Our Founders

Louis-Marie Baudouin &
Charlotte-Gabrielle Ranfray

In September 1789, the year that the French Revolution broke out, Louis-Marie Baudouin was ordained priest. Refusing to obey a law to bring priests under the control of the revolutionary government he was imprisoned twice. After this he went into exile in Spain where he lived for five years. While in exile he thought of all those suffering in his own country and he longed to be able to do something. He returned to France in 1797. However, he had to go into hiding again in Sables d’Olonne from where he set about, in secret, providing for the spiritual needs of the people who had been deprived of Mass and the sacraments for a long time.

It was there he met Charlotte-Gabrielle Ranfray.

Charlotte was a Hospitaliere Sister in La Rochelle. After 17 years of community life, doing the work she loved, her life was shattered as one of the effects of the French revolution was the closing of many convents. On meeting Louis-Marie he invited her to forget “the sweet solitude of her monastery and live in the midst of the world in order to go out to the poor; the helpless; the children who were in need of education; all the sick who needed nursing; and to help priests in their mission of evangelisation”.

Then began the Congregation of the Daughters of the Incarnate Word, now known as Ursulines of Jesus.