Fr. Raymond Zambelli

former Rector of the Basilica, Lisieux

now (2003) Rector of Lourdes.

1870, a year of Trials and Sorrows

As 1870 began, the signs in France were sombre. The Empire, worn out by misfortune, delusion and failure, had become ?Liberal? and had lost authority without gaining popularity. Napoleon III, sapped by illness and more irresolute than ever, was now merely the victim of his illusions. Catholics were looking anxiously in the direction of the Alps, where those who had inherited the political ideas of Cavour dreamt of building a united Italy on the ruins of the Papal States. Far-seeing patriotic Frenchmen were looking questioningly at the Rhine frontier beyond which Prussia, under the hand of Bismark, the Iron Chancellor, was seething like an arsenal about to explode. The most perceptive observers of society were fearful to see the development around Paris of a working-class ready to fight, doomed to destitution, immorality and godlessness and ready meat for the preachers of revolution. In the past, people had said, ?France is bored.? Now they were saying, ?France is worried.?

Madame Martin left to the men the task of dealing with these disturbing problems. As for herself, she was absorbed in her own task, that most beautiful of tasks, that of ?mother of the living?; she was thrilled to be expecting again.

?I rejoice,? she writes to her sister-in-law, ?at the thought that next August we shall each have a little boy, or at least so I hope. But, girl or boy, we must take with gratitude whatever the good Lord gives us, for He knows better than we do what we need. The thing that distresses me is to contemplate putting my child out to wet-nurse again, one has so much difficulty in finding good ones! I would also like to have the wet-nurse at home, but it is not possible, I already have too many in the house. Still, I think that the good Lord will help me; He knows that it is not laziness that stops me feeding my children, for I do not fear the effort.?¹

The birth and death of Marie Mélanie Thérèse

The Franco-Prussian War had broken out and Marie Mélanie Thérèse was born on 16^th August 1870, when battle was at its height. The very next day, Cousin Henry de Lacauve, who was to be her godfather, was wounded at the battle of St. Privat. He was never to see his goddaughter and expresses his sadness at this in a touching letter addressed to the man whom he calls ?my good brother Louis.?

The child?s mother, more courageous than ever at this eighth birth, tried in vain to feed her baby herself. At least, in order to be able to watch over her treasure more closely, she wanted to find a wet-nurse who lived in Alencon. After prolonged searching, she turned to a woman living in Rue de la Barre. Alas! This woman shamefully betrayed Zélie?s trust by letting the little one waste away. She had to be brought back home and in the middle of the night, Monsieur Martin went to Héloup, in search of another nurse. She was ill and confined to bed.

The poor mother, who recounts all these events and who watched her Thérèse die in her arms after two and a half hours of agony, describes the death which took place on 6^th October 1870; ?You cannot imagine what she suffered! I am desolate; I loved this child so much. At each new death it always seems to me that I love the child that I am losing more than the others. This one was as pretty as a posy and then it was only I who took care of her. Oh, I would like to die too! I have been totally exhausted for two days now; I have eaten more or less nothing and I was up all night in mortal anguish.?

Zélie again pours out her feelings in a letter to her brother; ?She was such a pretty little girl. She had eyes like you never see in babies of that age and such fine features!? And to think that someone starved her to death for me! Isn?t it dreadful? You don?t know how I was looking forward to bringing up this little one myself! I was as happy to have her as though it was my first child. Still, it is all over, nothing can be done about it any more; the best thing is for me to resign myself to it. The child is happy and that consoles me.?

Her maternal instinct makes her cling to those who remained, so she continues delightfully, ?Little Céline is very affectionate; she is beginning to talk nicely. Every day I was lamenting over the loss of my little Thérèse and saying, ?My poor little girl!? All of a sudden, Céline came clinging behind me, thinking that I was speaking about her. She looks everywhere for her little sister and asks for her ?shishter.?

People who did not know Madame Martin might have thought her unfeeling. At times of great distress she could not cry. She controlled her grief so well that she went about her usual occupations as though there was nothing wrong. Only those close to her were aware that inside her heart was breaking. Whenever the family went in future to the public gardens called the ?Promenades,? they avoided walking past Rue de la Barre. The very sight and sound of which reminded Zélie of the guilty nurse and reopened all her wounds so that the road became hateful to her.

?We shall meet them again in Heaven?

Those who were close to Madame Martin were concerned at this stream of troubles, which threatened to destroy her already uncertain health. Her sister, the holy Sister Dosithée, sent her sister a few comforting quotations she had gathered in the course of her reading.

?I want to write you something that will do you some good. Venerable Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, a Carmelite of Beaune, says that ?the Holy Innocents have great power in Heaven and that children who die after Baptism form their court.? Father Faber states, ?They form a separate part of the Catholic Church, in which God is continually loved and served in a wonderful manner which we cannot know, but which is very close to the realm of the Angels.? In another place he also says, ?Some children belong to God alone. (These are the ones that He takes from this world.) In Heaven they love their mother more than the other children do. Their mothers are fortunate to have children in Heaven which we call the spring flowers of God.??

?So, my dear sister, be brave; your dear little children are today up on high with all the Saints and they surround the throne of the Lamb. They are full of joy that they have left the world before knowing its dangers.?

Madame Martin fully shared these lofty thoughts. One day she writes, ?Four of my children are already in their places and the others, yes the others will also go to this Celestial Kingdom, bearing greater merits because they will have battled for longer.

Zélie expresses her deepest thoughts on this subject in another letter to her sister-in-law. Madame Guérin had just given birth to a son who died straight away. In order to console the grieving mother, Madame Martin finds words of incomparable tenderness and beauty.

?I am deeply afflicted at the misfortune by which you have recently been stricken.