Book 3 - Part 10

The next morning, Monday the 22nd of February, when the usual hour for the Apparition arrived, the crowd waiting for the youthful Seer on the banks of the Gave saw no signs of her coming. Her parents had sent her at sun-rise to the school, and Bernadette deeming it her duty to obey, had repaired thither with a heavy heart.

The Sisters, whose duties combining charity and the instruction of children, to which may perhaps be also added the recommendations of the Curé of Lourdes, detained them at the Hospital or the School, had never witnessed the ecstasies of Bernadette and placed no faith in the Apparitions.

Besides, in matters of this nature, if the common people sometimes exhibit too much credulity, it is a fact—and the phenomenon, however surprising it appears at first, is indisputable—that Ecclesiastics and Religious of both sexes are very sceptical and loath to believe, and that, while admitting theoretically the possibility of such divine manifestations, they often demand a severity of proof which may be regarded as excessive. The Sisters accordingly added their formal interdiction to that of Bernadette’s parents, telling her that all these visions were destitute of reality, and that either her brain was affected or she was guilty of falsehoods. One of them suspecting an imposture in things of so grave and sacred a nature, displayed much severity and treated the whole affair as a piece of trickery.

“Naughty child,” said she to her, “this a pretty Carnival you are making in the holy season of Lent.”

Other persons who saw her during the hours of recreation, accused her of wishing to pass herself off as a saint, and of making sport of sacred things. The taunts of some of the children at the school were added to the bitter reproaches and humiliations with which she was overwhelmed.

It was the will of God to try Bernadette. Having on the preceding days inundated her with consolation, He intended, in His wisdom, to leave her for a certain reason in a state of complete abandonment, a prey to railleries and insults, and to bring her in contact, alone and deserted as she was, with the hostility of all those by whom she was surrounded.

The unfortunate little girl suffered cruelly, not only from these external contrarieties, but perhaps still more from the internal anguish of her mind.

This childish shepherd girl, unacquainted hitherto in her short life with any thing but physical evils, was now entering on a higher path and was beginning to experience tortures and distractions of another nature. On the one hand, she was unwilling to disobey the authority of her father or of the Sisters; while on the other, she could not endure the thought of failing in the promise she had made to the divine Apparition at the Grotto. A cruel struggle ensued in her young soul, hitherto so peaceful. It seemed to her as if she was oscillating hopelessly between two abysses equally fatal. To go to the Grotto was a sin against her father, not to go there was a sin against the vision which had come from on high. In either case, in her own point of view, it was evidently a sin against God. And yet, situated as she was, she must choose between the two; there was no middle course and it was impossible to avoid so fatal a choice. It is true, as we are informed by the Gospel, that what is impossible to man is possible to God. The morning passed away in distress of this nature, which was rendered the more painful and distracting from the fact of its arriving in a soul entirely fresh, at an age, habitually calm and pure, when impressions take such deep root and when the delicate fibres of the heart have not yet been rendered callous by long acquaintance with human suffering.

Towards the middle of the day the children returned home for a few moments to partake of their frugal meal.

Bernadette, her soul crushed between the two alternatives presented by her irremediable situation, walked slowly towards her home. From the tower of the Church at Lourdes the mid-day Angelus had just sounded.

At that moment an unaccountable power took possession of her all at once, acting not on her mind but her body, as an invisible arm might have done, and, driving her out of the road she was taking, forced her irresistibly in the direction of the path which lay on her right. She was impelled by it, seemingly, in the same way as a leaf, lying on the ground, is hurried along by the imperious blast of the wind. She could no more prevent herself advancing than if she had been placed suddenly on a most rapid descent. Her whole physical being was dragged towards the Grotto, to which this path led. She could not but walk, she was even obliged to run.

And yet the movement by which she was carried along was neither violent nor rough. It was irresistible; but it had nothing in it harsh or shocking to her who was under its control; on the contrary, it was supreme force co-existing with supreme mildness. The almighty hand rendered itself as soft as that of a mother, as if it had feared to injure so frail a child.

Providence, therefore, which directs all things, had solved the insoluble problem. The child, submitting to the will of her father, was not going to the Grotto, where her heart yearned to be; and yet carried away forcibly by the Angel of the Lord, she arrived there notwithstanding, thus fulfilling her promise to the Virgin without having wilfully disobeyed the paternal command.

Such phenomena have been remarked more than once in the life of certain souls, whose deep purity has been pleasing to the heart of God. Saint Philip Neri, Saint Ida of Louvain, Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Saint Rose of Lima experienced impulses of a similar or analogous nature.

The humble heart of the child, bruised and deserted, began already to smile with hope in proportion as her steps approached the Grotto.

“There,” said she to herself “I shall see the beloved Apparition once more; there I shall be consoled for everything—there I shall contemplate that beautiful countenance, the sight of which ravishes me with happiness. Boundless joy will ere long succeed these cruel sorrows, for the Lady will never desert me.”

Owing to her inexperience she was not aware that the Spirit of God breathes where it wills.

Book 3 - Part 9

Although M. Jacomet had been powerless against the simple, precise and uncontradictory answers of Bernadette, he had, nevertheless, gained a decided advantage at the close of this long struggle. He had exceedingly terrified the father of the youthful Seer, and he knew that in that quarter, at least for the time, the odds were in his favor.

François Soubirous was a very good kind of a man, but by no means a hero. Opposed to official authority, he was timid, as the lower classes and the poor usually are. To such, the least embroilment with the law is, owing to their poverty, a terrible misfortune, and they feel themselves utterly powerless to cope with arbitrary power and persecution. He believed, it is true, in the reality of the Apparitions; but as he neither comprehended their nature nor measured their importance, and even felt a certain amount of terror in connection with these extraordinary events, he saw no great inconvenience in setting his face against Bernadette’s revisiting the Grotto. He had perhaps some vague fear of displeasing the invisible Lady who was in the habit of manifesting herself to his child, but the fear of irritating a man of flesh and blood, of engaging in a struggle with so formidable a personage as the Commissary came nearer home to him and acted much more powerfully on his mind.

“You see that all these gentlemen of the place are against us,” he observed to Bernadette, “and if you return to the Grotto, M. Jacomet, who is master here, will put both of us in prison. Do not go there any more.”

“Father,” said Bernadette, “when I go there, it is not altogether of myself. At a certain moment there is something in me which calls me and attracts me to the place.”

“Be this as it may,” rejoined her Father, “I forbid you positively to go there again. You will surely not disobey me for the first time in your life.”

The poor child, thus placed in a dilemma between the promise she had made to the Apparition and the express prohibition of her father’s authority, replied:

“I will in that case do all in my power to prevent myself going there and to resist the attraction which summons me to the place.”

So passed sadly away the evening of the same Sunday which had arisen in the blessed and glorious splendor of ecstasy.

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.

Book 3 - Part 5

There was certainly some truth in the Abbé Peyramale’s sly repartee; but, perhaps, not so much as he was inclined to think. Surely, if at that moment with his profound sagacity and high-mindedness, he had maturely reflected on the words which the Celestial Vision had pronounced a short time after having smiled, he would have comprehended the meaning of the smile which the poor child, favored though she was with such visions, was unable to interpret.

“To pray for sinners, to do penance, to climb kneeling the steep and difficult slope which leads from the rapid and tumultuous waves of the torrent to the unchangeable rock on which one of the sanctuaries of the Church was to be founded,”—such had been the commands of the Apparition at the close of the child’s prayer; such had been Her answer to the request that She should cause the wild-rose to blossom; such had been, from Her own mouth, the plain and clear commentary on Her smile. Who does not see after due reflection, the admirable meaning of this symbolic response?

“And what, even though I am the Mother of the God-Saviour, the Mother of that Jesus who spent his life in doing good and in consoling the afflicted, could they demand nothing from me as a proof of my power but this idle and frail marvel, which the rays of the sun, who is my Servant, will perform of themselves a few days hence? When a multitude of sinners, indifferent or hostile to the law of God, covers the surface of the globe; when whole nations, either guilty or led astray, quench their thirst at the poisoned stream of this world or at the turbid torrents which rush down to the abyss; when they have need, above all things, to scale on their knees the rugged path which separates the fleeting and troubled life of the flesh from the unchangeable life of the spirit; when the salvation of so many outcasts and the healing of so many sick in soul is the constant study of my maternal heart, am I not to give better proofs of my Power and Goodness than to make roses bloom in the depth of winter? and is it for so trifling an amusement that I appear to a young girl of earth and open my hands full of graces before her?”

Such was, it appears to us, as far as it is permitted to a wretched man to penetrate and interpret things so lofty in their nature, the deep meaning of the smile and the commands by which the Mother of the human race replied to the request of the Pastor of Lourdes. God, more especially in evil and necessitous times, does not condescend to fritter away (if we may use the expression), his omnipotence in vain prodigies which only strike the eye, or in ephemeral wonders which would wither before the close of day and be carried away by the first blast of wind. When it is His will to found aught eternal, He supports it by some eternal proof which future ages will not be able to impair.

What, meanwhile, was the signification of the command received by Bernadette to scale on her knees the surface of the Grotto until her progress was arrested by the escarpment of the parched rock? No one knew; and, in the presence of that arid rock, no one dreamed that, from the moment the Synagogue had committed self-murder while thinking to slay Jesus, the staff of Moses had passed as an heir-loom to the people of Christ.

The Curé of Lourdes, despite the lofty range of his mind, did not at once see these things which the future was to make so clear. The strong doubts he cherished within him of the reality of the Apparition prevented him from meditating carefully on the various circumstances connected with the scene at the Grotto, and fixing on them that clear glance which he usually threw on the things pertaining to God.

The Free-thinkers of the place, although somewhat disconcerted at the conversions produced that day at the Rocks of Massabielle by the extraordinary splendor of Bernadette’s transfiguration, triumphed exceedingly at the check the believers had met with, in regard to the humble and graceful proof which had been demanded by M. Peyramale. They praised the latter even more than they had done on the previous day for having exacted a miracle.

“Jacomet,” they said, “was guilty of a blunder in wishing to kill the Apparition: the Curé, with much greater shrewdness, forces her to commit suicide.” Incapable of appreciating the loyal simplicity of his impartial wisdom, which, doubtless, demanded some proofs before either believing or rejecting the matter, they attributed to craft what was really the result of prudence, and detected a snare in the simple prayer of an upright soul which was in quest of truth. As we see, on this occasion, these gentlemen were almost on the point of paying the Curé of Lourdes the high compliment—which he certainly did not deserve—of reckoning him as one of their own number.

Book 3 - Part 4

“Well, have you seen her to-day, and what has she said to you?” demanded the Curé of Lourdes, when Bernadette had presented herself at his house on her return from the Grotto.

“I have seen the Vision,” replied the child, “and I said to her ‘Monsieur le Curé requests you to furnish him with some proofs, as for instance, to cause the wild rose which is under your feet to blossom, because my word alone does not satisfy the Priests, and they will not rely on me.’ Then she smiled but said nothing. Afterwards she bade me pray for sinners, and commanded me to ascend to the bottom of the Grotto. And she cried out three times the words ‘Penitence! penitence! penitence!’ which I repeated as I dragged myself on my knees as far as the bottom of the Grotto. There she imparted to me a second secret which regards myself alone. Then she disappeared.”

“And what have you found at the bottom of the Grotto?”

“I looked after She had disappeared (for as long as She is there my attention is fixed on Her alone and She entirely absorbs me), and saw nothing but the rock, and on the ground a few blades of grass which were growing in the midst of the dust.”

The priest remained absorbed in a kind of reverie.

“Let us wait,” said he to himself.

The same evening, the Abbé Peyramale related this interview to the vicaires of Lourdes and some priests from the neighborhood. They rallied their Dean on the apparent failure of his demand.

“If it is the Blessed Virgin,” they said to him, “this smile on the receipt of your request, appears to us as unfavorable for you; and irony from so exalted a quarter strikes us as alarming.”

The Curé extricated himself from this view of the question with his usual presence of mind.

“This smile is in my favor,” he replied; “the Blessed Virgin is no scoffer. If I had spoken ill, she would not have smiled, she would have been moved to pity at my plea. She smiled; therefore she approves.”