Théodelinde Dubouché was born in Orléans on 2 May 1809. Her father held the important post of treasurer of finance. The family was affected by the prevailing indifference of the epoch, and the child received a minimum of religious education, inspired by Jansenism. The moral code of the time, which was very strict in certain domains protected and yet limited her at the same time. From her infancy she had the faith; as a young girl this faith grew without being destroyed by her milieu. Being allowed great liberty she regularly frequented the studios of Parisian painters and literary circles all the while remaining profoundly serious. It was while living this kind of life that grace came to her. The Holy Spirit touched her directly and gave her a great desire for holiness. Her Jansenist formation paralysed her at first. Then she met priests who understood her and counselled her to let herself be guided by the Holy Spirit and so she passed very definitely from a religion of fear to a religion of love. She devoted herself passionately to the sick and began to have a great love of the Eucharist. Contrary to the customs of the time, she communicated frequently.

Little by little she began to have mystical graces. On the night of 11-12 February 1847 she had a vision of Christ crowned with thorns from which some drops of his Blood fell on her. The same image appeared during the Mass on 12 February and on the following day she spoke discreetly about this to the Prior of the Carmel of Enfer Street in Paris who was her spiritual director. He gave her a little book on reparation written by Sr. Saint-Pierre1, a Carmelite of Tours who had a great reputation at that time. It was a time when great sorrow prevailed among fervent people because society had abandoned its faith and there was a feeling that the faithful should commit themselves more completely to God to compensate by the intensity of their love for what the impious refused to the Lord. To this end, it was proposed that they should practise certain devotions, in particular the Veneration of the Holy Face of Christ, covered with outrages. Around Fr. Dupont, the “holy man of Tours”2, this town became a centre of adoration of the Holy Face. Fr. Dupont was connected with Sr. Saint-Pierre of whom we have spoken. After reading the little book which upset her, Théodelinde did a painting of the suffering face of Christ and sent it to Tours. The idea of reparation took complete possession of her. Like many religious people of the time, the Revolution of 1848 caused her deep anxiety. She then decided to found an Association of prayer and reparation in Paris and for this she set up a centre in the Carmel of Enfer Street, the leading Carmel of France. She gave spiritual direction to a certain number of young girls who fully shared her views.

On the night of 29-30 June 1848 in the middle of the Revolution, while spending a night of adoration in reparation for the sins that were being committed, Théodelinde had a vision. Christ appeared to her in the Host. He placed a golden conduit on his Heart and placed the other end on hers. He said to her: “I want adoration and reparation but all these Associations are insufficient; I want a Religious consecration; I want souls constantly before me to receive my life. I will place on their hearts a golden conduit just as I have done to you. But they must communicate this life which I will communicate to them, to the souls that belong to me in the world, and I will also give them a conduit so that they can communicate the life which I will have given them”.

The Prioress of Carmel, Mother Isabelle of St. Paul, had been thinking for some time of having permanent adoration in her house, similar to what Bishop de La Bouillerie had just begun in Paris.3 But the Rule of Carmel did not allow this so Théodelinde’s project seemed to have come at the right time and she encouraged her. Young girls came to her and, on 6 August 1848, the Association, under the form of a Carmelite Third Order, came into being with eight people. In 1850 there were thirty already living a semi-religious life. Théodelinde took the name of Marie-Thérèse of the Heart of Jesus.