Foundress of the Faithful Companions of Jesus, Marie Madeleine is a woman for our time; a French woman of inspiration and courage. She was a daughter, sister, friend, wife, widow, mother. Acheul, Amiens and as she imbibed it in her conversations with Fr. Varin SJ. Eventually, after profound spiritual experiences, accompanied by many trials and difficulties, and in the wider context of post-revolutionary France, she became a religious sister and foundress of a group of Catholic sisters known as the Faithful Companions of Jesus.
The first companions worked with women and children in Amiens. The FCJ Sisters work in different ministries and share life in community. But above all their mission is to be Companions of Jesus whose lives long to reveal Jesus to the world.
Baptised Marie Madeleine Victoire , the foundress was called Gigi as a child, Victoire as a young woman and Madame Joseph as a young wife and widow. However she herself wrote:. In addition to her immediate family, she was surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a happy, secure family, long established in Berry, France, where various members held distinguished positions in both church and kingdom.
With the onset of the Revolution in , they knew hardship, prison and exile. Gigi, as she was known as a child, was close to her parents. When she was one year old, her two-year old brother, Etienne, died and we can only imagine how doubly precious she became to them. Philippe always regarded her as a second mother. Madame de Bengy was a wise and loving mother who showed herself courageous and persevering when her husband was imprisoned by the Revolutionaries. She did not buckle under adversity or allow herself to give way to despair.
Her farmhouse at Pouplain. Victoire loved her mother, but it would seem that her father was the centre of her young life. Her wish was not granted! Victoire became friends with a girl about her own age, Constance de Rochfort.
