The population, less calm and less patient than the Bishop, carried away with enthusiasm on seeing the great things which were being enacted before them, and touched by the miraculous cures which were daily increasing in number, did not, however, suffer themselves to be arrested in their course by the violent measures of the Administration.
The most intrepid, in defiance of tribunals and fines, cleared the barriers and betook themselves to prayer in front of the Grotto, after having thrown their names to the Gardes who kept watch at the entrance of the communal lands. Among these Gardes were several who sympathized with the faith of the multitude, and these also got into the habit of kneeling at the entrance of the venerated place as soon as they reached the spot and before they were posted as sentinels. Placed, as they were, between the crust of bread which their poorly-paid position of Sergent de Ville, or Cantonnier, gave them, and the repugnant employment imposed upon them, these poor fellows, in their prayer to the Mother of the weak and indigent, threw the responsibility of the wretched orders they executed on the authorities, who forced them to act. Notwithstanding this, they strictly fulfilled their task, and duly reported the names of delinquents.
Although many believers, in the impetuosity of their zeal, would most willingly have exposed themselves to danger in order to go and publicly invoke the Virgin at the place of the Apparition, yet the style of jurisprudence adopted by M. Duprat was eminently calculated to fill the multitude with alarm, as his nominal fine of five francs, as we have explained, might mount up to an enormous sum. A sentence of this kind would have been utterly ruinous to many persons, more especially to the very poor. The majority of them accordingly endeavored to escape the rigorous surveillance of persecuting power.
Sometimes the Faithful, respecting the barriers at which the Gardes were stationed on the boundary of the communal lands, reached the Grotto by cross-roads. One of the party, left in the rear, kept a look-out and warned his companions, by a preconcerted signal, of the arrival of the police. In this manner invalids were, with considerable difficulty, transported to the miraculous Spring. The official authorities, on being informed of these infractions of their orders, doubled the number of sentinels and cut off all access by these paths.
Some might be seen swimming across the Gave, in defiance of the swiftness of its current, for the purpose of coming to pray in front of the Grotto and drinking at the holy Fountain. The darkness of night was favorable to these violations of the law, which daily increased in number, notwithstanding the zeal and activity of the Police agents.
The influence of the Clergy had been diminished, not to say compromised, by the reasons we have explained.
In spite of their efforts to conform themselves to the injunctions of the Bishop, the priests discovered their utter inability to calm the agitated minds of their hearers, and to impress upon them that even the arbitrary acts of Power were entitled to respect. “Only what is respectable can claim respect,” was a revolutionary watchword which found an echo in every heart. The personal ascendency of the Curé of Lourdes—loved and revered though he was—began to pale before the popular irritation.
Order was menaced by the very measures adopted under pretext of ensuring its maintenance. The masses, outraged in the belief they held most dear, oscillated between submission and violence. If, on the one hand, petitions to the Emperor were universally signed, demanding in the name of liberty of conscience the withdrawal of the Prefect’s decree; on the other, the boards with which the Grotto was closed were broken night after night and thrown into the Gave. Jacomet exerted himself in vain to discover who were the believers, with so little respect for Authority, as to commit a misdemeanor hitherto unknown to our codes—nocturnal prayer accompanied with the breaking open and destruction of fences.
In order to avoid rendering themselves liable to prosecution, the faithful often went to prostrate themselves against the posts which marked the exterior boundary of the communal lands. It was a silent protest against the measures of the civil authority, and, as it were, a silent appeal to the omnipotence of God.
On the day when the Court of Pau reversed the sentence pronounced by the Tribunal of Lourdes against one of the three women prosecuted for some trifling remarks on the subject of the Grotto, and confirmed the acquittal of the two others, the crowd collected in the vicinity of the barrier was immense, and uttered shouts of victory. They could not contain themselves and cleared the barrier in compact masses, without returning any reply to the summons and terrified shouts of the agents of Police, who, disconcerted by the check they had experienced at Pau, and feeling alarmed at coming into collision with so many thousands of men, retired and suffered the torrent to pass.
The next day orders and remonstrances from the Prefect came to revive the courage of the Police and to prescribe a still more strict surveillance. The force at their disposal was augmented, and dismissal in case of failure was hinted to the agents. Redoubled rigor was the order of the day.
Reports of a sinister nature, absolutely false, but craftily circulated and easily credited by the multitude, threatened the delinquents with imprisonment. The actual penalties not being sufficient, an attempt was made to produce a kind of panic in the mind of the faithful by the employment of imaginary menaces.
By some means or other, any open infractions of the law were prevented from being renewed for some days.
Sometimes, unfortunate creatures, coming from a distance, suffering from paralysis, blindness or some one or other of those melancholy infirmities which medical science leaves to their fate, and which God alone possesses the secret of curing, went to the Mayor and besought him with clasped hands to suffer them to seek their last chance of recovery at the miraculous Fountain. The Mayor, obstinately adhering to the Prefect’s programme, and displaying in the execution of the measure adopted that energy in trifling details with which weak minds often deceive themselves, refused, in the name of the higher Authorities, the permission which was demanded. Inexcusable cruelty, official reports were drawn up against the sick themselves.
The great majority of such, then repaired to the right bank of the Gave, immediately opposite the Grotto. There was collected there on certain days an innumerable throng, on whom the officials had no hold; for the land trampled upon by these multitudes belonged to private individuals, who believed they should bring down on themselves the benediction of heaven by permitting the pilgrims to come and kneel down in their meadows and to pray in them, their eyes turned towards the scene of the Apparitions and the miraculous Fountain.
About the time when these vast multitudes were being assembled, poor Bernadette, worn out by her asthma, and doubtless wearied by the visits of so many strangers, fell sick.
In his extreme anxiety to calm the public mind, and remove to a distance every cause of agitation, the Bishop availed himself of this circumstance to advise, indirectly, Bernadette’s parents to send her to the baths of Cauterets, which are not very far from Lourdes. It would be the means of withdrawing the youthful Seer from those dialogues, interrogations and accounts of the Apparitions, which every one received with avidity, and which served to feed the popular emotion. The Soubirous, uneasy about Bernadette’s state of health, and being unconvinced in their own minds that these perpetual visits were breaking her down, confided her to the care of one of her aunts, who was herself going to Cauterets. She offered to take upon herself the trifling expenses of the child’s trip, which would cost but little at that season of the year, when the warm-baths are almost deserted. The noble and the rich did not repair to them till somewhat later on in the year, and a few poor people from the mountains have Cauterets all to themselves during the month of May.
Bernadette, out of health, seeking silence and repose, and wishing to withdraw herself as much as possible from public curiosity, remained there drinking the waters for two or three weeks.
To believe is no easy matter. In spite of so many glaring proofs, Monseigneur Laurence had still some doubts and hesitated to act. His extremely learned faith, did not get over the ground so rapidly as did the faith of his simple-minded neighbors. God, who shows himself, so to speak, all at once to simple and ignorant souls, who cannot be enlightened by human studies, is sometimes pleased to impose a longer and more patient research on cultivated and highly-educated persons, who are capable of arriving at truth by the paths of labor, investigation and reflection.
Like the Apostle Thomas, when he refused to believe the testimony of the other disciples and of the Holy Women, Monseigneur Laurence would have liked to have seen everything with his eyes and touched everything with his hands. Of a precise intellect, rather inclined towards the practical than leaning towards the ideal, and naturally distrustful of popular exaggerations, the Prelate was one of those who—by I know not what peculiar instinct—gave a cold reception to the passionate feelings of others, and willingly supposed that we are apt to be led astray by our emotions and deceived by our enthusiasm.
Although, at times, he was deeply struck by so many extraordinary events, he was so afraid of affirming on slight grounds that they resulted from supernatural agency, that he might perhaps have run the risk of rejecting the idea altogether, or of only acknowledging it when too late, had not the grace of God tempered and confined within just limits that natural bent of his mind which we have just pointed out to our reader.
Not only did Monseigneur Laurence hesitate to pronounce his own judgment, but even to command an official investigation. A Catholic Bishop, and deeply imbued with the necessity of keeping up the external dignity of the Church, he was not without fears of compromising the gravity of this Mother of the human race, by launching her prematurely into the solemn examination of all these singular facts with which he had not himself a sufficient personal acquaintance, and which might, after all, have no foundation beyond the silly tales of a little shepherd girl, and the vain illusions of some poor fanatics.
There can be no doubt that the Bishop would never have advised the measures taken by the civil authorities, and they met with his decided disapprobation. But since the evil was done, was it not prudent to derive from it the incidental good which might be one of its results? Was it not wise—if, by chance, the popular belief and account were erroneous—to leave this pretended supernatural fact to its own resources and to allow it to fight its own battle by itself against the hostile investigation and persecution of M. Massy, the Free-thinkers and Savants, who had formed a league together to overturn Superstition?
It would be better, therefore, to wait and not to be in a hurry to engage in a conflict with the civil power, which might, perhaps, prove useless.
“I deplore the measures now taken as much as you do,” the Bishop was wont to observe in his own private circle to those who urged him to interfere; “but not being charged with the police department, nor consulted by any of the authorities, I can but let things take their course. Every one is responsible for his own acts. I have had nothing to do up to the present moment with the acts of the civil authorities as regards the Grotto, and I congratulate myself on having done so. Later on, the ecclesiastical authorities will see if there is anything to be done.”
Actuated by this spirit of prudence and forbearance, the Bishop desired the Clergy of his diocese to urge the people to remain calm and to employ their influence to make them submit to the decree of the Prefect.
It appeared to the Bishop that the wisest part would be to avoid all disorder; not to create new embarrassments; to favor even, from a feeling of respect for the principle of Authority, the execution of the measures ordered by the local government, and to see what turn events might take.
Such were the views of Monseigneur Laurence, as may be gathered from his correspondence at that period. Such were the considerations which determined his attitude and inspired his conduct.
Perhaps he would have reasoned very differently, had he possessed, at that time, the ardent faith of the multitude. But it was well that he reasoned and acted in this way; it was well that he did not yet believe. We subjoin some grave reasons.
If Monseigneur Laurence, with the prudence required of him as Bishop, regarded the matter with an eye to the possibility of its being grounded on error, God, in His infinite clear-sightedness, regarded it only as connected with the immutable certainty of His acts and truth of His work.
God willed that this work should undergo the proof of time, and should affirm its own claims by surmounting, without the assistance of any one, the painful barriers of persecution.
Now, if the Churchman, the Bishop, had from the very first believed in the reality of so many Apparitions and Miracles, would he have been able to resist the generous impulses of his apostolic zeal, or hesitate, for one moment, to interfere energetically against the persecutions of the faithful, against the enemies of the work of God?
If he had had entire faith in the fact that the Mother of God had really appeared in his diocese, demanding the erection of a temple to her own glory, and curing such as were sick, could he have balanced, for one single moment, between the will of the eternal Queen of Heaven and Earth and the paltry opposition of a Massy, a Jacomet or a Rouland? Certainly not.
With such a faith in his heart, the Bishop, like St. Ambrose of old at Milan, could not but have started up, cross in hand and mitre on head, in the very teeth of the civil authorities. Publicly, at the head of the believers, undeterred by any fear of man, he would have gone to drink at the divine Spring, to bend his knees before the blessed Rock which the Virgin had sanctified by the touch of her feet, and to lay the first stone, in that wild spot, of a magnificent temple to the Immaculate Mary.
But in thus defending the work of God in the Present, the Prelate would infallibly have weakened it for Futurity. The support which might have been afforded it in its commencement would have compromised it at a more advanced period, and laid it open to the suspicion of having emanated not from God but from men.
The more the Bishop kept himself outside the movement and displayed a repugnance, nay hostility towards the faith of the people, the more the supernatural work displayed its strength, in triumphing without any external assistance, by its own resources, its intrinsic truth and innate force—in defiance of the animosity or withdrawal of all that, in this world, bears the name of power.
Providence had resolved that this should be so, and that the grand fact of the Apparition of the most blessed Virgin, in the nineteenth century, should pass, like Christianity in its infancy, through trials and persecution.
It was, therefore, necessary, to carry out the divine scheme, that the Bishop, far from taking the initiative, should be one of the longest—I was going to say one of the hardest—to surrender, and should only yield at last, after all the rest, to the unexceptionable weight of the testimony adduced and the irresistible evidence of facts.
And for this cause was it that God, in His secret designs, had placed in the episcopal chair of the diocese of Tarbes the eminent and guarded man whose portrait we have sketched. For this cause had it pleased Him to withhold from Monseigneur Laurence, in the commencement, faith in the reality of the Apparition, and to keep his mind in a state of doubt notwithstanding so many astonishing events.
It formed part of His heavenly plan, under such circumstances, to confirm in the Prelate that temporizing and prudent spirit with which He had so largely endowed him, and to leave to his episcopal wisdom that character of long hesitation and extreme deliberation which, in the midst of the general effervescence, was unintelligible to the multitude, though the future was destined to show to the eyes of all its admirable results and providential utility.
The people possessed the virtue of Faith, but their impatient ardor would have willingly urged the Clergy to interfere prematurely. The Bishop had the virtue of Patience, but his eyes were not yet opened to the truth of the supernatural work which was being accomplished before him, and forcibly striking every one.
Complete wisdom, and all things duly proportioned, were, as is always the case, in God alone, who was directing all events, and whose almighty hand was turning to the fulfillment of His object and tending to the immutable order of His designs the enthusiasm of the multitude and the hesitation of the Prelate.
It was the will of God that the Church, in the person of the Bishop, should abstain from taking any important part, and, keeping herself constantly aloof from the struggle, should appear at the last moment only to close authoritatively this grand debate and openly declare the Truth.
The Clergy continued to refrain from repairing to the Grotto, and kept themselves studiously aloof from the movement. The orders of Monseigneur Laurence in this matter were rigidly obeyed throughout the diocese.
The masses of the population, cruelly agitated by the persecution of the Administration, turned with anxiety towards the ecclesiastical authorities to whom God had committed the direction and defense of the faithful, and looked forward to an energetic protest on the part of the Bishop against the violence done to their own religious liberty.
Their expectations, however, were not realized. Monseigneur preserved an absolute silence and suffered the Prefect to proceed. Further, M. Massy had it inserted in his journals that he was acting in concert with the ecclesiastical authorities, and, to the amazement of all, the Bishop did not contradict the assertion. The mind of the people was troubled.
From the very first, the extreme prudence of the Clergy had been little understood or appreciated by the ardent faith of the multitude. At the stage which events had now reached, after so many proofs of the reality of the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, after the gushing forth of the Spring, and so many cures and miracles, this excessive reserve on the part of the Bishop in presence of the persecutions adopted by the Authorities appeared to them an inexplicable disloyalty. The respect they entertained for his character or person did not entirely suffice to restrain the expression of popular murmurs.
Why not boldly pronounce his judgment at a time when the elements of certainty were so abundantly at hand from all quarters? Why not, at any rate, issue his orders for an investigation, or have the question studied and some examination of it undertaken, so as to guide every one’s faith and prevent misconception. Were not events, which were sufficient to bewilder the civil power, and cause the upheaving of whole populations, worthy of the Bishop’s attention? Did not the Prelate’s obstinate silence justify the Prefect in acting as he did? If the Apparition was false, was it not the duty of the Bishop to enlighten the Faithful on the subject, and arrest the progress of error at once? If it was true, was it not his duty to oppose himself to the persecution undergone by those who believed, and courageously to defend the work of God against the malice of men? Would not a single step taken by the Bishop, an investigation, for instance, instituted by him, have hindered the Prefect from entering on that course of persecution to which he had now pledged himself? Were the Priests and the Bishop then deaf to so many prayers and exclamations of gratitude which were rising from the base of this Rock, destined to eternal celebrity, on which the Mother of the crucified God had rested her virginal foot? Had the Letter killed the Spirit? Were they, like the Pharisaical priests mentioned in the Gospel, blind to the lightning-like splendor of so many miracles? Were they so occupied in administering the concerns of the Church, and so absorbed in their clerical functions, that the almighty hand of God, appearing outside the temple, was either entirely overlooked by them or deemed by them an incident of no importance. Was it then under such circumstances, when God was intervening and persecution beginning to rage, that the Bishop should walk last, as if he were bringing up the rear of a procession?
This clamor rose from the midst of the assembled throng and kept increasing. The Clergy were charged with indifference or hostility, the Bishop with timidity or weakness.
Owing to the logical course of events and the natural bent of the human heart, this vast movement of men and ideas, so essentially religious in its commencement, threatened to take an anti-ecclesiastical turn. The masses of the people, full of faith in the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Trinity, but full also of discontent—irritated against the prolonged keeping aloof of the Clergy, displayed a tendency to rush towards the Church in which the divine strength dwells, and to desert the sacristy, where, beneath the sacerdotal robes, is found but too often the feebleness of man.
Monseigneur Laurence continued, however, to preserve his attitude of reserved inaction. What were the Prelate’s reasons for resisting that voice of the people which is sometimes the voice of Heaven? Was it prudence inspired by God? Was it merely human prudence? Was it shrewdness? Was it mere weakness?
This somewhat brutal interference of the local Government with the question to which the scenes enacted on the banks of the Gave, for some months past, had given rise, implied on the part of those who governed not only the denial of anything supernatural having occurred, but further of its possibility. In fact had the Administration admitted for one moment the possibility of the Apparition they would have adopted very different measures. In that case their aim would have been to have had the matter thoroughly sifted, whereas the course now followed plainly tended to hushing it up.
One fact was absolutely certain: the cures effected. Whether produced by the mineral and therapeutic nature of the water, or by the imagination of the invalids themselves, or by means of direct miraculous agency, these cures were palpable and officially recognized by the incredulous themselves, who being unable to reject them, sought only to account for them in a natural way.
Hundreds and thousands of loyal witnesses—whose testimony was beyond all suspicion—affirmed unhesitatingly that their cure had been effected by the use of the water at the Grotto. Not one was to be found to whom it had proved fatal or in whom it had produced evil consequences. Why then have recourse to these prohibitive measures, these lofty barriers, this armed force, menacing personal liberty, and this system of persecution? Why, if such measures were permitted, were they not carried to their logical conclusion? Why not close every place of pilgrimage where the sick had recovered their health, every church in which the faithful owing to their prayers believed they had received some particular Grace from God?
Such were the questions asked in every quarter.
“If Bernadette,” observed some, “had simply discovered a mineral spring possessing powerful curative virtues, without alluding to Visions and Apparitions, what Authority would have had the barbarity to prevent invalids repairing to it for the purpose of drinking its waters? Under the rule of Nero such a thing would not have been attempted, and all governments would have voted a reward to the child. But here, invalids kneel down before commencing their prayers, and the understrappers of office, flaunting cotton, silver or gold lace, who kiss the dust before their own masters, are not pleased that others should prostrate themselves before God. This is the real question. It is prayer which is the object of their persecution.”
“But Superstition?” observed the Free-thinkers.
“Is not the Church at hand to watch and guard the faithful against error? Let her act in her own province, and do not transform the Council of the Prefecture into an Ecumenical Council, or a Prefect or Minister into an infallible Pope. What disorder has arisen? None. What evil has taken place which might justify your measures and prohibitions? None. The mysterious Spring has done naught but good. Suffer then the believing portion of the population to resort to it and drink of its water, if they see right to do so. Leave them the liberty of believing, praying and of being cured; the liberty of turning themselves towards God, and demanding from the powers on high some assuagement of their sorrows. Free-thinkers, tolerate the freedom of prayer.”
But neither the anti-christian philosophers nor the pious Prefect of the Hautes-Pyrenees consented to pay any regard to so unanimous a cry, and rigorous measures pursued their course.
That intolerance with which the Catholic Church is so unjustly reproached by the enemies of Christianity, is in reality the dominant passion of the latter. They are from their very nature tyrants and persecutors.
It was not without some hesitation that M. Lacadé consented to sign an order of this nature, and to put such a measure into execution. His somewhat undecided nature, fond of pursuing a middle course and liking to swim, as they said, with the current, could not but regard with considerable alarm such an act of decided hostility against the strange power which plainly hovered over all the events of which the Grotto of Lourdes was the centre. On the other hand, as should always be the case, the Mayor was attached to his official position, and, as the wags asserted, somewhat in love with his official scarf. He must, however, become the instrument of the Prefect’s violent courses or resign his honors. The alternative was embarrassing to the first magistrate of Lourdes, though we cannot term it a very grave one, without feeling a disposition to smile at the weakness of poor human nature. M. Lacadé hoped to get out of the difficulty, by requesting the Prefect, as the condition of his attaching his own signature to the document, to insert at the beginning of the order, and, as it were, its opening sentence, “With reference to instructions addressed to him by the superior Authorities.”
“By these means,” observed the Mayor, “I am entirely freed from any responsibility as regards the public or myself. I have not taken the initiative; I remain neuter. I do not command; I am simply obeying. I do not give this order; I receive it. I do not proclaim this measure; I merely carry it into execution. All the responsibility rests on my immediate superior, the Prefect.
From a private in a regiment of the line, this style of reasoning would have been unexceptionable.
With his mind thus set at rest, M. Lacadé watched over the execution of the Prefect’s decree. He had it published with sound of trumpet, and placarded all over the town. At the same time, under the protection of an armed force, and the directions of Jacomet, barriers were erected around the Rocks of Massabielle, so as to entirely prevent all access to the Grotto and the miraculous Spring, unless by breaking them down or scaling them. Posts with notices attached to them were placed here and there, at all points whereby the people might penetrate the communal lands with which the venerated Rocks were surrounded, absolutely forbidding any one to trespass on the grounds belonging to the commune, under penalty of prosecution before the tribunals. The Sergents de Ville and Gardes Champêtres kept watch day and night, relieving each other every hour, and drawing up official reports against such as passed the outer posts for the purpose of going and kneeling in the vicinity of the Grotto.
There was a Juge de Paix at Lourdes called Duprat. He was as inveterate a foe to Superstition, as were the Jacomets, Massys, Dutours, and other constituted authorities. This judge, being unable under the circumstances to inflict any but the smallest possible fines on delinquents, imagined an indirect way of rendering these fines enormous and really formidable to the poor folks who came from all directions to pray in front of the Grotto and request at the hands of the Blessed Virgin, one, the recovery of health long broken; a second, the cure of a much-loved child; a third, some spiritual grace, or some consolation in overwhelming sorrow.
M. Duprat, finding them guilty of a misdemeanor, sentenced the culprits to a fine of five francs each. But, by a conception worthy of his genius, he combined in a single judgment all those who had violated the Prefect’s prohibition, whether by forming part of the same throng, or even, as it appeared, by repairing to the Grotto in the course of the same day. When he sentenced them, he made them all jointly and severally liable for the costs. Consequently should one or two hundred persons have gone to the Rocks of Massabielle, each of them was made liable to pay, not only for himself, but for all the rest; or, in other words, to pay out 500 or 1000 francs. And yet, since the individual and original sentence amounted only to a fine of five francs, this magistrate’s decision could not be appealed from to a superior court, and there was no means of obtaining redress. The judge was omnipotent, and this is a specimen of the way in which he exerted his omnipotence.
In the midst of all these strangely varied events, the question regarding the stables of the Prefecture was discussed with ever-increasing warmth, and had worked up the Prefect to the highest pitch of exasperation. The month of June had arrived. The bathing-season was commencing, and would bring to the Pyrenees invalids and tourists from every part of Europe, who would be witnesses of the scandal which the Supernatural was creating in the Department administered by Baron Massy. The instructions of M. Rouland were of the most urgent nature, and pressed the interference of the authorities. On the sixth of June, M. Fould, Minister of Finance, stopped at Tarbes on his way to his country residence, and had a long conference with M. Massy. A report circulated that the events at the Grotto formed the subject of their discussion.
The fact of going to drink at a spring, the road to which passed through the common lands belonging to the town, did not, however, constitute a criminal act in the eyes of the law. It was, therefore, of the highest importance, that the genius of the enemies of Superstition should discover some pretext for interference. Arbitrary power has not in France, as in Russia or in Turkey, the rights of citizenship, and it requires the mask of legality.
The subtle Prefect had, on this subject, an inspiration as ingenious as it was simple. As the Rocks of Massabielle formed part of the lands belonging to the commune of Lourdes, the Mayor, as guardian of the interests of the town, had the power of prohibiting any one from approaching them whether he might have reasons for so doing or not, in the same manner as a proprietor prohibits when he likes and whom he likes to enter his house or trespass on his estate.
A prohibition of this kind, publicly proclaimed, exposed every visitor to the charge of a specified misdemeanor—that of the violation of property.
By so crafty a proceeding, an act, absolutely innocent in itself, was transformed into one of a criminal nature, liable to the penalties attached to it by law.
The whole scheme of M. Massy gravitated round this idea, and this plan having once been hit upon, he resolved to act and to act despotically.
The next day, the Mayor of Lourdes received instructions to issue the following order:
The Mayor of the Town of Lourdes,
Considering the instructions addressed to him by the superior authorities,
The laws of the 14th and 22nd of December, 1789, of 16th and 24th of August, 1790, of 19th and 22nd of July, 1791, and that of the 18th of July, 1837, on the Municipal Administration;
Considering, that it is important, with a view to the interests of Religion, to bring to a close the scenes so much to be regretted which are taking place at the Grotto of Massabielle, situate at Lourdes, on the left bank of the Gave;
Considering, on the other hand, that it is the duty of the Mayor to watch over the public health in his locality;
Considering, that a great number of those in his jurisdiction, as also of persons strangers to the commune, come to draw water at a certain Spring in the said Grotto;
Considering that there are serious reasons for thinking that this water contains mineral ingredients, and that it is prudent before permitting its use to wait until a scientific analysis should make known the applications which medical science may make of it; that, in addition to this, the Law subjects the working of Springs of mineral water to the preliminary authorization of the Government;
Orders:
First Article.—It is forbidden to take any water from the said Spring.
Second Article.—It is equally forbidden to pass over the communal lands going by the name of the “Rive de Massabielle.”
Third Article.—To prevent access to the Grotto, a barrier will be placed at its entrance.
Notices will also be posted, as follows, “Persons are forbidden to trespass on this property.”
Fourth Article.—All infraction of the present Order will be prosecuted according to Law.
Fifth Article.—The Commissary of Police, the Gendarmerie, the Gardes Champêtres, and the Authorities of the commune are charged with the execution of the present Order.
Done at Lourdes, at the Mayoralty, 8th of June, 1858.
Seen and approved,
C. MASSY, Prefect
A. LACADÉ, Mayor
The plan of the divine work developed itself by degrees with all its admirable and powerful logic. But no one at that moment, and M. Massy less than any one else, perceived the invisible hand of God directing all things, however manifestly such was the case. It is not in the middle of a charge that one can judge of the disposition of a battle. The unfortunate Prefect having left the straight path, saw nothing in what was passing around him but an irritating series of vexing incidents, and an inexplicable fatality. Remove God from certain questions and the inexplicable will meet you at every turn.
The march of events, slow but irresistible, was upsetting, one by one, all the theses of unbelief, and forcing the wretched philosophy of man to beat a retreat and abandon its intrenchments one after the other.
The Apparitions had taken place. The Free-thinkers had, in the first instance, absolutely denied their reality, while they accused the youthful Seer of being a mere tool in the hands of others, and of engaging in a series of jugglery from mercenary motives. This theory did not hold good when brought face to face with the child’s examination. Her veracity made a deep impression on all.
The spirit of incredulity driven out of this, their first position, had fallen back on hallucination and catalepsy.
“She fancies she sees; she does not see. There is nothing in it.”
Providence, however, had assembled from every quarter of the horizon its thousands and thousands of witnesses round the child in her state of ecstasy; and when the proper moment arrived had solemnly attested the truth of Bernadette’s narration by causing a Spring to gush forth publicly, before the spell-bound eyes of the throng which had flocked to the spot.
“There is no Spring,” the unbelievers had said. “It is an oozing of water, a pool, a small pond. Call it what you will, except a Spring.”
But while they were solemnly and publicly denying its very existence, the Spring was increasing, almost like a being endowed with life, and assuming prodigious proportions. More than 25,000 gallons issued daily from this strange rock.
“It is accidental, it is a singular circumstance.”
Unbelief had stammered out, reduced to desperation and recoiling from hour to hour.
And see—events following their invincible course—the most striking cures had immediately attested in every direction the miraculous character of the Spring, and given a new and decisive proof of the reality of the all-powerful Apparition, whose gesture had sufficed to cause this Fountain of Life to gush forth from beneath the hand of a mere mortal.
The first impulse of the Philosophers had been to deny the reality of these cures, as they had denied in the first instance the sincerity of Bernadette, as they had denied the very existence of the Spring.
Yet suddenly the cures had become so numerous, so notorious, that the enemy had been obliged to beat a retreat and admit their reality.
“Well, be it so! Cures are certainly effected, but they are owing to the impregnation of mineral substances. The Spring possesses certain therapeutic virtues,” had been the cry of the incredulous, holding in their hands I know not what semblance of a chemical analysis.
Then the most astounding cures, which were absolutely inexplicable by a hypothesis of this nature, had been multiplied to an immense extent; and simultaneously, though from opposite quarters, several conscientious and enlightened men, thoroughly acquainted with the science of chemistry, had boldly declared that the Spring of Massabielle did not possess in itself any mineral virtue, that it was composed of ordinary water, and that the purely official analysis furnished by M. Latour de Trie was solely intended to meet the well-known views of the Prefect.
Driven thus from all the intrenchments in which, after successive defeats, they had sought refuge; pursued by the blasting evidence of facts; crushed beneath the weight of their own admissions; unable to retract these successive and forced admissions, which had been publicly registered in their own journals, what had the Philosophers and Free-thinkers to do? The Philosophers and Free-thinkers had but to humbly surrender their arms to Truth. They had but to bow their heads, to bend their knees, and to believe; they had but to do what is done by the ripe ears of corn, when the wheat, that gift of God, comes by degrees to fill their grains, as is mentioned by the author of the Essays.
“It has happened,” says Montaigne, “to really learned persons, as it happens to spikes of corn. They stand erect and hold their heads high, as long as they are empty; but, when they are full and heavy with ripe grain, they begin to bow down and lower themselves towards the ground. In like manner, men, after having tried everything and sounded everything, have renounced their presumption and acknowledged their natural condition.”
It may be, the Philosophers of Lourdes did not possess enough of largeness and strength of mind to apprehend the good seed of truth. It may be, their pride rendered them inflexible and impervious to the clearest evidence. One thing is certain, that, with the exception of a few who were happily converted, there did not happen to them what happens “to really learned persons,” and they continued “to hold their heads high,” like the empty ears of corn.
Not only did they maintain their attitude of incredulity; but impiety, driven with shame and disgrace from quibble to quibble, from sophism to sophism, from one falsehood to another, and reduced to the most absurd shifts, suddenly threw off the mask, and exposed its full deformity. It passed, we would say, from the realm of discussion and reasoning, which it had attempted to usurp, to that of intolerance and violence, which really belongs to it.
Baron Massy, who was thoroughly acquainted with the state of the public mind in general, saw plainly with his unerring coup d’œil, that, if he took arbitrary measures and openly had recourse to persecution, he would derive considerable moral support from the exasperation of the Free-thinkers, who were entirely discomfited, humiliated, and consequently furious.
He also had been vanquished so far in the analogous if not identical struggle into which he had entered with the Supernatural. All his efforts had failed.
Issuing from the inmost recess of a solitary rock, and announced by the voice of a child, the Supernatural had commenced its march, overturning all obstacles, dragging the multitude in its train, and gaining on its passage the enthusiastic shouts, prayers, cries of gratitude, and exclamations of the popular faith.
Once more, what still remained to be done?
To withstand the clearest evidence, and to take violent measures against the throng of believers.
