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St. Bonnet-le-Troncy
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Family home in St. Bonnet-le-Troncy |
After the death of his parents and at the age of ten Jean-Claude came to live in his uncle's house at St Bonnet-le-Troncy. This is the large square house to the right of the church (now the Jean-Claude Colin Museum). Until recently this house served as a presbytery, but in Jean-Claude’s time the presbytery was the house directly opposite the door of the church.
In 1790 the population of St Bonnet-le-Troncy was 1125. Today it is 600. The church, in
which all the Colin’s except Auguste-Frédérique were baptised, dates from the 16th century. It was rebuilt on the same spot in 1821, the bell tower being added in 1826. When the Book of Complaints was drawn up for the Estates General in 1789, more than half the parish was listed as “belonging to the nobility and the privileged”. The document showed little sympathy for the possessions of the clergy, and this resentment found expression in the religious struggles of the revolutionary period.
The spiritual state of the parish was summed up by the parish priest in a response to Cardinal Fesch:
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A view from St. Bonnet-le-Troncy |
“All the inhabitants are Catholic. Most of them frequent the Sacraments. They are more or less fervent in attending services. Catechism held fairly often... There is no school properly speaking. A good woman does her best to teach the youngsters... Most of the parishioners have some knowledge.”
In the autumn of 1804, Jean-Claude left St Bonnet for the minor seminary of St Jodard. He returned only for holidays, and when he was gravely ill in April 1809. It was on this occasion that he was shocked to learn of the greed of his family. When he seemed to be on his deathbed and his family thought he was going to die soon, he was horrified to hear his relatives talk only of his will and what would come to them through his death. “Everyone thought only of his own interests.” The doctor prescribed medicine which he hoped would effect a cure. Someone who had a vested interest in Jean-Claude’s property tried to dissuade him from taking the medicine, telling him that it had been poisoned. Only the tears of his brother made him change his mind and take the medicine. He then recovered. (Cf. OM 2, 508) Perhaps this episode explains something of the subsequent attitude of Jean-Claude towards his family: “Relatives? I never think of them. I don’t even know if I have any.”
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A view of St. Bonnet-le-Troncy |
Colin certainly returned to St Bonnet after his ordination, around 1819, but his visits thereafter were rare. During Lent 1843 Fr Maîtrepierre and Fr Poupinel preached a mission and stayed in the house of Jean Colin, the Founder’s grandfather. Pierre Colin also went back to St Bonnet on Easter Monday of that same year.
Here at St Bonnet we are in touch with some of the most formative experiences of Jean-Claude’s personality and subsequent spirituality. In particular the shock of losing both his parents during the Revolution, and the experience of his family’s greed were to have lasting effects on him. Coste writes:
And if we ask ourselves how could such a boy look at the world? What could the world be for a boy like that? We can say that the world is something which is against us. The world has killed the good Christian King. It has killed God who is no longer in the Church. The God who has been hidden. It has killed my parents. It has taken everything away from me.
We add to this the fact of his temperament, and his love for solitude, and these will explain the shyness and introversion of Jean-Claude Colin. The real values for him will be those which nobody will be able to take away from him. Nobody will take away from him what is interior - a profound sense of what we call “the interior life”, in the best sense of the word.
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