Source: Courtesy of Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec / 52327/1957923

ARRAUD, JACQUES-VICTOR, priest, Sulpician, procurator, chaplain; b. 8 Sept. 1805 at Blaye, diocese of Bordeaux (department of Gironde), France, son of Augustin Arraud and Marguerite Florence; d. 22 March 1878 at Montreal.

Jacques-Victor Arraud was only a subdeacon when he was admitted to the solitude (noviciate) at Issy-les-Moulineaux (department of Hauts-de Seine) during the year 1828. He had been there only a few weeks when Jean-Henry-Auguste Roux*, the superior of the Sulpician seminary at Montreal who was passing through Paris, obtained authorization from both the English government and the superior general of Saint-Sulpice to take him to Canada with three other French Sulpicians. A recruiting of this importance had not been seen for more than 30 years. As soon as Arraud arrived he was given a class at the Sulpician college of Montreal, then, after his ordination on 26 July 1829, he became curate of the parish of Notre-Dame.

In 1844, after three years of negotiation, Bishop Ignace Bourget* persuaded Rose-Virginie Pelletier, dite Marie de Sainte-Euphrasie, superior general of the Good Shepherd Nuns of Angers (department of Maine-et-Loire), to establish her nuns at Montreal. Arraud was instructed to arrange accommodation, provide for their immediate needs, and work for the development of the community. First a residence suitable for their charitable works had to be found. The community wanted to set up a place of refuge for unfortunate women, and a needlework school and teaching establishment for poor girls. It was Arraud who, out of his own pocket and from the alms he collected, paid for their first house and had the necessary repairs and enlargements carried out. In addition, as the nuns were near to being completely destitute, he became their almost daily providence. He played the part of a beggar for their sake, even to the extent of himself conveying, in a cart, the clothes, small items of furniture, and provisions that he collected from door to door. After a few years, when the community began to grow and was in a position to assume total responsibility for its charitable undertakings, Arraud concerned himself with finding the necessary funds and supervising new buildings, for example, in 1870 when a boarding-school was founded at Saint-Hubert (Chambly County), and in 1872 when the community took charge of the women’s prison. For all these services and for many others the Good Shepherd Nuns always looked upon M. Arraud as their second founder.

At the same time as he applied himself to providing for the nuns’ most urgent needs, Arraud had to give his attention to another institution of a very different kind. In 1844 Joseph-Vincent Quiblier*, the superior of Saint-Sulpice, founded the Oeuvre des Bons Livres and chose Arraud as its administrator. The latter thus became the first director of the first French public library in Montreal. During the five years of his term of office, from 1844 to 1849, he succeeded in placing the institution on a solid base by recruiting about 150 subscribers, installing the library in more than adequate premises, and raising the number of volumes from 2,400 to 12,000.

M. Arraud’s abilities, demonstrated in his various occupations, led his superiors to entrust important administrative offices to him, including that of procurator of the seminary from 1863 to 1876. He died suddenly on 22 March 1878, on his return from the Hôpital Général, of which he had been the ecclesiastical superior since 1876.

Antonio Dansereau