of St. Augustine. Penitents of Our Lady of Refuge Also called Nuns or Hospitallers of Our Lady of Nancy, founded at Nancy in 1631 by Ven. Marie-Elizabeth de la Croix de Jésus, daughter of Jean-Leonard de Fanfain of Remiremont. Left a widow at the early age of twenty-four, she opened a refuge for fallen women, assisted by her three young daughters. The new congregation was formally approved by the Holy See in 1634 under the title of Our Lady of Refuge and the patronage of St. Ignatius Loyola, and under constitutions drawn largely from those of the Society of Jesus and in accordance with the Rule of St. Augustine. Sisters of the Conservatorio di S. Croce della Penitenza or del buon Pastore Also known as Scalette, founded at Rome in 1615 by the Carmelite Domenico di Gesu e Maria, who, with the assistance of Baltassare Paluzzi, gathered into a small house (conservatorio) a number of women who were in danger of falling into prostitution. Those desiring to become religious were placed under the Rule of St. Augustine Ordo religiosus de penitentia The members of which were called Scalzette or Nazareni, founded in 1752 at Salamanca, by Juan Varella y Losada (b. 1724; d. at Ferrara, 24 May 1769), who had resigned a military career for a life of voluntary humiliation in a house of the Observants at Salamanca. Being urged to found a religious order, he assembled eight companions in community (8 March 1752) under a rule which he had drawn up the previous year, and for which he obtained the authorization of Benedict XIV. Like the Franciscans, the members take a vow to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and, like all mendicant orders, they derive their means of subsistence entirely from contributions and are forbidden the possession of landed property. Order of Penitents established by Bernard of Marseille The Order of Penitents was a religious order established by Bernard of Marseille about 1272 for the reception into the Roman Catholic Church of reformed courtesans. Noah Webster's Dictionary, 1828, under "penitent" affirmed "Order of penitents, a religious order established by one Bernard of Marseilles, about the year 1272, for the reception of reformed courtezans. The congregation of penitents at Paris, was founded with a similar view." . The entry was repeated in Nuttall's Encyclopedia 1907. The confraternities of penitents of Marseille were traced to the end of the