LE VACHER, JEAN. - Among the early followers of St. Vincent de' Paoli, born at Écouen on 15 March 1619, died at Algiers on 26 July 1683. Ordained priest in 1647, he went to Barbary, where he was successively appointed apostolic missionary (1648), vicar general of the Archbishop of Carthage (1650), and apostolic vicar (1650). From June 1648 he had been compelled to accept the position of French consul, from which he was relieved in 1653 and which he had to resume again from 1657 to 1666.
This office enabled him to alleviate considerably the wretched conditions of the many thousands of Christian slaves held by the Turks. In 1668 he was appointed apostolic vicar of Algiers and Tunis, where he displayed the same zeal and charity toward the slaves. In 1671 he became apostolic vicar of Carthage. In 1673 he assumed the position of consul general. Ten years later, during the bombardment of Algiers by Duquesne, L., having refused to obey the Bey Mezzomorto, who invited him to renounce the faith, was bound to the mouth of a cannon and massacred. The cause for beatification has been introduced.