ABSTRACT
Jeanne de Belcier, in religion Jeanne des Anges, was among the Ursuline nuns who came to found a new convent in 1627, one of several establishments representing the most dynamic wings of the Catholic reform in its early phases. These religious houses recruited heavily among the daughters of the nobility and upper bourgeoisie, a tendency which bound them in to the local elites and enhanced their prospects of playing a significant role in the community. Women had played a very significant part in the growth of French Protestantism, not least in the south-west; now the Catholic Church was starting to mobilise them to great effect. Jeanne's own account suggests that she had done everything possible to secure this rapid promotion, drawing attention to her habit of studying other people's characters and her aptitude for dissimulation; when it came, however, she claimed to have found the responsibility frightening.
