From this Order later sprang the religious congregation of the Apostolic Sisters of the Annunciation, founded in 1787 to teach the children of the poor.

[1] Joan was born on 23 April 1464 in the castle of Pierre de Brézé, a trusted supporter of her grandfather, King Charles VII of France, at Nogent-le-Roi in the County of Dreux.

In Women Saints – Lives of Faith and Courage, Kathleen Jones says that Joan had a hump on her back and walked with a limp, suggesting that she had an abnormal curvature of the spine.

The baron supported her in this and had a path paved between the castle and the chapel built for easier walking in poor weather.

[2] When Louis ascended to the throne in April 1498 after the accidental death of Joan's brother, King Charles VIII, he appealed to the pope to have the marriage annulled in order to marry the late king's widow, Anne of Brittany, in the hope of annexing the Duchy of Brittany to the French Crown.

Louis argued that he had been below the legal age of consent (fourteen) to marry and that the marriage had never been consummated[4] due to her physical deformity, and provided a rich variety of detail as to how she was malformed.

Joan, unsurprisingly, fought this uncertain charge fiercely, producing witnesses to Louis boasting of having "mounted my wife three or four times during the night.

"[7] Louis also claimed that his sexual performance had been inhibited by witchcraft; Joan responded by asking how, in that case, he was able to know what it was like to try to make love to her.

The commission of investigation appointed by the pope established that the marriage with Joan was invalid for lack of consent and that it never had been consummated.

On Pentecost Sunday 1504, Joan and Friar Gabriel Mary made private commitments to follow the Rule, and thereby established themselves as co-founders of the Order.

On 21 November of that same year, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary, Joan and the other women publicly and legally committed themselves to the Order.

Her grave, however, was desecrated during the French Wars of Religion and her body, which was found to be incorrupt, was burned by the Huguenots during their sack of Bourges on 27 May 1562.

[13] The religious sisters of the Order of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary still maintain their way of life in monasteries in France, Belgium, Costa Rica and Poland.