Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam

Issue d'une ancienne famille noble mais ruinée, Lydwine est la seule fille d'une fratrie de 10 enfants. Jolie et gracieuse, elle préfère se consacrer à Dieu et repousse tous ses prétendants.
À l'âge de 15 ans, elle est victime d'une chute alors qu'elle patine avec des amies. Elle ne se remettra jamais de cet accident. Étendue pendant 38 ans sur son grabat et malgré ses souffrances physiques, elle se disait "la plus heureuse femme du monde". Elle connut des extases mystiques. À partir de 1414, elle ne se nourrit plus que de l'Eucharistie. Elle meurt en 1433 à l'âge de 53 ans.

Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (1848 - 1907 in Paris) was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans. He is most famous for the novel À rebours (1884, published in English as Against the Grain or Against Nature). He supported himself by a 30-year career in the French civil service. Huysmans' work is considered remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, large vocabulary, descriptions, satirical wit and far-ranging erudition. First considered part of Naturalism, he became associated with the decadent movement with his publication of À rebours. His work expressed his deep pessimism, which had led him to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. In later years, his novels reflected his study of Catholicism, religious conversion and becoming an oblate. He discussed the iconography of Christian architecture at length in La cathédrale (1898), set at Chartres and with its cathedral as the focus of the book.