The Lavedan, a newspaper we have already quoted, had been issued, and was in process of distribution just at the moment of the return of the amazed multitudes from the Rocks of Massabielle.
Neither in this article nor in the preceding one, nor, indeed, in any of the descriptions of the place written at that time, was there the slightest hint of the existence of any Spring at the Grotto. And thus incredulity had paralyzed beforehand the audacious assertion that the Spring had always flowed there, to which the Free-thinkers might, after a certain time, be tempted to have recourse. It was the will of Providence, that, in addition to the testimony of the public, these men should have their own articles, their own printed publications, which their dates rendered authentic and beyond refutation, brought against them. If these beautiful gushing waters, which delight the eye to-day, had been in existence before the 25th of February, before the scene we have just described was enacted, and the orders and indications given by the Virgin to Bernadette in her state of ecstacy, how came it that the editors of the papers, who were always supposed to keep their eyes open, and whose details were sometimes so minute—how came it that they never saw this copious spring nor ever once mentioned? We defy the Free thinkers to produce a single document—which makes any mention of a Spring, or even of any water, before the period when the Virgin commanded and Nature obeyed.
