ST. JANE DE CHANTAL - Window #4
RELIGIOUS AND FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE VISITATION
(1610 - 1641)
a) Coats of arms of St. Jane the widow and of the Order of the Visitation.
b) On Monday, 29 March 1610, Madame de Chantal left Dijon in order to found in Annecy the Order of
the Visitation. She had previously confided to President Frémyot the education of her son Celse-
Bénigne,. Her heart broken but her soul valiant, she responded to M. Robert, the tutor of the children,
who is astonished by the tears with which her eyes were filled: "Don't forget, sir, I am (their) mother."
She went away with Madamoiselle de Bréchard and her daughter Françoise, who would complete her
education at the Visitation. Charlotte would die at nine years of age, and Marie-Aimée, having
married the baron of Thorens, lived with the de Sales family near Annecy. Madame de Chantal would
continue to concern herself with her children, their situation and their future.
c) Two Visitandines on a street of Annecy, under the arches of the old quarter.
d) From 1612 to 1618, the Sisters of the Visitation used to go two-by-two, two hours a day, to aide the poor
and to care for the sick of the city of Annecy. On the pressing invitation of Msgr. de Marquemont,
archbishop of Lyon, St. Francis de Sales would give them the full cloister on 16 October 1618. Let one
know well that "the particular task of the first Visitandines had not been the visiting of the poor, as
their name seems to indicate; they are Visitandines, primarily because they must live according to the
spirit of an evangelical mystery — that of the Visitation — united in intimate piety, humility, and
fraternal charity."
e) Rue de la Providence, at the cradle of the Visitation, called the Gallery and nowadays incorporated in
the Convent of St. Joseph of Annecy, the first out-Sister, Anne Jacqueline Coste, receives from a
servant on the part of Senator Antoine Favre some bread, some wine and some meat for the little
community, the day after its foundation.
f) Grand Scene. On Trinity Sunday which coincided with the feast of St. Claude, 6
June 1610, in the oratory of his bishop's house (Lambert house, at #15 rue J.-J.
Rousseau), St. Francis de Sales laid down a rough draft of the Rule for St. Jane de
Chantal and her two companions, Sisters Charlotte de Bréchard and Marie-
Jacqueline Favre, the latter a daughter of Senator Antoine Favre and sister of
Claude Favre, the celebrated grammarian, 14th member of the French Academy
and inheriter of the lordship of Vaugelas from which he takes his name.
g) Text: Suivez ce chemin, ma très chère fille, et faites-le suivre à toutes celles que le ciel a destinées pour
suivre vos traces. ("Follow this way, my most dear daughter, and make follow it all those whom heaven
has destined to follow in your steps") — instruction of the Founder giving the first rule of his
Congregation to St. Jane de Chantal, the day of the Foundation.