Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897), in religion Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, was a French Discalced Carmelite who is widely venerated in modern times. She is popularly known in English as the Little Flower of Jesus, or simply the Little Flower, and in French as la petite Thérèse (‘Little Therese’).
When reading accounts of the patriotic deeds of French heroines, especially Joan of Arc, Thérèse felt a great desire to imitate them. She sensed within herself the same burning zeal, and it was through this admiration that God helped her understand that her own glory would consist in becoming a great saint. This was no passing fancy. Thérèse wrote plays and poems about Joan of Arc, relating especially to Joan’s time in prison as Thérèse herself suffered from the illness that would eventually take her life.
Thérèse produced her first play for the Carmelite community on January 21, 1894: “The Mission of Joan of Arc, or The Shepherdess of Domremy Listening to Her Voices.” She then wrote a second, longer and more ambitious work: “Joan of Arc Accomplishing Her Mission,” presented for the prioress’s feast day on January 21, 1895. This longer play was greeted with general enthusiasm.
Sometime between January 21 and March 25, 1895, Thérèse’s sister Céline photographed her five times dressed as Joan of Arc in the courtyard of the sacristy, next to a small polychrome wooden statue known as Our Lady of Providence. Thérèse wore a brown wig over her Carmelite toque and a gold-paper costume over part of her habit.
This is where the story takes a deeply sad turn.
A man writing under the name Leo Taxil published a series of autobiographies featuring supposed Freemason conversions to Catholicism. The most popular featured a character named Diana Vaughan, whose fictional conversion was said to have been inspired by Joan of Arc. Diana’s story became wildly popular and even made its way inside the Carmel walls.
Thérèse, moved by “Diana’s” story, sent her a retouched copy of one of the Joan of Arc photographs, the image of herself as Joan and her sister Céline as Saint Catherine. But Diana Vaughan was a hoax. She did not exist. Leo Taxil, a con man, had invented her to ridicule the Church.
In April 1897, Taxil called a press conference before an audience of around 400 people and revealed that he himself was “Diana Vaughan.” The entire thing had been a ruse to demonstrate the gullibility of French Catholics. His prop that evening was a giant projected image of the photograph of Thérèse, used as a symbol of the naive religious person. Thérèse was dying of tuberculosis at the time. She would pass away just months later, in September 1897, likely aware of the humiliation.
And yet, the story doesn’t end in mockery. That same photograph, used to ridicule a dying nun, has since become one of the most beloved images in Catholic history. It hangs in homes, schools, and chapels around the world. The “naive religious person” Taxil sought to lampoon was canonized in 1925 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997.
Both Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux are now saints, the young warrior and the little flower, forever linked by devotion, suffering, and an unlikely photograph taken in a convent courtyard in the winter of 1895.
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