Book 9 - Parts 3 & 4

 

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.”

Book 9 - Parts 1 & 2

In consequence of the events we have already narrated, the prolonged sojourn of Baron Massy in that part of the country was an utter impossibility. The Emperor lost no time in transferring him to the first prefecture which became vacant in the Empire. By a singular coincidence, his new prefecture was that of Grenoble. The Baron left Our Lady of Lourdes behind him, solely, as it would appear, to meet with Our Lady of Salette.

Jacomet also quitted the district. He was appointed Commissary of Police in another department. Replaced in his proper sphere, he contributed, with rare shrewdness, to the discovery of the roguery of some dangerous scoundrels who had foiled the efforts of his predecessors, and the most active pursuit of the Parquet. The affair in question was an extensive robbery—to the amount of two or three hundred thousand francs—of funds belonging to a railway company. This was the starting-point of his fortune in the Police, for which he had an unmistakable vocation. His remarkable aptitude for this branch of the public service, which was justly appreciated by his superiors, raised him eventually to a very high position.

The Procureur Imperial, M. Dutour, was, ere long, transferred to other duties. M. Lacadé remained in his position as Mayor, and we shall see his shadowy profile once or twice more in the last pages of this narration.

Although Monseigneur Laurence had instituted a Tribunal of Investigation towards the end of July, it had been his wish to see the effervescence of the public cool down of its own accord, before he permitted it to enter on its duties. “To wait,” he thought, “could never lead to compromising anything, when the question regarded the works of God, who holds time in His own hands.” The event had shown he was right. After the tumultuous discussions of the French press, and the violent measures of Baron Massy, the Grotto had become free of access, and there was no longer cause for dreading the scandal of seeing the members of the Episcopal Commission arrested by an agent of Police on the road to the Rocks of Massabielle, when repairing there to accomplish their work and study, on the very spot where the Apparition had manifested herself, the traces of the hand of God.

On the 17th of October, the Commissioners betook themselves to Lourdes. The youthful Seer was interrogated by them.

“Bernadette,” says the Secretary, in his official report, “presented herself before us with great modesty, but with remarkable self-composure. She displayed great calmness and absence of embarrassment, in the midst of so numerous an assembly, and in presence of distinguished ecclesiastics whom she had never seen before, but whose mission had been explained to her.”

The young girl recounted the Apparitions, the words of the Virgin, the order given by Mary to have a chapel built on the very spot consecrated to her worship, the sudden appearance of the Fountain and the name of the “Immaculate Conception” which the Vision had given to herself. She explained, with the grave certitude of a witness sure of the facts, and with the humble candor of a child, all that was personal to herself in this supernatural drama, which had extended over nearly a whole year. She replied to all the questions put to her, and left no obscure doubts in the minds of those who interrogated her, no longer in the name of men such as Jacomet, the Procureur, or of so many others, but in that of the Catholic Church, the eternal spouse of God. Our readers are already aware of all the facts to which she bore testimony, as we have explained those events, in the order in which they occurred, in different portions of this narrative.

The Commissioners visited the Rocks of Massabielle, and saw for themselves the enormous flow of the divine Spring. They established, from the unanimous declaration of persons belonging to the district, that the Spring was not in existence previously to its having gushed forth before the eyes of the multitude, from beneath the hand of the youthful Seer, when in a state of ecstasy.

At Lourdes and at places distant from the town, the Commissioners investigated most minutely the extraordinary cures which had been effected by the use of the water of the Grotto.

There were, in this delicate inquiry, two very distinct parts: the facts themselves and their attendant circumstances depended on human testimony; the examination into the natural or supernatural character of these facts depended—at least to a great extent—on the verdict of medical science. The method pursued by the tribunal of investigation was suggested by this double conception.

Making the tour of the dioceses of Tarbes, Auch and Bayonne, the Commissioners summoned before them all those who had been pointed out to them as having been cured in so remarkable a manner; they questioned them with the utmost minuteness on all the details of their malady, and of their restoration—whether sudden or gradual—to health. They employed men of human science to put to them technical questions, which, perhaps, would never have occurred to the minds of theologians. They assembled together, in order to submit these declarations to the test of cross-examination, the relatives, friends, and neighbors of those who claimed to have been cured, including all the witnesses of the different phases of the event, those who had seen the invalid, those who had been present at the cure, etc., etc.

Having once arrived in this manner at an absolute certainty relative to the facts taken as a whole, and in their details, the Commissioners submitted them, in order to ascertain their value, to two eminent and qualified physicians, whom they had admitted as colleagues. These physicians were Doctor Vergés, medical superintendent of the baths at Barèges and Fellow-professor of the Faculty of Montpellier, and Doctor Dozons, who had already studied several of these strange incidents on his own account.

Each medical man stated in a separate report, his opinion on the nature of the cure; sometimes rejecting the Miracle to attribute the cessation of the malady in question to natural causes; sometimes declaring the fact to be utterly inexplicable, except by a supernatural action of divine power; and lastly, sometimes not arriving at any conclusion and remaining in doubt—a doubt, more or less, inclining to one or other of the above solutions.

Furnished with this double element—the entire knowledge of facts on the one hand, and the conclusions arrived at by Science on the other—the Commissioners deliberated and submitted their judgment to the Bishop, together with all the documents connected with the case.

The Commissioners had not and could not have any preconceived opinions. Believing on principle in the Supernatural, which is so often met with in the history of the world, they were at the same time aware, that nothing tends so much to discredit true miracles, proceeding from God, as false prodigies contrived by man. Equally indisposed to affirm beforehand or to reject prematurely, and being entirely unprejudiced either for or against the Miracle, they confined their task to that of investigation, and truth was the sole object of their researches. Appealing—in order to throw light on the various facts they were studying—to every kind of information and every kind of testimony, they acted with entire publicity. They opened their sessions to unbelievers, as well as to those who believed. Firmly resolved to discard with relentless severity all that was vague and uncertain, and to accept only such facts as were precise, well-founded, and incontestable, they rejected all declarations which were grounded on mere on-dits and empty reports.

To every witness who appeared before them, the Commissioners imposed two conditions:—the first, only to depose to what he knew personally and had seen with his own eyes; the second, to pledge himself to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, by the solemn formality of an oath.

With such precautions, and with an organization so prudent and wise, it was impossible for false miracles to succeed in deceiving, even for a moment, the judgment of the Commissioners. This was, besides, still more impossible, in the midst of so many hostile intellects stirred up against the Supernatural, and deeply interested in combating and upsetting every error, every exaggeration, every doubtful assertion, and every miraculous fact which did not admit of the clearest demonstration.

If then, true miracles, incompletely established, were destined not to receive the sanction of the Commission of Inquiry, it was at least absolutely certain that no lying wonders could maintain their ground before the severity of its examination, or take their place, in its judgment, among the admirable facts of the divine and supernatural order.

Whoever, wishing to contest the truth of such or such a miracle, could produce not merely vague general theories, but precise articulations and a personal knowledge of facts, could publicly demand the right of presenting himself. Not to do so, was to submit to the sentence pronounced, and to confess that he had nothing formal or particular to allege, and was unable to furnish any counter-evidence. Forbearance evidently implied this. It is not when parties are heated with passion and the ardor of a long struggle, that they suffer judgment to go by default. To refuse the combat is to acknowledge a defeat.

Book 8 - Part 7

 

M. Lacadé did not share in the hesitation of M. Massy. A decision of this nature relieved him from the heavy onus which his complex desire of steering cautiously between the Prefect and the masses, the powers of heaven and those of man, had imposed upon him. By an illusion not uncommon in undecided characters, he imagined that he had always sided with the prevailing party, and he drew up a proclamation to that effect.

“Inhabitants of the town of Lourdes, the day we have so longed for has at length arrived; we have gained it by our wisdom, our perseverance, our faith and by our courage.”

Such was the import and tone of his proclamation, of which, unfortunately, the text has not reached us.

The proclamation was read with the sound of drums and trumpets in every quarter of the town. At the same time the following placard was posted up on all the walls:

THE MAYOR OF THE TOWN OF LOURDES,

Considering the instructions, addressed to him,

DECREES:

The decree issued by him June 8th, 1858, is revoked.

Done at Lourdes, in the Hotel of the Mayoralty, October 5th, 1858.

A. Lacadé, Mayor.

During this time, Jacomet and the Sergents de Ville repaired to the Grotto to remove the barriers and posts.

The crowd had already arrived there, and was visibly increasing. Some were praying on their knees and, striving to prevent themselves from being distracted by the external noises, thanked God for having brought to a close the scandal and persecution which had prevailed. Others remained standing, talking in low tones and waiting, not without emotion, to see what was about to occur. Women in great number were telling their beads. Many held a flask in their hands, wishing to fill it at the very spot whence the Spring was gushing forth. Flowers were thrown over the barriers into the interior of the Grotto. As to the barriers themselves, no one touched them. Those who had erected them publicly, in opposition to the power of God, must come and remove them publicly, in deference to the will of a man.

Jacomet arrived. Although, in spite of himself, he betrayed a certain degree of embarrassment and excitement of manner, and his deep humiliation might be guessed from the pallor of his countenance, he did not present, as was generally expected, the sad aspect of one who had been vanquished in the struggle. Escorted by his subordinates, furnished with axes and mattocks, he advanced boldly towards the scene of action. With an affectation which appeared singular under the circumstances, he wore the official costume appropriated to state occasions. His broad tricolored scarf girded his loins and floated over his full-dress sword. He passed through the crowd and stepped close up to the barriers. A vague tumultuous noise, a low murmur, and a few solitary cries proceeded from the multitude. The Commissary mounted on a fragment of rock and made a gesture that he wished to say a few words. Every one listened to him.

“My Friends, it is these barriers, they say, which, to my great regret, the municipality erected in obedience to the orders they received, which are now about to be demolished. Who has suffered more than myself from this obstacle opposed to your piety? I am a religious man myself, and I share your faith. But a functionary, like a soldier, has but one watchword, which is the duty—often a very painful one—of obedience. The responsibility does not rest with him. Well, my friends, when I witnessed your admirable calmness, your respect for power, and your persevering faith, I notified it to superior authorities. I pleaded your cause, my friends. I said, ‘Why should these harmless people be hindered from praying at the Grotto, and from drinking at the Spring?’ In consequence of this, every prohibition has been removed, and the Prefect and myself have resolved to demolish for ever these barriers which were so annoying to you and still more so to myself.”

The crowd maintained a cold silence. Some young men whispered together and laughed. Jacomet was visibly discomposed at the failure of his oration. He ordered his subordinates to remove the palings. It was done with considerable promptitude. A heap was made of the boards and débris near the Grotto, and the Police carried it away as soon as it was dark.

The town of Lourdes was in a great state of emotion. During the afternoon, the crowd kept going to and fro on the road leading to the Grotto. The faithful, in countless throngs, knelt devoutly before the Rocks of Massabielle. They sang canticles, and recited the litanies of the Virgin. Virgo potens, ora pro nobis. They quenched their thirst at the Spring. The believers were free, God had achieved the victory.

Book 8 - Part 6

Every one knows the theories of Science on that marvelous electric spark, which the iron threads, with which the earth is covered as with a network, transport from one pole to the other with the rapidity of lightning. Telegraphic communication, say the Savants, is nothing more nor less than a thunder-bolt.

On that day Baron Massy coincided in opinion with the Savants. The imperial telegram, bursting upon him all at once, struck him suddenly dumb, and bewildered him as completely as the sudden fall of a thunder-bolt on his house would have done. He could not believe in its reality. The more he thought of it the less possible did it appear to him to retrace his steps, condemn his previous measures, and retreat from his present position before the public gaze. He must, however, either swallow the bitter draught, or send in his resignation and bid a sad adieu to the sweets of office. Fatal alternative. The hearts of functionaries are sometimes a prey to bitter anguish.

When we are overtaken by a sudden catastrophe, we experience some difficulty in accepting it as final, and we struggle against it even when all is lost. Baron Massy did not escape an illusion of this nature. He had some vague hope that the Emperor would think better of his decision. Under this idea, he took upon himself the responsibility of keeping the despatch secret for some days and of not obeying its injunctions. He wrote to the Emperor, and in addition to this employed M. Rouland, the Minister—who was less publicly but as completely crushed as himself by the unexpected order from Biarritz—to influence the Sovereign.

Napoleon III. paid as little attention to the objections of the Minister as he had done to the entreaties and supplications of the Prefect. The judgment he had pronounced was based on the evidence which had been laid before him, and was irrevocable. The steps which had been taken only served to apprize his Majesty that the Prefect had dared to neglect his orders and defer their execution. A second despatch was sent from Biarritz. It was so worded as to render further observations or delay out of the question.

Baron Massy had only to choose between his pride and his position as Prefect. He made this melancholy choice, and his humility induced him to retain office.

The Head of the Department therefore resigned himself to the virtue of obedience. However, notwithstanding the imperious dispatches of his Master, he still endeavored, not to protract the struggle—for that was no longer possible—but to mask his retreat and to avoid the public surrender of his arms.

Owing to some little indiscretions in the Bureau, perhaps also from something which dropped from those who had gone as ambassadors to the Emperor, the purport of the orders from Biarritz had transpired to a certain extent. They formed the topic of conversation everywhere. These rumors were neither confirmed nor contradicted by the Prefect. He ordered Jacomet and his subordinates to suspend all prosecutions and to discontinue all surveillance. Such moderation following immediately on the reports in circulation with regard to the Emperor’s instructions would, in his opinion, be sufficient to cause things to go on in their usual course, and the Decree might fall into desuetude without the necessity of its being publicly withdrawn. It was even probable that the people of the district, on recovering their full liberty of action, would hasten to tear up and throw into the Gave the posts bearing the notices forbidding any trespass on the lands of the commune, as well as the barriers which prevented all access to the Grotto.

M. Massy was deceived in his calculations, plausible as they were. In spite of the forbearance of the Police, and the reports in circulation which had not been officially contradicted—perhaps for these very reasons—the people feared some snare. They continued to go and pray on the opposite bank of the Gave. The infractions of the law were, as formerly, only isolated instances. No one touched the posts or the barriers. Instead of falling of its own accord, as the Prefect had fondly hoped, the statu quo maintained itself obstinately unchanged.

The character of Napoleon III., and the precise nature of the orders transmitted from Biarritz duly considered, a situation of this nature was perilous for the Prefect. Baron Massy was too intelligent not to appreciate this. Every moment he had cause to fear that the Emperor might be apprised all at once of the manner in which he was attempting to tack. Every hour, doubtless, he dreaded to receive some terrible missive, which would crush him forever and banish him into nothingness, that is to say, out of the luminous sphere of government, into that external darkness, where the unfortunate non-official world wears out its fretful existence.

The end of September had arrived.

It happened that, during these perplexities, M. Fould had had occasion once more to visit Tarbes, and even to take Lourdes on his way. Did he increase the Prefect’s terror when speaking to him of his Master? Did the Baron receive some new telegram couched in still more alarming language than the other two? We cannot tell. One thing is certain, that on the third of October, owing to some cause unknown, M. Massy became as supple as a reed trampled under the foot of a passer-by, and his arrogant stiffness seemed to give way to a sudden and complete prostration.

The next day, in the name of the Emperor, he issued an order to the Mayor of Lourdes to rescind the Decree publicly, and to have the posts and barriers removed by Jacomet.

Book 8 - Part 5

 
The polemical discussion of the press on the subject of the Grotto was exhausted. In France and in foreign countries, the public conscience had been enabled to judge, not of the reality of the supernatural occurrences, but of the violent oppression which liberty of belief and right of examination were undergoing in a corner of the Empire. The miserable sophisms of anti-christian fanaticism, and of intolerance pretending to be philosophical, had not been able to withstand the forcible logic of the Catholic journals. The Débats, the Siècle, the Presse, and the vile crowd of irreligious papers were silent, probably regretting that they had engaged in so unfortunate a war, and had given so much publicity to such extraordinary facts. They had only succeeded in propagating and spreading in every country the fame of so many miracles. From Italy, Germany, and countries still more distant, persons wrote to Lourdes begging that a few drops of the sacred water might be forwarded to them.

At the Ministry of Public Worship, M. Rouland persisted in wishing to oppose himself to the most sacred of liberties and in pretending to arrest the march of events.

At the Grotto, Jacomet and the Gardes persisted in watching day and night, and in dragging the believers to the bar of the tribunals. M. Duprat was constantly engaged in condemning delinquents.

Placed between such a Minister to support him and such agents to execute his wishes, Baron Massy remained gallantly in his absolutely illogical position and viewed with complacency the omnipotence of his arbitrary power. More and more exasperated at seeing himself deprived, by the episcopal inquiry and the analysis of M. Filhol, of the vain pretexts of religion and public order with which he had originally sought to veil his intolerance, he abandoned himself with pride to the bitter joy of enforcing measures of pure unmitigated tyranny. He remained deaf to the unanimous cry which greeted his ears. To every reason adduced, to the most undeniable evidence, he opposed his own will: “Such is my good pleasure.” It was sweet to him to be stronger in his individual capacity than the multitudes, stronger than the Bishop, stronger than good common sense, stronger than the miracles, stronger than the God of the Grotto. Etiamsi omnes, ego non.

It was under such circumstances that two eminent personages, Mgr. de Salinis, Archbishop of Auch, and M. de Rességuier, formerly deputy, waited upon the Emperor, who was at that moment at Biarritz. Napoleon III. received at the same time from different quarters petitions urgently demanding and claiming in virtue of the most sacred rights, the withdrawal of the arbitrary and violent measures of Baron Massy.

“Sire,” so ran one of these petitions, “we do not pretend to decide in any way the question of the Apparitions of the Virgin, although, on the faith of astounding miracles, which they claim to have seen with their own eyes, almost all, in these districts, believe implicitly in the reality of these supernatural manifestations. What is certain and beyond all dispute, is, that this Spring, which gushed forth all at once—and which has been closed to us in spite of the scientific analysis which proclaimed it to be entirely innocuous—has not done any harm to any one; what is certain is, that, on the contrary, a great number of persons declare that they have recovered their health by its means. In the name of the rights of conscience, which are quite independent of all human power, allow those who believe to go and pray there, if it suits them to do so. In the name of mere humanity allow the sick to go there to be cured, if such is their hope. In the name of intellectual liberty, allow those minds which seek for light from study and investigation to go there to discover their error or find the truth.”

The Emperor, as we have stated above, was quite disinterested in the question, or rather he was interested in not employing his strength in a sterile opposition to the progress of events. He was interested in listening to the cry of souls demanding the liberty of their faith, to the cry of intellect demanding the liberty of studying and seeing for itself. He was interested in being just, and in not galling by a gratuitous exercise of arbitrary power and a plain refusal of justice, those who believed what they had seen with their own eyes, as well as those, who though not yet convinced, claimed the right of investigating publicly the mysterious occurrences which were exciting the attention of the whole of France.

We have seen what impossible fictions the worthy Minister Rouland had accepted as incontestable truths. The information forwarded to the Emperor by his Excellency was by no means calculated to enlighten the former on the subject. The polemical discussions in the journals, although they had triumphantly displayed the rights of one party and the intolerance of the other, had not succeeded in giving him any very clear idea of the actual state of things. It was only at Biarritz that it was presented to him as a whole, and that he was made acquainted with all its details.

Napoleon III. was by no means demonstrative, and it rarely happened that his thoughts were expressed by words. They were to be inferred from his actions. On learning the absurd measures of violence by which the Minister, the Prefect and their subordinates were bringing discredit on the supreme power by following their own caprice, a flash of cold anger, it is said, lighted up his jaded eye; he shrugged his shoulders convulsively, and a cloud of deep displeasure passed over his brow. He rang the bell violently.

“Take this to the telegraph,” he said.

It was a laconic dispatch for the Prefect of the Hautes Pyrénées, ordering, on the part of the Emperor, the immediate withdrawal of the Decree regarding the Grotto of Lourdes, and directing that for the future the people should be allowed perfect freedom of action.

Book 8 - Part 4

While God thus left his work to be discussed by man, He did not cease to grant visible graces to those humble and believing souls, who repaired to the miraculous Fountain to implore the sovereign power of the Virgin Mother.

A child at St. Justin, in the department of Gers, Jean-Marie Tambourné, had been for some months entirely disabled in his right leg. He suffered such excruciating pains in it, that his limbs had been violently twisted out of shape; and his foot, completely turned outwards by his attacks of suffering, had formed a right angle with the other foot. His general health had been speedily impaired and disorganized owing to his state of continual suffering, which deprived him of sleep as well as of appetite. His parents, who were in tolerably easy circumstances, had exhausted, in hopes of effecting his cure, all the treatment recommended by the medical men of the place. Nothing could overcome the poor child’s inveterate infirmity. Recourse had been had to the waters of Blousson, and to medicinal baths, but almost everything had failed. Very slight temporary alleviation of his sufferings constantly led to disastrous relapses.

His parents had lost all confidence in any means recommended by science. Disgusted with the vain efforts of medical men, they turned their hopes towards the Mother of Mercy, who, as it was said, had appeared at the Rocks of Massabielle. On the twenty-third of September, 1858, Jean-Marie was taken by his mother to Lourdes in a public conveyance. The distance was long, being about fifty kilomètres. On reaching the town, the mother, carrying her unfortunate son in her arms, repaired to the Grotto. She bathed him in the miraculous water, praying at the same time fervently to Her, who has willed to be called in the Rosary, “Health of the weak.” The child had fallen into a kind of ecstatic state. His eyes were wide open and his mouth half closed. He seemed to be contemplating some strange spectacle.

“What is the matter with you?” enquired his mother.

“I see God and the Blessed Virgin,” he replied.

The poor woman on hearing these words experienced a profound commotion in her heart. A strange perspiration stood in beads on her face. The child had come to himself again.

“Mother,” he exclaimed, “my ailment is gone! I do not feel any more pain. I can walk. I feel as well as I was long ago!”

Jean-Marie spoke the truth. Jean-Marie was cured. He returned to Lourdes on foot. He dined and slept there. Simultaneously with the disappearance of his infirmity and pain, his appetite and sleep returned. The next day, his mother returned to the Grotto to bathe him once more, and had a mass of thanksgiving celebrated in the parish-church of Lourdes. Then, both started on their return homewards, but on foot, and not in any vehicle.

When, after having slept en route, they reached St. Justin, the child perceived his father, who was on the high-road, looking out, no doubt, for the carriage which was to bring home his pilgrims. Jean-Marie recognizing him from afar, let go his mother’s hand and began to run towards him.

The father almost fainted at the sight. But his dearly-loved child was already in his arms. “Father,” he exclaimed, “the Blessed Virgin has cured me!”

The fame of this event spread like wild-fire in the town, where Jean-Marie was known by every one. People came to see him in crowds from all quarters.

The sister of a notary at Tarbes, Mademoiselle Jeanne-Marie Massot-Bordenave, had remained, in consequence of a long and serious illness, almost entirely deprived of the use of her hands and feet. She could only walk with the greatest difficulty. As to her hands, they were constantly swollen, of a purple color, and causing her pain, and almost entirely useless. Her fingers, bent and stiff, could not be straightened, and were the victims of a complete paralysis. Having been to see her brother at Tarbes, she had returned to her own residence at Arras, in the canton of Aucun. She was alone in the intérieur of the diligence. A flask of wine given to her by her brother having by accident become uncorked and upset, she could neither pick it up nor replace the cork, owing to the complete weakness of her fingers.

Lourdes happened to be in her way home. She stopped there and repaired to the Grotto.

Scarcely had she plunged her hand into the miraculous water, when she instantly felt them restored to life. Her fingers had straightened themselves, and had suddenly refound their strength and flexibility. Delighted, perhaps beyond her fondest hopes, she plunged her feet also into the miraculous water, and they were cured in the same way her hands had been. She fell on her knees. What did she say to the Virgin? How did she thank her? Such prayers, such bursts of gratitude, may be divined, but they cannot be written.

After this, she put on again her stockings and shoes, and, with a firm step, took the road leading to the town.

A young girl was walking in the same direction, who was returning from the wood, and carrying on her head an enormous fagot. The weather was warm, and this poor peasant was bathed with perspiration. Exhausted with fatigue, she sat down on a large stone at the side of the road, placing at her feet her burden, which was too heavy for her weakness. At that moment, Jeanne-Marie Massot passed before her, returning active and radiant with joy from the divine Fountain. A good thought descended into her heart. She drew near to the young peasant-girl.

“My child,” she said to her, “the Lord has just granted me a most remarkable favor. He has cured me; He has removed my burden from me. In my turn, I should like to assist and relieve you.”

Saying these words, Marie Massot raised, with her hands so recently restored to life, the heavy fagot thrown on the ground, placed it on her head, and in this manner re-entered Lourdes from which, less than an hour before, she had issued infirm and paralyzed. The first fruits of her restored strength had been nobly employed—they had been consecrated to charity. “Freely ye have received—freely give,” is a text to be found somewhere in Holy Writ.

A woman in the decline of life, Marie Capdevielle of the small town of Livron, in the vicinity of Lourdes, had been also cured of a most severe deafness which was beginning to become inveterate.

“It appears to me,” she used to say, “as if I were in another world, when I hear the church-bells, which I had not heard for upwards of three years.”

These cures and many others continued to attest, in a manner not to be gainsaid, the direct intervention of God. God manifested his power in restoring health to the sick; and, it was clear that, if He had permitted persecution, it was necessary for the carrying out of his designs. It depended upon Him to cause its cessation, and for that purpose to incline, as was pleasing to Him, the will of the great ones of earth.

Book 8 - Part 3

Outside the events themselves and the Miracle, the mandate of the Bishop of Tarbes was the center of attack. Philosophy, in virtue of the infallibility of its dogmas, was indignant at the idea of investigation, scientific study and experiments. “When an individual, laboring under hallucination, sends a paper on perpetual motion or squaring the circle to the Academy of Sciences, the Academy passes to the order of the day without losing its time in examining lucubrations of the kind. There is no place for investigation when Miracles are in question; in the name of reason, Philosophy passes to the order of the day. To examine supernatural facts, would be to admit their possibility and by so doing repudiate our own principles. In such matters proofs and evidence go for nothing. We do not enter into discussions on what is impossible, we shrug our shoulders and there is nothing to be said.”

Such was the theme on which turned—in a thousand different forms—the ardent and exasperated polemical discussion of the irreligious portion of the press. In vain did it obstinately persist in denials and misrepresentations; it dreaded any investigation. False theories delight in resting on the fleeting waves and indistinct mists of pure speculation. By I know not what instinct of self-preservation, they shrink from broad day-light and dare not descend with firm step on the broad plain of experimental method. They have a foreboding that defeat awaits them there.

In this desperate struggle against the evidence of facts and the rights of reason, the skin-deep liberalism of the Journal des Débats peeled off and fell, like theatrical varnish, leaving visible, with scarcely any attempt at concealment, the ground-work of furious intolerance which is concealed beneath the stately phrases of philosophy. The Journal des Débats, in an article from the pen of M. Prévost-Paradol, displayed its alarm beforehand at the immense range which the Report of the Commission and the verdict of the Bishop would infallibly have, and he made that his starting-point to appeal to the secular arm and to conjure Cæsar to put a stop to the whole matter.

“It is evident,” said he, “that a striking manifestation of the divinity in favor of a certain form of worship is a high testimony to its peculiar truth, its superiority to all the rest, and to its incontestable right to the government of souls. It is therefore an event of a nature calculated to bring in its train numerous adhesions, whether as regards dissenters or unbelievers; in a word, it is an instrument of proselytism.” He put in a strong light the political importance of the result of the inquiry.

“If this decision is favorable to the Miracle, it tends to a certain point, to break in that part of France the balance between the religious and the civil power. The Ministers of a form of worship in favor of which such prodigies are authenticated are vastly different personages from those anticipated, organized and placed under certain regulations by the terms of the Concordat. They have an influence of quite another nature over the population, and in case of any collection they dispose of it with an authority totally different from that of the Council of State and of the Prefect.

“We have sufficiently proved,” continued the writer in the Débats, “the importance which, in several points of view, the decision of the Episcopal Commission of Tarbes must necessarily have. Now, there is here a truth which we should bear in mind, and of which M. de Morny has just reminded the Council-General of Puy de Dôme with justifiable urgency. It is that nothing of importance can be legally done in France without the previous authorization of the Administration. If a stone cannot be moved, as M. de Morny well remarked, or a well dug without the consent of the Administration, how much more necessary must its consent be in order to establish a Miracle or found a Pilgrimage. Any one who is conversant with religious matters, and particularly with the opening of temples, or of schools of dissenting communes, knows perfectly well that the administrative authority has not one plea, but ten; not one article of the law, but twenty or thirty which confer on it supreme power in such matters. The meeting of the Commission of the Diocese of Tarbes may be prevented or dissolved in a hundred ways by the Concordat, by the penal Code, by the law of 1824, by the decree of February 1852, by the central authority, by the municipal authority, by all the authorities possible. Further than this, the decision of this Commission when promulgated may be annulled in reality by the legal opposition of the administrative authority to the erection of a chapel or to the licensed use of the marvelous water. The same authority has the power of prohibiting and dispersing all assemblages of persons, and of prosecuting their instigators, etc.”

Having reached this point, having warned Cæsar, and cried out lustily his caveant consules, the crafty writer resumed—for form’s sake—his mantle of liberalism. “What are we aiming at,” he observed hypocritically, “in establishing this preventive right of the Administration? Is it to exhort it to avail itself of it? God forbid?” And he thus rejoined, by a back door, the ranks of the friends of liberty.

In the departments, the journals tamely re-echoed those of Paris. The battle was commenced everywhere and by all. The sergeants, corporals, the rank and file of literature stepped to the front in the wake of the Marshals of Free-thought. At Tarbes, the Ère Impériale, inspired by the Prefect, rammed his carbine with arguments fresh from Paris, and fired close to the muzzle, every second day, at the Supernatural. The little Lavedan, itself, damped, it is true, by the water of the Grotto—and assisted, it is said, by Jacomet, exerted itself to level at the Miracle its hebdomadal pistol, which regularly missed fire once a week.

The Univers, the Union, the majority of the Catholic journals supported the universal shock gallantly. Powerful talents placed themselves at the service of Truth, which was still more powerful. The Christian press re-established the reality of History and put to flight the miserable quibbles of philosophical fanaticism.

“In face of the unexplained occurrences to which a supernatural character is attributed by the faith or the credulity of the multitude, the civil authority,” observed M. Louis Veuillot, “has—without information, but also without success—decided the question in the negative. The spiritual authority is now interfering in its turn; it is its right and its duty. Before judging, it seeks information. It has instituted a Commission, a kind of tribunal of investigation, in order to discover facts, study their nature, and to determine their character. If they are true, and possess a supernatural character, the Commission will say so. If they are false, or only produced by natural causes, it will state this. What more can our adversaries desire from us? Would they have the Bishop abstain, at the risk of slighting a grace which God might deign to grant to his diocese, or, in the other case, suffer a superstition to strike its roots deep into the hearts of the faithful?

“The Bishop cannot fail to have remarked the strangeness of this conviction, which is establishing itself among a whole people, on the word of a poor illiterate little girl. He must have asked himself the question—How came these cures, which are said to be effected by a few drops of pure water, either employed as a lotion or drank by the sufferers? And if there were in reality no cures, it is necessary for us to know why it was so generally believed that they had taken place. Now, supposing that the water is pure, as the chemists say, and that nevertheless the cures are certain, as has been affirmed up to the present time by many invalids and some doctors, we do not see any difficulty in recognizing in this supernatural and miraculous agency, with all due deference to the explanations offered by the Siècle.”

This vigorous polemical writer faced all his enemies at the same time. A stroke of his pen was sufficient to upset the absurd prejudice of denying Miracles altogether, and of refusing even an examination of those astounding facts which whole multitudes saw with their eyes and proclaimed on their knees.

“If M. Guéroult were told that, in the name of Christ, a great miracle was being performed on the Place de la Concorde, he would not go to see it. He would do well, since he is determined to remain incredulous; before such a spectacle he would not be certain of finding such a natural explanation as would dispense him from going to confession. But he would do better to see the Miracle and believe, yielding to the testimony which God, in His mercy, might be willing to give him. In either case, we would have him to understand that the crowd would not be much troubled at his absence, and would experience no uneasiness at hearing him declare that what had been seen was the simplest thing in the world, and that the crowd was merely suffering from hallucination. Things would pass in Paris exactly as at Lourdes. There would be a general cry that a Miracle had taken place, and, if it really was a Miracle, the Miracle would produce its effect; in other words, that many men who have not hitherto sought to decipher the divine will, or have not succeeded in doing so, would know it and put it in practice; they would love God with all their heart and all their soul and all their mind, and their neighbor as themselves. Such is the end God would attain by Miracles. Woe to those who refuse to profit by them.”

“Those who reject the Supernatural,” observed one of the ancients, “sap the foundations of all philosophy. They do so, in fact, and especially since the advent of Christianity, because wishing to withdraw God from the world, they are left without any explanation of the world or of humanity. This God whom they exclude, some deny His existence, in order to get rid of Him altogether; others banish Him into vacuity, as exacting nothing and having nothing to exact from mankind, whom he abandons to chance, after having created them in a freak of his disdainful power. Some, denying and affirming His existence at the same time, as if they wished to glut their ingratitude by a double insult, pretend to discover Him everywhere, which dispenses them from acknowledging and adoring Him anywhere. However, around them and within themselves, humanity cries aloud and confesses God. They answer with sophisms, which do not really satisfy them, and by sarcasms, the compass of which they, with difficulty, hide from themselves; and lastly, their science and their reason, driven into absurdities, stop their eyes and their ears. They sap the foundations of philosophy. Does God, compassionating the faith of the weak, which these false Doctors would abuse, show Himself by one of those unusual strokes of His power, which does not on that account cease to be one of the laws of the world? They reject it. Look! We do not wish to see! David has said of the sinner, ‘He has sworn in his heart to sin; he refuses to understand lest he should be forced to do well.’

“Ah! doubtless,” exclaims elsewhere the indignant logician, “there exists a miserable crowd at whom all these common-places may be boldly flung; but there are also, even at Lourdes, readers whose good sense rebels and asks what becomes of history, palpable facts and right and simple reason in systems of the kind, ‘with their decision to refuse all examination, and their negation a priori.’

“As to preventing the Episcopal Commission performing its duties, we doubt if there are laws conferring this power on the State; if there are, the wisdom of the State should abstain from putting them in force. On the one hand nothing could be more favorable to the growth of Superstition: popular credulity would go astray to its heart’s content, for ‘there is no law which can oblige the Bishop to pronounce his judgment on a fact of which he cannot know anything, and of which he is even forbidden to know anything.’ The enemies of Superstition have only one thing to do, which is to institute a Commission themselves, have a counter-investigation, and publish its result; provided, of course, that the Episcopal Commission concluded in favor of the Miracle. For, if it came to the conclusion that the facts were false or only produced by illusion, there was nothing more to be said on the subject.”

In the midst of the great excitement of the public mind, the Catholic press displayed truly admirable reserve, in refusing to pronounce any judgment regarding what had occurred at the Rocks of Massabielle and the miraculous cures. It did not wish to anticipate in any way the decision of the Episcopal Commission. It confined itself to refuting calumnies, gross libels and sophisms, to maintaining the grand historical thesis of the Supernatural, and to reclaiming, in the name of reason, the rights of investigation and the liberty of intelligence.

“The occurrences at Lourdes,” observed the Univers, “have not yet been either verified or stamped with any decided character. They may arise from miraculous agency, or from a mere illusion. The debate will be settled by the Bishop’s decision.

“As regards ourselves, we think we have replied to whatever has been advanced seriously, or merely speciously, respecting the affair at Lourdes. Here we shall pause. It was not our part to allow the press to incrust these facts with all the lies it could invent; it would not be our part to reply to the derision which it has showered so unsparingly upon them. Wise men will appreciate the wisdom and good faith of the Church, and, as is usually the case, after all this disturbance, Truth will obtain in the world her little nucleus of adherents,—pusillus grex—which is, however, sufficient to maintain the reign of truth in the world.”

We see that, in this vast polemical war, which was stirred up on this grand question of Miracles owing to the events at Lourdes, the two camps were animated with the most opposite spirit.

On the one side, the Catholics appealed for a fair investigation; on the other, the pseudo-philosophers dreaded the approach of light. The former said, “Let an inquiry be instituted;” the latter exclaimed, “Let all debates be cut short!” The motive of one party was liberty of conscience; while the other entreated Cæsar to suppress by violence this religious movement, and to stifle it, not by force of argument, but by the brutality of power.

Every one of impartial mind, placed by his ideas or position outside the mêlée, could not but perceive in the clearest point of view, that justice, truth, and reason, were on the side of the Catholics. For this, it was sufficient not to be blinded by the fury of the struggle or the force of prejudice.

Although the Administration, in the person of a Commissary, a Prefect, and a Minister, had unfortunately played a most foolish part in this grave affair, there existed one powerful man who had never acted in it, and who, whatever might be his religious, philosophical, and political ideas, was in a condition to decide with perfect impartiality. The fact of the Supernatural having manifested itself or not at the gates of Lourdes, was a matter of utter indifference, as far as his schemes and the progress of his own affairs were concerned. Neither his ambition, nor his vanity, nor his doctrinal views, nor his antecedents, were pledged on either side of the question. Where is the mind, which, in such circumstances, would not deal equitably, and give reason and justice their due? Men do not violate Justice and outrage Truth, except when they deem it of utility to trample them under foot, in view of some powerful interest connected with fortune, ambition, or pride.

The man of whom we are speaking was called Napoleon III., and was, by chance, Emperor of the French.

Impassible as was his wont, mute as the sphinxes of granite which guard the gates of Thebes, he followed the polemical combat, watching the fluctuations of the battle, and waiting until the conscience of the public, so to say, dictated to him his decision.