Walking Through History: The Remarkable Journeys of De La Salle and the Early Brothers

‘What’s your current walking level?’ asks a site promoting a fitness app. There are three levels to choose from: Beginner (‘You’re absolutely new to walking’), Intermediate (‘You walk regularly, can walk 1-2 miles per session’), Advanced (‘You can walk 3 or more miles per session’).

Even today, many active people would scoff at 3 miles (4.8 km) being considered ‘advanced’. In 17th century France it was a mere stroll.

Having dedicated themselves to running free schools, and being poor themselves, the early Brothers had little choice when it came to travel. Mostly, like anyone else who was poor, they walked. De La Salle, accustomed to more comfortable arrangements as a younger man, walked long and often when it came to leading a group of men living in more than twenty towns as far apart as Calais on the English Channel and Marseille on the Mediterranean.

When, in 1686, the little group first made their vows, they celebrated with a 42 km walk. After coming together in Reims, some of them from outlying towns like Laon, Guise and Retel, they made a pilgrimage, fasting, to the church of Our Lady of Liesse, where they renewed their vows of the previous day. Presumably, they also returned on foot.

Four years later, towards the end of 1690, De La Salle was living at the school in Rue Princesse in Paris. He had to deal with a matter back in Reims, so he walked – a distance of about 144 km. Already, ill, the trip left him bedridden, but soon enough he walked back again, and after several weeks was close to death, but recovered.

In 1702, Gabriel Drolin and, probably, Gabriel’s own brother Gérard, were sent to Rome from Paris, with 100 pounds between them. They made the journey mostly on foot.

Two years later Archbishop Colbert of Rouen indicated that he would be happy to have the Brothers come to Rouen, a possibility the Founder was very happy to explore at the time. Because of the urgency of the situation, he travelled the 136 km by stagecoach. But when negotiations had been completed and provision was made for a move to Rouen, it was back to the normal means of transport: in mid-May of 1705 De La Salle and two Brothers made the journey on foot.

The Founder’s marathon journeys were to the south of France. In 1711 and again the following year he travelled all the way to Marseille, visiting the Brothers in communities in places such as Grenoble, Avignon, Mende, and Alès. Getting to Mende, for example, was not only tiring but dangerous. As Luke Salm writes, The Brothers tried to dissuade him by pointing out the perils of such a journey. The terrain to the west was rugged: the steep mountains of the Cévennes were surrounded by high tableland and cut by deep canyons with overhanging cliffs that one had to descend and ascend continually – a journey that still today is difficult over paved roads that did not then exist – to say nothing of undertaking it on foot or even on horseback.

Despite certain difficulties in Mende, De La Salle stayed there for about two months according to Bernard Hours, first with the Capuchins, then in a room provided for him by Anne de Lescure (1660-1737), who had founded in Mende a community of women for the education of girls. Luke Salm observes that when it came time for him [De La Salle] to leave Mende, Mlle Lescure, though somewhat disappointed, graciously provided a horse for his long journey back to Avignon and Grenoble.

Source: Br John Cantwell