Jacques Bridaine

Who was Jacques Bridaine?

Jacques Bridaine was a French Roman Catholic preacher.

Having completed his studies at the Jesuit college of Avignon he entered the Sulpician Seminary of the Royal Missions of St. Charles of the Cross. Soon after his ordination to the priesthood in 1725, he joined the Missions Royales, organized to bring back to the Catholíc faith the Protestants of France. For over forty years he visited as a missionary preacher almost every town of central and southern France. When only in minor orders, he was assigned as Lenten preacher in the Church of Aigues-Mortes.

It was at Aigues-Mortes where his extreme youth provoked the derision of the people and when Ash Wednesday arrived, the church was empty. Undismayed, he put on his surplice and went out in the principal streets, ringing a bell, and inviting the people to hear him. He succeeded in filling the church with congregants who came out of curiosity but when he began in a most unusual fashion by singing a canticle about death the congregation burst out in loud laughter; whereupon he denounced the congregation. He was characteristically sensational.