Charles Eugène, viscount de Foucauld

Charles Eugène, viscount de Foucauld, also called (from 1890) Père (Father) de Foucauld   (born 1858, Strasbourg, France—died Dec. 1, 1916, Tamanrasset, Algeria), French soldier, explorer, and ascetic who is best known for his life of study and prayer after 1905 in the Sahara Desert.

Foucauld first visited North Africa in 1881 as an army officer participating in the suppression of an Algerian insurrection. He led an important exploration of Morocco in 1883–84 and, at a later time, studied the oases of southern Algeria. In 1890 he became a Trappist monk but soon left that order to become a solitary ascetic in Palestine. In 1901 ... (100 of 197 words)