Religious Community

The Poussepins are a family descended from three branches: one noble from Paris, the second, merchants from Dourdan and the third, farmers located in the small village of Sainville.

The Poussepins of Dourdan arrived from Paris in 1556. Claude Poussepin, a direct descendant of them, was born in Dourdan in 1619, married Julienne Fourrier on November 30, 1651, and had seven children.

They constituted a family recognized for its solid principles: Unwavering faith in God, love of work, and uprightness of life. Possessors of a considerable fortune and active participants in the parish of San Pedro, where Juliana displayed an intense love for the poor.

In this parish Claudio and Juliana held important positions. The father was steward from 1657 to 1683 and tax collector in 1668. The mother served as treasurer of La Cofradía de La Caridad from 1675 to 1683.

The Poussepins distinguished themselves in Dourdan as merchants, knitters of stockings, "an activity very much mentioned in numerous notarial acts where Claude signs as a contracting party or as a witness". In 1643, this stocking knitting industry led the town to a period of splendor and grandeur.

Here, in the bosom of this family, Marie Poussepin was born on October 14, 1653. She was baptized by the priest Etienne Legou, parish priest of the Church of St. Peter and friend of the family. Later, Julienne, Elizabeth, Anne and three Claude, of whom only Marie and Claude, the youngest, survived.

From her birth, Marie was influenced by a family whose way of life laid the foundations for a life of faith, work and charitable commitment to those who needed her presence. All this forms the basis for a concrete response to God with the foundation of her community, a work she will carry out at the age of 43.

Maria's life will be characterized by the seal of baptism. She is continually requested as a godmother by neighbors and friends, an aspect that shows the serious moral and spiritual formation she possesses, and which is required as a requirement to perform this function.

As daughter of a family of notables, she probably studied at the School of Christian Instruction, the only school institution in Dourdan at that time. There she learned human science: reading, writing, arithmetic and manual work, and religious instruction that brought her closer to everything related to God. At the side of the Sisters of Christian Instruction, she found the space for the flourishing of virtues that she practiced throughout her life, such as charity, piety, service, abnegation, prudence, justice and love of work.

She probably combined her classes with the works of charity that her mother carried out in the parish, in her work with the Confraternity of Charity. This was a fertile ground for Marie Poussepin's spiritual growth. In them - the works of charity - she learned about misery, the poor, the orphans who would later become the object of her work, and undoubtedly learned the knitting of stockings from which the family derived its sustenance.

All these elements shaped Marie Poussepin's personality, as Cecile Jeglot, a writer with a degree in History and Geography, rightly states:
"There are in man various elements that determine his personality and constitute determinants that the believer calls providential: country, time, family, education. Others are dominant and come from the person himself: will, intelligence, character, spirit, which channel, coordinate and centralize the dispersed elements received, affirm freedom and give unity to existence in order to transform everything into a new work". Here is Marie Poussepin, prepared for a great work, a work that only results if the person herself knows how to recognize in it the designs of God.

With the death of her mother, she dedicated herself to the care of her father and the education of Claudio, the only surviving brother, an activity that she carried out with a great sense of responsibility and seriousness.

Later, due to her father's difficulties, she had to take charge of the family workshop, which she transformed into a modern and fruitful industry. Here Marie Poussepin stands out as an enterprising, innovative, self-confident woman with clear industrial, social and educational goals.

Knowing the management of the industry, she transforms it with the importation of machines from England to make a better production. This fact places Dourdan as the most important manufacturing center, changing the raw material (silk for wool), implementing a new hiring system for apprentices, without charging them any fee for their apprenticeship, as it was customary at the time. Many young apprentices benefit from the intelligent charity of this woman who foresees and organizes everything, and who knows how to go beyond Christian justice by revealing her social sense in taking care of the young apprentices and providing for their needs. Apart from teaching, she provided them with room, clothing, food and everything they needed for their training without them having to pay for it. Thus appears in Marie Poussepin that trait that will always distinguish her: "Charity through work".

In this regard, Father Preteseille, Chaplain of the Mother House and historian of the congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation and member of the historical commission of the cause of the Servant Marie Poussepin expresses:

"By a providential chain, this family success, which was a state duty for Marie Poussepin, leads to others. The adoption of machining for the workshop inherited from her father causes the transformation of the traditional industry of Dourdan. Thanks to the numerous apprentices that she trained, the economic situation of the city became admirably prosperous for a century and her keen social sense made her innovate, much earlier in her time, a solution of gratuity for apprenticeship. The annals of sanctity can salute in her a rare model of a businesswoman, fully Christian".

After educating his brother and giving him economic stability, he gradually relinquishes his work commitments in favor of Claudio. He signs a partnership contract with him for four years: 1687 - 1691, and assists him until the young man assumes full management of the workshop.

Now free, for some time she dedicated herself to the works carried out in the Confraternity of Charity in which she had shared the work with her mother. She prepares herself to take up the challenge of a free and conscious response to God who calls her, a response that she will give in the humble village of Sanville.

Each person in her uniqueness is characterized by particular traits that identify her. Behind Marie Poussepin's writings we discover a personality of extraordinary greatness, but at the same time close and accessible to our own experience.

In it there is a clear and well defined center: Jesus Christ; He must be proclaimed, He must be lived and for this, the greatest virtue: Charity, the love without which life is impossible.

Her life in Dourdan developed around it and her writings gravitated around it. Life, writings and testimonies reveal the virtues that adorn her: intelligent and practical woman, strong-willed and enterprising. A tenacious and persevering woman, she was able to overcome the obstacles that came her way. Expert, dynamic and risk-taker to undertake great works.

Mujer dueña de sí misma y de las situaciones, aguda y dotada de una particular intuición para detectar los caminos que debía seguir. Madura, equilibrada, prudente con sentido del deber y de la justicia. Interesada por sus semejantes inclinándose siempre por los más pobres. Mujer de fe y esperanza fuerte manifestada en el cotidiano vivir. Abierta y audaz pero a la vez humilde y confiada en la Providencia Divina.

Marie Poussepin was a woman with a clear mind who knew how to "see rightly" the shortcomings of her time and, with a determined will, sought appropriate solutions.

This quick glance at Marie Poussepin's life allows us to conclude that it was with good reason that Agnes Revers, her successor in the direction of the community, had the following written on her tombstone: "She saw what was right in the eyes of the Lord and she did it". This epitaph is a recognition of his life and work.

Marie Poussepin lived 90 years between the 17th and 18th centuries. Therefore, in order to historically situate her thought, it is necessary to go through the educational context of France during these centuries, which allows us to have a clear vision of education at the time when she developed her work.