Modest Andlauer was born on May 22, 1847 in Rosheim at the foot of Mount Sainte-Odile. After the minor seminary and four years of seminary in Strasbourg, he decided to enter in October 1872, the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at St. Acheul. Ordained in 1877 he taught successively in the colleges of Amiens, Lille and Brest.

He left for China in 1881 and occupied several mission stations. As his name might suggest, he was shy, humble, & down to earth. Partisan in the apostolate of the traditional and proven methods, he had the cult of work well done, these small occupations than watching no glory that can not excite the love! The few letters kept him show the simplicity of a simple soul who goes straight his path as an apostle.

Seeing traces of the massacre of Tientsin (1870), the thought of martyrdom before him: "Although political motives may have to enter something in these murders, we may well look to God as martyrs those who succumbed. A moment of suffering has earned them an immortal crown. " This does not prevent him writing one day in 1895, after violent fever: "The flood separated me from all the other missionaries had been someone there to give me the consolations of religion. And then I would not like to fall into the hands of Chinese doctors. He enters their remedies so disgusting material. They play happy acupuncture, which involves hammering steel needles in the affected parts of the body. A doctor clumsy can sting you to death. Although, as the apostles, we should wish to die martyrs, I admit that this kind of martyrdom would have seemed very hard. Moreover, he is like God wants: we must be prepared for any kind of life and death. "

In fact the good Lord spared him the martyrdom of acupuncture ... Modeste knew yet, on the evening of June 19, 1900, "be prepared for any kind of death."