Saint Jeanne Antide

Jeanne-Antide de Thouret was born on  17 November 1765 in Sancey-le-long  (Doubs). She was the fifth child of a Christian family. Her parents were Jean-François Thouret, a plowman and Jeanne-Claude  Labbé. She was raised in the Christian faith and her  mother taught her how to pray. Jeanne Antide helped with household chores,  watched the flocks and went to school.

At sixteen, she lost her mother and had to take on her responsibilities. She asked the Holy Virgin to take the place of her beloved mother. In 1786, she was asked by the abbot Ligier, priest of Sancey parish, to open a Catechism and reading school in the Presbitary where she taught children of the village the Gospel  and the basics of the French language. Her vocation as a teacher was born. 

Jeanne-Antide felt more and more inclined  to help the poor and the sick. She then took  the decision to go into the Church. But her father was against this idea and did  everything he could to persuade her not to do it. He wanted her to get married but she  replied that she would refuse, even a king  would not be her husband!  Her father Jean-François, who was a man of  faith, finally respected her choice.

She was  then 22 years old when she joined the  Congregation of the Daughters of Charity, founded a century before St Vincent de Paul. She first took her vows in Langres at the end  of July 1787, then in Paris on November 1^st. 

Created in 1789, the Doubs County was mainly populated by Catholic people who were  opposed to the dechristianization which had started with the Revolution. The 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy aroused stronger and stronger opposition with the  1792 heavy taxation and most of all the one on August 23, 1793. Yet, a revolutionary minority,  called the Patriots, remained active and controlled the political and administrative activities  relying on armed national guards.

On August 31, 1793, the 3000 insurgents who came mostly from the Haut-Doubs villages, were  routed to Bonnétage. The “Petite Vendée” then ended on September 6, 1793 by a dreadful  repression (summary executions, deportations, imprisonments). The Church of Maîche paid  tribute to its martyrs on a commemorative plaque. 

During the French Revolution, the Daughters of Charity were separated and asked to go back  home. In May 1794, Jeanne-Antide went into hiding dressed in her civilian clothes. She  continued to teach, take care of the sick and supplied the refractory priests who were hiding  in the woods and caves of Sancey and Surmont. 

She distributed leaflets, taught children the Gospel and organized the secret masses  celebrated by the refractory priests. The abbot Pourcelot, priest of Sancey would tell her: “Miss Antide, I have very great obligations towards you; you have done an admirable job in  my Parish, you carried out the both functions of priest and vicar”.

However, Jeanne-Antide didn’t give up her  vocation and on 15 August 1795, she emigrated  to Switzerland and Germany with the Solitaries  of Priest Antoine-Sylvestre Receveur, a wandering community. When she ended up in  Passau on the Danube borders on 24 April 1797,  she finally decided to go back home. After a  lonely trip of more than 600 kilometers, she  arrived in Landeron near Neuchâtel in  Switzerland on June 24^th. It was at that moment  that she received the message from two French  priests appealing to her to come back to  Besançon and take care of children who  couldn’t afford to go to school and sick people. 

 Back from exile, as a presumed emigrant, she  was forced to hide. For 9 months, she lived  underground in a cellar in the village of la Grange. Many times, Jeanne-Antide was sent to the  tribunal of Vaucluse and refused to take an oath  to the civil constitution of the clergy.

But in 1798, the inhabitants of la Grange and Brother Joachim testified in her favor. Jeanne Antide finally got a residence certificate and a passport to go to Besançon and Vesoul. She would then be regularized during the trial at Vaucluse in 1798. 

On 11 April 1799 in Besançon, she founded a free school for girls and a “soup kitchen” for  the poor. From May to September 1802, Jeanne-Antide wrote the rules of life of her  community. With a few sisters attracted by her ideal of life, she opened new schools and places  dedicated to health care. 

On 23 September 1802, she was put in charge of the running of  Bellevaux jail, where she tried to give prisoners an education,  food, work, and the opportunity to get paid at the same time. In 1807 in Paris, the community officially got the name “Sisters of  Charity of Besançon”. On 8 May 1810, she was asked to go to  Thonon in Haute-Savoie with a few Sisters. 

Not long after, in November, she left Thonon for Naples on the  request of Letizia Bonaparte, mother of the emperor, to be with  Joachim Murat, newly crowned king and brother-in-law of the  emperor Napoleon.

She settled down in the monastery  Regina Coeli, was in charge of the  health care service of sick people  (about 1200) in a hospice, created  two schools near the monastery,  visited the poor in the different  parishes of the city. She also opened a pharmacy in the  Convent. 

On 23 July 1819, the Constitutions were approved by the  Pope Pius VII who gave the community the name  “Daughters of Charity under the protection of Saint Vincent  de Paul”, but Jeanne-Antide was deeply affected by the  disagreement between the archbishop of Besançon and the  Sisters who remained in France. 

Indeed, the Archbishop of Besançon Gabriel Cortois of Pressigny, Gallican and ultra-royalist, took advantage of Jeanne-Antide’s absence to declare the  French Congregation independent and place it under his direction. 

Jeanne-Antide decided to go back to France to obtain a reconciliation but  she failed. A split was declared between the Italian anf French branches: The French  Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Besançon and the Neapolitan one of the  Sisters of Charity under the patronage of Saint Vincent de Paul. Jeanne-Antide went back to Naples where she died on 24 August 1826.

She was beatified on 23 May 1926 and canonized on 14 January 1934 by  the Pope Pius XI. On that occasion, a basilica was built behind the family house.

In the 19th century, after the death of Jeanne-Antide in 1826, the congregation already present in Franche-Comté, Savoie, Switzerland and southern Italy, opened new missions in northern Italy, France and Malta. . In 1904, she moved to Lebanon, then in 1909 to Egypt. Throughout the 20th century, it opened missions on all continents, USA (1932), Laos (1934), Chad (1962), Paraguay (1967), Indonesia (1980), India (1999)…

The reconciliation between the French and Italian branches took place during the 1950s. It was formalized by the Vatican in 1998.

The Sisters of Charity are dedicated to educating young people, assisting the sick, visiting prisoners, retirement homes and student hostels. They also create homes for AIDS patients.

Today, according to Vatican figures, there are about 2065 sisters in 267 houses around the world on 4 continents, in a total of 31 different countries.