The Princess invited her husband. He made a long night journey. She kissed him and forgave him. Next day the Maréchale received a wire which made her dance for joy. It ran: "Tout s'est passé comme vous l'avez dit, et la paix du Christ m'inonde: Malzoff" (All is done as you said, and the peace of Christ floods my soul.)
Her husband died after a few months, and her thankfulness for what she had done was profound.
The last years of her own life were beautiful. In a letter which she wrote to General Booth in regard to her friend's health she said: "I owe a great deal to the Maréchale. She has given me a treasure greater than all the treasures of this world—she has given me a living Christ; she has put Him not near me, but in me, in my soul, and the gratitude I feel for that blessing is great." An article from her pen on the Army's work in Paris contains these words: "The Salle Auber is to me now a holy place. I feel the presence of Christ there—Christ who has personally become a living Saviour to me since the Maréchale brought me to Him and committed me to His Divine arms."
Hundreds of letters, the last of which was written in St. Petersburg on the day before her death, reveal an intensely ardent nature, and prove that the heart which truly loves never grows old. We translate a few extracts.
"I will use all my moral forces to prove to you that our mutual affection has advanced me in the path of holiness which you opened to me the very first moments I heard you speak. God had pity upon me and sent you on my via dolorosa to open to me a new horizon, a new heaven. He carried my heart to you with an intensity of which I did not think myself capable."
"I have found in you two beings equally precious to me—the first is a friend I love like a dearly beloved daughter; the second the Maréchale of my Salvation, whose work, vocation and power I admire—that moral power which you only in the whole world exercise over me. If I had known you earlier, you would have made a saint of me."
"Not any affection in the world, not even my children's, can replace yours for me. What does it matter though everybody loves me if you do not?"
"I know that it is because I have not yet renounced my 'self,' my 'moi,' that your absence makes me suffer, but I cannot help it—it is beyond my power. I know also that the day my 'self' will be chased away—which is doubtful—I shall love no one, for to love one must be a self, one must have one's own heart."
"I doubt if there are any others who bear you such a deep, complete, living, warm and luminous affection. Not that you do not deserve it, but all natures are not alike, and you know the fault of mine. I cannot love by halves."
"'Love wisely,' some one advises. That word 'wise' hurts me. I do not want to be wise in my love for you. I prefer to love madly, and that is what I do, and you feel it, don't you? Wisdom to the devil when it is a question of the heart."