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Belley
Belley marks the fifth stage in the development of the Society of Mary. First, Le Puy with the inspiration to Courveille; then Fourvière with the promise of 1816; then Cerdon with the writing of the first draft of a Rule; then Le Bugey where the first Marist teams went out on Marist. mission; and now Belley ‘where the consolidating process begins.
It is here at. Belley, too, that Fr Colin took another direction in the shaping of the Society. He began to see the value and the importance of education in the life and mission of the Society. It was during his time here that he wrote the important “Advice to the Staff’.
Belley was the See of the Diocese of Belley, restored in 1823. In 1832 its population was 4,286. Today its population is about 6000. In June 1825 Bishop Devie summoned the Colin brothers from Cerdon to live in Belley. The Sisters left Cerdon a few days later, on 28th June. In a sense, then, Belley is the place where the seed of the Marist idea took root for the Marist Fathers and Brothers, Sisters, and also for the Marist Laity, or Third Order.
The Fathers, called to form part of Bishop Devie’s plan for a diocesan missionary group, were lodged in the minor seminary, or diocesan college. They were already spoken of as Marists at this stage. In 1829 Bishop Devie appointed Jean-Claude Colin as superior of the college. In 1832 the bishop gave over to the Marists “La Capuciniêre”, a former Capuchin convent, which Fr Colin regarded as the “cradle” of the Society. It was there that the Marist Fathers made their profession on 24th September 1836, and elected Jean-Claude Colin the first superior general.
The Sisters arrived in Belley at the same time as the Fathers and bought from Bishop Devie a piece of enclosed but uncultivated ground. This was named “Bon Repos”, and was the Mother House of the Marist Sisters from 1825 to 1891. Peter Chanel’s sister was a Marist Sister, and we know he came to visit her here before he left for Oceania.
Belley is of significance for the Third Order as well. The first retreat recorded as given to lay people was in Bon Repos. Jeanne-Marie Chavoin attended this retreat, given in the Bon Repos chapel at the beginning of Lent 1833, and she wrote of it in a letter. It was attended by ten ladies from the town.
The College/Minor Seminary
 In 1823 this building was a minor seminary for the diocese, serving also as a day school for local boys. In 1825 Bishop Devie asked the two Colin brothers to form a Home Mission Band with two other priests, Frs. Déclas and Jallon. The missioners were all lodged in the college, on the top floor, and were barely tolerated by the staff of the seminary (OM 2, 465). Fr Guigard, the seminary rector, was a man of limited outlook and was antagonistic towards the team of missioners, and this attitude communicated itself to the seminary. Fr Déclas, who was of a rough-cast mould, became a ready target for mockery and scorn. He was given to facial grimaces and arm-flinging as he warded off distractions in prayer. The students quickly picked up on these idiosyncrasies. They would stop him in the yard, and while one or two engaged him in questions, others would tie pieces of rag to the bottom of his cassock. Jealousy and resentment towards the Marists was open. One typical jibe was: “Here at Belley we have the second volume of the Jesuits, bound in the hide of an ass”. (OM 535:24)
 At the end of his time at Belley, Fr Colin confessed: “We suffered quite a lot in this house... You could hardly call it warm, and we were not too well off up there... in the little corner we occupied... They passed my room on the way to the chapel, and when I was sleeping they woke me up. So I stopped sleeping... My brother suffered most because he was in charge of the Sisters. We were out on the mission during the winter, but he was there all the time... Still, it was the most wonderful year of my life. We were poor, four poor priests - not famous men. They jeered at us... (OM 5 14:5; also 425:16)
From the minor seminary the missioners set out to preach missions in the Bugey area: Lacoux, Chaley, Châtillon de Corneille, Poncieux, St Jerome, Vieux d’Izenave, Aranc, etc.
When Bishop Devie appointed ‘Jean-Claude Colin as rector of the minor seminary in 1829, there was an atmosphere of great tension among staff and pupils. Fr Colin displayed a mixture of great firmness and great understanding, but this cost him a great deal in health. Mayet records that it was during this year that Fr Colin’s hair turned white. (OM 2, 476)
At the same time he showed himself to be a remarkable educationalist. It was in this atmosphere that the Founder developed his thinking on the education of the young. Soon the school’s tone improved considerably, and it became successful.
Fr Colin chose Mary as model and superior for the college. The statue which looks down on the courtyard dates from that period [1833] (cf. OM 2,707; FS 12.1). In 1830 Fr Colin was elected central superior of the Marist groups of Lyons and Belley. While keeping the title of superior of the college, he left the effective running of the school to his vice-superiors, among whom was Peter Chanel.
In 1845 Fr Colin persuaded Bishop Devie to have the diocese resume responsibility for the college/minor seminary. The Marists’ departure from there is related in FA 315.
 Two other statues are worth noting. In the chapel are the statues of two men who were  spiritual directors of the school between 1832 and 1844: Peter Chanel and Julian Eymard. Two canonised saints in the space of twelve years is an impressive record. The statue of Peter Chanel in the courtyard is also interesting. He is standing next to a boy and with the palm of martyrdom already in his hand! Did his martyrdom perhaps begin at the school?
Today the school is the Institute Lamartine - named after the poet who studied there from 1803 to 1807.
La Capucinière
The Capuciniêre was considered by Fr Colin to be “the cradle of the Society” The title is justified on several scores. The house was the first house owned by the Marists, having been given to them by Bishop Devie in 1832. From 1834 it became a scholasticate as well as being a pensionate. The most significant fact about La Capucinière is that it was the place where the first superior general was elected to office and the first Marists made their first profession of vows. This historic occasion is worth consideration in greater detail.
Preparation for the Election
The Papal Brief Omnium Gentium gave the Marists the right to elect a superior general and to take vows. This was not as simple as it may seem. First of all, where should this actually take place? The prospective Marists were now in two dioceses (Lyons and Belley), both of which wished to retain the priests they had. After serious consideration and prayer, Jean-Claude Colin made a compromise; the gathering would be in Belley, but the Archbishop of Lyons would be assured that the Mother House would be in Lyons.
But more difficult still was the problem of deciding who actually would be invited to the gathering. The Brief gives authorisation to the “priests of the Society” to elect a superior. But who in fact were these “priests of the Society”? Between 1816 and 1836 approximately fifty priests joined themselves in one way or another to the Marist project. How many of the signatories of the Fourviêre Pledge of 1816 had lost contact with the idea is not known. One would expect that a priest like M. Deschamps of Belley, who had signed all the Marist consecrations up till 1836, would have been included, but in the end he was not one of those who made first profession of vows. No doubt he was asked, but he must have declined.
At the ceremony, apart from Mgr Pompallier, there were 20 priests from. Belley and Lyon. Four of them were original signatories of the Fourviêre Pledge: Jean-Claude Colin, Marcellin Champagnat, Etienne Déclas, and Etienne Terraillon. Pierre Colin joined the project in
1817 before the division of the dioceses. And then there were the following:’
From Belley: Jallon (1825); Humbert (1828); Convers (1830; Maîtrepierre (1831); Chanel (1831); Bret (1831); Antoine Séon(1832); and Baty (1834).
From Lyons: Etienne Séon (1827); Bourdin (1828); Pompallier (1829); Chanut (1831); Forest (1832); Servant (1832); Chavas (1833); and Bataillon (1836).
Of the twenty confreres who took part in the election of the superior general and who were the first to make profession in the Society, eleven belonged to the diocese of Belley, and nine to the archdiocese of Lyons. Of these nine, five had been formed in Marist life by Marcellin Champagnat.
The Retreat
The meetings of the first four days of retreat took place in the physics room of the Minor Seminary. Four talks were given each day by Mgr Pompallier. Two other sessions were given over to an explanation of the Rule by Fr Colin. The latter was already aware of the currents running among the group which had gathered. When the priests arrived, they discovered a notice waiting for them (printed by Colin).
NOTICE
1. Speak neither of Lyons nor of Belley.
2. Do not speak of the elections during the retreat, except in the confessional.
3. If anyone knows that someone has said or done some thing before or during the assembly with the intention of attracting votes for himself, that person has the obligation to make that fact known to the one acting as superior. If the fact is proven, the one responsible will be excluded permanently from being superior.
The Election
Maîtrepierre describes the election (OM 752):
Finally, the 24th September arrived: a day long awaited and never to be forgotten. It was Saturday, and the feast of Our Lady of Mercy. At 5.30 am we left the Minor Seminary for the house of the Marists. After prayer, reciting the Little Hours, assisting at Mass celebrated by the Bishop of Maronia, reciting several vocal prayers and a moment of recollection before the Blessed Sacrament, we went to one of the rooms of the house. There, we remained in silent prayer for a good quarter of an hour, and prayed to the Lord to let us know His designs for the infant Society confided to the care of Our Lady. The votes were unanimous: all were for Fr Colin.
Maîtrepierre concludes:
The Society of Mary was constituted; it was no longer of the diocese of Lyon nor of the diocese of Belley; it was catholic. The members departed with a brotherly embrace and the blessing of their superior, filled with the burning and sincere desire to work for the glory of God, the honour of Mary, and the sanctification of souls under the orders and counsels of obedience. (OM 752.52)
La Capucinière functioned as a novitiate until the opening of the house in Sainte Foy, and it remained as a scholasticate until 1880. It was never used as a General House. Fr Colin moved from here in 1839, and took up residence at Puylata in Lyon.
The boarding school continued until 1840. The novitiate for non-ordained scholastics remained till 1860, when the novitiate was opened at Sainte Foy. Between 1860 and 1880 La Capuciniêre was used only as a scholasticate.
Following the expulsion of the Marists from France, it was used as a boarding school by a group of Sisters. It became a scholasticate again between 1897 and 1902. In 1924 the fathers of the two French Provinces used La Capuciniêre as a place for their retreat. It was sold to the town of Belley in 1958, and is now a part of the town secondary school. The inside of the building has been completely changed. Only the outside walls remain as they were, as well as the Capuchin church, where the Marists took their vows. The church is still today called “la sainte chapelle”.
Bon Repos
When the two Colin brothers left Cerdon to come to Belley, the Marist Sisters came also. This group of ten Sisters and five postulants arrived in Belley in the pouring rain at midday on 29th June 1825, and found a small house and a barn which were sold to them by Bishop Devie. The bishop had originally wished that the Sisters take a big building with a high wall fence, but Jeanne-Marie Chavoin opposed this from the beginning. The Bon Repos site had many advantages. It was some distance from the town, and yet not too far from the shops. It was near the bishop’s house but not too far from the minor seminary where the Fathers were living. The station for the coaches which assured a daily service between Belley and Lyon was also quite close.
Jeanne-Marie Chavoin recalled those early days:
We were very hard up in our early days. Often we spent ten days with only a few pence in hand. I slept for a month in a room so cold that in the morning I was frozen and there was hoarfrost under my bed. But how happy we were! We were never more contented than when the purse was nearly empty. At that time we were light-hearted and simple as children. The greatest charity reigned among us. Never a harsh word. Such happy periods are blessings attached to the poverty of beginnings. (RMJ doc.104:1-7)
The barn was changed into a chapel and used as such for twelve years. It was here that Bishop Devie received the first vows on 6th September 1826. In 1833 there was a retreat for the Third Order, and in 1836 Peter Chanel was farewelled from here as he left for Oceania.
The whole Marist family took an interest in Bon Repos and Fr Colin often went there to ask for prayer. The Memoires of Sr. Jean Baptiste tell us:
Fr Colin often came to Belley, to our convent of Bon Repos, to ask the Sisters’ prayers. “I would like a novena.” “Father, we are making one “, came the reply. “Well, make a second, a third if necessary, until the grace is granted.” And then I have seen the Sisters leave their work at once and kneel down to say the Rosary to obtain the desired grace.” (RMJ doc.253:1)
The body of Jeanne-Marie Chavoin rests in the chapel, which she began but did not see completed. In 1891 the house ceased to be the place of the General Administration of the Marist Sisters, and is now a house of retreat for Sisters and elderly ladies.
The Cathedral
The Cathedral was begun in the 12th century and continued over the years till 1851. In the 15th century a high gothic chancel was added, and then in 1835 work began on transforming it to its present form. It is a massive cathedral for a town whose population was so small. The great preoccupation for Bishops was to have a big cathedral and to have it full; so they were not happy about smaller churches springing up and drawing people away from the cathedral. This was one of the reasons why the Third Order group’s expansion was stemmed at Bon Repos, and why public services were restricted at La Capucinière, where  a growing number of people were going.
The cathedral contains the tomb of Bishop Devie - in the floor of the chapel on the left hand side. This bishop played an important part in the founding of the Society. He was a man of great vision, and keen to promote the Society, but his plans were different from Fr Colin’s. Fr Colin’s view of the Society was of an international body of people “going from place to place”. Bishop Devie, understandably reluctant to lose good men from his diocese, wanted the Society to remain a congregation within his diocese. Devie applied pressure on Colin to give up what appeared to be his grandiose ideas. That was when Fr Colin took a vow that if ever the Society had thirty members, he would have three thousand Masses said ( OM 749). Bishop Devie then realised how serious Fr Colin was: the Society of Mary would be universal, or it would not exist at all.
THE CEMETERY.
The cemetery at Belley contains the remains of over 100 Marists. Some of the significant Marists buried here are: Frs. Humbert, Lagniet, J.Grimal and E.Rieu.
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