Nicolle Moët de Brouillet, the mother of John Baptist de La Salle

Nicolle Moët de Brouillet, the mother of John Baptist de La Salle, was born on 30 November 1633. She was the second child and the first daughter of a noble family, her father Jean rejoicing in being ‘squire’ of Brouillet, Dugny, Louvergny, Bronville, Le Griffon, Terron-sur-Aisne, Thillois, and Saint-Étienne-à-Arnes.

In the church of St Hilaire, Reims, Nicolle married Louis de La Salle on 25 August 1650. Nicolle was 16, Louis was 24. Marriage at such an age was not unusual: Nicolle’s mother, Perrette Lespagnol, was 14 on her wedding day, and gave birth to her first child, Nicolas, two years later.

Nicolle and Louis had eleven children, of whom John Baptist was the first-born, and of whom four died in infancy. This sad reality was not unusual either: Nicolle herself was one of five children who survived into adulthood; another five died at an early age.

Nicolle gave birth to a child in 1651, 1652, 1654, 1656, 1657, 1659, 1663, 1664, 1666, 1667 and 1670. She died on 19 July 1671, a little over 12 months after the birth of her youngest child, Jean-Remy. John Baptist, studying in Paris at the Seminary of Saint Sulpice and the Sorbonne, received the sad news three days later. Her husband Louis survived his wife by only eight months.

Author: Br John Cantwell FSC