"Catholic female religious congregations facing the secularization and exile in French Third Republic"

Abstract This article aims at analyzing the historical period of the French Third Republic (1870-1940). During this period French sisters were forced to face secularization, dissolution or exile, processes that, consequently, allowed them to contribute to the field of the women’s education in the different countries they emigrated to. Particularly, this paper highlights the development and expansion of the Congregation of our Lady of Sion that arrived in Brazil in 1888, as a representative of the French religious who emigrated to various parts of the planet, where they effectively contributed to the education of young people.