Jean-Gabriel Perboyre

Born in 1802 into a peasant family of the Quercy, he accompanied his younger brother to the minor seminary and discovered his own vocation there. He entered the Vincentians, was ordained in 1826, and taught and directed the seminary of Saint-Flour. His brother Louis, having left for China, died at sea in 1831; Jean-Gabriel then asked to take his place. He arrived in 1835, learned Chinese, adopted the dress and hairstyle of the country, and served in Henan and then Hubei, where the religion was banned. In 1839 a fresh persecution forced him into flight; a catechumen denounced him for thirty taels of silver. There followed eleven months of interrogation and torture — some twenty appearances, the bastinado, suspension by the thumbs — to make him renounce his faith and give up his people. He was strangled at Wuhan on 11 September 1840, tied to a cross-shaped post. Canonised in 1996, he is commemorated on 11 September.