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Paul (ST VINCENT DE a Roman Catholic)

ST. VINCENT DE, a Roman Catholic philanthropist; born of poor parents in southern France in 1576; was educated at Dax and Toulouse; ordained a priest in 1600; in 1605 he was captured by pirates; remained in slavery in Tunis for two years, and finally escaped to France. He afterward visited Rome, from whence he was sent on a mission PAULDING to Paris, where he became almoner to Queen Margaret of Valois. In 1616 he began the labors which occupied so large a portion of his life, and which included the foundation of the institution called the "Priests of the Mission or Lazarists," the reformation of the hospitals, the institution of the Sisterhood of Charity, the instruction of idiots at his Priory of St. Lazare, etc. Among the last acts of his life was the foundation of an asylum for aged working people of both sexes, and a hospital for all the poor of Paris, which was opened in 1657. He was canonized in 1737. He died in 1660.