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Letter to Father Deguerry (30 December 1886)
In wishing to avoid disheartening a candidate, it burdens the Congregation with useless members (ouvriers, lit. “workers”). These consequently are extremely dangerous because, not being able to work for lack of solid virtue or intelligence, they become discouraged and discourage others and put them off completely. This is what the directors of the novitiates and scholasticates have up to now not been willing to understand.

Am I ready to hand over my responsibility as a leader at the end of my term of office?
Letter to Father Bridoux (8 December 1886)
I wish gradually to give up exercising my authority as Superior of the Society, but I also wish to retain everything that relates to my jurisdiction and my powers as Bishop.

As servants of the most high God, we no longer belong to ourselves….
I no longer belong to myself, even for a moment today, I belong to the Church and to France. I must serve them to the best of my ability until the end, in return for what they have done for me. It is not without great weariness and bitterness at times, but to have fulfilled my duty makes up for everything through witnessing to my conscience and in the hope of eternal benefits.

The epitaph of Charles Lavigerie
My epitaph to be placed on my tomb, which is to be made between the village of St Cyprian and that of Ste Monique (1881): ‘Here rests, in the hope of mercy, Charles Martial Lavigerie, former auditor of Rote, former bishop of Nancy, archbishop of Algiers, now ashes, who, having loved the Arabs, loved them to the end, and wished after his death to be buried among the sons whom during his life he had begotten to the Lord Jesus.’