Philippine knew that she wanted to enter with the Visitations Sisters; when her father learned of it, he forbid her to go there. Philippine obey until one day she asked her aunt to take her there for a visit. Once there, she refused to leave. Her father, knowing her, allowed her to stay but not to take vows as he realized that the anti-clerical government was going to close all the monasteries. When this happened, Philippine came home but soon was living in Grenoble instead of the country life with her family who had moved there because of the political situation.
Philippine
realized that she could be useful by carrying for the sick and bringing the priests in hiding to the dying. She also visited the priests who were in prison. As soon as the Revolution was over, through the financial and political help of her family, she was able to gain access to the Visitation monastery and tried to get the community to return. Most were too old, the monastery was in bad condition, and the nuns who came did not stay. Philippine continued to live there with a couple of women and they began a school for a handful of girls. Finally, she heard of a new Religious Order dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and had hope of joining it. Father Varin wrote to St. Madeleine Sophie to tell her that she needed to go and she would find someone there who was worth going to the ends of the earth to know. St. Madeleine Sophie arrived in Grenoble on December 13, 1804 to receive Philippine into the Society of the Sacred Heart.
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