Lemaître, Alexis, 1864-1939

LC control no.	no2020038726
Descriptive conventions	rda
Personal name heading	Lemaître, Alexis, 1864-1939 *Browse this term in* LC Authorities or the LC Catalog
Associated country	France Tunisia
Associated place	Mali Burkina Faso Algeria
Birth date	1864-03-30
Death date	1939-05-16
Place of birth	Onlay (France)
Place of death	Tunis (Tunisia)
Affiliation	White Fathers Catholic Church. Archdiocese of Carthage
Profession or occupation	Missionaries Clergy Bishops
Found in	Un grand prélat Morvandeau, Monseigneur Alexis Lemaître, Archevêque de Carthage, Primat d'Afrique (1864-1939), 1976: title page (Alexis Lemaître (1864-1939)) pages 5-17 (born 30 March 1864 in Onlay, village of Morvan-nivernais [département de la Nièvre]; studied at Grand Séminaire de Nevers; requested twice a year, for 17 years, to enter a missionary order; ordained priest 1888; priest of Breves in 1892; priest of Guerigny in 1896; in 1900 he was given permission to join the Pères Blancs at Maison Carrée; a year later he was sent to Ghardaia, southern Algeria; in 1904 he was assigned direction of St-Joseph de Thibar [Tunisia]; in 1911 the vicariats of the Sahara and of Soudan français were added to the archbishopric of St-Louis de Carthage, and so began the Soudan phase; he served in Ségou, Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso, among the Bambaras and the Mossis; because of his use of a small motorcycle he was known as the "Père du Poupoupou"; he founded the post of Bamako, then four other posts including Gouecke, near Liberia; he argued before Governor Clauzel in Dakar that the barriers against [Catholic] schools needed to be lifted, that anticlericalism in these locales was contrary to the interests of France, 'neither Christian, nor French!', and with that, schools multiplied; he created a Congrégation de Soeurs Noires who helped the Soeurs Blanches to care for the sick and to teach children; he required missionaries and nuns to learn native languages; contracted amoebic dysentery which ruined his health, sent back to France in 1916, slowly recovered; assigned role of Général Inspecteur des Troupes Noires by Clemenceau; in 1919 Mgr Lemaître returned to the Soudan; in 1920, assigned by Benedict XV to Carthage, as coadjutor to Mgr Combes, unprecedented for a Père Blanc; on 26 October 1920 he was officially Archevêque de Cabasa (Egypt) and coadjutor to the Archevêque de Carthage, Mgr Combes, and succeeded him upon Combes' death in January 1922; hosted the Congrès Eucharistique International (1930) in Carthage; died 16 May 1939 in Tunis, from an embolism)
Associated language	fre