Chappuis, Marie de Sales, Venerable

CHAPPUIS, Marie de Sales, Venerable. - Foundress and mystic, b. 16 June 1793 at Soghières (Swiss Jura, then annexed to France), d. 7 Oct. 1875 at Troyes. She studied in the Visitation monastery of Fribourg and entered it as a nun in 1815. Sent as superior to Troyes in Champagne in 1826, she was re-elected there every time the rule permitted; she also governed the second monastery of Paris (1838-44); she nevertheless exercised a great influence also over other houses of the Visitation.

She was much consulted by priests, bishops, and other influential figures. Very early she felt called to extend the influence of the Salesian spirit, especially by the erection of a congregation of priests, but the execution was long delayed. In 1869 she founded, with the bishop of Geneva Msgr. Mermillod, the Congregation of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales (to devote themselves to social works, which enclosure forbids to the Visitation). Finally, in 1871, she persuaded the confessor of the Visitation of Troyes, Fr. Louis Brisson, to found the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, approved by Rome in 1875. She died in the same year; her cause of beatification was introduced in 1897. She left no printed works; her spiritual doctrine is known from her letters and spiritual conferences collected by her religious; it was sharply attacked, e.g., by Fr. Henri Watrigant, as close to quietism.

Edmondo Lamalle