Notwithstanding the disquietude and suspicion which pervaded official quarters, the fame of these marvelous events had been spread in all the surrounding districts with electrical rapidity.
The whole of Bigorre and Béarn, previously agitated by the first reports of the Apparition, was stirred to its depths on receiving intelligence of the bursting forth of the Spring and the subsequent miraculous cures. All the high-roads throughout the department were covered with travelers, hastening to their destination. Every moment, from all sides, by every road and every path which terminated in Lourdes, there arrived a motley crowd of vehicles of every description, carriages, wagons, chars-à-bancs, men on horseback and pedestrians.
Even at night this rush suffered little diminution. The inhabitants of the mountain came down by starlight in order to reach the Grotto by morning.
The travelers, who had arrived in the first instance, had for the most part remained at Lourdes, not wishing to lose any of these extraordinary scenes which had certainly not been paralleled for centuries past. The hotels, inns and private houses overflowed with people. It became almost impossible to provide lodgings for the fresh crowds which continued to pour in. Many passed the night in prayer in front of the illuminated Grotto, for the purpose of securing places nearer the youthful Seer on the morrow.
Thursday, the fourth of March, was the last day of the Quinzaine.
When day-break began to silver the horizon, the approaches to the Grotto were more densely crowded than on any of the preceding days.
A painter such as Raphael or Michael Angelo, might have derived from this living spectacle a subject for an admirable picture.
Here, an old mountaineer, bent beneath the weight of years, and venerable as a patriarch, supporting himself with his trembling hands upon his enormous staff shod with iron, met your view.
Around him was crowded all his family, from the grandmother, an ancient matron with attenuated features, her face tanned and wrinkled, hooded in her flowing black cloak lined with red, down to the youngest boy, who stood on tip-toe in order to obtain a better view. The young maidens of the mountain, their hands clasped with fervor, beautiful, calm and grave as the splendid Virgins of the Campagna of Rome, prayed alone or in groups. Many of them were dropping through their fingers the rustic beads of their chaplet. Some of them were reading in silence some book of prayer. Others holding in their hand or even on their head an earthen jar, to be filled with the miraculous water, recalled to the imagination the biblical countenances of Rebecca or Rachel.
There you saw the peasant of Gers with his enormous head, his bull neck and face apoplectic, and coarse-featured like that of Vitellius. At his side appeared in profile the finely-marked head of the Béarnais, which has been rendered so familiar by the innumerable portraits of Henry IV.
The Basques, of middle stature, but appearing tall owing to their wonderful erectness, with fine open chests, rather high shoulders and limbs indicative of great agility, looked on perfectly motionless, and seemed rooted to the soil. Their high forehead, narrow and prominent chin, their visage thin and in the shape of a V, their characteristic features and the distinctness of their type, indicated the primordial purity of their race, which is, perhaps, the most ancient in the land of the Gauls.
Men of the world, of all professions, magistrates, shop-keepers, notaries, advocates, doctors and clerks, displaying forms less rough but at the same time less marked, more humble or more polished, more distinguished in the opinion of some, more vulgar in that of others, were mingled in great numbers with the crowd.
The ladies, in bonnets and veils, with their hands buried in their muffs, seemed, in spite of all their precautions, to suffer from the frosty morning air, and might be seen changing their position and moving about in hopes of keeping themselves warm.
A few Spaniards scattered here and there, remarkable for their impassible dignity, and enveloped in the capacious folds of their large cloaks, stood waiting with the immobility of statues. They kept their eyes fixed on the Grotto and prayed. They scarcely turned their heads when any incident or the undulation of the crowd forcibly withdrew them from their contemplation; their darkly luminous eyes flashed for a moment on the multitude and they resumed their prayers.
In many places the pilgrims, fatigued with their journey, or their stations during the night, were sitting on the ground. Some of them with prudent foresight, had with them knapsacks furnished with provisions. Others carried in a sling a bottle-gourd filled with wine. Many of the children had fallen asleep stretched on the ground, and their mothers, stripping themselves of their capulets, cautiously covered them with them.
A few troopers, belonging to the cavalry regiment at Tarbes or the depot at Lourdes, had come mounted and stationed themselves out of the way of the bustle in the bed of the Gave. Many of the pilgrims, and others brought there by mere curiosity, had climbed into the trees, and from their isolated heads, which towered above the rest and were very conspicuous, all the fields, meadows, roads, hillocks, and eminences which commanded the Grotto, were seen literally covered with an innumerable multitude of men, women and children, of old men, persons of all classes, workmen, peasants and soldiers, all agitated, closely packed together, and swaying to and fro like ripe ears of corn. The picturesque costumes of those districts flaunted their gaudy colors in the first rays of the sun, whose disk was beginning to appear from behind the peaks of the Ger. From a distance, the hills of Vizens, for instance, the capulets of the women, some white as snow, others of a brilliant scarlet, combined with the large blue caps of the peasants of Béarn, shone like daisies, poppies and corn-flowers from the midst of this harvest of human beings. The helmets of the troopers stationed in the bed of the Gave flashed in the early rays which broke from the east.
There could not have been less than twenty thousand persons spread over the banks of the Gave, and this multitude was incessantly recruited by the arrival of new pilgrims from all quarters.
On these countenances were depicted prayer, curiosity, and scepticism. Every class, every idea, every sentiment was represented in this immense multitude. There was to be found there the rough-hewn christian of the first ages, who knows that with God all things are possible. Further on might be seen the christian tormented with doubts, who had come before these wild rocks in search of arguments for the firmer establishment of his faith. The believing woman was also there, demanding from the divine Mother the recovery of some dear one brought low by sickness, or the conversion of some beloved soul. There also was the decided rejecter of the Supernatural, having eyes which would not see and ears which would not hear. And lastly, there might be found there the frivolous-minded man, oblivious of his own soul’s best interests, in search only, beneath Heaven, which was half-opened to his gaze, of the amusement of his curiosity in what to his eyes was a trivial spectacle.
Around this crowd and along the road the Constables and the Gendarmes kept going to and fro in a state of nervous anxiety. The Deputy, having on his official scarf, remained motionless.
On a little eminence might be seen Jacomet and the Procureur Impérial, closely watching the state of things and prepared to take rigorous measures on the slightest appearance of disorder.
There proceeded from the multitude an immense, vague, confused and indescribable murmur, formed of a thousand different noises, of words, conversations, prayers and exclamations, resembling the unappeasable roar of the ocean.
Suddenly an exclamation broke forth from the lips of all, “There is the youthful Saint! there is the youthful Saint!” and an extraordinary agitation pervaded the whole crowd. The hearts of all, even of the coldest, were stirred with emotion: every head was lifted and every eye directed to the same point.
Bernadette, accompanied by her mother, had just made her appearance on the path laid out by the Brotherhood of Quarry-men some days before, and was calmly descending towards this sea of human beings. Although she had this vast multitude before her eyes and was doubtless filled with happiness at seeing so many testimonials of adoration for “the Lady” she was entirely absorbed with the thought of seeing once more that incomparable Beauty. Who cares to gaze on earth when heaven is on the point of throwing wide its gates? She was so completely engrossed with the joyful hope which filled her heart that the cries of “There is the youthful Saint,” and the testimonials of popular veneration did not appear to reach her. She was so full of the image of the Vision, she was so perfectly humble, that she had not even vanity enough to cause her to blush or to suffer from confusion.
The Gendarmes, however, had hastened to the spot, and breaking through the crowd in front of Bernadette, formed an escort for the child and effected a passage for her up to the Grotto.
These excellent fellows, like the soldiers, believed, and their sympathizing and pious deportment prevented the crowd from being irritated at such an employment of armed force, and further disappointed the calculations of the crafty.
The thousand cries of the multitude had by degrees subsided, and a great silence ensued. There could not be greater recollection in any of the Churches of Christendom during Mass, on the occasion of an ordination or a first communion. Every one, to a certain degree, held his breath. No one shutting his eyes would have imagined that so vast a crowd was there assembled, and amid the universal silence the murmur of the Gave would alone have struck his ear. Those who were near the Grotto could distinguish the bubbling of the miraculous Spring as it flowed calmly into the little reservoir through the little wooden pipe which had been placed for that purpose.
When Bernadette prostrated herself, every one, by a unanimous movement, knelt down.
Almost simultaneously the superhuman rays of ecstasy lighted up the transfigured features of the child. We shall not describe again this marvelous spectacle of which we have more than once endeavored to convey some idea to our reader. It was a spectacle ever new, as is the rising of the sun every morning. The power which produces such splendors has the infinite at its disposal, and employs it unceasingly to diversify the external form of its eternal unity; but the pen of a poor author commands only limited resources and pale colors. If Jacob, the son of Isaac, wrestled with the Angel, the artist, in his weakness, cannot wrestle with God; and there is a time, when feeling his utter inability to express by his art all the delicate gradations of the divine work, he is silent and confines himself to the act of adoration. I leave, therefore, to souls which peruse my feeble lines the task of imagining all the successive joys, all the melting feelings, all the graces and celestial inebriation which the blessed Vision of the immaculate Virgin, the admirable Beauty with which God himself was charmed, caused to pass over the innocent brow of the enraptured Bernadette.
The Apparition, as on the preceding days, had commanded the child to drink at and wash herself in the Fountain, and to eat of the plant to which we have already referred; she had afterwards renewed her order to her to go and tell the Priests that she desired a chapel built on the spot and processions to repair to it.
The child had besought the Apparition to inform her of her name, but the radiant “Lady” had not returned any answer to the question. The moment for doing so had not yet arrived. It behoved that Her name should be first inscribed on the earth and engraved on the heart by uncounted deeds of mercy. The Queen of Heaven wished to be identified by her benefits; She intended that the grateful voice of every mouth should name Her and glorify Her before She answered and said: “Your heart has not deceived you: it is I indeed.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
