Anne Marie was born in Burgundy in 1779 and grew up at a time when her country was in the grip of the French Revolution. The Catholic Church had gone underground and she had to live her faith in these very difficult circumstances.

One of the many tragic affects of war is the number of children that are abandoned and in 1807 Anne Marie founded her congregation to help her care for orphans and educate children, firstly in France, then in other countries where she undertook the human development of the indigenous peoples.

At the beginning of the 19th.Century it was unusual for a woman to traverse 45,000kms of ocean in a sailing boat, but from 1817 onwards this is what Anne Marie and her Sisters did thus fulfilling their missionary vocation to the four corners of the earth.