There is a notable gap in the records of Regis' life for three or four years after he finished his secondary schooling at the College of Grenoble. They are, however, comparatively easy to reconstruct. He was the only remaining son available to follow in his father's footsteps in the family business. Francois. the older brother . surrendered his claims on becoming a Carthusian. Cesaire was by now in his sixties and must have been anxious to share the burden of the business with a member of the family and,as a self-made man, he would have wanted to prolong his achievement into the next generation. So. for Regis. the progression from school to family business was a natural one, leaving no trace in documents, no disturbance to the rhythm of family life. In all probability Regis was already familiar with much of the business.
It was not to be so simple. Cesaire's plans came up against the values which his own and his wife's way of life had inculcated in their family. A sense of duty was there and so Regis. happily at first, joined with his father in business. In the background. however, there was the example of his Uncle Claude and with it expectations from the canons of the collegiate parish Church of Saint Louis that his good young man would follow in his uncle's footsteps. The piety of the family. with its connections in the Carthusians and Carmelites, must have been a strong call to him to consider priesthood in some form. Eventually he reached the stage where the only harrier to that ideal was his duty to his father and the calls of continuity in a family business - this last no small matter in a middle class community. We can only guess the strain and distress that all this caused to Regis and to his father. He was fortunate that Cesaire's faith enabled him to accept his son's vocation to the priesthood and the effect of that on the business he had worked so hard to develop.
A family tradition tells us that he was educated by the Oratorian Fathers. so we guess that he spent some two years at the Seminary of Grenoble in the study of theology, at that time a normal length for such studies. Then. out of the blue, as far as records and information go. he entered the noviciate of the Congregation of the Mission in Lyons in March 1769. He was twenty one years old and he would be ordained just three year. later. Why Lyons. a world away from Grenoble in those days. in another province? Why the Congregation of the Mission( also called Lazaristfrom the Saint Lazare, their central house in Paris and Vincentians in the English-speaking world)? There are no answers. Effectively his early life was cut in two sharply. one portion being in his home in Grenoble and among family at Varces, and the second when he was appointed after ordination to the priesthood to be a professor of moral theology in the Seminary.
It was not to be so simple. Cesaire's plans came up against the values which his own and his wife's way of life had inculcated in their family. A sense of duty was there and so Regis. happily at first, joined with his father in business. In the background. however, there was the example of his Uncle Claude and with it expectations from the canons of the collegiate parish Church of Saint Louis that his good young man would follow in his uncle's footsteps. The piety of the family. with its connections in the Carthusians and Carmelites, must have been a strong call to him to consider priesthood in some form. Eventually he reached the stage where the only harrier to that ideal was his duty to his father and the calls of continuity in a family business - this last no small matter in a middle class community. We can only guess the strain and distress that all this caused to Regis and to his father. He was fortunate that Cesaire's faith enabled him to accept his son's vocation to the priesthood and the effect of that on the business he had worked so hard to develop.
A family tradition tells us that he was educated by the Oratorian Fathers. so we guess that he spent some two years at the Seminary of Grenoble in the study of theology, at that time a normal length for such studies. Then. out of the blue, as far as records and information go. he entered the noviciate of the Congregation of the Mission in Lyons in March 1769. He was twenty one years old and he would be ordained just three year. later. Why Lyons. a world away from Grenoble in those days. in another province? Why the Congregation of the Mission( also called Lazaristfrom the Saint Lazare, their central house in Paris and Vincentians in the English-speaking world)? There are no answers. Effectively his early life was cut in two sharply. one portion being in his home in Grenoble and among family at Varces, and the second when he was appointed after ordination to the priesthood to be a professor of moral theology in the Seminary.
