Visitation (Of St. Mary), Order Of The
Visitation (Of St. Mary), Order Of The
is a congregation of nuns, instituted in 1610, by St. Francis de Sales and a St. Jeanne Franoise de Chantal. The design of the order was to receive those women who, by reason of their infirmities of body or mind, their extreme poverty, previous errors of life, or state of widowhood, were excluded from the other regular communities. See Migne, Helyot, Ordres Religieux, 3, 922 sq.; Jameson, Legends of the Monastic Orders, p. 447 sq. SEE VISITANTS.