The young woman takes care of everything, knows how to manage her people, and has a large staff. But the best use of her time and her heart is for her little ones: there are two of them already, Nicolas and Marie. “Leave all their care to me”, she tells her maids. A mother full of tenderness, she doesn’t like to leave to foreign hands these little newcomers, whose bodies are fragile, and whose souls, already awakening, are capable of receiving any imprint, pure or soiled.

Madame Acarie (1566-1618) [M.D. Poinsenet]
Barbe AVRILLOT, wife of Pierre ACARIE.

“One summer’s day in 1582, the joyful chimes of Saint-Merry church announced the marriage of Damoiselle Barbe Avrillot and Messire Pierre Acarie… Since the Lord had so willed it, Barbe would be wife and mother. She accepts the travails and sorrows wholeheartedly, but also the joys. Barbe is happy, loved and pampered. She is pretty and knows it. Isn’t she called “la belle Acarie”? …An evening reception. Sparkling chandeliers. Silky rustle of heavily pleated dresses. The charming young woman moves gracefully among the groups of guests. But suddenly, she spots another woman, young, beautiful, more beautiful, admired, more admired: her feminine intuition can’t fool her. No more joy. The party’s over. The beautiful Acarie has disappeared. Alone, far from the gaze – the gaze that no longer converged on her – “touched in her greatest vanity”, she wept. Yes. Of jealousy. Of spite… Far from the rustle of fans, far from the murmurs of admiration, far from the artificial sparkle of gems and diamonds, light dawns. It is blinding: all is vanity…”

Madame Acarie (1566-1618) [M.D. Poinsenet]
Barbe AVRILLOT, wife of Pierre ACARIE.