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.

Book 3 - Part 10

This absence on the part of the Virgin was, doubtless, intended to maintain Bernadette in a state of humility and in the consciousness of her own nothingness; but, in addition to this, it contained, perhaps, for christians, a high and mysterious precept, the import of which will not escape the attention of souls accustomed to contemplate and admire the secret harmony which exists in works proceeding from God.

If heaven, on that day, had closed itself to the eyes of Bernadette, if the celestial Creator, who used to appear to her in visible flesh, had seemed to vanish for a moment, the Fountain—proof of the reality and power of that superhuman Being—which had sprung forth the day before, and was continually increasing, was visible to the eyes of all, and trickled on the sloping floor of the Grotto in sight of the astonished multitude.

The Vision had withdrawn in order to allow her work, so to say, to speak. She had withdrawn and remained silent in order to allow an opportunity of speaking to the Church of that country, whose words at the introit of the Mass and at the answers of Matins, might serve as a commentary on this singular fountain which had suddenly started into existence from beneath the hand of Bernadette in her state of ecstacy.

While in fact all this was taking place at the Grotto, before the miraculous Spring which had burst forth on the right side of the arid rock, the memory of another Spring—the most illustrious and life-imparting of all those which for the last six thousand years have watered the heritage of Adam—was being celebrated in the diocese of Tarbes, and in several dioceses of France. That day, February the 26th, 1858, being the Friday of the first week in Lent, was the Feast of the Holy Lance, and of the Nails of Our Lord. And the Spring of which we speak and the memory of which was then being glorified in the Office prescribed for the diocese, was the great divine Fountain which the lance of the Roman centurion, piercing the right side of the lifeless body of Christ, had made to flow as a river of life for the regeneration of earth and the salvation of the human race. “Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro; et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista salvi facti sunt.” “I saw water flowing from the temple on the right side, and all to whom that water came were saved.” Such was the exclamation of the Prophet, when he contemplated the prodigies of the mercy of God in the dim vista of ages. “In that day,” said the priests in the Office of Matins, “there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which shall serve to purify the sinner and all such as are polluted.”

By these coincidences, wonderful in themselves and which we urgently beg our readers to verify for themselves in the places pointed out in the note, did the Church of that place reply with dazzling clearness to the innumerable questions proposed around the marvelous Fountain which was spouting forth its waters on the right side of the Grotto. The Spring of water which had just made its appearance at the base of the Pyrenees, derived its source, by some mysterious process of infiltration, from that vast stream of divine Grace which, under the Nails of the soldiers and the Lance of the centurion, had begun to flow eighteen hundred years ago from the summit of Mount Golgotha.

Such was the original principle to which we must retrace our steps, in order to discover the hidden origin of the miraculous Spring, and it was well that the Offices celebrated at its starting point, at the very place where it had pierced the earth, should of themselves lead the mind towards these mystic heights. With regard to the practical results and external effects which were to be produced abroad by this mysterious fountain, their interpretation and secret were naturally not to be sought at its centre and starting-point, nor in the confined circle, and at an exceptional feast of a particular diocese, but rather, in the universal Offices which the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church was at that moment celebrating throughout the Christian world. Now, this very day, February 26th, 1858, being the Friday of the first week in Lent, the Gospel appointed for the Mass contained the following words, which need no comment:

“Now, there is at Jerusalem a pond called Probatica which, in Hebrew, is named Bethsaida—having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered, waiting for the movement of the water. And an angel of the Lord went down at a certain time into the pond, and the water was troubled. And, he that went down first into the pond, after the motion of the water, was made whole of whatever infirmity he lay under.”

Bernadette's Four Prayers

Book 3 - Part 9

The popular emotion had considerably increased. Bernadette, when she passed, was received with acclamation, and the poor child used to return home with all possible speed in order to escape their ovations. This humble soul, which, up to that time, had lived entirely unknown, in silence and solitude, found itself all at once placed in a blaze of light, in the midst of uproar and of the crowd, on the pedestal of fame. This glory, which so many court so eagerly, was to her a martyrdom of the most cruel description. Her most insignificant words were commented on, discussed, admired, rejected, made the subject of scoffs—in a word, abandoned to the different currents of human opinion. It was then she tasted the heartfelt joy of having something she was not to divulge, and of finding, in the three secrets imparted to her by the Virgin, a kind of secluded sanctuary to which her heart might retire with a sense of perfect peace, and refresh itself in the shade of that mystery, and with the charm of its intimate union with the Queen of Heaven.

As we have already remarked, the outburst of the Fountain had taken place towards sunrise in the presence of a numerous assemblage. It was the 25th of February, the third Thursday of the month, and a great market-day at Tarbes. The news, therefore, of the marvelous occurrence of the morning at the Rocks of Massabielle, was carried to the town by a multitude of eye-witnesses, and before night had been spread through the whole Department, and even as far as the nearest towns of the neighboring departments. The extraordinary movement, which, for the last eight days, had attracted to Lourdes so many pilgrims and others, urged by mere curiosity, was from that moment developed to a most surprising degree.

A great number of visitors came to sleep at Lourdes in order to be on the spot next day; others walked all through the night, and at break of day, the usual hour of Bernadette’s arrival, five or six thousand persons, closely packed on the banks of the Gave, the neighboring eminences and the rocks, were encamped in front of the Grotto. The Spring had considerably increased in volume since the previous day.

When the youthful Seer, humble, peaceful and simple in manner in the midst of so much commotion, presented herself in order to pray, the cry of “There is the Saint! There is the Saint!” arose from the vast throng. Several persons sought to touch her garments, regarding as sacred everything pertaining to one so privileged by the Lord.

It was not, however, the will of the Mother of the humble and the lowly that this innocent heart should succumb to the temptation of vain glory, and that Bernadette should, for one moment, be puffed up with pride on account of the singular favors she had received.

It was well that the child should feel, in the midst of such acclamations, her own nothingness, and realize once more how powerless she was, when left to herself, to evoke the divine Vision. It was in vain she prayed. The superhuman radiancy of ecstacy was not observed diffusing itself over her features; and, when she rose, after her long prayer, she replied, in a tone of sadness to the interrogations showered upon her, that the Vision from on high had not appeared.

Bernadette's Four Prayers

Book 3 - Part 8

Precisely at that hour, at the very moment the Spring was gushing softly but irresistibly from beneath the child’s hand, in testimony, as it were, of the divine intervention, the Philosophers of Lourdes published a new article on the occurrences at the Grotto in the Free-thinking journal of the locality.

The Lavedan, a newspaper we have already quoted, had been issued, and was in process of distribution just at the moment of the return of the amazed multitudes from the Rocks of Massabielle.

Neither in this article nor in the preceding one, nor, indeed, in any of the descriptions of the place written at that time, was there the slightest hint of the existence of any Spring at the Grotto. And thus incredulity had paralyzed beforehand the audacious assertion that the Spring had always flowed there, to which the Free-thinkers might, after a certain time, be tempted to have recourse.

It was the will of Providence, that, in addition to the testimony of the public, these men should have their own articles, their own printed publications, which their dates rendered authentic and beyond refutation, brought again against them.

If these beautiful gushing waters, which delight the eye to-day, had been in existence before the 25th of February, before the scene we have just described was enacted, and the orders and indications given by the Virgin to Bernadette in her state of ecstasy, how came it that the editors of the papers, who were always supposed to keep their eyes open, and whose details were sometimes so minute—how came it that they never saw this copious spring nor ever once mentioned it?

We defy the Free-thinkers to produce a single document—we repeat, the words, a single document—which makes any mention of a Spring, or even of any water, before the period when the Virgin commanded and Nature obeyed.

Book 3 - Part 7

The night had ended the agitations of so many minds so differently influenced, some believing in the reality of the Apparition, others remaining in a state of doubt, while a certain number persisted in denying the fact.

Day was about to break, and the universal Church, over all the surface of the Globe, was murmuring in the interior of Temples, in the silence of solitary Presbyteries, in the peopled shade of Cloisters, beneath the vaulted roofs of Abbeys, Monasteries and Convents, those words of the Psalmist in the Office of Matins: Tu es Deus qui facis mirabilia. Notam fecisti in populis virtutem tuam. . . . Viderunt te aquæ Deus, viderunt te aquæ, et timuerunt, et turbatæ sunt abyssi.

“Thou art the God who workest marvels. Thou hast shown forth Thy power in the midst of the multitudes. . . . The waters saw Thee, O Lord, the waters saw Thee, and they trembled in Thy presence and the depths were troubled.”

Bernadette, having arrived before the Rocks of Massabielle, had just knelt down.

An innumerable crowd had preceded her to the Grotto and pressed around her. Although there were there a good number of sceptics, of such as denied the truth of the Apparition, and of others who came merely from motives of curiosity, a religious silence suddenly prevailed as soon as the child had been perceived. A shudder had passed through the crowd like a shock of electricity. All, by a unanimous instinct, the incredulous as well as believers, had uncovered their heads. Several had kneeled down at the same time as the daughter of the miller.

At that moment the divine Apparition manifested Herself to Bernadette, who was suddenly transported into her marvelous ecstacy. As was always the case, the radiant Virgin stood in the oval excavation of the rock, and her feet rested on the wild rose.

Bernadette contemplated her with an inexpressible sentiment of love, a sentiment sweet and deep, which overflowed her soul with delight, without at all disturbing her mind or causing her to forget she was still upon earth.

The Mother of God loved this innocent child. She wished, by a still closer intimacy, to press her yet more to her bosom; She wished to strengthen still more the bond which united Her to the humble shepherd-girl, in order that the latter, amid all the agitations of this world, might feel, so to say, every moment, that the Queen of Heaven held her invisibly by the hand.

“My child,” she said, “I wish to impart to you, always for you alone, and concerning you alone, a last secret, which, as with the other two, you will never reveal to any one in the world.”

We have explained further back the profound reasons which formed, out of these intimate confidences, the future safeguard of Bernadette, amidst the moral dangers to which the extraordinary favors, of which she was the object, must inevitably expose her. By this triple secret, the Virgin clothed her messenger, as it were, with armor of three-fold strength against the dangers and temptations of life.

Bernadette, in the exceeding joy of her heart, listened, in the meanwhile, to the ineffable music of that voice so sweet, so maternal, so tender, which, eighteen hundred years ago, had charmed the filial ears of the Infant-God.

“And now,” rejoined the Virgin, after a short silence, “go and drink from, and wash yourself in the Fountain, and eat of the herb which is growing at its side.”

Bernadette, at this word “Fountain,” gazed around her. There was, and never had been, any Spring in that spot. The child, without losing sight of the Virgin, betook herself quite naturally towards the Gave, whose tumultuous waters were rushing a few paces from there, across pebbles and broken rocks.

A word and a gesture from the Apparition arrested her in her course.

“Do not go there,” said the Virgin; “I have not spoken of drinking from the Gave; go to the Fountain, it is here.”

And stretching out Her hand—that delicate yet powerful hand—to which nature submits, She showed with her finger to the child, on the right side of the Grotto, the same parched corner towards which, but the morning before, She had made her ascend on her knees.

Although she saw nothing in the place pointed out to her which appeared to have any connection with the words of the divine Being, Bernadette obeyed the command of the heavenly Vision. The vaulted roof of the Grotto sloped downwards on this side, and the little girl scrambled on her knees the short distance she had to traverse.

On reaching the end, she did not perceive before her the least appearance of a fountain. On the face of the rock there sprung here and there some tufts of that herb belonging to the Saxifrage family, which is called la Dorine.

Whether it was owing to a new sign from the Apparition, or to an inward impulse of her soul, Bernadette, with that simple faith so pleasing to the heart of God, stooped down, and, scratching the ground with her tiny hands, began to scoop out the earth.

The innumerable spectators of this scene, as they neither heard nor saw the Apparition, did not know what to think of this singular operation on the part of the child. Many already began to smile, and to believe in some derangement of the poor shepherd-girl’s brain. How little is needed to shake our faith.

All at once the bottom of this little cavity dug by the child became damp. Arriving from unknown depths, across rocks of marble and the bowels of the earth, a mysterious water began to spring up, drop by drop from beneath the hands of Bernadette, and to fill the hollow, about the size of a goblet, which she had just completed.

This water, newly come mixing itself with the earth broken by Bernadette’s hands, formed at first nothing but mud. Three times did Bernadette essay to raise this muddy liquid to her lips; but three times was her feeling of disgust so strong that she rejected it, feeling she had not the power of swallowing it. However she wished, before everything else, to obey the radiant Apparition who towered over this strange scene; and the fourth time, making a grand effort, she surmounted her repugnance. She drank, she washed herself, and she ate a morsel of the wild plant which grew at the foot of the rock.

At that moment the water of the Spring overleaped the brim of the little reservoir hollowed by the child, and proceeded to flow in a slender stream, more slender, perhaps, than a straw, towards the crowd which was pressing on the front of the Grotto.

This stream was so extremely small that for a long time—until the close, in fact, of that day—the parched earth sucked it up entirely on its passage, and you could only guess its progressive course by the damp line, like a ribbon, which was traced on the ground, and which, increasing in length by degrees, advanced at an extremely slow rate towards the Gave.

When Bernadette had accomplished, as we have related above, all the mandates she had received, the Virgin gazed at her with an expression of satisfaction, and, a moment afterwards, She disappeared from her sight.

The multitude were greatly excited by this prodigy. As soon as Bernadette emerged from her state of ecstasy, all rushed towards the Grotto. Every one wished to see with his own eyes the little hollow from which the water had gushed from beneath the hand of the child. Every one wished to dip his handkerchief in it and raise a drop of it to his lips. So this infant spring, in consequence of the gradual enlargement of its reservoir by the crumbling in of the earth, assumed, in a short time, the appearance of a puddle of water or of a liquid mass of wet mud. The Spring, however, seemed to increase in volume as water was drawn from it, and the orifice through which it gushed from the depths below became visibly larger.

“It was some water which must have accidentally dripped from the rock during the rainy season, and which, and that, too, accidentally, must have formed a little pool, under the ground which the child has also accidentally discovered,” said the savants of Lourdes.

And the philosophers remained perfectly satisfied with this explanation.

The next day, the Spring, urged by an unknown power from the mysterious depths, and perceptibly increasing in volume, gushed from the ground more abundantly.

The stream proceeding from it was already about the thickness of your finger. It was, however, still muddy, owing to its struggles in forcing its passage through the earth. It was only at the expiration of a few days, that, after having augmented to a certain degree from hour to hour, it ceased to increase, and became perfectly limpid. From that time it gushed from the earth in a jet of considerable magnitude, having almost reached the size of a child’s arm.

We must not, however, anticipate events, but continue to follow them, day by day, as we have done hitherto. We will now resume our narrative.

Book 3 - Part 6

The honorable M. Jacomet, in the meanwhile, seemed to be annoyed with himself for not having surprised the imposture in the very act, and crushed the growing superstition by his own personal exertions. He racked his brains to guess the answer to the enigma, for he began to see clearly, from the very demand made by the Curé of Lourdes, that the Clergy had nothing to do with the matter. He had, therefore, only the little girl and her parents to deal with. He never for a moment doubted, that somehow or other, he would settle the affair to his satisfaction.

When Bernadette chanced to make her appearance on the street, the crowd eagerly pressed round her: at every step she was stopped by some one, and every one wished to hear from her mouth the details of the Apparitions. Several persons, among others M. Dufo, an advocate and one of the eminent men of the place, sent for her and asked her numerous questions. They did not resist the secret power which the living Truth imparted to her words. Many persons repaired in the course of the day to the house of the Soubirous to hear Bernadette’s account of the affair. She submitted with all simplicity and complaisance to these incessant interrogations, and it was plain that, from that time forth, she considered it her peculiar office and duty to bear witness to all that she had seen and heard.

In a corner of the room in which visitors were received, there was a little shrine adorned with flowers, medals and holy images, and surmounted by a statue of the Virgin, which gave it an appearance of luxury and attested the piety of the family. All the rest of the chamber showed signs of the most wretched destitution; a pallet-bed, a few rickety chairs, and a miserable table, comprised all the furniture of the dwelling in which crowds came to learn the splendid secrets of heaven. The majority of visitors were struck and touched by the sight of such extreme indigence stamped on everything, and could not resist the pleasing temptation of leaving these poor people some present,—some trifling alms. This, however, the child and her parents invariably refused so peremptorily, that they could not press anything on them.

Many among these visitors were strangers to the town. One of the latter came to the house one evening at an hour when the throng of visitors had subsided, and there only remained a neighbor or a relation of the family sitting at the fireside. He carefully interrogated Bernadette, desiring her not to omit the slightest detail, and appearing to take an extraordinary interest in the child’s narration. Every moment he betrayed his enthusiasm and faith by the most tender exclamations. He congratulated Bernadette on having received so great a favor from heaven, and then compassionated the want of which he saw around him so many marks.

“I am rich,” said he; “allow me to assist you.” He placed on the table a purse, which he half opened, showing that it was full of gold. A flush of indignation mantled Bernadette’s countenance. “I do not wish for anything, Sir,” she observed eagerly. “Take it back again.” And she pushed the purse, which had been placed on the table, towards the unknown gentleman. “It is not for you, my child, it is for your parents, who are in want, and you cannot hinder me from succoring them.” “We do not wish to have anything, nor Bernadette either!” exclaimed her parents. “You are poor,” continued the stranger, insisting in his offer. “I have put you out of your way, and I take an interest in you. Is it from pride that you refuse me?” “No, Sir; but we do not want anything. Take back your gold.” The unknown took back his purse and left the house, with an expression of much annoyance on his countenance.

Where did this man come from, and who was he? Was he a compassionate benefactor or a crafty tempter? We know not. The police arrangements were so excellent at Lourdes, that perhaps M. Jacomet, more fortunate in this respect than ourselves, knew the secret, and could solve the riddle better than any one else.

If, then, by one of those accidents which sometimes occur in matters of police, the cunning Commissary heard that very evening the details of this scene between Bernadette and this mysterious stranger, he must have allowed that snares and temptations were as useless against this extraordinary child as captious questions and violent threats had already proved. The difficulties attending the unravelling of this affair increased for this man, who was yet so superlatively shrewd and so expert in merely human matters. If he had been surprised at the complete impossibility of producing the slightest contradiction in Bernadette’s recital, he was plunged into a state of absolute stupor by her disinterestedness and the firmness she had displayed in rejecting a purse full of gold.

Such conduct would have been easily explained in the mind of the sagacious Commissary had not the demand of some visible proof, of a miracle, of the impossible blossoming of the wild rose, which the Curé had made, proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the Clergy were not lurking behind the youthful Seer. But Bernadette and her parents, left to their own resources, poor, in distress, wanting for bread, and still not deriving any profit from the popular enthusiasm and credulity—this was a thing altogether inconceivable. Had the little girl invented the imposture merely to make herself talked about? But, to say nothing of the fact that there appeared little probability of such an ambition in the mind of a little shepherd-maid, what explanation could be offered for the indefeasible unity of her narration and her disinterestedness, which extended even to the members of her family, who were all extremely poor, and, consequently, sorely tempted to turn the blind credulity of the multitude to their own advantage? M. Jacomet was not the man to flinch because the case was attended with some insoluble objections, and he confidently awaited the turn of events, little doubting that a triumph was in store for him, which would only be rendered more glorious from the fact that at first it had been beset with difficulties and obstacles.