François Nicolas Madeleine Morlot was born in Langres on December 28, 1795. At the end of his seminary studies in Dijon in 1820, he was ordained to the priesthood. Vicar at the cathedral of Dijon, then vicar general of the diocese, he was appointed bishop of Orleans on March 10, 1839. By a consistorial brief of January 27, 1843, he was transferred to the archdiocese of Tours where he remained until 1857 when he was replaced in the see of Tours by Bishop Guibert, o.m.i. Created cardinal in 1853, he was appointed archbishop of Paris on June 24, 1857 and confirmed in office by Pius IX on March 19, 1857. He died December 29, 1862.
Bishop de Mazenod sent him a considerable sum of money in January of 1847 to aid the Loire river flood victims. He went to visit him in Tours in 1850 and wrote to him on September 15, 1853 to assure him that Father Vincens would preach two pastoral retreats in Tours in 1854. The cardinal stopped off in Marseilles in 1856 and 1857. When leaving Tours, Cardinal Morlot left behind a great many debts which, it seems, Napoleon III took it upon himself to pay. “We cannot offer too much for the good fortune of having such a bishop in Paris,” the Founder wrote to Bishop Guibert on May 22, 1857 (Oblate Writings I, vol. 12, no. 1350, p. 56).
In his role as senator, Bishop de Mazenod often went to meet the cardinal as senator from 1856 to 1860 and on the occasion of the establishing of the Oblates in Paris. An initial effort at a foundation failed in 1857. Abbé Pillon, founder of the journal Le Rosier de Marie, wanted to have constructed in Paris a church in honor of the Immaculate Conception and suggested that the Oblates be retained as chaplains. Invited to dinner by Cardinal Morlot on August 19, 1857, the Cardinal only gave Bishop de Mazenod an evasive response. Bishop de Mazenod added in his diary: “Bishop Sibour who genuinely desired to call us to Paris would have treated us more kindly.”
In 1859, Bishop de Mazenod hazarded another attempt with the cardinal. He especially wanted to regroup the priests called at that time to be chaplains to the Sisters of the Holy Family, but also thought of having some of them work in the suburbs of the city. In February, he wrote in his diary: “The Cardinal finally has made his decision. The response was favorable. There you see the launching of an important affair which is the establishment of the Congregation in Paris. We will begin in a small way, but, if God blesses this trial run, our priests will be able to do some good to all those groups of people, unschooled in terms of religion, which surround Paris. Let us entrust ourselves to the guidance of a benevolent Providence.”
Subsequently, one community was temporarily set up in Batignolles street. For one whole year, they searched for a location and the means to make a permanent foundation. In the month of March 1860, the Founder requested a parish from the Cardinal. He suggested Saint-Mandé where the rectory could house six mission preachers. The Cardinal refused because he feared his council who were opposed to religious. Finally, on March 31, 1860, Bishop de Mazenod allowed Father Magnan, the superior, to buy a plot of land and to build a house and a chapel on Saint-Pétersbourg street.
Yvon Beaudoin, o.m.i.
