Charles de Foucauld

b. 15 September 1858; d. 1 December 1916

France

Born in Strasbourg on 15 September 1858, he was orphaned at the age of six, and raised by his by his maternal grandfather, Colonel Beaudet de Morlet. After attending military school, he joined the Chasseurs d'Afrique, a light cavalry corps in the French Army in Africa. He resigned in order to explore Morocco. In 1888 he published Reconnaissance au Maroc and was awarded a gold medal by the French Geographic Society.

In 1890 he became a Trappist Monk and when to Syria with the order. He then left the Trappists to pursue a more altruistic and austere lifestyle in Palestine.

In 1901 he was ordained as a priest and when to settle in Béni Abbès, in what is today the Algerian Sahara. He lived among the Tuareg and published the first French-Touareg (Tamashek) dictionary. He also collected and translated their poetry.

In 1916 he was killed during a raid/kidnapping attempt. He is considered a Catholic saint, canonized on 15 May 2022.