Servant of God Louis Savinien Dupuis is the founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Congregation. He was born in Sens, France in 1806. He lost his mother, when he was twelve years old. He was raised up in a Roman Catholic family and was taught the importance of faith in God. He ordained himself as a priest on 25th April 1829 and he joined in the Congregation of MEP on 25th March 1831. He was a fervent and zealous priest. He was a man of heroic faith and seraphic charity. He started his voyage on July 4th, 1831 towards India as a missionary. He reached India on 9th February 1832. He was sent to Mysore mission and was appointed as a Chaplin for the British and Indian soldiers in Bangalore. He was called back to Pondicherry by the Mgr. Bonnand and appointed him as the Rector of the Petit Seminary and as well in charge of Mission Press. Soon he became the Manager of the same Press.

Those days the status of women was very pathetic due to lack of Education. In the synod of Pondicherry 1844, it was decided by the synod fathers to start schools to educate Indian girls; hence they decided to start an Indigenous Congregation. The synod fathers felt that Fr. Dupuis was the right person to do this difficult task. The responsibility of starting the Congregation was given to him. By divine Providence the Congregation was started in a rented house in the year 1844 on 16th October at Pondicherry.

The Very next day he was able to start a school for girls’ education. Though there were many obstacles and financial crisis he managed everything and established many schools in villages in and around Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu. He worked enormously for the education of girls, prepared the sisters as teachers, also he prepared text books for the school children. He visited the schools frequently, encouraged and motivated the sisters to prepare well to teach the students, also to practice themselves as well as the students to read and write without grammatical mistakes.