Born in Freney-d’Oisans (Isère), France, 20 May 1830
Took the habit in N.-D. de l’Osier on 8 October 1852
Oblation in N.-D. de l’Osier on 10 October 1853 (No. 355)
Died in Sicklinghall, on 13 June 1855
Marie-Joseph François Hippolyte Caix was born in Frenay-d’Oisans in the diocese of Grenoble on 20 May 1829. He entered the minor seminary in Grenoble but had to leave because of ill health. He was introduced to the Oblates on a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de Parménie. He finished his course of rhetoric in the minor seminary and then he was received into the novitiate at Notre-Dame de l’Osier by Father Gustave Richard on 8 October 1852. He continued his novitiate under the direction of Father Florent Vandenberghe, master of novices. The novice master’s first impression was that the novice’s piety was insufficiently “manly and sturdy”, that he was “obsessive and seems sometimes unsure.” In the end he judged him “ always and increasingly edifying through his piety, charity and regularity”, “the most accomplished” of the novices. After received his vows on 10 October 1853 and on sending him to Marseilles, he added: “Brother Caix Hippolyte has been a constant model of the frankest and most cordial piety. I have a high opinion of him; he is wholly upright, open; he is a really saintly religious.”
He completed a year’s philosophy in the Marseilles major seminary in 1853-1854. In April 1854 he was sent to the Sicklinghall scholasticate in England, where he arrived on the Monday of Holy Week together with Br. Joseph Laclau-Pussacq, Br. James Gubbins a subdeacon, and Fr. Joseph Mangin. He plunged into the study of English, making good progress, and resumed his philosophical and theological studies. During the winter however he took ill again and was soon diagnosed as having ‘consumption’.
The following extract is taken from the Codex Historicus of the British novitiate of Lys Marie in Sicklinghall: “1855: 13 June. Death of Brother Caix. This dear brother Caix died at half past 10 a.m. after having received the holy extreme unction and in the morning the Holy Communion. He was well prepared for these last moments. He died of consumption after two months of illness. He made his vows in 1853, came to England from Marseilles last year in April. He was much loved and revered by all his brothers for his great regularity and sanctity. A longer notice may be read from the Register of the Province.”
His arrival had previously been recorded on 10 April 1854.The ‘longer notice’ referred to may be that found in the Chronicle of the Province of England. Certainly the latter contains a lengthy account of the life and death of François Caix.
After his name in the personnel of 1862-1863 we find written: “This brother had been the edification of the novitiate and of his companions in the scholasticate. His health, joined with a certain ability heightened by a rare piety, gave rise to hopes of great service to the congregation. Sent to the scholasticate in England to be a model there, he was taken away by a galloping consumption…” He was buried in Sicklinghall.
Yvon Beaudoin
and Michael Hughes, o.m.i.
