Marie Guyart

Life events

1. Born — 1599

   Marie Guyart was born on 28 October 1599 in Tours, France, the fourth of eight children of baker Florent Guyart and Jeanne Michelet.

2. Other — 1617

   At age seventeen, Guyart married Claude Martin, a master silk worker in Tours, despite wishing to enter religious life. He died roughly two years later, leaving her a widow with an infant son, also named Claude.

3. Tonsured — 1631

   On 25 January 1631, Guyart entered the Ursuline monastery in Tours, receiving the religious name Marie de l'Incarnation and leaving her young son Claude in the care of her sister's family.

4. Pilgrimage — 1639

   On 4 May 1639, Guyart and Madeleine de la Peltrie sailed from Dieppe aboard the Saint Joseph, arriving at Quebec City on 1 August 1639 to establish the Ursuline Order in New France.

5. Other — 1639

   Upon arrival in Quebec City, Guyart and her companions founded the first girls' school in what would become Canada and established the Ursuline Monastery of Quebec, now a National Historic Site of Canada.

6. Other — 1650

   A fire in 1650 destroyed the Ursuline convent in Quebec. The rapid reconstruction, attributed by the community to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, occurred amid Iroquois military pressure and political instability in France.

7. Died — 1672

   Guyart died of a liver illness on 30 April 1672 in Quebec City. The necrology report sent to the Ursulines of France praised the virtues that 'shone through this dear deceased.'

8. Other — 2014

   Pope Francis canonized Guyart on 2 April 2014 through equipollent canonization — waiving the standard requirement of two verified miracles — alongside François de Laval, the first Bishop of Quebec.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Guyart wrote between 8,000 and 20,000 letters during her decades in New France, the majority addressed to her son Claude; many were published after her death and constitute a primary source for the history of the French colony 1639–1671. (likely)
• Guyart learned Innu-aimun, Algonquin, Wyandot, and Iroquois, composing dictionaries and catechisms in each language; none of these manuscripts are extant, the second of her two autobiographical Relations also having been lost in the 1650 convent fire. (likely)
• Her canonization in 2014 was by equipollent process — an exceptional papal declaration dispensing with the normal two-miracle requirement — granted alongside François de Laval, the first Bishop of Quebec. (certain)
• In a vision at Christmas 1633, Guyart saw herself walking with a laywoman through a foggy foreign landscape where the Virgin Mary and Jesus stood on the roof of a small church; her confessor identified the country as Canada, directing her toward mission work in New France. (plausible)
• Contemporaries and later writers drew a parallel between Guyart and Teresa of Ávila — whose autobiography Vida Guyart had read in 1627 — leading to the informal epithet 'Teresa of Canada' applied after her death. (likely)