GABET, JOSEPH. - Missionary of St. Vincent, born at Nevy (diocese of St-Claude) on 6 Dec. 1808, died at Rio de Janeiro on 3 March 1853. Ordained a priest (27 Oct. 1833) and admitted to the Congregation of the Mission (1834), he left for China on 21 March 1835, and there, together with his confrere Evariste Huc, at the behest of the apostolic vicar of Mongolia, Msgr. Mouly, undertook a journey into Tibet, in order to study the customs of those peoples and to attempt to found a mission there.
The results of the adventurous journey, which lasted from Aug. 1844 to Oct. 1846, were narrated by the two missionaries in the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi and in the Annales de la Mission, then collected under Huc's name in Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine (2 vols., Paris 1850, reprinted several times, most recent ed. by H. d'Ardenne de Tizac, ibid. 1925). G. then wrote Le christianisme au Thibet, en Tartarie et en Chine (4 vols. published posthumously, ibid. 1857). Also by G. is an interesting memoir: Coup d'oeil sur l'état des missions de Chine présenté au St-Père le pape Pie IX (Poissy 1848), in which the author examines the causes that hinder the success of the Catholic missions in Asia and particularly in China and indicates the means of remedying this, insisting on the need to favor and increase the seminaries for the native clergy.