The eldest, Jeanne, struck with paralysis at the age of thirteen, was cured three years later during a visit to Notre Dame des Ardilliers at Saumur.

Her younger brother Alexis, born just one year earlier, was ordained a priest in 1710 and later died after volunteering to minister to plague stricken inmates in a prison camp.

[1] Trichet grew up in an atmosphere of religion and education, and when seven years old, was sent to the boarding school at Poitiers run by the Sisters of St. Jeanne de Lestonac to acquire the social qualifications suitable for the upper echelons of seventeenth-century France.

In the 16th century, Poitiers impressed visitors because of its relatively large size, royal courts, university, prolific printing shops, religious institutions, cathedral and numerous parishes.

The hospital inmates were only offered a common room, one bed for two or three, black bread and a stew of unknown origin – and had to wear a rough gray uniform.

Thus apart from offering mass and hearing confessions, Montfort used to spend much time with the poor of the Poitiers General Hospital, where he later became the chaplain.

Trichet's parents were not pleased with her decision to enter the hospital as an inmate and her mother reportedly told her: "You will become as mad as that priest".

Frustrated with the local bishops, Montfort set off to make a pilgrimage to Rome, to ask Pope Clement XI, what he should do.

The Pope recognised his real vocation and, telling him that there was plenty of scope for its exercise in France, sent him back with the title of Apostolic Missionary.

That was the beginning of a four decade effort during which she nursed the sick; gave food to beggars and administered the great maritime hospital of France.

Based on the bishop's invitation to Montfort, in 1715 Trichet and Catherine Brunet left Poitiers for La Rochelle to open a free religious school there.

At the general hospitals at La Rochelle, or at Niort in Deux-Sèvres their services were hired to introduce a minimal level of peace, joy and order to the prevailing filth and disorder.

They were awarded medals by the governments of France, Spain, Prussia, and Belgium for nursing the wounded or plague-stricken soldiers of those countries on many occasions.

In the process of examining her life prior to beatification, one cardinal wrote of her: On 19 September 1996 Pope John-Paul II came to meditate and pray on the tombs of Montfort and Trichet in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre.