Marie Louise Trichet

Trichet was born in Poitiers, on the Clain River in west central France on 7 May 1684 and baptized at the church of St. Etienne.[1] Her father Julien was a court magistrate in Poitiers and her mother Françoise Lecocq was deeply religious, as was most of her family. She was the fourth child and third daughter, and had seven siblings.

The eldest, Jeanne, struck with paralysis at the age of thirteen, was cured three years later during a visit to Notre Dame des Ardilliers at Saumur. Her younger brother Alexis, born just one year earlier, was ordained a priest in 1710 and later died after volunteering to minister to plague stricken inmates in a prison camp. The youngest of her sisters later joined the Daughters of Wisdom.[1]

Trichet grew up in an atmosphere of religion and education, and when seven years old, was sent to the boarding school at Poitiers run by the Sisters of St. Jeanne de Lestonac to acquire the social qualifications suitable for the upper echelons of seventeenth-century France.[1]

Baptistère Saint-Jean (4th century) in Poitiers

The area of western France where she grew up had a strong Christian tradition. Poitiers is home to Baptistère Saint-Jean, reportedly the oldest extant Christian building in France, and the historic Battle of Tours was fought just 20 km north of Poitiers in the 8th century. Poitiers was also important in that in the 15th century the French royal parliament in exile moved from Paris to Poitiers. In the 16th century, Poitiers impressed visitors because of its relatively large size, royal courts, university, prolific printing shops, religious institutions, cathedral and numerous parishes.

Poitiers General Hospital

Yet the apparent affluence of Poitiers in the 17th century, prior to the French Revolution, had a less than royal side. France was plagued by corruption, and rampant poverty. At Poitiers, beggars, cripples and drunks were forcibly sent to a stone building called the General Hospital. The hospital inmates were only offered a common room, one bed for two or three, black bread and a stew of unknown origin – and had to wear a rough gray uniform.

In 1701, Father Louis de Montfort arrived in Poitiers, having been ordained a priest in June 1700, young and highly idealistic priest. He had a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Angels. Thus apart from offering mass and hearing confessions, Montfort used to spend much time with the poor of the Poitiers General Hospital, where he later became the chaplain.[2] He tried to introduce rules and rights for the inmates, but met strong resistance from the hospital authorities.

In April 1716 Montfort had gone to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre to preach, where he fell ill and died on 28 April 1716. The thirty-two-year-old Trichet thus had to assume the full responsibility for the foundation.

The Mother House at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre

In 1719 the sisters went back to Poitiers and later managed to establish a Mother House in 1720 at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre in the Maison Longue (the long house), now a museum devoted to her life and the Daughters of Wisdom. But they had to live in abject poverty for several years, at times living on black bread alone and occasionally an egg. In time with providence and the dowries provided by certain new novices, they acquired land that produced some revenue. As Montfort had predicted, in time more novices arrived and the organization grew.

In the thirty years that followed 1729 Trichet established thirty new charitable communities where the Daughters of Wisdom visited the poor, nursed the sick and taught children, with no payment, but supported by benefactors or parishioners. During the devastating famine of 1739 she begged the authorities to come to the rescue of the hungry.

In the houses of providence the Sisters lived with orphans, the aged, and the handicapped. At the general hospitals at La Rochelle, or at Niort in Deux-Sèvres their services were hired to introduce a minimal level of peace, joy and order to the prevailing filth and disorder.

When she was 66 years old, Trichet undertook a long journey on horseback to visit all her communities, talk with the Sisters and inspire them. She always told the Sisters: "Your real Superior is Mary; I am but her servant." That was her last trip, for upon returning to the Mother House at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre she never left again. An accidental fall caused her months of suffering, followed by a final illness from which she did not recover. On her deathbed she called a benefactor to beg that the poor of the parish be cared for, after her death.

Trichet died at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre in Vendée on 28 April 1759, the same day and location where Louis de Montfort had died 43 years earlier on 28 April 1716.

On Trichet's death, the congregation included 174 sisters distributed in 36 communities and the Mother House. After the persecutions during the French Revolution, the Daughters of Wisdom regrouped and grew again. They were awarded medals by the governments of France, Spain, Prussia, and Belgium for nursing the wounded or plague-stricken soldiers of those countries on many occasions.