The early growth of the Congregation was slow. At the period of its origin the social and political conditions in France, still undergoing huge upheavals from the Revolution, was very unfavorable to the growth of religious communities. Lyon, the cradle of the congregation, suffered sorely in these tumultuous early revolutionary days. However, a greater impediment to its growth lay in the ill-defined system of government under which Coindre oversaw the Congregation. When the Brothers requested that he give them a definite Rule, as he had done for the Sisters, his response was:
