Father,
We would willingly open an establishment in the diocese of Albi, I mean a novitiate, if the conditions set forth below (prospectus) are agreeable to His Lordship the archbishop. I think our prospectus will answer all your questions. I hope it will suit His Grandeur.
Permit me to tell you, Fr. Superior, while extending to you my wishes for the New Year, how astonished I am that someone from so far away would think of us.
Please accept my gratitude for your remembering us and believe that I am your most humble and respectful servant,
Champagnat.
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Notas
It was doubtless while he was superior in Valfleury that Fr.
Chossat (cf. biographical sketch) had learned of the congregation of teaching brothers founded by Fr. Champagnat. Transferred to the diocese of Albi, in the department of the Tarn, and realizing, as Archbishop François de Gualy also did, their need for religious teachers, or at least for schools where the teaching of the catechism would be maintained, he remembered the brothers and made his first inquiries. His idea, certainly very valid, was to recruit teachers and train them on the spot, by opening a novitiate there. Ultimately, his project was not carried out, at least not by the Little Brothers of Mary, neither as a school, nor still less as a novitiate. The department of the Tarn remained almost foreign territory to us, apart from the fact that it gave us two brothers, in 1901 and 1902, both of whom died in the Institute. This sets in even higher relief the astonishment Fr. Champagnat expresses in this letter.
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Daprès la minute, AFM, RCLA 1, p. 24, nº 3
