On March 27, 1902, the following dialogue took place on the church steps: “How is it, Madame Bloy,” says a shopkeeper, “that we never see you helping with the adornment of the altars, like all these other ladies?” “…Because I’m not worthy.” “How can you say that? You, such a pious person, always praying in the church…” “You’re the pious one, madame, since it’s only on Sundays that you seem to be there – proof that you only need God once a week. But the rest of us, who need God every day, are obviously scoundrels.”

Léon (1846-1917) and Jeanne Bloy (1859-1928), pilgrims of the absolute
Writer, essayist

“In 1889, at the age of forty-four, Léon Bloy was on the verge of becoming a total wreck, just like his friend Verlaine – like so many writers of the time, alcohol was his personal demon. His marriage saved him from a bohemian existence and enabled him to write some thirty volumes, half of which are first-rate. One day, at one of Barbey d’Aurevilly’s friends’ homes, Jeanne Molbech, the Danish poet’s daughter, met Léon Bloy and was overwhelmed by both his appearance and his conversation. “Who was that man?” she asked after he had left. The answer was thundering, implacable in its absoluteness, forcing her to take sides immediately: “A beggar,” said her friend. Some time later, she met him again at the home of the poet François Coppée. She remembers, “When the old maid introduced him, we began to chat, and while he dipped a piece of bread into the wine offered by Augustine, he said to me, ‘Mademoiselle, you see me dining,’ […] and that is how that unforgettable conversation began.” When it was time to leave him, the sincere Lutheran that Jeanne Molbech was, couldn’t help but make the following remark: “How is it, Monsieur, that you, such a superior man, are a Catholic?” “Perhaps that is the very reason why I am!” replied Léon Bloy. Out of love for Bloy, out of a desire for truth, out of a thirst for God, Jeanne Molbech had no hesitation in converting. She was a convert for love, in both senses of the word: divine love and human love intimately entwined. The stages of this conversion are marked in the admirable collection Letters to his fiancée, in which Léon Bloy, that legendarily ferocious writer, shows himself in his true light of gentleness and tenderness.”

Léon (1846-1917) and Jeanne Bloy (1859-1928), pilgrims of the absolute
Writer, essayist