Les Buissonnets – The childhood home of Sainte Thérèse in Lisieux

After leaving Alençon, the Martin family moved to Les Buissonnets in November 1877, a house found and rented by Uncle Isidore Guérin, pharmacist in Lisieux. Thérèse lived there from the age of 4 and a half until she entered Carmel at the age of 15. If for Mr. Martin the change of residence and city amounted to uprooting, it was not the same for Thérèse who felt no sorrow when leaving Alençon, children love change and it was with pleasure that I came. in Lisieux ”. The house was then on the outskirts of Lisieux, in the parish of Saint-Jacques, in a quiet area called Village du Nouveau Monde! She was a hundred years old, but was in perfect condition. Surrounded by walls with a small flowerbed in front and a garden behind, with trees. There was a farmyard and a vegetable garden which will give Mr. Martin some occupation, in addition to the maintenance of the house and the management of the property. The property is welcoming and spacious. The ground floor of the house has an oak-paneled dining room, a kitchen with a red brick fireplace, a cramped office and a cellar. On the first floor, two toilets and four bedrooms, the rear ones opening on the same level onto the garden. A second floor with a Belvédère, a place of seclusion and reading for the father, and three small attics. Next to the house, a kiosk where water was pumped from the well. The garden gate opened onto a small uphill lane that Mr. Martin called the path to Paradise. This elegant red brick house with cut-out wooden adornments has become the sweet nest of Thérèse's childhood, who, shy and excessively sensitive after the death of her mother, only found her natural gaiety in the room. 'family privacy'. Indeed, the family deprived of its dynamic element, the mother, will tighten up around the father and live in isolation (few visits, except the Guérin family and those close to them). From 1888, Mr. Martin's health deteriorated seriously and the rental of Les Buissonnets ended with his internment at the Bon Sauveur in Caen in 1889. The furniture was dispersed and some given to Carmel. From 1910, pilgrims began to flock to Les Buissonnets. The house was in rather poor condition, a whitish coating hiding its red bricks. From 1911 the reception of pilgrims was organized, thanks to people devoted to the cause of Thérèse. The Pilgrimage acquired it in 1922 and, in 1932, entrusted it to the Oblates. In the garden, the monument of Thérèse and her father commemorates her request to enter Carmel, which she made to him on May 29, 1887. He was seated on the edge of the well covered by this statue. It was made in 1931 by Mr. Alliot, after a project by Father Marie-Bernard, Trappist from Soligny, who produced many Theresian sculptures. Today, the Maison des Buissonnets is open to visitors. A recorded commentary allows visitors to discover the places frequented by Thérèse Martin in her childhood, to browse the rooms where she lived and to see objects that belonged to her.

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