After a vision of the Virgin Mary

Blessed Alix Le Clerc, a French religious sister from Lorraine, opened many girls’ schools starting in 1598, and founded the congregation of the Canonesses of Notre-Dame, a religious order of teachers, still present today in many countries.

Alix was born February 2, 1576, in Lorraine, France. Born into a wealthy family and beautiful looking, she had a happy childhood, and enjoyed music and dancing... At 18, she already had "a melancholic soul living amid the world and its vanities.” After a vision of the Virgin Mary, she decided to make significant changes in her life style despite her family’s disapproval. She started wearing plain dresses and turned away from any form of entertainment. "I put aside all my fancy clothes and put a white veil on my head, like the simple village girls," she wrote.

Encouraged by her confessor, Saint Peter Fourier, priest of Mattaincourt (Vosges, France), she had the idea of ​​founding a new house devoted to the education of young girls, especially the daughters of the poor. With several companions, she moved to Poussay (Vosges), where she opened her first school in the fall of 1598.

This first foundation of a free school was mentioned by Jules Ferry, French Minister of Public Education in 1882, who was also from the Vosges region, when he evoked "the birth of primary education in Lorraine, constituting the birth of girls' education in France."

Alix Le Clerc was beatified in 1947 by Pope Pius XII.

Aleteia