WERE we not acquainted with the wonderfully varied forms of supernatural cures which have taken place since the establishment of Christianity, we might, perhaps, be tempted to believe, that things were thus disposed at this moment by Providence for the very purpose of causing the proud philosophy of man to catch itself in its own nets and commit suicide with its own hands. But here, let us believe, there was no divine snare. God does not lay as ambush for any of his creatures. By its own innate strength and by means of its normal and regular developments, the logic of which is unknown to human philosophers, Truth is an eternal snare in the path of Error.
However this may be, the scientific men and the medical men of the place, were eager to discover in these various cures of uncertain and doubtful complexion―which were, however, perfectly established as regarded their reality and progressive character―an admirable opportunity and happy pretext for bringing into operation a change of tactics and dexterity of manæuvres which the increasing evidence of facts rendered absolutely necessary.
Ceasing, then, to endeavor to account for these cures by bringing forward the thread-bare theory of the effect of imagination, they boldly attributed them to the natural virtues which this singular water, lately gushed forth by the merest chance, indubitably possessed.
To offer such an explanation, was to acknowledge the reality of the cures.
Let the reader recall to his mind the commencement of this divine history, when a little shepherd-girl, going to collect fragments of dead-wood, had claimed to have seen a luminous Apparition start up before her. Let him remember the sneering of the strong-minded of Lourdes, the shruggings of shoulders at the Club, the ineffable contempt with which all these powerful minds received those childish stories as nonsense and folly. How many steps forward had the supernatural affirmation made―how many steps to the rear had incredulity, science and philosophy taken since the first events which so suddenly took place at the lonely Grotto on the bank of the Gave!
The Miracle―if we may venture to use the expression―had assumed the offensive. The Free-thinkers, formerly so fierce in their attack, now pursued by the force of facts, were reduced to an attitude of self-defence.
However this may be, the scientific men and the medical men of the place, were eager to discover in these various cures of uncertain and doubtful complexion―which were, however, perfectly established as regarded their reality and progressive character―an admirable opportunity and happy pretext for bringing into operation a change of tactics and dexterity of manæuvres which the increasing evidence of facts rendered absolutely necessary.
Ceasing, then, to endeavor to account for these cures by bringing forward the thread-bare theory of the effect of imagination, they boldly attributed them to the natural virtues which this singular water, lately gushed forth by the merest chance, indubitably possessed.
To offer such an explanation, was to acknowledge the reality of the cures.
Let the reader recall to his mind the commencement of this divine history, when a little shepherd-girl, going to collect fragments of dead-wood, had claimed to have seen a luminous Apparition start up before her. Let him remember the sneering of the strong-minded of Lourdes, the shruggings of shoulders at the Club, the ineffable contempt with which all these powerful minds received those childish stories as nonsense and folly. How many steps forward had the supernatural affirmation made―how many steps to the rear had incredulity, science and philosophy taken since the first events which so suddenly took place at the lonely Grotto on the bank of the Gave!
The Miracle―if we may venture to use the expression―had assumed the offensive. The Free-thinkers, formerly so fierce in their attack, now pursued by the force of facts, were reduced to an attitude of self-defence.
The representatives of Philosophy and Science were not, however, on this account less bold in their assertions, nor did they display less contempt for popular superstition.
“Well, then be it so,” they observed, affecting a good-humored tone and the semblance of sincerity. “We allow that the water of the Grotto cures certain maladies.” What can be more simple? What need is there of Miracles, supernatural graces, and divine intervention, to explain an agency which, if not itentical with, is analogous to, that of a thousand Springs, which from Vichy or Baden-Baden to Luchon, act so efficaciously on the human system? The water of Massabielle, in point of fact, possesses certain very potent mineral qualities similar to those of the Baths of Baréges or Cautarets, a few leagues higher up in the mountains. The Grotto of Lourdes has no connection with Religion, it is in the jurisdiction of medical science.
A letter,―which we take at random from among our documents,―gives a better idea than we could, ourselves, furnish, of the position assumed by men of science with regard to the marvelous operations of the water of Massabielle. This letter, from the pen of a very honorable physician in the neighborhood, Doctor Lary, who had not the slightest faith in any miraculous interpretation, is addressed to a member of the Faculty:
A letter,―which we take at random from among our documents,―gives a better idea than we could, ourselves, furnish, of the position assumed by men of science with regard to the marvelous operations of the water of Massabielle. This letter, from the pen of a very honorable physician in the neighborhood, Doctor Lary, who had not the slightest faith in any miraculous interpretation, is addressed to a member of the Faculty:
“Ossun, April 28th, 1858.
“I take the earliest opportunity, my dear friend, of sending you the details you ask for, regarding the woman called Galop, of our commune.
This woman, in consequence of rheumatism in her left hand, had lost the power of holding any thing with it. For instance, if she wished to wash or remove a glass, she most frequently let it fall; and if she wished to draw water, she was forced to give up the idea, as she was unable with her left hand to tighten the rope of the well. It was more than eight months since she had made her bed; and during that time, she had been obliged to relinquish spinning altogether.
“Now, since her single journey to Lourdes, where she made use of the water of the Grotto, she spins with considerable facility; she makes her bed, is able to draw water from the well, washes and carries about glasses and plates at table, and, in a word, uses this hand almost as well as the other one.
“Now, since her single journey to Lourdes, where she made use of the water of the Grotto, she spins with considerable facility; she makes her bed, is able to draw water from the well, washes and carries about glasses and plates at table, and, in a word, uses this hand almost as well as the other one.
“The movements of her left hand are not yet quite so free as they were before her illness, but, compared with what they were before she used the water of the Grotto at Lourdes, there is a difference of 90 percent.
“The woman proposes going again to the Grotto, and I shall make her promise to pay you a visit that you may convince yourself of the truth of what I now write you.
“You will find, on examining the patient, an incomplete anchylosis of the lower joint of the forefinger―this is all that remains of her complaint. If this morbid state yields to the reiterated use of the water of the Grotto, this fact will be an additional proof of the water being impregnated with alkali.
“I must now close. Believe me,
“Yours, very faithfully,
“Lary, M.D.”
This explanation having been once admitted, and held a priori as certain, the medical men displayed less reluctance in acknowledging the cures effected by the water of the Grotto, and, from that moment, they betook themselves to generalizing their thesis and to applying it almost indiscriminately to all cases, even to those which had an almost bewildering character of suddenness―a character, however, not easily reconcilable with the ordinary action of mineral waters. The learned personages of the place extricated themselves from this difficulty by attributing to the water of the Grotto extremely powerful qualities, such as had not been met with up to that period. It mattered little to them that they upset with their theories all the ordinary laws of nature, provided heaven was excluded from any share in the profits. They willingly admitted the extra-natural, in order to rid themselves of the supernatural.
There were to be found among the class of believers, certain persons of badly organized and provoking minds, who troubled with their importunate reflections, the grave explanations and transcendental theories of this learned coterie.
“How comes it,” they objected, “that this mineral spring, gifted with such exceptional power of effecting sudden cures, should have been discovered by Bernadette precisely at the time she was in a state of ecstacy, in the train of asserted heavenly visions, and, as it were, the proof of thses supernatural Apparitions? How did it come to pass, that this Spring gushed forth just at the moment when Bernadette believed she heard the divine Voice commanding her to drink and to wash herself? And how is the fact to be accounted for, that this Spring, which rose suddenly before the eyes of the whole population under such astonishing circumstances, does not give water of an ordinary description, but a kind of water, which, by your own confession, has already cured so many laboring under desperate maladies, who had recourse to it, not by the advice of their medical attendants, but from simple feelings of religious faith?”
“How comes it,” they objected, “that this mineral spring, gifted with such exceptional power of effecting sudden cures, should have been discovered by Bernadette precisely at the time she was in a state of ecstacy, in the train of asserted heavenly visions, and, as it were, the proof of thses supernatural Apparitions? How did it come to pass, that this Spring gushed forth just at the moment when Bernadette believed she heard the divine Voice commanding her to drink and to wash herself? And how is the fact to be accounted for, that this Spring, which rose suddenly before the eyes of the whole population under such astonishing circumstances, does not give water of an ordinary description, but a kind of water, which, by your own confession, has already cured so many laboring under desperate maladies, who had recourse to it, not by the advice of their medical attendants, but from simple feelings of religious faith?”
These objections, repeated in a thousand different forms, irritated the Free-thinkers, Philosophers, and Savants, beyond measure. They endeavored to parry them by answers, so truly pitiable and wretched, that they could hardly be supposed to be deceived by them themselves; but, to find any better adapted to their prupose was, truly, a difficult task.
“After all,” they said, “coffee was discovered accidentally by a goat. A herdsman found out by chance the baths of Luchon, and again a peasant, while digging accidentally, stumbled on the ruins of Pompeii. What is there so astonishing in the fact that this little girl, amusing herself in scooping out the earth during her state of hallucination, should have caused a spring to gush forth, and that this spring should turn out to be mineral and impregnated with alkali? That at that very moment she fancied she saw the Blessed Virgin and heard a voice declaring the existence of the spring, is a merely fortuitous coincidence which Superstition would gladly convert into a Miracle. That day, as has always been the case, chance did everything and was the sole revealer.
Those who believed, however, did not suffer themselves to be staggered by such logic. They had bad taste enough to consider that to explain all these things by referring them to purely accidental coincidences, was to do violence to reason under pretext of undertaking its defence. This served to exasperate the Free-thinkers, who, while acknowledging somewhat late in the day the reality of cures effected, deplored more than ever the religious and supernatural character which the common people persisted in attributing to these strange events; and like persons in a pet, they inclined to violent measures with the view of stemming the popular current. “If these waters have mineral properties,” they began to say, “they belong either to the State or the municipality, an no one should repair to them without medical perscription. A bathing establishment there would be a more suitable erection than a chapel.”
The scientific men of Lourdes, obliged to recognize facts which could not be gainsayed, had reached this state of mind and mood of intellect, when the Prefect’s measures relative to the objects deposited at the Grotto, and the attempt to incarcerate Bernadette on the plea of insanity ― an attempt rendered abortive by the unexpected interference of the Curé Peyramale―suddenly came into play.
Those who believed, however, did not suffer themselves to be staggered by such logic. They had bad taste enough to consider that to explain all these things by referring them to purely accidental coincidences, was to do violence to reason under pretext of undertaking its defence. This served to exasperate the Free-thinkers, who, while acknowledging somewhat late in the day the reality of cures effected, deplored more than ever the religious and supernatural character which the common people persisted in attributing to these strange events; and like persons in a pet, they inclined to violent measures with the view of stemming the popular current. “If these waters have mineral properties,” they began to say, “they belong either to the State or the municipality, an no one should repair to them without medical perscription. A bathing establishment there would be a more suitable erection than a chapel.”
The scientific men of Lourdes, obliged to recognize facts which could not be gainsayed, had reached this state of mind and mood of intellect, when the Prefect’s measures relative to the objects deposited at the Grotto, and the attempt to incarcerate Bernadette on the plea of insanity ― an attempt rendered abortive by the unexpected interference of the Curé Peyramale―suddenly came into play.
