Childhood
She was born on 12 July 1751, at Cuvilly, Picardy, Beauvais, Oise, France, the sixth of seven children of Jean-François Billiart and Marie-Louise-Antoinette (née Debraine). By the age of seven, she knew the catechism by heart, and used to gather her companions around her to hear her recite it and to explain it to them. Her education was confined to the rudiments obtained at the village school kept by her uncle, Thibault Guilbiert. In spiritual things her progress was so rapid that the parish priest, Father Dangicourt, allowed her to make her First Communion and to be confirmed aged 9. She took a vow of chastity five years later.
She was held in very high esteem for her virtue and piety, and was commonly called, "the saint of Cuvilly". When twenty-two years old, a nervous shock, occasioned by a pistol-shot fired at her father by an unknown enemy, brought on a paralysis of the lower limbs. Within a few years she was confined to her bed, and remained incapacitated for 22 years. During this time, when she received Holy Communion daily, Julie exercised an uncommon gift of prayer, spending four or five hours a day in contemplation. The rest of her time was occupied in making linens and laces for the altar and in catechizing the village children whom she gathered around her bed, giving special attention to those who were preparing for their First Communion.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“Childhood lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life.... Poets will help us to find this living childhood within us, this permanent, durable immobile world.”
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962)
“From his childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers.... In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour of the world and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage alliance will follow, and the end of it will be the country will be called upon to pay the bill.”
—James Keir Hardie (1856–1915)
“When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it. The two things that nearly all of us have thoroughly and really been through are childhood and youth. And though we would not have them back again on any account, we feel that they are both beautiful, because we have drunk them dry.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)