Grignion de Montford, Louis-Marie

(1673–1716)

   Devotional Writer, Order Founder, Missionary and Saint.

   Grignion de Montford was educated at the Jesuit College in Rennes, France. He was ordained in 1700 and he founded the congregation of the Daughters of Wisdom for nursing the sick and educating the poor in Poitiers. In 1704 he embarked on his career as a missionary in western France and in 1712 he founded another congregation, the Company of Mary, this time for missionaries. He was the author of Traité de la Vraie Dévotion à la Sainte Vierge. This was translated by F.W. faber in 1863 and has been popular with both French and English Catholics. He was canonised in 1947.

   Dr Cruickshank, Blessed Louis-Marie Grignion de Montford and his Devotions, 2 vols (1892);

   Catholic University of America, New Catholic Encyclopaedia (1967).