ABSTRACT
The Company of the Daughters of Charity dedicated its early years to creating a community that could resist enclosure. This end was realized when Pope Clement IX recognized the community as a confraternity in 1668. The Company of the Daughters of Charity evolved over several decades. Initially it was a confraternity of well-off women and their servants. By 1633 the structure of the Confraternity of Charity had altered dramatically, as a number of young women came from the countryside to work under the direction of the Ladies of Charity in and around Paris. After the death of Louise de Marillac, several Daughters wrote open letters to their colleagues extolling the virtues of their founder. Although written as panegyrics, these letters also had the more practical purpose of highlighting the characteristics of de Marillac that made her a successful Daughter and Superior General of the Company.
