The attitude of energy assumed by the Curé of Lourdes, who was known to be incapable of giving way when what he considered to be his duty was at stake, introduced into the question an element hitherto overlooked, though it might very easily have been foreseen.
In the case of any measure emanating from the Administration, the intervention of the Procureur Impérial was not required, and it was only from friendly motives that M. Dutour had accompanied M. Lacadé to the residence of the Abbé Peyramale. All the onus of the decision to be taken weighed, therefore, on the Mayor.
M. Lacadé was perfectly certain that the Curé of Lourdes would infallibly act as he had said. As to attempting a surprise and arresting Bernadette suddenly, without the knowledge of the Pastor, it was not to be thought of, now that the Abbé Peyramale was forewarned and had his eyes open. We have just mentioned the impressions which the Mayor experienced in presence of the Supernatural rising all at once before him. The apparent impassibility of the municipal magistrate did but mask the excessive anxiety and agitation of the real man.
He communicated to the Prefect the conversation which M. Dutour and himself had just had with the Curé-doyen, as also the behavior and words of the man of God. The arrest of Bernadette, he added, might, further, in the then state of public feeling, rouse the town and provoke an indignant revolt against the constituted authorities. As to himself, in consequence of the determination so formally expressed by the Curé, and fearing the terrible consequences which might ensue, he regretted to find himself forced to refuse—even if he were obliged to resign the honors of the Mayoralty—to take any personal part in the execution of such a measure. It was for the Prefect, if he saw good, to act himself, and to have the arrest effected by a direct order to the Gendarmerie.
Although M. Lacadé, Mayor of Lourdes, avoided giving his own opinion on the extraordinary events which were occurring, he had been deeply impressed by them, and it was not without a certain degree of terror that he saw the Administration having recourse to such violent measures. He was in a terrible state of perplexity. He did not know what attitude the people might assume. It is true the Prefect had announced the possibility of sending a squadron of cavalry to Lourdes to maintain the tranquillity of the town when the arrest should have taken place; but that very fact caused him no little uneasiness. The supernatural aspect of the question and the Miracles also filled him with alarm. He did not know exactly how to act, placed as he was between the authority of the Prefect, the force of the people and the power from on high. He would have gladly made some compromise between earth and heaven. To keep up his courage, he addressed himself to the Procureur Impérial, M. Dutour; and the two went together to the residence of the Curé of Lourdes to communicate to him the order for the arrest of Bernadette which had emanated from the Prefecture. They explained to the Abbé Peyramale how, according to the wording of the law of June 3, 1838, the Prefect was acting in the plenitude of his legal rights.
The Priest was unable to restrain himself from a burst of indignation at the cruel iniquity of such a proceeding, though it might be actually possible in conformity with some one of the innumerable laws produced at some time or other by the second-hand Lycurguses who have been cast on the strand of the Palais-Bourbon by the flowing and ebbing tides of our twelve or fifteen political revolutions.
“This child is innocent!” he exclaimed, “and the proof of it is, that, in your capacity of Magistrate, Sir, you have never been able, in spite of your various interrogations, to find a pretext for an attempt at prosecution. You know that there is not a Tribunal in France but would acknowledge her innocence, which is as clear as the sun at noonday; that there is not a Procureur-Général, who would not only, under such circumstances, declare this arrest to be monstrous and have it cancelled but would even protest against a simple action at law.”
“This being the case the Magistracy does not act in the matter,” replied M. Dutour. “The Prefect, on the report furnished by the medical men, has Bernadette shut up on the plea of derangement, and this for her own good, in order that her cure may be effected. It is a simple administrative measure, which has nothing to do with Religion, since neither the Bishop nor the Clergy have pronounced any opinion officially on all these events, which are taking place entirely independently of them.”
“Such a measure,” rejoined the Priest, becoming warm as the discussion proceeded, “would be the most odious of persecutions; so much the more odious from the fact that it assumes the mask of hypocrisy, affects to wish to afford protection, and conceals itself beneath the cloak of legality, while its real object is to strike a blow at a poor defenceless being. If the Bishop and Clergy, including myself, are waiting for more light to be thrown on these occurrences, in order to pronounce on their supernatural character, we, at least, know enough to judge of Bernadette’s sincerity, and the soundness of her intellectual faculties. And since your two medical men do not certify the existence of any cerebral affection, in what respect are they more competent to judge of madness or good sense than any one of the thousand visitors who have put questions to the child, and who have all agreed in admiring the entire lucidity and normal character of her mind. Your doctors themselves dare not make a positive affirmation, and only conclude with a hypothesis. The Prefect cannot have Bernadette arrested on any plea whatever.”
“It is a legal proceeding.”
“It is unlawful. As Priest, as the Curé-doyen of the town of Lourdes, I have a duty towards all, and more especially the weakest. If I saw an armed man attack a child, I would defend that child at the peril of my life, for I know the duty of protecting others, which is incumbent on a good Pastor. Be assured, I would act in the same manner even if the man were a Prefect, and his weapon were a bad clause of a bad law. Go, then, and tell M. Massy that his Gendarmes will find me on the threshold of the door of this poor family, and that they will have to lay me low, to pass over my body and trample me under their feet before they touch a hair of this little girl’s head
“However”—
“There is no however in the case. Examine, institute investigations; you are at full liberty to do so, and everybody invites you to do so. But if, instead of this, you wish to persecute, if you wish to strike the innocent, know well that before you reach the last, and the least among my flock, it is with me you must begin.”
The Priest had risen from his chair. His tall figure, his strongly-marked features, the plenitude of strength for which he was remarkable, his resolute gestures, and his countenance burning with emotion, supplied a commentary to his words and stamped their character upon them.
The Procureur and the Mayor were silent for an instant. They afterwards mentioned the measures relative to the Grotto.
“As far as the Grotto is concerned,” replied the Priest, “if the Prefect wishes, in the name of the laws of the Nation, and in that of his own private piety, to strip it of the various objects which innumerable visitors have deposited there in honor of the Blessed Virgin—let him do so. Believers will be sorry and even indignant. But let him not be alarmed; the inhabitants of this country know the respect due to Authority, even when it strays from the right path. It is said that at Tarbes a squadron of cavalry, with their horses saddled and bridled, are only waiting a signal from the Prefect to hasten to Lourdes. Let the squadron dismount.
“However warm the heads of my people may be, however ulcerated their hearts, they listen to my voice, and I answer for their tranquillity without any armed force. With an armed force, I am no longer responsible for them.”
It was the time of the year when the Council of Revision was held. Under these circumstances, M. Massy had an opportunity of going to Lourdes, where all the Mayors of the canton would meet him.
“The Prefect,” as an illustrious writer has since observed, “had undertaken on that day to impose on those under his jurisdiction a tolerably severe and grievous service, inaugurated in a sufficiently repugnant manner. He might have well understood, had he wished to do so, that some consoling liberties are necessary as a slight compensation for the sacrifices exacted by society. Now, the liberty of praying in certain places, of burning a taper there, of placing an offering there, or drawing thence a little water, cannot appear very onerous to the state, fatal to the public liberty, nor offensive to the modesty or liberty of any one, yet it is a source of deep consolation to those who make use of it. Encourage therefore the existence of Faith. In the enjoyment of your high posts, your power, and your fortunes, consider that the majority of men whom you govern are obliged to ask God day by day for bread, and only obtain it by a kind of miracle. Faith is as it were already bread; it assists the poor to eat even black bread, it aids them to wait for it patiently, when the hour is passed at which it ought to come. And when God appears willing to open one of those places of grace where Faith flows more abundantly and affords prompter succour, do not close them. You yourselves will be the first to require them. It is there you will be able to effect a saving in the expenses incident to hospitals and prisons.”
Far different were the thoughts and feelings of Baron Massy. After having exacted in the name of Power that terrible tax of blood, which is termed the Conscription, he addressed an official speech to the Mayors of the canton. He well knew how to invoke at one and the same time the interest of the Church and that of the State, the Pope and the Emperor, while touching on the subject of Apparitions and Miracles. To each of his phrases, periphrases and paraphrases, he began with piety and ended with the administration. The premises were those of a theologian, the conclusions those of a Prefect.
“The Prefect has shown to the Mayors,” said the organ of the Prefecture on the following day, “in what points the scenes which had been enacted afforded matter for regret, and how much disrepute they tended to throw upon religion. He particularly applied himself to make them understand that the fact of the formation of an oratory at the Grotto, a fact sufficiently established by religious emblems and tapers being placed there, was an attack made on the ecclesiastical and civil authority, an illegality which it was the duty of the Administration to put a stop to, since, according to the express terms of the law, no public chapel or oratory can be founded without the authorization of the Government, on the recommendation of the Bishop of the Diocese.”
“My sentiments,” the devout functionary had added, “ought not to be suspected by any one. Every one, in this department, knows my profound respect for Religion. I have given, I think, sufficient proofs of it to render it impossible to put a bad interpretation on my intentions.
“It will cause you, therefore, no surprise to learn, Gentlemen, that I have ordered the Commissary of Police to remove all objects deposited at the Grotto and transfer them to the Mayoralty, where they will be placed at the disposition of their rightful owners.
“I have further directed that all persons claiming to see Visions shall be arrested and taken to Tarbes at the public expense, to be there placed under medical treatment, and I shall see that all those who have helped to spread the absurd rumors now in circulation, are prosecuted as propagators of false news.”
All this happened on the fourth of May. It was thus that the very pious Prefect inaugurated his Month of Mary.
These words were received “with unanimous enthusiasm,” if we are to believe the organ of the Prefecture.
The real truth was, that some disapproved most strongly the violent measures to which the authorities were pledging themselves, while others, who belonged to the sect of Free-thinkers, flattered themselves that the hand of the Prefect would be sufficient to put the drag on the progress of events.
Outside, the philosophers and savants were in high glee. The Lavedan, which had maintained absolute silence for nearly two months, owing to its having been overwhelmed by the evidence adduced, recovered its powers sufficiently to intone a dithyramb to the praise and glory of the Prefect.
Immediately on the conclusion of his speech, the Head of the Department quitted the town, leaving his orders to be executed in his absence.
The Prefect’s measures completed each other. By the arrest of Bernadette, he attacked the cause of trouble; by having the various objects removed from the Grotto, he attacked its effect. If, as was highly probable, the ardent populations of the district, wounded in their freedom of belief, their right of praying and their religion, attempted any resistance or committed any acts of disorder, the squadron of cavalry, summoned in all dispatch, would hasten to the spot, and, placing everything in a state of siege, would refute Superstition with the all-powerful argument of the sword. As M. Massy had just transformed a question purely religious into one dependent on the Administration, he was equally prepared to transform the latter into one of military interference.
The Mayor and the Commissary of Police, each in his own department, were charged with the execution of the Prefect’s wishes. The first was ordered to have Bernadette arrested, the second to repair in person to the Rocks of Massabielle and to despoil the Grotto of whatever the piety or gratitude of the faithful had deposited within its precincts.
Let us follow the progress of both, beginning with the Mayor, as is due to his higher functions.
On learning that the Virgin had appeared anew and revealed her name to Bernadette, the Prefect sent a Commission, composed of two medical men, to the house of Soubirous. He chose them from among those who, like himself, rejected the Supernatural, and who had their conclusions written beforehand in their so-called medical philosophy.
These two physicians who belonged to Lourdes—one of them being an intimate friend of the Procureur Impérial—had been exhausting their efforts for the last three weeks in supporting all kinds of theories on catalepsy, somnambulism, and hallucination, and waging a war of exasperation against the inexplicable radiances of Bernadette in her state of ecstasy, the gushing forth of the Spring, and against the sudden cures which were perpetually occurring to effect a breach in the doctrines with which their professional education had imbued them.
It was to these men and under these circumstances, that the Prefect, in his wisdom, deemed it right to confide the examination of Bernadette.
These gentlemen felt the child's head and did not discover in it anything wrong. On comparing it with the system of Gall, no signs of the bump of insanity were visible. The child's answers were sensible, without any contradictions or singularity. There was nothing exaggerated in the nervous system: on the contrary, there was the most perfect equilibrium, and an indescribable calmness. The little girl's chest suffered often from asthma, but this infirmity had no connection with a derangement of the brain.
The two physicians, who, in spite of their prejudices, were truly conscientious men, recorded all this in their report, and attested the healthy and normal state of the child.
However, as, when the Apparitions were in question, she persisted without variation in her account of what had taken place, the two gentlemen, who utterly disbelieved the possibility of visions of the kind, laid considerable stress on that head, in order to affirm that Bernadette might possibly be laboring under a state of hallucination.
In spite of their anti-supernatural notions, they dared not—after seeing the child's state, in which mind and body seemed to be so equally balanced—assume a more decided tone of affirmation. They felt instinctively, that it was not their positive science, with its concomitant certitude, but rather their preconceived philosophical opinions which led them to a conclusion of this kind, and which answered one question by propounding another.
The Prefect did not scrutinize the affair so narrowly, and the report appeared to him sufficient. Armed with this document, and in virtue of the law of June 30th, 1838, he determined to have Bernadette arrested and conducted to Tarbes to be shut up provisionally in the hospital, from which she would doubtless be transferred eventually to the lunatic asylum.
It was not enough to strike a blow at the child, it was necessary to oppose a barrier to this extraordinary movement of the people. M. Rouland had insinuated in his letter to the Prefect, that this was possible without outstepping the limits of the law. For this, it was only required to consider the Grotto as an Oratory, and to have it stripped of its ex-votos and the offerings of believers.
If these believers opposed any resistance, a squadron of cavalry would be quartered at Tarbes, ready to act as events might render necessary. An outbreak would have crowned the secret wishes of many. It only remained to put into execution these various measures against Bernadette and the population of the Department. The Prefectoral infallibility had recognized their necessity and urgency, in order to parry the increasing attacks of Superstition.
In the immense arsenal of our laws and regulations, there is one formidable weapon provided, as we think, somewhat imprudently, with the very praiseworthy intention of protecting an individual against himself, but which—should it chance to fall into the hands of malice and blind hatred—may give rise to the most frightful of all tyrannies; we mean the arbitrary sequestration—against which there is no power of appeal—of an innocent person.
We would be understood to allude to the law regarding Insanity. Without public discussion, or the possibility of making any defence, on the certificate of one or two medical men, declaring him to be laboring under mental alienation, an unfortunate wretch may be seized suddenly, by a simple measure of the Administration, and thrown into the most horrible of prisons—into the dungeon of a mad-house.
We believe, and we are under the necessity of believing, that, in the majority of cases, this law is equitably applied, in consequence of the general feeling of honor and the capacity of the medical body. But, we are at a loss to understand how this feeling of honor and this medical knowledge can afford just reasons for suppressing all means of defence, all publicity, and all opportunity of appeal; that the decision, with closed doors, of two medical men, should be exempted from this triple guarantee with which the Law has seen right to surround the judgments pronounced by the Magistracy.
The members of the medical profession are, doubtless, well skilled in their art, and we acknowledge that the fact of finding two of them perfectly agreed in opinion, renders the truth of their common thesis sufficiently probable; but, is there in this proceeding a certitude sufficiently grave, sufficiently evident, sufficiently clear—if we may be permitted to employ a pleonasm of this nature—to confer irrevocably the right of depriving, without any other form of procedure, a citizen of his liberty?
That medical men are actuated by a high sense of honor is equally beyond a doubt, and no one has a greater veneration than ourselves for members of their profession; but, may not—more especially in cases of mental alienation—their preconceived ideas and philosophical doctrines sometimes incline their minds, in spite of themselves, towards very deplorable errors?
One of them, M. Lélut, in a publication which has gained a certain celebrity, has ranked amongst the deranged, Socrates, Newton, Saint Theresa, Pascal, and a host of others, who, like the former, were the glory of Humanity. Would, for instance, such a Master and his pupils deserve to be invested with the right of shutting up as maniacs, without any opposing evidence, without publicity and without appeal, merely after a simple consultation, all those whom they should regard as such?
And yet, M. Lélut is a man of remarkable learning and a medical celebrity; he is a member of the Institute. What can we say of the guarantee offered by the mob of practitioners—by some of those wretched little village doctors who have succeeded to the Barber-Surgeons, with whom our ancestors were perfectly satisfied?
Convinced as he was of the absolute impossibility of the Supernatural, Baron Massy, observing the incapacity of action to which the Magistracy was reduced, hesitated not to seek for a solution of the extraordinary question, which had so suddenly arisen in his department, in calling this terrible law to his assistance.
In the course of the months of April and May, after as well as before the receipt of the letter from the Minister, the Prefect had employed his natural quickness of mind in endeavoring to find a key to these strange events at Lourdes, independent of the supernatural. Interrogatories had been renewed to no purpose, by the Parquet and Monsieur Jacomet. Neither the Commissary of Police nor M. Dutour had been able to catch the child tripping. This little shepherd-girl, thirteen or fourteen years of age, illiterate and unable to read or write, or even speak French, disconcerted by the mere force of her profound simplicity the crafty and the prudent.
A disciple of the Mesmers and the Du Potets—where from no one knew—had attempted in vain to throw Bernadette into the magnetic slumber. His passes had failed in exerting the slightest influence on her calm, and but slightly nervous temperament, and his success was limited to causing the child a head-ache. The poor little thing, however, submitted herself with resignation to the experiments and examinations of every one. It was the will of God that she should be exposed to every form of trial, and emerge triumphantly from them all, without exception.
It was understood that a foreign family of immense fortune having, as was the case with all, been fascinated with Bernadette, had proposed to adopt her, offering at the same time to her parents the sum of one hundred thousand francs, with the permission of remaining with their daughter. The disinterestedness of these good souls had not even been tempted for a moment, and they preferred remaining poor.
Everything brought to bear on Bernadette failed, the snares laid by guile, the offers of enthusiasm, the dialectics of the most acute intellects.
However great the horror M. Dutour entertained for fanaticism, he was unable to find, either in the Code of Criminal Instruction or in the Penal Code, any text which would authorize him in taking severe measures against Bernadette, and throwing her into prison. An arrest of this nature would have been illegal in the highest degree, and might be attended with very unpleasant consequences to the Magistrate by whose order it was carried into execution. In the eye of the penal law, Bernadette was innocent.
The Prefect, with his exceeding clearness of mind, took all this into consideration as thoroughly as if he had been a practical lawyer. He then entertained the idea of arriving at the same result by the employment of other means, and of proceeding by a measure emanating from the Administration to effect an incarceration, which, as it appeared to him, would be of considerable utility, but in which the Magistrates, with the codes in their hands, did not deem themselves authorized to assume the initiative.
While all these Miracles were taking place in different directions, there occurred an incident, in appearance very foreign to the object of this history, but which, notwithstanding its apparent insignificance, was destined to be attended with most important consequences as events progressed.
The Prefect of the Hautes-Pyrenees made about this time the notable discovery that his carriage and saddle horses were not particularly well domiciled and that it was desirable to erect elegant and spacious stables for their accommodation.
Unfortunately the ground about the Prefecture was somewhat confined, and Baron Massy wished, above all things, to avoid disfiguring either his court-yard or his garden.
The Prefecture of Tarbes is quite close to the Cathedral. Between the two buildings was the former cemetery of the priests and canons of the Church. It is handed down by tradition that many of the noble families of the country had formerly had vaults in it, and that the ashes of their illustrious members repose below. The Prefect observed to himself that this plot of ground was the very thing for his stables and coach-houses. With Baron Massy the execution of a project followed speedily on its first conception. He had the foundations therefore dug among the tomb-stones and fragments of human bones, and the buildings necessary for the accommodation of the official horses began shortly afterwards to rise conspicuously in the cemetery. The Prefect erected his buildings exactly opposite one of the ancient doors of the Cathedral, and at a very small distance from it, so that the noise of the stable was unavoidably heard by the congregation.
Such a forgetfulness of decorum could not fail of deeply annoying the occupants of the Palace. Monseigneur Laurence strove in vain to make the Prefect understand that the ground was consecrated, that it belonged to the Church, and that neither the repose of the dead nor the devotion of the living ought to be disturbed by the pawing and neighing of horses. The Prefect, as we have observed before, could never relinquish what he had once resolved upon. By discharging his workmen and selecting another site, he would have allowed himself to have been in the wrong. Notwithstanding, therefore, the sincere desire he might have to keep the Bishop in good humor, he did not pay the slightest attention to his remonstrances. His workmen remained on the old cemetery engaged in the construction of his stables.
On seeing the Prefect persist in his desecration of the tombs, Monseigneur Laurence threw off his reserve and protested energetically against his conduct. The Bishop addressed himself directly to the Minister of Public Worship, requesting authorization to pull down these unseemly and offensive buildings.
The Prefect was greatly annoyed at the very firm and dignified attitude assumed by the Bishop. He went post-haste to Paris, to argue his own case with the Minister, and endeavored to bring over the Council General to his side of the question; he sought legal opinions on the subject, and in short entered on a desperate struggle, the various episodes of which would be of no interest to our readers. The question lasted several months, and was eventually decided in accordance with the wise expostulations of Monseigneur Laurence. The grass grows once more to-day on the site of the demolished stables, and a funereal tree, planted in the centre of the cemetery, serves to mark that the ashes of the dead repose in that place.
But from the day when the Bishop issued his protest, the harmony, which, up to that period, had existed between the Head of the Department and the Head of the Diocese was broken for ever. In the heart of the Prefect this harmony was succeeded by an intense feeling of irritation. He ceased to be inclined to arrange matters amicably; perhaps his tendencies took quite the opposite direction. As he wished to encroach on the property of the Church in this miserable affair of his stables, so with regard to the question of the Apparitions, he from that time felt himself more inclined than before to encroach on the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop.
The bridle, which up to that moment had kept him in check, was snapped. Great effects are not unfrequently produced by very insignificant causes.
