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2008 - Montreal, Fides, 411 pages - Collective work - Food preparation

Book title in English : "Culinary Art and Recipes

Superiors and Leaders

To date, the Congrégation de Notre-Dame has been led by 42 Superiors, who are now referred to as Leaders, some of whom were in office for more than one term. Not only were they administrators responsible for a group which, for a long time,…

School Album

During the last centuries, the Sisters of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame founded and administered several hundred private and public schools and taught in parish schools, in schools managed by other religious communities and by school boards. Here is a…

Centuries of History

The Congrégation de Notre-Dame is one of the few institutions whose origins go back almost to the foundation of Montreal and are still active today. The account which follows is a summary of its history and is abundantly illustrated…

School Manuals

The Congrégation de Notre-Dame produced more school manuals than any other community of women religious in Quebec. Some 440 publications are credited to its name. Among them are text books and workbooks, for both students and teachers (livre du…

Archives gallery

This section provides access to all electronic archive documents which make up the virtual exhibit. With the help of search filters and criteria, browse among a variety of documents preserved by Archives Services, such as…

Pedagogical section

This virtual exposition and its pedagogical section recount and illustrate the exceptional history of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys. Pedagogical section is an education program specially dedicated to adolescents between…

Ville-Marie, the tiny settlement from which would grow the city of Montreal, had its origins in the desire to communicate the Christian faith to the Native Peoples of New France. The Jesuits began their missionary work in what is now Canada in 1611; their written reports on that work soon began…

In her later years, Marguerite Bourgeoys always associated an event that permanently changed her life with the foundation of Montreal. Born in 1620 in Troyes, the ancient capital of the province of Champagne in France, Marguerite was the daughter of a master candle maker who operated his own…

The 17th century saw the development of what is known as the French School of Spirituality, part of the movement of renewal associated with the Catholic Reformation. This spirituality has at its heart, the person of Jesus Christ whose life and missioncontinues in Christians through the presence…

When Marguerite Bourgeoys arrived in Québec in September 1653, she was part of a group known as the “Great Recruitment”, the “colonists who saved Montreal.” Many of the founders of 1642 had left or died. The entire French population of New France had been estimated at about 700 persons. Along…

Marguerite Bourgeoys early recognized that the work of education has its origins in the home. Even on her very first voyage to Canada she was entrusted with the care of a young girl on her way to Montreal in the hope of marrying and establishing a family there. Because there were too few…

When she left alone for Canada in 1653 it seemed that Marguerite Bourgeoys was leaving behind her dream of a religious community of women who would follow in the footsteps of Mary, the mother of Jesus and the other women disciples in the early Christian Church. But her spiritual director assured…

On 30 April 1658 Marguerite Bourgeoys opened Montreal’s first school, the first public (free) school for girls and boys in Canada. The school was a converted disused stone stable and the children themselves had helped prepare it for their occupation. Because they were uncloistered and because…

Marguerite Bourgeoys knew that she was engaged in the building of a new society. Like Pierre Fourier, the great educator with whose ideas she was familiar, Marguerite Bourgeoys saw the work of education as of paramount importance in determining the future of society. The primary educational aim…

The promise of peace with which the 18th century opened did not last long. In 1702, the War of the Spanish Succession once more involved New France in conflict, as the fate of a continent hung on European dynastic and imperial ambitions. Conditions imposed by the Peace of Utrecht that brought…

Almost from the time of his arrival in New France Bishop Jean-Baptiste La Croix de Chevrières de Saint Vallier wanted to see an establishment of the Congregation at Port-Royal in Acadia. When Acadia was lost to the English by the Treaty of Utrecht, he turned instead to Cape Breton Island.…

The rapid growth of the French population in the Saint Lawrence Valley in the first part of the 18thcentury was not due primarily to immigration but rather to natural increase supported by a very low infant mortality rate. This, of course, meant that there were many more children and,…

The months immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Paris brought the departure of the French colonial officials and military and some of the leading families, the installation of a British military government and an influx of merchants, land speculators and settlers from the American…

Besides the destruction of Louisbourg the war had caused its greatest devastation and disruption to the work of the Congregation in the Quebec region. The houses of the Congregation at both Quebec and Château-Richer were burned at the time of the siege of Quebec and the house at Pointe-aux-…

During the night of April 11, 1768, the sisters of the Congregation awakened to find that their Mother House in Montreal was on fire. They escaped only with their lives an immense conflagration which destroyed ninety houses, two churches and a school. Like their predecessors in 1683, they took…

In the aftermath of the conquest, it was the expressed intention of Minister of the Colonies in London to establish the Church of England in Canada and to induce the inhabitants and their children gradually to embrace the Protestant religion. One of the principal means to this end was to be the…