Marie de l'Incarnation

Marie de l'Incarnation (də lăNkärnäsyôN`), 1599–1672, French missionary. Her name was originally Marie Guyard. She was married in her youth and bore a son; when her son was 12 years old, her husband being dead, she entered the Ursuline order. At her entreaty, the authorities gave her and another nun permission to go to New France to work among the Native Americans. In 1639 she arrived in Quebec, where she was soon head of an Ursuline convent. She administered her house with great success and worked among the Native Americans with notable results. Her letters are valuable sources of French Canadian history. She wrote devotional works and catechisms, not only in French but in Native American languages.

Bibliography

See A. Repplier, Mère Marie of the Ursulines (1931).