Faithful Companions of Jesus
It was a grey and foggy night in 1830 as Marie Madeleine Victoire de Bengy de Bonnault d’Houët set foot on London soil for the first time. Her aim was nothing less than a mission to England, continuing the charitable and religious order she had established ten years before in Amiens. With just ‘Victoire’ and one companion (a young sister, Mere Julie Guillemet) and no English, the omens weren’t good. Yet Victoire’s order, the Faithful Companions of Jesus, was to go on to establish a thriving mission in the East End that survives to this day.
Marie Madeleine Victoire de Bengy (alternatively known as ‘Victoire’ or ‘Gigi’) had been born in 1781 into a large, extended family in Chateauroux, France. Surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins, it was a happy, secure childhood. The family was long established in Berry, where various members held distinguished positions in both church and state. But all was to change with the onset of Revolution in 1789. Now their life became one of hardship, prison and exile. Her father was imprisoned and her mother had to divide her energies between bringing up the family and fighting for her husband’s release.
Victoire displayed a steely determination early on. As a teenager she worked at the local Hospice of St Roch, with a friend. The pair were furious to discover that workers at the hospice were pilfering the food and wine donated for the patients. Victoire reported the abuse to the authorities and persisted until things were changed. In 1804, she was married to Joseph de Bonnault d’Houët in the Cathedral at Bourges. But within a year the groom died of typhoid. Victoire was pregnant with their child, and Eugene was born in September 1805.
She threw herself into raising her son and administering the family estates, and continued the work she and her husband had started in ministering to the Spanish prisoners of war at Bourges. Europe was in political and religious turmoil - she and her family had been displaced by the Revolution of course - and there was no shortage of victims to help. In 1813 she gave aid to 30 Italian churchmen who had arrived in Bourges, having been forced into exile by Napoleon. And in 1815, Jesuit priest Joseph Varin sought refuge at her home. The priest was to have a continuing influence on Victoire, encouraging her towards her eventual religious vocation.
Then in 1814 she sent her son to the new Jesuit school in Amiens, and moved to the city to help him settle in. Thus the Faithful Companions of Jesus were born, in 1820. The house she bought was to become the first home of the FCJ, as she gradually gathered a group of women around her, ‘companions’ all dedicated to charitable work. But politics and change intervened yet again. Anti-clericalism was sweeping France, and the Jesuits, under whose influence the companions worked, were a particular target.
Now calling herself ‘Magdalen’, Victoire decided on a mission to England, though she was temporarily deflected by the Bishop of Amiens, who insisted she try Belgium first. But the country was wracked by revolution so, on 19 November 1830, Marie Madeleine set sail from Ostend, accompanied by a young sister, Mere Julie Guillemet. If God wanted them to get to Wapping, he wasn’t making it easy. The voyage was awful, with storms turning the Channel crossing into a two-day marathon. The pair landed in the East End in thick fog, and they then endured a three-hour carriage journey to Somers Town, near Euston station. There they were given shelter by Father Nerinckx, who stunned Marie by offering her 100,000 francs to do charitable work in the area.
Victoire had no confidence that she could succeed, but from an unpromising start, the mission took hold. The FCJ took charge first of teaching in the schools in the area, and then established a succesion of bases in the East India Dock Road. The work, again was teaching poor children (mainly the Catholic offrspring of Irish immigrant workers to the East End). The sisters were first at Howrah House and, from 1967, at Pope John House, 154 East India Dock Road. The latter building had previously been a Mission to Seaman, and run by the Church of England.
2008 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of ‘Victoire’, ‘Gigi’, ‘Marie’ and ‘Madeleine’ as she was variously known. But the work goes on, spreading worldwide to Australia, The USA and South America, the Philippines and Indonesia, as well as throughout Europe. In the East End, meanwhile, the Companions have expanded into broader social work, with their projects including work on the Coventry Cross Estate.
http://www.fcjsisters.org