Intellectuals often struggle most when disability strikes their own child's mind. Emanuel Mounier, a philosopher and Christian thinker who stood among France's greatest minds from the 1930s through the 1960s, saw his infant daughter struck by encephalitis—a blow so severe that, as he wrote, "one must hold oneself back desperately to avoid asking God to take her back."
His wife, Paulette, graciously allowed us to reprint passages from her husband's letters (published in "Mounier and His Generation," Seuil 1956) that speak of their ordeal, but also of their profound faith and hope.
MAY 7, 1938
Francesca, whom you saw when she was barely a brushstroke, has become, after five weeks, a gaze, a smile...
(To Emile-Albert Niklaus)
NOVEMBER 27
Now, my friend, we have our worries. Little Francesca has something or other... Some kind of vague infection spreading through the central nervous system... This uncertainty, this lack of clarity, terrifies us. I have the feeling your God is the same as mine. Ask Him to be merciful... (To Emil-Albert Niklaus)
MARCH 12, 1939
God continues to test our hope. Francesca's prognosis is not hopeless. Aside from the encephalitis, she is well.
(To Jéróme Martinaggi)
MAY 2
Physically, Francesca is well. As for the rest, we must wait for months to see what Providence holds for her, and love with all our hearts—without any consoling feelings—this small, distant, absent little face. We do not know if one day, or when, the veil covering it will tear away.
(To Daniel Villey)
SEPTEMBER 4
Walking down the street a moment ago, I was trying to make my heart sing. It did not last long. I had only to remember that every suffering lived with Christ loses its despair, its very revulsion.
(To Paulette Mounier)
MARCH 3, 1940
I spoke with the doctor... Since November, her progress has been fairly good. But he was not very encouraging about her overall condition. The infection is so widespread and insidious that he believes the consequences will be significant and deep. There is the medical opinion, I know... We must participate in this ongoing passion of time, alongside the people I pass on the street. I do not know for whom this poor veiled little face "works," this wound at our side, for years perhaps...
(To Jéróme Martinaggi)
APRIL 19
I am sending you two or three more letters from friends. All those words of affection—I feel them arriving like a prayer over you and over Francesca...
(To Paulette Mounier)
AUGUST 28
Drawing near to that silent little bed, it seemed to me I was drawing near an altar, some sacred place where God spoke through a sign. Acute sorrow, profound, yet light and transformed. And all around her, I have no other words: adoration. Surely I have never known so intensely the state of prayer as when my hand spoke words to that unresponding forehead; as when my eyes ventured toward that distant gaze, carrying far, far away beyond me... A living host among us, silent as the host, as luminous... Who knows if we are not being asked to look upon and adore a living host among us, without forgetting the divine presence beneath such poor, blind matter?
My little Francesca, be for me too the image of faith!