St. Zélie Martin's baby Thérèse dies at seven weeks old in Alençon

ALENÇON, Normandy, October 8, 1870 AD — Marie-Mélanie-Thérèse Martin died at Alençon at one o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, October 8, 1870 AD, seven weeks after she was born. Before the day was out her mother, Saint Zélie Martin, wrote to her brother’s wife, Céline Guérin, at Lisieux. St. Zélie set the week down in order: the Sunday she thought the baby had been saved, the days that swung between better and worse, and the morning the agony began.

It was the fourth child St. Zélie had buried in less than four years. She and her husband, Saint Louis Martin, had had eight children. Their first son died at five months old, and a second son died in August 1868 AD. In February of this year their daughter Hélène, a little over five, died in her mother’s arms. St. Zélie dressed Hélène for burial and laid her in the coffin with her own hands, because she did not want anyone else to touch her.

The new baby arrived at eleven o’clock on the night of Tuesday, August 16, and the family called her Thérèse. She was born small. The next day St. Zélie wrote that she was “very lively, very nice, but not fat, she weighs only four pounds two hundred.”

St. Zélie ran a lace workshop of about twenty workers from the house. The day after the birth she wrote that she had not yet decided whether to send the baby out to a wet nurse. She kept the baby with her for the first four days and tried to breastfeed her. It was not enough, so the baby was given a bottle. On the third day the baby’s stomach was so upset that the doctor told St. Zélie there was not an hour to lose: a wet nurse had to be found at once.

On the Saturday evening St. Zélie handed her daughter to a wet nurse in Alençon, a woman she had heard good things about. The next day the baby was well. St. Zélie wrote that she was not happy to have sent her out to nurse, because she had wanted to bring her up at home with a maid to help.

Six weeks later, on Sunday, October 2, St. Zélie thought her daughter was out of danger. The baby had put on three hundred grams that week. That evening the baby began to bring up her feeds. On Wednesday she was worse. That day St. Zélie took “the little ones” to the Visitation convent at Le Mans, where her sister Marie-Louise was a nun under the name Sister Marie-Dosithée. On Thursday the baby seemed better again, and laughed in a way her mother had never seen before.

The agony began at half past ten on Saturday morning, and the baby died at one. That afternoon St. Zélie wrote to Céline Guérin: “My little Thérèse died today, Saturday, at one o’clock in the afternoon. … The night was very good and on Friday morning, after the application of the doctor’s prescription, she was dying. At noon, it was the end! Her agony began this morning, at ten-thirty, one cannot imagine what she suffered!”

St. Zélie went on: “I am desolate, I loved this child so much. With each new bereavement, for me, I always seem to love the child I am losing, more than the others.” Of this baby she wrote: “This one was nice as a bouquet, then it was only me who took care of her. Oh! I would like to die too!” She told Céline Guérin she had been worn out for two days. She had hardly eaten, and she had been up all night “in mortal anguish.”

Two years and three months later, on January 2, 1873 AD, St. Zélie gave birth at Alençon to her ninth and last child. The Martins named her Marie-Françoise-Thérèse, and she became St. Thérèse of Lisieux.