Book 4 - Part 5

 

M. Massy, who was informed, from time to time, of the events at Lourdes by Monsieur Jacomet, in whom he placed the blindest confidence, by no means imitated the Bishop’s wise reserve. He gave way to his first impression; and having no faith in the possibility of Apparitions and Miracles of the kind, and flattering himself that he might put a stop to the popular torrent whenever he chose, he openly declared his own opinions on the subject, and resolved to smother in its cradle this new superstition, which, from its first birth, seemed to threaten so rapid a growth.

“If I had been Prefect of the Isere at the time of the pretended Apparitions of La Salette,” he often used to say, “I should soon have set it to rights, and that legend would have been heard of no more, as will soon be the case with the one at Lourdes. All this phantasmagoria will come to nothing.”

Instead of remaining quiet until the ecclesiastical authority, the only competent one in the case, should consider the proper time to have arrived for taking in hand the investigation of so extraordinary an affair, the Prefect anticipated the decision of the question in accordance with his own anti-supernatural prejudices. The Bishop, naturally patient, was taking his time to untie the Gordian knot, while M. Massy, giving way to the impetuosity of his temper, preferred to cut it once for all. These trials of strength were all very well for the sword of Alexander, but the dress-sword of a Prefect runs considerable risk of being found unequal to the task. On an occasion of this kind, that of M. Massy was destined to be blunted preparatory to being shivered.

Although his mind therefore was quite made up on the subject, he could not but perceive that the question was in the jurisdiction of the episcopal authority, and not in any way in that of the civil power, and he did not wish in any manner to wound the feelings of the venerated Prelate who conducted the affairs of the diocese, as every body acknowledged, with so much wisdom. While he permitted his hostile sentiments against the “miracles” of the Grotto to become generally known, and had them investigated by his agents, he confined himself publicly to taking certain measures, for which the immense concourse of people attracted by the fame of these events to Lourdes, might at a shift serve for a pretext.

He began, with what exact expectation we know not, by having the Grotto secretly watched, day and night, as if some human trickery could have been in complicity with this strange gushing-forth of the miraculous Spring and its progressive augmentation.

On the third of March, in obedience to orders arrived from the Prefecture, the Mayor of Lourdes, M. Lacadé, wrote to the Commandant of the Fortress to place at his disposal the troops forming the garrison, and to keep them from the next day in readiness for whatever might happen. The soldiers, fully armed, were to occupy the road and approaches to the Grotto. The local Gendarmerie and all the police-officers had received similar instructions.

How far was this menacing display of armed force necessary for the maintenance of the public tranquillity? It is beyond our powers of comprehension. Was it not to be feared that these hostile or, to say the least, unreasonable demonstrations, and this attempt at intimidation might tend to irritate the population of these districts, who, though they had hitherto conducted themselves so peaceably, were naturally of ardent temperament and at the moment excited in the highest degree by the events we have just narrated? Was there not a risk of provoking some cries of anger, some movement, some seditious agitation in minds so powerfully excited by sentiments of religion? Many feared this would be the case. Others hoped it, perhaps, and confidently reckoned on the multitude giving the armed force some pretext for interference. The odds were a hundred to one that it would turn out so.

Book 4 - Part 4

While, at the Bishop’s palace, matters were treated with such extreme circumspection, the civil authorities were in the greatest state of perplexity with regard to what was passing at Lourdes. The prefecture of Tarbes was occupied by M. Massy, and the Ministry of Public Worship by M. Rouland.

The Baron M——, Prefect of the Hautes-Pyrénées, was a good but independent Catholic, and decidedly opposed to anything like superstition. He professed, as a good Christian, to believe the miracles recounted in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles; but outside these prodigies, which are, in some measure, official, he did not admit the Supernatural.

Miracles having been indispensable in order to found the Church and give her authority, he accepted them as being a necessity of that period of formation. But, in his opinion, God ought to stop there and be satisfied with this minimum of the Supernatural so fairly conceded. In the eyes of this official personage the part of God was fixed and regulated by the orthodox Credo and the concordats of the Church. It was established, formed into a code, and drawn up into articles of faith and articles of law. These mysteries were respected by the faithful, and the various Governments had put up, as well as they could, with these distant facts which affected them but little. God should not, therefore, transgress those limits and proceed to trouble the constitutional course of things by inopportune interference or by personal acts of power. Let him allow the constituted authorities to act—per me reges regnant—and let Him remain henceforth in the invisible depths of the Infinite.

The Prefect, having bowed his lofty intellect to faith in the miracles recorded in the Gospels, was not unlike those excellent persons who, in the apportionment of their income, assign to charity a fixed sum, beyond which they make it a rule never to give anything, and when the Supernatural presented itself, he was tempted to say to it, “Walk on, my friend, you have already received your dole.”

M. Massy was, as we see, very orthodox; but, on theoretical grounds, he dreaded the invasion of the Supernatural, while, practically, he feared the encroachments of the Clergy. “Nothing too much,” was his motto. This was all very well, but those who are always repeating this generally end by making the measure too narrow and not giving enough. The summum jus, the strict right, approximates closely to the summa injuria, or last degree of injustice. The Latins, with their habitual good sense, pretended that it was precisely the same thing.

Wedded to his ideas of government, and essentially official, he was for whatever was established, solely owing to the fact of its having been established. Whatever was, ought to be. A state of things existing was a principle justificatus in semetipsum. Whatever was legal was legitimate. In vain was he told, Dura lex. He answered, Sed lex.

He went even further. Like many men who have grown old in the affairs of government, he was tempted to believe that the slightest deviation from ordinary routine was an attempt against eternal right. He confounded arrangement with order, and mistook regulation for law.

M. Massy was, however, remarkably intelligent, and administered the affairs of the department confided to him with talent. He took in, at a glance, the real state of things, and his judgment was prompt. Unfortunately, men have often, in the world, faults closely allied to their good qualities, and this valuable faculty of seeing and deciding, as it were, by intuition, sometimes led him into error. Depending, perhaps, somewhat too much on his first cursory view of a question, it happened sometimes that he acted prematurely. When this was the case, he was guilty of the serious fault of being unable to acknowledge that he had been deceived; and notwithstanding the precipitation of some of his decisions, he was never known to swerve from the course he had once resolved to take, whether men, ideas, or facts were at stake.

In such circumstances, which, however, rarely occurred, he usually displayed obstinacy and a determination to march on against the obstacles which, from the very nature of things, were opposed to his progress. It is assuredly a great quality to persevere without flinching in any fixed line of conduct, but only on the supposition that we never fall into error and are always proceeding in the right path. When we are unfortunate enough to get heedlessly entangled in a blind alley, this quality degenerates into a great vice, and we end by breaking our head against the wall.

Up to that time the Prefect and the Bishop had lived on a perfectly good understanding. M. Massy was Catholic, not only in what he believed, but in practice also. Everybody did justice to his exemplary morality and to his domestic virtues, and he met with just appreciation from the Bishop. The Prefect, on his part, could not but admire and love the eminent qualities of the Bishop. The prudence of the latter, united to his knowledge of mankind, had always avoided any occasions of collision between the spiritual and temporal authorities, so that not only peace but the most cordial harmony existed between the head of the Diocese and the head of the Department.

Book 4 - Part 3

 

The Abbé Peyramale explained to the Bishop the surprising events of which the Grotto of Massabielle and the town of Lourdes had been the scene for nearly the last three weeks. He recounted the ecstasies and visions of Bernadette, the words uttered by the Apparition, the gushing forth of the Spring, the sudden cures effected, and the agitation which pervaded the whole community.

His narration, which we have no doubt was highly animated and picturesque, though we regret that we cannot furnish our readers with its exact words, must have struck the mind of the good Bishop, but it could not lead hastily to his immediate conviction. Habituated as he was to see Truth descend hierarchically from the heights of the Vatican, Monseigneur Laurence felt little disposed to receive and accept without mature investigation a message from heaven, delivered suddenly, and in defiance of ordinary rules by a little illiterate peasant-girl.

He was, however, too well versed in all matters touching the History of the Church, to deny the absolute possibility of a fact which, after all, has had its counterparts in the secular annals of Catholicism; but, at the same time, the practical tendency of his mind rendered conviction in his case somewhat difficult.

The Bishops are the successors of the Apostles. Monseigneur Laurence was an apostle and a holy one: but, like St. Thomas, he wished to see before he believed; and, in some respects, this was a fortunate circumstance; for, when the Bishop believed, every one knew that he might in all safety believe with him, and that the clearest proofs had been brought forward.

The Curé of Lourdes had not himself actually witnessed the majority of the facts he adduced; and, in consequence of the reserve he had imposed on the Clergy, he could only appeal before the Bishop, to the declarations of third persons, and those laymen, of whom some, being either sceptical or indifferent in matters of religion, did not even follow the observances of the Church.

Besides, in the midst of so many accounts given to him, of the multiplicity and confusion of so many incidents, of the unavoidable hiatuses in his information, and of the numberless reports which were current, it was impossible for him to satisfy himself on the subject, and to display the logical and providential march of events in the methodical manner which is so easy at the present time. It is with facts of a moral order, as it is with objects of a physical order; we must be at some distance from them, in order to see them in their proper point of view.

The Abbé Peyramale could certainly analyze many details of what was being accomplished under his eyes; but, just at that time, it was not in the Bishop’s or his power to see it as a whole, and to remark its admirable coherency,—they were too near the stage on which this scene was enacted.

Monseigneur Laurence did not pronounce any opinion. Wiser in this respect than St. Thomas, he refrained from denying the truth of the fact; for, he knew that things of that nature, though very rare, are yet possible. He confined himself to not believing, or, in other words, to saying neither yes nor no, and remaining in that methodical state of doubt which is affirmed by Descartes to be the best condition, in order to proceed to the search after truth.

As Bishop, he required documents and attestations of unimpeachable authenticity, and the second-hand proofs which he received from the Curé of Lourdes did not appear to him sufficient. Might there not be some illusion in the child’s mind? some exaggerations in the accounts given by the crowd? Had not pious souls suffered themselves sometimes to be deceived by false miracles, whether proceeding from imposture, hallucination, or the artifices of the Evil One? All these questions suggested themselves to his mind and made it his duty to proceed with the greatest prudence.

The idea of instituting an official inquiry presented itself naturally to his mind, and public opinion, desirous of having the difficulty solved, urged the episcopal authority to take the affair officially in hand and pronounce its judgment on the matter. The Bishop, with admirable foresight, comprehended that the very agitation of the population would injure the maturity and safety of the inquiry. He wisely pursued the difficult course of resisting the pressure universally brought to bear upon him. He resolved, therefore, to allow things to take their own course, to let new events become known, and to wait for the production of some striking testimony in the interests of truth, whatever might be its nature.

“It is not yet time for the episcopal authority to busy itself with this affair. To establish the judgment which is expected from us, we must proceed extremely slow, distrust the impulse of the moment, give time for reflection, and request to be enlightened, in order to a careful investigation of facts.”

Such was the language held by the Bishop.

He did not, therefore, cancel the order which prohibited the Clergy from repairing to the Grotto. At the same time, however, in concert with the Curé of Lourdes, he took all proper measures to be informed, day by day, of whatever took place at the Grotto, and of all the cures, true or false, which were effected, employing for that purpose witnesses of unshaken integrity and acknowledged capacity.

It naturally resulted, from the reserved attitude adopted by the Bishop, that the investigation would be made, so to say, of its own accord, publicly, and, after having heard the adverse parties, not by a commission composed of certain persons, but by the intelligence of all, and in accordance with the necessities of the case. Should there be any error or trickery in the affair, the unbelieving class, which resented so deeply the popular superstition, would not be slow to detect and proclaim them, with the proofs in their hands. If, on the other hand, these events had a divine character, they would triumph alone over all obstacles, and display their intrinsic vitality, while dispensing with any external support.

Their authority, in this case, must prove incontestable in the eyes of all right-thinking persons.

The Bishop, therefore, decided to remain in this attitude of observation, whatever might happen, and as long as possible—at least for some months—and to postpone any direct interference until forced to it by the events themselves.

Book 4 - Part 2

 
Monseigneur Bertrand-Sévère Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes was the man of the Diocese, individually as well as officially. He had been born in it, reared in it, grown in it to man’s estate. Rising rapidly, owing to his merit, to the highest ecclesiastical functions, he had been, successively, Superior of the Petit Seminaire of Saint Pé, which he had founded, Superior of the Great Seminary, and Vicar-General.

Almost all the priests of the diocese had been his pupils. He had been their Master before becoming their Bishop; and, under one or other of these titles, he presided over them nearly forty years.

The profound harmony and entire unity of mind and soul which, owing to the above circumstances, reigned between the former Superior of the Seminaries and the Clergy he had trained for the sacerdotal life, had been one of the causes of his promotion to the Episcopacy. When, some twelve years before, the See of Tarbes had become vacant by the death of Monseigneur Double, every one pointed out the Abbé Laurence as eminently qualified to succeed him. A great number filled with the same desire and animated with the same hope, signed a petition requesting the nomination of the Abbé Laurence to the See of Tarbes. Thus, the Bishop had been selected and raised to his eminent rank by the suffrages of the faithful, as had frequently happened in the primitive Church. It may easily be inferred from what we have said, that Monseigneur Laurence and his Clergy formed one large Christian family, as should be the case in all times and places.

All the warmth of his nature was concentrated in his excellent and paternal heart, which made itself all things to all men. By a curious contrast, which could hardly be termed a contradiction, his head was cool, and subjected every thing to the investigation of impassible reason. The Prelate’s intellect, although naturally adapted to every branch of mental exercise, was essentially practical in its tendency. Never was any one less accessible to the illusions of the imagination, or the allurements of unguarded enthusiasm. He distrusted ardent and exaggerated natures. In order to convince him, arguments addressed to the passions were unavailing. If his heart was under the influence of his feelings, his intellect was governed by reason alone.

Before proceeding to act, the Bishop was wont to weigh most carefully not only his acts in themselves, but, also, all their consequences. From this there resulted in him sometimes a certain slowness in pronouncing judgment in affairs of importance—a slowness which, doubtless, did not originate in indecision of character, but rather in discretion of mind, which desired to act with deliberation, and only come to a determination after thorough acquaintance with the subject in question. Knowing, besides, that Truth is eternal in its nature, and that the hour of its triumph must inevitably arrive, he was endowed with that virtue, the rarest in the world—patience. Monseigneur Laurence could wait.

Gifted with uncommon powers of observation, Monseigneur Laurence knew mankind thoroughly, and possessed in a high degree the difficult art of managing and guiding them. Unless the interests of religion were at stake and there was some particular reason for publicity, he carefully avoided any clashing of opinion, disagreements and disputes, knowing as he well did, that to excite feelings of hostility against the Bishop, was, owing to the natural bent of the human heart, to make enemies to the Episcopacy and religion. His prudence was extreme, and, having to steer the bark of Peter through the whole extent of his Diocese, he was thoroughly imbued with a sense of his own responsibility. Ever on the watch to observe the state of the sea and the direction of the wind, he not seldom gazed down into the depths of the water and carefully looked out for the first appearance of breakers.

Remarkable for his skill in the administration of affairs, orderly in his habits, a strict disciplinarian, and combining in his person apostolic simplicity with diplomatic prudence, he had been always, from the reign of Louis Philippe to the re-establishment of the Empire, very highly appreciated by the different governments which succeeded each other. When Monseigneur Laurence demanded any thing, it was known beforehand in the highest quarters, that what he demanded was certainly just and very probably necessary, and he never met with a refusal.

Thus, for a long time past, in this Pyrenean diocese, the spiritual and temporal authority had been on the best possible terms with each other, when those miraculous events occurred at Lourdes, of which we have treated in the present work.

671,838

Book 4 - Part 1

 
On the second of March, Bernadette repaired anew to the residence of the Curé of Lourdes, and spoke to him a second time in the name of the Apparition.

“She wishes a chapel to be erected, and processions to the Grotto to be organized,” said the child.

Events had crowded, the Spring had gushed forth, cures had been effected and miracles had supervened to bear witness, in the name of God, to Bernadette’s veracity. The priest had no further proofs to demand, and he demanded none. His conviction was settled, and thenceforth no doubt could touch his heart.

The invisible “Lady” of the Grotto had not declared her name. But, the man of God had not failed to recognize Her in Her maternal kindness and, perhaps, he had already added to his prayers,—“Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.”

Notwithstanding, however, the secret enthusiasm with which his ardent heart had filled on seeing the great things which had been done, he had with rare prudence succeeded in withholding the premature expression of the deep and sweet sentiments which agitated him, at the thought that the Queen of Heaven had descended amid the humble flock of his parishioners; and, he had not cancelled the formal prohibition of going to the Grotto which he had imposed on his Clergy.

“I believe you,” said he to Bernadette, when she presented herself to him anew. “But, what you demand of me in the name of the Apparition, does not depend on myself; it depends on the Bishop, whom I have already apprised of all that is passing. I am about to go to him and acquaint him with this fresh application. He alone can act in this affair.”

Book 3 - Part 12

In the evening of the same day, a time usually devoted to amusement after the cares of business, the enemies of superstition assembled in great force at the club and round the tables of the cafés, and great agitation pervaded their Sanhedrim.

“There has never been a spring of water in that place,” exclaimed one of the most strong-headed of the party. “It is but a pool of water, formed, I know not how, by some accidental infiltration, and which must have been discovered by the merest chance by Bernadette when she stirred up the ground. Nothing is more natural.”

“Evidently,” they answered on all sides.

“Nevertheless,” some one ventured to observe, “they pretend that the water flows.”

“Not the least in the world,” exclaimed several voices. “We went there ourselves: it is nothing more nor less than a pool of water. The common people with their usual exaggeration, pretend to say that the water flows. This is not true; we put the thing to the test yesterday, on the first rumor reaching us, and it is nothing but a muddy puddle.”

These assertions were looked upon as satisfactory and consistent by the philosophic and learned world. It was the official version of the story, and was received as certain and incontestible. So credulous are even the incredulous in whatever seems to help their own arguments, so completely do the followers of Free Examination discard anything like investigation in matters of this nature, and so obstinate are they in maintaining the grounds they have once taken, even when disproved by facts themselves, that, six weeks after this period, and in spite of the crushing evidence of the existence of a copious fountain, which as every one might prove for himself, supplied more than 25,000 gallons of water a day, this absolute denial of any spring of water, this impudent version of the puddle, passed current and was even boldly printed in the journals of the Free-thinkers. This would be hardly credible, if we did not give a proof of it at random, extracted from the official journal of the department.

With regard to the asserted cures, they were denied unprovisionally, as had been the case with the Spring of water. All of them, without any exception, were unconditionally rejected with shrugging of shoulders and loud laughter, as indeed had been that of Louis Bourriette.

“Bourriette is not cured,” said one.

“He was never sick,” replied another.

“He imagines he is cured; he believes he sees,” insinuated a young man of the school of M. Renan.

“The effect of the imagination on the nerves is sometimes surprising,” rejoined a physiologist.

“There is no such person as Bourriette in existence,” exclaimed sturdily a new arrival, striking at once at the root of the question.

The attitude assumed by the philosophical heads of the place was summed up in these four or five formularies, as far as these extraordinary cures, so much bruited among the common people, were concerned.

It was a matter of astonishment to them that such grave and highly educated men as M. Dufo, who was then president-elect of the Order of Barristers, as Doctor Dozon, as M. Estrade, as the Commandant of the Garrison, as the retired Intendant Militaire, M. de Laffitte, should have displayed such inconceivable weakness as to allow themselves to be deluded by all that was taking place.

In the course of this day so pregnant with events, Bernadette had been summoned to the chamber of the Tribunal, either before or after the sitting of the court, and the dialectics brought into play by the Procureur Impérial, the Substitut and the Judges had not been more successful in producing any variation or contradiction in her story than the genius of M. Jacomet, in spite of his long experience in the Police.

The Procureur Impérial, followed by his Substitut, had pronounced his own opinion in the matter some days before and nothing could shake the firmness of his mind. He deplored this invasion of fanaticism and was determined to discharge his duty energetically. Owing to I know not what circumstances, and as is seldom the case in such immense assemblages, no disorder arose, and the laudable zeal of the Procureur Impérial was doomed to a state of complete inaction and to an attitude of expectation. In the midst of this vast movement of men and ideas which stirred up the whole country, it would seem if an invisible hand protected those innumerable crowds and hindered them from giving, even innocently, the slightest pretext for the forcible interference of the law-officers, police or civil administration. Whether they liked it or not, these formidable personages had at least for the time their hands tied, and they were not to be untied until the moment when the mysterious Apparition of the Grotto had completed her work. These multitudes then could come with perfect security; these multitudes so vast to the bodily eye which saw them meeting from every side of the horizon so insignificant to the spiritual eye after comparing them with the millions of men destined to repair to the same spot in the future as a place of pilgrimage. An invisible ægis seemed to defend from all danger those first witnesses whom the Blessed Virgin had summoned: “Nolite timere, pusillus grex.”

The enemies of Superstition applied most urgently to the Mayor of Lourdes in order to induce him to issue an order prohibiting all access to the Rocks of Massabielle, which formed part of the public lands belonging to the commune. Such an order, they thought, would inevitably be infringed in the then excited state of popular feeling and would give rise to innumerable proceedings. It would be resisted and resistance would be followed by arrests, and if the judicial authority, including that of the police and the administration, could once take the matter in hand, it would easily carry everything before it, as it would be supported by all the powers of the State.

M. Lacadé, Mayor of Lourdes, was a most upright and excellent man and had deservedly acquired the general respect of the public. Every one in the town of Lourdes did justice to his rare personal qualities, and his enemies—or such as were jealous of him—never reproached him with anything worse than a certain timidity which prevented him from taking a decided course between extreme parties, and a somewhat too great attachment to his functions as Mayor, though, as every one allowed, he discharged them in a decidedly superior manner.

He refused to issue the order which was solicited from him.

“I do not know where the truth lies in the midst of so much clamor,” he replied, “and it is not for me to pronounce either for or against. As long as there is no disorder I let things take their course. It is for the Bishop to decide the question, as it regards religion; it is for the Préfet to decide measures which are in the jurisdiction of the Administration. For myself, I wish to keep clear of the whole business, and I shall only act in my capacity of Mayor on the express order of the Préfet.”

Such, if not the very language, was the import of his reply to the worrying applications urged upon him by the Philosophers of Lourdes, who, as regarded christian belief, resembled in that respect the philosophers of all times and places. The pretended liberty of Thought rarely tolerates the liberty of Belief.

Since the gushing forth of the Spring the Apparition had not re-iterated her command to Bernadette to go to the Priests and demand from them the erection of a chapel. On the next day, as we have already related, the Vision had not manifested herself, so that, since that moment, Bernadette had not made her appearance at the presbytery. The Clergy, notwithstanding the rising tide of popular faith and the increasing rumors of miracles which were spread by the multitudes, continued to remain strangers to all the manifestations of enthusiasm which took place around the Grotto.

“Let us wait patiently,” they said. “In human affairs it is enough to be prudent once. In things pertaining to God our prudence should be seventy-fold.”

Not a single priest therefore appeared in the ceaseless procession which was repairing to the miraculous Spring of water. Owing therefore to the Clergy having made a point of keeping aloof, and to the municipal authorities refusing to act and oppose their veto, the popular movement had free course and was always on the increase, like the rivers of their country at the period of the melting of the snow. It overflowed on all sides, perpetually advancing and covering the surrounding country with its innumerable waves. The advocates of repression began to feel how powerless they were to resist a current of such formidable strength and to see clearly that all opposition would be swept away like a dyke of straw by this sudden and mighty irruption. They were forced to resign themselves to allow free passage to these multitudes which had been invisibly upheaved and put in motion by the breath of God.

At the Grotto the greatest order was maintained, notwithstanding so vast a concourse of people. They continued drawing water from the Fountain, singing canticles and devoting themselves to prayer.

The soldiers of the Garrison, agitated in common with all the people of the country, had requested permission from the Commandant of the fort to repair, themselves, to the Rocks of Massabielle. With the instinct of discipline developed in their case by military system, they took measures of their own accord to obviate obstructions, to leave certain passages free and to prevent the crowd from approaching too near to the dangerous banks of the Gave, stationing themselves for this purpose on both sides of the river and assuming spontaneously a certain amount of authority, which no one, as was reasonable, dreamt of disputing.

Some days passed by in this manner, during which the Apparition manifested herself without any new peculiarity except that the Spring of water was always increasing in volume and the miraculous cures effected by it were multiplied more and more. There was a moment of profound astonishment in the camp of the Free-thinkers. The facts were becoming so numerous, so amply proved and so patent that almost every moment the ranks of the incredulous suffered from desertion. The best and the most upright among them suffered themselves to be gained by the evidence adduced. There remained, however, an indestructible number of minds arrogating to themselves superior strength, but whose strength in point of fact consisted in rejecting all proofs and refusing to give way to truth. This would appear impossible did not every one know that a great part of the Jewish people resisted the miracles even of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, and that four centuries of miracles were necessary to open the eyes of the pagan world.

Book 3 - Part 11

 
Although doubtless very few persons in the crowd instituted comparisons of this nature, the idea that the waters of the Spring which had gushed forth at the Grotto might have the power of healing the sick, must have suggested itself to the mind of every one. From the morning of the same day, a rumor of several marvelous cures began to spread in all directions. Amid the contradictory versions which were being circulated, and taking into consideration the sincerity of some, the exaggeration voluntary or involuntary of others, the flat denial of many, the hesitations and uneasiness of a great number, the emotion of all, it was difficult at the first moment to distinguish truth from falsehood among the miraculous facts which were asserted on all sides, told as they were in different ways, with great blunders in names and confusion of persons, to say nothing of mixing up the circumstances of several episodes differing from and foreign to each other.

Did you ever in one of your country walks, throw suddenly a handful of corn into an ants’ nest? The terrified ants run from one side to the other in an extraordinary state of agitation. They keep coming and going to and fro, crossing each other, running against each other, alternately stopping and resuming their course, suddenly changing the point towards which they were running, picking up a grain of corn and leaving it there, and wandering in every direction in a state of feverish disorder, a prey to indescribable confusion.

Very similar was the conduct of the multitude, both of inhabitants and strangers at Lourdes, in the state of stupefaction into which they were thrown by the superhuman wonders which reached them from Heaven. Such is always the conduct of the natural world, when it is suddenly visited by some manifestation from the supernatural world.

By degrees, however, order is restored in the ants’ nest, and its momentary agitation ceases.

There was, in the town, a poor workman known by every one; who, for many years, had dragged out a most miserable existence. His name was Louis Bourriette. Some twenty years before, a great misfortune had befallen him. As he was working in the neighborhood of Lourdes, raising stone with his brother Joseph, who was also a quarryman, a mine owing to some mismanagement had exploded close to them. Joseph was killed on the spot, and Louis, of whom we are now speaking, had his face ploughed with splinters of rock, and his right eye half destroyed. His life had been saved with the greatest difficulty. He suffered so terribly from the results of this accident, that he was attacked with a burning fever, and for some time force was obliged to be employed to keep him in his bed. However, he recovered by degrees, thanks to the skill and devoted care of those who attended him. But, the medical men, in spite of the most delicate operations and masterly treatment, failed entirely in effecting the cure of his right eye, which had unfortunately been injured internally. The poor man had returned to his occupation of quarryman, but he was no longer fit for any thing but the coarsest style of work, as his wounded eye was utterly unserviceable, and he could only see objects as it were through an impenetrable mist. When the poor workman wished to undertake any work requiring more than usual care, he was obliged to apply for assistance to others.

So far from time having brought any amelioration in his condition, his sight had diminished from year to year. This progressive deterioration had become still more sensible, and at the time we have now reached in our history, the evil had made such progress that his right eye was almost entirely lost. When Bourriette closed his left eye, he could not distinguish a man from a tree. The man and the tree were to him only a black and confused mass, scarcely perceptible as in the obscurity of night.

Most of the inhabitants of Lourdes had given Bourriette employment at one time or other. His state excited pity, and he was much liked by the brotherhood of quarrymen and stone-cutters, who form a numerous class in that part of the country.

This poor creature hearing about the miraculous Spring at the Grotto, called his daughter.

“Go and bring me some of this water,” he said. “Blessed Virgin, if she it is, has but to will my cure in order to effect it.”

Half an hour afterwards, the child brought him, in a basin, a small quantity of the water which, as we have explained above, was still dirty and impregnated with earth.

“Father,” observed the child, “it is only muddy water.”

“That does not matter,” replied the father, addressing himself to prayer.

He bathed with the water his weak eye, which he but a moment before considered gone forever.

Almost immediately he uttered a loud cry, and began to tremble in the excess of his emotion. A sudden miracle had been accomplished in regard to his sight. The air had already become clear around him and bathed in light. Nevertheless, objects appeared still as if surrounded with a light gauze, which hindered him from seeing them perfectly.

The mist was still before his eyes, but it was no longer dark as it had been for the last twenty years. It was penetrated by the sun, and instead of thick night it was to the eyes of the poor sick man, as the transparent vapor of morning.

Bourriette continued to pray, and at the same time washed his right eye with the salutary water. By degrees the light of day flooded his sight and he distinguished objects clearly.

Next day or the day after, he happened to meet on the public square of Lourdes with Doctor Dozons, who had never ceased to attend him since the commencement of his malady. He ran towards him saying, “I am cured.”

“Impossible,” exclaimed the Doctor. “Your organ of sight is injured to such an extent as to render your cure out of the question. The treatment I have prescribed for you is only intended to soothe your pain, but can never restore you the use of your eye.”

“It is not you who have cured me,” replied the quarry-man with emotion, “it is the Blessed Virgin of the Grotto.”

The man of human science shrugged his shoulders.

“That Bernadette has ecstasies of an inexpressible nature, is certain; for I have devoted unwearied attention to establishing that fact. But it is impossible that the water, which, how I know not, has gushed forth at the Grotto, should cure suddenly maladies which are in their very nature incurable.”

On saying this he took a little tablet out of his pocket and wrote a few lines with a pencil on one of its pages.

Then with one hand he closed Bourriette’s left eye, which was still serviceable, and presented to his right eye, which he knew to be entirely deprived of sight, the little sentence he had just written.

“If you can read this I will believe you,” said the eminent physician with an air of triumph, strong as he felt himself to be from his extensive knowledge and profound medical experience.

Many persons who happened to be walking on the square at the time had formed a group around them.

Bourriette glanced at the paper with the eye, the sight of which but just now was extinct, and read immediately and without the slightest hesitation:

“Bourriette has an incurable amaurosis from which he can never recover.”

Had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of the learned physician it could not have stupefied him more than did the voice of Bourriette as he read calmly and without any effort the single line of small writing which was lightly traced in pencil on the page of the tablet.

Doctor Dozons was more than a merely scientific man, he was by nature conscientious. He frankly recognized and unhesitatingly proclaimed the agency of a superior power in this sudden cure of a malady deemed to be incurable.

“I cannot deny it,” he said; “it is a miracle, a true miracle, with all due deference to myself and my brethren of the faculty. This has quite upset me; but we can but submit to the imperious voice of a fact so clear and so entirely beyond the range of poor human science.”

Doctor Vergez, of Tarbes, Fellow and Professor of the Faculty at Montpellier, and resident Physician at the Baths at Baréges, being summoned to pronounce his opinion in the case, could not prevent himself from recognizing, and that in the most undeniable way—its supernatural character.

As we have already observed, Bourriette’s state had been notorious for upwards of twenty years, and the poor man himself was universally known in the town. Besides, this marvelous cure had not caused the disappearance of the deep traces or scars which the accident had left on his face, so that every one had it in his power to verify the miracle which had just been accomplished. The poor quarry-man, almost mad with joy, recounted all the particularities of the event to any one who cared to listen to him.

He was not the only one who openly bore witness to an unexpected good fortune and loudly proclaimed his gratitude. Events of a similar nature had taken place in other houses in the town. Several persons residing at Lourdes, Marie Daube, Bernard Soubie, Fabien Baron, had all at once quitted their sick-bed, to which maladies of different kinds, but all pronounced incurable, had confined them, and they proclaimed publicly their cure by the water of the Grotto. The hand of Jean Crassus, which had been paralyzed for ten years, had become straightened again and recovered all the vigor of life in the miraculous water.

Thus the accuracy of facts succeeded, among the different accounts in circulation, to the vague rumors of the first moment. The enthusiasm of the people was raised to the highest pitch, an enthusiasm at the same time touching and sound, which in the church expressed itself in fervent prayers, and around the Grotto in the canticles of thanksgiving which burst from the joyful lips of the pilgrims.

Towards evening, a great number of workmen belonging to the association of quarry-men, of which Bourriette was a member, repaired to the Rocks of Massabielle and laid out a path for visitors in the steep declivity near the Grotto. Before the hollow from which the spring now bubbled forth, they placed a balustrade formed of wood, beneath which they dug a small oval reservoir, about half a metre in depth, and in shape and length not very unlike an infant’s cradle.

The enthusiasm was momentarily increasing. Vast throngs were perpetually passing to and fro on the road leading to the miraculous spring of water. After sunset, when the first shadow of night began to fall on the earth, you might perceive that the same thought had occurred to a throng of believers, and the Grotto was all at once illuminated with a thousand lights. Rich and poor, children, men and women had brought spontaneously candles and tapers. During the whole night, this clear and mild light might be seen from the opposite side of the Gave. Thousands of small torches placed here and there without any apparent order seemed to give back on earth the glittering lustre of the stars with which the firmament of heaven was so thickly studded.

Neither priests nor pontiffs nor leading men of any kind were to be found among those masses of people; and yet, without any one having given any signal, the moment the illumination lighted up the Grotto and the rocks, and shed a trembling reflection on the little reservoir of the miraculous Spring, the voices of all rose at the same time and mingled with each other in a chant, which seemed to proceed from a single soul. The Litany of the Blessed Virgin burst on the ear, interrupting the silence of night to celebrate the memory of our admirable Mother, in front of the rustic throne on which in her wisdom she had deigned to appear in order to crown the hearts of all Christians with joy.

Mater admirabilis, Sedes Sapientiæ, Causa Nostræ lætitiæ ora pro nobis.

 

Before the Apparitions at Lourdes, little Bernadette had received almost no religious instruction. She had not yet learned the catechism, and the prayers she knew were very few. Besides the Rosary, her simple treasury of prayer was the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Glory Be.