Bathilde-Virginie Bertin 1828-1904
Childhood and Youth
Bathilde-Virginie Bertin was born on September 10, 1828 in Sables-d'Olonne, the thirteenth in a family of fourteen children, including eight boys and six girls. His father was a cabotage ship's captain and his maternal grandfather, Vincent Louineau, an ocean-going captain and harbor master. It is therefore a family of sailors from Vendée who are fearless since during the Revolution, their house takes in many hunted priests who find a safe shelter there. Later\ in 1832, Bathilde was four years old, the famous duchess of Berry who tried to raise the Vendée against Louis-Philippe, hides at her parents.
In 1835, she was 7 years old, when she went to board with the nuns of Chavagnes, who were also called the “Ursulines of Jesus”. She remained there until the age of twenty and then thought herself called to religious life. His mother, a widow for five years, does not categorically oppose it but asks him to spend an entire year in the middle of the world.
The experiment was conclusive and on October 2, 1850, she married Germain-Louis Bérès, a pastry chef in Bordeaux. From this union, three children are born, a boy and a girl who die the very day of their birth and finally a little Elisabeth who will live six years before being carried away by an epidemic. The time of the test is not back for the young woman whose husband dies around 1863.
years of waiting
Widowed, she returned to the family home in Les Sables-d'Olonne. Her youthful desires for religious life seem to have left her long ago. In her solitude, however, she turns to God with fervor and little by little, helped by Father Hippolyte Boutin; the thought of devoting herself totally to God and no longer living for him alone imposed itself on her mind. She knocks on the door of Carmel! from Poitiers, but it was complete and she was directed to Lisieux where she was admitted on January 4, 1879 by Mother Marie de Gonzague. She is 51 years old.
At Carmel
It is the holy foundress of Carmel, Mother Geneviève de Sainte-Thérèse who exercises the office of Novice Mistress. The beginnings were difficult, her age, her habits of independence, the family responsibilities which weighed on her, made her less malleable.
“Forgive me, she often said, after certain vivacities of character, I am not from Vendée for nothing! But if my head is warm, my heart is even warmer”; and she added with a smile full of delicacy: “Ah! poor sister Emmanuel! you have only to mourn this time past when you commanded all the servants of your brother-in-law, this time when no one acted without your advice. Now it's all over, here I am forever reduced to obeying... Get into the idea that you'll stay here as your last in the Community! »
She took the habit for the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin on September 8, 1879; his confessor, Abbé Boutin, vicar of Les Sables, preached the ceremony; she made her profession on October 7, 1880 and Abbé Niquet, parish priest of Villers, gave the sermon for her taking the veil on the following October 15.
In that same year, the second triennium of Mother Marie de Gonzague came to an end, but times were very uncertain and the community asked for the extension of her priorate for two years. Indeed, the nascent Third Republic then campaigned against the Religious Orders, the expulsions began, upsetting Catholic opinion. In the Carmel, we fear the worst: expulsion and secularization. Already the civilian clothes are ready and many Lexovian friends have offered hospitality to the Carmelites, in case of need. Affliction reigns in the Carmel, particularly for poor Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph (1 ) who is then in the throes of the greatest suffering caused by cancer and who fears not being able to join her sister who is 200 kilometers away if the gendarmes present at the gates of Carmel. She was to die on August 16 of that same year. And, finally, the Carmelites were not expelled.
It was in this atmosphere that the "Vendean widow" gradually learned to become a Carmelite. Quickly, she built up the Community through her dedication to the various offices entrusted to her. Her spirit of poverty, her forgetfulness of herself, her eagerness to make herself useful, the gratitude she shows for the most humble services, win her all sympathy.
In May 1893, Sister Marie des Anges with her usual humor paints the following portrait of her: “Sister Emmanuel 65 years old. Footwear Office. Vendée widow. Having the ardor of the Vendeans, a heart of 15 years. Teaser of our recreations, knowing perfectly how to tell, to amuse his sisters... perpetual help from each one when it is a question of the smallest service. »
With Therese
We must admit that we know very little of his relations with Saint Thérèse. It is reasonable to think that in October 1882, at the first meeting in the parlor, the maternal gaze of Sister Marie-Emmanuel, who had lost her 6-year-old little Elisabeth, was surely one of the most attentive to the 9-year-old little girl. , Thérèse Martin, whom she saw for the first time.
On the whole, we have to believe that she appreciated Thérèse at her fair value for daring to say to Sister Geneviève: “This child has such maturity and so much virtue that I would want her prioress if she were not 22 years old. »
Another testimony from Sister Geneviève is interesting: "In Carmel, she worried about everything, so she served as an example for Thérèse who said to us: See how the little things are meritorious since this sister who has had so many great ones which she valiantly supported, falls exhausted under the small ones. »
We also know that Thérèse had made this promise to Sister Marie-Emmanuel: “At the moment of your death, I will come accompanied by your three little angels, and together we will take your soul to heaven. »
Illness and death
Years add to years. After having suffered from sciatic pain, she was attacked in May 1904 by an organic affection of the stomach which soon put her down, by the frequency of vomiting; at any end.
On June 14, she received Holy Viaticum and the Sacrament of the Sick. She suffers a lot: “How difficult it is to die! she repeats. How hard! Pray for me, have mercy on me! Where is the good Jesus? So the journey from heaven to earth is very long? How long it takes to come! There is a mystery there. »
After a final week of violent suffering borne calmly, she died on June 21, the feast day of Saint Louis de Gonzague.
P. Gires
