Soon after he had returned from exile, Bishop Cortois de Pressigny installed Lamennais as a subdeacon on 21 December 1801 at the chapel of the Ursulines in Paris. The following year Lamennais helped the former rector of a secondary school previously run by the Church, closed by the Revolution, to re-open the institution. To house the revived school, he and his brother, Hugues-Felicité purchased a former hospital. He was ordained a deacon at the Cathedral of Rennes on 24 September 1803 by Bishop Jean-Baptiste-Marie de Maille, Bishop of Rennes.