Jeanne Mance

Jeanne Mance , born the November 12th 1606 with Langres (Haute-Marne, in France), deceased the June 18th 1673 with Montreal, took part in the foundation and the survival of Montreal to the Canada, and founded then directed the Hospital of Montreal.

Biography

Exit of an easy middle-class family since her father was prosecutor of the king of France to Langres, important évêché in the north of the Burgundy, Jeanne Mance replaces her mother prematurely deceased near her eleven brothers and sisters before being devoted to the care of the victims of the Guerre Thirty Year old and of the plague.

At 34 years, at the time of a procession with Troyes, in Champagne, she discovers her vocation missionary and wants to join the News-France whose expansion is in full topicality. With the support of Anne of Austria, the very catholic wife of the king Louis XIII, and supported by the Jésuites, it accepts the donation of Mrs. de Bullion, (in the honor of which a long street of Montreal bears the name), and of the Société Notre-Dame of Montreal which want to help with the foundation from a station in Montreal, and more precisely that of a hospital, a Hôtel God, on the model of that of Quebec.

She embarks with La Rochelle on May 9th, 1641 and approaches three months later (on August 8th?) in News-France. Does spring 1642, after the cast iron of the ices of the the St. Lawrence, it reach with Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve the island of Montreal on May 18th (?)and takes part in the foundation of the city on the grounds officially conceded on May 17th, 1642 by the governor with the authorization to create the buildings. Jeanne Mance having belonged to the first group of organizers and builders, it is regarded as one of the three principal founders of the town of Montreal.

She looks after in a precarious installation the manufacturers of the fort and the soldiers before supervising the construction of the center of care of the small colony which the contract of the foundation signed in Paris authorizes on January 12th, 1644. Work starts in 1645: it is about a modest building, of 60 feet out of 24, inaugurated on October 8th, 1645 and intended to shelter six beds for the men and two for the women. Too much small, it will be replaced by a new building in 1654. Jeanne Mance, always raising of the state laic but assisted by the Sisters of mercy as from 1659, will continue to ensure of it the direction until the end of her life in 1673.

Its skin always rests in the crypt of the vault of current Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal.

Homages

Its cause of beatification was introduced in 1959 into the Archidiocèse of Montreal, and was transmitted since to the Congrégation for the causes of the saints to the the Vatican.
One gave in the name of Jeanne Mance to a school, a street and an electoral constituency.
Two colleges also bear its name in France, with Langres, its birthplace, which honoured it into 1968 with a statue of Jean Cardot, placed opposite cathedral where Jeanne Mance was baptized, as with Troyes where she discovered her vocation missionary.
One celebrated in 2006 the four-hundredth birthday of the birth of Jeanne Mance , with Langres as with Montreal.

Sources

Jeanne Mance
Jeanne Mance
Dictionary biographical of Canada in line
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