ON her return to Lourdes, Bernadette had to inform her parents of the promise she had made to the mysterious Lady, and of the fifteen consecutive days in which she was to repair to the Grotto. On the other hand, Antoinette and Madame Millet recounted what had past, the marvelous transfiguration of the child during her ecstacy, the words of the Apparition and the invitation to return during the Quinzaine. The rumor of these strange events spread immediately in every direction, and, being no longer confined to the lower classes, threw the whole society of the country, from very different motives, into the most profound state of agitation. This Thursday, 18th of February, 1858, was market day at Lourdes. As usual, the attendance was numerous, so that, the same evening, the news of Bernadette’s visions, whether true or false, was dispersed in the mountains and valleys, at Bagnères, Tarbes, Cautarets, Saint Pé, nay, in all directions in the Department, and in the nearest towns of Béarn. On the morrow, about a hundred persons were assembled at the Grotto at the moment of Bernadette’s arrival. The following day, there were not less than four or five hundred; and, on Sunday morning, the crowd collected was computed at several thousands.
And yet, what did they see? What did they hear under these wild rocks? Nothing, absolutely nothing, save a poor child praying, who claimed to see, and who claimed to hear. The more apparently insignificant the cause, the more inexplicable, humanly speaking was the effect.
“It must be,” argued believers, “either that the reflection from on high was really visible on this child, or that the breath of God which stirs up hearts as it wills, had passed over this multitude. Spiritus ubi vult spirat.
An electric current, an irresistible power from which no one could escape, appeared to have roused up the entire population at the word of an ignorant shepherd girl. In the work-shops and yards, in the interior of families, at the parties of the higher classes, among clergy and laymen, at the houses of rich and poor, at the club, in the cafés and hotels, on the squares, in the streets, evening and morning, in public and private, nothing else was talked of. Whether any one sympathized with or was opposed to it, or, without taking part either way was simply curious and inquisitive to learn the truth, there was not a single individual in the country who was not strongly—I had almost said entirely—engrossed in the discussion of these singular events.
Popular instinct had recognized the personality of the Apparition without waiting for her to declare her name. “It is, beyond a doubt, the Holy Virgin,” was repeated by the multitude on every side. In presence of the essentially insignificant authority of a little girl not yet fourteen years of age, who pretended to see and hear what no one around her saw or heard, the philosophers of the place had fair play against Superstition.
This child is not even old enough to take an oath, and her testimony would scarcely be received at any of the tribunals when deposing to the most insignificant fact; and would you believe her, when the question in point is an impossible event, an Apparition? Is it not evidently a farce concocted for the sake of raising money by her own family, or by the clerical party? It only requires two sharp eyes to see through this wretched intrigue. In less than ten minutes any one of us might have seen through it.
Some of those who held this language determined to see Bernadette, to ask her questions and be present at her ecstacies. The child’s answers were simple, natural, free from contradictions, and given with an accent of truth which it was impossible to mistake, so as generally to produce the conviction in the most prejudiced minds of her entire sincerity. With regard to her ecstacies, those who had seen at Paris the greatest actresses of our day, agreed that art could not go so far. The supposition of the whole thing being a piece of acting, could not hold out against the evidence of four and twenty hours.
The Savants, who at first had permitted the philosophers to decide the point, now took a high tone.
“We know this state perfectly well,” they declared. “Nothing is more natural. This little girl is sincere, perfectly sincere in her answers; but she is in a state of hallucination. She fancies she sees, and does not see: she believes she hears, and does not hear. As regards her ecstacies—in which she is equally sincere—they are not acted nor do they proceed from art. It is a purely medical question. The young Souberous suffers from attacks of a certain malady: she is cataleptic. In a derangement of the brain, complicated with a muscular and nervous agitation, we have a full explanation of the phenomena which makes so much noise among the vulgar. Nothing is more simple.”
The little weekly newspaper of the locality, Le Lavedan, an advanced journal which habitually appeared behind its time, deferred its issue a day or two in order to speak of this event, and, in as hostile an article as it could produce, summed up the lofty speculations of philosophy and medicine, elaborated by the clear heads of the place. From that moment—that is to say, from the Friday night and the Saturday—the idea of the whole thing being a piece of acting had been abandoned in face of the clearness of the facts, and the free-thinkers did not return to it any more, as may be proved by all the newspapers then issued.
In conformity with the universal tradition of High Criticism in matters of religion, the excellent editor of the Lavedan commenced with a little spice of calumny and insinuated that Bernadette and her companions were thieves.
“Three young children had gone to pick up some branches of trees which had been felled near the gates of the city. These girls, being surprised in the very act by the proprietor, fled as quick as their legs could carry them to one of the grottos, which are contiguous to the forest road of Lourdes.”
The Free-thinkers have always written History in this manner. After this straight-forward action, which proved his good-will and admirable sense of justice, the editor of the Lavedan gave a tolerably correct account of what had taken place at the Rocks of Massabielle. Indeed, the facts were too notorious and had been witnessed by too many to be denied.
“We will not relate,” he added, “the innumerable versions which have been given on this subject; we will only say that the young girl goes every morning to pray at the entrance of the Grotto,—a taper in her hand—and escorted by more than five hundred persons. There she may be seen passing from the greatest state of collectedness to a sweet smile, and falling once more into the highest state of ecstacy. Tears escape from her eyes, which are perfectly motionless, and remain constantly fixed on that part of the Grotto where she fancies she sees the Blessed Virgin. We shall make our readers acquainted with the further progress of this adventure, which finds every day new adepts.”
Not a word of acting or jugglery. They knew well that this hypothesis fell to the ground on your first conversation with Bernadette, on your first glance at her ecstacy and the tears which momentarily inundated her cheeks. The excellent Editor affected to pity her, in order to induce others to believe that she was in invalid. He never mentioned her without calling her, in accents of gentle compassion, “the poor visionary.” “Everything,” he said, from the opening of his article, “leads to the supposition that this young girl suffers from an attack of catalepsy.”
“Hallucination,” “catalepsy,” were the two great words in the mouths of the savants at Lourdes. “Be sure of one thing,” they often said, “there is no such thing as anything supernatural. Science has abolished it. Science explains everything, and in science alone can you find anything certain. It compares and judges and looks to nothing but facts. The supernatural was all very well in those ignorant ages when the world was brutalized by superstition and unable to observe things accurately; But, in the present day, we defy its being brought forward, for we are here. In the present instance, we have an example of the stupidity of the common people. Because a little girl is out of health, and, when attacked by fever, has all kinds of crotchets in her head, these blockheads loudly proclaim a miracle. Human folly must, indeed, be boundless to see an Apparition in what does not appear, and detect a voice in what is heard by no one. Let this pretended Apparition cause the sun to stand still, like Joshua; let her strike the rock, like Moses, and make water gush from it; let her cure those pronounced incurable; let her, in some way or other, command nature as its mistress––then we will believe. But who does not know that things of this nature never do happen and never have happened.”
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