Refounding Lyon, France

When order was restored, Cardinal Joseph Fesch called Jeanne Fontbonne, one of the Sisters who had been imprisoned and scheduled for execution, to re-establish and lead the new Congregation. In 1806, the Congregation was refounded in Lyon, France, not far from the original foundation in Le Puy.  Encouraged by Napoleon, bishops pressed formerly independent houses to unite in larger congregations governed by general superiors. Missionary expansion was a chief product of the new centralization and the astonishingly active stamp of French Catholicism in the 19th century. It was to Mother St. John Fontbonne that Bishop Joseph Rosati of St. Louis wrote, asking for Sisters to come to the United States to teach the deaf and to work with the Indians.