A double birth: Etienne Pernet and Antoinette Fage (2/3)

A decisive meeting

It was against this backdrop that Etienne and Antoinette met.

Etienne was pursuing his ministry from the community on rue François 1er. He was a spiritual director, he confessed, preached and visited the poor and the sick. It was there that he revealed himself to his superiors. Several young girls had already come to him looking for work as nurses. He offered to pay them to look after the rich and to look after the poor free of charge, and installed those who accepted in a flat on rue Vaneau.

He met Antoinette Fage when he was looking for a position for an elderly and sick school teacher. Etienne soon had the intuition that Antoinette could be the person he was looking for to become the ‘mother’ of the work he was starting, and Antoinette asked him to become her spiritual adviser. For a year, he prayed and reflected, while Antoinette continued her work as headmistress, because she cared about her orphans and didn’t want to abandon them, despite her disagreements with the Dames de Mesnard.

A no that turns into a yes

LThings came to a head in May 1865: Father Pernet learned that the Mesnard ladies were planning to replace Antoinette, without having told her. He realised that the time had come to tell her about his plans for her to become the superior of the little community of nurses.

We understand Antoinette’s reaction both from their correspondence and from the account she herself would later write. At first she refused, frightened in turn by her lack of health and education, and not feeling, at the time, that she had a vocation as a nun.

But Father Pernet welcomed her reluctance and reassured her. He wanted her to make her decision in complete freedom. Antoinette also wanted to make her choice freely and even preferred to stay away from Miss Pétard for a while, as she wrote to Father Pernet:

“Today, Miss Pétard, our prioress [1], came to pay me a visit. She did not know what to think of my silence, and indeed, after the interest and affection she has always shown me, she had reason to be astonished at my conduct towards her. I apologised […], telling her that, while taking such a serious decision regarding whether or not I would accept to direct this little community, in order to maintain complete freedom of heart and mind, I needed to see no one who, out of interest and affection for me, may have wanted to try and turn me away”.

She had to fight a real internal battle to make a free decision. She didn’t shy away from it. But beyond that, through Father Pernet, she was obeying God and responding to His call.

Different, complementary

What seems to strike Antoinette’s contemporaries, those who knew her in particular when she was a young adult, is that despite her frail appearance and fragile health, she was cheerful, spontaneous and lively, as Miss Pétard testifies in the excerpt quoted above. Instead of hardening her, the difficulties and hardships she experienced made her particularly attentive to the suffering of others.

She feels close to children, especially orphans, because their experience is similar to her own, and she knows how to endear herself to them. She was also particularly generous, always giving, often more than her purse or even her health would allow.

She also had a great practical sense, which was to serve her well, especially in the early years of the congregation.

Etienne, on the other hand, is tall, more reserved and shy. He does not like to speak in public, although he is often obliged to do so by his position. He also takes time to reflect and pray before making decisions. Nonetheless, once he is certain he is doing God’s will and his duty is clear to him, nothing can sway him from it. When he was younger, he was more lively and impulsive, as indicated by several episodes from his youth, but he learned to control this trait.

A Lady Servant, Mme de Longueil-Méric, recalled the time when, as a child, she met Father Pernet, around 1866:

“He was kindly spoken, rather brief, and quick of step. I remember the way he opened doors: it was done quickly! Like a good breeze blowing in! He had a cheerful character (…), only wanting to see the good side, the supernatural side of events or things. He was very thin at the time, with a delicate appearance, a long face, (…) eyes that read the depths of your soul (…). His faith, very high, ardent and simple, was straightforward”.

Despite these differences, Antoinette and Etienne have a lot in common: although one is from a rural background and the other from a city, they both come from modest backgrounds, have worked with their hands and have experienced family bereavement. When they met, they were both 40 years old, and they shared a certain fragility. Antoinette had been through many trials and Etienne had just emerged from a long period of anxiously searching for his vocation. Their health was also fragile and they were both very sensitive. Far from isolating them, this situation had made them both attentive to misery.

Above all, what binds Etienne and Antoinette together is their unfailing trust in God.

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[1] Prioress of the Dominican Third Order.