“During my whole life my sight had been excellent. I could distinguish objects at an immense distance, and on the other hand I could read my book with the greatest ease, however close it might be to my eyes. I never suffered the least weariness after passing whole nights in study. I was sometimes astonished and delighted at the strength of my sight, which was at the same time so powerful and so clear. I was therefore greatly surprised and cruelly disappointed when, in the course of June and July, 1862, I found my sight becoming by degrees weak, incapable of working by night, and at length so entirely unserviceable that I was obliged to give up reading and writing. If I attempted to take up a book, at the end of three or four lines—sometimes at the first glance—I experienced such a weariness in the upper part of my eyes as to render further exertion impossible. I consulted several physicians and more particularly two eminent men who devoted themselves especially to eye-complaints, M. Desmares and M. Giraud-Teulon.
“The remedies prescribed for me were of little or no avail. After a period of perfect rest, and a regimen into which iron largely entered, there was at first a slight improvement in my state, and one day I could read and write in the afternoon for a considerable time; but the next day all my distressing symptoms returned. It was then that I tried local remedies, cold water douches on the eye-ball, cupping in the back of the neck, a general system of hydropathy and alcoholic lotions in the parts adjoining the eye. Sometimes—though very rarely—I felt a momentary alleviation of the excessive weariness from which I was constantly suffering, but this only lasted for a few moments, and, in short, my complaint was insensibly assuming that chronic type which usually characterizes incurable infirmities.
“In obedience to the advice of my medical attendants, I had given up my eyes to entire rest. Not content with wearing blue spectacles whenever I left the house, I had quitted Paris for the country, and retired to my mother’s residence at Coux, on the banks of the Dordogne. I had taken with me as my secretary a young person who read for me the books I required to consult, and wrote from my dictation.
“September had arrived. This state had lasted about three months, and it began to cause me the most serious uneasiness. I suffered dreadful anxiety, which I did not mention to any one. My relations and friends had the same fears, though they kept them from me. We were almost convinced that my sight was lost for ever, but each of us tried to inspire hope we had ceased to have ourselves, and concealed our mutual feelings of alarm.
“I have a very intimate friend—a friend of my earliest infancy—to whom I am in the habit of confiding my joys and sorrows. From my dictation my secretary wrote him a letter in which I described my unhappy situation and my cruel fears for the future.
“The friend of whom I speak is a Protestant, as is his wife also, a double circumstance which deserves being remarked. For certain very sufficient reasons I cannot give his name here in full; we will call him M. de ——.
“He replied to me a few days afterwards. His letter reached me on the 15th of September, and surprised me greatly. I here give its contents without changing a single word:
“‘Your few lines, my dear friend, gave me pleasure; but, as I have already told you, I long to hear from you in your own handwriting. Within the last few days, on my return from Cauterets, I stopped at Lourdes, near Tarbes. I visited the celebrated Grotto there, and heard such wonderful things relating to cures produced by its waters—more especially in cases of eye-complaints—that I beg you most seriously to give them a trial. Were I a Catholic, a believer like you, and suffering, as you are, from any malady, I should risk the chance without hesitation. If it is true that the sick have been suddenly cured, you may hope to swell their number; and if it is not so, what do you risk by making the trial? I may add that I am somewhat personally interested in this experiment. Should it succeed, what an important fact it would be for me to record? I should be brought face to face with a miraculous fact, or at least with an event to which the principal witness would be above all suspicion.
“‘It appears that it is not actually necessary to go to Lourdes to use this water, as you may just as well have it forwarded to you. You have but to write to the Curé of Lourdes on the subject and he will provide you with it. It is necessary to go through certain preliminary formalities which I am unable to point out to you, but the Curé of Lourdes will furnish you with all particulars. Beg him at the same time to send you a little pamphlet by the Vicar-general of Tarbes, which gives an account of the best established miraculous occurrences.’
“This letter of my friend was eminently calculated to fill me with astonishment. His disposition of mind is clear, positive and mathematical, lofty in its nature, but at the same time not likely to yield to the illusions of enthusiasm. Add to this, he is a Protestant. The advice he gave me so seriously and so urgently, amazed me more especially as coming from him.
“I resolved, however, not to follow it.
“‘It seems to me,’ I replied to him, ‘that I am to-day somewhat better, and if I continue to improve I shall not have any occasion to have recourse this time to the extraordinary remedy you propose, for which, besides, I, perhaps, have not sufficient faith.’
“Here, I must confess, not without blushing, the secret motives of my resistance.
“Whatever I might have said, I was not wanting in faith, and though I knew nothing of the water of Lourdes, except from the impertinent strictures of some ill-thinking journals, I was morally certain that there, as well as in many other places, the power of God might manifest itself in cures. I go further: I had a kind of presentiment that if I tried this water—said to have gushed forth in consequence of an Apparition of the Blessed Virgin—I should be cured. But I dreaded, I confess, the responsibility of so great a favor. ‘If you are cured by the ordinary routine of medicine,’ I observed to myself, ‘you will be quits by paying the doctor. You will be in the same position as your neighbor. But if God cures you by a Miracle, by the special effect of his power and by a direct and personal intervention, it will be quite a different affair for you and you will be obliged to amend your life and become a Saint. When God shall in a manner have given you for the second time with his own hands those eyes which are now so little under your control, will you be able to suffer them—as you do at present—to stray towards objects which seduce you or wander over what may cause you sorrow? After a miracle exerted in your favor, God will demand His recompense, and that will cost you dearer than the fees of the doctor. It will then be your duty to overcome this evil habit, to acquire that virtue. What may you not be obliged to do? Ah! it is impossible.’
“And my wretched heart, fearing its own weakness, refused to accept the grace of God.
“Such was my reason for rebelling against the advice tendered me of having recourse to this miraculous intervention, against this advice which Providence, always profound in its ways, sent to me by two Protestants, by two heretics, outside the Church. My agitation, however, and my resistance were alike in vain. An interior voice was for ever telling me that the hand of man would be powerless to cure me, and that the Master, whom I had so often offended, willed Himself to restore me my sight, and thus presenting me with a new life, to prove whether I should be able to employ it better.
“In the mean time my state of health remained stationary or become slowly worse.
“Early in October I was obliged to undertake a journey to Paris.
“By the merest accident M. de —— happened to be there at the same time with his wife. The first visit I made was to them. My friend was stopping at the house of his sister, Mme. P——, who resides in Paris with her husband.
“‘And how are your eyes?’ asked Mme. de ——, as I entered the drawing-room.
“‘My eyes are always in the same state, and I begin to think my sight is lost for ever.’
“‘But why do you not try the remedy we advised you?’ said my friend to me. ‘Something or other gives me hopes that you might be cured.’
“‘Pshaw!’ I replied, ‘I will confess to you, that without proceeding to the length of denial and open hostility, I have no great faith in all these waters and pretended apparitions. All that is possible, and I have no positive objection to it; but not having studied the question, I am neither for nor against it; it is beyond my reach. In short, I have no wish to have recourse to the means you advise me.’
“‘You bring forward no valid objections to such a step,’ he replied. ‘According to your religious principles, you must believe, and you do believe, in the possibility of such things. Such being the case, why should you not make the experiment? What will it cost you? As I have told you, the pure water, water of the same chemical composition as the most ordinary water; and since you believe in miracles, and have faith in your religion, does it not strike you as extraordinary that you should be advised so strongly by two Protestants to have recourse to the Blessed Virgin? I tell you beforehand, that if you are cured, it will be a terrible argument against me.’
“Mme. de —— joined her entreaties to those of her husband. M. and Mme. P——, who are both Catholics, urged me no less strongly. I was driven into my last intrenchment.
“‘Well,’ I said to them, ‘I am going to confess the whole truth to you and open to you my whole heart. I am not wanting in faith, but I have faults, weaknesses, a thousand little wretchednesses—and all these, alas! hold firmly to the most sensitive and viviant fibres of my miserable existence. Now, a miracle such as the one of which I might possibly be the object, would impose on me the obligation of sacrificing everything and of becoming a saint; it would be a terrible responsibility, and I am such a coward that I dread it. If God cures me, what will He exact from me? Whereas, with a doctor, a little money and the affair is settled.
“‘This is disgusting is it not? But such is the wretched pusillanimity of my heart. You fancied my faith was wavering! You imagined that I feared the failure of the miracle! Undeceive yourselves. My fear is that the miracle may succeed.’
“My friends sought to convince me that I exaggerated the responsibility—of which I spoke—as much on the one hand as I diminished it on the other.
“‘You are not less bound at the present moment to live a virtuous life than you would be, supposing the event results as we suppose,’ observed M. de ——. ‘And, besides, even should your cure be effected by the hands of a physician, it would not, on that account, be less a favor from God, and in that case your scruples would have the same reasons for protesting against your weaknesses or your passions.’
“All this did not appear to me perfectly correct, and M. de —— (a logical mind if ever there was one) probably owned to himself that his reasoning was not altogether what it might have been; but he wished, as much as possible, to calm the apprehensions I felt so keenly, and to induce me to decide on following the advice he tendered me, even to the length of recalling to my mind himself the grave responsibility with regard to which he was then endeavoring to re-assure me.
“In vain did I attempt to combat the more and more pressing entreaties of my friend, of his wife, and of our host and hostess. I ended, weary of the conflict, by promising to do everything they wished.
“‘As soon as I procure a secretary,’ I told them, ‘I shall write to Lourdes; but I only arrived to-day, and have not yet had time to look for one.’
“‘But I will act as your secretary!’ exclaimed my friend.
“‘Well, be it so! To-morrow we will breakfast together at the Café de Foy. I will dictate a letter to you after breakfast.’
“‘Why not do so at once,’ he said to me eagerly. ‘In that case we gain a day.’
“Writing materials were produced from the adjoining apartment. I dictated to my friend a letter for the Curé of Lourdes, which was posted the same evening.
“The next day M. de —— came to my house.
“‘My good friend,’ he said to me, ‘now that the die is cast and that you have decided to make the trial, you must do it seriously, and fulfill the conditions necessary for its success, without which the experiment would be utterly useless. Offer up the necessary prayers, go to confession, bring your soul into a suitable condition, and go through the devotional exercises prescribed by your religion. You understand that all this is of the most vital importance.’
“‘You are perfectly right,’ I replied, ‘and I will do what you tell me. But I must confess you are a queer Protestant. A few days since you inculcated on me faith, now you do the same with regard to the practices of religion. We have exchanged parts in a droll manner, and any one overhearing us—you the Protestant and I the Catholic—might well be astonished; and I confess, alas! the impression produced would not be to my advantage.’
“‘I am a scientific man,’ replied M. de ——. ‘As we are about to make an experiment I very naturally wish we should do it according to the prescribed conditions. I reason on this subject as if I were reasoning on physical science or chemistry.’
“I declare, to my shame, that I did not place myself in the state of preparation so judiciously recommended by my friend. I was, at the time, in a very bad frame of mind; my natural feelings were deeply agitated, troubled and inclined to evil.
“I recognized, however, the necessity of going and throwing myself at the feet of God; but as I had not been guilty of any of those gross and material faults, against which there is a sudden reaction in the mind, I deferred doing so from day to day. Man rebels more against the sacrament of penance during a temptation than when the actual commission of a sin has come to overthrow and humiliate him. It is, in fact, more difficult to combat and resist than to demand pardon after a defeat. Who has not experienced this?
“About a week passed away in this manner. M. and Mme. de —— inquired every day whether I had received any news of the miraculous water, or any letter from the Curé of Lourdes. The Curé replied to me at length, informing me that some of the water of Lourdes had been forwarded by the railroad, and would shortly reach me.
“We awaited the moment in a state of impatience which may easily be conceived; but, would you believe it? I felt less interest in the matter than my Protestant friends.
“The state of my eyes was always the same. It was absolutely impossible for me either to read or write.
“One morning—it was Friday, October 10, 1862—I was waiting for M. de —— in the Gallery d’Orleans at the Palais-Royal. We had breakfasted together. As I had arrived earlier than the appointed time, I was gazing at the different shops in the gallery, and reading the advertisements of some new books in front of Dentu’s library. This was enough to weary my eyes excessively. My sight had become so weak that I could not read even the largest letters without suffering from invincible lassitude. This slight circumstance plunged me into a state of deep dejection, as it afforded me the means of measuring once more the full extent of my misfortune.
“In the afternoon, I dictated three letters to M. de ——, and at four o’clock I left him and returned to my own residence. As I was going up-stairs my porter called me.
“‘A small box has been brought here for you from the railroad,’ he said to me.
“I entered eagerly the porter’s lodge. A small deal box was, in fact, there, bearing my address and these words—doubtless intended for the octroi—‘Pure water.’
“It was the water from Lourdes.
“I experienced inwardly a violent emotion; but I suffered no outward signs of it to escape me.
“‘Very well,’ said I to my porter. ‘I will take it to my apartment presently. I shall return almost immediately.’
“I left the house in a pensive frame of mind and walked up and down the street for a few moments.
“‘The affair is becoming serious,’ I thought to myself. ‘De —— is right; I must prepare myself. In the state of mind in which I have been for some time past, I cannot—unless I purify myself—ask God to perform a Miracle in my favor. It is not with a heart still full of wretchedness of my own choosing that I can implore so great a favor from Him. Let me use my own efforts to cure my soul, before I beseech him to cure my body.’
“Revolving these serious considerations in my mind, I proceeded in the direction of the residence of my confessor, M. l’Abbé Ferraud de Missol, who lives in my immediate neighborhood. Happily I was certain of meeting with him, as it was Friday, and he is always at home on that day.
“He was at home; but several persons were already in his ante-chamber waiting for him, and they would naturally see him before my turn came. In addition to this, one of the members of his family had arrived unexpectedly on a visit. His servant informed me of all this, and begged me to return in the evening after his dinner-hour, towards seven o’clock.
“I resigned myself to this proposal.
“On reaching the street-door I paused for a moment. I hesitated between my wish to pay a visit I had much at heart, and my thought of returning to my own house to pray. My fancy urged me violently in the direction of amusement, while a grave voice—a voice which only appeared to me to be feeble, because I had usually been deaf to it—a deep and holy voice called me to retirement.
“I hesitated some moments, deliberating in my own mind.
“At length the good inspiration carried the day, and I retraced my steps towards the Rue de Seine.
“I took from my porter the little box, which was accompanied with a Notice of the Apparitions at Lourdes, and with hasty steps ascended the staircase.
“On reaching my apartment I knelt down at the side of my bed and prayed, altogether unworthy as I felt myself to turn my eyes towards heaven and to address myself to God.
“I then rose. On entering my room, I had placed the little deal box and the pamphlet on the mantel-piece. I glanced every moment at this box which contained the mysterious water, and it seemed to me as if something grand was going to take place in that solitary chamber. I dreaded to touch with my impure hands the wood which contained the sacred water, and, on the other hand, I felt myself strangely tempted to open it, even before making my confession as I had proposed doing. This struggle lasted some moments; it ended in a prayer.
“‘Yes, my God,’ I exclaimed, ‘I am a miserable sinner, unworthy to raise my voice towards Thee, and to touch an object which Thou hast blessed. But it is the very excess of my misery which should excite thy compassion. My God, I come to Thee and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, full of faith and unreserved confidence; and from the depth of the abyss, I cry out unto Thee. To-night I shall confess my sins to Thy minister, but my faith cannot and will not wait. Forgive me, O Lord, and heal me. And Thou, O Mother of Mercy, come to the assistance of thy unfortunate child.’
“Having thus refreshed myself with prayer, I summoned courage to open the little box of which I have spoken. It contained a bottle full of water.
“I removed the cork, poured some of the water into a cup and took a napkin out of my commode. These common preparations, which I went through with a particular attention, were impressed—as I still remember—with a secret solemnity, which struck me myself, as I went to and fro in my chamber. In that chamber I was not alone; it was manifest that God was there. The Blessed Virgin, whom I had invoked, was doubtless there also.
“Faith, fervent and ardent, had inflamed my soul.
“When my preparations were all finished, I knelt down again.
“‘O Blessed Virgin Mary,’ I said with a loud voice, ‘have pity on me and heal my physical and moral blindness.’
“On saying these words, with my heart full of confidence, I rubbed successively both my eyes and my forehead with the towel I had just soaked in the water of Lourdes. What I am now describing did not occupy the space of thirty seconds.
“Judge of my astonishment—I had almost said my horror. Scarcely had I applied this miraculous water to my eyes and brow when I felt myself all at once cured, immediately, without any intermediate state and with a suddenness which I can only compare in my imperfect language to that of a flash of lightning.
“Strange contradiction of human nature! A moment before I believed in my faith, which promised me my cure; and now I could not believe my senses which assured me that the cure was accomplished.
“No! I did not believe my senses, and that to such a degree that in spite of the astounding effect already produced, I committed the fault of Moses and struck the rock twice. In other words, for some time longer, I continued to pray and moisten my eyes and my brow, not daring to rise, not daring to test the reality of my cure.
“However, at the expiration of ten minutes, the strength I continued to feel in my eyes and the entire absence of any heaviness in my sight, left no longer any room for doubt.
“‘I am cured!’ I exclaimed.
“And I ran to take a book—no matter what—to read. I stopped all at once. ‘No! no!’ I said to myself, ‘it is not any kind of book that I can take up at this moment.’
“I went to seek the Notice of the Apparitions which was lying on the mantel-piece. Certainly, this was but an act of justice.
“I read one hundred and four pages without interruption, and without experiencing the slightest fatigue. Twenty minutes before I could not have read three lines.
“And if I did stop at page 104 it was because it was thirty-five minutes past five in the evening, and at that hour, towards the middle of October, it is almost dark at Paris. When I laid aside the book, the gas was being lighted in the shops of the street in which I resided.
“In the evening I made my confession and informed the Abbé Ferraud of the great favor the Blessed Virgin had just conferred on me. Although far from being prepared, as I have already said, I was permitted by him to communicate the next morning, in order to thank God for so special and extraordinary a benefit, and to fortify the resolutions which an event of such a nature could not fail of giving birth to in my heart.
“M. and Mme. de —— were—as you may easily imagine—singularly affected by this occurrence in which Providence had caused them to take so direct a part. What were their reflections regarding it? By what thoughts were they visited? What passed in the interior of those two souls? It is their secret and the secret of God. What little I succeeded in discovering with regard to their feelings, I have not been authorized to impart to others.
“Be this as it may, I knew the nature of my friend. I left him to his own reflections, without pressing him to come to any conclusion. I knew, and I know still, that God has His appointed hour, and knows His own designs. His agency was so distinctly visible in all that had happened, that I feared to interfere myself, in spite of my great wish—which was well-known to my friends—that they should enter the only Church which contains God in all His fullness.
“I regret being unable to pause here in order to contemplate for an instant in my memory those two beings—so dear to me—receiving by the rebound of the Miracle, accomplished in my favor, the first shocks, which Truth gives to such as she wishes to conquer.
“Seven years have elapsed since my miraculous cure. My sight is excellent. It is not ever wearied by reading, hard work, or sitting up at night. God grant me grace never to employ it save in the cause of right.”
In the name of the see, or, to speak more correctly, in that of the Church, Mgr. Laurence bought from the town of Lourdes the Grotto, the portion of land by which it is surrounded, and the entire group of the Rocks of Massabielle. M. Lacadé was Mayor at the time. He it was who proposed to the municipal council, the cession to the Church, the Spouse of Christ, of those places now for ever holy, where the Mother of God had appeared. His signature was formally attached to the contract of sale.
This sale was authorized by M. Rouland, as was also the construction of a Church in eternal memory of the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette Soubirous, of the issuing of the Spring, and of the countless miracles which were accomplished in order to attest the reality of the divine visions.
While the vast temple dedicated to the Immaculate Conception on the rugged rocks of Massabielle was rising stone by stone from its foundations, Our Lady of Lourdes continued to pour out her miracles and her benefactions on mankind. At Paris and Bordeaux, in Périgord, in Bretagne and in Anjou, in the most lonely country places, and in the very heart of thickly inhabited cities, Our Lady of Lourdes was invoked, and every where Our Lady of Lourdes responded with undeniable signs of her power and goodness.
Let us still narrate two of these divine histories ere we close our tale, and give a tableau of the present state of things. The first forms an episode in the life of the author of this book which will never be effaced from his memory. This episode we subjoin, just as we wrote it nearly seven years ago.
PASTORAL letter of Mgr. the Bishop of Tarbes, pronouncing judgment in the case of the Apparition which took place at the Grotto of Lourdes.
BERTRAND-Sévère-Laurence, by the Divine Mercy and the favor of the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Tarbes, Assistant to the Pontifical Throne, etc.
To the clergy and faithful of our diocese, salutation and benediction in Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In all epochs of humanity, Our Beloved Co-operators and Very dear Brothers, a marvelous communication has subsisted between heaven and earth. At the commencement of the world, the Lord appeared to our first parents in order to reproach them with the crime of their disobedience. In following ages, we find Him conversing with the Patriarchs and the Prophets; and the Old Testament is often the history of the celestial Apparitions with which the children of Israel were favored.
Such divine favors were not to cease with the Mosaic dispensation; on the contrary they were to be under the law of grace more numerous and more striking.
In the very cradle of the Church, in those times of bloody persecution, the Christians were in the habit of being visited by Jesus Christ or by Angels, who came, sometimes to reveal to them the secrets of the future, sometimes to deliver them from their chains, sometimes to strengthen them for the combats they were to endure. It was thus—according to the idea of a judicious writer—that God encouraged those illustrious Confessors of the faith, at a time when the mighty of the earth were uniting all their efforts to stifle in its germ that doctrine by which the world was to be saved.
These supernatural manifestations were not exclusively confined to the first ages of Christianity. History attests that they have been perpetuated from age to age for the greater glory of Religion and the edification of the Faithful.
In the ranks of celestial Apparitions those of the Blessed Virgin occupy a prominent place, and have been an abundant source of blessings for the world. In traversing the Catholic universe, the traveler meets with temples consecrated to the Mother of God, built at no great distance from each other; and several of these edifices owe their origin to an Apparition of the Queen of Heaven. We have already one of these blessed Sanctuaries in our part of the country—Our Lady of Garaison—founded, four centuries ago, in consequence of a revelation made to a young shepherd-girl. Thousands of pilgrims repair thither every year to kneel before the throne of the glorious Virgin Mary to implore her kindness.
Thanks be to the Almighty! in the infinite treasures of his goodness, he has preserved for us a fresh favor. He wills that in the diocese of Tarbes a new sanctuary should be elevated to the glory of Mary. And what instrument has He employed to communicate to us His merciful designs. It is one which would be deemed the weakest in the eyes of the world, a child aged fourteen years, Bernadette Soubirous, born of poor parents at Lourdes.
[Here the Bishop gave a summary of the Apparitions of the Most Blessed Virgin, with which the reader is already acquainted. Mgr. Laurence then proceeded to the discussion of the facts.]
Such is substantially, [continued the Prelate,] the narration as we gathered it from the lips of Bernadette, in presence of the Commission, which had been assembled for the purpose of hearing her account a second time.
Thus this young girl is said to have seen and heard a being styling herself the Immaculate Conception, and which, albeit clothed in human form, is said to have been neither seen nor heard by any of the numerous spectators who were present at the scene. It is said, consequently, to have been a supernatural being. What must we think of all this?
You are well aware, beloved Brethren, that the Church exercises a wise deliberation in her appreciation of supernatural facts; she demands positive proofs, before admitting them and proclaiming them divine. Since the original fall, man, more especially in matters of this nature, is subject to many errors. If not led astray by his reason, now become so weak, he is liable to be the victim of the artifices of the Devil. Who does not know that the Evil One transforms sometimes into an angel of light in order that we may fall more easily into his snares. Thus the beloved Disciple recommends us not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits, whether they be of God. This trial, dearly beloved Brethren, we have already made. The occurrences, of which we are now speaking to you, have been a cause of anxiety to us for the last four years. We have followed them in their different phases; we have received suggestions from our Commission, composed of pious, learned and experienced priests, who have interrogated the child, studied the facts, and examined into and well weighed everything. We have also called in the authority of Science, and we have remained firmly convinced that the Apparition is supernatural and divine, and, consequently, that what Bernadette saw, was the Blessed Virgin. Our conviction has been formed on the testimony of Bernadette, and more especially so after taking into consideration the facts which have been produced, and which admit of no explanation but that of divine intervention.
The testimony of the young girl offers all the guarantees we can possibly desire. There cannot be the slightest doubt as to her sincerity. Who does not when coming in contact with her, admire her simplicity, modesty and candor? While everybody is discussing the marvels which have been revealed to her, alone, she remains silent. She never speaks unless when questions are put to her; then she enters into details without the slightest affectation, and with the most touching ingenuousness; and her answers to the numerous questions addressed to her are given without hesitation; are clear, precise, very much to the purpose, and bearing the impress of deep conviction.
Subjected to rough trials, she has never been shaken by threats, and she has declined the most generous offers with noble disinterestedness. Always d’accord avec elle-même, she has, in the different interrogatories to which she has been subjected, constantly adhered to her first statement, neither adding to nor taking away from it. Bernadette’s sincerity is therefore incontestable. Let us add that it has never been contested. Even those who opposed her, have themselves rendered her this homage.
But granting that Bernadette had no wish to deceive others, is it not possible that she was deceived herself? For instance, did she not fancy she saw and heard what she neither saw nor heard? Was she not the victim of a hallucination? How could we believe this for a moment? The wisdom of her replies reveals in the child a soundness of mind, a calmness of imagination, and a fund of good sense beyond her years. In her the religious feeling has never displayed any over-excited character; it has never been proved that she suffered from any intellectual derangement, oddity of disposition, or morbid affection which might have predisposed her to indulge in creations of the imagination. She has had this vision, not once only, but as often as eighteen times; she saw it for the first time suddenly, when nothing could have prepared her for what was to be accomplished later on; and during the Quinzaine, when she expected to see the vision every day, she saw nothing for two days, although she was placed in the same way and in identical circumstances. And then what took place during the time the Apparitions were before her? Bernadette was transformed; her countenance assumed a new expression, her eyes kindled, she saw things which she had never before seen, she heard language which she had never before heard, the sense of which she did not always understand, but the remembrance of which she did not fail to retain.
These circumstances joined together, preclude the idea of hallucination. The young girl has therefore really seen and heard a being styling herself the Immaculate Conception, and it being impossible to account for the phenomenon naturally, we have just ground for believing that the Apparition was supernatural.
The testimony of Bernadette—in itself of considerable importance—acquires altogether new strength—we might say its complement—from the marvelous occurrences which have taken place since the first event. If a tree should be judged by its fruits, we may affirm that the Apparition, as narrated by the girl, is supernatural and divine, for it has produced supernatural and divine effects. What then happened, dearly beloved Brethren? The Apparition was scarcely heard of, when the news spread with the rapidity of lightning; it was known that Bernadette was to repair to the Grotto for the space of fifteen days, and the whole country was aroused. Crowds of people streamed towards the place of the Apparition; they waited for the solemn hour with religious impatience; and while the girl, beside herself with ravishment, was absorbed by the object of her contemplation, the witnesses of this prodigy, deeply affected and melted to tenderness, were mingled in a common feeling of admiration and prayer.
The Apparitions have ceased; but the concourse of people continues, and pilgrims, arriving from distant countries as well as from the neighboring districts, hasten to the Grotto. They are of all ages, all ranks and all conditions. And by what feeling are these numerous strangers urged to visit the place? Ah! they come to the Grotto in order to pray and to demand favors of one kind or other from the Immaculate Mary. They prove, by their recollected behavior, that they are sensible as it were of a divine breath which vivifies this rock, from henceforth forever celebrated. Souls, already christian, have become strengthened in virtue; men frozen with indifference have been brought back to the practices of religion; obstinate sinners have been reconciled with God, after Our Lady of Lourdes had been invoked in their favor. These marvels of grace, bearing the stamp of universality and duration, can only have God for their author. Consequently, have they not come for the express purpose of confirming the truth of the Apparition?
If from effects produced for the good of souls, we pass to those which concern the health of the body, how many new prodigies have we not to recount?
Our readers will not have forgotten the gushing forth of the Spring, from which Bernadette drank and in which she washed herself, in the presence of the assembled multitude. It would be superfluous to repeat here the details.
Persons suffering from sickness, [resumes the Bishop,] tried the water of the Grotto, and not without success. Many, whose infirmities had resisted the most energetic treatment, suddenly recovered their health. These extraordinary cures acquired immense notoriety, and their fame soon spread far and wide.
The sick of all countries requested to have some of the water of Massabielle sent to them, when they were unable to repair themselves to the Grotto. How many bowed down with infirmities have been cured, how many families consoled! If we wished to invoke their testimony, innumerable voices would be raised to proclaim, in accents of gratitude, the sovereign efficacy of the water of the Grotto. It would be impossible for us to enumerate here all the favors which have been obtained; but there is one thing of which we are bound to inform you, which is, that the water of Massabielle has cured many who had been given over and pronounced incurable. These cures have been effected by the use of a water, which, according to the report of eminent Chemists who have subjected it to a minute analysis, is destitute of any curative properties. They have been effected in some instances instantaneously, in others after the repetition of the application of this water two or three times, either internally or externally. Further, these cures are permanent. What then is the power which has produced them? Is it the power of the organism? Scientific men, when consulted on the subject, have replied in the negative. These cures are then the work of God. Now they are connected with the Apparition; she it is who is their starting point; she it was who inspired the sick with confidence; consequently there is an intimate connection between the cures and the Apparition; the Apparition is divine, since the cures bear the seal of the divinity. From this it follows that the Apparition having styled herself the Immaculate Conception, it was the Most Blessed Virgin whom Bernadette saw and heard! Let us then exclaim: The finger of God is here! Digitus Dei est hic.
How can we but admire, dearly beloved Brethren, the economy of divine Providence! At the end of the year 1854, the immortal Pius IX. proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The words of the Pontiff were re-echoed in the most distant parts of the world; Catholic hearts thrilled with joy, and the glorious privilege of Mary was everywhere celebrated with fêtes, the souvenir of which will remain forever engraved on our memory. And behold about three years afterwards, the Blessed Virgin, appearing to a child, says to her: I am the Immaculate Conception—I desire that a chapel should be erected here to my honor. Does she not appear to wish to consecrate by a monument the infallible oracle of the successor of St. Peter?
And where does she desire that this monument should be erected? It is at the foot of our Pyrenean mountains, a country where numerous foreigners meet together, coming from every part of the world in search of health at our warm baths. May it not be said that she invites the faithful of all nations to come and honor her in the new temple which shall be erected to her?
Inhabitants of Lourdes, rejoice! the august Mary condescends to regard you with her merciful eyes. It is her will that a sanctuary should be built to her honor near your town, in which she will abundantly pour forth her benefactions. Be thankful to her for this pledge of predilection which she gives you, and since she lavishes on you the tenderness of a mother, show yourselves to be her devoted children by the imitation of her virtues and your unshaken attachment to Religion.
Besides, it is with pleasure we recognize the fact, that the Apparition has already produced among you abundant fruits of salvation. Eye witnesses of the occurrences at the Grotto and of their happy results, your confidence has been as great as your conviction has been strong. We have ever admired your prudence, your docility in following the advice tendered by us of submission to the civil authorities, at a time when for the space of several weeks, you were obliged to cease your visits to the Grotto, and to compress, in your own hearts, the sentiments inspired by the spectacle which had so impressed you during the Quinzaine of the Apparitions.
And all of you, whether Priests or Laics, in our diocese, open your hearts to the influence of hope; a new era of graces is commencing for you: you are called upon to reap your share in the benefits which are promised to us. In your supplications and canticles, you will henceforth mingle the name of Our Lady of Lourdes with the blessed names of Our Lady of Garaison, of Poeylaün, of Héas and of Piétat.
From above these sacred sanctuaries, the Immaculate Virgin will watch over you and shield you with her tutelary protection. Yes, beloved fellow-laborers, and beloved brothers in Christ, if, with our hearts full of trust, we keep our eyes steadily fixed on that “star of the sea,” we shall without fear of shipwreck, pass through the tempests of life, and reach in safety the haven of eternal felicity.
FOR THESE REASONS:
After having conferred with our venerable Brothers, the Dignitaries, Canons and Chapter of our Cathedral Church;
The Holy Name of God being duly invoked; taking for our guidance the rules wisely traced by Benedict XIV.—in his work on the Beatification and Canonization of Saints—for the discernment of Apparitions true or false;
Seeing the favorable report which has been presented to us by the Commission charged with obtaining all information relative to the Apparition at the Grotto of Lourdes, and its attendant circumstances;
Seeing the written testimony of the Physicians and Surgeons whom we have consulted on the subject of the numerous cures obtained in consequence of the use of the water of the Grotto;
Considering, in the first place, that the fact of the Apparition—viewed either with reference to the young girl who reported it, or more especially with reference to the extraordinary effects which it has produced—can only be accounted for through the medium of a supernatural cause;
Considering, in the second place, that this cause can but be divine, since the effects produced by it, being, some, sensible signs of grace, as the conversion of sinners, others, deviations from the ordinary laws of nature, as miraculous cures, can only be referred to the Author of Grace and to the Lord of nature;
Considering, in short, that our conviction is strengthened by the vast and spontaneous concourse of the faithful at the Grotto—a concourse which has not ceased since the first Apparitions, having for its object to request favors, or to return thanks for those already obtained;
In order to respond to the legitimate impatience of our Venerable Chapter, of the clergy, of the laics of our diocese, and of so many pious souls, who have long been demanding from the ecclesiastical Authority a decision which motives of prudence have induced us to defer;
Wishing, also, to satisfy the pious wishes of many of our Colleagues in the Episcopacy, and of a great number of eminent personages strangers to our diocese;
After having invoked the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and the assistance of the Most Blessed Virgin,
WE HAVE DECLARED AND DO DECLARE AS FOLLOWS:
Article 1.—We pronounce judgment that the IMMACULATE MARY, MOTHER OF GOD, really appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, on the eleventh of February, 1858, and following days, to the number of eighteen, in the Grotto of Massabielle, near the town of Lourdes; that this Apparition is invested with every character of truth, and that the faithful have good ground for believing it to be certain.
We submit, with all humility, our judgment to the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff, to whom is committed the government of the universal Church.
Article 2.—We authorize the worship of Our Lady of the Grotto of Lourdes in our diocese: but we prohibit the publication of any particular formula of prayers, of any canticle, or of any book of devotion bearing on this event, without our approbation given in writing.
Article 3.—In order to conform ourselves to the will of the Blessed Virgin—several times expressed by the Apparition at that period—we propose to proceed to the erection of a sanctuary on the site of the Grotto, the proprietorship of which is now vested in the Bishops of Tarbes for the time being.
This edifice, when we take into consideration the steep and difficult locality we have to deal with, will require much labor and relatively a very considerable outlay of money. In order, therefore, to realize our pious scheme, we shall need the co-operation of the priests and the faithful of our diocese, as well as of the priests and the faithful of France and of foreign countries. We appeal to their generous hearts, and more especially to all the pious persons of all countries, who are devoted to the worship of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.
Article 4.—We address ourselves with confidence to the establishments of both sexes, consecrated to the education of youth, to the Congregations of the Children of Mary, to the confréries of the Blessed Virgin and to the different pious Associations, whether in our own diocese or in the whole of France.
On the Sunday following its reception, this, our pastoral letter, shall be read and published in all the parish churches, as also in the chapels and oratories of the seminaries, colleges and hospitals of our diocese.
Given at Tarbes, in our episcopal palace, under our signature and seal and the counter-signature of our secretary, on the 18th of January, 1862, being the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome.
✠ BERTRAND SEVERE,
Bishop of Tarbes.
By order, FOURCADE, Canon-Secretary.
The miraculous cures were counted by hundreds. It was impossible to attempt to establish the truth of all. The Episcopal Commissioners subjected thirty of them to a most minute scrutiny. They displayed extreme strictness in their investigation, and only admitted the Supernatural when it would have been impossible to have done otherwise. They rejected, for instance, all such cures as could not claim to have been effected almost instantaneously, but had been accomplished by slow degrees, as also all such as had been obtained in union with medical treatment, however unavailing the latter might have been up to that period. “Although the inefficacy of the remedies prescribed by medical science had been satisfactorily shown,”—we quote from the Report drawn up by the Secretary of the Commission,—“it was not possible, in that case, strictly and exclusively, to attribute the cure to the supernatural virtue of the water of the Grotto, which had been used simultaneously.”
Further, there had been pointed out to the Commissioners, as possessing a miraculous character, sundry favors of a spiritual nature, singular graces and unhoped-for conversions. It was difficult to establish judicially these dramas which were enacted in the secret recesses of the human soul, and were therefore not subject to any external control. Although such occurrences, such changes of heart are sometimes more marvelous and astonishing than the straightening of a limb or the cessation of some physical malady, the Commissioners judged wisely that they ought not to be included in the solemn and public inquiry with which the Bishop had charged them.
In their report to Monseigneur Laurence, the Commissioners, in concert with the medical men, divided into three categories the cures which they had investigated and of which they had furnished ample details in their official documents, which were all signed by the persons cured and by numerous witnesses.
The first category comprehended such cures as, however striking in their nature, were susceptible of a natural explanation. They were in number six, and comprised those of Jeanne Marie Arqué, the widow of M. Crozat, Blaise Maumus, and of a child called Lafitte, all three residents at Lourdes; of a child called Lasbareilles, of Gez; of Jean Crassus, of Arcizan-Avant, and lastly of Jeanne Pomiér of Loubajac.
The second category was composed of cures with regard to which the Commissioners were inclined to admit supernatural agency. In this number we find as follows: Jean Pierre Malon, Jeanne Marie Daube, wife of a man called Vendome, Bernarde Soubies and Pauline Bordeaux, all of Lourdes; Jean-Marie Amaré, of Beaucens; Marcelle Peyrègne, of Agos; Jeanne-Marie Massot Bordenave, of Arras; Jeanne Gezma and Auguste Bordes, of Pontacq.
“The majority of these facts”—as we learn from the medical investigation—“furnish almost all the conditions necessary for their admission into the supernatural order of things. It may be considered that, in rejecting them, we have acted with too much caution and have pushed our conscientiousness to extremes. But far from complaining of being so reproached, we congratulate ourselves on it, being fully convinced that in matters of this importance to be strict is to follow the dictates of prudence.”
Under such circumstances, a natural explanation, however improbable, but still within the range of possibility, sufficed to prevent the Commissioners from declaring the Miracle. The fact was then ranked by them in the category we have just pointed out.
The third class comprised those cures which displayed in the most evident and undeniable manner the supernatural character. There were fifteen of them, and we subjoin the names of those cured: Blaisette Soupenne, Benoite Cazeaux, Jeanne Crassus, wife of a man called Crozat, Louis Bourriette, the child Justin Beauhoorts, Fabien and Suzanne Baron, all of Lourdes; Mme. Rizan and Henry Busquet of Nay; Catherine Latapie, of Loubajac; Madame Lanou of Bordères; Marianne Garrot and Denys Bouchet of Lamarque; Jean-Maria Tambourné of Saint Justin; Mlle. Moreau de Sazenay of Tartas; and Paschaline Abbadiee of Rabastens. All these cures were pronounced to have been incontestably miraculous.
“The maladies by which those who were favored with such sudden and striking cures had been attacked were for the most part of very different natures,” as we gather from the report of the Commission. They assumed very different characters. Some of them belonged to internal, others to external pathology.
These affections, however, though of such different kinds have been cured by the use of one and the same element, sometimes externally, sometimes internally, and in some cases in both ways simultaneously.
“Now, in the natural and scientific order, besides the fact of each remedy only being applied in a particular manner, it is clear that it only possesses one special virtue adapted to such or such a malady, but which is inefficacious, if not injurious, in all other cases. It is not, therefore, owing to any peculiar property inherent in its composition, that the water of Massabielle has succeeded in producing such numerous, extraordinary and different cures, and in suddenly putting to flight so many maladies of different and sometimes diametrically opposite nature.
“And this is the more remarkable,” the report added, “since Science has authoritatively declared on the analysis furnished by the most eminent men, that this water does not in itself contain any mineral or therapeutic properties, and that, chemically speaking, it is nothing but pure water.”
Medical science did not arrive less decidedly at the same conclusions after a mature and conscientious examination of these miraculous cures.
“On glancing at these cures as a whole,” said the medical report, “one is struck at once with the facility, promptitude, and instantaneousness with which they issue from the bosom of their producing cause; with the violation and utter upsetting of all therapeutic methods which prevail in their accomplishment; with the contradictions which the precepts and previsions of science meet with; with that kind of disdain which makes sport of the long continuance, extent and resistance of the malady; with the hidden, but at the same time, real care with which the circumstances are arranged and combined, in order to show that in the cure which is being effected there is something going on quite out of the ordinary course of nature. Such phenomena are beyond the range of human intellect. How, in fact, can it comprehend the opposition which exists:
“Between the simplicity of the means and the grandeur of the result?
“Between the unity of the remedy and the diversity of the maladies?
“Between the short duration of the application of the curative agent and the slowness of the treatment prescribed by art or science?
“Between the sudden efficacy of the former and the tedious failure of the latter?
“Between the chronic nature of the disease and the instantaneousness of the cure?
“There is in all this a contingent Force superior to those which have been dispensed to nature and consequently foreign to the water which it employs for the manifestation of its power.”
All these striking facts, so carefully and publicly verified; this investigation which had been so completely, conscientiously and minutely pursued by the Commission, and the declarations and conclusions which had been so decidedly pronounced by men deeply versed in medical and chemical science, could not fail of producing conviction in the mind of the bishop. His doubts were entirely cleared up.
However, actuated by that spirit of extreme prudence which we have often had occasion to point out to our readers in the course of this narration, Mgr. Laurence, before solemnly pronouncing the episcopal verdict on this important question, wished that a new sanction should be conferred on these miraculous events—the sanction of time.
He suffered three years to elapse without taking any further steps.
A second investigation was then instituted. The cures, which we indicated above as supernatural, still remained in full force. No one came forward to withdraw his original testimony or to contest the facts. The works of Him who reigns in eternity have nothing to fear from the test of time.
At length, furnished with such a superabundant series of demonstrations and proofs amounting to certainty, Mgr. Laurence pronounced the judgment which was expected from him. We give a general summary of it below.
A very long time before these events occurred at Lourdes, and before Bernadette had made her appearance in the world—in 1843, in the course of the month of April, a highly honorable family of Tartas in the Landes, was in a state of serious uneasiness. About a year previously, Mlle. Adèle de Chanton had espoused M. Moreau de Sazenay, and was now approaching the term of her pregnancy.
The crisis of a first maternity is always alarming. The medical men, summoned in haste on the appearance of preliminary symptoms, declared that child-birth would be difficult, and they did not conceal their opinion that it might be attended with some danger.
There is no one who does not know or does not understand the cruel anxiety of situations of this nature. The most poignant anguish is not for the poor wife who is groaning on her bed of pain, and who is almost entirely absorbed in her sense of physical suffering. It is for the husband, whose heart at that moment is a prey to indescribable tortures. They are both of an age when the impressions are vivid; they have just entered on a new life, the sweet life of two; they have tasted the first joys of a union which God had seemed to bless; they have passed some months in discussing together the hopes of the future; they have, so to say, sat them down together in happiness, as they might sit side by side in a smoothly gliding bark. The stream of life lulls you to sleep and bears you calmly onward between banks gay with flowers. And behold, all at once, in the midst of happiness, the threatening shadow of death presents itself. The heart of the husband, which expands itself with the hope of the babe so soon to be born, finds itself suddenly crushed with terror for the wife who may perish. He hears heart-rending cries. How will the crisis end? Is it joy that is approaching, or is it misfortune? What will issue from that chamber? Will it be Life or will it be Death? What must we send for? A cradle or a coffin? Or, alas! horrible contrast, will both one and the other be necessary? Or worse still, may two coffins be required, one for the mother, the other for the infant?
Human science is silent and dares not pronounce. Anguish of this nature is terrible, more especially for those who seek not their strength and consolation in God.
M. Moreau, however, was a christian. He knew that the thread of our existence is in the hands of a supreme Master, to whom we can always appeal from the decision of the doctors of Science. When man has condemned, the King of Heaven, like the sovereigns of earth, reserves to Himself the right of pardoning.
“The Blessed Virgin,” thought the unfortunate husband, “will, perhaps, deign to listen to my prayer.”
On this he addressed himself with confidence to the Mother of Christ.
The danger which had at first appeared so threatening passed away by degrees, like a black cloud, which, in the highest regions of the atmosphere, is driven along and dispersed by the blasts of wind. The horizon became clear and serene, and ere long, radiant with gleams of sunshine. A little girl had just been born.
Assuredly, there was nothing extraordinary in this deliverance. However alarming the case had appeared to M. Moreau, the medical men had never actually despaired of a favorable result. It might, therefore, have been owing to purely natural causes. The heart of the husband and father, however, felt itself penetrated with gratitude towards the Blessed Virgin. His was not one of those souls which struggle against the feeling of gratitude, and which doubt the reality of a benefit received, in order to dispense themselves from the trouble of returning thanks for it.
“What name have you fixed on for your little girl?” was one of the first questions put to M. Moreau.
“She shall be called Marie,” he replied.
“Marie? But it is one of the commonest names possible about here. All the women of the lower classes, all the servant-girls in the place are called Marie. And besides, Marie Moreau is by no means euphonious. These two Ms and two os are insupportable.”
A thousand reasons to the same purpose were alleged. There was a general outcry on the subject. M. Moreau de Sazenay was of an easy temper, very accessible, and habitually showed much deference to the advice tendered him by others, but in this particular instance he resisted everything, supplications as well as admonitions; he braved the sullenness of all around, and adhered to his resolution with extraordinary tenacity. He remembered that, during his recent state of alarm, he had invoked that sacred name, which was no other than that of the Queen of Heaven.
“She shall be called Marie. I wish her to have the Blessed Virgin as her patroness. I tell you the truth, when I say that this name will bring her happiness.”
All around him were astonished at his obstinacy, but he remained firm, as did Zacharias when, as we are informed in the Gospel, he desired that his son might be named John.
In vain was he besieged with objections on all sides. His inflexible will carried the day.
Thus the first born of this family bore the name of Marie.
Further, the father wished that for three years she should be devoted to white, the color of the Virgin.
This was also done.
More than sixteen years had passed away since the events occurred which we have narrated. A second little girl had been born, who had received the name of Marthe. Mlle. Marie Moreau was receiving her education at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Bordeaux.
Towards the beginning of January, 1858, she was attacked with a complaint in her eyes, which obliged her speedily to relinquish her studies. She supposed at first that it was a cold, caught by her having sat in a draught, and that it would soon pass away; but she was deceived in her hopes, and eventually she fell into a state which caused the greatest uneasiness to those about her. The medical men who usually attended the establishment, deemed it necessary to have a consultation with M. Bermont, an eminent oculist at Bordeaux.
It was decided that Mlle. Marie was suffering not from a cold but from amaurosis.
“The case is a very serious one,” observed M. Bermont. “One of her eyes is gone and the other is in a most critical state.”
Her parents were immediately informed of her state. Her mother hastened to Bordeaux and brought her daughter home with her, in order that, in the bosom of her family, and with every care lavished upon her, she might carry out the treatment which the oculist had prescribed, if not to cure the eye which was destroyed, at least to save the one which still remained, and which was already so severely affected as only to perceive objects as if enveloped in a confused mist.
Medicines of different kinds, sea-bathing and everything recommended by Science was unavailing. Spring and autumn passed away amid these vain efforts. Her deplorable condition resisted everything, and was slowly becoming worse and worse. Complete blindness was imminent. M. and Mme. Moreau resolved to take their daughter to Paris in order to consult the most eminent oculists of the day.
While they were making hasty preparations for their journey, dreading that it might be already too late to charm away the terrible misfortune which threatened their child, the postman happened to bring them the weekly number of a little journal published at Bordeaux, to which they subscribed, the Messager Catholique.
It was about the commencement of November. Curiously enough, it was the very number of the Messager Catholique which contained the letter of the Abbé Dupont and the account of the miraculous cure of Mme. Rizan, of Nay, in consequence of her having used the water from the Grotto.
M. Moreau opened it mechanically, and his glance fell on that divine history. He grew pale as he read it.
Hope began to awake in the soul of the disconsolate father, and a ray of light penetrated his mind, or rather his heart.
“There,” said he, “is the gate at which we must knock. It is evident,” he added, with a marvelous simplicity, of which we like to preserve the verbal expression, “it is evident that if the Blessed Virgin has appeared at Lourdes she is interested in operating there miraculous cures, in order to establish and prove the reality of these Apparitions. And this is more especially true at the commencement, so long as this event is not yet universally accredited. Let us, then, lose no time. There, as everywhere else, the first come will be first served. My dearest wife and child, it is to Our Lady of Lourdes that we must have recourse.”
The sixteen years which had elapsed since the birth of his daughter, had not, as we see, rendered the faith of M. Moreau lukewarm.
It was determined to celebrate a Novena, to which the companions and friends of the young invalid, who resided in the neighborhood, associated themselves. By a providential coincidence, one of the priests of the town had in his house at that moment a bottle of the water from the Grotto, so that the Novena was commenced almost immediately.
The parents—in case of the cure being accomplished—made a vow to undertake a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and to devote their daughter, for one year, to white and blue, to those colors of the Blessed Virgin which she had already worn for the space of three years, when she was quite a little child, on her first entry into life.
The Novena commenced on Monday evening, November 8.
Must we confess the truth! The invalid had but little faith. Her mother dared not hope. Her father alone had that tranquil faith which the benevolent powers of heaven never resist.
They all joined in prayer, in the apartment of M. Moreau, before a statue of the Blessed Virgin. The mother, the young invalid and her little sister rose from their knees successively with the intention of leaving the room and retiring to rest, but the father still remained kneeling.
He thought he was alone, and he raised his voice with such fervor that its accent induced his family to remain, although on the point of taking their departure. We have heard from them these circumstances, and even now they cannot recall this solemn moment without quivering with emotion.
“Blessed Virgin!” exclaimed the father; “Most Blessed Virgin, it is thy duty to cure my child. Yes, of a truth, it is thy duty. It is for thee an obligation, and thou canst not refuse me. Remember, then, O Mary, that it was in spite of all, against the will of all, that I would choose thee to be her Patroness. Thou oughtest to remember what struggles I had to endure to give her thy sacred name. Ah! Blessed Virgin, canst thou forget all this? Canst thou forget how, at that time, I defended thy name, thy power, thy glory against all the protestations and vain reasonings of those who were about me? Canst thou forget that I placed this child publicly under thy protection, saying and repeating to all that this name, thy own name, O Blessed Virgin, would bring her happiness? She was my child: I have made her thine. Canst thou forget this? Art thou not thereby pledged to assist me, O Blessed Virgin? Is not thy honor pledged—now that I am wretched, now that we pray unto thee for our child, for thine—to come to our assistance and to cure her malady? Wilt thou permit her to become blind after I have shown so great faith in thee? No! No! That is impossible, and thou wilt heal her.”
Such were the feelings which the unhappy father gave vent to in loud tones, appealing to the heart of the Blessed Virgin, making his demand, so to say, in due form of law, and citing her to pay her debt of gratitude.
It was ten o’clock at night.
The young girl, at the moment of retiring to rest, soaked a linen bandage in the water brought from Lourdes and placed it on her eyes, tying it in a knot at the back of her head.
Her soul was agitated. Without having the faith of M. Moreau, she said to herself, that, after all, it was not impossible the Blessed Virgin might cure her; that soon, perhaps, at the close of the Novena, she might be restored to the enjoyment of light. Then her doubts recurred, and it seemed to her that a Miracle was not intended for one like herself.
All these thoughts constantly revolving in her mind, it was with great difficulty that she could get to sleep, and it was very late ere slumber overtook her.
The next morning, when she awoke, her first movement—a movement of vague hope and uneasy curiosity—was to remove the bandage with which her eyes were covered.
She uttered a loud cry.
All around her the light of early morning inundated her chamber. She saw clearly, plainly, distinctly. The eye which had only been lately attacked had entirely recovered its powers of vision; the other, which had been dead, was restored to life.
“Marthe! Marthe!” she cried to her sister. “I see! I see! I am cured!”
Little Marthe, who slept in the same room with her sister, leaped from her bed and ran towards her. She gazed on the eyes of Marie, now entirely free from their bleeding film—her eyes black and brilliant, in which strength and life were once more resplendent.
The little girl’s heart turned towards her father and mother, who were wanting to render her joy complete.
“Papa! Mamma!” she cried.
Marie made her a sign to be silent.
“Wait, wait!” she said. “I wish first to know whether I can read. Give me a book.”
The child took one which happened to be lying on the table.
“Here is one,” she said.
Marie opened the book and read from it fluently and without any effort, like any other person. Her cure was complete, radical and positive, and the Blessed Virgin had not done things by halves.
Her father and mother had hastened to her room.
“Papa, mamma, I can see, I can read, I am cured!”
How would it be possible for us to paint this indescribable scene? Every one comprehends it, every one can see it by descending into the depths of his own heart.
The door of the house had not yet been opened. The windows were closed and their transparent panes only suffered the first brightness of morning to enter. Who then could have entered and mingled in the joy of this family which had been so suddenly restored to happiness. And yet these christians—whose prayers had been so graciously heard—felt instinctively that they were not alone, and that a powerful and invisible Being was at that moment in their midst.
The father and mother and little Marthe fell on their knees. Marie, who was still in bed, clasped her hands, and from these four bosoms, overpowered with emotion and gratitude, there issued as a thanksgiving the name of the Mother of God—“O Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes.”
What were the other words they uttered? We know not. As to their feelings, who does not divine them, by placing himself, in imagination, in presence of this wonderful event, this lightning-like display of the power of God, traversing all at once the destiny of an unfortunate family and changing their sorrow into boundless happiness.
It is scarcely necessary to add that, shortly afterwards, Mlle. Marie Moreau went with her parents to offer up her thanksgivings to Our Lady of Lourdes at the Grotto of the Apparition. She deposited her ordinary attire on the altar and resumed—happy and proud to wear them—the colors of the Queen of Virgins.
M. Moreau, whose faith had formerly been so great, was stupefied with astonishment. “I believed,” said he, “that such graces were only granted to saints. How is it that such favors descend also upon miserable sinners like ourselves?”
These facts had for witnesses the entire population of Tartas, which sympathized in the affliction of this family, one of the most highly respected in the place. Every one in the town saw and can attest that this malady, which was despaired of up to that period, was suddenly cured at the commencement of the Novena. The Superior of the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Bordeaux, the one hundred and fifty pupils who were the companions of Mlle. Marie Moreau, the medical men of the above establishment, have established the serious state to which she was reduced before these events occurred, and afterwards her entire recovery. She returned in fact to Bordeaux, where she remained two years longer to complete her education.
The oculist, M. Bermont, could not recover from his surprise at this termination of the case so far beyond the range of his art. We have seen his declaration attesting the state of the invalid and acknowledging the utter impossibility of such a cure being made by the ordinary means at the disposal of the science of medicine. “A cure,” he says, “which was complete, and is still complete. As to the instantaneous nature of this cure, as it has been produced, it is,” he adds, “a fact, beyond comparison, which altogether exceeds the limits of medical knowledge. In which belief I have attached my signature—Bermont.”
This declaration, dated 8th February, 1859, is deposited at the Bishop’s palace at Tarbes, together with a great number of letters and attestations from the inhabitants of Tartas, among which figures that of M. Desbord, Mayor of the town.
Mlle. Marie wore the colors of the Virgin up to the day of her marriage, which took place soon after she had completed her education and had left the Convent of the Sacred Heart. On that day she repaired to Lourdes, and laid aside her maiden attire to assume her bridal robe.
It was her wish to present her blue and white dress to another young girl, beloved like herself by the Blessed Virgin—to Bernadette. Having the same mother, were they not almost sisters?
This was the only gift ever accepted by Bernadette. She wore for many years—until in fact it could be worn no longer—that dress, the colors of which always recalled to her mind the beneficent omnipotence of the divine apparition at the Grotto.
Eleven years have elapsed since the occurrence of these events. The benefit conferred by the Most Blessed Virgin has not been withdrawn; the sight of Mlle. Moreau has continued perfectly good; there has never been any relapse, not even the slightest indisposition. Short of suicide—I mean an act of ingratitude or an abuse of grace—what God has resuscitated dies no more. Resurgens jam non moritur.
Mlle. Marie Moreau is now the wife of M. d’Izaru de Villefort; she is the mother of two noble children, who have the finest eyes in the world. Although they are both boys, their first baptismal name is that of—Marie.
During several months the Episcopal Commissioners repaired to the houses of those whom public notoriety and previous information designated to them as having been the objects of one of those remarkable cures, the character of which it rested with them to determine.
The truth of a great number of Miracles was established. Among these, many have already found a place in the course of this narration. Two of them had occurred quite recently, shortly after the withdrawal of the Prefect’s decree and the re-opening of the Grotto. One took place at Nay, the other at Tarbes. Although the two christian women who had been the objects of heavenly favor were unknown to each other, a mysterious link seemed to unite these events. Let us narrate them, one after the other, just as we investigated them ourselves and committed them to writing under the impression of the living testimonies we had ourselves heard.
In the town of Nay—the same in which, some months previously, young Henry Busquet had been miraculously cured—a female, already considerably advanced in years, Mme. Rizan, a widow, was on the point of death. Her life, at least for the last twenty-four or twenty-five years, had been one of perpetual pain. Attacked in 1832 by the cholera, she had remained almost entirely paralyzed in her left side: she was quite lame, and could only move a few steps in the interior of her house by supporting herself against the walls or different articles of furniture. Rarely, twice or three times a year, in the height of summer, was she able—assisted and almost carried by strangers—to repair to the parish church of Nay, near as it was to her residence, to hear Mass. It was impossible for her, without assistance from others, either to kneel down or to rise from a kneeling posture. One of her hands was entirely atrophied. Her general health had suffered, not less than her limbs, from this terrible scourge. She was subject to continual vomitings of blood. Her stomach was unable to bear any solid food. A little meat gravy, light soups and coffee had, however, sufficed, in her deplorable condition, to sustain in her the flickering flame of life—a flame ever weak, ever on the point of being extinguished on its mysterious hearth, and powerless to convey sufficient warmth to her wretched body, which was often attacked with icy trembling fits. The poor woman was always cold. Even in the midst of the heats of July and August she always begged to see the fire blazing on the hearth, and requested to have her old invalid-chair wheeled close to the mantel-piece.
For the last sixteen or eighteen months her state had changed considerably for the worse, and the paralysis of her left side had become total; the same infirmity commenced to attack her right leg. Her atrophied limbs were tumefied beyond measure, as is sometimes the case with those of dropsical patients.
Mme. Rizan had been obliged to quit her arm-chair for her bed. She could not move in it, so great was her state of infirmity, and those about her were obliged to turn her from time to time and to change her position. She was nothing more than a helpless mass. Her sense of feeling was gone as well as her power of moving. “Where are my legs?” she used to say sometimes when any one came to move her from one part of her bed to another.
Her limbs were, so to say, drawn up together and bent back on themselves. She kept constantly lying on her side in the form of a Z.
Two medical men had successively attended her. Doctor Talamon had long since regarded her as incurable, and, if he continued to visit her frequently, it was only as a friend. He refused to prescribe any remedies for her, alleging that any treatment, no matter of what nature, would be fatally injurious, and that drugs and medicines could only weaken the poor invalid and exhaust still more her system, which had already been so terribly attacked. Doctor Subervielle, at the entreaty of Mme. Rizan, had prescribed some remedies, which were speedily acknowledged to be useless, and had also given up all hope.
If her paralyzed limbs had become insensible, the sufferings experienced by this unfortunate woman elsewhere, sometimes in her stomach and sometimes in her head, were of the most fearful description. Owing to the fact of her being obliged to remain always in one position, her poor body was afflicted with two painful sores—one in the hollow of her chest and the other in her back. On her side, in several places, her skin was worn away by long contact with the bed-clothes, and exposed her flesh denuded and bleeding. Her death was at hand.
Mme. Rizan had two children. Her daughter, called Lubine, lived with her and attended her with unceasing devotedness. Her son, M. Romain Rizan, had a situation in a commercial house at Bordeaux.
When the last hope was given up, and Doctor Subervielle had declared that the poor sick woman had scarcely a few days to live, M. Romain Rizan was sent for in all haste. He came, embraced his mother, and received her blessing and last farewell. Then, being obliged to start on his return immediately, in consequence of an order which recalled him, torn from the foot of this death-bed by the cruel tyranny of business, he left his mother with the painful certainty of seeing her no more.
The dying woman had been administered. Her death-agony was prolonged amid intolerable sufferings.
“O God!” she often exclaimed, “be pleased to put an end to this intolerable pain. Grant that I may either recover or die!”
She sent to beg the Sisters of the Cross at Izon—her sister-in-law being their Superior—to make a Novena to the most Blessed Virgin in order to obtain from her power, either her recovery or death.
She also expressed a wish to drink some of the water of the Grotto. One of her neighbors, Mme. Nessans, who happened to be going to Lourdes, promised to bring her some of it on her return.
For some time past she had been watched day and night. On Saturday, October 16, a violent crisis announced the inevitable approach of her last moments. She was continually spitting blood. A livid tint spread over her emaciated countenance. Her eyes became glassy. The poor invalid seldom spoke except to complain of the acute pain she suffered. “Lord!” she often repeated, “Lord Jesus how I suffer! Can I not then die?”
“Her wish will be very shortly granted,” observed Doctor Subervielle, as he left her. “She will die in the course of the night, or, at latest, towards daybreak. There is no more oil in the lamp.”
From time to time the door of the sick-room was opened to admit friends, neighbors and priests—among the latter the Abbé Dupont and the Abbé Sanareus, vicaire of Nay—who entered silently, and asked, in a low voice, if the dying woman still breathed.
At night, when he left her, the Abbé André Dupont, her consoler and friend, could not restrain his tears.
“Before to-morrow she will be dead,” said he, “and I shall only see her again in Paradise.”
Night had come, and, by degrees, the house had been reduced to a state of solitude. On her knees, before a statue of the Virgin, Lubine was praying, all earthly hope having vanished. The deepest silence reigned around, only disturbed by the painful breathing of the sick woman. It was nearly midnight.
“Lubine!” exclaimed the dying mother.
Lubine rose hastily from her knees and approached the bed.
“What do you wish, dearest mother?” she said, taking her by the hand.
“My dear child,” said the dying mother to her, in a strange tone of voice, which seemed to proceed, as it were, from a heavy dream, “go to the house of our friend Mme. Nessans, who was to have returned to-night from Lourdes. Beg her to give you a glass of the water from the Grotto. It is this water which is to cure me. The Blessed Virgin so wills it.”
“My dearest mother,” replied Lubine, “it is now too late to go there. I cannot leave you alone, and every one at Mme. Nessans’s must be in bed by this time. To-morrow morning I will go for it as early as possible.”
“Well, let us wait, then.”
The sick mother relapsed into silence.
The night passed away long and weary.
At length daybreak was announced by the joyous Sunday bells. The morning Angelus bore upwards to Mary the prayers of earth, and celebrated the eternal memory of her omnipotent maternity. Lubine hastened to the house of Mme. Nessans, and soon returned, bringing with her a bottle of the water from the Grotto.
“Here, dearest mother, drink! and may the Blessed Virgin come to your assistance.”
Mme. Rizan raised the glass to her lips and swallowed a few mouthfuls.
“O my child, my child, it is Life that I am drinking. There is Life in this water. Bathe my face with it. Bathe all my body with it.”
Trembling from head to foot, and almost beside herself with emotion, Lubine moistened a piece of linen in the miraculous water and washed her mother’s face with it.
“I feel myself cured!” exclaimed the latter, in a tone of voice which had become clear and strong. “I feel myself cured!”
Lubine, in the meantime, was bathing with the moistened linen her poor mother’s paralyzed and swollen limbs. With transports of joy, mingled with I know not what shudder of terror, she perceived the enormous swelling to subside and disappear under the rapid movement of her hand, and the skin, which was violently stretched and shining, to resume its natural appearance. Suddenly and entirely, without going through any transition state, health and life were reviving beneath her fingers.
“It seems to me,” said her mother, “as if fiery pimples were issuing out of every part of my body.”
It was, doubtless, the internal principle of the malady which was taking to flight from the body hitherto so racked with pain, and was quitting it for ever, owing to the agency of a superhuman will.
All this had been accomplished in a moment. In one or two minutes the body of Mme. Rizan—apparently just before in the death-agony—had, on being bathed by her daughter, recovered the plenitude of its strength.
“I am cured! altogether cured!” exclaimed the happy woman. “How kind the Blessed Virgin is! How powerful she is!”
Then, after this outburst of gratitude to heaven, the material appetites of earth made themselves forcibly felt.
“Lubine, dearest Lubine, I am hungry. I want something to eat.”
“Will you have some coffee, or will you have some wine or milk?” stammered out the young girl, troubled at the almost astounding suddenness of the Miracle.
“I would like to have some bread and meat, my child,” said her mother. “It is now more than twenty-four years since I have tasted either.”
There happened to be some cold meat and a little wine near at hand. Mme. Rizan partook of both.
“And now,” said she, “I wish to rise.”
“It is impossible, dearest mother,” said Lubine, hesitating, in spite of herself, to believe her eyes, and fancying, perhaps, that the cures which proceeded directly from God were subject, like those of an ordinary nature, to the slow progress and precautions of convalescence.
Mme. Rizan insisted on leaving her bed, and asked for her clothes. They had been for many months folded up and put in their place in a wardrobe of an adjoining chamber, under the idea, alas! that they would be no more required. Lubine left the room in quest of them. She returned almost immediately, but on reaching the threshold of the door, she uttered a loud cry and let fall on the floor—so great was the shock—the dress she had in her hand.
Her mother, during Lubine’s short absence, had sprung out of her bed and had gone to kneel before the mantelpiece, on which there was a statue of the Virgin. There she was, with clasped hands, pouring out her gratitude to her powerful deliverer.
Lubine terrified, as if she had beheld one rise from the dead, was incapable of assisting her mother to dress. The latter picked up her gown, dressed herself in a moment without any assistance, and knelt down once more at the feet of the sacred image.
It was about seven o’clock in the morning, and those who had attended the first Mass were just coming out of Church. Lubine’s cry was heard in the street by persons who were passing under her windows.
“Poor girl,” they observed, “it is her mother who has just expired. It was impossible she could get through the night.”
Several persons, either friends or merely neighbors, immediately entered the house to console and support Lubine in her indescribable sorrow. Among them were two Sisters of the Holy Cross.
“Well, my poor girl,” they said, “your excellent mother is then dead! You will, however, see her again in heaven.”
They then approached the young woman, whom they found leaning against the half-opened door, with a countenance expressive of great consternation.
Lubine could scarcely make them any reply.
“My mother has risen from the dead,” said she, with a voice stifled with such strong emotion, that she could not bear it without fainting.
“She is raving,” thought the Sisters, as they entered the apartment, followed by some persons who had ascended the staircase with them.
What Lubine had said was, however, true. Mme. Rizan had quitted her bed. She was dressed and was praying, prostrate before the image of Mary.
She rose and said:
“I am cured! Let us offer up a thanksgiving to the Blessed Virgin. Let all kneel down.”
The news of this extraordinary cure spread with the rapidity of lightning through the town of Nay. All that and the following day, the house was crowded with people. The throng, in the highest degree of emotion and recollectedness, pressed into the room, through which a ray of the omnipotent goodness of God had passed. Every one wished to see Mme. Rizan, to touch her body which had been restored to life, to convince himself by the evidence of his own eyes, and to engrave on his memory all the details of this supernatural drama.
Doctor Subervielle acknowledged, without any hesitation, the divine and supernatural character of this extraordinary cure.
At Bordeaux, in the meanwhile, M. Romain Rizan, reduced to despair, was expecting, in an agony of mind, the fatal missive which was to announce to him the death of his mother.
It was a terrible blow for him when one morning, a letter reached him by post, which was directed in the well-known handwriting of the Abbé Dupont.
“I have lost my poor mother!” he observed to a friend who had come to pay him a visit.
He burst into tears, and had not the courage to tear open the envelope.
“Do not give way to weakness in your misfortune; have faith,” said his friend to him.
He at length broke the seal. The first words which struck his eyes were the following:
“Deo gratias, Alleluia. Rejoice, my dear friend. Your mother is cured, completely cured. It is the Blessed Virgin who has restored her miraculously to health.”
The Abbé Dupont proceeded in his letter to relate in what indisputably divine a manner Mme. Rizan had found, at the end of her agony, Life in the place of death.
We may easily fancy the joy of the son and of his friend.
This friend was employed in a printing establishment at Bordeaux, where the Messager Catholique was published.
“Give me that letter,” he said to Romain Rizan; “the works of God ought to be known and Our Lady of Lourdes glorified.”
Half willingly and half reluctantly, Romain confided the letter to his friend. It was published in the Messager Catholique a few days afterwards.
The happy son returned almost immediately to Nay. On the arrival of the diligence, a woman was waiting for him. She ran to him briskly, when he got out of the carriage and rushed into his arms weeping with tenderness and joy.
It was his mother.
Ten years afterwards, the author of this work, in quest of all the details of the truth, went himself—in order to collect materials for this history—to re-open the investigation which had long before been made by the Episcopal Commission. He paid a visit to Mme. Rizan, whose perfect health and green old age excited his admiration. Although she has reached her seventy-first year, she has none of the infirmities which advanced age usually brings in its train. Not a trace remains of so much suffering. All those who had known her formerly, and whose testimony we heard, had not recovered from their astonishment at so miraculous an event.
We desired to see Doctor Soubervielle. He had been dead several years.
“But,” we observed to an ecclesiastic of Nay who acted as our guide, “Madame Rizan was, if I am not mistaken, visited by another medical man of the place, Doctor Talamon?”
“He is a very distinguished man,” answered our companion. “He was in the habit of going constantly to the house of Madame Rizan, not in his medical capacity, but as her friend and neighbor. Now, immediately after the miraculous cure, he ceased to visit her, and did not make his re-appearance at her house until nine or ten months afterwards.”
“Perhaps,” we rejoined, “he wished to avoid being interrogated on the subject, and having to explain his own views on the extraordinary event, which was no doubt somewhat opposed to his principles of medical philosophy.”
“I do not know how that was.”
“No matter, I should like to see him.”
We knocked at his door.
Doctor Talamon is a tall and handsome old man, with an intelligent and expressive countenance. A remarkable brow, a crown of white hair, a glance indicative of very decided opinions, a mouth capable of varied expression, on which the smile of scepticism often plays: such are the principal features you would observe on approaching him for the first time.
We explained to him the object of our visit.
“It is a long time since all that happened,” he observed to us. “At a distance of ten or twelve years my memory has but a very dim recollection of the subject of your conversation, to say nothing of my not having actually witnessed it myself. I did not see Mme. Rizan for several months afterwards, and I know not in what state, by what agents, or in what degree of slowness or rapidity her cure was effected.”
“What, then, sir, had you not the curiosity to verify, in your individual capacity, the extraordinary fact which you must have immediately learned from public rumour, which was widely spread in this place?”
“To tell you the truth, sir,” he replied, directing his answer to me, “I am an old physician. I know that the laws of nature are never reversed; and, to tell you the honest truth, I am no believer in all these miracles.”
“Ah! Doctor, you sin against the faith,” exclaimed the Abbé who had introduced me.
“And I, Doctor, do not accuse you of sinning against the faith, but I accuse you of sinning against the particular science which you profess; that of medicine.”
“How and in what?”
“Medicine is not a speculative science, it is an experimental science. Experiment is its law. The observation of facts is its first and fundamental principle. If you had been told that Mme. Rizan had been cured in this manner by rubbing herself with an infusion of such or such a plant recently discovered in the mountains, you certainly would not have failed in going to establish the truth or otherwise of the cure. You would have examined the plant, and have recorded a discovery which would perhaps have appeared to you of not less importance than that of quinine in the last century. But, in this case, a water, which had miraculously gushed forth, was spoken of, and you did not take the trouble of going to see it. Forgetting that you were a physician, or in other words, a humble observer of facts, you have refused to bestow on it even a passing glance, like those academies of science which rejected steam without condescending to investigate its claims, and which proscribed quinine in the name of I know not what pretended medical principles. In medicine, when a fact presents itself which contradicts an established principle, it simply proves that the principle is false. Experiment is the supreme judge. And here, Doctor, allow me to point out to you that if you had not had some vague consciousness of the truth of what I am now telling you, you would not have hesitated in going to ascertain the truth, and you would have given yourself the pleasure of branding as an imposture a Miracle which was exciting the whole country. But this would have exposed you to the necessity of surrendering at discretion, and you have acted like men attached to a particular party, who will not hear the arguments of their opponents. You have listened to your philosophical prejudices and you have disobeyed the first law of medicine, which is to face the study of facts—no matter of what nature—in order to derive instruction from them. I allow myself, Doctor, more freedom in saying these things to you, because I am aware of your great merit, and I am not ignorant that your very superior intellect is capable of listening to truth. Many medical men refuse to certify facts of this nature from human respect, not daring to brave either the displeasure of the Faculty or the railleries of their confrères. As to you, Doctor, if your philosophy has deceived you, the fear of man has had nothing to do with your keeping aloof.”
“Certainly not,” he said. “But, perhaps, placing myself in the point of view you have indicated, I should have done better to have examined the matter in question.”
