Saint-Lazare, Bons-Enfants, and Clerical Formation

Chapter 6 is the first of a trio of chapters which track the expansion of the Lazarists’ original remit of rural missions to a more diverse portfolio of pastoral work from the 1630s. Seminaries are amongst the most important products of the Catholic Reformation in France and elsewhere during the Tridentine period, and de Paul was one of the earliest and most successful innovators in this domain in France. His decision to permit the Lazarists to assume responsibility for ordinand retreats and subsequently for seminaries is of acute importance in exploring his ability to expand the remit of the Lazarists’ mission so that it tackled reform on a second front. The chapter concentrates on the foundation of robust institutional models for clerical training in Paris in the 1630s and early 1640s, and de Paul’s direction of a special company of clerics known as the Tuesday Conferences from 1633.