In 1632 the Marais was Paris’s aristocratic district. Great lords, financiers, and courtiers had built their palaces there. One of the district’s central streets was Rue du Roi de Sicile, and on that street stood the palace of Geneviève Fayet, better known as Madame Goussault, the surname of her late husband. Madame Goussault was extremely wealthy. From both her parents and her husband she had inherited a fortune. This meant her household teemed with domestics, footmen, and maids. One of these maids was named Marie Joly. Being a servant then meant having secure employment, a steady wage, and a promising future. Being a servant to a great lady meant dressing elegantly and eating well. Like all maids of that time, Madame Goussault had brought her from one of her rural villages. Marie was hardworking and energetic, with a tender and compassionate heart.

This last quality pleased her mistress, for Geneviève Fayet devoted herself to the poor in the manner of the day: she visited the Hôtel-Dieu (the municipal hospital), gave alms, and made many generous donations to the priest, Vincent de Paul, to help relieve the needs of the lowly. Lately she had formed a close friendship with another widow as devoted to the poor as she was—perhaps even more so—Louise de Marillac, or, as she was commonly called, Mademoiselle Le Gras.

Sometimes Marie had opened the palace door to a peasant woman who had come to receive money, food, or medicine on behalf of Louise de Marillac or Father Vincent. At other times she had met her in the streets. She knew her name was Marguerite Naseau and had heard her tell how she carried a pot of food to poor sick people and put their homes—and them—in order. As they walked together, Marie was moved. Now that, she thought, was truly being a servant of the poor and giving glory to God—not what she herself was doing, serving a lady!

One day in the spring of 1632 Marie presented herself before her mistress and, without any preamble, said, “Madame, I’m leaving; I’m going to join the group of Mademoiselle Le Gras and Marguerite Naseau.”

A Daughter of Charity in the service of the sick, engraving by Jean-Baptiste Bonnart (1654–c. 1726). Source: Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Geneviève’s heart pounded. It was a harsh blow. She was fond of her servant and in April had planned to travel with her through the lands of her ancestors, Anjou. Yet she rejoiced: she was giving to God in the poor nothing less than her favorite servant!

Marie gathered her things, put them in a bag, and went to Versailles Street (today Rue Monge), where Louise now lived. When she saw her, Louise de Marillac understood she had come to stay and let her in. Inside were two other young women whom Louise was preparing for a few days before placing them in service to the indigent. Marie told her what she had decided. She did not need much preparation, for she had been a maid for many months. Louise accepted her after speaking with Madame Goussault and seeing that she agreed.

For more than a year Marie, too—like Marguerite Naseau—carried a pot of food to the ramshackle rooms of the helpless sick. She felt happy; she had found her vocation.

Meanwhile, on weekends Louise gathered all these young women to form them in piety, resolve their difficulties, encourage them, and spend a few cheerful, relaxing days together. At times she was tempted to form a religious congregation with them. When she was young, Louise had vowed to become a religious and had thought of becoming a Capuchin, but her relatives forced her to marry; and she, though without fault (in the seventeenth century it was parents or relatives who arranged their children’s marriages), always believed she had betrayed God. Now she could repair the offense. She communicated her intentions to Vincent de Paul, and he shuddered as if he had heard a thunderclap. Didn’t Mademoiselle Le Gras know that if they were nuns with public vows, they would have to live in a cloistered convent, and if they were cloistered they could no longer serve others? God wanted them to serve Him and their neighbor. He would in no way give permission to found a convent of cloistered nuns. Even so, Father Vincent pondered and reflected and spoke many times with Louise de Marillac. They dialogued and debated until, in agreement—the two saints—decided to found with those young women a Confraternity of Charity without public vows, that is, without enclosure, so that nothing would prevent them from going out to serve the poor. He would be the director and she the superior. It was the beginning of autumn 1633. It had been about six months since Marguerite Naseau had died.

With whom to begin? They fixed their eyes on Marie Joly, and Vincent de Paul called her and proposed what they intended to do. The poor peasant girl trembled.

She, a simple maid who could not write, was to be the cornerstone of a new institution! Dazed as she was, all she could think to say was, “But I have no judgment, no humility, no strength to serve in that way. Still, I will do whatever Mademoiselle Le Gras tells me.” Under his breath Vincent murmured, “What a good young woman she seems to be!” And he commented to Louise, “Yes, Mademoiselle, I believe Our Lord has given her to you so that He may make use of her through you.”

They sought out two or three other young women, and on November 29, 1633, in an apartment on Versailles Street where Louise de Marillac lived, Vincent de Paul gathered them, gave them a talk, and thus, in all simplicity, began the Company of the Daughters of Charity.

Marie was assigned to work with the ladies of the Confraternity of Charity in the parish of Saint-Sauveur, the first one founded in Paris and where Marguerite Naseau had begun. Marie had to take a position that had been carried out with distinction by none other than Marguerite Naseau. She did not disappoint. Indeed, the two were not so very different. Sister Marie, or Soeur Marie, as they called each other from November 29 onward, proved to be a willing and decisive woman. She had backbone and a strong sense of responsibility. She quickly won over all the ladies. The needy, however many there were, always left satisfied. She managed to keep up with everything. Saint Louise was delighted with her.

The Charity (let us remember this was the name of the Confraternities of Charity that in 1617 Saint Vincent de Paul had founded in Châtillon-les-Dombes) established to care for the sick at the Hôtel-Dieu (the municipal hospital) was the most important in Paris. It comprised only princesses, noblewomen, or ladies of the haute bourgeoisie. Saint Vincent himself oversaw it, and Louise was personally in charge of directing the young women from her group who worked there and whom the people began to call Daughters of Charity. However, Vincent de Paul often sent Louise de Marillac, as his delegate, to inspect and encourage the Charities in the villages. In her absence, both she and Vincent de Paul charged Marie with taking Saint Louise’s place not only at the Hôtel-Dieu but also in the formation of the young women who lived in the apartment on Versailles Street. It is known, however, that Marie was more inclined to action than to prayer. She, too, needed guidance.

Marie had become a kind of lieutenant or assistant to the superior, Louise de Marillac. Thus it continued until the end of 1636 or the beginning of 1637, when she was assigned to the parish of Saint-Paul in the fashionable Marais neighborhood, near the palace of her former mistress, Geneviève Fayet. Once again she captivated the ladies with her dynamism and sense of responsibility. The ladies trusted her, and the poor needed her. At the end of 1637, after a year at Saint-Paul, Mademoiselle Le Gras called her to change her assignment. Marie regretted it, but presented herself obediently and accepted the new move. By order of Vincent de Paul, Louise placed her in the parish of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois—none other than the parish of the court, where the kings attended liturgical services. Again there was success—speaking humanly—being applauded by the ladies and loved by the destitute. The ladies told their director, Vincent de Paul, quite plainly not to dream of ever taking Sister Marie away from them.

Yet two years later Mademoiselle Le Gras considered removing the energetic Marie. What had happened? Up to 1639 the Daughters of Charity functioned in support of the ladies of the Charities. When a Confraternity of Charity was founded, one or two Sisters were placed there to do the rough tasks that did not befit the ladies. For that very reason there were Daughters of Charity only where there were Charities. But in 1639 the administrators of the Hôtel-Dieu of Angers asked Madame Goussault to intercede with Vincent de Paul so that the Daughters of Charity would take charge of the hospital. Both Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac gladly welcomed the proposal. From that year on, the Daughters of Charity would not only devote themselves to home visits and teaching poor girls; they would also become hospital sisters. It was a great temptation and a challenge. To ensure a good outcome, Vincent thought of sending Madame Goussault, but she died in September. The attractive foundation could not be allowed to fail; it would be a disaster for the Daughters of Charity in the eyes of society. And so Vincent de Paul decided to send Mademoiselle Le Gras herself. In December, after a long and exhausting journey down the Loire River, Louise de Marillac and the Sisters arrived in Angers. Once at the Hôtel-Dieu, Louise visited all the wards, spoke with the employees, analyzed the snags and difficulties, and concluded that, for good order, Marie Joly should be placed at the head of that large community. Decisive as she was, Louise immediately asked the superior, Vincent de Paul, for Marie. The superior replied with only a laconic phrase: “I think we should not consider Marie.”

The ladies of Saint-Germain had vehemently opposed parting with Marie. Had she known, the former maid would have been filled with pride—but Saint Vincent never told her. Marie remained in the royal parish devoted to the indigent.

Marie had a sister with a stutter, Gilite, who wanted to be like her—a Daughter of Charity. She had asked to enter, but Father Vincent thought it would bring discredit on the new Company because the poor would laugh at her. Marie had pleaded insistently with Vincent de Paul to admit her. Day after day she would not stop pressing her director. Finally, one day in January 1640, Marie presented herself once more at the superior’s residence and, pressing her lips together, blurted out something like this: “Father, why can’t my sister be a Daughter of Charity?” And a dialogue ensued that might well have gone like this:

“Sister Marie, because she stutters.”

“And don’t you say that very talkative women cannot be Daughters of Charity? Then my sister will not be able to talk much.”

“But when she speaks, the poor will make fun of her.”

“They also make fun of us when they see us walking through the streets carrying a pot of food to the poor, and you praise us for bearing it in silence,” Marie shot back quickly.

“But that defect is a sign that God is not calling her…”

“Ah!” the young woman cut in. “So you mean that God, like men, looks down on the weak.”

“All right, all right,” concluded the saint. “I promise we will reconsider it.”

Sister Marie left happy. She was convinced that that phrase meant yes. She knew that her superior, despite his serious—even stern—demeanor, had at heart a tender love for the weak. And so it was: her sister Gilite entered as a Daughter of Charity and remained so until her death.

The following year Marie had another conversation, this time with Mademoiselle Le Gras. She and Father Vincent had thought of sending her to a very complicated and delicate foundation, hundreds of miles from Paris, to Sedan. For a century Sedan had been a center and refuge for Protestants persecuted in Catholic cities. Its university was a stronghold of Lutheran theology. It belonged to the powerful and independent Dukes of Bouillon-Turenne, who had only recently converted to Catholicism. A Charity was founded there, and they asked for Daughters of Charity. Those who went would be a mirror and model not only for the Company but for all Catholics. Saint Vincent urged Louise to send them quickly and to choose them well. The qualities required were too many for her daughters. She took months to select one. In the end she had no choice but to call Sister Marie Joly. When she informed Father Vincent, he shuddered. He would have to face all the great ladies of the royal parish. They opposed it flatly—the pastor too. Vincent de Paul’s patience won their consent. But they imposed a condition: that the replacement be another like Marie. “And she must know how to make medicines,” added the pastor. For the former maid, illiterate besides, had become an excellent apothecary. Monsieur Vincent agreed. “At least we can send her to Sedan,” thought the holy man.

Louise called her and found her tired and very thin. Alarmed, she worried about her health. It was nothing serious—only that in the last eight days so many poor people had come that she had no time even to rest for a moment. Mademoiselle Le Gras explained what they wanted of her. Marie, obedient, accepted without protest. She only said that she was afraid. Louise exclaimed, “Afraid? Of what?”

“Of going so far away alone. It’s many days of travel, and anything could happen to me on the way. It’s so far; it’s like a foreign land. I’ll feel exiled, without news from my Sisters in Paris or from you, since I don’t know how to write. Once I’m there I could fall ill, or be taken for a woman of loose morals and be frightened, and I’d have no one at my side.”

As she spoke, Louise’s heart—so deeply affectionate—was shaken. She looked at her as at her own daughter, one she might have given birth to, and she was moved with compassion. This was the daughter with whom the Company had begun, and she felt pity. Louise was tender and emotional, and before her stood a daughter who was afraid. Her heart finally broke when Marie, trembling, pulled out a handkerchief, untied a knot, and handed her 30 livres she had earned washing clothes in the river, so that the cost of the trip would not be so expensive for the Company. In the next eight days she earned another 30 livres the same way. Now Mademoiselle Le Gras understood why her good daughter was so thin and so worn out.

She stood up, embraced her tightly, and said with firm tenderness, “Don’t worry—you will not go alone, another Sister will go with you.” When Marie left more cheerful, Louise, without losing a minute, wrote to Vincent de Paul. With all respect and submission she set out that another Sister must accompany Marie. She presented the same reasons Marie had given her and added others:

“Besides, since we are not without feeling, and since it is no small thing that these good girls have left everything, sadness could overtake her, and, with no one to confide in, it is to be feared she might fall into discouragement; and I even fear this could be harmful to the others, who might say that we do not worry very much about the Sisters when we let them go off completely alone.”

Louise proposed the solution: since Marie is energetic and cannot read, let us send with her Sister Claire, who is docile and can read. The two will get along well.

Father Vincent, too, was pleased with this solution. On February 12, 1641, Sister Marie and Sister Claire set out—several days by coach to Sedan, near the border with Belgium. In its environs the Thirty Years’ War was raging. The coach stopped in the main square of the city. The two young women climbed down and took in the town. It was not as large as Paris, and it was different. People looked curiously at these two women dressed in such a strange way, like the peasant women of Paris. They asked directions and made their way to the governor’s palace. On the way they stumbled upon countless poor and displaced people—men, women, and children—who had taken refuge in the city, fleeing the war. They had left everything behind and arrived with nothing—hungry, cold, and terrified.

They presented themselves to the governor, who introduced them to the ladies of the Charity. They were given lodging, and that very day they visited the poor sick assigned to them by the ladies.

After a few weeks in Sedan they wrote to the Mademoiselle to tell her of their “feats.” In Paris, people were deeply moved. The letter was read publicly, and all the Sisters wanted to go to Sedan, where, they said, there were truly poor people. Sister Henriette Gesseaume in particular begged to be sent.

Sister Marie and Sister Claire worked well, but Sister Claire found herself unable to keep up with Sister Marie’s pace. She also found her very energetic, demanding, and almost harsh. Claire, on the other hand, was timid and felt inferior at her side. After a few months she wrote to Mademoiselle Le Gras asking to return to Paris. Saint Louise understood and told her to come back. Another companion had to be found for Sister Marie urgently. Louise was clever, and Vincent de Paul shrewd: Very well—was it not Sister Marie who had pestered us so much to admit her sister, Sister Gilite? Then let Sister Gilite go to live with her. And so she went, and they got on wonderfully.

The whole city admired the work of the two Sisters. They were angels of God. For the Catholics it was a point of pride before the Protestants. The ladies blessed God, the Capuchins undertook to hear their confessions and direct them, the governor praised them, and his wife became one of their best friends. Even the Duchess of Bouillon grew fond of them and used to visit to talk with them.

Thus ten years passed. In early 1651 the people of Sedan were in a stir. Rumor had it that at night a carriage, well escorted by soldiers, had entered the governor’s palace—indicating that inside were persons of unquestionable social and political rank. But it was odd that they had arrived and were not received with honors. It was later learned that they were the nieces of the First Minister, Cardinal Mazarin.

People from Paris said that in the capital the bourgeoisie and the Parlement had risen up against the absolutism of the kings and of their First Minister, Mazarin. Condé, at the head of the royal troops, defeated the Frondeurs, but, proud, became insufferable. Once the Parlement had been pacified, the queen had three Princes of the Blood imprisoned: Condé, Conti, and Longueville. The nobles and the Parlement rose again against Mazarin, who was forced to release them. In turn Condé and the Parlement kept watch over the royal family to prevent their flight from Paris. The Court felt itself a prisoner. The second Fronde—the Fronde of the Princes—had begun. For fear of an attack and to ensure his nieces’ safety, Mazarin had sent them to Sedan. From there it would be easy to cross into foreign territory if matters turned ugly. A few weeks later Mazarin himself passed through Sedan. He had banished himself, he said, to secure peace in Paris. So it seemed … but within, he intended to reach Brühl in the Rhineland, raise an army, and return against Paris.

One morning in the spring of 1652 the ladies of the city summoned the two Sisters. It was necessary to hurry to Charleville, 20 kilometers east of Sedan. As they left the city, the sight was dreadful. In the distance everything was smoke; villages burned; wagon after wagon rolled into Sedan, carrying the few belongings peasants had managed to grab—filthy old men, shivering, crying children, raped women and nuns, wounded men; a whole crowd, like animals fleeing a fire, seeking refuge in the city. Sedan’s streets were filling with people fleeing the soldiers. You could hear the dry crack of muskets and the rumble of cannons. Enemy cavalry approached at a gallop, and soldiers upon soldiers spread like a noose around Sedan. Streets and squares were crammed with peasants, with shouting, weeping, lamentation, and groans. What was happening?

Taking advantage of France’s weakness amid civil war—Parlement, king, princes, and people (the Fronde)—Austria and Spain attacked the French east. Spanish, Austrian, German, and Moravian armies broke through the French lines and besieged the frontier cities, among them Sedan.

Marie and her sister Gilite were horrified and heartsick. Faced with so many abandoned poor, they refused to flee or save themselves and went back into the city. Those poor peasants had to be received and cared for. But what could Sister Marie and Sister Gilite, two poor Daughters of Charity, do? Whatever they could—but there they stayed. What they did was immense. They knocked at the homes of the rich, at the governor’s, at the generals’. They organized the poor—meals, lodging, the women, the children, the religious women. The two Sisters were exhausted, but they did not collapse. They begged for money, and their work was not forgotten. Saint Vincent de Paul himself reminded the Daughters of Charity of it four years later.

Donations arrived. Sister Marie knew how to organize things and was intelligent. She knew that God had sent her the money so that she might administer it and she knew that money belonged to the poor, that she was only its steward, and that she would have to render an account to God of her administration. One day in prayer she reflected on this: so much money had been spent—certainly in charity for the poor—but might there not be a better way to feed the poor without spending the money? As if the Holy Spirit spoke to her, a word came to mind: farm. That’s it—she would use the latest donations to start a farm for the poor. No sooner said than done: she bought three cows, some chickens, and two pigs. She wrote about it to Saint Louise:

“When I saw that all the poor villages were ruined, I bought all that, which pleases us very much because it gives us great peace of mind. Since this money came to me by the grace of God, I have invested it in this to sustain the poor. May God grant me the grace never to have money if I am going to use it badly!”

Thanks be to God, the siege did not last many months and in the summer Sedan returned to its usual routine. Thus the years passed—many years, almost thirteen. Falling ill, recovering; exhausted, rested, then, visiting the great ladies and asking them for money, but always devoted to the poor. In October Mademoiselle Le Gras ordered her to return. The blow was terrible—as if the roof had fallen in on her. She could not believe it, though she knew the Company operated this way and that one day she would have to leave Sedan. But she was deeply attached to the place: she had friendly relations with the ladies of rank. The Duchess of Bouillon esteemed her, and they often conversed. The poor valued her, and she had organized resources to relieve their needs; she considered them her poor and believed herself indispensable. She thought that if she were absent, everything would collapse. Sedan was now her city.

Marie Joly clutched at a straw. She knew the structures of the Company well and knew that the superior was the priest Vincent de Paul, not Mademoiselle Le Gras. She boasted that she would not return unless Father Vincent ordered it—and in writing. And Monsieur Vincent did order it, in writing. Faced with this new command, she appealed to the ladies of the Charity, to the governor, to the duchess—to all influential persons—to let her remain in Sedan.

Neither Saint Vincent nor Saint Louise yielded. After a month, in November 1654, Marie was in Paris, but her heart remained in Sedan. She was listless, without enthusiasm, unable to do anything; and worst of all, the Duchess of Bouillon—who was in Paris—told her to leave the Daughters of Charity and return to Sedan to continue the work with the poor. In this state she fell gravely ill, more because of her lack of resistance than because of the illness itself. With Mademoiselle Le Gras’s care she recovered and cheered up enough to send greetings to Sister Barbe Angiboust when Saint Louise wrote to her. Even so, it seemed impossible for her to overcome the memory of Sedan. In Paris she knew no one … she felt alone.

A few days later, one afternoon after dinner, she went up to the dormitory, took her things from her trunk, stuffed them into a sack, thinking as she did that she was going—going back to Sedan. Her poor were alone. Her sister Gilite still had no companion. She was alone. She slipped out without anyone seeing her and made arrangements to leave for Sedan the next day. That night Mademoiselle grasped the whole situation, and at daybreak wrote a note to Saint Vincent asking him to send someone to the Sedan coach to persuade her to return home. And if that failed, to write to Sedan, to the superior of the Vincentian priests, so that he would not allow her to take over the Daughters of Charity’s house.

That night Marie could not sleep. She kept thinking of the distress she would have caused Mademoiselle, who loved her so much. She had not even said goodbye. She remembered the kindness with which she had welcomed her into Marguerite Naseau’s group, the trust she had placed in her when she chose her to begin the Company, how she had poured out her affection on her when she left her in charge as substitute and formator of her companions, the warm embrace when she departed for Sedan, the affectionate, concerned letters she wrote! And how good God had been to her. He had called her; He had given her a vocation so extraordinary—like that of His Son on earth, as good Father Vincent used to say—that he had always put everything aside for her. Abandon her vocation? She was out of her mind.

The next morning, sorrowful and silent, she returned to the House. Seeing her come back, Louise’s heart expanded. She understood all the anguish of that woman. She did not show anger. She only spoke gently to her and told her to make a retreat … and so that escapade of Marie Joly came to an end.

But Sister Marie could not adjust to Paris, her thoughts and her heart remained in Sedan. A few months later her sister Gilite also returned, and Marie rallied a bit. It seemed she was beginning to recover her former energy and to be her old self. However, it did not last long. The Bouillon family spent seasons in Paris and spoke with her about the poor abandoned on their lands because of Mademoiselle Le Gras. Madame de Bouillon usually spent summers on her lands at Morainvilliers. She told Marie about the situation of her peasants, forgotten by everyone. How much good she could do there! In a persistent and unmistakable way the young Madame de Bouillon badgered her to leave the Company and go with her to Morainvilliers, less than forty kilometers west of Paris. There she had her château-palace.

Inside Sister Marie a storm raged—a battlefield of doubts, struggles, anxieties, and heartaches. On the one hand she was friends with Madame de Bouillon and felt comfortable at her side, but Louise de Marillac was her mother, and with her she felt loved and safe; she was already serving the poor, even if they were not as abandoned as those of Morainvilliers; moreover, she would still be a Daughter of Charity: she would dress the same, say the same prayers, and care for the poor like them—but she would not serve as God wanted, only as she herself preferred. She would not be a Daughter of Charity, because she would be leaving her vocation.

Doubts upon doubts, visit after visit from Madame de Bouillon—she was on the road to being undone. So it went for two years. She prayed listlessly, without interest. She tended the poor without enthusiasm. She was sinking. In the spring of 1656 she decided to leave. That once-energetic woman presented herself to Louise trembling, barely able to speak. In a weak, urgent voice she said she was leaving for good, that she was abandoning the Company. And she burst into tears. It was useless for Saint Louise to try to stop her, to speak to her of God, of her vocation, of the poor, of her companions, of her sister Gilite, of having been the first Daughter of Charity, of… It was all in vain. And weeping, with her things in a bag, she walked away from the House and from Mademoiselle who had welcomed her to her side twenty-six years earlier.

She went out into the street and at the Porte Saint-Denis skirted the city wall and ditches and slipped into Rue Montorgueil. She noticed nothing. She walked mechanically along a route she knew by heart; at times she felt as if she were walking on another planet. She reached the Church of Saint-Eustache and turned right. There stood the palace of Madame de Bouillon. It was new, built some fifteen years earlier. The Dukes of Bouillon had bought it and given it to their daughter. Madame de Bouillon herself came out to receive her. Her joy was immense, though not so great as the sorrow that filled the heart of Louise de Marillac—and Marie knew it. The lady and the maid spent the entire afternoon talking. A few weeks later, before Paris’s scorching heat set in, they left for the countryside. The palace at Morainvilliers was beautiful. Marie lodged there with the lady, not as a maid, nor as a servant of the poor, but as a lady-in-waiting.

Marie was lively, sharp, and a good conversationalist. She was her lady’s delight. In the country—where everything is boredom for a great lady far from Paris—Madame de Bouillon had found her entertainment. In that era, salon gatherings and conversation were the cheerful pastime of noble or bourgeois ladies. Marie lacked for nothing, but the lady did not send her to the poor. She left the palace only to stroll with her mistress, and greeted the poor merely in passing.

Little by little, she came to understand: the lady wanted her only to be a companion and amuse her. As she discovered the truth, she crumbled. She felt wretched. She remembered Father Vincent’s kindness and Mademoiselle Le Gras’s gentleness, and the old Marie reappeared. Determined, she returned to Paris to ask pardon and beg to be admitted again. It was not easy to readmit her, but Marie had shown energy and tenacity in difficult situations, and now her very life was at stake. She did not stop asking forgiveness for months and months. Mademoiselle Le Gras had spoken to her with affection. At last one day she told her the matter would be brought before the Council.

While Marie waited in anguish and fear, a meeting was held at Saint-Lazare, where Vincent de Paul lived: Vincent himself; Father Portail, Director General of the Daughters of Charity; Louise de Marillac; and four or five Sisters. The arguments against admitting her were strong: she was a strong-willed woman, very attached to her own will. She had left by her own decision, without anyone forcing her. In an institution such conduct should not go unpunished; it would be a scandal for the other Sisters. It would give the impression that one could come and go as one pleased.

The reasons to admit her were also weighty: one must know how to forgive, and forgiveness can set right the wrong she has done; she clearly appears repentant and begs for mercy; third, she is among the first Daughters of Charity, has been in the Company for many years, and has always worked very well with the poor—especially in Sedan, where she suffered greatly during the siege of the city. And finally, what would the Sisters say if they saw us act so harshly with one of the most senior? Wouldn’t the younger ones fear that if they succumbed to a temptation they’d be thrown out onto the street?

The moment to decide came, and all, unanimously, resolved to admit her. Marie’s joy burst forth. Once again she felt happy; once again she was among her Sisters; once again she was with the poor she loved so much. When her companion Sister Barbe Angiboust died two years later, Marie said of her that “she avoided dealings with men and was very cheerful with the Sisters.”

Surely this was what she herself longed to have: to rely not on men but on God alone, and to regain the joy she had always possessed.

From this point on we lose track of Sister Marie Joly. We know only that in 1672 she was Sister Servant (superior) of the community serving the poor of the parish of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas in Paris. There she died three years later, on April 13, 1675.

Author: Benito Martínez, C.M.
Source: Brochure “Las cuatro cumplieron con su misión” (Ediciones Fe y Vida, Teruel, 1994).