XXVlll BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



place of tourists, and a haunt of straggliuîç devotees, to a crowded 

 forum of religious discussion, frequented by the most earnest men 

 of Paris and the world. The other was the now venerable Count 

 de Montalembert, the leader of those who, joining a religious en- 

 thusiasm for their native Church to an enthusiasm for liberty and 

 native land, were laboring, in the face of ecclesiastical antecedents 

 that might well have dismayed them, and of the Roman court 

 that found it all too easy a task to crush them, to reconcile the 

 highest obedience to the Roman Sec with true lo3Mlty to the 

 interests and rights of humanity. 



It was mainly the influence of these two great writers over the 

 growing mind of the young man at Pau, that seemed to deter- 

 mine his vocation to the priesthood. In 1846, at the age of nine- 

 teen, he entered the Seminary of St. Sulpice, at Paris, an institu- 

 tion for the training of secular priests. Among the f\icultyof 

 instruction at the Seminary was one, the Abbé Baudry, to whose 

 inspiring genius for metaphysical thought and instruction one 

 pupil, at least, felt a debt of gratitude which he never failed to 

 acknowledge, and which, in after years, he did what he could to 

 requite by public eulogy upon his memory.* 



After five years of preparation, Charles Loyson was ordained 

 priest in the cathedral of Notre Dame, With that strong attrac- 

 tion toward an enthusiastic and successful pupil, with which fac- 

 ulties of instruction often seek to recruit their own strength and 

 renew their 3"0uth, by devouring their offspring, the Company 

 of the Priests of St, Sulpice attached to their own service the 

 brilliant young graduate, and for six years he was emploj'cd, in 

 almost entire seclusion from the world, in connection with their 

 various institutions. Of this time, three years were spent in the 

 capacity of professor of Tlieology at the Seminary at Avignon, 

 two years in the professorship of Dogmatic Theology at Nantes, 

 and one year as Vicar of St. Sulpice at Paris, 



About tiie end of the year 1857, he withdrew from the Company 



■-^ 



The review of the ''Pensées Chrétiennes''' of Monbei^'uoiir Baudry, written 

 y Fatlicr Hyacinthe for " Le Correspondant,'' will appear in the Bccond 

 volume of liiH Discourees, 



