MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS, Founder of the CND (1)


Adapted from the Introduction to Patricia Simpson's Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640-1665 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997)
Marguerite Bourgeoys, a native of Troyes, the ancient capital of the province of Champagne, in 1653 came to a tiny and beleaguered Ville-Marie, still undergoing its birth pangs. The city that we now know as Montreal came into existence through the desire of a group of devout men and women in seventeenth-century France to share with the native people of the New World what they regarded as their most precious possession: their Christian faith. They hoped to achieve this goal through the establishment of a settlement on the island of Montreal in the colony of New France. The foundation was intended to embody the Christian ideal described in the Acts of the Apostles in such a way as to attract the Amerindians just as the communities of early Christians had drawn their first converts in the Mediterranean world of the first century. To attain this end, the Société de Notre-Dame de Montreal was formed in France in 1640, and Ville-Marie founded on the island of Montreal in May two years later.

Last Modified: 02 June 2000