The first two articles in this series took us to Châtillon-les-Dombes, where the suffering of one family led to the foundation of the first Confraternity of Charity on August 23, 1617. We then entered the Rule that transformed an emergency response into a stable form of service, combining home visits, food, medicine, spiritual accompaniment, women’s leadership, common prayer, and careful administration.

But the experience of Châtillon could not remain confined to one town. When Vincent de Paul returned to the Gondi estates at the end of 1617, he carried with him a model that could be repeated. Over the following decade, the Charities spread through rural France, adapting to hospitals, prisoners, beggars, unemployed people, and other forms of poverty. What began as a local rotation of women gradually became a network.

All the articles published in this series are available by clicking here.

Charity Organized: The First Years of the Confraternities of Charity, 1617–1633

From the Women of Châtillon to the Founding of the Daughters of Charity

Power Point Presentation accompanying this article:

3. From One Parish to a Network: The Expansion of the Charities, 1618–1628

Leaving Châtillon, Carrying Its Lesson

When Vincent de Paul left Châtillon shortly before Christmas 1617, the Confraternity of Charity remained in the hands of the local women. Its daily rotation continued, its officers administered its resources, and its members gathered each month to pray, evaluate their service, and make decisions.

Vincent did not attempt to transfer the association to Paris or control its daily life from a distance. The women of Châtillon had received responsibility for their own community. The Confraternity belonged to the parish and to the people it served.

Yet Vincent carried its central lesson with him: a moment of religious awakening needed an organized expression if it was to endure.

He returned to the household of Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi and Françoise-Marguerite de Silly, Madame de Gondi. The family possessed extensive estates across several regions of France, inhabited by thousands of country people. Vincent resumed traveling from village to village, preaching missions and hearing confessions.

The needs he encountered were both spiritual and material. Rural parishes often lacked adequately prepared clergy. Many people had received little religious instruction. Illness could push an already struggling household into complete destitution. A poor harvest, the death of a parent, or the loss of an animal could destroy the fragile stability of a family.

A mission might bring a parish together for several weeks. People listened, prayed, reconciled, received the sacraments, and reconsidered their lives. But what would remain after the preacher departed?

The answer increasingly became: a Charity.

Mission and Charity

The pattern gradually established after Châtillon was simple but powerful. A mission awakened the community to the Gospel; a Confraternity gave the community a way to continue living it.

Vincent and his companions preached, instructed, and celebrated the sacraments. At the conclusion of the mission, they identified people willing to accept responsibility for the sick and poor. A rule was prepared, officers were chosen, and a local organization began its work.

The Charity therefore became more than an additional parish group. It helped preserve the fruits of the mission. Through its home visits and monthly meetings, the spiritual renewal of the parish continued after the missionaries had gone elsewhere.

This union of evangelization and service would become one of the defining characteristics of the emerging Vincentian movement. The Gospel was proclaimed in the church, but it was verified in the homes of the sick. Prayer led to action, and action sent the members back to prayer.

The mission could end; the Charity had to remain.

Madame de Gondi and the Opening of Doors

The expansion of the Charities would not have been possible without Madame de Gondi. Her influence opened doors that would otherwise have remained closed, while her financial support made sustained missionary activity possible.

She was not simply a distant benefactor. Her name and signature appeared on several early regulations, and she took an active interest in the religious and material welfare of the people living on her family’s lands. Her concern for their spiritual abandonment had helped initiate the first mission at Folleville. She now supported the charitable structures that followed the missions.

Her involvement illustrates a recurring feature of the early movement. Vincent frequently connected people who possessed resources with communities experiencing deprivation. Wealth, social influence, administrative ability, and local knowledge could be placed at the service of those whose suffering was normally invisible to the powerful.

This collaboration was not free of the social inequalities of seventeenth-century France. The Gondis remained great landowners, while the rural poor depended upon an economic order they did not control. Nevertheless, Madame de Gondi’s commitment enabled numerous communities to receive missions and establish organized assistance.

Between 1618 and 1625, she remained one of the most important supporters of the expanding Charities.

Joigny: A Charity Shaped by a Hospital

In September 1618, the movement reached Joigny, an important town on the Yonne River and the center of one of the Gondi estates.

There Vincent encountered sick people whose needs differed from those of the family at La Maladière. Some were gathered in a small hospital, where insufficient resources and inconsistent attention left them vulnerable. The Charity therefore had to consider both care in private homes and the situation of people receiving institutional assistance.

A women’s Confraternity was established. Its purpose remained recognizably connected to Châtillon: feeding the sick poor, caring for their physical needs, preparing the dying, and encouraging those who recovered.

Yet the Joigny Rule was not simply a mechanical copy of the first one. Local circumstances affected its organization. The available resources, the hospital, the number of people requiring assistance, and existing forms of parish charity all had to be considered.

This capacity to adapt would prove essential. The Charities did not spread because every town was forced into an identical structure. They spread because the original principles could take root in different environments.

The central questions remained constant:

• Who is being overlooked?
• What form does poverty take here?
• Who can accept responsibility?
• What resources are available?
• How can assistance continue after the first enthusiasm has passed?

The answers changed from one place to another.

Across the Gondi Estates

Other foundations followed in Villepreux, Montmirail, Folleville, Paillart, Sérévillers, and neighboring communities.

The distances between these places mattered. This was not an expansion supported by modern transportation or instant communication. Travel could be slow, uncomfortable, and dangerous. Roads deteriorated in bad weather. Rivers, mud, illness, and political unrest could delay a journey. Regulations had to be copied by hand, and communication depended upon messengers and travelers.

Each Confraternity therefore needed capable local leadership. A Charity could not expect Vincent to solve every disagreement, inspect every account, or identify every sick person. Once established, the members and their parish priest had to sustain it.

The associations generally retained the basic pattern developed at Châtillon. Women visited the sick by turns. A prioress coordinated the work. A treasurer and other officers managed money, food, linens, furniture, and medicines. Monthly meetings joined prayer with deliberation. Registers preserved the names of members, accounts, inventories, and information about people assisted.

But the Rules evolved. Details were added, removed, or revised according to experience. An effective practice in one village might be impossible in another. A town with a hospital required a different arrangement from a scattered rural parish. A community with several wealthy donors could plan differently from one surviving on small offerings.

Fidelity to Châtillon did not mean repeating every detail. It meant preserving its spirit while responding to reality.

The Experiment with Men’s Charities

Although the first Confraternity had been formed entirely by women, Vincent did not immediately assume that all future Charities should follow that pattern.

Around 1620, separate groups for men appeared in Folleville, Paillart, and Sérévillers. Their responsibilities differed from those of the women.

The women generally continued caring for sick people and, in some places, prisoners. The men assisted people who were destitute and helped poor boys learn a trade. Their work addressed not only immediate hunger but also the possibility of future employment.

These groups reflected the social expectations of the period. Certain forms of visiting and nursing were associated with women, while legal, financial, and vocational matters were more commonly assigned to men.

Vincent also experimented with bringing men and women into a combined Charity. At Joigny and Montmirail, both groups were joined within one association.

The experiment did not work as hoped. Practical difficulties and disagreements emerged, and the mixed structure was eventually abandoned. The surviving evidence does not permit every problem to be reconstructed, but the lesson was clear: cooperation did not require everyone to belong to the same governing body.

The women’s Charities proved more stable and became the principal form through which the movement continued. Men remained important as donors, procurators, administrators, clergy, physicians, and collaborators, but the identity of the Confraternities increasingly centered on organized female lay service.

Mâcon: From Parish Charity to a Citywide Response

In September 1621, Vincent arrived in Mâcon while traveling through Burgundy. He had not intended to remain there, but the number of people begging in the streets and churchyards caught his attention.

Mâcon presented a problem on a larger scale than the villages of the Gondi estates. Poverty was visible throughout the city. Some people were unable to work because of age, disability, or illness. Others were transient. Many lacked religious instruction, medical care, stable housing, and regular food.

Vincent proposed an organized response. At first, some townspeople mocked the plan and predicted that it would fail. The number of people in need seemed too great, and the resources too uncertain.

He nevertheless remained in Mâcon for approximately three weeks. The bishop supported the initiative, as did members of the cathedral chapter, civic officials, and other prominent residents. A list was prepared of the people requiring assistance, and responsibilities were distributed.

Men took charge of certain aspects of assistance to people who were destitute, while women cared for those who were sick. Donations of money and food were collected according to each person’s ability to contribute. More than three hundred people were eventually registered and assisted.

The Mâcon organization also attempted to regulate public begging. People receiving regular assistance were not supposed to beg in churches or from door to door. Travelers were given temporary help and then expected to continue their journey.

These measures reflected the assumptions of early modern society, which frequently divided the poor into categories and sought to control begging as well as relieve suffering. Some regulations can appear severe when read today. They remind us that the first Charities were historically innovative but did not stand outside the social attitudes of their century.

Even so, the Mâcon project demonstrated that the principles of Châtillon could be applied beyond the limits of one parish. Local government, Church officials, donors, women volunteers, and male administrators could be mobilized around a shared plan.

The ridicule that greeted the proposal gradually gave way to admiration. Vincent departed quietly, avoiding the public honors that civic leaders wanted to offer him.

Following the Different Faces of Poverty

The early expansion forced the Charities to recognize that poverty did not have only one face.

At Châtillon, the immediate concern had been a sick family isolated in its home. At Joigny, hospital patients required attention. In Mâcon, hundreds of people begging throughout the city demanded a coordinated response. Elsewhere Vincent encountered prisoners, unemployed adults, widows, orphans, abandoned children, and families ashamed to make their needs public.

The organization had to follow the suffering rather than protect a single method.

Some Charities concentrated on food and nursing. Others provided clothing, bedding, medicine, or payment for a doctor. Some helped boys learn a trade. Certain groups cared for prisoners or supported people unable to work. When new needs emerged, the Rule could be modified.

This flexibility prevented the Charities from becoming associations concerned only with one category of beneficiary. Their identity rested not on a particular project, but on a way of seeing and responding.

The question was never merely, “What does our organization usually do?” It was, “Who is suffering here, and what do they need?”

Financing a Local Charity

Every Confraternity needed resources, but there was no central fund supplying the expanding network.

Local groups depended upon local creativity. Donations and bequests formed an important part of their income. Alms boxes could be placed in churches, inns, or taverns. Members collected offerings during services or went from door to door. Wealthier supporters contributed money, food, clothing, or household goods.

In some rural communities, cows and sheep provided milk, meat, or wool. Elsewhere municipal authorities directed portions of fines or local revenues toward the care of people who were poor.

The expenses were equally varied. The Charities purchased bread, meat, wine, medicines, linen, beds, clothing, and furniture. They sometimes paid physicians, nurses, or women who remained with patients during the night. They also provided stipends for Masses and other spiritual assistance.

Such activity required records, inventories, receipts, and annual accounts. The administrative discipline first established at Châtillon remained essential as the work became more complex.

The Charities were sustained neither by private generosity alone nor by public authority alone. They occupied a space where parish life, civic responsibility, personal service, and shared resources could meet.

A New Missionary Family

By the middle of the 1620s, Vincent’s missions had become too extensive to depend upon his work alone.

On April 17, 1625, Philippe-Emmanuel and Madame de Gondi signed the contract establishing the Congregation of the Mission. Its priests would devote themselves to evangelizing people in neglected rural areas. They would preach missions, hear confessions, provide religious instruction, and assist the clergy.

The new Congregation and the Charities had distinct identities. One was a community of priests and brothers; the others were local lay associations, increasingly composed and governed by women.

But their missions were closely connected. The priests awakened and formed communities; the Charities gave those communities a lasting way to serve. Missioners were expected to establish a Confraternity where none existed and to visit and revitalize those already founded.

By 1625, well over thirty Charities had reportedly been established. Their growth was remarkable, but numbers alone did not guarantee vitality. Some groups flourished; others weakened when founding members died, moved away, or lost enthusiasm. Local pastors did not always provide adequate support. Internal conflicts could disrupt meetings, while poor administration could exhaust resources.

A Confraternity could possess a Rule and still lose its spirit.

One Inspiration, Many Local Communities

By 1628, the Charities formed a recognizable network, but not a centralized organization in the modern sense.

There was no national headquarters, uniform membership system, permanent central treasury, or international governing body. Each Charity belonged primarily to its locality. Its members responded to the people around them, raised their own resources, elected officers, and adjusted their practices.

What united them was a shared inspiration:

• Personal encounter with people who were poor
• Service of both body and spirit
• Women working together rather than acting alone
• Prayer joined to practical responsibility
• Organization adapted to real needs
• Accountability for resources entrusted to the poor
• Recognition of Christ in those who suffered

The strength of this model was also its vulnerability. Local autonomy encouraged creativity, but isolated groups could deteriorate. As the number of foundations increased, it became impossible for Vincent and the Missioners alone to accompany them closely.

The Charities needed someone capable of traveling from one association to another, listening to members, inspecting accounts, resolving disputes, teaching, encouraging, and adapting the Rules without weakening their original spirit.

In 1629, that responsibility would be placed in the hands of Louise de Marillac.

Her journeys would begin a new stage in the history of the Charities: the transition from rapid rapid expansion to sustained formation and coordination.

At a Glance (infographic):