Published: October 26, 2009 12:14 am         

French ambassador visits The Woods

TERRE HAUTE — Hundreds gathered Sunday morning for a special brunch at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, as the Sisters of Providence wrapped up the inaugural Saint Mother Theodore Guerin Fest.

Dining with them was fellow participant and foreign dignitary Pierre Vimont, French ambassador to the United States.

Sister Denise Wilkinson, general superior of the Sisters of Providence, said the first-to-be-annual program was blessed with results.

“Wonderfully well,” she said as Ambassador Vimont promised a return visit. “It exceeded our expectations.”

Wilkinson said the sisters had planned for about 50 to attend the fest which ran Friday through Sunday. But more than 200 flocked to the wooded grounds for a weekend of spiritual activities, including education about the life of Mother Theodore.

Vimont met the sisters when they traveled to Washington, D.C., for the dedication of a statue celebrating Mother Theodore’s canonization at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 15, 2006.

Mother Theodore founded the Sisters of Providence in 1840, but her homeland was France. Vimont became interested in her story and promised to visit the college she founded in West Terre Haute after reading a book given him by the sisters.

“This is a very beautiful place and you are lucky to live here,” Vimont said Sunday morning.

Vimont has been the French ambassador to the U.S. since 2007. Prior to his post in Washington, he represented France at the European Union in Brussels, and has been serving in international capacities since his first post at the French Embassy in London in 1977.

“I’m always very interested in those unknown heroes that came here to your country,” he said of his interest in the early French settlers and traders who helped develop what was then the New World. Names of cities such as Terre Haute and St. Louis bear witness to the contributions made by the French in America’s earliest days, and yet the U.S. population identifying itself as French remains relatively small, he noted. “You have a lot of French influence here,” he said. “Of course, we sold Louisiana, so that was our mistake. And very cheaply I might add,” he joked in reference to the Louisiana Purchase made by President Thomas Jefferson. “You did very well on that one.”

In recent years, Vimont said the French people have come to view American culture in terms of its eastern and western coasts. For his part, Vimont said he likes to visit the places in between for the reports he sends back to Paris.

“This visit was too quick,” he said of the college, noting he enjoyed walking about the woods, imagining what it would have been like in the 19th century when Mother Theodore was herself a pioneering settler. “I’m only staying 24 hours, so I’m certain I will have to come back.”

October is a busy month, Wilkinson said, “but of course, it’s beautiful here in October.”

Participants traveled from all over America, she said, noting that one woman drove 700 miles to West Terre Haute. “I think those are the stories that mean the most to us, and I think they would mean the most to Mother Theodore.”

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.