Frances d'amboise, Bl.

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FRANCES D'AMBOISE, BL.

Carmelite prioress; b. Thouars, France, May 9, 1427;d. Couëts, near Nantes, France, Nov. 4, 1485. A daughter of Louis d'Amboise, viscount of Thouars, she became the wife of Peter II, duke of Brittany (d. 1457). Noted for her charity to the poor and sick, the childless widow resisted even the request of King Louis XI that she marry again. In 1463 she founded at Vannes the first cloister of Carmelite nuns in France, and in 1467, entered this convent and received the habit from the prior general, John soreth. She died as prioress of Our Lady of Couüts and was buried there. In the convent as at court she combined a practical sense of affairs with a life of prayer and love of neighbor and followed with interest the fortunes of her country. Some of her conferences to the nuns survive in manuscript. Her cult was approved in 1863 by Pope PiusIX.

Feast: Nov. 4.

Bibliography: f. richard, Vie de la bienheureuse Françoise d'Amboise, duchesse de Bretagne et religieuse carmélite, 2 v. (Paris 1865). a. daix, La Merveilleuse odyssée de Françoise d'Amboise (Paris 1930). v. wilderink, "Les Exhortations de la bienheureuse Françoise d'Amboise," Carmelus 11 (1964) 221266. j. templÉ, Catholicisme 4:155859.

[e. r. carroll]

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