Madeleine Sophie Barat is the foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart, a worldwide religious institute of educators.

Madeleine Sophie Barat was born on 12^th December 1779 in Joigny, in north-central France, on the river Yonne. She is among the list of Notable names of Joigny.  

She was 10 years old when the French Revolution began in 1789. 

She received an extraordinary and very wide education, against the opposition of her mother, at a time when there were very few boys’ schools, and practically none for girls.  Her tutor was her brother and godfather Louis, eleven years her senior, who was a seminarian, later a priest. 

Aged sixteen, her brother took her with him to Paris to complete her education. Four years later he introduced her to Joseph Varin, a member of a group, including Louis, of “underground” Jesuits (since Jesuits had been expelled from Europe, including from Malta). 

Joseph Varin had the task of finding a group of women to found a new congregation for the education of girls, in parallel with the Jesuit schools for boys. 

Asked by Joseph Varin what she wanted to do with her life, and replying she wanted to be a Carmelite, Madeleine Sophie accepted his invitation to be part of this project.  She was 20 years old and the youngest of a group of four who made their consecration on 21^st November 1800 in a house in Paris. It was the feast of the Presentation of our Lady in the temple, a date of great importance in the history of the Society of the Sacred Heart. 

At first, the name used by the new congregation was “Dames de la Foi” or “Dames de l’Instruction Chrétienne” (“Ladies of Faith”, or “Ladies of Christian Instruction”) as any reference to the “Sacred Heart” was strictly forbidden in France, until they could use their desired name: “Society of the Sacred Heart”. 

M. Sophie was not the first superior.  She was only elected as Superior General in 1806. 

In 1801 the group moved to Amiens where they took over an established school which was facing difficulty at the time.  This was the first convent and school of the Society of the Sacred Heart. Another school for the poor children of the neighbourhood was opened in a small house in January 1802. This school was free. 

A long period of new foundations followed, in Europe and across the Atlantic. In each foundation, fee-paying boarding schools as well as free poor schools were opened. 

M. Sophie was Superior for 63 years, during which she opened 111 houses in 16 countries on both sides of the Atlantic. Of these 25 were closed or confiscated, leaving a legacy of 86 convents, with 84 boarding schools and 74 primary schools for the poor. Just short of 5,000 women had joined the congregation, of whom more than a thousand died before her, and 3,500 continued the Mission she had begun.