Alice-Emilie Bougeret 1851-1906
The youth
Alice-Émilie Bougeret was born on July 25, 1851 in Torigny-sur-Vire. His father, Louis, novelty dealer, at ease in his business, had married Eugénie Pannier-Desrivières with whom he had four children in four years. Alice followed by two boys was the second girl.
We lack details about his youth in this pleasant and lively town on the banks of the Vire that the illustrious Matignon family had once chosen as their place of residence. She studied well at the Pensionnat du Bon Sauveur in Saint-Lô, which has always enjoyed an excellent reputation in the region. But while Adele, her eldest by a year, stood out for her exuberance and her enthusiasm at work and at play, Alice was distinguished by her piety and her exactness in observing the rules. One of their mistresses notes that it would be necessary to balance the dispositions of one with those of the other to give a little more life to the youngest and a little more wisdom to the eldest!
His family learned with deep sorrow of his intention to enter the Carmel of Lisieux. His father, in particular, was very saddened and could not hide his melancholy for many months. Alice was almost twenty-five when she left Torigny for the Carmel where she was admitted on April 21, 1876. She would live there for thirty years.
At Carmel
She found the house under construction. In fact, the year 1876 promised to be abundant in postulants and the Mother Prioress formed the bold project of completing the construction of the monastery in order to be able to have a sufficient number of cells. The dowry of Sister Marie-des-Anges and the legacy of a relative made it possible to start the work without too much risk and on June 8, Mr. Delatroëtte, superior of the Carmel, blessed the first stone. In November of that same year, Father Youf gave the community a ten-day retreat which delighted the sisters.
It was he who preached the taking of the habit of Alice Bougeret, who became Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix, on December 8, 1876.
On January 17, 1878, she made her profession and she received the veil on March 19. This time, it was Father Norbert Paisant, a Premonstratensian, who had also given an excellent retreat to the Carmelites in October, who preached this ceremony. He had no idea then that he would be the proofreader of Poésies de Thérèse for the first edition of Histoire d'une Ame.
Her father, to whom she remained very attached, died on July 12, 1880. Shortly before, he had had a message delivered to her by one of his brothers, with a bouquet of thoughts: “Tell Alice to always think of her father. The extreme reserve of the former schoolgirl of Saint-Lô is found in the Carmelite. She is still just as little expansive and remains in silent solitude, as if set back from fraternal life. She does not know how to express the feelings of her most loving heart except on rare occasions. So when, on February 13, 1900, the news of the death of Mrs. Guérin arrived, she said with tenderness to Sister Marie of the Eucharist: “O my little sister, how much I share in your grief! You see, your whole family, I love them as if they were mine. As in college again, Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix was perfectly regular. “We do not remember having seen her fail in silence, in the most scrupulous punctuality to go, from the first stroke of the bell, to our holy exercises”, writes Mother Agnès. His virtue was austere, his spiritual life without impulses or illuminations, his way was that of exact obedience to the advice of his director and to the good thoughts inspired in him by his pious reading.
With Therese
It was in October 1882 that she met little Thérèse Martin for the first time, who had come to visit her sister Pauline. It was during this meeting with the Carmelites that Mother Marie de Gonzague gave Thérèse the name “of the Child Jesus” (Ms A, 31 v°).
A few weeks later, Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix gave the little girl a souvenir image of the third centenary of Saint Thérèse of Avila on the back of which she wrote: “To my little Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Say three times “O Mary, conceived without sin (etc.) each day before this image. In the intentions of Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix rel. C.ind. »
This did not prevent her from being opposed to Thérèse's entry into the Carmel. She felt that at fifteen she would be too young to understand Carmelite life. Mother Agnès of Jesus wrote: “One of the sisters confessed to me later that, seeing how hard I was working to encourage her entry, she said to herself: “What imprudence to bring such a young child into Carmel! What an imagination this Sister Agnès of Jesus has! She will be disappointed!...” She confessed to me that she was very mistaken”.
In fact, the sisters who thought they were seeing a child were as if struck with respect in her presence; they admired with astonishment his dignified and modest bearing at the same time, "his profound and resolute air and, from the first days, the virtues which they saw him practicing." Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix adds: “I am very surprised by what I see because Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus is extraordinary, she shows us all. It is so true that it happens to her, the elder, to ask Thérèse for advice for her spiritual life. This one understood her sister "passionate for prayer, reading and finding all her happiness near the tabernacle". She understands that its regularity should not be that of a well-oiled clock, but that it should be the expression of the attentive love of a “faithful wife”. We find this expression in the poem “How I want to love” which she wrote in December 1 at the request of Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix. She reminds him again, the timorous one, of Jesus' welcome to Mary Magdalene and how much she needs to blossom in trust.
We find Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix, silent and awkward at the foot of the bed where Thérèse struggles against illness in July-August 1897. Every day, or almost, she spends a few minutes there between 20 p.m. and 21 p.m. These visits tire Thérèse and considerably irritate Mother Agnès. Thérèse however smiled generously at her sister who, to comfort her and perhaps because she did not know how to talk to a sick person, said to her: "You look good, you wouldn't believe you were sick." Mother Agnès mutters: "She didn't believe Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus who was very ill" and Thérèse confides: "When we suffer so much we don't like to be looked at laughing... and then we are not free, we are embarrassed... But I thought that Our Lord on the cross had been looked at with irony; so I gladly gave it to him. (DE II, 476.)
After Teresa's death
After Thérèse's death, Sister Saint-Jean de la Croix composed a prayer to invoke her every day and she always kept this prayer in one of her office books: "My little sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus , I greet you through the Heart of Jesus, and I offer you this same Heart of your divine Spouse. I thank him for all the graces he has showered on you. I beg you to associate me on earth with the love you have for him in Heaven. Pray to the seraphim who must have pierced your heart with the arrow of divine love to please do in me what he did in you... Since we are the children of the Saints, have for me, I beg you, the tenderness of a Mother; assist me until the evening of my life and bless me. This prayer is signed: “A very small nothing”.
It is permissible to compare this filial prayer of Sister Saint-Jean of the Cross to Thérèse in heaven with that which Thérèse addressed to the saints in 1896, asking them to "adopt her as a child" and to take part in their "double love", in his Manuscript B, folio 4 recto.
Last illness and death
In April 1906, she felt violent stomach pains. On Friday, June 8, she came to the Choral Office for the last time, and on July 19, after having fought to the end, she went down to the infirmary where a slow and painful agony awaited her. Frequent vomiting often deprived her of communion: “Ah! my Mother, I who had asked the Good Lord so much not to lose a single communion until my death! But she won the admiration of the sisters for her resignation, her patience, her humility and her spirit of abandonment to the will of God.
On August 23, she received Extreme Unction: “How happy I am, there is nothing left between the Good Lord and me! O my Mother, always tell me your will. When it seems difficult for me to accomplish it, I will have the grace to strengthen myself. I know your will is the Lord's will, and I want to die in the Lord's will. It was in these dispositions that she fell asleep peacefully on September 3 at six o'clock in the morning. She was 55 years old. She was buried on September 5.
P. Gires
