Mother Superior Marie L'Incarnation

Marie Guyard (1599-1672)

Marie Guyard was born on October 28, 1599; in Tours France, into a wealthy and prominent Bourgeois family.  At the age of seventeen she married a silk manufacturer, by the name of Martin, and gave birth to one child, before her husband's death two years after their marriage.

When her son was twelve, Marie joined the Ursuline Order, and spent the next two years in the convent at Tours, and like many saw the saving of 'heathen souls in the New World', something she was meant to do.   Finally, with the sponsorship of  Marie-Madeleine de Chauvigny, Marie de l'Incarnation, (her Ursuline name), sailed from Dieppe on April 3, 1639, with a few nuns who wanted to share the experience. After a perilous voyage of three months, the group arrived at Quebec on July 4; and were a welcome additon to the young colony.

She and her companions moved into a little house in the lower town (Basse-Ville) Quebec and in the spring of 1641, the foundation-stone of the Ursuline monastery was laid, and Marie aknowledged as Mother Superior. She had already mastered many aboriginal languages, and made herself available to anyone wishing to seek religious training.  Though often threatened with Iroquois raids, she never wavered, though on Decemebr 29, 1650; the Ursuline Monastery was burned to the ground, and she was forced to take refuge with the Hospitalières, and then with Mme de la Peltrie. The following year, on May 29; her new monastery was finsihed and she spent the rest of her life there, instructing young Canadian girls and preparing them for the order.  She died on April 30, 1672; after more than fourty years of continual service.

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