Louise de Marillac (1591–1660)

Biography

During the solemn mass of Pentecost in 1623, Louise de Marillac, Mme. Le Gras, felt an inner voice that assured him that he would find a good director for his troubled soul. The following year the prophecy was fulfilled in the person of Saint Vincent de Paul, who succeeded where all those before him had failed, including Saint Francis de Sales. He was, in fact, the one who managed to free Luisa from scruples, obsessions, doubts of faith and so many other fixed ideas that made her miserable. The daughter of Louis de Marillac, lord of Ferriéres, had married Antonie Le Gras, a man who believed himself called to a brilliant future, but who contracted a serious illness from which he would die in 1625, leaving her a widow with a son at thirty-four years of age. Since then, Vincent de Paul has associated her with his tasks. Whoever had healed her spiritually now discovered extraordinary riches in her soul. And he put all those talents at the service of those who were the saint's favorites: foundlings, subnormals, crazy people, the elderly and abandoned sick people. Saint Louise and Saint Vincent collaborated for thirty-five years. Together they founded the Congregation of Daughters of Charity in 1633. The nuns were to have “for a monastery, a clinic; by closure, obedience; by locutorio, faith in God; by cloister, the streets or the hospital rooms. Luisa, who had written the rule, directed them until her death.