Born into a noble family in La Blanc, France in July 1773, St. Jeanne Elizabeth attended a convent school and was intimately involved in the events of the French Revolution, which rocked France when she was just 16 years old.

She and her mother relocated to La Guimetiere when her father passed away. In 1796, she decided to start a ministry of teaching and helping the underprivileged after seeing that something had to be done to protect the Church and preserve the religion in the face of the revolutionaries' onslaught.

She organized prayer sessions, scripture studies, and hymn signings for the faithful in the town, which at the time had neither a priest nor a religious community.

After her mother passed away in 1804, she enrolled in a Carmelite convent. Later, on the counsel of Saint Andrew Fournet, an underground priest compelled to live in secrecy due to his refusal to swear loyalty to the new republic's government, she joined the Society of Providence.

He realized she was the one God had chosen to lead a community of women he had assembled, so she co-founded the Daughters of the Cross with him in 1807 to care for the sick and needy, as well as to teach the religion.

She died on August 26, 1838 and was canonized in 1947 by Pope Pius XII.

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