Jeanne Jugan, also known as Sister Mary of the Cross, was a Breton religious, founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor. She is venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church.

She was born in a fishing town, daughter of a navel, that died when she was four years old. In 1810 she entered in a kitchen as an assistant at the Chouë viscountess service, in Saint-Coulomb. Later she rejected the proposal of a young naval because she wanted to dedicate to religion. She worked as a nurse in the Rosais Hospital, in Saint-Servan-sur-Mer, a little town that nowadays is part of Saint-Malo.

She made some friendships with some of the other women that dedicated to visit towns in the area and helping them with whatever they could. She became a member of the Third Order of the Admirable Mother and she took in her house some needy people, even giving up her bed and her sleeping in the barn. 

With some friends they organised a group of young women dedicated to the necessity assistance. This community grew and adopted some life regulations, inspired in the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God. The community, called Poors Assistances, was the origin of the Little Sisters of Poor. It was founded by Jeanne Jugan in Saint Servain in 1839, as a private institution dedicated to the cure and assistance of the old ones. Approved by the diocese and the Holy See, it grew really fast, getting to have 2000 members in a few years. 

The founder was superior of the high school between 1842 and 1844, and this year she was awarded with the Montyon Prize, given by the Académie Française, because of her benefic task. This fact made her becoming known and, especially, it made the congregation appear in the media, receiving from that moment grants and donations. New houses were built and with the money collected they were able to buy the old monastery of  La Tour Saint-Joseph, near Saint-Pern, that became the headquarters of the company. 

Since 1844 they had problems with the abbot of Le Pailleur, the espiritual director of the congregation, that pushed her aside of jobs and functions of the pick of the high school.In 1852 he also prohibited her the relationship with the benefactors and donors, so she ended being another simple friar without responsibility or authority. She lived in Saint-Pern, pushed into the background, and even the novices thought that the founder of the congregation was Le Pailleur. She was buried in the chapel of the Saint-Pern house.

Jeanne Jugan was beatified on October 3rd 1982 by Joan Pau II, after the publication of the history of the Little Sisters of Poor, that was written by the Leroy Father, that confirmed the important paper that Jeanne had has in the congregation.

The Congregation of the Little Sisters of Poor made a request to put the name of Jeanne in this square of Girona. Just when it was a hundred years that the congregation established in Girona, the municipal agreement made the request possible, as it is really common that the religious congregations have a street or a near space from where they are established that has its name or its founder name.