BAILLY, VINCENT DE PAUL. - Augustinian of the Assumption, b. on 2 Dec. 1832 at Berteaucourt, d. in Paris on 2 Dec. 1912, founder of the publishing society La Bonne Presse and of the daily newspaper La Croix (v.).
The publishing activity of the Bonne Presse, directed toward the masses, began (1873) with the weekly Le Pèlerin, the organ of the pilgrimages that B. led to the Holy Land (no fewer than 28 times), to Rome, and to Lourdes; to it were added other weekly and monthly reviews, of which the principal are: Le Vie des Saints (1880), L'almanach du Pèlerin, which reached a 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 to La Croix, which he founded in 1883 and for which he wrote the leading article for many years under the pseudonym of Le Moine, B. devoted his fervent and versatile genius, making of it a powerful instrument of apostolate and giving it a lively and combative tone. After directing the 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, ibid. 1933; R. Kokel, Le père V. de P. B., ibid. 1943.
Romualdo Souarn