Jean Le Vacher (15 March 1619 – 26 July 1683)[1] was a French Lazarist missionary and consul in Tunis and Algiers.

He was killed by being attached to an Algerian cannon loaded with shrapnel that was fired when the French fleet bombarded Algiers.

His younger brother Philippe was to also enter the Congregation of the Mission, commonly known as the Lazarites, and his youngest sister became a nun at the convent of Sainte-Marie.

[2] Jean Le Vacher was placed with a priest near Rouen who taught him the elements of Latin and instructed him in religion.

[8] Exhausted, Le Vacher won permission in 1653 to be relieved of his duties as consul and devoted himself solely to missionary work first in Tunis and then in Bizerte.

[citation needed] On 4 September 1682 Admiral Abraham Duquesne arrived at Algiers to obtain the release of the French slaves held there.

He said he had been sent by the powers of the land, the Dey Mehemet Hadgi and the military chief Baba-Hassan, to find what Duquesne wanted.

[14] Le Vacher was falsely accused of treason, and was attached to the mouth of a cannon called Baba Merzoug.

[1] On the orders of the usurper, known as Mezzomorto, he was tied to the mouth of a cannon, with twenty-two other French residents, and destroyed by shrapnel.