The Clergy continued to refrain from repairing to the Grotto, and kept themselves studiously aloof from the movement. The orders of Monseigneur Laurence in this matter were rigidly obeyed throughout the diocese.
The masses of the population, cruelly agitated by the persecution of the Administration, turned with anxiety towards the ecclesiastical authorities to whom God had committed the direction and defense of the faithful, and looked forward to an energetic protest on the part of the Bishop against the violence done to their own religious liberty.
Their expectations, however, were not realized. Monseigneur preserved an absolute silence and suffered the Prefect to proceed. Further, M. Massy had it inserted in his journals that he was acting in concert with the ecclesiastical authorities, and, to the amazement of all, the Bishop did not contradict the assertion. The mind of the people was troubled.
From the very first, the extreme prudence of the Clergy had been little understood or appreciated by the ardent faith of the multitude. At the stage which events had now reached, after so many proofs of the reality of the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, after the gushing forth of the Spring, and so many cures and miracles, this excessive reserve on the part of the Bishop in presence of the persecutions adopted by the Authorities appeared to them an inexplicable disloyalty. The respect they entertained for his character or person did not entirely suffice to restrain the expression of popular murmurs.
Why not boldly pronounce his judgment at a time when the elements of certainty were so abundantly at hand from all quarters? Why not, at any rate, issue his orders for an investigation, or have the question studied and some examination of it undertaken, so as to guide every one’s faith and prevent misconception. Were not events, which were sufficient to bewilder the civil power, and cause the upheaving of whole populations, worthy of the Bishop’s attention? Did not the Prelate’s obstinate silence justify the Prefect in acting as he did? If the Apparition was false, was it not the duty of the Bishop to enlighten the Faithful on the subject, and arrest the progress of error at once? If it was true, was it not his duty to oppose himself to the persecution undergone by those who believed, and courageously to defend the work of God against the malice of men? Would not a single step taken by the Bishop, an investigation, for instance, instituted by him, have hindered the Prefect from entering on that course of persecution to which he had now pledged himself? Were the Priests and the Bishop then deaf to so many prayers and exclamations of gratitude which were rising from the base of this Rock, destined to eternal celebrity, on which the Mother of the crucified God had rested her virginal foot? Had the Letter killed the Spirit? Were they, like the Pharisaical priests mentioned in the Gospel, blind to the lightning-like splendor of so many miracles? Were they so occupied in administering the concerns of the Church, and so absorbed in their clerical functions, that the almighty hand of God, appearing outside the temple, was either entirely overlooked by them or deemed by them an incident of no importance. Was it then under such circumstances, when God was intervening and persecution beginning to rage, that the Bishop should walk last, as if he were bringing up the rear of a procession?
This clamor rose from the midst of the assembled throng and kept increasing. The Clergy were charged with indifference or hostility, the Bishop with timidity or weakness.
Owing to the logical course of events and the natural bent of the human heart, this vast movement of men and ideas, so essentially religious in its commencement, threatened to take an anti-ecclesiastical turn. The masses of the people, full of faith in the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Trinity, but full also of discontent—irritated against the prolonged keeping aloof of the Clergy, displayed a tendency to rush towards the Church in which the divine strength dwells, and to desert the sacristy, where, beneath the sacerdotal robes, is found but too often the feebleness of man.
Monseigneur Laurence continued, however, to preserve his attitude of reserved inaction. What were the Prelate’s reasons for resisting that voice of the people which is sometimes the voice of Heaven? Was it prudence inspired by God? Was it merely human prudence? Was it shrewdness? Was it mere weakness?
This somewhat brutal interference of the local Government with the question to which the scenes enacted on the banks of the Gave, for some months past, had given rise, implied on the part of those who governed not only the denial of anything supernatural having occurred, but further of its possibility. In fact had the Administration admitted for one moment the possibility of the Apparition they would have adopted very different measures. In that case their aim would have been to have had the matter thoroughly sifted, whereas the course now followed plainly tended to hushing it up.
One fact was absolutely certain: the cures effected. Whether produced by the mineral and therapeutic nature of the water, or by the imagination of the invalids themselves, or by means of direct miraculous agency, these cures were palpable and officially recognized by the incredulous themselves, who being unable to reject them, sought only to account for them in a natural way.
Hundreds and thousands of loyal witnesses—whose testimony was beyond all suspicion—affirmed unhesitatingly that their cure had been effected by the use of the water at the Grotto. Not one was to be found to whom it had proved fatal or in whom it had produced evil consequences. Why then have recourse to these prohibitive measures, these lofty barriers, this armed force, menacing personal liberty, and this system of persecution? Why, if such measures were permitted, were they not carried to their logical conclusion? Why not close every place of pilgrimage where the sick had recovered their health, every church in which the faithful owing to their prayers believed they had received some particular Grace from God?
Such were the questions asked in every quarter.
“If Bernadette,” observed some, “had simply discovered a mineral spring possessing powerful curative virtues, without alluding to Visions and Apparitions, what Authority would have had the barbarity to prevent invalids repairing to it for the purpose of drinking its waters? Under the rule of Nero such a thing would not have been attempted, and all governments would have voted a reward to the child. But here, invalids kneel down before commencing their prayers, and the understrappers of office, flaunting cotton, silver or gold lace, who kiss the dust before their own masters, are not pleased that others should prostrate themselves before God. This is the real question. It is prayer which is the object of their persecution.”
“But Superstition?” observed the Free-thinkers.
“Is not the Church at hand to watch and guard the faithful against error? Let her act in her own province, and do not transform the Council of the Prefecture into an Ecumenical Council, or a Prefect or Minister into an infallible Pope. What disorder has arisen? None. What evil has taken place which might justify your measures and prohibitions? None. The mysterious Spring has done naught but good. Suffer then the believing portion of the population to resort to it and drink of its water, if they see right to do so. Leave them the liberty of believing, praying and of being cured; the liberty of turning themselves towards God, and demanding from the powers on high some assuagement of their sorrows. Free-thinkers, tolerate the freedom of prayer.”
But neither the anti-christian philosophers nor the pious Prefect of the Hautes-Pyrenees consented to pay any regard to so unanimous a cry, and rigorous measures pursued their course.
That intolerance with which the Catholic Church is so unjustly reproached by the enemies of Christianity, is in reality the dominant passion of the latter. They are from their very nature tyrants and persecutors.
It was not without some hesitation that M. Lacadé consented to sign an order of this nature, and to put such a measure into execution. His somewhat undecided nature, fond of pursuing a middle course and liking to swim, as they said, with the current, could not but regard with considerable alarm such an act of decided hostility against the strange power which plainly hovered over all the events of which the Grotto of Lourdes was the centre. On the other hand, as should always be the case, the Mayor was attached to his official position, and, as the wags asserted, somewhat in love with his official scarf. He must, however, become the instrument of the Prefect’s violent courses or resign his honors. The alternative was embarrassing to the first magistrate of Lourdes, though we cannot term it a very grave one, without feeling a disposition to smile at the weakness of poor human nature. M. Lacadé hoped to get out of the difficulty, by requesting the Prefect, as the condition of his attaching his own signature to the document, to insert at the beginning of the order, and, as it were, its opening sentence, “With reference to instructions addressed to him by the superior Authorities.”
“By these means,” observed the Mayor, “I am entirely freed from any responsibility as regards the public or myself. I have not taken the initiative; I remain neuter. I do not command; I am simply obeying. I do not give this order; I receive it. I do not proclaim this measure; I merely carry it into execution. All the responsibility rests on my immediate superior, the Prefect.
From a private in a regiment of the line, this style of reasoning would have been unexceptionable.
With his mind thus set at rest, M. Lacadé watched over the execution of the Prefect’s decree. He had it published with sound of trumpet, and placarded all over the town. At the same time, under the protection of an armed force, and the directions of Jacomet, barriers were erected around the Rocks of Massabielle, so as to entirely prevent all access to the Grotto and the miraculous Spring, unless by breaking them down or scaling them. Posts with notices attached to them were placed here and there, at all points whereby the people might penetrate the communal lands with which the venerated Rocks were surrounded, absolutely forbidding any one to trespass on the grounds belonging to the commune, under penalty of prosecution before the tribunals. The Sergents de Ville and Gardes Champêtres kept watch day and night, relieving each other every hour, and drawing up official reports against such as passed the outer posts for the purpose of going and kneeling in the vicinity of the Grotto.
There was a Juge de Paix at Lourdes called Duprat. He was as inveterate a foe to Superstition, as were the Jacomets, Massys, Dutours, and other constituted authorities. This judge, being unable under the circumstances to inflict any but the smallest possible fines on delinquents, imagined an indirect way of rendering these fines enormous and really formidable to the poor folks who came from all directions to pray in front of the Grotto and request at the hands of the Blessed Virgin, one, the recovery of health long broken; a second, the cure of a much-loved child; a third, some spiritual grace, or some consolation in overwhelming sorrow.
M. Duprat, finding them guilty of a misdemeanor, sentenced the culprits to a fine of five francs each. But, by a conception worthy of his genius, he combined in a single judgment all those who had violated the Prefect’s prohibition, whether by forming part of the same throng, or even, as it appeared, by repairing to the Grotto in the course of the same day. When he sentenced them, he made them all jointly and severally liable for the costs. Consequently should one or two hundred persons have gone to the Rocks of Massabielle, each of them was made liable to pay, not only for himself, but for all the rest; or, in other words, to pay out 500 or 1000 francs. And yet, since the individual and original sentence amounted only to a fine of five francs, this magistrate’s decision could not be appealed from to a superior court, and there was no means of obtaining redress. The judge was omnipotent, and this is a specimen of the way in which he exerted his omnipotence.
In the midst of all these strangely varied events, the question regarding the stables of the Prefecture was discussed with ever-increasing warmth, and had worked up the Prefect to the highest pitch of exasperation. The month of June had arrived. The bathing-season was commencing, and would bring to the Pyrenees invalids and tourists from every part of Europe, who would be witnesses of the scandal which the Supernatural was creating in the Department administered by Baron Massy. The instructions of M. Rouland were of the most urgent nature, and pressed the interference of the authorities. On the sixth of June, M. Fould, Minister of Finance, stopped at Tarbes on his way to his country residence, and had a long conference with M. Massy. A report circulated that the events at the Grotto formed the subject of their discussion.
The fact of going to drink at a spring, the road to which passed through the common lands belonging to the town, did not, however, constitute a criminal act in the eyes of the law. It was, therefore, of the highest importance, that the genius of the enemies of Superstition should discover some pretext for interference. Arbitrary power has not in France, as in Russia or in Turkey, the rights of citizenship, and it requires the mask of legality.
The subtle Prefect had, on this subject, an inspiration as ingenious as it was simple. As the Rocks of Massabielle formed part of the lands belonging to the commune of Lourdes, the Mayor, as guardian of the interests of the town, had the power of prohibiting any one from approaching them whether he might have reasons for so doing or not, in the same manner as a proprietor prohibits when he likes and whom he likes to enter his house or trespass on his estate.
A prohibition of this kind, publicly proclaimed, exposed every visitor to the charge of a specified misdemeanor—that of the violation of property.
By so crafty a proceeding, an act, absolutely innocent in itself, was transformed into one of a criminal nature, liable to the penalties attached to it by law.
The whole scheme of M. Massy gravitated round this idea, and this plan having once been hit upon, he resolved to act and to act despotically.
The next day, the Mayor of Lourdes received instructions to issue the following order:
The Mayor of the Town of Lourdes,
Considering the instructions addressed to him by the superior authorities,
The laws of the 14th and 22nd of December, 1789, of 16th and 24th of August, 1790, of 19th and 22nd of July, 1791, and that of the 18th of July, 1837, on the Municipal Administration;
Considering, that it is important, with a view to the interests of Religion, to bring to a close the scenes so much to be regretted which are taking place at the Grotto of Massabielle, situate at Lourdes, on the left bank of the Gave;
Considering, on the other hand, that it is the duty of the Mayor to watch over the public health in his locality;
Considering, that a great number of those in his jurisdiction, as also of persons strangers to the commune, come to draw water at a certain Spring in the said Grotto;
Considering that there are serious reasons for thinking that this water contains mineral ingredients, and that it is prudent before permitting its use to wait until a scientific analysis should make known the applications which medical science may make of it; that, in addition to this, the Law subjects the working of Springs of mineral water to the preliminary authorization of the Government;
Orders:
First Article.—It is forbidden to take any water from the said Spring.
Second Article.—It is equally forbidden to pass over the communal lands going by the name of the “Rive de Massabielle.”
Third Article.—To prevent access to the Grotto, a barrier will be placed at its entrance.
Notices will also be posted, as follows, “Persons are forbidden to trespass on this property.”
Fourth Article.—All infraction of the present Order will be prosecuted according to Law.
Fifth Article.—The Commissary of Police, the Gendarmerie, the Gardes Champêtres, and the Authorities of the commune are charged with the execution of the present Order.
Done at Lourdes, at the Mayoralty, 8th of June, 1858.
Seen and approved,
C. MASSY, Prefect
A. LACADÉ, Mayor
The plan of the divine work developed itself by degrees with all its admirable and powerful logic. But no one at that moment, and M. Massy less than any one else, perceived the invisible hand of God directing all things, however manifestly such was the case. It is not in the middle of a charge that one can judge of the disposition of a battle. The unfortunate Prefect having left the straight path, saw nothing in what was passing around him but an irritating series of vexing incidents, and an inexplicable fatality. Remove God from certain questions and the inexplicable will meet you at every turn.
The march of events, slow but irresistible, was upsetting, one by one, all the theses of unbelief, and forcing the wretched philosophy of man to beat a retreat and abandon its intrenchments one after the other.
The Apparitions had taken place. The Free-thinkers had, in the first instance, absolutely denied their reality, while they accused the youthful Seer of being a mere tool in the hands of others, and of engaging in a series of jugglery from mercenary motives. This theory did not hold good when brought face to face with the child’s examination. Her veracity made a deep impression on all.
The spirit of incredulity driven out of this, their first position, had fallen back on hallucination and catalepsy.
“She fancies she sees; she does not see. There is nothing in it.”
Providence, however, had assembled from every quarter of the horizon its thousands and thousands of witnesses round the child in her state of ecstasy; and when the proper moment arrived had solemnly attested the truth of Bernadette’s narration by causing a Spring to gush forth publicly, before the spell-bound eyes of the throng which had flocked to the spot.
“There is no Spring,” the unbelievers had said. “It is an oozing of water, a pool, a small pond. Call it what you will, except a Spring.”
But while they were solemnly and publicly denying its very existence, the Spring was increasing, almost like a being endowed with life, and assuming prodigious proportions. More than 25,000 gallons issued daily from this strange rock.
“It is accidental, it is a singular circumstance.”
Unbelief had stammered out, reduced to desperation and recoiling from hour to hour.
And see—events following their invincible course—the most striking cures had immediately attested in every direction the miraculous character of the Spring, and given a new and decisive proof of the reality of the all-powerful Apparition, whose gesture had sufficed to cause this Fountain of Life to gush forth from beneath the hand of a mere mortal.
The first impulse of the Philosophers had been to deny the reality of these cures, as they had denied in the first instance the sincerity of Bernadette, as they had denied the very existence of the Spring.
Yet suddenly the cures had become so numerous, so notorious, that the enemy had been obliged to beat a retreat and admit their reality.
“Well, be it so! Cures are certainly effected, but they are owing to the impregnation of mineral substances. The Spring possesses certain therapeutic virtues,” had been the cry of the incredulous, holding in their hands I know not what semblance of a chemical analysis.
Then the most astounding cures, which were absolutely inexplicable by a hypothesis of this nature, had been multiplied to an immense extent; and simultaneously, though from opposite quarters, several conscientious and enlightened men, thoroughly acquainted with the science of chemistry, had boldly declared that the Spring of Massabielle did not possess in itself any mineral virtue, that it was composed of ordinary water, and that the purely official analysis furnished by M. Latour de Trie was solely intended to meet the well-known views of the Prefect.
Driven thus from all the intrenchments in which, after successive defeats, they had sought refuge; pursued by the blasting evidence of facts; crushed beneath the weight of their own admissions; unable to retract these successive and forced admissions, which had been publicly registered in their own journals, what had the Philosophers and Free-thinkers to do? The Philosophers and Free-thinkers had but to humbly surrender their arms to Truth. They had but to bow their heads, to bend their knees, and to believe; they had but to do what is done by the ripe ears of corn, when the wheat, that gift of God, comes by degrees to fill their grains, as is mentioned by the author of the Essays.
“It has happened,” says Montaigne, “to really learned persons, as it happens to spikes of corn. They stand erect and hold their heads high, as long as they are empty; but, when they are full and heavy with ripe grain, they begin to bow down and lower themselves towards the ground. In like manner, men, after having tried everything and sounded everything, have renounced their presumption and acknowledged their natural condition.”
It may be, the Philosophers of Lourdes did not possess enough of largeness and strength of mind to apprehend the good seed of truth. It may be, their pride rendered them inflexible and impervious to the clearest evidence. One thing is certain, that, with the exception of a few who were happily converted, there did not happen to them what happens “to really learned persons,” and they continued “to hold their heads high,” like the empty ears of corn.
Not only did they maintain their attitude of incredulity; but impiety, driven with shame and disgrace from quibble to quibble, from sophism to sophism, from one falsehood to another, and reduced to the most absurd shifts, suddenly threw off the mask, and exposed its full deformity. It passed, we would say, from the realm of discussion and reasoning, which it had attempted to usurp, to that of intolerance and violence, which really belongs to it.
Baron Massy, who was thoroughly acquainted with the state of the public mind in general, saw plainly with his unerring coup d’œil, that, if he took arbitrary measures and openly had recourse to persecution, he would derive considerable moral support from the exasperation of the Free-thinkers, who were entirely discomfited, humiliated, and consequently furious.
He also had been vanquished so far in the analogous if not identical struggle into which he had entered with the Supernatural. All his efforts had failed.
Issuing from the inmost recess of a solitary rock, and announced by the voice of a child, the Supernatural had commenced its march, overturning all obstacles, dragging the multitude in its train, and gaining on its passage the enthusiastic shouts, prayers, cries of gratitude, and exclamations of the popular faith.
Once more, what still remained to be done?
To withstand the clearest evidence, and to take violent measures against the throng of believers.
The Prefect saw more and more the hopelessness of being able to have recourse to coercive measures, owing to this amazing tranquillity, this calm, not less irritating than it was marvelous, which reigned of its own accord among these countless multitudes. There was nothing to lay hold of. He must either retrace his steps, and relinquishing the path he had hitherto pursued, leave the population absolutely free to take their own course, or, by adopting measures of violence and persecution, oppose, on some pretext or other, an arbitrary barrier to the popular movement. He must either beat a retreat or boldly advance.
On the other hand, the variety and suddenness of the cures effected appeared to many persons of judgment to be but lamely accounted for by the therapeutic and mineral properties of the new Spring. The accuracy of the scientific decision furnished by M. Latour de Trie was called into question. A chemist of the town, M. Thomas Pujo, asserted that the water was merely ordinary water, and did not contain any medical properties. Many very competent professors of chemistry in the district were of the same opinion. The analysis of Latour de Trie was declared by men of science to be erroneous. These rumors gained so much ground that the Municipal Council of Lourdes began to stir in the business. The Mayor could not well refuse—in opposition to the wishes of all—to allow a second examination of the water of the Spring to be made. Without consulting the Prefect, which, as it appeared to him, would have been useless—so deeply convinced was the latter that M. Latour was correct in his report—he got a resolution passed by the Municipal Council, authorizing him to intrust Professor Filhol, one of the greatest chemists of the present day, with a new and definitive analysis. The council voted at the same time the funds necessary to remunerate the illustrious savant.
M. Filhol was a man of weight in modern science, and there would evidently be no appeal against his verdict.
Of what nature would his analysis prove to be? The Prefect was not sufficiently versed in chemistry to know. But we believe, without any fear of deceiving ourselves on the subject, that he must have been somewhat uneasy. The verdict pronounced by the eminent Professor of Chemistry in the Faculty of Toulouse might seriously derange the plans and contrivances of M. Massy. He really had no time to lose. Here again he must beat a retreat or advance boldly.
In the midst of so many different party feelings, and numerous calculations, Bernadette could not escape being exposed to fresh attempts, but they proved as useless as the former ones.
She was preparing to make her first communion, and she made it on the third of June, the feast of Corpus Christi. It was the same day on which the Municipal Council of Lourdes commissioned M. Filhol to analyze the water of the mysterious Spring which had some time back gushed forth from under the hand of the youthful Seer, when in her state of ecstasy. God entering into her child-like and girlish heart, was also making the analysis of a pure wave, and we may well imagine that He could not but admire and bless, in her virgin soul, the freshest of Springs and the most limpid of crystals.
She continued to receive numerous visits notwithstanding her ardent wish for concealment and retirement. She was always the simple, innocent child, whose portrait we have attempted to draw. She fascinated all who approached her by her candor, her striking sincerity and delicate perfume of calm piety.
One day, a lady, after having held a conversation with her, in an impulse of enthusiastic veneration which may be easily understood by those who have known Bernadette, wished to exchange her chaplet of precious stones for the one ordinarily used by the child:
“Keep your own, Madam,” she replied, showing her simple auxiliary of prayer. “Here is mine, and I would not change it. It is poor like myself and is, on that account, more befitting my state of indigence.”
An ecclesiastic endeavored to prevail on her to accept a piece of silver. She refused, and he urged her to take it. She refused it again so formally that any further pressing seemed useless. The priest, however, would not acknowledge himself beaten.
“Take it,” said he, “it is not for yourself but for the poor, and you will have the pleasure of giving alms.”
“Do that yourself, Father, in my intention,” replied the child, “and that will avail more than if I did it myself.”
It was poor Bernadette’s intention to serve God without payment, and to fulfill the mission she had received from on high without emerging from her state of noble poverty. And yet, she and her family were at times in want of bread.
About this time, the Prefect’s official salary was raised to 25,000 francs. M. Jacomet received a donation. The Minister of Public Worship, in a letter which was communicated to several functionaries, assured the Prefect of his perfect satisfaction, and praising him for all he had hitherto done, he pressed upon him the adoption of energetic measures, adding that it was necessary at any cost to make an end of the Grotto and the miracles at Lourdes.
In this quarter, as in all the rest, the Prefect must either beat a retreat or advance boldly.
But what could be done?
The Press of Paris and of the province began to occupy themselves with the occurrences at Lourdes; and far beyond the range of the Pyrenees, public attention was being turned by degrees towards the Grotto of Massabielle.
The Prefect’s measures were highly commended by the organs of the Free-thinkers, and not less vehemently censured by the Catholic journals. The latter, while they hazarded no judgment as to the reality of the Apparitions and miracles, claimed that a question of this nature should be decided by the ecclesiastical authority and not prematurely settled by the arbitrary power of the Prefect.
The innumerable miracles which were being accomplished either at the Grotto or at a distance, attracted a vast concourse of invalids and pilgrims to Lourdes. The analysis of Latour de Trie and the pretended mineral properties attributed to the new Spring by the medical men who supported the Prefect, added still more to the reputation of the Grotto, and induced even those to flock there who reckoned on the resources of Nature only for their recovery. On the other hand, these polemical discussions, by exciting the minds of all, added to the multitude of those who believed a multitude of others who were actuated by feelings of mere curiosity.
All the means employed by the party of unbelief produced an effect diametrically contrary to the one they had proposed to themselves. Owing to the irresistible turn events had taken—a turn regarded as fatal by some, as providential by others—the influx of people, which it had been the wish of the authorities to check, assumed more and more considerable proportions. This influx was the more accelerated and developed owing to the fact that, as if to give every one a chance, the material difficulties which were opposed to traveling by the rigor of winter had gradually disappeared. The month of May had returned. The lovely weather of spring seemed to court pilgrims to repair to the Grotto by all the flowery paths which wind here and there through woods and across meadows and vineyards in that land of rugged mountains, verdant hills and umbrageous valleys.
Out of humor and powerless, the Prefect saw the gradual increase and extension of this orderly and prodigious heaving, which bore multitudes of Christians in ever renewed phalanxes, to come and kneel and drink at the foot of a solitary rock.
The measures already taken had, it is true, deprived the Grotto of its resemblance to an oratory, but in reality it remained much as it was before, as far as the veneration of the people went. Crowds flocked from every part to the place where the miracle had taken place.
Contrary to the hope of the Free-thinkers, the fears of the Faithful and the expectations of all, no disorder of any description arose from this unheard-of movement of men, women, children, believers, unbelievers, and of those who were utterly indifferent on the subject. An invisible hand seemed to protect these crowds against themselves, when, without leader or guide, they rushed day by day to the number of several thousand pilgrims towards the miraculous Fountain.
The Magistracy, represented by M. Dutour, and the Police, personified in M. Jacomet, regarded this strange spectacle with feelings of unbounded astonishment. Did it add to their exasperation? We cannot tell. Yet, to men of a certain turn of mind, who push their ideas of authority to extremes, the sight of a multitude so wonderfully orderly and peaceful is an almost insulting and perfectly revolutionary anomaly.
When order is maintained by itself, all the functionaries who only exist for the purpose of maintaining order experience a sense of vague uneasiness. Accustomed to mix themselves up in every thing in the name of the Law, to keep up discipline, issue orders, summon, punish, pardon and to see every thing and every individual depending upon them either personally or officially, they experience a feeling bordering on distraction when they find themselves face to face with a multitude of men who dispense with them altogether and do not afford them any pretext for interfering, showing their importance or encroaching on their liberty. Order of this kind which ignores them is in their eyes the height of disorder. If so fatal an example was generally followed, there would be no necessity for any Procureurs Impériaux, the Commissaries of Police would vanish from the scene, and the stars of Prefects themselves would begin to pale.
Baron Massy had full power to order the removal of all the objects deposited at the Grotto. By no law, however, was such a deposit regarded as criminal, and it was impossible to prohibit such offerings or to punish the donors. In consequence of this the Grotto was often filled with lighted tapers, flowers, ex-votos, and even with silver or gold pieces towards the erection of the building demanded by the Virgin. The pious faithful wished by so doing to testify to the Queen of Heaven their good-will, even though it might be unavailing, together with their zeal and their love.
“What does it matter if the money is taken away. It will at least have been offered. The taper will have shed its transient light in honor of our Mother, and the bouquet will for an instant have perfumed the blessed rock, on which Her feet rested.”
Such were the thoughts of these truly Christian souls.
Jacomet and his agents accordingly came to carry off every thing. Much emboldened since he had escaped the perils of the fourth of May, the Commissary affected the most contemptuous and brutal conduct, sometimes hurling various objects into the Gave, before the offended eyes of believers. Sometimes, also, he found himself obliged to preserve, in spite of himself, the festal air which marked those blessed places. It was when the piety of believers having scattered the leaves of countless roses around the Grotto, it was out of the question for him to pick up the thousand remnants of flowers and the numberless petals which served to form this brilliant and fragrant carpet.
The crowds, however, continued to pray on their knees, without making any reply to his provoking conduct, and they allowed every thing to be done with a patience which God alone can give to a justly excited multitude.
One evening a report was spread that the Emperor or the Minister had requested the prayers of Bernadette. M. Dutour uttered a cry of triumph and made all preparations for saving the State. Three respectable women, who, as it appeared, had originated the assertion, were dragged into court and the Procureur insisted on the full rigor of the French law being enforced against them. Notwithstanding his wrath and eloquence the judges acquitted two and only condemned the third to a fine of five francs. The Procureur protested against the weakness of the Judges, persisted in his public accusation, and in his exasperation, or rather desperation, appealed from their decision to the Judges of the Imperial Court at Pau, who, treating his anger with ridicule, not only confirmed the acquittal of the two women, but refused to ratify the very slight sentence pronounced on the third, dismissing the case altogether.
This little incident, so utterly insignificant in itself, only figures in our story to show how anxiously the officials of the Parquet were on the lookout, how actively they were in search of misdemeanors and opportunities of displaying severity, since they were irritated with such miserable trifles, and employed their time in prosecuting poor simple-minded women, whose innocence was to be shortly afterwards publicly proclaimed by the Imperial Court.
The population remained calm. No pretext was furnished by them for severities on the plea of maintaining order.
One night, when it was pitch dark, some unknown persons tore up the pipe of the miraculous Spring and choked its waters under shapeless heaps of rocks, earth and sand. Who was it that raised this monument of darkness against the divine work? What impious and at the same time cowardly hands committed this sacrilege, while shunning the observation of their fellows? No one knows.
But when day broke and the profanation became known, a murmur of indignation, as might have been anticipated, issued from the crowds who had rushed to the spot, and on that day the people might be seen on the roads and in the street moving to and fro in a state of agitation resembling that of the ocean when it foams and surges and roars beneath the blast of a hurricane.
The Police, Magistrates and Sergents de Ville were on the alert, watching, listening and reconnoitering, but were unable to detect an act of violence or a single cry of sedition. The influence from above, divine in its nature, which preserved order among these excited crowds, was plainly invincible.
Who then—let us repeat the question—had committed this nocturnal deed? The Parquet and the Police could never discover who it was, in spite of making the most active search. There were not wanting, however, some prejudiced persons bold enough to suspect—doubtless unjustly—the Parquet and the Police of having themselves been the authors of the sacrilege, hoping by this means to provoke disorder which might furnish them with a pretext for having recourse to severe measures.
The municipal authorities protested strongly against the imputation that they had connived at this scandalous proceeding. The same night, or early the next morning, the Mayor ordered the pipe to be replaced, and all the rubbish with which the new Spring was obstructed to be swept from off the pavement of the Grotto. It was the Mayor’s policy to avoid any decidedly personal interference and to allow matters to rest as they were. He was ready to act, but only as a subordinate, when expressly enjoined to do so by the Prefect and on the latter’s responsibility.
At times, the people, fearing not to have sufficient control over their agitated feelings, took precautions against themselves. The Association of Stone-hewers, in number four or five hundred, had resolved to make a grand peaceable demonstration at the Grotto, repairing to it in procession and singing hymns on the occasion of their patronal feast, Ascension Day, which fell that year on the thirty-first of May.
Feeling, however, their hearts indignant and their hands quivering in presence of the measures taken by the authorities, they were afraid of themselves and renounced their project. They confined themselves to suppressing on that day, from a feeling of respect to the Blessed Virgin who had appeared at Lourdes, the annual ball which served to conclude their Feast.
“We do not wish,” they said, “that any disorder, however involuntary, or any amusement not recognized by the Church, should afflict the eyes of the Virgin who has visited us.”
