Dear Father,
By answering your first letter by sending our prospectus, we thought we had answered all your questions. You can see it is not a question of dioceses or distances. All you seemed to want to know was the brothers salary, and who pays the travel expen-
ses, since in closing you ask us to take note that you are not requesting two brothers, but that you need some prior information so that the authorities can decide and lead the council to make the request themselves.
In your second letter, you tell us to let you know when you can have our brothers; but you had not yet asked for them. Please do not accuse us of being inconsistent in our procedures. We have sent out many copies of the prospectus, and no one has ever taken them for a promise. And why promise, when there has been no request? When you indicated your determination to have our brothers and to have only two of them, we answered that we do not believe we can give them to you so soon, and that besides it would not be prudent to send only two to such a distant establishment.
We were not in a position to make that observation any sooner. We still have to fill a good number of requests received before yours; if you wish, we will enter you in our register. We are not without hope that in a few years our brothers will come to you. The distinguished persons you have been able to interest on your behalf are too powerful to leave you without money for a third brother, and even to open an entirely free school.
Accept the assurance of the respectful devotedness with which, etc….
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Notas
Unfortunately we do not have Fr. Vincheneux letters, but this text gives a clear enough picture for us to know what they were about. We see once again (cf. L. 91) the practical difficulty presented by places far away from the center of the congregation, where Fr. Champagnat did not think it prudent to send only two brothers. This in turn limited the advantage he wanted to give his congregation, in comparison with the Brothers of the Christian Schools, by sending only two brothers to localities too small and too poor to afford three.
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Daprès la minute, AFM, RCLA 1, p. 33, nº 22
