Autobiography of Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face (1909)

Celine Martin

Story of a little soul

Story of a "Little Soul" who went through a furnace - 1909
Sr Marie de la Ste Face (Céline, Geneviève de Ste Thérèse)
To his beloved mother
Mary Angel of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face
16th June 1909

I want to spend my Heaven doing good on earth... I will plant lilies everywhere, I will make them sprout even on burning embers!

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   My beloved Mother, you will smile when you read this title given to my manuscript and you will, with good reason, regret having asked me to write my memoirs. Like the gleaner who comes and comes back again when the harvest is over, you believed by a story full of fraternal memories to bind again a sheaf of beautiful ripe ears to the praise of Thérèse, but I have little to relate apart from what is written in the Story of a Soul and in my preparation for deposition for the Trial. You also perhaps believed, my Mother, to find in Céline, another “little white flower”, an emulator of the “spring” flower blooming today in the Heavens. And here you are in the presence of a poor "brand" who owes, to the mercy of God, not to be calcined by the flames, flames of all kinds, because my soul was jealously coveted by hell, or so difficult to soften, that it took her particular humiliations to become what she wanted to be.
   How dare I claim another emblem? when I constantly hear in my ear this interpellation of the Prophet: "Isn't this a brand torn from the fire?" “(Zac. III, 2) – Yes, my Mother, I am one... You will judge of it not at the beginning, but later on from this story where you will read my thoughts alongside the facts of my life, where you will find in parallel, the virtues of Thérèse and the faults of Céline, where you will touch with your finger, the tender solicitude of Jesus who never tires of snatching from the fire, the miserable "brand" object of his love.
 
   I will tell you nothing, my beloved Mother, of the exceptional family where the good Lord placed my cradle, but I consider it the greatest grace of my life, that of having had Christian parents and of having received them a virile education which left no room for the pettiness of vanity. With us I have never seen people sacrifice human respect, there was no
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  altar erected to God alone and if sometimes the sacrifices may have seemed austere to me, the hour always struck when I tasted the pleasant smell.
   But before sharing these experiences with you, I must, my Mother, point out to you how great this grace of a strong and pious education was for me. Without her surely I would have lost myself or if later, in my love of the truth, I had sought and found her it would have been only after having sullied my first steps. The first benefit of Jesus towards me was therefore to have removed from me the dangerous flames of bad example, even before I could escape it by a free act. How many young plants would reach maturity if, like me, they were preserved from the contagion of vices, if the sap which circulates in their delicate stem were pure like that which gave birth to me and grew up! Ah! I understand that the devil wanting to lose souls is attacking the family. Like those rodent worms which attack the roots, it saps from the base, and by corrupting the domestic hearth, spoils all the best hopes at their source.
   When walking in the garden I see tender buds which cannot be opened, hampered as they are by a considerable quantity of other parasites, I cannot help thinking of the little children who grow in life without A paternal or maternal hand removes from their soul the faults, the prejudices, the illusions destined to etiolate the flower forever.
   I cannot say how great is my gratitude to the good Lord for having placed by my side angels, who, understanding their mission, surrounded my childhood with those delicate cares on which
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all the life.
   And this recognition was not sterile in me; O my Mother, how can I tell you the desire I had to see other children enjoy the same privilege! As you know, after my first intention, which was to pray for priests, I only embraced the life of Carmel to achieve this goal. I wanted to save souls at all costs and it did not seem to me to buy them too dearly by devoting my whole life to them.
   But I return to my earliest memories. I notice two tendencies in the budding aptitudes of little Céline, one is an insatiable need for life and happiness, more than her nature can contain, the other a very great tenderness of heart. It is easy to foresee whether, with such arrangements, the equilibrium will be easy to maintain. Alas! fortunately the good Lord put his heart under my scales, without this divine rampart where would I have fallen! ..
   Very small, the germs that I have just indicated therefore began to grow. I was barely walking alone when my strength was tried on top of my mother's desk; thus perched on the narrow coping, one would have thought that I was going to be afraid, it was not so and, when charitable arms came forward to lower me to the ground, I pushed them away saying in a breathless voice, the joy was so lively: Enco! again! This is the first word that Marie, my eldest sister, heard me utter. As you can see, I was not afraid of life and its adventures, I was then unaware of its terrible perplexities and its bloody ordeals which, later, were to make me say: enough! enough!
   However, even from this age, Jesus had put in my heart something even stronger than the thirst for pleasure, it was a tender affection for my dear parents, I preferred to deprive myself of the joys
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  more vivid than to cause them the shadow of pain. Here is an example taken from my Mother's letters. When I was seated on the maid's arm, spruce up and ready to go out, they made a game of tempting me like this: "You're going to behave!" Mom would say sadly. So, understanding that I was leaving her all alone, I preferred to sacrifice my walk and stretching out my little arms towards her, I no longer wanted to leave her. But she insisted with a smile that I go out and I regained my gaiety, alas! we had no sooner reached the threshold of the house than she said again: "You are going to leave me!" This time I answered with tears; I would never have gone out if my dear Mother's smile had not accompanied me until the last moment.
   I was 1 ½ years old when the Prussians entered Alençon, it was surely me who was the least frightened and I was very happy to see several of them at home. I was just as high as their boots and I ran as easily between their legs as under the tables, they took a liking to me it was up to who would have me on their knees during meals and I dabbled in their plates, he seems to see me still making 'juice' their stews between my little hands. No doubt I will be told that this detail having been told to me, I think I remember it and yet I still seem to remember the fear that one of them inspired in me when, on the point of leaving, he brandished his great saber, threatening to take me away.
   You are doubtless wondering, my Mother, but when is she going to speak to me of the good Lord? It was because at that age I had no more piety than love of country, which was so little developed in me that I considered the Prussians my most sincere friends! It was not the same with my sisters, Léonie had established her headquarters in the cellar where she passed
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  her days sitting on a small stool while Marie and Pauline cried when they saw their doll's beautiful pink dress being used to scour weapons.
   Without the armistice, my father would have gone to fight and my mother, as a true patriot, gave it to France with a good heart, highly stigmatizing certain people who hid their husbands to save him from danger. She even said that she no longer wanted to greet them as the idea of ​​duty took precedence in her over the feelings of nature.
   For me, if I was a stranger to fear I was still a stranger to beautiful manifestations and generous impressions were not to be born in me until much later. However, with the love of the family, I can, despite what I have just said, affirm that it was the love of God which first germinated in my heart and which served as the basis for all the other loves. The example that I will give goes back to the age of about 3 years.
   I had gone out with the maid who was holding my hand, she was talking to me about a vocation no doubt, because she said to me: “And you, my little Céline, what will you do when you grow up? We were passing at this moment in front of a post of soldiers, several were mounting guard, others were gathered in a large courtyard. So I turned to them and shouted with all my might: “I will be a nun! It seemed to me that I was protesting in front of the whole universe, but poor Louise was not so proud as I was and, red to the roots of her hair, she ran away cursing me. As for me, I was very happy and could never regret having so boldly confessed my opinions.
   I also remember that at that age I was very wise in the Church, much less however out of piety than out of natural docility or weakness of constitution, malice was only to grow with strength and years. But I gave my heart
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  to the good Lord morning and evening with great fidelity and for that I did not need a temple or an altar, I placed my little chair in front of a window which overlooked the garden and thus installed I said my prayer, it did not Wasn't long, but it was answered, I said: "My good God, let it snow and let me have a little sister! Snow fell during that winter of 1873 which also gave me a little sister. And you know, Mother, who that little sister was! Truly you can have confidence in my prayers by seeing how well they are served!...
   Here begins, so to speak, my spiritual life which can be inscribed between two loves: my Thérèse and the Holy Face... My dear Mother, you yourself have summed up these two loves in the beautiful poems that you have dedicated to me, one immortalizing the union of Thérèse and Céline, the other singing my discovery of the adored Face of my Jesus. O my Mother, it seems to me that I would only have to transcribe these two beautiful poems here and I would have said everything... But, as I have already noticed when asking me to write these memories you hope to collect a few more forgotten details about Thérèse's life and you are right to employ every means in order not to lose anything of this sublime existence which, in its rapid and gentle course, rolled only spangles of gold.
  -However, my Mother, I must repeat to you that I believe I have already related everything both in my intimate notes and in my preparation for the deposition for the Trial, and if you do not want to be disappointed, do not expect anything well in this new work, because I know myself and am sure that with my scrutinizing and fiery character, I will engage in endless observations on all sorts of unforeseen subjects, letting my pen run at the risk of Weary you well, poor Mother! and all the repetitions of ideas that I foresee as a consequence! Finally, sorry now.
   I resume my story where I left off when, endowed with a little sister, my life entered a new phase. I don't remember the joy I felt the day he was born, but I remember the
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  the visits we made to her in the country and those she paid us when her nurse brought her home. Already began this intimacy between us which, then in its morning, was never to know an evening, because in one of these circumstances mother wrote "the baby only laughed, it was especially little Céline who pleased, she laughed out loud with her. This letter is dated July 10, 1873. Thérèse was only 6 months old. You see, Mother, what promise this held for the future! Yes, these testimonials were the prelude to the tender affection she was to have for her poor little Celine, although she deserved it so little!
   To prove to you, my Mother, how petulant I was, I am going to quote to you an incident told by Mama, it is from this same period, July 1873. The incident in itself is nothing, no doubt, but you you will recognize my character of the present which then takes shape with surprising clarity, I mean this great weakness of a first movement always reprehensible and always alas! expressed outside.
   “Last night, writes my Mother, Céline said to me: 'I don't like the poor. I told her that the good Lord was not happy and that he wouldn't love her either. She corrected me: 'I really like the good Jesus, but I will never love the poor, never in my life! Then, I don't want to love them myself. I am undoubtedly the mistress. What does that matter to the good Jesus? He is indeed the master, but I too am the mistress!'
   “You can't imagine, mum continues (she was writing to Pauline then at the Visitation of Le Mans) you can't imagine how animated she was, no one could make her listen to reason. I must tell you (in the margin, in pencil: For this line refer to the printed text, Sr. G.)
 
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  the subject of his hatred for the poor. A few days ago she was at the door with one of her girlfriends, a poor little girl stops to look at them. This didn't please Céline, she said to the little girl: Go away – the poor little girl before leaving gave her a well-applied slap in the face, her face was red an hour later. I told her that the little one had done well, that it was so much the better, but she hasn't forgotten that and she said to me yesterday: 'You want me to love the poor who come to give me slaps that I my cheeks are all inflamed, no, no, I won't like them!'
   
   “But the night brings advice, the first word she said to me this morning was that she had a beautiful bouquet, that it was for the Blessed Virgin and for the good Jesus, then she added right away "I like the poor now. »
   O my Mother, how striking is this painting! what I was at 4 years old I still am today when I am almost 40! Always the same impetuosity which threatens to lead me to the ultimate excesses. Oh! if Jesus didn't take pity on me every moment, where would I be? but as I said, his divine Heart serves as my bulwark, so when losing my balance I come to fall, I never hurt myself...
   Yes, in vain did the demon set up ambushes for me, he could not catch me and, if the line that I have just related is the image of my poor life, the one that I am going to write is also the figure of the combats and of the temptations that the spirit of evil was to inflict on me later, because it obtained, so to speak, from God the permission to be on each of my steps without however having in the end, that of harming me.
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   I could have been three or four years old when I was walking in the countryside, in a delightful place dotted with spring flowers, I stopped in front of one of them more beautiful than all the others. Only around its elegant stem was coiled a snake which reared its venomous head towards me. Giving up the flower for so little was not in my nature, which never knows how to calculate with obstacles, and I was already about to pick it when a loud cry made me recoil. Someone had seen me and taking me in his arms thus took me away from danger. When the walkers had heard shouting: to the viper! the place was quickly evacuated. For us, we never returned to this place (This property was called "La Lorgaine", there were a lot of narcissus (with trumpets) vulgarly called 'Porgeons')
   My Mother, was it not my Guardian Angel who had preserved me and what happened to me on that day is it not the faithful image of the traps that the demon was to set for me later as well as divine intervention which was to protect me there!
   I read with pleasure in Mama's letters that she found me very pious, it was necessary for the good Lord to deposit this germ in my soul in order to counterbalance the influences of the faults which were beginning to appear. “I am very happy with Céline, she wrote in 1875, she is a good child who prays to God like an angel, who is very docile, we will certainly do something with the grace of God. And later, in 1876, she said again: "My little Céline is completely given to virtue, it's the innermost feeling of her being, she has a candid soul and abhors evil." In other circumstances she remarked again that her little Céline 'has unparalleled docility and that she gives him great hopes, if the good Lord lets her live'. Finally, after renting well
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sometimes “her angelic nature and the consolations she hopes for in the future she ends by saying that “she never makes the smallest voluntary fault. This last quote is from 1877, the very year of my dear mother's death, when I was 8 years old.
   I confess to you, my Mother, that I sometimes need to re-read these testimonies, based moreover on facts mentioned in the letters, to convince me, or rather to dare to hope that I have preserved my baptismal innocence. These details relate well, it is true, to my memories, I remember that I prayed unceasingly to the good Lord and I asked him to become a saint, the desire for it was sometimes so strong that it transported me. And yet besides that, I notice faults that I cried a lot, that for a long time I believed serious and, if they were not, I owe it only to this natural candor which prevented me from believing evil even though it had been pointed out to me. By this gratuitous grace of preservation was Jesus not already withdrawing his brand from the fire?...
   I don't remember ever hiding anything at confession, because I was very frank and I only lied to my Mother once. However, my frankness did not go so far as to expose me to reproaches like Thérèse: “She stood there like a criminal awaiting her conviction, having in her mind that she will be forgiven more easily if she accuses herself” and me, one day that I had just made a mistake, fearing just reproaches that I had deserved I fled like Adam after his sin and hid myself in the middle of a heap of fagots which were deposited in the haggard. After anxious searches, I was finally found there and, it seems, I made no noise all evening.
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   I now agree that Therese's conduct was much greater and nobler than mine. In mine it was the voice of nature that made itself heard and in that of Thérèse the voice of grace that revealed itself. There is no doubt that one is much more perfect than the other since Bossuet goes so far as to say: "If Adam and Eve had been able to humbly confess their fault, who knows how far God's mercy would have gone?..." thereby seeming to wonder if God had not forgiven without exacting the tribute of penance imposed on the human race.
   Oh! yes, how beautiful she was in all her steps, my darling little sister! So I loved him beyond all I can say. I had nicknamed her 'Angel Incarnate' and couldn't bear to be separated from my Angel for a single minute. For her part, it was the same attachment for me and Mum said of us: "These two little ones are inseparable, we have never seen children love each other so much..." We could not, in fact, live the without each other, all day long we played together in the garden, amusing ourselves above all in picking up the little shiny spangles which are found in the granite sand, and during this time we spoke of the good Lord and of our practices of virtue. This conversation continued even elsewhere than in solitude, for Mama wrote: “The other day the little ones were at the grocer's, Thérèse was talking about her practices with her sister and was talking a lot with her. The lady said to Louise: “What does she mean? When she plays in the garden we only hear about 'practices'; there is a neighbor who puts her head out of her window to try to understand what this debate of practices means”
   As you can see, my Mother, already we were only concerned
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serious things. Thérèse, although younger than me, began her mission with me, which began at the same time the series of 'why?' which is not yet completely exhausted, which earned me the reputation of 'naive' that I still deserve.
   I had great difficulty learning the word for word. I had to go deeper into the subject to retain something. What made my individual readings quite slow, I didn't 'devour' the books like so many others. Similarly, during serious conversations, I found myself behind on what was being discussed. That's how, at my uncle's, they reproached me for being in the clouds, because all of a sudden, I was asking a question about what had been said a few minutes ago. No, I wasn't in the
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clouds, but I scrutinized such a subject that we had just exposed and during this time the others had come a long way. Then, I had no false shame and in order to have to understand I was not afraid to ask naïve questions about the very thing that I grasped, for the sole purpose of having its technical definition.
   As I said, I used this method very early and Thérèse, who instructed me, had become a wise mistress for me. However, she did not disdain coming to attend the lessons given to me by Marie, my eldest sister. Still too small to study Marie made some difficulties to admit her to her course, but she implored with such insistence and promised to be so wise that Marie finally granted this favour. She gave him a piece of fabric to sew or beads to string and I can still see this dear little angel sitting quietly in a corner of the room without moving. Sometimes her needle unthreaded, then big tears beaded on her cheeks, she dared not ask for help. Finally Marie took pity on her and dried her tears by threading the needle. And when I think that it was out of affection for me, so as not to leave her Céline, that she shut herself up like this for whole days, my heart melts with gratitude. O my little Thérèse, remember those days of our childhood and as in the past no longer suffered from being separated from me, take me with you!...
   What happened about the lessons was repeated when I went to play with little Jenny, the Prefect's daughter, she was my age and we got on well together. As the Prefecture was opposite our house, it was easy for him to call me by signs or to send for me by his governess. Thérèse then always accompanied me although she
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found only one pleasure in these visits, the park. For me, already seduced by vanity, I was proud to have such a distinguished girlfriend. I gazed with admiration at the splendid salons and my stays in this palace were filled with charms.
   When the weather was bad we took our antics on a kind of large covered balcony which was at the back of the building and served all the rooms. This “corridor”, as I called it, particularly seduced my young imagination and, when we came to live in Lisieux, I asked Papa to describe our new home to me, saying: “O Papa! is there a hallway? – This good father thought for a moment and answered: “yes, there is one! My first care on arriving at Les Buissonnets was to look for the "corridor." Alas it was a narrow little wardrobe that ran along the alcove of our bedroom!
   Oh! how easily one lets oneself be taken in by the vanities of the world, how seductive the bait is for the poor human heart! I found myself wanting to be a chatelaine too, to have a beautiful house with steps and verandas, a park with avenues. However, I must admit that this desire only touched my mind like an impression that passes without leaving a trace, and yet Jesus had to fulfill this wish one day, in order to show me all its vanity.
   But I return to family life, the only kind, the only one capable of presenting to the heart thirsty for affection the intoxicating cups of true joys. I am not going, my Mother, to try to depict to you the feelings of my heart when on Sunday evening the whole family went to the country. Thérèse did it and what she says is the faithful echo of my own impressions.
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   These deep impressions were later to inspire us with the beautiful canticle "What I loved..." in one to conceive the thoughts, in the other to put them into a poem.
   I remember perfectly my Mother's illness, the last talks she had with me. I believe I was still attending the sad ceremony of Extreme Unction, we were all there together, there were such feelings in my heart at the time that the smallest details, the places occupied by the very objects were engraved in my memory for never get rid of it. During the whole course of this disease we could no longer distract ourselves, my little sister and I, we no longer wanted to play, so it was very cruel to us to have to go to strangers and have company when we would have liked to be alone. The last kiss I gave my Mother and the painful wait at home during the funeral ceremony were also engraved forever in my mind, as well as the scene related by Thérèse where we each chose a new mother. Because in this distress the good Lord does not abandon us...
   O my Mother! I haven't yet spoken to you about my older sisters and yet they held a very big place in my childhood life, I loved them beyond what I can say, they were also "my ideal" for me. I was 4 years old and mum wrote: "We make little Céline do whatever we want when we say to her: 'If you do that Pauline will come back from Le Mans' - And addressing Pauline, mum says again : 'Céline is having a great time seeing you, I have never seen a
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little girl as happy as she is when people talk to her about you". I remember, in fact, the happiness I felt when she came on vacation as well as my deep sorrow when she left for the Visitation. The railway whistle vibrated in my heart in such a sad way that this impression was never erased since even today I cannot hear it without a painful thrill How vivid are the impressions received from the childhood since they have such a distant resonance that one could believe them to be immortal, thus Jesus used them to exile our souls from the earth and sow in them the seed of a deep disgust for all that passes.
   With sisters such as the good Lord had given them to me, I could not experience at first what the loss of his mother is for a child. Now that I am allowed, by looking back, to appreciate at their true value the benefits with which divine Providence deigns to surround us, I consider it a real wonder that elder sisters were endowed with so many maternal qualities. towards their younger sisters. It was constant devotion, unparalleled self-sacrifice. I compare their heart to that of a Mother and to that of a Father. If they had dreamed of an earthly future, it would not have been so, for the heart of which the good God is the sole share can alone provide, with regard to others, this immense sum of sacrifices.
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   Ah! who will ever say to what degree our beloved sisters acquired our filial love and to what degree it was paid to them!... It was Jesus alone, he alone who probed the mysteries of this unforgettable family life, It is he who could say all the gratitude of my poor heart for these dear sisters, and he will do it, yes he himself will pay this debt of the heart on the blessed day of eternal reunion... Oh! then they will see that their sacrifices have not been sterile, Mothers of innumerable souls by their incomparable daughter, their beloved Thérèse, they will not have either, I hope from the merciful goodness of my Jesus, to repent the tender care they lavished on me with so much disinterestedness and so much love!...
 
   After my mother's death and our arrival in Lisieux, my character, like that of Thérèse, changed completely. The remark that she herself makes is correct, I, so sweet, became "an elf full of mischief" while her noble ardor was veiled for a moment under the appearance of an excessive timidity and sensitivity. Without that the background was changed, because she was constantly the image of moral strength and I of the greatest weakness. I will share with you, my Mother, as the occasion arises, my reflections on this subject, and you will see that they are founded.
   But before recounting the details of my new existence, I can already point out to you the truth that I have just advanced. My little sister, for example, never apologized, she spoke little, very little, if something was said in her presence that she disapproved of, she was silent and never started any dispute, all she had to do was to recommend internally
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the matter to Our Lord and to take Him to witness of the injustice committed. I never saw her defend herself, even when she was most within her rights. She did not seek to please, nor to be loved, nor to be approved. However, as her lively and ardent nature had not changed and since, moreover, she could not so young have arrived at the complete pacification of her firm character, her interior sufferings were translated into a very harmless action: tears shed in secret. ...
   As for me, it was quite the opposite, and if, as a child, I often let myself be defeated without retaliating, this tendency to gentleness vanished completely to give way to a completely warlike ardor, to a petulance, I was going to say, beyond competition. Not fearing battle in any way, I willingly engaged in discussions that I did not let go, even when they became stormy, on the contrary, the more difficult the fight and the riskier the success, the more vigor I put into it.
   I don't think I apologized when I was wrong, because I've always had an extreme respect for the truth, but since it's rare to be completely wrong and even when you're wrong, there are always extenuating circumstances and it followed that I always apologized being constantly inclined to support my rights or those of the people I protected, because in my weakness, it was good for me to throw myself into the melee as well for the others as for me. It would have been impossible for me not to reply to an invective. And I had very sharp ripostes which nailed the opponent there. But why say I had why put these faults in the past when this unfortunate behavior is
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always alas! a present for me!
   So I say that I did not know, when however it was justice, to let a provocation fall to the ground, as soon as the glove was thrown down I entered the lists. O my Mother; as it was most often to support the good cause and the truth, the world hearing this said perhaps that these manifestations were the index of a noble and generous character. But I dare to maintain that they are the index of a great moral weakness. The proof is that I acted thus by a natural movement, without effort, and that I would have needed an incredible constraint to be silent; however, if there was a matter for combat in keeping silent, victory was therefore granted only to silence and I was weak and defeated when I spread myself out. In the presence of this so-called bravery which is nothing but disorder in my eyes, I seem to hear this reproach from the prophet: “Oh! how weak your heart is for having done all these things! » (Ezek. XXI, 30) Yes, that my poor heart was weak and that it still is, since this childlike character which I have just traced is still mine today...
   Seeing the truth in this so clearly, you will not be surprised, Mother, to hear me praise the conduct of my little Thérèse by saying that she was constantly for me the ideal of true virtue. In her, I always noticed "the obedience, the mortification, the abnegation pushed to the point of heroism, not in these brilliant actions which only cost a moment of impetus, but in these thousand obscure details, ignored, of daily life where renunciation becomes a perpetual martyrdom, all the more painful as it is more intimate" (Life of St Thérèse)
   Yes, it is sweet for me today to establish the parallel between Thérèse and
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Céline, may the shades of this painting that belong to me bring out and highlight the radiant light that is the share of my dear Thérèse.
   But I still have one praise left to make of this hidden virtue the only truly beautiful and enviable one, the only truly strong one. You may find, my Mother, that I am exaggerating, but that is not the case, and what I am about to say is only the simple expression of my thoughts. You know that my love of the beautiful, of the sublime and true beauty, makes me very difficult and nothing, it seems, should be able to compare in my eyes to the ineffable perfection of the Virgin Mary, well, when I want to to represent this prudent Virgin as a child and a young girl, I think of Thérèse and I say: The Blessed Virgin must have acted like that... Yes, my Mother, if I have not seen the model I like to persuade myself that I have saw the copy... And the copy instead of depreciating the original made me love and understand it...
   I resume my story where I left off, pardon, my Mother, these long reflections which naturally occur under my pen and which I will not be able to correct myself. I am so convinced that I dare to promise you many more!
   As soon as I arrived in Lisieux, I left the pleasant lessons that my dear Marie gave me to enter a boarding school. It was at the Abbey and I was very happy to find myself in contact with nuns. They found me very advanced for my age and I was placed in a class of older students. Despite this disproportion of age I almost always stood in the first places. It was not without effort that I succeeded in this way and especially not without sacrifice. When I arrived each evening at Les Buissonnets, I made a party of being with my family. Alas! I had to leave
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the sweet evening reunion, the vigil around the table where, grouped under the lamp with its gay reflections, all indulged in joyous diversions, leaving it to go up alone to my room to learn lessons in the flickering light of a sad candle 'The tears, the cries that I uttered almost every time as I climbed the stairs testify to my always inconsolable despair, because it was always renewed. Oh! how often I curse pensions and studies, envying with all my heart the simple science of shepherdesses!
   I only dreamed of the occasions that could have exempted me from boarding school. Every morning on my way to the Abbey, I looked to see if the river was swollen, always hoping for some flood: I spied if some epidemic was not going to occur which caused the boarders to be dispensed or if some rabid dog would not put the terror in the city. They indeed came several times to fetch us early to save us from this danger, but this halt did not last and the next morning we had to go back to class, because the famous dog had always been killed!
   You see, Mother, how great was my fervor for boarding school, I'm not saying for study, because I would have liked to study very much, but without leaving the bosom of the family. However, with regard to studies, I cannot help finding that children are made to learn a lot, but a lot of useless things, they are deprived too young of freedom and the gentle influence of the family, when later, with reason and instructive reading, one could arrive at the same result as learning lessons one never remembers. I say this because
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for my part, I learned more alone by applying myself to special sciences than at the boarding school where I spent more than 8 years. I know very well that all the exercises of these years have, so to speak, prepared the ground to receive a seed which was to produce without labor, but...yes, there is a but that's when in the depths of his soul, we do not think with the sage that 'everything here below is vanity and affliction of spirit' (Prov.) when we devote ourselves to instruction by the immoderate desire to know and 'to pass for skilful' ( Im.) and not out of duty. Because, for those who reflect: Are we sure to always learn the truth? History varies according to the spirit and convictions of historians, literature is subject to the taste of an era, science and the calculations of scholars are liable to collapse in the face of new discoveries. Only in Heaven will we be initiated into the reality of all things. Also, for the present study to be commendable and great, it is necessary that at the base of all science, we must put the good Lord. But who today seeks to learn God!.. The books which teach it: Prayer and sacrifice are too difficult to read or else they cost too much!
   My Mother, I was mistaken earlier in telling you that the moral influence of the family is superior to that of the boarding school, because I judged according to my own family, but now, apart from rare exceptions, the family is de-Christianized, much better is the stay of the child with pious masters than the stay in the paternal home.
   For me, as I said, the time of the boarding school was a time of trial, my heart did not expand, I was uncomfortable and however our mistresses were very good and I enjoyed
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of their esteem, being ranked among the best students, studious and wise. Not knowing the Carmel and wanting to be a nun, I even saw in the future, my marked place among them without however feeling the attraction. But I was greatly edified by a humble lay sister, named Sister Germaine, whom I saw as always gentle, affable, even in the midst of the greatest setbacks, and her example, giving me a high idea of ​​the perfection that one could acquire in this convent eliminated, or rather attenuated, the natural repugnance I felt at the thought of staying there later.
   Looking back on the past, I am surprised that a child as young as I was then, could discern and pass judgment on something as subtle as a simple and hidden virtue, because it is easier to be deceived by noisy appearances and more natural to value only brilliant actions. And I conclude that the conscience of the little ones is a fair scale and their eyes very clear-sighted; also with what care should one not respect this 'waiting canvas' destined to receive the imprints that one would like to give it!
   Apropos this clairvoyance, this tact of the innocent soul, there comes to my mind a trait. Being much younger still since this memory goes back to my age of 6, I remember that one Sunday in summer, at the end of a walk where Thérèse had not been able to accompany me as she was small, I I joyfully brought her back my little basket full of flowers. Her eyes shone with pleasure, she never tired of taking, watching, counting these treasures. Suddenly
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our grandmother came and took part of the harvest. Thérèse's heart was very heavy, I saw her eyes filling with tears, but I alone noticed it, for having been asked to give up the whole sheaf, she let it be taken without saying a word. I was so amazed to see this self-possession and this virtue that, without defining its full value, because I too was too small, I nevertheless retained a memory of a clearness and precision which proves how much my child's soul had been deeply impressed. This act was really a virtue for Thérèse, she admitted it to me later and I found it recorded in her manuscript. So I was not mistaken, no the child's eye is not mistaken... The feeling of beauty, of truth, of justice is still fresh and brand new in his heart. God has just placed it there and the admirable instrument is about to sing sublime melodies, because it has not yet been pushed by the clumsy hand of creatures.
   Ah! if the parents understood their sublime mission, what a celestial race we would see rising! Race more divine than human, because our soul, breath of God, being the most noble part of ourselves would dominate the other as in our societies the noble dominates the slave. And I understand the anathemas that Our Lord launches against those who scandalize a single one of these little ones, because without the bad example, as Thérèse said, “many souls would arrive at a high perfection. »
   But I return to the Abbey where I was given such a useful lesson, or rather I leave it to find myself at Les Buissonnets on my days off. There, Thérèse and Céline are happy to see each other again, the games, the readings, everything is done together. We love to read stories
25
even fairy tales because these tales well chosen by a mother's hand are full of morals. They are, it is true, only fictions, but we see clearly drawn in them the action of good and bad geniuses, virtue is exalted there, vice is punished there and young imaginations by conceiving, so to speak, the supernatural, are brought to love it by detaching themselves from the down-to-earth. I speak thus from our own experience, for it was so with us. Undoubtedly, we still owe these salutary impressions to our big sisters who constantly applied themselves to helping us find God in all things.
   Piety was not dim at Les Buissonnets, there were celebrations. Every year at the distribution of the 'Thérèse' prizes a show was given, a whole afternoon of pleasure! Our little cousins, the cousins ​​of our cousins ​​and we, were called upon to play a role in front of the meeting of our friends. The shed was ready for the occasion, a stage was set up there and places for the spectators. It is needless to say that only little girls were allowed to discourse together. But unfortunately! the children's play was, like the fairy tales of which I spoke a moment ago, a moral play in which good and bad subjects entered, vice was called upon to bring out virtue and... it was always me who had this faulty role! It was understandable that we could not give this function to a guest. Therese was too nice, then she was the queen of the party, so it was me, always me. As a result, several people really retained an unfortunate impression of me. I was kindly thrown little spikes. During that time the others were praised and I had a very heavy heart... So I retained an instinctive horror for these sorts of amusements.
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   Yes, I suffered a great deal from that little thing which, by renewing itself each year, also renewed my sacrifice. If I had been more humble, I would have understood that this unfavorable opinion that people had of me had much more to do with my kind of character, always on the defensive as I described it above, than with the roles I played.
   Indeed, because of this character which seemed strong, people were not accustomed to complaining to me. Being judged to have 'tooth and nails' to defend myself it seemed that I could be teased at will, I had to be able to bear anything. O my Mother! and I, who was the very weakness who would have needed so much to be consoled, encouraged, I was deprived of these sweet comforts thanks to my deceptive appearances! Should I say it? it is still the same today. This suffering was one of the most sensitive of my life because it accompanied me relentlessly, when I had so longed for pity!
   Thérèse, who knew me thoroughly, had grasped this nuance so well that, wanting to characterize our union, she called me on the outside 'her little Valerian'; she was my 'little Cécile' whom I would have defended at the risk of my life. But for the inside, for the soul, we immediately changed roles and I became the weak and shy little girl, she my little guide and protector.
   I think that this ordeal of great weakness disguised under an appearance of strength is a special view of divine Providence upon me. And from an early age, having offered to God the sacrifices it occasioned me, I hope that it has been meritorious to me. With my sensitive nature I indeed had much to give to Jesus, for as a thorny stick
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everything in its path, so my faults brought many crosses after them...
   However, I arrived at the time of my First Communion. I was prepared for it long in advance by my dear sisters, but it was above all the last 3 months which preceded this great action, that I was the object of particular solicitude.
   Our mothers, Marie and Pauline, each had their own special role. Marie was the mother in title and Pauline the spiritual mother. So it was Pauline who prepared me for my First Communion. Every evening when I came back from the Abbey, I went to sit on her knees... Therese was somewhat dethroned then, but she didn't complain about it, she was happy and proud to think that her own sister, her Celine was going to make her First Communion. She came to listen to Pauline's gentle lectures to me and prepared for my big day as if it had been her own.
   Oh! How ready I was when the retreat opened which was to introduce us to the divine banquet! I had formed such an idea of ​​purity of heart that I did not want to suffer anything that could tarnish it.
   During these few days of retreat I was entirely a boarder and no longer returned to Les Buissonnets in the evening. It cost me a lot, I couldn't get used to living far from my parents and especially the nights seemed so sad to me without my Therese that I involuntarily had nightmares and woke up sobbing. Alas! I was not alone in waking up, for in one of these circumstances I saw near me the first mistress who came to dry my tears with quite maternal kindness. She advised me to be very wise, however congratulating herself
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to possess me only momentarily.
   Thérèse came to see me every day with Papa. Once she held in her hand a small bouquet of cherries which she gave me with such an expression of indefinable tenderness that a delicious stroke pierced me to the bottom of my heart... 29 years ago; and when new cherries appear each spring, I never fail, almost instinctively, to make a bouquet of them, the sight of which brings a flood of memories to my heart.
   My little Thérèse was, in fact, so imbued with the great action that I was about to accomplish that she regarded me with holy respect, she hardly dared to touch me and speak to me, her spirit of faith was so ardent.
   Finally the beautiful day between the days also dawned for me. Thérèse's description of hers is so much the echo of my own feelings that to be true I would have to copy it. Even today the sight of "snowflakes" makes me shudder... the singing of the morning canticle "O Holy Altar surrounded by Angels!" still makes my heart vibrate. In a word, everything that reminds me of this happy day is filled with unique scents whose sweetness time will never be able to diminish (1)
(1) I remember that I had to recite the 'Act of humility' and that I was very happy about it. With what heart and conviction do I say out loud: “Who am I, O my God, that you deign to cast your eyes on me? Where does this excess of happiness come from that my Lord and my God wants to come to me, me more miserable than nothingness?...'
Yes, it was with ineffable joy that I received my Beloved, I had been waiting for him for a long time. Ah! what things I had to say to him!.. I asked him to have pity on me, to protect me always and never to allow that I offend him, then I gave him my heart without return and promised him to to be completely His... I felt that he deigned to accept me for his little wife and that he would fulfill the office of defender towards me that I had entrusted to him, I felt that he was taking me under his would preserve me forever from all harm... After this exchange of mutual
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promises, everything was said... and yet, little Céline's heart was still so full that, unable to contain the waves of heavenly peace and joy that flooded her, her prayer ended in a flood of tears. ..
   In the evening, it was I who recited the act of consecration to the Blessed Virgin. Oh! how happy I was to speak, in the presence of everyone, to give myself irrevocably to my Heavenly Mother whom I loved with incomparable tenderness. It seemed to me that, accepting as her own the little orphan who was at her feet, she adopted her for her child...
   This day was really that of my engagement, from this blessed time I corrected myself of certain faults of which I had not been able until then to be right. Is it any wonder it was so? How could the blood of Jesus flowing through my veins, his flesh mingling with my flesh, my whole being not have been transformed?... The fire of divine love, penetrating into me, purified me of all my stains and this purification once accomplished, finding no more obstacles to his consuming action, he penetrated and set his poor little brand ablaze with a total incandescence which rendered him in some way invulnerable to the action of the hellfire in which the demon planned to throw it away.
   For this time after my First Communion which had taken place on May 13, 1880, I received the Sacrament of Confirmation, it was on June 4 of the same year. This day being Friday of the Sacred Heart, I rejoice at this coincidence. It seemed to me that the Heart of Jesus himself would come to replace my heart by conferring on me his own Spirit. I was deeply moved by this thought that one received this sacrament only once in life and that it was going to make me “perfect Christian”. This is why I prepared myself for it with piety asking the good Lord to work all his effects in me (2)
  (2) It was Pauline who was my Godmother in this circumstance, but she could not
put myself under the patronage of St Joseph, as I wished, Mr Chaplain
demanding that we take the name of Mary, even if we already bore it.
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However, I was far from the perfect knowledge that my little Thérèse had a few years later. I am anticipating events here in order to immediately report on the circumstances of my Thérèse's extraordinary preparation for her Confirmation.
   
   The few days which preceded her reception of this Sacrament, I was singularly struck by the attitude of my little sister. She, so gentle and so reserved of countenance (?) seemed beside herself. She could not contain her transports and, one of the days of her preparatory retreat, as I expressed my surprise to her, she gave me such a description of the coming of the Spirit of Love into our souls, of the fruits of this Sacrament of Force, which I remained in admiration.
   I can still see her, she was standing near a table in the big class, we were alone, her eyes shone with an unknown brilliance that made mine lower... her words were on fire. She told me, among other things, with extraordinary vehemence, that we did not prepare enough for the reception of this exceptional sacrament which is received only once and that it was very regrettable. I don't think that the Apostles awaiting the manifestation of the Holy Spirit on the day of the first Pentecost had more fervor than this little child, truly filled in advance with the Spirit of Love.
 
   This sight made such a strong impression on me that I bitterly regretted that the opportunity had passed for me to receive the Holy Spirit and I asked the good Lord to make up for the inadequacy of the arrangements which, out of ignorance, I had brought to this great act, begging him
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to make me receive the Holy Spirit in the same measure as Thérèse and at the same time as her. I always thought that the Lord granting this desire had had pity on me by welcoming the poor latecomer favorably.
   As for the First Communion, I believe that I had nothing to envy to my dear Thérèse. She prepared for it, like me, three months in advance, making many little sacrifices every day which took the name of a special flower, the number of which was carefully inscribed in a pretty little notebook made by Pauline.
   With regard to the graces received that day, I believe, my beloved Mother, that I can without presumption repeat this couplet of the beautiful hymn that you composed for me:
   “The world distinguished and Céline and Thérèse
   But the good Lord
   Leaning down saw only one furnace
   One fire..."
   Yes, this day was cloudless for me and leaves me with no regrets, because it was for me the dawn of a life of more intimate union with the Beloved of my heart. The fire had just been lit and I only asked to keep it going. Like Thérèse, I lived 'only in the hope of a new communion' and like her, 'I found the holidays far removed...' Ah! it is that at that time, the faithful were not favored as they are now in relation to the frequency of communions and this was the subject of very great sacrifices.
   With such dispositions it is useless to wonder if I missed the opportunity to take communion through my own fault. It would be more necessary to absolve me of my thefts! Yes, my Mother, I stole in my life, and the greatest treasure that exists, I stole the good God!...
 
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   But I was grown up when I dared to do these things, I was 18 and I was under the direction of the good Father Pichon who gave me a certain number of communions a week, plus one when there was a party. . Of course there was a party every week! I looked at the calendar and choosing a Saint that I liked a little better than the others, I considered the day that was dedicated to him as a feast and I received my Jesus.
   Then when we went to the country in the summer it sometimes happened that it was absolutely impossible to take us to the Church, so I marked these communions lost to resume them later and I deliberately made such a mic-mac that I finished by getting lost in it and finally attributing to myself, almost in good faith, a much higher number of communions than that which was due to me.
   I then confessed my thefts to my director who said nothing to me, which encouraged me a lot. And as he no doubt wanted to give me the merit of obedience he increased the number of my communions and I continued my system until finally, having obtained daily communion, it was no longer possible for me to steal anything.
   May God forgive me! but I have many times exercised the patience of my sweet and kind aunt. Being of a character diametrically opposed to mine she did not understand, despite her great piety, that I go out like this every day without worrying about the weather, the season or the contrary circumstances, and she pointed it out to me, but I myself did not understand that there could be an obstacle to achieving such a goal. It seems to me that I would have crossed a lake of fire.
 
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   How could I repent of this persistence in wanting to communicate when I attribute my preservation to the gentle influence of this Sacrament? What would have become of me, if left to my own strength, I had had the imprudence to undertake alone the path that I have traveled? It's not an assumption it's a certainty: I am convinced that I would have fallen as low as one can fall.
   For ordinary life when one is exposed to contagion, one does not wait to escape the danger until one has caught the disease, it would be a very bad method to surround oneself with precaution only when the virus of evil has passed into the blood, so simple caution requires preventive measures. We go so far as to inoculate ourselves with serums that make us somehow invulnerable. Yes, that is how far our intelligent care goes to prevent our poor body from dying. And our beautiful soul? Ah! As for her, we don't bother about her, she's an abandoned one, a neglected one, let her save herself as best she can! and yet for her it is no longer a temporary death with which she is threatened if she becomes corrupted, but an eternal death! ..
   Applying to the spiritual these beautiful discoveries of science, I nourished myself with the food of Heaven or, to use the comparison I have just used, I inoculated myself with the divine Serum which was to subtract my soul and my body to the deleterious influences of the world. I say subtract, but it can also heal, because the properties of the ineffable Eucharist are manifold and suit all the needs of our souls whatever they may be.
   My Mother, here I am a long way from boarding school and however since I am on this subject allow me to continue my digression by recalling
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a memory from my childhood which is not entirely unrelated to my devotion to the Eucharist, since it is about Corpus Christi processions.
   Oh! how happy I was when, all dressed in white, I formed a ring on the long, supple and graceful chain which served as the vanguard of the King of kings! I cannot say everything that was going on in my heart... At that time it was rare to see someone who did not uncover himself before the Blessed Sacrament and yet if I happened to see this except my heart was growing and I had a hard time holding back my tears. I would have liked insensitive nature to unite to pay homage to its Creator; the flagged houses corresponded to my desire, but I was sad to consider that the tall trees of the avenues through which we passed did not bow before the God of nature. So I protested internally, I adored my Jesus and I loved him, making me the mouthpiece of all creatures.
   What sublime dignity is therefore ours to be able to be classed among the creatures capable of knowing and loving God! To be able to conceive or to contain something is, so to speak, to be the equal of this thing, because only beings of the same nature can understand each other. And I am capable of knowing and loving God so it is that, by participation, I am a god myself! Oh! how great are the eternal truths! that the divine mysteries are ineffable since they raise the soul of this little child who praises and who adores to the height of the Priesthood by doing it, as our Holy Books say Priest of the Most High... (Rev. I, 6-xx,6)
   The memory of these beautiful processions of the Blessed Sacrament was therefore unforgettable for me because of the deep impressions I had felt there.
 
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  The outward pomp displayed in these solemnities had not been foreign to it; I was very proud to see the soldiers form a procession to their true King, the music of the regiments, the command to lay down their arms and kneel on the ground when he blessed all this delighted me to a degree that I cannot say. (passage deleted)
   Finally, I return to my life as a boarder, which I hope to complete this time. However, you must not trust me, because it is not without reason that I have been compared to a wild doe which is not where you think it is: sometimes at the top of a rock, sometimes at the at the bottom of a ravine, it travels only in leaps and bounds and greatly tires anyone who ventures to follow it. Forgive me then, my Mother, for making you travel such a path and, as Thérèse said, “allow me not to leave it” because I would not know how to follow another.
   About a year after the unforgettable celebrations I have described, Thérèse accompanied me to the Abbey. From that time on, life at the boarding school seemed less bitter to me and I became more reasonable. Each morning
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we would leave together led by the maid or by Papa. This fairly long and very pleasant journey gave us a joyful start to our day. It is true that once we arrived we had to separate to go each to our class, but we did not lose sight of each other for that. From time to time, in free time, my little sister came to see me and we never separated without kissing each other with tenderness.
   At recess we also see each other without however being able to stay together, because we each played with children of our own age as was the custom. Thérèse could not run much, because of a natural oppression, painful omen of her short existence! amused herself by building small cemeteries for the birds she found dead under the tall trees or she told stories that she improvised. I remember that, making my usual little visits to him, I found his stories so endearing that I sometimes mingled with the group of his listeners. I admired that she was able to compose interesting narratives on the spot. As for me, I never had the idea of ​​doing the same, because it would have been perfectly impossible for me to invent anything like that. I already have trouble writing something that I know thoroughly, how could I compose a plot and vary the details by grafting them on top of each other! also my little sister appeared to me like a prodigy and, not being able to follow her in her literary ways, I devoted myself to the profession of arms.
   How not to choose what gives success? In that field I was always victorious and if my poor mind stopped dead when I wanted to talk, my slender legs never let me
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in plan when I wanted to run. The busbar was my favorite, I put so much enthusiasm into it, displayed so much value in it that everyone wanted to have me on their side. For me, when fate had not designated me to be on the side of the French, I made sure that I was not a good soldier that day, in order to leave the victory to my adversaries, but when on the contrary I represented my homeland, I put so much fire into the defense that the conquests were always where I was.
   However, my struggles were not always artificial like those I have just described. From time to time they took on a local tint which gave them a more piquant interest. If I was defending my country in intention, I was defending my little sister in action. When she was attacked, or when she was hurt, or when she was suffering, she was not relieved, I ran on it, there was then for me "neither distinction of Jew or Gentile", each received the rebuke she deserved. For this, despite my combative nature, I never used kicks or punches, I only wielded the 'sword of the spirit' which, on these occasions, was not 'the word of God' but that of a little girl full of mischief.
   If I was defending my Thérèse, I was also defending the Saints of Paradise, although they had no need of my services since they are at peace in Heaven, where no human invective can reach them. But I was not stingy with my trouble and, one day when an English mistress dared to say, aloud, in class, that Joan of Arc was an "adventurer", I jumped up and, after resolutely protesting, I went to find the mistress of the boarding school.
 
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   No one said a word, everyone was amazed, but I let them meditate as much as they wanted on the outcome of my approach, and having arrived at the office of the First Mistress, I gave her my statement. Seeing me a little moved, she began to laugh, but I did not hear it that way and said to her: "Madam, if you do not promise me to make an observation to the mistress and to repair the fault which has just been committed, I warn you that I am telling Papa everything. Faced with this attitude, the good nun was no longer joking and she promised me what I demanded.
   As I said, these outings did not cost me, they were in my temperament, so do not praise me if sometimes they had good results. My way of being earned me, however, from my Father, the nickname of "courageous" which I kept until the moment when, having finally deserved that of intrepid, this last grade remained with me definitively.
   You may find, Mother, that I would have done better to hide myself to make my report, so as not to offend anyone. However, since I wanted redress for what I considered an outrage to the truth, it was as much worth taking full responsibility for it as letting suspicion fall on other students. Besides, I never liked to hide myself, even to play, it gave me emotions and fears, so everything I did I always accomplished in broad daylight.
   I don't know that this behavior has ever displeased anyone, I have never made any enemies, because this very nun of whom I spoke loved me very much afterwards and I returned the favor to her. Yes, I was truly darling of my mistresses and I always kept a deep
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an attachment that neither time nor distance could lessen.
   My heart, so loving and so sensitive, would have liked to give itself, so I attached myself especially to one of my Mistresses. I loved him as one loves at that age, that is to say, not with a true and disinterested love but with a love full of illusions. I imagined that I was loved in my turn, that I was the favorite of the one I had thus chosen. During an illness suffered by this nun, I constantly wondered what means I would employ to let her know that I was thinking of her. It was early spring. Having found some violets with great difficulty, I placed in the center of the bouquet a small note on which were written these words: "To my dear Mother" This expression 'dear' that we never gave to our Mistresses, always calling them 'Madame ', was for me the last word of tenderness and it seemed to me that the happy privileged one was going to understand... But I received no answer; moreover I never heard of this bouquet.
   When I was certain that it had been given to her, there was an overflow of tears... In the evening, when I returned to Les Buissonnets, I threw myself into Marie's arms, for Pauline was no longer there, she had left to enter Carmel. My dear Marie pressed me to her heart, she explained to me what the false love of creatures is and, the Lord instructing me interiorly by his grace, I promised myself to attach myself only to
40
Jesus all alone, who alone could repay me... Therese was so affected by my pain that, without having tasted this poisonous cup of the love of creatures, she resolved to take advantage of my experience, which she did with his usual fortitude
   Jesus had just taken his brand out of the fire, he hadn't been immersed in it for long, just long enough to feel its heat.
   In order to save others from this lamentable mistake and to save herself from being the victim of such a trap set for the poor human heart, Thérèse asked Jesus never to be humanly loved by anyone, and she was answered. I saw this myself, both in his relations with his novices and with other people. And, knowing that she had made this prayer, I was strongly struck by it, for she possessed so many charms that it would have been very natural for her to be naturally loved.
  Profiting together from the lesson which had been given to us, the joys of the family seemed to us all the sweeter. We were truly happy only at Les Buissonnets, we only had real pleasures in this solitude far from all the noises of the earth.
   There we had fun playing games that only entertained the two of us. The children of our age found no happiness there and did not even try to look for it, while, on our side, we were not in our atmosphere in the midst of them. We were clumsy, without enthusiasm, which made us
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sometimes attracted small humiliations. It must be said, while doing our best, we were not pleasant company for others. So we didn't like to play with dolls, feeling no maternal instinct for this inert piece of cardboard, any more than we found attraction in organizing or taking part in dances.
   I said that sometimes we had little humiliations, but we also had little sorrows. One day they came for the merry band; saying: "Come, your moms are waiting for you in the living room". We were following, Therese and I, when a little dizzy girl said to us without thinking: "Don't come, you don't have a mother anymore!" but if that star no longer shone in the family home, it shone in the Heavens; from there she called us, too, and it was because we gravitated around her that we lived, in a way, only half on earth.
   So we longed to be alone at Les Buissonnets, there we grew flowers, we also liked to take care of birds. Thérèse had an aquarium, where she raised small fish, but it was above all the aviary of doves that interested us because, when we entered their cage, they alighted on us and came to peck in our hand. We had also organized walks. After measuring the garden, in order to calculate how many times we would have to go around it to complete a league, we left, but not without having the stick in hand, because we had to escape the pursuit of a tamed magpie which followed relentlessly, pushing his tenderness towards us to the point of pricking our calves with his long beak.
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   If we did not like to play with the big doll, I nevertheless amused my little sister a lot, and I amused myself by teaching a whole regiment of little dolls, but there was no tenderness in that. kindergarten, it was like children playing with toy soldiers. Therese could not get enough of seeing me and her pleasure increased mine.
   Speaking of games, a strange story happened to me. This will be the last line, for I am already ashamed of having entered into such childish details. And if you hadn't told me, my Mother, to write down everything that came to mind, I would be tempted to tear up these pages.
   As Thérèse writes in her Manuscript, we gave each other small gifts which, despite their little value, filled us with joy. “One day, wanting to surprise him, I went to the expense and instead of spending the traditional 'dimes', I gave 4f. it was all my fortune, to buy...a gun! I imagined that my sweet little Thérèse was going to share the belligerent tastes of her Céline and long in advance, I made this extraordinary gift foam. She rejoiced over it, I for my part awaited with great impatience the day of her feast: but alas! our joy was to change into sadness. When my darling little Thérèse saw the 'so splendid' gift, she was frightened and began to cry. In vain did I operate the famous gun, my enthusiasm was not shared! Then I became sad myself.
   Dad, seeing our embarrassment, wanted to go change the object at the place where it had been bought. The next morning he left for the 7 o'clock mass, as usual, armed with his preciously wrapped weapon.
  – As he entered the church a schoolboy found himself crossing
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the degrees at the same time as him – “Where are you going, my little friend? my father asked him - At mass, sir, to prepare me for my first Communion. " - well! here's to reward you,” Dad told him. And the child, jumping with joy, red with pleasure, received the gun!
   We were well consoled at this news. Thérèse then rejoiced at her extraordinary gift. Then, our dear little Father, having topped off his benefits and returned the money, the joy was complete.
   I will not speak to you, Mother, of winter evenings, of Sundays spent with family and of all those sweet memories that Thérèse has described so well, for my feelings being the same as hers, knowing some of you don't ignore others. As she also said, our beloved Father sometimes took us fishing. I remember that one day after having organized two small lines for us whose hook was a pin he invited us to fish with him. After a while, seeing that we had taken our fishing seriously and, knowing that we were not going to catch anything with such equipment, he said to us: “Children, leave your lines there, if it bites I will call you”. We immediately left to pick flowers. Some time later we returned and, what was our surprise, when we saw our lines sinking! . For me, I guess it was Papa who, during our absence, had put the fish at the end of the line and this little trait of my childhood became an instruction to me.
   Many times since then I have made the connection between driving
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of the good Lord towards us and that of dad in this circumstance. Ah! all my life I've been that little child fishing for souls or virtue with the wrong tools, I'm good for nothing and if I only wait for what I can earn by myself I risk catching nothing . You know something about it, my Mother, you who wish to see me arrive at that full possession of myself which makes the first movement irreproachable. And me too, I sincerely wish it...my line is always tense in this place..., I take nothing it is true, because my progress is not appreciable, but Jesus sees my good will and, I hope, on the last day of my life, “in a quick instant he will make my progress bear fruit” and I, raising my little line, will be rich in goods that he himself will have given me!
   O my Mother! how good God is to those who love him! how delicate it is! because, just as Papa let us believe that we ourselves had caught the mysterious fish, so Jesus will be pleased to leave us all the glory of the conquests that he alone will have made.
   Until now he has always acted in this way towards me... In vain I have shown myself to be a enfant terrible "buying pistols", that is to say, sometimes giving myself up to useless speculations, welcoming favorably some illusions, in a word, departing from the path that divine Providence has traced for me and Jesus taking the object with kindness said to me: "It is not made for you, my Céline, you are mistaken in wanting to use it, give - me and I will exchange it for much preferable goods. And I, giving myself up to his good pleasure, received a hundredfold in exchange, still having the joy of seeing my nonsense become, in his divine hands, a blessing for other souls...
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   If our life at Les Buissonnets had hitherto passed calm and sweet in the beneficent warmth of the most delicious union, we were going, alas! experience the test again. Five years had already passed since the death of our dear mother, the birds had grown up, the eldest were ready to fly away leaving the nest plunged into the greatest desolation.
   But before speaking to you, my Mother, of the first separation which came to break our hearts, I am going to say a word to you about the quite virile education which our dear sisters gave us.
   From the description I gave of my character you might perhaps believe that I, at least, was not reserved and yet we were both so shy that Marie had to scold us many times for doing pass this fault. One day in particular, having told us "that timidity was pride, because I was nothing but an outrageous fear of doing wrong and consequently of being criticized", I took the firm resolution to correct myself and to always act with freedom without worrying about what people might think of me, because I had such a fear of pride that I would have done everything to get away from it. This admonition had a great influence on my life and I always remember it.
   Our elder sisters also applied themselves with great care to making us practice mortification, from the most tender age. For example, when we were very small the breakfast in the morning was chocolate, but as soon as we started to grow, a humble soup replaced it. With the exception, however, of Sunday which, being the day of the Lord, remained a day of celebration all along the line. During the week, therefore, I went to the Abbey after having
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I ate a soup that Victoire never knew how to vary, an onion soup... For me, it was the worst you could imagine. Sometimes this soup, taken with bad grace, it must be admitted, made my heart ache, so they gave me a piece of chocolate to console me and I set out on my way as if I had been very valiant. Apart from these rare indispositions I was never sick and in my 8 years of study I never missed 3 days for health reasons.
   About this piece of chocolate here is a funny story. Every morning at 10 a.m. there was a moment of rest in the classrooms and they passed out wine, biscuits, jams, in a word, what each boarder provided herself. Otherwise everyone was only entitled to dry bread. As we were not spoiled, we did not bring these sweets and contented ourselves with dry bread when we were hungry. It must be said that I was sometimes a little ashamed, however there was nothing to do with it, but when you are a child you are easily impressed by these little things.
   One day when I had received a precious piece of chocolate as the prize for my onion soup, I told Therese to come find me when the tray was passed, because we were going to share our booty. I had taken care to put the piece almost in pieces so that it had a great effect. However, as the portion still seemed meager, compared to that of the other boarders, I was very embarrassed. My little sister arrived at the rendezvous, and handing her her share, I said with indifference: "Here, Thérèse, take the crumbs!" Therese took indeed
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the crumbs she knew were not the crumbs at all but almost the whole piece. When we were alone we had a good conditioned laugh. But this should not be lost, this "Here, Thérèse, take the crumbs!" followed us to the Carmel where he made us laugh until we cried again.
   If they wanted us to be mortified on the side of food, they accustomed us to it the same way in relation to vanity. My eldest sisters, having been brought up at the Visitation with great people, paid no attention to pettiness. They had seen their companions wear old fashioned clothes without false shame and they had the principle that one should not be coquettish at the boarding school. So I had nailed shoes, dresses and coats that weren't always to my liking, so I left them quickly in the cloakroom and picked them up late, just as I was leaving.
   O my Mother, these are very low feelings that I confess to you by putting before your eyes these two traits in which human respect triumphs. I who wouldn't have wanted to be enslaved in anything, how could I have made myself a slave to the appreciation of a few boarders who forgot me and whose name I don't even remember! And yet what I did at that age, how many grown-ups in the fullness of their reason and the consciousness of their independence, do not do it today by sacrificing themselves to this odious idol!
   Today, looking back on the past, I admire the strong education with which the good Lord has bestowed on me and my gratitude is boundless for my dear sisters who knew how to correspond so well
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to their mission by not listening to the pleas of nature that I made them hear. “I suffered a little while and gathered wisdom and found great instruction for me, so to those who gave it to me I want to give glory! (Eccl. 41, 16.17)
   Ah! if all mothers acted in this way with their children we would not have to deplore the decadence of which we are today the terrified witnesses. There are no more characters, no more male vigor, no more health even. Why, if not because wills and senses are softened by well-being. There is no way to miss it. When a gardener wants to bring back a tree he prunes it, when he wants to get a beautiful flower he eliminates the buds which would disperse the sap. Likewise, if man does not want to degenerate, he must suffer, he must mortify himself. What happens when you don't lack anything, when you don't want to carve out your nature? It happens that instead of producing beautiful fruits, this vitiated nature engenders selfishness and selfishness is the open door to the worship of the infamous idolatrous humanity which is about to desolate our present society if we do not hasten to react. The prophet had said it: “When they had their food they were satisfied and being satisfied their heart was lifted up, and so they forgot me. (Hosea XIII, 16)
 
   Pauline's departure for Carmel deprived us of one of the treasures I have just praised. From the moment I knew his determination I cannot say how bitter life seemed to me, it seemed to me that the happy days had ended forever. I really wonder how one can become attached to the earth when one sees what is happening there. I am amazed when I consider,
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for example, how little parents enjoy their children; with rare exceptions. Thus, the child is born that immediately the mother separates from it to put it in nursing. Scarcely had she enjoyed it for a few years after that before it had to be instructed. Once his education is done, he settles down. Ah! how the good Lord shows me that this life is only a time of passage, a transitory period of our existence, where we must strive for only one thing, to help each other swim upstream to reach the eternal shore.
   In order to take advantage of the last moments among us of our 'little Mother' we did not leave her, those were very sad holidays that preceded her entry... Writing this memory my heart aches at the thought of everything what pain I experienced at that unforgettable moment. And yet will you believe it, my Mother, once the sacrifice was made I remember that I looked with joy at the watch she had given me as a souvenir. I was 13 and a half at that time, my two little cousins, Jeanne and Marie Guérin had received this gift on the day of their First Communion, I alone was deprived of it and Pauline's watch was the object of a feeling that pained me and that I hated at the very moment when I felt it being born in me. It was therefore necessary that, all my life, I who love beauty so much, I lived with a certain part of myself whose thoughts and gestures I must constantly reprove! – My little sister fell ill with grief, as for me, a rattle from the earth is enough to ease my pain! I have always said, Thérèse is the image of grace and I the image of nature, but Jesus does not disdain this second image since he

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has donned its liveries to the point of taking upon himself the very blemishes of our sins. Ah! I am not surprised to have succeeded in the Sorrowful Face of my Jesus. It has been said, I know, that only a pure soul has the gift of reproducing such a beautiful Face and I still know that to understand such wounds it took a soul that bore their imprints...
   Despite the feeling that I have just expressed, the loss of my little Mother was very touching to me especially when, by experience, I saw that she was lost for us. The parlors of Carmel became a real martyrdom to me, I no longer knew my darling Pauline and it seemed to me that I had become almost a stranger to her, not that she was less maternal towards me, but she seemed to me no longer to be of the same nature as me and I was intimidated to open my soul to him. I believe that the cause of this embarrassment was the short time we had to talk to him.
   However, that was only the beginning of my sorrows, I won't even try to say what I suffered when my little Thérèse fell ill... When I suffer a lot, something very strange happens to me, is because by dint of suffering I no longer feel that I am suffering, it is a kind of stupefaction, I arrive as before a door which is closed, a limit which stops me and prevents me from falling into deeper chasms. I believe it was the good Lord who arranged it this way, so that we wouldn't die of grief. But maybe it's in me a lesser capacity to suffer than in others, maybe my limit is placed less deeply since I don't fall ill with pain. Be that as it may, I'm not asking the good Lord to put her off...
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   What I could say of the miraculous recovery of my little sister, of which I was the happy witness, as well as of her ecstasy at the moment of the vision, would add nothing to the details already known either in the History of a soul or in my preparation for my testimony at the Trial. This memory is ineffable to me, but you will allow me, my Mother, not to return to it here and to act often in the same way about stories already recorded.
   After my little Thérèse was cured, we resumed our intimacy with our life together. The months of separation had seemed so long to me! Every evening, little Céline's room seemed very sad to her without her little companion... the very bitter boarding school... just by recalling this past, my heart is torn. Ah! How many tribulations there are to suffer in this wretched world before landing on the shore of Heaven!
   These sorrows, so diverse and so sensitive, had uplifted my soul. Ah! how I already loved the good Lord at that age! He was everything to me without, however, captivating my living nature to the point that it lost itself. I have not yet arrived at this blessed state, and the good Lord, always so gentle, so compassionate for me, is willing to put up with the sad company of my faults and agree not to abandon me. So everything went hand in hand, God and myself, but since one was stronger than the other and the other only wanted to be beaten, the household was very pleasant.
   I also loved the Blessed Virgin with all my heart, I invoked her constantly. I remember the deep thoughts I had when thinking of her. When I traveled, I always preferred to sit at the car door, head out, and hum my love songs. I was singing this song:
   “Take my heart, there it is, Virgin, my good Mother,
   “It is to rest that he has recourse to You,
   "He is tired of listening to the vain sounds of the earth..."
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   These words plunged me, only one did not please me and I protested, because it is not out of interest 'to rest' that I have recourse to my Heavenly Mother, but only because I love her.
   I think I thought of the good Lord almost constantly. At that time, without really knowing why, I imagined all kinds of mortifications. I had made sort of very hard twists with paper and I introduced this in the evening under the sheet of my bolster. I wore a large crucifix on my chest and I took care to turn it towards me, so that it entered, so to speak, inside me, pressed as it was by the corset. There were still other little things that I don't remember quite exactly. As for going to bed, I was extremely careful that Therese didn't notice it and, since she didn't mention it to me then, I could believe that I had succeeded in hiding my secret. But in Carmel, I knew that it was because of these same mortifications, which she had noted in her manuscript: "Far from resembling the beautiful souls who practice all kinds of mortifications, I only made mine consist in mortifying my will , etc. »
   I thanked her for the compliment for having placed me among those beautiful souls "who did not resemble her", which I was not at all flattered about, the truth being that I am a very small soul, the smallest of all little souls. For, in the sole fact that I report: which is the greatest, the most beautiful, of making some material mortifications, that is to say of an altogether inferior order, or of imposing upon one's will, as Thérèse did, the sacrifice of total discretion towards me, especially at an age when everything is intriguing?
   I am convinced, my Mother, that you are of my opinion and that I can continue my list of pious practices without you calling me a "great soul". Moreover, those which I am going to speak to you fall into the category of
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mortifications that Thérèse and our parents imposed on themselves.
   Here are some of them: My godfather had given me jewelry, gold bracelet, necklace, ring. I would have been proud to wear them in front of my companions, however I almost always deprived myself of them. I don't know if I put my bracelet on four times in boarding school. And, when on the occasion of a big party, I used it, if I had to make Holy Communion that day, I took care to remove it to go to the Holy Table. It seemed to me that with that on my arm, the world held me by a ring and I found that it was not appropriate to present myself before the good Lord with this badge of captivity, he who only wants hearts in his service. free. Finally, this bracelet, material for so many sacrifices, served to adorn, no longer the little wife of Jesus, but Jesus himself by becoming a fragment of his golden throne, in the beautiful Monstrance of Montmartre.
   In another circumstance, I also deprived myself of saying my taste for the purchase of a fabric and the shape of a toilet, which cost me extremely, because I was pretty flirtatious and had a very distinct taste, which I I had no trouble manifesting, indecision not being in my character. If these actions are at all worthy of praise, I will hasten to return the glory to my incomparable parents. Without speaking of my sisters who were preparing for religious life by all sorts of virtues, I noticed in my Father a constant mortification: He never leaned his back on a chair as a way of relaxation, and did not cross
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legs. He warmed himself rarely and as if on the sly. In the summer, when he was working in the garden and we brought him a drink, he accepted, but would never have asked for it, and during Lent he deprived himself of this relief even though it was permitted. He had also become accustomed to eating coarse bread like that used by the poor, and it was not without difficulty that he succeeded. His getting up was very early, all his actions, in a word, were marked with the corner of the most delicate and best understood Christian mortification. I never saw him smoke, even in company when the other gentlemen were having a field day. But I wouldn't finish if I wanted to report everything.
   From this insight, you understand, Mother, that mortification was somehow natural to us. Also, well before Pauline's entry into the Carmel, when I knew no other nuns than our Mistresses of the Abbey, I asked Léonie one day, who was well versed in all these questions, to find out about the various Orders and the kind of life they led. She did so, and having described to me the penances in use among the most austere, I promised myself to enter one of these one day.
   However, my student life was coming to an end; I had been part of the Association of the Children of Mary, having even been 'president'; I had,
  almost every year, won the first prizes in my class (1) and especially the most coveted of all, that of Religious Instruction. There was only one (2) and therefore very difficult to win and the subject of a fierce battle, thus becoming a real triumph for the one who had won it. For me, I valued it more than all the others, because I considered this teaching as a shield which should
  (1) except for arithmetic. – (2) for all large
 
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to protect myself from the contagion of errors which I was determined not only to avoid but to fight. Well caparisoned in this way, I seemed to be able to launch myself into life and sustain its struggles advantageously.
   I returned to my family at the end of the 1885 school year. Shortly after leaving boarding school, Thérèse, unable to live apart from her Céline, also returned home, continuing her education by taking private lessons. As for me, Marie initiated me into housekeeping and running the house, for she intended to fly off to Carmel as soon as possible. At that time I ignored him and cheerfully accepted his good advice. I also continued to take painting lessons in town from an old lady (1) whose course was very popular with young girls from the best families in Lisieux. There I had charming relations, but above all I tried to increase my knowledge in the art that I wanted to perfect.
   I had to dig hard, because I had only started to learn drawing at the age of 13 ½ and had not yet worked from nature. Yet my ambitions were great, I wanted to achieve perfect resemblances, even to compose paintings. My mistress said, to anyone who would listen, that I was an artist through and through, but instead of pushing me she only revealed her secrets to me sparingly. Also, not wanting to be bound and dependent on a human will, for the future that I had dreamed of, and seeing that I was getting nowhere under such tutelage, I tried to fly on my own. I then did a lot of studying with us, in order to acquire experience on my own, since the others did not want to give me any. I thus executed, it goes without saying, a whole museum of "scabs."
  (1) student of Léon Cognet
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   The Carmel encouraged my efforts by asking me for several jobs, which stimulated me a lot. However, as I saw that the task exceeded my forces, I put the sky of the part and undertook nothing without having first prayed a lot. With each new painting I put a candle at the altar of St Joseph, certain that I would manage to finish it with honor. As I did not attribute success to myself, realizing all my incapacity, the good Lord lavished his help on me. (1)
(1) see notes on my painting studies separate notebook, illustrated.
   A year thus passed the last that our dear eldest, Marie, still remained among us. When I got out of boarding school, I had barely enjoyed the pleasure of living with my family without care. The last few weeks seemed heartbreaking to me, it was the repetition of Pauline's departure that had made us suffer so much. In order to soften Thérèse's pain at this separation, Marie often took her in the evening to sleep with her, and I stayed alone in my large room, so sadness was covered for me in a doubly dark coat.
   It was in October 1886 that Marie left us. But this time we had to be strong in order to lighten this particularly painful blow for our little Father, it seemed that Mary was indispensable in the home and that Dad should never have been able to part with his eldest, but with his spirit of faith and his ordinary generosity he valiantly accomplishes this new sacrifice.
   There were only two of us left in this sweet nest of Les Buissonnets which had sheltered such a large and united family, which had heard, with the sweet accents of the elders, the pale chirpings of the little children, trying to praise the Lord. I say that there were only two of us left, because our dear Léonie
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left to enter the Poor Clares. It is true that she came back to us after a few weeks of trial in this monastery, but it was to go back to the Visitation, she was not with us during the trip to Rome. I will talk about this trip later. For the moment I am going to tell you, Mother, what our new life at Les Buissonnets was like.
   We had made for ourselves a very orderly life, nothing was left to whim. Every morning we went with dad to the 7 o'clock mass. We never missed it even when the road was impassable, which often happened in winter. Les Buissonnets being built on the height, the road which served the district, already very bad by itself, became in times of ice, an ice slope. But we didn't stop for so little, road incidents become pleasures for cheerful travellers! We walked up the garden and putting woolen stuff around our shoes we boldly faced the danger. And we arrived without further ado at the Salle du Festin, where the table is still set, but alas where there are so few guests!
   We were also very fond of caring for the poor. On holidays, there was feast at Les Buissonnets and the children of the neighborhood knew something about it. Since our earliest childhood we had been instilled in us with such respect for the unfortunate that by bringing them alms we seemed to be giving it to the good God himself, we were almost surprised to see them say thank you to us, so much did we believe ourselves to be their obliged, too honored to be able to do them good. I remember that when we were grown young girls we asked, while kneeling humbly, the blessing of a poor
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old man whom papa had brought into Les Buissonnets to give him lunch.
   How shall I now speak of Thérèse and Céline's intimacy?... How?... "It's a closed garden", I was going to add "a sealed fountain", but the fountain was not sealed. , it was gushing, from our hearts flowed "rivers of living water" which spread outside carrying our souls towards Jesus the divine Ocean... The day when this fountain was opened counts in the memorable dates of my life. It was December 25, 1886. Thérèse recounts in detail, in the story of her soul, that unforgettable Christmas night from which she begins 'her conversion'.
   From that day our union of souls became so intimate that I will not even try to depict it in the language of the earth, that would be to deflower it. This flower is the secret of the 'closed garden' of which Jesus, the only Beloved of our hearts, knew alone the fragrant scents...
   However it is not in the nature of love to remain inactive, so the fountain of this 'closed' garden was "open" as I said a moment ago, open to the zeal of love, zeal impetuous which devoured our hearts... O my Mother, I am not exaggerating anything in telling you this, I cannot express to you what our conversations were like then when, each evening "the hands chained to each other », gazing into the immensity of the Heavens, we discussed this Life which must not end... Where were we... when, losing, so to speak, consciousness of ourselves, our voice was extinguished in the silence!...... Where were we then!.. I wonder...
  Alas! suddenly we found ourselves on earth, but we were no longer the same and as if emerging from a bath of fire, our panting souls
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only aspired to communicate their flames... O what intoxication!.. O what martyrdom!..
   As Thérèse says, these graces could not remain without fruit and Jesus was pleased to show her that her apostolic desires were pleasing to her for the marvelous conversion of the unfortunate Pranzini. It was even this grace that was the starting point for a more intimate union between us, for it was on this occasion that she discovered in the heart of her Céline the germ of the aspirations that devoured hers. In the description that I have just given of the evening conversations at the windows of the Belvedere, I have therefore anticipated the order of events a little.
   Here is what happened. After the grace of strength received on Christmas Eve, the thirst for souls entered her heart and, as she tells it herself, the opportunity having presented itself to exercise her zeal, she applied herself to it with all ardor of his love. With her usual humility she did not think she could alone obtain the grace she was asking for and asked me for the help of my poor prayers for an intention that she did not dare to specify to me: finally she wanted to have the Holy Sacrifice offered in this goal and, as she was very shy, she came to ask me to take on the commission. I let him see when I had guessed what his purpose was and how laudable I found it. Surprised that I showed her no surprise at what she thought was a singular idea, she saw that she was understood... Then her heart opened up entirely to me and it was from this time that our love dates back. great intimacy which, as she said, was no longer a simple union but a unity... she liked to tell me that we had the same soul for both of us. O my Mother, how sweet it was, what
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indescribable joys, have I tasted with my Therese!..
   According to this painting, which is only a sketch of the reality, you can believe, my Mother, that the prospect of the departure of the one I loved more than myself was a test beyond my strengths. Yes, it would no doubt have been so, if given over to my own weakness, I had been the only one to suffer. But the celestial favors of which I spoke a moment ago had, so to speak, confirmed me in strength. The love of the good Lord was so intense in my poor heart that, finding nothing that could relieve this need to give a little, I was happy to sacrifice all that I held dearest in the world... Like Abraham, I I took care of the preparation of the holocaust and I helped my dear sister in all the steps she took to obtain entry into the Carmel, despite her great youth. I took part in his sorrows more than if they had been my own. Ah! how very true it is that the love of the good Lord alone gives true love for his own, this disinterested love which makes one desire above all things the happiness of those one cherishes...
   What I say reminds me of a reflection that I often made to myself in the past. It's about the intimacy of mothers with their children. I noticed that many complained of being carefully excluded from the confidences of their daughters. I sincerely sympathize with their pain, but I'm not surprised that this is so. They know, these poor children, that their reading is supervised: what would we say if we managed to discover that they were reading the lives of saints or books of spirituality? and if we knew that they have a director! ha!
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this time it would be an outrageous persecution, because one would immediately suspect the desire for a religious vocation. How in such conditions can the young girl take her mother as a confidante and friend?
  How could she openly expose to him her struggles, her difficulties, her hopes? It goes without saying that it is impossible to think of such intimacy. Intimacy that would immediately merge if the mother possessed true, disinterested love within her. No, it's not the children who are wrong when they make their parents suffer by a reserve that may appear outwardly blameworthy, no, it's the parents who attract this coldness. Poor parents, they make their children unhappy, they make themselves unhappy by poisoning the last days lived in family, really useless sufferings and which are not wanted by the good God, because these are sufferings which are not in the 'order. Indeed, what do they lead to? to delay the moment of separation perhaps for a few months and that's all. Oh! how bitter are the sufferings where the divine good pleasure is not at the bottom of the chalice! And who will say what a suffering without hope is to the poor human heart?... Personally, I feel that I would not have had the moral strength to bear such poignant pain.
   My gratitude for the Lord is great, he whose love made me experience such hard moments, such ineffable joys... I dare not stop to think of what my relationship with my beloved Therese if I had thwarted her plans. So she would have
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been forced to hide from me... Then she would have suffered, I would have wept in secret, or else I would have relieved myself in bitter complaints which, instead of alleviating my torment, would have restored my life and that of the others a hell. Instead of that I enjoyed a happiness whose sweetness I still taste, I enjoyed the sweetness of the most perfect union. What is more desirable on earth? Yes, all happiness vanishes before the union of hearts; fortune, honors, health pale beside her and have no value unless they take her for queen.
   This union of Thérèse and Céline cemented by an ardent love of God was soon to be confirmed in force. It was at the very place where the martyrs had suffered, at the Coliseum, that she received this sanction... Yes, the earth could now separate these two existences, the wind of tribulation could blow and destroy, piling up ruin upon ruin around those two hearts, they were ready. Had they not, in a common prayer, asked for and obtained the grace of martyrdom?...
   But, before the storm was unleashed, a few more months had to pass. For the moment the two sisters were in Rome enjoying together the spectacle offered to them (sic) by the marvels of the creator and those of human genius.
   For my part, this trip served me a lot, it raised my soul above all creation and considerably developed my artistic taste. We visited with the group of pilgrims, museums where, it seems, women should not enter, but I never met anything there that was capable of disturbing my soul. My soul, it could only be troubled by sin and trusting in its God who had not created only beautiful things, it
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rescued by simplicity and prayer from the traps set up by the hands of men.
   In the evening, after a day of constant wanderings, we met in the hotel lounge to make music, declaim or talk. Once, the number of seats being insufficient, I took my sister on my lap. She was so pretty, my Thérèse, with her beautiful blond curls that this group caught the eye and someone began to say: These two young girls will never be separated, see how they love each other! During the whole course of the pilgrimage I constantly remarked that we were our father and we were the object of undisguised sympathy. We were looking for our company, we wanted to know us. One day a cleric learning that we had been 9 brothers and sisters, told us that the 7th daughter had the gift of miracles. So I exclaimed: “I'm the 7th! And Thérèse continues: She is the 7th child, but I am the 7th daughter! The good priest smiled saying that the saying only had value if the 7 girls followed one another in rank. So neither of them was entitled to the privilege. Oh! at that time I had no idea that my darling Thérèse would in truth have the gift of miracles which I gladly left to her, happy if I could still give her my right to 7th child, assuming however that she reserved a gift for me similar!!
   Now, my Mother, I will clear up a question. Perhaps you have sometimes thought that I had been very daring to dare to advise Thérèse to speak to the Holy Father, despite the official prohibition that Mr. Révérony had just made. When I was called to give my opinion, time was running out and there was no more procrastination. Now I have a principle for occasions
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similar, is that of following in all respects a resolution taken in advance, which supposes a maturely considered resolution and a good resolution, because without this last condition it goes without saying that it should not be kept. I am talking about a resolution like that of Thérèse, like that of the Bishop of Bayeux, advised by the Carmel, the goal of the trip finally. Not to keep such a resolution is to expose oneself to bitter regrets, especially when the opportunity one has cannot come again. In this case it is better, I think, to expose oneself to disappointment by following one's program than to avoid making a mistake by abstaining. The regrets of one are much less bitter than those of the other, because is there anything more agonizing than to think: If I had said that, perhaps I would have obtained! Oh! How cruel are these 'maybes' and 'if's! And to avoid them, in life, there is really only to not be intimidated by the various unforeseen incidents which arise in any human enterprise.
   As for the defense itself, I thought that no one had the right to forbid us to speak to the Holy Father. A lesser authority cannot forbid recourse to a higher authority.
   Thinking all this was a matter of lightning, a minute of hesitation and it would have been too late! so I believe that it was the good Lord who inspired me to give this advice and that it entered into the divine plan, although at first glance it did not seem crowned with success.
   As you can see, my Mother, my little Thérèse used to consult me ​​and lean on me in all encounters. Later in Carmel, the roles were reversed and it was she whom Jesus appointed to lead me. Oh! as this darling sister then returned to me with advantage the few
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care with which I had surrounded her not long ago!
   Thérèse therefore let me steer the boat as I saw fit and respond when someone spoke to us, she knew very well that by translating my feelings I was also expressing hers. One day when we returned from our trip, we found ourselves in Lyons, in the elevator of our “splendid” hotel. A decorated gentleman, with an imposing presence, took his place there at the same time as us. He was not part of our group and struck me, my sister and me, as "a great man of government." He wanted to enter into conversation with us, congratulating us on our fine trip. Nevertheless,. making a reservation with regard to Leo XIII, he made fun of him, asking us ironically what this old man, so old that he was "soft" could have said to us.
   It was too much! How not to take up the insult, how not to defend the Holy Father? I seethed and straightening up I resumed with irony, me too: "It would be desirable, sir, that you were his age, perhaps you would at the same time have his experience which would prevent you from talking thoughtlessly about things you do not know. not! »
   There was immediately a dead silence. This gentleman who had wanted to intimidate us was intimidated. He looked at me with a certain fear and when we separated, he greeted us respectfully.
   O my Mother! if I had been a man, I don't think I would have died a beautiful death, one day or another I would have had my head kicked in, but I would have sold it dearly! no, I could not have seen the law trampled underfoot and justice debased without putting myself forward to win them back.
   This anecdote has just taken us back to Les Buissonnets where our family life was once again lived with ever-increasing sweetness.
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  And since I'm on the subject of my fiery character, I'm going to reinforce the impression you already have, my beloved Mother, by telling you that one day when there was a patriotic celebration in the church decorated with flags French I said to myself: "When I think that for this shred of stuff I would give my life with joy! and I felt a real desire to devote myself to my country, of which this scrap of cloth represented the idea. This desire was almost fulfilled, because following an error made at the town hall, to register my birth or the death of my little brother, it happened one fine day that I received my waybill and was called under the flags! But, as you can well imagine, the steps to exempt me from military service were successful and if I did not then serve my country by leaving for the barracks, I was useful to it later in the solitude of the cloister, I dare to hope. !
   Another time, passing through the town, I saw young people sleeping in the sun on benches in the public square. Immediately I exclaimed to myself: "Must I have the misfortune to be only a wretched little woman, what shall I do in life?" and those wretches who are blessed with force and who do not use it! To tell you, my Mother, my indignation and regret is impossible, such were these feelings.
   Yes, at that time of my existence the ardor that was boiling in me became a real martyrdom to me. I felt that I was going to lose my Thérèse and I needed an outlet, someone who was willing to devote himself to listening to me, thus taking on the role of the dam that opposes the angry waves. As I said, at the beginning of this story, the good Lord had put too much into a vessel that was too small and it overflowed with an impetuosity to which limits had to be set.
   The Lord listening to my just claims gave me a director according to his heart in the person of Rd. Father Pichon de la Cie. of Jesus. I opened my whole soul to him and he was willing to devote himself to her. My Mother, if you knew to what degree I admire the humble patience
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of those religious scholars who have spent their lives in study, who consequently could expend their science in instructing the crowds and who do not disdain to employ a considerable part of their time in reading correspondence which cannot interest them or which does not interests them only out of charity, for the history of all souls is almost similar, it varies only by incidents. Also, I have great gratitude for this religious saint who never showed me any annoyance at receiving my folios. Twenty years later, when I saw him again, having asked him what he once thought of his poor child, he replied: 'What did I think? is that you had life for four! This portrait is a perfect likeness. I have since learned that not only did my letters not bother him, he called me his theologian, but that his Superior insisted on reading them! Really, these good Fathers are very indulgent.
   I was therefore relieved to see that I had a support that could not only support me, but also stop me on the slippery slopes that I will not fail to encounter on my way. By the awareness that I will also have nothing to fear and will henceforth be enlightened, to think that was a guarantee whose value I will not attempt to describe. And yet this help was a drop of water on the fire. My soul, thirsty for beauty, for truth, for justice, sought satisfaction from this abyss, where will it find it? Ah! it is in Jesus... he alone possesses the fullness of all perfection, he alone can fill these gaping voids that he himself has dug in us.
   
   Like a deer in its ardent thirst
   Sigh after the gushing water
   O Jesus! towards you I run failing
   It takes to calm my ardor
   Your crying...
  Yes, Jesus will come with his Cross and his thorns, his visit is near, a few more months and the passion of his little wife will begin...
 
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   It was on April 9, 1888 that my dear Thérèse left me to enter Carmel. Giving her the farewell kiss at the door of the monastery I had to lean staggeringly against the wall...and yet I did not cry, I wanted to give her to Jesus with all my heart...and him in return, clothed me with his strength.
   Ah! how much I needed this divine strength!... At the moment when Therese entered the Holy Ark, the closing door which closed between us was the faithful image of what really happened, for a wall had just been erected between our two lives...
   On returning to Les Buissonnets, accompanied by my father and Léonie, I was informed of a marriage proposal. This news overwhelmed me, not that I was undecided on what I had to do, but the divine light, hiding itself, gave me over to my own inconsistencies, constantly I said to myself "This offer made to me just at the where Thérèse leaves me, isn't that an indication of a will of God for me that I hadn't foreseen? Could the Lord have allowed me to desire religious life until today so that in the world I would be a strong woman? So many people say that I don't look like a nun, maybe, in fact, am I not called to this life by divine Providence? My sisters have never been formally put on notice to choose between the two lives, it's no doubt that the good Lord wanted them for himself and he doesn't want me! – Finally, although my resolution never changed, the anxiety rose, always rose... I couldn't see clearly. However, I replied, just in case, that I didn't want to, that I wanted to be quiet for the moment and that they wouldn't expect me.
  Judge my Mother of the pain of this first day lived
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away from my darling Thérèse and in the evening I found myself alone in my big room, alone when I took my place on my bed which I wet with my tears...
   However, it was necessary to put on a good face to soften my dear little Father the sacrifice of "his Queen", I contrived to make him happy and to radiate gaiety around me. O my Mother! it is indeed the love of God alone that sustained me in the midst of all these vicissitudes and the difficulties that I am going to describe to you shortly. Praise be to Jesus for having placed in my heart this love which was to be my Saviour!..
   I have just pronounced the name of my dear little Léonie, of whom I have hardly spoken to you, my Mother. At that time she was back in the family, it was really the good Lord who sent her to me. She was good, gentle and humble, she did not try to show off and gladly let me run the house, although I was six years younger than her. Besides, household duties were not within his abilities. Deprived at a very young age of her little companion “Marie Hélène” who would have been her age, she had since, like the prophetess Anne “lived in widowhood, never leaving her room and serving God night and day in solitude and prayer”. This love of retirement did not however prevent her from devoting herself to works of charity, she was going to bury the dead in the poor families of the neighborhood. One day, having thus lent a pillow to a dying person, she brought it back to us covered with vermin. I was not happy. But the good Lord showed how much he blessed the efforts of my dear Léonie, because this pillow which was simply put in the air in the garden became as clean as before and we did not have an insect in the house.
 
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   As for me, inside I renewed every day, and very often every day, the sacrifice of my Thérèse, it seemed to me that in this separation I really had a share in the immense sacrifice that parents have to make when their children leave to enter a cloister, because then I had no hope of entering Carmel because of the difficulties that opposed my admission. I knew very well that we had made a big exception by accepting 3 sisters in the same monastery and that we would never want to reach the number of 4. I also saw my good Father, whose old age demanded my care. With his ordinary fortitude he said to me, it's true: "You can all leave, I'll be happy to give you to God before you die and for my old age a cell, completely bare, will be enough for me." »
   Poor little Father! yes, he was indeed to expire in a bare cell, not, however, without having first drunk the chalice of trial to the dregs... and as for me, I felt it was my duty to dedicate my life to him indefinitely.
   I was saying a while ago that interiorly I renewed my Thérèse's sacrifice every day, that was the ever-smoldering holocaust, always acceptable to the Lord. Outwardly I continued to work on the painting and I made real progress there. Papa noticed them with pleasure and thinking that the lessons of my mistress were no longer enough for me, he offered to take me to Paris where we had rented an apartment [in Auteuil] and there I would have perfected my art under the guidance of a master. The offer was tempting. We could leave Les Buissonnets for a while without regret, which, despite my efforts, seemed very deserted.
 
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   However, the reflection was not long and without taking time to deliberate I put down the painting that I was holding in my hand and approaching my Father I confided to him that "wanting to be a nun, I was not looking for the glory of the century and who if the good Lord needed my work later on, he would know how to make up for my ignorance. I added that I preferred my innocence to any other advantage and that I did not want to expose it, in the workshops, by academic studies”.
   My Father was very moved by my response, I had never openly told him of my intention to embrace the religious state and he could always doubt my determination, so in the rush of his gratitude he pressed me to his heart and said: "Come, let's go together to the Blessed Sacrament to thank the good Lord for the honor he is doing me by asking me for all my children. It was Friday, June 16, 1888. I was 19 years old. (1) It was on this occasion that Thérèse wrote to me in June 1888 “Dear little sister, how good God is to you! If you could see what grace you received on Friday, I truly believe it's the grace you've been waiting for. You know, you told me, but I didn't receive decisive graces. I am convinced that this is the grace. Now you must be all for Jesus, more than ever he is all for you. He has already placed the mysterious engagement ring on your finger. He wants to be the sole master of your soul, Sister dear, we are truly sisters in the fullest sense of the word. (end of note)
   Everything was consummated, the call to sacrifice could sound and the month was not going to end its course, without revealing to us the terrible trial that Jesus, in his incomparable love, had foreseen for us for so long. One morning, passing in front of a superb rosebush which, the day before, was covered with flowers, I was very surprised to see it cut just short.
   below the head which was lying on the ground, while its stem remained attached to the espalier of a small kiosk, located near the house: Nobody had touched the rosebush and this strange fact remained to me of an origin unknown.
   But before telling you, my Mother, what became of the roses and the rosebush thus mutilated, allow me to enter into a few details which explain, in a human way, the injury to the rosebush and the place where it was made. .human details, it is true, and yet circumstances glimpsed from afar with pride and confidence by the jealous love of the good God who trusted in us.
 
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   At that time – the year 1887-88 – it had been about 20 years since our dear Father had been stung on the head by a bad fly, it was on one of his excursions to the countryside. No one paid any attention to it at first, because the little sting didn't seem serious. It simply formed an imperceptible crust that fell to make way for another. This evil was located behind the right ear. In 1886, he suddenly got worse and Papa had to consult a specialist who made him undergo a most painful treatment, treatment which considerably increased the volume of the wound, it extended visibly. Noting this result, my father decided not to treat her anymore, hoping that she would resume her latent state of the first years. But the disease continued to worsen and we then consulted a famous doctor in our town, who employed a very consistent treatment, less energetic, however, than that of the specialist of whom I have spoken. It consisted of applying a kind of reddish ointment to the wound every fortnight, the effect of which was to bring out the scabs over the entire surface of the pain, that in a few hours, scabs which I then had to remove with the help of poultices. As can be seen, however, this treatment was not gentle. After the application of the ointment made by the doctor himself, my poor little Father suffered from excruciating pain, he then walked to forget his illness which, he said, was "to make one lose one's head".
   During the trip to Rome we noticed Therese and I that Papa got tired easily, he was so robust in the past, and it was not without concern for us. However, the winter passed without incident and Thérèse on entering Carmel could not foresee that two
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only months after his departure our dear Father would be the victim of a new attack of paralysis which, this time, would be fixed for a long time. The first, very violent, which attacked the whole left side, had taken place on May 1st in the year 1887. Papa had recovered from it fairly quickly, then a few weeks apart, he had had two other similar ones, but one slightly less strong whose robust temperament had still taken over.
 
   My Mother, I will stop here for a moment, because this is where our painful martyrdom begins...I will not try to describe it, on the contrary, if I give some details because you asked me to allow me to veil them and pass over the most painful ones in silence. In this I will only imitate my Thérèse who touched on this delicate subject in such a discreet way. However, I would like to recall this great ordeal in order to give glory to the good God for all the riches with which he was pleased to fill our family without any merit on our part. Look at my Mother, if it is not true: lately I heard about an old man of our acquaintance who was also threatened with cerebral palsy, his family being very worldly, I said to myself inwardly: it is the Lord who , through humiliation, will enlighten these frivolous hearts and bring them closer to him. I thought so... but the patient died at the very beginning of his illness. So I went back to this same ordeal that we had undergone to its last intrenchments and from my heart rose a hymn of gratitude. It seemed to me that pain was such a grace that not everyone was judged worthy of receiving its visit and that the good Lord, free of his gifts, gave it to whoever he wanted. Considering then this family of which I speak, to which the Lord had only shown his treasures and ours to which he had given them, my heart melted with love for this God who loved us so much!..
   However, it is for you alone, my beloved Mother, that I write these lines, as well as those which will follow, true secrets of confession. I know it, I'm too naive
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and I could write certain things that cannot be written; so failing my judgment I trust yours to tear up these pages once you have read them.
   Shortly after Thérèse arrived, my dear little Father gradually lost his memory, he was very affected by it and I was worried about it. His wound dried up, but without being healed, it was inflamed. You could see that the evil was mining within. The warning signs of cerebral palsy followed one another with such rapidity that soon we had no longer any doubt about the certain outcome of the disease.
   My Carmelite sisters could hardly believe the sad reality, they couldn't get used to the thought and even believed for a moment that I was making Papa unhappy by guiding him too closely. It was for me the height of pain... My Mother, what I suffered then!... But soon Jesus allowed them to understand the sad situation in which I found myself, and they had full confidence in me.
   My Mother, to give you the most accurate idea possible of what the five of us have suffered from this ordeal, you have to remember that Dad was no ordinary Father. Just as the Blessed Virgin suffered from the Passion of Jesus not as an ordinary Mother suffers from the sufferings of an ordinary Son, but according to the dignity and infinite perfection of this Son, so we suffered according to the exceptional quality of the object a like. My dear little one
   Father represents Saint Joseph to me by his uprightness, his simplicity, he was like him a just man in the eyes of God and his fellow men. And to ours, he added to the prerogatives of Paternity those of Maternity, for he always surrounded us with a truly maternal tenderness. Also, it was a cult we had for him. Alas! where was the object of this cult going to pass?
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twice filial, become a voluntary victim destined for sacrifice!..
   It is said that it was the custom in antiquity to cover the heads of those who were led to execution. This peculiarity, we were to note it in the beginning of the illness of our dear little Father.
   Thérèse as a child had seen it in advance, when she looked at him with his forehead veiled...He was covering it up, in fact, as if instinctively and we thought it was the violence of evil, I made him take baths and posed on cold water compresses on his head, but nothing relieved him.
   It goes without saying that, if our venerated Father had been paralyzed in the legs, there would have been nothing easier than to treat him at home. The big difficulty was that, being able to walk alone, his pronounced taste for travel put us in the sad perplexity of seeing him disappear. This is what happened in several circumstances. It was in one of them that Blessed Mother Geneviève heard this celestial message: 'Tell them that he is not lost, he will come back...'
   During this time, I looked for it with anguish on the coast and while I left with my uncle, the fire took the night to an old hovel adjoining Buissonnets, it was burned to its foundations. The wall of our house was burning and we did not understand how it did not fall prey to the flames. My Aunt, warned in all haste, had come to the aid of this poor Léonie and they saw in the total preservation of Les Buissonnets
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a palpable intervention of Providence.
   I really believe that the demon had asked the good Lord to test us as he did before with regard to the Holy Man Job, because all the evils fell on us at the same time. One morning, before starting my painful day of research (it was in Le Havre) I wanted to receive my Jesus, but the mass had just ended, another was about to begin and I was quite rudely refused Holy Communion. Unable to wait, I walked away sadly...even the good Lord who did not come to me in such deep anguish!..
   I remember that one day while walking along the edge of the canal (another time, in Honfleur) I considered the depth of the water for a long time, I said to myself: “Ah! If I didn't have faith!!! yes, if I hadn't had faith, death would have seemed delectable to me and a thousand times I would have preferred it to this torture of the heart.
   Our research lasted 3 days which seemed to me 3 centuries, after which, like the Blessed Virgin, I found the object of my love. Never have I understood her pain so well when she was looking for the Child Jesus, truly I can say that I experienced something similar to what my Heavenly Mother suffered.
   After this terrible shock we had a relative calm which did not last long however. In those moments when illness gave us a little rest, I found my beloved Father as before and I showered him with caresses and sweetness. Because of these periods of improvement, my uncle had not dared to speak to him about abandoning the management of his fortune, we were so afraid of hurting him! But, unfortunately, at that time he was particularly interested in it and made considerable investments of funds. So, I offered to the good God the sacrifice of being reduced to earning my living, if that were his good pleasure. It seemed nothing compared to the heartache that tore me apart. Ah! what are material losses? The Sage was right when he exclaimed: “All suffering, but not the suffering of the heart! (Eccl. Xxv, 12)
   These sufferings of the heart are a Way of the Cross that I do not want, my Mother, to make you go through. loved us too much, wanted to save us from imaginary perils or, loving God too much, wanted to leave everything for him and flee into a desert, that our pain was as it were increased tenfold.
   There were also many humiliations to undergo. Yes, like Jesus during his Passion, my dear little Father was humiliated in every way and so was I....
   However, the disease following its course and the paralysis of the legs not coming, the chalice had not yet been drunk to the dregs and the events becoming more and more sad, my uncle gave me to understand that it was impossible that we hoped to be able to take care of Papa more than his very interest required, and he arranged everything to place him in a nursing home. It was on February 12, 1889 that our dear little Father left us to enter the Bon Sauveur de Caen .....
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   The pen refuses to depict our anxieties. This word 'Good Saviour', I still avoid pronouncing it, it hurts my heart... and however good he was, our Savior, how gentle was his hand to help us carry our burden !
   Until now, we hadn't let Papa see that we found him ill, I tried to distract him with all sorts of subterfuges. When he complained about his lack of memory, I laughed about it, I teased him about his beard that didn't grow back fast enough and about the alleged tricks he was playing on us. But as soon as he was in another environment he understood everything... And how could he not have understood it? Even if we and the good nuns who cared for him had been able to hide it from him, strangers would have taken it upon themselves to let him know. Just as nothing was lacking to us in this ordeal, nothing was spared our dear Father either.
   By a regrettable misunderstanding, lawyers came to find him to sign the papers relating to the prohibition. In order to persuade him, they dared to tell him that it was from his children. Then, this poor little Father continued, sobbing: 'Ah! it is my children who are abandoning me!...' And he signed.
   My Mother, I cannot tell you what this new wound was to our hearts... It was the most sensitive... This time the point of the sword had reached the last limits, our hearts were pierced right through.
  .................................................................................
   However, not wanting to abandon our dear Father as
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  he believed it, alas! we went to Léonie and I to live in Caen. We were staying with the Sisters of St Vincent de Paul, not far from the establishment where he was. My uncle let us do it, he even consented to our keeping Les Buissonnets for a few months. He hoped that, new attacks of paralysis occurring, the state of health of our dear little Father could change, allowing us to look after him ourselves. But since the paralysis had settled in the brain, the limbs were free and the desired improvement did not occur. We stayed 3 months with the Sisters of St Vincent de Paul, every day we went to see Papa, sometimes the nun only gave us news of her.
   My Uncle, seeing that our health was deteriorating with grief, without any profit for our poor little Father, used his authority to make us return to Lisieux. He offered us asylum in his house and handed over Les Buissonnets to the owner.
   My Mother, I have just told you in a few pages volumes of pain... these details are so trifling in comparison with the reality that it would have been better to pass them over in silence.
   To these sorrows were added others which came to us from outside, from the very people who should have comforted us. Our friends, wanting to show us the part they took in our trial, really imitated the friends of Job by their speeches
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   How to repeat our parlors of then with my darling Thérèse! Ah! as she says herself, "no word of the things of the earth mingled with our conversations and, to enjoy soon an eternal happiness, we chose here below suffering and contempt" - Like the blessed Job, whose memory I have already recalled, “in all this trial, we did not sin, neither in our words nor in our thoughts, constantly kissing with love the beloved hand of Jesus...
   But it was not enough for our hearts to give to God these intimate testimonies of our fidelity and, at the very height of the ordeal, a marble ex-voto was fixed below the image of the Holy Face, placed in the Carmel chapel. It bore this inscription: "Blessed be the Name of the Lord!" (Martin family)
   Ah! this time, the Lord couldn't stand it any longer, because he is jealous of his honor and, in the struggle for generosity, he will not allow himself to be defeated by his creature!
   My Mother, today, when barely twenty years have passed since that dark ordeal, I find it hard to hold back my tears when I consider the marvels that the good Lord has accomplished:
   To the voices which then spoke to us of "a shattered future", replies the Church which is preparing to place one of us on the altars...- We had given a marble ex-voto to the good God and the place missing to pick up those addressed to his little servant, Thérèse of
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  the Child Jesus... We contemplated with pain the name of our dear little Father appearing on the list of persons subject to prohibition, a list placed in each notary's office. And her blessed name, traveling the world, is written next to 'her' 'little Queen' in millions of hearts. His tomb surrounded by honor sees pious pilgrims who, coming from afar to kneel on the tomb of his little daughter, do not return without having greeted that of his Father.
   Ah! I would like to be able to tell this story to all souls, it seems to me that, thus touching the mercies of the Lord, they would finally understand his divine character...appreciating then the pain as a blessing they would welcome it with gratitude and the earth , making her God, so to speak, indebted to her, would sag under the weight of her blessings.
   But it is time for me to resume the course of my story, this vision of the future has made us forget that we are leaving our revered Father, alone, far from us. – When we got back to Lisieux, we settled down, as I said, with my uncle and his whole family opened their hearts wide to us. My Aunt was of unequaled kindness and delicacy and our two cousins ​​did not know how much thoughtfulness to surround us with to soften the ordeal. Every week, without fail, we went to Caen to see Papa.
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   The first time we saw our dear little Father again after the painful separation of February 12, the reaction gave him a few fairly good days. He could then understand the whole situation and generously make his sacrifice. The good Lord allowed it thus to give him all the merit of his ordeal. The doctors of the establishment, lavishing their care on him, told him one day that they would cure him, but he answered them: “Oh! I don't want it, I even ask the good Lord that he doesn't listen to the prayers made to him for this purpose because this ordeal is a mercy, it is to expiate my pride that I am here, I have deserved the illness with which I am stricken”. The doctors could not believe their ears and the nun who was telling me about this conversation was still crying she was so moved. “We have never seen that here, she told us, we are treating a saint! »
   She told me many times that Papa was a saint and that she cared for him as if he had been her Father. It was true, and as we had said to spare nothing she gave him a thousand treats, of which Papa was very touched, putting his joy to share with those around him. He always said he was too well cared for.
   At this same time February-March 1889 I told him that we were all going to start a novena to St Joseph to obtain his healing. He then answered me: “I won't ask for that, what I want is to do the will of God. »
 
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   These details which I have just related are almost the only consolations which, like a ray of sunshine, came for a moment to gladden our heavens. Devotion had the greatest place in the visits I made there, often I was there alone, because my dear little Léonie, finding her presence useless, took advantage of her trips to go to the Visitation. I remember that while waiting in the parlor for Papa's arrival, my emotion was such that I felt sharp pains in my heart. They reached the point of frightening my family and I underwent a consultation of two doctors, who recommended that I be spared all emotion. It was hard. So the good Lord undertook to support me himself in the arid task that I had to perform.
 
   My Mother, here I am going to make a halt and introduce you to another scene, by revealing to you an interior and very personal ordeal which came to increase my sufferings, which were already so acute elsewhere. I will also describe my new life to you by depicting the environment in which I was.
   You may be wondering why, in this story, I compared myself to 'a brand pulled out of the fire'. No doubt you have noticed that the good Lord in his merciful love has so far saved me from real perils.
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but the atmosphere of innocence in which he placed me at the dawn of my life does not completely justify the name I have chosen and yet it is only too true, you will judge. The preceding ordeal and the manner in which it was received are the palpable confirmation of this maxim of St John Chrysostom: "To derive great advantages from the tribulation it is necessary to bear it with thanksgiving, that is the important point" and the test which will follow is the evident confirmation of this other saying of the same saint: "It was a miracle much more worthy of admiration to preserve the life of the three children in the furnace than to extinguish the fire." »
   My Mother, this is what Jesus did for me... Not content with having crushed us with pain, the demon asked to destroy me, he wanted at least to make one of us miss the vocation, but if he got to try, he did not get to lose, or rather, wanting to lose me, it was he who lost and Jesus performed a greater miracle by leaving his brand intact in the middle of the fire than by forbidding Satan to immerse him in this fire.
   Another comparison often comes to mind to express my thoughts on the action of Jesus in me. – I heard told by my elder sisters, this fact, which they had witnessed in Paris: A tamer deliberately encumbered himself with all kinds of animals, in a single cage, from the elephant to the lion. . There was even a small lamb and, by the force of his gaze, he forced the lion to support him, even going so far as to introduce the head of the gentle animal into his mouth, without the beast daring to touch it. The lamb was shaking, but he got out of there without any harm happening to him.
   Thus Jesus, the Divine Tamer, often acts with me letting danger approach to increase my confidence.
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in his help and my humility for feeling so weak, to humiliate also my ferocious adversary, confused at not having been able to lose me.
   It is indeed always the prayer of the Pater which is answered to the letter, God, our Father, does not remove temptation from us, but He “does not let us succumb to it and He delivers us from evil. »
   I must tell you my Mother, that it happened to me several times in my life to have rather significant dreams, I know well that Holy Scripture says in this regard "that where there are many dreams there has many illusions” (Prov.) but nevertheless I must admit that I had some rather symbolic ones, either to console me in my sorrows, or to increase my troubles. For the latter I always despised them, as for the former I used them simply as one uses a reading that has done you good.
   Before telling you about a dream I had when I was in Caen for the three months that I lived there to stay with my Father, I am going to tell you something which, perhaps, will surprise you: until at this age of 20, despite my shrewd mind that delves into the depths of questions, I was blissfully ignorant of the things of nature. The Lord had thrown a veil over them that I did not seek to tear.
   When Jesus wants to seduce a heart he acts like the bridegrooms of the earth and surrounds himself with charms. Oh! who will say what the charms of virginity were for me! I was captivated, seduced by this beauty which is not
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the earth, through it it seemed to me that man became the equal of angels and began in a mortal body that eternal life where "there will be no more husbands and wives, where we will all be like the angels of God ".
  I said to myself: what is the use of undertaking on earth a kind of life which must have an end? I prefer to start now what I will do for all eternity. And I was happy to offer myself entirely to the Lord as a victim always immolated. After all, what is a few years of sacrifice to have the immense advantage of having a free heart? For I considered this benefit, the freedom of the heart, as the immediate reward for the enjoyments of the earth sacrificed. And can there be a comparison between a good of the natural order and a good of the supernatural order! There is as much difference as between a piece of clay and a gold mine.
   Once Jesus had raised me above inferior goods, he also wanted to release me from the goods of the heart. I would have liked to love and be loved, the family had a lot of attractions for me, but above all what I valued the most was conjugal love, it seemed to me that this love was the last word of two united hearts. . Paternal and maternal love seemed ideal to me too, but I thought that children were destined to leave the parents, and have other affections themselves, and it is because of its stability that the love of the spouse and of the wife seemed superior to me. Jesus then offered himself to me to be my Friend, my Companion, he became my fiancé. It is always under this attribute that I considered him in the depths of my soul. This Jesus, my Beloved, had grown up with me... I had always known him, always loved him, wasn't it natural that I should choose him as my husband!...
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   Recently a holy religious to whom I had opened my soul wrote to me: "Give joy to Him who, to win you, to have you all, loved so much and suffered so much." At first glance these words produced no effect on me, this is what is said to all souls since for all Jesus suffered, and without realizing it we are almost tempted not to be grateful to him, thinking quite wrongly that if a soul was ready to be saved, his passion would have been the same. But Jesus deigned to instruct me and these words seemed luminous to me. No, it is not as a whole that Jesus saved souls, it is not in general that divine Providence takes care of us, it is personal redemption, it is individual monitoring. To realize this I have only to cast my eyes over my life and I see Jesus as diligent by my side as if he had only had to take care of me. It is at every moment that his Spirit inspires me, that his grace strengthens me. And since I'm on the subject of my youth, I can say that in reviewing it in my memory, I touch with my finger its thousand kindnesses, its skilful detours "to win me over, to have me all." Ah! what harm have I not given him! and he tried one way, then another to seduce me, more eager around me than any lover can be around his beloved.
   As he left us our freedom he succeeds or does not succeed in his advances, this is what makes the conquest of a heart so precious to him, because if inevitably we had to let ourselves be taken in by him it would no longer be interesting.
   We were there in our ineffable intimacy when the demon offered to present me with an entirely opposite choice. Jesus accepted and seemed to withdraw, but he still lived in the bottom of my heart, it is true that
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I no longer felt it, the sound of the waves, the wind and the storm raging on the surface of the ocean made me forget the calm of its depths.
   The demon followed in his own way the same method as Jesus, ie, before the attraction of the heart he proposed to me the attraction of the senses. But, how was he going to do it, the ground did not seem favorable to this seed, it was not prepared for it, since until now it had been cultivated by Jesus.- It was in the hour of darkness , during my sleep that the deceiver gave his first assault: in a horrible dream where he himself came to instruct me.
   In the morning when I woke up I knew everything, but I caught my adversary, because instead of being overwhelmed, not finding there this first work of the Creator where everything was beautiful, "sin having made, as Bossuet says, a new work that must be hidden” I nevertheless thanked my strange professor for the service he had rendered me and I cried all the same with the psalmist: “O God, how ravishing your thoughts seem to me! (Ps. 139, 17)
   Some time passed, the evil spirit dared not return. On the side of the imagination he had obtained nothing and his drool of hell had slipped without leaving an imprint, but taking advantage of his time he wanted to use all his resources before saying he was defeated. Seeing that on the side of the thoughts he could do nothing, since Jesus had fortified the place he entered the garden and like a boar began to plow the ground with fury. In a short time it devastated everything: flowers, waterfalls, groves had disappeared! Yes, a sting had been given to me in my flesh and this time I could not get rid of it. Like St. Paul, I asked the Lord with tears to take him away from me and like the great apostle he gave me this answer: “My grace is sufficient for you, for strength is strengthened in weakness. »
   So I had to endure this sting at all costs, but so that it wouldn't hurt me, my director hastened to advise me to
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make the vow of chastity as soon as possible. It was on October 8, 1889 that I did it for the first time. Permission to bind me thus was given to me for one year.
   How to repeat my sufferings, O my Mother! Disorder had entered my house, it reigned there with an arrogance and a fury worthy of my ardent nature. I would have liked to roll on the ground, but no, that wouldn't have relieved me! What to do ? Ah! I had only one refuge left: sitting down on the chest of drawers where the miraculous statue of Mary was placed, I embraced in my arms this portrait of my Mother, I hid myself in the shade of her virginal mantle and I I begged her to save me from the arrows of the enemy...
   My nights oh! they happened in dreadful nightmares to which I preferred the assaults of the day because at least I enjoyed my will to reprove all these horrors. But what good was my will to me since it did not ward off temptation?
   This struggle was awful and yet it was only the beginning of the ordeal. After plowing the earth, or rather continuing to plow it relentlessly, the infernal spirit wanted to plant flowers in his garden to see if they would grow, he looked after them so well! “The land is prepared, he said to himself, from the old plantations, no vestige left, the victory is mine if, presenting the opportunity to desire, I can reach the heart!- “What are you saying there, Satan? is it a desire that this feeling a hundred times cursed that you impose on my nature? »
   He hears nothing and in his rage he prepares other assaults.
   Before introducing them to you, my Mother, I must introduce you to the new environment in which I then lived.
   At the end of the painful quarter spent in Caen, my uncle and my aunt like
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I said offered Leonie and me affectionate hospitality. It was not the same interior as at Les Buissonnets, but it was not lacking in charms. At Les Buissonnets it was the patriarchal life in all that it offered most deliciously, worldly customs being a burden on us, we had shaken off the yoke, believing that freedom is the sweetest of pleasures. We hadn't created any obligations for ourselves, we liked to entertain or to visit friends when it seemed good to us, but not as a matter of etiquette. I have always heard people complaining about making visits, I have seen them so happy when Mr or Mrs are not visible and Mr and Mrs congratulating themselves on having been absent. On this account, the result being that we are embarrassed on both sides, isn't it much better to create a happy interior and live there as a family? Such, then, was our maxim at Les Buissonnets.
   With my uncle, there was also a beautiful flowering of Christian life, but of exteriorized Christian life. We were interested in politics, in the customs of the world. My uncle was at the head of all the works and in constant contact with the highest personages. When I entered his house an inheritance had just made him the owner of a large fortune and magnificent properties. My cousins ​​Jeanne and Marie were old enough to settle down, as were my aunt's nephews and nieces. The two families were very united and saw each other a lot.
   I arrived in the midst of this gay and charming youth. It was a real change of life with the Buissonnets, everything was
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new to me, but far from charming me, this new existence gave me many experiences, and seeing the world up close I learned to despise it even more deeply than I had done from afar.
   At the time when I returned, one of my aunt's nieces was engaged and there was an exchange of dinners between the two families, a worldly spirit was hovering where formerly, people were content with honorable ease. Oh! that wealth is dangerous! it's like glue, even when you don't get attached to it, just touching it defiles!
   So we often found ourselves in contact with my aunt's nephews, one of them, a true type of soldier who had only given up this career out of deference to his parents, took a liking to me. Either at home or at home, he always had to be with me. As he boldly asked for it when he wasn't there, they ended up placing him permanently with me at the table, in order to avoid a scandal. When dinner was over, he took me in his arms, willy-nilly, and made me do a waltz. The first time I resisted showing a lot of displeasure, but he didn't listen to me and I thought with my director that it was better to let me do it. He would have liked to kiss me, but he didn't dare; it wasn't until Jeanne's wedding when, after driving me around all day, for I was a maid of honor, he asked my aunt's permission to do so. O that kiss! I will always remember it, it was salt thrown on a brazier!
   In this test as in all the others I had to taste until the refinery. Undoubtedly not having suffered enough from the effort of the fire alone, people came to fan it from outside. My cousin Marie, who loved me very much believed
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make me happy by telling me about certain conversations she had had with her cousins: "If you only knew," she said to me one day, "how much H. loves you, he's crazy about you." “Ah! I didn't need anyone to tell me, I noticed enough of it! And yet this revelation was made to me several times under different aspects.
   My Mother, it seems useless to me to go into more details, you must have understood the connection that exists between this angel of Satan who had been given to me to slap me and this assault made on my loving heart...I have suffered to death... Immersed entirely in the fire, I didn't know if I was a brand from hell or if some hope of salvation still existed for me. In this uncertainty I spent moments of terrible despair. One day, having entered the church to pray, I was seized with such anguish that I wanted to cry out: I am damned! .. but my tongue stuck to my palate. Since then I couldn't pass that place without flinching.
   O my Mother! what struggles!.. I belonged to Jesus all alone, I had given him my faith, but where had he gone! he left me alone a prey to the fury of the enemy. Everything was turning against me, even my very simplicity, because instead of being horrified by anything that would have harmed my virginity, I also found the vocation of marriage beautiful, I had, so to speak, two vocations. , two attractions. Oh! what torture!
   St Thérèse said that the thought of man would have held her back on the slope of the abyss, but I felt that the heart was stronger than all the rest and that, faced with the impetuosity of its current, the noblest feelings and the finest would have been swept away. Yes my bewilderment could have gone that far, I felt it.
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   The most extravagant thoughts seized me, at times I wondered if I still had my reason. There were like two people in me, on one side I rejoiced to be held by my vow, on the other I hated my chains. And since my will didn't make me soar, despite the efforts I made it oppose the demon, I concluded that there was nothing to do with this kind of temptation and that we were defeated in advance. That's why I thought I was damned. I say I, it was not I who believed in this fatality, in this predestination to hell, it was the voice of the cursed dog barking ceaselessly around my home, it was she who whispered this to me to despair
   You may tell me, Mother, but you had Carmel? Ah! it was still one of my sufferings, believing that I was trash, I didn't dare talk about all this to my Thérèse, I would have been afraid of soiling her. A few words escaped here and there from my sisters gave them a good idea of ​​my struggles, but it was only a presentiment which they had to speak to the good Father Pichon, because to encourage me they told me one day that he had written to them that I had a very 'beautiful' soul and that I was a 'chosen vessel'. A vase of choice, was it really he who could have said that, he who received all my atrocious confidences? Note: On September 21, 1893, he wrote to Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus: “Treasure your Celine, she deserves it. I know that better than you. Our Lord leads her to the peaks by a rough and steep path” - 1893)
   I tried that this revelation did me good, I made sure to persuade myself that my soul was beautiful and that I was chosen by God since those who knew me said so. But this consolation only touched my soul and comforted it for a moment. Was it really true that Jesus still loved me, didn't he take his eyes off me in disgust?
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  As for me, I had remained faithful to him and I still loved him...
   When the storm had reached its paroxysm, without my knowing how Jesus got up, he commanded the wind and the waves and there was immediately a great calm. My little basket had been tossed about by angry waves and threatened by lightning for nearly two years.
   I read in the life of St Thomas Aquinas that an angel of the Lord came to gird his loins so that he no longer felt the revolt of the flesh. As for me, I don't know if an envoy from God rendered me this service, all I know is that since that moment, a belt of purity has replaced the sting for me. The peace was so complete and so lasting that I almost managed to forget that I had a body as it seemed to me to live only by intelligence and heart.
   Now if I want to analyze what happened during this ordeal and what was my cooperation with grace, I notice that this cooperation consisted only in passive suffering and a will whose only occupation was to disavow, it is Jesus alone who achieved victory without any merit on my part. “My strength was simply in silence and in hope” as our Holy Rule says. In silence because I made nothing appear outside of the thoughts that tortured me, no one suspected it, I even seemed indifferent, my cousin Marie, with whom I had a lot of intimacy, did not foresee it. Never. Moreover, the good Lord allowed that I never let escape a word of sympathy for the one who was looking for me, he could believe that his attentions were lavished in pure loss. Ah! I would have had only one word to say, one look! When I think of it I am seized with terror, my vocation was so close to sinking! he
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seems like it was hanging by a thread and if I had been unfaithful this thread would break!
   My silence on this ordeal was so complete that I did not even mention it to my confessor, who never heard a word of it. My Director, Father Pichon, being meticulously kept informed, that was enough to make me feel safe. Since I had nothing to reproach myself for, why would I have raised this question? It would have produced the same result as when you beat egg whites, the foam would have risen, risen, my imagination would have been excited, so I preferred to surround myself with calm. My maxim was that "everything that disturbs comes from the demon" and as my will was right I pitilessly rejected on him everything that would have wanted to sink my peace, which I have always preserved intact thanks to God.
   You will think, Mother, that you don't understand a thing. Only a moment ago I depicted to you an all-out war in which I thought I was defeated and I said just now that I have not lost my inner peace for a single moment. I confess that I do not understand anything either, and yet it is true, I could affirm it.
   Thinking about it, I simply believe that it is only natural that it should be so, because when Jesus taught us to pray He did not advise us to ask for deliverance from temptation but only the grace not to succumb to it. Well, the temptation that was reducing my whole kingdom to fire and blood was putting my soul at bay, here is war and Jesus at the same time was delivering me from evil, here is peace.
   If my strength was in silence it was also in hope. 

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