The Genius of St. Jeanne (Joan) Elizabeth Bichier
Jeanne (Joan) Elizabeth Bichier was born on July 1773 in La Blanc, France at the Chateau des Anges. Her father, Antony Bichier, was a public official; her mother was Mary Augier de Moussac, the daughter of a public official. At the age of 10, she attended the convent school in Poitiers, where one of her favorite pastimes was building sand castles, While her parents had named her Joan Elizabeth Mary Lucy, she went by the name Elizabeth. Elizabeth witnessed closely and was personally affected by the events of the French Revolution which rocked France when she was 16 years old. When Elizabeth was 19, her father died and Elizabeth had to engage in a long legal battle with the National Assembly to keep the state from seizing the family property. She studied the law in order to provide for her own defense and won the case. When she was twenty - three, Elizabeth and her mother left their family home to leave in a Paris suburb near Béthines in Poitou. The local parish was in uphe...