THE population, less calm and less patient than the Bishop, carried away with enthusiasm on seeing the great things which were being enacted before them, and touched by the miraculous cures which were daily increasing in number, did not, however, suffer themselves to be arrested in their course by the violent measures of the Administration.
The most intrepid, in defiance of tribunals and fines, cleared the barriers and betook themselves to prayer in front of the Grotto, after having thrown their names to the Gardes who kept watch at the entrance of the communal lands. Among these Gardes were several who sympathized with the faith of the multitude, and these also got into the habit of kneeling at the entrance of the venerated place as soon as they reached the spot and before they were posted as sentinels. Placed, as they were, between the crust of bread which their poorly-paid position of Sergent de Ville, or Cantonnier, gave them, and the repugnant employment imposed upon them, these poor fellows, in their prayer to the Mother of the weak and indigent, threw the responsibility of the wretched orders they executed on the authorities, who forced them to act. Notwithstanding this, they strictly fulfilled their task, and duly reported the names of delinquents.
Although many believers, in the impetuosity of their zeal, would most willingly have exposed themselves to danger in order to go and publicly invoke the Virgin at the place of the Apparition, yet the style of jurisprudence adopted by M. Duprat was eminently calculated to fill the multitude with alarm, as his nominal fine of five francs, as we have explained, might mount up to an enormous sum. A sentence of this kind would have been utterly ruinous to many persons, more especially to the very poor. The majority of them accordingly endeavored to escape the rigorous surveillance of persecuting power.
Sometimes the Faithful, respecting the barriers at which the Gardes were stationed on the boundary of the communal lands, reached the Grotto by cross-roads. One of the party, left in the rear, kept a look-out and warned his companions, by a preconcerted signal, of the arrival of the police. In this manner invalids were, with considerable difficulty, transported to the miraculous Spring. The official authorities, on being informed of these infractions of their orders, doubled the number of sentinels and cut off all access by these paths.
Some might be seen swimming across the Gave, in defiance of the swiftness of its current, for the purpose of coming to pray in front of the Grotto and drinking at the holy Fountain. The darkness of night was favorable to these violations of the law, which daily increased in number, notwithstanding the zeal and activity of the Police agents.
The influence of the Clergy had been diminished, not to say compromised, by the reasons we have explained.
In spite of their efforts to conform themselves to the injunctions of the Bishop, the priests discovered their utter inability to calm the agitated minds of their hearers, and to impress upon them that even the arbitrary acts of Power were entitled to respect. “Only what is respectable can claim respect,” was a revolutionary watchword which found an echo in every heart. The personal ascendency of the Curé of Lourdes―loved and revered though he was―began to pale before the popular irritation.
Order was menaced by the very measures adopted under pretext of ensuring its maintenance. The masses, outraged in the belief they held most dear, oscillated between submission and violence. If, on the one hand, petitions to the Emperor were universally signed, demanding in the name of liberty of conscience, the withdrawal of the Prefect’s decree; on the other, the boards, with which the Grotto was closed, were broken night after night and thrown into the Gave. Jacomet exerted himself in vain to discover who were the believers, with so little respect for Authority, as to commit a misdemeanor hitherto unknown to our codes―nocturnal prayer accompanied with the breaking open and destruction of fences.
In order to avoid rendering themselves liable to prosecution, the faithful often went to prostrate themselves against the posts which marked the exterior boundary of the communal lands. It was a silent protest against the measures of the civil authority, and, as it were, a silent appeal to the omnipotence of God.
On the day when the Court of Pau reversed the sentence pronounced by the Tribunal of Lourdes against one of the three women prosecuted for some trifling remarks on the subject of the Grotto, and confirmed the acquittal of the two others, the crowd collected in the vicinity of the barrier was immense, and uttered shouts of victory. They could not contain themselves and cleared the barrier in compact masses, without returning any reply to the summons and terrified shouts of the agents of Police, who, disconcerted by the check they had experienced at Pau, and feeling alarmed at coming into collision with so many thousands of men, retired and suffered the torrent to pass.
The next day orders and remonstrances from the Prefect came to revive the courage of the Police and to prescribe a still more strict surveillance. The force at their disposal was augmented, and dismissal in case of failure was hinted to the agents. Redoubled rigor was the order of the day.
Reports of a sinister nature, absolutely false, but craftily circulated and easily credited by the multitude, threatened the delinquents with imprisonment. The actual penalties not being sufficient, an attempt was made to produce a kind of panic in the mind of the faithful by the employment of imaginary menaces.
By some means or other, any open infractions of the law were prevented from being renewed for some days.
Sometimes, unfortunate creatures, coming from a distance, suffering from paralysis, blindness or one or other of those melancholy infirmities which medical science leaves to their fate, and which God alone possesses the secret of curing, went to the Mayor and besought him with clasped hands to suffer them to seek their last chance of recovery at the miraculous Fountain. The Mayor, obstinately adhering to the Prefect’s program, and displaying in the execution of the measure adopted that energy in trifling details with which weak minds often deceive themselves, refused, in the name of the higher Authorities, the permission which was demanded and with inexcusable cruelty, official reports were drawn up against the sick themselves.
The great majority of such, then repaired to the right bank of the Gave, immediately opposite the Grotto. There collected on certain days an innumerable throng, on whom the officials had no hold; for the land trampled upon by these multitudes belonged to private individuals, who believed they should bring down on themselves the benediction of heaven by permitting the pilgrims to come and kneel in their meadows to pray with their eyes turned towards the scene of the Apparitions and the miraculous Fountain.
About the time when these vast multitudes were being assembled, poor Bernadette, worn out by her asthma, and doubtless wearied by the visits of so many strangers, fell sick.
In his extreme anxiety to calm the public mind, and remove to a distance every cause of agitation, the Bishop availed himself to this circumstance to advise, indirectly, Bernadette’s parents to send her to the baths of Cauterets, which are not very far from Lourdes. It would be the means of withdrawing the youthful Seer from those dialogues, interrogations and accounts of the Apparitions, which every one received with avidity, and which served to feed the popular emotion. The Soubirous, uneasy about Bernadette’s state of health, and being convinced in their own minds that these perpetual visits were breaking her down, confided her to the care of one of her aunts, who was herself going to Cautarets. She offered to take upon herself the trifling expenses of the child’s trip, which would cost but little at that season of the year, when the warm baths are almost deserted. The noble and the rich do not repair to them till somewhat later on in the year, and a few poor people from the mountains have Cautarets all to themselves during the month of May.
Bernadette, out of health, seeking silence and repose, and wishing to withdraw herself as much as possible from public curiosity, remained there drinking the waters for two or three weeks.
