Felix Martin

Félix Martin (born 4 October 1804, in Auray, Morbihan; died in Vaugirard, Paris, 25 November 1886) was an antiquary, historiographer, architect, and educationist.

His father, Jacques Augustin Martin, for many years mayor of Auray and Attorney-General of Morbihan, was a public benefactor. His mother was Anne Arnel Lauzer de Kerzo, a pious matron, of whose ten children three entered religious communities, while the others, as heads of families, were highly regarded in Breton society. Felix, having made his classical studies at the Jesuit seminary close by the shrine of St. Anne in Auray, entered the Society of Jesus at Montrouge, Paris, 27 September 1823, but on the opening of a new novitiate at Avignon, in Aug., 1824, he was transferred there. Thence in 1826 he was sent to the one time famous college of Arc, at Dole, to complete his logic and gain his first experience in the management of youth among its 400 pupils. The following scholastic year, 1826–1827, in Saint-Acheul, he began his career as teacher. This was soon to be interrupted, for already among the revolutionists of the boulevards and in the Chamber of Deputies, accusations had been formulated against the Jesuits. This agitation culminated on 16 June 1828, in the "Ordonnances de Charles X" which were to be enforced the following October. The Fathers, meanwhile, quietly closed their colleges, their teachers went into temporary exile, among them Fr. Martin. He spent the succeeding years in colleges established across the frontier.

He worked in turn as student and teacher in Brieg and Estavayé in Switzerland; in Spain, Le Passage near San Sebastian; in Belgium, the College of Brugelette. It was when he was in Switzerland, in 1831, that he received Holy orders. Eleven years later, while engaged in the ministry at Angers, he was informed that, under Father Chazelle, ex-rector of St. Mary's College, Kentucky, he was chosen together with Fathers Hainpaux, Tellier and Dominique du Ranquet to restore the Society of Jesus in Canada, extinct since the death of Father Jean-Joseph Casot at Quebec on 16 March 1842. The restoration was under the leadership of Clément Boulanger. On 2 July, Mgr. Ignace Bourget, at whose invitation the fathers had come, confided to them the parish of Laprairie, deprived of its pastor, the Rev. Michael Power, by his promotion to the newly erected episcopal see of Toronto, 26 June 1842. On 31 July 1844, Fr. Martin was named superior of the mission in Lower Canada, now the Province of Quebec.

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