TO all these of the medical sect, now at bay, there was wanting a sure and official point d’ appui. M. Massy had already meditated seeking this point d’ appui in one of the most admirable and incontestable sciences of the present day―Chemistry. With this object he had addressed himself through the Mayor of Lourdes to a Chemist of tolerable celebrity in the Department, M. Latour de Trie.
To have it attested―not in detail by the examination of each case, but wholesale and in a mass―that all these cures which were increasing in number and starting up as formidable opponents, were entirely natural, owing to the innate properties of this new Spring, appeared to him a master-stroke; and he believed that by doing so he should merit the gratitude of Science and of Philosophy, and, to omit nothing, of the higher Administration represented in the person of M. Rouland, the Minister.
Perceiving that it was plainly impossible to have Bernadette arrested as insane, he urged on the analysis which was to establish officially, in the very face of the cures, the mineral and therapeutic properties of the water of the Grotto. He was impatient to rid himself of this encroaching Super-natural, which after having caused the Spring to gush forth, was now healing the sick and threatened to bear down all opposition. A really official analysis might be productive of great service, even if it left this accursed Supernatural tolerably strong in many quarters.
The Chemist of the Prefecture therefore set to work to make this precious study of the water which had gushed forth at Massabielle, and perfectly conscientiously if not completely scientifically he found at the bottom of his retorts a solution in exact conformity with the explanations of the medical men, the thesis of the philosophers and the wishes of the Prefect. Was Truth as well satisfied with this analysis as the prefecture, Philosophy and the Faculty might possibly be? This is a question which they did not perhaps think of proposing to themselves at the time, but which the future was destined to charge itself with the decision.
However this may be, here is the summary analysis which M. Latour de Trie, Chemist to the Administration, addressed officially, on the sixth of May, to the Mayor of Lourdes, by whom it was immediately forwarded to Baron Massy:
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS.―The water of the Grotto at Lourdes is very limpid, free from any smell and without any peculiar taste. Its specific gravity is very nearly that of distilled water. Its temperature at the Spring is 15° Cent.
It contains the following compouds:
1. Chlorides of sodium, calcium and magnesium abundantly.
2. Carbonates of sodium, calcium and magnesium.
3. Silicates of sodium and aluminium
4. Oxide of iron.
5. Sulphate of sodium and carbonate of sodium.
6. Phosphate: traces.
7. Organic matter: ulmine.
We certify the entire absence of sulphate of calcium or selenite in this water.
This peculiarity, which is somewhat remarkable, is quite in its favor and ought to make us regard it as being very light, easy of digestion and communicating to the animal economy a disposition favorable to the balance of vital action.
We do not believe we are prejudging in saying on taking into consideration the ensemble and the quality of the substances of which this water is composed, that medical science will not be slow in recognizing in it certain special curative properties which may lead to its being classed in the number of waters which form the mineral wealth of our Department.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,
Latour de Trie.
Discipline is not carried to the same extent in civil as in military affairs, and in the former, owing to want of skill, the manœuvres are sometimes failures. The Prefect in the midst of his pre-occupations had neglected to issue his instructions to the editorial department of the Prefectoral organ, the Êre Impérial, the consequence of which was that while the Chemist of the Prefecture was asserting one thing, the Journalist of the Prefecture was as distinctly affirming the other; while the former paid homage to the Spring of Lourdes, as one of the future therapeutic and mineral riches of the Pyrenees, the latter alluded to it as dirty water, and indulged himself in sundry pleasantries at the expense of the cures effected. “It is unnecessary to say,” he wrote the very day on which M. Latour de Trie had sent in his report, the sixth of May, “that this famous Grotto pours out a perfect flood of miracles and that our Department is drenched with them. At the corner of every field you may meet with persons, who tell you the thousands of cures effected by the use of the dirty water. Very soon the doctors will have nothing to do, and all who have hiterto suffered from rheumatism or affetions of the chest, will have disappeared from the Department.”
In spite of these little discrepancies which he might have avoided, it is only fair to acknowledge that the prefect was a man of considerable activity. On the fourth of May, towards noon, he had made his speech to the Mayors of the cantons of Lourdes and issued his orders. On the evening of the same day the Grotto had been stripped of its offerings and ex-votos. On the morning of the fifth of May he had become aware of the utter impossibility of arresting Bernadette and abandoned the design. On the evening of the 6th, the analysis furnished by his Chemist had reached his hands.
Armed with this last and highly important document he was waiting to see what course thing would take.
What indeed would happen at Lourdes? What would take place at the Grotto? What would be the next step of Bernadette, whose slightest movements were narrowly watched by the Argus eyes of Jacomet and his agents? During the great heats which were already commencing, would not the Fountain, as many asserted, be dried up and everything be brought to a stand still? What line of conduct would be pursued by the populations.? Such were the preoccupations, hopes and disquietudes which filled the breast of Baron Massy, Prefect of the Empire.
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