When I was told I should have the honour of speaking to you today I thought I would like to submit for your consideration some thoughts on the spirit that animated St Vincent de Paul and inspired the works associated with his name. He was, as you know, proclaimed to be, and constituted, the patron of all Catholic associations of charity throughout the world by Pope Leo XIII. But he is, I venture to think, in a special way your patron. Tt is not perhaps generally known that, when he instituted the Confraternities of Charity, he established them for both men and women. The ladies of 17th-century France seem to have had both more energy and independence than the men, for, whilst their confraternities flourished and still flourish, those of the men were soon absorbed into a body that came to be known as the Company of the Blessed Sacrament which, a few years after St Vincent's death, was suppressed, on alleged political grounds, by Mazarin.