Letter from Mrs. Martin to Mrs. Guérin CF 59
August 23, 1870
I have just received a letter from my brother announcing the happy birth [of Marie Guérin]. I would have liked a boy for you, you would have been happier, but if you're like me, you didn't worry about it, because I never had a moment's sorrow over it.
I'm upset now that I didn't agree to be godmother, because my little Marie‑Mélanie‑Thérèse is a wet nurse (we call her Thérèse). I kept her four days and I tried to breastfeed her, unfortunately, that wasn't enough, we had to make her drink from a bottle; on the third day she suffered from such an upset stomach that the doctor told me that there was not an hour to lose, that a nurse had to be found for her immediately.
I knew one, in Alençon, on which I had very good information, I gave it to him on Saturday evening. The next day, the child was fine, but I'm not happy to have put her in foster care, I wanted to bring her up by taking on a maid to help me. I would have succeeded all the better since the Point d'Alençon is dead and buried, I believe, for a long time.
Isidore asks me what to do for the preparations for Baptism (Mr. Martin was to be little Marie Guérin's godfather), but I have already told him that my husband is in charge of it. Let him do things as they should be, sparing nothing. Let him imagine that he is the godfather and act accordingly. We wholeheartedly approve of everything he has done.
He still asks me if I have found a godfather and a godmother. So he doesn't bother to read my letters! However, I have told you enough about Mlle X. and Commander de Lacauve! I don't know how he could forget that. As for the godfather, he is at war. Will he come back? God knows it and not me!
I am now very well recovered. I got up on Saturday at six o'clock to help the woman I had taken to look after me and the child. The maid, who had slept perfectly, didn't get up and this woman was in trouble with little Céline and little Thérèse, both of them crying. I went back to bed at nine o'clock, got up at noon, and so on all day. On Sunday, I took care of the children almost all the time. Monday, I made a shipment of laces and I did not have a minute's rest. Say again that I am not strong! Soon, I hope, I will go to see my granddaughter.
Farewell, my dear Sister, write to me as soon as possible, it gives me so much pleasure to hear from you! Isidore could well do it, but he is like my husband, very lazy to write. No matter how much I pray, it's as if I said nothing.
Marie and Pauline were very happy this morning when they received the letter which assured them that they would go to Lisieux.
I kiss you, as well as your two little girls and Isidore.
Your loving sister.
