The first runs as follows: "I am glad you accept my request to visit my home. You will consider the intention in asking you to come under my roof, like One before you, who had the noblest Heart which ever beat for mankind. It is because this Great Heart has possessed yours to the degree of rendering you like Himself, that you have profoundly moved me and made me better. Certainly I will speak with you on these vital subjects, but I need more and more the moral and spiritual atmosphere of the meetings: this opens the heart and at the same time deadens the opposition of the mind. Oh, if the latter could hold its peace! ... I have lived much in solitude, and naturally these problems have been always with me. I may say that the Infinite has tortured me for twenty years: lately I have arrived at the conclusion that one can know nothing. So I shall be glad to speak with you and at length." A second correspondent wrote: "Your marvellous faith, your simple and powerful eloquence so deeply moved me that I cannot but thank you. I thank you as an artist, as a sincere admirer of beautiful work, of great characters; I thank you as a man blasé, sceptical, benumbed and deadened. As a child I adored Jesus, and now, after having thought much and suffered infinite pains which you cannot understand, I have said adieu to faith and also adieu to hope! I have become one of those you call sceptics. Ah! do not say ’terrible’ sceptic, but unfortunate, pitiable, unhappy sceptic. You are, Madame, a great, beautiful, generous heart, and if ever earnest good wishes have been worth anything, I have cherished them for you, your work, and those who fight by your side. You will believe me, an unbeliever, who envies you, admires you, and ideally loves you." A third of her hearers wrote succinctly: "Two of your meetings have sufficed to destroy infidel convictions of twenty years’ standing." A fourth, after testifying to his respect and confidence, said: "What your soul yearns for is conversion. You would like me to add, I am converted. I cannot say that I am. But you have made an incredible impression on me, and you have made me love the Christ I never loved." He evidently could not rest there, and soon he sent a second letter, describing with thankfulness how one night, in prayer and agonising mental controversy, he had received a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, which had finally slain his doubt and made him a believer in God. The twofold purpose of the Conférences was to conquer the feelings and tastes, the etiquette and conventionality, of people of the world, and to awaken faith in unbelievers. One day a very bad man thrust some bank-notes into the Maréchale’s hand, saying while he did so: "I believe in nothing." "You believe in nothing, and yet you give me these bank-notes!" He replied, "I believe in you, and I wish you had a hall in every town and hamlet and village in my country."