Du Frost de Lajemmerais, Widow d'Youville, Marie-Marguerite, Venerable

DU FROST DE LAJEMMERAIS, Widow d'Youville, Marie-Marguerite, Venerable. — A woman eminent for holiness of life, strength of character and administrative ability, foundress of the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, known under the name of Soeurs Grises, b. of a noble family of Breton origin, at Varennes (Canada), on 15 Oct. 1701, d. at Montreal, on 23 Dec. 1771. She married, on 12 Aug. 1722, François-Madeleine d'Youville, who died on 4 July 1730, leaving her in precarious financial circumstances. Mother of six children, two of whom were priests. On the advice of the superior of the seminary of Montreal, Louis Normant du Faradon, she devoted herself to the care of the poor; toward the end of 1737 she gathered about herself for this purpose some pious companions, giving rise to a new charitable institution, immediately the object of calumnies and persecutions, to which were added a long illness of the D. (seven years) and grave financial difficulties that were aggravated by a fire which destroyed the house where she had sheltered her poor (31 Jan. 1745). On the following 2 February she signed with her companions an agreement called Engagements primitifs, considered as the charter of foundation of the Congregation, canonically recognized in 1755.

On 27 Aug. 1747, the authorities of the Canadian colony entrusted to her the general hospital, close to ruin, founded in 1694, and directed until then by the Charon brothers. The D. reopened it in Oct. of the same year, adding to it two wards: one called Jéricho for fallen women, and another (from 1754), today called Crèche d'Youville, for foundlings (up to the end of 1947, 56,051 were received there). Despite her heroic efforts to give the hospital a respectable footing, she was the object of a sullen hostility on the part of the intendant François Bigot, which culminated in the temporary suppression of the hospital in 1750. However, Louis XV entrusted its direction to her again with letters patent of 3 June 1753. In this way the hospital and its community were able, thanks to her indomitable will, to overcome the crisis caused by the English occupation of the colony (1760) and by the great fire that reduced to ashes the hospital and a good part of Montreal (1765). The cause of beatification of the D. was introduced on 28 Apr. 1890.

A. Pietro Frutaz