Her family : Marguerite Rutan was born in Metz" (Lorraine region, France) on the 23rd of April 1734, she was the 8th child in a family of 15, her father was a stone cutter, bricklayer and architect, her mother a pious Christian lady who gave her children a sound religious education, together with the example of he own dedicated way of life.

Her novitiate and first missions : On her 21st birthday, ( 23rd of April 1757), she entered the Daughters of Charity mother-house in Paris as a novice; during her novitiate, and afterwards, she was sent  on various missions in the line of Saint Vincent de Paul's precept :"let us not be bound in any way, neither to places nor to tasks, not to people".

Mother Superior of Dax Hospital from 1779 to 1794 : Reverend de Suarez d'Aulan who was bishop of Dax at the time, asked the Daughters of Charity to take in charge a new Hospital, St Eutrope, in the town. In 1779 Sister Marguerite Rutan arrived with a small group of seven sisters and was appointed Mother Superior, she ran the new hospital and organised its services. In 1789, sister Anne Sophie Charpentier,  the Mother Superior's niece, joined the group, she stayed in Dax during 42 years, until her death in 1831.  She had the privilege, so to speak,   to be an eye witness to the 1793-1794 events.
Sister Rutan was soon to be considered as a pioneer in the field of social work, she opened a school, she provided shelter to young abandoned girls... Her initiatives were very popular and Dax people loved their Mother Superior.

The Revolution tragic years : In 1792, the sisters of Dax were accused of robbery, in 1793, sister Rutan was informed on, she was thrown into jail on Christmas eve, she was sentenced to death by the revolutionary court  on the 20th of Germinal Year II (the 9th of April 1794) and executed on that same day.
One year later, the executive directory regretted that such a  woman "had been sacrificed in a barbarian manner on alleged grounds that still were not evidenced".

- A Great life in nutshell

- Towards Beatification

- Was Sister Marguerite RUTAN a Fanatic ?

- Marguerite Rutan