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Ms A 78v
| [78v°] On the day of my Profession I was also very much consoled to learn from Mother Geneviève’s own mouth that she had passed through the same trial as I did before pronouncing her Vows. You recall, dear Mother, the consolation we received from her at the time of our great sorrows. [5] Finally, the memory which Mother Geneviève left in my heart is a sacred memory. The day of her departure for heaven, I was particularly touched; it was the first time I had assisted at a death and really the spectacle was ravishing. I was placed at the foot of the dying saint’s bed, and witnessed her slightest movements. [10] During the two hours I spent there, it seemed to me that my soul should have been filled with fervor; however, a sort of insensibility took control of me. But at the moment itself of our saintly Mother Geneviève’s birth in heaven, my interior disposition changed and in the twinkling of an eye I experienced an inexpressible joy and fervor; it was as though [15] Mother Geneviève had imparted to me a little of the happiness she was enjoying, for I was convinced she went straight to heaven. While she was still living, I said to her one day: “Mother, you will not go to purgatory!” She answered gently: “I hope not.” Ah! surely, God does not disappoint a trust so filled with humility; the many favors we have received [20] since are a proof of this.After Mother’s death, each of the Sisters hastened to claim some relic, and you know the one I have the happiness of possessing. During her last agony, I had noticed a single tear glistening like a diamond on her eyelash, and this tear, the last she was to shed on earth, never fell; I saw it still glistening there when she was laid out in the choir. So when evening came, unseen by anyone, I made bold to approach her and with a little piece of linen I took the saint’s tear as a relic. Since then I have carried it in the little
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