Jane de Chantal was born on January 28, 1572, in Dijon France to Benigne Frémyot who was the president of the Burgundy parliament. Jane’s mother died when she was still a baby. While his children were growing up, Benigne Fréymot had them fully educated. Jane and her father loved each other very much, he did like her a little more than his other children. Jane received Confirmation and took the name of Frances.

When Jane was 20, she was married to Christopher de Rubon the Baron of de Chantal. At first they had three children that died a short while after birth. But then God blessed them with three girls and a boy. Jane was once commented on how modestly the Baroness always dressed. Jane then replied, “The eyes whom I wish to please are a thousand miles away.” What that means is that she wanted to please God with what she wore, and so she would not wear any immodest clothes. One day in 1601, Christopher went hunting with a friend of his. By some accident, his friend shot him in his thigh. For days Christopher suffered very badly from his injury, and the surgeon was not very skilled and only made things worse. Christopher died after nine days and Jane was crushed. Jane and Christopher were married for only nine years, and she loved him very much. She was 28, and was now a widow with four children to raise. For months she sat in despair feeling as if she had lost everything. Her father sent her an encouraging letter, and he also reminded her of her duty towards her children. Jane then spent lots of time with her children, and if it wasn’t her children then she was assisting the poor, helping the dying or praying.

Jane often prayed to God to show her how she could do his will the most perfect way she could and asked Him to send her a holy confessor so as to show her the way. During one of these times she had a vision of a man that looked very much like Francis de Sales. She knew that he was to be her spiritual director. She listened to him and followed his advice and they became very dear friends. Jane wanted to become a Carmelite but Francis told her not to. He told that he desired to start a new community, and he wanted her to help him.

But before she could help him she needed to take care of her children. St. Francis helped her do it. She had her oldest daughter married to the young Baron de Thorens who was Francis’ brother. Jane took with her the two other daughters, but one of them died soon after. She later married the other one to Antony de Toulonjon. Her son, Celse-Bénigne, was then 15, and she left him to the care of her father and some tutors. Her son was full of grief when she had to depart and her father was also sad, but he gave her his blessing.

Trinity Sunday, 1610, in the Gallery House near the lake in Annecy, France, four women were clothed with the new habit of the Congregation of the Visitation. There was Jane Frances de Chantal, Mary Fevre, Charlotte de Bréchard and Anne Coste, a servant. What St. Francis de Sales thought of the group was “not too easy for the strong, nor too hard for the weak”. The main virtues that were the foundation of the rule of Saint Francis were humility and meekness. “In the practice of virtues,” he explained to his nuns, “Let humility be the source of all the rest ; let it be without bounds; make it the reigning principle of all your actions. Let an unalterable meekness and sweetness on all occasions become by habit natural to you.” St. Francis de Sales wrote a book called On the Love of God for Jane and her more experienced nuns.

Jane frequently had to leave Annecy either to help in the matters of her children or to start new convents. After there had been convents started in Lyons, Moulins, Grenoble, and Bourges, Jane was summoned by Francis to start a convent in Paris. Jane ran the new convent in Paris for three years and was directed by St. Vincent de Paul, which St. Francis had arranged.

In 1622 St. Francis de Sales died. Jane missed him very much. They had helped each other so much during most of her life and she was heartbroken. Then in 1627 she received news that her son Celse-Bénigne, who was 31, had been killed fighting against the English and the Huguenots. In 1632, she faced the deaths of three very dear to her: her son’s wife, her daughter’s husband, Antony de Toulonjon, and Michael Favre who had been Francis’s confessor and a close friend of hers. Jane faced all these trials with strength and courage. Several times she suffered the dark night of the soul.

Within 30 years, Jane had started over 65 houses. Near the end of her life Jane was invited by Queen Anne of Austria to Paris. When Jane arrived, she was treated with great respect and honor. One her journey back, Jane fell ill and had to stay at one of her convents in Moulins. She soon died there on December 13, 1641 at the age of 69. She was buried at Annecy next to St. Francis de Sales and was canonized in 1767. “She was full of faith,” St. Vincent de Paul said, “and yet all her life long had been tormented by thoughts against it. While apparently enjoying that peace and easiness of mind of souls who have reached a high state of virtue, she suffered such interior trials that she often told me her mind was so filled with all sorts of temptations and ambitions that she had to strive not to look within herself, for she could not bear it: the sight of her own soul horrified her as if it were an image of Hell. But for all that suffering her face never lost its serenity, nor did she once relax in the fidelity God asked of her. And so I regard her as one of the holiest souls I have ever met on this earth.”