My Soul is not for Sale

The childhood of the famous actress, Eve Lavalliere, was tragic. Her father was a blue-collar worker, card player, drinker and womanizer. He murdered his wife with a revolver, then her miserable father turned the gun on himself and committed suicide in the view of his daughter who was hiding on the balcony and hardly managed to escape the massacre. But all that she buried in the past. Success carried her away and soon she was able to say: “I don’t even know any more what it’s like to be cold”; luxury had become so much an integral part of her life. She furnished her apartment with the expensive pieces of black and golden furniture, there was a swimming pool in her bathroom, she had a bedroom that seemed to come out of a fairytale and the marble in her dining room was the envy of all Paris. Fortunately, even in her waywardness, Eve Lavallière never forgot the Blessed Virgin and she wore a medallion of the Virgin around her neck until the moment of her death. The morning after each and every one of her successes, she would regularly send flowers to the Mother of God. One day in 1917, on holiday in a rented castle, she went to the local church and listened to the sermon of a country priest. The great actress made fun of the priest to herself, as he obviously had no talent to speak in public. But eight days later, she found herself “cornered” so to speak by Jesus Christ. After her conversion, she spent seventeen months in Lourdes, at the foot of Mary Immaculate, refuge of sinners. That elegant woman now wore the clothes of a simple boarder. That wealthy person would eventually get used to living simply with just one trunk and two bags. She was born again in Christ and spoke to Him like a poor sinner would speak to the man who would take her out of her misery. That voluptuous woman loved from now on only Jesus Christ and gave Him something she never gave to any other man: she gave Him herself. And although she had always enjoyed perfect health, she fell sick: it was even necessary to stitch her eyelid closed without anaesthesia… “I thirst to go to Heaven, to see Jesus,” she said one day. She had been accustomed to luxury hotels and castles, yet she readily accepted the common room of hospital. The actress so widely acclaimed in all the newspapers, let herself get forgotten little by little. However, just one interview would have been enough to earn her riches and acclaim once again. An American journalist contacted her one day and said, “Here is a blank check with your name on it. Just write down the amount you want me to pay for telling me some of your memories.” Eve answered him, “My soul is not for sale.” And yet she had nothing left but her faithful friend Leona, who was as poor as herself. Eve died on July 10, 1929 in Tunisia, faithful to the Christ she had discovered twelve years earlier, after entering into religion as Sister Eve Mary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, following in the footsteps of Blessed Charles de Foucauld.