Jeanne Marie Rendu was born in September 1786 at Confort, France, into a family who had achieved a degree of affluence in their community. When the French Revolution broke out and clergy were required to take an oath of loyalty to the civil constitution, priests had to flee or be martyred. The Rendu home became a refuge for clergy.
After the death of her father in 1796, Jeanne Marie was sent to an Ursuline boarding school in Gex. During this time, she encountered the Daughters of Charity and their work at the local hospital. She felt called to join the Daughters and, with her mother’s permission, she arrived at the Daughters of Charity Motherhouse in Paris in 1802.
Now called Sister Rosalie, she served the poor in the Mouffetard District in Paris, where she served for 54 years. She taught catechism and reading to young girls, “opened a free clinic, a pharmacy, a school, an orphanage, a child‑care center, a youth club for young workers and a home for the elderly without resources.”
Rosalie’s prayerfulness and loving demeanor attracted the attention of the poor and the wealthy alike. Among her admirers were Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul), Venerable Jean Léon Le Prevost, and Napoleon III and his wife, who awarded her the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
Rosalie succumbed to life-long infirmities on February 7, 1856. She was beatified on November 9, 2003. (https://famvin.org/wiki/Rosalie_Rendu)