This new biography of Sophie Barat tells the story of how Sophie Barat gradually assumed and  consolidated her  leadership in the Society of the Sacred Heart, a lengthy process which extended  from 1800 to 1851.  It is not a history of the Society of the Sacred Heart as such, nor is it a history of Society of the Sacred Heart’s contribution to education, though there are elements of both in the book. The archival material for this study of Sophie Barat is rich and this permits her  personality to emerge as she speaks her way through the text.

Sophie Barat has left a vast personal archive. The archives of the Society of the Sacred Heart  contain 14,000 original letters of  Sophie as well as an extensive collection of  her  records and those of her colleagues. Documents and correspondence   in the libraries of  Rome and Paris  particularly but not exclusively,  provide a rich source of  material which has also been used in the preparation of the biography.

During her life Sophie Barat was  always called  Sophie by her family and friends. After her death she was known as   Madeleine Sophie Barat. In this biography the name Sophie has  been retained.

Biography is an exercise in memory,  a way of retrieving the life-story of the person, of telling their story, again. It  can also disclose incomplete or disrupted narratives and can jog personal and collective memories, long hidden and forgotten.

Biography is never final, definitive, finished. When the narrative  is repeated, when the story is retold, hidden possibilities are released around the person and their time and  new light thrown on their significance. By trying to tell some of the truth about a person and  their time in history,   a biography rescues both from a stereotyping which threatens to falsify the true  person in their time and setting.  Sophie Barat  would appreciate such an approach. She once remarked: `A historian should tell the truth’.
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Signature of Sophie Barat in a letter to Anna du Rousier, Paris, July 26th. 1864

*A note on the author.*

Phil Kilroy is a historian of dissent and non-conformity in 17th and 18th century Ireland,  and of the history of women 1600-1900. She is the author of Protestant Dissent and Controversy in Ireland 1660-1714 (Cork University Press, 1994) and of numerous articles on religious dissent and women's history. She is a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart.

Home Introduction Who was Sophie Barat? Sophie Barat - Educator

My Own Vintage - Reflections on Madeleine Sophie Barat

Sophie Barat - Leadership Sophie Barat - Legacy The New Biography