Jacob Libermann was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Saverne, Alsace, France in 1802.

As a young man, Libermann prepared to follow in the footsteps of his father, the Chief Rabbi of Saverne.

Treated with disdain by two of the professors there, he began to read French literature, especially Rousseau, with the result that he became an agnostic.

Although Jacob deeply resented their change of religion, he gradually came to recognize their happiness, which was in strong contrast with his own distracted frame of mind.

[3] After arriving in Paris, where his father had sent him to pursue his studies, he made the acquaintance of David Paul Drach, a convert from Judaism, who had him received into the College Stanislas.

[3] The knowledge of his conversion was long concealed from his father, who was horrified to learn of his favorite son's actions.

Setting myself to read Lhomond, I assented easily to all that it recounted of the life and death of Jesus Christ.

"Jacob Libermann was baptized on 24 December 1826, taking the name François Marie Paul.

It was there that he was brought into close apostolic relationship with two Creole seminarians, Frédéric Le Vavasseur, from Bourbon, and Eugene Tisserand, from Santo Domingo, both of whom were filled with zeal for the evangelization of the poor ex-slaves of those islands.

After his ordination, Libermann created the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary centered around missionary activity towards newly freed slaves in Réunion, Haiti, and Mauritius.