THE popular emotion had considerably increased. Bernadette, when she passed, was received with acclamation, and the poor child used to return home with all possible speed in order to escape their ovations. This humble soul, which up to that time, had lived entirely unknown, in silence and solitude, found itself all at once placed in a blaze of light, in the midst of uproar and of the crowd, on the pedestal of fame. This glory, which so many court so eagerly, was to her a martyrdom of the most cruel description. Her most insignificant words were commented on, discussed admired, rejected, made the subject of scoffs—in a word, abandoned to the different currents of human opinion. It was then she tasted the hearfelt joy of having something she was not to divulge, and of finding, in the three secrets imparted to her by the Virgin, a kind of secluded sanctuary to which her heart might retire with a sense of perfect peace, and refresh itself in the shade of that mystery, and with the charm of its intimate union with the Queen of Heaven.
As we have already remarked, the outburst of the Fountain had taken place towards sunrise in the presence of a numerous assemblage. It was the 25th of February, the third Thursday of the month, and a great market-day at Tarbes. The news, therefore, of the marvelous occurrence of the morning at the Rocks of Massabielle, was carried to the town by a multitude of eye-witnesses, and before night had been spread through the whole Department, and even as far as the nearest towns of the neighboring departments. The extraordinary movement, which, for the last eight days, had attracted to Lourdes so many pilgrims and others, urged by mere curiosity, was from that moment developed to a most surprising degree.
A great number of visitors came to sleep at Lourdes in order to be on the spot next day; others walked all through the night, and at break of day, the usual hour of Bernadette’s arrival, five or six thousand persons, closely packed on the banks of the Gave, the neighboring eminences and the rocks, were encamped in front of the Grotto. The Spring had considerably increased in volume since the previous day.
When the youthful Seer, humble, peaceful and simple in manner in the midst of so much commotion, presented herself in order to pray, the cry of “There is the Saint! There is the Saint!” arose from the vast throng. Several persons sought to touch her garments, regarding as sacred everything pertaining to one so privileged by the Lord.
It was not, however, the will of the Mother of the humble and the lowly that this innocent heart should succumb to the temptation of vain glory, and that Bernadette should, for one moment, be puffed up with pride on account of the singular favors she had received.
It was well that the child should feel, in the midst of such acclamations, her own nothingness, and realize once more how powerless she was, when left to herself, to evoke the divine Vision. It was in vain she prayed. The superhuman radiancy of the ecstacy was not observed diffusing itself over her features; and, when she rose, after her long prayer, she replied, in a tone of sadness to the interrogations showered upon her, that the Vision from on high had not appeared.
