BAILLY, VINCENT DE PAUL. – Augustinian of the Assumption, born on 2 December 1832 at Berteaucourt, died in Paris on 2 December 1912, founder of the publishing society La Bonne Presse and of the daily newspaper La Croix (v.).
The editorial activity of Bonne Presse, directed toward the masses, began (1873) with the weekly Le Pèlerin, the organ of the pilgrimages that B. directed in the Holy Land (no fewer than 28 times), in Rome, and at Lourdes; other weekly and monthly periodicals were subsequently added, the principal ones being: Le Vie des Saints (1880), L'almanach du Pèlerin, which reached one million copies, La Revue des question actuelles (1887), La Croix du Dimanche (1889), Les Contemporains, Les Echos d'Orient (1882), Noël (1885), L'Étoile Noëliste, L'écho du Noël, Le Sanctuaire, Bernadette, La Maison.
Above all, B. devoted his fervent and versatile intellect to La Croix, which he founded in 1883 and for which he wrote the leading article for many years under the pseudonym Le Moine, making it a powerful instrument of the apostolate and giving it a lively and combative tone. After directing Bonne Presse for 18 years, B. left it at the wish of Leo XIII, for political reasons.
BIBL: E. R. Lacoste, Le père V. de P. B., Paris 1913; Le Moine: centenaire, La Croix cinquantenaire, there 1933; R. Kokel, Le père V. de P. B., there 1943. Romualdo Souarn