Piot, Father Bertrand Sylvain
1882, May 22
Date of Birth: 1808
Bertrand Sylvain Piot was born at Lyon in 1808, but his childhood was formed in piety in the midst of the dangers of the capital. At the age of fifteen he was inflamed with the unquenchable desire to preach the gospel to godless nations. At the time he was without the means of satisfying his zeal; he prepared himself to sacrifice at the least his family and his native land. After three years of study at the Seminary of Issy, he left for the United States with the Sulpician Father Verot, later Bishop of St Augustine in Florida. Father Verot had a great deal of difficulty in persuading Father Piot to visit New York and Philadelphia with him on their way to Baltimore, where both were going. Having arrived there in 1833, Father Piot was accepted into the seminary and was ordained to the priesthood that same year. The following year he was admitted to the Society of St. Sulpice with Fathers Hoskins and Knight.
Father Piot did not remain in the Sulpicians very long, scarcely a year. He took up work in the Archdiocese of Baltimore; he served in Rockville, Ellicott Mills (Ellicott City), and Cumberland. He acquired a reputation for zeal and sanctity.
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In 1851 Father Piot retired to St. Charles College, of which he was an early benefactor. He remained there for thirty-one years during which he published a number of spiritual books. Some of them grew out of his appointment in 1866 as Director of the Holy Childhood and of the Propagation of the Faith of the United States, offices which he filled with untiring effort. He died on May 22, 1882.
Translated and adapted from Bibliothèque Sulpicienne, Volume III, pp. 343-346.