Jean-Louis Bonnard

was retrieved by Christians. In the upper right corner, Mgr Retord comes to the ceremony.After a collegiate course at Saint-Jodard, he entered the seminary of Lyon. He left at the age of 22, to complete his theological studies at the Seminary of the Foreign Missions in Paris. From Nantes, where he was ordained, he sailed for the missions of Western Tongking (northern Vietnam) and reached there in May, 1850. In 1851 he was put in charge of two parishes there. At the time, proselytisation was banned in Vietnam.

On 21 March, 1852, he was arrested and cast into prison. Sentence of death was pronounced against him and was executed immediately upon receipt of its confirmation by Emperor Tu Duc (1 May, 1852). His remains were thrown into the river, but recovered by Christians and sent by them to the Seminary of Foreign Missions.

References

Launay, Les cinguante-deux serviteurs de Dieu (Paris, 1895), 355-373.