A few months after his return from La Salette, Mr. Dupont was subjected to a bitter trial. God, to purify his soul, demanded of him the sacrifice of what he held dearest on earth.

Henrietta, his only child, had attained her fifteenth year. Gifted by nature with great personal beauty, a brilliant intellect and graceful simplicity of manner, she was beloved by all who knew her. Her grandmother, Madame d’Arnaud, idolized her, denied her nothing she wished, and became excessively alarmed by her slightest indisposition. As it frequently happens under such circumstances, Henrietta took advantage of her grandmother’s indulgent affection; whimsical and self-willed, she sometimes yielded so far to her childish caprices that even her father could not control them. Nevertheless, her heart was good and kind, and inclined to piety.

Mr. Dupont directed his attention chiefly to her religious education. She was not seven years old when he wrote as follows to a friend: “Henrietta gives fair promise for the future; she evinces uncommon talents, is very bright and comprehends quickly. I will do all in my power to instill into her solid principles of religion. I hope the child will correspond to my ardent desire that she may walk in the secure path of the evangelical counsels. I think it is difficult to be assured of salvation in any other. Already I dread for her the dangers of the world. But I confide in God: He will grant her the graces she needs.”

On his arrival at Tours, Mr. Dupont had entrusted her to the care of Madame de Lignac, who was a second mother to the little girl. Unequal in disposition, Henrietta required an exceptional training. The prudent mistress, finding she could be touched by motives of faith and of piety which, while an infant in the arms, she had acquired from her father, skillfully profited by them to obtain, occasionally, from her little pupil generous efforts to overcome herself. The following charming incident is related by Madame de Lignac herself:

“One day, whilst she was still quite a small child, she asked me during Lent to relate to her the history of the life and death of our Savior. I promised to gratify her, upon the condition that for two weeks she would be very good and obedient. Every day she came to ask if she had been good, and if the two weeks had nearly expired. At last the long desired moment arrived; I narrated to her minutely the life, passion and death of our Savior. The child’s emotion was wonderful; catching every word with the deepest attention, she wept bitterly, and exclaimed from time to time in astonishment and grief: ‘What! did they really do that?’

“When she was seven years old, she was present at an instruction given by a reverend gentleman during a retreat. He said among other things: ‘My children, preserve your innocence, and you will see what God will do for you.’  The remark made such an impression on her, that she frequently repeated it, and her father, pleased by its salutary effect, loved to recall it to her mind.”

We can readily understand how much this precocious piety delighted her father, and what pains he took to cultivate it. The father of one of the pupils called one day to request of Madame de Lignac the favor of seeing his daughter daily. “It is impossible, Sir; our rules forbid it.” “But, Madame, I have it from good authority that you make an exception in favor of Miss Dupont, who sees her father every day.” “That is true, Sir; Mr. Dupont assists every morning at our Mass and communicates; after his thanksgiving, he passes through the parlor, where he blesses his child, without, however, addressing a single word to her. If you follow Mr. Dupont’s example, the same permission will be extended to you and you will have the opportunity of seeing your daughter daily.” This judicious reply was unanswerable.

Mr. Dupont did not neglect to solicit the prayers of Sister Saint-Pierre for Henrietta when she was preparing for her first communion. So powerful an intercession could not fail to have effect in her regard. “She appears to be in good dispositions,” said the father two days before that important event; “She begs our Lord to preserve her in that happy state of childhood which was the desire of all the saints.”

The delicate health of his daughter was a cause of great anxiety to this devoted father, and he neglected no means which he considered serviceable for strengthening her constitution. He often took her with him on his journeys and pilgrimages, particularly when he went to Catholic Brittany. His pious friends and many ecclesiastics encouraged him in this course. One of them, the rector of the grand seminary of Tours, thus expresses himself: “You do well to withdraw Henrietta from the dangers of the world, and to take her to a province where she has only good example before her eyes. The simplicity of manner of the Bretons is far more estimable than the refinement of our civilization.” Mr. Dupont was of the same opinion. He gave the preference to Saint-Servan, where he went annually for the benefit of the baths. We learn from a religious, who now resides in America at St. Mary of the Woods, in Indiana, the kind of amusements and visits he allowed his daughter. “Every year,” she writes, “Mr. Dupont sent his only daughter, Henrietta, with her venerable grandmother to Saint-Servan to take the salt-water baths; he came later to take what he called the baths of faith.’ He took pleasure in visiting those families of the city with whom he was on terms of friendship, and his daughter accompanied him. He watched over her very carefully, scrutinizing her least actions. He came frequently to our house, and my parents listened eagerly to his account of pilgrimages, conversions, miracles, &c., whilst we, at our age, found them too long and too serious; for, religious subjects were the sole topics of conversation. Even whilst waiting at the house of a near neighbor for the servant to open the door, he proposed to my brother to recite an Ave of his Rosary, which he had always in his sleeve, so that he might not lose a minute. He made every effort to keep alive in us the spirit of recollection with which he strove to inspire us, and I remember well how annoyed he was on one occasion when he discovered Henrietta amusing herself with us in some simple game of cards. She was then about fourteen years of age.

“Mr. Dupont ‛walked in spirit,’ to use his own expression, through the streets of Saint-Servan, picking up the pins he saw lying on the ground. When the bathing season was over, he carried all these pins to the Little Sisters of the Poor, in whom he was deeply interested. When Henrietta expressed a desire to see the Mount of St. Michel, a few kilometers distant from Saint-Servan, he required of her a promise that she would go as on a pilgrimage, and she was, consequently, obliged to observe silence during the entire journey. She indemnified herself on her return by relating to us all that had occurred on the way.” “This dear child,” observes the religious who wrote the above, “was fond of pleasure and enjoyed life; she caused her father great anxiety; he feared the effect of contact with the world upon her impulsive, joyous nature.”

Her talents obtained for her the first rank among the pupils of Saint-Ursule, as may be gathered from the following circumstance: In the month of August, 1847, there was a literary entertainment among the boarders: they recited in costume some scenes from Athalie; this sort of exercise was at that time customary at the Ursuline Convent of Tours, and Madame de Lignac, with her refined taste and nice discernment, had selected for the occasion the finest verses of Racine. The representation was private. The religious, the pupils, the curate of the parish and the ecclesiastical superior constituted the audience. Mr. Dupont was the only layman present; he was invited because Henrietta supported the part of Athalie. She wished to appear in a toilette suitable to a queen, and her father’s condescension placed at her disposal a portion of her mother’s wardrobe. The intelligent and graceful manner in which Henrietta acquitted herself of her part was commented upon; and the father was not insensible to this little triumph of his daughter.

His thoughts dwelt frequently upon the vocation of his dear child. In his heart he ardently desired to develop in her a taste for the religious life. But how could he cherish such a hope when he considered her natural temperament? The Superioress of the Monastery of the Purification tells us how, on one occasion, he gave expression to his earnest wishes. Mr. Dupont, accompanied by his daughter, called at the parlor to make a visit. Turning to her, he said: “Henrietta, pass through the turn what you have brought to these Ladies.” The young girl uncovered a basket containing a beautiful white rabbit, which she offered to the Superioress. Mr. Dupont looked serious as he watched her placing the rabbit in the turn, and said a moment afterwards: “How happy I should be, my daughter, to see you also pass through the turn to remain in the convent.”

As she grew older, his anxiety increased. “I beg you more earnestly than ever,” he writes on the 7th of December, 1847, “to pray particularly for my daughter. She has entered her fifteenth year, and as far as I can judge, God has not yet said to her: ‘The world is so dangerous, you must fear it! A life hidden in God is so sweet, you should aspire to it!’ Pray then for her, pray much.” The world appeared to him to be particularly dangerous in her case, as her rare gifts seemed to prepare for her what is called a brilliant future. Speaking in confidence to a religious, he said that if to secure the salvation of a child so dear to him, it would be necessary for him to build a monastery, he would be happy to dig the foundations with his own hands and carry all the stones on his shoulders.

Several honorable families desired the hand of Henrietta for their sons. One of them made the formal proposal through an ecclesiastic who had his confidence. The match was suitable in every respect, advantageous, and such as naturally might prove acceptable to him. “On receiving the communication,” says the ecclesiastic who was charged with the commission, “he became serious, and extending his arms with a gesture habitual to him, he raised his eyes to heaven with an expression I shall never forget, and which immediately suggested the thought that he was offering his daughter in sacrifice to God. What was my astonishment on learning a few days afterwards that the young girl was dying! Had he not, as another Jeptha, immolated his daughter?” Speaking himself of the circumstance and his emotion on the occasion, he says: “The proposition was to me like the thrust of a dagger.” The parties persisted in the request; friends were solicitous for the alliance. “Now,” said Mr. Dupont confidentially to a friend, “now I ascend Calvary!”

The Calvary in store for him was a sudden separation from his daughter by death.

No father could love a daughter more tenderly and devotedly than Mr. Dupont loved Henrietta. Indeed, he often reproached himself for yielding sometimes, through an excess of affection, to her childish exactions. But there was one point in which, as a Christian father, he was inflexible: he never permitted her attendance at certain worldly amusements, particularly theatrical representations, which, even when not absolutely reprehensible, are always dangerous, by inflaming the imagination, and attracting the young to the deceitful charms of sinful pleasures.

It happened that Mr. Dupont once took his daughter to visit a relation in Paris. It was a visit of pleasure, a recreation during the vacation, and the young girl thought only of amusing herself and enjoying her freedom from school duties. The day after their arrival, during her father’s absence, a member of the family indiscreetly spoke to Henrietta of a play which she could innocently attend, and which would afford her great amusement. The young girl clapped her hands with delight at the proposition, and with her natural impatience and eagerness, ran to meet her father on his return, to solicit his approbation of the project and his permission “to go,” she said, “to the play.” The father, whose conscience had often reproached him for his want of firmness in controlling his daughter’s caprices, considered it a duty to refuse on this occasion, and, notwithstanding her repeated and urgent entreaties, he persisted in his refusal. He knew Henrietta’s character so thoroughly that he justly feared, this first satisfaction, apparently innocent, contrasting with the simple and quiet pleasures in the bosom of her family, which she had hitherto exclusively enjoyed, might awaken in her heart a thirst for other more dangerous pleasures of the same kind, and arouse other sentiments which he might not be able to control. The young girl, although pious and habitually submissive, was chagrined by a refusal which was inexplicable to her. Her manner and conduct betokened for several days the depression of spirit caused by the disappointment. The striking effect produced by the privation of a dangerous amusement was a sort of revelation to the father; he foresaw more perils to his daughter in the world than even his parental solicitude had hitherto suspected. He renewed his sacrifice and said interiorly: “If Thou fore seest, O my God, that she will stray from the right path, take her to Thyself, rather than let her live, loving the vanities of the world.” Heroic prayer which was made with the faith of Abraham, and which God did not delay to grant!

An epidemic having made its appearance in the school of the Ursulines, Madame de Lignac was obliged to send all the pupils to their parents for a short time. Henrietta, with her frank, impulsive disposition, hailed the unexpected holiday with a transport of delight which she made no effort to conceal. “What a fortunate disease which gives us a week of holiday!” she exclaimed joyfully as she bade good-bye to Madame de Lignac. How little the poor child suspected what was about to happen! The holiday which she anticipated with so much pleasure, was to end for her in the grave. She left the convent at half-past four in the afternoon, and she was attacked the following morning by the fatal malady from which they hoped to shield her. She seemed, at once, to have a presentiment of her approaching death, and turned all her thoughts to God.

“She received the Holy Viaticum the eve of her death,” says Madame de Lignac, “and I was present at the administration of the sacrament. After her thanksgiving, she reminded me of a remark made during a retreat, which had particularly impressed her. ‘Do you remember,’ she said to me, ‘what the Father said: That all the gems of the earth are worthless when compared to the love of our Lord? Oh! he was right! What are they? Our Lord alone is all, all, all!’”

The virtue of Mr. Dupont, which had already attained a great perfection, arose during these days of anguish to a degree of heroism which elicited the admiration of those who witnessed it. “I should write a volume,” says M. l’Abbé Regnard, “were I to attempt to relate all that I saw beside that death-bed, which edified and charmed the friends who were present.”

This testimony is valuable, given by a holy, simple, upright priest, a learned man, possessing practical good sense, who, knowing Mr. Dupont intimately, was with him during the whole of his painful trial.

“After the last sacraments had been administered to the patient, her father recited aloud the prayers for the agonizing. He held the hand of his daughter in his, and with a sublime faith said: ‘Depart, Christian soul, depart! Remain no logger on earth where God is offended, depart! Death is life; the world is death! Go, my daughter! You are about to see God! Tell Him all we are suffering at this moment. Tell Him our only desire is to do His will under this trial. I suffer; my heart is crushed by sorrow. But, my daughter, to-day I give you birth for heaven. We are, it is true, here on earth, the image of God, but an imperfect image; God completes and perfects us in heaven. Go, my daughter, and fulfil my requests. I am still your father, and by my authority as such I command you to present my petitions to God, as soon as you appear in His divine presence.’”

We shall see later what these requests were. Mr. Regnard continues: “From that time, his Christian faith and hope never forsook him. The following day I was praying beside the bed of death…. She was in heaven…. Her father approached and said to me: ‘Father, let us pray together for my intention. My daughter has begged of God graces for myself and my family, and I have the intimate conviction that she has obtained them. We must now ask of God that we may make a good use of them. Grant us, O my God, to make a good use of Thy graces!’

‘Dear child,’ he said to me weeping, but weeping gently, as though his tears were sweetened by hope, ‘she was about to enter upon a combat. She desired to conquer and remain pure in the world, but she felt her weakness; she feared to be overcome, and she deserted; she escaped by flight! I do not view God in this blow as a judge, nor as a master. He is a father; He is the good gardener who descended into His garden; He found a very beautiful and pure flower; he culled it, lest it should be withered by the storm.’  ‘In the midst of my grief,’ he said another time, ‘I feel in the depths of my soul a joy infinitely surpassing all the joys of this world. My daughter was created for eternity…. She has attained the end of her creation…. All is consummated!’ When at the cemetery, the coffin was lowered into the vault, he stood at the bottom of the ladder; he laid his hand upon the bier, bade a last farewell to his child, making over her the sign of the cross.”

We were unwilling either to interrupt or to abridge the above letter, written by a pious ecclesiastic, who was an eye-witness of what he relates. We now return to the commencement of the little girl’s illness.

Mr. Dupont solicited the prayers of the different communities of the city for the preservation of a life so precious to him. Sister Saint-Pierre, in whose intercession he had great confidence, had, at his repeated request, prayed fervently for his intention; but she, several times, expressed her conviction that the child would not recover. The reason given by the pious Carmelite was, that this affliction would aid Mr. Dupont to advance in the path of sanctity and prepare him for the designs God had over him.

The recommendations imposed, in a solemn manner, by the father upon the dying girl touched the hearts of all who were present. Standing by her bedside and taking her hand in his, he said: “My daughter, you are about to appear before God, you will see Him, you will speak to Him. Before all else, you ‘must present Him the petitions I now give you. I, as your father, command you to do so. Pray for your father, your grandmother, for the members of your family… (he enumerated them). Pray for all the kind friends who have taken charge of your education and your health… (he enumerated them, mentioning his servants among them). Pray for the inhabitants of this city, for your friends, companions and acquaintances.”… Pausing a moment, he resumed with still more solemnity: “Pray for the excellent doctor who has taken care of you from your infancy, who has, with untiring devotion, exhausted his science in this, your last illness, without being able to relieve you; pray for him when you are before God.” No words could express the impression made by these remarks, spoken with an accent of strong faith. Henrietta, who was perfectly conscious, listened to them calmly and in silence, making a sign of acquiescence. Doctor Bretonneau wept with the others, for all were deeply moved. The illustrious physician was as celebrated for his tender heart as for his medical skill; he esteemed and loved Mr. Dupont; and although powerless to save the life of his daughter, his friendship retained him near the afflicted rather to the last.’

The child was fully conscious when Extreme Unction was administered. At the conclusion of the ceremony, her father, who had been kneeling in fervent prayer, arose, and taking his daughter’s hand, said: “Now, my daughter, that you have received so many graces, you are content?” “Yes, papa.” “You do not, then, feel any regret in leaving this miserable life?” “Oh! yes, papa!” “And what do you regret, daughter?” “To leave you!”

“Oh! no, my daughter, you will not leave me. We shall not be separated; God is everywhere. You will be in His presence in heaven, and you will see Him; I too, although here below, shall be also with Him, and through Him I shall be with you. Two walls separate us at the present moment. Yours is about to fall; mine will fall sooner or later; we shall be then united forever.”

When she had breathed her last, Mr. Dupont turned towards Doctor Bretonneau with a heavenly expression on his face and said: “Doctor, my daughter sees God!” In a transport of superhuman joy, excited by the thought, he recited (others say he intoned) the Magnificat. Some in their surprise, who did not know him as he was, thought he had lost his mind. Doctor Bretonneau judged him correctly, and in relating the circumstance, he added: “He is the model of a perfect Christian.” The Christian, in truth, was in this case sublime, not only by the calmness of his humble resignation, but still more by the joy he experienced in offering to God what he held most dear and precious, his only, his beloved child, expiring in the spring-time of life, in the freshness of her youth and in the purity of her soul.

“I was at Mr. Dupont’s during his daughter’s agony,” says Monseigneur d’Outremont, Bishop of Mans, who was, at that time, attorney for the prefecture. “I had been sent from her apartment on account of my youth, and I remained in the adjoining room. The father had just received the last sigh of his beloved child. He entered the room where I was, the tears streaming from his eyes. He embraced me and said: ‘We must not weep as those who have no hope.’ I saw him again the following morning. ‘I slept,’ he said to me, ‘about an hour. In my kind of half-sleep, I seemed to put to myself this question of the Catechism: “Why were we created?” And the answer came naturally to my mind in sleep: “We were created that we might know, love and serve God in this world and be happy with Him in the next.” This is the whole man… this is the term of his existence! I said to myself: My daughter was created to know God, to love God, to possess God… she has attained her end… why should I weep for her? I awoke at that moment, repeating with a great peace and consolation: My daughter was created for God! She has attained the end of her creation. Why should I weep for her?”’

When the preparations were being made for the funeral ceremony, Mr. Dupont left his apartment just as the corpse was removed from the upper room to be placed in the hall. He met it at the door. For a moment his feelings overpowered him, but quickly repressing his grief, he approached and pressed his lips upon the coffin, saying: “Farewell, daughter, we shall meet again.”

His courage nearly deserted him when the time came to convey the mortal remains of the dear deceased to the grave. “I can see him now,” writes a venerable canon, then vicar of the Cathedral, who was present on the occasion; “he had withdrawn to a short distance from the coffin, but he now approached for the last adieu. He stood with his arms crossed upon his breast; his eyes resting upon the face of his daughter with an expression of ineffable tenderness. But at length he was unable to restrain his emotion; tears flowed down his cheeks, and his frame was convulsed by the sobs he strove, in vain, to check. The Christian, however, soon gained the mastery over the man. He fell upon his knees, remained awhile in prayer, then arose calm and strengthened by the few minutes, communing with his heavenly Father. ‘I was near yielding,’ he said, ‘and yet my daughter is not now as far removed from me as she was before. Two walls separated us and prevented our union: hers has crumbled; mine will fall ere long, and we shall be forever reunited.’”

From that time, his faith and submission never faltered. “As soon as I heard of Henrietta’s death,” says Madame de Lignac, “I went to see Mr. Dupont; I found him wonderfully calm and resigned. He was seated before a desk on which lay the Holy Scriptures, and was reading such passages, as might best fortify him under his terrible trial. Numerous visitors called to express their sympathy with him in his affliction. He would point to his daughter’s coffin and repeat the text of the Gospel which has reference to the glorious sepulcher of the risen Redeemer: ‘She is not here. Why do you seek the living among the dead?’ Quid quaeritis viventem inter mortuos? And again he would say: ‘God gave her to me, God has taken her away; blessed be His holy name!’”

He said to Monseigneur d’Outremont: “A few days after Henrietta’s death, on opening the Gospel to make my meditation, my eye fell upon the passage in which St. John relates how Mary Magdalen, at the sepulcher, had taken our Lord for the gardener. It was a striking text, and I immediately made the application to my daughter. Our Lord was indeed a good gardener in her regard. Gardeners, on the approach of winter, place in hothouses their most delicate and valuable flowers: in like manner our Lord called to Himself my dear Henrietta at the moment when, like a delicate flower, she was about to be exposed in the world to the icy blast of the passions; He wished to preserve her, and He sheltered her in the hot-house of His paradise.” This evangelical figure furnished his triumphant faith with many beautiful and sweet thoughts. As a memento of her, he designed a little engraving in which our Lord is represented under the emblem of a gardener plucking a flower from his garden.

Throughout the remainder of his life, Mr. Dupont thanked God for having called his daughter to Himself at an early age. Conversing once with a lady on the extravagant style of dress indulged in by the women of the present time, and deploring its excess, he added: “Oh! how I bless God for having removed my daughter from the world in her youth!” He particularly took pleasure in the thought that she had died before being contaminated by contact with the world. “Do you remember,” he wrote to a friend, “the anguish of my soul when I pictured to myself the dangers that would surround my child? I ardently desired to secure her happiness. Is she not happy to-day? When I closed her eyes, I comprehended that true paternity dates only from the moment when we can say to God: ‘Here is my child!’ Now, I am convinced that Henrietta, clothed in the white garment of innocence, and fortified, moreover, by the sacraments of the Church, has already seen my donation accepted! How happy are those fathers whose children precede them to heaven! How many graces are obtained by innocence kneeling before the throne of God! If in the old law, parents were inconsolable when the death of a child deprived them of the hope that the Messiah might be born in their family, under the law of grace, a father has the ineffable consolation of reflecting, that his virgin daughter becomes for ever the beloved spouse of Jesus. How true it is then that we have no cause to grieve like those unfortunate men, who have no hope beyond the tomb. The tomb! Since the resurrection of our Lord, the tomb is the cradle of eternity” “Do you know,” he said to a friend one day, “the pretty thought I had in regard to Henrietta? She has been six years in heaven; now the day of our death is truly that of our birth; my little girl is, therefore, six years older than I; she will be the elder in paradise. Imagine,” added he, rubbing his hands with delight, “the effect that will have in heaven, should I live several years more. She will be as my mother, and I shall be as an ignorant little child.”

His great consolation was to visit her grave. “There I seem to be with her again,” he would say. “I speak to her, I interrogate her about heaven. Oh! how much I suffered the first time I knelt upon her newly-made grave! All was over, I was alone! No one with me… I said to her: ‘Henrietta, I am going to ask something of you: remember the prisoner who is condemned to death and who refuses to be consoled.’ That was the first favor she obtained for me; since that time whenever I have anything difficult to accomplish, I put it in her hands.”

He placed above her grave a simple and unpretending monument; at the head, is a cross on which is carved the one word, Henrietta; at the foot, is a white marble prie-Dieu turned towards those who pass, as if to invite them to kneel and pray. It was the end of all his solitary walks. He was careful that flowers should bloom, at all seasons, around the cross. He loved to gather them and send them to his friends in memory of their affection for Henrietta.

The least article which had been used by his daughter, was valued by this Christian father. She had drawn whilst at school with the Ursulines a beautiful picture of the Guardian Angel; he had it photographed and distributed copies among his relatives. Nine years after the death of his child, being told of the edifying death of a young religious, he exclaimed: “On the same day, another angel took her departure for heaven!…. This should serve as a warning for us. Let us, in earnest, devote ourselves, like the Saints, to our great affair, that we may one day be united with them in the Holy of Holies.” He writes to one of his goddaughters as follows: “Reflect seriously upon Henrietta’s happiness. Let us belong entirely to God. Time is short; every minute is counted.” Thus we see in Mr. Dupont the grandeur and energy of a lively faith united to the utmost tenderness of heart.