Dom Paul Ambroise Marie Jausions (15 November 1834 in Rennes – 9 September 1870 in Vincennes, Indiana aged 35) was a French forerunner in the field of the restoration of the Gregorian chant since the middle of the nineteenth century, as well as the author of some religious books.
Biography
Training
The son of Ambroise-Julien Jausions, printer, Paul-Ambroise Jausions chose the collège Saint-Sauveur de Redon for his training. He then joined the parish. As a young cleric of the Archdiocese of Rennes, he was already deeply studying liturgical chant. To tell the truth, his father also knew this subject well, by printing the Principes élémentaires de musique et de plain-chant, suivis d'exemples pour faciliter l'intelligence de texte by Florent-Remi Moulin (Ambroise Jausions, Rennes, 2nd edition, 1840). It is therefore normal that the young Paul wrote a little method for the performance of the liturgical chant. Someone in his family wrote to him on November 20, 1855: "For plainsong, the nuns of Mercy make a special study of it, so your little method will be very useful to me."
Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes
On October 26, 1854, he was authorized to enter the Benedictine Abbey Saint-Pierre de Solesmes as a novice. The abbot of the monastery, Dom Prosper Guéranger, who wanted the restoration of the ancient and authentic liturgy, gave him his prints of the chant during the celebration of the Holy Week at the Vatican in 1856:
Paul Jausions entered his profession 29 September 1856 and was ordained a priest on 18 December 1858.
His first missions
Then in 1859 he was given the task of giving conferences on Gregorian chant and especially on the nature of the tonic accent and his role in the performance of the chant to the monks of Solesmes and the hosts of passage. In later years, therefore, Paul Jausions focused intensively on the interpretation and emphasis on Gregorian chant, in which he concentrated mainly on studies. It is likely that Dom Jausions was studying the Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum by Martin Gerbert, that the abbey had owned since 1844, thanks to the canon of the Le Mans Cathedral, Augustin Gontier, a friend of Dom Guéranger and instructor of the chant of this abbey.
In order that the work of Dom Jausions be actually advanced, the Abbot of Solesmes invited another monk who was able to study the ancient liturgical chant, Dom Joseph Pothier. The latter arrived at Solesmes on 1 February 1859.
According to the opinion of his abbot, Dom Jausions began to copy the ancient manuscripts, around 1859. What is certain is the copy made in 1860 of the English processional of St. Edith of Wilton, from the thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries, called processionnal de Rollington in the old Solesmes.
He was notably instructed by Dom Guéranger to prepare "the first draft of our monastic chant", realized a few years later, as Directorium chori. In this purpose, he was sent to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Le Mans to see many old song books. Through thick and thin, he succeeded in finding those that he was concerned with. The Bishop of Le Mans authorized him, in fact, to take to Solesmes a precious manuscript of the Roman gradual from Maine, provided that the duration did not exceed six months and that Dom Jausions gave him a receipt. When he was at Le Mans, he and canon Gontier were deeply discussing the topic of liturgical chant, for the first time on 23 September 1860, then from 16 October to 5 November.
Angers Library
As a result of extensive study, Dom Jausions and Dom Pothier concluded in 1862 that the oldest and lineless neumes should be consulted in order to restore Gregorian chant correctly, even nowadays, one of the principles of gregorian semiology. This is why Dom Jausions began to visit the Municipal Library of Angers regularly, performing the transcriptions of the old manuscripts, in particular those of the Maruncit 91 attributed to the 10th century.Read online In 1862 he stayed there from 4 to 12 April, from 27 June to 9 July and from 13 to 31 October. It is not certain that in 1863 he was there, because of the preparation of the song book of his monastery.
From June 3, 1864, Dom Jausions was in Angers. This time, he returned to Paris, before returning to Solesmes on July 20. Above all, he found at the Bibliothèque nationale de France an important fac-simile of the Antiphonary of St. Benigne in double notation, copied by Théodore Nisard in 1851.
He was in charge of the manuscripts of Angers, again in 1865. At least the monk returned there on 6 March, 30 June and 27 October.