Alzon, Emmanuel d'

ALZON, EMMANUEL D'. - Founder of the Augustinians of the Assumption (v.), born at Le Vigan (Gard, France) on 30 Aug. 1810, died at Nîmes on 21 Nov. 1880. The sole heir of a noble and deeply Christian family, overcoming the opposition of his father, Viscount Henri Daudé d'Alzon, on 4 March 1832 he disappeared from home to go to the seminary of Montpellier. After two years of prayer and study, declining the invitations of Lamennais to la Chesnaie and of his friend Salinis to Juilly, he went to Rome. In Dec. 1834 he received the sacred Orders, after having painfully broken off relations with Lamennais. He wrote at that time: "I confirm myself in certain maxims, the importance of which my journey to Rome makes me understand. The first is that one must always work for Rome, sometimes without Rome, never against Rome." On his return to France, he placed himself in complete dependence on the bishop of Nîmes, who appointed him honorary vicar general (8 Dec. 1835). He held the second position in the diocese for 45 years, under four bishops whose confidence he enjoyed.

Endowed with rich gifts and rare virtues, he was always devoted to study, to which he joined a notable activity, sustained by extraordinary energy. He concerned himself particularly with the religious of the Assumption, and was the adviser and director of their foundress, M. Eugénie de Jésus. Having acquired the boarding school of the Assumption at Nîmes, he made it the cradle of a Congregation and adopted the habit and rule of St. Augustine. The care of this foundation dominated his whole life. In the sanctuary of Our Lady of Victories (Paris) he privately took religious vows (1845). The beginnings were troublesome; vocations were few but of the first order. To the care of teaching, for whose freedom he organized a Catholic league and founded (1871) the Revue de l'Enseignement Chrétien (with the program that appeared in the first issue: freedom of teaching for all levels, freedom of association, freedom to possess), he joined an ardent zeal for the fruitful work of Our Lady of Vocations, which he instituted for poor boys, to whom at the end of their studies freedom of choice is left among the secular clergy, the missions or the religious life. In 1862 in Rome he was entrusted by the Pope with the task of working to bring the dissidents of the East back to the Church. Two years later he founded the Oblates of the Assumption (v. ASSUNZIONE, OBLATE dell'). A Congregation destined to help religious in various works, especially in the East. Meanwhile, one of his sons, Fr. Pernet, conceived in 1865 the very popular Work of the Little Sisters of the Assumption (v. ASSUNZIONE, PICCOLE SUORE dell'). He was the founder and animator of many associations and religious communities. Let us recall the convents of the Refuge and of the Carmelites, the orphanages of St. Joseph and of St. Francis de Sales, the Association of the Ladies of Mercy for women of the aristocracy, the Society of St. Stanislaus for boys of the middle and working class, the Work of penitent girls and of those called Magdalens, the Association of the Sacred Heart of Mary for the conversion of sinners, the Work of soldiers, the Society of St. Maurice. He left: Méditations sur la perfection religieuse, edited by E. Baudouy, 2 vols., Paris 1926-27. The process of beatification is under way, opened at Nîmes in 1931.

AMA (AMULA), liturgical vessel: v. AMPOLLA; BOCCALE.