Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/593

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BERVANGER
525
BESANCON


senet, has said: "He wrote the books at his leisure and weighed each word", and the biographer adds very justly that the reader is rewarded for his trouble, for "it is impossible to read them without feeling oneself filled with love for our Saviour Jesus Christ".

Tabaraud, Histoire du Père de Bérulle (Paris, 1817), II; Perraud, L'Oratoire de France, ch. iii, iv; Houssaye, M. de Bérulle ei les Carmelites; Le Pire de Bérulle et l'Oratoire; Le cardinal de Bérulle et Richelieu (Paris, 1872-76), III; Ingold, Easai de bibliographie oratorienne (Paris, 1882); Idem, Les miracles du cardinal de Bérulle (Paris, 1881).

A. M. P. Ingold.

Bervanger, Martin de, a French priest, founder of charitable institutions; b. at Sarrelouis, 15 May, 1795; d. at Paris, 1865. After being for some time assistant pastor in his native city, he took part, in 1822, in the foundation of the Association Royale de Saint-Joseph, and later of tlie Œuvre de Saint- Henri. These two institutions were destined to give to workingmen free instruction and professional training. To reach this end more effectively, he founded, in 1827, a boarding-school where, besides manual training, poor boys could receive intellectual, religious, and moral education. This is the Œuvre de Saint-Nicolas. In the beginning only seven children were in the establishment, but it soon developed and was transferred from its poor quarters in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, to a better location in the Rue Vaugirard. At the time of the Revolution of 1830, the first two institutions disappeared, but the Institution Saint-Nicolas remained. It had many difficulties to overcome; the resources were insufficient; proper instructors could not always be found; suspicions of political intrigues were entertained by the Government, which led to various vexatious inquiries. De Bervanger succeeded in overcoming all obstacles, and the institution became more and more prosperous. Soon a branch establishment was founded at Issy. In 1859 De Ber- vanger turned over the institution to Cardinal Mor- lot. Archbishop of Paris, who gave the direction of it to the Christian Brothers. It has since been enlarged. De Bervanger wrote the "Regie de l'Œuvre de Saint-Nicolas" (1853).

Dictionnaire de pédagogie (Paris, 1887), I, pt. I, 189.

C. A. Dubray.

Besançon (Vesontio), Archdiocese of, coexten- sive with the departments of Doubs, Haute-Saone, and the district of Belfort. Few nineteenth-century dioceses have undergone similar territorial changes. The Concordat of 1802 gave the Diocese of Besancon all those districts which, in 1822, constituted the Dio- cese of St.-Claude. In 1806, Besangon was given ju- risdiction over the three parishes of the principality of Neufchatel (Switzerland) which fell under the con- trol of the See of Lausanne in 1814. In 1870, after the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany, the district of Belfort was withdrawn from the See of Strasburg and attached to that of Besangon. The metropolitan jurisdiction of Besancon also underwent singular changes. In 1802 its suffragans were the Bishoprics of Dijon, Autun, Metz, Nancy, and Stras- burg. Under the Restoration, Dijon and Autun were withdrawn from Besangon, the latter becoming the metropolitan of the Sees of Saint-Di^, Verdun, and Belley. In 1874, after the German conquest, the churches of Metz and Strasburg were under the di- rect control of the Holy See.

Local legends attribute the evangelization of Besan- 9on to Sts. Ferr^ol and Ferjeux, sent thither by St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons. Duchesne has proved that these legends belong to a chain of narratives forged in the first half of the sixth century and of which the "passion" of St. Benignus of Dijon was the initial link. The catalogue of the earliest Ijjshops of Besangon is to be read with caution. The first bishop known to history is Celidonius (c. 445); other incumbents of the see were St. Rothadius, a monk at Luxeuil and organizer of the monastic life; St. Donatus; St. Hugh I (1031–67), prince of the empire, the real founder of the city whose markets, commerce, and schools he established; Cardinal de Granvelle (1584-86), the famous minister of Philip II, who built the palace of Besangon; Antoine-Pierre de Gramraont (1662-98), who strenuously op- posed Jansenism and the Reformation, strove to uplift the clergy, and, in 1691, transferred to Besançon the University of Dole; Le Coz (1802–15), former constitutional bishop whose personality provoked in the diocese no little opposition to the Con- cordat; Cardinal de Rohan-Chabot (1828-33); Cardinal Mathieu (1834–75), who distinguished himself by his defence of the temporal power, and was a member of the "Opposition" at the Vatican coimcil. He opposed strenuously in his diocese the "simultaneous churches" which sprang up throughout the district of Montbffiard where Protestants are nu- merous.

The monastery of Luxeuil, founded by St. Columbanus (d. 615), gave to the Diocese of Besangon a series of saints. First came the direct successors of St. Columbanus; the Abbot St. Eustasius who founded a celebrated school in this monastery; the Abbot St. Valbert who sent monks to found the Abbeys of St.-Val6ry, St.-Omer, and St.-Bertin, and died in 665; the Abbot St. Ingofroid; St. Donatus, who became Bishop of Besangon; and St. Ans^gisus, author of a celebrated collection of capitularies. The Abbey of Lure was founded at the beginning of the seventh century by St. D^icole (Deicolus), or Desle, disciple of St. Columbanus; later its abbots were princes of the Holy Empire. The Abbey of Baume les Dames, founded in the fifth century and in which Gontran, King of Burgundy, was buried, was the school where St. Odo, afterwards Abbot of Cluny, studied in the tenth century; at the end of the eighth century there was built near it an abbey for Benedictine nuns, members of the nobility. During the Revolution, the superb church of this abbey was laid waste. Among the other saints of the Diocese of Besangon may be mentioned the hermit St. Aldegrin (tenth century), and St. Peter Fourier (1565–1640), one of those who, in the sev- enteenth century, inaugurated systematic educa- tion for girls. During the Middle Ages several popes visited Besangon, among them Leo IX who consecrated the altar of the old Cathedral of St. Etienne in 1050, and Eugenius III, who, in 1148, con- secrated the church of St. Jean, the new cathedral. A council was held at Besangon in 1162, presided over by Frederick Barbarossa, in the interest of the Antipope Victor against Pope Alexander III. Guido of Burgundy who was pope from 1119 to 1123 under the name of Calixtus II, and the Jesuit Nonnotte (1711–93), an adversary of Voltaire, were natives of Besangon. The miracle wrought through the Sacred Host of Faverney, during a fire in the year 1608, is annually commemorated by elaborate ceremonies. The places of pilgrimage are : Notre Dame du Chene at Scey; Notre Dame d'Aigremont; the pilgrimage of St. Pierre of Tarentaise at Cirey-les-Bellevau.x, where St. Pierre de Tarentaise died in 1174; Notre Dame des Jacobins at Besangon; and Notre Dame de la Motte at Vesoul. Parts of the Cathedral of St. Jean at Besangon were erected as early as the eleventh cen- tury.

In 1899 the following institutions were to be found in the diocese: 15 infant schools in Besangon and 35 in Vesoul; 1 deaf-mute institute in Besangon; 3 girls' orphanages in Besangon and 3 in Vesoul; 2 protectories in Besangon; 1 house of correction in Besangon and 1 in Vesoul; 2 hospitals and hospices in Be.sangon and 8 in Vesoul; 12 communities for the care of the sick in their homes at Besangon and 8 in Vesoul; 1 house of retreat in Besangon and 1 in