CHAPPUIS, MARIE de SALLES, Venerable. – Foundress and mystic, b. 16 June 1793 at Soghères (Swiss Jura, then annexed to France), d. 7 Oct. 1875 at Troyes. She studied at the Visitation monastery in Fribourg and entered as a nun in 1815. Invited as superior to Troyes in Champagne in 1826, she was re-elected each time the rule permitted; she also governed the second monastery in Paris (1838–44) and exercised great influence over other Visitation houses.
She was frequently consulted by priests, bishops, and other influential figures. Early on she felt called to extend the Salesian spirit, especially by founding a congregation of priests, though its establishment was long delayed. In 1869, with Bishop Mermillod of Geneva, she founded the Congregation of the Oblates of St Francis de Sales (to engage in social works forbidden to the Visitation by enclosure). Finally, in 1871, she urged the confessor of the Troyes Visitation, Fr Luigi Brisson, to found the Oblates of St Francis de Sales, approved by Rome in 1875. She died the same year; her beatification cause 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 strongly attacked, e.g., by Fr Enrico Watrigant, as bordering on Quietism.