Jeanne Mance - Later Years

Later Years

In 1650 Mance visited France and returned with 22,000 livres of money set aside by Mme de Bullion for the hospital. On her return to Montreal, she found that the attacks of the Iroquois threatened the colony. She loaned the hospital money to M. de Maisonneuve, who returned to France to organize a force of one hundred men for the colony's defense.

Mance made a second trip to France in 1657 to seek financial assistance for the hospital. At the same time, she secured three Hospital Sisters of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph from the convent of La Fleche in Anjou: Judith Moreau de Bresoles, Catherine Mace, and Marie Maillet. They had a difficult passage on the return, made worse by an outbreak of the plague on board, but all four women survived. While Mgr. de Laval tried to retain the sisters at Quebec for that hospital, they eventually reached Montreal in October 1659.

With the help of the new sisters, Mance was able to ensure the continued operations of the hospital. For the rest of her years, she lived more quietly.

She died in 1673 after a long illness and was buried in the church of the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. While the church and her house were destroyed in 1696 for redevelopment, her work was carried on by the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph. The three nuns she had recruited in 1659 served as hospital administrators. Two centuries later, in 1861 the hospital was moved to the foot of Mount Royal.