"LA PETITE MERE."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 186, 20 October 1876, Page 9

"LA PETITE MERE."

The Paris 'Figaro/ announcing the death of Sister Martha, the senior of the Sisters of Mercy, says that by her death the poor afflicted people have lost their best friend. Sister Martha, who was seventy-eight years old at her demise, has had a very eventful career, applying all her abilities to the relief of suffering mankind. Upon her bosom could be seen, besides the humble cross of black wood, three medals, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. She Avas found everywhere at home and abroad, where distress was to be relieved, plague encountered, wounds to be dressed, or where sickness was to be attended to. She was said to have come from a very grand, noble, and mighty family, and was of remarkable beauty when, at the age of eighteen, she took the veil. During her stay at Lyons as hospital sister at the memorable time when the cholera more than decimated the population of the town, she was seen day aiid night at the sick beds of those afflicted by the fearful plague, being so untiring in her work of mercy that the poor sufferers, and the people of Lyons, called her la petite mere — the little mother During the Crimean war she was at Constantinople, attending the wounded in the hospitals, and again a few years later in 1859, in Italy, in the war between Italy and Austria. Here she was at the head of the field-hospital for the wounded, which General Roze had directed to be established at Milan. A v the outbreak of cholera she was at Amiens, and accompanied the Empress of France in her visit to the sick beds of those affected by the cholera. The Empress demanded the Cross of Honor as a reward for her unremitting care of the sick, upon which Sister Martha received the gold medal of the first-class, and later on the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor. At the siege of Paris she was again found at her post, as well as during the horrors of the Commune, always indefatigable and devoted to her work of relief although at that time over seventy years of age.