In this chapter, the narrative describes the opposition that the apparitions at Lourdes faced from both civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The tension between faith and skepticism is highlighted, with the protagonist reflecting on how the truth often encounters resistance, particularly from those in positions of power. The chapter also delves into the character of M. Jacomet, the Commissary of Police, who is portrayed as a shrewd yet suspicious figure, influencing local events and embodying the conflict between religious fervor and state control.
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HOWEVER, this was not sufficient. Truth requires to pass through another crucible. It behoves her, without any external support, relying on herself, and herself alone, to resist the great human forces let loose upon her. It is necessary for her to have persecutors, furious enemies and adversaries skilled in laying snares. When Truth passes through such trials, the weak tremble and fear lest the work of God should be overthrown. Quid timetis, modicæ fidei. The very men who menace her now are her bulwarks hereafter.
Such furious opponents attest to the eyes of ages, that such a belief has not been established chandestinely or in the shade, but rather in the face of enemies, whose interest it was to see and control everything; they attest to the eyes of ages that its foundations are solid, since so many united efforts were not able to shake them even at the moment when they arose in their original weakness: they attest that its basis is pure, since after examining everything through the magnifying glass of malevolence and hatred, they failed in detecting in it any vice or stain. Enemies are witnesses above suspicion, who in spite of themselves depose, before posterity, in favor of the very thing they would willingly have hindered or destroyed. Consequently, if the Apparitions of the Grotto were the starting-point of a divine work, the hostility of the mighty ones of the world, must necessarily go side by side with the withdrawal of the Clergy.
God had equally provided for this. While the ecclesiastical authority, personified in the Clergy, maintained the wise reserve advised by the Curé of Lourdes, the civil authority was equally preoccupied with the extraordinary movement which was in course of arising in the town and its vicinity, and which, pervading by degrees the whole Department, had already crossed its limits in the direction of Béarn.
Although no disorder had occurred, this class, so prone to take umbrage, was rendered uneasy by these pilgrimages, these crowds in a state of pious recollection, and this child in a state of ecstacy.
In the name of liberty of conscience, was there no means of preventing these persons from praying, and above all from praying where they liked? Such was the problem which official liberalism began to propose to itself.
The different degrees, M. Dutour, Procureur Imperial, M. Duprat, Juge de Paix; the Mayor, the Substitute, the Commissary of Police and many others besides, took and gave the alarm. A miracle in the midst of the 19th Century, going forth all at once without asking permission and without any preliminary authorization, was viewed by some as an intolerable outrage on civilization, a blow against the safety of the state; and it was necessary for the honor of our enlightened epoch that this should be set to rights. The majority of these gentlemen besides, did not believe in the possibility of supernatural manifestations and could not be induced to see anything in it but an imposture or the effects of a malady. At all events, several of them felt themselves instinctively opposed to any event, of whatever nature which could directly or indirectly tend to increase the influence of Religion, against which they were actuated either by blind prejudices or avowed hatred.
Without returning to the reflections which we made a short time since, it is truly a remarkable thing to see that the Supernatural, whenever it appears in the world, constantly encounters, though under different names and aspects, the same opposition, the same indifference, the same fidelity. With certain shades of distinction, Herod, Caiaphas, Pilate, Joseph of Arimathea, Peter, Thomas, the Holy Women, the open enemy, the coward, the weak, the feeble, the devoted, the sceptic, the timid, the hero, belong to all times.
The Supernatural, more especially, never escapes the hostility of a party more or less considerable of the official world. Only this opposition proceeds sometimes from the master, sometimes from his underlings.
The most intelligent of the little band of the functionaries of Lourdes, at that time, was undoubtedly M. Jacomet, although, in a hierachic point of view, M. Jacomet was the lowest of all, inasmuch as he filled the humble post of Commissary of Police. He was young, of great sagacity in certain circumstances, and gifted with a facility of speaking not found generally among his peers. His shrewdness was extreme. No one ever more thoroughly understood the genus “Scoundrel.” He was wonderfully apt in foiling their tricks, and the anecdotes, on this head, recorded of him are astonishing. He did not understand so well the ways of honest men. Quite at ease in complicated affairs, anything simple troubled him. Truth disconcerted him and excited his suspicions—anything disinterested was an object of distrust to him, and sincerity was a torture to his mind, always on the watch to discover duplicity and evasion. In consequence of this monomania, Sanctity would, doubtless, have appeared to him the most monstrous of impostures, and would have met no mercy at his hands. Such whims are frequently found among men of this profession, their employment habituating them to ferret out offences and detect crimes. They acquire, in the long run, a remarkable restless and suspicious turn of mind, which inspires them with strokes of genius when they have to do with rogues, and enormous blunders when they have to do with honest people. Though young, M. Jacomet had contracted this strange malady of old police-officers. In fact, he was like those horses of the Pyrenees, which are sure-footed in the winding and stony mountain-paths, but which stumble every two hundred paces on broad, level roads; like those night-birds which can only see in the dark, and which, in broad daylight, dash themselves against the walls and trees.
Perfectly satisfied with himself, he was discontented with his position, to which his intelligence rendered him superior. Hence arose a certain restless pride and an ardent wish to signalize himself. He had more than influence, he had an ascendancy over his superiors, and he affected to treat the Procureur Imperial and all the other legal functionaries on a footing of perfect equality. He mixed himself up with everything, domineered everybody, and almost entirely managed the affairs of the town. In all matters regarding the canton of Lourdes, the Prefect of the Department, Baron Massy, only saw through the eyes of Jacomet.
Such was the Commissary of Police, such was the really important personage of Lourdes when the Apparitions at the Grotto of Massabielle took place.
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