The Maréchale was now obliged to leave the Training Home, where her vie apostolique among her beloved officers and cadets, whose every conflict and danger she shared, had often seemed to her like life in an earthly paradise. But whatever new duties and cares came to her in her little home in the Rue d'Allemagne, she never allowed them to interfere with her vocation. In the course of fourteen years God gave her five sons and five daughters, among whom life was infinitely sweet to her, yet all her public activities were maintained, while her passion for souls burned with a clear and steady flame.
Loyalty to Christ now assumed a new aspect, and the conditions of discipleship an added stringency. A great sentence in the Gospel—"Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to come eternal life"—burned itself into the Maréchale's soul, and she never doubted that she received her centuple just because she paid the price.
When she went to any of the towns of France to undertake a difficult campaign, it was impossible for her to do her duty unless she fixed her whole mind and heart upon the work. Having to deal with the mass of sin concentrated in a large mixed audience such as she had to face in these towns, and knowing, as she used to say, that every person had a skeleton in the cupboard, she felt that she must become, as it were, the scapegoat to bear the sins of these people. There was a sense in which she had to be like Christ in this respect, and so co-operate and suffer with Him (Col. i. 24). She must go and set herself apart to lift up hands to God in favour of the city. She must say to every preoccupation, every earthly tie, "Stand thou there while I go yonder to pray." She must live for that town and that people for six weeks, or two or three months. She might do a certain kind of work without giving her life, but it would not be of the apostolic kind. To get the hundredfold of which Christ spoke she must leave father and mother, home and child. In some very real way she must sacrifice and suffer. She had felt this from her childhood, and she now saw it more clearly than ever; there was always a price to pay. The secret of success in such cases was the consciousness of a vocation and a passionate love too, and the personal dealing with the Christ of Calvary.
THE MARÉCHALE
(From a photograph by Fred. Boissonnas, Paris, circa 1880)
How hard it became for the Maréchale to accept this cross may be indicated by a touching scene depicted by her secretary, Miss Gugelman, who is now one of the bravest soldiers of salvation in India.
"'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.' How clearly this was illustrated when, at a late hour one evening, just at the close of her month's meetings in Paris, the Maréchale bent over her little ones' cots to bid them good-bye before starting on her three-months' tour through France and Switzerland. Evangeline, the eldest, had kept awake, for she knew that her mamma was going away. The little arms were flung round the warrior-mother's neck, when, raising her sweet tear-stained face, little Evangeline stammered, 'Maman, stay with me, or take me with you on your tournées.' Our leader's all too human tears filled her eyes; she kissed the little pleader, and then wrapped her up in a blanket, and brought her into the study to see us off. It was painfully clear to us who were watching her, that the leaving of her little ones for the war's sake was a heavy cross to the Maréchale. Thank God, she shirks it not. Suppressing her feelings, she went out into the cold and damp, and started her long all-night journey."
That was in February 1894, and later in the same year she had two of the finest campaigns of her life—at Havre and Rouen. The turbulent beginning at Havre was graphically described by her friend the Princess Malzoff, who accompanied the Maréchale in order to have a taste of the vie apostolique. "There was a great tumult in the 'Lyre Havraise.' The Maréchale had come to publish the word of love and salvation. An immense crowd forced itself into the hall, and who would have dared believe that they had all come simply to present the world with the most scandalous, the most vulgar and odious spectacle that one can imagine? When the Maréchale rose with great dignity and calm ... she could not make herself heard. Every word was interrupted; one could see that it was a prepared stroke. One might imagine oneself to be in an asylum. But she did not let herself be discouraged; she persevered; she walked straight into the midst of the infuriated crowd. She did not tame these wild beasts, but she came out victorious all the same. Tall, beautiful, calm, sustained by her divine conviction and with the strength of a great heart, she came back again and again—our admirable Maréchale! ... In the midst of this infernal and ridiculous tumult a few élite souls felt a noble enthusiasm for this young woman who battled alone against a hostile and wicked crowd. They came to grasp her hand, to express their admiration for her and their shame for those who had broken the simplest laws of hospitality, politeness and civilisation. Blessed be our Maréchale; in her the whole Armée du Salut was personified that night in its strength, its faith, its persevering love."
Tributes to "the Maréchale under fire" were extorted from all the reporters. After two or three meetings the atmosphere was changing and the tide of battle turning, when tidings came from Paris, that Augustine, the Maréchale's little son of two summers, was alarmingly ill. Then came an indescribable mental conflict, which ended in her deciding to remain at least another night and hope for better news in the morning. She called her officers for prayer, and that night spoke with a power and tenderness which held the vast audience as with a spell; after which she had Havre for six weeks in the hollow of her hand.
Next morning she received a reassuring wire from home, and, sitting alone on the beach, she wrote a hymn that gives perfect expression to the thought of the Greater Love—a hymn that has endeared itself in France as much to Catholics as to Protestants. It begins: