| Benoit Haffreingue |
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| 1785 births | |
| haffreingue, benoit | |
| 1871 deaths | |
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Haffreingue was born in the rural Hamlet of Haringzelles, today a ruin. He was baptized at Audinghen on July 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 small Chapel for the college. A few months later a benefactor donated 48,000 French Franc s for further reconstruction, this sum was later doubled. With this money Haffreinge constructed in front of the new chapel a Renaissance style Rotunda for use as a public church, this further construction seems to have been the Catalyst for an unprecedented wave of fund-raising. Money for the cathedral's reconstruction poured in from all over France, and England . The cathedral once again became a place of gave a gift of 1,000 francs, and also bestowed on Haffreingue the Legion Of Honour . The design of the reconstructed cathedral was said to have been inspired by St Paul's Cathedral in London , however this in turn was inspired by the great renaissance cathedrals if Italy . One of the greatest gifts to the reconstruction project was that of 147 different Marble s donated by the Prince Of Torlonia valued in 1860 at 500,000 francs. Artist s imported from Rome 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 of Monseigneur . EXTERNAL LINKS |