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.

Our Lady of Lourdes - Fourth Book - Part 10

ON the supposition that the Parquet, at whose anti-superstitious tendencies we have already hinted, were right in the decision they had come to of denying everything connected with the Apparition, they had, in these miracles, so publicly attested and proclaimed, an excellent opportunity of instituting a rigid investigation and of prosecuting, if necessary, the authors or propagators of these reports, calculated as they were to lead astray the public conscience and trouble the minds of many.  Unlike the Apparitions which had been visible to Bernadette alone, these cures were open to universal scrutiny.  They were numerous, and, far from being isolated cases, they already mounted to five and twenty or thirty.  They were within reach of any one who wished to investigate them.  Every one might verify, study, or analyze them in order to recognize their truth or demonstrate that they were false.

The Supernatural was abandoning the invisible;  it was becoming material and palpable to the senses.  In the persons of the sick restored to health, of paralytics who recovered the power of motion, it appealed to all, as did Jesus Christ to the Apostle Thomas, “Look at my feet, look at my hands.  See these darkened eyes which have refound the blessings of light.  Look at those restored to life who were but now in the agony of death;  those now hearing who were formerly deaf;  those now running with the agility of strength and health who not long since were lame.”  The Supernatural had, so to speak, incarnated itself in all these incurables who had been cured so suddenly, and, publicly attesting its own claims, courted inquiry, investigation and prosecution.  It became possible, if we may be permitted to use such an expression, to lay violent hands upon it and arrest it like any other criminal.

Here lay, as every one perceived, the very core of the question.  Some satisfactory method of treating these inconceivable facts, which were so entirely opposed to all received notions, must be discovered.  There was therefore hardly anyone who did not endeavor to guess the crafty and energetic means which would be employed by that fraction of the official world which had hitherto displayed so firm a resolution of unceasingly persecuting and finally crushing fanaticism.

What kind of interrogatories would be instituted by the Police?  With what kind of judicial examinations would the Parquet commence?  To what severe measures would the Administration have course?  The Administration, the Parquet, and the Police did nothing at all, and directing their attention in other quarters, did not think it advisable to run any risk in a public investigation of facts so notorious and so bruited abroad over the whole surrounding district.

What was the meaning of this singular forbearance in presence of such striking prodigies?  It meant that Incredulity acts prudently.

Even in the midst of their transport and passion, parties, religious as well as political, have sometimes a cetain instinct of self-preservation which warns them of the extreme danger into which they are on the point of rushing and forces them to recoil.  They cease all at once to advance towards the logical development of their situation and have not courage to attack their enemy on that decisive point towards which they were blindly hurrying, uttering triumphant shouts in anticipation of victory.  They are suddenly brought to understand that they would be entirely, suddenly and hopelessly vanquished, and that such a line of action can only terminate in their death.  In such a case what do they do?  They retrace their steps and carry on a guerilla warfare on less dangerous ground.

This is all very well in military affairs;  but in the order of ideas it appears difficult to reconcile this kind of prudence with entire sincerity of belief.  It supposes a vague disquietude as to the value of our own line of argument, and a vague presentiment of the absolute certainty of the things we are supposing.  To fear to face the investigation of any fact, the existence of which would lead to the entire overthrow of such or such a doctrine, is to declare ourselves that we have internal doubts of what we assert so boldly:  it is to show that we fear the truth to be known;  it is to take to flight without attempting the struggle and to tremble at the approach of light.

Such were the reflections that occurred to the strongest minds in the place on perceiving this retreat and withdrawal of actual hostilities in presence of the events which were occurring.

Incredulity ought to have been convinced, but such was not the case.  It was only disconcerted and overwhelmed by the force of circumstances, by the evidence adduced and by the sudden invasion of the Supernatural.  Those know but little of the human heart who think that the most conclusive and indubitable proofs are sufficient to bring men, who have already made up their mind, to a humble acknowledgment of their error.  The free-will of man has the terrible power of resisting every thing—even God Himself.

It is in vain that the Sun gives light to the world and illuminates the infinite space in which the globes of our universe pursue their course:  we have only to shut our eyes in order to resist his omnipotence and to extinguish his very being.  The soul also as well as the body may in the same manner shut its senses to the light of the truth.  The darkness does not proceed from the weakness of the understanding;  it is the result of an act of the will, which persists and takes pleasure in its self-imposed blindness. 

However, in matters of this kind, men feel the necessity of a certain amount of self-deception, and to quiet their consciences are obliged to keep up the show of sincerity.  They have not sufficient determination to deny or to oppose resolutely and face to face what is plainly acknowledged to be truth.  What then is their line of conduct?  They make it their study to remain in a kind of obscurity, which permits them to struggle against truth without seeing clearly, and which serves them in some measure as an excuse.  Forgetting that ignorance, when voluntary, does not remove responsibility, they reserve to themselves the right of replying:  “Nay, Lord, I was ignorant” and for this reason they make up their minds to deny every thing, and limit themselves to shrugging their shoulders without caring or wishing to take the trouble of getting to the bottom of things.  The contempt which they affect outside is but the hypocrisy of the fear they experience within.

Thus it was that the incredulous, brought face to face with the supernatural cures which were being effected on all sides, refused to give themselves the trouble of examination, and dared not hazard investigation.  Notwithstanding the challenges issued to them and the railleries of those who believed, they turned a deaf ear to whatever tended to produce a public debate on these miraculous cures.  They affected not to busy themselves with the divine phenomena which were submitted to their senses, which were notorious, which claimed universal attention and might have been easily studied, continuing to produce theories on hallucinations—a vague and mist-clad region, in which they might talk and declaim at their ease, without being felled by the stubbornness of facts which were palpable, manifest and impossible to gainsay.

The supernatural, therefore, courted discussion, and that to the furthest extent.  The Free-thinkers declined the challenge and beat a retreat.  By so doing they acknowledged their own discomfiture and condemnation.

Our Lady of Lourdes - Fourth Book - Part 9

Other cures continued to take place in all directions.  It would be impossible to report each particular case, not only from their number but from the fact that the author of this book has made it a rule not to bring forward anything in this class of facts of which he has not himself proved the exactitude, not only from the depositions of actual witnesses of what took place, but also from those persons who were themselves favored with such marvelous graces.  Notwithstanding them the interest which attaches to every supernatural fact, we have been obliged to confine ourselves within certain limits.  We have been forced, not without regret, to discard from our narrative many of these wonderful prodigies, which we had ourselves perfectly verified, and limit ourselves to producing a circumstantial history of the most striking miracles.  We will, however, risk quoting from the official report of the Commission named later on to investigate thse events, a few of the cures which took place about this time, which were duly authenticated, and of which, consequently, the fame was spread from the very first throughout the district.  The restauranteur, Blaise Maumus, on plunging his hand into the spring had himself witnessed the the dissolving and disappearance of an enormous wen he had in the joint of his wrist.  The widow Crouzat, who had been so deaf for the last twenty years as to be unable to hear the Offices, suddenly recovered her hearing on making use of this water.  In a similarly miraculous manner, Auguste Borde, who had long been lame owing to an accident, found his leg become straight again and recover its strength and natural shape.  All the persons we have just mentioned belonged to Lourdes, and any one who wished it could hear from them a full account of these extraordinary facts.

Our Lady of Lourdes - Fourth Book - Part 8

ALTHOUGH the crowd was, as we have already stated, more particularly dense in the morning at the time of Bernadette’s arrival, it was not to be supposed that solitude reigned during the after part of the day at the Rocks of Massabielle.  All the afternoon there was perpetual going to and fro on the road leading to the Grotto, which, from that time, was to be so celebrated.  Every one examined it in all directions, many prayed in front of it, and some broke off fragments of it in order to keep them as pious souvenirs.

On that day, towards four o’clock, there were still five or six hundred persons, employed as above mentioned, on the banks of the Gave.

At the same moment, a heart-rending scene was passing round a cradle in a squalid house at Lourdes, in which resided Jean Beauhohorts, a day-laborer, and his wife Croisine Ducouts.

In the cradle there lay a child about two years old, who was sickly, and of a wretched constitution.  He had never been able to walk, was constantly out of health, and, from his birth, had been wasted by slow fever of a consumptive nature, which nothing had succeeded in reducing.  Not withstanding the skillful attention of a medical man of the place, M. Peyrus, the child was rapidly approaching his end.  Death was spreading its livid hues on a countenance which had been reduced by protrated sufferings to a deplorable state of emaciation.

The Father and mother kept their eyes fixed on their dying child, the former, calm in his grief, while the latter seemed plunged in despair.

One of their neighbors, Franconnette Gozos was already busying herself in preparing a shroud for the poor chid’s burial, and, at the same time, using her best efforts to induce the mother to listen to some words of consolation.

The latter was crushed with grief, and anxiously watched the progress of the last agony of death.  The child’s eye had become glazed, his limbs were absolutely motionless, and his breathing was imperceptible.

“He is dead,” said the father.

“If he is not dead,” observed the neighbor, “he is on the point of death, my poor friend.  Go and weep by the fire, while I, ere long, fold him up in his shroud.”

Croisine Ducouts, the mother of the child, did not appear to hear what was said to her.  A sudden idea had just taken possession of her mind, and her tears ceased to flow.

“He is not dead!”  she exclaimed;  “and the Holy Virgin of the Grotto is going to effect his cure for me.”

“Grief has turned her head,” said Beauhohorts, sadly.

He and the neighbor endeavored in vain to desuade the mother from her project.  The latter had just taken the already motionless body of her child out of the cradle and wrapped it up in her apron.

“I go at once to the Virgin!” she exclaimed making her way to the door.

“But my dear Croisine,” said her husband and Franconnette to her, “if our poor Justin is not quite dead, you are going to kill him outright.”

The mother, as if beside herself with grief, refused to listen to their expostulations.

“What matters it whether he dies here or at the Grotto!  Allow me to implore the mercy of the Mother of God.”

Saying this she left the house, carrying the child in her arms.

As she had said, “she went at once to the Virgin.”  She walked at a rapid pace, praying aloud, invoking Mary, and appearing to all who met her like an insane person.

It was about five o’clock in the evening, and there were some hundreds of persons before the Rocks of Massabielle.

The poor mother forced her way through the crowd, with her precious burden in her arms.  At the entrance of the Grotto she prostrated herself and prayed, after which she dragged herself on her knees towards the miraculous Spring.  Her face was burning, her eyes sparkling and full of tears, and the state of disorder of her entire person proved the intensity of her grief.

She had reached the basin which had been dug by the quarry-men.  The water was of an icy temperature.

“What is she going to do?” observed the spectators to themselves.

Croisine drew out of her apron the body of her dying child, which was in a state of complete nudity.  She made the sign  of the Cross on him and herself, and afterwards, without hesitation, and in a quick and determined manner, plunged the child up to his neck in the icy water of the Spring.

A cry of terror, and a murmur of indignation arose from the crowd.

“The woman is insane!” they exclaimed on all sides, pressing round her to hinder her putting her plan into execution.

“Would you kill your child?” said some one to her, rudely.  It seemed as if she were deaf.  She remained motionless as a statue,—the statue of Sorrow, Prayer, and Faith.

One of the by-standers touched her on the shoulder.  The mother turned round on this, still keeping her child in the water of the Fountain.

“Let me alone, let me alone!” she exclaimed in a voice at once energetic and beseeching.  “I wish to do all in my power,— God and the Blessed Virgin will do the rest.”

The complete immobility of the child and the cadaverous hues of his face, were remarked by several of those present.

“The child is already dead,” they said,  “Let her alone;  grief has turned the poor mother’s head.”

No;  grief had not turned her head.  It led her, on the contrary, into the path of the loftiest faith, of that absolute, unhesitating, undecaying faith which God has solemnly promised never to resist.  The earthly mother felt within her, that she was addressing herself to the heart of that Mother who is in heaven.  Thence arose her boundless confidence which neutralized the terrible reality of the dying body she held in her hands.  Doubtless, she saw as plainly as the multitude around her, that ice-cold water, such as that in which she was plunging her child, was calculated, in ordinary circumstances infallibly to kill the little hapless being to whom she was so fondly attached, and suddenly to terminate his agony by the stroke of death.  No matter!  Her arm remained steady and her Faith was strong.  For a whole quarter of an hour, before the astonished eyes of the multitude, in the midst of the cries, reproaches, and insults heaped upon her by the crowd of by-standers, she kept her child immersed in the mysterious water which had but lately gushed forth at a gesture from the all-powerful Mother of that God, who, for our sins, died and rose again.

What a sublime spectacle of Catholic faith!  This woman precipitated her dying child into the most imminent of earthly dangers, to find in it, in the name of the Virgin Mary, the cure which comes from heaven.  Humanly speaking, she was urging him in the direction of death, in order to lead him supernaturally to life!  Jesus commended the faith of the Centurion.  Truly, that displayed by this poor mother strikes us as being still more worthy of admiration.  

The Heart of God could not but be touched by an act of faith, at once so simple and so grand.  Our Father, who is, at the same time, so invisible and so manifest, bent Himself, doubtless, at the same time as the Blessed Virgin, over so moving and religious a scene, and He blessed the Christian woman, who believed with all the fervor of primitive times.

The child had remained motionless as a corpse, during this long immersion.  The mother wrapped him once more in her apron, and hastily returned home.

His body was cold as ice.

“You see now that he is dead,” said the father.

“No,” said Croisine, “he is not dead!  The Blessed Virgin will effect his recovery.”

With these words the poor woman laid the child down in his cradle.  He had scarcely been there a few moments, when the mother, having bent her ear attentively over him, suddenly exclaimed:

“He is breathing!”

Beauhohorts advanced rapidly and listened in his turn.  Little Justin was certainly breathing.  His eyes were closed, and he slept a calm and deep slumber.

The mother did not weep.  During the evening and following night, she came every moment to listen to her child’s respiration, which became stronger and more regular, and she waited with anxiety for the moment of his awaking.

This took place at break of day.

The child’s emaciation had not disappeared, but there was some color in his cheeks, and his features wore an air of repose.  The mild ray of life sparkled in his laughing eyes, which were turned towards his mother.

During his slumber, deep as that sent of yore by God upon Adam, the mysterious and omnipotent hand, from which every thing good emanates, had re-animated and strengthened—we dare not say resuscitated—his body, which, but a short time before was motionless and chill.

The child sought his mother’s breast and drew from it long draughts.  Though he had never walked, he wished to leave his cradle and walk about the room.  But Croisine, notwithstanding the courage and entire faith she had displayed the previous day, dared not trust too much in his recovery, and trembled at the thought of the danger he had escaped.  She resisted the repeated solicitations of the child, and refused to remove him from the cradle.

Thus the day passed by.  The child constantly demanded nourishment from his mother’s breasts.  Night at length came, and was passed as calmly as the one preceding it.  The father and mother left the house at day-break, in order to proceed to their daily toil, and their little Justin was still sleeping in his cradle.

When the mother opened the door on her return, she almost fainted at the sight presented to her view.

The cradle was empty.  Justin had risen without any assistance from where his mother had laid him;  he was on his legs going to and fro, touching the different articles of furniture, and disarranging the chairs.  In short, the little paralyzed child was walking. 

A mother’s heart alone can imagine the cry of joy emitted by Croisine at such a spectacle.  She wished to rush forward, but could not, so great was her emotion.  Her limbs trembled.  Her sense of happiness seemed to deprive her of strength, and she supported herself against the door.  A vague fear, however, in spite of herself, was mingled with her beaming happiness.

“Take care, you will fall down!” she cried out with anxiety.

He did not fall;  his step was firm, and he ran and threw himself into the arms of his mother, who embraced him with tears in her eyes.

“He was cured from yesterday,” thought she to herself;  “since he wished to leave his cradle and walk, and I, like an infidel, have hindered him, owing to my want of faith.”

“You now see that he was not dead, and that the Blessed Virgin has saved him,” she observed to her husband, on his return home.

Such were the words of this happy mother.

Franconnette Gozos, who had, only two nights since, been present at what was supposed to be poor Justin’s death-agony, and had arranged the shroud for his interment, happened to arrive at the same time, and could scarcely believe her eyes.  She was never tired of gazing at the child, as if she wished to convince herself of his identity.

“It is certainly he!” she exclaimed.  “It is certainly poor little Justin!”

They knelt down.

His mother joined the child’s hands to raise them towards heaven;  and, all together, they offered thanksgivings to the Mother of Mercies.

His malady never returned.  Justin grew rapidly and suffered from no relapse.  Since that period, eleven years have elapsed.  The writer of these pages determined to see him, not very long since.  He is strong and in good health;  only his mother grieves that he sometimes plays truant when sent to school, and reproaches him with gadding about more than he ought.

M. Peyrus, the medical man, who had attended the child, frankly allowed the impossibility of explaining this extraordinary occurrence according to the ordinary rules of medical science.

The Doctors Vergez and Dozons undertook, separately, an examination of this fact so highly interesting, both as regards Science and Truth, and, like M. Peyrus, they could but attribute it to the omnipotent agency of God.  All united in establishing three circumstances which manifestly impressed on this cure a supernatural character,—the duration of the immersion,—its immediate effect—and the faculty of walking displayed as soon as the child had quitted his cradle.

The conclusions of M. Vergez’s report were unmistakable on this head.

“A bath of cold water of a quarter of an hour’s duration, in the month of February, inflicted on a child in the agony of death, must, in his opinion, and according to all the data, theoretical and experimental, of medical science, produce immediate death.  “For,” added the skillful physician, “if affusions of cold water, especially when applied repeatedly, may be of the utmost service in severe adynamic affections, their use is subject to certain rules which cannot be transgressed without exposing life to real danger.  As a general rule, the duration of the application of cold water should not exceed a few minutes, because the depression occasioned by cold would destroy all power of reaction in the system.

“Now, the woman Ducouts, having plunged her child in the water of the Fountain, kept him in it for upwards of a quarter of an hour.  She therefore sought the cure of her son by means absolutely condemned by experience and the rationale of medical science, and yet she did not on that account obtain it less immediately;  for, a few moments later, he fell into a calm and deep sleep which lasted for about twelve hours.  And in order that this fact should stand out in the clearest light, and that not the slightest incertitude should hover over the reality and instantaneousness of its production, the child, who had never walked, escaped from his cradle, and commenced walking about with the confidence which is usually only the result of practice, showing by this that this cure was effected without any intermediate state of convalescence, in a manner altogether supernatural.”

Our Lady of Lourdes - Fourth Book - Part 7

BERNADETTE had just set out on her return to Lourdes.  In the immense crowd, which we have attempted to describe, and which was now slowly dispersing, the question was continually recurring, diversified with a thousand commentaries, “What could be the signification of the strange mysterious order given by the Apparition to the child the week before, an order reiterated several times and more especially that very day.”  They examined all its details and weighed all its circumstances.

The Blessed Virgin, addressing herself to the daughter of man, and speaking perhaps to us all through her, had commanded Bernadette to turn her back on the Gave, to ascend towards the rock, even to the farthest corner of the Grotto, to drink, to eat of the plant, and to wash in the Fountain, which at that time was invisible to all eyes.  The child had obeyed in every particular the divine voice.  She had scaled the steep ascent.  She had eaten of the plant.  She had scooped out the earth.  The water had burst forth, at first feeble and turbid, afterwards in greater abundance and clearer;  and in proportion as it was drawn, it had become in a few days a copious and magnificent jet-ď eau, clear as crystal—a stream of life for the sick and infirm.

It required no profound knowledge of the science of Symbolism to comprehend the deep meaning, so admirably adapted to the times, of this order, in which the imbecility of philosophy could detect only what was fantastic.

What is the evil of modern societies?  In the order of ideas, is it not pride?  We are now living in days when man makes himself God.  In the order of morals, is it not the most unbridled sensuality, the love of everything which is in its nature transitory?  What is the cause, and what is the object of this prodigious activity, this marvelous industry which distracts the world?  Man wishes enjoyment.  Through so many fatigues, he seeks physical comforts, pleasures, and the satisfaction of his most material and most selfish instincts.  He places the aim and object of his wishes here below, as if he were to live for ever.  And this is why he never dreams of directing his steps towards the Church, the suspicion never having once crossed him that She alone possesses the secret of true life and endless happiness.

“O senseless mortals,” says the Mother of the human race, “go not to quench your thirst at the Gave, whose waters fleet rapidly by;  with those ephemeral passions which falsely promise you ‘always,’ while the apparent life of the senses is but a kind of death;  with those material joys, which destroy the spirit;  with those waters which irritate your thirst instead of appeasing it;  with those unavailing waters which afford you but a momentary illusion, and leave you in the same state of misery, wretchedness and want you experienced before!  Forsake those tumultuous and agitated waves, turn your back on those billows which soon sink for ever, and on that torrent which flings itself headlong into the abyss.  Come to the Fountain which quenches your thirst and calms your mind, which heals you and brings you back to life.  Come and drink at the Fountain which dispenses true joy and true life, that Fountain which gushes from the unchangeable Rock on which the Church has laid her eternal foundations.  Come and drink from and wash yourselves in the gushing Fountain. . . .

“Drink at the Fountain!  But where is it?  Where, then, in the rock of the Church is that Spring of unheard-of graces?  Alas!  the times are past and gone when the Church restored the power of walking to the paralytic, and sight to the blind!  In vain do we fix our eyes on the unchangeable rock, our eyes do not perceive that miraculous Fountain in which the sick are healed.  Either it never was in existence or its source has been dry for the last eighteen hundred years.”

Such is the view taken by the world.

“Ask and you shall receive,” say the Holy Scriptures.  “If prodigies do not arise in the midst of you, as in the time of the Apostles, it is so because, being devoted to mere sensual existence, and refusing to admit anything you cannot actually see with your eyes, you do not seek for the miraculous fountain in the secrets of divine goodness.  You do not see the water, you say, gush forth in the mysterious corner of the Sanctuary?  Notwithstanding this, only believe, O Bernadette, and all ye children of men.  Come and draw from it with the entire faith which the sucking-babe has when he glues his lips to his mother’s breast.  What is Providence but our Mother?  See, then, the Fountain how it gushes forth and increases in volume as its water is drawn from it, precisely in the same manner as the milk of a mother flows to the lips of her infant.”

“Drink!  But this water which issues from the rock passes through impure elements!  The Clergy have a thousand human thoughts and peculiar ideas which have naught to do with heaven.  They have impregnated the divine Spring with earth.  Wash myself in it?  Ah!  I am more highly educated, less sullied by vice and more noble-minded than this priest!”

“Proud wretch, art thou not also formed of earthly clay?  Memento quod pulvis es.  Eat of the plant, humiliate thyself, and be mindful of thy origin.  Does not everything with which thou art nourished pass through the earth, and does not thy daily subsistence proceed always from the clay of which thou wert formed?

“Is the Spring dried up?  Humble faith will cause it to gush forth anew.  Is it muddy?  Is it impure?  Drink, then, copious draughts from it, and it will become clear, transparent and luminous, and the sick and the infirm will be healed by its waters.  How plain is the teaching given to all the faithful!  Would you bring them back to a state of Apostolical virtue?  Would you sanctify the human element of the Church?  Partake of the Sacraments which are dispensed by the Priesthood.  Be only sheep, and you will have pastors.  Wash yourselves in the soul of your priest, and it will purify itself while it is working your purification.  You have suffered the Fountain of Miracles to be lost, owing to your not availing yourselves of its use.  It is by the reverse of this conduct, it is by using it that you must find it again.  Quærite et invenietis.  If you would have the gate opened to you, you must knock.  If you would receive, you must demand.”

Our Lady of Lourdes - Fourth Book - Part 6

NOTWITHSTANDING the disquietude and suspicion which pervaded official quarters, the fame of these marvelous events had been spread in all the surrounding districts with electrical rapidity.

The whole of Bigorre and Béarn, previously agitated by the first reports of the Apparition, was stirred to its depths on receiving intelligence of the bursting forth of the Spring and the subsequent miraculous cures.  All the high-roads throughout the department were covered with travelers, hastening to their destination.  Every moment, from all sides, by every road and every path which terminated in Lourdes, there arrived a motley crowd of vehicles of every description, carriages, wagons, chars-à bancs, men on horseback and pedestrians.

Even at night this rush suffered little diminution.  The inhabitants of the mountain came down by starlight in order to reach the Grotto by morning.  

The travelers, who had arrived in the first instance, had for the most part remained at Lourdes, not wishing to lose any of these extraordinary scenes which had certainly not been paralleled for centuries past.  The hotels, inns and private houses overflowed with people.  It became almost impossible to provide lodgings for the fresh crowds which continued to pour in.  Many passed the night in prayer in front of the illuminated Grotto, for the purpose of securing places nearer the youthful Seer on the morrow.

Thursday, the fourth of March, was the last day of the Quinzaine.

When day-break began to silver the horizon, the approaches to the Grotto were more densely crowded than on any of the preceding days.

A painter such as Raphael of Michael Angelo, might have derived from this living spectacle a subject for an admirable picture. 

Here, an old mountaineer, bent beneath the weight of years, and venerable as a patriarch, supporting himself with his trembling hands upon his enormous staff shod with iron, met your view.

Around him was crowded all his family, from the grandmother, an ancient matron with attenuated features, her face tanned and wrinkled, hooded in her flowing black cloak lined with red, down to the youngest boy, who stood on tip-toe in order to obtain a better view.  The young maidens of the mountain, their hands clasped with fervor, beautiful, calm and grave as the splendid Virgins of the Campagna of Rome, prayed alone or in groups.  Many of them were dropping through their fingers the rustic beads of their chaplet.  Some of them were reading in silence some book of prayer.  Others holding in their hand or even on their head an earthen jar, to be filled with the miraculous water, recalled to the imagination the biblical countenances of Rebecca or Rachel.

There you saw the peasant of Gers with his enormous head, his bull neck and face apoplectic, and coarse-featured like that of Vitellius.  At his side appeared in profile the finely-marked head of the Bearnais, which has been rendered so familiar by the innumerable portraits of Henry IV.

The Basques, of middle stature, but appearing tall owing to their wonderful erectness, with fine open chests, rather high shoulders and limbs indicative of great agility, looked on perfectly motionless, and seemed rooted to the soil.  Their high forehead, narrow and prominent chin, their visage thin and in the shape of a V, their characteristic features and the distinctness of their type, indicated the primordial purity of their race, which is perhaps, the most ancient in the land of the Gauls.

Men of the world, of all professions, magistrates, shop-keepers, notaries, advocates, doctors and clerks, displaying forms less rough but at the same time less marked, more humble or more polished, more distinguished in the opinion of some, more vulgar in that of others, were mingled in great numbers with the crowd.

The ladies, in bonnets and veils, with their hands buried in their muffs, seemed, in spite of all their precautions, to suffer from the frosty morning air, and might be seen changing their position and moving about in hopes of keeping themselves warm.

A few Spaniards scattered here and there, remarkable for their impassible dignity, and enveloped in the capacious folds of their large cloaks, stood waiting with the immobility of statues.  They kept their eyes fixed on the Grotto and prayed.  They scarcely turned their heads when any incident or the undulation of the crowd forcibly withdrew them from their contemplation;  their darkly luminous eyes flashed for a moment on the multitude and they resumed their prayers.

In many places the pilgrims, fatigued with their journey, or their stations during the night, were sitting on the ground.  Some of them with prudent foresight, had with them knapsacks furnished with provisions.  Others carried in a sling a bottle-gourd filled with wine.  Many of the children had fallen asleep stretched on the ground, and their mothers stripping themselves of their capulets, cautiously covered them with them.

A few troopers, belonging to the cavalry regiment at Tarbes or the depot at Lourdes, had come mounted and stationed themselves out of the way of the bustle in the bed of the Gave.  Many of the pilgrims, and others brought there by mere curiosity, had climbed into the trees, and from their isolated heads, which towered above the rest and were very conspicuous, all the fields, meadows, roads, hillocks, and eminences which commanded the Grotto, were seen literally covered with an innumerable multitude of men, women and children, of old men, persons of all classes, workmen, peasants and soldiers, all agitated, closely packed together, and swaying to and fro like ripe ears of corn.  The picturesque costumes of those districts flaunted their gaudy colors in the first rays of the sun, whose disk was beginning to appear from behind the peaks of the Ger.  From a distance, the hills of Vizens, for instance, the capulets of the women, some white as snow, others of a brilliant scarlet, combined with the large blue caps of the peasants of Béarn, shone like daisies, poppies and corn-flowers from the midst of this harvest of human beings.  The helmets of the troopers stationed in the bed of the Gave flashed in the early rays which broke from the east.

There could not have been less than twenty thousand persons spread over the banks of the Gave, and this multitude was incessantly recruited by the arrival of new pilgrims from all quarters.

On these countenances were dipicted prayer, curiosity, and scepticism.  Every class, every idea, every sentiment was represented in this immense multitude.  There was to be found there the roughhewn Christian of the first ages, who knows that with God all things are possible.  Further on might be seen the Christian tormented with doubts, who had come before these wild rocks in search of arguments for the firmer establishment of his faith.  The believing woman was also there, demanding from the divine Mother the recovery of some dear one brought low by sickness, or the conversion of some beloved soul.  There also was the decided rejecter of the Supernatural, having eyes which would not see and ears which would not hear.  And lastly, there might be found there the frivolous-minded man, oblivious of his own soul’s best interests, in search only, beneath Heaven, which was half-opened to his gaze, of the amusement of his curiosity in what to his eyes was a trivial spectacle.

Around this crowd and along the road the Constables and the Gendarmes kept going to and fro in a state of nervous anxiety.  The Deputy, having on his official scarf, remained motionless.

On a little eminence might be seen Jacomet and the Procureur Impérial, closely watching the state of things and prepared to take rigorous measures on the slightest appearance of disorder.

There proceeded from the multitude an immense, vague, confused and indescribable murmur, formed of a thousand different noises, of words, conversations, prayers and exclamations, resembling the unappeasable roar of the ocean.

Suddenly an exclamation broke forth from the lips of all,  “There is the youthful Saint!  there is the youthful Saint!”  and an extraordinary agitation pervaded the whole crowd.  The hearts of all, even of the coldest, were stirred with emotion:  every head was lifted and every eye directed to the same point.

Bernadette, accompanied by her mother, had just made her appearance on the path laid out by the Brotherhood of Quarry-men some days before, and was calmly descending towards this sea of human beings.  Although she had this vast multitude before her eyes and was doubtless filled with happiness at seeing so many testimonials of adoration for “the Lady” she was entirely absorbed with the thought of seeing once more that incomparable Beauty.  Who cares to gaze on earth when heaven is on the point of throwing wide its gates?  She was so completely engrossed with the joyful hope which filled her heart that the cries of “There is the youthful Saint,” and the testimonials of popular veneration did not appear to reach her.  She was so full of the image of the Vision, she was so perfectly humble, that she had not even vanity enough to cause her to blush or to suffer from confusion.

The Gendarmes, however, had hastened to the spot, and breaking through the crowd in front of Bernadette, formed an escort for the child and effected a passage for her up to the Grotto.

These excellent fellows, like the soldiers, believed, and their sympathizing and pious deportment prevented the crowd from being irritated at such an employment of armed force, and further disappointed the calculations of the crafty.

The thousand cries of the multitude had by degrees subsided, and a great silence ensued.  There could not be greater recollection in any of the Churches of Christendom during Mass, on the occasion of an ordination or a first communion.  Every one, to a certain degree, held his breath.  No one shutting his eyes would have imagined that so vast a crowd was there assembled, and amid the universal silence the murmur of the Gave would alone have struck his ear.  Those who were near the Grotto could distinguish the bubbling of the miraculous Spring as it flowed calmly into the little reservoir through the little wooden pipe which had been placed for that purpose.

When Bernadette prostrated herself, every one, by a unanimous movement, knelt down.

Almost simultaneously the superhuman rays of ecstacy lighted up the transfigured features of the child.  We shall not describe again this marvelous spectacle of which we have more than once endeavored to convey some idea to our reader.  It was a spectacle ever new, as is the rising of the sun every morning.  The power which produces such splendors has the infinite at its disposal, and employs it unceasingly to diversify the external form of its eternal unity;  but the pen of a poor author commands only limited resources and pale colors.  If Jacob, the son of Isaac, wrestled with the Angel, the artist, in his weakness, cannot wrestle with God;  and there is a time, when feeling his utter inability to express by his art all the delicate gradations of the divine work, he is silent and confines himself to the act of adoration.  I leave, therefore, to souls which peruse my feeble lines the task of imagining all the successive joys, all the melting feelings, all the graces and celestial inebriation which the blessed Vision of the immaculate Virgin, the admirable Beauty with which God himself was charmed, caused to pass over the innocent brow of the enraptured Bernadette.

The Apparition, as on the preceding days, had commanded the child to drink at and wash herself in the Fountain, and to eat of the plant to which we have already referred;  she had afterwards renewed her order to her to go and tell the Priests that she desired a chapel built on the spot and processions to repair to it.

The child had besought the Apparition to inform her of her name, but the radiant “Lady” had not returned any answer to the question.  The moment for doing so had not yet arrived.  It behoved that Her name should be first inscribed on the earth and engraved on the heart by uncounted deeds of mercy.  The Queen of Heaven wished to be identified by her benefits;  She intended that the grateful voice of every mouth should name Her and glorify Her before She answered and said:  “Your heart has not deceived you;  it is I indeed.”