A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Ballon, (Louisa-Blanche Teresa de)
BALLON, (LOUISA-BLANCHE TERESA DE) Foundress of the Order of the reformed Bernardine Nuns, and of many other religious Establishments in France and Savoy. Born in 1591, at Vauchi near Geneva, died 1668, aged 77,
Was daughter of a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy. She was early devoted, by her parents, to a religious life; at seven years of age, being sent to a convent, where a relation was the superior, and where she took the habit of the order. St. Frances de Sales, who was of her family, contributed not a little to increase her zeal. She soon became interested in reforming the rules and manners of religious establishments, which, according to her notions of self-denial and mortification, were not sufficiently severe. She was elected abbess at Rumilli, a little town in Savoy, and afterwards obtained permission to name her new order, ’Daughters of Providence.’ She travelled to different monasteries, spreading every where her new regulations, which were sometimes adopted by others: but she was much hurt by the republication of her institutions by a Parisian abbess, who ventured to make some alterations, whether judicious or otherwise cannot be said; but Louisa Ballon was much displeased at it.