De La Salle Meets Adrien Nyel - 3 March 1679

John Baptist de La Salle’s meeting with Adrien Nyel was the beginning of what became a radical change of direction.

Sometime around the end of February or the beginning of March, 1679, Nyel (1621-1687) arrived in Reims on a mission instigated by Mme Jeanne Maillefer (born Dubois). A native of Reims herself, Jeanne had been generously active in the provision of education for poor girls and boys in Rouen, where she had been living following her marriage to Ponce Maillefer. She asked Nyel to travel to Reims and establish a school for poor boys in her home city.

According to Brother Bernard, the Founder’s first biographer (1721), John Baptist arrived at the orphanage of the Sisters of the Child Jesus at the same time as Nyel. John Baptist ‘walked into the house to discuss some business matters’ with which he had been successfully helping the Sisters for some time, while Adrien Nyel, already known to the Sister in charge from her work in Rouen, was ushered into the parlour.

Shortly afterwards, the two were introduced. John Baptist, well aware of the complexities of life in Reims, insisted that Nyel stay at his house, which would allow him to keep a low profile and avoid early interference in the project by local authorities. More than that, our Founder took an active interest in the project, to the extent of identifying a parish priest who would be prepared to accommodate a school for poor boys.

While, as De La Salle observed himself, his support for Nyel was simply ‘a gesture of pure charity’, it was the first step in the series of commitments by which, he later reflected, a ‘wise and gentle’ God led him to take complete responsibility for the schools.

Source: Br John Cantwell FSC