Book 10 - Part 2

There are not unfrequently 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 moustache 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 to-day 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 25th 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 in 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 there 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 obstinacy of this affection, 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 precipitation, 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 œsophagus. The symptoms which had developed themselves, and which, unfortunately, re-appeared 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 twitchings 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 had 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 organization. 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 health, 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 to 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 rag 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 to-day 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 but too really and too 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 œsophagus is lined with rugosities, and the duct is so extremely contracted, that it is materially 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 invalid 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 material 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 wilfully 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, mamma, 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 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; nay, 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 child’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 mean time 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 spoonsful 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. He desired to go to bed as soon as he arrived. He was overwhelmed with sleep and did not eat any supper. When his mother, who was dying with joy before our arrival, saw him thus 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 re-assured.”

“And since that time,” I asked him, “has there been no relapse or unfavorable symptoms?”

“No, sir, nothing of the kind. I cannot say that the cure progressed or was consolidated, inasmuch as it had been as complete as it was instantaneous. The transition of a malady so long seated and obstinate to its complete and entire cure, was effected without the least gradation, as it was without any apparent shock to the system. But 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 anterior 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 transcribe the above from his letter, bearing date 24th 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 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 for 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 turning 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. But 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 has 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. Lacassagne.

“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.

Book 10 - 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 in 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 any one. My relations and friends had the same fears, though they kept them from me. We were almost convinced that my sight was lost for ever, 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 them 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 record? 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 to-day somewhat better, and if I continue to improve I shall not have any occasion to have recourse this time 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 for ever 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 me my sight, and thus presenting me with a new life, to prove whether I should be able to employ it better.

“In the mean time my state of health remained stationary or become 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 for ever.’

“‘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 no 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 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 viviant fibres 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 re-assure 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 to-day, and have not yet had time to look for one.’

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

“‘Well, be it so! To-morrow 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 up-stairs 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 deal 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. l’Abbé 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 deal box and the pamphlet on the mantel-piece. 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. To-night 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 the 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.”

Book 9 - Part 8

In the name of the see, or, to speak more correctly, in that of the Church, Mgr. Laurence bought from the town of Lourdes the Grotto, the portion of land by which it is surrounded, and the entire group of the Rocks of Massabielle. M. Lacadé was Mayor at the time. He it was who proposed to the municipal council, the cession to the Church, the Spouse of Christ, of those places now for ever holy, where the Mother of God had appeared. His signature was formally attached to the contract of sale.

This sale was authorized by M. Rouland, as was also the construction of a Church in eternal memory of the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette Soubirous, of the issuing of the Spring, and of the countless miracles which were accomplished in order to attest the reality of the divine visions.

While the vast temple dedicated to the Immaculate Conception on the rugged rocks of Massabielle was rising stone by stone from its foundations, Our Lady of Lourdes continued to pour out her miracles and her benefactions on mankind. At Paris and Bordeaux, in Périgord, in Bretagne and in Anjou, in the most lonely country places, and in the very heart of thickly inhabited cities, Our Lady of Lourdes was invoked, and every where Our Lady of Lourdes responded with undeniable signs of her power and goodness.

Let us still narrate two of these divine histories ere we close our tale, and give a tableau of the present state of things. The first forms an episode in the life of the author of this book which will never be effaced from his memory. This episode we subjoin, just as we wrote it nearly seven years ago.

Book 9 - Part 7

 
PASTORAL letter of Mgr. the Bishop of Tarbes, pronouncing judgment in the case of the Apparition which took place at the Grotto of Lourdes.

BERTRAND-Sévère-Laurence, by the Divine Mercy and the favor of the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Tarbes, Assistant to the Pontifical Throne, etc.

To the clergy and faithful of our diocese, salutation and benediction in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In all epochs of humanity, Our Beloved Co-operators and Very dear Brothers, a marvelous communication has subsisted between heaven and earth. At the commencement of the world, the Lord appeared to our first parents in order to reproach them with the crime of their disobedience. In following ages, we find Him conversing with the Patriarchs and the Prophets; and the Old Testament is often the history of the celestial Apparitions with which the children of Israel were favored.

Such divine favors were not to cease with the Mosaic dispensation; on the contrary they were to be under the law of grace more numerous and more striking.

In the very cradle of the Church, in those times of bloody persecution, the Christians were in the habit of being visited by Jesus Christ or by Angels, who came, sometimes to reveal to them the secrets of the future, sometimes to deliver them from their chains, sometimes to strengthen them for the combats they were to endure. It was thus—according to the idea of a judicious writer—that God encouraged those illustrious Confessors of the faith, at a time when the mighty of the earth were uniting all their efforts to stifle in its germ that doctrine by which the world was to be saved.

These supernatural manifestations were not exclusively confined to the first ages of Christianity. History attests that they have been perpetuated from age to age for the greater glory of Religion and the edification of the Faithful.

In the ranks of celestial Apparitions those of the Blessed Virgin occupy a prominent place, and have been an abundant source of blessings for the world. In traversing the Catholic universe, the traveler meets with temples consecrated to the Mother of God, built at no great distance from each other; and several of these edifices owe their origin to an Apparition of the Queen of Heaven. We have already one of these blessed Sanctuaries in our part of the country—Our Lady of Garaison—founded, four centuries ago, in consequence of a revelation made to a young shepherd-girl. Thousands of pilgrims repair thither every year to kneel before the throne of the glorious Virgin Mary to implore her kindness.

Thanks be to the Almighty! in the infinite treasures of his goodness, he has preserved for us a fresh favor. He wills that in the diocese of Tarbes a new sanctuary should be elevated to the glory of Mary. And what instrument has He employed to communicate to us His merciful designs. It is one which would be deemed the weakest in the eyes of the world, a child aged fourteen years, Bernadette Soubirous, born of poor parents at Lourdes.

[Here the Bishop gave a summary of the Apparitions of the Most Blessed Virgin, with which the reader is already acquainted. Mgr. Laurence then proceeded to the discussion of the facts.]

Such is substantially, [continued the Prelate,] the narration as we gathered it from the lips of Bernadette, in presence of the Commission, which had been assembled for the purpose of hearing her account a second time.

Thus this young girl is said to have seen and heard a being styling herself the Immaculate Conception, and which, albeit clothed in human form, is said to have been neither seen nor heard by any of the numerous spectators who were present at the scene. It is said, consequently, to have been a supernatural being. What must we think of all this?

You are well aware, beloved Brethren, that the Church exercises a wise deliberation in her appreciation of supernatural facts; she demands positive proofs, before admitting them and proclaiming them divine. Since the original fall, man, more especially in matters of this nature, is subject to many errors. If not led astray by his reason, now become so weak, he is liable to be the victim of the artifices of the Devil. Who does not know that the Evil One transforms sometimes into an angel of light in order that we may fall more easily into his snares. Thus the beloved Disciple recommends us not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits, whether they be of God. This trial, dearly beloved Brethren, we have already made. The occurrences, of which we are now speaking to you, have been a cause of anxiety to us for the last four years. We have followed them in their different phases; we have received suggestions from our Commission, composed of pious, learned and experienced priests, who have interrogated the child, studied the facts, and examined into and well weighed everything. We have also called in the authority of Science, and we have remained firmly convinced that the Apparition is supernatural and divine, and, consequently, that what Bernadette saw, was the Blessed Virgin. Our conviction has been formed on the testimony of Bernadette, and more especially so after taking into consideration the facts which have been produced, and which admit of no explanation but that of divine intervention.

The testimony of the young girl offers all the guarantees we can possibly desire. There cannot be the slightest doubt as to her sincerity. Who does not when coming in contact with her, admire her simplicity, modesty and candor? While everybody is discussing the marvels which have been revealed to her, alone, she remains silent. She never speaks unless when questions are put to her; then she enters into details without the slightest affectation, and with the most touching ingenuousness; and her answers to the numerous questions addressed to her are given without hesitation; are clear, precise, very much to the purpose, and bearing the impress of deep conviction.

Subjected to rough trials, she has never been shaken by threats, and she has declined the most generous offers with noble disinterestedness. Always d’accord avec elle-même, she has, in the different interrogatories to which she has been subjected, constantly adhered to her first statement, neither adding to nor taking away from it. Bernadette’s sincerity is therefore incontestable. Let us add that it has never been contested. Even those who opposed her, have themselves rendered her this homage.

But granting that Bernadette had no wish to deceive others, is it not possible that she was deceived herself? For instance, did she not fancy she saw and heard what she neither saw nor heard? Was she not the victim of a hallucination? How could we believe this for a moment? The wisdom of her replies reveals in the child a soundness of mind, a calmness of imagination, and a fund of good sense beyond her years. In her the religious feeling has never displayed any over-excited character; it has never been proved that she suffered from any intellectual derangement, oddity of disposition, or morbid affection which might have predisposed her to indulge in creations of the imagination. She has had this vision, not once only, but as often as eighteen times; she saw it for the first time suddenly, when nothing could have prepared her for what was to be accomplished later on; and during the Quinzaine, when she expected to see the vision every day, she saw nothing for two days, although she was placed in the same way and in identical circumstances. And then what took place during the time the Apparitions were before her? Bernadette was transformed; her countenance assumed a new expression, her eyes kindled, she saw things which she had never before seen, she heard language which she had never before heard, the sense of which she did not always understand, but the remembrance of which she did not fail to retain.

These circumstances joined together, preclude the idea of hallucination. The young girl has therefore really seen and heard a being styling herself the Immaculate Conception, and it being impossible to account for the phenomenon naturally, we have just ground for believing that the Apparition was supernatural.

The testimony of Bernadette—in itself of considerable importance—acquires altogether new strength—we might say its complement—from the marvelous occurrences which have taken place since the first event. If a tree should be judged by its fruits, we may affirm that the Apparition, as narrated by the girl, is supernatural and divine, for it has produced supernatural and divine effects. What then happened, dearly beloved Brethren? The Apparition was scarcely heard of, when the news spread with the rapidity of lightning; it was known that Bernadette was to repair to the Grotto for the space of fifteen days, and the whole country was aroused. Crowds of people streamed towards the place of the Apparition; they waited for the solemn hour with religious impatience; and while the girl, beside herself with ravishment, was absorbed by the object of her contemplation, the witnesses of this prodigy, deeply affected and melted to tenderness, were mingled in a common feeling of admiration and prayer.

The Apparitions have ceased; but the concourse of people continues, and pilgrims, arriving from distant countries as well as from the neighboring districts, hasten to the Grotto. They are of all ages, all ranks and all conditions. And by what feeling are these numerous strangers urged to visit the place? Ah! they come to the Grotto in order to pray and to demand favors of one kind or other from the Immaculate Mary. They prove, by their recollected behavior, that they are sensible as it were of a divine breath which vivifies this rock, from henceforth forever celebrated. Souls, already christian, have become strengthened in virtue; men frozen with indifference have been brought back to the practices of religion; obstinate sinners have been reconciled with God, after Our Lady of Lourdes had been invoked in their favor. These marvels of grace, bearing the stamp of universality and duration, can only have God for their author. Consequently, have they not come for the express purpose of confirming the truth of the Apparition?

If from effects produced for the good of souls, we pass to those which concern the health of the body, how many new prodigies have we not to recount?

Our readers will not have forgotten the gushing forth of the Spring, from which Bernadette drank and in which she washed herself, in the presence of the assembled multitude. It would be superfluous to repeat here the details.

Persons suffering from sickness, [resumes the Bishop,] tried the water of the Grotto, and not without success. Many, whose infirmities had resisted the most energetic treatment, suddenly recovered their health. These extraordinary cures acquired immense notoriety, and their fame soon spread far and wide.

The sick of all countries requested to have some of the water of Massabielle sent to them, when they were unable to repair themselves to the Grotto. How many bowed down with infirmities have been cured, how many families consoled! If we wished to invoke their testimony, innumerable voices would be raised to proclaim, in accents of gratitude, the sovereign efficacy of the water of the Grotto. It would be impossible for us to enumerate here all the favors which have been obtained; but there is one thing of which we are bound to inform you, which is, that the water of Massabielle has cured many who had been given over and pronounced incurable. These cures have been effected by the use of a water, which, according to the report of eminent Chemists who have subjected it to a minute analysis, is destitute of any curative properties. They have been effected in some instances instantaneously, in others after the repetition of the application of this water two or three times, either internally or externally. Further, these cures are permanent. What then is the power which has produced them? Is it the power of the organism? Scientific men, when consulted on the subject, have replied in the negative. These cures are then the work of God. Now they are connected with the Apparition; she it is who is their starting point; she it was who inspired the sick with confidence; consequently there is an intimate connection between the cures and the Apparition; the Apparition is divine, since the cures bear the seal of the divinity. From this it follows that the Apparition having styled herself the Immaculate Conception, it was the Most Blessed Virgin whom Bernadette saw and heard! Let us then exclaim: The finger of God is here! Digitus Dei est hic.

How can we but admire, dearly beloved Brethren, the economy of divine Providence! At the end of the year 1854, the immortal Pius IX. proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The words of the Pontiff were re-echoed in the most distant parts of the world; Catholic hearts thrilled with joy, and the glorious privilege of Mary was everywhere celebrated with fêtes, the souvenir of which will remain forever engraved on our memory. And behold about three years afterwards, the Blessed Virgin, appearing to a child, says to her: I am the Immaculate Conception—I desire that a chapel should be erected here to my honor. Does she not appear to wish to consecrate by a monument the infallible oracle of the successor of St. Peter?

And where does she desire that this monument should be erected? It is at the foot of our Pyrenean mountains, a country where numerous foreigners meet together, coming from every part of the world in search of health at our warm baths. May it not be said that she invites the faithful of all nations to come and honor her in the new temple which shall be erected to her?

Inhabitants of Lourdes, rejoice! the august Mary condescends to regard you with her merciful eyes. It is her will that a sanctuary should be built to her honor near your town, in which she will abundantly pour forth her benefactions. Be thankful to her for this pledge of predilection which she gives you, and since she lavishes on you the tenderness of a mother, show yourselves to be her devoted children by the imitation of her virtues and your unshaken attachment to Religion.

Besides, it is with pleasure we recognize the fact, that the Apparition has already produced among you abundant fruits of salvation. Eye witnesses of the occurrences at the Grotto and of their happy results, your confidence has been as great as your conviction has been strong. We have ever admired your prudence, your docility in following the advice tendered by us of submission to the civil authorities, at a time when for the space of several weeks, you were obliged to cease your visits to the Grotto, and to compress, in your own hearts, the sentiments inspired by the spectacle which had so impressed you during the Quinzaine of the Apparitions.

And all of you, whether Priests or Laics, in our diocese, open your hearts to the influence of hope; a new era of graces is commencing for you: you are called upon to reap your share in the benefits which are promised to us. In your supplications and canticles, you will henceforth mingle the name of Our Lady of Lourdes with the blessed names of Our Lady of Garaison, of Poeylaün, of Héas and of Piétat.

From above these sacred sanctuaries, the Immaculate Virgin will watch over you and shield you with her tutelary protection. Yes, beloved fellow-laborers, and beloved brothers in Christ, if, with our hearts full of trust, we keep our eyes steadily fixed on that “star of the sea,” we shall without fear of shipwreck, pass through the tempests of life, and reach in safety the haven of eternal felicity.

FOR THESE REASONS:

After having conferred with our venerable Brothers, the Dignitaries, Canons and Chapter of our Cathedral Church;

The Holy Name of God being duly invoked; taking for our guidance the rules wisely traced by Benedict XIV.—in his work on the Beatification and Canonization of Saints—for the discernment of Apparitions true or false;

Seeing the favorable report which has been presented to us by the Commission charged with obtaining all information relative to the Apparition at the Grotto of Lourdes, and its attendant circumstances;

Seeing the written testimony of the Physicians and Surgeons whom we have consulted on the subject of the numerous cures obtained in consequence of the use of the water of the Grotto;

Considering, in the first place, that the fact of the Apparition—viewed either with reference to the young girl who reported it, or more especially with reference to the extraordinary effects which it has produced—can only be accounted for through the medium of a supernatural cause;

Considering, in the second place, that this cause can but be divine, since the effects produced by it, being, some, sensible signs of grace, as the conversion of sinners, others, deviations from the ordinary laws of nature, as miraculous cures, can only be referred to the Author of Grace and to the Lord of nature;

Considering, in short, that our conviction is strengthened by the vast and spontaneous concourse of the faithful at the Grotto—a concourse which has not ceased since the first Apparitions, having for its object to request favors, or to return thanks for those already obtained;

In order to respond to the legitimate impatience of our Venerable Chapter, of the clergy, of the laics of our diocese, and of so many pious souls, who have long been demanding from the ecclesiastical Authority a decision which motives of prudence have induced us to defer;

Wishing, also, to satisfy the pious wishes of many of our Colleagues in the Episcopacy, and of a great number of eminent personages strangers to our diocese;

After having invoked the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and the assistance of the Most Blessed Virgin,

WE HAVE DECLARED AND DO DECLARE AS FOLLOWS:

Article 1.—We pronounce judgment that the IMMACULATE MARY, MOTHER OF GOD, really appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, on the eleventh of February, 1858, and following days, to the number of eighteen, in the Grotto of Massabielle, near the town of Lourdes; that this Apparition is invested with every character of truth, and that the faithful have good ground for believing it to be certain.

We submit, with all humility, our judgment to the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff, to whom is committed the government of the universal Church.

Article 2.—We authorize the worship of Our Lady of the Grotto of Lourdes in our diocese: but we prohibit the publication of any particular formula of prayers, of any canticle, or of any book of devotion bearing on this event, without our approbation given in writing.

Article 3.—In order to conform ourselves to the will of the Blessed Virgin—several times expressed by the Apparition at that period—we propose to proceed to the erection of a sanctuary on the site of the Grotto, the proprietorship of which is now vested in the Bishops of Tarbes for the time being.

This edifice, when we take into consideration the steep and difficult locality we have to deal with, will require much labor and relatively a very considerable outlay of money. In order, therefore, to realize our pious scheme, we shall need the co-operation of the priests and the faithful of our diocese, as well as of the priests and the faithful of France and of foreign countries. We appeal to their generous hearts, and more especially to all the pious persons of all countries, who are devoted to the worship of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

Article 4.—We address ourselves with confidence to the establishments of both sexes, consecrated to the education of youth, to the Congregations of the Children of Mary, to the confréries of the Blessed Virgin and to the different pious Associations, whether in our own diocese or in the whole of France.

On the Sunday following its reception, this, our pastoral letter, shall be read and published in all the parish churches, as also in the chapels and oratories of the seminaries, colleges and hospitals of our diocese.

Given at Tarbes, in our episcopal palace, under our signature and seal and the counter-signature of our secretary, on the 18th of January, 1862, being the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome.

✠ BERTRAND SEVERE,
Bishop of Tarbes.

By order, FOURCADE, Canon-Secretary.

Book 9 - Part 6

 

The miraculous cures were counted by hundreds. It was impossible to attempt to establish the truth of all. The Episcopal Commissioners subjected thirty of them to a most minute scrutiny. They displayed extreme strictness in their investigation, and only admitted the Supernatural when it would have been impossible to have done otherwise. They rejected, for instance, all such cures as could not claim to have been effected almost instantaneously, but had been accomplished by slow degrees, as also all such as had been obtained in union with medical treatment, however unavailing the latter might have been up to that period. “Although the inefficacy of the remedies prescribed by medical science had been satisfactorily shown,”—we quote from the Report drawn up by the Secretary of the Commission,—“it was not possible, in that case, strictly and exclusively, to attribute the cure to the supernatural virtue of the water of the Grotto, which had been used simultaneously.”

Further, there had been pointed out to the Commissioners, as possessing a miraculous character, sundry favors of a spiritual nature, singular graces and unhoped-for conversions. It was difficult to establish judicially these dramas which were enacted in the secret recesses of the human soul, and were therefore not subject to any external control. Although such occurrences, such changes of heart are sometimes more marvelous and astonishing than the straightening of a limb or the cessation of some physical malady, the Commissioners judged wisely that they ought not to be included in the solemn and public inquiry with which the Bishop had charged them.

In their report to Monseigneur Laurence, the Commissioners, in concert with the medical men, divided into three categories the cures which they had investigated and of which they had furnished ample details in their official documents, which were all signed by the persons cured and by numerous witnesses.

The first category comprehended such cures as, however striking in their nature, were susceptible of a natural explanation. They were in number six, and comprised those of Jeanne Marie Arqué, the widow of M. Crozat, Blaise Maumus, and of a child called Lafitte, all three residents at Lourdes; of a child called Lasbareilles, of Gez; of Jean Crassus, of Arcizan-Avant, and lastly of Jeanne Pomiér of Loubajac.

The second category was composed of cures with regard to which the Commissioners were inclined to admit supernatural agency. In this number we find as follows: Jean Pierre Malon, Jeanne Marie Daube, wife of a man called Vendome, Bernarde Soubies and Pauline Bordeaux, all of Lourdes; Jean-Marie Amaré, of Beaucens; Marcelle Peyrègne, of Agos; Jeanne-Marie Massot Bordenave, of Arras; Jeanne Gezma and Auguste Bordes, of Pontacq.

“The majority of these facts”—as we learn from the medical investigation—“furnish almost all the conditions necessary for their admission into the supernatural order of things. It may be considered that, in rejecting them, we have acted with too much caution and have pushed our conscientiousness to extremes. But far from complaining of being so reproached, we congratulate ourselves on it, being fully convinced that in matters of this importance to be strict is to follow the dictates of prudence.”

Under such circumstances, a natural explanation, however improbable, but still within the range of possibility, sufficed to prevent the Commissioners from declaring the Miracle. The fact was then ranked by them in the category we have just pointed out.

The third class comprised those cures which displayed in the most evident and undeniable manner the supernatural character. There were fifteen of them, and we subjoin the names of those cured: Blaisette Soupenne, Benoite Cazeaux, Jeanne Crassus, wife of a man called Crozat, Louis Bourriette, the child Justin Beauhoorts, Fabien and Suzanne Baron, all of Lourdes; Mme. Rizan and Henry Busquet of Nay; Catherine Latapie, of Loubajac; Madame Lanou of Bordères; Marianne Garrot and Denys Bouchet of Lamarque; Jean-Maria Tambourné of Saint Justin; Mlle. Moreau de Sazenay of Tartas; and Paschaline Abbadiee of Rabastens. All these cures were pronounced to have been incontestably miraculous.

“The maladies by which those who were favored with such sudden and striking cures had been attacked were for the most part of very different natures,” as we gather from the report of the Commission. They assumed very different characters. Some of them belonged to internal, others to external pathology.

These affections, however, though of such different kinds have been cured by the use of one and the same element, sometimes externally, sometimes internally, and in some cases in both ways simultaneously.

“Now, in the natural and scientific order, besides the fact of each remedy only being applied in a particular manner, it is clear that it only possesses one special virtue adapted to such or such a malady, but which is inefficacious, if not injurious, in all other cases. It is not, therefore, owing to any peculiar property inherent in its composition, that the water of Massabielle has succeeded in producing such numerous, extraordinary and different cures, and in suddenly putting to flight so many maladies of different and sometimes diametrically opposite nature.

“And this is the more remarkable,” the report added, “since Science has authoritatively declared on the analysis furnished by the most eminent men, that this water does not in itself contain any mineral or therapeutic properties, and that, chemically speaking, it is nothing but pure water.”

Medical science did not arrive less decidedly at the same conclusions after a mature and conscientious examination of these miraculous cures.

“On glancing at these cures as a whole,” said the medical report, “one is struck at once with the facility, promptitude, and instantaneousness with which they issue from the bosom of their producing cause; with the violation and utter upsetting of all therapeutic methods which prevail in their accomplishment; with the contradictions which the precepts and previsions of science meet with; with that kind of disdain which makes sport of the long continuance, extent and resistance of the malady; with the hidden, but at the same time, real care with which the circumstances are arranged and combined, in order to show that in the cure which is being effected there is something going on quite out of the ordinary course of nature. Such phenomena are beyond the range of human intellect. How, in fact, can it comprehend the opposition which exists:

“Between the simplicity of the means and the grandeur of the result?

“Between the unity of the remedy and the diversity of the maladies?

“Between the short duration of the application of the curative agent and the slowness of the treatment prescribed by art or science?

“Between the sudden efficacy of the former and the tedious failure of the latter?

“Between the chronic nature of the disease and the instantaneousness of the cure?

“There is in all this a contingent Force superior to those which have been dispensed to nature and consequently foreign to the water which it employs for the manifestation of its power.”

All these striking facts, so carefully and publicly verified; this investigation which had been so completely, conscientiously and minutely pursued by the Commission, and the declarations and conclusions which had been so decidedly pronounced by men deeply versed in medical and chemical science, could not fail of producing conviction in the mind of the bishop. His doubts were entirely cleared up.

However, actuated by that spirit of extreme prudence which we have often had occasion to point out to our readers in the course of this narration, Mgr. Laurence, before solemnly pronouncing the episcopal verdict on this important question, wished that a new sanction should be conferred on these miraculous events—the sanction of time.

He suffered three years to elapse without taking any further steps.

A second investigation was then instituted. The cures, which we indicated above as supernatural, still remained in full force. No one came forward to withdraw his original testimony or to contest the facts. The works of Him who reigns in eternity have nothing to fear from the test of time.

At length, furnished with such a superabundant series of demonstrations and proofs amounting to certainty, Mgr. Laurence pronounced the judgment which was expected from him. We give a general summary of it below.

Book 9 - Part 5

A very long time before these events occurred at Lourdes, and before Bernadette had made her appearance in the world—in 1843, in the course of the month of April, a highly honorable family of Tartas in the Landes, was in a state of serious uneasiness. About a year previously, Mlle. Adèle de Chanton had espoused M. Moreau de Sazenay, and was now approaching the term of her pregnancy.

The crisis of a first maternity is always alarming. The medical men, summoned in haste on the appearance of preliminary symptoms, declared that child-birth would be difficult, and they did not conceal their opinion that it might be attended with some danger.

There is no one who does not know or does not understand the cruel anxiety of situations of this nature. The most poignant anguish is not for the poor wife who is groaning on her bed of pain, and who is almost entirely absorbed in her sense of physical suffering. It is for the husband, whose heart at that moment is a prey to indescribable tortures. They are both of an age when the impressions are vivid; they have just entered on a new life, the sweet life of two; they have tasted the first joys of a union which God had seemed to bless; they have passed some months in discussing together the hopes of the future; they have, so to say, sat them down together in happiness, as they might sit side by side in a smoothly gliding bark. The stream of life lulls you to sleep and bears you calmly onward between banks gay with flowers. And behold, all at once, in the midst of happiness, the threatening shadow of death presents itself. The heart of the husband, which expands itself with the hope of the babe so soon to be born, finds itself suddenly crushed with terror for the wife who may perish. He hears heart-rending cries. How will the crisis end? Is it joy that is approaching, or is it misfortune? What will issue from that chamber? Will it be Life or will it be Death? What must we send for? A cradle or a coffin? Or, alas! horrible contrast, will both one and the other be necessary? Or worse still, may two coffins be required, one for the mother, the other for the infant?

Human science is silent and dares not pronounce. Anguish of this nature is terrible, more especially for those who seek not their strength and consolation in God.

M. Moreau, however, was a christian. He knew that the thread of our existence is in the hands of a supreme Master, to whom we can always appeal from the decision of the doctors of Science. When man has condemned, the King of Heaven, like the sovereigns of earth, reserves to Himself the right of pardoning.

“The Blessed Virgin,” thought the unfortunate husband, “will, perhaps, deign to listen to my prayer.”

On this he addressed himself with confidence to the Mother of Christ.

The danger which had at first appeared so threatening passed away by degrees, like a black cloud, which, in the highest regions of the atmosphere, is driven along and dispersed by the blasts of wind. The horizon became clear and serene, and ere long, radiant with gleams of sunshine. A little girl had just been born.

Assuredly, there was nothing extraordinary in this deliverance. However alarming the case had appeared to M. Moreau, the medical men had never actually despaired of a favorable result. It might, therefore, have been owing to purely natural causes. The heart of the husband and father, however, felt itself penetrated with gratitude towards the Blessed Virgin. His was not one of those souls which struggle against the feeling of gratitude, and which doubt the reality of a benefit received, in order to dispense themselves from the trouble of returning thanks for it.

“What name have you fixed on for your little girl?” was one of the first questions put to M. Moreau.

“She shall be called Marie,” he replied.

“Marie? But it is one of the commonest names possible about here. All the women of the lower classes, all the servant-girls in the place are called Marie. And besides, Marie Moreau is by no means euphonious. These two Ms and two os are insupportable.”

A thousand reasons to the same purpose were alleged. There was a general outcry on the subject. M. Moreau de Sazenay was of an easy temper, very accessible, and habitually showed much deference to the advice tendered him by others, but in this particular instance he resisted everything, supplications as well as admonitions; he braved the sullenness of all around, and adhered to his resolution with extraordinary tenacity. He remembered that, during his recent state of alarm, he had invoked that sacred name, which was no other than that of the Queen of Heaven.

“She shall be called Marie. I wish her to have the Blessed Virgin as her patroness. I tell you the truth, when I say that this name will bring her happiness.”

All around him were astonished at his obstinacy, but he remained firm, as did Zacharias when, as we are informed in the Gospel, he desired that his son might be named John.

In vain was he besieged with objections on all sides. His inflexible will carried the day.

Thus the first born of this family bore the name of Marie.

Further, the father wished that for three years she should be devoted to white, the color of the Virgin.

This was also done.

More than sixteen years had passed away since the events occurred which we have narrated. A second little girl had been born, who had received the name of Marthe. Mlle. Marie Moreau was receiving her education at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Bordeaux.

Towards the beginning of January, 1858, she was attacked with a complaint in her eyes, which obliged her speedily to relinquish her studies. She supposed at first that it was a cold, caught by her having sat in a draught, and that it would soon pass away; but she was deceived in her hopes, and eventually she fell into a state which caused the greatest uneasiness to those about her. The medical men who usually attended the establishment, deemed it necessary to have a consultation with M. Bermont, an eminent oculist at Bordeaux.

It was decided that Mlle. Marie was suffering not from a cold but from amaurosis.

“The case is a very serious one,” observed M. Bermont. “One of her eyes is gone and the other is in a most critical state.”

Her parents were immediately informed of her state. Her mother hastened to Bordeaux and brought her daughter home with her, in order that, in the bosom of her family, and with every care lavished upon her, she might carry out the treatment which the oculist had prescribed, if not to cure the eye which was destroyed, at least to save the one which still remained, and which was already so severely affected as only to perceive objects as if enveloped in a confused mist.

Medicines of different kinds, sea-bathing and everything recommended by Science was unavailing. Spring and autumn passed away amid these vain efforts. Her deplorable condition resisted everything, and was slowly becoming worse and worse. Complete blindness was imminent. M. and Mme. Moreau resolved to take their daughter to Paris in order to consult the most eminent oculists of the day.

While they were making hasty preparations for their journey, dreading that it might be already too late to charm away the terrible misfortune which threatened their child, the postman happened to bring them the weekly number of a little journal published at Bordeaux, to which they subscribed, the Messager Catholique.

It was about the commencement of November. Curiously enough, it was the very number of the Messager Catholique which contained the letter of the Abbé Dupont and the account of the miraculous cure of Mme. Rizan, of Nay, in consequence of her having used the water from the Grotto.

M. Moreau opened it mechanically, and his glance fell on that divine history. He grew pale as he read it.

Hope began to awake in the soul of the disconsolate father, and a ray of light penetrated his mind, or rather his heart.

“There,” said he, “is the gate at which we must knock. It is evident,” he added, with a marvelous simplicity, of which we like to preserve the verbal expression, “it is evident that if the Blessed Virgin has appeared at Lourdes she is interested in operating there miraculous cures, in order to establish and prove the reality of these Apparitions. And this is more especially true at the commencement, so long as this event is not yet universally accredited. Let us, then, lose no time. There, as everywhere else, the first come will be first served. My dearest wife and child, it is to Our Lady of Lourdes that we must have recourse.”

The sixteen years which had elapsed since the birth of his daughter, had not, as we see, rendered the faith of M. Moreau lukewarm.

It was determined to celebrate a Novena, to which the companions and friends of the young invalid, who resided in the neighborhood, associated themselves. By a providential coincidence, one of the priests of the town had in his house at that moment a bottle of the water from the Grotto, so that the Novena was commenced almost immediately.

The parents—in case of the cure being accomplished—made a vow to undertake a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and to devote their daughter, for one year, to white and blue, to those colors of the Blessed Virgin which she had already worn for the space of three years, when she was quite a little child, on her first entry into life.

The Novena commenced on Monday evening, November 8.

Must we confess the truth! The invalid had but little faith. Her mother dared not hope. Her father alone had that tranquil faith which the benevolent powers of heaven never resist.

They all joined in prayer, in the apartment of M. Moreau, before a statue of the Blessed Virgin. The mother, the young invalid and her little sister rose from their knees successively with the intention of leaving the room and retiring to rest, but the father still remained kneeling.

He thought he was alone, and he raised his voice with such fervor that its accent induced his family to remain, although on the point of taking their departure. We have heard from them these circumstances, and even now they cannot recall this solemn moment without quivering with emotion.

“Blessed Virgin!” exclaimed the father; “Most Blessed Virgin, it is thy duty to cure my child. Yes, of a truth, it is thy duty. It is for thee an obligation, and thou canst not refuse me. Remember, then, O Mary, that it was in spite of all, against the will of all, that I would choose thee to be her Patroness. Thou oughtest to remember what struggles I had to endure to give her thy sacred name. Ah! Blessed Virgin, canst thou forget all this? Canst thou forget how, at that time, I defended thy name, thy power, thy glory against all the protestations and vain reasonings of those who were about me? Canst thou forget that I placed this child publicly under thy protection, saying and repeating to all that this name, thy own name, O Blessed Virgin, would bring her happiness? She was my child: I have made her thine. Canst thou forget this? Art thou not thereby pledged to assist me, O Blessed Virgin? Is not thy honor pledged—now that I am wretched, now that we pray unto thee for our child, for thine—to come to our assistance and to cure her malady? Wilt thou permit her to become blind after I have shown so great faith in thee? No! No! That is impossible, and thou wilt heal her.”

Such were the feelings which the unhappy father gave vent to in loud tones, appealing to the heart of the Blessed Virgin, making his demand, so to say, in due form of law, and citing her to pay her debt of gratitude.

It was ten o’clock at night.

The young girl, at the moment of retiring to rest, soaked a linen bandage in the water brought from Lourdes and placed it on her eyes, tying it in a knot at the back of her head.

Her soul was agitated. Without having the faith of M. Moreau, she said to herself, that, after all, it was not impossible the Blessed Virgin might cure her; that soon, perhaps, at the close of the Novena, she might be restored to the enjoyment of light. Then her doubts recurred, and it seemed to her that a Miracle was not intended for one like herself.

All these thoughts constantly revolving in her mind, it was with great difficulty that she could get to sleep, and it was very late ere slumber overtook her.

The next morning, when she awoke, her first movement—a movement of vague hope and uneasy curiosity—was to remove the bandage with which her eyes were covered.

She uttered a loud cry.

All around her the light of early morning inundated her chamber. She saw clearly, plainly, distinctly. The eye which had only been lately attacked had entirely recovered its powers of vision; the other, which had been dead, was restored to life.

“Marthe! Marthe!” she cried to her sister. “I see! I see! I am cured!”

Little Marthe, who slept in the same room with her sister, leaped from her bed and ran towards her. She gazed on the eyes of Marie, now entirely free from their bleeding film—her eyes black and brilliant, in which strength and life were once more resplendent.

The little girl’s heart turned towards her father and mother, who were wanting to render her joy complete.

“Papa! Mamma!” she cried.

Marie made her a sign to be silent.

“Wait, wait!” she said. “I wish first to know whether I can read. Give me a book.”

The child took one which happened to be lying on the table.

“Here is one,” she said.

Marie opened the book and read from it fluently and without any effort, like any other person. Her cure was complete, radical and positive, and the Blessed Virgin had not done things by halves.

Her father and mother had hastened to her room.

“Papa, mamma, I can see, I can read, I am cured!”

How would it be possible for us to paint this indescribable scene? Every one comprehends it, every one can see it by descending into the depths of his own heart.

The door of the house had not yet been opened. The windows were closed and their transparent panes only suffered the first brightness of morning to enter. Who then could have entered and mingled in the joy of this family which had been so suddenly restored to happiness. And yet these christians—whose prayers had been so graciously heard—felt instinctively that they were not alone, and that a powerful and invisible Being was at that moment in their midst.

The father and mother and little Marthe fell on their knees. Marie, who was still in bed, clasped her hands, and from these four bosoms, overpowered with emotion and gratitude, there issued as a thanksgiving the name of the Mother of God—“O Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes.”

What were the other words they uttered? We know not. As to their feelings, who does not divine them, by placing himself, in imagination, in presence of this wonderful event, this lightning-like display of the power of God, traversing all at once the destiny of an unfortunate family and changing their sorrow into boundless happiness.

It is scarcely necessary to add that, shortly afterwards, Mlle. Marie Moreau went with her parents to offer up her thanksgivings to Our Lady of Lourdes at the Grotto of the Apparition. She deposited her ordinary attire on the altar and resumed—happy and proud to wear them—the colors of the Queen of Virgins.

M. Moreau, whose faith had formerly been so great, was stupefied with astonishment. “I believed,” said he, “that such graces were only granted to saints. How is it that such favors descend also upon miserable sinners like ourselves?”

These facts had for witnesses the entire population of Tartas, which sympathized in the affliction of this family, one of the most highly respected in the place. Every one in the town saw and can attest that this malady, which was despaired of up to that period, was suddenly cured at the commencement of the Novena. The Superior of the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Bordeaux, the one hundred and fifty pupils who were the companions of Mlle. Marie Moreau, the medical men of the above establishment, have established the serious state to which she was reduced before these events occurred, and afterwards her entire recovery. She returned in fact to Bordeaux, where she remained two years longer to complete her education.

The oculist, M. Bermont, could not recover from his surprise at this termination of the case so far beyond the range of his art. We have seen his declaration attesting the state of the invalid and acknowledging the utter impossibility of such a cure being made by the ordinary means at the disposal of the science of medicine. “A cure,” he says, “which was complete, and is still complete. As to the instantaneous nature of this cure, as it has been produced, it is,” he adds, “a fact, beyond comparison, which altogether exceeds the limits of medical knowledge. In which belief I have attached my signature—Bermont.”

This declaration, dated 8th February, 1859, is deposited at the Bishop’s palace at Tarbes, together with a great number of letters and attestations from the inhabitants of Tartas, among which figures that of M. Desbord, Mayor of the town.

Mlle. Marie wore the colors of the Virgin up to the day of her marriage, which took place soon after she had completed her education and had left the Convent of the Sacred Heart. On that day she repaired to Lourdes, and laid aside her maiden attire to assume her bridal robe.

It was her wish to present her blue and white dress to another young girl, beloved like herself by the Blessed Virgin—to Bernadette. Having the same mother, were they not almost sisters?

This was the only gift ever accepted by Bernadette. She wore for many years—until in fact it could be worn no longer—that dress, the colors of which always recalled to her mind the beneficent omnipotence of the divine apparition at the Grotto.

Eleven years have elapsed since the occurrence of these events. The benefit conferred by the Most Blessed Virgin has not been withdrawn; the sight of Mlle. Moreau has continued perfectly good; there has never been any relapse, not even the slightest indisposition. Short of suicide—I mean an act of ingratitude or an abuse of grace—what God has resuscitated dies no more. Resurgens jam non moritur.

Mlle. Marie Moreau is now the wife of M. d’Izaru de Villefort; she is the mother of two noble children, who have the finest eyes in the world. Although they are both boys, their first baptismal name is that of—Marie.