Jean Baptiste de la Salle was born in Rheims, April 30, 1651. The house in which he was born is still standing, and is regarded with reverence. He came of a noble family, which was originally of Bearn. His grandfather settled at Rheims, of which he became an honoured citizen, but was apparently in no way himself remarkable. His second son, Louis, was the father of a child, who received the name of Jean Baptiste on the same day as that upon which he was born.
This child, whose career we purpose briefly to follow as that of the founder of the Christian Brothers, exhibited early signs of a devotional spirit; he learned to recite the Breviary from his grandfather, and continued to do so even before being bound to the practice by his ordination vows; and he soon made it clear to himself and to others that his vocation was that of the priestly office. His conduct as a student in the University of Rheims, which he entered at eight years old, was marked by diligence in study and gentle docility.
Before he had reached the age of sixteen he was made a canon of the cathedral; such were the strange ecclesiastical possibilities of those times. An aged relative resigned in his favour, and died the following year. The preferment, however, did not spoil him; he looked upon it as a call to duty. He was diligent in attendance upon the offices of the Church, diligent in private prayer, diligent in study—in every way a remarkable boy-canon!
In October 1670 he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, where, amongst other fellow-students, was Fénelon, subsequently the great Archbishop of Cambrai. Little is recorded of his seminary life, except that it was gentle, modest, blameless. In 1672 he lost his father, and in the same year returned to Rheims to take charge of his younger brothers and sisters. The responsible position in which he was thus placed seems to have shaken for a time his persuasion that he had a true vocation for the priesthood; but after consultation with a friend who knew him well, his doubts vanished, and on the eve of Trinity Sunday in this same year he was admitted to the subdiaconate.
Then follow six years of quiet home work and retirement. During this time he attended the theological course of the University, provided for the education of his brothers and sisters, and gave himself very earnestly to prayer and good works. In the year 1678, on Easter Eve, he was ordained Priest.
During all this time De la Salle's attention does not seem to have been turned to that which ultimately became the great work of his life. As not unfrequently happens, the real bent was given to his energies by what might be described as accidental circumstances. The friend whom he consulted when in doubt concerning holy orders was one Canon Roland. This good man had interested himself much about an orphanage for girls at Rheims, which had fallen under bad management, and urgently needed reform. Canon Roland was taken ill just before De la Salle's ordination, and, dying not long after, left the young priest his executor, commending to his special care the orphanage just mentioned. De la Salle could not refuse the charge; it was not much to his taste, but it was the bequest of his friend; it was the leading of God; and he girded himself to the task. He applied through the Archbishop to the King for letters patent recognizing the institution, and thus put it upon a lasting foundation; he bore the expense of the whole transaction; then he supplemented the funds out of his own means; and having thus satisfied his obligations to his deceased friend, he returned to his quiet devotional life. The thought that this orphanage for girls would constitute a valuable training school for schoolmistresses seems already to have crossed his mind.
Now comes the turning-point of De la Salle's life, and it comes in a curious way. There was a certain rich, fashionable, and extravagant married lady living in Rouen, who, like the rich man in the parable, was clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lay at the gate. One day a poor beggar, who had been harshly repulsed from the door, touched the heart of a servant by his manifest misery, and was received into the stables, where he died the same night. The dead man must needs be buried; so the servant went to the mistress, confessed his fault, received some violent language and notice of dismissal, but at the same time procured a sheet to serve as a shroud for the corpse. At dinner-time the lady perceived the very sheet, which she had given for the burial, folded up and lying in her own chair; some mysterious hand had brought back the ungracious present, as though the deceased beggar would not receive a favour in death from one who had been so cruel to him in life.
This strange and apparently not very important occurrence changed the whole course of the lady's life. She gave up all her old habits of magnificence and extravagance, lived the life of a devotee, and soon succeeded in separating from herself all her old companions and friends, who, in fact, deemed her mad. After her husband's death she became still more strict in her habits, and devoted to the service of the poor a large part of her fortune.
Amongst other charities which she assisted was the female orphanage, of which we have already spoken as having been cared for by Canon Roland, and after his death by M. de la Salle. She conceived the idea of establishing something of the same kind for boys in her native town of Rheims, and she consulted Canon Roland on the subject. Ultimately she engaged a devout layman, named Adrien Nyel, who had experience of poor schools in Rouen, promised him maintenance for himself and a young assistant, gave him a letter of introduction to her relative M. de la Salle, and sent him to Rheims to open a school there for poor boys.
This school, which was commenced in 1679, was the germ of the great system of Écoles Chrétiennes. Its success led a pious lady in Rheims to wish to establish another of the same kind in a different part of the town. She consulted M. de la Salle, who had become patron of the first school, on the subject; and thus he became, without any special wish or intention of his own, drawn into the work of the education of poor boys. His own account of the matter is worth quoting:—