The Brothers out of “Rue de Contrai” 1800 - 1880



« T eaching has been hopeless for ten years … Children are left to the most dangerous idleness, to the most alarming roaming… If we compare what education is with what it should be, we cannot refrain from moaning on the fate which threatens the present and future generations ", such were the terms sent to the “Corps législatif” on April 5th, 1801, noticing the collapse of school legislation by the Convention and the Directoire.

O n July 15th, 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Holy See signed the Concordat which organized the relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the State. On April 8th 1802, the “Corps legislatif” of the French Republic adopted and promulgated the Concordat. The concordat abolished the 1795 Law separating Church and State.

T he law of May 1st 1802 on state education granted the management of elementary schools to town councils.
Article 3 stipulated:
" The schoolteachers will be chosen by the Mayors and the Town Councils; their salary will consist:
  • of a lodging supplied by the Town Councils
  • of a remuneration supplied by parents and set by Town Councils »
    • E ight schoolteachers were appointed by the City of Reims. They all belonged to the reviving Community of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.
    A t that time, the Town Council were concerned with the restoration of former elementary schools. The former Brothers were in charge of the classes opened again in several places.
    F rom 1802, Brother Vivien tried to regain possession of the premises where, as a young schoolteacher he exerted himself in the service of children before the Revolution. The request of September 7th 1803, ended inti a motivated refusal, as well as the one renewed in 1811. (Degree of desirable cleanliness)
    In 1805, the city settled them into the old convent of the Carmelites.
    In 1835, they had to resign themselves to abandon their pupils and to leave the premises.
    In 1836, the City of Reims proposed a return on “Rue du Jard”, in the old buildings of Saint - Claire's convent.
    The Brothers stayed “Rue du Jard” until 1880, when all the schools were secularized.
    O ctober 7th, 1845, the Brothers opened and built a boarding school, “Rue de Venise”, in an old disused factory. The buildings of the Main courtyard were finished in 1873.


    T he chapel was built on two years; begun in 1874, it was inaugurated on July 16th 1876. It was the work of the Reims architect Edouard Lamy. The chapel decoration was the work of the artists Brothers.











    T he Brothers stayed “Rue de Venise” until 1904.