"He is very gentle and patient with us all. And now you have come here to-night. Does it not seem to you a strange thing that you out of all the millions of France, and I out of all the millions of England should be all alone together here at midnight? How do you account for it? Isn’t it because God thought of you, and loves you? ... Do you ever pray?" "I pray? Oh, never! Perhaps I prayed as a child, but never now." "But I pray," said the Capitaine, and, kneeling down, she prayed a double prayer, for herself as well as for him. She wanted this man’s salvation for her own sake and the work’s sake. For weeks she had been fighting and praying for a break, and she felt as if on the issue of this wrestling for a single soul depended the whole future of the work in France. While she prayed for his salvation from sin she was silently praying for her own deliverance from doubt and fear and discouragement. And both prayers were heard. When she opened her eyes, she saw his face bathed in tears. She knew that his heart was melted, and she spoke to him of the love of God. "But I have hated Him. I have hated religion; I have come here to mock you; I have called you Jesuits." "Yet God loves you." "But why did He allow my wife to lose her reason? Why did He take my child if He is love?" "I cannot answer these questions. You will know why one day. But I know He loves you." "Is it possible that He can forgive a poor sinner like me?" "It is certain." Émile was won. Some nights afterward he gave his testimony, and for seven years he always stood by the Maréchale. He was her best helper. When he used to get up to speak, there was immediate attention. "Citizens," he would say, "you all know me. You have heard me many times. This God whom I once hated I now love, and I want to speak to you about Him." After this, conversions became frequent. The mercy-seat was rarely empty. One of the first French songs of Catherine’s composition contained the most curious idioms: Quand je suis souffrant, Entendez mon cri, etc. —Donnez moi Jesus. But she sang it with such feeling that it was the means of the conversion of a clever young governess, who became one of her most devoted officers. Then another striking conquest was made. One night a rough fellow, partly drunk, approached the Capitaine and said a vile word to her in the hearing of "the devil’s wife," who dealt him a blow that sent him reeling across the hall crying, "You dare not touch her, she is too pure for us!" (_Elle est trop pure pour nous!_) Catherine rushed between them and stopped the fight. Thus "la femme du diable" was won, and from that time she got two or three others to join her in forming Catherine’s bodyguard, who nightly escorted her and her comrades through the Rue d’Allemagne, which was a haunt of criminals, and saw her safe at the door of her flat in the Avenue Parmentier.