PENITENCE, or PENANCE, is one of the seven sacraments of the Church of Rome. Penitence is sometimes used for a state of repentance, and sometimes for the act of repenting. It gives title, besides, to several religious orders, consisting either of converted debauchees and reformed prostitutes, or of persons who devote themselves to the office of reclaiming them. Of this latter kind is the Order of Penitence of St. Magdalen, established about the year 1272 by one Bernard, a citizen of Marseilles, who devoted himself to the work of converting the courtiers of that city. Bernard was seconded by several others, who, having formed a kind of society, were at length erected into a religious order by Pope Nicholas III. under the rule of St. Augustin. F. Gesnay says they also constituted a religious order of the penitents, or women they converted, giving them the same rules and observances which they themselves followed. The "Congregation of Penitents" at Paris was founded with a similar view.