REINBURG Emile (1837-1902)

Father Emile Reinburg owed his education to an aunt, a saintly woman who took the place of his deceased mother. He was the twin brother of Félix, both born on February 17 1837, in Strasbourg. He was ordained priest in 1862, in Paris and was appointed as a teacher at the "petit séminaire Notre-Dame des Champs" where he remained for ten years. As master responsible for discipline he encountered Aristide Cavaillé-Coll's three sons: Emmanuel, Joseph and Gabriel Cavaillé-Coll, in elementary class 3 and again in secondary class 3; He describes Emmanuel as follows: "driven by pride, this pupil shows off in front of his fellow pupils - the result of old habits -. Perhaps deep down he is better than he seems. Bad company corrupts".

Father Reinburg replaced Father Lamazou for a time at the publication "La Semaine Religieuse" and was then appointed curate of the Notre-Dame-de-La-Gare parish… where Cavaillé-Coll installed an organ in 1863.

The Father died there on Good Friday, April 28 1902. "He had been struck by paralysis a few days earlier, just as he was convalescing from an attack of the 'flu. His funeral was a true triumph, the triumph of a priest who has always loved and served the poor and is loved by them. We counted thirty-five Fathers from Paris at his burial. But most touching was the grief of his parishioners: workers, women, children had hastened to mourn the man who, for fourteen years had unsparingly devoted himself to the poor that God had entrusted to him. Not only was the Church of Notre-Dame-de-La-Gare filled to overflowing by the crowd, but also thousands of people had gathered in the place Jeanne-d'Arc and on the streets and boulevards that the cortège passed through." (Semaine Religieuse, 19 April, 1902)