In the Pays d'Alençon, in the footsteps of the Martins

“This shady path that Mom loved so much and where she can no longer come now.” writes Marie, the eldest of the family, of this walk in the countryside very close to the town but which Zélie's state of health no longer allows her to take...

This meander of the Sarthe, also so close to the Pavillon Louis Martin, where he liked to come and fish in a nature whose contemplation nourished his prayer. This is evidenced by excerpts from his readings found in his Literary Fragments, which also contained prayers. For example, this contemplation of a meadow, by an anonymous author: "What a spectacle of nature in the beautiful days of spring and how beneficent is this hand which, not content with presenting to us everywhere the things necessary for life, sows beauty and charms in profusion around our homes."

Today, the Fuie des Vignes, labeled a Sensitive Natural Area and Natura 2000, offers its 81 hectares rich in flora specific to marshes and fauna where many protected species are found, such as the European otter, the water vole or the crested newt...

Continuing along this path of the Vigne's escape, we come across the street of the same name. Take it on the left to return to Alençon. We then pass by the Notre-Dame cemetery where, in the old part, Saint Zélie and her four children, who died in infancy, were buried before the whole family was reunited in the cemetery of Lisieux. However, their friends and many of their contemporaries, whom Zélie speaks of in her correspondence, still live there.

At the time when Louis Martin was single, '[he] savored the intoxication of the road as an artist. He went to the outskirts of St Cénery, dear to renowned painters, or under the royal trees of the Perseigne forest » writes Father Stéphane Joseph PIAT (History of a Family 1946, p. 37).

After his marriage, these sites remained among the family's favorite walks. They rented a large station wagon that could hold at least nine people, but which didn't avoid the disappointment of a heavy downpour.  “On Monday we went to the country. The day was fine from noon until six o'clock. But then a terrible storm broke out. We had an open car, and despite our umbrellas, we were flooded. The children didn't have a single thread of dry clothing on them when they got home. Pauline had a lovely new hat, which was completely lost. You see, we're unlucky.” Letter from Zélie to her sister-in-law Céline Guérin April 12, 1877, Family Correspondence (CF 197)

All these sites particularly inspired the contemplation and thanksgiving of Louis Martin who had transcribed in his Fragments littéraires de jeunesse these lines from an anonymous author: “O God of the universe, how great and beautiful are your works! God of my heart, how sweet it is for me to believe in you, and how could I fail to recognize you when your presence shines forth on all sides with such glory and magnificence?”

The village of Saint-Céneri, ranked one of the most beautiful villages in France, continues to attract tourists and pilgrims. It bears the mark of the first evangelist whose story and legend are told to us near the small chapel built on the site of his hermitage, in the hollow of a magnificent bend of the Sarthe. The village church remains a place of meditation thanks to its Romanesque architecture (11th-12th centuries), its frescoes (14th centuries), and its contemporary Stations of the Cross by Christian MALEZIEUX, which an on-site commentary allows for prayer.

The village exudes a charm that has attracted painters and photographers since the 19th century. While Eugène Boudin, Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet only passed through, Henri-Joseph Harpignies, Georges Pioger, Mary Renard and Paul Saïn, along with others, formed a sort of “Barbizon of the Alpes Mancelles”. The Moisy sisters' inn has deep memories of this, as does the current painters' inn.

If Saint Louis Martin loved the most important pilgrimages of his time (Chartres, Lourdes, Notre-Dame des Victoires in Paris…), he also loved local pilgrimages: the Butte Chaumont, La Roche-Mabile, the cathedral of Sées…

Sainte Zélie, more of a homebody, only remembers two that appeal to her: Sainte-Anne de Champfrémont and the Basilica of the Immaculate in Sées. At the foot of Mont des Avaloirs (highest point in western France with its 416 m), the Sainte-Anne chapel is contemporary with that of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray. A Sainte-Anne fountain is accessible at the back of the chapel by a sunken path.