Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/28

 TOUSTAIN

TOUSTAIN

Nerra, were imprisoned Cardinal la Balue and the his- torian Comines. The monastery founded by St. Mexme, disciple of St. Martin (d. shortly after 463), was the origin of a gathering of people which formed the town of Chinon.

Cardinal de Richelieu was born in 1585 at the castle of RicheUeu in the diocese. He transformed it into an imposing chateau, built around it an entire city, which took the name of Richelieu, and joined to his ducal peerage the town of Cham])igny. The Sainte Cha- pelie of Champigny was built in 1508 by the princely house of Bourbon-Montpensier to receive a thorn of the crown of Christ and one of the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas. Urban VIII, who prior to his pontificate had said Mass there, later prevented its demolition; hence the preservation of this fine monu- ment of the Renaissance is due to him. The church of Cande, built between 1175 and 1215 on the site where St. Martin died, is remarkable as a monument not only of religious but also of mihtary architecture. At Tours in 1163 Alexander III excommunicated the antipope Victor and Frederick Barbarossa. It was at the chateau of Chinon in 1429 that Joan of Arc first saw Charles VII and gave him confidence in her mis- sion, and in the same year she sent to St-Catherine- de-Fierbois in the diocese to seek in the tomb of an ancient knight the sword of Charles Martel. In the fifteenth century Tours had a brilliant school of paint- ing; unfortunately nothing remains of the paintings executed at Notre-Dame-la-Riche by Jehan Fouquet. The studio of the sculptor Michel Colomb was at Tours; his master production was the tomb of Fran- cis II of Brittany in the cathedral of Nantes. The tomb of the ehild'ren of Charles VIII in the cathedral of Tours was the collective work of Colomb and his pupils and of some Italian decorators.

There are in Touraine a great many chateaux rich in historic memories, such as Plessis-les-Tours, the residence of Louis XI, Amboise, where was hatched the plot against the Guises under King Francis II; Chenonceaux, built by Francis I, the residence of Diana of Poitiers and later of Catherine de' Medici; Langeais, where Charles VIII wedded Anne of Brit- tany. Of the chateau of Chanteloup near Amboise, where the Due de Choiseul went into exile, there re- mains only the pagoda. A number of saints are hon- oured m a special manner or are connected with the religious history of the diocese: Sts. Maura and Bri- gitta, virgins (end of fourth century); St. Flodovieus (Flovier), martyr (fifth century); St. Ursus (Ours), founder of the Abbey of Sennevieres, patron of the town of Loches, d. about 508; St. Leubatius (Leubais), Abbot of Sennevieres (sixth century) ; St. Senoch, soli- tary and abbot, d. in 579; St. Leobardus (Libert), her- mit of the grottos of Marmoutier, d. in 593; St. Odo, first Abbot of Cluny, d. at Tours in 942; St. Aver- tinus, deacon, companion in exile of St. Thomas Becket, d. in Touraine about 1189; Bl. Jeanne-Marie de Maill6, d. in 1414 after having spent her widow- hood in the practice of a rigorously ascetic life near the Basilica of St. Martin. Among the natives of the dio- cese were: the great prose writer Rabelais (1495- 1553), b. at Chinon; the philosopher Descartes (1596- 1650), b. at La Haye-Descartes; the .\hh6 de Marolles (1600-81), b. at GenilUS celebrated for his transla- tions, and whose collection of prints formed the basis of that of the Hibliotherjuo Nationale in Paris; Saint- Martin, called the unknown jihilosopher (1743-1S03), b. at Amboise; the poet Alfr.'d de Vigny (1797-1863), b. at Loches; Balzac (1790-18.50), b. at Tours.

The chief places of pilgrimage in the diocese besides the grottos of Marmoutier, are: Notro-Dame-la- Riche, a sanctuary erected on the site of a church dating from the third century, and where the founder St. Gatiamis is vener.-ited; ' Xotri'-I):\Mie-de-Loches; St. Christopher an<l St. (iiles at Sl-Chrislophe, a pil- grimage dating from the ninth century; the pilgrimage

to the Holy Face, established by M. Dupont, "the Holy Man of Tours", who founded the Priests of the Holy Face, canonically erected on 8 December, 1876, to administer the chapel. Before the application of the law of 1901 there were in the diocese Jesuits, Laza- rists, and various orders of teaching brothers. Several orders of women had their origin in the diocese, the chief being: The Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, teaching and nursing, founded in 1684 at Sainville, in the Diocese of Chartres by Mother Marie Poussepin, and in 1813 transported to La Breteche near Tours; the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, teaching, founded in 1805 by the Abbe Gu^'pin, rector of Notre-Dame-la-Riche, with mother-house at Tours; the Sisters of the Third Order of Carmel, since 1824 called the Sisters of St-Martin, teaching, with its mother-house at Bourgeuil. Thd religious congregations were directing in the diocese at the end of the nineteenth century 5 foundling asy- lums, 36 infant schools, 3 special houses for sick chil- dren, 5 orphanages for boys, 7 for girls, 1 house of re- treat, 1 house of refuge, 18 hospitals or hospices, 2 dis- pensaries, 3 houses of religious for the care of the sick in their homes, 1 home for convalescents, 5 private hospitals and retreats. In the year 1911 the Arch- diocese of Tours numbered 337,916 inhabitants, 23 deaneries, 37 first class parishes, and 254 succursal parishes.

Gallia Christiana, nana, XIV (1856), 1-151, inalr. 1-98; Duchesne, Les listes ipiscopales de la prorince de Tours (Paris, 1890) : Chevalier, Les origines de Viglise de Touts d'aprcs Vhistoire (Tours. 1871); Pitroc, Uepiscopat tourangeau, notes biographiques (Tours, 1882); Lambron de Lignin, Armorial des archevtques de Tours (Tours, 1858); de Lastetrie, L'iglise S. Martin de Tours, etude critique sur Vhistoire et la forme de ce monu- ment du V' au XI' siicle (Paris, 1891); Delisle, Memoire sur Vecole calligraphique de Tours au IX, siecle (Paris, 1885); Mah- tI;ne. Bistoire deVabbaye de Marmoutier, ed. Chevalier (2 vols.. Tours, 1874-75) ; Chantelou, Marmoutier, cartulaire tourangeau et sceaux des abbes, ed. NoBiLLEAn (Tours, 1879); Chevalier, Promenades pittoresques en Touraine (Tours. 1869) ; VlTRT, Tours et lesehdteaux de Touraine (Paris, 1905): Vaucelles. Catalogue des lettres de Nicolas V. cone, la prov. eccl. de Tours (Paris. 1908).

Georges Got.^u.

Toustain, Charles-Francois, French Benedic- tine, and member of the Congregation of St-Maur, b. at Repas in the Diocese of S6ez, France, 13 October, 1700; d. at St-Denis, 1 July, 1754. He belonged to a family of note. On 20 July, 1718, he made the vows of the order at Jumieges. After finishing the philo- sophical .and theological course at the Abbey of Fecamp he was sent to the monastery of Bonne- Nouvelle at Rouen to learn Hebrew and Greek. At the same time he studied Italian, Enghsh, German, and Dutch, in order to be able to understand the writers in these languages. He was not ordained priest until 1729 and then only at the express com- mand of his superior. He always said Mass with much trepidation and only after long preparation. In 1730 he entered the Abbey of St-Ouen at Rouen, went later to St-Germain-des-Pres and Blancs-Man- teaux, and died while t;iking a milk-cure at St-Denis. He had worn out his body by fasts and ascetic prac- tices. His theological ojiinions were not entirely correct, as he inclined to Jansenism. As a scholar he made himself an honoured name. He worked for twenty years with a fellow-member of the order, Tassiii, (in an edition of the works of St. Theodore of Studium which was never printed, for a publisher could not be found. Another common undertaking of the two is the "Nouveau traite do diplomatique" (6 vols., 1750-65) in which they treated more fully and thoroughly the subjects taken up in Mabillon's great work "be re diplomatica". The publication of Toustain and Tassin is of permanent value. The last four volumes were edited by Tassin alone after Toustain's death. Of general interest among Tous- tain's iier.sonal writings .ire: "La veritc? per.socut6e parl'erreur" (2 vols., 1733\ a collect ion of the writings of the Fathers on the persecutions of the first eight