BILLOTET, EDOUARD. - French missionary, who died for the faith. Born at Villefrancon (Haute-Saône) on 3 May 1812; ordained priest in 1836, he was vicar at Rioz, then entered the Society of Jesus in 1843. Sent (1846) to the Syrian mission, he became its superior (1850): he was responsible for the establishment at Beirut of a small Arabic printing press, destined for a great future. He had been for one year superior of the residence at Zalhe (Lebanon), when the city was taken by the Druzes, by whom B. was killed on 18 June 1860, together with four Jesuit coadjutor brothers and many faithful. The process of beatification of these “martyrs of Lebanon” was begun at Beirut in 1932.
BIBL.: P. M. Martin, Notes historiques sur cinq Jésuites massacrés au Mont-Liban en 1860, in A. Carayon, Documents inédits concernant la Compagnie de Jésus, XVIII, Poitiers 1865; M. Jullien, La nouvelle mission de la Compagnie de Jésus en Syrie, I, Parigi 1899, pp. 271-302; L. Rocci, I sei martiri del Libano della C. d. G. uccisi nel 1860, Isola del Liri 1927; Sommervogel, I, col. 1477. Edmondo Lamalle