LUDOVICO DA BESSA

LUDOVICO da Bessa. – Capuchin, sociologist, under the religious name Alfonso Eliseo Chaix, born at Besse-sur-Issole on 17 Oct. 1831 and died at San Remo on 8 Oct. 1910. He began his social apostolate at Angers, where he became one of the pioneers of this type of apostolate. In 1877 he founded in that city the first People’s Bank of France, and in 1882 in Paris the People’s Mutual Credit for the benefit of workers and small merchants. As early as 1875 he had founded the “Société protectrice du travail et de la vertu,” a forerunner of French social action. The anti-clerical laws of Combes (1903) forced him to take refuge in San Remo, where he devoted himself to mystical studies, on which he published numerous writings. His masterpiece is La science de la prière.