Blessed Joseph Imbert (c. 1720-1794)
Having served as a Jesuit professor until the French government supressed the Jesuits in the 1760’s, Father Joseph Imbert became a prish priest for the French diocese of Moulins. In 1790 the anti-Catholic Jacobin regime of the French Revolution ordered all priests to take the anti-papal oath of the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy.” As one of many to refuse the oath, Father Imbert had to go into hiding to continue his priestly ministry in secret. When the Jacobins expelled his bishop, Father Imbert was chosen to oversee the diocese as vicar apostolic. After being captured in 1793, he was sent in 1794 on a protracted journey with twenty-four other priests to the city of Rochefort to await deportation there. Along the way, Father Imbert encouraged his ellow priests by composing for them a rallying song, “The Priests’ Marseillaise,” setting the words to the melody of the Jacobins’ famous battle anthem. He died on June 9, 1794, one of over five hundred priests and religious to perish from the horrible conditions aboard the prison ships of Rochefort.
