Beginnings...
Eugene of Mazenod was born in Aix-en-Provence in
France in 1782, the son of a wealthy
aristocratic parents. His father Charles Antoine
de Mazenod, a member of the French nobility was
the President of the Aix Parliament. His mother
Marie-Rose Joannis, a member of the rapidly
evolving bourgeois merchants embodied the
practical and shrewd realism of this group.
This union of complementary social and cultural
values assured young Eugene all the requisites
for a successful and comfortable life. This
idyllic world was swept away by the French
Revolution in 1789. After his father opposed the
revolution, the entire family was obliged to
flee into exile in Italy. In 1790, a new painful
period began for Eugene.
These were years of family instability, material
scarcity and danger.The family was forced to
flee successively to Turin, Venice, Naples and
Palermo.
Eugene's adolescence was impoverished. Deprived
of friends of his own age, unable to continue an
orderly academic program, he was also separated
from his mother who divorced her husband in
order to return and reclaim family property in
France.
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