Our Lady of Lourdes - Eleventh Book - Part 3

  In fact, notwithstanding the bishop’s pastoral letter, the Church had not yet taken possession by any public ceremony of these forever sacred places .  This, however, was solemnly done April 4, 1864, by the inauguration and benediction of a superb statue of the Blessed Virgin, which was placed, with all the pomp usual on such occasions, in the rustic niche wreathed with wild roses,  where the Mother of God had made her appearance to the daughter of man.

  The weather was magnificent.  The sun of early spring had risen and was progressing through the  azure dome of heaven, which was not specked with a single cloud.

  The town of Lourdes was dressed with flowers, banners, garlands and triumphal arches.  From the high tower of the Parish Church, from all the chapels of the town, and from all the Churches of the neighborhood, joyous peals of bells burst forth.  Vast multitudes had assembled to take part in the grand  fête of earth and heaven.  A procession such as never had been seen within the memory of man, started in order to proceed from the Parish Church of Lourdes to the Grotto of the Apparition.  Bodies of troops, in all the splendor of military equipment, led the way.  Immediately following them were the Brotherhoods of Lourdes, the mutual-aid societies;  all the corporations of the adjoining districts, bearing their banners and Cross;  the Congregation of the Children of Mary, whose flowing robes shone like snow;  the Sisters of Nevers with their long black veils;  the Sisters of Charity, in large white caps;  the Sisters of Saint Joseph, enveloped in their dark cloaks;  the religious orders of men, Carmelites and teaching Brothers of the Christian Schools, immense multitudes of pilgrims, men, women and children, not forgetting old men, in all, fifty to sixty thousand human beings, ranged in two interminable files, wound along the road, strewed with flowers, leading to the illustrious Rocks of Massabielle.  At intervals, choruses of human voices and bands of instrumental music made the air resound with triumphal marches, canticles, and all the outbursts of popular enthusiasm.  Lastly, bringing up the rear of this unheard-of procession, the most eminent Prelate, Monseigneur Bertrand-Sévère Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, surrounded by four hundred priests in full canonicals, by his grand vicars, and by the dignitaries of the chapter of his Cathedral Church, marched with solemn steps, wearing his  mitre and attired in his Pontifical robes, blessing with one hand the assembled people, while with the other he supported himself on his large golden   crozier.

  An indescribable emotion, a kind of intoxication such as is only known by Christian multitudes assembled in the sight of God, filled all hearts.  In fact, the day of solemn triumph had come, after so many difficulties, so many struggles, so many obstacles.  Tears of happiness, enthusiasm, and love, trickled down the cheeks of these masses of people, agitated by the breath of God.

  What ineffable joy must, in the midst of this fête, have filled the heart of Bernadette, who, doubtless, marched at the head of the Congregation of the Children of Mary!  What feelings of overwhelming felicity must have inundated the soul of the venerable Curé of Lourdes, as he chanted, without doubt, at the bishop’s side, the Hosanna of the Divine victory?  Both of them having been partakers of the affliction, the moment was now come for both of them to be present at the glory.

  Alas!  Bernadette was sought for in vain among the Children of Mary;  The Curé Peyramale was sought for in vain among the clergy who surrounded the Prelate.  There are joys too great for earth and which are reserved for heaven.  Here below, God refuses them even to his dearest sons.

  At the very time when everything wore a festal air and the sun shone joyously on the triumph of the faithful, the Curé of Lourdes, attacked with a malady which was pronounced mortal, was the victim of the most terrible physical sufferings.  He was lying stretched on his bed of pain, at the foot of which two religieuses connected with the hospital, prayed and watched day and night.  He wished to have been lifted from his bed to have seen the grand cortege, but his strength failed him, and he had not even a passing glimpse of all its splendor.  Through the closed curtains of his apartment, the joyous sound of the silvery bells only reached him like a funeral knell.

  As to Bernadette, God marked His predilection for her―as is His wont to do with His elect―by causing her to pass through the grand trial of pain.  While, presiding over the immense procession of the faithful, Monseigneur Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, was going in the name of the Church to take possession of the Rocks of Massabielle and solemnly inaugurate the worship of the Virgin who had appeared to her, Bernadette, like the eminent Priest of whom we have just spoken, was brought low by sickness;  and maternal Providence, fearing perhaps for her much-loved child the temptation of vain-glory, deprived her of the sight of those unheard-of fêtes, where she would have heard her own name re-echoed with acclamation by thousands of voices, and celebrated from the Christian pulpit by the ardent words of those who preached on the occasion.  Too poor to receive proper attention at home, where neither she nor any of her family had ever wished to receive any pecuniary aid, Bernadette had been carried to the hospital, where she lay on the humble pallet of public charity, in the midst of poor creatures, whom this transitory world terms wretched, but whom Jesus Christ has blessed, by declaring them the inheritors of His eternal kingdom.

Our Lady of Lourdes - Eleventh Book - Part 2

   ENCOURAGING the workmen, seeing to everything, suggesting ideas, sometimes helping himself to straighten a stone placed crooked or a tree badly planted, recalling to the imagination by his indefatigable ardor and his holy enthusiasm, the grand figures of Esdras or of Nehemiah, occupied, in obedience to the commands of God, in constructing the walls of Jerusalem, a man of lofty stature, with a broad and strongly marked forehead, seemed to be everywhere at one and the same time.  He attracted attention even from a considerable distance by his powerful frame and his long black cassock.  His name may be easily guessed.  It was the pastor of the town of Lourdes;  it was the Curé Peyramale.

  Every hour in the day he was thinking on the message addressed to him by the Blessed Virgin through the youthful Seer;  every hour in the day he was thinking of those prodigious cures which had accompanied and followed the divine Apparition, of those countless miracles which he witnessed daily.  He vowed his life to the execution of the orders of the mighty Queen of the Universe, and to the erection of a magnificent monument to her glory.  Any delay, any slowness, even the loss of a single moment seemed to him to mark the ingratitude of men;  and his heart, devoured with zeal for the house of God, often led to his being indignant, and manifested itself in severe admonitions.  His faith was absolute and replete with grandeur.  He regarded with horror the wretched narrowness of human prudence, and he thundered against it  with the holy disdain of one accustomed to view things according to the horizon of that sacred mountain, from whose height the Son of God preached the nothingness of earth and the reality of heaven:  “Be not troubled.  Seek first my kingdom and all the rest shall be added unto you.”

  One day, just opposite the miraculous Fountain, in the middle of a group of ecclesiastics and laity, an architect presented to him a plan―and it was by no means an ungraceful one―of a charming little Church which he proposed building over the Grotto.  The Curé Peyramale glanced at it and his face became flushed;  with a gesture of impatience he crumpled up and tore the plan and threw the fragments into the Gave.

  “What are you doing?” exclaimed the astonished architect.

  “You see,” replied the priest, “I blushed at what human meanness presumes to offer to the Mother of my God, and I destroyed the miserable design.  What we must have here in memory of the great events which have taken place, is not a little confined village church, but a temple of marble as large as the summit of the Rocks of Massabielle will afford room for, and as magnificent as your mind can possibly conceive.  Now then, sir, as an architect let your genius indulge in the most daring conceptions, let nothing arrest its upward flight and let it give us a masterpiece.  Be sure of one thing, that were you Michelangelo himself, it would be strangely   unworthy of the Virgin who has appeared here.”

  “But, sir,” to the Curé, “it would take millions to realize what you are speaking of.”

  “He who caused a Spring of living water to gush forth from this barren rock will have no difficulty in rendering the hearts of believers generous, go and have no fears.” replied the priest.

  The temple was erected in the proportions designed by the man of God.

  Often the Curé, considering the different works in progress, used to say, “When will it be granted to me to be present, in the midst of Priests and the faithful, at the first procession which shall come to inaugurate in these blessed places, the public worship of the Catholic Church.  Might I not in such a moment chant my Nunc Dimittis and expire with joy at such a feast?”

  His eyes used to fill with tears at such thoughts.  Never was any desire more ardent and more fondly dwelt on in the depth of a soul than this innocent wish of a heart entirely taken up with God.

  Occasionally, at times when there were but few persons at the rocks of Massabeille, a little girl came to kneel humbly before the place of the Apparition, and to drink at the spring.  She was evidently sprung from the people and was poorly dressed.  There was nothing to distinguish her from others, and unless some pilgrim happened to know her, or to inform others of her name, no one would have guessed that it was Bernadette.  She who had been so highly privileged by the Lord, had returned to her primitive state of silence and obscurity.  She continued to attend the schools of the Sisters, where she was the most simple of the scholars and would have wished to have been one of the most in the shade.  The countless visits she received there did not trouble her peaceful soul, in which the memory of her glimpse of heaven and the image of the incomparable Virgin lived forever.  The people, however, thronged to the spot from every direction, miracles were there accomplished, and the temple rose by degrees.  And Bernadette, like the saintly Curé of Lourdes, looked forward to the day―the most fortunate to her next to those of the Divine visit―when she should, with her own eyes, see the Priests of the true God, conducting the faithful, headed by the Cross, and with banners floating in the air, to the Rock of the Apparition.

Our Lady of Lourdes - Eleventh Book - Part 1

LET us return to Lourdes.

  Time had proceeded on its course.  Human hands had set to work in good earnest.

  The approaches to the Grotto, in which the Virgin had appeared, were changed in appearance.  Without losing aught of its grandeur, this wild and stern locality had assumed a graceful, pleasing and lively aspect.  A superb Church―not yet finished, but swarming with workmen―proudly seated on the summit of the Rocks of Massabielle, towered joyously towards Heaven.  The great slope, abrupt and uncultivated, formerly accessible only with difficulty even to the practiced feet of mountaineers, was covered with green turf and planted with shrubs and flowers.  Amidst dahlias and roses,      daisies and violets, beneath the shade of acacias and cytisuses, a vast path, broad as a road, winded in graceful curves and led from the Church to the Grotto.

  The Grotto was closed with an iron railing, after the fashion of a sanctuary.  A golden lamp was suspended from the roof.  Under those wild rocks on which the Virgin had trodden with her divine feet, clusters of tapers burned night and day.

  Outside this enclosed portion, the Miraculous Spring fed four massive basins of bronze.  A piscina, concealed from observation by a small building erected over it, afforded the sick an opportunity of bathing in the blessed water.

  The situation of the mill-stream of Sâvy had been altered, being thrown back up the stream in the direction of the Gave.  The Gave itself had retreated to afford room for a magnificent road which led to these Rocks of Massabielle, formerly so totally unknown, but now so celebrated.  On the banks of the river as it flowed downwards, the soil had been leveled, and a broad lawn bordered with elms and poplars formed a splendid promenade.

  All these changes had been effected and were still being effected in the midst of an immense influx of believers.  The copper coins thrown into the Grotto by the faithful, the grateful ex-votos of so many invalids who had been cured, of so many hearts which had been consoled, of so many souls which had been restored as it were from death to truth and life, sufficed to defray the expenses of these gigantic labors, the estimate of which was nearly two million francs.  When God in his goodness condescends to call on man to co-operate directly in any one of his works, he employs neither soldiers nor gendarmes to collect the sums needful, and only accepts a purely voluntary assistance from the hands of his creatures.  The Master of the world repudiates constraint, for He is the God of free souls, and the only tribute He consents to receive are the spontaneous gifts offered to him from a happy heart and entire independence by those by whom He is loved.

  Thus was the Church being built;  thus was the mill-stream and the river diverted into other courses;  thus were the adjoining lands excavated or leveled, and roads laid around the celebrated Rocks  where the Mother of Christ had manifested herself in her glory to the gaze of mortals.

Our Lady of Lourdes - Tenth Book - Part 2

ANOTHER Episode.

  There are not infrequently to be found in civil life, men who from their outward appearance might be mistaken for soldiers.  Although they have never lived in camps, all who happen to see them passing by and are not acquainted with them, infallibly take them for old military men.  They have their somewhat stiff carriage, firm bearing, regimental look, and also their abrupt good nature.  Men of this stamp are more especially found in mixed services, such as the Custom-house, Woods and Forests, etc., which, though purely civil, borrow from the system adopted in the army, their gradations of rank and style of employment.  On one hand they have, like men in private life, a family, a home and a domestic life;  on the other they are subjected on every side to the multiplied exigences of a purely military organization.  The result is to be found in those singular physiognomies of which I am now speaking, and which every one must have remarked.

  If then you have ever seen a gallant cavalry officer dressed in plain clothes, his hair cut short, with a bristly mustache in which a few gray hairs may be detected;  if you have remarked, among his energetic features, those vertical and rectilineal wrinkles ―no, they can hardly be called wrinkles― which would seem to be peculiar to these military countenances;  if you have scanned carefully those foreheads, entirely unfit for hats, but which appear to be made expressly for the kepi or the silver-laced tricorne;  those firm but mild eyes which during the day are habituated to brave danger, and which at the approach of evening are softened in the intimacy of the fireside, and love to gaze on the countenances of children;  if you have any recollection of this characteristic type, I have no occasion to sketch for you the portrait of M. Roger Lacassagne, holding an appointment in the custom-house at Bordeaux;  you know him as well as I do myself.

  When, nearly two years ago, I had the honor of calling on him at his residence, 6 Rue du Chai des Farines, at Bordeaux, I was struck at first with his severe aspect and reserved address.

  He enquired from me, with the somewhat abrupt politeness of men accustomed to discipline, the object of my visit.

  “Sir,” I replied, “I have heard of the history of your journey to the Grotto of Lourdes, and to assist me in the investigations I am making just now, I have come to hear the recital from your own mouth.”

  At the words “Grotto of Lourdes” his harsh countenance had brightened up, and the emotion of a stirring souvenir had all at once softened the austere lines of his brow.

  “Sit down,” said the gallant man, “and excuse my receiving you in this room in its present state of disorder.  My family start today for Arcachon, and you find us in all the bustle of moving.”

  “That is of no importance.  Kindly relate to me the events of which I have been informed only in a somewhat confused manner.”

  “As for myself,” he said, in a tone of voice in which I could trace tears, “as for myself, never, as long as I live, shall I forget a single circumstance.”

  “Sir,” he resumed, after a moment of silence, “I have only two sons.  The youngest is called Jules, and it is of him only that I shall have occasion to speak to you.  He will be here almost immediately.  You will see how amiable, pure and good he is.”

  M. Lacassagne did not inform me how tenderly he loved his youngest son.  But the tone of his voice, which seemed to become soft and caressing when speaking of him, revealed to me all the depth of his paternal love.  I saw plainly that there, in this feeling at once so tender and so strong, was concentrated the manly soul which was opening itself to me.

  “His health,” he continued, “had been excellent up to the age of ten years.

  “At that period he was attacked suddenly, and without any apparent physical cause, with a malady, the serious nature of which I did not at first realize.  On the 25 of January, 1865, when we were taking our seats at the table for supper,  Jules complained of there being something the matter with his throat which prevented his swallowing any solid food.  He could only take a little soup.

  “As he remained in the same state the next day, I called one of the most eminent medical men of Toulouse, M. Noguès.

  “ ‘It proceeds from the nerves,’ observed the  Doctor, giving me every hope of a speedy recovery.

  “A few days afterwards, in fact, the child was able to eat, and I thought he was quite convalescent, when the malady returned, and continued with intermissions, more or less regular, until towards the end of the month of April.  From that time, his state remained unchanged.  The poor child was reduced to live exclusively on liquids, such as milk, gravy from meat, and broth.  Even the broth was obliged to be somewhat thin, for the orifice in his throat was so narrow that it was absolutely impossible for him to swallow even tapioca.

  “The poor little fellow, reduced to such miserable nourishment, became visibly thinner and was slowly wasting away.

  “The physicians―for their were two of them, as from the first I had begged M. Roques, a man of great medical celebrity, to act in concert with M. Noguès―astonished at the singularity and obstinancy of this affliction, sought in vain to acquire a clear idea of its nature in order to fix upon its remedy.

  “One day, it was the 10th of May―I have suffered so much, sir, and thought so much about this unfortunate malady, that I have remembered all the dates―I perceived Jules in the garden running with very unusual effort, and, as it were, by jerks.  I feared, sir, the least agitation for him.

  “ ‘Stop,  Jules,’ I exclaimed, going towards him and seizing him by the hand.

  “He made his escape from me immediately.

  “ ‘Papa,’ he said, ‘I cannot stop.  I must run.  It is stronger than I am.’

  “I took him on my knees;  his legs twitched convulsively.  A short time afterwards his head was attacked with ghastly contortions.

  “The true character of his malady was now apparent.  My unfortunate child was suffering from chorea.  You know doubtless, sir, with what terrible fits this horrible malady generally discovers itself.”

  “No,” I exclaimed, interrupting him, “I do not even know what a chorea is.”

  “It is a disease commonly known by the name of St. Vitus’ dance.”

  “Ah!  Now I know what it is.  Proceed.”

  “The principal seat of the disease was in the esophagus.  The symptoms which had developed themselves, and which, unfortunately, reappeared every hour of the day without cessation, put an end to the doubts of the medical men.

  “However, though they had traced the malady to its source, they were unable to overcome it.  The utmost they could do after fifteen months of treatment, was to subdue the external symptoms, such as the twitching of the legs and head;  or rather, to say what I really think, these symptoms disappeared of their own accord by an effort of nature.  As to the extreme contraction of the throat, it passed into a chronic state, and resisted all our efforts.  Remedies of every kind, country air, and the baths of Luchon, were successively and fruitlessly employed for the space of two years.  These different treatments only served to exasperate the malady.

  “Our last attempt was passing a summer at the sea-side for the sake of the baths.  My wife had taken our poor invalid to St. Jean-de-Luz.  It is needless to tell you, that, in the state in which he was, we were entirely absorbed in attending to his physical needs.  Our grand object was merely to keep him alive.  We had from the very first suspended his studies, and all mental exertion was prohibited;  we treated him as if he were merely vegetating.  Now, as his mind was active and serious, this privation of all intellectual exercise greatly affected his spirits.  Besides the poor child was ashamed of his malady;  he saw others of his own age in heath, and he felt himself to be as it were, disgraced and accursed.  He avoided all―”

  The Father, quite overcome by these souvenirs, paused a moment as if to master a sob in his voice.

  “He avoided all company,” he resumed.  “He was sad.  Did he find any book, he read it to distract his thoughts.  At St.  Jean-de-Luz, he saw one day on the table of a lady who resided in the neighborhood, a little notice of the Apparition at Lourdes.  He read it, and was, as it would appear, greatly struck with it.  In the evening he observed to his mother, that the Blessed Virgin might easily cure him;  but she paid no attention to his words, regarding them as a mere childish fancy.

  “When we returned to Bordeaux―for a short time before this my station had been changed, and we had come to reside here―my poor child’s state was precisely the same.

  “This was in the month of August, last year.  As you may well imagine, we were profoundly discouraged at seeing the unavailing result of so much medical skill, and the failure of so much care.  By degrees we ceased applying any kind of remedy, leaving nature to itself, and resigning ourselves to the inevitable misfortune with which it had pleased God to visit us.  It seemed to us as if so much suffering had somehow or other redoubled our love for the poor child.  Jules was attended by his mother and myself with equal tenderness and unceasing solicitude.  Grief has aged us both many years.  Look at me sir.  I am only forty-six.”

  I looked at the poor father, and the sight of his furrowed countenance, on which grief had left unmistakable traces, touched my heart deeply.  I took his hand and pressed it with cordial sympathy and profound compassion.

  “In the meanwhile,” he continued, “the child’s strength was visibly decreasing.  For two whole years, he had not taken any solid food.  It was only at great expense, by means of liquid nourishment, which we exerted every effort to make as substantial as possible, and owing to exceptional care of him, that we had succeeded in prolonging his days.  He was reduced to a frightful state of emaciation.  He was extremely pale, and seemed to have no blood under his skin, so much so that he might have been taken for a wax figure.  Death was plainly approaching with rapid steps.  It was more than certain, it was imminent.  In truth sir, in spite of my experience of the impotency of medical science, I could not in my grief prevent myself from knocking once more at the same door. It was the only one I knew anything of.

  “I addressed myself to M. Gintrac, Sr., the most eminent physician in Bordeaux.

  M. Gintrac examined the child’s throat, probed it, and discovered that, besides the extreme contraction which closed the alimentary canal, there were rugosities symptomatic of extreme danger.

  “He shook his head and gave me but little hope.  He saw my terrible anxiety.

  “ ‘I do not say that he may not recover,’ he added, ‘but he is very ill.’ ”

  These were his very words.

  He deemed the employment of local remedies absolutely necessary;  first injections, and then  touching the parts with a swab steeped in ether.  But this treatment entirely upset my poor boy, and such being the result, M. Sentex, the house-surgeon of the hospital, advised us himself to discontinue it.

  “During one of my visits to Doctor Gintrac, I informed him of an idea which had occurred to me.

  “ ‘It appears to me,’ I said, ‘that if Jules wished to swallow, he might do so.  It may be that this difficulty proceeds only from fear, and perhaps he does not swallow today merely because he was unable to do so yesterday.  In that case, it may be a mental malady, which moral means alone can cure.’

  “The Doctor deprived me of this last illusion.

  “ ‘You are mistaken,’ he said.  ‘The malady is in the organs, which are deeply attacked.  I have not confined myself to a mere ocular examination― which might lead us into error―but I have probed the parts, and felt them most minutely with my fingers.  The esophagus is lined with rugosities, and the duct is so extremely contracted, that it is physically impossible for the child to take any food except those in a liquid form, which reduce themselves naturally to the size of the duct, and pass through the orifice, about as large as the eye of a needle, which still exists.  A very slight increase in the swelling of the tissues and the child would be suffocated.  The commencement of the malady, the alternations for better and worse which have characterized it, and its momentary interruptions serve to corroborate my physical observations.  Your son having been once cured would have remained always cured, had the evil been one of the mind.  Unfortunately, it is in the organs.

  “These observations which had been made to me already at Toulouse, but which I had willfully disregarded, were too conclusive not to produce conviction in my mind.  I returned home, with the sentence of death in my soul.

  “What then could be done?  We had sought     advice from the most eminent physicians of Toulouse and Bordeaux, and all had been in vain.  The fatal truth was brought home to me;  our poor child was condemned, and that without appeal.

  “It is difficult sir, for the heart of a father to be convinced of so cruel a fact.  I still endeavored to  deceive myself.  I was always in consultation with my wife, and began to think of hydropathy.

  “Things had reached this desperate and discouraging state, when Jules addressed his mother―in a tone of voice so full of confidence and absolute certainty, as could not fail to strike her―the following words:

  “ ‘You see, mama, neither M. Gintrac nor any other doctor can do anything for me.  It is the Blessed Virgin who will cure me.  Send me to the Grotto of Lourdes, and you will see I shall be cured.  I am sure of it.’

  “My wife repeated to me what he had said.

  “ ‘There is no room for hesitation,’  I exclaimed.  ‘We must take him to Lourdes―and that without delay.’

  “It is not, sir, that I had faith.  I did not believe in miracles, and I did not regard such extraordinary interventions of the Divinity as possible.  But I was a father, and no chance, however slight it might be,  appeared to me to be contemptible.  Besides, I hoped that, independently of those supernatural events which it was difficult for me to admit, this might produce a salutary moral effect on my child.  As for a complete cure, you may easily understand sir, I did not even think of it.

  “The time was winter, about the beginning of February.  The season was a severe one, and I feared to expose Jules to the least inclemency of weather.  I wished to wait for the first fine day.

  “Since my boy had read the little account of the Apparition at Lourdes―eight months previously at St. Jean-de-Luz the feeling he now expressed to us had never left him.  Having displayed it once there ―when it did not meet with any attention―he had never mentioned it again;  but this idea had remained in his mind and been his constant companion while he was submitting―with a patience which you should have seen, sir―to the treatment prescribed by the medical men.

  “This faith so full and entire was the more extraordinary, as we had not brought up our child in any exaggerated notions of the duties of religion.  My wife went through her routine of devotion, and that was all;  and, as for myself, I was imbued, as I have just told you, with philosophical ideas of quite another kind.

  “On the 12th of February the weather promised to be splendid.  We took the train for Tarbes.

  “During the whole journey our child was gay, full of absolute faith in his cure―of a faith which quite upset me.

  “ ‘I shall be cured,’ he said to me every moment.  ‘You will see.  Many others have been cured;  why should not I?  The Blessed Virgin is going to cure me.’

  “And I, sir, supported, without partaking in it, this so great confidence, this confidence which I should qualify as ‘stupefying,’ did I not fear to be wanting in respect to God who inspired him with it.

  “At Tarbes, at the Hotel Dupont, where we alighted, every one remarked my poor child, so pale and weak, but at the same time so sweet and charming in appearance.  I had mentioned the object of my visit, to the proprietors of the hotel.  A happy presentiment seemed to mingle itself with the kind wishes of these good hearted people, and, when we started, I saw that they expected our return with impatience.

  “In spite of my doubts, in order to be prepared for whatever might happen, I took with me a little box of biscuits.

  “When we reached the crypt which is beneath the Grotto, Mass was being said.  Jules prayed with a faith which was reflected on all his features, with an ardor which proceeded from heaven.  He was altogether transfigured, poor little angel.

  “The Priest remarked on his fervor, and when he had quitted the altar, he came immediately out of the Sacristy again and approached us.  A happy thought had suggested itself to his mind, on seeing my poor darling.  He informed me of it, and then turning towards Jules, who was still kneeling―

  “ ‘My child,’ said he, ‘are you willing that I should consecrate you to the Blessed Virgin?’

  “ ‘Oh! yes,’ replied Jules.

  “The priest proceeded immediately with the simple ceremony, and recited the holy formularies over my son.

  “ ‘And now,’ exclaimed the child, in a tone of voice which struck me, owing to its perfect confidence; ‘and now, papa, I am going to be cured.’

  “We went down into the Grotto.  Jules knelt down before the statue of the Virgin and prayed.  I watched him, and I still have before my eyes the expression of his countenance, his attitude and his clasped hands.

  “He rose and we went in front of the fountain.

  “That moment was a terrible one.

  “He washed his neck and breast, and then taking the glass drank a few mouthfuls of the miraculous water.

  “He was calm and happy;  even more, he was gay and radiant with confidence.

  “For myself,  I trembled and shuddered almost to fainting at this last trial;  but I repressed my emotion, though it was most difficult for me to do so.  I did not wish to let him see that I still had doubts.

  “ ‘Try now to eat,’ I said to him, handing him a biscuit.  

  “He took it and I turned my head aside, not feeling strength to watch him while making the effort.  It was in fact the question of my child’s life or death which was going to be decided.  In that question, so terrible for a father’s heart, I was playing, so to say, my last card.  If I failed, my beloved Jules was dead.  The trial was to be decisive and I dared not face the sight.

  “I was soon relieved from my poignant anguish.  The voice of Jules―a sweet and joyous voice― cried out to me:

  “ ‘Papa!  I am swallowing the biscuit.  I am able to eat.  I was sure of it, for I had faith.’

  “What a shock, sir.  My son, already the victim of death, was saved, and that suddenly, and I, his   father, was present at this astounding resurrection.

  “Well, sir, in order to spare my chid’s faith any trouble, I had sufficient control over myself not to appear astonished.

  “ ‘Yes, dearest Jules, it was certain and could not have turned out otherwise,’ I said to him, in a tone of voice which all the energy of my will succeeded in rendering calm.

  “And yet, sir, a tempest was raging within me.  Had my breast been opened it would have been found burning as if full of fire.

  “We renewed the experiment.  He ate a few more biscuits, not only without difficulty, but with increasing appetite.  I was obliged to check him.

“I felt the necessity of loudly proclaiming my happiness and of thanking God.

  “ ‘Wait for me here,’ I said to Jules, ‘and pray to the kind Virgin.  I am going up into the Chapel.’

  “Leaving him for a moment kneeling in the Grotto, I hastened to impart the happy news to the priest.  I was in a kind of bewilderment.  Besides my happiness, which was rendered terrible by its suddenness and unexpectedness;  besides the agitation of my heart, I experienced in my soul and in my mind an inexpressible trouble.  A revolution was taking place in my confused, agitated and tumultuous thoughts.  All my philosophical ideas were tottering or falling to pieces within me.

  “The priest descended hastily and saw Jules finishing his last biscuit.  The Bishop of Tarbes happened to be at the Chapel that very day;  he wished to see my son.  I gave him a full account of the cruel malady which had just been brought to so happy a termination.  Every one fondled the child and sympathized with my joy.

  “In the meantime my thoughts turned towards my wife and the happiness she was about to have.  Before returning to my hotel I hurried to the telegraph office.  My telegram consisted of but one word―‘Cured.’

  “Scarcely had it been despatched when I should have liked to have had it back again.  ‘Perhaps,’ I said to myself, ‘I have been too hasty.  Who knows whether there may not be a relapse?’

  “I scarcely dared believe in the happiness which had overtaken me, and when I did believe in it, it seemed as if it were going to escape from my grasp.

  “As for the child, he was happy;  happy without the least admixture of uneasiness.  He was radiant in his joy and sense of entire security.

  “ ‘You see now, papa,’ he repeated to me every moment, ‘the Blessed Virgin alone could save me.  When I told you so, I was sure of it.’

  “At the hotel he dined with an excellent appetite.  I was never weary of watching him eating.

  “He wished to return, and did return on foot to the Grotto to offer up his thanksgiving to his Deliverer.

  “ ‘You will be very grateful to the Blessed Virgin,’ observed a priest to him.

  “With a gesture he pointed to the image of the Blessed Virgin, and afterwards to heaven.

  “ ‘Ah!  I shall never forget her,’ he exclaimed, in reply.

  “At Tarbes we stopped at the same hotel as on the evening before.  We were expected there.  The good people of the house had―as I think I have already told you―I know not what happy presentiment.  Their joy was extraordinary.  Groups were formed around us to see him eat with sensible pleasure of whatever was served at the table;  one, who but the evening before, could only swallow a few spoonfuls of liquid.  That time seemed already long ago.

  “This malady which had foiled the skill of the most eminent physicians and which had just been so miraculously cured, had been of two years and nineteen days’ duration.

  “We were impatient to see once more the happy mother, and took the express to Bordeaux.  The child was worn out with the fatigue of his journey, and I should have said by his emotions also, had I not observed his constant and peaceful serenity in presence of his sudden cure, which filled him with gladness, but which caused him no astonishment.

  As soon as we arrived home little Jules wanted just to go to bed.  He was overwhelmed with sleep and did not eat any supper.  When his mother, who was dying with joy before our arrival, saw him this oppressed with weariness and refusing to eat, she was attacked with a fearful doubt.  She was in despair.  She accused me of having deceived her, and I had the greatest difficulty in the world to make her believe me.  How great was her happiness when on the following day our beloved Jules, seated at our table, breakfasted with us, and displayed a better appetite than we did.  It was not till then that she became tranquil and reassured.”

  “And since that time,” I asked him, “has there been any relapse or unfavorable symptoms?”

  “No, sir,  nothing of the kind.  The cure was as complete as it was instantaneous.  My son’s general health improved visibly under the influence of a strengthening diet, of which it was full time for him to experience the salutary effects.”

  “And did the medical men attest by their written declaration the prior state of your son’s health?  This would have been an act of bare justice.”

  “I was of the same opinion as yourself, sir, and I sounded on the subject the doctor of Bordeaux who had attended Jules in the last instance;  but he maintained a reserve in the matter which prevented me from pressing him.  As to Doctor Roques, of Toulouse, to whom I wrote immediately, he hastened to acknowledge in the plainest terms the miraculous nature of what had occurred and which was quite beyond the power of medical skill.

  “ ‘In presence of this cure desired for such a length of time and so promptly obtained,’ he wrote to me, ‘how can we help leaving the narrow horizon of scientific explanations, to open our soul to gratitude on so strange an event in which Providence seems to act in obedience to the faith of a child?’  He rejected energetically, as a medical man, the theories which are infallibly brought forward in  similar circumstances such as ‘moral excitement,’  ‘effects of the imagination, etc.,’  to proclaim openly in this event ‘the precise and positive agency of a   superior existence, revealing itself to and obtruding itself upon the conscience.’  Such was the unbiased opinion of M. Roque, physician of Toulouse, who was as thoroughly acquainted as I was myself with the previous state of my son’s malady.  I transcribed the above from his letter, bearing date of the 24th of February.

  “Besides, the things I have just related to you were so notorious that no one would think for a moment of disputing them.  It is a more than an established fact that medical science was utterly foiled by the strange malady with which Jules was attacked.  As to the cause of his recovery, every one can judge and appreciate it according to the point of view from which he regards it.

  “For myself, who, before the occurrence of this extraordinary event, believed only in purely natural agencies, I plainly saw that I must seek for explanations in a higher order;  and from day to day I raise my heart in gratitude to God, who while bringing to a close a long and cruel trial in an unhoped-for manner, touched me in the most vulnerable part in order to make me bow before Him.”

  “I understand your thoughts and feelings on that subject, and I agree with you that such was the plan of God.”

  After having said these words, I remained some moments silent and absorbed in my own reflections.

  Our conversation returned of itself to the child who had been miraculously cured.  The father’s heart was always turing in that direction as does the magnetic needle towards the North.

  “Since that time,” he said to me, “his piety is angelic.  You will shortly see him.  The nobleness of his feelings may be read in his countenance.  He is well disposed, by nature upright and high-minded.  He is incapable of a meanness or of a falsehood.  And his piety has developed to the highest degree his native qualities.  He is studying now at a school in the neighborhood, under M. Conangle, in the Rue du Mirail.  The poor child soon recovered the time he had lost.  He is fond of study and is at the head of his class.  At the last distribution of prizes, he gained that for excellent conduct.  But above all he is most prudent, amiable and good in every respect.  He is beloved by his teachers and comrades.  He is our joy, our consolation.”

  At that moment the door was opened and Jules entered the room in which we were, with his mother.  I embraced him with the tenderest emotion.  His countenance is radiant with the glow of health.  His brow, high and broad, is magnificent and in his deportment there is a modesty and mild self-possession which inspires respect.  His eyes, which are very large and very lively, reflect rare intelligence, absolute purity and a noble soul.

  “You are a happy father,” I said to M. Laccassagne.

  “Yes, sir, very happy.  But my poor wife and I have undergone much suffering.”

  “Do not complain of it,” I said to him as we moved to a little distance from Jules.  “This sorrowful road was the way which led you from darkness to light, from death to life, from yourself to God.  At Lourdes, the Blessed Virgin has shown herself twice the Mother of the living.  She has given to your son temporal life in order to give you the True Life, the Life which will last for ever.”

  I left this family so blessed of God;  and under the impression of what I had seen and heard,  I  wrote―my heart still thrilling with emotion―what I have just narrated.

Our Lady of Lourdes - Tenth Book - Part 1

  “DURING my whole life my sight had been excellent.  I could distinguish objects at an immense distance, and on the other hand I could read my book with the greatest ease, however close it might be to my eyes.  I never suffered the least weariness after passing whole nights in study.  I was sometimes astonished and delighted at the strength of my sight, which was at the same time so powerful and so clear.  I was therefore greatly surprised and cruelly disappointed when, in the course of June and July, 1862, I found my sight becoming by degrees weak, incapable of working by night, and at length so entirely unserviceable that I was obliged to give up reading and writing.  If I attempted to take up a book, at the end of three or four lines―sometimes at the first glance―I experienced such a weariness in the upper part of my eyes as to render further exertion impossible.  I consulted several physicians and more particularly two eminent men who devoted themselves especially to eye-complaints, M. Desmares and M. Giraud-Teulon.

  “The remedies prescribed for me were of little or no avail.  After a period of perfect rest, and a regimen into which iron largely entered, there was at first a slight improvement in my state, and one day I could read and write in the afternoon for a considerable time;  but the next day all my distressing symptoms returned.  It was then that I tried local remedies, cold water douches on the eye-ball cupping on the back of the neck, a general system of hydropathy and alcoholic lotions in the parts adjoining the eye.  Sometimes―though very rarely―I felt a momentary alleviation of the excessive weariness from which I was constantly suffering, but this only lasted for a few moments, and, in short, my complaint was insensibly assuming that chronic type which usually characterizes incurable infirmities.

  “In obedience to the advice of my medical attendants, I had given up my eyes to entire rest.  Not content with wearing blue spectacles whenever I left the house, I had quitted Paris for the country, and retired to my mother’s residence at Coux, on the banks of the Dordogne.  I had taken with me as my secretary a young person who read for me the books I required to consult, and wrote from my dictation.

  “September had arrived.  This state had lasted about three months, and it began to cause me the most serious uneasiness.  I suffered dreadful anxiety, which I did not mention to anyone.  My relations and friends had the same fears, though they kept them from me.  We were almost convinced that my sight was lost forever, but each of us tried to inspire hope we had ceased to have ourselves, and concealed our mutual feelings of alarm.

  “I have a very intimate friend―a friend of my earliest infancy―to whom I am in the habit of confiding my joys and sorrows.  From my dictation my secretary wrote him a letter in which I described my unhappy situation and my cruel fears for the future.

  “The friend of whom I speak is a Protestant, as is his wife also, a double circumstance which deserves being remarked.  For certain very sufficient reasons I cannot give his name here in full;  we will call him M. de _____.

  “He replied to me a few days afterwards.  His letter reached me on the 15th of September, and surprised me greatly.  I here give its contents without changing a single word:

“ ‘Your few lines, my dear friend, gave me pleasure;  but, as I have already told you, I long to hear from you in your own handwriting.  Within the last few days, on my return from Cauterets, I stopped at Lourdes, near Tarbes.  I visited the celebrated Grotto there, and heard such wonderful things relating to cures produced by its waters―more especially in cases of eye-complaints―that I beg you most seriously to give it a trial.  Were I a Catholic, a believer like you, and suffering, as you are, from any malady, I should risk the chance without hesitation.  If it is true that the sick have been suddenly cured, you may hope to swell their number;  and if it is not so, what do you risk by making the trial?  I may add that I am somewhat personally interested in this experiment.  Should it succeed, what an important fact it would be for me to ponder?  I should be brought face to face with a miraculous fact, or at least with an event to which the principal witness would be above all suspicion.

  “ ‘It appears that it is not actually necessary to go to Lourdes to use this water, as you may just as well have it forwarded to you.  You have but to write to the Curé of Lourdes on the subject and he will provide you with it.  It is necessary to go through certain preliminary formalities which I am unable to point out to you, but the Curé of Lourdes will furnish you with all particulars.  Beg him at the same time to send you a little pamphlet by the Vicar-General of Tarbes, which gives an account of the best established miraculous occurrences.’

  “This letter of my friend was eminently calculated to fill me with astonishment.  His disposition of mind is clear, positive and mathematical, lofty in its nature, but at the same time not likely to yield to the illusions of enthusiasm.  Add to this, he is a Protestant.  The advice he gave me so seriously and so urgently, amazed me more especially as coming from him.

  “I resolved, however, not to follow it.

  “ ‘It seems to me,’ I replied to him, ‘that I am   today somewhat better, and if I continue to improve I shall not have any reason to have recourse to the extraordinary remedy you propose, for which, besides, I perhaps, have not sufficient faith.’

  “Here, I must confess, not without blushing, the secret motives of my resistance.

  “Whatever I might have said, I was not wanting in faith, and though I knew nothing of the water of Lourdes, except from the impertinent strictures of some ill-thinking journals, I was morally certain that there, as well as in many other places, the power of God might manifest itself in cures.  I go further:  I had a kind of presentiment that if I tried this water―said to have gushed forth in consequence of an Apparition of the Blessed Virgin―I should be cured.  But I dreaded, I confess, the responsibility of so great a favor,  ‘If you are cured by the ordinary routine of medicine,’  I observed to myself, ‘you will be quits by paying the doctor.  You will be in the same position as your neighbor.  But if God cures you by a Miracle, by the special effect of his power and by a direct and personal intervention, it will be quite a different affair for you and you will be obliged to amend your life and become a saint.  When God shall in a manner have given you for the second time with his own hands those eyes which are now so little under your control, will you be able to suffer them―as you do at present―to stray towards objects which seduce you or wander over what may cause you sorrow?  After a miracle exerted in your favor, God will demand His recompense, and that will cost you dearer than the fees of the doctor.  It will then be your duty to overcome this evil habit, to acquire that virtue.  What may you not be obliged to do?  Ah!  it is impossible.’

  “And my wretched heart, fearing its own weakness, refused to accept the grace of God.

  “Such was my reason for rebelling against the advice tendered me of having recourse to this miraculous intervention, against this advice which Providence, always profound in its ways, sent to me by two Protestants, by two heretics, outside the Church.  My agitation, however, and my resistance were alike in vain.  An interior voice was forever telling me that the hand of man would be powerless to cure me, and that the Master, whom I had so often offended, willed Himself to restore my sight, and thus presenting me with a new life, to prove whether I should be able to employ it better.

  “In the meantime my state of health remained stationary or became slowly worse.

  “Early in October I was obliged to undertake a journey to Paris.

  “By the merest accident M. de _____ happened to be there at the same time with his wife.  The first visit I made was to them.  My friend was stopping at the house of his sister, Mme. P _____, who resides in Paris with her husband.

  “ ‘And how are your eyes?’ asked Mme. de _____, as I entered the drawing-room.

  “ ‘My eyes are always in the same state, and I begin to think my sight is lost forever.’

  “ ‘But why do you not try the remedy we advised you?’ said my friend to me.  ‘Something or other gives me hopes that you might be cured.’

  “ ‘Pshaw!’  I replied, ‘I will confess to you, that without proceeding to the length of denial and open hostility, I have not great faith in all these waters and pretended apparitions.  All that is possible, and I have no positive objection to it;  but not having studied the question, I am neither for nor against it;  it is beyond my reach.  In short, I have no wish to have recourse to the means you advise me.’

  “ ‘You bring forward no valid objections to such a step,’ he replied.  ‘According to your religious principles, you must believe, and you do believe, in the possibility of such things.  Such being the case, why should you not make the experiment?  What will it cost you?  As I have told you, the thing cannot do you any harm, since it is merely pure water, water of the same chemical composition as the most ordinary water;  and since you believe in miracles, and have faith in your religion, does it not strike you as extraordinary that you should be advised so strongly by two Protestants to have recourse to the Blessed Virgin?  I tell you beforehand, that if you are cured, it will be a terrible argument against me.’

  “Mme. de _____ joined her entreaties to those of her husband.  M. and Mme. P _____, who are both Catholics, urged me no less strongly.  I was driven into my last intrenchment.

  “ ‘Well,’ I said to them, ‘I am going to confess the whole truth to you and open to you my whole heart.  I am not wanting in faith, but I have faults, weaknesses, a thousand little wretchednesses―and all these, alas!  hold firmly to the most sensitive and vivants fibers of my miserable existence.  Now, a miracle such as the one of which I might possibly be the object, would impose on me the obligation of sacrificing everything and of becoming a saint;  it would be a terrible responsibility, and I am such a coward that I dread it.  If God cures me, what will He exact from me? whereas, with a doctor, a little money and the affair is settled.

  “ ‘This is disgusting is it not?  But such is the wretched pusillanimity of my heart.  You fancied my faith was wavering!  You imagined that I feared the failure of the miracle!  Undeceive yourselves.  My fear is that the miracle may succeed.’

  “My friends sought to convince me that I exaggerated the responsibility―of which I spoke―as much on the one hand as I diminished it on the other.

  “ ‘You are not less bound at the present moment to live a virtuous life than you would be, supposing the event results as we suppose.’ observed M. de _____.  ‘And, besides, even should your cure be effected by the hands of a physician, it would not, on that account, be less a favor from God, and in that case your scruples would have the same reasons for protesting against your weaknesses or your passions.’

  “All this did not appear to me perfectly correct, and M. de _____ (a logical mind if ever there was one)  probably owned to himself that his reasoning was not altogether what it might have been;  but he wished, as much as possible, to calm the apprehensions I felt so keenly, and to induce me to decide on following the advice he tendered me, even to the length of recalling to my mind himself the grave responsibility with regard to which he was then endeavoring to reassure me.

  “In vain did I attempt to combat the more and more pressing entreaties of my friend, of his wife, and of our host and hostess.  I ended, weary of the conflict, by promising to do everything they wished.

  “ ‘As soon as I procure a secretary,’  I told them, ‘I shall write to Lourdes;  but I only arrived today, and have not yet had time to look for one.’

  “But I will act as your secretary!’ exclaimed my friend.

  “ ‘Well, be it so!  Tomorrow we will breakfast together at the Café de Foy.  I will dictate a letter to you after breakfast.’

  “ ‘Why not do so at once,’ he said to me, eagerly.  ‘In that case we gain a day.’

  “Writing materials were produced from the adjoining apartment.  I dictated to my friend a letter for the Curé of Lourdes, which was posted the same evening.

  “The next day M. de _____ came to my house.

  “ ‘My good friend,’ he said to me, ‘now that the die is cast and that you have decided to make the trial, you must do it seriously, and fulfill the conditions necessary for its success, without which the experiment would be utterly useless.  Offer up the necessary prayers, go to confession, bring your soul into a suitable condition, and go through the devotional  exercises prescribed by your religion.  You understand that all this is of the most vital importance.’
  “ ‘You are perfectly right,’ I replied, ‘and I will do what you tell me.  But I must confess you are a queer Protestant.  A few days since you inculcated on me faith, now you do the same with regard to the practices of religion.  We have exchanged parts in a droll manner, and any one overhearing us―you the Protestant and I the Catholic―might well be astonished;  and I confess, alas! the impression produced would not be to my advantage.’

  “ ‘I am a scientific man,’ replied M. de _____.  ‘As we are about to make an experiment, I very naturally wish we should do it according to the prescribed conditions.  I reason on this subject as if I were reasoning on physical science or chemistry.’

  “I declare, to my shame, that I did not place myself in the state of preparation so judiciously recommended by my friend.  I was, at the time, in a very bad frame of mind;  my natural feelings were deeply agitated, troubled and inclined to evil.

  “I recognized, however, the necessity of going and throwing myself at the feet of God;  but as I had not been guilty of any of those gross and material faults, against which there is a sudden reaction in the mind, I deferred doing so from day to day.  Man rebels more against the sacrament of penance during a temptation than when the actual commission of a sin has come to overthrow and humiliate him.  It is, in fact, more difficult to combat and resist than to demand pardon after a defeat.  Who has not experienced this?

  “About a week passed away in this manner.  M. and Mme. de _____ inquired every day whether I had received any news of the miraculous water, or any letter from the Curé of Lourdes.  The Curé replied to me at length, informing me that some of the water of Lourdes had been forwarded by the railroad, and would shortly reach me.

  “We awaited the moment in a state of impatience which may easily be conceived;  but, would you believe it?  I felt less interest in the matter than my Protestant friends.

  “The state of my eyes was always the same.  It was absolutely impossible for me either to read or write.

  “One morning―it was Friday, October 10, 1862―I was waiting for M. de_____ in the Gallery d’Orleans at the Palais-Royal.  We had breakfasted together.  As I had arrived earlier than the appointed time, I was gazing at the different shops in the gallery, and reading the advertisements of some new books in front of Dentu’s library.  This was enough to weary my eyes excessively.  My sight had become so weak that I could not read even the largest letters without suffering from invincible lassitude.  This slight circumstance plunged me into a state of deep dejection, as it afforded me the means of measuring once more the full extent of my misfortune.

  “In the afternoon, I dictated three letters to M. de_____, and at four o’clock I left him and returned to my own residence.  As I was going upstairs, my porter called me.

  “ ‘A small box has been brought here for you from the railroad,’ he said to me.

  “I entered eagerly the porter’s lodge.  A small box was, in fact, there, bearing my address and these words―doubtless intended for the octroi ― ‘Pure Water.’

  “It was the water from Lourdes.

  “I experienced inwardly a violent emotion;  but I suffered no outward signs of it to escape me.

  “ ‘Very well,’ said I to my porter.  ‘I will take it to my apartment presently.  I shall return almost immediately.’

  “I left the house in a pensive frame of mind, and walked up and down the street for a few moments.

  “ ‘The affair is becoming serious,’  I thought to myself.  ‘De―is right;  I must prepare myself.  In the state of mind in which I have been for some time past, I cannot―unless I purify myself―ask God to perform a Miracle in my favor.  It is not with a heart still full of wretchedness of my own choosing that I can implore so great a favor from Him.  Let me use my own efforts to cure my soul, before I beseech Him to cure my body.’

  “Revolving these serious considerations in my mind, I proceeded in the direction of the residence of my confessor, M.I’ Abbe Ferraud de Missol, who lives in my immediate neighborhood.  Happily I was certain of meeting with him, as it was Friday, and he is always at home on that day.

  “He was at home;  but several persons were already in his ante-chamber waiting for him, and they would naturally see him before my turn came.  In addition to this, one of the members of his family had arrived unexpectedly on a visit.  His servant informed me of all this, and begged me to return in the evening after his dinner-hour, towards seven o’clock.

  “I resigned myself to this proposal.

  “On reaching the street-door I paused for a moment.  I hesitated between my wish to pay a visit I had much at heart, and my thought of returning to my own house to pray.  My fancy urged me violently in the direction of amusement, while a grave voice―a voice which only appeared to me to be  feeble, because I had usually been deaf to it―a deep and holy voice called me to retirement.

  “I hesitated some moments, deliberating in my own mind.

  At length the good inspiration carried the day, and I retraced my steps towards the Rue de Seine.

  “I took from my porter the little box, which was accompanied with a Notice of the Apparitions at Lourdes, and with hasty steps ascended the staircase.

  “On reaching my apartment I knelt down at the side of my bed and prayed, altogether unworthy as I felt myself to turn my eyes towards heaven and to address myself to God.

  “I then rose.  On entering my room, I had placed the little box and the pamphlet on the mantelpiece.  I glanced every moment at this box which contained the mysterious water, and it seemed to me as if something grand was going to take place in that solitary chamber.  I dreaded to touch with my impure hands the wood which contained the sacred water, and, on the other hand, I felt myself strangely tempted to open it, even before making my confession as I had proposed doing.  This struggle lasted some moments;  it ended in a prayer.

  “ ‘Yes, my God,’  I exclaimed, “I am a miserable sinner, unworthy to raise my voice towards Thee, and to touch an object which Thou hast blessed.  But it is the very excess of my misery which should excite thy compassion.  My God, I come to Thee and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, full of faith and unreserved confidence;  and from the depth of the abyss, I cry out unto Thee.  Tonight I shall confess my sins to Thy minister, but my faith cannot and will not wait.  Forgive me, O Lord, and heal me.  And Thou, O Mother of Mercy, come to the assistance of thy unfortunate child.’

  “Having thus refreshed myself with prayer, I summoned courage to open the little box of which I have spoken.  It contained a bottle full of water.

  “I removed the cork, poured some of the water into a cup and took a napkin out of my commode.  These common preparations, which I went through with a particular attention, were impressed―as I still remember―with a secret solemnity, which struck me myself, as I went to and fro in my chamber.  In that chamber I was not alone;  it was manifest that God was there.  The Blessed Virgin, whom I had invoked, was doubtless there also.

  “Faith, fervent and ardent, had inflamed my soul.

  “When my preparations were all finished, I knelt down again.

  “ ‘O Blessed Virgin Mary,’ I said with a loud voice, ‘have pity on me and heal my physical and moral blindness.’

  “On saying these words, with my heart full of confidence, I rubbed successively both my eyes and my forehead with the towel I had just soaked in the water of Lourdes.  What I am now describing did not occupy the space of thirty seconds.

  “Judge of my astonishment―I had almost said my horror.  Scarcely had I applied this miraculous water to my eyes and brow when I felt myself all at once cured, immediately, without any intermediate state and with a suddenness which I can only compare in my imperfect language to that of a flash of lightning.

  “Strange contradiction of human nature!  A moment before I believed in my faith, which promised me my cure;  and now I could not believe my senses which assured me that the cure was accomplished.

  “No!  I did not believe my senses, and that to such a degree that in spite of the astounding effect already produced, I committed the fault of Moses and struck the rock twice.  In other words, for some time longer, I continued to pray and moisten my eyes and my brow, not daring to rise, not daring to test the reality of my cure.
  “However, at the expiration of ten minutes, the strength I continued to feel in my eyes and entire absence of any heaviness in my sight, left no longer any room for doubt.

  “ ‘I am cured!’  I exclaimed.

  “And I ran to take a book―no matter what―to read.  I stopped all at once.  ‘No! no!’  I said to myself, ‘it is not any kind of book that I can take up at this moment.’

  “I went to seek the Notice of the Apparitions which was lying on the mantel-piece.  Certainly, this was but an act of justice.

  I read one hundred and four pages without interruption, and without experiencing the slightest fatigue.  Twenty minutes before I could not have read three lines.

  “And if I did stop at page 104 it was because it was thirty-five minutes past five in the evening, and at that hour, towards the middle of October, it is almost dark at Paris.  When I laid aside the book, the gas was being lighted in the shops of the street in which I resided.

  “In the evening I made my confession and informed the Abbé Ferraud of the great favor the Blessed Virgin had just conferred on me.  Although far from being prepared, as I have already said, I was permitted by him to communicate the next morning, in order to thank God for so special and extraordinary a benefit, and to fortify the resolutions which an  event of such a nature could not fail of giving birth to in my heart.

  M. and Mme. de_____were―as you may easily imagine―singularly affected by this occurrence in which Providence had caused them to take so direct a part.  What were their reflections regarding it?  By what thoughts were they visited?  What passed in the interior of those two souls?  It is their secret and the secret of God.  What little I succeeded in discovering with regard to their feelings, I have not been authorized to impart to others.

  “Be this as it may, I knew the nature of my friend.  I left him to his own reflections, without pressing him to come to any conclusion.  I knew, and I know still, that God has His appointed hour, and knows His own designs.  His agency was so distinctly visible in all that had happened, that I feared to interfere myself, in spite of my great wish― which was well-known to my friends―that they should enter the only Church which contains God in all His fullness.

  “I regret being unable to pause here in order to contemplate for an instant in my memory those two beings―so dear to me―receiving by the rebound of the Miracle, accomplished in my favor, the first shocks, which Truth gives to such as she wishes to conquer .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     

   .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .  

  “Seven years have elapsed since my miraculous cure.  My sight is excellent.  It is not ever wearied by reading, hard work, or sitting up at night.  God grant me grace never to employ it save in the cause of right.”