The town has nevertheless remained the key of the Pyrenees, but in quite a different point of view to what it was formerly. Lourdes is the point of intersection of all the roads leading to the warm baths, whether you go to Barèges, to Saint Sauveur, to Cautarets, to Bagnères de Bigorre, or from Cauterets or Pau, in your attempt to reach Luchou, you must always pass through Lourdes. From the earliest times since the baths of the Pyrenees have been visited by strangers, the innumerable diligences employed for the conveyance of passengers to the baths during the summer season were in the habit of stopping at the Hotel de la Poste. Travelers were usually allowed time to dine, to visit the castle, and to admire the scenery before resuming their journey.
We see then that for the last one or two centuries this little town has been constantly traversed by those resorting to the baths, and by tourists from every corner of Europe. A tolerably advanced state of civilization has been the result.
In 1858, the period when this history commences, the greater part of the Parisian newspapers had long been regularly received at Lourdes. Several of its inhabitants took in the Revue des deux Mondes. As is everywhere the case, the cabarets and cafes supplied their customers with three numbers of the Siecle―to-day’s, yesterday’s and the day before yesterday’s. The Bourgeoisie and the Clergy were divided between the Journal des Débats, the Presse, the Moniteur, the Univers and the Union.
Lourdes boasted a club, a printing establishment and a newspaper. The Sous-préfet resided at Argelès; but the grief experienced by the inhabitants of Lourdes at being deprived of this functionary, was somewhat alleviated by the joy of having the Tribunal de premiere instance, that is to say three Judges, a Procureur Imperial and a Substitut. As inferior satellites of this luminous centre, there gravitated around it a Juge de Paix, a commissary of Police, six Huissiers and seven Gendarmes (one of them a Brigadier). Within the town there was a hospital and a prison, and, as we shall have perhaps an opportunity of explaining, circumstances occurred when some strong-minded persons, nourished on the wholesome and humanitarian doctrines of the Siecle, pretended it would be necessary to place the criminals in the hospital and transfer the sick to the prison.
But in addition to these powerful reasoners, at the bar of Lourdes and in the medical profession, there might be found men equally learned and distinguished in manner―men of remarkable powers of mind and of impartial observation, such as are not always to be met with in places of greater importance.
The mountain races are generally gifted with firm and practical good sense. The population of Lourdes having had little admixture with foreign blood, was excellent. Few places could be cited in France where the schools are more numerously attended than at Lourdes. There is not a boy in the place who does not go for several years to some lay institution or to the school conducted by the Brothers; not a little girl who does not in the same manner attend the school of the Sisters at Nevers, until she has completed the education adapted to her place in society. With more instruction than the working classes of most of our cities, the people of Lourdes have, at the same time, the simplicity of rural life. They are warm in their affections, upright in heart, abounding in southern wit, and strictly moral. They are honest, devout, and averse to innovations.
Certain local institutions, dating from time immemorial, serve to maintain this happy state of things. The inhabitants of these regions long before the pretended discoveries of modern progress, had understood and reduced to practice under the shadow of the Church, those ideas of joint responsibility and prudence which have given birth to our mutual aid societies. Societies of such a description exist at Lourdes and have been in operation for centuries past; they date from the middle ages; they have emerged victoriously from the Revolution, and the philanthropists would have long ere this sung their praises, had they not derived their vitality from the religious principle and were they not still called, as in the fifteenth century, “Brotherhoods.”
“Almost all the people,” says M. de Lagreze, ‘enter these associations which combine philanthrophy with devotion.’ Those of the laboring class, united under the name of confrères, place their work under the patronage of heaven and mutually exchange assistance and Christian charity. The common coffer receives the weekly offering of the workman when in high health and full vigor, to return it one day to him when laid low by sickness or distress. When a workman dies the expenses of his funeral are paid by the association, and its members accompany him to his last resting place. Each Brotherhood, with the exception of two which share the high altar between them, has a private chapel, the name of which is assumed by the members and the expenses of which are defrayed by the offertory on Sunday. The Brotherhood of Notre Dame de Grace is composed of husbandmen; that of Notre Dame de Carmel, of slaters; that of Notre Dame de Monsarrat, of masons; that of Saint Anne, of cabinet-makers; that of Saint Lucy, of tailors and seamstresses; that of the Ascension, of quarry men; that of the Holy Sacrament, of church-wardens; that of Saint John and St. James, of all those who have received either of these names in baptism.”
The women are in the same manner members of similar religious associations. One of them, “The Congregation of the Children of Mary,” is of a peculiar character. It is also, though in a spiritual point of view, a mutual aid society. In order to obtain admission into this Congregation, which is of course confined to the laity, the candidate must have been long known as of irreproachable character. Little girls think of it long before they become young women. The members of this Congregagtion pledge themselves never to incur danger of falling by frequenting worldly society—in which the religious spirit is lost—not to follow the absurdities of fashion, and on the other hand to attend punctually the meetings and instructions which take place every Sunday. Admission into the Congregation is deemed an honor, while exclusion from it is considered a disgrace. The good effected by this association in preserving a high tone of morality in the country and preparing young women for their maternal duties is incalculable. Consequently, in a great number of dioceses many Confréries have been founded on the model of this Mother Congregation.
The whole country has a peculiar devotion for theVirgin. Numerous sanctuaries are consecrated to her in the Pyrenees from Piétat or Garaison to Bétharram. All the altars in the parish church at Lourdes are dedicated to the Mother of God.
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