Although Monseigneur Laurence had instituted a Tribunal of Investigation towards the end of July, it had been his wish to see the effervescence of the public cool down of its own accord, before he permitted it to enter on its duties. “To wait,” he thought, “could never lead to compromising anything, when the question regarded the works of God, who holds time in His own hands.” The event had shown he was right. After the tumultuous discussions of the French press, and the violent measures of Baron Massy, the Grotto had become free to access, and there was no longer cause for dreading the scandal of seeing the members of the Episcopal Commission arrested by an agent of Police on the road to the Rocks of Massabielle, when repairing there to accomplish their work and study, on the very spot where the Apparition had manifested herself, the traces of the hand of God.
On the 17th of October, the Commissioners betook themselves to Lourdes. The youthful Seer was interrogated by them.
“Bernadette,” says the Secretary, in his official report, “presented herself before us with great modesty, but with remarkable self-composure. She displayed great calmness and absence of embarrassment, in the midst of so numerous an assembly, and in presence of distinguished ecclesiastics whom she had never seen before, but whose mission had been explained to her.”
The young girl recounted the Apparitions, the words of the Virgin, the order given by Mary to have a chapel built on the very spot consecrated to her worship, the sudden appearance of the Fountain and the name of the “Immaculate Conception” which the Vision had given to herself. She explained, with the grave certitude of a witness sure of the facts, and with the humble candor of a child, all that was personal to herself in this supernatural drama, which had extended over nearly a whole year. She replied to all the questions put to her, and left no obscure doubts in the minds of those who interrogated her, no longer in the name of men such as Jacomet, the Procureur, or of so many others, but in that of the Catholic Church, the eternal spouse of God. Our readers are already aware of all the facts to which she bore testimony, as we have explained those events, in the order in which they occurred, in different portions of this narrative.
The Commissioners visited the Rocks of Massabielle, and saw for themselves the enormous flow of the Divine Spring. They established, from the unanimous declaration of persons belonging to the district, that the Spring was not in existence previously to its having gushed forth before the eyes of the multitude, from beneath the hand of the youthful Seer, when in a state of ecstasy.
At Lourdes and at places distant from the town, the Commissioners investigated most minutely the extraordinary cures which had been effected by the use of the water of the Grotto.
There were, in this delicate inquiry, two very distinct parts: the facts themselves and their attendant circumstances depended on human testimony; the examination into the natural or supernatural character of these facts depended―at least to a great extent―on the verdict of medical science. The method pursued by the tribunal of investigation was suggested by this double conception.
Making the tour of the dioceses of Tarbes, Auch and Bayonne, the Commissioners summoned before them all those who had been pointed out to them as having been cured in so remarkable a manner; they questioned them with the utmost minuteness on all the details of their malady, and of their restoration―whether sudden or gradual―to health. They employed men of human science to put to them technical questions, which, perhaps, would never have occurred to the minds of theologians. They assembled together, in order to submit these declarations to the test of cross-examination, the relatives, friends, and neighbors of those who claimed to have been cured, including all the witnesses of the different phases of the event, those who had seen the invalid, those who had been present at the cure, etc., etc.
Having once arrived in this manner at an absolute certainty relative to the facts taken as a whole, and in their details, the Commissioners submitted them, in order to ascertain their value, to two eminent and qualified physicians, whom they had admitted as colleagues. These physicians were Doctor Vergés medical superintendent of the baths at Baréges and Fellow-Professor of the Faculty of Montpellier, and Doctor Dozons, who had already studied several of these strange incidents on his own account.
Each medical man stated in a separate report, his opinion on the nature of the cure; sometimes rejecting the Miracle to attribute the cessation of the malady in question to natural causes; sometimes declaring the fact to be utterly inexplicable, except by a supernatural action of divine power; and lastly, sometimes not arriving at any conclusion and remaining in doubt―a doubt, more or less, inclining to one or other of the above solutions.
Furnished with this double element―the entire knowledge of facts on the one hand, and the conclusions arrived at by Science on the other―the Commissioners deliberated and submitted their judgment to the Bishop, together with all the documents connected with the case.
The Commissioners had not and could not have any preconceived opinions. Believing on principle in the Supernatural, which is so often met within the history of the world, they were at the same time, aware that nothing tends so much to discredit true miracles, proceeding from God, as false prodigies contrived by man. Equally indisposed to affirm beforehand or to reject prematurely, and being entirely unprejudiced either for or against the Miracle, they confined their task to that of investigation, and truth was the sole object of their researches. Appealing―in order to throw light on the various facts they were studying―to every kind of information and every kind of testimony, they acted with entire publicity. They opened their sessions to unbelievers, as well as to those who believed. Firmly resolved to discard with relentless severity all that was vague and uncertain, and to accept only such facts as were precise, well-founded, and incontestable, they rejected all declarations which were grounded on mere on-dits and empty reports.
To every witness who appeared before them, the Commissioners imposed two conditions:―the first, only to depose to what he knew personally and had seen with his own eyes; the second, to pledge himself to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, by the solemn formality of an oath.
With such precautions, and with an organization so prudent and wise, it was impossible for false miracles to succeed in deceiving, even for a moment, the judgment of the Commissioners. This was, besides, still more impossible, in the midst of so many hostile intellects stirred up against the Supernatural, and deeply interested in combating and upsetting every error, every exaggeration, every doubtful assertion, and every miraculous fact which did not admit of the clearest demonstration.
If then, true miracles, incompletely established, were destined not to receive the sanction of the Commission of Inquiry, it was at least absolutely certain that no lying wonders could maintain their ground before the severity of its examination, or take their place, in its judgment, among the admirable facts of the divine and supernatural order.
Whoever, wishing to contest the truth of such or such a miracle, could produce not merely vague general theories, but precise articulations and a personal knowledge of facts, could publicly demand the right of presenting himself. Not to do so, was to submit to the sentence pronounced, and to confess that he had nothing formal or particular to allege, and was unable to furnish any counter-evidence. Forbearance evidently implied this. It is not when parties are heated with passion and the ardor of a long struggle, that they suffer judgment to go by default. To refuse the combat is to acknowledge a defeat.
