1870 - Marie-Pauline Viollet

June 21, 1870

Tianjin

Born at Tours, France, in 1831, Marie-Pauline Viollet was raised by parents who were dedicated Christians. They loved Jesus Christ, and their influence could not fail to rub off on little Marie-Pauline. From the time of her public declaration of faith in Christ at her baptism, Marie-Pauline set about earnestly doing good. She visited the poorest parts of society and served them however she could. The first convent she entered was at Villers-en-Arthies. The Superior of that establishment, Sister Pléaux, wrote of Marie-Pauline:

“I do not know what to say of Sister Viollet, that dear little saint, except that her distractions, caused by her continual union with God and which made her sometimes take the way to the loft for that of the cellar, used to make me feel she was too holy to inhabit this earth. She had every possible virtue; such charity with those poor little village children whose rough ways she bore without a word; such patience to tell them the same thing over and over again…in fact she was as full of goodness as of simplicity from beginning to end.”[1]

The children loved Marie-Pauline because of her genuine care and compassion, and as a mark of respect they nicknamed her, “the good little sister Marie.” Many tears were shed when she announced she was leaving in order to become a missionary. Part of her training was undertaken at the Miséricorde Hospital at Smyrna (present-day Izmir, Turkey). A few years later she was appointed to China, arriving at the large city of Tianjin in 1862. Marie-Pauline Viollet enthusiastically engaged in the work, encouraging the other nuns at every opportunity and doing all she could to lessen the burdens of those around her. Her heart was especially touched by the little abandoned children that roamed the streets hungry and desperate. She loved these children as if they were the new-born Jesus in the Bethlehem manger.

On June 21, 1870, Marie-Pauline Violett was one of the ten nuns of the Daughters of Charity slain by an angry mob in Tianjin. She “fainted before being struck, which did not stop the assassins, who dealt her so violent a blow on the head that she was completely flattened.”[2] She was 39-years-old. One obituary said,

“We find in her the very type of kindness and cordiality such as our holy founder always wished he could find amongst us. She was always thoughtful and considerate towards her companions, always good-tempered and bright; knowing how to take part in the recreations and laughing heartily at the little jokes made at her expense; in fact, loving every one, to please our Lord, with an entire forgetfulness of herself. In return, she now possesses the happiness of being in His divine presence for ever and ever.”[3]

1. Herbert, The First Martyrs of the Holy Childhood, 5.
2. Herbert, The First Martyrs of the Holy Childhood, 330.
3. Herbert, The First Martyrs of the Holy Childhood, 8-9.