He died alone in Algeria 100 years ago, but as an evangelist, Blessed Charles de Foucauld set a contemplative example that was to inspire a flourishing movement of today

On 1 December 1916, far from the slaughterhouse of the Somme, Charles de Foucauld was killed in the Tuareg village of Tamanrasset. His was a lonely death compared with the millions of casualties in the main theatre of war, though caused by political currents that had surged across from Europe to the remote confines of southern Algeria.

The trajectory of his extraordinary life is well enough known to warrant only an outline here. Born in Strasbourg in 1858, orphaned at the age of five and brought up by his maternal grandfather, he trained as an officer at the military academy of Saint-Cyr and the cavalry school at Saumur before joining the hussars. On his grandfather’s death in 1878 he inherited a fortune. Barracks life bored him and he fell out with the authorities over his relationship with a young woman, Marie Corbin. Matters came to a head when his squadron was sent to Algeria and he refused to dissuade her from joining him there. He was suspended from active service and returned to France. However, after the Government’s decision to intervene in Tunisia in 1881, he joined the Chasseurs d’Afrique, a light cavalry corps, and saw action. He enjoyed life under canvas and determined never to return to garrison routine. Shortly after, he resigned his commission.