Jeanne de Lestonnac was a 16th-century French nun who established the Sisters of the Company of Mary. Born in Bordeaux, she lived through intense religious tensions between Catholics and Calvinists. After experiencing the deaths of her husband and several family members, she sought a religious life, initially entering a Cistercian monastery. She eventually founded a new teaching order for women, which received papal approval in 1607, making it the first Catholic religious community specifically dedicated to the education of girls.