LZLLE 202 LILLE
on his pilgrimage, in 1472. Influenced by the same Archbishop of Cashel in Ireland, and sufifered bitter
movement, Anselm and John Adomo, members of a persecution in that diocese. Until the sixteenth cen-
distinguished Genoese family settled at Bruges, made tury the school of St. Peter's was the only one in Lille
a visit to the Holy Land of which the narrative is pre- where Latin and the hmnanities were taught; the city
served in a manuscript at Lillc. John Adomo, on his then oi)ened a school which was entrusted to the
return, became a canon of Lille and devoted himself Jesuits in 1592, and where the humanist John Silvius
to spreading, throughout Flanders, the devotion to taught. The collegiate church of St. Peter disappeared
St. Catherine of Alexandria, whose relics he had seen with the Revolution.
on Mount Sinai — hence the large number of Flemish After having in medieval and modern times foUowed
works of art ha\ing St. Catherine for their subject. the destinies of Flanders, which passed from the
In the thirteenth century the statue of Notre-Dame House of Burgundy to the House of Austria, the city de la Treille, which stood in the collegiate church of St. of Lille became French when it was conquered by Peter, drew thither many pilgrims. The reputed Louis XIV in 1667 and fortified by Vauban. In 1792 it miracles of 14 June, 1254, are famous. It is not cer- heroically resisted the Austrians. During the nine- tain from what year of that same cxjntury the Confra- teenth century two manufacturers of Lille, Philibert temity of Notre-Dame de la Treille dates; but it is Vrau (1829-1905) and Camille F^ron-Vrau (1831- historically certain that in 1470 Margaret, Countess of 1908) laboured to form among the numerous working- Flanders, decreed that every year, on the first Sunday men of the city a centre of Catholic activity. With the after Trinity Sunday and for the nine days following, aid of the Abb^ Bernard, Phililxjrt Vrau founded, in processions commemorating these miracles should 1863, the Lille Union of Prayer, the "Bulletin" of be held in the city. The fragment of the True Cross which gradually increased its circulation to 22,000; in which is still preserved at St-Etienne, LiJle, was given 1866 he established the **Cercle de Lille", which for to the chapter of St. Peter's by the Flemish priest, many years held the district Catholic Congress for the Walter of Courtrai, who was chancellor of the Em- D^partement du Nord and the Pas de Calais, and in peror Baldwin I at Constantinople. From the four- 1871 the lay association for buildine new churches in teenth to the sixteenth century, the collegiate church the suburbs. Philibert Vrau and Camille F^ron- of St. Peter was annually the scene of the curious elec- Vrau undertook to build a basilica for the statue of tion of the " Bishop of Fools", on the Eve of the Epiph- Notre Dame de la Treille, hoping that the city of Lille any, and, on the feast of the Holy Innocents, of the would some day be detached from the Diocese of Cam- election by the choristers of a ** Bishop of the Inno- brai and become the seat of a new diocese with Notre cents", who was solemnly carried in procession. An- Dame de la Treille as its cathedral. In 1885 they other much frequented religious festival at Lille was established the Cor[X)ration ot St. Nicholas for spin- that of the '^Epinette" (little thorn), the solemnities ners and weavers, with an employers' and a workmg- of which Ijegan on Quinquagesima Sunday and lasted men's council, and a co-operative fund supported by until Mid-Lent. The feast was instituted in the first monthly assessments on both employers and em- half of the thirteenth centurv shortly after the con- ployees.
vent of the Dominicans at Lille had received from the The Catholic University of Lille, lastly, was the
Countess Jeanne a fragment of the Crown of Thorns; result of their continued and generous efforts. This
it ceased in 1487, when the burghers began to find the scheme was presented by Phili&rt Vrau in 1873 at the
expense too heavy. The veneration of the Mater Catholic Congress of tte North; the Abb^ Mortier,
Dolorosa originated in Flanders in the fifteenth cen- later Bishop of Gap, and the Abb^ Dehaisnes, known
tury. The first treatise on this devotion, which dates for his writings on the history of Flanders, were ap-
from 1494, was the work of the Dominican Michel pointed to report on the question. In 1874, in the
FrauQois, Bishop of Selimbria, and confessor of Philip ancient hall of the Prefecture, which had been rented
the Fair, a native of Templemars, near Lille. The for the purpose by Philibert Vrau, law courses were
chapter of St. Peter's immediately combined this de- opened to the public. The passing of the law on the
votion with that of Notre Dame de la Treille, and freedom of higher education (12 July, 1875) hastened
erected in the church of St. Peter the stations of the the success of the foundation. On 18 Nov., 1875, a
Seven Dolours, to be made in the same manner as the complete law course was organized; on 18 Jan..
Way of the Cross. 1877, the four faculties of law, sciences, letters, and
The collegiate church also originated some impor- medicine were inaugurated; on 22 Nov., 1879, the
tant charitable works. Among these were the Cour cornerstone of the universitv was laid. As early^ as
Gilsoriy a row of houses established by Canon Robert 1878 it was ascertained that the hospital of St. Eueenia,
Gillesson in the sixteenth century, the rents of which attached to the faculty of medicine, had cared for as
were to be used for works of piety and charity, the many as 2448 patients, and that the contributions
orphanage of the Grange, founded in the sixteenth received for the university already amounted to
century by Canon Jean de Lacu; the marriage 6,473,263 francs (about $1,294,000). Philibert Vrau
burses ', or dowries for poor girls, instituted by Canon also took the initiative in establishing, in 1880, the
Etienne Ru^lin in the sixteenth century * the " preb- only professedly Catholic commercial school in France,
ends of the poor", a fund instituted by Hangouard, The school for higher industrial studies was estab-
dean of the chapter, to enable the a^»ci poor to live lished in 1885. A^ early as 1876 Philibert Vrau con-
with their children or kin without being a burden to templated the foundation of a Catholic school of arts
them; and an apprenticeship fund for the benefit of and crafts at Lille, but it was not until 1898 that the
young workmen, established by Provost Manare. institute was inaugurated under Father Lacoutre,
Very modern ideas of assisting the poor were devised S. J. In 1894 there was added to the faculty of Jaw a
and carried out as early as the sixteenth century by department of social and political science, and lectures
the canons of St. Peter's and through the liberality of are now given every year by the most distinguished
Jean de Lannoy, the collegiate scholasticuSf a mont-de- Catholic savants of France. The system of political
pi^t^ was established to lend money free of interest to economy opposed to the intervention of %he State in
the needy. The collegiate church, again, hospitably labour affairs — a system long favoured by the (Jatho-
received the English refugees, when the persecution of lie industriels of Lille — was gradually overthrown by
Catholics was raging in England. Among its English the teaching given in this department, and Professor
canonswereJohnMarshall (1534-68), Allen's auxiliaiy Duthoit's "Vers I'organisation professionelle", put
in the foundation of Douai, and Gilford (1554-1629), lished in the spring of 1910, finally confirmed the
who, in 1603, at the peril of his life performed a mis- victory of Catholic social ideas at LiDe.
sion in England for the Holy See, and who died Arch- In 1897, following the initiative taken by Cambridge
bishop of Reims: David Kearney, who in 1603 became and Oxford, the Catholic University of Lille established
