Letter from Mrs. Martin CF 110
To his daughters, Marie and Pauline
November 1, 1873.
My dear little girls,
I received your letters last Wednesday, I awaited them with anxiety. I am very happy that Marie has gotten used to it again and that she has such good intentions to do well. I hope you will have received communion today, All Saints' Day, and that you will do so again tomorrow, All Souls' Day.
There was a beautiful ceremony here for the feast. It was the Bishop of Autun who officiated. We will have every evening, for nine days, a solemn Salute of the Most Blessed Sacrament, for France.
Your wave and your aunt from Lisieux wrote to me this week. Your uncle speaks of an enormous red comet which is advancing towards us and which is already visible at four o'clock in the morning. It is reported in the newspapers and soon we will see it. In the meantime, we must serve God well, my dear little girls, and try to deserve to be one day among the number of saints whose feast we are celebrating today.
I haven't seen little Thérèse since the day we went to Semallé together. I am quite deprived of it; I'll have to make up my mind to go there, but it's costing me a lot, it's so far! Luckily she doesn't have long to stay there.
Your father went to do the Nocturnal Adoration last night (Assiduous member of the Nocturnal Adoration, Mr. Martin endeavored, with the help of Mr. Guérin, to organize this Work), although he found himself very tired when he left us at nine o'clock in the evening.
While all the adorers were before the Blessed Sacrament, to make the usual prayers, M. Tessier went to light the stove in the room situated above the sacristy, and where these gentlemen rest in turn. The prayers said, they went to the sacristy to draw the numbers of each person's hours of adoration.
As this takes some time, your father told M. de Morel to shoot for him, for he was very tired. So he went upstairs to rest a bit, but when he got to the room, he smelled a suffocating smoke, which prevented him from going any further. He shouted: Fire! All left their lottery and rushed into the apartment: there were two burning beds. We hastened to throw the mattresses out of the windows; Finally, we succeeded in extinguishing the fire.
If your father hadn't come up so soon, we couldn't have mastered the fire. There were about thirty beds there, all of them in woodwork. The sacristy would have been burned and perhaps the fire would have reached the church. Also, these gentlemen considered this as providential, and, at every hour, each adorer recited a Pater and an Ave, to thank the good God for this preservation.
Mr. Tessier hadn't noticed that two beds were touching the stove and that's how the fire started.
I am sending you a letter(?) from Céline; she begins to write and draws sticks, we will soon make a scholar! It was the maid who made him write his letter: I wanted to read it, but I couldn't decipher those hieroglyphs!
The other day, this poor little girl had a terrible toothache. Louise gave her, to distract her, Marie's beautiful porcelain household, but she suffered so much that she couldn't enjoy herself. The toy remained against the windows of the garden when, in the afternoon, while running, she kicked it and everything overturned. Léonie gave a cry and the little one was seized with such fear that she ran away I don't know where.
I picked up the housekeeping and checked to see if there was anything broken; fortunately, there was no harm. Then, I started looking for Céline, since she was not coming back.
I had seen her go towards the hangar; I'm going, nothing... So I started to worry and I called... No answer! Finally, I go back to the garden, for the third time, I look again under the shed and I see her, huddled between two bourrées, in such a small corner, that I wondered how she could have managed to get in there: there had just the passage of a cat! We had a hard time getting her out, I assure you she didn't make a sound!
My dear little girls, I must go to Vespers to pray for the intention of our dear deceased parents. There will come a day when you will go there for me, but I must take care not to need your prayers too much. I want to become a saint, it won't be easy, there is plenty to stake and the wood is hard as a stone. It would have been better to do it earlier, while it was less difficult, but after all "better late than never." »
I hope Marie is going to be very reasonable, and then, my children, get used to speaking well; I would really be too sorry if you let yourself go on this point, as during the last holidays, after having spent so many years in boarding school. I also hope that Mary will be a child of the Blessed Virgin this year, it is absolutely necessary, but above all, that she strives to deserve this beautiful title.
Your father asks me to give you a thousand regards, and I embrace you as I love you.
