150 years ago with Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin: October 8, 1870: little Marie-Melanie-Therese Martin dies of starvation at the age of seven weeks

Of all the tragedies that happened in the Martin family, I find this one almost the hardest of which to write. I have written of the birth of Marie-Melanie-Therese, Louis and Zelie’s eighth child, on Tuesday, August 16, 1870, one week after the Franco-Prussian war broke out.  This baby girl lived only seven weeks, dying on Saturday, October 8, 1870.  I would like to tell her story.  As usual, within days of the child’s birth, Louis and Zelie had to face the question of how she could be nourished. 

Infant mortality and the shortage of wet-nurses in 19th-century France

Zelie had been able to breast-feed only her first three daughters.  Then the breast trouble which would end her life began to manifest itself.  Beginning with little Helene in 1864, she had to find wet-nurses for the other babies.  Dr. Frances Renda sketches the social and economic conditions in 19th century France which made this search so difficult.  As more women began to work in factories, the demand for wet-nurses grew, and the supply could not keep up with it.  Many infants died.  In these years, medicine did not yet understand the connection between bacteria and gastro-intestinal illnesses.  “The origins of the bacteria that caused most diseases were only identified in the late 1880’s . . . . a high rate of infant mortality continued until pasteurization began in the 1880s.”[i]  Fr. Thierry Henault-Morel points out that babies who were not fed breast-milk did not develop immunities that could have protected them from gastro-intestinal troubles.  Unpasteurized cow’s milk, already hazardous, was often cut with unsafe water.[ii]

Rosalie taille, nee cosnard, who nursed louis and zelie’s two baby boys as well as the future st. therese

The Martin Family’s Experience with Wet-Nurses

Louis and Zelie searched diligently for good nurses.  Since the wet-nurses had their own babies to look after, it was usually necessary to send the child to board in the nurse’s home.  Helene was sent to live with a nurse in the country whose name is unknown.  The two little boys who followed, Marie-Joseph-Louis and Marie-Joseph-Jean-Baptiste, each were sent to Rosalie Taille, nee Cosnard, in Semalle, a farming hamlet five miles from Alencon.  She was a good woman, in whom Louis and Zelie had confidence.  But both baby boys developed enteritis, and Rose could not save them from this intestinal disease which killed so many children.

Later, Zelie and Louis did not always succeed in finding reliable nurses.  When Celine was born in 1869, her parents, having lost the two boys, wanted to keep this new infant as near as possible to their own house, so they tried two wet-nurses in Alencon.  The second was a disaster, and Celine almost died of neglect.  In her memoir about Louis, she tells how, despite the nurse’s reputation for orderliness and cleanliness, Louis was so anxious for his infant daughter’s welfare that he used to walk up and down in front of the nurse’s house.

I was only a few weeks old when one day he heard me crying convulsively.  He entered and found me in the cradle all alone.  He searched around the house and inquired from the neighbors: the nurse had gone—for a drink!  He learned then that she was often drunk, and did not nourish me sufficiently.  Already puny, I was dying of neglect.[iii]

Rose taille’s cottage at semalle, where she nursed three of the martin children.

Celine was taken away from the alcoholic nurse and sent to Madame Georges, “a good, decent woman” in Semalle, where, to her parents’ great relief, she thrived. 

When the little “Therese,” as the family called Marie-Melanie-Therese, arrived, Zelie tried to nurse the baby herself, but it wasn’t enough, and they had to give her bottled milk.  On the third day, little Therese developed such a severe stomach upset that the doctor said they must find a wet nurse within an hour.  The next night Zelie gave the baby to a nurse on the rue de la Barre in Alencon, one about whom she had “very good information.”

The baptism of Marie-Melanie-Therese

On Monday, September 5, 1870, the infant received the Complementary Rites of Baptism at her parents’ parish church, St. Pierre de Montsort.  (The phrase “complementary” suggests that Marie-Melanie-Therese was baptized privately at home on the day of her birth, with only the essentials of the ceremony—the pouring of water and the words of baptism—performed.  Later, at the ceremony in the church, the godparents assumed their roles and the baby, dressed in a white robe, was anointed by the priest and given her name, and this ceremony was entered in the parish’s records).

Her christening robe

the martin family christening robe. the gift of leonie’s godmother,

When Leonie Martin was baptized in 1863, her godmother, Mme Leonie Tifenne, gave her this christening robe. All six of the children who followed her, including little Marie-Melanie-Therese and the future St. Therese, wore it. It is now on display above the font in the Basilica of Notre Dame in Alencon, where St. Therese was baptized. All the other children wore it for their baptisms at St. Pierre de Montsort.

Her godparents

Major Henry charles de lacauve, louis martin’s first cousin

Louis and Zelie had planned to ask Louis’s first cousin, Major Henry Charles de Lacauve, to serve as godfather.  Zelie’s letters recount how a young society woman of Alencon had told Zelie that she would like to be the baby’s godmother,

“but I didn’t have a godfather distinguished enough to please her.  I didn’t like to say anything.  Finally, I thought of the handsome cousin who had previously refused to be a godfather, but this time he accepted wholeheartedly.”[iv] 

Zelie’s letter suggests that both “Mademoiselle X” and Major de Lacauve, who had not met, were considering the possibility of marriage.  But Major de Lacauve, a battalion commander in the French Army, was fighting in the Franco-Prussian war.  The very day before the baptism, he was wounded and taken prisoner of war.  Perhaps the young woman withdrew as godmother.  In the end, Pauline Martin, a few days short of her ninth birthday, served as godmother for her baby sister.  (Quite young children must have been permitted to be godparents at that time. Pauline had served as godmother for Marie-Joseph-Jean-Baptiste in 1867, and Marie had been godmother to the little Marie-Helene in 1864, when Marie was not yet five).

Her names

Louis and Zelie had given all their children, boys and girls, the first name “Marie.” They might have chosen the name “Melanie” in honor of Melanie Calvat, the shepherdess who, in 1846, saw a vision of Our Lady at La Salette.  La Salette became the site of mass national pilgrimages. Louis and Zelie must have had a particular affection for the name “Therese,” since they gave it intentionally to both of their last two daughters.  After Marie-Francoise-Therese was born in 1873, Zelie wrote: “This child is named Therese, like my last little girl.”

The baptismal font and the church of St. Pierre de Monsort

In 1860, when Louis came there to present his first child, Marie-Louise, for baptism, he looked so happy that the priest commented on it. Louis answered “This is the first time you’ve seen me here for a baptism, but it won’t be the last!” Now, ten years later, this little Therese, as the family called Marie-Melanie-Therese, was the last of eight Martin children to be baptized in this font and in this church. 

The baptismal font in which the first eight Martin children were baptized is still in the present-day church of St. Pierre de Montsort.  By the time St. Therese was born in 1873, the family had moved to a different parish.

The little Therese’s wet-nurse and the role of Louise Marais

Rue de la barre, the street where the wet-nurse of little marie-melanie-therese martin lived in alencon

Although this wet-nurse, like Celine’s, had a good reputation, she was guilty of criminal neglect.  The older sisters, home from boarding school on vacation, went to see their baby sister often when Zelie could not go.  On these visits they were accompanied by the maid, Louise Marais, whose sinister role in the Martin family would be further revealed only in 1877, when Zelie learned of how Louise had been beating and abusing Leonie. 

In her 1909 memoir, Marie Martin recounts how she noticed what was happening to her “ravishing” baby sister under the nurse’s care.  At ten, Marie was already very intuitive.  She wrote that, although the nurse appeared clean and kept her house well, Marie instinctively did not trust her, thinking that she looked dishonest.  Marie noticed that, when they arrived, the nurse immediately fed little Therese, who threw herself on the breast as though she were dying of hunger.  Marie felt that, at only ten, she could say nothing to the nurse that would make a difference.  But, on the way home, she told Louise that she was sure her little sister was being neglected and that she planned to tell her mother how the infant had thrown herself on the nurse like someone who was starving. 

Louise told me I didn’t know anything, that it wasn’t worth the bother of worrying our poor little mother, that she had enough trouble without that, etc. . . . . But one day unable to keep it to myself any longer I said, looking at the bread, “Ah, if that poor little Therese only had a little morsel, at least she wouldn’t be dying of hunger.” Louise looked at me stupefied, sensing what was about to happen. Indeed, Mamma questioned us and from the next morning on the poor little one was at our house. Alas! it was already too late . . . . I had a pain in my heart for reproaching myself for not having said sooner what I thought and, for fear of Louise, having caused the death of my little sister.[v] 

Louise Marais, who worked in the family from 1865, when she was 16, to 1877, terrorized the Martin daughters when they were children.  Marie writes that she herself was the only one Louise did not dominate, but, in this case, she was sufficiently frightened of Louise not to speak until it was too late.   If Louise had taken Marie seriously, little Therese might have been saved, and Marie spared the pain of guilt and self-reproach.

The death of Marie-Melanie-Therese

The house on rue pont-neuf where the martin family lived from the marriage of louis and zelie in 1858 until 1871. Little Marie-Melanie-Therese was born in this house. She died here seven weeks later.

The day after they brought the baby home to the house on rue Pont-Neuf, Louis left Alencon at 4:00 a.m. for the commune of Heloup, about five miles away.  He had heard of a good nurse there, but, when he arrived, she was sick in bed and could not return with him. Little Therese lived for at least a week after she returned to her parents’ house; she began to gain some weight, but she was already too weak to recover. 

Zelie wrote to her sister-in-law as soon as little Therese died: 

October 8, 1870

… My little Thérèse (Mélanie-Thérèse) died today, Saturday, at one o’clock in the afternoon. Last Sunday, I believed she was saved. She was much better and had gained three hundred grams during the week . . . . but Friday morning, after using the doctor’s prescription, she was dying. At noon, it was finished!

Her death agony began this morning, at ten-thirty. You couldn’t imagine how she suffered! I’m heartbroken. I loved this child so much. With each new loss, it always seems to me that I love the child I’m losing more than the others. She was as sweet as a bouquet, and then I looked after her all by myself. Oh! I would like to die, too! I’ve been completely exhausted for two days. I’ve had almost nothing to eat, and I was on my feet all night, in mortal anguish.[vi]

We will return to the grief Zelie experienced as she lost a child for the fourth time, and the faith with which she met it.

Notes:

[i] “The Historical, Social, and Religious Background of 19th Century France in the Time of the Martin Family” in A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885, ed. Dr. Frances Renda, tr. Ann Connors Hess.  Staten Island, New York: Society of St. Paul/Alba House, 2011, pp. xxxiv-xxxvi.

[ii] Louis et Zelie Martin, by Thierry-Henault Morel.  Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2015, p. 105.

[iii] The Father of the Little Flower: Louis Martin, 1823-1894, by Celine Martin (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face), tr. Fr. Michael Collins, SMA.  Charlotte, North Carolina:  TAN Books and Publishers, 2005, pp. 40-41.

[iv] A Call to a Deeper Love, op. cit., pp. 65-66.

[v] Therese de Lisieux, “Marie, l’Intrepide” (“Marie, the Intrepid”), February, 2010, p. 5, cited and translated in A Call  to a Deeper Love, op. cit., pp. 71-72, note 152.

[vi] A Call to a Deeper Love, op. cit., pp. 70-71.