LATASTE, MARIE. - Mystic, coadjutor sister of the Dames du Sacré-Cœur, born at Mimbaste (Landes) on 21 Feb. 1822, died at Rennes on 10 May 1847. Immediately after her First Communion she felt a strong attraction to the Tabernacle, and after a period of disturbance and aridity, from autumn 1839 to 1842 she had frequent mystical visions and colloquies with the Saviour. In this way, she said, she came to know the highest theological truths. In April 1844 she entered the convent of the Sacré-Cœur in Paris, made her novitiate at Conflans, and then, for reasons of health, was transferred to Rennes (9 May 1846), where she died after having made her vows.
In obedience to her spiritual director, the abbé Pierre Darbins, she wrote a series of letters (87), in which she recounts her life and her interior experiences, and 14 small pamphlets of ascetical-theological matter “to give an account of what Jesus told her each day.”
Her writings were judged in various ways: P. Toulemont, *Les écrits de M. L.*, in *Etudes*, new series, 2 (1863), pp. 66-91, was favourable, whereas the report by Mgr de Ladoue to the Bishop of Aire-Epivent (probably 1863), published in *Revue de Gascogne*, 60 (1924), pp. 69-78, is very unfavourable.