Camille Costa de Beauregard

Upon returning to Chambéry, Abbé Camille refused honorary positions and became a simple curate at the cathedral. He first founded a mutual aid fund for workers. In August 1867, faced with the cholera epidemic ravaging Chambéry, he took in orphans in his apartment. In 1868, he obtained a building at Le Bocage to establish the Bocage Orphanage. There, he developed a revolutionary preventive pedagogy based on trust, affection, and work. The orphanage became a renowned horticultural school, also offering numerous cultural and sports activities for the children's development.

Camille Costa de Beauregard dedicated his entire personal fortune to the orphanage and lived himself in total destitution. He twice refused the episcopate to remain with his orphans. Exhausted by his labor, he passed away on Good Friday, March 25, 1910, in Chambéry. His reputation for holiness led to the opening of his cause for beatification in 1925. In 1954, the management of Le Bocage was entrusted to the Salesians of Don Bosco. He was proclaimed Venerable by Pope John Paul II on January 22, 1991.

The path toward beatification was realized through the recognition of a miracle: the unexplained healing, on October 28, 1910, of the severely injured eye of the orphan René Jacquemond, following the application of a cloth that had belonged to the priest. The decree of the miracle was signed by Pope Francis on March 14, 2024. The beatification mass was celebrated on May 17, 2025, at the Cathedral of Chambéry under the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, making him the first blessed proclaimed during his reign. The ceremony was presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Celestino Migliore.

The spirituality of Camille Costa de Beauregard combines the charity of Saint Vincent de Paul with the gentleness of Saint Francis de Sales. His meeting with Saint John Bosco in 1879 confirmed his preventive educational vision. Today, his work continues through the Bocage Foundation in Chambéry, under the tutelage of the Salesians of Don Bosco, comprising a private agricultural high school and a social children's home.