Charles de Foucauld, a French nobleman who put off the trappings of nobility to take on the ascetic life of a desert priest, never gained a single convert. His life-long ambition of establishing a new religious order did not come to fruition until well after his death. Yet his life and writings are now more respected and studied than ever before. Foucauld's life story is a moving testimonial to the will-power and religious fervor of one man, and to his effect on those around him as well as on his own individual sense of being. Foucauld gave up his place in the nobility of France, dispersed his fortune, and resigned his commission in the French army. Eventually he became such an ascetic that he was unable to found a new order based on his religious principles because no one would adhere to the kind of life he chose for himself.His is a remarkable life that is even now an extraordinary example of self-sacrifice and denial. It is a story that lends itself not only to the obvious religious aspects of the life of a desert priest, but also to a much broader interpretation of will, courage, and self-discipline. These three qualities are requisites for the self-examined life.
