New Establishments
The rules of Olier's seminary, approved by the General Assembly of the Clergy in 1651, were adopted in many new establishments. Within a few years, Olier, at the urgent request of the bishops, sent priests to found seminaries in several dioceses throughout the country. The first was at Nantes in 1648. It was not Olier's intention to establish a congregation to conduct seminaries, but merely to lend priests for the foundation of a seminary to any bishop and to recall them after their work was well established. The repeated requests of bishops, considered by him as indications of God's will, caused him to modify his plan, and to accept a few seminaries permanently.
The society which formed around Olier at St. Sulpice was not formed into a religious institute, but instead continued as a community of secular priests, following a common life but bound by no special religious vows. The aim of the society was to live perfectly the life of a secular priest. Olier wished it to remain a small company, decreeing that it should never consist of more than seventy-two members, besides the superior and his twelve assistants. This regulation remained in force until circumstances induced a successor, the Abbé Emery, to abolish the limitation.
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