Marie of the Incarnation
Hugues Pommier, Marie of the Incarnation, 17th century. Collections I Pole culturel du Monastère des Ursulines (Québec, Canada).
Marie Guyart was born on October 28, 1599 in Tours, France. She grew up in a large middle-class Catholic family, with seven siblings. As a child, Marie was fascinated by her religion. When she was seven years old, she experienced a vivid dream about Jesus Christ.
When Marie was a teenager, she tried to convince her parents to let her enter a convent to become a nun. But her parents had other plans and convinced her to marry. In 1617 Marie wed a silk weaver named Claude Martin. On April 2, 1619, she gave birth to a son they named Claude.
Marie’s husband died six months after the birth of their son, leaving Marie a nineteen-year-old widow and single mother. Furthermore, her husband had mishandled his business, and Marie was responsible for paying off his debts. In this moment of crisis, Marie experienced another religious vision of Jesus Christ. She realized that religion was her true purpose in life.
Marie moved back to her parents’ house and left baby Claude in the care of a wet nurse. For a year, she spent most of her time locked in her room devoting herself to spiritual practices. The next year, Marie moved in with her sister and brother-in-law and brought Claude with her. Marie later recalled that although she loved her son deeply, she found it difficult to express her affection towards him.
In 1631 Marie finally fulfilled her dream of devoting her life to God by joining the Order of Saint Ursula, a Catholic women’s religious society. The Ursuline order of nuns was committed to the care of the sick and the education of girls. This achievement was bittersweet because Marie had to leave her eleven-year-old son behind. As a member of the Ursuline community, she was required to sever ties from the people in her life so she could be fully dedicated to God. Claude was hurt by his mother’s decision. He visited the convent frequently and called for her at the gate. He even tried to storm the walls of the convent to reach her. Claude’s suffering made Marie question whether she had made the right decision. She concluded that she was not abandoning her son. She was trusting God to take care of him. She was also comforted by the knowledge that Claude had entered boarding school and would soon start to learn a trade.
Marie believed her vision was calling her to join the effort to spread Catholicism in the North American colonies.
After two years of training, Marie took her final vows to become a nun in 1633. As is tradition for nuns, she also took a new religious name: Marie de l’Incarnation (Marie of the Incarnation). Soon after, Marie had another religious vision. She saw a landscape of mountains and valleys covered in mist. The only building in sight was a church. After speaking with a friend, Marie determined that her vision was calling her to the colony of New France.
New France was a French colony in North America. The earliest settlements of the colony were founded along the St. Lawrence River in current-day Quebec, Canada. New France was sparsely populated by French colonists, but the French church was very interested in sharing Catholicism with the Indigenous communities who lived there. To strengthen the church in the colony, the French government prohibited any non-Catholic settlers from moving to New France.
Marie believed her vision was calling her to join the effort to spread Catholicism in the North American colonies. She started planning her move immediately, but it took several years before she was able to make the trip. She had to raise a significant amount of money to pay for the journey, which included a three-month sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Marie eventually gained the support of Madeleine de la Peltrie, a wealthy widow who invited Marie to join her on her own voyage to New France. Madeleine wanted to establish a chapter of the Ursuline order in the colony to promote religious practice and education for women. This plan appealed to Marie. The two women were joined by three other Ursuline nuns. They left France on May 4, 1639 and arrived in Quebec in July.
When Marie arrived, Quebec was a sparsely populated town that lacked an educational system and had no established religious life. There were only about 250 colonists in the whole settlement. Marie and the other Ursuline nuns first lived in a house that had only two rooms. Shortly after her arrival, Marie started writing letters to her family and friends, including her son Claude, back in France. Her letters are now a valuable resource to learn about daily life in the colony.
The state of the colony must have been a shock to Marie and her companions, but it did not deter her from fulfilling her mission. The Ursulines established their convent shortly after their arrival in New France, and Marie was its first mother superior. In keeping with their order, they dedicated themselves to educating the young women of New France. In addition to the white daughters of settlers, the Ursulines also accepted Indigenous girls. They hoped that they could convert these girls to Catholicism, then send them home to spread Catholicism in their communities. All the students at the convent had to wear French clothing, and Indigenous students lived alongside white students. Through these efforts, the Ursuline convent became an important part of a larger effort to colonize and “civilize” the Indigenous people who lived in the territory the French had claimed.
Despite her many responsibilities, Marie was a prolific writer. She wrote hundreds of letters about her religious studies, keeping up a vibrant correspondence with Claude and others in France. Marie learned Algonquin and Iroquois, and published dictionaries for both languages. To promote the spread of Catholicism among the Indigenous population, she wrote a religious text in Iroquois. In 1646 she wrote a document to guide the spiritual lives of the Ursuline nuns in North America, adapting their original rules to life in the colonies. In 1654 she wrote an autobiography. This work was written as an apology to her son, explaining why she left him with family members to pursue religious life. Claude published the autobiography together with letters Marie had written to him.
In 1651 the convent was destroyed in a devastating fire. As the nuns and their students fled the building, Marie gathered their important papers and threw them out of the window. Everyone made it out safely, but the Ursulines faced a difficult decision. Should they try to rebuild or return to France? They had very little money, but all of the nuns believed in the importance of their work in the colony. They decided to stay. Marie directed the construction of their new building.
Marie dedicated several decades of her life to the education of Indigenous girls. However, by 1668 she acknowledged that her work had not facilitated the spread of Christianity among Indigenous communities the way she had hoped. From then on, the Ursulines focused their efforts primarily on teaching the daughters of French colonists.
Marie de l’Incarnation died on April 30, 1672. She was officially canonized as a Catholic saint on October 12, 2014.
Vocabulary
- Catholicism: A Christian religion that is led by the pope in Rome.
- convent: The home of a community of nuns.
- conversion: Changing religion.
- monastery: The home of a community of monks and/or nuns.
- mother superior: The head of a community of nuns.
- Ursuline order: A community of nuns dedicated to caring for the sick and teaching girls.
- wet nurse: A woman paid to breastfeed and care for an infant.
Discussion Questions
- How did Marie de l’Incarnation’s religious beliefs shape her life?
- Why did the Ursulines in New France educate Indigenous girls? What role did they play in the colonization of New France?
- What does this story reveal about life in New France? Why is Marie de l’Incarnation an important figure in the history of the colony?
Suggested Activities
- APUSH Connection: 2.5 Interactions Between American Indians and Europeans
- Use this life story to illustrate the importance of religion in the settlement of New France. This story shows how many colonists were motivated by spreading their religious beliefs among Indigenous communities.
- Pair this life story with Education in New France to learn more about Marie de l’Incarnation’s work and its impact on Indigenous girls.
- Combine this life story with Life Story: Marie Rouensa and Life Story: Kateri Tekakwitha for a lesson on the impacts of Catholic missionaries on Indigenous women.
- For a larger lesson on how religion played an important role in women’s lives during the colonial era, teach this life story alongside any of the following:
Themes
POWER AND POLITICS; IMMIGRATION, MIGRATION, AND SETTLEMENT
