Maison Martin, Birthplace of Saint Thérèse
Number 50 rue Saint-Blaise was Zélie Guérin's family home before it was hers as a married woman. Louis and Zélie Martin moved their household into it in 1871, Thérèse was born here on January 2, 1873, and Zélie died here on August 28, 1877. It is now the principal site of the Sanctuary of Louis and Zélie.
- Location
- Alençon, France
- 48.4324° N · 0.0917° E
- Type
- Pilgrimage
- A modest nineteenth-century Alençon town house of stone and render, with a lead-domed pilgrimage chapel added against its flank in 1928
- Dedication
- Not a church; the Martin family home, with an adjoining chapel dedicated to Saint Thérèse
A House, Not a Shrine
Almost every Catholic pilgrimage building was raised to hold something: a tomb, a relic, an apparition, a community at prayer. This one holds a family. It is where a watchmaker and a lacemaker ran two businesses, raised the children who lived and buried the four who did not, worried about money, and nursed a mother through the illness that killed her. Thérèse would later write the most widely read spiritual autobiography of the modern age about doing small things with love. This is the house where small things were done, and where she watched her parents do them.
Nineteen Years in Alençon, Six of Them Here
Zélie Guérin came to this street as a girl of twelve in 1844, when her father moved the family into the house, and lived here until she married in 1858. She had asked to enter religious life and had been refused; she learned Point d'Alençon lace instead and built a business out of it. Louis Martin had asked to enter the canons of the Great Saint Bernard and had been turned back for want of Latin; he trained as a watchmaker and opened a shop by the Pont-Neuf. They married at midnight on July 13, 1858, and lived above that shop for thirteen years, in which nine children were born to them. In 1871 they moved the household back to rue Saint-Blaise, into Zélie's old home, and Louis gave up his own trade to work for hers. Thérèse, the ninth child, was born here in January 1873. Zélie was already ill. She died in this house in August 1877, and in November Louis took the five surviving daughters north to Lisieux.
A plain Alençon town house of the period, three bays wide, with shutters and a first-floor balcony onto a narrow street. The domed chapel added against its flank in 1928 is far grander than the house.
Spiritual Significance
The visit is a guided one and begins with a film built out of Louis and Zélie's own correspondence, which is the right way in: their letters, not their statues, are what makes them legible. What follows is quiet and domestic in scale. The chapel next door is where prayer happens, and where the reliquary is; the house itself is closer to a reading than a liturgy.
Do Not Miss
-
01
The birth room
Thérèse Martin was born here on January 2, 1873, the ninth and last of the children. The room is seen from the chapel through a glazed bronze doorway rather than entered.
-
02
The room where Zélie died
She died in this house on August 28, 1877, at forty-five, after a long illness that her letters record in her own words. Thérèse was four. Three months later the family had left Alençon for good.
-
03
The reliquary in the chapel
Relics of Louis, Zélie and Thérèse are venerated together beside the altar, in three cases marked with lace, watch gearing and a rose.
-
04
The ex-votos
The chapel walls are covered with thanksgiving plaques left since 1928. They are the record of what pilgrims have actually come here to ask for, which is mostly marriages, children and the sick.
-
05
The film, and the letters behind it
The visit opens with a film built from the Martin correspondence. Zélie's letters are the reason this household is knowable at all, and they are not sentimental.
See all 5 · 2 more
- The ex-votos The chapel walls are covered with thanksgiving plaques left since 1928. They are the record of what pilgrims have actually come here to ask for, which is mostly marriages, children and the sick.
- The film, and the letters behind it The visit opens with a film built from the Martin correspondence. Zélie's letters are the reason this household is knowable at all, and they are not sentimental.
How to Visit
-
Mass most weekdays at midday in the adjoining chapel
-
Confession before Mass and by appointment
-
Adoration, vespers and the sanctuary's program for couples and families
The chapel opens daily; the house keeps shorter, seasonal hours.
- Address
- 50 rue Saint-Blaise, 61000 Alençon
- House
- Closed Sunday mornings, most Mondays, and the whole of January
- Chapel
- Open daily, roughly 9:00 to 18:00
- Mass
- Most weekdays at midday in the chapel
- Time needed
- About an hour and a half, including the introductory film
Visiting
The house opens in the morning and again in the afternoon, on a shorter winter band and a longer one from spring through autumn. It closes on Sunday mornings, on Mondays outside the summer season, and for the whole of January.
- It is also closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Monday, and at Christmas.
The visit begins with a film drawn from the Martin correspondence and then goes through the house. Groups and pilgrimages should be arranged with the sanctuary in advance.
- The chapel next door stays open through the middle of the day when the house does not.
Prayer and liturgy
Mass is celebrated in the Sainte-Thérèse chapel at midday on most weekdays, with confessions heard beforehand and by appointment.
- The schedule thins in January, when the house is closed.
- The sanctuary keeps a program of days for couples and for families through the year.
Access
The house is in the old streets north-east of the basilica, about eight minutes on foot, and about fifteen from the railway station.
- There are stairs between floors in the house.
- The chapel is entered at street level from rue Saint-Blaise.
Additional schedule notes
The feast of Louis and Zélie
Their memorial falls on July 12, the anniversary of their marriage. Expect a fuller schedule and more pilgrims in Alençon around it.
- Relics of the couple are sent out to parishes on request, so a traveling reliquary may be away.
Relics, Tombs, Sacred Objects
Tomb and Burial
- No one is buried here. Louis and Zélie Martin were buried at Lisieux, and their relics are venerated in the crypt of the basilica there.
Relics and Sacred Tradition
- A reliquary set beside the chapel altar holds relics of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin and of Saint Thérèse, in three cases whose ornament names each of them: lace for Zélie, watch gearing for Louis, a rose for Thérèse.
Sacred Objects
- The birth room, opening off the chapel behind a glazed bronze doorway.
- Family objects and papers shown through the house, including material from Louis's watchmaking and Zélie's lace enterprise.
- The ex-votos that cover the chapel walls, left by pilgrims since 1928.
- The marble Holy Family group above the chapel altar, with a Nativity relief set into the altar front.
Connected Saints
Three canonized saints of one household are honored in this house, and all three of them lived in it.
- Saint Louis Martin The family house at Alençon The house at 50 rue Saint-Blaise where Louis kept his household from 1871 to 1877, and where the chapel of 1928 now holds relics of Louis, Zélie and Thérèse.
- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux Maison Martin, Alençon Her birthplace at 50 rue Saint-Blaise, where she was born on January 2, 1873 and where her mother Zélie died on August 28, 1877. The chapel beside it holds relics of all three canonized Martins.
- Saint Zélie Martin Her house, and where she died The house at 50 rue Saint-Blaise: the Guérin family home she grew up in, the Martin family home from 1871, the room where Thérèse was born and the room where Zélie died in August 1877.
The rest of the Martin geography
-
City hub
Alençon
Where this church sits within the wider Catholic geography of Alençon.
-
Minor basilica
Basilique Notre-Dame d'Alençon
Where Louis and Zélie were married at midnight in 1858 and where Thérèse was baptized in 1873.
-
Sacred geography
Pont de la rencontre, over the Sarthe
The bridge where Louis and Zélie met in the spring of 1858. It is a stop on the sanctuary's own walk rather than a site with an entrance.
-
Parish church
Saint-Pierre de Montsort
The Martins' first parish, where the eight children born before Thérèse were baptized. Visited by arrangement with the sanctuary.
Map
Written from the Sanctuary of Louis and Zélie at Alençon, which owns and shows the house, with the Wikimedia image provenance given in the credits. The house is dated to the family's occupancy of 1871 to 1877 and the adjoining chapel to 1928, so that no reader mistakes the chapel for something the Martins knew. Which furnishings are original, which are of the period and which are interpretation is left to the sanctuary, which is the authority on its own rooms.
August 30, 2026
Photo credits
- Hero. Maison natale de Sainte Thérèse, maison de Louis et Zélie Martin. Photo: Pierre-Yves Emile, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC BY-SA 3.0.
- The Room Where She Was Born. Photo: Peter Potrowl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC BY-SA 4.0.
- A Chapel Built Against a Bedroom Wall. Photo: Peter Potrowl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC BY-SA 4.0.