In the region, he had become
"a legend, like the yeti"
, he told the local press
.
Brother Antoine, the hermit of the Rocher de Roquebrune-sur-Argens (Var), passed away this Friday, October 22, 2021 at the age of 98, reports
Nice Matin
.
Read also French hermit and religious Charles de Foucauld soon to be canonized
A Cistercian religious, Brother Antoine lived in a cave in the Rock of Roquebrune-sur-Argens for more than fifty years. “
The cave of Frère Antoine is not a tourist curiosity but a link of fraternal meeting”
, one could read on a sign at the entrance of his den, reports
Nice Matin.
After this first warning, passing hikers were welcome to discuss spirituality or philosophy at length with the hermit.
In a video report made in the hermit's cave in 2016 by the local daily, we meet this old man dressed in white, pushing the song, accompanied by his string instrument - made himself -, the good easy word. He explains, with a laughing pale blue eye, how his
“bachelor pad”
turned into a
“padded coffin”.
How did he become a hermit?
“I was twisted, I found a twisted rock like me!”.
On October 15, 2017, after a bad fall, the monk, already in his nineties, spent time in a retirement home and ended his stay on land in the Drôme, in the commune of - very aptly - Dieulefit.
“Brother Antoine is gone.
He wanted to leave, believing that he had nothing more to do on earth ”
, confides this Friday in
Nice Matin
Cathy, a friend.
Christian and Hindu spirituality
Born in 1923 in France in Cuillé (Mayenne), Brother Antoine had lived in his cave since 1966, without water or electricity.
He spent his days in meditation and prayers, but also writing books and songs.
His spirituality was linked to Christian and Hindu traditions but with an attentive look to the stoicism and the philosophies of ancient Greece, reported
La Croix
in 2013.
Born Louis Chauvel, Brother Antoine had traveled several times to India and had also taken care of medical projects in the service of the poorest.
At the monastery, he said he suffered from rules whose purpose he did not understand.
Until a mishap, caused by a transcription error in his military papers, led him to prison for desertion.
"I am interested in what remains, what is eternal"
, he explained in 2016 in
Nice Matin
, between two songs sung in his soft and slender voice.
Eternity has therefore found it.
