I didn’t finish the sentence!”24 These incidents emphasize Zélie’s feminine character, Louis’s flexibility, and above all their good mutual understanding.
To understand the life of the Martin couple we need to know about their relatives and their surroundings. Zélie’s closest relatives were her brother and sister. Although Louis rarely visited Sister Marie-Dosithée because she lived too far away, he was aware of her influence on his wife. Linked by blood and a deep friendship, the two women were also linked by a genuine spiritual sisterhood: “If you saw the letter I wrote to my sister in Le Mans, you would be jealous because it is five pages long,” she wrote teasingly to Isidore. “But I tell her things I do not tell you. She and I share together about the mysterious, angelic world, but I have to talk to you about earthly things.”25
What a shame that those letters weren’t preserved. They’ve disappeared, along with the letters to her daughters to prepare them for their first Communion that were so admired by the Visitation sisters. The letters that we have from Zélie only show her with a needle and a baby in each arm. But even this depiction reveals her deep interior life, and the major role her sister had on her path. As a confidant to her sorrows as well as joys, Sister Marie-Dosithée knew how to help Zélie discover God’s hand, as we shall see. Zélie never undertook any step in her affairs without entrusting it to the prayer of “the saint of Le Mans,”26 as she called her. This was especially true for family affairs.
As for Isidore, he was always the little brother they coddled. Zélie, together with Sister Marie-Dosithée, played a somewhat maternal role in his life. From Le Mans to Alençon, pious advice rained down on Isidore’s head. He pretended to mock it, but he appreciated it and ended up following it. In 1866, Isidore married Céline Fournet, a spouse completely along the lines prescribed by his sisters—good, pious, simple, and hardworking. The people in Thérèse’s circle said little about this quiet woman, but she was well loved by all the Martins. In 1875, Zélie wrote: “I have a sister-in-law who is incomparably good and sweet. Marie says she can find no faults in her, and I cannot either…. I assure you I love her like a sister, and she seems to feel the same way about me. She demonstrates an almost maternal attitude to my children and has given them as much attention as possible.”27 Isidore bought his father-in-law’s pharmacy in Lisieux and committed himself more and more to the life of the local church and also supported the Catholic newspaper in Lisieux.
Once Isidore was established in Lisieux, his relationship with Zélie was on a more equal footing. “I have known you for a long time,” she wrote to him, “and I know you love me and have a good heart. If I needed you, I am sure you would not let me down. Our friendship is sincere; it does not consist in pretty words, that is true, but it is no less solid and is built on stone. Neither time, nor any person, nor even death will ever destroy it.”28 All the letters she sent him showed this same affection.
Zélie shared in all her brother’s sentiments: When he lost a child she cried as though she had lost one of her own. She often wanted to spend a few days at her brother’s home in Lisieux—for her, and then for her children, going there was always a holiday. Isidore was also the medical adviser for the family, although he wasn’t always happy about that. The family submitted all minor health problems to him for his judgment, and then heeded it in a trusting manner.
The Martins, for their part, gave whatever help they could to the Guérin family: advice, monetary loans, and clients sent his way. The distance between the families was difficult to overcome, especially because each family was working and had babies, but the bond between them was nourished by frequent mail and always remained strong. The letters from Lisieux were read, reread, and passed around the family. And Zélie at times didn’t hesitate to get up at 4:30 a.m. to answer them. This bond was so strong for Zélie that in 1875 she wrote about Isidore and his family: “If I did not have a home and children here, I would live only for them, and I would give them all the money I earned. But since I cannot do that, God will provide.”29
Louis and Zélie’s life together evolved in the heart of the parish and the different Catholic circles where they visited with their few but close friends. The Romet, Maudelonde, Boul, and Leriche families and Mrs. Leconte regularly visited them on Rue du Pont-Neuf and, after 1871, at 34 Rue Saint-Blaise. Their second home—a small, charming, middle-class house facing the prefecture that can still be visited today—would be Thérèse’s first home and Zélie’s last. Zélie commented: “We are wonderfully settled in here. My husband has set up everything in a way that would please me.”30
As for worldly outings, they had few. Soon after their marriage, the young couple preferred intimate meetings instead of shallow balls at big parties. Zélie depicted the ridiculousness of high society when writing about an upcoming ball: “I know many young women who have their heads on backwards. There are some—can you believe it!—who make seamstresses come from Le Mans to sew their dresses for fear that the dressmakers in Alençon would reveal what their dresses look like before the celebration takes place. Isn’t that ludicrous?”31
Her letters are sometimes in the style of Madame de Sévigné32: she enjoyed relating pithy anecdotes to amuse the family in Lisieux about all the scenes in Alençon that struck her. But she was always able to recognize her own faults: “I had the cowardice to mock Mrs. Y. I have infinite regret about that. I don’t know why I have no sympathy for her since she’s been nothing but good and helpful to me. I, who detest ingrates, can only detest myself now since I am nothing but a real ingrate myself. I want to convert in earnest and I’ve begun to do that, since for some time now I take every opportunity to say nice things about this lady. That’s much more easily done since she is an excellent person who is worth more than all those who mock her, starting with me!”33
Louis and Zélie weren’t turned in on themselves but instead were attentive to what was happening around them. They read La Croix34 regularly, staying informed about local and national political developments because the anticlericalism of the time placed Catholics in jeopardy. Zélie was shocked to learn about the assassination of the archbishop of Paris and sixty-four priests during the time of the Commune. Listening to the prognosticators of ill omen, she feared for several months there would be a revolution. But her good sense won out: “The troubles have not come as predicted. I do not expect any will come for this year, and I have firmly decided not to listen to any prophet or prediction. I’m starting to become a very skeptical person.”35 After this experience, like other women in her time, she left politics to her husband. “I pay no more attention to external events than my little Thérèse does,”36 she wrote in 1874 when Thérèse was one year old.
Louis discussed politics with his friends and his brother-in-law and later even tried to introduce his views on the subject to Thérèse. Thérèse concluded, although we can doubt her objectivity, that if her father had been the king of France, things would have gone the best way possible in the best of all worlds. Meanwhile, Louis didn’t get involved in politics. His fight was on another level. He preferred concrete assistance to the poor around him rather than the grand declarations of leaders, and he preferred prayer rather than demonstrations. This
