The abbots Gaime and Gâtier inspired the character of the Vicar in the Profession of faith of the Savoyard Vicar. Abbot Jean-Claude Gaime (1692-1761)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau attends the Gaime abbot in 1728 in Turin, after her conversion with Catholicism. It describes it “full with good sense, probity, lights and one of the most honest men than I knew”.
This modest abbot pushes the young person Jean-Jacques with moderation, the “met in his place”, neither too high, nor too low, while speaking to him about wisdom. He places in him “a germ of virtue and religion which was never erased”. He privileges morals in Christianity, more than theology or the liturgy. He issues discrete reserves on the revelation.
Abbot Jean-Baptiste Gâtier (1703-1760)
Seeking later to be a priest with the assistance of Madam de Warens, Rousseau meets the Gâtier abbot with the seminar and finds in him a sensitive friend. The marginal situation of the abbot and misfortunes that Rousseau allots to him inspire certain features of the Savoyard Vicar. This man would have made, like the Vicar, a child with a girl and then would have been imprisoned and driven out.
“It is conceived already that honest Mr. Gaime is, at least mainly the original of the Savoyard Vicar. Only prudence obliging it to speak with more reserve, it was explained less openly on certain points.”