LE VACHER, JEAN. - Among the first followers of s. Vincenzo de' Paoli, b. at Ecouen on 15 March 1619, d. at Algiers on 26 July 1683. Ordained priest (1647), he left for 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 office of French consul, from which he was relieved in 1653 and which he had to resume from 1657 to 1666.
This office enabled him greatly to alleviate the most grievous conditions of the several thousand Christian slaves in Turkish hands. 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 office of consul general. Ten years later, during Duquesne's bombardment of Algiers, L., having refused to obey the bey Mezzomorto, who urged him to renounce the faith, was tied to the muzzle of a cannon and massacred. The cause of beatification has been introduced.