History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 237

When it became obvious that the French wanted to annex his country, he went to
Paris in January 1793 to remind their government of its promise. Two months later
the Austrians recaptured Belgium but suffered a final defeat by the French in the
spring of 1794.
Concerned about his safety, Malou-Riga fled with his family to Delft, Holland, and from
there to Hamburg, Germany. Seeking to prepare a new home in the U.S.A., he left
Hamburg in 1795 and bought a 900 acre farm in Princeton, N.J. Unfortunately his wife
died in Hamburg two years later.
Unable to return to Flanders, he asked his brother-in-law, Canon Joseph Riga, to look
after his two sons, and entered the seminary of Wolsau (Rothenburg), Germany in
1799. He left for Dunaburg, Russia in 1804 to join the Jesuits. Ordained a priest in
1807, Father Malou devoted himself to teaching in Mogilev and Vitebsk, and apostolic
work in Orsha.
Upon the request of Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore for missionaries, Fr. Malou was
assigned to the U.S.A. He taught in New York's Literary Institute, and in 1813 became
pastor of St. Peter's Church in New York. Defending the churches' trustees against
New York's Bishop John Connelly and falsely accused of collaboration with the French
revolutionaries, Fr. Malou was deprived of his priestly faculties. Supported by
Archbishop Ambrose Marechal of Baltimore, he was reinstated in 1825, resu ming his
pastorship and visiting the New York schools, until