IT was the time of the year when the Council of Revision was held. Under these circumstances, M. Massy had an opportunity of going to Lourdes, where all the Majors of the canton would meet him.
“The Prefect,” as an illustrious writer has since observed, “had undertaken on that day to impose on those under his jurisdiction a tolerably severe and grievous service, inaugurated in a sufficiently repugnant manner. He might have well understood, had he wished to do so, that some consoling liberties are necessary as a slight compensation for the sacrifices exacted by society. Now, the liberty of praying in certain places, of burning a taper there, of placing an offering there, or drawing thence a little water, cannot appear very onerous to the state, fatal to the public liberty, nor offensive to the modesty or liberty of any one, yet it is a source of deep consolation to those who make use of it. Encourage therefore the existence of Faith. In the enjoyment of your high posts, your power, and your fortunes, consider that the majority of men whom you govern are obliged to ask God day by day for bread, and only obtain it by a kind of miracle. Faith is as it were already bread; it assists the poor to eat even black bread, it aids them to wait for it patiently, when the hour is passed at which it ought to come. And when God appears willing to open one of those places of grace where Faith flows more abundantly and affords prompter succor, do not close it. You yourselves will be the first to require it. It is there you will be able to effect a savings in the expenses incident to hospitals and prisons.”
Far different were the thoughts and feelings of Baron Massy. After having exacted in the name of Power that terrible tax of blood, which is termed the Conscription, he addressed an official speech to the Mayors of the Canton. He well knew how to invoke at one and the same time the interest of the Church and that of the State, the Pope and the Emperor, while touching on the subject of Apparitions and Miracles. To each of his phrases he began with piety and ended with administration. The premises were those of a theologian, the conclusions those of a Prefect.
“The Prefect has shown to the Mayors,” said the organ of the Prefecture on the following day “in what points the scenes which had been enacted afforded matter for regret, and how much disrepute they tended to throw upon religion. He particularly applied himself to make them understand that the fact of the formation of an oratory at the Grotto, a fact sufficiently established by religious emblems and tapers being placed there, was an attack made on the ecclesiastical and civil authority, an illegality which it was the duty of the Administration to put a stop to, since, according to the express terms of the law, no public chapel or oratory can be founded without the authorization of the Government, on the recommendation of the Bishop of the Diocese.”
“My sentiments,” the devout functionary had added, “ought not to be suspected by anyone. Every one, in this department, knows my profound respect for Religion. I have given, I think, sufficient proofs of it to render it impossible to put a bad interpretation on my intentions.
“It will cause you, therefore, no surprise to learn, Gentlemen, that I have ordered the Commissary of Police to remove all objects deposited at the Grotto and transfer them to the Mayoralty, where they will be placed at the disposition of their rightful owners.
“I have further directed that all persons claiming to see Visions shall be arrested and taken to Tarbes at the public expense, to be there placed under medical treatment, and I shall see that all those who have helped to spread the absurd rumors now in circulation, are prosecuted as propagators of false news.”
All this happened on the fourth of May. It was thus that the very pious Prefect inaugurated his Month of Mary.
These words were received “with unanimous enthusiasm,” if we are to believe the organ of the prefecture.
The real truth was, that some disapproved most strongly the violent measures to which the authorities were pledging themselves, while others, who belonged to the sect of Free-thinkers, flattered themselves that the hand of the Prefect would be sufficient to put the drag on the progress of events.
Outside, the philosophers and savants were in high glee. The Lavedan, which had maintained absolute silence for nearly two months, owing to its having been overwhelmed by the evidence adduced, recovered its powers sufficiently to intone a wild choral hymn to the praise and glory of the Prefect.
Immediately on the conclusion of his speech, the Head of the Department quitted the town, leaving his orders to the executed in his absence.
The Prefect’s measures completed each other. By the arrest of Bernadette, he attacked the cause of trouble; by having the various objects removed from the Grotto, he attacked its effect. If, as was highly probable, the ardent populations of the district, wounded in their freedom of belief, their right of praying and their religion, attempted any resistance or committed any acts of disorder, the squadron of cavalry, summoned in all dispatch, would hasten to the spot, and placing everything in a state of siege, would refute Superstition with the all-powerful argument of the sword. As M. Massy had just transformed a question purely religious into one dependent on the Administration, he was equally prepared to transform the latter into one of military interference.
The Mayor and the Commissary of Police, each in his own department, were charged with the execution of the Prefect’s wishes. The first was ordered to have Bernadette arrested, the second to repair in person to the Rocks of Massabielle and to despoil the Grotto of whatever the piety or gratitude of the faithful had deposited within its precincts.
Let us follow the progress of both, beginning with the Mayor, as is due to his higher functions.
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