Jane Frances de Chantel

(1572–1641)

   Order Founder and Saint.

   She was born Jeanne Françoise Frémiot and was the daughter of the President of the Burgundian Parliament. After the death of her husband, the Baron de Chantel, in 1601, she took a vow of chastity. Guided by her spiritual director, francis of sales, in 1610 she founded the Congregation of the Visitation of Our Lady. The order was initially dedicated to the care of the sick and the poor, but was not so ascetic in its regime as most religious houses. By the time of her death, eighty-six houses were in existence, following an adaptation of the Augustinian Rule. Today the order is mainly contemplative. Mother Jane Frances was canonised in 1767.

   F.A. Gasquet, The Order of the Visitation (1910);

   E. Stopp, The Life of Mother Jane Frances (1962).