the Carmel
character

LOYSON Hyacinth

Born March 10, 1827 in Orléans, died February 9, 1912 in Paris.

Successively Sulpician, Dominican novice, then Carmelite for ten years, Father Hyacinthe, a famous preacher, had attracted crowds to Notre Dame de Paris before publicly breaking with his Order by a letter of September 20, 1869, in opposition to the teachings of Pius IX. and above all to papal infallibility. By a new public letter on July 30, 1870, he declared his permanent withdrawal from the Church and on September 3, 1872, he married Mrs Meriman, a Protestant American widow whom he had brought to Catholicism four years previously. He promotes "The Church of the Free Spirit".

Thérèse prayed throughout her religious life for the conversion of this former Carmelite, "our brother, a son of the Blessed Virgin" as she calls him in a letter to Céline, July 8, 1891. Thérèse offered her last communion on August 19, 1897 for him. In 1911, he wrote two letters to the Carmel of Lisieux  (read here).

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