ORLÉANS-LONGUEVILLE, ANTOINETTE D'

Foundress of the Benedictines of Notre-Dame du Calvaire; b. Trie, near Rouen, 1572; d. Poitiers, April 25, 1618. Having been married in 1588 and widowed in 1596, she entered the Feuillantines of Toulouse in 1599 and became prioress in 1604. In 1605 her aunt Éléonore de Bourbon, abbess of fontevrault, used papal and royal influence to bring the unwilling Antoinette to be her vicar for reform of the abbey and its priories. The pope first allowed her to remain a Feuillantine in this post, but in 1607 he made her assume the habit and rule of Fontevrault. Meeting constant resistance to her reforms, she sought, and in 1609 obtained, permission to resign; this she did in 1611 after her aunt's death. Guided always by Father Joseph le clerc du tremblay, she went to Lencloître, a priory of the order, and successfully reformed it, but interference by the jealous new abbess of Fontevrault led her to get permission in 1617 to found the independent community of Notre-Dame du Calvaire. For this Antoinette established primitive Benedictine observance in a new monastery in Poitiers, where she died. Papal approbation in 1622 assured the future of the still-flourishing congregation.

Bibliography: La Fondatrice de la Congrégation des Bénédictines de Notre-Dame du Calvaire, Madame Antoinette d'Orléans-Longueville, by a nun of Notre-Dame du Calvaire (Poitiers 1932). t. civrays, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart (Paris 1912–) 3:826–829. j. chaussey, Catholicisme 1:674–675.

[w. h. principe]