JEANNE-ANTIDE  THOURET

Thomas Davitt CM

*****

From birth to age 22

Jeanne-Antide Thouret was born in 1765 in Sancey, which is in the south-east of France down near the border with Switzerland. Her first name is the French equivalent of the English Joan, but her second name Antide has no English equivalent. In this talk I will refer to her as Joan. Her father was a wealthy man with a large farm. His wife was from a much poorer family and also did not have good health. Because of this her husband’s sister took over the running of the house, and she appears to have been a very unpleasant woman. She had a poor opinion of her sister-in-law’s family background and did not like the children either. Because the father was out on his farm all day, and the mother was very frequently sick in bed, and the aunt was always there, Joan did not have a very happy childhood. When she was old enough, the Parish Priest advised her father to send her to school because she appeared to be an intelligent girl who could profit from being taught reading and writing. The aunt objected but the father and the Parish Priest got their way. However, after only about a year the aunt persuaded them to let Joan stop school and start work on the farm. When her mother died her father entrusted the running of the house to Joan and made his sister accept this.

The house was not a very happy place for various reasons. The eldest son worked on the farm and would eventually take it over from his father. The farm was not large enough to accommodate the two younger sons as well, and they wanted to join the army, something to which their father objected. There were many rows and eventually the two boys decided to leave home.

Joan was also making secret plans to leave home eventually. She had started helping the Parish Priest with catechism classes for small children, and she began to think that she would like to enter some active religious community. She did not discuss this with either her father or her aunt, but with her godmother and the priest. There was a community of sisters who had charge of a hospital in the town of Baume-les-Dames, not too far from her hometown. She was at this time twenty-one years old and she made up her mind that she would like to join  it, and she wrote to the superioress without telling her father and aunt. Unfortunately, when the letter in reply came to the house the address of the sender was on the back and the father was curious, so he opened it and so learnt what his daughter was planning. He did not agree with her plan but he did not get angry or annoyed, as his sister did.

Her father and aunt thought that they could find a young man who would make her a fine husband, and that she might agree with this idea. However, she turned it down completely, as her father had secretly expected she would. After much discussion about the whole matter her father brought her to a Carmelite convent where she thought she might like to be a lay sister, but when she went in the door of the monastery  she at once realised that that was not the place for her, and she turned round and went out again. Then the parish priest suggested that a community which might suit her, because it was for country girls, was the Daughters of Charity. They had a house in Langres, not too far from her home. In July 1787, at the age of twenty-two, she left home to start her postulancy in Langres. Her father and her youngest sister were the only family members who accompanied her to the coach.  With her departure from her home the first chapter of her life came to an end, at the age of twenty-two.

That first chapter was to prove a solid foundation for her work for the remainder of her life. During those years at home she experienced many different types of suffering, though not personal suffering of physical pain or illness. She had the suffering of coping with her mother’s frequent bouts of illness, which meant that she had to bear some of the responsibility of caring for the household and the younger children. Part of the suffering was the attitude of her aunt, who obviously did not like her and who made life more difficult for her than it needed to be. Eventually, when she was only fifteen, her mother died, and Joan had the further suffering of grief and bereavement. It was at that stage of her childhood that her father gave her the total control of all household affairs. Her aunt resented this, as she herself had expected that her brother would give her the role of managing the home. This new situation brought further suffering to the girl as she tried to cope with her aunt’s dislike of her. Another element of her suffering was the fact that as she grew older  she assumed more responsibility for the younger members of the family, as well as taking on increasing charitable work in the parish, such as teaching catechism to children. She also helped the poor in the parish by visiting them in their homes and bringing them food and other necessities. It was also she who dealt with the poor persons who came to the door of the house looking for help. All this led her to consider devoting her future life to such work of caring for those in any form of need. The suffering came into this situation because she was unable to share her plans with her father, suspecting that he would not agree, and knowing that her aunt would oppose such ideas strongly. As I mentioned earlier, her aunt was able to persuade her brother, Joan’s father, to break off the elementary education which had begun for the girl.

Finally, although she does not appear to have had any specific named illness she certainly did not have perfect physical health during her childhood, another type of personal suffering which would help her later in dealing with sick persons.

Her own experience of suffering was certainly part of her desire to help others who were enduring various forms of suffering. Also, her personal suffering in her family situation up to the age of twenty-two gave her a foundation of experience on which she would build later on, when all sorts of suffering would enter her life.

In the Daughters of Charity

She started her postulancy in the hospital of the Daughters of Charity in Langres, in July 1787.  To give her as much experience as possible, and to test her character and vocation, she was put helping at different times in all the various types of work which keep a hospital going, nursing, cooking, laundry and so on. After three months she was told by the superior that she had impressed the community and they were agreeable to her going up to Paris to begin her formal seminary. She arrived at the motherhouse of the Daughters, opposite the old Saint-Lazare, on the night of 1 November 1787.

One of the main sources of her suffering during her seminary year was the extreme cold in various parts of the old house, especially in the chapel. Also, unlike the other seminary sisters, she was not changed from time to time to different sorts of work within the house, but kept in the laundry where the steamy heat was just as difficult to put up with as the cold in other rooms. What she did not know was that she was kept there simply because she was so good at the work.

During the year she developed some sort of rash, and eventually had to let the doctor see it. He said it was incurable, and this would normally have meant that she would have to leave the seminary. However, she had made such a good impression that her superiors did not want to lose her. An old sister, an expert in what nowadays would be called “alternative medicine”, cured her complaint in a very short time with various ointments.

The fact that the Mother General was so understanding in all these matters can, I think, be taken as meaning that she recognised that Joan was worth keeping in the community, in spite of various indications that might have led to another seminary sister, with the same difficulties, being asked to leave.

At the end of Joan’s seminary year the Mother General decided to keep her, but also decided that, because of the problems with her health, she would be appointed to a house of the community in a health resort.  This was a spa, and the Mother General hoped that the combination of fresh air and mineral waters would restore Joan to perfect health. In actual fact, though, one year in the health resort made no improvement in her general health. The Mother General then had the better idea of sending her back to the hospital in Langres, where she had done her three months postulancy, counting on the probability that the air of Joan’s native region would have a healing effect. In this she gambled correctly. When Joan felt that her health was back to normal, she wrote to the Mother General that it was no longer necessary for her to stay in her native air and that she would be willing to accept any appointment which she might be given. She was also motivated, at least in part, by unwelcome attentions from one of the patients, a soldier.

The Mother General accepted her proposal and in 1790 appointed her to a community house in Sceaux, near Paris. The style of community living in that house was far from edifying and the Mother General thought that the example of a young  sister totally dedicated to her vocation, to community life and to prayer, would make a difference and might bring the community back to what it should be. Once again the fact that Joan was chosen for this only two years after completing her seminary, and still only twenty-five years old, indicates how highly the Mother General thought of her.

However, the Mother General made one mistake in this matter. She sent an elderly sister with Joan, and this sister’s domineering attitude towards the other sisters, caused more trouble rather than helping to heal the situation in the house. There were two major problems in the community in Sceaux. The sister superior was an alcoholic and totally unfit for her position. Secondly, the hospital in which the Daughters worked had been founded and financially supported by the Dukes of Penthièvre whose castle was nearby. The younger men of this noble family showed too much interest in the younger sisters in the hospital, and were constantly paying them unsuitable attention. They also frequently invited them to the castle to dances, meals and other entertainments. Unfortunately most of the sisters accepted this way of life, and began to object to the discipline of community life in their own house. Some of them left the community. Those who did not agree with what the Duke and his family were doing continued to live their community life as it should be lived, and to do the work for which they were sent to the house. Their attitude, however, made no difference to the others, and the alcoholic superior was of no help. That was the situation into which the Mother General was sending Joan, in the hope that her attitude to her vocation would have a good effect in the house.

When she arrived in Sceaux and saw what was going on she was very upset. She was young and therefore she had to deal with unwelcome attention from the young noblemen, especially one of them. This man kept trying to persuade her to leave the community and go away with him. He told her of the numbers of sisters who had already left the community and settled down to married life in the neighbourhood. She sucessfully resisted all his efforts.

This was the year 1790, the second year of the revolution. Sceaux was near Paris and word of what was happening there came quickly to Sceaux and to the community of the Daughters of Charity. Many of the sisters abandoned the community and went along with the new revolutionary ideas. Joan, seeing the impossibility of doing anything in Sceaux had herself transferred to Paris, to work in the Hôpital Läennec, opposite the Vincentian motherhouse in the Rue de Sèvres. In the following year, 1791, the hospital was attacked because the sisters would not accept the new ideas and would not avail of the ministry of priests who had taken the oaths against the authority of the Church. She left Paris for the town of Bray-sur-Somme, near Amiens, where there was another hospital in charge of the Daughters of Charity. In the following year, 1792, the hospital was attacked and Joan herself was badly injured when struck by a soldier, resulting in two broken ribs. She took a long time to recover from this injury, spending the latter part of her convalescence in Paris. When she had recovered sufficiently to be able to resume work, she was faced with the problem of what to do.  She had completed the five year period since her acceptance into the community and had therefore reached the time for taking her vows. But in the Paris of 1792 the whole administration of the Daughters of Charity had been broken up and there was not anyone to authorise her to take her vows.  Because of this situation she automatically ceased to be a member of the Daughters of Charity. So, as it was impossible to live and work in Paris as a Daughter of Charity she decided to make the long journey home, back to her birthplace, the town of Sancey, about two hundred miles south-east of Paris.

Working by herself

She interrupted her long journey home from Paris to Sancey by stopping in Besançon, not very far from Sancey. She was twenty-seven years old. There was a military hospital in the town and it needed nurses. She applied for work and was taken on. One day in the course of her work with the patients she heard someone call her by her name, and to her surprise discovered that it was her youngest brother, who had become a soldier and was in hospital with some form of illness. They were both delighted to meet each other again, and it was her brother who eventually persuaded her to continue with her intention of returning to her home town of Sancey, and one day they set out together on the final stretch of her long journey home from Paris. She had spent some months of 1793 and 1794 working in the hospital in Besançon.

When she arrived back in her home town she immediately made contact with her god-mother, who took her in to her house. It was five years since Joan had left home and there was a lot of family news to catch up with. Her father had died in 1791. Two of her brothers had accepted all the revolutionary ideas and one of them was in a fairly senior position in the town ensuring that all the new laws, including those against religion, were enforced. In Paris, and then later in Bray-sur-Somme and Besançon, Joan had always refused to have any dealings with priests who had sworn the revolutionary oaths. She would not attend their Masses nor would she go to confession to them. At great risk to herself, she always tried to find priests who had refused the oaths. These men had to be very careful, and were always moving about from one hiding place to another, always in danger of being betrayed by someone. Her godmother told Joan that the situation in Sancey was exactly the same as elsewhere. For Joan, of course, things were more dangerous in her home town because people knew her by sight and could observe where she went and to whom she spoke, thus increasing the danger of being betrayed herself and perhaps causing the arrest of some priest. There was one other very great danger, namely that her own brother Joachim was a most enthusiastic upholder of revolutionary ideas in the town, especially the anti-religious ideas. For all these reasons Joan thought it would be more prudent for her to leave Sancey, and perhaps leave at once. Her godmother persuaded her to stay at least for a short time in order to rest and recuperate after her long journey from Paris. She said she could keep Joan in her own house and no one would know that she was there. Joan decided to take her advice, and said she would remain for a few days.

During those few days her godmother went looking for Joachim in the town and met him on the street and simply said that she had news of Joan. Joachim pretended not to hear, but after dark he arrived secretly at her house and met his sister. After their meeting Joan kept to her decision and went back to Besançon to resume her work of  nursing in the hospital.

This was in the year 1794 and that was the year when Robespierre, one of main revolutionary leaders, was himself guillotined. Joachim was beginning to lose faith in the revolution because of all the atrocities and because the government seemed to have lost its initial aim of bettering the lives of the ordinary people of France. This was also the year in which there was an outbreak of cholera in Sancey, with very large numbers of people falling sick and needing nursing care. Joachim decided to contact Joan in Besançon and ask her to come back home and nurse the people of her own town. She agreed, and returned. Her previous experience in five different hospitals was of great help both in her own nursing and in her training of other girls.

After the execution of Robespierre a law had been passed allowing freedom of religion, and for a while things were a bit better, but then the old persecution broke out again. In her nursing Joan did not make any distinction between sick people who were for or against the revolutionary ideas; she nursed them all as sick people who needed help. She also instructed them about the importance of prayer, saying that healing came from God, not from her. For believers who were dying she always tried to get a priest, who had not taken the oath, to come and administer the last sacraments. This meant that she had to find out where such priests were hiding, usually in woods or mountains outside the town. She took on a new type of ministry with these priests, bringing them food and other things which they needed. Her brother Joachim suspected what she was doing but did not interfere himself nor betray her to his colleagues.

A new law was passed setting up new schools, which would teach the new revolutionary ideas, and excluding anything religious. Joan decided to start a secret school in the town to teach the gospel and other religious matters, including prayers. A large number of boys and girls attended. She also held prayer meetings and sessions of scripture reading.  Her youngest sister returned to Sancey to help her in this work. Remember, Joan’s full name was Joan-Antide; he sister was Joan-Barbara, so I’ll refer to her as Barbara. It was too much to hope that her secret school and meetings would remain undiscovered. Eventually,  she was betrayed by someone who had attended the meetings, and she was arrested and questioned. She was warned and cautioned, but let go. She continued her work but knew that the next time she would not get off so lightly, so she made plans to leave France and cross over the nearby border into Switzerland. Barbara had already left, because she had for a long time  wanted to become a nun and that was impossible in France at the time.

Barbara had joined a rather peculiar group of men and women solitaries, led by a rather peculiar priest.  Joan attached herself to them because of her sister. They were forced out of Switzerland into Austria and then Germany, and all the time Joan was nursing the sick. Barbara died at the end of 1796. Joan could no longer accept the unreasonable attitudes of the priest and his followers and left. The whole thing was far more complicated than that, but there is no time to go into the details.

After she left that group she had a long period of wandering through Germany  and eventually into Switzerland. In a small town in Switzerland she began teaching again. Somehow a letter from a priest in Sancey, her home town, reached her there, requesting her to return and resume her work for her own townspeople. At about the same time she met the Vicar General of Besançon, who asked her to go there and start a school. She returned to her own town, began doing a bit of teaching, but eventually a new outbreak of persecution forced her to leave, and she went to Besançon once again.

Besançon

In the middle of 1798 there was a new wave of anti-religious persecution, especially against schools which taught religion in any form. The Vicar General, who had asked Joan to return, had also returned himself. He had never taken the oaths and so had to keep in hiding. At a secret meeting with Joan he asked her to start a school for girls, in which religious instruction would be given, including preparation for the sacraments. This was a great risk, because of the attitude of the authorities in the town, but she decided to take the risk. In April 1799 she rented a room and began her school. Very soon the room was too small and she had to get another one. In her school she made no distinction between girls whose parents were in favour of the revolution or against it; she taught them all, impartially. This was one of the reasons for her success. After three months a young woman named Nanette Bon asked to join her, having been impressed with what she was doing. A few months later three more asked to join her. This meant that after about a year she had four other young women helping her. This gave her the idea of trying to do the sort of charitable work which she had done when in the Daughters of Charity, so the small group added to their teaching the visiting of the poor in their homes and care for the sick. They were nicknamed the Sisters of the Soup Kettle and the Little Schools. By 1800 the group had grown even larger.

At the end of 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte returned to France after many military victories outside France. He succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship of the Revolutionary government and declared himself First Consul. He saw that he would need the help of religious believers in making a new France, and in December 1799 he passed laws giving again freedom of worship and removing the oaths which had caused so much trouble for Catholics.

The prefect of the city of Besançon had done everything the revolutionary government had wanted, enforcing all the anti-religious laws. In order to stay in power as prefect he now equally enthusiastically enforced Napoleon’s new laws permitting religious freedom. As prefect he had one very serious problem which he had been unable to solve. In the town there was an establishment that was supposed to be a workhouse for the poor of the town, but it had turned into a place where every sort of evil flourished, with very frequent murders among the persons there. He had tried various solutions, but none had worked. With the new laws allowing freedom of religion he thought that Joan and her community might be able to transform the place. He had seen how successful she was in her school and in her care for the poor and sick. Again, because of the new laws, he had no hesitation in going to the archbishop to discuss this idea with him. The archbishop was a man who had taken the oaths during the revolutionary period and had been installed as archbishop at the insistence of Napoleon, against the wishes of Rome. However, in spite of his early history he was a good archbishop and had seen and appreciated what Joan had been doing. He agreed with the prefect’s idea. Unfortunately the vicar general, who had brought Joan back to France and supported her work, did not accept the archbishop because of his background. This was going to cause trouble for Joan.

When the prefect and archbishop agreed to ask Joan’s sisters to take over the  administration of the workhouse she was absent, trying to draw up a rule for her growing community. She took as much as she could remember of what she had learnt when in the Daughters of Charity. She had one very serious problem to solve. Who was to be the ecclesiastical superior of the community, the vicar general who had shared so much of the beginnings with her, or the archbishop? If she decided on the vicar general, who would succeed when he died? If she chose the archbishop, then of course the next archbishop would succeed.  She decided on the archbishop, even with his background, because she realised that the next archbishop would not be someone who had supported the revolution. This decision was to cause her much suffering of a new sort, the suffering caused by other people’s jealousy and the campaign of slander and accusations which it would cause.

When the prefect and archbishop told her of their idea about the workhouse she immediately agreed. She and her sisters were brought to the place in the company of both the prefect and the archbishop, in order to let the persons there see that Joan and her sisters were supported by both the civil and religious authorities of the town. After not very long her work began to change the whole atmosphere in the place, and that is when the jealousy began. The vicar general thought that he should be acknowledged as the founder of Joan’s community and its religious superior. He was jealous of the reputation she was gaining in the town, and thought that he should get more credit for her success. Joan’s first companion, Nanette Bon, had the same sort of jealousy, thinking that too much notice was being taken of Joan and not enough of herself. The vicar general and Nanette were quickly in alliance to try to defeat Joan. As the vicar general had charge of much of the financial help he was able to cause Joan a lot of trouble. There is no need to go into the details of their campaign against Joan, but it is important to know that the archbishop always supported her and made it clear that he was the religious superior of the community. It had been officially established as a religious community on 15 October 1800.

One of the problems she had to face was the fact that the vicar general cut off the funds necessary to run the workhouse. This meant that she and the sisters had to go begging. The vicar general also managed to turn a group of wealthy ladies, who had been helping, against Joan’s community. He also advised the social welfare office in the town not to help. That last matter, though, was solved when the town appointed the archbishop as head of the welfare office, and of course he immediately saw to it that Joan got the necessary funds.

The archbishop was determined to help Joan even further. He had two ideas in mind. The first was to get full ecclesiastical approval for her community, and as archbishop he was able to start the necessary process. He knew that Joan did not fully trust him, because of his earlier attitude during the revolutionary period, but he was able to overcome her mistrust and she showed him the draft rule she had drawn up. This was in 1804.

His second idea was more difficult, and that was to get civil recognition for her community, which would give them legal status with all the rights that that would bring. He wrote to the minister in charge of such matters in the government in Paris, explaining what Joan’s community had been doing and the desirability of getting the necessary legal requirements put in place. He mentioned that they worked in the spirit of St Vincent de Paul. The minister replied that Joan’s community should amalgamate with the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, since the two communities were doing similar work and in the same spirit. When this reply came from Paris, Joan had to decide what to do. As regards herself personally, she would have liked to re-join her original community, but she did not think it would be the correct decision. Anyway, she had to put it to her whole community to get their reaction. They were unanimous in saying no. They had never had any connection with the Daughters of Charity and saw no reason to join with them. They wished to continue as a separate community, as they had been from the start. She wrote to the minister in Paris that they did not wish to amalgamate with the Daughters of Charity, and they then waited for the next letter from Paris.

Meanwhile, because of the way in which Joan’s sisters had transformed the workhouse for the poor, the prefect and the archbishop decided to ask them to take over the administration of the military hospital in the town, which was in a very bad state. Once again a great change took place, and both the prefect and the archbishop used this with the authorities in Paris as new evidence that Joan’s community should continue its separate existence, and not join the Daughters of Charity.

The matter was finally settled at a meeting in 1807, of the superiors of all the women’s communities in France who engaged in charitable work. Joan’s community had been using the name of St Vincent in their work, but the Mother General of the Daughters objected to this because of the confusion it could cause. The Daughters, though, had never been in Besançon, so that was not a problem in that town. Joan could see the importance of this objection, and tried to think of a new name. It was Napoleon’s mother who suggested one, The Sisters of Charity of Besançon, and that was adopted.

Naples

The next big development came in 1810, when the King of Naples, the former French military leader Joachim Murat, who was also Napoleon’s brother-in-law, invited Joan’s community, through Napoleon’s mother, to come to Naples to take charge of  schools and hospitals in the kingdom. The first request was for six sisters, and in October 1810 Joan, with six sisters and two of her own nieces, left for Italy. A few weeks before her departure, at the end of  August, her community had received full legal recognition in France.

The request from Naples had been for six sisters, but since Joan went with them there were, in fact, seven. Her idea was to stay just long enough to set things up on a firm footing, and then return to Besançon. She told her community that she would soon be back. In actual fact she stayed eleven years in Naples. 

On 18 November 1810 Joan and her group were officially welcomed to Naples by civil and ecclesiastical representatives, and were taken in four royal coaches on the last section of their journey, to the former Regina Caeli monastery, which was to be their new home.  It was a very large house, and Joan saw that its rooms could be put to various uses. She was already thinking of a novitiate for Italian girls who would wish to join her community. When they went through all the rooms of their new home they discovered, to their dismay, that there was hardly any furniture apart from the few beds necessary for the sisters. They hoped that furniture would be delivered in the next few days, but it never came. The government representative who was in charge of relations with the sisters, a Frenchman called Dumas, promised everything and never delivered anything. It emerged later that he consistently defrauded the sisters of financial aid. Equally annoying was the fact that for many days no one told them what or where their charitable work was to be. Eventually someone told them that it would be the Hospital for the Incurably Ill. It was next door to their new home and had 1,200 patients.

At first the people of Naples were suspicious of the new sisters, precisely because they were French; the did not trust or like French people. Gradually, though, they began to appreciate what the sisters were doing in the hospital.  The sisters were doing their best, but still the promised help from the authorities did not materialise. The king and queen came to visit them and asked if everything was alright. Joan said “yes”, because she did not want to disappoint them, and she hoped things would improve. Things did not improve, and after nearly a year of doing without adequate finance and even needed furniture, she made an official complaint to the government minister in charge of hospitals. He was surprised, as he had understood that everything was going well. Even he, though, seemed unable to give any practical help, being apparently afraid of the Frenchman Dumas who had the real power in this matter. Joan then  went directly to the king. He issued a royal decree guaranteeing the sisters an adequate annual income, and he added to this an extra sum for the immediate purchase of all necessary furniture. This was at the end of October 1811, almost exactly one year after their arrival in Naples. The government minister in charge of hospitals added a clause to the end of the royal decree, saying that the community was never to have a superior general, but that each house was to be independent. This was to give himself more control over them. Joan reported this directly to the king, and he  made him delete this clause, and so the community was set up in Naples exactly the way Joan wanted it.

As had happened already in France, the community in Naples began to take on extra needed charitable work as well as their work in the hospital. Their first move was into education of the city’s poor children. This, in turn, led to other types of help for the poor.  As their various charitable works began to be better known some girls and young women asked to be admitted into the community, and so the novitiate eventually opened in 1813, though the first novices were all daughters of French officers and officials stationed in Naples. Things began to work smoothly at last in Naples, and that situation developed satisfactorily over the next few years.

Meanwhile, what was happening to her community in Besançon? She was Mother General of the houses in France, and she had kept in contact by letter, and the letters she received from there all seemed to indicate that things were going well. Unfortunately the letters were written precisely to give that impression, but in fact things were not going well at all. The old jealousy of her was still there, and even though the vicar general who had plotted against her was dead, a new one was equally against her. He was associated with his predecessor back in the days when she had first been invited to return to France. And the archbishop who had supported her so well was also dead.  The other person who was motivated by jealousy was her first companion, Nannette Bon, now known as Sister Marie Ann. When the new archbishop was appointed, he was given all the reasons for opposing Joan, and he sided from the first with her opponents.

Joan knew nothing of these intrigues against her, but in 1818 she decided that it was time for her to return to Besançon, as the Naples communities were able to run themselves without her presence. She was advised, though, to go back to France via Rome, and while in Rome to make sure that her congregation was established soundly on secure canonical foundations. In July 1819 she got the required official document, which was later ratified by the Pope. She wrote to Sister Marie Ann telling her of the good news, and that she was returning to Besançon. Marie Ann replied that the sisters would be delighted to welcome her back.

When the new archbishop received a copy of the papal document his vicar general persuaded him that this document would upset all the work of the sisters in his diocese, putting them on a completely different basis. The new archbishop, who had never met Joan and had had no communication with her, believed this  and solemnly forbade her to return to any house of the sisters in his diocese. This was once again the old French opposition to any interference by the Pope in internal French religious affairs.

When Joan, still in Rome, learned of this attitude she was dismayed. In 1821 she decided that she would return anyway and try to discuss the matter with the archbishop himself. Then things in Besançon took a further step for the worse. The archbishop authorised the novices who were ready to take their vows that they were to take them according to the rules which were there before the papal document was issued. This meant that those sisters were canonically separated from the sisters in Italy.

When Joan got back to France, but before she reached Besançon, she received a letter saying that the archbishop had forbidden the sisters in any house in his diocese to receive her. This actually happened when she called at the door of one of the houses. She met the papal nuncio in Paris, and government ministers to try to get the archbishop’s attitude changed. She even had an opportunity to meet the archbishop in Paris, but he refused even to speak with her.

She returned to Naples in October 1823, tired and ill. She still hoped that the breach between the houses in Besançon diocese and those in Italy could be mended, but she died without seeing this happen. She died of a stroke on 26 August 1826, at the age of sixty. At that time there were one hundred and thirty-six houses in France, Italy and Switzerland.

She was beatified in 1926 and canonised in 1934. In 1985 her feast was added to the Vincentian calendar.

During the whole time that Marie Ann Bon was superior in Besançon she was opposed to any move to re-join the two sections of the congregation. Her successor took the same attitude. Then the next superior there in 1893 made a move towards healing the division, by contacting the houses in Italy. However, because of all sorts of civil and ecclesiastical legal problems the final formal re-unification did not take place until 1957.