France Profile
PROFILE OF THE FRENCH PROVINCE A little history France – the cradle of our Congregation - is one of the oldest countries in Europe. Washed by the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean in the west, and by the Mediterranean Sea in the south, the three other sides of the ‘Hexagon’ have borders with Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium. After Roman occupation and various invasions by northern peoples, it was only in the 6th century that the country acquired its present name, its cohesion and its national awareness. It was a kingdom until the revolution of 1789; it was an empire under Napoleon and finally became a republic in the 19th century. From the 18th to the middle of the 20th century it had a colonial empire, mainly in western Africa and the Pacific. Following the Second World War, little by little it handed back independence to its former colonies. Evangelised in the 2nd century, it became a Christian nation in the Middle Ages and still proudly carries the title of ‘Eldest Daughter of the Church’. Euphrasie Barbier was born in Caen in the north of France in 1829, and founded her Congregation of religious missionaries on 25 December 1861, in Lyon on the hill of Fourvière. Up until 1901 all the Sisters who entered the novitiate in France were sent to the overseas missions – Oceania, New Zealand, England, and India, or to Armentières in the north of France; only those in formation and the sick remained in the Mother House. In 1901, as a consequence of the government laws for associations which impacted on all religious congregations at that time, all of our Sisters emigrated to Switzerland, Belgium, Canada or England; only in 1924 did some Sisters return to Lyon.
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