LESTRANGE (LOUIS-HENRI), AUGUSTIN de. — Trappist, born at Colombier-le-Vieux (Ardèche) on 19 February 1754, died at Lyons on 16 July 1827. Having abandoned his military career, he studied at S. Sulpizio and was ordained a priest in 1778. Vicar general of the archbishop of Vienne (1780), he entered monastic life at La Trappe (Soligny).
When the religious Orders were suppressed by the National Assembly on 10 February 1790, L., with twenty-four confrères, moved into the former Carthusian monastery of Val-Sainte (Switzerland) on 1 June 1791, and made it the seat of a branch of his Order, which soon spread to England, Piedmont, Spain, Canada, and Germany. On 30 September 1794, Pius VI erected Val-Sainte as an abbey, appointing L. abbot superior of all the foundations, including the new Third Order of La Trappe for both sexes, intended for the education of youth. In 1796 L. also founded a women’s monastery in the canton of Valais. Forced by the French armies to leave Val-Sainte in 1798, L. took refuge with many confrères and consœurs in Bavaria and then in Russia, where Emperor Paul I assigned him monasteries in White Russia and Lithuania; but shortly afterward the Trappists, expelled once again, moved to Danzig (1800). Having finally returned to Val-Sainte, L. incurred Napoleon’s anger in 1811 for having publicly deplored his attitude toward the Pontiff. He then went to England, and from there to America; afterward, once the Restoration had taken place, he returned to France, where he re-established La Trappe of Soligny and founded other monasteries. In 1825 disagreements arose concerning the reform he had introduced; he was summoned to Rome to justify himself and remained there until almost the eve of his death. In addition to various works of piety, he published the Règlements de la Maison-Dieu de Notre Dame de la Trappe (2 vols., Fribourg 1794), and a Traité abrégé de la sainte volonté de Dieu (3rd ed., Lyons 1827).