When her mother died around 1230, Douceline moved to Hyères with her father, probably to be closer to her brother Hugh who was a member of the town’s Franciscan monastery.
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After a very pious childhood and teenage years which were devoted to the care of the poor and sick in her father’s house, she experienced a “conversion” at the age of 20 and, several years afterwards, took vows before her brother Hugh and established her first beguine community near the Roubaud River on the edge of the town of Hyères (c. 1241).
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Hugh was to become a well-known Franciscan theologian and preacher and was to have a significant role in assisting Douceline.