Jane Frémyot was born at Dijon in 1572, the daughter of a leading magistrate of Burgundy. In 1592 she married Christophe de Rabutin, baron de Chantal, and managed his household and estates. In 1601 he was killed in a hunting accident, leaving her a widow at twenty-eight with four young children. In 1604 she heard Francis de Sales preach in Dijon, and he became her spiritual director and lifelong friend.
Together they planned a community where widows and women of frail health could also live a life of prayer, and in 1610 the Visitation of Holy Mary began at Annecy. After Francis died in 1622 she led the order through years of growth, journeys and loss, outliving her only son, killed in battle, and two of her daughters. She died at Moulins in 1641, when the Visitation had eighty-six houses, and was canonised in 1767.
Jane Frances de Chantal in the library (1 work)
- St Jane Frances de Chantal: Selected Letters — 17th century; translation 1918
Letters of the widow who founded the Visitation with Francis de Sales: spiritual direction full of good sense.