Saint madeleine sophie barat biography books

French Roman Catholic saint

Madeleine Sophie Barat, RSCJ, (12 December 1779 – 25 May 1865), was a French saint of the Catholic Church who founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, a worldwide religious institute of educators.

Early life and family

Barat was born on the night of 12 December 1779, in Joigny, France, next door to a house fire at a neighbour’s home. The stress and the terror of the fire caused Sophie's mother, Madeleine Fouffé Barat (1740–1822), then pregnant with her third child, to go into labour.

Born two months premature, Madeleine Sophie was considered so fragile that she was baptised early the next morning in Sainy Thibault Church, just a few yards from the Barat family home. Although her parents had arranged godparents in advance, there was no time to call them to the church and so at five o'clock on the morning of 13 December 1779, Louise-Sophie Cédor, a local woman on her way to early Mass, and Sophie's older brother, Louis, sto