North - Kilema Mission, Kilimanjaro Jan 1895; Bishop of Uganda from 1897; returned to France ill 1896

North - Bishop of Zanzibar Mission 1883-1896; dep. Zanzibar for Lamu as leader of party to found Mission on the River Tana 2/11/1889, dep. Lamu for the Tana 27/11/1889; Mission founded at Ndera Jan 1890

Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994: His wealthy parents were rather indifferent in religious matters; they belonged to the French nobility and owned large plantations in Martinique.  Although they lost nearly everything in the collapse of the sugar cane industry, they sent their very intelligent son to France to be educated at a college in the Pyrenees. He had about finished his studies there when in 1858 Bernadette Soubirous' vision of the Blessed Virgin in nearby Lourdes shook him to the core.  He gave up his love for literature and poetry; switched to the polytechnical institute in Paris; gave that up also in 1860 and applied for admission to Holy Spirit Seminary in Paris as a future colonial priest.  Then, in 1862 he requested permission to enter the Congregation. 

To test his vocation, he was sent to Martinique, where he prefected for four years at the Spiritan college.  Having passed the test, he returned to France, finished his theology, was ordained on June 6, 1868, and pronounced his vows on August 23 of the same year. His first assignment kept him in Paris to teach at Holy Spirit Seminary.  It was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when he served as a military chaplain and became a prisoner of war.  When peace returned, he resumed his lectures at the seminary, and became its director.

In 1883 the Holy See made him the first Vicar Apostolic of Zanguebar.  Ordained a bishop on December 16, 1883 in Paris, he arrived in Zanzibar on March 23, 1884. One of his first major initiatives was to call together the leaders and experts among his priests for a whole week of deliberations about the mission and the task ahead of them.  A plan was worked out to train African helpers, to instruct people in Christian religion for both prospective converts and those already converted, and for the mainland expansion of the mission through the establishment of Christian villages.  And, once the principles had been agreed upon, the bishop saw to it that they were adhered to by all. To the existing missions on the mainland at Bagamoyo, Mandera, Morogoro and Mhonda, he added new ones in Tununguo (1884), llonga (1886), Kilema (1890), and Kibosho (1893) in German East Africa, and Mombasa (1892) and Bura (1892) in British-controlled Kenya.

In Zanzibar, where he had his residence, he built a beautiful church to serve as a kind of cathedral.  He greatly encouraged the study of the land and its people, their customs and history.  He himself published a history of the Zanzibar sultanate in 1886. During the "Arab Revolt" he endeavored to foster peace; yet, as a Frenchman, he felt not in his place in a vicariate that had most of its missions in German East Africa. In 1896 he became seriously ill and went on sick leave.  Thinking that the end of his life was near, he resigned.   However, unexpectedly he recovered and spent another twenty-five years as an auxiliary bishop in Paris.   After four years of retirement, he died of old-age infirmities.