When Jeanne Mance boarded a ship in La Rochelle in 1641, few believed in her chances. A thirty-five-year-old unmarried woman, not belonging to any religious order, was setting off for a land where Europeans had only just begun to establish their first settlements. Three months later, after an exhausting Atlantic crossing, she arrived at a place that would change her life and the history of an entire continent.
A Pilgrimage That Changed Everything
Jeanne was born on November 12, 1606, in Langres, an important ecclesiastical center in northern Burgundy. Her father, Charles Mance, served as a royal prosecutor, ensuring her family a solid social status. The life of young Jeanne changed drastically after the death of her mother, Catherine Émonnot. Suddenly, she was responsible for eleven younger siblings.
This experience shaped her into a practical person, capable of organization and caring for others. The following years brought even tougher challenges. The Thirty Years’ War ravaged Europe, and a plague epidemic swept through France. Jeanne cared for the wounded and sick, gaining invaluable nursing skills under the harshest conditions imaginable.
At the age of 34, Jeanne made a pilgrimage to Troyes in Champagne. It was there that she experienced what she herself described as a missionary calling. New France, a distant land in North America, was just opening to European colonization. Jesuits were seeking courageous people willing to build a Christian community there.
The idea of a lone woman journeying to untamed lands might have seemed mad, but Jeanne gained powerful support. Anne of Austria herself, wife of King Louis XIII, backed her plans. Charles Lallemant, an influential Jesuit, recruited her to the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal, which planned to establish a utopian colony on Montreal Island. Interestingly, Jeanne was clear: she was not interested in marriage in the New World. She was going to fulfill her mission, not to find a husband.
A Fight for Survival
On May 9, 1641, the ship carrying Jeanne departed from the port of La Rochelle. The Atlantic journey lasted three months and was a true test of endurance. Upon arriving in Quebec, the settlers had to wait out the winter before moving on. In the spring of 1642, Jeanne, together with Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, finally reached the island of Montreal.
On May 17, 1642, a new city was officially founded on land granted by the governor. Jeanne immediately got to work. That same year she opened a makeshift hospital in her own house, as the need was immense. In 1644 or 1645, a true Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal — the first hospital in the city’s history — was established.
Life in the colony was far from utopian. Iroquois attacks were a deadly threat to the small settler community. In 1650, Jeanne sailed to France to secure funds for the hospital. The Duchess of Aiguillon donated 22,000 French livres, a sum that later grew to over 40,000. This money was intended to save the sick, but fate took a different turn.
When Jeanne returned to Montreal, she found the colony on the brink of disaster. The Iroquois had intensified their attacks, and the settlement faced annihilation. In desperation, Jeanne lent the hospital’s funds to Maisonneuve, who returned to France to organize a company of a hundred armed defenders. It was a decision that might have destroyed her life’s work but ultimately saved the entire colony.
The Sisters of Saint-Joseph
For years, Jeanne personally cared for the hospital’s patients. It was not until 1657, during another trip to France, that she managed to recruit three sisters from the congregation of Religieuses Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph. The nuns took over direct care of the sick, allowing Jeanne to focus on managing the institution.
Until the end of her life, she remained the soul of the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal. She died in June 1673 in the city she helped found and protected from disease and death for over thirty years. The hospital she established still exists today under the same name, making it one of the oldest continuously operating medical institutions in North America.
Margot Cleverly
Margot's journey into women's history began with a box of forgotten letters in a Cambridge archive – suffragettes whose voices had been silenced for over a century. Since then, she's been on a mission to uncover the stories history overlooked.
What she writes about: Queens who ruled from the shadows. Scientists whose male colleagues took credit. Revolutionaries who risked everything. But also ordinary women – those who survived wars, raised families through upheaval, and shaped their communities in ways no one bothered to record.
Margot turns historical figures into real people. She writes with warmth and detail, making centuries-old stories feel surprisingly relevant. Rigorous research meets accessible storytelling – no dusty academic jargon, just compelling narratives backed by solid facts.
When she's not writing, you'll find her in regional archives, collecting oral histories, or visiting sites connected to the women she writes about.