Born in Maastricht, Belgium, de Rougemont entered the Society of Jesus at Malines in 1641. Several months after his priestly ordination in November 1654, he applied to go to the missions. After arriving in Macao in July 1658, and spending a year in Hangchow (Hangzhou), Chekiang (Zhejiang) Province, he labored in the military garrison at Soochow (Suzhou), Kiangsu (Jiangsu) Province, where he made a number of converts.
To develop the Christian community in Ch’ang-shu (Changshu), some 20 miles to the north, he established fourteen congregations headed by scholarly leaders. During the persecution of 1665 to 1671, de Rougemont was exiled to Canton (Guangzhou), where he participated in a conference dealing with missionary methods. Later he became pastor for fourteen churches and twenty-one chapels, which he administered with the assistance of lay brothers. Wu Li, the famous Ch’ing (Qing) dynasty painter and later a Jesuit, accompanied de Rougemont on one of his mission tours.
Besides several catechisms in Chinese, de Rougemont wrote an important essay on the need for an indigenous clergy and an account of his exile in Canton. Preparing to go to the island of Ch’ung-ming (Chongming), he died at T’ai-ts’ang (Taicang), near Shanghai, and was buried in Ch’ang-chou (Changzhou), Kiangsu.
Attribution
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright (c) 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of The Gale Group; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved.
Sources
- Francois de Rougemont, Historia Tartaro-Sinica nova (1673). A biography and de Rougemont's Chinese works are in Louis Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jsuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine (1932-1934), pp. 333-337. F. Bontinck, La Lutte autour de la liturgie chinoise aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles (1962), pp. 113-120; H. Bosmans, "Documents retatifs a la liturgie chinoise. Le memoire de Francois de Rougemont. A Jean Paul Oliva," Analecta Bollandiana 32 (1914): 274-293, and "Lettres inedites de Francois de Rougemont," Analectes pour servir a l'histoire ecclesiastiques de la Belgique 39 (1913): 21-54; Laurence C. S. Tam, Six Masters of Early Qing and Wu Li (1986), pp.69-72.
About the Author
Associate Professor of East Asian History, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA
