DAUGHTERS OF CHARITY OF SAINT VINCENT DE' PAOLI (Paris). - Religious institute founded by St. Vincent de Paul (v.) and St. Louise de Marillac (v.). Its origins go back to 1617, when St. Vincent established at Châtillon-les-Dombes (Bresse) the first Company of Charity, or, more precisely, to 1629, when the Company passed from the rural parishes to the great centers (Paris, parish of St. Saviour). The ladies of the city, who could not always personally perform the appropriate services for the poor, often entrusted them to their own servants, which turned out to the detriment of those assisted. St. Vincent then conceived the idea of associating with the ladies good young women who would devote themselves to the exercise of charity. Country girls seemed to him the most suited to the purpose; he therefore chose some of them, whom he distributed among the various companies of Paris. But after some time experience showed that they first had to be known and trained; thus a kind of community was begun. The work was entrusted to Louise de Marillac, widow Le Gras, president of the "Charity" of St. Nicholas, who received 3 or 4 of them into her house on 29 Nov. 1633.
The people called them "D. of C., servants of the sick poor": and this name has remained, together with the primitive gray dress "in country style" with that head-covering which in the 19th century formed the characteristic present-day "cornette". The first rule dates from shortly after 29 Nov. 1633. From morning to evening the life of piety permeates the charitable activity of the D. of C. "To leave God for God" St. Vincent would repeat, and it meant that the sisters, when necessary, must know how to renounce even prayer itself in order to serve the poor, whom, in the spirit of their vocation, they acknowledge as their masters. For 27 years (1633-60) St. Vincent lovingly attended to their formation with a father's care. His weekly "conferences", collected by the sisters, form two thick volumes.
Legislation. St. Vincent's constant concern was that his daughters should not be considered, and should not consider themselves, religious, according to the juridical concepts of the time. He therefore eliminated from their language everything that recalled the idea of a religious community. The Institute is called a Company; the novitiate, a seminary; the superior, its servant; the residence, a house. Vows were permitted as an experiment to Louise de Marillac and to 4 other sisters on 25 March 1642. It was definitively established that they should be "private and only annual". The day of 25 March, feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Virgin, is the date consecrated to the renewal of these annual vows, when the D. of C., already free to dispose of herself, offers herself to the Lord with renewed ardor. The purpose of the Institute is defined by the founder in these terms: "To give oneself to God in order to love him is to serve him in the person of the poor, assisting them corporally and spiritually". That is, to attend to one's own sanctification and that of others in the exercise of charity. To the initial work of "visiting the poor at home" there were later added the school for girls, assistance to foundlings (1638), to convicts (1640), to the aged and to wounded soldiers (1653). The archbishop of Paris, G. F. Gondi, approved it on 20 Nov. 1646 and again on 18 Jan. 1655. The King granted letters patent in Nov. 1657 and Parliament registered them on 16 Dec. 1658. After the death of St. Vincent his successors saw to consolidating and preserving from any alteration the work of the founder. René Alméras, first successor
(1660-73), asked and obtained from Card. de Vendôme, legate of the Pope, pontifical approval, and also revised and ordered the common rules, later promulgated by his successor, Edmond Jolly (1672-97). In 1718 Jean Bonnet (1711-33) promulgated the constitutions, which determine the conditions of admission, the organization of the Company in general and of the individual houses, the formalities of elections, etc. Before entering the Institute, the young woman remains for 3 months a postulant, then is admitted to the seminary (novitiate) for a year of trial, after which she puts on the dress proper to the D. of C. After 5 years from entering the seminary, she takes the holy vows for the first time "without any special solemnity", which she will then renew every year. The highest authority in the Company belongs to the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, on whom, by legitimate tradition never interrupted and officially confirmed by Leo XIII (25 July 1882), it depends and to whom the vow of obedience is addressed. The Company is governed by the superior of the mother house, elected every 3 years, assisted by a Council of sisters, also elected every 3 years, who hold the offices of assistant, treasurer and official. To this organization, fixed by the first rules, there was added in the 18th century the grouping of various houses into provinces, at the head of which stands a sister as visitatrix with her own Council, and a priest of the Mission elected by the superior general as director.
At the death of St. Vincent the Company numbered 51 houses; in 1700, 300 with 1000 sisters; in 1790, 430 with 4300 sisters. The French Revolution dissolved it along with all the other religious communities. Many, in secular dress, secretly continued the service of the poor. Several of them suffered martyrdom. Napoleon in 1809 restored their legal existence, but attempted to remove them from the jurisdiction of the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission. All the firmness of the vicar general of the Congregation, Domenico Hanon (1807-16), was needed to resist the emperor at the cost of imprisonment at Fenestrelle (1811-14). From 1815 the rise knew no more pauses and in the 19th century the Company reached all parts of the world.
With the subjects and the houses the works have multiplied, so that all the forms of assistance realized in modern times have found the D. of C. in the front line. The names of Sister Rosalie Rendu (1787-1856), "spiritual mother" of the Conferences of St. Vincent founded by F. Ozanam, and of Sister Giuseppina Nicoli (1863-1924), "the artist of charity of Sardinia", remain linked in this field to the most varied and ingenious initiatives. The sisters work in hospitals, ambulances, sanatoria, maternity and infant works, dispensaries, nursing homes, boarding houses, colleges, workshops, etc. The free schools resumed with growing rhythm after 1830. The nursery schools, where the D. of C. were the first to introduce the Froebel and Montessori methods, flourish everywhere. Numerous are the associations with a religious-social purpose created and directed by the D. of C.: it suffices to mention the patronages, and in France the women's unions, now a national work, conceived and organized with shrewd intuition by Sister Milcent in 1902. Belonging to this field are the association of the Daughters of Mary, which is headed by St. Catherine Labouré (v.), with about 500,000 members and 4000 centers, that of the Angels, of the Miraculous Medal, of the Lulisine, of the Oratories, etc. Foreign missions too occupy a place of honor and at present the Company numbers 4339 missionary sisters scattered in Asia, Africa, Oceania. Some of them have sealed the ministry of charity with martyrdom. There are then to be remembered, in the 19th century, the manifestation of the Miraculous Medal to St. Catherine Labouré (1830), of the Green Scapular to Sister Giustina Bisquayburu (1840) and of that of the Passion to Sister Apollina Andriveau (1846).
The organization and the aims of the D. of C. served as an example to other Companies that were founded in recent times.
At present (1949) the D. of C. form the most numerous female religious army that the Church counts, with about 45,000 sisters, 4000 houses, divided into 33 provinces. - See pl. LXXXIV.
Bibliography2 works
Annibale Bugnini