Our Lady of Lourdes - Fourth Book - Part 11

THE philosophers of unbelief, irritated by these events they appeared to despise, and in regard to which they dared not risk the decisive proof of a public investigation, sought other means of ridding themselves of such stubborn facts.  They had recourse to a manœuvre which in its extreme cleverness and machiavelic type showed all the resources of intellect which hatred of the Supernatural induced the cluster of Free-thinkers to employ.  Instead of investigating the miracles which were really true, they invented false ones, reserving to themselves the right of exposing the imposture at a later period.  Their journals made no mention, either of Louis Bourriette, or of the child of Croisine Ducouts, or of Blaise Maumus, or of the widow Crozat, or of Marie Daube, or of Bernarde Soubie, or of Fabien Baron, or of Jean Crassus, or of Auguste Borde, or in fact of hundreds of others.  But they treacherously fabricated an imaginary legend, hoping to propagate it by means of the press, and refute it at their ease later on.

This assertion may appear strange, but we assert nothing without having the proofs in our hands. 

“Do not be astonished,” observed the journal of the Prefecture, the Ére Impériale, “if there are still to be found persons who persist in maintaining that the young girl is predestinated and endowed with supernatural power.  For them it is affirmed,
1. That a dove hovered the day before yesterday over the head of the child during the time her state of ecstacy lasted.
2. That the young girl has breathed on the eyes of a little blind child and restored her sight.
3. That she has cured another child whose arm was paralyzed.
4. Lastly, that a peasant from the valley of Campan, having declared that he was not the dupe of these scenes of hallucination, the little girl had the same evening procured his fish to be turned into snakes, which snakes devoured this irreverential man, leaving no trace of his bones.

   As to the real cures, the miracles fully authenticated, and the bursting forth of the fountain, the crafty editor took good care not to mention them.  With no less art, he did not give any names, in order to avoid being contradicted.

“Such is the present state of things, and all this might have been obviated at Lourdes if the parents of the girl had followed the advice of the medical men and sent her to the hospital.”

We may remark that none of the medical men had up to that time offered advice of the kind.
After having invented these fables, the pious and judicious writer sounded the alarm in the name of reason and the faith.
“Such is the opinion,” he continued, “of all reasonable people, who are actuated by feelings of real piety, who have a real love and respect for religion, who look upon the mania of superstition as highly dangerous, and who hold fast to the principle that the Church alone is competent to pronounce on the genuineness of miraculous facts.”

The remarkable diplomacy which had dictated these articles, was worthily crowned by this devout ebullition of faith and this closing genuflexion.  Such are the ordinary formularies of all those who would reduce to the confined limits of their own systems the position which it pleases God to occupy in this nether world.  As regards the last affirmation propounded as a principle, when miraculous facts are in question, is it necessary to say that they command respect or not, according to their own merits, as indeed do all facts, and derive their peculiar character, not from the Church, by which they are only recognized, but from God himself, by whose power they are directly produced?  The decision of the Church does not create a miracle, it only authenticates it, and on her authortative examination and affirmation the faithful believe.  But no law, either as regards faith or reason prevents Christians, who are witnesses of a fact plainly supernatural, from recognizing, of their own accord, its miraculous character.  Such an abdication of their reason and common sense has never been exacted from believers by the Church.  She only reserves to herself the right of judging without appeal in the last resort.

“It does not appear up to the present moment,” were the closing words of the article, “that the religious authorities have thought what is going on worthy of any serious attention.”

On this last point, the editor of the journal which supported the views of the Administration was in error, as our readers have already learned in the course of this narration.  However, this observation of his—and in this respect at least it was of great value—proved for futurity and for History, that the Clergy had been entire strangers to the events which had taken place up to that moment, and that those events were continuing to take place without the slightest connivance on their part.

The poor Lavedan, the local organ of Lourdes, though placed in the very centre of all that was occurring, felt itself crushed by the stubbornness of facts, and had all at once subsided into absolute silence.  This silence was destined to endure for several weeks.  It never alluded in the most distant manner to these events, so unheard of in their nature, or to the immense concourse of people they attracted.  You would have thought it was published for the benefit of readers in some other quarter of the globe, had not its columns been filled with articles borrowed in all directions from the public prints and directed against Superstition in general.