Baby Thérèse laughed on Thursday and died on Saturday

ALENÇON, Normandy, October 8, 1870 AD — A baby girl was born in Alençon at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night, August 16, 1870 AD. Her family called her Thérèse. Her full name was Marie-Mélanie-Thérèse Martin. She was born small. The next day her mother, Saint Zélie Martin, wrote that she was “very lively, very nice, but not fat, she weighs only four pounds two hundred.”

The new baby was the eighth child of St. Zélie and her husband, Saint Louis Martin. Three of the others had already died. Their first son died at five months old, and a second son died in August 1868 AD. In February 1870 AD their daughter Hélène, a little over five, died in her mother’s arms.

Not an hour to lose

St. Zélie kept the new baby with her and tried to breastfeed her. It wasn’t enough, so the baby was given a bottle. On the third day the baby’s stomach was badly upset. The doctor told St. Zélie there was not an hour to lose: a wet nurse had to be found at once.

That Saturday evening St. Zélie handed her daughter to a wet nurse in Alençon. She had heard good things about the woman. The next day the baby was well. Still, St. Zélie wrote that she wasn’t happy the baby was being nursed away from home. She had wanted to bring her up at home, with a maid to help.

Three hundred grams

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 same evening the baby began to throw up what she was fed. By Wednesday she was worse. Then on Thursday she seemed better again, and she laughed in a way her mother had never seen before.

On Saturday, October 8, the baby died. She was seven weeks old. That afternoon St. Zélie wrote to her brother’s wife, Céline Guérin, at Lisieux. She told Céline Guérin about the whole week, day by day. St. Zélie wrote: “My little Thérèse died today, Saturday, at one o’clock in the afternoon.” Then she told Céline Guérin about that morning: “Her agony began this morning, at ten-thirty, one cannot imagine what she suffered!”

Of this baby St. Zélie wrote: “This one was nice as a bouquet, then it was only me who took care of her.” She told Céline Guérin she had been worn out for two days. She had hardly eaten, and she had been up all night. It was the fourth child St. Zélie had lost in less than four years. She wrote: “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.”

Two years and three months later, on January 2, 1873 AD, St. Zélie had her ninth and last child. The Martins named her Marie-Françoise-Thérèse. She became St. Thérèse of Lisieux.