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MARIE DE L'INCARNATION (1599–1672)

MARIE DE L'INCARNATION (1599–1672), French mystic and missionary. Marie Guyart of the Incarnation was a leading figure of the Catholic mission to the Amerindians of New France; she was also a theologian (she was called "the Saint Teresa of the New World"), a spiritual adviser, mystic, businesswoman, and founder of the Ursuline convent in Quebec (Canada). Her extensive correspondence reveals a profound spirituality combined with a remarkable sense of organization and outstanding linguistic skills. As the first female missionary outside Europe, she exemplified female religious patronage and activism, which led to the development of social welfare in early modern Catholic Europe and its colonies. In New France, she was a star; it was almost compulsory for every newcomer to the colony to visit her, for she could provide information not only on the natives' languages and customs, but also on the settlers' living conditions.

Marie Guyart was born in Tours (France) to parents who operated a bakery. Nothing is known of her education or how she developed such a talent as a writer. Married to the silk manufacturer Claude Martin in 1617, but widowed two years later, she raised her only son Claude by herself while running her brother-in-law's shipping business for more than six years until she decided to retire from society. In 1631 she entered Tours' Ursuline convent, leaving her son in her sister's care, and pronounced her vows after two years of probation as a novice. By then she had decided on the great project of converting souls. She succeeded in going to New France in 1639 with the help of a large network of supporters that extended from her close relatives to Anne of Austria, queen of France (1601–1666). Two Ursulines, Marie de Savonnières de La Troche (1616–1652) and Cécile Richer (1609–1687), accompanied her and helped her found, the same year, the first teaching convent in North America.

After a long life of ecstatic visions, letter writing (more than 10,000 in all), and down-to-earth missionary work, Marie Guyart died in Quebec in 1672. By merging contemplation and action, she typified the mystics of the early seventeenth century. On the one hand, she was an expert in speculative theology, which she taught to her fellow nuns. Considered a sensible spiritual adviser, she was frequently chosen as the mistress in charge of the probationers of her convent. Over the years she also became the thoughtful director of conscience of many of her correspondents. She was more reserved about her mystical ecstasies, which she confided only to select people such as her son. On the other hand, she was also a devoted missionary, teaching and assisting Amerindian girls and women and raising funds for her mission. All things considered, however, regard for her missionary work was poor. Her Amerindian pupils were always few in number and often died early. Their numbers fell drastically at the end of the century because of epidemics and wars.

Marie Guyart's task did not end with her mission to the Amerindians but extended to the rest of the colony. She not only converted Amerindian girls, she educated the French girls with the aim of raising them as good and pious housewives. Her other, numerous skills ranged from translation of dictionaries in various Amerindian languages to architecture and crafting such as embroidery and gilding, which she introduced into the colony.

See also French Colonies: North America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Marie de l'Incarnation. Correspondance. Edited by Guy-Marie Oury. Solesmes, France, 1971.

——. Écrits spirituels et historiques. Edited by Albert Jamet. Quebec, 1985.

Secondary Sources

Bruneau, Marie-Florine. Women Mystics Confront the Modern World: Marie de l'Incarnation (1599–1672) and Madame Guyon (1648–1717). Albany, N.Y., 1998.

Comby, Jean, et al., L'itinéraire mystique d'une femme: Rencontre avec Marie de l'Incarnation, Ursuline. Paris and Québec, 1993.

Davis, Natalie Zemon. Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1997.

Deslandres, Dominique. "In the Shadow of the Cloister: Representations of Female Holiness in New France," in Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, edited by Allan Greer and Jodi Bilinkof, pp. 129–152. New York and London, 2003.

——. "'Le Diable a beau faire . . .', Marie de l'Incarnation, Satan et l'autre," Théologiques, 5, (1997): 23–41.

——. "L'éducation des Amérindiennes d'après la correspondance de Marie Guyart de l'Incarnation." Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses, 16 (1987): 91–119.

——. "Les femmes missionnaires de Nouvelle-France," In La religion de ma mère: Les femmes et la transmission de la foi, edited by Jean Delumeau, pp. 74–84. Paris, 1992.

——. "Qu'est-ce qui faisait courir Marie Guyart?: Essai d'ethnohistoire d'une mystique d'après sa correspondance." Laval théologique et philosophique 53 (June 1997): 285–300.

Deroy-Pineau, Françoise. Marie de l'Incarnation: Marie Guyart, femme d'affaires, mystique, mère de la Nouvelle France, 1599–1672. Paris, 1989.

Mali, Anya. Mystic in the New World: Marie de l'Incarnation, 1599–1672. Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1996.

Rosario Adriazola, María-Paul del. La connaissance spirituelle chez Marie de l'Incarnation: La Thérèse de France et du Nouveau monde. Paris, 1989.

DOMINIQUE DESLANDRES