the-new-church

Life continued then in Henvic under the care of rector Guillaume Le Jeune, and marked by important religious ceremonies, following blessings of different statues that now decorated the new building, and of the amenities of the latter.

Group of people. Some are soldiers




			Traduction , Richard Longridge and Bernard Le Mer.

The construction of the new church
In 1896 that it was decided by the Parish Church Council to construct the new church in Henvic, and, although it was dedicated and inaugurated in 1904, that is to say five years after the blessing of the first stone, it was not truly finished until 1920.
The clergy represented considerable power politically in Brittany, and the clergy had a substantial moral power that it exercised on a population that remained deeply religious. The parish of Henvic didn't escape an epidemic that almost everywhere pushed to construct new churches. The former churches were considered too small, and vicars pressed their flocks to construct bigger churches. The neo-Gothic style was going to predominate almost everywhere, as well as the neo- flamboyant, and neo - Breton.
The new church in Henvic entered into this category of building with its standard sized stones and its roughcast walls. Inside, the big columns sustaining a set of the most symmetrical stones present no fantasy.

Some laborious beginnings
It took three years of arduous negotiations with the sous-prefecture in Morlaix before the blessing of the first stone could take place.
The priests in charge of the parish were the Rector, Mr. Le Gall, installed on the 1st May 1891, assisted from April 16th, 1899 by the priest Mr. Kerouanton.
On January 2, 1896, Mr. Emmanuel Drouillard, a Ship's Captain, made a donation in due and proper form before Mr. Gourmelon, a Notary in Morlaix, of a portion of land to the township of Henvic, and Sunday lst March, the Parish Church Council (PCC) met, to ask authorization to construct the parochial church, as well as to solicit subsidies from the Department and the State.
The negotiations were difficult. On September 8th, 1896, the Mayor of Henvic received the Sub-prefect's following letter, that explains its refusal by the fact that " the cemetery being in the middle of a centre of population was a danger to public health. In answer to this letter, Sunday December 22nd, Mr Drouillard sincerely made " and respectfully " the following observations: "We would like to point out to the authorities that the parish of Henvic, since its existence, as a sister church of Taulé parish, from 1600 to 1801, and as a parish daughter church, from 1801 on this day, only use one and the same place of burial, the present cemetery surrounding the church; that this cemetery is large enough, especially as there is an area to the east 27 metres by 3 metres where burials have never been made … " The cemetery was a danger to the village. But what sort of village? Around the cemetery, there are six houses, and all were separated from it by a big road, with the exception of the presbytery …
The objections having been made, the plans were stopped.

A new Rector, Guillaume Le Jeune
It was at this time, that the priests in Henvic were asked to change parish. On February 13th, 1898 saw first of all the formal installation of M. François Salaun as priest, to replace M. Kerouanton, who left to go to Plounéour Trez. One month later, on March 17th, one saw the Rector's departure, and Mr. Le Gall sent to look after the parish of Fouesnant. He was replaced by M. Guillaume Le Jeune. Originally from Plabennec, he was previously Rector of the island of Molène, from 1892 to 1898. Was it for this reason that the Henvicois subsequently called him " Ar Molenez ". Did some also called him " Friday Sivi ". Did he have a nose like a strawberry? According to information received this priest had seen a lot of the world He was a former aviator, who had fought in the 1870 war against the Prussians.
Guillaume Le Jeune was without a doubt a rather unusual character, who left his mark in the places where he lived, as much in Molène as in Henvic. Was he endowed with a dubious character? In one instance, the priest Branellec wrote on a card, on September 2nd, 1916, that " the Rector, in a crisis, sacked his verger...! He was trying to bring him back ". He undertook the function of rector of Henvic until 1917, at which date he had to resign for reasons of health. So he arrived just at the time when work was to begin and he put all his energy into parish service over 19 years.
On August 27th, 1899, or the year following his arrival in his parish, he proceeded, with his predecessor, Mr. Le Gall, and in presence of numerous members of the clergy, to the blessing and to the laying down of the first stone of the church.

Death of the builder
Work started and seemed to go well, but it stopped on July 15, 1901, because of the death of M. Eugene Louis, the Morlaix businessman who was in charge of the yard. It was confided to a new entrepreneur, M Canevet, of Coray, who worked at the same time in the construction of the new church in Taulé. Work seemed to be pursued thereafter without further problems.


			Building the church. One of the first photographs we found about Henvic

The Blessing of the church
The beginning of the year 1902 was marked by the priest's departure, M Salaun, for the parish of Lesneven. He was replaced by M. Quéré. On Sunday November 23rd of this year, a ceremony took place. Before the big Mass, "… the canon of Queinec, vicar-dean of Taulé, according to the bishop's authorization, blessed the new church. The Reverend Father Y.M.Messager, missionary in Africa, sang the Mass, and the vicar of Taulé preached. M. Lazennec, rector of Carantec, and Mr. Castel, the chaplain of the Salette chapel, directed the singing. There was a priest from every parish in the canton ". A hymn had even been composed especially for this occasion. The year 1903 would see the finishing touches to the church, as well as its interior planning, and it was on May 18th, 1904 that the ceremony of consecration of this new place of worship took place. Mr. Messager, rector of Mespaul, originally from Henvic, fulfilled the office of Deacon inside the church to open its doors to the consecrating bishop, saying by 3 times " Quis est iste Rex Gloriae ?"

The Inventories of church properties
The parish of Henvic didn't escape the backwash of events that shook the entire country. The Law of Separation of the church and the state, voted in 1905, swept along the following year, involving the Inventories of church goods or property. The Catholic militants mobilised themselves everywhere to oppose it. On March 14th, 1906, the borough of Henvic experienced a noteworthy day. A tax agent, Mr. Pavie, from Morlaix, turned up to make an inventory of goods of the parish church. In front of the main door, Mr.Le Jeune, surrounded by the PCC, and other mobilised parishioners, read to him this following energetic protest:
" Sir, " In the name of the PCC, and of all parishioners of Henvic, in the name of the numerous benefactors of this church, and in my own personal name, I make it a duty of conscience to protest with all the energy of my soul, against the inventory to which you have the sad mission to proceed.
" We declare to you to oppose this inventory positively, because it is the prelude to a sacrilegious confiscation, and the first measure of execution of a law condemned by our blessed Father the Pope and by all Catholics.
" Our church, brand new, devoted to worship three years ago, doesn't belong to the State, nor to the township. Everything that it contains, altars, sacred vessels, furniture, ornaments, statuaries, crosses, and banners, are the exclusive property of the PCC, and of generous donors. We therefore refuse you entry to this church for this inventory, and, if you do it against our wishes, we reserve future action, invoking the law, justice and liberty. And so if one day, overt force is used, the supporters in Henvic will, as their forebears in 1792 did, make a human barrier to defend their God, and the House that they raised to Him.
After this declaration, Mr. Le Jeune asked his parishioners " Are you agreed that this inventory should take place?" " No, no, never… the church belongs to us. It belongs to us here. Long live liberty ".
With that, Mr. Pavie retired, without accomplishing his mission. Then the supporters went in to the packed church as for a festal day. Mr. Le Jeune thanked the helpers heartily, and the Canon Queinec, Vicar Dean of Taulé, gave the Blessing of the St. Sacrament.
The completion continued all the same, in the church and in the vestry. New statuaries, offered by the parishioners, were installed, and blessed, such as the one of Notre Dame de Lourdes and to Ste Barbe. The gift of the latter was made " in accordance with the vow that parishioners made during the night of July 11, 1904, at the time of the dreadful storm that broke out around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and that lasted all evening until 11 o'clock.
Lighning struck at Kerever, at a barn next to a home … " If fire spared the house, it must have been a miracle, due to the intercession of Ste Barbe, to which the poor people of the house commended themselves"
The bell-tower
On January 12, 1908, although the church was finished, and used for worship, the President of the PCC proposed to finish off the building, by the construction of a bell-tower. The Rector wanted to take charge of the expenses of the aforesaid construction, if the Township of Henvic which was responsible for the haulage of the stones got the Prefect's authorization to this effect. The Council knowing that all parishioners wanted this bell-tower very much, believed that one could expect the absolute determination of the population of Henvic to execute this work.
The collapse of the bell-tower
The text that follows has been published in the numbers 72 and 73 of the " Kannad Henvic ", in February and March of 1966. The rector at this time, Mr. Jean Kervennic, greatly thanked M. Jean-Louis Jacq, of the Crescent, who relates this extraordinary event.
"On Friday June 24, 1909, bad weather prevailed, although it was the summer and which occurs similarly nowadays. In spite of it and although it was feast day, a team of 5 or 6 workers were working in the bell-tower, to finish the joints, and other tasks. They were sheltered in the tower because the wind was blowing in gusts from the west, and southwest. The foundations of the last blocks of stone had been finished on the previous Saturday. But the base of the cross that was set deep into the stone steeple had not been sealed and the weathercock was not in place. This weathercock had been processed triumphally through the borough by the workers, worth a shot of " lambig " in every house. I remember their tumult again in the class room, waving a magnificent rooster all gleaming with its gilding."
A disaster barely avoided
That day, on June 24th, St. Jean's Day, rector Guillaume Le Jeune had finished High Mass in record time. From the pulpit, after the ritual prayers, he had suddenly decided that there would not be a sermon: (' An amzer-man', he said, ' a zo glao ganti, it buhan d'ar gear, goude an offiz, prez labour zo var dro ar foenn' ) (It's raining; after Mass you should rush off back home and work on the hay). No one had anything to say against the good rector, so after Mass everyone went off home without strolling about the shops as was the tradition.
"Here in Kervor," continued Jean Louis Jacq, "the housewives busy with domestic chores were fed up seeing us underfoot, and they constantly berated us, and they told us: " Go and see if people are coming back from Mass ". We left and ran off to the gable of the barn, from where one could see a good view of the road which led to the village centre. And there, suddenly, alarmed ,we saw the bell-tower and the scaffolding that had toppled under the violence of a particularly vicious gust of wind. The bell-tower was on the ground.
Out of breath, we came back to spread the news. Misfortune overtook us, the 'torch listri', that means in the Breton language the cloth used to do the washing up, made us understand, and retreat: 'You scallywags, aren't you ashamed to tell such lies and make up such stories! All the same it was the awful truth, but at the same time people could be seen coming back from town in separate groups, unaware of the drama, because their backs were turned away from the bell tower. They hadn't seen anything, and due to the west wind blowing tempestuously had heard nothing either. We had the satisfaction of being the first with the news. Turning towards the church, they remained astonished, hardly believing their eyes. Having realised the matter, one heard such comments such as : 'That was a matter of luck ! Just as well the rector cancelled his sermon today. Thank God that things turned out the way they did'. Actually, there were not any victims by providential luck. The Mass could have finished ten minutes earlier and it would have been a terrible drama. One quivers to think about this bell-tower collapsing on a crowd of the faithful, because at the time, the feast of St. Jean was held in equal importance to the big festivals and Sundays. So ten minutes before the accident, the church was consequently full of people.
There were some lightly injured among the masons who worked on the bell-tower, as has been said above. There were others among them: Claude Pailler, father of a lineage of masons, Richard, from Kervor, Hamon Guichoux, known as Hamoun Vraz,. The pinnacles where they worked to shelter from the wind had not followed the collapse of the bell-tower, and that is what saved their lives.
Mr. Le Jeune wasn't discouraged, as he contemplated the sudden disaster, whereas the works ended.

A fast reconstruction The bell-tower, decapitated by several metres, was rebuilt quite quickly. If one looked closely at this bell-tower, it could be seen that the spire that began in the bell chamber had a darker aspect than the construction of the underside. It was this spire that was constructed in 1909, six years after the completion of the church. This spire was made of Gourin stone. The stones were carved in advance in Gourin, and the whole ensemble was transported by railroad to the station in Morlaix, by twelve ten tons wagons, and from there, routed to Henvic by carts.
Picture taken from the old cemetery

How were found the necessary funds to rebuild the bell-tower
It is there that our famous rector, Guillaume Le Jeune intervened. People living at this time testified that it is thanks to him that the bell-tower was rebuilt. Mr. Messager, deceased priest in 1998, and who when young had lived in the house that now acts as bakehouse at the bakery, always recalled the events that have just been told. " A short time after the fall of the of the church bell-tower, he affirmed, Louise, Guillaume Le Jeune's sister, who was also his " carabassen ", the house keeper, saw him descending the staircase of the presbytery, dressed as a clergyman, with a jacket and hat. She believed of course that the disaster that had taken place some days earlier had turned his head, especially when he said " Me zo vond da Bro Saoz, da vel Rouanez " ar ('I am going to England to see the Queen'). Mrs. Jeannne Nicolas Saout remembered that her mother also told her that one day, she saw Mr. Le Jeune clothed in clergyman's clothes, with a hat too small for him, and a complete jacket that he must have borrowed from one his parishioners, and he could not fasten the buttons, because he was heavily built. 'I'm getting ready', he said, 'to go to England to ask for help to rebuild the bell-tower of the church.'.
Of course the parishioners asked themselves questions over their rector's mental health, that they believed temporarily shaken by the recent events. But the reality was quite different. During his stay in the island of Molène, the rector Le Jeune had been witness to a drama where he had played an important part, the wreck of the 'Drummond Castle'. He had been granted the most cordial acknowledgments from the court of England, at a time when relations were not of the warmest between the Great Britain and France.
The wreck of the Drummond Castle June 16, 1896
If, at the Ile de Molène, islanders took advantage from shipwrecks, how many other life-savings have there not been as well ? (The SNSM was created in 1865). One of these wrecks has remained famous by the immensity of the disaster: it concerned the 'DRUMMOND-CASTLE'.
This sumptuous English ship, of metal construction, and rigged as a three mast schooner, was returning from the Transvaal. On March 28th, in 1896 it left Cape Town under the orders of Commander Pearce with more than 400 passengers, of which 50 were children. During the night of the 16th to June 17th, the boat hit the Green Rocks, and in eight minutes, it sank in the most dangerous Fromveur sound.
It was only on the 17th in the morning, that the fishermen from the Ile de Molène who were coming back from their work discovered the bodies, most of them in their evening dress. There were 397 dead, and only five survivors were saved. 29 were buried on the island in an adjoining enclosure to the cemetery, and one can still see there a commemorative plaque.
Touched by this disaster, the rector of the island, Guillaume Le Jeune, had the woodwork from the village school taken apart, to manufacture coffins. He exhorted the islanders to shroud the dead that could not have coffins, in sailcloth. (The Ushant archipelago not having sufficient wood), and to bury them in the island cemetery. The courage and the devotion of the islanders moved Queen Victoria, who thanked them personally.
As a means of gratitude, the inhabitants of Molène suggested the offering of an "impluvium", that is to say a cistern to collect the water from the roof of the church, a clock for the building, a processional cross, and a chalice. Queen Victoria instituted a commemorative medal, accompanied by a diploma, that was handed to the rector and some islanders who were especially distinguished themselves. This ceremony took place April 28, 1897.
According to documents preserved in the museum at Molène dedicated to the wreck of the Drummond Castle, the abbot Le Jeune would have had abundant mail from England. In a letter, the Archbishop of Canterbury expresses to the vicar of Molène " the sincere gratitude of the members of the church of England… .You are perfectly right to speak of the consolation given to the poor families! This consolation, is owed to you, Vicar, and to your good parishioners ".

Blessing of two new bells
Was the reconstruction of the bell-tower completely finished by the end of the year? The fact is that on December 8th, 1909, Canon Queinec, Vicar Dean of Taulé, came to bless two new bells.
" Everybody acknowledged the talents of M. Paul Chambon Durant, Bell-Founder in Chalette, near Montargis, in Loiret. The inscriptions, surmounted with artistic ornaments, were perfectly done. The two bells filled all the conditions consonant with good sonority and harmony ".
The inscriptions on the first bell are written thus:

" I am called Jeanne - Josephe
" Blessed by M. Queinec, Chanoine Curé of Taulé,
" Godfather, Viscount of Kersauson of The Frout, Counsellor- Général,
" Godmother, Jeanne Moal, of the Band, Mayor's wife,
" Rector, G Le Jeune
" Smelter, Paul Chambon, Chalette, Loiret.

The second bell carries the following inscription:

I am named Marie Françoise,
" Blessed by M. Quienec, Chanoine, Curé of Taulé,
" Godfather, François Le Duc, of Kerjestin, Treasurer,
" Godmother, Mlle Mie of Grainville, of Trogriffon,
" Rector G.Le Jeune

This post card has been written by priest Branellec dated May 15, 1915. In the foreground one can see two soldiers in uniform, probably on leave. One can take note of the round window planned to receive the clock. on the church, This would not be installed until the end of 1922.

A clock to punctuate the life of the parishioners.
On July 16th, 1920, a new priest presented himself at the presbytery, a Mr. Eucher Corre, former priest of Guipavas, who had just been designated rector of Henvic. During 20 years, until 1940, he would preside over the destinies of the parish.
In 1921 the new rector ordered a clock for the bell-tower. An estimate was provided by the Lussault Brothers and Co, manufacturers of clocks in Marçay, in Vienne.
It was only one year later, that the cases containing the clock, the mechanisms, the weights and the dials were delivered to the station of Taulé - Henvic, by railroad.
The whole was installed quickly by the workers of the Lussaut enterprise, as well as by local craftsmen, who make all necessary adaptations.