Born 24 April 1581 to a peasant family in Ranquine, Gascony near Dax, southwest France (now known as Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Landes), a highly intelligent youth, VINCENT, spent four years with the Franciscan friars at Acq, France, receiving an education. He was tutor to children of gentlemen in Acq. He began divinity studies in 1596 at the University of Toulouse, and ordained at the age of 20.
Taken captive by Turkish pirates to Tunis, he was sold into slavery. He was freed in 1607 when he converted one of his owners to Christianity.
Returning to France, he served as parish priest near Paris where he started organizations to help the poor, nurse the sick, found jobs for the unemployed, etc. He was appointed chaplain at the court of Henry IV of France. With Louise de Marillac, they founded the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity. He instituted the Congregation of Priests of the Mission (Lazarists). He spent his life always laboring for the poor, the enslaved, the abandoned, the ignored, the pariahs.
He died on 27 September 1660 in Paris, of natural causes, and is venerated in a chapel on the Rue de Sèvres.