THE Press of Paris and of the province began to occupy themselves with the occurrences at Lourdes; and far beyond the range of the Pyrenees, public attention was being turned by degrees towards the Grotto of Massabielle.
The Prefect’s measures were highly commended by the organs of the Free-thinkers, and not less vehemently censured by the Catholic journals. The latter, while they hazarded no judgment as to the reality of the Apparitions and miracles, claimed that a question of this nature should be decided by the ecclesiastical authority and not prematurely settled by the arbitrary power of the Prefect.
The innumerable miracles which were being accomplished either at the Grotto or at a distance, attracted a vast concourse of invalids and pilgrims to Lourdes. The analysis of Latour de Trie and the pretended mineral properties attributed to the new Spring by the medical men who supported the Prefect, added still more to the reputation of the Grotto, and induced even those to flock there who reckoned on the resources of Nature only for their recovery. On the other hand, these polemical discussions, by exciting the minds of all, added to the multitude of those who believed a multitude of others who were actuated by feelings of mere curiosity. All the means employed by the party of unbelief produced an effect diametrically contrary to the one they had proposed to themselves. Owing to the irresistible turn events had taken―a turn regarded as fatal by some, as providential by others―the influx of people, which it had been the wish of the authorities to check, assumed more and more considerable porportions. This influx was the more accelerated and developed owing to the fact that, as if to give every one a chance, the material difficulties which were opposed to traveling by the rigor of winter had gradually disappeared. The month of May had returned. The lovely weather of spring seemed to court pilgrims to repair to the Grotto by all the flowery paths which wind here and there through woods and across meadows and vineyards in that land of rugged mountains, verdant hills and umbrageous valleys.
Out of humor and powerless, the Prefect saw the gradual increase and extension of this orderly and prodigious heaving, which bore multitudes of Christians in ever renewed phalanxes, to come and kneel and drink at the foot of a solitary rock.
The measures already taken had, it is true, deprived the Grotto of its resemblance to an oratory, but in reality it remained much as it was before, as far as the veneration of the people went. Crowds flocked from every part to the place where the miracle had taken place.
Contrary to the hope of the Free-thinkers, the fears of the Faithful and the expectations of all, no disorder of any description arose from this unheard-of movement of men, women, children, believers, unbelievers, and of those who were utterly indifferent on the subject. An invisible hand seemed to protect these crowds against themselves, when, without leader or guide, they rushed day by day to the number of several thousand pilgrims towards the miraculous Fountain.
The Magistracy, represented by M. Dutour, and the Police, personified in M. Jacomet, regarded this strange spectable with feelings of unbounded astonishment. Did it add to their exasperation? We cannot tell. Yet, to men of a certain turn of mind, who push their ideas of authority to extremes, the sight of a multitude so wonderfully orderly and peaceful is an almost insulting and perfectly revolutionary anomaly. When order maintained by itself, all the functionaries who only exist for the purpose of maintaining order experience a sense of vague uneasiness. Accustomed to mix themselves up in every thing in the name of the Law, to keep up discipline, issue orders, summon, punish, pardon and to see everything and every individual depending upon them either personally or officially, they experience a feeling bordering on distraction when they find themselves face to face with a multitude of men who dispense with them altogether and do not afford them any pretext for interfering, showing their importance or encroaching on their liberty. Order of this kind which ignores them is in their eyes the height of disorder. If so fatal an example was generally followed, there would be no necessity for any Procureurs Impériaux, the Commissaries of Police would vanish from the scene, and the stars of Prefects themselves would begin to pale.
Baron Massy had full power to order the removal of all the objects deposited at the Grotto. By no law, however, was such a deposit regarded as criminal, and it was impossible to prohibit such offerings or to punish the donors. In consequence of this the Grotto was often filled with lighted tapers, flowers, ex-votos, and even with silver or gold pieces towards the erection of the building demanded by the Virgin. The pious faithful wished by so doing to testify to the Queen of Heaven their good-will, even though it might be unavailing, together with their zeal and their love. “What does it matter if the money is taken away. It will at least have been offered. The taper will have shed it transient light in honor of our Mother, and the bouquet will for an instant have perfumed the blessed rock, on which Her feet rested.” Such were the thoughts of these truly Christian souls.
Jacomet and his agents accordingly came to carry off every thing. Much emboldened since he had escaped the perils of the fourth of May, the Commissary affected the most contemptuous and brutal conduct, sometimes hurling various objects into the Gave, before the offended eyes of believers. Sometimes, also, he found himself obliged to preserve, in spite of himself, the festal air which marked those blessed places. It was when, the piety of believers having scattered the leaves of countless roses around the Grotto, it was out of the question for him to pick up the thousand remnants of flowers and the numberless petals which served to form this brilliant and fragrant carpet.
The crowds, however, continued to pray on their knees, without making any reply to his provoking conduct, and they allowed everything to be done with a patience which God alone can give to a justly excited multitude.
One evening a report was spread that the Emperor of the Minister had requested the prayers of Bernadette. M. Dutour uttered a cry of triumph and made all preparations for saving the State. Three respectable women, who, as it appeared, had originated the assertion, where dragged into court and the Procureur insisted on the full rigor of the French law being enforced against them. Notwithstanding his wrath and eloquence the judges acquitted two and only condemned the third to a fine of five francs. The Procureur protested against the weakness of the Judges, persisted in his public accusation, and in his exasperation, or rather desperation, appealed from their decision to the Judges of the Imperial Court at Pau, who, treating his anger with ridicule, not only confirmed the acquittal of the two women, but refused to ratify the very slight sentence pronounced on the third, dismissing the case altogether.
This little incident, so utterly insignificant in itself, only figures in our story to show how anxiously the officials of the Parquet were on the lookout, how actively they were in search of misdemeanors and opportunities of displaying severity, since they were irritated with such miserable trifles, and employed their time in prosecuting poor simple-minded women, whose innocence was to be shortly afterwards publicly proclaimed by the Imperial Court.
The population remained calm. No pretext was furnished by them for severities on the plea of maintaining order.
One night, when it was pitch dark, some unknown persons tore up the pipe of the miraculous Spring and choked its waters under shapeless heaps of rocks, earth and sand. Who was it that raised this monument of darkness against the divine work? What impious and at the same time cowardly hands committed this sacrilege, while shunning the observation of their fellows? No one knows. But when day broke and the profanation became known, a murmur of indignation, as might have been anticipated, issued from the crowds who had rushed to the spot, and on that day the people might be seen on the roads and in the street moving to and fro in a state of agitation resembling that of the ocean when it foams and surges and roars beneath the blast of a hurricane. The Police, Magistrates and Sergents de Ville were on the alert, watching, listening and reconnoitering, but were unable to detect an act of violence or a single cry of sedition. The influence from above, divine in its nature, which preserved order among these excited crowds, was plainly invincible. Who then―let us repeat the question―had committed this nocturnal deed? The Parquet and the Police could never discover who it was, in spite of making the most active search. There were not wanting, however, some prejudiced persons bold enough to suspect―doubtless unjustly―the Parquet and Police of having themselves been the authors of the sacrilege, hoping by this means to provoke disorder which might furnish them with a pretext for having recourse to severe measures. The municipal authorities protested strongly against the imputation that they had connived at this scandalous proceeding. The same night, or early the next morning, the Mayor ordered the pipe to be replaced, and all the rubbish with which the new ‘spring was obstructed to be swept from off the pavement of the Grotto It was the Mayor’s policy to avoid any decidedly personal interference and to allow matters to rest as they were. He was ready to act, but only as a subordinate, when expressly enjoined to do so by the Prefect and on the latter’s responsibility.
At times, the people, fearing not to have sufficient control over their agitated feelings, took precautions against themselves. The Association of Stonehewers, in number four or five hundred, had resolved to make a grand peaceable demonstration at the Grotto, repairing to it in procession and singing hymns on the occasion of their patronal feast, Ascension day, which fell that year on the thirty-first of May. Feeling, however, their hearts indignant and their hands quivering in presence of the measures taken by the authorities they were afraid of themselves and renounced their project. They confined themselves to supressing on that day, from a feeling of respect to the Blessed Virgin who had appeared at Lourdes, the annual ball which served to conclude their Feast.
“We do not wish,” they said, “That any disorder, however involuntary, or any amusement not recognized by the Church, should afflict the eyes of the Virgin who has visited us.”
