He did that for the first time in September 1843 when he crossed the Swiss Alps on foot and discovered the dream of his youth: the Grand Saint Bernard Monastery. The famous building is set at over 8,000 feet, and here the Canons of Saint Augustine divided their time between contemplation and mountain rescues. Prayer, beauty, heroism—this is what appealed to his young soul in love with the absolute.
For two years, Louis let the desire to enter this order mature in him while he continued his apprenticeship training in watchmaking in Strasbourg. They were good years. He made wonderful friends with whom he shared a joyful and prayerful youth. But he put an end to this period in 1845, wanting to return to the Grand Saint Bernard Monastery to answer what he felt was a call from the Lord. But then a disappointment occurred. The abbot, who was initially enthusiastic about this fervent and levelheaded young man, had reservations when he learned that Louis had not attended secondary school. To enter the monastery, young men needed to know Latin. He invited Louis to return after he went back to school and finished his studies. Louis returned to Alençon, and for more than a year he plunged into his books and took courses in Latin. An illness interrupted his efforts, however. Louis discerned a sign from Providence in that circumstance, and with a heavy heart he set aside his aspirations for monastic life.
He then decided to finish his training as a watchmaker in Paris. He was severely tested by Parisian life, experiencing numerous temptations: examples of dissolute life, an invitation to join a secret society, the influence of liberal Voltairean thinking, difficulty in keeping a prayer life in the hustle and bustle of the capital … According to his own testimony, it took a lot of courage for him to emerge victorious. From this time on, he relied not on his own strength but on God’s strength for his courage. The young Louis redoubled his prayer and entrusted himself to the Blessed Virgin in the sanctuary of the Basilica of Notre-Dame des Victoires, a church he always particularly liked.
Like gold tested in the crucible, Louis emerged purified from his time in the capital and relied on that experience for the rest of his life. He knew the temptations that life could bring and never stopped exposing them and encouraging his relatives not to fall into them.
Comforted by having a career well in hand, he returned to Alençon and set up a watchmaker’s shop on Rue du Pont-Neuf and later added a jewelry shop to it. Louis was twenty-seven years old, and the next eight years his life unfolded peacefully in prayer, work, reading, and recreation. Because of his cheerful, agreeable, and pensive character, he quickly made friends whom he regularly joined in the Vital Romet Club, a small group named after its founder (who was a great friend of Louis)—the members played billiards as well as studied their faith. He spent equally long hours at his favorite pastime, fishing.
In 1857 he bought a small property known as the Pavilion. It included an octagonal tower that he furnished simply, decorating its walls, as they do in monasteries, with pious sentences that revealed his spirituality: “God sees me”; “Eternity approaches and we do not consider it”; “Blessed are those who keep the commandments of the Lord.” He often went there to read and pray.3
Father Stéphane-Joseph Piat gives us a wonderful description of Louis during this period: He was “tall in stature, with the bearing of an officer, a pleasing physiognomy, a high, wide forehead, fair complexion, a pleasant face framed by chestnut hair, and a soft, deep light in his hazel eyes. He looked like both a gentleman and a mystic and didn’t fail to make an impression.”4 Nor did he fail to attract the attention of the young girls in the city. But Louis categorically rejected any idea of marriage—he was still grieving over his unfulfilled desire for a monastic vocation. He even started studying Latin regularly again. More and more the life of this quiet young man of thirty-four approximated a quasi-monastic life in the world. But his mother was keeping her eye out. It was unthinkable for Fanny Martin to see her cherished son end up as a bachelor. She sought at all costs to see him married, and she ended up finding the rare pearl.
Marie-Azélie Guérin, called Zélie, was born on December 23, 1831, in Saint-Denis-sur-Sarthon in the Department of Orne. Similar to the Martin father, her father was a military man involved in the Napoleonic Wars who decided to retire in Alençon. His retirement pension was meager, so the family had to count every penny; Zélie never even had a doll. The family atmosphere didn’t seem to be the happiest. The father, Isidore Guérin, was a good but surly man, and his wife, Louise-Jeanne, was a woman with little affection who often merged faith and rigid moralism. Zélie would say of her childhood that it was as “sad as a shroud” and that because of her mother’s severity “my heart suffered a lot.”5
Zélie didn’t flourish any better on the physical level than she had on the emotional level. From the age of seven to twelve, she was continually ill and spent her adolescence tormented by migraine headaches. This did not, however, prevent her from receiving a good education with the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Fortunately, she had a brother and a sister who played major roles in her life: Marie-Louise, called Élise, the older sister, her confidant and her support, who was as close to her as a twin; and Isidore, who was ten years younger and whom she loved as a mother would.
The Guérin family had also come from a strong Catholic tradition. They liked to tell the adventures of their great-uncle Guillaume who was a priest during the French Revolution. Sought out by the “Blues,”6 he went into hiding. One day, when he was bringing the Eucharist to a family, he was attacked by a band of rogues. He placed the Blessed Sacrament down on a pile of rocks, saying, “God, take care of yourself while I take care of these guys,” and threw his assailants into the nearby swamp. Another time he owed his life to the presence of mind of Zélie’s father who, when he was just a child, made believe he was playing on the chest in which his uncle was hiding from the soldiers. At the Guérin home, faith was rooted in their hearts even if it was tainted by the rigorous Jansenism that was rampant at that time.
Because of her sad childhood, Zélie could have been just an anxious, hypersensitive young woman full of scruples and lacking in self-confidence. She was actually all of those things, but from her youth she also demonstrated St. Paul’s axiom that “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). Doubting her own capabilities, Zélie early on relied on God, knowing that his strength would never fail. Her relationship with him was so profound that before the age of twenty she believed she was called to religious life. As was the case for Louis, her choice of which convent to join revealed her generous personality: Zélie wanted to become part of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, apostolic sisters who combine a life of prayer and active service to the poor. But again, the Lord, who knows the hearts of his children so well, blocked her path. The superior clearly said that she didn’t believe Zélie had that vocation. For Zélie it was a hard blow, but she wasn’t one to wallow in her unhappiness. She decided to be trained in a profession.
During her years of study she had learned the basics of the noble craft of lace-making in Alençon. The Arachnean lace that Napoleon admired required intensive manual dexterity and delicacy. Zélie decided to pursue this profession and excelled at it. At first she worked in a factory in Alençon, but she attracted the persistent attentions of a member of the personnel so she decided to quit that job. On December 8, 1851, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, while she was working in her room, she heard an inner voice clearly say, “You are to make Alençon lace.” She immediately talked to her sister, Élise, who encouraged her and promised her support.
Both of them then launched an enterprise that was more than bold, as she admitted later: “How did we—without any monetary resources