Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), whom the people called in his lifetime "Monsieur Vincent", was a French priest of the Grand Siècle, founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Daughters of Charity, and one of the greatest figures of organized Christian charity. From his peasant origins in the Landes to the antechambers of the court of France, he devoted his life to a single object: Christ served in the poor.[1][2]
His life spans the whole spiritual renewal of the 17th-century France — the "century of saints" of Francis de Sales, of Bérulle and of the French School of spirituality. But where others reformed through doctrine or mysticism, Vincent reformed through action: he invented structures of charity — confraternities, congregations, hospitals, missions — which outlived their founder by centuries and spread throughout the world.[3][4]
Nothing, however, destined him for this glory. A little keeper of flocks turned priest very young, long concerned with his own advancement and a "respectable establishment", he underwent a slow conversion which turned the ambitious cleric into the servant of the most abandoned: galley convicts, foundlings, beggars, victims of wars, slaves of Barbary. His spirituality is summed up in a formula that has remained famous: to love God "at the expense of our arms, with the sweat of our brows".[5]
He died in Paris on 27 September 1660, the same year as his faithful collaborator Saint Louise de Marillac; he was canonized in 1737 and proclaimed by Leo XIII, in 1885, patron of all charitable works. Two centuries after his death, a young scholar, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, placed under his name the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (1833), which still carries his inspiration to the four corners of the world today.[6][7]
The context: the France of the Grand Siècle and the misery of the people
A kingdom rich in saints and heavy with misery
Vincent de Paul was born into a France still bruised by the Wars of Religion, which ended only with the Edict of Nantes (1598). The 17th century now opening would be one of extraordinary spiritual flowering — the "French School" of Cardinal de Bérulle, the reform of the clergy, the rise of the orders — but also of immense popular misery: countryside ruined by wars, famines, epidemics, beggary, abandoned children, the State's galleys where convicts crowded together, treated like beasts.[8][9]
It is in this gap between the grandeur of the nascent "age of Louis XIV" and the distress of the humble that Vincent's whole work would play out. His answer would be neither a doctrine nor a polemic, but an organization of charity on a scale then unprecedented.
A saint in the constellation of the "century of saints"
Vincent was no isolated reformer. He belonged to the generation that regenerated the Church of France: he was the disciple and friend of Saint Francis de Sales, whose first Paris monastery of the Visitation he would direct; he moved in the circle of Cardinal de Bérulle, who guided his beginnings; he worked with Saint Louise de Marillac. Like Saint Charles Borromeo in Lombardy half a century earlier, he embodies evangelization through works as much as through words.[10][11]
Origins: a child of the Landes (1581-1600)
Birth at Pouy (1581)
Vincent de Paul was born on 24 April 1581[12] in the hamlet of Ranquines, in the parish of Pouy — today Saint-Vincent-de-Paul — a few kilometres from Dax, in the Landes of Gascony.[13] He was the third of six children (four boys and two girls) of a family of ploughmen: his father, Jean de Paul, and his mother, Bertrande de Moras, owned a small farm and lived from the land.[14][15]
As a child he kept the family's pigs and sheep. This humble origin — which he would never forget and would gladly recall, even calling himself the "son of a poor ploughman" — would later give his charity an intimate knowledge of the peasant world and of its distress.[16]
Studies: Dax and Toulouse
Noticed for his intelligence, Vincent was sent at about fifteen to the Franciscan (Cordeliers) college of Dax, where a magistrate of the town, M. de Comet, took him as tutor to his sons — a first means of financing his studies.[17][18] He then pursued theology at the University of Toulouse, from 1597, living poorly and giving lessons to subsist.[19]
This rise of a peasant's son towards the priesthood was, for the time, a genuine means of social advancement. The young Vincent made no secret of it: he sought first a "respectable establishment", a benefice that would shelter him from need and allow him to help his own. Holiness would come later, and slowly.
An early ordination (1600)
On 23 September 1600, Vincent was ordained priest at Château-l'Évêque, near Périgueux, by the Bishop of Périgueux.[20][21] He was then barely nineteen — an age below the canonical minimum which the very recent Council of Trent had just fixed, which was not rare in the France of the time. He obtained his bachelor's degree in theology on 12 October 1604.[22]
The priest he then was had as yet nothing of a saint of the poor about him: he was above all in quest of an assured future. Providence would lead him there by unforeseen paths.
The obscure years: Tunis, Rome, Paris (1605-1617)
The Barbary captivity (1605-1607)
According to the account Vincent himself gave of it in two letters addressed to M. de Comet (1607-1608), he was said to have been, in 1605, captured at sea by Barbary pirates off the coasts of Provence, taken to Tunis and sold as a slave.[23][24] He is said to have served several masters there for about two years, before escaping in 1607 with his last master, a renegade whom he is said to have brought back to the Christian faith.
This episode is one of the most debated of his biography: some historians have contested its authenticity, for lack of sources outside the two letters, whose destruction Vincent himself later requested. Others, on the contrary, defend their credibility, stressing the precision of the details and the very real context of the Barbary raids then striking the Mediterranean.[25] The Catholic Encyclopedia reports the fact as a starting point of his vocation to captives.[26] Historical prudence invites us to present this captivity as he told it, without disqualifying it on principle: it accords, besides, with the very real commitment Vincent would later make to the ransoming of the slaves of Barbary.
Rome, Paris and the meeting with Bérulle
Freed, Vincent passed through Avignon then Rome, where he completed his formation, before reaching Paris around 1608.[27] There he was for a time wrongly suspected of a theft, a trial which he bore in silence — a trait of patience which would mark him. Above all, he met the future Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, founder of the Oratory and great spiritual master, who became his director and decisively guided his life.[28][29]
It was through Bérulle that he obtained, in 1612, the parish of Clichy, at the gates of Paris, where he discovered the joy of a simple parish ministry and the goodness of the little Christian people.
The temptation against faith
In these Parisian years, Vincent went through a fearful interior trial: a violent temptation against faith, which tormented him for three or four years. To overcome it, he wrote, it is said, the Creed on a paper which he carried on his heart, and vowed to devote himself all his life to the service of the poor for the love of Christ. The temptation disappeared the day he took this resolution.[30] The episode is revealing: with Vincent, faith is strengthened by active charity.
1617: the decisive year
Tutor to the Gondi
In 1613, Bérulle placed Vincent as tutor to the children and chaplain of the great Gondi family: Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi, general of the galleys of France, and his wife Françoise-Marguerite de Silly, who took him for her spiritual director.[31][32] There he was introduced into high society — but it was in contact with the peasants of the immense Gondi estates that he would receive the founding double shock of his life.
The sermon of Folleville (25 January 1617)
On 25 January 1617, at Folleville (Picardy), Vincent preached on general confession after hearing, on his deathbed, a peasant reputed an "honest man" avow grave faults never confessed.[33][34] The sermon provoked such a crowding to the confessional that Jesuits had to be called in as reinforcements. Vincent then understood the immense religious ignorance of the countryside and the urgency of its evangelization. He would date from that day the birth of his missionary vocation — and thus of the future Congregation of the Mission.
The first Confraternity of Charity at Châtillon
A few months later, having become for a time parish priest of Châtillon-les-Dombes (Bresse), Vincent learned one Sunday that a family of the town was entirely ill and without help. He spoke of it in his sermon; generosity was such, but so disorderly, that food piled up and then was wasted.[35] From this waste was born an intuition of genius: to organize charity. He then founded, in the autumn of 1617, the first Confraternity of Charity — women who take turns caring for and feeding the poor with method and regularity.[36][37] Its rule was approved in December 1617.
This is the birth certificate of a long lineage: Confraternities of Charity, then Ladies of Charity in Paris, and finally Daughters of Charity. Vincent's charity would never be the impulse of a moment, but a structured, lasting and reproducible work.
The founder: congregations and works (1618-1643)
Chaplain general of the galleys (1619)
In 1619, Vincent was appointed by Louis XIII chaplain general of the galleys of France.[38][39] He discovered the hell of the galley slaves: men in chains, covered with vermin, dying in their filth at the bottom of the holds. Overwhelmed, he obtained the improvement of their lot, created hospitals for convicts in Marseilles and Paris, and sent them missionaries. Tradition even reports that he one day took the place of an exhausted convict at the oar — a symbolic gesture of the saint's identification with the most despised of men.[40]
The Congregation of the Mission (1625)
On 17 April 1625, by a foundation contract from the Gondi, Vincent established the Congregation of the Mission: a society of secular priests devoted to the evangelization of the countryside and the formation of the clergy.[41][42] First settled at the Collège des Bons-Enfants, the missionaries received in 1632 the great priory of Saint-Lazare in Paris — whence their popular name of "Lazarists" (and, in English-speaking countries, Vincentians). The congregation was approved by the bull of Urban VIII in 1633.
"Our portion, gentlemen and my brothers, is the poor, the poor: "Pauperibus evangelizare misit me" — he has sent me to evangelize the poor." — Saint Vincent de Paul, Conferences to the Missionaries[43]
The Lazarists carried Vincent's missions throughout France, then to Italy, Poland, Ireland, Scotland, as far as Madagascar and the coasts of Barbary.[44]
The Daughters of Charity (1633)
The masterwork was born on 29 November 1633, when Vincent and Saint Louise de Marillac — a widowed lady of great quality who had become his priceless collaborator — gathered the first Daughters of Charity.[45][46] The invention was revolutionary: these women were not cloistered nuns, but servants of the poor living in the world, at the bedside of the sick, in the streets and hospitals. Vincent gave them a famous instruction, which sums up their whole state:
"You will have for monastery the houses of the sick; for cell a hired room; for chapel the parish church; for cloister the streets of the city; for enclosure obedience; for grille the fear of God; for veil holy modesty." — Saint Vincent de Paul, to the Daughters of Charity[47]
This intuition founded modern feminine apostolic religious life: the Daughters of Charity would become one of the largest congregations in the world, and their white cornette, for three centuries, the very face of charity.
The great works of mercy
Around these two congregations, Vincent deployed a charity of staggering scope, supported by the Ladies of Charity — great ladies of the court whom he enrolled in the service of the miserable.[48] The table below sums up his principal undertakings.
| Work | People helped | Scale (contemporary sources) |
|---|---|---|
| Congregation of the Mission (1625) | Peasants, rural clergy | Missions in France, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Madagascar |
| Daughters of Charity (1633) | Sick, elderly, urban poor | First feminine religious life "outside enclosure" |
| Foundlings | Abandoned infants of Paris | The Foundlings work; thousands of children taken in |
| Galley slaves | Convicts of the king's galleys | Hospitals for convicts in Marseilles and Paris |
| War relief | Ravaged Lorraine, Picardy, Champagne | Distribution of considerable sums to devastated regions |
| Ransoming of captives | Christian slaves of Barbary | More than a thousand captives ransomed |
The Foundlings work saved from death or trafficking thousands of infants abandoned in the streets of Paris.[49] During the ravages of the Thirty Years' War and of the Fronde, Vincent organized massive relief to devastated Lorraine, Picardy and Champagne, distributing enormous sums collected from the rich.[50] He also pursued the ransoming of Christian slaves from Tunis and Algiers — the wound of his own youth become a mission.
The reformer of the clergy and the churchman
The Tuesday Conferences
Convinced, like all the Tridentine reformers, that the reform of the Church passes through that of the clergy, Vincent instituted from 1633 the Tuesday Conferences (ecclesiastical conferences): meetings where priests of Paris came to Saint-Lazare to reflect together on their duties and the spiritual life.[51] There he formed an elite of the French clergy — Bossuet passed through — and it is estimated that several hundred priests took part over the years.
He also developed retreats for ordinands: before receiving the priesthood, future priests came to prepare at Saint-Lazare. By this means, Vincent powerfully contributed to raising the spiritual and moral level of the clergy of France, continuing the work of the Council of Trent.
The Council of Conscience (1643-1652)
On the death of Louis XIII (1643), the regent Anne of Austria called Vincent to the Council of Conscience, charged with the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom, notably the choice of bishops.[52][53] The ploughman's son from the Landes thus found himself, without having sought it, arbiter of the episcopal appointments of France. He used this influence with a single measure: the spiritual worth of the candidates, setting courtiers aside in favour of true pastors — at the risk of displeasing the powerful, including Mazarin.
Facing Jansenism
Vincent found himself, like the whole Church of France, confronted with Jansenism.[54][55] He who had known and esteemed the Abbé de Saint-Cyran broke with his ideas as soon as he measured their dangerous rigour: a doctrine which, by exalting a grace reserved to a small number and by keeping the faithful from communion, contradicted his whole practice of mercy offered to all. He worked actively to have the five propositions of Jansenius condemned, rallying a great number of bishops to a petition addressed to Rome.[56] His charity was no vague tenderness: it rested on the whole Catholic faith, confident in a grace offered to all men.
The spiritual physiognomy: loving God "by the sweat of our brow"
Effective love
The heart of Vincentian spirituality is the distinction between affective love — fine sentiments, interior impulses — and effective love, the love proved by works. For Vincent, the first without the second is suspect. His formula is famous:
"Let us love God, my brothers, let us love God, but let it be at the expense of our arms, let it be with the sweat of our brows." — Saint Vincent de Paul, Conferences to the Missionaries[57]
His whole reform lies in this sentence: true devotion does not stop at the oratory, it goes down into the street, to the hospital, to the galleys. To evangelize, for him, is to do so "by word and by work".[58]
The poor, "our lords and masters"
Vincent's spiritual genius was to see Christ in the poor — not metaphorically, but literally. He taught his Daughters of Charity that serving a beggar is serving Jesus Christ in person:
"Let us recognize before God that the poor are our lords and masters, and that we are unworthy to render them our little services." — Saint Vincent de Paul, to the Daughters of Charity[59]
From this reversal flows an absolute respect for the poor, never treated as an object of condescending alms, but as a master before whom one bows. Vincent went so far as to say that in heaven, it is the poor who will open the doors to their benefactors.[60]
"Leaving God for God"
How to reconcile prayer and service? Vincent answers with a luminous paradox, addressed to his Daughters of Charity: if the hour of prayer is interrupted by the call of a sick person, run to the sick without scruple, for it is still serving God:
"If at the hour of morning prayer you must go and carry the remedy to some sick person, go in peace... that is called leaving God for God." — Saint Vincent de Paul, Conferences to the Daughters of Charity[61]
Charity, for him, is "above all rules": it is "a great lady", whom all other practices must obey.[62] There lies the root of all his spirituality: God and neighbour are but one love.
Humility and simplicity
This great organizer was also a man of sincere humility, who held himself for a great sinner and signed himself "wretched Vincent". He made simplicity and humility the proper virtues of his congregations, distrusting all show. For him, the very effectiveness of charity depended on this gentleness: it was through kindness, it was said, that "the kindness of Saint Vincent makes known the kindness of God". His immense correspondence — he is credited with as many as thirty thousand letters, of which several thousand are preserved — shows a tireless man, attentive to the smallest detail, governing his works with a patience and gentleness that nothing wearied.[63]
Death and glory
The last years (1660)
At the end of his life, Vincent was worn out by work, fasts and illness; his ulcerated legs barely carried him. The year 1660 brought him a last trial: the death, on 15 March, of his faithful Louise de Marillac.[64] He himself died a few months later, in Paris, at the priory of Saint-Lazare, on the morning of 27 September 1660, at seventy-nine, after murmuring, it is said, the word "Confido" — "I trust".[65][66]
- 1581Birth at Pouy (Landes)
Third of six children of a family of ploughmen; he kept the flocks in his childhood.
- 1600Priestly ordination
Ordained priest at nineteen at Château-l'Évêque; bachelor's degree in theology in 1604.
- 1605-1607Barbary captivity (as he told it)
Captured by pirates and a slave in Tunis, according to two letters of 1607-1608; an episode debated by historians.
- 1617Folleville and Châtillon: the double birth
Sermon on general confession at Folleville (25 January); first Confraternity of Charity at Châtillon.
- 1619Chaplain general of the galleys
He discovered the hell of the convicts and created hospitals for the galley slaves.
- 1625Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists)
Founded by contract from the Gondi; settled at Saint-Lazare in 1632.
- 1633Daughters of Charity
With Saint Louise de Marillac; the Tuesday Conferences for the clergy begin the same year.
- 1643-1652Council of Conscience
Under the regency of Anne of Austria; he guided the choice of the bishops of France.
- 1660Death in Paris
Died on 27 September, the same year as Louise de Marillac (15 March).
Beatification (1729) and canonization (1737)
Popular veneration was immediate. At the opening of his process, his body was found largely preserved.[67] Vincent was beatified on 13 August 1729 by Pope Benedict XIII, then canonized on 16 June 1737 by Pope Clement XII.[68][69] His feast was fixed on 27 September. His relics — his skeleton enclosed in a wax effigy — have since 1830 been venerated in the chapel of the Congregation of the Mission, rue de Sèvres in Paris, while his heart is kept by the Daughters of Charity.
| Milestone | Date | Pope |
|---|---|---|
| Birth | 24 April 1581 | — |
| Priestly ordination | 23 September 1600 | — |
| Congregation of the Mission | 1625 | (Urban VIII, bull of 1633) |
| Daughters of Charity | 29 November 1633 | — |
| Death | 27 September 1660 | — |
| Beatification | 13 August 1729 | Benedict XIII |
| Canonization | 16 June 1737 | Clement XII |
| Patron of charitable works | 1885 | Leo XIII |
Leo XIII, Ozanam and posterity
Vincent de Paul's legacy far exceeded his congregations. In 1885, Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him patron of all Catholic charitable works in the world — the official consecration of what the people had long been saying.[70] Half a century earlier, in 1833, a young scholar, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, had placed under his name the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, a network of laypeople serving the poor, today present in more than one hundred and fifty countries.[71]
Thus the little keeper of the pigs of the Landes became, for the universal Church, the face of charity. His intuition — that the love of God is measured by effective love of neighbour, and that the poor man is Christ himself — continues to inspire hospitals, dispensaries, soup kitchens and missions on every continent.
"Charity is above all rules, and all must be referred to it." — Saint Vincent de Paul[72]
To go further
- Saint Louise de Marillac (1591-1660) — the co-foundress of the Daughters of Charity, who died the same year as he.
- Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622) — his friend and master, whose Visitation of Paris he directed.
- Saint Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) — the other great reformer through works, model of the Tridentine bishop.
- The Council of Trent (1545-1563) — the reform of the clergy which he continued through seminaries and the Tuesday Conferences.
- The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul — the lay work founded under his name by Frederic Ozanam in 1833.
Notes and References
French Wikipedia, "Vincent de Paul": fr.wikipedia.org. Reference biographical notice: born 24 April 1581 in the hamlet of Ranquines, parish of Pouy (today Saint-Vincent-de-Paul) near Dax, third of six children of Jean de Paul and Bertrande de Moras; studies with the Cordeliers of Dax then at Toulouse; ordination on 23 September 1600 at Château-l'Évêque; alleged captivity in Tunis (1605-1607) according to two letters; guidance of Bérulle, parish of Clichy (1612), temptation against faith; tutor and chaplain to the Gondi (1613); sermon of Folleville (25 January 1617) and first Confraternity of Charity at Châtillon-les-Dombes; chaplain general of the galleys (1619); Congregation of the Mission (1625) and Saint-Lazare (1632); Daughters of Charity with Louise de Marillac (29 November 1633); Tuesday Conferences; Council of Conscience (1643-1652); opposition to Jansenism; death on 27 September 1660; beatification 1729 (Benedict XIII), canonization 1737 (Clement XII); relics rue de Sèvres; feast on 27 September.
1 3 8 10 13 14 16 17 20 23 25 28 30 31 33 35 36 38 40 41 45 52 54 64 65 67 68Catholic Encyclopedia (The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York, Robert Appleton Company, 1912), "St. Vincent de Paul", text on newadvent.org: newadvent.org. Reference notice: born at Pouy (Gascony); ordination in 1600; capture by Turkish pirates in 1605, slavery in Tunis until the escape of 1607 with the conversion of his master; chaplain to Queen Margaret; parish of Clichy at Bérulle's request; service of the Gondi family from 1612; first charity conference at Châtillon; Congregation of the Mission, priory of Saint-Lazare acquired in 1632; Daughters of Charity with Mlle Legras (Louise de Marillac) around 1633; Tuesday Conferences (up to 800 people a year); work of the galley slaves, of the foundlings (up to 4,000 children), war relief, ransoming of more than 1,200 Barbary slaves; member of the Council of Conscience under Anne of Austria; opposition to Jansenism (85 bishops rallied to the petition for condemnation); direction of the Visitandines of Saint Francis de Sales; missions to Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Madagascar; about 30,000 letters written, ~3,200 published; death on 27 September 1660; beatification on 13 August 1729 by Benedict XIII, canonization on 16 June 1737 by Clement XII.
2 11 15 18 19 21 22 24 26 27 29 32 34 39 42 44 46 48 49 50 51 53 55 56 63 66 69The Catholic Church in France, "Saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660)", figures of holiness: eglise.catholique.fr. Reference presentation on charity "in word and in works", the foundation of the congregations and the methodical organization of charity; confirms the dates 1581-1660 and the expression "to evangelize by word and by works".
4 9 37 58Saint Vincent de Paul, Conferences to the Missionaries, in Pierre Coste (ed.), Saint Vincent de Paul: Correspondence, Conferences, Documents, vol. XI: the reference edition of Vincentian writings. Text of the conference on the love of God: "Aimons Dieu, mes frères, aimons Dieu, mais que ce soit aux dépens de nos bras, que ce soit à la sueur de nos visages. Car bien souvent tant d'actes d'amour de Dieu... sont néanmoins très suspects, quand on n'en vient point à la pratique de l'amour effectif." Fundamental distinction between affective love and effective love. Edition available at filles-de-la-charite.org: filles-de-la-charite.org.
5 43 57Leo XIII proclaims Saint Vincent de Paul patron of all charitable associations of the Catholic Church, in 1885. Fact reported by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and the reference notices: ssvp.fr. To be cross-checked with Nominis: nominis.cef.fr.
6 70The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and Blessed Frederic Ozanam: foundation of the first Conference of Charity on 23 April 1833 by Ozanam and a few students, placed under the patronage of Saint Vincent de Paul with the support of Sister Rosalie Rendu. Sources: ssvp.fr and Wikipedia, "Society of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul": fr.wikipedia.org.
7 71The date of 1581 is now accepted by most biographers (baptismal certificate and chronology of his studies), though an older tradition gave 1576. Vincent de Paul himself left some uncertainty about his age. A divergence to be reported honestly, without deciding beyond what the sources allow.
12Saint Vincent de Paul, rule of life given to the Daughters of Charity: "Vous aurez pour monastère les maisons des malades... pour cloître les rues de la ville... pour voile la sainte modestie." Founding formula of apostolic religious life "outside enclosure", quoted by Vincentian sources and the Daughters of Charity.
47Saint Vincent de Paul, maxims and conferences on the service of the poor, collected in the Coste edition and taken up by Vincentian sources: "Reconnaissons devant Dieu que les pauvres sont nos seigneurs et nos maîtres, et que nous sommes indignes de leur rendre nos petits services"; "La charité est par-dessus toutes les règles, et il faut que toutes se rapportent à celle-là: c'est une grande dame, il faut faire ce qu'elle commande"; "Les pauvres! oh que ce sont de grands seigneurs au ciel!" Sayings notably circulated by Aleteia, "Saint Vincent de Paul: les pauvres sont nos maîtres": fr.aleteia.org.
59 60 62 72Saint Vincent de Paul, Conferences to the Daughters of Charity, in Pierre Coste (ed.), Correspondence, Conferences, Documents, vol. IX, p. 416: "... cela s'appelle quitter Dieu pour Dieu." Teaching addressed to the Daughters of Charity on the priority of the service of the poor when it interrupts the hour of prayer (conference of 31 May 1648 on the necessity of prayer). Canonical reference of Vincentian spirituality.
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