ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Rapley argues that the seventeenth century marks the beginning of the feminization of the French Church. She does not mean that men dropped out of the religious scene in the seventeenth century, but rather that women forged increasingly meaningful lives within the Church. The Company continued growing, in numbers of members and establishments, in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Its growth was not typical of religious organizations; many contemplative orders saw their numbers shrink during and after the later seventeenth century. Contemplative communities remained on the religious landscape, but they became less significant by the eighteenth century, when fewer women from prominent families joined them. Ultimately, the Revolutionary government executed seven Daughters of Charity: four teachers and social workers in Arras, two hospital nurses in Angers and one hospital nurse in Dax. The Reign of Terror ended in the summer of 1794, and with it, some of the vehement dechristianization efforts.
