 A more remote origin of the Institute can be found in the work done by a variety of French Vincentian historians beginning in the mid-nineteenth century after the Congregation of the Mission's post-revolutionary restoration.The fourteenth superior general, Jean-Baptiste Étienne (1801–1874), had a lively concern for the preservation of the "primitive spirit" of the Vincentians and Daughters of Charity.He and his successors commissioned a variety of materials including the "Annales de la Congrégation de la Mission", editions of selected letters of Vincent de Paul, editions of community documents, and a multi-volume history of the Congregation of the Mission.