ABBÉ MATTAY - real name FR. GASPARD MATHEY (1751? - 1820)
(Image, the abby church of Saint-Méen-le-Grande in Brittany).
STATUS: Problematic. However, the earliest published texts may be read with very careful discernment. (Hence, marked ???)
There is a Great Monarch / Age of Peace prophecy attributed to an 'Abbé Mattay' of Saint-Méen, but his prophecies are only described as attributed to him, having come from a secondary source, and, latter versions not credible.
The prophecies were apparently first published in a book entitled “Le Livre de Prophétes ou Recueil des Prophéties les Plus Curieuses” in Rennes, which enjoyed several reprintings in the late 1800s, the fourth edition was printed in 1870.
In this book, the author states the prophecies were dictated by someone who knew Fr. Mattay, but the author of the book withholds his name to 'respect his privacy'. First red flag: an anonymous source - we have no clue who first passed on these prophecies and if their testimony is credible.
However, the book states
that on Easter Sunday in 1813, while dining with the Mayor of
Saint-Méen, who is named “M. de Lahaye”, Fr. Mattay gave one of
his prophecies. One might have said this was fake as there is no
mayor by that name at all in the city records of Saint-Méen, but
there is another town in Brittany named Saint-Méen-le-Grand that
indeed had a mayor of that name, possibly two if it was not the same
person re-elected: Henry-François Michel Delahaye (1803-1813) and
Michel Delahaye (from January to October 1817). So, we have one
detail of veracity.
The prophecies were later reprinted by the
Abbé Curicque in his book “Voix Prophetiques”, Vol. 2, and he
did not mention the prophecies come second hand from an anonymous
person-he simply reprinted the prophecies. However, Abbé Curicque
thought the published prophecies attributed to Fr. Mattay were simply
a repeat of those of the Abbé Souffrant (1775-1828), but then
changed his mind when he saw that the “Le Livre de Prophétes ou
Recueil” continued to publish them as a different set of
prophecies, and therefore republished them under Fr. Mattay's name as
a compliment to the Abbé Souffrant's prophecies.
True, they are similar. Also, no one at the time seems to have noted that the Abbé Souffrant's prophecies are also similar to those of Peré Nectou's (1698-1773), and Souffrant seem to have borrowed from Nectou. So it is possible instead of complimentary prophecies, we have a case of double-borrowing of Peré Nectou's prophecies as well in the process? This would be another red flag: too many mishmashes that resemble past prophecies of other authors usually means they are borrowed and have been repackaged as a new set of prophecies, meaning the prophecies of Fr. Mathey could be a new purposely misattributed hoax. Even so, Fr. Curicque noted there were quite a few distinctions in Fr. Mattay's prophecies to warrant publishing them, which he did, not considering the possibility a faker could have simply taken the past prophecies of Nectou and Souffrant and embellished them into something quasi-new to make them seem legitimate. We have that to consider.
Then, we have another red flag - Adrien Péladan also published some extracts of the prophecies in his first volume book of 'Dernier Mots de Prophétes' (1880), first, misspelling the priest's name as 'Matay'. (Odd for a man who claimed to have a family member in government in Saint-Méen and who in 1849 met the man who the priest told all his prophecies to – surely Péladan would have spelled the priest's name right if he had such important informants?)
In Volume 3 he finally got the spelling half right to 'Mattay', and added several new but very dubious details in his edition not seen in the others as if to get 'one up' on the other earlier authors. This is another red flag as we see a hoax-process growing in momentum.
According to Péladan, he claimed in the third volume of his work to have met the one man whom Fr. Mattay gave all his prophecies to, and who he says was the porter of the College of Saint-Méen named “Fauchux”. Péladan says he met the man in 1849 and that not all the details of the prophecies were given by Fauchux at the time of the other earlier publications, but now Péladan claimed to have them now after meeting Fauchux. Péladan writes; “I got to know Fauchux in 1849, and here I add important details which were intentionally omitted from the prophecy known by 1818. — I have these details from Fauchux himself. When I was in Saint-Méen, my cousin M. de M ***y was mayor there.” Enter the major red flag.
The 'mayor' detail is where Péladan fell flat and is exposed for adding details we cannot take as credible. It is possible he meant Mayor Joseph Mauny, who was mayor of Saint-Méen-le-Grand from 1864-1870, but this is strange as Péladan brings up 1849 more than once and makes it fully apparent this is the time he was speaking of - when he had the prophecy from Fauchux's mouth in 1849. Mauny was not mayor then, and even to bring up a rendering of the letters of 'Delahay' as in the earlier texts doesn't make sense. There was no “Delahaye” as mayor in 1849 when Péladan said he visited his cousin the mayor. Léonard-André Drouet de Montgermont was mayor of Saint-Méer-le-Grand from 1848 to 1853. And, even in the smaller town with the similar name of Saint-Méer there is no one at all named 'Delahay' or that has any letters that match “M. de M ***y”. Then, even if it was 'Delahay' he was referring to, why would Péladan hide the name of his cousin at all, and, end 'Delahaye' with a 'y' when it ends with an 'e', unless he was indeed borrowing the name from the earlier publication and pretending this was a cousin in order to lend credibility to the work? We already saw above he didn't even spell the variant lettering of Mattay correctly in the first volume of his work – as mentioned, this is odd for a man who said he had such connections in the town.
We can conclude then that any additional new details Péladan claims he heard from 'Fauchux' is not credible if he was ready to flub dates or details about having the mayor “M. de M ***y” as his cousin in 1849. We also cannot be sure that the name 'Fauchux' is real after this. Péladan possibly fibbed from the beginning in saying he met a real person in order to make his claims of having new details credible. Yes, I tried to find him: there are no results popping up for a porter named 'Fauchux' at a College in Saint-Méen. Also, no results under variant spellings of his name.
However, was there a Fr. Mattay at Saint-Méen? Or, Saint-Méen-le-Grand?
Yes, but his name was misspelled in the parish register as 'Mattay'.
After some digging on French sites listing historical records for Brittany, I discovered there was a Fr. Gaspard Mathey, who also had his name spelled 'Mattay' in the parish register of Saint-Méen-le-Grand. He was a Lazarist and became a parish priest there. He was first the director of the choir at the seminary of the Lazarists, and, he did die on January 4, 1820 as the prophecy books say. Real historical records noted he 'died in the ordure of sanctity and had the reputation of a prophet.'
When the seminary was dispersed in 1792, the Superior, M. Grardel and three of his colleagues, M. M. Philbert, Guesnier and Fr. Mathey, remained in Saint-Méen where they continued to exercise their sacred ministry throughout the turmoil of the Revolution.
I also discovered the following information (Source: Felix Contassot, “Monographs Houses: Saint-Méens, DePaul University, 1962):
“When worship was restored, he became vicar of the parish of Saint-Jean de Saint-Méen. He was credited with various prophecies about the successive political regimes. But what is certainly more authentic is his great charity. By his will, dated November 19, 1819, he gave to the poor of the city of Saint-Méen a farm, known as the Mènerais, which he owned in the parish of Saint-Ouen, on the express condition that it would only be governed and administered by the Sisters of Charity established in the hospital of Saint-Méen.
M. Mathey died in Saint-Méen on January 4, 1820. It is written in the parish register:
“On January 4, 1820, the inhabitants of Saint-Méen had the pain of losing Monsieur Mattay, a former Lazarist, vicar of Saint-Méen, who died in this town aged 69. He was from Morey, diocese of Besançon. He had always retained the respectable spirit of the body (i.e institution) to which he had belonged. He was the father of the poor, whom he loved like his brothers and whom he helped with all his means, especially in 1812. He had always shown his attachment to the inhabitants of Saint-Méen by remaining among them during the bad days of the Revolution. He gave by will, to the Saint-Méen factory everything he owned. He bequeathed to the Sisters of Charity, for the poor, a small piece of land that he had bought in Saint-Ouen, money that he had been able to save from the looting of the house of the Vincentians, of which he was a member.”
Note, the Lazarists are members of the Congregation of the Mission that was founded by St. Vincent de Paul at the priory of St Lazare in Paris. Their mission is to preach to the rural poor and train candidates for the priesthood. They are also known as Vincentians. However, I have not found any additional information on Fr. Mathey.
In conclusion, we know Fr. Mathey (Mattay) existed and he was credited with having made several prophecies, but are the ones that have come down to us believable or have they been added to over the decades, especially as the first of the early publications says they came second-hand from an anonymous person? We certainly can consider Péladan's later version extremely suspect considering has dubious claims and additions.
However, there is no proof saying the early versions of the prophecies are a hoax either, therefore, I have included the earliest published versions and marked them as (???) for extreme discernment.
His first prophecies refer to the upheaval after the Revolution: the fall of Bonaparte, the temporary restoration of the Bourbon royal house in France with Louis XVIII, then the next tumultuous period with the rise of Louis-Philippe and the Second Republic.
Eventually, he mentions the rise of prince, whose exploits match those foretold in other Great Monarch prophecies.
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Earliest published text
(Source: “Le Livre de Prophétes ou Recueil des Prophéties les Plus Curieuses” 1870 edition - NOTE: the events foretold may not all be sequential):
In 1810, Mr. Mattay, then parish priest of Saint-Méen, announced the fall of Bonaparte and the return of the Bourbons; and he seemed so sure of what he was announcing that he was not afraid to say it loudly and to whoever wanted to hear it, so much so that a Sunday being in the pulpit of truth, he pronounced aloud his intelligible voice the following words:
"Poor mothers, you mourn the loss of your children, you are right; but console yourself; in two years you will no longer have an emperor, he will be dethroned and replaced by a prince of the Bourbon family".
His friends, on hearing him speak thus were frightened, fearing that he was not disturbed, what would not have failed to happen if the local authorities, who were well composed and who loved him, had not interposed in his favour with those of the main town, to whom he was denounced.
They were told that M.
Mattay was not well in the head, that they were used to hearing him
talk like that, that they paid no attention to him; in a word, that
they looked upon him like a madman, a
fool.
(I.e. His friends kept him from being denounced to the higher local authorities for his anti-Bonaparte statement from the pulpit, they told the other authorities they thought he was mad and didn't pay attention to him).
Indeed, no one paid much attention to his prophecies, and no one believed a word of it. However, it was difficult to keep him from speaking, and in the houses he usually went to, his conversation mostly revolved around his favourite theme.
One day (it was the Sunday of Easter) (1813), arriving to dinner with M. de Lahaye, mayor of Saint-Méen, he exclaimed suddenly, at the end of the meal: “Let's drink to the health of Louis XVIII; today in a year he will be on the throne, and we will all cry out: Long live Louis XVIII!”
He had not prophesied everything, and by the middle of 1814 much more was learned. In 1815, he said:
“The tyrant will return again, he will reascend the throne; but he will only occupy it for three months, and this reign will be called the Hundred Days. The lapse of time, Louis XVIII will resume his place and die king, happier than that of his successor, who will be dethroned in 1829 or 1830, when they will establish a republican government whose leader will have the title of king; but he will not be the happiest of his band, and if the Legitimists do it right, this reign will last only six months; on the contrary, we will have to resolve to endure it for several years. To specify the end of its duration that I cannot; all I know is that he will hardly make it through the seventeenth year. During this reign, there will often be revolts, and even the king's days will be attempted, but in vain: an invisible hand will protect him. He will carry the contributions at an enormous rate and as never before we will have seen them, and will make a great settlement which will turn to his disadvantage. The moment marked by Providence arrived, he will be dethroned and not driven out by the Legitimists, they will not have taken part in it, but by his friends themselves. He will flee and want to embark for England, but he will experience difficulties. The republic will be proclaimed, if its partisans have time; it will last a short time and will destroy itself.”
(OBSERVATIONS / NOTES: this follows historical events. Napoleon Bonaparte was sent Elba, and King Louis XVIII ascended the throne in 1814. However, he did not have the throne long before he had to flee during the Hundred Days War, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition. This period marked the time between Napoleon's return from exile on the island of Elba to Paris on March 20, 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 111 days). The War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign, the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours (the hundred days) was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July, 1815. Louis XVIII's successor was his son Charles X who was King of France from September 16, 1824 until August 2, 1830 when he was forced to abdicate due to the July revolution of 1830. The throne rightfully belonged to young Henry V, who was only 10 at the time, but as he was young, it was decided that Louis-Philippe would be his regent. However, with the support of the National Assembly, Louis Philippe was proclaimed king of France in 1830 under a constitutional monarchy known as the July Monarchy. Basically, he usurped the throne, and Henry V and his family were forced into exile. Louis-Philippe's supporters were known as Orléanists, as opposed to Legitimists, who supported the legitimate main line of the House of Bourbon, aka, Henry V.
Fr. Mathey seems to have predicted that if the Legitimists handled things correctly, Louis-Phillipe's reign would not have lasted long, but he also foretold this would not happen. He predicted they would endure a fairly long reign under Louis-Philippe, which they did. He reigned for about 18 years, and, the last year was sketchy as his popularity greatly waned. Fr. Mathey also notes Providence was not going to remove this king either...it seems as if God was allowing him to remain as a punishment to the nation. We note in the visions of Sr. Marie Lataste that God was angry the people had chosen Louis-Philippe and had rejected Henry V at the time, who was the king of His choice, so it does appear Louis-Philippe was left as a punishment. Eventually, Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate after the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1848. He lived out his life in exile in the United Kingdom.
The Second Republic was then proclaimed which was a republican government of France under President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. It lasted from the 1848 Revolution to the 1851 coup by which the president made himself Emperor Napoleon III and initiated the Second Empire. The Second Republic was one of the shortest regimes in French history.
From here on the prophecies skip to the Great Catholic Monarch, and, they seem to have skipped time, for Fr. Mathey does not speak of the Second Empire under Emperor Napoleon III, which happened after the Second Republic. He mentions a Legitimist prince who will retake the French throne, and, Napoleon III was an Orléans, not of the Legitimist Bourbon line. It is possible Fr. Mathey refers to another newly formed Republic by a future usurper, for he says the new republic will hardly be formed three days when the King will come to take the throne as Emperor.
The only thing is, other mystics say the Great Catholic Monarch will free France and take that crown first before going to help the Holy Father, but it is possible if Fr. Mathey's prediction is credible, that the Great Catholic King will take the crown of France, cast out the usurper which other prophecies have also foretold, then rescue the Holy Father who will proclaim him Emperor. He could then he return as Emperor to fulfil the rest of his mission to conquer Europe and quell the genocidal revolts. The prediction he will help England after he quells the revolts in France is also in keeping with other prophecies.)
Continuation of the prophecy (note, this is when events seem to get out of sequence and are not linear):
After her (the Republic),
a legitimate prince of great piety and great wisdom will be
called upon to govern France. He will live very old, and France
will be happy under his reign. He will take the Emperor's litter,
because from then on we must no longer have kings. Towards the end of
the reign of the usurper, the Pope will die and will have for
successor a young Pope who will know how to put himself at the height
of his mission; and it is under this young Pope that we are called to
see great events. The emperor will have spent in France almost all
the time of the republican reign; but we will speak of it very
little, if not a few days before its advent. He will leave Rome to
come and occupy the throne, after having received the blessing of the
Holy Father. His guard will be made up of foreigners. Barely
proclaimed, he will have several wars to support, and in particular
with England, which will be conquered by him and will become province
of France.
It will take eleven months to make this conquest;
the whole army with a unanimous voice will cry: Let us run to
England. The enthusiasm will be so great that the emperor, in order
not to do anything wrong, will have the troops drawn by lot, for he
will have to reserve part of them to keep the coasts.
Foreign
powers will arm themselves, not in favour of legitimacy, but with the
aim of sharing France. (i.e dividing it up). The Emperor of Russia,
at the head of a great army, will come to Rhine, which he will not
pass, because there an invisible hand will stop him. He will see the
finger of God. Something miraculous will happen; the emperor will
embrace the Catholic religion and will make it recognized in all its
States. I cannot precisely specify the time of these things."
(Mr.
Mattay used to count time by moons, which I did not
understand.)
"All I know is that if the republic has time
to fully establish itself, it will only last three days, at the end
of the day, from which the emperor will ascend the throne, and at
some point all of Europe will be on fire. Calm, however, will be born
of the storm when we expect it less and believe everything is
lost.
The happy change will come and be announced by
proclamations which, in the blink of an eye,
will be spread
throughout France. Designated officials will be at their posts
timely; jobs will be given on merit and not favour; religion will be
protected and respected. The emperor will grant a general pardon and
no one will be worried about his opinions. In short, the past will be
forgotten.
Perhaps things will work out without bloodshed, but if we fight, the shock will be terrible and more people will perish then than in 1793, and the terror will be so great that the most reassured will tremble of fear. Churches will be closed for a while, especially in towns. The fire will not reach Brittany, or at least she will suffer little; the whole country will be covered with troops; the fire will take from the south to the north and we will fight for six weeks and the last fortnight, days and nights.
The Legitimists, spectators of the struggle, will only take up arms a few days before the arrival of the emperor. In this case, Legitimists and Republicans will join hands, and the Emperor will come to occupy the throne without bloodshed and without even being fired a single shot to get him up there. Finally it will not be for him that we will have fought. Peace will be attributed to God and nothing to men, and what we are to witness will be regarded as miraculous. Then the joy will be so great that the traveller will not need money; it will be collected and paid for everywhere; we will set tables in the streets, and we will will put the world together without distinction; the celebrations will last eight consecutive days.
During the time that the great crisis will last, the newspapers, which have become almost insignificant, will learn little news, and often that of the day will be denied the next day.
Emperor will only be able to reduce taxes three years after his accession to the throne, because of the large charges which the expenses of the war and the maladministration of the previous government will have caused.
Before the arrival of the
emperor, three large towns and five small ones will perish from top
to bottom, which will only be known for a certain period of time
afterwards. Soon, the young conscripts of the class of the year in
which these events will occur will they be under the flags that the
emperor will already be proclaimed, or about to be.”
Mr. Mattay had also
predicted a revolution in Spain.
“If the king of this
country is not dethroned, little will be needed; however he will
ascend to the throne; but only fifteen days after the restoration
which was to take place in France. "
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(Nov. 3, 2020)
