FOUCAULD, CHARLES-EUGÈNE de. — Missionary hermit, born 15 Sept. 1858 at Strasbourg, killed by the Tuareg in Dec. 1916 at Tamanrasset (Algerian Sahara).
Having graduated from the military school of St-Cyr in Aug. 1878, he was placed on inactive duty in 1881 because of his undisciplined life; on 3 June 1881 he was reinstated as a lieutenant in the hussars of the Army of Africa; six months later he requested his discharge (1882). From 1883 to 1884 he organized a strategic reconnaissance in Morocco disguised as a Jew; after returning to Paris, he took part in the South Algerian expedition from Sept. 1885 to Jan. 1886.
Converted to a Christian life through the influence of Fr. Hügelin of Paris, he left at the end of 1886 for the Holy Land; upon his return to France, he entered the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame des Neiges (1890), then transferred to that of Chéikhlé (Armenia) until 1895; then to the Trappist monastery of Staouéli (Algeria), and to Rome to study theology. In 1897 he was authorized to leave the Order and went to Nazareth; in June 1898 he moved to Jerusalem, then to France where he was incardinated in the diocese of Viviers and ordained priest on 9 June 1901.
Driven by a desire for penance in life and to return to apostolate among the most abandoned beings of the Saharan desert, he lived as a wandering religious in southern Oran and near the Hoggar (Algeria), spending years of holiness at Iscken, Amra, Ghardaia, Beni-Abbès, and Asekrem. In 1905 he settled permanently in Tamanrasset in the Hoggar mountains, dedicating himself to the religious, moral, and civil assistance of the Muslim tribes of that region, translating some sacred texts into their language; though without succeeding in converting them. He was assassinated in his hermitage by anti-French Senussists.
He had made it his motto to sanctify souls by placing himself among them in silence. At Pentecost 1897 he had written these words: «Your vocation: to preach the Gospel in silence, as Jesus in his hidden life, as Mary and Joseph.» In 1929 his heart was deposited at the tomb of General Laperrine, his friend, at Tamanrasset; while his exhumed remains were transferred to El-Goléa. His cause of beatification has been introduced. In 1946 a commemorative exhibition of Fr. Foucauld was held in Paris at the Musée des Invalides. His spiritual writings were published by René Bazin (Paris 1923). He left the plan for a most austere congregation, the «Little Brothers of the Sacred Heart,» for the conversion of Muslims. In France since 1919 the association «C. de F.» has existed for Catholic missions in the French colonies, and the «Mission de F.,» a union of female apostolate in Muslim lands.