Born in Burgundy in 1572, she was married to the Baron de Chantal who was killed in an accident in 1601. Three years later she met St. Francis de Sales who became her spiritual director untill his death inn 1622. She took a religious vow, and became the foundress of the Order of the Visitation, intended to allow women with a religious vocation to work outside the cloister. This was firmly resisted by the church authorities (sensitive to Reformation criticisms of ‘lax’ convents and monasteries); other foundresses who encountered similar problems were St. Angela Merici (foundress of the Ursuline teaching Order) and Mary Ward in York. The first Visitation convent opened in Annecy in Savoy in 1610 and soon, inspired by St. Francis de Sales’ writing "On the Love of God", 85 others were added. In 1619 St. Jane Frances encountered St. Vincent de Paul in Paris, a meeting which encouraged her to redouble her efforts for the sick (especially plague victims) and the bereaved. She died at Moulins in Central France in 1641, was canonised in 1767 and is enshrined at Annecy where her Order began.