the Carmel

Critical editions - 1956 and after

The beginning of critical editions
with Father François de Sainte-Marie

francois film-lt

The story of The Story of a Soul of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (published in 1898) posed very difficult questions concerning the edition of texts, giving rise for more than a hundred years to discussions, even controversies that have not yet completely appeased today.
There is no question here of recounting this story in detail. The story has been told many times – see among others my book on the subject: The Story of a Soul by Thérèse of Lisieux, Deer, 2000.

It is a matter of focusing our attention on the work and personality of Fr. François de Sainte-Marie, Carmelite from the Province of Pans (1910-1961), to whom it fell, out of obedience, to publish the autograph notebooks of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus in their originality, that is to say finally giving the exact text of a notebook that she wrote in 1895: the Manuscript A, of various letters of September 1896: the Manuscript B; and an unfinished notebook (due to illness) from the summer of 1897: the Manuscript C.

Since 1897 ...

When Mother Marie de Gonzague, Prioress, Mother Agnès of Jesus and Sister Geneviève come together to publish the obituary circular of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face, who died of tuberculosis on Thursday September 30, 1897, they produced a coherent book. from these notebooks and letters described above.
They unify the addressee (while there were three), add chapters, correct spelling errors, write a few “welds” between the texts for clarity, skip a few passages, correct the style and give a title.
They never suspect the fabulous destiny that will make this book printed in 2000 copies at the author's expense (paid for by uncle Isidore Guérin), a world best-seller translated into some 60 languages. The Story of a Soul will continue its dazzling career until 1953.

Very early, in the years 1925-30, after the canonization of Sister Thérèse (17/5/1925), a few voices were heard so that we could know the original texts. Obviously, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the time had worked on the authentic texts.
It will be necessary to wait for the post-war period (39-45) so that the question of the publication of these texts can be envisaged.
To summarize the complex negotiations, let us say that the work of Father André Combes (from 1946), the requests of Father Marie-Eugène of the Child-Jésus and of various Carmelites, repeated requests from friends of Thérèse, resulted in to convince the Carmelites of Lisieux to deliver the authentic texts.
Informed, Pope Pius XII asked for this publication but, out of respect for Mother Agnès of Jesus, very old, he postponed the date, asking to wait for her death. This will take place on July 28, 1951. Her sister Céline fully agrees with the publication project.

It was Fr. Gabriel de Sainte Madeleine, a Carmelite in Rome, who received the task. But hardly had he started it than he died on March 15, 1953. Fr. Philippe de la Trinité, Carmelite, Rector of the International College of Rome (Teresianum), asked to succeed him, refused because he already said to himself " too overloaded. It was then that Fr. Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus suggested to the Carmelites the name of Fr. François de Sainte-Marie, from the Province of Paris. Mother Françoise-Thérèse, prioress of the Carmel of Lisieux, wrote to him to make this request.

He accepted it with emotion in June 1953. On June 9, a letter from Rome entrusted him with this very difficult task.
So here he is at work to make this long-awaited edition. A testimony from the Carmel of Lisieux shows with what emotion he undertakes this task:
“All this high-class activity, so human and so supernatural, peaceful and beneficent, begins with a gesture that has not been forgotten. In the spring of 1953, when Father François was put in charge of editing the Manuscripts, Sister Geneviève brought to the parlor the still secret notebooks that the facsimile revealed. The question was examined in all its aspects. Through the gates, Father François never took his eyes off the notebooks. When at last they were passed to him, he took them cautiously, bowed, and kissed them piously.
The work will last three years (June 1953 - May 1956) while the prioress had written to him that he could well occupy her for a week!

Form a team

His first initiative is to compose a team. Obviously, the center is the Carmel of Lisieux: the prioress Mother Françoise-Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (1902 - 1979), and Sister Marie-Emmanuel de Saint-Joseph (1886-1961) whose working power and competence will be decisive. Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face (Céline Martin) will follow the progress of the work.
Sister Dominique and Sister Geneviève, contemplative Dominicans from the monastery of Chatenay-Malabry will be consulted as well as Sister Anne of Jesus, from the Carmel of Boulogne-sur-Seine.
Father Marie-Eugène will agree to second two professors from the Institute Notre-Dame de Vie, Anne Lagarrigue and Monique Duriez, to collaborate. They will reside in the Carmel of Nogent-sur-Marne.

The writer Julien Green's sister, Anne, will do very meticulous work on the original texts.
Finally, three renowned handwriting experts will be consulted to help decipher the texts because the originals have undergone scrapings and modifications and the school notebooks and the letters are proving to be very fragile.
If Fr. François de Sainte-Marie took so many precautions, it was because he wanted to settle this thorny issue once and for all: that is to say, to give everyone an unassailable edition.
The solution - very costly at the time - was to produce a phototype edition which would allow readers to have in hand texts reproducing the originals as closely as possible.
So he asked a professional photographer to photograph the manuscripts page by page.
The covers of the two notebooks were reproduced almost identically as well as the color of the pages to the point that the Carmelites, as a result, thought they had the originals in their hands, three years later, in July 1956.

But this magnificent work of reproduction (due to the Imprimerie Draeger Frères) was accompanied by a formidable work: introduction, notes, additional texts, etc.
The Box of Autobiographical Manuscripts published in 1956 — and now out of print — included three volumes:

  • Volume I: Introduction
  • Volume II: Notes and Tables
  • Volume III: Table of quotations
  • That is a total of 522 pages.

Inventory the texts of Thérèse

With the Carmelites, Fr. François de Sainte-Marie came up against a mass of archives. He had the perspicacity and the intelligence to put things in order and to arrive at results which remain generally valid sixty years later.
To realize this, it is necessary to consult, in his Volume I (Introduction), the pages entitled "Thérèse texts" (p. 5-29) where the autographs are listed and classified (autobiographical manuscripts, letters and notes, poems, pious recreations, prayers, minor texts, including school notebooks).
Then, he listed the “Words of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus known by testimonies” (Novissima Verba, green notebooks, yellow notebook), the Tips and Souvenirs.
The chapter “General Documentation” classifies the canonical documentation (the Trials, the canonical books of the Carmel of Lisieux), the extracanonical documentation (Manuscripts, Family correspondence, various Writings) and finally the Printed matter (obituaries of the Carmelites).
This nomenclature, which occupies 35 pages, remains the basis of any fundamental study concerning the writings and words of the saint of Lisieux. Of course, we must add the "Notes and Tables" of Volume II (75 pages) which accompany the texts of the Autobiographical Manuscripts and provide a wealth of unpublished information.

Pages 83-127 deliver the graphological expertise of M. Trillat and M. Michaud concerning the writings of Manuscripts A, B, and C and a thematic analysis of their content.
Very precise tables, a chronology complete the set, allowing an easy consultation of these riches. Finally, Volume 3 gives a table of citations of 234 pages.

A leap forward for all Theresians

The result of these three years of intensive work is very impressive. The knowledge of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux in the summer of 1956 made a prodigious, decisive leap. When this box was released, the reception was unanimous. Those who had asked that finally a scientific knowledge of Thérèse be possible are fulfilled beyond all expectation.
The reports of the press (newspapers, reviews) are only praise. Let us only remember these lines of Fr. Ch. A. Bernard sj: "The ardent expectation of the publication of the authentic text of the Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus is finally magnificently fulfilled by the edition entrusted to the care of the Fr. Francis of Sainte Marie. [...] Everyone will easily admit, it seems to me, that the work presented is definitive. We can hardly take it back: all the resources of scientific processes have been used to restore the authentic text. (in Revue d'Ascétique et de Mystique. 1957, p. 95-96.)
"An event in the history of Christian spirituality", headlined Georges Huber in Le Devoir (27/1/1957).
For anecdotal purposes, note that Paris-Match, which reported on this event on December 29, 1956, printed 1 copies.

Francois deStMarie PAPE lt

Obviously, Fr. François de Sainte Marie will present his work to Pope Pius XII who had requested it. A letter from Msgr. A. Dell' Acqua, Substitute, will tell the Carmelite Father of the Pope's satisfaction. Father Anastasius of the Most Holy Rosary, Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites, will be equally laudatory (24/8/1957) after the publication of the typographical edition of the Autobiographical Manuscripts in one volume, accessible to a wide public, edited by the Lisieux Central Office (August 1957).

Looking back sixty years, the reader can only admire the result of such an undertaking. And the way in which it was accomplished: clarity of style, finesse of analysis, certainty of judgement, perfection of impression.

When ten years later, after the death of the author, a new team will be formed to carry out the continuation of his work, it will only have to deepen, refine, complete the fundamental orientations of Fr. François de Sainte -Married.
This team, first directed by the Carmelite Father Bernard Delalande (1918 - 1997) was made up of Sister Cécile of the Carmelite Immaculate of Lisieux, of Dominican Sister Geneviève, of Carmelite Sister Anne in Boulogne (both belonged to the primitive), Jacques and Jeannette Longchampt and myself. Fr. Bernard Bro, op, ensured the publication by Éditions du Cerf-DDB.

This culminated in the Nouvelle Édition du Centenaire (Cerf-DDB, 1992) in eight volumes, crowned in its first edition (Édition du Centenaire) by the Académie Française in 1989 (Prix Cardinal Grente). All Thérèse's friends will be able to access it with the complete works by Thérèse of Lisieux collected in a single volume the same year.

Why not photos too?

Fr. François de Sainte-Marie did not intend to stop on such a good path. With the agreement of the Carmel, he will undertake the critical edition of all the writings and words of the Saint.
He began by editing the Latest Interviews (1897) of which we only knew the Novissima Verba, a small 224-page book published in 1927.
Death prevailed before completing another capital edition: Face of Therese of Lisieux in two volumes: a volume of 47 beautifully presented photographs of Thérèse and a volume of introduction and notes, published by the Central Office of Lisieux in 1961.
This time again, it was a question of restoring the iconographic truth of Thérèse because many of her photos had been retouched, according to a custom of the time.
The introduction of Father François relating the history of photography - especially portraits - allows a more accurate appreciation of the processes of an era which had other criteria of historical truth than ours. Here again, we can appreciate the richness of his information and the finesse of his analyses.

The result was worthy of the work carried out with scientific rigor: the world finally discovered the true face of the most famous saint in the world. During the eighteen years that I spent in Lisieux, I was able to observe, many times, the astonishing impact that Thérèse's photos can have. I could cite many cases of conversions aroused by the contemplation of these photos, in France and elsewhere. 

By having at their disposal the box of Autobiographical manuscriptss and the Face of Therese of Lisieux, the innumerable friends of the Saint - including the researchers - were overjoyed. A new era of knowledge of “the greatest saint of modern times” (Saint Pius X) was finally dawning. And the path that was to lead to the complete edition of Thérèse's writings in 1992 was marked out and traced.
Let's not forget that a sober film, of great beauty, allowed crowds to discover this restored Thérèse: directed by Philippe Agostini, with a text by André Lesort, The true face of Thérèse of Lisieux remains a document of modest austerity, of great depth. There was the touch of Father François, ecclesiastical adviser.

Epilogue

On February 1, 1956, the Carmelite Father wrote to the Carmel of Lisieux: “As for me, after a bit of fatigue, I am leaving. My death will be for after the publication. A presentiment?... On August 30, 1961, on a hot afternoon, he drowned in the Loire at Ingrandes. He had just given a lecture to the Carmelites of Angers on the death of the Christian, which ended with these words:
“It will be absolutely the same for us, if we have lived in the radiance of the cross of Christ. It is to her that we will turn at the last moment. This mystery of the Cross is the very mystery of the Love which gives itself through death. And it is the mystery that rules our lives. »


Guy GAUCHER, ocd Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Bayeux and Lisieux