While the Maréchale stood alone, pleading as a woman the cause of woman, her audiences of educated Frenchmen were sometimes so deeply stirred and convicted that they would rock and sob under the power of emotion; and when they rose at the end to sing a hymn that she wrote as a young girl—a hymn which has been translated into many languages—
Ote tous mes péchés!
Ote tous mes péchés!
Agneau de Dieu, je viens à toi,
Ote tous mes péchés,
the words and music would sweep over the audience like a wave, sending many away with consciences tortured and faces bathed in tears.
One morning, after such a meeting, there was a ring at the Maréchale's door, and a lady was ushered into her presence. Coming forward without a word, she took the Maréchale's face between her hands, and warmly embraced her in the French fashion by kissing both her cheeks. The Maréchale inquired what was the meaning of this sweet affection.
"Oh!" said the stranger, "you have restored to me my husband. He was listening to you last night, and when he came home he fell at my feet and begged me to pardon him, vowing that he would never again be untrue to me."
That was but one of the many fruits of these addresses.
Sometimes the Maréchale would read to élite audiences a letter which a man of high social standing wrote to a charming young girl whom he ought to have made his wife. Having met her at Carnival, he awoke in her heart an adoring love, deceived her with a promise of marriage, put a ring on her finger, and after three years abandoned her and her baby boy. The Maréchale took the letter to an eminent jurist and senator, who confessed that for cold-blooded cruelty he had never seen anything to equal it; but he sorrowfully added—such are the laws of Christian lands—that nothing could be done to right the wrong. The letter ran as follows—
"LITTLE MARIE,
"Once again I must ask pardon for all the harm I have done you. I hope, however, that you will be strong in trouble, stronger than you have been up to the present. This will be a very great consolation to me. I owe many thanks for the resolutions that the good little Marie made yesterday, in spite of her heart and all her feelings. Believe that I shall never forget it, and that it cost me much before deciding to break your ideal—but, as I told you, I prefer to be sincere. As long as my heart was free from other passion I always considered you as the best friend I possessed. If I was not completely happy, it was that living without love was not to live—but you, poor little Marie, you suffered!
"You are worth a hundred times more than I, and precisely on account of that we could not understand each other. You who are so good—too good—permeated with the most delicate sentiments, you could not conquer an ambitious man, for I am very ambitious.