IN proportion as the month of June drew to a close, the great bathing season in the Pyrenees was commencing.
Bernadette had returned to her father’s house at Lourdes.
The bathing places were soon thronged with invalids, tourists, travelers, explorers, others attracted by simple curiosity, and savants from every direction, coming by the thousand roads with which Europe is intersected. These sombre mountains, so solitary and wild all the rest of the year, were peopled by degrees by a mass of visitors, belonging, for the most part, to the highest circles of society of the great cities. From July, the Pyrenees are a faubourg of Paris, London, Rome or Berlin. French and foreigners meet each other in the refreshment rooms, elbow each other in the saloons, walk about in the mountain paths, and take excursions on horseback in every direction, along the banks of babbling streams, on the rugged peaks or the flowery turf of umbrageous valleys. Ministers, tired of active business; deputies and senators, weary of haranguing themselves or listening to the harangues of others; bankers, diplomats, merchants, ecclesiastics, magistrates, authors, men of the world, come to lay in a stock of health, not only at these widely-famed springs, but in this keen and pure mountain air, which stirs up the blood to greater activity and renders the mind―I know not how―more sprightly and free to exercise its powers. In this society, so varied; this throng of cosmopolites, so essentially fluctuating and diverse, representatives of every belief and every shade of unbelief, every school of philosophy grave or gay, every opinion and every system might have been found. It was a microcosm; it was an epitome of Europe, which in the natural course of things and at the appointed hour, Providence was ushering into the presence of the supernatural events and miracles which were taking place on the threshold of the Pyrenees. God was carrying out His eternal plans. In the same way as of yore, at Bethlehem, He had shown Himself to the shepherds long before He showed Himself to the royal Magi; so, at Lourdes, He had in the first instance summoned the lowly, the humble, the inhabitants of the lonely mountains; and it was only after these that He called together the rich and brilliant, the sovereigns of wealth, intellect and art, to become spectators of His divine work.
Strangers hurried to Lourdes from Cautarets, Baréges, Luz, Saint Sauveur, Eaux-Bonnes and Bagnères-de-Bigorre. The town was alive with dashing equipages, drawn, as is the custom of the country, by four stout horses, harnessed and decked with glaring colors and tinkling bells.
The great majority of pilgrims or travelers did not take much heed of orders and barriers. They defied threats of prosecution and repaired to the Grotto, some from a sentiment of religious faith, others actuated by a lively feeling of curiosity. They wished to see, and they did see the persons who had been cured. Bernadette received innumerable visits. In all the saloons, at the warm-bathing establishments, the events we have related formed the topic of every conversation. By degrees public opinion was formed, no longer the opinion of the little nook of country of forty or fifty leagues which extends at the base of the Pyrenees from Bayonne up to Toulouse or Foix, but the opinion of France and of Europe, which were represented at that moment in the bosom of the mountains by visitors of every class, every idea and of every country.
The violent measures of M. Massy, inasmuch as they caused as much vexation to the curiosity of some as they did to the piety of others, were loudly blamed by all parties. The former declared them illegal, while the latter deemed them inexpedient; all agreed in declaring them utterly powerless to stem the prodigious movement of which the Grotto and the miraculous Spring formed the center. The absolute certainty of the Prefect’s ultimate failure made even those judge him with severity who participated in his horror of the Supernatural, and who in the commencement would willingly have applauded his policy. Men in general, and more especially in the caste of Free-thinkers, judge the actions of those in power much more by their visible results than by philosophical principles. Success is the surest means of obtaining approval. Failure is a two-fold misfortune, for universal blame is almost always superadded to the public humiliation which attends a want of success. The Baron was suffering from the attacks of this two-fold misfortune.
There were circumstances when the zeal of the Police and the municipal courage of Jacomet himself were sorely tried. Illustrious personages sometimes transgressed the limits of the enclosure. One day there was arrested a stranger―a man with marked and expressive features―who was advancing towards the poteau, evidently with the intention of going to the Rocks of Massabielle.
“You cannot pass.”
“You will soon see whether I can pass or not,” replied the stranger as he entered carelessly the communal lands and directed his steps towards the place of the Apparition.
“Your Name? I shall make out a report against you.”
“My name is Louis Veuillot,” answered the stranger.
While the report was being drawn up against that celebrated writer, a lady had passed the boundary a few paces behind and had gone to kneel against the barrier of boarding which closed the Grotto. From between the openings of the palisade she was watching the miraculous Spring gushing forth and was praying. What was she demanding of God? Was her soul turning itself towards the present or the future? Was she praying for herself, or for others who were dear to her and with whose destiny she was charged? Was she imploring the blessings and protection of Heaven for an individual or a family? No matter.
This woman engaged in prayer had not escaped the vigilant eyes which represented the policy of the Prefect, the Magistracy and the Police.
The Argus quitted M. Veuillot and rushed towards the kneeling woman.
“Madame,” said he, “nobody is permitted to pray here. You are taken in the very act; you will have to answer for this before the Juge de Paix, presiding over the Correctional Tribunal, and without appeal. Your name?”
“Willingly,” said the lady. “I am the wife of Admiral Bruat, and Governess of His Highness, the Prince Imperial.”
No one in the world had a higher respect for the social hierarchy and established authorities than the formidable Jacomet. He dropped his accusation.
Scenes of this nature were often renewed. To prosecute certain persons was alarming to the agents of the Prefect and might have caused some uneasiness to the high functionary himself. It was a deplorable state of things. The powerful disobeyed the decree with impunity, while the weak were treated with the utmost severity.
The weights and measures used varied according to circumstances.
