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The chapter introduces the subject, approach, and focus of the book. The book offers a new insight into the history of the unenclosed Catholic Company the Daughters of Charity (les Filles de la Charité) by focusing on the contents and implementation of its value system in the first half of the seventeenth century. The chapter discusses the backbone of the book, the methodological concept of moral management which is a ‘travelling concept’ (Mieke Bal) utilized here for the first time in research on seventeenth-century Catholicism. Moral management is defined as the implementation, within the organization and its charitable activities, of a specific value system that is expressed in actions, behaviour, and mentalities, and that aims at securing the survival of the Company threatened by its perplexing religious identity.

The chapter turns to the body of members of the Daughters of Charity to examine the ways the directors managed the morality of the sisters. The chapter argues that the way the sisters were trained to become good Daughters and Christian women was an important survival strategy for the Company. The chapter opens with an analysis of the delicate position of the sisters as active women religious in avoidance of enclosure which would have made their vocation impossible. The subsequent sections discuss the ways the directors aimed to manage the sisters’ spiritual position by controlling their behaviour in public space, education, and devotional practices in order to negotiate an orthodox religious identity and avoid enclosure.

The chapter offers an overview of the historical context that gave birth to the Company of the Daughters of Charity. It argues that the urban development of Paris is a crucial backdrop: the contents and direction of the Company and its moral management were always handled from the motherhouse in Paris. Vital support for the Company came likewise from the devout networks of powerful elite Parisian women (the dévotes). Understanding the institutional changes in poor relief and nursing likewise sets the stage further for the analysis of the organization, execution, and contents of the moral management of the Daughters of Charity.