The danger which had appeared so threatening disappeared as a cloud upon the horizon. A little girl had just been born.
Assuredly there was nothing extraordinary about this deliverance. However alarming the danger might have appeared to M. Moreau himself, the physicians had never given up hope. The favorable issue of the crisis may have been something purely natural.
The heart of the husband and father, however, felt itself penetrated with gratitude to the Blessed Virgin. His was not one of those rebellious souls which demands freedom from all doubt in order to escape acknowledging a favor.
"What name are you going to give to your little girl?" he was asked.
"She shall be called Marie."
"Marie? Why, that is the commonest name in the whole country. The children of the laboring people, the servants, are all named Marie. Besides, Marie Moreau is out of all euphony. The two m's and two r's would be intolerable!" A thousand reasons of equal validity were urged against him. There was a general protest.
M. Moreau was very accessible, and easily moved by others; but in this instance he resisted all counsel and entreaty; he braved all discontent, and his tenacity was really extraordinary. He did not allow himself to forget that, in his distress, he had invoked this sacred name, or that it belonged to the Queen of heaven.
"She shall be called Marie, and I wish her to take the Blessed Virgin for a patroness. And I tell you the truth, this name will some day bring her a blessing."
Everybody was astonished at this apparent obstinacy, but it remained unshaken as that of Zachary when he gave his son the name John. Vainly did they apply every means of attack; there was no getting by this inflexible will. The first-born of the family, therefore, took the name of Marie. The father, moreover, desired that she should be vowed for three years to dress in white, the color of the Blessed Virgin. This, too, was done.
More than sixteen years had now passed since this episode. A second daughter had been born, she was called Marthe. Mlle. Marie Moreau was being educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Bordeaux. About the commencement of January, 1858, she was attacked by a disease of the eyes, which shortly obliged her to give up her studies. She supposed at first that it was only a cold which would pass off as it had come; but her hopes were deceived, and her complaint assumed a most alarming character. The physician in attendance judged it necessary to consult a distinguished oculist of Bordeaux, M. Bermont. It was not a cold; it was amaurosis.