RELIGIOUS OF SAINT-VINCENT-DE-PAUL

“God would have to raise up in his Church, for the salvation of the poor and the workers, a new society of religious entirely consecrated to these works*,whose power we see and upon them the manifest blessing of God. They would guard the exterior of the people of the world and at the same time fulfill the obligations of religious life. Those would be, friend, the real monks of the 19th century.”

These words of Jean-Léon Le Prevost at Maurice Maignen, in the fall of 1844 reflect the first intuition of the foundation of our Congregation. HASinsi, Jean-Léon Le Prevost, Clément Myionnet and Maurice Maignen, all three members of the Society of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, were to meet on March 3, 1845 in front of the shrine of their patron saint and thus lay the first stone in the history of our religious family in the spirit of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and Saint-François-de-Sales.

*The works of the Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul of which Mr. Le Prevost and Maurice Maignen were members.