We now come to the special subject of our memoir.
Among the dispersed members of the institute who first responded to the invitation of Cardinal Fesch were two brothers of the name of Galet, whose memory is especially connected with Brother Philip. On the suppression of the house at Marseilles they sought shelter from the violence of the Revolution in the retired hamlet of Châteaurange (Haute Loire), where they kept a school. On receiving the cardinal’s circular the elder brother announced to the pupils that he had been a Brother of the Christian Schools, until compelled to return to secular life by the suppression of his institute; but learning that this was re-established, he was about to depart at once to Lyons, there to resume his place in it, adding that, if any of them should desire to enter there, he would do all in his power to obtain their admission and to help them to become accustomed to the change of life.
Amongst those who availed themselves of this invitation, and who, three years later (in 1811), presented himself to be received into the novitiate, was Mathieu Bransiet, born on the 1st of November, 1792, at the hamlet of Gachat, in the Commune of Apinac (Loire). Pierre Bransiet, his father, was a mason; the house in which he lived, with a portion of land around it, which he cultivated, constituting all his worldly possessions. Like his wife (whose maiden name was Marie-Anne Varagnat), he was a faithful Christian, and during the revolutionary persecution habitually afforded refuge to the proscribed priests. It was the custom of the little family to assemble at a very early hour of the morning in a corner of the barn, where, on a poor table behind a wall or barricade of hay and straw, the Holy Sacrifice was offered up, as in the past ages of paganism, and as under Protestant rule, whether in the British Isles not so many generations ago, or in Switzerland at the very time at which we write; some trusty person meanwhile keeping watch without, in readiness to give timely warning in case of need. Nor did Pierre Bransiet confine himself to the exercise of this perilous but blessed hospitality; many a time did he accompany the priests by night in their visits to the sick and dying, and bearing with them the sacred Viaticum after the hidden manner of the proscribed.
Amid scenes and impressions such as these the young Bransiet passed his childhood, learning the mysteries of the faith from an “abolished” catechism; kneeling before the crucifix, which was hated and trampled under foot in those godless days; and worshipping when those who prayed must hide themselves to pray. Thus a deeply serious tone became, as it were, the keynote of his soul, which harmonized with all that was earnest and austere. Even as an old man he never spoke without deep feeling of his early years, when he only knew religion as a poor exile and outcast on the earth. The simple and hardy habits of his cottage-home, his own early training in labor, self-denial, and respectful obedience, the Christian teaching of his mother and elder sister (now a religious at Puy), all helped to form his character and mould his future life. He was the most diligent of the young scholars of Châteaurange, which is half a league distant from Gachat, and made his first communion in the church of Apinac, when the Church of France had issued from her catacombs, and the Catholic worship was again allowed. As a child Mathieu was remarkable for his never-failing kindness and affectionateness towards his brothers and sisters, for the tenderness of his conscience, and for his jealousy for the honor of God, which would cause him to burst into tears if he saw any one do what he knew would offend him.