- Benoit Haffreingue
Benoit Agathon Haffreingue (1785 - 1871) was a French
priest based inBoulogne-sur-Mer . He is known for having rebuilt the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Boulogne-sur-Mer as a result of what he believed was a call from God. Haffreingue was the principal of a private Jesuit boarding school for boys (now known as "Le collège Haffreingue-Chanclaire") in the town which included among it former students theNew Zealand architect Francis Petre . He was appointed principal of the college in 1813 by the Vice-chancellor of theAcademy ofDouai , he remained in this position until his death in 1871.Haffreingue was born in the rural
hamlet of Haringzelles, today a ruin. He was baptized atAudinghen onJuly 4 ,1785 . He was the son of François and Marie-Catherine Hamerel, his father was an agricultural labourer. His early life is unknown, he obviously received a Jesuit education, and was ordained a priest sometime before 1813, the year he was appointed to the Jesuit school in Boulogne-sur-Mer.In 1820, Haffreingue was walking past the derelict ruins of the old cathedral, destroyed during the
French revolution , close to the school when he believed he received a call from God to rebuild the edifice. Acting on the call with money given by the families of his pupils, he bought the ground and the remains of the cathedral and built a smallchapel for the college. A few months later a benefactor donated 48,000French franc s for further reconstruction, this sum was later doubled. With this money Haffreingue constructed in front of the new chapel arenaissance stylerotunda for use as a public church, this further construction seems to have been thecatalyst for an unprecedented wave of fund-raising. Money for the cathedral's reconstruction poured in from all over France, andEngland .The cathedral once again became a place of
pilgrim age, with visitors at first coming fromAbbeville andAmiens , then fromBelgium and England. The donations continued to pour in: the EmperorNapoleon III gave a gift of 1,000 francs, and also bestowed on Haffreingue theLegion of Honour .The design of the reconstructed cathedral was said to have been inspired by
St Paul's cathedral inLondon , however this in turn was inspired by the great renaissance cathedrals ifItaly . One of the greatest gifts to the reconstruction project was that of 147 differentmarble s donated by the Prince of Torlonia valued in 1860 at 500,000 francs.Artist s imported fromRome worked on the decoration of the cathedral for over ten years, while a further 160 labourers worked towards the final completion.The cathedral became the life's work of Haffreingue, it was his ambition that the church would be a meeting point for both the Catholic and
Protestant communities. Remaining all his life a modest man, he erected a plaque above the gate to the cathedral reading "A Domino factum is" ("tr. The work of the Lord").In 1859 in recognition of his work Pope
Pius IX named him a "protonotaire apostolic" thus according him the title ofMonseigneur .External links
* [http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eglise.boulogne-sur-mer/cathedrale/la_cathedrale.htm The Cathedral of Boulogne-sur-Mer]
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