125 years ago with the Martin family: Louis Martin's last visit to his daughters in Carmel, May 12, 1892

An early photo of the lisieux carmel.  visitors entered the speakroom, where louis visited his daughters, through a door at the right of the chapel above.

After more than three years in Bon Sauveur (the "Good Savior"), a big mental hospital in Caen, Louis Martin was discharged on May 10, 1892.  At last he returned to his family in Lisieux.  Leonie and Celine, then laywomen, had visited him every week in Caen, but his three Carmelite daughters, Marie, Pauline, and Therese, had not seen him in all that time.  As enclosed nuns, they had had to rely on news from others.  On May 12, he paid them a last visit.

Three days later Madame Celine Guerin, the wife of Zelie's brother Isidore, wrote to her daughter, Jeanne La Neele, in Caen and described this visit:

. . .  it was touching at the Carmel. We took him there on Thursday, and one would say the day was very special, and in fact, I believe God blessed it because it was the best day he has had. He seemed to be aware of everything that was taking place. The Carmelites were happy to see their father again, but afterward the tears they held back flowed freely. They found him very much changed, and nevertheless here we find him less changed than we might have thought. However, all of us are very grateful. It was touching to see the way they expressed their gratitude to your father.

Read the rest of this short note on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.

Louis returned from Caen much thinner and substantially paralyzed.  His appearance after three years in "the asylum" must have been a shock to the daughters, who had not seen him in so long.  In 1898 Pauline added an account of this visit to the first edition of Story of a Soul.  These words were not written by Therese, who omits the visit from her memoirs:

Because of the state of his infirmity and weakness, we saw him only once in the speakroom during the whole course of his illness. Ah! what a visit that was!  When he was about to leave us, as we were bidding him "au revoir," he raised his eyes and pointing to heaven with his finger, he remained this way for a long time, with only these words to express his thoughts, spoken in a voice filled with tears:  "Au ciel!" ("In heaven!")

Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Volume II, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1988, pp. 751-752).  

Then Louis was taken back to the Guerin home on rue Paul Banaston, where he lived until, in early July, he moved with his daughters to a small house nearby.  We will meet him again there.  His doctor evidently believed that to visit his daughters regularly would be too emotional for him in his weakened state.  Although he lived more than two years longer, his Carmelites never saw him again.

Louis was able to hear and sometimes to understand conversations, but was hardly ever able to speak, and then only a few words.  Inability to communicate was one of his sharpest sufferings.  His remarkable holiness was forged in a veritable martyrdom. and the words "In heaven!" summed up the faith he lived in every circumstance. 

125 years ago with the Martin family: May 10, 1892 - St. Louis Martin returned to Lisieux from the Bon Sauveur hospital

Entrance to the Bon Sauveur mental hospital, rue Caponiere, Caen, where St. Louis Martin was a patient from February 12, 1889 through May 10, 1892.  Photo credit: "herbaltablet" 

On May 10, 1892, St. Louis Martin was discharged from the Bon Sauveur mental hospital (the "asylum," as it was then called) in Caen, where he had been a patient since February 12, 1889.  [See my story about Louis Martin's admission to the Bon Sauveur].  

Chapel of the Bon Sauveur Hospital in Caen where St. Louis Martin attended Mass while he was a patient there.  Photo credit:  "herbaltablet"

The Bon Sauveur Hospital

Although the Bon Sauveur is still operating today, some of the buildings Louis knew, including the ancient cloister of the Franciscans, were demolished (under protest) a few years ago.  Very few good photographs of this big campus in the heart of Caen are available online, and I was delighted to find on FlickR a precious archive of 63 photographs of the various buildings of the Bon Sauveur Hospital, fortunately photographed before the demolition.   "Herbaltablet," who has photographed many historic buildings in France, generously gave me permission to use them.  Please visit his photo album, which is a visual delight.

Louis Martin's Return to Lisieux

Louis's legs were now paralyzed, and his brother-in-law, Isidore Guerin, had decided it was safe to bring him back to Lisieux.  On May 10, 1892, Isidore went to Caen to bring Louis home.  Isidore’s daughter, Jeanne Guerin, lived at Caen.  Because she was away, we have a precious letter her mother, Celine Guerin, wrote that same day: 

Your father went today to Caen to get your uncle. He lunched at your place, and he brought back good M. Martin at four o'clock. The trip went along very well. His morale is as good as it can possibly be, but his limbs can no longer support him. He had to be carried into the carriage. He cried all the time and appears so happy to be among his children. 

Read the complete letter at the Web site of the archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.

Marie Guerin, Louis’s niece, remembered the trip: 

“When Papa brought him back from Caen, Uncle was very much moved to see Papa caring for him in this way . . . he began to weep and say “I will repay all this, you will see.”

[Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Vol. II, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1988, p. 750.  This book, which contains much family correspondence and rich introductions and notes, is a gold mine of information about Louis and the Martin family).

For about six weeks Louis joined the Guerin household, where his daughters Leonie and Celine had been living, before the three Martins moved to a small house nearby.  As we continue to trace the events of the Martin family 125 years ago, look for more articles about his last years in Lisieux.

February 12: the anniversary of St. Louis Martin's entrance into the Bon Sauveur mental hospital at Caen in 1889

The Bon Sauveur mental hospital at Caen, where St. Louis Martin was a patient from February 12, 1889 through May 10, 1892. Photo credit: "Herbaltablet"

On Tuesday, February 12, 1889, St. Louis Martin was suddenly taken to Caen to be confined in the Bon Sauveur mental hospital.  On the anniversary of this day, which his daughter Therese called "our great treasure," let's revisit the occasion.

Context of Louis Martin's illness

Since 1887 Louis Martin had given some signs of illness that worried his family.  In November 1887, during the pilgrimage to Rome, Celine and Therese had noticed that he tired more easily than usual.  After Therese entered Carmel in April 1888, his sickness presented more frequently.  In May and June 1888, he tried to put his affairs in order.  He wanted to secure the future of his daughters and to purchase Les Buisonnets, their family home in Lisieux, which he held on a lease.  Preoccupied with the desire to become a hermit, he suddenly disappeared from home in June 1888  and was found four days later at Le Havre.  (Read my article about this episode).  

The gift of an altar

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the main altar of st. pierre's cathedral, donated by st. louis martin in december 1888

In December, when Canon Rohee, arch-priest of St. Pierre's Cathedral, announced that he was launching a drive to raise 10,000 francs for a new main altar, Louis, asking that his gift be kept private, pledged the whole sum at once.   But his brother-in-law, Isidore Guerin, as deputy guardian of the Martin daughters, had to be informed.  He considered the gift reckless and began to be afraid that Louis would impoverish himself and his daughters.  (Sainte Therese de Lisieux (1873-1897), by Guy Gaucher.  Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2010, p. 300), but Therese approved it.  She wrote:  "Papa had just made a donation to God of an altar, and it was he who was chosen as a victim to be offered with the Lamb without spot."  (Story of a Soul).  Read a few paragraphs written by Therese in 1895 to describe the context of Louis's illness.  (These lines are from Story of a Soul and are online thanks to the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites and the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux).

February 12, 1889 - "Our great treasure"

For Therese's reception of the Habit on January 10, 1889, Louis was perfectly lucid; he could enjoy what Therese called his "last feast on earth."  But scarcely a month later, a crisis suddenly erupted.  Louis was living at Les Buissonnets with his daughters Leonie and Celine and with the family's maid, Maria Cosseron.   He began to suffer from hallucinations, imagining that he was seeing slaughter and military battles, and hearing the sounds of drums and cannons.  (He had spent his early childhood in Army camps).  An attempted robbery at Lisieux made things worse, and he began to carry a revolver to defend the three women.

The Bon Sauveur Mental Hospital at Caen

Seeing the gun, Isidore Guerin,  feared for the lives of his nieces, and, having disarmed Louis, thought it safest to have him admitted that same day to the Bon Sauveur, a large mental hospital or "asylum" at Caen.  The very name of this institution ("the Good Savior") evoked mixed feelings of irony and fear throughout the whole region.  (Louis et Zelie Martin, by Thierry Henault-Morel (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2015, p. 245).  [See an exhaustive photo album of the Bon Sauveur posted by "Herbaltablet" on FlickR].

Little is known of the painful scene that took place at Les Buissonnets that day: we have only a fragment of a letter of that day from Celine to her sisters.  The precise details of Louis's departure for Caen are not fully documented. To read most of the information that has survived, see The Letters of Saint Therese of Lisieux, Volume I, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1988), pp. 532-535.  [Because many of the details are contained only in the footnotes, which do not appear online, it is necessary to consult the book in hard copy to get the most complete picture we have in English]. 

M. Guerin asked their mutual friend, M. Auguste Benoit, to take Louis to Caen immediately by train.  En route to the train, Auguste and Louis, with Therese's spaniel, Tom, visited the Carmel briefly.  Pauline's account of this heartbreaking visit appears in the footnotes to the Letters at page 535.  Louis believed that he was going to Caen on an outing. Dr. Notta, who had treated Therese when she fell sick in 1883 at age ten, signed the certificate, noting that Louis had been placed in the hospital at the request of his family, who could arrange his release whenever they liked.   The institution had 1,700 patients. Louis became inmate no. 14,449.  His illness was called "cerebral arteriosclerosis," possibly a form of Alzheimer's.  Louis was placed in the section called "Saint Joseph," among five hundred men, the "tranquil and semi-tranquil." (Henault-Morel, cited above, at page 244).  He would remain there for more than three years. 

The reaction of the Martin daughters to their father's illness

To understand the feelings of Louis's daughters at this time, see Celine's account in a letter she wrote to Pauline's godmother, Mlle. Pauline Romet, on February 18, 1889, six days after Louis’s transfer.  Information about Louis's condition and about how it affected his family is contained in the letters of the Martin family in early 1889.  In particular, don't miss the first surviving letter Therese wrote to Celine afterward, on February 28, 1889.  In this moving letter, Therese writes prophetically "What a joy to be humbled; it is the only thing that makes saints!" and adds "The Martyrdom is beginning.  Let us go into the arena together."

Saint Louis Martin's baptism at St. Eulalie's Church, Bordeaux

stained glass window depicting st. louis martin  and st. therese at an audience with pope leo xiii, november 20, 1887, in rome.  installed about 1925 in st. eulalie's church, bordeaux, where st. Louis was baptized in 1823.

Click below for an illustrated article, the first in English, about St. Eulalie's Church, Bordeaux, where St. Louis Martin was baptized in 1823.

St. Louis Martin's baptism, St. Eulalie's Church, Bordeaux

How did St. Louis Martin come to be born in Bordeaux?

Nineteenth-century houses on rue servandoni in bordeaux near the site of louis martin's birth

Click the photo or click below for the answer to this mystery and for more photos!

Why was St. Louis Martin born in Bordeaux?

Introduces a series about St. Louis Martin’s birth and baptism in Bordeaux while his father was participating in a military campaign in Spain. Contemporary photographs of his birthplace and his baptismal church, St. Eulalie’s, with its lovely stained-glass window depicting Pope Leo XIII receiving Louis and Therese. Photos of Louis’s birth certificate, which no author seems to have found before, and his baptismal certificate, which had disappeared from the church. Both documents were recovered especially for this series, which displays copies of the original handwritten French documents and supplies annotated transcripts in English.