Jeanne de Chaumontel 1845 1924
Mistress of the Novices of Thérèse
Count Amédée de Chaumontel, lieutenant in the 1er Regiment of the Royal Guard, Knight of Saint Louis (1830), soon to be Knight of the Legion of Honor (1858) and his wife, Élisabeth Gaultier de Saint-Basile, live in the Château de Meauty in Montpinçon in Calvados. They already had three daughters when a little Jeanne-Julia was born on February 24, 1845. The baby is greeted coldly by the father who was hoping for a boy. Rest assured, there will come two some time later! The family soon left Montpinçon to settle in the Château de Beuville, at the gates of Caen. Jeanne was then nine years old and took private lessons from her brother André's tutor. She is a lively, turbulent and playful child, sometimes nervous she throws tantrums to the point that her brothers and sisters who call her familiarly "Mimi" also nickname her "Lady Storm". However at twelve years old, her character changes, she becomes worried and goes through a long crisis of scruples for seven years. Thus, on the very evening of her communion, she was overcome by such great sadness that she imagined having made a bad first communion and had to wait for the passage of a monk so that she could find relative peace.
She is very attached to her family to the point that it will sometimes be necessary, even at the end of her long life, to take her up on this point as she worries about her family. In 1866, she decided to enter the Carmel of Lisieux despite the pain she felt at the idea of leaving her family. In a prayer to Mary that she formulated at that time, she exclaimed: "If you want me to leave my people, take me by the shoulders and push me to Carmel because of myself I will never have the courage to say the smallest word or to take the slightest step forward.” Her family nevertheless accepted her vocation, her mother had even given her to God before she was born, "I didn't think he would take me at my word!" she specifies.
Is it the fear of a too difficult separation, Jeanne leaves on October 29, 1866 with Marie, her eldest, under the pretext of making a retreat at the convent and... can't believe it. Her parents were very dissatisfied to see her proceed in this way and refrained from attending her taking of the habit on March 19, 1867.
Thus Jeanne de Chaumontel becomes Sister Marie of the Angels and the silence of Carmel closes in on her. We know that she was sub-prioress twice from 1883 to 1886 and from 1893 to 1899 and in charge of the novitiate from October 1886 to February 1893 (thus Thérèse will be under her responsibility for more than four years before replacing her) and from 1897 to 1909. Physically her extreme thinness suggests that her health is fragile but it is only at the end of her life that she will be affected by many ailments, she becomes deaf, the infirmities deform her body more and more stooped and painful. She laughs about it herself: "I'm more into hiding than showing." She is famous for her forgetfulness, so her sisters see her, one day of procession, brandishing her cane with dignity and devotion instead of her candle.
Humble, she did the most menial tasks whereas, in her family, she had been used to being served. Courageous, her composure is put to the test when she puts out the beginnings of a fire with her hands by burning herself cruelly or when she multiplies initiatives to save what can be saved, including the Blessed Sacrament, during of the great flood of 1875. Thérèse was able to say of her that she was “a true saint, the consummate type of the first Carmelites”.
But his mind remains uneasy. At the time of pronouncing her first vows she is seized with anguish to the point of remaining a long time without being able to open her mouth. Certainly, she will open up to trust and abandonment, but her soul will be anguished until the end. She is afraid of death and her former first novice, Sister Marie du Sacré-Coeur tries to reassure her a little. In fact, she died quietly on November 24, 1924, a few months before Thérèse's canonization.
Sister Marie des Anges knew Thérèse very early, because she accompanies Sister Agnès to the parlor when the Martin family comes to visit the Carmel and she says that she was struck, from that time, by this “child of blessing”. Thérèse is only nine years old. "There was exhaled from this angel, writes Sister Marie des Anges, an atmosphere of calm, silence, gentleness, purity which made me contemplate her with true respect." Then Sister Marie des Anges received Thérèse in the novitiate: "I must affirm that throughout her novitiate I did not have to notice any imperfection in this dear child." Conscious of her responsibility, the mistress of the novitiate took advantage of being in the linen room, alone with Thérèse, to give her endless spiritual remarks. Thérèse, for her part, much prefers silence, which alone speaks well of God, but she put up with this pious chatter for two years until, finally, Sister Marie des Anges understood her expectation: "There was perhaps I had been here for two years, confided Thérèse in 1897, when the Good Lord put an end to my ordeal, and I was able to open my soul to Sister Marie des Anges who, since then, consoled me a lot. For her part, Sister Marie des Anges, who had learned the lesson well, said: "The strength of the Servant of God was in silence... She worked there, she prayed there, she suffered there, and, in the trials of her life, like Our Lord in his Passion she was silent. Didn't he teach him that a soul without silence is a city without defense and that "He who keeps silence keeps his soul." We know from Thérèse the incident of the vase that Sister Marie des Anges severely reproached her for having broken. Therese, innocent, accepted the blame without a word. But the two women strongly appreciate each other despite an age difference of twenty-eight years. The eldest encourages her novice and consoles her. Thérèse writes about this: “One day, I surprised our Mistress by saying to her: “I suffer a lot but I feel that I can suffer even more.” Sister Marie des Anges also receives a lot from Thérèse. She feels inclined to tell him about her sorrows and Thérèse knows how to give him peace. Mother Agnès would write: “They were two saints who mutually encouraged each other to valiantly support the battles of the Lord. »
It was only after Thérèse's death that Sister Marie des Anges learned of the Story of a Soul. “I did not know that she had written her life and when it was read in the refectory I was struck with astonishment and admiration. Some time later, on my long retirement, I took up this admirable book. At the end of one of my prayers I left him saying to myself: “How marvelous! » And remained on this word I had the inspiration following the example of Sister Thérèse to draw something from the Holy Gospel and here are the words on which my eyes fell: wonderful? But it is Jesus the son of Joseph. And her sisters are there. among us! »
Among the texts addressed by Sister Marie des Anges to Mother Agnès, the oldest that has been preserved dates from January 21, 1912, it is a poem.
Behold, today my darling Therese Whose first steps I followed here, Now comes to watch over the last days of my life The child in turn carries the Mother in her arms!
It is she who shelters me and hides me under her wing Takes me in and protects me every hour of the day And I hear her say to me: “Now with zeal Together let us work to make Love loved”
In 1918 (June 12), she wrote “Thérèse instructs me and enlightens me”; on May 8, 1919, this interesting sentence when one knows her restless temperament: “Oh, may Thérèse expand me for confidence, love and holy abandonment”; in 1: “The small route delights me; for nine days I am going to take her for my evening prayer to get Thérèse to make me enter completely into her "little way", so that at death Jesus will be my elevator and that I will fly straight with Him and with our dear angel.”
Thus the disciple had become the patient pedagogue of her old educator who would still say: “I see myself, more and more, a soul devoid of everything! May this indigence attract me to the merciful gaze of Jesus, as it has always been for me! May this mercy, with the help of my Thérèse, cover me at the hour of death and open Heaven to me!” and this phrase, so Teresian, written to Mother Agnès at the end of her life: “I would like to be even more poor and miserable so that Jesus could show himself even more merciful!”
P. Gires
