Louise de Marillac was born August 15, 1591 at Meux, France.
She belonged to the nobility, but her experience of personal rejection
by her family as a child born outside of marriage, made her particularly
sensitive to the suffering of others.
Although she considered a religious vocation from an early age, her ill
health kept any house from taking her.
She married Antony LeGras,
an official to the queen, in 1611.
Widowed in 1625, she became a spiritual student of St. Vincent de
Paul. Saint Vincent sought her help in organizing the
Confraternities of Charity and in responding to the needs of people who were
stricken by poverty, famine and war.
Louise had a profound
conviction of God’s love for her and for His people. This love urged her to bring her
extraordinary administrative ability to the relief of every kind of human
suffering. Together with Saint Vincent, who became her lifelong friend and
collaborator, she founded the Daughters of Charity in 1642. They were soon nursing the sick in their
homes and in hospitals, as well as taking care of older people and abandoned
children. They also went into the
prisons to bring food and medicine and a word of comfort to the galley slaves,
and they even went onto the battlefields to nurse the wounded soldiers.
Louise promoted free
education for girls, the rehabilitation of psychiatric patients, and the
distribution of tools and seed and other means of livelihood to war
refugees. Louise de Marillac
died March 15, 1660.
She was canonized by Pope Pius XI on March 11, 1934.
