Refused entrance . . .
Refused entrance into the religious life, the watchmaker of 35 and lacemaker of 27 met and after a short engagement were married at Alençon in the Church of Notre-Dame, July 13, 1858.
They settled down on the rue du Pont-Neuf and lived for a period of ten months as brother and sister. The intervention of a confessor, however, made them change their mind, and nine children were born into this home from 1860 to 1873. Mme. Martin wrote before the birth of her last child, Thérèse: “I love children even to the point of folly and was born to have some my own. But soon the time for this will be ended since I will be 41 this month, and this is the time when one is a grandmother!”
Five daughters only were to survive, for this was the epoch in which infant mortality was still unconquered. In poor health, weakened by a breast cancer that was declared incurable only in 1876, Mme. Martin hesitantly resigned herself to entrusting her fifth child and those who followed to nurses who were more or less conscientious. For fifteen years there was a rhythm between births and deaths. The parents were to witness two little boys and two little girls depart for heaven. One of the girls was the delightful Hélène who reached the age of five. Her mother wrote of her:
“Since I lost this child, I experience an intense desire to see her once more. However, those who remain need me and for their sake I ask God to leave me a few more years on earth. I was saddened over the death of my two little boys but much more over the loss of this one, for I had begun to enjoy her company. She was so good, so affectionate, and so advanced for her years! There is not a moment of the day when I am not thinking of her” (March 27, 1870).
The war of 1870 and its aftermath — they had to lodge nine German soldiers — did not interrupt the increase in this family nor its entrance to lower middle class status through the mother’s incessant toil. She used rise early and retire late, and was now aided in her work by her husband, who had sold his watchmaking and jewelry business. The Martins moved and came to live on rue Saint-Blaise in a house that one can still visit today.
Family life held a privileged position. They were content only when together. Marie, the eldest and the father’s favorite, and Pauline, lively, mischievous, and the mother’s confidante, were exiled each year to the Visitation at Le Mans. The two boarders lived there happily under the vigilant eye of their aunt, Sister Marie-Dosithée. She reported to their mother on the girls’ scholastic progress, their conduct, and she appreciated very much their different temperaments. Each return for summer vacation set off explosions of joy, and each return to school brought on a torrent of tears!
“Poor Léonie,” the least talented, frequently ill, was the sole worry of her mother. Céline, “the intrepid,” was soon to become the inseparable companion of Thérèse.
Walks to the “Pavilion” or into the Norman countryside, trips to Semallé, visits to the family of Uncle Guérin, a pharmacist in Lisieux, train journeys to Le Mans to visit Aunt Marie-Dosithée, all these left their impressions on the Martin children, who remembered these simple joys all their lives. The seven deaths that put the family into mourning between 1859 and 1870 — three grandparents and four children — did not extinguish the affectionate ardor uniting the members.
What could have been austere and unbending in the father’s personality was compensated for by the indulgent kindness he showed for his noisy brood who could have been upset his love for silence and peace. He did not disdain enlivening the family evenings by reciting the poems of famous authors of the day, the romanticists, singing old-fashioned tunes in his beautiful voice and making miniature toys, much to the admiration of his daughters.
The mother, frequently worried over the future — she felt her strength ebbing — managed her household with the “really incredible and prodigious courage of the strong woman! Adversity does not get her down nor does prosperity make her proud,” wrote her sister on October 25, 1868. Her realism, lively candor, and loving consideration all made her the soul of the family.
There reigned in the Martin family a solid faith that saw God in all life’s events, paying Him a permanent homage: family prayers together, morning attendance at Mass, frequent reception of Holy Communion — rare in an epoch When Jansenism continued its ravages — Sunday Vespers, retreats. Their whole life revolved around the liturgical year, pilgrimages, a scrupulous regard for fasts and abstinences. Yet there was nothing stiff and bigoted in this family that was unacquainted with formality. They could be active and contemplative, feeding abandoned children, tramps, and the aged. Zélie took time out of her few short hours of nightly rest to attend to an ailing housemaid, while Louis went out of his way to help the disinherited, the epileptic, the dying. Both parents taught their children to respect the poor.
The mother loved to see her children dressed attractively, and when Sister Marie-Dosithée was concerned at hearing that Marie was enjoying herself with girls of her own age, she said: “Must they shut themselves up in a cloister? In the world we cannot live in seclusion! There is something to take and something to leave in everything the ‘holy girl’ tells us” (November 12, 1876).