The Press of Paris and of the province began to occupy themselves with the occurrences at Lourdes; and far beyond the range of the Pyrenees, public attention was being turned by degrees towards the Grotto of Massabielle.
The Prefect’s measures were highly commended by the organs of the Free-thinkers, and not less vehemently censured by the Catholic journals. The latter, while they hazarded no judgment as to the reality of the Apparitions and miracles, claimed that a question of this nature should be decided by the ecclesiastical authority and not prematurely settled by the arbitrary power of the Prefect.
The innumerable miracles which were being accomplished either at the Grotto or at a distance, attracted a vast concourse of invalids and pilgrims to Lourdes. The analysis of Latour de Trie and the pretended mineral properties attributed to the new Spring by the medical men who supported the Prefect, added still more to the reputation of the Grotto, and induced even those to flock there who reckoned on the resources of Nature only for their recovery. On the other hand, these polemical discussions, by exciting the minds of all, added to the multitude of those who believed a multitude of others who were actuated by feelings of mere curiosity.
All the means employed by the party of unbelief produced an effect diametrically contrary to the one they had proposed to themselves. Owing to the irresistible turn events had taken—a turn regarded as fatal by some, as providential by others—the influx of people, which it had been the wish of the authorities to check, assumed more and more considerable proportions. This influx was the more accelerated and developed owing to the fact that, as if to give every one a chance, the material difficulties which were opposed to traveling by the rigor of winter had gradually disappeared. The month of May had returned. The lovely weather of spring seemed to court pilgrims to repair to the Grotto by all the flowery paths which wind here and there through woods and across meadows and vineyards in that land of rugged mountains, verdant hills and umbrageous valleys.
Out of humor and powerless, the Prefect saw the gradual increase and extension of this orderly and prodigious heaving, which bore multitudes of Christians in ever renewed phalanxes, to come and kneel and drink at the foot of a solitary rock.
The measures already taken had, it is true, deprived the Grotto of its resemblance to an oratory, but in reality it remained much as it was before, as far as the veneration of the people went. Crowds flocked from every part to the place where the miracle had taken place.
Contrary to the hope of the Free-thinkers, the fears of the Faithful and the expectations of all, no disorder of any description arose from this unheard-of movement of men, women, children, believers, unbelievers, and of those who were utterly indifferent on the subject. An invisible hand seemed to protect these crowds against themselves, when, without leader or guide, they rushed day by day to the number of several thousand pilgrims towards the miraculous Fountain.
The Magistracy, represented by M. Dutour, and the Police, personified in M. Jacomet, regarded this strange spectacle with feelings of unbounded astonishment. Did it add to their exasperation? We cannot tell. Yet, to men of a certain turn of mind, who push their ideas of authority to extremes, the sight of a multitude so wonderfully orderly and peaceful is an almost insulting and perfectly revolutionary anomaly.
When order is maintained by itself, all the functionaries who only exist for the purpose of maintaining order experience a sense of vague uneasiness. Accustomed to mix themselves up in every thing in the name of the Law, to keep up discipline, issue orders, summon, punish, pardon and to see every thing and every individual depending upon them either personally or officially, they experience a feeling bordering on distraction when they find themselves face to face with a multitude of men who dispense with them altogether and do not afford them any pretext for interfering, showing their importance or encroaching on their liberty. Order of this kind which ignores them is in their eyes the height of disorder. If so fatal an example was generally followed, there would be no necessity for any Procureurs Impériaux, the Commissaries of Police would vanish from the scene, and the stars of Prefects themselves would begin to pale.
Baron Massy had full power to order the removal of all the objects deposited at the Grotto. By no law, however, was such a deposit regarded as criminal, and it was impossible to prohibit such offerings or to punish the donors. In consequence of this the Grotto was often filled with lighted tapers, flowers, ex-votos, and even with silver or gold pieces towards the erection of the building demanded by the Virgin. The pious faithful wished by so doing to testify to the Queen of Heaven their good-will, even though it might be unavailing, together with their zeal and their love.
“What does it matter if the money is taken away. It will at least have been offered. The taper will have shed its transient light in honor of our Mother, and the bouquet will for an instant have perfumed the blessed rock, on which Her feet rested.”
Such were the thoughts of these truly Christian souls.
Jacomet and his agents accordingly came to carry off every thing. Much emboldened since he had escaped the perils of the fourth of May, the Commissary affected the most contemptuous and brutal conduct, sometimes hurling various objects into the Gave, before the offended eyes of believers. Sometimes, also, he found himself obliged to preserve, in spite of himself, the festal air which marked those blessed places. It was when the piety of believers having scattered the leaves of countless roses around the Grotto, it was out of the question for him to pick up the thousand remnants of flowers and the numberless petals which served to form this brilliant and fragrant carpet.
The crowds, however, continued to pray on their knees, without making any reply to his provoking conduct, and they allowed every thing to be done with a patience which God alone can give to a justly excited multitude.
One evening a report was spread that the Emperor or the Minister had requested the prayers of Bernadette. M. Dutour uttered a cry of triumph and made all preparations for saving the State. Three respectable women, who, as it appeared, had originated the assertion, were dragged into court and the Procureur insisted on the full rigor of the French law being enforced against them. Notwithstanding his wrath and eloquence the judges acquitted two and only condemned the third to a fine of five francs. The Procureur protested against the weakness of the Judges, persisted in his public accusation, and in his exasperation, or rather desperation, appealed from their decision to the Judges of the Imperial Court at Pau, who, treating his anger with ridicule, not only confirmed the acquittal of the two women, but refused to ratify the very slight sentence pronounced on the third, dismissing the case altogether.
This little incident, so utterly insignificant in itself, only figures in our story to show how anxiously the officials of the Parquet were on the lookout, how actively they were in search of misdemeanors and opportunities of displaying severity, since they were irritated with such miserable trifles, and employed their time in prosecuting poor simple-minded women, whose innocence was to be shortly afterwards publicly proclaimed by the Imperial Court.
The population remained calm. No pretext was furnished by them for severities on the plea of maintaining order.
One night, when it was pitch dark, some unknown persons tore up the pipe of the miraculous Spring and choked its waters under shapeless heaps of rocks, earth and sand. Who was it that raised this monument of darkness against the divine work? What impious and at the same time cowardly hands committed this sacrilege, while shunning the observation of their fellows? No one knows.
But when day broke and the profanation became known, a murmur of indignation, as might have been anticipated, issued from the crowds who had rushed to the spot, and on that day the people might be seen on the roads and in the street moving to and fro in a state of agitation resembling that of the ocean when it foams and surges and roars beneath the blast of a hurricane.
The Police, Magistrates and Sergents de Ville were on the alert, watching, listening and reconnoitering, but were unable to detect an act of violence or a single cry of sedition. The influence from above, divine in its nature, which preserved order among these excited crowds, was plainly invincible.
Who then—let us repeat the question—had committed this nocturnal deed? The Parquet and the Police could never discover who it was, in spite of making the most active search. There were not wanting, however, some prejudiced persons bold enough to suspect—doubtless unjustly—the Parquet and the Police of having themselves been the authors of the sacrilege, hoping by this means to provoke disorder which might furnish them with a pretext for having recourse to severe measures.
The municipal authorities protested strongly against the imputation that they had connived at this scandalous proceeding. The same night, or early the next morning, the Mayor ordered the pipe to be replaced, and all the rubbish with which the new Spring was obstructed to be swept from off the pavement of the Grotto. It was the Mayor’s policy to avoid any decidedly personal interference and to allow matters to rest as they were. He was ready to act, but only as a subordinate, when expressly enjoined to do so by the Prefect and on the latter’s responsibility.
At times, the people, fearing not to have sufficient control over their agitated feelings, took precautions against themselves. The Association of Stone-hewers, in number four or five hundred, had resolved to make a grand peaceable demonstration at the Grotto, repairing to it in procession and singing hymns on the occasion of their patronal feast, Ascension Day, which fell that year on the thirty-first of May.
Feeling, however, their hearts indignant and their hands quivering in presence of the measures taken by the authorities, they were afraid of themselves and renounced their project. They confined themselves to suppressing on that day, from a feeling of respect to the Blessed Virgin who had appeared at Lourdes, the annual ball which served to conclude their Feast.
“We do not wish,” they said, “that any disorder, however involuntary, or any amusement not recognized by the Church, should afflict the eyes of the Virgin who has visited us.”
At the Grotto, the miraculous Fountain continued to pour forth its limpid and abundant waters with that character of tranquil perennity remarkable in the beautiful springs which gush from amid rocks.
The supernatural Apparition ceased not to assert her claims and prove her existence by the benefits she conferred.
At one time rapid as the flash of lightning which rends the clouds, at another slow in its progress as the light of morning which rises and sheds its rays gradually over the surface of the earth, the Grace of God continued to descend visibly and invisibly on the assembled throngs.
We can only speak of graces which were obvious to the senses.
About a league and half from Lourdes, at Loubajac, there lived an excellent peasant woman, formerly a hard worker, but who for the last eighteen months had been reduced by an accident to the most painful state of inaction. Her name was Catharine Latapie-Choust. In October 1856, having climbed an oak for the purpose of shaking down the acorns, she lost her balance and had a serious fall, from the effects of which her right arm and hand were dislocated. The necessary operation, as we learn from the report of the case and the official statement now before us, which was immediately and successfully performed by a skillful medical man, had almost brought her arm back to its normal state, without however being able to cure its extreme weakness. But the stiffness of the three most important fingers of her hand defied all the care and attention which were lavished upon her. The thumb, fore and middle finger remained bent inwards and entirely paralyzed, so that it was impossible for her to straighten them, or indeed to move them in any way. The unfortunate peasant woman, who was still young, having barely attained her thirty-eighth year, was unable to sew, spin, knit or attend to household matters. Her doctor, after having attended her for a length of time to no purpose, had informed her that she was incurable, and that she must resign herself to the loss of the use of her hand. Such a sentence from the lips of so competent a judge was for this unfortunate creature the announcement of an irreparable misfortune. To the poor labor is the only resource, and their being obliged to do nothing is tantamount to inevitable destitution.
Catharine had become enceinte nine or ten months after her accident, and her time was approaching when the divine events at the Grotto of Massabielle occurred. One night she felt herself all at once aroused, as it were, by a sudden idea.
“A Spirit within me,” she informed the author of this book, “a Spirit within me, said to me, with a kind of irresistible force, ‘Go to the Grotto! Go to the Grotto and you will be cured!’”
Who was this mysterious being who spoke thus, and whom this ignorant peasant woman—ignorant, at least, as far as all human knowledge went—called “a Spirit?” The secret is, doubtless, known to her Guardian-angel.
It was three o’clock in the morning. Catharine called her two children, who were already well grown, to accompany her.
“Remain at your work,” she said to her husband. “I am going to the Grotto.”
“In your present advanced state, it is impossible,” he rejoined. “It is a journey of three leagues to Lourdes—there and back.”
“Nothing is impossible. I am going to be cured.”
No objections were of avail, and she started with her two children. It was a lovely moonlight. The awful silence of night, disturbed, from time to time, by mysterious noises; the profound solitude of the scene, dimly lighted and peopled with indistinct forms, terrified the children. They trembled and paused at every step; but they were re-assured by their mother. Catharine had no fear, and felt that she was advancing towards Life.
She reached Lourdes at day-break. She met Bernadette. Some one informed her it was the youthful Seer. Catharine made no reply, but approaching the child so blessed by God and beloved by Mary, she humbly touched her dress. She then pursued her way towards the Rocks of Massabielle, where, notwithstanding the early hour of morning, a multitude of pilgrims had assembled, and were devoutly kneeling.
Catharine and her children knelt also and prayed.
After having prayed, Catharine rose and went to bathe her hand calmly in the marvelous water.
Immediately her fingers were straightened. Immediately her fingers became supple and life returned to them. The divine Virgin had cured one pronounced incurable.
How did Catharine take this? She felt no surprise. She uttered no cry, but, kneeling down once more, she offered a prayer of thanksgiving to Mary and to God.
For the first time, for eighteen months, she prayed with joined hands, and clasped her fingers together.
She remained thus a long time absorbed in this act of gratitude. Such moments are sweet; the soul loves to forget itself in them, and it seems as if Paradise were once more restored to its gaze.
Sudden and violent pains recalled to the mind of Catharine the consciousness that she was still on earth, on this earth of sighs and tears, where the curse originally hurled against the guilty woman, ancestress of the human race, has not ceased to weigh on her innumerable posterity. We said that Catharine was in the last stage of pregnancy. As this poor woman was still on her knees, she felt herself suddenly overtaken with the first and terrible pangs of child-birth. She trembled as she reflected that she had not time even to return to Lourdes, and that she would be delivered before the throng which surrounded her. She regarded this crowd for an instant with an anguish of fear.
This terror, however, was of short duration. Catharine turned herself anew towards that sovereign Virgin whom Nature obeys.
“Good Mother,” she said to her with simplicity, “Thou who hast just obtained for me so great a favor, spare me the shame of being delivered before this concourse of people, and grant, at least, that I may be enabled to return home ere I bring into the world the babe I bear within me.”
Immediately all her pangs subsided, and the Spirit, the Spirit within her of whom she spoke to us, and whom we believe to have been her Guardian-angel, said to her, “Be calm; go without fear; you will reach home without any accident.”
“Let us rise now and go,” said Catharine to her two children.
On this she took them by the hand and proceeded in the direction of Loubajac, without allowing any one to suspect the crisis which had threatened her, and without displaying any uneasiness, not only to the by-standers but even to the midwife of her own village, who chanced to be there, and was recognized by her in the midst of the pilgrims.
Happier than we can express, she traversed calmly, and without hastening her pace, the long route and bad roads which separated her from home. The two children were no longer afraid, as they had been during the night; the sun had risen, and their mother was cured.
On reaching her house, Catharine wished to pray again, but immediately the pangs of labor came once more upon her. A quarter of an hour afterwards she was delivered, and became the mother of a third son.
At the same period, a woman of Lamarque, Marianne Garrot, had been relieved, in less than ten days, by simple lotions of the water from the Grotto, of a milk-colored eruption, which extended over the whole of her face, and had resisted every kind of treatment for upwards of two years. Doctor Amadon, of Pontac, her medical adviser, certified the fact, and, at a later period, bore unquestionable testimony to it before the Episcopal Commission.
At Bordères, near Nay, Marie Lanou-Domengè, a widow, eighty years of age, had for the last three years suffered from a partial paralysis in her left side. She could not move a step without the assistance of others, and was, in consequence of her infirmity, incapable of any kind of labor.
Doctor Poneymiroo, of Mirepoix, after having in vain employed certain remedies to restore animation to her atrophied limbs, had ceased to attend her in his medical capacity, though he continued to visit her.
Hope, however, quits unwillingly the mind of the sick. “When shall I get better?” was the good woman’s question whenever she met Doctor Poneymiroo.
“You will get better when such is God’s will,” was the invariable reply of the Doctor, who was far from thinking, when he thus expressed himself, that his words were prophetical.
“Why should I not believe this word and address myself directly to the divine goodness,” observed the old peasant woman to herself one day, on hearing the Spring of Massabielle mentioned in conversation.
She dispatched some one to Lourdes to procure a small quantity of the healing water at the Spring itself.
When it was brought to her, she was seized with great emotion.
“Take me out of my bed,” she said, “and hold me upright.”
They raised her and dressed her hastily, almost in a feverish state of excitement. Both the spectators and actors in this scene were troubled.
Two persons raised her and held her standing upright, supporting her under her shoulders.
They presented her a glass of the water from the Grotto. Marie stretched her trembling hand towards the water of deliverance, and plunged into it her fingers. She then made the sign of the Cross upon herself, after which she raised the glass to her lips and slowly drank its contents, doubtless absorbed in some fervent prayer, which she uttered in a low tone.
She was pale—so pale, that for a moment the bystanders thought she was on the point of fainting.
But while they were exerting themselves to prevent her from falling, she held herself erect, trembled and gazed around her. She uttered a cry, as it were, of triumphant joy.
“Let me go! Let me go quickly. I am cured.”
Those who were supporting her half withdrew their arms hesitatingly. Marie immediately darted forward and began to walk with confidence, as if she had never been suffering from illness.
Some one, who, in spite of all this, entertained some fears about her, gave her a cane with which to support herself.
Marie looked at the cane and smiled. She then took it, and, with a gesture of contempt, threw it to a distance from her as an article of no further use.
From that day she betook herself once more to hard work in the fields.
Some visitors having come to see her in order to ascertain the truth of the fact, asked her if she could walk in their presence.
“Walk? Gentlemen,” she exclaimed, “I am going to run.”
And suiting the action to the words she commenced to run before them.
This happened in the month of May. In the month of July following, Marie, the vigorous octogenarian, was pointed out by one to another as a phenomenon, who was gallantly reaping the corn, and was far from being the last in the fatiguing labor of the harvest.
Her medical man, the highly honorable Doctor Poneymiroo, praised God for so evident a miracle, and later on, he signed, with the Commission of Investigation, the official report of the extraordinary events we have just described, with reference to which he did not hesitate to acknowledge “the direct and evident agency of divine power.”
To all these theses of the medical sect, now at bay, there was wanting a sure and official point d’appui. M. Massy had already meditated seeking this point d’appui in one of the most admirable and incontestable sciences of the present day—Chemistry. With this object he had addressed himself through the Mayor of Lourdes to a Chemist of tolerable celebrity in the Department, M. Latour de Trie.
To have it attested—not in detail by the examination of each case, but wholesale and in a mass—that all these cures which were increasing in number and starting up as formidable opponents, were entirely natural, owing to the innate properties of this new Spring, appeared to him a master-stroke; and he believed that by doing so he should merit the gratitude of Science and of Philosophy, and, to omit nothing, of the higher Administration represented in the person of M. Rouland, the Minister.
Perceiving that it was plainly impossible to have Bernadette arrested as insane, he urged on the analysis which was to establish officially, in the very face of the cures, the mineral and therapeutic properties of the water of the Grotto. He was impatient to rid himself of this encroaching Supernatural, which after having caused the Spring to gush forth, was now healing the sick and threatened to bear down all opposition. A really official analysis might be productive of great service, even if it left this accursed Supernatural tolerably strong in many quarters.
The Chemist of the Prefecture therefore set to work to make this precious study of the water which had gushed forth at Massabielle, and perfectly conscientiously if not completely scientifically he found at the bottom of his retorts a solution in exact conformity with the explanations of the medical men, the thesis of the philosophers and the wishes of the Prefect. Was Truth as well satisfied with this analysis as the Prefecture, Philosophy and the Faculty might possibly be? This is a question which they did not perhaps think of proposing to themselves at the time, but which the future was destined to charge itself with the decision.
However this may be, here is the summary analysis which M. Latour de Trie, Chemist to the Administration, addressed officially, on the sixth of May, to the Mayor of Lourdes, by whom it was immediately forwarded to Baron Massy:
Chemical Analysis.—The water of the Grotto at Lourdes is very limpid, free from any smell and without any peculiar taste. Its specific gravity is very nearly that of distilled water. Its temperature at the Spring is 15° Cent.
It contains the following compounds:Chlorides of sodium, calcium and magnesium abundantly.
Carbonates of sodium, calcium and magnesium.
Silicates of sodium and aluminium.
Oxide of iron.
Sulphate of sodium and carbonate of sodium.
Phosphate: traces.
Organic matter: ulmine.
We certify the entire absence of sulphate of calcium or selenite in this water.
This peculiarity, which is somewhat remarkable, is quite in its favor and ought to make us regard it as being very light, easy of digestion and communicating to the animal economy a disposition favorable to the balance of vital action.
We do not believe we are prejudging in saying, on taking into consideration the ensemble and the quality of the substances of which this water is composed, that medical science will not be slow in recognizing in it certain special curative properties which may lead to its being classed in the number of waters which form the mineral wealth of our Department.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,
A. Latour de Trie.
Discipline is not carried to the same extent in civil as in military affairs, and in the former, owing to want of skill, the manœuvres are sometimes failures. The Prefect in the midst of his pre-occupations had neglected to issue his instructions to the editorial department of the Prefectoral organ, the Ère Impérial, the consequence of which was that while the Chemist of the Prefecture was asserting one thing, the Journalist of the Prefecture was as distinctly affirming the other; while the former paid homage to the Spring of Lourdes, as one of the future therapeutic and mineral riches of the Pyrenees, the latter alluded to it as dirty water, and indulged himself in sundry pleasantries at the expense of the cures effected.
“It is unnecessary to say,” he wrote the very day on which M. Latour de Trie had sent in his report, the sixth of May, “that this famous Grotto pours out a perfect flood of miracles and that our Department is drenched with them. At the corner of every field you may meet with persons, who tell you the thousands of cures effected by the use of this dirty water. Very soon the doctors will have nothing to do, and all who have hitherto suffered from rheumatism or affections of the chest, will have disappeared from the Department.”
In spite of these little discrepancies which he might have avoided, it is only fair to acknowledge that the Prefect was a man of considerable activity. On the fourth of May, towards noon, he had made his speech to the Mayors of the cantons of Lourdes and issued his orders. On the evening of the same day the Grotto had been stripped of its offerings and ex-votos. On the morning of the fifth of May he had become aware of the utter impossibility of arresting Bernadette and abandoned the design. On the evening of the 6th, the analysis furnished by his Chemist had reached his hands.
Armed with this last and highly important document he was waiting to see what course things would take.
What indeed would happen at Lourdes? What would take place at the Grotto? What would be the next step of Bernadette, whose slightest movements were narrowly watched by the Argus eyes of Jacomet and his agents? During the great heats which were already commencing, would not the Fountain, as many asserted, be dried up and everything be brought to a stand still? What line of conduct would be pursued by the population? Such were the preoccupations, hopes and disquietudes which filled the breast of Baron Massy, Prefect of the Empire.
Were we not acquainted with the wonderfully varied forms of supernatural cures which have taken place since the establishment of Christianity, we might, perhaps, be tempted to believe that things were thus disposed at this moment by Providence for the very purpose of causing the proud philosophy of man to catch itself in its own nets and commit suicide with its own hands. But here, let us believe, there was no divine snare. God does not lay an ambush for any of His creatures. By its own innate strength and by means of its normal and regular developments, the logic of which is unknown to human philosophers, Truth is an eternal snare in the path of Error.
However this may be, the scientific men and the medical men of the place were eager to discover in these various cures of uncertain and doubtful complexion—which were, however, perfectly established as regarded their reality and progressive character—an admirable opportunity and happy pretext for bringing into operation a change of tactics and dexterity of manoeuvres which the increasing evidence of facts rendered absolutely necessary.
Ceasing, then, to endeavor to account for these cures by bringing forward the thread-bare theory of the effect of imagination, they boldly attributed them to the natural virtues which this singular water, lately gushed forth by the merest chance, indubitably possessed.
To offer such an explanation, was to acknowledge the reality of the cures.
Let the reader recall to his mind the commencement of this divine history, when a little shepherd-girl, going to collect fragments of dead-wood, had claimed to have seen a luminous Apparition start up before her. Let him remember the sneering of the strong-minded of Lourdes, the shrugging of shoulders at the Club, the ineffable contempt with which all these powerful minds received those childish stories as nonsense and folly. How many steps forward had the supernatural affirmation made—how many steps to the rear had incredulity, science and philosophy taken since the first events which so suddenly took place at the lonely Grotto on the bank of the Gave!
The Miracle—if we may venture to use the expression—had assumed the offensive. The Free-thinkers, formerly so fierce in their attack, now pursued by the force of facts, were reduced to an attitude of self-defense.
The representatives of Philosophy and Science were not, however, on this account less bold in their assertions, nor did they display less contempt for popular superstition.
“Well, then, be it so,” they observed, affecting a good-humored tone and the semblance of sincerity. “We allow that the water of the Grotto cures certain maladies.” What can be more simple? What need is there of Miracles, supernatural graces, and divine intervention, to explain an agency which, if not identical with, is analogous to, that of a thousand Springs, which from Vichy or Baden-Baden to Luchon, act so efficaciously on the human system? The water of Massabielle, in point of fact, possesses certain very potent mineral qualities similar to those of the Baths of Barèges or Cauterets, a few leagues higher up in the mountains. The Grotto of Lourdes has no connection with Religion, it is in the jurisdiction of medical science.
A letter,—which we take at random from among our documents,—gives a better idea than we could ourselves furnish, of the position assumed by men of science with regard to the marvelous operations of the water of Massabielle. This letter, from the pen of a very honorable physician in the neighborhood, Doctor Lary, who had not the slightest faith in any miraculous interpretation, is addressed to a member of the Faculty:
Ossun, April 28th, 1858.
“I take the earliest opportunity, my dear friend, of sending you the details you ask for, regarding the woman called Galop, of our commune.
This woman, in consequence of rheumatism in her left hand, had lost the power of holding anything with it. For instance, if she wished to wash or remove a glass, she most frequently let it fall; and if she wished to draw water, she was forced to give up the idea, as she was unable with her left hand to tighten the rope of the well. It was more than eight months since she had made her bed; and during that time, she had been obliged to relinquish spinning altogether.
“Now, since her single journey to Lourdes, where she made use of the water of the Grotto, she spins with considerable facility; she makes her bed, is able to draw water from the well, washes and carries about glasses and plates at table, and, in a word, uses this hand almost as well as the other one.
“The movements of her left hand are not yet quite so free as they were before her illness, but, compared with what they were before she used the water of the Grotto at Lourdes, there is a difference of 90 per cent.
“The woman proposes going again to the Grotto, and I shall make her promise to pay you a visit that you may convince yourself of the truth of what I now write you.
“You will find, on examining the patient, an incomplete anchylosis of the lower joint of the forefinger—this is all that remains of her complaint. If this morbid state yields to the reiterated use of the water of the Grotto, this fact will be an additional proof of the water being impregnated with alkali.
“I must now close. Believe me,
“Yours, very faithfully,
“Lary, M.D.”
This explanation having been once admitted, and held a priori as certain, the medical men displayed less reluctance in acknowledging the cures effected by the water of the Grotto, and, from that moment, they betook themselves to generalizing their thesis and to applying it almost indiscriminately to all cases, even to those which had an almost bewildering character of suddenness—a character, however, not easily reconcilable with the ordinary action of mineral waters. The learned personages of the place extricated themselves from this difficulty by attributing to the water of the Grotto extremely powerful qualities, such as had not been met with up to that period. It mattered little to them that they upset with their theories all the ordinary laws of nature, provided heaven was excluded from any share in the profits. They willingly admitted the extra-natural, in order to rid themselves of the supernatural.
There were to be found among the class of believers, certain persons of badly organized and provoking minds, who troubled with their importunate reflections, the grave explanations and transcendental theories of this learned coterie.
“How comes it,” they objected, “that this mineral spring, gifted with such exceptional power of effecting sudden cures, should have been discovered by Bernadette precisely at the time she was in a state of ecstasy, in the train of asserted heavenly visions, and, as it were, the proof of these supernatural Apparitions? How did it come to pass, that this Spring gushed forth just at the moment when Bernadette believed she heard the divine Voice commanding her to drink and to wash herself? And how is the fact to be accounted for, that this Spring, which rose suddenly before the eyes of the whole population under such astonishing circumstances, does not give water of an ordinary description, but a kind of water, which, by your own confession, has already cured so many laboring under desperate maladies, who had recourse to it, not by the advice of their medical attendants, but from simple feelings of religious faith?”
These objections, repeated in a thousand different forms, irritated the Free-thinkers, Philosophers, and Savants, beyond measure. They endeavored to parry them by answers, so truly pitiable and wretched, that they could hardly be supposed to be deceived by them themselves; but, to find any better adapted to their purpose was, truly, a difficult task.
“After all,” they said, “coffee was discovered accidentally by a goat. A herdsman found out by chance the baths of Luchon, and again a peasant, while digging accidentally, stumbled on the ruins of Pompeii. What is there so astonishing in the fact that this little girl, amusing herself in scooping out the earth during her state of hallucination, should have caused a spring to gush forth, and that this spring should turn out to be mineral and impregnated with alkali? That at that very moment she fancied she saw the Blessed Virgin and heard a voice declaring the existence of the spring, is a merely fortuitous coincidence which Superstition would gladly convert into a Miracle. That day, as has always been the case, chance did everything and was the sole revealer.
Those who believed, however, did not suffer themselves to be staggered by such logic. They had bad taste enough to consider that to explain all these things by referring them to purely accidental coincidences, was to do violence to reason under pretext of undertaking its defence. This served to exasperate the Free-thinkers, who, while acknowledging somewhat late in the day the reality of the cures effected, deplored more than ever the religious and supernatural character which the common people persisted in attributing to these strange events; and like persons in a pet, they inclined to violent measures with the view of stemming the popular current.
“If these waters have mineral properties,” they began to say, “they belong either to the State or the municipality, and no one should repair to them without medical prescription. A bathing establishment there would be a more suitable erection than a chapel.”
The scientific men of Lourdes, obliged to recognize facts which could not be gainsayed, had reached this state of mind and mood of intellect, when the Prefect’s measures relative to the objects deposited at the Grotto, and the attempt to incarcerate Bernadette on the plea of insanity—an attempt rendered abortive by the unexpected interference of the Curé Peyramale—suddenly came into play.
The great majority of cures effected by the water of Massabielle were characterized by a rapidity, nay suddenness, which plainly indicated the immediate agency of sovereign power. There were, however, some which did not present this typical and undeniably supernatural character. They were effected in a slow and progressive manner, owing to the more or less frequent applications of draughts or lotions, and keeping pace with the ordinary march of natural cures—however miraculous they might be in their original principle.
At Gez, a village in the neighborhood of Lourdes, a little boy, seven years of age, had been a remarkable instance of one of these mixed cures, which any one, according to the bent of his mind, might attribute to a special grace proceeding from God, or to the sole efforts of Nature. This child, who was called Lasbareilles, was born completely deformed with a double curvature of the back and breast bone.
His legs, which were excessively slender and almost withered, were paralyzed, owing to their extreme weakness. The unfortunate little creature had never been able to walk. He was always either lying or sitting down. Whenever it was necessary to change his position, his mother carried him in her arms. Sometimes, however, the child, resting himself on the edge of the table, or supported by his mother's hand, succeeded in standing upright and taking a few steps at the cost of violent efforts and immense fatigue. The medical man of the place had declared his inability to cure him; and seeing that the little fellow suffered from essentially organic rachitis, no remedy had been applied to his case.
The parents of the unfortunate child, having heard the miracles at Lourdes mentioned in the course of conversation, had procured some of the water from the Grotto; and during the space of fifteen days, they had, in three several instances, applied lotions to the body of the child, without any favorable result.
Their faith was not, however, on that account discouraged: if hope were banished from the world, it would truly be found again in the hearts of mothers. The fourth lotion was applied on Holy Thursday, that is to say, the first of April, 1858. On that day the child had taken a few steps alone.
These lotions had become more and more efficacious, and the child's state underwent a progressive amelioration. He had come, at the end of three or four weeks, to walk almost as well as anybody. We use the expression “almost” as he retained in his movements an awkwardness of gait which seemed to be a kind of reminiscence of his original infirmity. The emaciation of his legs had disappeared by degrees with his weakness, and his chest was almost entirely straightened. All the inhabitants of Gez, who well knew the former state of the child, attributed this recovery to a Miracle. Were they right or wrong in so doing? Whatever our own opinion may be on the subject, there is certainly much to be said on both sides of the question.
Another child, Denys Bouchet, from the market-town of Lamarque, in the canton of Ossun, had been also cured of a general paralysis in very much the same way. A young man, twenty-five years of age, Jean Louis Amaré, who was epileptic, had found his terrible malady yield entirely, but only by degrees, to applications of the water of Massabielle.
Some other analogous cases had occurred.
The enemies of Superstition had lost considerable ground in their desperate struggle against the events, which, for the last eleven or twelve weeks had brought their philosophy to bay. As it was impossible to deny the existence of the Spring, whose limpid waters were flowing magnificently before the eyes of the astonished people, so it was becoming impossible longer to deny the reality of the cures which were effected, every hour and everywhere, by the use of this mysterious water.
At first they had shrugged their shoulders at the earliest cures, confining themselves to denying them purely and simply, and to refusing, with their usual prejudice, to submit them to any kind of investigation. But the spirit of Incredulity had been very soon outflanked by the multiplicity of those admirable cures, of which we have only been able to relate or point out the smallest number. Facts obtruded themselves on their attention. They became so numerous and striking that it was necessary, at all cost, either to yield to the Miracle, or discover some natural way of accounting for these extraordinary phenomena.
The Free-thinkers then plainly saw that unless they surrendered their arms or rejected the clearest evidence, it was urgent upon them to initiate some rapid evolutions and to contrive some different tactics.
The most intelligent among this little band found that they were already somewhat late in the field, and reproached themselves with the gross blunder they had originally committed in denying prematurely and without investigation, facts which had since become patent and perfectly established, such as the gushing-forth of the Spring and the cures of many who had been notoriously pronounced incurable, but who were now to be seen by every one, going about the streets of the town in perfect health. What made the evil almost irreparable was, that these unfortunate denials of facts, since amply verified, were authentically and officially certified in all the journals of the Department.
These trifling incidents caused but little annoyance to the Prefect. He had as little faith in maladies as he had in cures proceeding from Heaven.
The attitude assumed by the Abbé Peyramale—which though not menacing was inflexible—and his determination to take a personal part in protecting Bernadette against the projected arrest, troubled Baron Massy much more than any signs of heavenly wrath. God, in a word, made him less uneasy than the Curé.
The refusal of M. Lacadé to proceed to that violent measure; his offer of resignation—a most singular circumstance on the part of so timid a functionary—the visible dissatisfaction of the Mayors of the canton, with the speech made at the Council of Revision; the symptoms of serious effervescence with which the removal of the ex-votos from the Grotto had been received; the incertitude as to whether the Gendarmes and soldiers, who, as regarded Bernadette, participated in the general enthusiasm and veneration, would passively obey the orders they might receive—all this supplied the Prefect with food for reflection. He plainly saw that, in the midst of so many unpleasant conjunctures, the incarceration of the youthful Seer might be attended with the most disastrous consequences.
It was not that he would not willingly have braved an outbreak. Some of the details we have given would lead us to imagine that such had been the object of his secret wishes. But a general rising of the population, preceded by the resignation of the Mayor, complicated by the personal interference of one of the most universally respected Priests in the Diocese, followed, in all probability, by a complaint to the Council of State of arbitrary sequestration, and accompanied by energetic protestations from the Catholic, or simply independent portion of the Press, assumed a serious character which could not fail of forcibly striking a man of so much intelligence and attachment to the duties of his office as Baron Massy.
It was, however, a bitter trial to the proud Prefect to pause in the execution of this radical measure, which he had so publicly announced on the eve of the Council of Revision; and assuredly he could not have brought himself to it, if the report furnished by the medical men had certified the madness or hallucination of the youthful Seer, instead of adducing a simple and hesitating hypothesis. Had Bernadette really been suffering from an attack of mental alienation, nothing would have been easier for the Prefect than to have ordered a second examination; nothing more easy than to have the child’s cerebral disease attested by two other doctors chosen from among the scientific notabilities of the place, and with sufficient authority, as men of learning, to impose their decision on public opinion. But M. Massy, being fully acquainted with the interrogatories to which Bernadette had been submitted, was aware that it was impossible to find any medical man in his right senses who would not acknowledge and declare, as every one else did, the child’s perfect possession of reason, her uprightness of mind and entire good faith. Before the evidence of such a situation, in presence of the moral and almost material impossibilities which unexpectedly stood up before him, the wary Prefect, notwithstanding his notorious obstinacy, found himself obliged to pause and proceed no further.
The force of circumstances condemned him to inaction. As to entirely retracing his steps and revoking the measure which had already been put into execution publicly by Jacomet at the Rocks of Massabielle, such a solution of the difficulty could never once enter Baron Massy’s mind. The removal of the various objects from the Grotto having been accomplished, was persisted in. But the youthful Seer remained free, and doubtless wholly unconscious, between the time of her morning and night prayers, of the storm which had passed over her head, but which had not burst.
The civil authority, by this abortive and never repeated attempt, certified, itself, the absolute impossibility of proving Bernadette to be laboring under the slightest cerebral derangement. By leaving the youthful Seer at large, after having attempted to shut her up, official power, in spite of itself, paid public homage to the entire soundness of her reason and her intelligence. By these badly aimed blows, Unbelief wounded herself by her own weapons, and served the very cause she claimed to attack. Let us not, however, accuse her of clumsiness. It must be difficult to struggle against evidence, and in a combat of such a nature the grossest blunders are inevitable.
However, if M. Massy modified in some respects the outline of his projects, he persisted invincibly in the ultimate object of his designs. The only concession he would sometimes make to the course of events was to abandon a means acknowledged to be useless and dangerous, in order to adopt one apparently more adapted to his purpose, and to outflank the difficulties it was impossible for him to crush or break through. In a word, if he changed his tactics, his resolutions remained unchanged. He did not retreat, he endeavored to out-manoeuvre his foe.
Now the incarceration of Bernadette was but a means. The important principle and ultimate object was the radical overthrow of Superstition, and the final defeat of the Supernatural.
M. Massy by no means ceased to hope. He had the “full assurance,” he loftily observed, of shortly coming to an end of the increasing difficulties of his situation. That he, a Prefect of the Empire, a Baron, a Massy should be vanquished by the nursery tales of a childish shepherd-girl, and confounded by the phantom of a chimerical Apparition, would have been insupportable to his pride, and appeared impossible to his genius.
If he was therefore compelled to give up the idea of having poor Bernadette shut up on the plea of insanity, in spite of the speech he delivered on the 4th of May, he was only the more on that account determined to put a stop somehow or other to the progress and encroachments of Fanaticism.
The doctrines and explanations which, for the last few days, had become the favorite theme of the Free-thinkers of those southern regions, suggested to his mind, which was already in a state of embarrassment, a new method which appeared to him truly decisive.
In order to understand how the Prefect came in a certain way to change his plan of attack, it would be well for us to glance at what was passing at that moment in the camp of those whose minds were opposed to Christianity.
