Jeanne Mance (November 12, 1606 – June 18, 1673) was a French settler of New France and one of the founders of Montreal and the first hospital in North America, the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal.
Origins
Jeanne Mance was born into a bourgeois family in Langres, in northern Burgundy, France. She was the daughter of Catherine Émonnot and Charles Mance, a prosecutor for the king in Langres, an important diocese. Her mother died prematurely and she cared for eleven brothers and sisters before devoting herself to the care of victims of the Thirty Years War and the plague.
Vocation
At age 34, while on a procession to Troyes in Champagne, Mance discovered her missionary calling and decided to go to New France, which was at the time being actively settled. She was supported by Anne of Austria, wife of King Louis XIII, and by the Jesuits. She also accepted a donation from Mme de Bullion, (for whom a Montreal street is named). Mance was a member of the Society of Our Lady of Montreal whose aim was to found a hospital in Montreal similar to the one in Quebec.
Founding of Montreal
Jeanne Mance embarked from La Rochelle on May 9, 1641 on a crossing of the Atlantic that took three months. After wintering in Quebec, she and Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve arrived at the Island of Montreal In the spring of 1642. They founded the new city on May 17, 1642 on land granted by the Governor.
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